How Many Bricklayers Did Galt Invite to the Gulch?
Galt went around inviting famous artists, noted business leaders to the Guch, but once there, who built their houses? Who paved their streets, dug their sewer lines?
This isn't a class warfare argument; the building of a house, for example, not only takes a skilled architect, but also skilled craftsmen and industrious laborers.
If the criterion for admission is a belief in "trading value for value", surely Galt should and would have invited "ordinary" workers to the Gulch as well as luminaries like Wyatt and Danagger?
Such people exist lower down on the ladder; people who believe in trading value for value, but lack the creative ability to invent a new motor or miraculous metal. People who didn't inherit an already successful railroad or copper mines, but would be able to get a day's worth of coal or copper dug in a day's worth of hours for a day's worth of pay. Maybe they lack the ambition to go through the headache of running a company when they get more satisfaction from digging coal out of the ground. Maybe they lack the self discipline necessary to see their visions to reality, but are still able and still believe in trading value for value.
What Utopians always underestimate in their rhetoric (no disparagement of Ms Rand intended) is the example America set before them. People's abilities and worth are not necessarily evidenced by their position in life. All the creative brilliance in the world will not get a brick wall built. A brick wall built without knowledge and skill won't stand, but the most creative and brilliantly designed wall will never exist without someone to lay it up brick by brick. Someone whose creative skill may be shrouded by prejudice toward his position in life.
There may not be a place in the Gulch for someone like me. But that would be Galt's loss.
This isn't a class warfare argument; the building of a house, for example, not only takes a skilled architect, but also skilled craftsmen and industrious laborers.
If the criterion for admission is a belief in "trading value for value", surely Galt should and would have invited "ordinary" workers to the Gulch as well as luminaries like Wyatt and Danagger?
Such people exist lower down on the ladder; people who believe in trading value for value, but lack the creative ability to invent a new motor or miraculous metal. People who didn't inherit an already successful railroad or copper mines, but would be able to get a day's worth of coal or copper dug in a day's worth of hours for a day's worth of pay. Maybe they lack the ambition to go through the headache of running a company when they get more satisfaction from digging coal out of the ground. Maybe they lack the self discipline necessary to see their visions to reality, but are still able and still believe in trading value for value.
What Utopians always underestimate in their rhetoric (no disparagement of Ms Rand intended) is the example America set before them. People's abilities and worth are not necessarily evidenced by their position in life. All the creative brilliance in the world will not get a brick wall built. A brick wall built without knowledge and skill won't stand, but the most creative and brilliantly designed wall will never exist without someone to lay it up brick by brick. Someone whose creative skill may be shrouded by prejudice toward his position in life.
There may not be a place in the Gulch for someone like me. But that would be Galt's loss.
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If as mentioned in a statement above, the mason could be replaced by an unskilled immigrant laborer, maybe we're starting to approach the hub of the hate for Galt. Maybe it's not so much hate for Galt removing himself and those of his same contribution levels from the society that values force over true value, but maybe an envy for his available options and reasoned choice to remove himself rather than being removed.
From personal experience I can attest that trying to explain why one laborer, craftsman, or professional is of more value when the pay-rate or continued employment decision must be made over another of equal or even greater supposed position of the ladder is a reasonable, even necessary action to take, is an extremely difficult one to accomplish.
I sincerely appreciate the opportunity to discuss these types of issues with those opposing and I don't wish to imply that reaching an appreciation of a certain philosophy is a simple thing to do nor that society doesn't need or benefit from the contributions of all. But I do insist that those contributions be comparitively valued and any level of force against the individual for any reason is obscene.
Please continue to comment. I enjoy thinking about your issues and points.
KYFHO
One of thing I've learned is that the story is completely populated with straw men.
you build that house? you mill every stud, you form every nail, you wire it, you drywall it, you carpet it, you roof it, every last bit of it yourself.
If you don't, then you have to import the labor, as you did. The sheer volume of labor needed to build a city will not allow you to restrict membership to tested, proven objectivists.
I don't give a good damn how brilliant you are or how many disciplines you've mastered. There are only so many hours in a day and only so much work the human body can do in that period of time.
And I don't care who the amateur is, no matter how brilliant he is, an amateur is never going to master any discipline as well as someone who spent years learning it. And therefore CAN'T do it as well. Anyone who claims differently is delusional.
Things may have changed around here in the past 20 years, but it was my understanding back then that you could build your own house without following regulations... but you could never, ever sell it.
Ask James Taggart.
It takes lots and lots of physical effort to do so.
Roark could have designed the great pyramid at Giza. He couldn't have built it in his lifetime.
This is what I've been trying to get at; no matter how brilliant you are, building these infrastructures takes time and physical effort. If the only labor source is brilliant, objectivist minds, people, even from all walks of life, who got fed up and "went Galt", they aren't going to be able to do it on their own.
And the instant you import a labor force *not* adherent to the Objectivist philosophy, not fed up with the outside world... you've introduced an element that will disrupt the harmony of the system.
No craftsman can pass on his knowledge by training the less skilled.
He can only pass on his knowledge to the less experienced.
Think of "Amadeus". Mozart could teach Salieri for years, and Salieri would never develop Mozart's skill.
Wait...
the highest morality is one's own happiness.
Discipline is deferred happiness.
Nah, no contradiction here.
But it's not that simple.
