Galt's Gulch

Atlas Shrugged, Part 2 Chapter 1: The Man Who Belonged On Earth

Posted by nsnelson 9 years, 4 months ago to Books
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Summary: Dr. Stadler was pondering the book of Dr. Floyd Ferris (age 45), the Top Co-ordinator of the State Science Institute. They met to discuss the Wyatt oil fields conflagration, Project X, and Wesley Mouch. Hammond quit; Stockton quit. Dagny pondered this, and Akston’s cigarette. She also interviewed scientists to study the motor, before asking Dr. Stadler, who pointed her to Quentin Daniels, and spoke of John Galt. Rearden refused a SSI order for his Metal, and sold some to Ken Danagger instead. The Wet Nurse tried unsuccessfully to persuade Rearden to comply. Rearden went to Dagny to continue their romance, and to ponder the SSI issue.

Start by reading the first-tier comments, which are all quotes of Ayn Rand (some of my favorites, some just important for other reasons). Comment on your favorite ones, or others' comments. Don't see your favorite quote? Post it in a new comment. Please reserve new comments for Ayn Rand, and your non-Rand quotes for "replies" to the quotes or discussion. (Otherwise Rand's quotes will get crowded out and pushed down into oblivion. You can help avoid this by "voting up" the Rand quotes, or at least the ones you especially like, and voting down first-tier comments that are not quotes of the featured book.)

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 9 years, 4 months ago
    “A sale,” said Rearden, slowly, “requires the seller’s consent.” He got up and walked to the window. “I’ll tell you what you can do.” He pointed to the siding where ingots of Rearden Metal were being loaded onto freight cars. “There’s Rearden Metal. Drive down there with your trucks – like any other looter, but without his risk, because I won’t shoot you, as you know I can’t – take as much of the Metal as you wish and go. Don’t try to send me payment – I won’t accept it. Don’t print out a check to me. It won’t be cashed. If you want that Metal, you have the guns to seize it. Go ahead.”
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  • Posted by nsnelson 9 years, 4 months ago
    Rearden: “Dagny, they’re doing something that we’ve never understood. They know something which we don’t, but should discover. I can’t see it fully yet, but I’m beginning to see parts of it. That looter from the State Science Institute [the Wet Nurse] was scared when I refused to help him pretend that he was just an honest buyer of my Metal. He was scared way deep. Of what? I don’t know – public opinion was just his name for it, but it’s not the full name. Why should he have been scared? He has the guns, the jails, the laws…they want us to pretend that we see the world as they pretend they see it. They need some sort of sanction from us. I don’t know the nature of that sanction – but, Dagny, I know that if we value our lives, we must not give it to them.”
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  • Posted by nsnelson 9 years, 4 months ago
    The Wet Nurse: “You know, Mr. Rearden, there are no absolute standards. We can’t go by rigid principles, we’ve got to be flexible, we’ve got to adjust to the reality of the day and act on the expediency of the moment.”
    “Run along, punk. Go and try to pour a ton of steel without rigid principles, on the expediency of the moment.”
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  • Posted by nsnelson 9 years, 4 months ago
    Dr. Ferris: “Dr. Stadler, you’re speaking as if this book were addressed to a thinking audience… But it isn’t. It’s addressed to the public. And you have always been first to believe that the public does not think.”
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    • Posted by nsnelson 9 years, 4 months ago
      This is sad, but true. Too many people have given up the pursuit for truth, and lack the dedication for careful critical thinking. And certainly even if individuals break through and think correctly for themselves, it is another even less likely thing for a group of like-minded thinkers to collectivize and cooperate to get something done (like protect their liberty). So it is inevitable that most people who "collectivize" care little about individual rights. Politicians know this.
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  • Posted by nsnelson 9 years, 4 months ago
    Reardon to Dagny: “I like giving things to you,” he said, “because you don’t need them…. Do you understand that it’s nothing but vicious self-indulgence on my part? I’m not doing it for your pleasure, but for mine.”
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    • Posted by nsnelson 9 years, 4 months ago
      This reinforces my point that Ayn Rand sometimes writes in an extreme way as a technique to get the reader's attention and make a point in a strong way. Later she says that we should never use the word ‘give.’ But this here illustrates a proper doctrine of ‘giving’: when it is done to bring you selfish pleasure.
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    • Posted by Hiraghm 9 years, 4 months ago
      LOL...
      I work with a department manager who's this cute, petite Japanese woman. Her shift starts when mine ends, and we became friends, pretty much only talking for a few minutes each morning.

