Saturday, September 17, 2005
Ayn Rand Essay
So, I entered the Atlas Shrugged Essay Contest. Here's my essay, in case you guys wanted to see it.
While Atlas Shrugged portrays the social implications of a strike of the mind, it depends upon a hero. John Galt gracefully portrays the competence of this enlightened hero trapped in a cesspool of mediocrity. Throughout the novel Galt recruits the minds of the world and shares with them his vision for how to live despite the world's efforts to destroy them. He presents a possible world in which competence and ability garner the respect they deserve. It is possible for the great men to be great together. They don't have to be burdened and held back by so many hands grasping at them, pulling them down into the muck of dependence. The overwhelming majority of the population still doesn't even understand what they have done wrong. They fail to understand how their glorification of incompetence has resulted in a world where no one can, or is allowed to, accomplish anything. Galt explains their failures to them just as their civilization is about to breathe its last.
"Which is the monument to the triumph of the human spirit over matter: the germ-eaten hovels on the shorelines of the Ganges or the Atlantic skyline of New York?" Galt asks. The population of the world has lost sight of what it means to be human. It is not "to suffer," as past philosophies and religions have preached. No, it is to achieve. It is the triumph of the human spirit, of the mind, to transform the base materials scrounged from the ground into the marvelous cities of the Atlantic coast. Achievement is not the triumph of one man over another; it is the triumph of man over his natural surroundings. To be respectful of man is to respect his ability to engineer this transformation. The Americans think it their burden to starve themselves for a few more days of grain in Europe. This is not respectful of men; neither the starving of Europe, nor the men in America supporting them. One should not sacrifice the great industrialists like Rearden and Galt to prolong the wretched vestige of life in Europe. Making the great men of the world suffer to encourage and promote the failure of the dissolute is hardly respectful of human life. It is not respectful for the depraved to be forced to live as leeches on the minds of others. And it is certainly not respectful of the brilliant American minds to demand that they bear this burden, to insist that the weaklings of Europe have a claim on their life. Failure does not deserve reward, especially since it must be paid by a sacrifice of such great men.
Such a demand of sacrifice only destroys the good men of the world, but they still remain good. They don't compromise and doom their souls because their creations are perverted by evil. "In any compromise between good and evil, it is only evil that can profit. In that transfusion of blood which drains the good to feed the evil, the compromiser is the transmitting rubber tube," Galt observes. In his money speech, Francisco d'Anconia praises America for being the first country to recognize that money is made - that it is spawned from the creative vision of the thinkers, and not just transferred from looter to looter. The whole world has lived throughout history by leeching upon the minds of a few. But these few do not compromise, they do not give up and betray themselves, they do not stop being the creative force which they are. And evil lives another day longer than it would without leeching. Those which enable this support are the ones who compromise. They fail to let the moocher's world die and the new one arise. In Atlas Shrugged, all the industrialists are these compromisers until Galt enlightens them. Galt is indeed "The Destroyer," for his actions lead to the destruction of the old world and the old way of leeching life. In order to change the world, however, he needs the other minds of the world to stop compromising their integrity and let the old world fall behind. They must stop supporting the world on their shoulders. They must shrug. Only then can the new world be reborn.
The politicians and leaders of America have not won their positions by out-performing their competitors. It is no longer competence which is rewarded, but rather the ability to hold a bigger gun to your opponent's head. Or, if that doesn't work, as in Rearden's case, they take a hostage and hold a gun to her head. Once men stop competing on the battlefield of the mind, the only field left is that of the body - where one must threaten, manipulate, and point guns. Galt openly accuses them of this, "You did not care to compete in terms of intelligence - you are now competing in terms of brutality." When Galt's factory started rewarding men based upon their need, creativity and innovation vanished - unless it was creative and innovative ways of begging and demonstrating incompetence and hardship. Each man was only allowed to prove himself by showing himself to be more depraved than his brother.
