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Word Gems 

exploring self-realization, sacred personhood, and full humanity

 

Human Potential

the Individual vs the Collective

Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged

John Galt's speech

 

 

return to "Human Potential: Emerson" page

 

 

the Individual vs the Collective: John Galt's speech

“If you wonder by what means they propose to do it [i.e., enslave you], walk into any college classroom and you will hear your professors teaching your children that man can be certain of nothing, that his consciousness has no validity whatever, that he can learn no facts and no laws of existence, that he’s incapable of knowing an objective reality. What, then, is his standard of knowledge and truth? Whatever others believe, is their answer.”

Actor Paul Johansson portraying John Galt in the movie adaptation (2011) of Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged” (1957)

“You propose to establish a social order based on the following tenets: that you’re incompetent to run your own life, but competent to run the lives of others—that you’re unfit to exist in freedom, but fit to become an omnipotent ruler—that you’re unable to earn your living by the use of your own intelligence, but able to judge politicians and to vote them into jobs of total power over arts you have never seen, over sciences you have never studied, over achievements of which you have no knowledge, over the gigantic industries where you, by your own definition of your capacity, would be unable successfully to fill the job of assistant greaser.”

 

John Galt's speech, full text

John Galt's speech, summary, by Allan Gotthelf

Ayn Rand interview (1967), the Johnny Carson Show

 

Ayn Rand (1905-1982)

 

Her fierce insistence upon human worth and dignity was forged in the tyranny of Lenin’s revolution. This early trauma forever set her will against all forms of encroachment upon individual freedoms.

Rand said she didn’t believe in an afterlife, that death ended it all. It’s quite ironic that Summerland society very closely reflects her most cherished views.

Reprinted from the “index.guide” page:

a society built around the individual, not the group

Summerland civilization, unlike that of the Earth, is not built around power-structures of the group, the collective, the institution, or society, but, instead, focuses on the individual, the growth and development potentialities of each person. 

Over there, while everyone is engaged in some form of charitable service, at the same time, we do not live for others, we do not do for them what they are able to do, and ought to do, for themselves. We, in fact, in our consciousness of the presence of God, live for ourselves, own spiritual evolvement, as "made in the image" sons and daughters.

As discussed at length in the "500 tape-recorded messages from the other side" writing, it's not so easy to "help" others without doing damage. Everyone, in the coming world, is strictly responsible for one's own deeds, and there is no cheap waving away of consequences, which would be an immorality. All of this is well in line with Rand's philosophies.

'who is John Galt'

John Galt’s speech in “Atlas Shrugged” is just about the best exposition ever produced concerning the fallacies and propaganda of those who promote “the collective.” A masterpiece espousing the glory of what it means to be human.

Ayn Rand provided a huge service to all us by clearly defining and cutting through the collectivist disinformation. So much so that I hesitate to raise one word of modification – only to say that, if she had looked into the scientific evidence for post-mortem survival, the augmented perspicacity would have sharpened her focus.

But, I’m sure she’s a bright star where she is right now and realizes this. And for us, still here, as we benefit from her writings, we might mentally edit, here and there, to allow for the supra-reality of what’s coming.

From Galt's speech:

“A farmer will not invest the effort of one summer if he’s unable to calculate his chances of a harvest. But you expect industrial giants—who plan in terms of decades, invest in terms of generations and undertake ninety-nine-year contracts—to continue to function and produce, not knowing what random caprice in the skull of what random official will descend upon them at what moment to demolish the whole of their effort.”

“Every man is free to rise as far as he’s able or willing, but it’s only the degree to which he thinks that determines the degree to which he’ll rise."

“The only proper purpose of a government is to protect man’s rights, which means: to protect him from physical violence. A proper government is only a policeman, acting as an agent of man’s self-defense, and, as such, may resort to force only against those who start the use of force. The only proper functions of a government are: the police, to protect you from criminals; the army, to protect you from foreign invaders; and the courts, to protect your property and contracts from breach or fraud by others, to settle disputes by rational rules, according to objective law. But a government that initiates the employment of force against men who had forced no one, the employment of armed compulsion against disarmed victims, is a nightmare infernal machine designed to annihilate morality: such a government reverses its only moral purpose and switches from the role of protector to the role of man’s deadliest enemy, from the role of policeman to the role of a criminal vested with the right to the wielding of violence against victims deprived of the right of self-defense. Such a government substitutes for morality the following rule of social conduct: you may do whatever you please to your neighbor, provided your gang is bigger than his.

“Do not say that you’re afraid to trust your mind because you know so little. Are you safer in surrendering to mystics and discarding the little that you know? Live and act within the limit of your knowledge and keep expanding it to the limit of your life. Redeem your mind from the hockshops of authority. Accept the fact that you are not omniscient, but playing a zombie will not give you omniscience—that your mind is fallible, but becoming mindless will not make you infallible—that an error made on your own is safer than ten truths accepted on faith, because the first leaves you the means to correct it, but the second destroys your capacity to distinguish truth from error. In place of your dream of an omniscient automation, accept the fact that any knowledge man acquires is acquired by his own will and effort, and that that is his distinction in the universe, that is his nature, his morality, his glory."

 

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