John Galt's Actions Towards The End Of Atlas Shrugged

Aesthetics Ayn Rand Book Club
1

I just finished reading Atlas Shrugged for the second time, and have something I would like to talk about, and it relates to Galt being tortured with the Dr. Ferris’ torture device.

Knowing full well that he was likely to be tortured in this way, am I right in thinking that it would have been perfectly moral for Galt to lie to Mr. Thompson and Mouch, and ‘take over’ the economy and then return to the Valley with Dagny as soon as he could - rather than enduring the torture?

I realise of course that in the context of a fictional setting, Galt being tortured is necessary to illustrate to the reader the full, naked outcome and motivation of the looters. But assume that this was a real life situation - would it not be more selfish to avoid it?

2

Knowing full well that he was likely to be tortured in this way, am I right in thinking that it would have been perfectly moral for Galt to lie to Mr. Thompson and Mouch, and ‘take over’ the economy and then return to the Valley with Dagny as soon as he could - rather than enduring the torture?

No, it would have been a direct violation of his principles.

  • No one man, let alone an entire beauracracy, can control an economy. Even temporarily. And even if it is possible, all men then are trading on Galt’s terms, not theirs.

  • Freedom is not given, but claimed. You don’t give people the right to trade freely. You stay out of their way.

  • Speculation: had Galt accepted the offer, he would have been as much under the gun while writing economic policy as he was when he was being led around the hotel room he was confined to.

But assume that this was a real life situation - would it not be more selfish to avoid it?

Rand writes that this is the beginning of evil: evading reality.

And it would not have been in Galt’s self-interest to evade capture, not just for the reasons stated above, but because his goal, the one worth being torured and dying for (and, most importantly, living for) was to live as a free, rational, productive individual. Had he side-stepped capture and torture he would have subjectively placed the value of immediate comfort over the long-term value of Galt’s Gulch.

Furthermore, he might have led the authorities back to the valley, one way or another, placing the heroes he philosophically defended in physical danger. He would have betrayed himself, the best productive minds in the world, and all of the reality he stood for, all in one simple act of evasion.

3

I wasn’t suggesting an evasion of reality, and I realise that no man can control the economy. What I was suggesting is Galt lying to the authorities who were holding him under a gun, writing some bogus policies that would do nothing but accelerate the inevitable destruction of the world and then as soon as someone’s back was turned, to escape. I am talking about using a lie as force in retaliation.

Re: leading the authorities back to the valley, What about a method of escape much like the method of escape that was actually used in the book - just used earlier?

4

What about a method of escape much like the method of escape that was actually used in the book - just used earlier?

Good question, and the answer probably has something to do with the needs of the story. I mean, Rand could have had all the antagonists killed when Stadler’s sonic bomb went off. She could have ended the story right after Galt’s speech, having wrapped up all the other plotlines ahead of time. But she chose otherwise.

I haven’t read Rand’s major works on the art of fiction - only the off-the-shelf introduction sold in retail - but I imagine there are many clues to the answers you seek there. I can only guess at this point.

I assume that, among other reasons, she had Galt captured and tortured to demonstrate how far a Man goes to defend his life, his choices and freedom … his values. Furthermore, it demostrates the lengths to which the looters will go to pillage the product of someone else’s mind - they’d rather engage in sadism than think.

I think a lot of this is plot-device-oriented (after all, what more glaring an example of military patriotism could be provided than having the main character of a war story captured and tortured by the enemy?), but Rand never wrote anything without a good reason for it, so I’m sure there are far better explanations than mine available.

What I was suggesting is Galt lying to the authorities who were holding him under a gun, writing some bogus policies that would do nothing but accelerate the inevitable destruction of the world and then as soon as someone’s back was turned, to escape.

Those “bogus policies” would have been enforced by the government at the point of a gun. While the rest of the nation may not have been especially moral or rational, there’s no moral or rational justification for making someone do anything at the point of a gun, regardless of long-term or short-term intent.

I am talking about using a lie as force in retaliation.

Given the context of the story, the consequences of that action (while potentially moral) may have done more harm than good. We’ll never really know, of course. Rand may have considered that option, but may have devised a better way to make her point, end a story arc appropriately, or simply preserve the consistency of Galt’s character. He wasn’t a sneaky man, someone who used manipulation to defend himself from harm - he faced it head on, as is the most heroic way to challenge an obstacle., even personal injury and threat of death.

