#18.3 Gleanings from the John Galt Speech – Part 3

John Galt continues,

You who prattle that morality is social and that man would need no morality on a desert island-it is on a desert island that he would need it most. Let him try to claim, when there are no victims to pay for it, that a rock is a house, that sand is clothing, that food will drop into his mouth without cause or effort, that he will collect a harvest tomorrow by devouring his stock seed today-and reality will wipe him out, as he deserves; reality will show him that life is a value to be bought and that thinking is the only coin noble enough to buy it.

Let's examine this using E. C. Riegel's logic. The insertion when there are no victims to pay for it is a direct slap at “from each according to their ability, to each according to his need,” the creed of the collectivists, who we might as well just update and call them globalists. They are at this collectivist game too, just operating it under a different manifestation which some have dubbed corporate fascism. It's actually oligarchy; that's the new power paradigm. We used to call this oligarchy “the Barge” since it represents all those who euphemistically or actually manage to float above us all on their usury powered lifestyles. Now we'll tell you all that these people are Mystery Babylon, in quite literal reality. None of these people produce anything of value, they are looters, the “useless eaters” and they are the new “stakeholders” behind the UN Agenda 21.
 
We note that reference is also made to foolish practices which have been going on for years; devouring what was needed for the future, a homely reference to farming that most people a few generations back took for granted as reality. But much of this scarcity was deliberately orchestrated to happen on purpose. Those behind it all are very pleased, although a few have shown that there is growing fear in their ranks, as there should indeed be, because everything they have done was in defiance of reality and they and everyone else will jolly well be paying for it.

But what is the way out? It is here, life is a value to be bought and that thinking is the only coin noble enough to buy it, where John Galt meets E. C. Riegel. The thinking person understands what they have to offer as a value to others and decides that he will only accept money (a way to split-barter with others) for it in trade that he has agreed to use. Come on, ask yourself a simple question, did you decide that you would buy and sell in dollars, euros, yen, whatever? Come on, did you? Did anyone offer you to sign any agreement that you know of where you were asked if you wished to be paid in dollars, euros, yen, etc.? Of course not. That inalienable right was denied you. By who? What authority did they use, do they still use, except as backed up by FORCE, which proves nothing, because it obliterates the truth with state or corporate or banking inspired violence.

You see, you aren't really free, and even those of you who assume yourselves to be doing all right, to have enough cash, take some of it out of your pocket and take a good look at it. To whom does it proclaim that it belongs? Certainly not to you.

If I were to speak your kind of language, I would say that man’s only moral commandment is: Thou shalt think. But a ‘moral commandment’ is a contradiction in terms. The moral is the chosen, not the FORCED; the understood, not the obeyed. The moral is the rational, and reason accepts no commandments.

Commandments are what mankind developed in the relative childhood of its society. These codes that were handed down to us, may or may not contain a morality based on reason and reality. For the most part, they do, but Galt and we are advised that commandments are issued from an authority, whose right to rule is always in question.

My morality, the morality of reason, is contained in a single axiom: existence exists-and in a single choice: to live. The rest proceeds from these.
 
This is NOT selfishness. As we have said, let us be clear, selfishness exists when someone wilfully takes advantage of someone else for their own benefit. To live is not a selfish act, do not let any of the globalist minions tell you otherwise. They are liars, false accusers, etc. Turn your back on them, do not listen to them, do not have anything to do with them. That is your right. When they use FORCE on you, let them know that you hold them individually and personally responsible and then let nature take its course, because reality is real and cannot be evaded forever. That which goes up, most certainly must eventually come down. 

Now we get down to business,
 
To live, man must hold three things as the supreme and ruling values of his life: Reason-Purpose-Self-esteem.
 
Reason, as his only tool of knowledge

Purpose, as his choice of the happiness which that tool must proceed to achieve
 
Self-esteem, as his inviolate certainty that his mind is competent to think and his person is worthy of happiness, which means: is worthy of living.
 
These three values imply and require all of man’s virtues, and all his virtues pertain to the relation of existence and consciousness: rationality, independence, integrity, honesty, justice, productiveness, pride.

