Atlas Shrugged
To the best in everyone of us!
There aren’t any words that can come even close to do any justice to the writings and work of Ayn Rnd let alone praise and glorify it. Atlas shrugged is one epic, one masterpiece that needs no glorification. It gives you value, and demands value in return. It teaches that nothing in this world can be unearned, undeserved. Living your life a parasite, asking others to feed yourself that too by forcing the capable, is a great sin. Greatest sin is to lend your services, the ability of one’s mind to the work of a parasite. No doubt second-handers are evil, but it’s monstrous to consciously serve those who do not deserve.
The book written in 1947 is set in an immediate future America as perceived by the author. It’s about the profit making industrialists on whose shoulders rests the future of the country. But these, the people of mind, are not free to produce, are compelled to feed the parasites who are expert at theorizing and want there share of unearned profit. This is what happens when government goes on taxing the bigger companies and subsidizing the weaker companies eventually fuelling the end of both. This book even though written in the 40’s is still relevant in modern days. It’s urgently relevant in the modern-day-India.
I am the one who runs the motor of this world, but I will run it not for your sake but mine. I am the generator who energise the world, but will not do it at a gun-point. I am the trader and I trade value for value. I shall live my life for my sake and will exchange the best in me for the best in you. I am John Galt!
For over centuries the creator has been regarded as immoral and sacrifice has been regarded as the greatest virtue. For over centuries the ’people’ have damned the industrialists without whom their existence is not possible. For over centuries the incompetent have been demanding to be served that too on the basis of morality: altruism is the way of life. Ayn Rnd’s philosophy is that of anti-altruism, is about Objective reality. The only reality is the fact that a man is an end in himself not an end in others. That reason is his only absolute and that one cannot live by faking reality. That the world of incompetent, altruists, second-handers, parasites deserves to perish!
After reading the book I was shaken to the very core of my existence. No wonder that this book has remained in print even after 30 years of it’s publication. It makes you think a zillion times about the way you have been living your life. The parasites would hate this book discarding it as impractical even immoral at times. Such people, according to the book, are working towards their ultimate goal: death. And death is what they shall get, because destruction is what they profess, end is what they seek.
This work of fiction is greater than any book of philosophy. It’s Ayn’s exceptional way of teaching her obejective reality through fiction that makes it the most revolutionary work in literature till date. Ayn says that she practiced what she has taught in her book. Atlas Shrugged is in fact the philosophical continuation of it’s predecessor The Fountainhead. Atlas Shrugged provides an answer to all the queries one might face while reading The Fountainhead, says the author. Very true, I was bewildered when I read Fountainhead. I am a competent human being after I read Atlas Shrugged.
Did I not throw any light on the characters of this book? There is no need to even mention about them. The heroes of her book represent the people who are capable, who are the ’mind’ and the one’s who run the motor of this world. Imagine what will happen if they turn hostile and desert us. What will happen if the people of mind went on strike? What will happen if the motor of the world is stopped? Oh heck, Who is John Galt?
To the best in you and me. Awaiting the rebirth of The Atlantis!