ATLAS SHRUGGED WINNING ESSAY
Who
is John Galt?
“Why ask useless questions? How deep is the ocean? How high
is the sky? Who is John Galt?” (45) When Paul Larkin gives the above reply to
Rearden’s sincere question, “What’s wrong with the world?” (45), he implies
that there’s no point in trying to answer either question. Indeed, throughout Atlas
Shrugged, when people ask, “Who is John Galt?” the last thing they expect is an
answer. The cryptic phrase is a way of throwing up one’s hands and pleading
ignorance about questions and problems one is either unable or unwilling to
deal with. Dagny Taggart is particularly bothered by the expression, eventually
searching for the John Galt behind the empty rhetorical abdication. As her
search progresses, John Galt starts to coalesce in her mind from figure of
speech into mythical character, before she finally identifies him as an actual
man. Beginning with its title, Atlas Shrugged is rife with mythological
parallels. To understand the significance of these parallels, however, it is
important to identify where they end. Some myths uphold heroes who act
altruistically: Atlas holds the world on his shoulders and Prometheus suffers
horribly for giving mankind the gift of fire. Other myths focus on the demise
of heroes who use their gifts in selfish or “antisocial” ways: Phaethon’s
ambition almost sets the world on fire; Aesclepius’ skills in medicine threaten
to put Hades out of business. John Galt transcends the myths in that he does
not act altruistically, he does not let society punish him for his selfishness,
and he successfully deprives society of its victims. In I See Satan Fall Like
Lightning, René Girard argues that a close reading of mythology reveals a
universal tendency to engage in collective violence against innocent
scapegoats. Though much of Girard’s work contrasts with Objectivism, his
hypothesis that a scapegoat mechanism underlies mythology is exemplified in Atlas
Shrugged. Ayn Rand’s novel shows both real and mythical heroes being punished
and misunderstood until, finally, Galt bucks the trend. John Galt is the
realization of the heroic ideals that are obscured, punished, and subverted in
mythology. Although many great individuals could rival John Galt’s ability and
industry, he stands out in his absolute refusal to act altruistically. Men like
Galt have always held the world on their shoulders, but Galt is the first to
consciously relieve himself of the burden–not to succumb to despair, but to
deliberately, reasonably, stop bearing the burdens of others. He is able, but
absolutely unwilling, to go shouldering the weight of the world like Atlas. He
is like Atlas in ability, but the comparison ends when it comes to altruism.
Never mind that in the myth, the gods forcefully conscript Atlas into the
service of society: Galt, by contrast, is not just unwilling to volunteer
altruism; he is immune to the threats of a parasitic society because he knows
that without his sanction, those threats are empty. John Galt does not let others punish him for acting
selfishly. While society holds Dagny and Hank Rearden hostage for much of the
book, Galt does not give that society anything it might use against him. Like
Achilles (a hero never explicitly mentioned in the novel, but whose heroism
finds its perfection in Galt), John Galt refuses to keep contributing without
his rightful compensation. But unlike Achilles, whose attachment to the slain
Patroclus breaks his will to stay on strike, Galt shrewdly protects everything
that matters to him— Dagny, his generator, and above all, his mind—from the clutches
of men who would use those things against him. Not only does he stay aloof from
the threats of the looters; he also refuses to let the moochers impose guilt on
him. On the contrary, he is perfectly happy in his selfishness. He enjoys
bodily pleasures and luxuries free of guilt, knowing that “the man who sleeps
on an inner-spring mattress” is better off than the one “who sleeps on a bed of
nails” (963). Whether smoking a cigarette, working, or making love, he revels
in pleasures that he has a right to enjoy. This contrasts sharply with James
Taggart’s inability to truly enjoy the pleasures of drink, friendship, or love,
having earned none of them. In this respect, Galt fully realizes the heroic
ideal latent in the myth of Phaethon. John Galt shows that the true story of
Phaethon is not one of punishment for hubris or for being too happy. Rather,
the true story is told in Richard Halley’s opera: the story of a man who dares
to do more than his fellow-men and succeeds (69). In this redeemed retelling of
the myth, ambition is a virtue, not a vice; unlike Taggart’s guilty, vulgar
pursuit of pleasure, the joy of achievement is not adulterated by fear and
shame. Having discovered the way to happiness, John Galt goes on to deprive
society of its victims. As Francisco narrates to Dagny, he began with himself:
“John Galt is Prometheus who changed his mind. After centuries of being torn by
vultures in payment for having brought to men the fire of the gods, he broke
his chains—and he withdrew his fire—until the day when men withdraw their
vultures” (478). Like Prometheus, Galt and his kind have always given mankind
the sophisticated knowledge and technology needed to live comfortable lives.