… and that’s about all I can offer. I need to read AS again … it’s been a while. :yarr:

5

In regards to what you’ve said about the torture scene being needed in the context of the book, I couldn’t agree more. Hence why I wrote “I realise of course that in the context of a fictional setting, Galt being tortured is necessary to illustrate to the reader the full, naked outcome and motivation of the looters.” in my first post. As a literary device serving a specific purpose, it was brilliant - especially when Galt calmly tells the young assistant what he needed to do in order to get the machine to run again.

But assume, everything that happened in Atlas Shrugged happened in reality, with real people. Would it have been more selfish for him to escape earlier, using a lie?

In regards to your point:

“Those “bogus policies” would have been enforced by the government at the point of a gun. While the rest of the nation may not have been especially moral or rational, there’s no moral or rational justification for making someone do anything at the point of a gun, regardless of long-term or short-term intent.”

But it is because of these people that the world came to be what it was. John Galt’s bogus policies could have been the equivalent of what these people had been sanctioning for years. Wouldn’t this be a case where when a person is held under a gun, his only choice is to obey the authorities’ commands literally?

6

I think this would be a case of “the ethics of emergencies” and most courses of action in such a situation can not be judged as moral or immoral. However, the course Galt took in the novel is the most heroic one.

7

As a literary device serving a specific purpose, it was brilliant - especially when Galt calmly tells the young assistant what he needed to do in order to get the machine to run again.

Exactly. (Whoever said there’s no humor in Rand’s fiction?)

Well said, EC.

8

Actually I don’t think Rand would have agreed that a moral man in real life in the same situation shouldn’t do the same thing. The same has been suggested about the “rape scene” in the Fountainhead- that it was a “literary device”- but I seriously doubt she would have seen a real life Dominique as a victim of actual rape given everything described in that scene.

Rand was a master of pushing moral questions to the extreme to demonstrate her point: was it moral for Rourke to blow up the housing project? Was it moral for Steve to kill Breckinridge in Think Twice? She absolutely leaves no place for the fence-sitters and wafflers.

I think the point of putting Galt in that position is to show an extreme case of the morality of second-handedness. Galt knew that Mouch, JT and the rest of them needed him to live or they would all perish. He knew that they were not totally irrational or suicidal and my interpretation of that act is that by giving him the fix for the torture device, he was forcing them to see how much they needed him and how they were really trying to destroy the good.

Now, my sense is that Ranil, your question is more about the “ethics of emergencies”, ie, is it ok to lie if someone has a gun to your head? Absolutely. The classic example I always here my objectivist friends use (I don’t know if this is from Rand or not) is if a murderer comes to your house and asks where your wife is, the moral thing to do is lie through your teeth.

9

I don’t see think the bad guys would have let Galt out of their goons’ sight long enough for him to attempt an escape. The next thing they’d ask for is that he bring all his friends back from Galt’s Gulch.

However, if he thought he could escape by deceiving them in whatever way possible, it would be surely be a completely moral choice.

10

The following is from the scene where Galt and Dagny have just “met” each other in the “real” world for the first time, and I think it shows what his thinking was later in the situation mentioned above accurs.

“I was here all those years,” he said, “within your reach, inside your own realm, watching your struggle, your loneliness, your longing, watching you in a battle you thought you were fighting for me, a battle in which you were supporting my enemies and taking an endless defeat—I was here, hidden by nothing but an error of your sight, as Atlantis is hidden from men by nothing but an optical illusion—I was here, waiting for the day when you would see, when you would know that by the code of the world you were supporting, it’s to the darkest bottom of the underground that all the things you valued would have to be consigned and that it’s there that you would have to look. I was here. I was waiting for you. I love you, Dagny. I love you more than my life, I who have taught men how life is to be loved. I’ve taught them also never to expect the unpaid for—and what I did tonight, I did it with full knowledge that I would pay for it and that my life might have to be the price.”

“No!”

He smiled, nodding. “Oh yes. You know that you’ve broken me for once, that I broke the decision I had set for myself—but I did it <as_884> consciously, knowing what it meant, I did it, not in blind surrender to the moment, but with full sight of the consequences and full willingness to bear them. I could not let this kind of moment pass us by, it was ours, my love, we had earned it. But you’re not ready to quit and join me—you don’t have to tell me, I know—and since I chose to take what I wanted before it was fully mine, I’ll have to pay for it, I have no way of knowing how or when, I know only that if I give in to an enemy, I’ll take the consequences.” He smiled in answer to the look on her face. “No, Dagny, you’re not my enemy in mind—and that is what brought me to this—but you are in fact, in the course you’re pursuing, though you don’t see it yet, but I do. My actual enemies are of no danger to me. You are. You’re the only one who can lead them to find me. They would never have the capacity to know what I am, but with your help—they will.”

