Will the real John Galt, please stand up?

Atlas Shrugged spoiler alert

“In fiction you can pose a question, but you dare not answer it.”
- Anton Chekhov

I finally finished Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, which is over 1000 pages. I started reading it back in February, and I’ve spent roughly three to four full days reading it. It was a serious hinderance to my goal of reading 50 books in a year, and my new plan is never to read another book over 300 pages. That said, Atlas Shrugged was truly a beautifully crafted novel.

There are several writers that I highly admire, including: Christian author Donald Miller, sports columnist Bill Simmons, pop psychologist Malcolm Gladwell, author of Eat, Pray, Love Elizabeth Gilbert. Reading them makes you feel like you’re having a chat with your buddy, thinking, “Hey someone else feels just like me!”

When I read Malcolm Gladwell or Bill Simmons, I think, yeah these guys are hilarious and amazing, but I could dream about doing what they do. Accordingly, I’ve crafted my writing after these guys. The pop culture laced title to this post screams Bill Simmons. However, Ayn Rand is just on a whole different plane of writing that I can’t even wrap my head around.

She develops several complex characters through a thousand page journey, and creates an incredible page-turning sensation that I have never felt before. Having read about three novels in the past year, I am comfortable calling Atlas Shrugged a literary stalwart.

Anyways, as Chekov’s quote explains, fiction is meant to raise questions and conversation, not answers. So what is the most relevant conversation raised by Ayn Rand?

First, some background on Atlas. Rand’s words:

“This is the story of a man who said that he would stop the motor of the world – and did… It is a mystery story, not about the murder of a man’s body, but about the murder – and rebirth – of man’s spirit.”

Atlas is set in an industrial era when the government is worried about business giants getting too rich. They try to place restrictions on these businesses, but in an act of rebellion, the business leaders leave the world to create their own Atlantis-like community. There, they build a pursuit-of-greatness utopia with only the greatest minds. The world is left without these intellectuals and goes in a tailspin.

John Galt is the man who started the Atlantis-like community and stops the motor of the world by depriving the world of all the great business leaders.

I could easily write five blog posts on ideas I had about Atlas, but here I’ll talk about Galt’s victory.

In my eyes, the greatest accomplishment of Galt and his followers is that they break free of societal constraints. They have no qualms stating that they are out for their own greatness, and they will not stand for a government that limits them in any way.

I can see the left wing/humanitarian argument building against this: life is about sacrificing for the whole, the rich shouldn’t be greedy. Arguments I’ve tried to make on this blog.

From the one who has been entrusted with much,

But Galt had it right. Life is about being real.

Last winter I read a book by self-help/addiction expert Brene Brown, The Gifts of Imperfection. The short summary: Brown has found that the most satisfied people are not afraid to be themselves, and believe that they will be worthy of other people’s acceptance despite their flaws. Ie – drug addicts are not defined by their addiction, friends are not defined by their selfishness, etc.

So, who is John Galt? Galt is a man who stood in front of the world, and asked them not to be ashamed of themselves. Society might say drug addicts are uselss, or that it’s wrong to be out for yourself. Society might be right, but I don’t think I am at any point to judge what is and is not wrong. I think Galt and Brown are in the right camp. They just want people not care so much about what other people think, they just want people to be themselves.

from ken

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