The 'Safety Net' Premise

[Mister A]

I recently read a sample of Onkar Ghate's essay 'The Death Premise in We the Living and Atlas Shrugged' which analyzes the mindset of nihilists like James Taggart. Elucidating as it was, I'm still having trouble wrapping my mind around such a toxic and alien perspective -even though in retrospect I know I repeatedly encountered James' 'brain brothers' throughout my life.

If Nihilists are people who do not directly want to die (or perhaps do and are in neurotic denial), but follow the path of implicit death (presumably due its minimal resistance) expecting to somehow cheat causality and obtain the opposite result, than it stands to reason that there must be a safety net in place that personally shelters the Nihilist from the natural consequences of his philosophy or delays said consequences indefinitely. In applied practice, such a safety net has to be constructed from the bodies of the sacrificed; victims who are coerced to pay the price of the Nihilist's desire in blood, forced labor and/or seized property. Obviously, the point of AS was the removal of the safety net by withdrawing its construction material.

This post was intended to raise a question but I seem to have already answered it. However, I still feel unsatisfied; like an essential piece of the puzzle is missing. I guess my mind is instinctively averse to grasping the full horror of the Nihilist mentality; still believing there is some kernel of sense in the abyss of chaos.

[DavidOdden]

I guess my mind is instinctively averse to grasping the full horror of the Nihilist mentality; still believing there is some kernel of sense in the abyss of chaos.

Good luck with that.

This is related to the so-called "free rider" problem, which is a species of the fallacy of imperfection which, more colloquially says that a milligram of sewage in an ocean of wine will produce an ocean of sewage. Because producers are so productive, a few prudent free riders can probably live off of producers without substantially affecting the producers. Free riders are non-coercive nihilists who exploit normal human benevolence. (What is described in AS expands the scale and the means of the free riders hugely, so it's harder to understand the mentality). If you can understand the mentality of the free rider, then you're on the path toward understanding the aggressive blood-suckers of AS. The free rider depends on evasion: of knowing that he is not producing what is necessary for his survival, but rejecting that knowledge in favor of some other fact (for example that he would derive pleasure from a 3 month vacation rather than working).

[Mister A]

Yeah, it's the brain-melting evasion that throws me off. I digest every bit of information that is apparent no matter how grim and unflattering it is but I guess that's the result of a decision I made early in life that became an autonomous habit.

John Galt couldn't be forced into thinking for his persecutors and James Taggart would sooner starve to death than let a syllogism form in his consciousness.