Directive 10-289 is put into effect on May 1. Dagny responds by quitting TT. Hank signs the “gift certificate” on May 15 giving everyone the right to make Rearden Metal (now called “Miracle Metal”).
SUBPLOT (loose ends)
Mr. Thompson holds enormous official powers as the Head of the State (President).
James gave Wesley his start in the Bureau of Economic Planning and National Resources in exchange for double-crossing Rearden in order to help Orren Boyle in exchange for destroying Dan Conway. (This was the meeting in the third chapter of the novel.)
Directive Points:
1) no one can change jobs
2) no companies can close
3) all patents and copyrights are nationalized
4) nothing new can be created
5) everybody must produce only the same amount of goods as last year
6) everyone must spend the same amount of money as they did last year
7) all wages are frozen
8) the Unification Board decides all disputes.
Taxes are not subject to the rules.
Fred Kinnan, in charge of the labor unions takes the opportunity to seize power.
Tinky Holloway of Washington DC caused repair work on the mountain section of TT in Winston, Colorado to be stopped.
Eddie is the only person Dagny tells that she’s going to the family lodge in Woodstock. She says, “Don’t tell anyone where I am except Hank Rearden.”
Dagny tells Hank “perhaps there never was a destroyer”.
The Wet Nurse tells Rearden he can break all the rules. Rearden says that’s not the way to be moral.
Hank determines the "flaw" in his thinking: he has been divorcing the physical (effects) from the spiritual (causes).
COMMENTS
Directives – While the directives may look silly (wasn’t communism born on May 1?), this group is doing what is right based on the objective of their side of the scale. “There’s enough invented already for everybody’s comfort. We’re going to have security.” They believe money is a static quantity. They believe they will come up with the solution if they only had more power and control. They don’t necessarily have a solution; they are overwhelmed and focused on what they believe does not work. (There are a lot of people and groups today that can only tell you what is wrong. They have no solutions to offer.) Therefore, the only way to fix things is to first slow them down so they are manageable. This is the literal result people seek when they talk about returning to the “good old days”.
Power – Their form of management is to create guilt. “There is no way to disarm any man except through guilt.” If you believe this is the only way, then you must create guilt for the common good. As we saw earlier, laws makes us want to break them. Their causing guilt is an abuse of power. Is this really so extreme? When I got out of college, I used to believe the only way to manage people was with power. At my first company, I was responsible for getting a new and improved product into the market. There were eight departments needed to sign off on different aspects (safety, performance, packaging, etc.). I got so frustrated with these groups because they wouldn’t do what I wanted and what I was told the company needed. I remember telling a group of my peers at lunch, “If the company REALLY wanted this product in the market, they would give me the power to make these people do it”. (Similar to Wesley Mouch repeatedly saying he needs more power.) The company’s real objective was to find out if I could get things done without relying on power like a crutch. In reality, the only people who deserve power are the ones who don’t need it; because they are the only ones who know when to use it. They won’t abuse it. (Hmmm…Francisco said the same thing about inherited wealth.)
Press – The power group says, “Just be sure you’ve got the press with you.” The press takes a mild beating in this book compared to The Fountainhead. After reading AS, the only reasons to read The Fountainhead are if you are interested in the press or architecture. What is the objective of the press? Is it to report the facts? So much of what the press writes is what people say they believe. Is what people SAY they believe a fact? People don’t manipulate the press by saying something other than what they believe, do they? Facts take a LONG time to determine. The press can’t truly determine the facts through deconfirmatory (contrastive) questions in time for their deadlines. Remember the fallacies of the comparison route, “if it walks like a duck and it sounds a duck, then it MUST be a duck”. This is NOT a recipe for determining the facts.
Causality – What does this group believe is the cause? “It’s intelligence that has caused all the troubles of humanity. Man’s mind is the root of all evil. This is the day of the heart. There once was an Age of Reason. This is the Age of Love.” Didn’t this group say money was the root of all evil? The solution? “Nobody should be allowed to waste money on the new until everybody has plenty of the old.” Actually, the meeting was "Anti-causal". They believed the physical (tangible) was the cause, so their goal was to make the spiritual (intangible) non-existent. Can the intangible cease to exist?
Hell – We saw earlier morality deals with purpose and (both individual and group) motion through doing what is right and operating according to justice. The negative side of the scale has no focused purpose. They contradict themselves in an attempt to do the wrong thing. Now, the only thing left is to kill motion through trying to make justice non-existent. Stopping motion is the final nail to creating hell on earth. Dagny doesn’t want to live in hell. A negative motivates her. She is not running TO something, she’s running away from hell. Her commitment to rectitude (what is right) and her conviction slavery is unjust caused her to remove herself from TT.