This is why the old world must fall. A leech cannot survive without a victim. Without victims, the leechers would die, leaving the producers free to produce. But when the leech is praised, held sacred and holy, man truly has no hope. History has tried again and again to destroy the mind and its creative power. The only thing that kept it from destroying itself was its sanction by those minds. But when Galt's factory instituted its policy of the collective, it finally succeeded in slaying the mind. Not because the mind was destroyed, but because it was from here on that the mind severed its link with the rest of man. The rise of the collective required the destruction of the individual; it required destruction of the mind. With Directive 10-289, the mind was declared illegal, and the official hunting began. Galt would not let the mind die; he stopped sanctioning the leeches. He stole away the minds of the world and hid them away. The brutes, with nothing left to coerce, with nothing willing to sustain them, suffered the same fate as every oppressor throughout history: destruction.
While Atlas Shrugged portrays the social implications of a strike of the mind, it depends upon a hero. John Galt gracefully portrays the competence of this enlightened hero trapped in a cesspool of mediocrity. Throughout the novel Galt recruits the minds of the world and shares with them his vision for how to live despite the world's efforts to destroy them. He presents a possible world in which competence and ability garner the respect they deserve. It is possible for the great men to be great together. They don't have to be burdened and held back by so many hands grasping at them, pulling them down into the muck of dependence. The overwhelming majority of the population still doesn't even understand what they have done wrong. They fail to understand how their glorification of incompetence has resulted in a world where no one can, or is allowed to, accomplish anything. Galt explains their failures to them just as their civilization is about to breathe its last.
"Which is the monument to the triumph of the human spirit over matter: the germ-eaten hovels on the shorelines of the Ganges or the Atlantic skyline of New York?" Galt asks. The population of the world has lost sight of what it means to be human. It is not "to suffer," as past philosophies and religions have preached. No, it is to achieve. It is the triumph of the human spirit, of the mind, to transform the base materials scrounged from the ground into the marvelous cities of the Atlantic coast. Achievement is not the triumph of one man over another; it is the triumph of man over his natural surroundings. To be respectful of man is to respect his ability to engineer this transformation. The Americans think it their burden to starve themselves for a few more days of grain in Europe. This is not respectful of men; neither the starving of Europe, nor the men in America supporting them. One should not sacrifice the great industrialists like Rearden and Galt to prolong the wretched vestige of life in Europe. Making the great men of the world suffer to encourage and promote the failure of the dissolute is hardly respectful of human life. It is not respectful for the depraved to be forced to live as leeches on the minds of others. And it is certainly not respectful of the brilliant American minds to demand that they bear this burden, to insist that the weaklings of Europe have a claim on their life. Failure does not deserve reward, especially since it must be paid by a sacrifice of such great men.
Such a demand of sacrifice only destroys the good men of the world, but they still remain good. They don't compromise and doom their souls because their creations are perverted by evil. "In any compromise between good and evil, it is only evil that can profit. In that transfusion of blood which drains the good to feed the evil, the compromiser is the transmitting rubber tube," Galt observes. In his money speech, Francisco d'Anconia praises America for being the first country to recognize that money is made - that it is spawned from the creative vision of the thinkers, and not just transferred from looter to looter. The whole world has lived throughout history by leeching upon the minds of a few. But these few do not compromise, they do not give up and betray themselves, they do not stop being the creative force which they are. And evil lives another day longer than it would without leeching. Those which enable this support are the ones who compromise. They fail to let the moocher's world die and the new one arise. In Atlas Shrugged, all the industrialists are these compromisers until Galt enlightens them. Galt is indeed "The Destroyer," for his actions lead to the destruction of the old world and the old way of leeching life. In order to change the world, however, he needs the other minds of the world to stop compromising their integrity and let the old world fall behind. They must stop supporting the world on their shoulders. They must shrug. Only then can the new world be reborn.