      One morning she teased me about getting her a cup of coffee (she's addicted to the stuff); I called her bluff by asking her how she liked it. About 20 minutes later, after I'd clocked out, I came back with a cup of coffee to order.

      She squealed with delight, and I absolutely loved her reaction. For a period of time, almost every day, I'd pick her up her cup of coffee just for the pleasure it gave me to get it for her.

      Some of my male co-workers began making jokes about me wanting to get into her pants... I asked one how he felt when he got his 7 year-old daughter a present that made her very happy. "Well, Zak, (we'll call him "Zak" because that's his name), that's how I feel when (the female co-worker) reacts to the coffee I bring her. That's why I do it. I don't have anybody to give to, and not much to give. It's why I gave you that little plane I won in the arcade, why I lent Richard & Melody my book on writing when I found out they wanted to write stories. Because it made me feel good to do it."
      He never teased me about it again.

      A few days later, apparently the talk had reached my female friend, and she told me I didn't have to get her coffee all the time. From her tone I realized she was becoming embarrassed by the gossip. And so I was denied that innocent source of happiness.
      .
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  • Posted by nsnelson 9 years, 4 months ago
    “New orders were coming in daily. They were not orders any longer, in the old, honorable sense of trade; they were demands. The law provided that he could be sued by any consumer who failed to receive his fair share of Rearden Metal.”
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    • Posted by nsnelson 9 years, 4 months ago
      I know this is not the same, but do you think this may be a parallel to our modern anti-discrimination laws? If we have a business, and anyone "demands" to purchase our product, and we refuse based on our desire to discriminate (for whatever reason), they can sue us to force us to provide their “fair share.”
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  • Posted by nsnelson 9 years, 4 months ago
    Dagny interviewing scientists: “The fourth, who was the youngest, had looked at her silently for a moment and the lines of his face had slithered from blankness into a suggestion of contempt. ‘You know, Miss Taggart, I don’t think that such a motor should ever be made, even if somebody did learn how to make it. It would be so superior to anything we’ve got that it would be unfair to lesser scientists, because it would leave no field for their achievements and abilities. I don’t think that the strong should have the right to wound the self-esteem of the weak.’ She had ordered him out of her office, and had sat in incredulous horror before the fact that the most vicious statement she had ever heard had been uttered in a tone of moral righteousness.”
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  • Posted by nsnelson 9 years, 4 months ago
    Regarding distribution based on essential need: “There were three questions that no one answered or asked: ‘What constituted proof?’ ‘What constituted need?’ ‘Essential – to whom?’”
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  • Posted by nsnelson 9 years, 4 months ago
    “One well, on the crest of the hill, was still burning. Nobody had been able to extinguish it. She had seen it from the streets: a spurt of fire twisting convulsively against the sky, as if trying to tear loose. She had seen it at night, across the distance of a hundred clear, black miles, from the window of a train: a small, violent flame, waving in the wind. People called it Wyatt’s Torch.”
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  • Posted by nsnelson 9 years, 4 months ago
    Drs. Ferris and Stadler: “But, Dr. Stadler, this book was not intended to be read by scientists. It was written for that drunken lout.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “For the general public.”
    “But, good God! The feeblest imbecile should be able to see the glaring contradictions in every one of your statements.”
    “Let us put it this way, Dr. Stadler. The man who doesn’t see that, deserves to believe all my statements.”
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  • Posted by nsnelson 9 years, 4 months ago
    From Dr. Ferris’ book on Dr. Stadler’s desk: “You say that you’re sure you’re right? Nobody is right, or ever can be… Don’t argue. Accept. Adjust yourself. Obey.”
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  • Posted by nsnelson 9 years, 4 months ago
    From Dr. Ferris’ book on Dr. Stadler’s desk: “A scientist knows that a stone is not a stone at all. It is, in fact, identical with a feather pillow. Both are only a cloud formation of the same invisible, whirling particles. But, you say, you can’t use a stone for a pillow? Well, that merely proves your helplessness in the face of actual reality.”
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  • Posted by nsnelson 9 years, 4 months ago
    From Dr. Ferris’ book on Dr. Stadler’s desk: “Thought is a primitive superstition. Reason is an irrational idea. The childish notion that we are able to think has been mankind’s costliest error.”
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