Was the strike, a purge?

Aesthetics Ayn Rand Book Club
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In Galts speech, he specifically speaks at one point to “those who desire to live” (stating on p.1166)

“withdraw your sanction”

“go on strike - in the manner I did” and “let them drown; your sanction is their only life belt.”

and

“when the advocates of the morality of sacrifice perish with their final ideal - then and on that day we will return to the world. We will open the gates of our city to those who deserve to enter.”

So, the strike is a way of purging the world of said people?

A way of exterminating them?

Recall: “To the gas chamber - go!” from Chambers 1957 review of AS.

I go more into that in this thread:

http://forum.objectivismonline.com/index.php?showtopic=24603

Galt speaking earlier in the novel:

“Ever since I can remember, I had felt that I would kill the man who’d claim that I exist for the sake of his need - and I had known that this was the highest moral feeling.”

“That night, at the Twentieth Century meeting, when I heard an unspeakable evil spoken in the tone of moral righteousness, I saw the key to it and the solution. I saw what had to be done. I went out to do it.”

So, at the meeting, instead of killing the speaker, becoming a shooter, he became a striker.

Recall Chamber’s review of AS:“To the gas chamber, go!”

In rethinking this it’s really not that far off the mark. Think about it.

In Galts speech he says go listeners “Perish with and in your own void.”

The strike essentially created one giant gas chamber all they had to do was close the door of Atlantis behind them, and wait until those in the gas chamber had gassed themselves to death, wait until the “road was cleared”, or rather until the air was cleared, wait until they had perished enough by their own code for the strikers to return to the world.

So Galts desire to kill a certain speaker wasn’t the solution this was:

Create the chamber step safely outside of it, wait till enough perished and till the air was cleared.

And apparently it didn’t take that long either, so not only was that his solution, but it was a brilliant one. He didn’t have to take responsibility polity for any of their deaths like he would have if he’d of killed the speaker fulfilling his desire kill a man that said that.

So, the desire to kill a man that said that was th highest moral feeling, then what kind of feeling did the this give him?

Instead of killing the speaker he says “I will stop the motor of the world”

Read: I will create the gas chamber, your code will be the gas.

What do you think?

Roark the dynamiter
Roark the dynamiter
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Recall Chamber’s review of AS:“To the gas chamber, go!”

In rethinking this it’s really not that far off the mark. Think about it.

It is not just off the mark, it is the *opposite* of the book.

If you want to keep the metaphor, … … to say “I’m stepping out of this gas chamber that you are filling with gas, and in which you are trying to force me to remain” is the *opposite* of saying “I am going to build a gas chamber and force you in”.

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John Galt also stated that his morality was contained in a single axiom; existence exists – and in a single choice; to live.

In short, he segregated those who chose to live from those who did not.

It is only as retaliation that force may be used and only against the [men] who starts its use. No, I do not share [their] evil or sink to [their] concept of morality: I merely grant [them their] choice, destruction, the only destruction [they] had the right to choose: [their] own.

After viewing sNerd’s response, I have to add: he did not exercise force in his solution, he persuaded the men of the mind to join him voluntarily in his strike - letting rest of the world’s code of morality run its course.

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What do you think?

I think refusing to support people who want to eat you alive is not the same as killing them. That is what I think.

Refusal to aid is not the same as overt harm.

ruveyn1

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If you want to keep the metaphor, … … to say “I’m stepping out of this gas chamber that you are filling with gas, and in which you are trying to force me to remain”

To me it became a gas chamber once they stepped out of the world and shut the door of Atlantis behind them.

In short, he segregated those who chose to live from those who did not.

Right. And he tried to get the ones that still wanted to live to stop doing the breathing for the others. Let them drown he said. Asphyxiate.

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“I’m stepping out of this gas chamber that you are filling with gas, and in which you are trying to force me to remain”

I like that.

Galt took action to avoid becoming collatoral damage because that was his own personal responsibility. Everyone here has the same choice, albeit not quite as dramatic. Anyone can freely choose not to support systems which have been corrupted simply by their refusal to participate. The ones I avoid are: government, credit, insurance, debt, law, education, healthcare, and unions.

Just step aside and observe from a safe distance as people get exactly what they deserve.

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To me, instead of Galt killing, he found a creative way to get them to die.

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John Galt found a creative way to get birds of a feather to flock together. He withdrew the sanction of the victims by identifying to the victims the nature of their sanction. Those who died, died because they had not chosen to live and go about discovering the means by which to do so.

