This is my sixth response to the “Objecting to Objectivism” show, hosted by Matt Dillahunty and Russell Glasser from the Atheist Experience show in Austin, Texas. If you would like to read my previous responses about inaccuracies in their presentation of Objectivism or why I’m even writing this, links will be included at the bottom of this post. For now, though, I will continue as promised and point out a couple of the most ridiculous statements made by the two on the show. Not only are they completely false and show that the two don’t understand much about Objectivism, but they might even be enough evidence by themselves to prove that the two haven’t even opened the Ayn Rand books they were criticizing.

What did they state?  Two whoppers:

1.) Ayn Rand never read Immanuel Kant.
2.) Ayn Rand often disparaged philosophy in her writing, including writing a book against it titled “Philosophy: Who Needs It.”

Anyone familiar with Ayn Rand’s non-fiction now understands why, in my last post, I said I saved the most “groan-worthy” statements for last. Arguing against these two statements is the equivalent of arguing the sky is blue. All of the evidence points in the exact opposite direction, and all one has to do to find that evidence is open their eyes and look. Still, not everybody has read Ayn Rand and might be willing to take Dillahunty and Glasser’s word for it, so for them I’ll lay out the facts.

Judge this book by its cover

A little after minute 84, Matt Dillahunty said the following (emphasis mine):

She tried to disguise philosophy as art while deriding philosophy. She wrote a book or something about “Philosophy, Who Needs It” and she consistently railed against the ideas of various philosophers including some reportedly, like Kant, she had never even read.

If there is one thing one can gather from the Ayn Rand’s Philosophy: Who Needs It, it’s the fact that Ayn Rand understood the incredible important role that philosophy plays in every individual’s life. Here’s a small snippet from the first chapter:

Philosophy studies the fundamental nature of existence, of man, and of man’s relationship to existence. As against the special sciences, which deal only with particular aspects, philosophy deals with those aspects of the universe which pertain to everything that exists. In the realm of cognition, the special sciences are the trees, but philosophy is the soil which makes the forest possible.

and:

A philosophic system is an integrated view of existence. As a human being, you have no choice about the fact that you need a philosophy. Your only choice is whether you define your philosophy by a conscious, rational, disciplined process of thought and scrupulously logical deliberation—or let your subconscious accumulate a junk heap of unwarranted conclusions, false generalizations, undefined contradictions, undigested slogans, unidentified wishes, doubts and fears, thrown together by chance, but integrated by your subconscious into a kind of mongrel philosophy and fused into a single, solid weight: self-doubt, like a ball and chain in the place where your mind’s wings should have grown.

Ayn Rand believed that philosophy was a life-or-death matter that should be given serious consideration and thought. Just look at what she compared philosophy to: Soil which makes the special sciences possible, and wings to let your mind fly high (or stay grounded like her ball-and-chain example). And these are just two paragraphs written by Ayn Rand. She commented on the importance of philosophy repeatedly in her writing, in this book and others. And, oh yeah, she was a philosopher.  Have either Glasser or Dillahunty read anything she wrote?

“You can’t judge a book by its cover” is a popular saying, and it would appear that it could be applied here. Anybody who only reads the cover of “Philosophy: Who Needs It” might think that Ayn Rand was, as Dillahunty stated, deriding philosophy. Perhaps the two hosts just read the cover? No, I don’t think they even read that. You see, most book covers have two sides, a front and back. If they had bothered to just read the back of the book (while being very careful not to crack the book open) they would have probably seen this:

For anyone who can’t see the image in their browser, it’s a scan of the back of my copy of “Philosophy: Who Needs It,” which states the following:

Who needs philosophy? Ayn Rand’s answer: Everyone.

Despite the title’s clever twist, this is still a book you can judge by its cover.

Did Ayn Rand read Kant?

I’ll need to use the same Dillahunty quote, but with a different emphasis:

She tried to disguise philosophy as art while deriding philosophy. She wrote a book or something about “Philosophy, Who Needs It” and she consistently railed against the ideas of various philosophers including some reportedly, like Kant, she had never even read.

