Dagny talks with the clerk and then the mayor in hopes of finding the creator of the motor. When she calls back to the office, Eddie tells her she needs to come back because "they’re trying to kill Colorado". Several interest groups have made demands. Dagny decides she can’t stop the politicians, so she will spend her time tracking down the creator of the motor. Dagny works her way through a series of people and ends up meeting Hugh Akston. He tells her not to waste her money searching any more. The special interest group Directives are issued. According to the Directives, TT does not have to pay off their bondholders. Wyatt retires in protest and leaves the hill of Wyatt Oil as a solid sheet of flame.
SUBPLOT (loose ends)
Jim has a plan for TT "I fully intend to protect the interests of Taggart Transcontinental." However, Dagny realizes "The John Galt Line had been only a drainpipe that had permitted Jim Taggart to make a deal and to drain their wealth, unearned, into his pockets, in exchange for letting others drain his railroad."
Larkin doesn’t supply Hank with ore. Instead, Larkin sends it to Orren Boyle.
Lillian works on Hank’s guilt.
The 20th Century Motor Company history involves: Mayor Bascom as the last "sole" owner, Lawson as the president of Community National Bank when it crashed, Hunsacker as the president and only man to beat Midas Mulligan, Ivy Starnes was the second generation owner, and Hastings who was the second man to leave.
Hastings’ young assistant invented the motor. Hastings’ widow leads Dagny to Hugh Akston.
Hugh works as a short order cook and gives Dagny a cigarette bearing the sign of the dollar.
COMMENTS
Mayor – "You’re either virtuous or you enjoy yourself. Not both, lady, not both." What are the implications of living in a world where virtue and enjoyment are mutually exclusive? The mayor believes the mind and body are split.
Activity – We haven’t discussed profitability yet, but here’s an application. Hank and Dagny know the reason for their actions. They put their effort towards activities yielding the greatest return. "There was no action she could take against the men of undefined thought, of unnamed motives, of unstated purposes, of unspecified morality." To Hank "The same kind of brain can’t do both. Either you’re good at running the mills or you’re good at running to Washington."
Scale - Lillian is taking the opportunity to work Hank over with guilt and is showing she has progressed to a more negative position on the scale. "To love a woman for her virtue is meaningless. But to love her for her vices is a real gift, unearned and undeserved." With the shipment to Boyle, Paul Larkin is now on the negative side of the scale.
PRACTICAL APPLICATION (worth rereading)
Thought Processes - This chapter serves as a transition between Part I and Part II, so I will give some explanation behind the thought processes while saving the specific discussion of principles for Part II. This chapter essentially tracked Dagny's descent to Evasion in the moment (and perhaps towards habituation to Evasion) while we see Hank making progress towards Flow. Clearly, Hank and Dagny are going opposite directions.
The Clerk (Focus) has answers for everything.
The Mayor (Drift) hates people who speak of principles. Hank meets him at Drift and then one external event causes Hank to have an Evasion anger moment. Remember, until a person is in Flow, they are going to have Focus to Drift to Evasion moments. The Mayor proceeds to drag Hank down and Dagny has to go to Focus in the moment to help Hank up!
Directives: The list of demands were a distraction intended to intimidate people.
Intimidate: to frighten someone or to make someone be in awe of you, especially if you do so in order to get what you want.
Intimidation is a brain hack. The person is at Focus and in control of themselves, so you can't get them to do anything. First you distract them by overwhelming them or putting them in awe so they go to Drift. Then you frighten them and this external event causes them to go to Evasion where you can get what you want.
The list of demands is an attempt to control Dagny and keep her at Drift. When she argues with James (who is at Evasion), she loses because she doesn't go to Focus. James doesn't answer questions and he changes the subject.
Hank (Focus) has an argument with Larkin (Drift) and ends up intentionally kicking him out of his office, instead of losing energy like Dagny did with James. Larkin rationalizes and tries to drag Hank down to Drift. Hank correctly protects his thought process by ignoring Larkin's (Drift) rationalizing techniques, ultimately, by kicking him out of his office.
"The same kind of brain can’t do both. Either you’re good at running the mills or you’re good at running to Washington." Either you're good at Focus or you are good at Drift, but you can't be good at both. Hank goes from Focus to Drift to Evasion when he thinks about the guilt. You can't stay at Focus indefinitely. Either you make progress towards Ease or end up at Drift, and then Evasion. We will come back to this section during Part II to cover his internal thought process.
Lillian (Evasion) and Hank (Focus) have the opposite result that James (Evasion) and Cherryl (Focus) did during their first meeting in the previous chapter. We will deal with the correct definitions for the principles spoken about in this part during Part II. Lillian is intentionally trying to take Hank down and Hank is too good at defending Focus to let it happen. He does so by asking Lillian three important questions that she evades. Will you answer these questions or evade them like Lillian?