“No!”

“No, not by your intention. And you’re free to change your course, but so long as you follow it, you’re not free to escape its logic. Don’t frown, the choice was mine and it’s a danger I chose to accept. I am a trader, Dagny, in all things. I wanted you, I had no power to change your decision, I had only the power to consider the price and decide whether I could afford it. I could. My life is mine to spend or to invest—and you, you’re”—as if his gesture were continuing his sentence, he raised her across his arm and kissed her mouth, while her body hung limply in surrender, her hair streaming down, her head falling back, held only by the pressure of his lips—“you’re the one reward I had to have and chose to buy. I wanted you, and if my life is the price, I’ll give it. My life—but not my mind.”

11

Thank you, everyone, you have answered my question.

On a bit of a tangent about humour - I love the bit where Mr. Thompson is trying to negotiate with John Galt, and after failing he goes: “I just can’t figure you out”. To which Galt shrugs his shoulders and replies “Who is John Galt?”. :slight_smile: Classic.

12

Thank you, everyone, you have answered my question.

On a bit of a tangent about humour - I love the bit where Mr. Thompson is trying to negotiate with John Galt, and after failing he goes: “I just can’t figure you out”. To which Galt shrugs his shoulders and replies “Who is John Galt?”. :slight_smile: Classic.

My favourite line from that section is where Thompson says “Look, why don’t you let me talk to you?” and Galt replies “You are talking to me”. I’m not sure that Rand intended it to be funny, but I burst out laughing when I read it.

13

However, if he thought he could escape by deceiving them in whatever way possible, it would be surely be a completely moral choice.

Moral? Yes. However, he would have lost Dagny: she wasn’t ready to quit until she saw that scene at the televised reception, that was when she realized what she was really fighting, and what really had to be done to defeat it. That is why he stayed in the world, why he got caught, and why he accepted enduring the worst they could throw at him: because he was not going to give Dagny up for anything.

14

I think this should be added because Galt answers this question directly and explicitly himself.

Mr. Thompson sighed. “I don’t get it,” he said in a tone of genuine helplessness. “Something’s off and I can’t figure it out. Why should you ask for trouble? With a brain like yours—you can beat anybody. I’m no match for you, and you know it. Why don’t you pretend to join us, then gain control and outsmart me?”

“For the same reason that makes you offer it: because you’d win.”

“Huh?”

“Because it’s the attempt of your betters to beat you on your terms that has allowed your kind to get away with it for centuries. Which one of us would succeed, if I were to compete with you for control over your musclemen? Sure, I could pretend—and I wouldn’t save your economy or your system, nothing will save them now—but I’d perish and what you’d win would be what you’ve always won in the past: a postponement, one more stay of execution, for another year—or month—bought at the price of whatever hope and effort might still be squeezed out of the best of the human remnants left around you, including me. That’s all you’re after and that is the length of your range. A month? You’d settle for a week—on the unchallenged absolute that there will always be another victim to find. But you’ve found your last victim—the one who refuses to play his historical part. The game is up, brother.”

15

I only read the first few posts, but wanted to add this:

"2. In any collaboration between two men (or groups) who hold different basic principles, it is the more evil or irrational one who wins.

"The rational (principle, premise, idea, policy, or action) is that which is consonant with the facts of reality; the irrational is that which contradicts the facts and attempts to get away with it. A collabroation is a joint undertaking, a common course of action. The rational (the good) has nothing to gain from the irrational (the evil), except a share of its failures and crimes; the irrational has everything to gain from the rational: a share of its achievements and values. An industrialist does not need the help of a burglar in order to succeed; a burglar needs the industrialist’s achievement in order to exist at all. What collaboration is possible between them and to what end?

“If an individual holds mixed premises, his vices undercut, hamper, defeat, and ultimately destroy his virtues. What is the moral status of an honest man who steals once in a while? In the same way, if a group of men persues mixed goals, it’s bad priciples drive out the good…”*

Besides, John Galt had absolutely nothing to fear; evil is to be despised, but never feared, never to be taken seriously.

Sebastián

* From The Anatomy of Compromise (CUI, pg. 144), by Ayn Rand

edit: LOL I just read the post prior to this, Eric was spot on!