Ayn Rand did not like Immanuel Kant, and she let people know. Often. She is probably his biggest, most thorough critic. Why? Her first quote in the “Immanuel Kant” section of the Ayn Rand Lexicon says it all:

On every fundamental issue, Kant’s philosophy is the exact opposite of Objectivism.

But did she ever read Kant’s writings? If she hadn’t, it would seem very strange that she would be so vocal about someone of which she had no first-hand knowledge, and it would cast serious doubt about many of the assertions she made about him. How could she even know that Kant was the exact opposite of Objectivism?

And for that matter, who wrote the parts of her books in which she quoted from Kant?

What’s the truth? This question immediately made me think of the following quote from Francisco d’Anconia in Atlas Shrugged:

I’ll give you a hint. Contradictions do not exist. Whenever you think that you are facing a contradiction, check your premises. You will find that one of them is wrong.

Ayn Rand either read Immanuel Kant’s writings, or she didn’t. I don’t have a hidden-video of Ayn Rand reading Immanuel Kant nor a notorized statement from her stating that she has read any of his books. If you think that Ayn Rand made up everything she wrote or said about Immanuel Kant, or got it second-handed, or if you think that the parts of her books in which she references Immanuel Kant weren’t really written by her, I don’t know what to say to convince you otherwise.

I want to add one thing, though. In “The Letters of Ayn Rand,” a book which includes many letters that Ayn Rand wrote to a number of people, there is some correspondence between Ayn Rand and John Hospers. In the first of those letters printed in the book, she answers what she feels is a challenge to her knowledge of Kant’s philosophy. She responded:

When I characterize or summarize any theory, I expect to be able to demonstrate the validity of my estimate to anyone in the field who cares to challenge it. Or, in colloquial terms: when I talk, I know what I’m talking about. Have I given you grounds to accuse me of ignorance or of rash judgments? If so, please name these grounds. The fact that I reach conclusions opposite to the generally accepted trend, is not one of them.

She can’t defend herself today, but she was definitely prepared to do so then.

“Reportedly”

Yes, I know that Matt Dillahunty used the word “reportedly” when saying that Ayn Rand had never read Kant. And technically, what he said is true. I looked at the Wikipedia page for Ayn Rand and found the following:

According to Fred Seddon, author of Ayn Rand, Objectivists, and the History of Philosophy (2003), Nathaniel Branden stated that Rand never read any of Kant’s works.

Does this fact absolve Dillahunty for making, or at least repeating, what is obviously a false statement? No. Anyone concerned with the truth needs more than one person to attribute and back something up, especially when that one person says flies in the face of the facts that he or she has already seen. If Dillahunty was familiar with Ayn Rand’s writings at all, he would know — as a solid, indesputable fact — that Ayn Rand quoted Immanuel Kant. He would combine that fact with the fact that one must have read Kant in order to quote Kant, and he would know that Ayn Rand had, indeed, read Immanuel Kant. That would be the truth, and nobody could tell him otherwise.

Or, he may not be familiar with Ayn Rand’s writings, in which case someone could tell him that Ayn Rand never read Immanuel Kant and he’d believe it.

In closing

I said this would be my last post on this issue, but while listening to the video again this evening I came across two small things I missed the first time I listened, and they are too big not to include in this series. They’re not even about Ayn Rand so much as they are about basis upon on which the hosts are criticizing Objectivism. Just a few choice quotes (and in-context, too) that anybody who has read this far might want to hear. I’ll repeat those and offering some closing comments next.