-What would make you happy?
-What do you want?
-What purpose do you live for?
Eugene Lawson (Evasion) and Dagny (Drift) get nowhere. Dagny leaves trying her best not to go to Evasion.
Lee Hunsacker (Evasion) alternatively takes Dagny down to Evasion from Drift and then opens her nucleus basalis to Focus when he mentions Midas Mulligan and Judge Narragansett. Lee believes the tangible is the cause of the intangible, which was the opposite of the theme from the previous chapter.
Eric, Gerald, and Ivy Starnes have all habituated to Evasion. At the end of the interaction with Ivy, it sounds like Dagny may have been at Evasion badgering and scaring Ivy. (There is no record of the words Dagny used.)
Mrs. William Hastings (Focus) brings Dagny up to Focus.
Hugh Akston's (Ease) talk with Dagny (Focus) resembled her meeting with Owen Kellogg from chapter one and she goes to Drift essentially blurting out her answer to Hank's three questions: "discovering and rewarding ability."
Dagny ends the chapter at Evasion ("she needed rest") when all of the limitations caused Wyatt to retire. (Wyatt actually predicted the events of this chapter in chapter four.)
Conclusion of Part I - Here are some final thoughts for Part I:
"There is only one helpful suggestion that I can give you: By the essence and nature of existence, contradictions cannot exist. If you find it inconceivable that an invention of genius should be abandoned among ruins, and that a philosopher should wish to work as a cook in a diner - check your premises. You will find that one of them is wrong." (Hugh Akston to Dagny)
"They could not be causeless, yet no known cause could explain them." (Dagny's thoughts)
The plot for Part I focused on an achievement: the building of the John Galt Line (made of Rearden Metal to support the booming state of Colorado) in response to the problem with the Rio Norte Line. While Hank and Dagny rose to the challenge (losing men of ability and being opposed by men without ability), nevertheless, this achievement was quickly destroyed by a series of directives. The lasting symbol of Part I is Wyatt's Torch and one of the definitions of "torch" involves illumination that serves to enlighten and guide.
Part I is titled "Non-contradiction" and it is completely focused on how the effects can't contradict the causes. Ayn did a BRILLIANT job of showing EVERY POSSIBLE thought process interaction! I LOVE to read Part I to practice diagnosing thought processes FROM THE OUTSIDE and predict the effects.
Part II is titled, "Either/Or". I believe this is because every cause either makes our brain healthier or it makes it unhealthier. There is no middle ground. My favorite Part of Atlas Shrugged is Part II because it is completely focused on the internal workings of the four thought processes. To that end, we will spend the next ten chapters looking at the internal thought processes in great detail!
My favorite chapters in Atlas Shrugged are the first two in Part III covering "Flow-ville". I will tell you, the key to truly appreciating those chapters is to become a master at the next ten chapters because Flow is like swimming for the brain: it is the ultimate thought process. By the time we finish Part II, you ought to be on your way to intentionally Flowing!
Flow illuminates the way to happiness! If a person can teach you how to intentionally Flow, they can teach you how to intentionally be happy!
SUPPLEMENT
"I don’t know why something keeps going wrong unexpectedly all the time. I can’t be blamed for the unexpected." Larkin doesn’t realize things ALWAYS go wrong in a business. Life is also that way. We all have problems; that’s what makes us the same. How we handle our problems is what makes us different. The key is how a person responds to each situation, that is, what action they take. Because the action they take IS in their power. Look how Dagny and Hank have spent the entire book handling problems. It appears problems pull people towards the negative side of the scale. If a person hasn’t made a conscious effort to move to the positive side, they will keep losing ground and end up on the negative side.
Around 2000, FORTUNE magazine had a cover story on why so many prominent CEO’s had been fired in the previous two years. They showed pictures of over twenty CEO’s and wrote, "These people are intelligent. Why didn’t they succeed?" The answer? They saw the CEO position as a reward for all their years of handling problems. They motivated themselves during their career by thinking, "I’ll work hard to solve these problems so that one day I can be in charge and other people will have to worry about them." (I call this the "frat" mentality. "I’ll let seniors abuse me because one day I’ll be a senior and I’ll get to abuse others.") Once they became CEO, they didn’t want to know about the problems. They wanted to be on TV, interviewed in print, and attend high-powered social functions. The article even gave five signs a CEO is in trouble. One of them was "blaming business conditions on the weather". The article concluded by saying the CEO needs to be the person MOST in touch with the problems. If a person doesn’t crave the problems, they shouldn’t be in charge and responsible. What was their purpose? What did they want? What would make them happy?
Table of Contents
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