Who is John Galt?

2nd in a series of “Who is … ?” posts in exploration of:

1) the “Who is John Galt?” question posed in Ayn’s 1957 novel, Atlas Shrugged; and
2) the Paul Ryan/Rand mysteries.

This question “Who is John Galt?” is posed 33 times in Ayn Rand’s novel, Atlas Shrugged. Here are some suggested answers.

John Galt is:

□ an idealized, fictional character believed by his creator to have real world equivalents? (D:891^[1])
□ a “wonderful wizard” of Libertarian philosophy^[2] with a massive, déjà vu shadow hidden behind the curtain?^[3]
□ a “thinker” who believes that a collection of achievers devoted to profit, competition, and self-interest can form the ideal society (D:569+)—in contravention (denial?) of the role such motives have persistently played in human history?
□ “… a [man] driven by the engine of business … whose actions are based on an extraordinary sense that [he] can do as [he] likes. … a [man who] is expert at slipping through the cracks and persisting in … practices against all comers, no doubt convinced that [he] knows better than anyone else what is good for humanity, persuaded that [he] is accountable to no one, appropriating the planet as [his] playing field and profit center”?^[4]
□ a man who finds the Sermon on the Mount and the concept of sacrifice to be evil and reprehensible teachings?^[5]
□ a man who (like his alter-voice, Francisco d’Anconia) espouses that “money is the root of all good” (D:361)
□ an alleged opponent of altruism, yet a man who abandons /destroys his own revolutionary motor and then works in anonymous menial labor so as not to advance an evil world?
□ a persuader of men and women to his philosophies and “altruism”? (D:768+)
□ the adored, philosophical leader of other persecuted achievers (as in: Francisco d’Anconia, Hank Rearden, Ragnar Danneskjold, Dagny Taggart, et al.) who put their own lives and futures at risk (altruism?) to rescue him from captors? (D:874)
□ the man who claims that Galt’s Gulch (GG) has no rules (D:544)—EXCEPT the rule that there are no rules. OH, AND the rule “not to give to the world the benefit of [one’s] mind” (D:569). OH, AND since there are no (or few) rules, there are several GG “customs” as in:

▪ the word “give” is forbidden in the valley (D:544)
▪ no one can leave GG during the month of rest from the world (D:578)
▪ no communication with the outside world is allowed while in GG (D:581)
▪ no disclosure of any nature or degree about GG to the outside world is permitted (D:615)
▪ there are to be no gifts or favors, only earnings in GG (D:578+; 544)
▪ no currency but Milligan mint is accepted in GG (D:554)
▪ one doesn’t ask for help (D:575)
▪ self-sacrifice is forbidden (D:769)
▪ the requirement to pursue self-interest and maximum profit prevails
▪ the law of the voluntary contract governs (D:810)
▪ everyone who enters GG takes the oath: "I swear—by my life and my love of it—that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine."  (D:557)
▪ “there can be no collective commitments in [GG] and that families or relatives are not allowed to come here, unless each person takes the striker's oath by his own independent conviction.” (D:598)
▪ “Nobody stays in [GG] except by a full, conscious choice based on a full, conscious knowledge of every fact involved in his decision. Nobody stays here by faking reality in any manner whatever." (D:605)
▪ everyone MUST be a competitive, achieving person of ambition and competence
▪ violence (normally taboo) will be met with violence (no “turn the other cheek” nonsense) (D:779)
▪ there shall be no sloth
▪ “moochers,” “looters,” “cannibals” are forbidden
▪ the support of “moochers,” “looters,” “cannibals,” is forbidden
▪ etc., etc., etc. ?

In addition, John Galt is(?):
□ a man who spends untold hours furtively following / observing his secret love, Dagny Taggart, “Vice-President in Charge of Operation” at Taggart Transcontinental? (D:592, 729)
□ a man who spends hours in the underground cafeteria of Taggart (train) Terminal waiting for Eddie Willers to show up and talk about his (Eddie’s) boss, Dagny Taggart? (D:48, 334, 434, 497, 820)
□ a smoker oblivious to the poisons he breathes in and out?
□ a man adept at dismissing contraries (e.g., “no rules rules,” etc.) and redefining words and motives in order to reconcile behaviors with theories? (D:618, 881)
□ a character whose creator attempts to excuse him and his devotees from contradictions by reference to a “higher philosophical sense” (D:102) and a “check your premises” mandate? (D:153, 253, 292, 373, 473, 562, 602)
□ a man who believes he can create a better, more just world under the sign of the dollar?^[6](D:890)
□ a dupe dealer?^[7]

"Are you beginning to see who is John Galt?" (D:776)

------------/
NOTE to disgruntled (particularly Christian) “Libertarians”: The vices and corruptions detailed about Galt's persecutors are too often, tragically "déjà vu," but Galt's devotion to money should put us on notice that corruption, self-deception, and propaganda are not exclusive to the Left and have a long and tragic history on the Right, as well as the center and everywhere inbetween. Ask yourself: In the final count, who might the great Babylon prefer, Galt & company or Mr. Thompson? And what is the free-market shadow that so many are so adept at pretending does not exist despite its persistent, recurring devastations? How long till we admit that unregulated markets will always oppress and abuse freedom until we have men and women regulated by an inner moral framework that transcends but includes self-interest from a higher perspective? Ask yourself: How comfortable would I be in Galt’s valley of no rules rules and customs?