Part 1: Objecting to Objectivism – The King’s Rational Self-Interest?
Part 2: Objecting to Objectivism – Cooperation
Part 3: Objecting to Objectivism – Objective Reality
Part 4: Objecting to Objectivism – The Train Scene
Part 5: Objecting to Objectivism – Teaching, Altruism, and the Profit Motive
Part 6: Objecting to Objectivism – Did Ayn Rand Read Kant?
Part 7: Objecting to Objectivism: Matt Doesn’t Like the Book He Didn’t Read

This is my fifth response to the “Objecting to Objectivism” podcast/video by Matt Dillahunty and Russell talks about Ayn Rand’s objectivism and some of its problems. The Atheist Experience is a weekly cable access television show in A…all » Russell Glasser from the Atheist Experience, a cable-access television show in Austin, Texas. In case you haven’t read the previous posts, I started this series about a month to offer some corrections to some of the inaccuracies in their presentation of Objectivism. This time, the subject that I’ll be addressing is Teaching and the Profit Motive.

During the show, Dillahunty suggests that choosing teaching as a profession runs contrary to the ideas exposed by Ayn Rand. According to Dillahunty, since teaching pays less than other professions, Objectivists who value the “profit motive” must choose the non-teaching professions. He also states that if teachers can derive happiness from teaching others, then it’s valid for others to be altruistic so long as helping others brings them happiness, too. And on top of this, he thinks that Ayn Rand’s decision to use her knowledge to spread her philosophy instead of using it to make more money contradicts her own philosophy.

Before I start, I should make sure it’s known: There are Objectivist teachers. And from what I hear, they are darn good teachers.

Objectivists in education

Around 48:30 in the show, Dillahunty started…

Dillahunty: Here’s where I start to see internal conflicts with this idea that comes out, perhaps not explicitly in opposition to altruism, but certainly implicitly in opposition to it, and yet advocates self-interest and seeking personal happiness. If, in fact, you were to look at more of a “what’s best for me?” world-view then I don’t think we’d have people teaching.

Glasser: Right.

Dillahunty: Because you’ve gained some knowledge, and why would you then accept sub-standard pay and conditions to teach when you could use that knowledge in order to earn?

The fastest answer I can offer is to say that money isn’t everything, even to an Objectivist. People have their own interests and goals, and satisfying those goals (i.e. living your life) will have different results for different people. Some people may choose professions that they love and that also earns them a large amount of money, and sometimes they’ll choose professions they love and earn little money. Even Howard Roark himself sometimes struggled to earn money. According to Objectivism, it is completely rational for someone who has a legitimate interest in teaching to pursue that profession, even if he or she could make more money doing something he hates.

Leonard Peikoff addressed this in Chapter 8, titled “Virtue,” in Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand, emphasis mine:

Wealth, to give another example, is a moral value. But this does not imply any categorical imperatives, such as: “Amass as much money as possible,” or “The richer you become, the more virtuous you are.” A given individual may choose, for good reason, to pursue a line of work that brings in little money. This is an optional matter, as long as the individual does have a good reason. The reason might be the fact that, given his interests, it offers him the fullest scope for the creative use of his mind. He may not, however, properly forgo a lucrative career because he is lazy, or fears to provoke the jealousy of his friends, or wants to show off his nonaffluence to Francis of Assisi or John Kenneth of Cambridge.

For some people, teaching is the type of work that matches their interests. And those interests might not be an altruistic desire to help random children, either. I’m not one of those people, though, so I did a little research. I’ve read a few great articles on education written by an Objectivist, Lisa Van Damme, so I ran a quick search for some writing of hers that might explain it better than I. It didn’t take long. From an interview in EducationNews in April of 2008, she was asked what interests her about education and teaching. Here’s a small exerpt from her answer:

Though in a sense I stumbled upon my career, with that out-of-the-blue call from California, it is the perfect integration of my love of children and my passion for philosophy. I have the opportunity to contemplate, research, write about, and then apply my most deeply held philosophic convictions to the proper education of children, and then the joy of observing the results in year after year of students.

I don’t know what research Dillahunty and Glasser did before their show on Objectivism, but they obviously missed a lot. Try reading what Dillahunty asserted about Objectivism again. Is it true? Were those criticisms specifically addressed in the same book that was referenced in the same show? Could an Objectivist, even one without an interest in teaching, have been able able to offer a rational, non-altruistic reason why one might want to be a teacher?