Pride is not conceit here, again let us not fall prey to warrantless accusations.

Rationality is the recognition of the fact that existence exists, that nothing can alter the truth and nothing can take precedence over that act of perceiving it, which is thinking-
 
that the mind is one’s only judge of values and one’s only guide of action-
 
that reason is an absolute that permits no compromise-
 
that a concession to the irrational invalidates one’s consciousness and turns it from the task of perceiving to the task of faking reality-
 
that the alleged short-cut to knowledge, which is faith, is only a short-circuit destroying the mind-
 
that the acceptance of a mystical invention is a wish for the annihilation of existence and, properly, annihilates one’s consciousness.

Heavy stuff, but it's really time that we all started to become a lot more personally responsible. Without adequate steps, such as have just been presented, most of us have been and are quite lost in the fog created by the elites for the past 150 years at the very least.

Independence is the recognition of the fact that yours is the responsibility of judgement and nothing can help you escape it-
 
How much resistance is there to making your own judgements these days? You even hear passages in scripture deliberately misinterpreted to back up what? Some reliance on authority? Really? How stupid.
 
that no substitute can do your thinking, as no pinch-hitter can live your life-

Should be self-evident, but the state and its nanny minions would prefer you thought otherwise.

that the vilest form of self-abasement and self-destruction is the subordination of your mind to the mind of another, the acceptance of an authority over your brain, the acceptance of his assertions as facts, his say-so as truth, his edicts as middle-man between your consciousness and your existence.

This is a practical definition for independence. To the degree you fall short, you are not independent. Most have acquiesced to subordination of your mind to the mind of another, or as I have heard it said lately, outsourced your thinking. This has been the goal of public relations from the outset, the deliberate and ceaseless whispering of advertisers of various kinds, spouting this or that claptrap, attempting to get the servile acquiescence of the public, to let someone else do its thinking for it, people who were educated, who knew better, etc. If you've been following along, you'll see how many of Oz's curtains have been pulled back to reveal the ugly truth. The wizards are frauds mostly, or even worse.
 
A practical definition of integrity is presented. All that is said of man is of course just as applicable to woman and we hope she's reading this too since as if it matters, a woman originally penned this.

Integrity is the recognition of the fact that you cannot fake your consciousness, just as honesty is the recognition of the fact that you cannot fake existence-
 
that man is an indivisible entity, an integrated unit of two attributes: of matter and consciousness, and that he may permit no breach between body and mind, between action and thought, between his life and his convictions-
 
that, like a judge impervious to public opinion, he may not sacrifice his convictions to the wishes of others, be it the whole of mankind shouting pleas or threats against him-

that courage and confidence are practical necessities, that courage is the practical form of being true to existence, of being true to one’s own consciousness.

Couldn't we all have integrity? What would it take? What would we have to get rid of as useless trash that impedes our progress to attain integrity? Is there anything we do anymore that we can be honestly proud of, for no one's satisfaction but our own happiness? Can a life of integrity be lived by all? What would society look like if all lived by their integrity?

Now on to honesty.

Honesty is the recognition of the fact that the unreal is unreal and can have no value, that neither love nor fame nor cash is a value if obtained by fraud-

We thus call direct attention to those who have obtained their wealth through usury, since it has been demonstrated that all usury is fraud and it was uniquely E. C. Riegel who identified the obvious; that the interest part of a debt was NEVER CREATED, therefore it is being paid out of what was created; therefore paying the uncreated interest, is stealing by the lender from the debtor.

that an attempt to gain a value by deceiving the mind of others is an act of raising your victims to a position higher than reality, where you become a pawn of their blindness, a slave of their non-thinking and their evasions, while their intelligence, their rationality, their perceptiveness become the enemies you have to dread and flee-

This is a very interesting passage. In the middle of a section describing honesty, Galt is suggesting that the con man who attempts to hoodwink his customers is actually becoming dependent on those he deceives. The literal moral of the story is that is is a fool's carrousel that nobody should be riding on.

that you do not care to live as a dependent, least of all a dependent on the stupidity of others, or as a fool whose source of values is the fools he succeeds in fooling-

Someone whose source of values is the fools he succeeds in fooling also applies squarely to con-men, con-artists, thieves by deception, fraudsters, other assorted psychopaths and sociopaths. What they mostly have in common is that none of them engages in honest trade. Those contemplating establishment of (the or an) VEN, please pay close attention.
 
that honesty is not a social duty, not a sacrifice for the sake of others, but the most profoundly selfish virtue man can practice: his refusal to sacrifice the reality of his own existence to the deluded consciousness of others.

