Galt's Gulch

Atlas Shrugged, Part 2 Chapter 4: The Sanction of the Victim

Posted by nsnelson 8 years, 8 months ago to Books
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Summary: The Reardens celebrate Thanksgiving, and Hank ponders his relationships. He finds the Wet Nurse at his office. He goes to find Dagny, and visits with Willers on the way. At his trial, Rearden masterfully dissects the inverted morality of his judges, revealing its flaw: it ultimately appeals to coercion, but relies on the sanction of the victim to mask this. The Wet Nurse was converted to Rearden’s side. Then he met with d’Anconia to discuss sex, being a playboy, and tragedy of investing in d’Anconia Copper.

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Atlas Shrugged was written by Ayn Rand in 1957.

My idea for this post is discussed here:

http://www.galtsgulchonline.com/posts...

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  • Posted by nsnelson 8 years, 8 months ago
    Rearden and his Prosecutor/Judge: “Are we to understand,” asked the judge, “that you hold your own interests above the interests of the public?”
    “I hold that such a question can never arise except in a society of cannibals.”
    “What….what do you mean?”
    “I hold that there is no clash of interests among men who do not demand the unearned and do not practice human sacrifices.”
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  • Posted by nsnelson 8 years, 8 months ago
    Reardon thinking: “He noted, in weary contempt, that the three at the table remained silent. Through all the years past, his consideration for them had brought him nothing but their maliciously rights reproaches. Where was their righteousness now? Now was the time to stand on their code of justice – if justice had been any part of their code. Why didn’t they throw at him all those accusations of cruelty and selfishness, which he had come to accept as the eternal chorus to his life? What had permitted them to do it for years? He knew that the words he heard in his mind were the key to the answer: The sanction of the victim.”
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  • Posted by nsnelson 8 years, 8 months ago
    Philip Rearden to Hank: “But I…” he tried, and stopped; his voice sounded like steps testing the ice. “But don’t I have any freedom of speech?”
    “In your own house. Not in mine.”
    “Don’t I have any right to my own ideas?”
    “At your own expense. Not at mine.”
    “Don’t you tolerate any differences of opinions?”
    “Not when I’m paying the bills.”
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    • Posted by VetteGuy 8 years, 8 months ago
      This is a great exchange. When I got to this point in the book I wanted to stand up and cheer Hank on. Every freeloading relative in the country needs to get this speech!
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    • Posted by nsnelson 8 years, 8 months ago
      I particularly like the part about free speech. The 1st Amendment protects our free speech against the coercion of the Government. I don't know where people ever got the idea that the 1st Amendment means there wouldn't be any social consequences with their family, friends, employers, customers, social media, etc. The Government should not infringe on my freedom of speech, but private property owners can.
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  • Posted by nsnelson 8 years, 8 months ago
    Rearden to d’Anconia: “You know, I think that the only real moral crime that one man can commit against another is the attempt to create, by his words or actions, an impression of the contradictory, the impossible, the irrational, and thus shake the concept of rationality in his victim.”
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  • Posted by nsnelson 8 years, 8 months ago
    “And I don’t like that idea about no directives and no controls,” said another. “I grant you they’re running hog-wild and overdoing it. But – no controls at all? I don’t go along with that. I think some controls are necessary. The ones which are for the public good.”
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  • Posted by nsnelson 8 years, 8 months ago
    Rearden to his Prosecutor/Judge: “If I were asked to serve the interests of society apart from, above and against my own – I would refuse. I would reject it as the most contemptible evil. I would fight it with every power I possess, I would fight the whole of mankind, if one minute were all I could last before I were murdered, I would fight in the full confidence of the justice of my battle and of a living being’s right to exist. Let there be no misunderstanding about me. If it is now the belief of my fellow men, who call themselves the public, that their mood requires victims, then I say: The public good be damned, I will have no part of it.”
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  • Posted by nsnelson 8 years, 8 months ago
    Rearden to his Prosecutor/Judge: “I am earning my own living, as every honest man must. I refuse to accept as guilt the fact of my own existence and the fact that I must work in order to support it. I refuse to accept as guilt the fact that I am able to do it and do it well.”
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    • Posted by nsnelson 8 years, 8 months ago
      Guilt that I am able to do it well. Sometimes I feel this. My wife and I work well, and live well. Sometimes I feel... almost embarrassment for being able to afford a fine meal, or a nice suit. But since we have made money honestly, these things should be an expression of pride. I call these feelings that I sometimes struggle with my altruist hangover.
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    • Posted by nsnelson 8 years, 8 months ago
      Earning my own living, as every honest man must. That is a concept quickly being lost. Our recent generations have such an entitlement mentality. Our Government welfare state is reinforcing that. Unemployment benefits provide way too much competition to the notion that a person ought to work to survive.
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  • Posted by nsnelson 8 years, 8 months ago
    Rearden to his Prosecutor/Judge: “I am proud of every penny I own. I made my money by my own effort, in free exchange and through the voluntary consent of every man I dealt with.”
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  • Posted by nsnelson 8 years, 8 months ago
    Rearden to his Prosecutor/Judge: “No, I do not want my attitude to be misunderstood. I shall be glad to state it for the record. I am in full agreement with the facts of everything said about me in the newspapers – with the facts, but not with the evaluation. I work for nothing but my own profit – which I make by selling a product they need to men who are willing and able to buy it.”
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  • Posted by nsnelson 8 years, 8 months ago
    Rearden and his Prosecutor/Judge: “You pose as a champion of freedom, but it’s only the freedom to make money that you’re after.”
    “Yes, of course. All I want is the freedom to make money. Do you know what that freedom implies?”
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  • Posted by nsnelson 8 years, 8 months ago
    The eldest judge leaned forward across the table and his voice became suavely derisive: “You speak as if you were fighting for some sort of principle, Mr. Rearden, but what you’re actually fighting for is only your property, isn’t it?”
    “Yes, of course. I am fighting for my property. Do you know the kind of principle that represents?”
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  • Posted by nsnelson 8 years, 8 months ago
    Rearden to his Prosecutor/Judge: “Who is the public? What does it hold as its good? There was a time when men believed that ‘the good’ was a concept to be defined by a code of moral values and that no man had the right to seek his good through the violation of the rights of another. If it is now believed that my fellow men may sacrifice me in any manner they please for the sake of whatever they deem to be their own good, if they believe that they may seize my property simply because they need it – well, so does any burglar. There is only this difference: the burglar does not ask me to sanction his act.”
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  • Posted by nsnelson 8 years, 8 months ago
    Rearden to his Prosecutor/Judge: “A prisoner brought to trial can defend himself only if there is an objective principle of justice recognized by his judges, a principle upholding his rights, which they may not violate and which he can invoke.”
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  • Posted by nsnelson 8 years, 8 months ago
    Rearden to his Prosecutor/Judge: “I am complying with the law – to the letter. Your law holds that my life, my work and my property may be disposed of without my consent. Very well, you may now dispose of me without my participation in the matter…. The law, by which you are trying me, holds that there are no principles, that I have no rights and that you may do with me whatever you please. Very well. Do it.”
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    • Posted by conscious1978 8 years, 8 months ago
      In a very public setting, Reardon is stripping off the facade of Justice this kangaroo court needs to keep in place. His 'permission' exposes them for the organized thugs they are. They need Hank's voluntary agreement to avoid the 'optics' of forcing him at gunpoint to comply or proceed, at gunpoint, to confinement. His actions, secondarily, benefit anyone viewing that can understand what's in play.
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    • Posted by nsnelson 8 years, 8 months ago
      It bothers me that he gives his permission, invites them, even tells them to do injustice.