PRACTICAL APPLICATION (worth rereading)
Hank’s thought process for signing the gift certificate is worth rereading a couple of times. He has discovered the definition of love and grace through a logical (and powerful) process. These are just the high points:
“I believed that love was a gratuity, not a reward to be earned. Here is the final product of the unearned. I thought that it was proper to commit injustice, so long as I would be the only one to suffer. But nothing can justify injustice. There is no escape from justice, nothing can be unearned and unpaid for in the universe, neither in matter nor in spirit – and if the guilty do not pay, then the innocent have to pay it. I cannot let you pay my debts. Even if I have nothing else now left to me, I have this much: that I see the truth, that I am free of their guilt, that I can now stand guiltless in my own eyes. I will remain faithful to the one commandment of my code which I have never broken: to be a man who pays his own way. I love you.”
Love - Hank realizes Love is an action (result) based on (caused by) value for value (justice). It is not a feeling. How does Love actually work? It is the culmination of EVERYTHING we have covered: profitability, moral code, value for value, etc. Let’s start with someone giving you a value. Love begins when you realize you would have been willing to give a greater value than what you had given in order to get the value you received. If you are honest (have a sound/right moral code; produce more than you consume), you will repay the giver by giving additional value equaling the difference (justice) between what you would have been willing to give and what you originally gave. Essentially, this will be done to remove your guilt. (If you are dishonest, you won’t give it. But deep down, you will be guilty in your own eyes. As we saw earlier, CSL says you’ll actually start resenting the person who gave you value. The result is you’ll return bad value for good value, etc.) Love is completed on your part when this realization (cause) results in an action (giving value). However, the other person continues Love; they have now received additional value from you. If they have a sound moral code, they will return value to you and the process will continue indefinitely. Both people profit from this relationship because they are getting more value than what they’ve given (later we’ll study the effects of “uniqueness”). While both people are “getting” (profitable), each person is actually focused on giving (charity?), whether they feel like it or not. In fact, although society refers to “charity” as “an unearned gift”, the Bible uses “Love” and “Charity” interchangeably. Love requires the participant to be moral in order to experience it. What is the ultimate value a person can give? Is Love really a measurable action? Can there be greater and less Love?
Grace – Hank lets his (intangible) moral code determine (be the cause of) his actions, not his feelings. Logically he knows his moral code must be seen through his actions. His focus is not on following a law; it is determining and refining his moral code, and actively letting it guide his actions. He has connected his spiritual (intangible) uniqueness with his body's (tangible) actions.
Organized religion defines grace as “unmerited favor”. Remember, to that group, faith believes on emotion. When that group says they want the “grace of God”, they mean they want God to give them value they don’t deserve. It all fits. Organized religion says, “God has given you a static value you don’t deserve and there’s nothing of equal value you can give back to God. So don’t bother doing anything for God and don’t expect an answer from God. Just trust Him without expecting any answers because you can’t understand it. And if you can’t understand it, you don’t have a responsibility to try. So don’t worry about your actions towards others; you have value (unmerited favor) from God you can exchange for forgiveness without ever having to make amends to the wronged person.” This grace results in inaction.
A concordance defines “grace” as “the divine influence upon the heart, and its reflection in the life”. This is exactly what Hank has done. He has allowed his moral code to influence his heart and reflect in his life (through his actions). God does not give undeserved value. God is not unjust. However, God’s grace is available to all. God will influence anyone’s heart that allows it, however, that puts the responsibility back on the individual. This grace results in action.
An individual who has this latter grace working (cause) will demonstrate sound actions (result). Jesus tried to prove to the proud they were not exhibiting true grace by pointing out their actions (fruit), without condemning them. Today, “religious” people try to avoid this problem by doing specific good works (legalism) publicly; thinking the actions (result) prove they are moral (cause). However, we’ve already learned this is the mark of a second-rater; sound short-term actions do not prove grace. The physical is not the cause of the spiritual. In the parable of the sheep and the goats, the sheep are those whose actions are the result of grace, the goats are those whose actions are the result of pride. From the outside, both look the same.
What is Wrong With This "World"? - The signing of the gift certificate also answers this question posed from the beginning of the book. Hank realizes this "world" runs on using the excellent peoples' virtues against them, not to destroy them (because then they wouldn't be able to hold up the rest of the world), but to seize their achievements because these people have no other way of being profitable. People in this "world" treat the virtuous people poorly BECAUSE they are virtuous.