By selfish here, we would instead infer self-interested. Read it over with these words replaced and it makes much more sense.

Now onto justice,

Justice is the recognition of the fact that you cannot fake the character of men [or women] as you cannot fake the character of nature, that you must judge all men [and women] as conscientiously as you judge inanimate objects, with the same respect for truth, with the same incorruptible vision, by as pure and as rational a process of identification-

Rationally, identity follows existence as givens, therefore things are real and are given names.

that every man [or woman] must be judged for what he is and treated accordingly, that just as you do not pay a higher price for a rusty chunk of scrap than for a piece of shining metal, so you do not value a totter above a hero-

Let's be very clear about this, which means we'll have to jettison a lot of intellectual garbage (a close friend of mine used to refer to it as toejam). People are always evaluated with reference to others for various tasks involving various kinds of responsibility. You do not entrust someone with a tested IQ of 55 to pilot an airplane, ANY airplane, not even a radio controlled one. That's a kind of distinction that is easy to make based on reason, backed by adequate awareness of reality. We likewise do not permit a blind man to drive a car. Common sense.

that your moral appraisal is the coin paying men for their virtues or vices, and this payment demands of you as scrupulous an honour as you bring to financial transactions-

Financial transactions here will have a different context than those implied under the present corrupt and fraudulent system. Anyone running a real business understands that he / she must pay his / her suppliers or sooner or later he / she i s out of business. This is common sense economics. But under (the or an) VEN, when it is fully operational and wins the majority of the business of this world to itself, those bills really can be paid in full FROM what was created, not OUT OF what was created as under the present system. Under an VEN, there would be no shortage of money EVER for any legitimate transaction. Other than that, go back and re-read it as Galt / Rand is making a terrific point concerning the importance of keeping one's moral judgement absolutely clear and clean.

that to withhold your contempt from men’s vices is an act of moral counterfeiting, and to withhold your admiration from their virtues is an act of moral embezzlement-

I have no doubt that many were put off by this mixture of symbols, morality with money, and may have missed the point. Galt / Rand is saying that it is perfectly natural to feel contempt for scoundrels and admiration for the virtuous and to do otherwise is to steal from morality; you become a moral fraud. It is further explained,

that to place any other concern higher than justice is to devaluate your moral currency and defraud the good in favor of the evil, since only the good can lose by a default of justice and only the evil can profit-

We have witnessed this perversion in our own day. Justice, as it is practised throughout the world isn't rational, it is made up of lies. Why not be honest and say that these people represent injustice, therefore the ministries of injustice, the Injustice Department, etc.?  George Orwell, again in this regard, was prophetic.

and that the bottom of the pit at the end of that road, the act of moral bankruptcy, is to punish men for their virtues and reward them for their vices, that that is the collapse to full depravity, the Black Mass of the worship of death, the dedication of your consciousness to the destruction of existence.

... and everyone and everything else with it. Voilla! The atomic bomb, chemical, biological and meteorological weapons of mass destruction, war materiel, the works. It's all related, folks.
 
