PLOT
Henry Rearden pours his first heat of Rearden Metal. He makes a bracelet out of the bluish-green metal for his wife. He walks home celebrating the culmination of ten years of research and development. Hank gets home and finds he is late for dinner with his wife, mother, and brother Philip who all live with him. A business associate, Paul Larkin, is also there. Hank is met with sarcasm from his family. Hank presents Lillian with the bracelet and is ridiculed.
SUBPLOT (loose ends)
Hank agrees to be available for his anniversary party on December 10.
Paul Larkin tells Hank it is very important for Hank to "stay on top of your image and your Washington man because the press hates you".
Hank gives his brother $10,000 for Friends of Global Progress, an organization for which Philip is fundraising. Hank once again is met with sarcasm.
COMMENTS
Hank is clearly on Dagny's side of the scale. Hank's family is clearly on the negative side of the scale with James. In fact, this negative side of the scale's view of Hank is described in a similar fashion as in 1:1.
From 1:1 "If she were insane, thought Dagny, she would conclude that her brother hated to deal with Rearden because Rearden did his job with superlative efficiency; but she would not conclude it, because she thought that such a feeling was not within the humanly possible."
From 1:2 "...they (Hank's family) seemed wounded by anything he said, it was not a matter of his words or actions, it was almost...almost as if they were wounded by the mere fact of his being. Don't start imagining the insane - he told himself severely, struggling to face the riddle with the strictest of his ruthless sense of justice."
Scale - Hank is nicer to his family than Dagny is to James and yet, Hank's family treats Hank worse than James treats Dagny. Hank's distance on the scale from his family must be greater than Dagny's distance from James. The people on the positive side only get tired when they deal with negative people. Also, pain is a main theme. Hank and his side of the scale believe pain does not matter. They don't believe in comfort. If you listen to pain, your result is comfort. We saw Hank has a "ruthless sense of justice". Another insight into Hank's thought process comes from the following two passages:
"...words were a lens to focus one's mind...". Hank understands the importance of words.
"He could not condemn them without understanding; and he could not understand." Hank's ruthless sense of justice is what allowed him not to "trigger" during the two moments when he got upset at Philip.
Let's put Hank at +6 and his family at -6 for now.
PRACTICAL APPLICATION (worth rereading)
Hank and his family - This chapter demonstrates how to deal with people who are on the offensive, especially when they use sarcasm. Hank doesn't agitate them intentionally. He looks long term and always assumes his family has a positive motive. Hank allows his strong sense of justice to guide his actions even though he gets angry at Philip on two separate occasions.
The reason the book is so long is Ms. Rand does such a thorough job of identifying every known reason in each scene. (Think back to Dagny's questioning of Owen Kellogg.) James took several evasive actions in the first chapter and we saw how to handle each one. In this chapter, the family has a negative interpretation for Hank’s good actions; we saw how Hank handled each one. One example, instead of nailing Philip when he had the chance to, he recognizes he has won and works towards the long term.
"A fool utters his whole mind, but a wise man keeps it until the end." (Bible)
Try this the next time you have a debate: When you have more than one reason that supports your point, give all your reasons EXCEPT your strongest. If your opponent is excellent (as Hank assumes) then they will know you are stronger because you didn't have to state the obvious. If your opponent is not excellent (emotional), they will pursue the only opening you've given. Now they are trapped. They have committed themselves to their weakest position. Their confidence is shot. Besides, they have tacitly agreed with all your other points. Even if they did try to "go back", they are now wary of pursuing your other points figuring you must have even BETTER reasons. Also, they will destroy their credibility in wanting to go back in the same way a chess player would if they asked if they could have the piece you just captured back so they pursue another course. In a negotiation setting, this is death. Finally, I NEVER give all my reasons in a debate and it causes confusion on the other side because they "fill-in" my argument and credit me with intentions I never had, causing them to pursue a bad angle.
SUPPLEMENT
I don't want to spoil the book by showing the answer to the "mysteries" ahead of their proper time. However, I think I can make mention of this quote from CSL-MC because Ms. Rand's eventual reason is much more detailed and complete.
Hank is clearly supporting these people and thinking the best about them, YET they seem to hate him more. Why? Is this so unusual? People think what the Germans did to the Jews is unbelievable. CSLewis-MC says it was the logical end:
"The worldy man treats certain people kindly because he ‘likes’ them: the Christian, trying to treat every one kindly, finds himself liking more and more people as he goes on -- including people he would not even have imagined himself liking in the beginning. The same spiritual law works terribly in the opposite. The Germans, perhaps, at first ill-treated the Jews because they hated them: afterwards they hated them much more because they had ill-treated them. The more cruel you are, the more you will hate; and the more you hate, the more cruel you become -- and so in a vicious circle for ever."
Will Hank be able to bring his family back from the negative side with more kindness?
Table of Contents
Next Chapter: The Top and the Bottom
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