Why Atlas Shrugged Caved!

The first time I saw the book, Atlas Shrugged, I gasped. The pages were nearly as much as the Bible, written in small old Times New Roman too! A friend of mine, during one of those introspective conversational banter we usually have, mentioned the book, explaining what a controversial person the author turned out to be.

Instinctively, I knew I had to read it; the sheer size of the book nonetheless. It was the sort of book I knew I would get a kick from.

By the time I finally put down the book, I ‘phewed’ several times. There were moments when I felt the book subsumed me, whipped me, cajoled me, teased me, offended me, provoked me and revitalised me all at once. That is what Atlas Shrug will do to you when you get down to it. It was the sort of book, once completed, you put down with a heavy thud, bang the table and shout “YES!” as a declaration, an anthem and victory for the brilliant mind that penned it down. I couldn’t stop repeating to myself, What A Book - What A Mind - What A Woman!

Atlas Shrugged, written by Ayn Rand is a highly philosophical book that espouses the principles of Objectivism – Ayn Rand’s own epistemology.

Using a love triangle as the intricate plot to all the dimensions the story will take form, Ayn Rand used Dagny as the central person that connected the key heroic characters in the book: Hank Rearden/ Francisco, John Galt and Eddie Willers as well as the key Villain in the story, her brother James Taggart, President, Taggart Transcontinental.

The novel, written in 1957 takes a critical analysis at the factors, conditions, attributes, values and principles that drives, motivates and inspires man’s action to create and trade. It also taps into the internal thinking processes and feelings that steers man’s needs, his abilities, his decision making and choices.

Covering 30 chapters in 1,168 pages, Atlas Shrugs explores great themes, motifs, philosophy, metaphors and a masterpiece plot to drive her resolution home. I find Chapter 1V of Part II, The Sanction of The Victim most poignant; and the speech by John Galt on Chapter VII, page 1009 of Part III – “This is John Galt Speaking”, the most thought provoking.

Imagine reading a phrase such as this on page 419: There are no evil thoughts, except one – the refusal to think.

Pg. 445 states: Man’s Motive Power is his Mind.

Pg. 457: When disaster strikes, one must show the instantaneous refusal to submit to disaster.

And on pg 490, I find Francisco’s Philosophy of Sex refreshingly engrossing: “A man’s sexual choice is the result and the sum of his fundamental convictions. Tell me what a man finds sexually attractive and I will tell you his entire philosophy of life. Show me the woman he sleeps with and I will tell you his evaluation of himself.... Sex is the most profound selfish acts of all, an act which he cannot perform for any motive but his own enjoyment – just try to think of performing it in the spirit of selfless charity! ...It is an act that forces him to stand naked in spirit, as well as in body, and to accept his real ego as his standard of value. He will always be attracted to the woman who reflects his deepest vision of himself, the woman whose surrender permits him to experience – or fake – a sense of self esteem...[for] he does not seek to gain his value but to express it.”

On page 661 she upturns a wrongful way of thinking by restating it as: ... “from each according to his ability, so to each according to his need.” That you need something doesn’t mean you have to have it at the expense of another. Rather your needs should be equal to the size of your ability.

664 – When all decent pleasure are forbidden, there are always ways to get the rotten ones.

665 – About moral law: the more you tried to live up to it, the more you suffered; the more you cheated it, the bigger rewards you got. Your honesty was like a tool left at the mercy of the next man’s dishonesty.

671 – “I will stop the motor of the world...his name was John Galt.”

678 – Cattles...they will obey anybody who expects obedience. But money inside a man’s pocket had the power to turn confidence into his mind.

Page 709 – Think, create and prosper. Do onto thy neighbour as you wish him to do to you.

720 – When one deals with words, one deals with the mind.

721 – There’s no such thing as a lousy job – only lousy men who don’t care to do it. Any man who’s afraid of hiring the best ability he can find is a cheat who is in the business he doesn’t belong.

760 – Atlantis code: it is against our rules to provide the unearned sustenance of another human being.

Pg. 788 – Rationality, Integrity, Honesty...are all acts of creating that comes from the same source. Pg. 791 – every man builds his world in his own image.

802 – If any part of your uncertainty is a conflict between your heart and mind – follow your mind.

823 - A human harmonizer is a machine with no centre, leader or direction.

A lie is self abdication, page 859.

891 – In whatever situation you find yourself, place nothing – nothing – above the verdict of your mind. Your life is the highest of values; too high to give it up without a fight.

1012 – Man’s mind is his basic tool of survival.

1015-1016: Existence Exists. A is A. EXISTENCE IS IDENTITY. CONSCIOUSNESS is Identification. To arrive at a contradiction is to confess an error in one’s thinking; to maintain a contradiction is to abdicate one’s mind and to evict oneself from the realm of reality. All thinking is the process of identification and integration.

1017 – A process of reason is a process of constant choice in answer to the question: True or False; Right or Wrong.

1018 – To live, man must hold three things as supreme and ruling values of his life: Reason-Purpose-Self Esteem. And that the alleged shortcut to knowledge is faith.

1096 – You cannot force a mind.

1101-1109: The exact definition of an Egoist; not its connotation but what it denotes.

1022 – Happiness is a state of the man, a contradictory joy.

Page 1022 – A Trader is the symbol of the relationship among men.

1027 – Explores the constant struggle between God and Society; Spirit and Muscle.

By page 1061, it is so clear how a country’s political system is based on its code of morality.

If you’ve not read this book, go get yours now, if not for anything else but to have your mind thorougly engaged in some real thinking.