[1] Any page references (B) are from the 35th Anniversary Edition, Plume Book edition of Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand; and page references (D) are from the digital PDF version of Atlas Shrugged found at http://www.mises.ch/library/Rand_AtlasShrugged.pdf . The hard copy Plume Book version (© 1992) has 1168 pages; the PDF has 891.
[2] From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayn_Rand under “Political Influence” subheading: “Although she rejected the labels "conservative" and "libertarian," Rand has had continuing influence on right-wing politics and libertarianism. Jim Powell, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, considers Rand one of the three most important women (along with Rose Wilder Lane and Isabel Paterson) of modern American libertarianism, and David Nolan, one of the founders of the Libertarian Party, stated that "without Ayn Rand, the libertarian movement would not exist." In his history of the libertarian movement, journalist Brian Doherty described her as "the most influential libertarian of the twentieth century to the public at large," and biographer Jennifer Burns referred to her as "the ultimate gateway drug to life on the right.”
[3] IF “No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon” (New Testament Matthew 6:24); then perhaps one cannot serve self and mammon either since mammon is an exclusive master and will lead the self in a frenzied dance of status and acquisition.
[4]These words adapted from The World According to Monsanto: Pollution, Corruption, and the Control of the World's Food Supply by Marie-Monique Robin, Perseus Books Group [Kindle Edition (2010-05-11), Location 163], describe the pervasive attitude of those whose first order of business is profit and self-interest.
[5] Read his lengthy radio address (D:767-814) and his many other words, plus the words of his many devotees like Francisco d’Anconia (e.g., D:313-316).
[6] Read footnote [3] again.
[7]See an example at http://www.dejavu-times.blogspot.ca/2011/11/confession-of-dupe-dealer.html

AS IF …

In Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, comprising 890 pages,^[1] there are 4,105 uses of “as”, including 1,213 uses of “as if”; and 1,406 of “like.” Take any page at random and one will likely find “as if” upon “as if”; “like” upon “like”; and other such elaborations. The first page of the first chapter gives notice of what is to come:

▪ … as if the question had been addressed to the causeless uneasiness within him. (4)
▪ … as if to kill that moment and postpone the problem of the next. (4)
▪ … 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. (4)
▪ … like an old painting in oil, … (4)
▪ … like the reflection of a fire: not an active fire, but a dying one which it is too late to stop. (4)

Soon thereafter, we discover that nigh every A.S. character will experience the world in simile and metaphor. Here is a random sampling:

▪ … rows of girls sat at typewriters, the clicking of their keys like the sound of speeding train wheels. (6)
▪ It was as if normal existence were a photograph of shapeless things in badly printed colors, … (15)
▪ He liked to observe emotions; they were like red lanterns strung along the dark unknown of another's personality, … (17)
▪ He pronounced his name as if he wished his listeners to be struck in the face and knighted by the sound of it. (70)
▪ She felt that his presence seemed more intensely real when she kept her eyes away from him, almost as if the stressed awareness of herself came from him, like the sunlight from the water. (77)
▪ Instead of finding it crude, she found it strangely attractive—as if, she thought suddenly, as if sensuality were not physical at all, but came from a fine discrimination of the spirit. (95)
▪ The faces of the others looked like aggregates of interchangeable features, every face oozing to blend into the anonymity of resembling all, and all looking as if they were melting. (111)
▪ She said slowly, as if she wished it were possible to wear gloves to handle the words, … (134)
▪ He felt as if it were empty space where the rays of the furnaces moved at will; as if the desk were a raft hanging in mid-air, holding two persons imprisoned in privacy. (155)
▪ He stood on the sidewalk, feeling an odd, heavy, foggy sense of satisfaction: feeling as if he had committed an act of virtue—and as if he had taken his revenge upon every person who had stood cheering along the three-hundred-mile track of the John Galt Line. (204)
▪ He held her body as if the violence and the despair of the way he took her could wipe his unknown rival out of existence, out of her past, and more: as if it could transform any part of her, even the rival, into an instrument of his pleasure. (206)
▪ … the white stubble of his chin was like a mist of dead weeds over a vacant face. (246)
▪ Ivy Starnes sat on a pillow like a baggy Buddha. (246)
▪ The fur was a soft brown, dimmed by an aura of blue that could not be seen, only felt like an enveloping mist, like a suggestion of color grasped not by one's eyes but by one's hands, as if one felt, without contact, the sensation of sinking one's palms into the fur's softness. (282—Whoa! Could we read that again?!)
▪ … she smiled with the courageous trust of a kitten when it sees a hand extended to play: (298)
▪ … like a person confronted by a puzzle of no significance. (308)
▪ The way he wore his formal clothes made the rest of the crowd look as if they were masquerading in borrowed costumes. (309)
▪ … they saw the wake of his passage spreading through the room, the sudden cuts splitting the crowd, like the first few cracks, then like the accelerating branching that runs through a wall about to crumble, the streaks of emptiness slashed, not by a human touch, but by the impersonal breath of terror. (322)
▪ … as if the center of gravity were swinging wildly—like in a sinking cargo ship out of control—shifting from industry to industry, from man to man. (335)
▪ … like a slice of bread from the side of a giant toaster. (342)
▪ Francisco's eyes were watching Rearden as if he were examining the course of bullets on a battered target. (347)
▪ The scream of an alarm siren shattered the space beyond the window and shot like a rocket in a long, thin line to the sky. It held for an instant, then fell, then went on in rising, falling spirals of sound, as if fighting for breath against terror to scream louder. It was the shriek of agony, the call for help, the voice of the mills as of a wounded body crying to hold its soul. (348)

