PLOT
Taggart Transcontinental (TT) is a railroad owned and run by a brother-sister team. James is the president. Dagny is the vice president of operation. An ancestor founded the railroad. The conflict centers on the Rio Norte Line. It runs from Cheyenne to El Paso. It has been in need of new rails for over a year and covers the most prosperous state in the nation: Colorado. TT has lost business to the Phoenix-Durango because of accidents and an inability to stay on schedule. Dagny wants to replace the rail with a new metal that's never been used before from their current supplier. Rearden Metal is lighter, cheaper, and stronger than steel. James wants to continue to wait for his friend Orren Boyle of Associated Steel to deliver the order that was due over a year ago. Dagny gets her way.
SUBPLOT (loose ends)
Who is John Galt? - We learn this phrase is slang for "don't ask questions nobody can answer".
San Sebastian - A line that runs from El Paso to the San Sebastian Mines in Mexico. Dagny is convinced Mexico will nationalize the line and TT will lose $40 million. James doesn't want to believe it or think about it.
Halley's Fifth Concerto - Dagny hears a brakeman whistling a melody that sounds like a Halley concerto. The theme of the concerto is: "...that there was no ugliness or pain, and there never had had to be. It was a song of an immense deliverance." Dagny confirms that Halley didn't write a fifth concerto and is still out of the public eye.
Owen Kellogg - Dagny wants to promote Owen. When she gets to New York, she learns Owen wants to see her. He quits for a personal reason. Dagny tries to determine the cause but is unsuccessful. "For the first time in her life, she felt helpless and beaten."
COMMENTS
Dagny and James are opposites. One of the things that will help explain some of the more complicated events occurring later in the book is a scale. Imagine a scale that goes from -10 to +10. James would be at a -5 and Dagny would be at a +5.
_-10 ___-5______ 0______ +5____ +10
--------James------------------Dagny
Indecisive/Comfort -----Decisive/change agent
Avoids responsibility----Takes responsibility
------Emotional--------------Unfeeling
---------Weak -----------------Strong
Eddie Willers is Dagny's assistant and his duty is to "be a bodyguard against any waste of time" for Dagny. Eddie Willers is at 0. Eddie represents the mass of humanity. When he looks at the world, he feels his days are numbered and he is at -2. When he's around Dagny he feels confident and he is at +2. His stated goal is, like humanity's, "whatever is right". When Eddie interacts with James, he ends up frustrated. He can't make any progress because James is too negative and evasive. James is a hypocrite. ("Nothing is absolute") When Eddie interacts with Dagny, he is energized and inspired. The technical explanation is Eddie lacks "resiliency"; he can't keep his own thought process in the face of his surroundings.
Eddie naturally wants to know the reason, but he doesn't have the ability to piece it together.
-With the bum: "...yet the bum had spoken as if he knew that Eddie felt it, as if he thought that one should feel it, and more; as if he knew the reason."
-Calendar: "He thought suddenly that there was some phrase, a kind of quotation, that expressed what the calendar seemed to suggest. But he could not recall it."
-Later: "Eddie started. That was the sentence he had tried to remember: Your days are numbered. But he had forgotten in what connection he had tried to remember it."
Eddie Story #1: The Tree
"It had stood there for hundreds of years, and he thought it would always stand there." and "He felt safe in the oak tree's presence; it was the thing that nothing could change or threaten; it was his greatest symbol of strength." and "The living power had gone, and the shape it left (appearance?) had not been able to stand without it."
Later on Taggart Transcontinental (TT) building: "It seemed to stand above the years, untouched. It would always stand there, thought Eddie Willers."
Eddie Story #2: The Best Within Us
When Eddie is asked by Dagny what he would want to do "he answered at once, 'Whatever is right,' and added, 'You ought to do something great...'"
Reread this section because it gets confusing...
Dagny: "What?"
Eddie: "I don't know. That's what we ought to find out. Not just what you said. Not just business and earning a living. Things like winning battles, or saving people out of fires, or climbing mountains."
Dagny: "What for?"
Eddie: "The minister said last Sunday that we must always reach for the best within us. What do you suppose is the best within us?"
I believe this is still Eddie's response after Dagny doesn't answer: "I don't know"
Eddie (after a long pause): "We'll have to find out."