      Same as here:

      http://www.galtsgulchonline.com/posts...
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      • Posted by CircuitGuy 8 years, 8 months ago
        I think he's just being BA. He's saying "have at it! Bring it on!" He means, in my reading of it, that he refuses to back down regardless of what they do. He's saying he has no control over their actions, but he's being deliberate in his own actions.
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        • Posted by VetteGuy 8 years, 8 months ago
          I agree. He is saying, in a very public forum, "go ahead ... I DARE you!"

          Unfortunately, I think very few today would have the capability to understand such a principled stance. We live in the age of the sound bite, and any facts supporting a non-conforming view are considered just noise. Outside the gulch, of course.
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  • Posted by nsnelson 8 years, 8 months ago
    Rearden thinking: “To count upon his virtue and use it as an instrument of torture, to practice blackmail with the victim’s generosity as sole means of extortion, to accept the gift of a man’s good will and turn it into a tool for the giver’s destruction…he sat very still, contemplating the formula of so monstrous an evil that he was able to name it, but not to believe it possible.”
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  • Posted by nsnelson 8 years, 8 months ago
    Lillian Rearden to Hank: “You ought to give in with good grace, simply because it’s the practical thing to do. You ought to keep silent, precisely because they’re wrong. They’ll appreciate it. Make concessions for others and they’ll make concessions for you. Live and let live. Give and take. Give in and take it. That’s the policy of our age.”
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  • Posted by nsnelson 8 years, 8 months ago
    Lillian Rearden to Hank: “The day of the hero is past. This is the day of humanity, in a much deeper sense than you imagine. Human beings are no longer expected to be saints nor to be punished for their sins. Nobody is right or wrong, we’re all in it together, we’re all human – and the human is the imperfect.”
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