Indeed, people like Galt love to discover and create, and they are generally happy
to share the benefits of their labor through honest trade. They don’t want to
quit: the struggles of Dagny and Hank Rearden show how hard it is for them to
go on strike. But Galt realizes that withdrawal is the only way to avoid being
victimized. As seen already, when he deprives his persecutors of his sanction
and cooperation, they are powerless against him. Galt highlights the absolute
dependence of the looters and moochers upon their victims when he tells the
mechanic how to fix the torture device: the parasitic society can’t even
torture Galt without his help (1047). Having refused to be a victim himself,
Galt goes on to deprive society of its other victims— his fellow producers. In
doing so, he realizes the ideal shown but punished in another myth: that of
Aesclepius, the doctor who grew so skilled at his art that he could even bring
the dead back to life. When Hades complained that Aesclepius was depriving him
of his victims, Zeus struck the doctor dead with a lightning bolt. Like
Aesclepius, Galt deprives a parasitic society of its victims; unlike
Aesclepius, Galt doesn’t succumb to punishment by perverse authorities.
Although strikes have happened before, Galt is the first to “have done by plan
and intention what has been done throughout history by silent default” (962).
He gives the strike its full moral significance by identifying it for what it
is: victims withdrawing their sanction from a parasitic society.
Just as the ancient tellers of myths
discerned some truth, however limited or obscured, in their heroes, even the
moochers and looters discern bits of the truth about Galt. Mr. Thompson sees
Galt’s ability—that “he knows what to do” (983)—but fails to comprehend that
Galt neither would nor could fix society’s problems on Mr. Thompson’s terms, as
“Economic Dictator.” He describes the moochers’ relationship to producers like
Galt quite honestly—“we need him!” (985)—but misses the more important fact
that their need imposes no claim on Galt. Wesley Mouch understands that Galt
will never compromise, but his formulation of that fact—that Galt is “a man who
is not open to a deal” (985)—ironically glosses over the fact that a true deal,
the free exchange of value for value, is the one thing that men like Galt
emphatically are open to. James Taggart finally realizes that “it was Galt’s
greatness he had wanted to torture and destroy,” but because he chooses not to
“accept reality” (1048)—to exercise the fundamental choice of using his own
reason—the corollary realization of his own smallness ruins him. Unlike the
Greek heroes, Galt is not heroic because of any innate superiority over his
fellow men. But neither is he an Everyman, whose mediocrity makes him
identifiable to the masses. What makes him heroic is not his human nature,
which every human shares. It is his virtue: the fact that he lives according to
his nature. Indeed, everybody can relate to Galt insofar as everybody shares in
his human nature. Like the oak tree that Eddie Willers remembers from
childhood—“a thing that nothing could change or threaten” (13)—the heroes of
myth can be deeply inspiring. Surely when they capitulate to the unjust demands
of the “common good,” it is just as devastating as when a lightning bolt
reveals the tree’s hollow core to Eddie. In John Galt, however, the heroic image
upheld in myth—the image “of man as god” (1045)—is fully supported in
substance. After years of hearing the question, “Who is John Galt,” repeated as
an expression of defeat —the mental “blank” that Galt condemns repeatedly in
his radio address—Dagny finally learns the answer. When she meets the man whose
way of life is the answer to all those blanked-out questions, she immediately
feels that “this [is] the way men were meant to be and to face their
existence—and all the rest of it, all the years of ugliness and struggle were
only someone’s senseless joke” (645).
BY- John Thorpe
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