On to productivity,

Productiveness is your acceptance of morality, your recognition of the fact that you choose to live-

This is a definition and proposes a given. Therefore it's opposite is also true; the unproductive manifest a disregard of morality as Galt has defined it, and whether recognized by them or not, they would prefer to die. Test this out as you will.

that productive work is the process by which man’s consciousness controls his existence, a constant process of acquiring knowledge and shaping matter to fit one’s purpose, of translating an idea into physical form, of remaking the earth in the image of one’s values-

All of this has been and or is in process of being taken from us. We are all increasingly harassed even out of business or out of our property by those who have arrogated to themselves the power to FORCE compliance to their idiotic, on purpose, rules and regulations that favour some irrational agenda based on constant appeals to authority. Look what we have lost in this process? Does it make you feel differently about it knowing that it was done on purpose by those bent on genocide as a solution to their problems? “Come out of her, my people,” would be an appropriate response.

that all work is creative work if done by a thinking mind, and no work is creative if done by a blank who repeats in uncritical stupor a routine he has learned from others-

We honestly do not believe that it is possible to sustain for very long any real enterprise where work is as if done by a blank who repeats in uncritical stupor a routine he has learned from others. Even on assembly lines, the routine must be characterized by some thoughtful attention. But there are lots of jobs that rely on routine that falls under the bureaucratic category, paper pushing, that have and can go on for a long time. It's an open question just how much of this kind of work actually contributes to value.

that your work is yours to choose, and the choice is as wide as your mind, that nothing more is possible to you and nothing less is human-

We would at this point claim that nothing like this exists to the degree that Galt suggests that it could. We have encountered plenty of reasons for this. Does this make Galt's premise a mere ideal, or were it possible to rid the world of as much powerful (institutional) irrationality as possible, would his premise still hold? We could and should ask the same question concerning (the or an) VEN.
 
that to cheat your way into a job bigger than your mind can handle is to become a fear-corroded ape on borrowed motions and borrowed time, and to settle down into a job that requires less than your mind’s full capacity is to cut your motor and sentence yourself to another kind of motion: decay-

This is a tightly woven sack of ideas. We may all have occasion to witness an example of someone cheating their way into a big job, but after all doesn't the system as it presently exists reward this behaviour, at least for some special people? That's the reality in fact in many cases; there are woefully incompetent people attempting to run things, who do not want to give up their power, as it would be admitting their incompetence and yes, certainly in a large number of cases they are afraid, afraid of being found out. Can reality show incompetence? This might be a worthwhile question. The present estimation is a maybe, but don't count on it. The reverse situation, a PhD (regardless of any genuine talent that degree might represent) who has to settle for a job flipping burgers, is also a reality in the system as it presently exists. Another word that has significance is decay the root of the word “decadence,” which characterizes much of society today, especially in the developed world. Don't let that assurance fool you into supposing things are any better in the developing world either. They're usually worse.
 
that your work is the process of achieving your values, and to lose your ambition for values is to lose your ambition to live-
 
This becomes a basic assumption. It will be assailed on the grounds that it is unrealistic or even idealistic. These criticisms may in fact be nothing more than baseless, but perhaps not. We would suggest that work as the process of achieving your values, reflects something different from that which the consumer culture we live with can be countered; work in the usual sense these days is that which enables us to gain money with which to buy things we need, bartering our time and whatever developed skills for money that is accepted as split-barter, rather than an activity which in itself develops our own actions; those that can't help but be good actions; virtues, with which to produce more values. The values can be traded with others for other values of use to yourself and in this process promote one's life. Work CAN be of this kind, but it isn't always.
 
that your body is a machine, but your mind is its driver, and you must drive as far as your mind will take you, with achievement as the goal of your road-

This statement assumes much, which is its usual weakness. We have heard similar things many times, extolled as virtue but lacking any reinforcement from reality, since the culture we live in was built using irrationality as a corner-stone, what could be expected from the resulting institutional edifice? Perhaps ultimately this statement would be true, but it is far from realization except as an ideal. Do you see how even Galt / Rand can easily slip into idealism? Postulating something on strictly moral grounds, even as rationally rigorous as this attempt by Galt / Rand might be, defies present reality, which has been as aforementioned, based on irrationality and corruption to gain certain agendas by those in power. Therefore, people act in accordance with their drive to survive, pragmatically without principles or foundation in rational thought, in this corrupted reality in which we all must live.

