Dr. Floyd Ferris tells Rearden he knows Hank broke the law with Ken Danagger. Ferris tells Hank to sell him the metal for Project X or go to jail for ten years. Hank tells Ferris to take him to trial. Hank has no fear because he believes he’s reached the end of the “trail” and figured a way out. While Francisco is visiting Hank, an alarm goes off in the plant. Hank saves Francisco’s life while they both work to patch a break-out. Francisco leaves without finishing his question.
SUBPLOT (loose ends)
Hank takes Lillian to the train station after Jim’s reception, and then he goes to Dagny’s. When Hank returns to the Wayne-Falkland, Lillian is waiting for him. Hank won’t say with whom he’s having an "affair".
Lillian has known Hank wanted to divorce her since their first month of marriage.
Lillian helps Hank see the end of the “trail” by unintentionally showing him the flaw in her logic.
Eddie in confessional: Ken Danagger will be next one and Dagny would shoot the destroyer.
Dagny goes to see Ken, but the destroyer gets to him first and leaves a cigarette with the sign of the dollar.
Danagger ends the meeting by telling Dagny: "You're going to join me."
COMMENTS
Scale - Hank admits he’s fallen for Francisco. Clearly, Francisco is energizing Hank and causing him to grow. This would make it appear Francisco is more positive than Hank. However, Francisco would give the rest of his life to work one year for Rearden. That makes it seem like Rearden is more positive than Francisco. Meanwhile, Danagger has retired. Once again, someone who was more positive than Hank and Dagny has quit.
Motive Power – “Any man can be stopped, Mr. Rearden.” “How?” “It’s only a matter of knowing man’s motive power.” Motive power can also start anyone. “Man’s motive power is his moral code.” Motive power is the (intangible) cause, NOT the result. Remember from the previous chapter: money is NOT the cause; it is the result. What do the poor need most, money or a sound moral code?
Moral Code - What is a moral code? It is the prioritization of your principles and shows through in your actions. How can you determine the order of priority? When you are faced with a situation and you have more than one option, the action you choose has a higher priority on your moral code. For instance, would you rather help a friend or go drinking? (In movies, usually when a character is introduced they will show the character making a choice. This is done to quickly show you the moral code of the character.) Everyone has a moral code. In fact, each person is born with a unique moral code and, considering the number of principles and the permutations of their prioritization; the individual’s “original” moral code is more unique than fingerprints. Since the moral code determines what you DO, the moral code is who you ARE. Also, the moral code eventually results in what you HAVE. Therefore, the moral code can be profitable or unprofitable to the individual. In fact, there must exist a unique moral code for each person leading the individual to maximum profitability. For now, let’s call the profitable one people are born with the “sound or original moral code” and the less profitable one people acquire through experience the “actual moral code” or simply, "moral code". It seems the maturing process is really the process of modifying one’s actual moral code into their unique sound moral code through reprioritization. This is actually an act of going backwards; back to who you ARE.
Francisco shows Hank he has two codes: a sound one for dealing with nature and an unsound one for dealing with men. “You who won’t allow one per cent of impurity into an alloy of metal - what have you allowed into your moral code?” This process of removing impurities is similar to the contrasting (or deconfirmatory) process. How are metals purified? Through heat! Dagny is aware of this discrepancy. “A trade by which one gains and the other loses is a fraud. You don’t do it in business, Hank. Don’t do it in your own life.” Dagny also says, “Do you know your only real guilt?…you’ve never learned to enjoy yourself.” Remember, people who are habituated to Focus feel guilt.
Marriage - Dagny states to Hank: "Hank, I want nothing from you except what you wish to give me." Dagny realizes requiring anything from Rearden will ultimately undermine Rearden's motive. People do this all the time in marriage. The minute you require something from a partner/spouse, YOU subconsciously have doubt as to whether they really want to do it. The ultimate joy is found when you know the other person chooses you and the only way to continually know this is to continually give them the freedom to choose something else. Dagny realizes this. In fact, Hank's admission allows Dagny to teach Hank something about himself: "Do you understand what you're saying? That you've never accepted my wanting you, either - you've never accepted that I should want you..." Hank eventually admits: "Dagny...the things I said to you that morning in Ellis Wyatt's house...I think I was lying to myself."