"produce something of value".
Well, I poop every day. That's fertilizer, so I'm welcome in the Gulch, yes?
Terrific, I'll come move in to the Gulch, with my poop, and with my sociological baggage that led the real world to its sorry state. How long before the Gulch follows?
I am fully confident that Howard Roark would never live long enough to build a four-lane highway from San Diego to L.A. From scratch. By himself.
It's not a class warfare argument, because I'm not talking about the value of Galt's labor vs the value of a physical laborer. I'm not talking about the value of labor at all.
Get this through your skulls... there is a REASON why there are professions. Because an amateur CAN'T do it all. Not as well as a professional, which means not as quickly as a professional.
An amateur bricklayer can lay brick just as well as a professional... but not nearly as fast. or he can do so just as fast but not nearly as well.
Again, this isn't about class warfare but about TIME and ENERGY.
Sure, maybe Galt could have build the entire Guch by himself... given a thousand years. But in any reasonable time frame, he couldn't. And it would utterly disrupt their plans for them to do the common labor work that doesn't require brilliance to do. So who's going to do it?
They're going to have to recruit common laborers from the real world to do this work. And once they do, the Gulch is screwed. Because it is the common laborers who have embraced the progressive philosophy of Galt's enemy; they're what have made the transformation of society possible.
So, he'll have introduced, out of necessity, the snakes into his Garden of Eden.
Objectivist philosophy REQUIRES a Utopia, that is, a place that does not and cannot exist. It requires a world where everyone thinks like an objectivist and holds the same values as an objectivist, and there's no way on God's green Earth that's ever going to happen. The second you get a radical like me in there, Galt's Utopia will never be the same. You think the U.S. naturally evolved into its present state? No, it was consciously sabotaged over decades to bring it to this sorry state. By "radical" I mean someone just as brilliant as Galt, but resentful of any progressive who tries to control, guide or plan-out a society's path.
The other problem with Rand's philosophy and Galt's speech is the elevation of reason. Reason is great. But anyone who thinks to rule himself or the world by reason alone is an idiot.
As I understand it, objectivism places one's own happiness as the highest moral principle. Happiness is an emotion not subject to reason. It's the same mistake that makes the Vulcans of Star Drek such a joke.
Roark may pursue happiness by building buildings. Mother Theresa may pursue happiness by feeding the poor. A sadist may pursue happiness by throwing kittens on rooftops and watching them splat on the concrete below. "Reason" doesn't enter into any of these.
A person who tries to live purely by reason alone has no reason to live. The instant he is motivated to do something, he's driven by emotion, not reason. Spock may reason that he should be a programmer; but if his happiness is derived from flying shuttlecraft, reason has failed to achieve his highest morality.
I don't hate the message. I hate Galt. I'd kill him on sight, and for the same reason I'd kill Mouch on sight. Both think themselves superior to those around them.
I fully understand Rand's philosophy, I just disagree with it. Hedonism is not a viable basis for society, and when the highest morality is one's own happiness, the utopia she describes isn't possible.
Everyone keeps pretending that this is a laborer vs management argument, thus revealing their own preconceptions.
I don't give a damn how smart you are; you can have an IQ of 147,362 and a half... that's not going to get the PHYSICAL LABOR DONE that needs doing to build a house.
And people with the... mental agility, for want of a better term, to design the house are not going to be recruited as part of a labor gang whose only requirement is a strong back; they also have better things to do. And once you import that labor gang from the real world to the Gulch, they're going to pollute your utopia with collectivist ideas.
I also get that you resent the concepts Rand tried to present and demonstrate (and did very well in my opinion) in her book. But I fail to get or see any real depth or desire on your part to try to understand why or how others such as myself can find meaning, even enjoyment, from her writing.
The Gulch was indeed a 'magical place' built in Rand's mind to provide a place for her producers to escape the demands of the collectivists and the needy takers, while forming a society in which each gained from the value of each contribution rather than from each existence or need.
I find it telling that you finish by insisting on the need to segregate the 'objectivists and libertarians' from 'everyone else,' rather than segregating the needy takers and utilizers of force from 'everyone else.'
But you have provided a reason for some of us to think and refine our thoughts and for that I thank you.
KYFHO
Now tomorrow go out and do ALL of those things.
*At the same time*.
And be done by supper time.
Being able to do something and mastering it are two different things. Heinlein may have believed in the jack of all trades, but that's not consistent with history.
Or Galt's own words, "I will stop the motor of the world". You think he didn't know the results?
What AS part III almost certainly won't show is the millions who will die as a result of Galt's campaign.
As I understand it, society does eventually collapse. It does so as a result of Galt's efforts.
How do I know this? Look at the real world that is very much like the world of Atlas Shrugged... minus the John Galt. It's becoming less and less free, yet it's not collapsing. Communist China is, while un-free, prospering, not collapsing.
This is not events that I wish to transpire, but to suggest that Galt is not intentionally destroying the world is willful blindness.
At the same time the moochers and politicians are not intentionally destroying the world, but they are taking action after action to further their goals, which cause the destruction of the world. It is Galt and his ilk who postpone the destruction, he is just asking them to stop preventing it.
Comparing to Obama is a comparison to the moochers and politicians in Atlas and not a comparison to Galt because once again he is making active choices to influence his change. Galt is just choosing not to contribute to the world in it's current state.
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