that the man who has no purpose is a machine that coasts downhill at the mercy of any boulder to crash in the first chance ditch, that the man who stifles his mind is a stalled machine slowly going to rust, that the man who lets a leader prescribe his course is a wreck being towed to the scrap heap, and the man who makes another man his goal is a hitchhiker no driver should ever pick up-

Several character types seem indicated here (when you read man also read woman):
 
the man who has no purpose: we assume everyone has a purpose, but that purpose is to be discovered by each man / woman, not anyone else. This becomes a limit to Objectivism as the purpose for one's life must be arrived at individually. It isn't much of a limit though, because the things in reality with which people must communicate, remain just as they are, defined by the basic fundamentals of identity; A = A, etc.

the man who stifles his mind: we notice everywhere and as ongoing businesses, all kinds of excuses to rational thinking; mental stifling. These excuses must be identified as such before one can, as it were, clear aside all the brambles and brush that has grown up to obscure real clear, rational thought.
 

the man who lets a leader prescribe his course: the course of the 20^th century was littered with the corpses of hundreds of millions who either followed such leaders or were their victims. Much of that process is still ongoing today.

the man who makes another man his goal: this is again quite typical and must be consciously recognized and avoided. Sometimes we encounter a situation where a master has many students who aspire to become masters themselves. There is nothing wrong with this per se, in fact it should be seen more often, everywhere. This was among the earliest means of extending useful skills to the next generation. It was the kind of natural relationship that eventually brought about schools. However when the goal becomes a psychological game aimed at winning the master's favour to become his successor ahead of all others (as occurs in corporations and governments of any size anywhere), the process gets corrupted. Notice how the rules of enforced scarcity support this behaviour.

that your work is the purpose of your life, and you must speed past any killer who assumes the right to stop you, that any value you might find outside your work, any other loyalty or love, can be only travellers you choose to share your journey and must be travellers going on their own power in the same direction.

The word travellers easily has a context akin to “fellow-travellers” in some social-political-economic cause; any of the collectivist genres from Bolshevism to tin-pot dictatorship will do. What Galt is saying is that those who are most likely going to be of any help to us in our life are those who share our values, related to our life's work, whatever that may be. Galt identifies this with loyalty, one of the most misunderstood and corrupted concepts in our modern languages today. Any loyalty implies putting something or someone before something or someone else. It is loaded with possibilities for both good or evil as it matters greatly to you in what or in whom one places one's loyalty. Finally, to put that which was first last, a killer who assumes the right to stop you is instantly thought to be a criminal who may as well just enjoy the sport of killing other human beings (a distinct sociopathic type). But as well as self-defence, these days, whether one is able to resist or not, merely recognizing that the authority of state and extra-governmental “experts” is suspect is enough.

Now onto the touchy subject of pride, or in the least contestable sense, self-respect,

Pride is the recognition of the fact that you are your own highest value and, like all of man’s values, it has to be earned-
 
Two concepts mingle here, you are your own highest value and that anything anyone has to be proud of has to be earned. Observe however that this is not really the case. We know of many instances where our values are valued less by others than we value them ourselves. This frequently becomes the fate of many genuine artists and not a few inventors and scientists too. We are also quite aware of those who have managed to acquire vast wealth without it having been earned in any fundamental way; by creation of value.

I'm sorry, we do not accept the notion that one can play around with numbers on paper securities all day and make money the genuine old fashioned way; by earning it. They did not earn it. They invented something that produces nothing of value as a means of stealing value from others; they didn't earn it at all, they stole it! So we can see that already much of Galt's / Rand's analysis must be based on a lot of faulty assumptions about reality, relatively uncritical of certain obvious aspects of it, chief among them being the nature of money, and hence these statements strike us as relatively idealistic.
 
that of any achievements open to you, the one that makes all others possible is the creation of your own character-
 
There are of course many schools of thought on character, character analysis, formation, even descriptions of what it is. We're looking at character as “the mental and moral qualities distinctive to an individual” and therefore it is noticeable right away that in order for anyone to attain a distinct character, the process would entail many years' time. Over time we each develop our unique character, therefore the present result of our apparent character is the sum accumulation of our actions, rigorously defined by Galt / Rand by a reason based morality. Good and bad character alike are said to take time to develop. Is this accurate? We may have had occasion to observe certain children that seemed to us bound for a road either toward good character or bad character and had it not been for the purposeful or neglectful actions of others (parents in particular), their eventual courses might have been quite different. Some even ascribe certain cases to an inevitability of certain characters, some will be good and others bad no matter what actions attempt to coerce or define them.
 