Dagny...she did not answer; she was looking away, up the railroad track.
Back to "current" time...
"Eddie Willers smiled. He had said, 'Whatever is right,' twenty-two years ago. He had kept that statement unchallenged ever since; the other questions had faded in his mind; he had been too busy to ask them."
Eddie has all the pieces. He is moral. He wants to understand, but he doesn't take the time or have the capacity (focus?) to put the pieces together. Do you?
PRACTICAL APPLICATION (worth rereading)
Dagny's interaction with James is a detailed example of how to handle an emotional person. There are a lot of techniques demonstrated during their exchange. It's a real chess match. I've used this section several times to illustrate to others how to handle an argument. One example, emotional people need the energy of others to keep going. The worst thing a person can do is show emotion or energy to an already emotional person. Her use of silence is very strategic. I used this technique with dissatisfied customers and taught it to others. I LOVED dealing with some very emotional and intimidating customers, because it was a challenge to talk them down. One of the keys was to be patient and not give them any emotional fuel.
Actually, there are three conversations to reread...
EDDIE and JIM
Eddie wants to make the issue clear for once and is convinced the only reason Jim won't understand it is if Eddie doesn't explain it well. Eddie uses facts. All Eddie does is state facts to Jim.
Jim wants to avoid responsibility. Jim uses every technique in the book: comparative thinking, judgmentalism, blame, rule out options, put down "good", try not to understand, play the victim, avoidance, appeal to the law (rules), attack, etc.
I have seen people behave like Eddie and quote facts. I've seen the people they have quoted facts to put on the same amazing show that Jim put on and the result is the same as Eddie's.
"So he had tried hard, but he was failing, just as he had always failed in all of their discussions; no matter what he said, they never seemed to be talking about the same subject." and "This was wasted." and "Eddie Willers did not move. He did not answer. He stood looking straight ahead. But he did not see James Taggart or anything in the office." (James has moved further away on "the scale" referenced in the notes, to the point Eddie can't "see" him.)
DAGNY and JIM
Dagny knows that Jim can avoid her if she just states facts. Dagny wants the railroad fixed and the solution is to get Rearden Metal. Her method is to inform Jim the decision has been made and the only way to stop it is if Jim states his will! If he makes a decision! Jim wants to avoid responsibility. However, he has been put in a position where if he does nothing then the new rail comes in. If he stops it, then the delays are his fault.
Jim uses emotion to silence Dagny. Jim refuses to consider the line getting taken over by the Mexican government.
Dagny "names" Jim's evasive technique by asking: "How long do you intend to talk in order to evade the issue, Jim?"
By the end of the discussion, Dagny achieves her goals and walks past Jim's desperate attempts to rile her when he takes emotional shots at her. Dagny makes Jim state his will only after Jim utters a highly hypocritical statement: "NOTHING is absolute."
DAGNY and OWEN
Owen wants to keep his word to Dagny by informing her face to face that he is leaving. He says it is for a personal reason and answers Dagny's questions.
Dagny is completely contrastive; she asks every question she can think of. She never attacks Owen. She doesn't know the reason because she didn't ask every question.
The result is she was beaten.
Three discussions.
In the first one, Eddie is factual and Jim is intentionally evasive: evasiveness wins every time.
In the second one, Dagny takes a stand and Jim is intentionally evasive: taking a stand and sticking to it wins every time.
In the third one, Owen keeps his word and Dagny asks questions: the winner is whoever asks the right questions.
The first discussion was unprofitable.
The second discussion was profitable.
The profitability of the third discussion is still to be determined, but it was not unprofitable.
SUPPLEMENT
"But he (Eddie Willers) still thought it self-evident that one had to do what was right; he had never learned how people could want to do otherwise; he had only learned that they did." (AS 1:1)
CS Lewis begins "Mere Christianity" (CSL-MC) with this same thought. "First, human beings, all over the earth, have this curious idea that they ought to behave in a certain way, and cannot really get rid of it. Secondly, that they do not in fact behave in that way. They know the Law of Nature; they break it. These two facts are the foundation of all clear thinking about ourselves and the universe we live in."
Table of Contents
Next Chapter: The Chain
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