Profit motive

Dillahunty continued (emphasis mine, as always):

Dillahunty: And especially if you have specialized knowledge. This philosophy seems to promote the idea of specialized knowledge to help each individual rather than community knowledge that would help the society as a whole and thereby help each individual.

Glasser: In fact, from what I’ve gathered from reading a lot of Ayn Rand’s books, a big characteristic of evil people in the Ayn Rand universe is that they do something without a profit motive.

Dillahunty: Well, the type of contradiction that I was actually getting to was that Ayn… is doing that. Yes, ok, she wrote a book and she made money for it. But there’s no guarantee that she’s going to get profits from it. She is teaching people her particular philosophy. And if it is somehow ok for her to do that, or for someone to teach and make some profit rather than use that knowledge and make more profit…

I don’t understand, at all, what Dillahunty means when he says that Objectivism promotes the idea of specialized knowledge to help the individual. Objectivism holds that productive work, which usually includes educating oneself, as a very good thing, but I don’t see why the knowledge one gains is considered “specialized” and an alternative to “community knowledge” (whatever that is…). This is a good example of an assertion about Objectivism from Dillahunty or Glasser that deserved some sources and further explanation.

The profit motive is something that Ayn Rand specifically talked about, though, and Glasser is correct that some of the bad guys in Ayn Rand’s books denounced the profit motive. However, I think he’s incorrectly latching on to a monetary profit, as if earning money for its own sake should be a motive. Which, of course, disregards the fact that Objectivism is a philosophy for living on earth, not hoarding money, and that living and satisfying one’s goals requires consuming value that one has produced. Leonard Peikoff addressed the profit motive in Chapter 11 of OPAR when he stated (emphasis mine):

The “profit motive,” speaking broadly, means a man’s incentive to work in order to gain something for himself—in economic terms, to make money. By Objectivist standards, such a motive, being thoroughly just, is profoundly moral.

Like Leonard Peikoff stated, in economic terms it means to make money, but we’re not talking in just economic terms when we’re talking about what one should do with one’s life. At that level, the “something for himself” that Leonard Peikoff is talking about could be anything a rational individual values (a big family, a happy marriage, a successful law career, a fancy sports car, etc.), and profit motive is that individual’s incentive to work towards obtaining it.

Doesn’t it sound strange initially to think how the concept “profit motive” can be applied to things like marriage and family? Well, if those are things that *you* value, if you understand that it’s a good thing to work for your own values, and if you acknowledge *you* must work to obtain and maintain them, it doesn’t sound quite as sinister. It’s good to work for the things you want!

Altruism as a source of happiness

I need to use the above quote from Dillahunty again, but with a different emphasis this time:

Dillahunty: Well, the type of contradiction that I was actually getting to was that Ayn… is doing that. Yes, ok, she wrote a book and she made money for it. But there’s no guarantee that she’s going to get profits from it. She is teaching people her particular philosophy. And if it is somehow ok for her to do that, or for someone to teach and make some profit rather than use that knowledge and make more profit… if they derive happiness from teaching, if they derive happiness from sharing this information, then one can also derive happiness from truly altruistic acts, and therefore if I am working towards my own self-interest that includes my happiness, then altruism can’t be written off as a bad thing.

At this point, it might help to define some terms. Not in order to steer the conversation in a particular manner, but just to define how Ayn Rand used some of the words Glasser and Dillahunty are also using. The Objectivist definition of a few words, like “happiness” and “altruism” might offer a more accurate picture of what Objectivism stands for. And that’s what the two were trying to do, right?

First, altruism. From Howard Roark’s courtroom speech, Ayn Rand wrote:

Altruism is the doctrine which demands that man live for others and place others above self.

In Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, Ayn Rand added:

Many people believe that altruism means kindness, benevolence, or respect for the rights of others. But it means the exact opposite: it teaches self-sacrifice, as well as the sacrifice of others, to any unspecified “public need”; it regards man as a sacrificial animal.

As for happiness, Leonard Peikoff gave Ayn Rand’s definition in a chapter in OPAR titled “Happiness:”

“Happiness,” in Ayn Rand’s definition, “is that state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of one’s values.”