"If I had not made it my highest moral purpose to exercise the best of my effort and the fullest capacity of my mind in order to support and expand my life, you would have found nothing to loot from me, nothing to support your own existence. It is not my sins that you're using to injure me, but my virtues - my virtues by your own acknowledgment, since your own life depends on them, since you need them, since you do not seek to destroy my achievement but to seize it."
"We lived by that which we held to be good and punished that which we held to be evil. You live by that which you denounce as evil and punish that which you know to be good."
Rearden realizes he was living by this evil code: "Hadn't he accepted as guilt the highest happiness that he had ever found? You who won't allow one per cent of impurity into an alloy of metal, what have you allowed into your moral code?"
Rearden realizes that first morning at Wyatt's house is PROOF Hank was wrong and the explanation is spiritual: "I damned the fact that joy is the core of existence, the motive power of every living being, that it is the need of one's body as it is the goal of one's spirit, that my body was not a weight of inanimate muscles, but an instrument able to give me an experience of superlative joy to unite my flesh and my spirit." In fact, Hank also thinks this about Dagny and the Mind/Body disconnect: "I should have lived it openly, as of our right - or made her my wife, as in truth she was." This is the PROOF for our conclusion in the Hank's Infidelity post: Hank was married to Dagny.
Washington - The answer to "What is wrong with the world?" is tied to a quotation from George Washington. During the Washington meeting Jim looks out the window: "A monument stood shining in the distance, hit by a ray of sun: it was a tall, white obelisk, erected to the memory of the man Dr. Ferris quoted, the man in whose honor this city had been named. James Taggart looked away."
Previous to this, this exchange occurred: "Whatever type of men we're counting on and planning for, there's a certain old-fashioned quotation which we may safely forget: the one about counting on the wise and the honest. We don't have to consider them. They're out of date." What quote are they talking about?
"If to please the people, we offer what we ourselves disapprove, how can we afterward defend our work? Let us a raise a standard to which the wise and honest can repair; the rest is in the hands of God." George Washington
George Washington's quote referenced the danger of disconnecting the intangible principles with the tangible actions!
This is the first chapter in the second half of the novel. The first half of the novel was very "capitalistic"...focused on how to make money. The second half of the novel begins with the OPPOSITE perspective:
-Dagny has quit her tangible job for an intangible reason.
-Hank has signed away his tangible invention for an intangible reason.
It is my experience that Democrats/liberals quit reading this novel before they finish Part I and Republicans/conservatives never make it past this chapter. Both sides are violating Washington's quote!
The culmination of proof the people who have wrecked this "world" are anti-Washington is Dr. Ferris' last speech: "I mean that there is no way to disarm any man except through guilt. If there's not enough guilt in the world, we must create it. But save us from the man who lives up to his own standards. Save us from the man of clean conscience. He's the man who'll beat us."
This "world" is full of people who aren't honest (right), they don't pay their own way (just), they consume more than they produce, and they are unprofitable. The "world's" solution to this is for the dishonest people to use the virtue of the producers against the producers, not to destroy them, but to seize what they produce in order to survive. The Bible said those who are profitable (virtuous) ought to help those who aren't profitable become profitable. The Bible also said those who cause EVERYONE to be unprofitable ought to be cut out from community. The Bible said you cannot be profitable without love. What is Ayn's solution?
SUPPLEMENT
Definition of conservative – “tending to preserve established institutions, etc.; opposed to change”.
“Do not earnestly remember the former things; neither consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing!” (Amplified Bible)
“Your kind of intellectuals are the first to scream when it’s safe – and the first to shut their traps at the first sign of danger.” (Fred Kinnan)
“On the other hand, surely what a man does when he is taken off his guard is the best evidence for what sort of man he is? Surely what pops out before the man has time to put on a disguise is the truth? If there are rats in a cellar you are most likely to see them if you go in very suddenly. But the suddenness does not create the rats: it only prevents them from hiding.” (CSL-MC)
Press – "Before the Storm" is an interesting book to read if you want to understand the press. Here’s part of a review. "Mr. Perlstein, a young journalist, is himself an ardent enthusiast for the American left, but in his book on the 1964 presidential campaign, he saw it all and tells it all, including eye-popping accounts of the excesses of his own political tribe. "Before the Storm" is a book about Barry Goldwater's campaign for president."