The Flaw - All of this begins to help Rearden figure out the secret. Hank accepted the guilt from Lillian. However, when Hank meets with Floyd Ferris he not only didn't feel guilt: "The sudden feeling that made Rearden lean forward in a posture of eager attentiveness, was the feeling that he was about to discover another step along his half-glimpsed trail." What is it? Ferris: "There's no way to rule innocent men." Rearden recognizes the next several moves and knows Ferris doesn't. "There's a flaw in your system, Dr. Ferris. A practical flaw which you will discover when you put me on trial..."
Control – Going back to determining your moral code: you can use the same process to determine the moral codes of others. Since your understanding of another person’s moral code is limited to the number of choices observed, there is only so much to be learned from observation alone. The best way to learn more is to pose conflicts to the person being observed. (Jesus was a master at answering questions, especially “Why”, and taking actions different from His intentions in order to determine the moral code of others.) If you understand the moral code of another person, you can predict their actions and THIS leads to control. After all, what is persuasion if it isn’t knowing your “customer” well enough to offer them something they value more (is higher on their moral code) than their current belief?
Atlas – We find out what the title of the novel means. “Mr. Rearden, if you saw Atlas, the giant who holds the world on his shoulders, … the greater his effort the heavier the world bore down on his shoulders – what would you tell him to do?” “I don’t know…what would you tell him to do?” “To shrug.” Francisco would tell the person holding up the world to shrug (quit) if it got worse for him by giving greater effort. Hank would just try harder. Francisco was going to ask Hank why he doesn’t shrug, but the alarm went off. After Francisco saw how much joy Hank gets from working, he didn’t need to ask the question. Can Hank convince Francisco to turn his life around?
PRACTICAL APPLICATION (worth rereading)
Francisco’s speech to Rearden contains an awesome illustration of moral choices. “If you want to see an abstract principle, such as moral action, in material form – there it is. Look at it Mr. Rearden. Every girder of it, every pipe, wire and valve was put there by choice in answer to the question: right or wrong?”
I’ve noticed the people who aren’t “handy” are the ones who deal in theory. The theoretical isn’t bound to reality. A handy person can make something work. This takes recognition of reality. Theoretical people can expound all day long and make something look like it works. It takes a tremendous effort to prove it doesn’t work. The work is usually more excessive because it tends to be done while the theoretical person vents on, berates, and distracts the practical person. In reality, philosophy and theology are sciences. They really should be handle by handy people.
Francisco's speech is the answer to the Bum in the diner's question after he gave the definition of "morality": "But where does one find it?"
Dr. Ferris’ speech on the value of laws is worth rereading. The government can’t deal with you on a value for value basis. (Let them explain “taxes” using value for value.) The government can’t deal with you as a looter or they would have anarchy. The government is a moocher.
“There’s no way to rule an innocent man.” Remember, laws only apply to criminals. Laws initiate the “guilt to pain to fear” sequence. Laws don’t make people good. They only show us what NOT to do. Try programming a computer or giving directions to a person SOLELY by telling them what not to do. Compared to 50 years ago, do we rely on laws more or less? I read somewhere in California there is 1 lawyer for every 10 adults.
Finally, look at instances in this chapter where people did things "out of control" and quicker than they could have if they had been in Focus:
He smiled. "That's what's strange about him. I know that he's a liar, a loafer, a cheap playboy, the most viciously irresponsible waste of a human being I ever imagined possible. Yet, when I look at him, I feel that if ever there was a man to whom I would entrust my life, he's the one."