The politicians and leaders of America have not won their positions by out-performing their competitors. It is no longer competence which is rewarded, but rather the ability to hold a bigger gun to your opponent's head. Or, if that doesn't work, as in Rearden's case, they take a hostage and hold a gun to her head. Once men stop competing on the battlefield of the mind, the only field left is that of the body - where one must threaten, manipulate, and point guns. Galt openly accuses them of this, "You did not care to compete in terms of intelligence - you are now competing in terms of brutality." When Galt's factory started rewarding men based upon their need, creativity and innovation vanished - unless it was creative and innovative ways of begging and demonstrating incompetence and hardship. Each man was only allowed to prove himself by showing himself to be more depraved than his brother.
This is why the old world must fall. A leech cannot survive without a victim. Without victims, the leechers would die, leaving the producers free to produce. But when the leech is praised, held sacred and holy, man truly has no hope. History has tried again and again to destroy the mind and its creative power. The only thing that kept it from destroying itself was its sanction by those minds. But when Galt's factory instituted its policy of the collective, it finally succeeded in slaying the mind. Not because the mind was destroyed, but because it was from here on that the mind severed its link with the rest of man. The rise of the collective required the destruction of the individual; it required destruction of the mind. With Directive 10-289, the mind was declared illegal, and the official hunting began. Galt would not let the mind die; he stopped sanctioning the leeches. He stole away the minds of the world and hid them away. The brutes, with nothing left to coerce, with nothing willing to sustain them, suffered the same fate as every oppressor throughout history: destruction.
Tuesday, September 13, 2005
Weekend
This past weekend was pretty cool. Friday Julia and Jo and I did our usual sci-fi thing - good episodes this week, too. Julia's Canadians were visiting, so them and her sister joined us. I must say, I'm quite disappointed Jordan (one of the Canadians) didn't like Gargoyles. For shame. Anyway, we didn't get much time to get to know these people because we had to leave right after the shows, but oh well. Sunday Laura, Billy, and I went to Chateau Ste Michelle's for their annual wine festival. It wsa pretty good. I got to taste some wines I hadn't at the earlier tasting we went to. Though it was a bit too expensive to go a second time. Sunday night I met up with Andy and we saw Brothers Grimm. It was a really cool movie. I liked it a lot. I thought they did a really good job of including all the stories while presenting a totally different story that wasn't even a retelling of them. I could really see how all the other stories could have come out of this one adventure. Really, really, cool. The only thing I didn't really like was the ending. The whole kiss of true love thing was only okay, but then to have it not count was kinda irritating.
I finally got around to working on my Atlas Shrugged essay. I got a bit done on Saturday, but couldn't really feel it. Sunday and Monday I was out most of the day, so I didn't really get a chance. Today I'm finishing it up, it's almost done. Thank you reviewers! It's a bit disturbing that I noticed one thing in particular while writing this: I really, really, like using more uncommon words. Not unknown words, just words I don't usually get to use in everyday conversation. Words like "dissolute" or "garner." It really should be that big a deal, but I feel so much more expressive when I get a chance to use words like this in the proper context.
"He knew that man must live by his own rational perception of reality, that he cannot act against it or escape it or find a substitute for it -- and that there is no other way for him to live." - Atlas Shrugged, (557)
I finally got around to working on my Atlas Shrugged essay. I got a bit done on Saturday, but couldn't really feel it. Sunday and Monday I was out most of the day, so I didn't really get a chance. Today I'm finishing it up, it's almost done. Thank you reviewers! It's a bit disturbing that I noticed one thing in particular while writing this: I really, really, like using more uncommon words. Not unknown words, just words I don't usually get to use in everyday conversation. Words like "dissolute" or "garner." It really should be that big a deal, but I feel so much more expressive when I get a chance to use words like this in the proper context.
"He knew that man must live by his own rational perception of reality, that he cannot act against it or escape it or find a substitute for it -- and that there is no other way for him to live." - Atlas Shrugged, (557)
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