“The press that accompanied Goldwater in his campaign liked the man but disdained his cause. 'How could such a nice guy think that way?' one (reporter) asked. Their objectivity began failing them. In Montana, 10,000 stood in the freezing rain to welcome Goldwater, and the number the press somehow settled on was 2,500. Jack Steele of the Scripps-Howard chain so lowballed the turnouts that Karl Hess (Goldwater's speechwriter) strolled into the press quarters with a token of appreciation: a carving of a hand with the middle finger extended."
"’If it hadn't been for Goldwater,’ Johnson aide Kenny O'Donnell recalled afterward, the press would have ‘just murdered him,’ such were LBJ's excesses. Perlstein looks hard at the conduct of the president of the United States who was trying to intimidate the voters on the matter of Goldwater's incompetence to preside over the nuclear football: ‘The man (who did have) his fingers on the nuclear button sometimes weaved off his campaign plane stinking drunk; he made mistakes on the stump; he contradicted himself in interviews. On his way to opening day in Detroit, in order to squeeze as many VIPs into his plane as possible, he booted onto an accompanying plane the military aide who kept the briefcase handcuffed to his wrist that contained the codes to launch a nuclear strike. That plane nearly ended up crashing. Reporters looked the other way. 'Thank God for Lyndon Johnson,' a scribe from the St. Louis Post Dispatch thought to himself, as the president lit into Goldwater once more as a 'ranting, raving demagogue who wants to tear down society'."
“The end could not come soon enough, but there were those who saw, and Perlstein records why, that Goldwater had aroused sentiments that did not fall back to sleep with the great LBJ landslide. His engrossing book invites reflection on the role of the press in campaigns. In 1964 there was a need for mediation. When such as Martin Luther King and George Meany transcribed the nomination of Goldwater into a threat of American fascism, the press was needed to bring sanity. "Before the Storm" is an entertaining book, but also an invitation to reflection on the heavy responsibilities of the press.” (WF Buckley)
“Love as distinct from ‘being in love’ is not merely a feeling. It is a deep unity, maintained by the will and deliberately strengthened by habit; reinforced by (in Christian marriages) the grace which both parents ask, and receive, from God. They can have this love for each other even at those moments when they do not like each other; as you love yourself even when you do not like yourself. They can retain this love even when each would easily, if they allowed themselves, be ‘in love’ with someone else. ‘Being in love’ first moved them to promise fidelity: this quieter love enables them to keep the promise. It is on this love that the engine of marriage is run: being in love was the explosion that started it.” (CSL-MC)
“No one has greater love than to lay down his own life for his friends.” (Bible)
“Love endures long and is patient and kind; love never is envious nor boils over with jealousy, is not boastful or vainglorious, does not display itself haughtily. It is not conceited; it is not rude and does not act unbecomingly. Love does not insist on its own rights or its own way, for it is not self-seeking; it is not touchy or fretful or resentful; it takes no account of the evil done to it. It does not rejoice at injustice and unrighteousness, but rejoices when right and truth prevail. Love bears up under anything and everything that comes, is ever ready to believe the best of every person, its hopes are fadeless under all circumstances and it endures everything without weakening. Love never fails or comes to an end.” (Amplified Bible) This famous passage describes the “results” of Love, that is, the actions proving it (by focusing mostly on the actions that are NOT Love). However, the method and mechanism of creating Love is not described. It would be the same as someone describing a car (“it doesn’t have three wheels, it doesn’t fly, it has a steering wheel…”) to someone who wanted to know how a car worked or how to build one. Should a person be content with this answer? Why are we content with this answer to understand something as vital and important as Love, especially when we are commanded to do it?
“And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue, knowledge; and to knowledge, temperance; and to temperance, patience; and to patience, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love (charity).” (St. Peter)
“Now the end of the commandment is love (charity) out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned.” (St. Paul)
“A tree is known by its fruit.” (Bible)
"Nay, much rather, those members of the body which seem to be more feeble are necessary: and those parts of the body, which we think to be less honorable, upon these we bestow more abundant honor; and our uncomely parts have more abundant comeliness; whereas our comely parts have no need: but God tempered the body together, giving more abundant honor to that part which lacked; that there should be no schism in the body; but that the members should have the same care one for another. And whether one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; or one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it." (Bible)
"And if your hand or your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off, and cast it from you: it is good for you to enter into life maimed or halt, rather than having two hands or two feet to be cast into the eternal fire. And if your eye causes you to stumble, pluck it out, and cast it from you: it is good for you to enter into life with one eye, rather than having two eyes to be cast into the hell of fire." (Bible)
Next Chapter: The Moratorium on Brains
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