A key phrase I hope you noticed was open to you. Just what is meant by achievements that are open to you? Open to you by whom and why? It is worth asking the who and why of almost all situations. The who may be someone who happens to control the business or a sizable share of it. Realistically perhaps your chances of success and happiness are best served elsewhere, no matter what value you may think you have created by years of virtuous action to attain them. This may be reality, and it may be uncorrupted reality; the way it's going to be by mere logic and circumstances, many of which just may be out of your control. Corrupted or not, it may not be either wise or even safe to counter them from your perspective. So regarding these words open to you, take heed, there may be things that you would do, that you have acquired a certain value doing, that reality has closed to you. There is thus in reality no ultimate freedom to do as one pleases, even if that were to be virtuous in the strict sense of the word. 

that your character, your actions, your desires, your emotions are the products of the premises held by your mind-
 
At least this much can be said to be fundamentally true, therefore it matters greatly just how well -and honestly- you assess your own values.
 
that as man must produce the physical values he needs to sustain his life, so he must acquire the values of character that make his life worth sustaining-
 
This isn't hard to understand, but again, for many of the reasons mentioned above (excuses only in that reality presents them as serious obstacles), it may tend to lean in the direction of idealism. Galt / Rand is basically saying that just as value needed for life must be honestly earned (idealism in the present collectivist world order), that the one earning it should have a character that was also developed along the way, so that the being / consciousness has a life worth living. The idealism here is referenced to someone or something capable of serving as a reference for determining just what is and isn't worthwhile as a human life. This is where these ideas get dangerous.
 
that as man is a being of self-made wealth, so he is a being of self-made soul-

Now, I guess we just take a flying leap off the proverbial Objectivist bridge. A self-made man who worships his creator has a self made soul, which means exactly what? And why is this important?

that to live requires a sense of self-value, but man, who has no automatic values, has no automatic sense of self-esteem and must earn it by shaping his soul in the image of his moral ideal, in the image of Man, the rational being he is born able to create, but must create by choice-

Here, we are admittedly floating in mid-air after we took the proverbial jump off the Objectivist bridge. Are we still in Objectivist territory? We know that upon occasion it is customary for thinkers, intellectuals, philosophers to try and define a new set of words to describe things. Things however are things, distinct and describable as Galt / Rand aforementioned, therefore appeals to shaping his soul in the image of his moral ideal, in the image of Man, the rational being he is born able to create is probably a leap off the proverbial bridge and of what purpose?

At this point, I want to make a few things quite clear: There are things (objects, literal and mental, real and imaginary) that mankind, as an informed aggregate, simply does not KNOW about for certain. In absolute measurable, every time I try it it works just the same, rote scientific methodology.  This means these areas are probably worth investigation to see if there is anything there that can be determined to exist and hence if it does, it is, and can be drawn into the rational framework. The things I'm talking about mostly reference human consciousness; in dreams, at and beyond death, at and before birth, as well as a whole host of “paranormal” occurrences that all must be rigorously tested to prove they exist and so on. These are the unknowns, and maybe they are the unknowables as well, but we just do not KNOW one way or the other.
 
It is also far better to try to prove something is than to disprove its existence, even if that existence is itself a question. The debunker might have been led to his convictions through prejudices or preconceived notions that were not rigorously tested against reality, not just present but past, as long past as possible in fact, for most things.
 
We have linkages, very old ones, called in fact religions, that attempt by various means to inform us as to the metaphysical realities, supposedly what lies under or beyond the usual five senses. Of course much of this tradition and the ideas surrounding it will base its understandings on arguments from authority that are even shakier than state or scientific authority. The rationalist throws all this stuff out as meaningless or hampering the person in quest of virtue and value with which to make something of himself / herself and thus supposedly enjoy life. But the few who manage to become accomplished in the Objectivist way, are they always in fact happy? How could any but themselves really know? There are no guarantees.