He added (emphasis mine):

When happiness is said to proceed “from the achievement of one’s values,” this does not mean that it follows from the gaining of any ends, rational or otherwise. If a man holds and achieves rational values, he will be happy as a result, and his happiness will reflect the fact that his course of action is pro-life. If he holds irrational values, however, he may attain a particular, out-of-context goal(s); but he cannot “achieve his values,” because irrational values, involving as they do inbuilt contradictions and chronic clashes with reality, cannot be achieved.

If you take these two definitions and add in the fact that Objectivism holds that man’s life is the standard of value when it comes to determining right and wrong (which I addressed in my first OTO response), the answer to the question why Objectivism “writes off” altruism as a valid goal to work towards should be pretty clear. If your own life should be your main concern, it’s obvious that altruism is a bad thing because it states the exact opposite: Everybody except you should be your main concern. And if sacrificing yourself — i.e., giving up your life for the sake of others — makes you happy that’s a bad thing, too, because sacrificing yourself is the exact opposite of living your life.

The end

Like my previous posts about this show, I’ve spent most of my time just addressing the inaccuracies in Glasser and Dillahunty’s presentation of Objectivism. I haven’t validated any of the Objectivist positions, and I’m sure that the average person (let alone Glasser and Dillahunty) would still have objections to the Objectivist position. Still, I hope that after reading this that average person would at least have a better understanding of what Objectivism stands for, which frankly would be more than anybody who watched the “Objecting to Objectivism” show.

It would take many more posts to try to correct the entire show (it was almost a 90 minute show), and I’m not going to take this that far. I have one more post in my queue, and I’ve saved the most groan-worthy false statement made about Ayn Rand and Objectivism for last. Next up: Judging a book by its cover!

Part 1: Objecting to Objectivism – The King’s Rational Self-Interest?
Part 2: Objecting to Objectivism – Cooperation
Part 3: Objecting to Objectivism – Objective Reality
Part 4: Objecting to Objectivism – The Train Scene
Part 5: Objecting to Objectivism – Teaching, Altruism, and the Profit Motive
Part 6: Objecting to Objectivism – Did Ayn Rand Read Kant?
Part 7: Objecting to Objectivism: Matt Doesn’t Like the Book He Didn’t Read

Sometimes the best presents are the small ones. The present I think I’m going to use the most through the next year is a folding laptop tray that my wife picked up at Bed Bath and Beyond as a spur-of-the-moment gift. It elevates my laptop about 60 degrees from ground-level, which raises the computer screen almost to eye level. This simple elevation fixes the problem I’ve always had with laptops in that I would always have to type “into” them. Put a laptop in your lap and you’ll see what I mean. Since the computer folds, the screen is always at arm’s length and the keyboard is flat. But with this tray, the laptop is balanced in front of me. This tray has now made the couch the most comfortable place for me to work on the computer.

I played in Kansas City’s Merry Tuba Christmas concert yesterday. After the rehearsal I was asked a few questions by a KC Star reporter on camera, and they used my answers in a video story about the event. I’m not used to being on camera or in the paper (outside of the letters-to-the-editor section), but I think it went pretty well.

You can view the video by clicking the image below:

SPOILER ALERT!

I’m sure most people have seen the bitter, perpetually-bullied nerd character on television or in movies. You know, the guy whose only recourse against the abuse he gets is to curse his tormentor under his breath as they leave. The bully turns back and says, “Did you say something?” and the bully meekly replies, “No.” The nerd then goes home and dreams of the magical day when the tables turn and he can get his revenge against all those that have done him wrong.

This is the main character of the movie, “The Day the Earth Stood Still.” It wasn’t Keanu Reeves, Jennifer Connolly, any other human actor, or even any of the computer-generated alien characters, though. It was a bitter environmentalist screenwriter who, driven mad by the fact that fact that humans are destroying the planet and won’t stop or even listen, has no other recourse but to create a fantastic story where incredibly powerful aliens come to Earth and forces us to do what he wants. You might have to look hard, but this character can be found in every scene. In the scene where the alien incredulously asks “Your planet?” when a questioner asks him why he visited Earth, you can practically see the screenwriter mouthing the words. In the scene where the alien states that he cannot allow one species (humans) to destroy the valuable planet, you can almost see the screenwriter wagging his finger at mankind.