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To me, instead of Galt killing, he found a creative way to get them to die.

A way to get someone to die, besides killing? Cool, what is it? Does it involve magic?

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John Galt found a creative way to get birds of a feather to flock together. He withdrew the sanction of the victims by identifying to the victims the nature of their sanction. Those who died, died because they had not chosen to live and go about discovering the means by which to do so.

I believe that is one of Ayn Rand’s most wise and powerful principles.

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A way to get someone to die, besides killing? Cool, what is it? Does it involve magic?

If someone is in the process of destroying himself, do not intervene. Problem solved.

No magic at all.

ruveyn1

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A way to get someone to die, besides killing? Cool, what is it? Does it involve magic?

They don’t need anyone’s help because the just and deserved consequences of peoples’ own actions destroys themselves. People are actively engaged in exactly the same (economic as well as in other ways) self destruction today. The trick is not to be taken down with them.

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To me, instead of standing up that night at the meeting and teaching them a lesson, he set out to really teach them a lesson.

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If someone is in the process of destroying himself, do not intervene. Problem solved.

No magic at all.

ruveyn1

By that definition of “getting someone to die”, I had a hand in the death of every living creature in the Universe, since to beginning of time, and I’ll be involved in the death of every living creature until the end of time. Especially during the times when I’m not alive, since then I definitely won’t be intervening.

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By that definition of “getting someone to die”, I had a hand in the death of every living creature in the Universe, since to beginning of time, and I’ll be involved in the death of every living creature until the end of time. Especially during the times when I’m not alive, since then I definitely won’t be intervening.

No you don’t “have a hand”. You “have a hand” only when you are causally connected to someone’s death or injury.

You have no causal connection to any part of the cosmos that is beyond the event horizon of the cosmos. And you have no causal connection to anything that existed and ceased to exist before you did.

You have no causal connection to anything outside the solar system which is most of the cosmos.

ruveyn1

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No you don’t “have a hand”. You “have a hand” only when you are causally connected to someone’s death or injury.

You have no causal connection to any part of the cosmos that is beyond the event horizon of the cosmos. And you have no causal connection to anything that existed and ceased to exist before you did.

You have no causal connection to anything outside the solar system which is most of the cosmos.

ruveyn1

So how did I get someone to die without a connection to them?

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He clearly wanted to bring death and destruction to them, not life; as in, Galt could have tried to speak to the world then about his Morality of Life, of his code, his philosophy, but never did then. Not even a single word of it. For he set out to show. I’ll show them. “I propose to show the world who depends on whom[…] who makes whose livelihood possible and what happens to whom when who walks out” I’ll show them. I’ll show them all the proof around them with the death toll, all the dead bodies of men, women, children, in the amount of destruction that results… “O my brothers, am I cruel? But I say: What is falling, we should still push.”* Frisco did. He was explicit about it, “I was out to speed up the destruction.” “the destruction of d’ Anconia Copper, of Taggart Transcontinental, of Wyatt Oil, of Rearden Metal.”

Galt had to have been thinking along this line that night at the meeting, I think: “He whom you cannot teach to fly, teach to fall faster.”* I’ll teach them. I’ll teach them not with ink on paper, but with blood on ground. And speed up its spilling. And without having to get any of it on my own hands.

Galt was no fly swatter.** Just go where they cannot fly to. And after they die, return.

“I am a prelude to better players, o my brothers! A precedent! Follow my precedent!”*

*quote from Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Walter Kaufmann translation.

** http://forum.objectivismonline.com/index.php?showtopic=23468&hl

(Rand said, “Nietzsche […], as a poet, he projects at times (not consistently) a magnificent feeling for man’s greatness, expressed in emotional, not intellectual, terms.”)

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Galt was no fly swatter.** Just go where they cannot fly to. And after they die, return.

In my view, that place “where they cannot fly to” is higher moral ground.

There is protection to be enjoyed there which is as good as Galt’s Gulch.

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You have no causal connection to any part of the cosmos that is beyond the event horizon of the cosmos. And you have no causal connection to anything that existed and ceased to exist before you did. You have no causal connection to anything outside the solar system which is most of the cosmos.

ruveyn1

You also have no causal connection to what you see on television. :wink:

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So how did I get someone to die without a connection to them?

You didn’t “get someone to die”. Failure to aid is not the same as positively doing harm.

ruveyn1