Saturday Night Live ran this in the wake of the GOP victory in the Presidential election of 2016:
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| In The Bubble, the election never happened. View on YouTube here. |
The defining attribute of fans of the Atlas Shrugged movies is that they are people who want to set
themselves apart in a separate, isolated and hidden community of like-minded
people. Many dream of a physical locale. Most enjoy online communities. In those
discussions, the occasional reports of attempts at a “Galt’s Gulch” receive
close attention.
Although the plot element of “Galt’s Gulch” served a poetic
purpose, it was not a call to action. Ayn Rand was specific in stating that art
is not didactic: a romance novel does not teach. When Ayn Rand had something to
teach, she wrote essays and delivered lectures. Rand’s intention as a
philosopher was to create and explain the ideas that can liberate individuals, human
society in general, and the United States of America in particular.
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| New York City from ClassicHistory.com |
Admirers of the works of Ayn
Rand generally have two goals: to improve their own lives by living better; and
to change the world. They intend to achieve the latter by spreading the ideas
of Objectivism until they are accepted by (arbitrarily) “enough” other people.
Their goal is a cultural shift more dramatic than the rise of classical Greece
or the Renaissance. Specifically:
(1) reason, science, and philosophy replace religion
(2) the ethics of egoism become as widely accepted as the tenets of altruism are today
(3) capitalism displaces socialism
(4) government is limited to basic functions of law and order by protecting the rights to property.
(5) the observably dominant works of art (painting, sculpture, architecture, literature, theater) project rational people living in a knowable universe.
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| Cleveland's West Side Market indoor space. (cleveland.com) |
The inherent contradiction in “Objectivist culture” – the
common interactions in-person and online among those who admire the works of
Ayn Rand, perhaps just best called “Rand Fans” – is the dichotomy between
reaching out to teach other people and walling yourself in with a group of
individuals who claim to believe the same things that you do.
In the language of Objectivism, “in Atlas Shrugged, the heroes withdraw their moral sanction from their
destroyers.” In other words, not only do they stop obeying the economic
regulations of the government, they divorce themselves from anyone who would
claim a right to any moment of their lives. They want nothing to do with
looters and moochers. That is the active ideal of a Rand Fan in dealing with
other people.
The problem that they cannot solve is that the capitalist
who owns a gas station is a Muslim. The capitalist who owns a convenience store
is a Hindu. It is a fact that Costco founder James Sinegal is an ardent Democrat. The greatest capitalists of our age – George Soros, Bill Gates,
Warren Buffett, and the entire list of global billionaires—are all condemned as
“crony capitalists” traitors to laissez faire, who cause and amplify the oppressive
laws, taxes, and regulations under which we suffer, but they, by the power of
their privilege do not. Objectivism does have its own real-life capitalists. Three
that stand out are T. J. Rodgers of Cypress Semiconductor, Ed Snider
(1933-2016) of Comcast Spectacore, and John Allison of BB&T. Many others
orbit in the pull of Ayn Rand. Mark Cuban (Dallas Mavericks) and Frederick W.
Smith (FedEx) are among them. But Cuban supported Hillary Clinton for
President.
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| Cleveland's West Side Market outdoor space from Delta Sky Magazine |
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| I and M Bank Market, Nairobi |
What do you do when other people do not live up to your
expectations for philosophical consistency?
For many Objectivists, as distinct from mere “fans of Ayn
Rand,” the unworkable solution is to withdraw from those who disagree with you.
So, it is ironic that the philosophers of the Ayn Rand Institute who do not speak
to the philosophers of the Atlas Society probably buy their gasoline from Muslims and get their cars fixed by
Christians and find great bargains at big box stores owned by Democrats all the
while running Windows software on their computers.
The minor premise of "Gulching" and a theme that is easy to find among fans of Atlas Shrugged, is that in order for there to be a second Renaissance, civilization must collapse. They do not just predict it, they look forward to it with a millenarian fervor.
The minor premise of "Gulching" and a theme that is easy to find among fans of Atlas Shrugged, is that in order for there to be a second Renaissance, civilization must collapse. They do not just predict it, they look forward to it with a millenarian fervor.
The fact is that civilization is, literally, city life. Historically, people
from disparate tribes left (and still leave) their homes to come to the places
where strangers benefit themselves by exchanging value for value, whether or
not they agree on any other fact, claim, or belief. That cultural matrix is powerful. Examples of farming communities destroyed by crop failures are easy to find. Harder to uncover are cities that starved. Total war does bring that. Fortunately, such wars are exceptional. Examples from the Dutch wars of liberation from Spain show that when the city rulers attempted to control the price of food, the city went without and fell. Cities that let the price of food rise incentivized smugglers to run the Spanish lines. A farm feeds itself (theoretically), but a city is fed by the whole world. It does not matter that the Chilean farmer whose grapes are on your table has a religious icon in his home. If you cut yourself off from him - and the global commercial network - you only have the grapes you grow yourself... if you grow grapes, rather than apricots, kiwi fruit, watermelon, coconuts, ...
ALSO ON NECESSARY FACTSMegacities
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