I don’t know who wrote this movie or how close it follows the book; I’m just saying that’s all I could see while watching the movie. I don’t know how else to explain the movie. If you strip out the movie stars and the special effects, the plot to this movie is very simple: Aliens travel to Earth to save it from being destroyed by wiping the planet clean of all humans. At the last moment, the aliens see that humans have some potential for “good” and decide to spare us. But on their way out, though, the aliens destroy all human technology — even down to wrist-watches. Who could up with such a plot?

There is one funny aspect of this movie, however: Product placement. For a movie with such an anti-man, anti-capitalist message, it certainly had a lot of products out for display. At one point when Jennifer Connolly reaches to her cell phone, there’s a closeup that lasts just long enough for everybody to clearly make out the “LG” logo. When the military leaders meet a table with a surface screen, I could swear that I saw a Windows logo. And maybe this stuck out to me because I’m a big Honda fan, but a couple scenes where Jennifer Connolly drives Keanu Reeves around in a Honda Accord look like they came out of a Honda tv ad. Who knows, maybe seeing the Honda Accord’s great gas mileage showed the aliens that humans are really concerned about saving the environment?

Anyway, I recommend not wasting your time on this movie. This movie is nothing but a two-hour attempt to guilt its viewers into how horrible they are for living at the expense of the planet. And that “good” that the aliens saw in humans? It’s our potential to acknowledge just how depraved we are. Stay away.

WARNING: ATLAS SHRUGGED PLOT SPOILERS!

I read The Fountainhead when I was 16, and it was an enormous waste of my time. I say that not because the book wasn’t great (because it is), but because I didn’t take ideas seriously at that age. To put it in another way, *I* was a waste of my time. I could tell you wBuyho all the characters were and how the plot progressed, but when it came to analysis or thinking about what the author was saying the book might as well have been written in Greek. I just didn’t get it, and I didn’t try. Fortunately, I started to see the real value of ideas in college, and once I did it was like I burned down everything I thought I had read, watched, or heard. I could see ideas oozing out of everything. Needless to say, my second reading of the Fountainhead was much different than the first.

I’m starting with this because, in a way, I relate to the way Russell Glasser explained the meaning of the train wreck scene in Atlas Shrugged. When I hear him describe the event and his assertion of what Ayn Rand meant by it, I can almost hear myself at 16 explaining the difference between Howard Roark and Peter Keating to my sister. I don’t mean that as an insult to his intelligence or even a judgement of how he values ideas. I’ll repeat: I don’t meant that as an insult to his intelligence or even a judgement of how he values ideas. I have never met the man. What I have done, though, is just finish re-reading the scene in Atlas Shrugged, and the meaning seems to jump off the pages, and it’s not what Glasser described.

I want to address the summary and meaning Glasser provided in his “Objecting to Objectivism” show. This will be a departure from my previous three posts in which I’ve tried mostly to correct some of the mis-statements Glasser and Matt Dunahunty provided. And hopefully, this one will be more fun to write, too.

Quick warning: my bachelor’s degree is in computer science, not literature!

What Glasser said:

As usual, this transcript was done by me, and he is quoting Atlas Shrugged:

Basically, there’s a sequence with a train wreck. And what comes about, this happens about halfway through the book, and it’s basically shown to be the natural consequence of all the stupid people who are dragging the geniuses down. And obviously, a train is filled with random people who are just going about their lives. And Ayn Rand sets up a train wreck which is a result of all this bad stuff that people have done, but then she goes out of her way to make sure you know that every single random stranger on the train deserved it.

It is said that catastrophes are a matter of pure chance, and there were those who would have said that the passengers of the Comet were not guilty or responsible for the thing that happened to them.

The thing that happened to them, being, that everybody’s about to die.