Perhaps religion should bill itself as “the fantasy isle” of all the knowledge (questionable by Objectivist standards) that has not yet been proven through the methods of materialist philosophy. This would imply that there really was no difference between natural and supernatural and that all that falls into the latter category is merely the unknown component of that which is already known in the natural. Again, I remind you that as close a tie as you imagine you have with a pet, a cat or a dog, that those pets have a different experience of you that in no way can you understand in the same sense they do. This is a logical boundary that may or may not be bridged. Likewise you'll never know what the lettuce plant felt that was uprooted a few days before you had it as your salad. There are matters that can and can't be known at the present moment. The irrationalist would stand up and cheer, “hurrah! The idea of a rational world is ended, we can go back to building our grand schemes and power edifices, heedless of all the natural warnings about concentration of wealth, inefficiencies to size and scale, and of basic responsibilities over enterprises as well.”

that the first precondition of self-esteem is that radiant selfishness of soul which desires the best in all things, in values of matter and spirit, a soul that seeks above all else to achieve its own moral perfection, valuing nothing higher than itself-

Here's where character meets reality: radiant selfishness is that level of personal self-esteem that can be seen, noticed, that shines on oneself and others. I am not a little aware that Ayn Rand sought deliberately to shock her readers by the uses she put to various words, chief among them might be selfishness. If we use our definition for selfishness; that which one does deliberately at the expense of others for our own gratification, then most people would turn away in disgust. But many of these same people routinely follow and kow-tow to those who manifest these character traits. Great criminals and con men are routinely lionized, as if again it would be thought an acceptable wish to be able to enjoy the life of one of these. The concept is only saved and rectified when brought back under the confines of that which can be rationalized; one does the best one can do for oneself, not taking advantage of situations or of others, but based and determined by a character that was built up of actions, most of which were virtuous.

Note also that the reference point, the person whose views must be observed for judgement, is oneself. I have another harsh criticism of this that relates to some ideas treated by Sigmund Freud and others, but I wont get into them here. Suffice it to say that these statements strike me as idealistic, and to that extent, they may be dangerous if taken too literally.

and that the proof of an achieved self-esteem is your soul’s shudder of contempt and rebellion against the role of a sacrificial animal, against the vile impertinence of any creed that proposes to immolate the irreplaceable value which is your consciousness and the incomparable glory which is your existence to the blind evasions and the stagnant decay of others.

We have run across this too, the shudder of contempt and rebellion against the role of a sacrificial animal which means that one does not willingly sacrifice oneself. This vile impertinence of any creed that proposes to immolate the irreplaceable value which is your consciousness applies to strict forms of normative behaviour required by a creed, and we might agree, except that the irreplaceable value which is your consciousness is meaningless if it no longer exists; if it has died. Whatever tentative value each has acquired will have no meaning for oneself or others if it no longer exists. Think for a moment of all the great talent and learned minds you have ever known or discovered, perhaps only through their words, who have all long passed. Was or is their value irreplaceable? Those of you who are involved in any of the performing arts might have very interesting reflections on these ideas.

Are you beginning to see who is John Galt? I am the man who has earned the thing you did not fight for, the thing you have renounced, betrayed, corrupted, yet were unable fully to destroy and are now hiding as your guilty secret, spending your life in apologies to every professional cannibal, lest it be discovered that somewhere within you, you still long to say what I am now saying to the hearing of the whole of mankind: I am proud of my own value and of the fact that I wish to live.

The key phrase for us in this is spending your life in apologies to every professional cannibal because it says quite a lot about the world in which we live. It matters not if a thing be or even if it be true, what matters is what someone will FORCE you to accept, believe or worship. Notice what America has been led to worship, so the emotional concept is far from outdated. A professional is someone who makes money doing it and a cannibal is someone who devours his own kind. This is the parasite at the head of the collectivist order. More in the next post.

David Burton 

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