"I don't know why," he said. "But I look at people and they seem to be made of nothing but pain. He's not. You're not. That terrible hopelessness that's all around us. I lose it only in his presence. And here. Nowhere else."
"She saw the man who had left, by his reflection on Ken Danagger's face. It was not the face she had seen in the courtroom, it was not the face she had known for years as a countenance of unchanging, unfeeling rigidity - it was a face which a young man of twenty should hope for, but could not achieve, a face from which every sign of strain had been wiped out, so that the lined cheeks, the creased forehead, the graying hair - like elements rearranged by a new theme - were made to form a composition of hope, eagerness and guiltless serenity: the theme was deliverance." (This was a man Dagny had known to be at Focus for years and now he looked "better" than Focus.)
"The strangeness of his manner was its simplicity: he spoke as if he were being completely natural and - in the midst of unanswered questions and of a tragic mystery - he conveyed the impression that there were no secrets any longer, and no mystery need ever have existed."
"Rearden thought that he leaped for the door the instant the scream hit his consciousness, but he saw that he was an instant late, because Francisco preceded him."
"There was no time to form words, to think, to explain, but he knew that this was the real Francisco d'Anconia, this was what he had seen from the first and loved - the word did not shock him, because there was no word in his mind, there was only a joyous feeling that seemed like a flow of energy added to his own."
"It happened so fast that Rearden knew it fully only after it was over."
SUPPLEMENT
“Then she came and worshipped him, saying, Lord, help me. But he answered and said, It is not meet to take the children’s bread, and to cast it to dogs. And she said, Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table. Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt.” (Bible)
“And they drew nigh unto the village, whither they went: and he (Jesus) made as though he would have gone further.” (Bible)
“In other words, Theology is practical: especially now.” (CSL-MC)
Romans 6-8 and Galatians 2-4 dealt with Laws. They are passages preachers won’t touch because they free people up.
“What then was the purpose of the law? It was added later on, after the promise, to disclose and expose to men their guilt because of transgressions and to make men more conscious of the sinfulness of sin; and it was intended to be in effect until the Seed should come, to and concerning Whom the promise had been made.” (Amplified Bible)
“When we were living in the flesh, the sinful passions that were awakened and aroused up by the Law were constantly operating in our natural powers in our bodily organs, in the sensitive appetites and wills of the flesh, so that we bore fruit for death. But now we are discharged from the Law and have terminated all intercourse with it, having died to what once restrained and held us captive. So now we serve not under obedience to the old code of written regulations, but under obedience to the promptings of the Spirit in newness of life.” (Amplified Bible)
The Law makes us want to sin. Those who have children know this, but look at us. Psychologists know rules CAUSE us to want to break them. When someone says you can’t do something, the first thought is “Oh yes I can.” That’s human nature. We are free from the Law and, therefore, free from guilt. However, the government and organized religion rely on guilt to keep rule over people. That’s the opposite of what the Bible and AS say. In fact, “Everything is permissible, allowable and lawful for me; but not all things are helpful, good for me to do, expedient and profitable when considered with other things. Everything is lawful for me, but I will not become the slave of anything or be brought under its power.” (Amplified Bible) Actually, as a Christian, I can do ANYTHING I want. It’s ONLY when I say “I CAN’T” that I’ve created a law unto myself and introduced guilt. I am free of guilt.
Are there any apologies in the Bible? Besides, what is an apology? Isn’t it really man’s way of short-circuiting the process God gave us to remove our guilt: confession and repentance, which is, admitting actions AND repairing the damage that was done. Unconfessed actions bring guilt in the present and unrepentant actions bring guilt in the future. Confession and repentance is a long-term benefit to the offender as well as the offended. An apology is usually used in place of admitting guilt. (“I’m sorry I hurt your feelings” or “I’m sorry you took it that way.”) Also, it doesn’t commit the offender to changing their future actions or repairing the damage they did; they can just keep apologizing. What value does the victim get from an apology received without the offender’s confession and repentance?
Next Chapter: The Sanction of the Victim
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