The man in Bedroom A, Car No. 1, was a professor of sociology who taught that individual ability is of no consequence, that individual effort is futile, that an individual conscience is a useless luxury, that there is no individual mind or character or achievement, that everything is achieved collectively, and that it’s masses that count, not men.
The man in Roomette 7, Car No. 2, was a journalist who wrote that it is proper and moral to use compulsion “for a good cause,” who believed that he had the right to unleash physical force upon others—to wreck lives, throttle ambitions, strangle desires, violate convictions….

Blah blah blah. So anyway, there’s like three pages of this where she goes through like various parts of the car and just says, “Here’s the guy who was riding there, and boy did he have some bad ideas.”

[...]

Anyway, she goes through all these passengers, and concluded with,

These passengers were awake; there was not a man aboard the train who did not share one or more of their ideas. As the train went into the tunnel, the flame of Wyatt’s Torch was the last thing they saw on earth.

Now the impression I get from this passage, I don’t know about you, is, boy did all these people have it coming. That creeps me out. That she would set up all these strangers and take such obvious glee and delight in how much they deserved to die.

Now some needed context

The chapter that Glasser is referring to is “The Moratorium On Brains,” which is in the middle of the book. The “bad stuff that people have done” to which Glasser refers are laws that prevent people from acting according to their own judgement. It’s so bad, at this point in the story it’s literally illegal to quit your job, fire an incompetent worker, hire a worker of your choice, or even create a new product or invention. And it’s illegal for everybody, not just the “geniuses.” Those who pushed these laws said that it was for the benefit of everybody, but it only caused misery, massive failures, cronyism, etc. And what’s worse is, there was no escape. The one thing that individuals would need to use to correct their situation — their minds — was not permitted. The title of the chapter says it all. The men and women of ability, of responsibility, and of knowledge were being replaced by those who had political pull, an ability to duck responsibility, and who would mindlessly obey — no matter how irrational the order.

By this point in the book, these types of laws have nearly destroyed Taggart Transcontinental, a company that offered train transportation for much of the country. The incompetent, government-established management of the railroad by had let the quality of its rail system disintegrate to the point where its flagship train, the Comet, derails, and there’s no replacement diesel engine available for many hours. And to make matters worse, a powerful politician was on board by the name of Kip Chalmers who wasn’t happy about being late. (emphasis mine)

Slowly, patiently, with contemptuous politeness, the conductor gave him an exact account of the situation. But years ago, in grammar school, in high school, in college, Kip Chalmers had been taught that man does not and need not live by reason.
“Damn your tunnel!” he screamed. “Do you think I’m going to let you hold me up because of some miserable tunnel? Do you want to wreck vital national plans on account of a tunnel? Tell your engineer that I must be in San Francisco by evening and that he’s got to get me there!”
“How?”
“That’s your job, not mine!”
“There is no way to do it.”
“Then find a way, God damn you!”
The conductor did not answer.

To catch you up on the story a bit, the only available engine was a coal-burning engine. Normally it’s suitable for moving a train, but not for making it through the tunnel to which they’re speaking. Coal-burning engines kick out too much smoke, which will suffocate the passengers before the train makes it through the tunnel. But Chalmers wasn’t concerned about facts like these, and it was men like he that had power at that time.

A good, quick summary of this point can be made by just telling the story of the man who drove the Comet to its demise:

The station agent turned to him. “Will you do it, Joe? Will you take the Comet?”
Joe Scott was drunk. There had been a time when a railroad man, reporting for duty with any sign of intoxication, would have been regarded as a doctor arriving for work with sores of smallpox on his face. But Joe Scott was a privileged person. Three months ago, he had been fired for an infraction of safety rules, which had Caused a major wreck; two weeks ago, he had been reinstated in his job by order of the Unification Board. He was a friend of Fred Kinnan; he protected Kinnan’s interests in his union, not against the employers, but against the membership.
“Sure,” said Joe Scott. “I’ll take the Comet. I’ll get her through, if I go fast enough.”

I’m not giving the chapter justice, and you should check it out for yourself to get everything. Actually, if you want to get everything, you should make sure to read everything in Atlas Shrugged leading up to this point. But I hope you at least can see that there’s a lot more to this chapter than some maniacal scheme by Ayn Rand to kill a bunch of people who just have “bad ideas.” Speaking of which…

But why?

The Comet had many passengers when it passed through the tunnel, most of which had nothing to do with the suicide decision to take a coal-burning engine into the tunnel, and they all died. Glasser said that Ayn Rand took “obvious glee and delight” in killing them, but I think he’s really missing the point. I think he’s also doing a lot of inaccurate, unsubstantiated projection of emotion onto an author whom he knows every little of, but I’m going to put that aside.

I don’t think that Ayn Rand meant that each of those individuals deserved to die just because they shared some bad ideas with those who actually committed them to death. But why then would she imply that they were guilty and responsible?

Well, first I’d should say that I don’t think she meant that they were completely guilty and responsible; as if holding the ideas they had means that they deserve to die. The right to one’s life is not dependent on one’s acceptance of Objectivism, and an Objectivist will be the first person to tell you this. What she more likely meant was that they were, to an extent, responsible for creating the situation where men like Chalmers had power — precisely because they played a part in creating it. For example, look above at the story of Joe Scott, the conductor who obviously should have never been allowed on a train at all, and compare that to the story of one of the victims:

The man in Seat 5, Car No. 7, was a worker who believed that he had “a right” to a job, whether his employer wanted him or not.

Or consider the havoc the government caused by taking over the railroad, and then read the story of another victim:

The man in Roomette 2, Car No. 9, was a professor of economics who advocated the abolition of private property, explaining that intelligence plays no part in industrial production, that man’s mind is conditioned by material tools, that anybody can run a factory or a railroad and it’s only a matter of seizing the machinery.

Or the story of this victim:

The woman in Roomette 9, Car No. 12, was a housewife who believed that she had the right to elect politicians, of whom she knew nothing, to control giant industries, of which she had no knowledge.

Or the story of this victim:

The man in Bedroom F, Car No. 13, was a lawyer who had said, “Me? I’ll find a way to get along under any political system.”

One could look at the Comet wreck and blame the conductor. If he had stopped, there would have been no wreck, right? But why was he there? Who was responsible for that? And who was responsible for that person? If you want to get a full accounting of everything that lead to that wreck, you have to start following the chain. It’s not too hard:

The conductor drove the train. But why?
The railroad company was forced to hire him. But why?
The government passed a law that said they couldn’t. But why?
The government was full of politicians who wanted to take control over business and people’s lives. But why?
That’s what they were elected to do. But why?
That’s what people wanted. But why?

In telling the stories of the passengers, Ayn Rand showed us their part in the mess. She showed how their actionas, as minor as they might seem, ultimately played a part in the wreck. It showed that your ideas, what you promote, how you raise your kids, who you vote for, how you live your life, etc. really do matter. And if you want to make things better you have to do more than just vote for the lesser-of-two-evils every four years.

Final thought

The more I think about this part of Atlas Shrugged, the more I see how a lot of what we’re doing in this country can be compared to this train wreck. Just look at things like Social Security, Medicare, the bailouts, deficit spending, or our coming-soon government health care system. These are all things that everybody knows won’t work and can’t work, but nobody’s willing to be the messenger with the bad news. And this is just one part of the book! It’s scary to see just how so many parallels there are between the things that are happening today and Atlas Shrugged.

Part 1: Objecting to Objectivism – The King’s Rational Self-Interest?
Part 2: Objecting to Objectivism – Cooperation
Part 3: Objecting to Objectivism – Objective Reality
Part 4: Objecting to Objectivism – The Train Scene
Part 5: Objecting to Objectivism – Teaching, Altruism, and the Profit Motive
Part 6: Objecting to Objectivism – Did Ayn Rand Read Kant?
Part 7: Objecting to Objectivism: Matt Doesn’t Like the Book He Didn’t Read