Enough already? Sorry, but we’re not half through the book!

▪ … she felt as if she were leaning against the steady attentiveness of his eyes. (391)
▪ He tried to sell automobiles as if they were a bogus corn-cure. (411)
▪ … the street beyond his window was like a congested throat coughing with the horns of pre-Christmas traffic … (485)
▪ It was an irregular beat, with sudden screeches and short, sharp cracks, a sound like the broken laughter of hysteria, … (513)
▪ The beacon hung like a violent spot of cold fire, … (523)
▪ … the next span of her consciousness was not separate moments and movements, but the sweep of a single motion and a single unit of time, a progression forming one entity, like the notes of a piece of music: from the touch of her hand on the starter—to the blast of the motor's sound that broke off, like a mountain rockslide, … (527)
▪ [The river] looked like a phosphorescent vein showing through the skin of the earth, a delicate vein without blood. ¶ When she saw the lights of a town, like a handful of gold coins flung upon the prairie, the brightly violent lights fed by an electric current, … (528)
▪ … like a flat, round lantern without rays, … like the print of a photograph on a cloud. … like a city sinking under water. (571)
▪ He walked, not looking at her, holding her tight, as if trying to hold a progression of time, as if his arms were still locked over the moment when he had lifted her against his chest. She felt his steps as if they were a single span of motion to a goal and as if each step were a separate moment in which she dared not think of the next. (571)

Hang in there. We’re almost done sampling.

▪ She had never experienced the pleasure of motion, of walking as if her feet had no weight to carry, as if the support of the cane in her hand were merely a superfluous touch of elegance, the pleasure of feeling her steps trace swift, straight lines, of sensing the faultless, spontaneous precision of her gestures—as she experienced it while placing their food on the table in front of the two men. Her bearing told them that she knew they were watching her—she held her head like an actress on a stage, like a woman in a ballroom, like the winner of a silent contest. (575)
▪ … the sign of the dollar hung like a curve of shining steel engraved on the sky. (596)
▪ Her reward was to see Galt smile; the smile was like a military decoration bestowed upon her. (611; see also 719)
▪ It seemed to him that his brain was a maze where a blind alley opened at every turn, leading into a fog that hid an abyss. It seemed to him that he was running, while the small island of safety was shrinking and nothing but those alleys would soon be left. It was like the remnant of clarity in the street around him, with the haze rolling in to fill all exits. (660)
▪ … like the spot of a distant headlight advancing upon her down an invisible track. (666)
▪ … a diamond clip at the edge of the black neckline, that kept flashing with the imperceptible motion of her breath, like a transformer converting a flicker into fire, making one conscious, not of the gems, but of the living beat behind them; it flashed like a military decoration, like wealth worn as a badge of honor. (719)
▪ … his face tightened into a retaining wall against agony … (763)

Which is perhaps descriptive of many a reader’s reaction after 763 pages of expanding visuals—particularly with 128 pages yet to go! Or alas, 405 if one is reading the hardcopy Plume Book, 35th Anniversary Edition!

In several cases, Ayn’s use of similes, metaphors, and expansive comparisons/descriptions is insightful and thought-provoking, but the unrelenting use of “as if,” “like”, etc. seems:

1) AS IF Ayn Rand would not tolerate a “second-hander” editing Her Atlas Shrugged. (Déjà vu Howard Roark?!)
2) AS IF none of Ayn’s colleagues had sufficient courage or influence.
3) AS IF all her heroes were but carbon copies of each other and of her best (imagined) self.
4) AS IF her (notorious) need to control included even the mental pictures of her readers.
5) AS IF she hoped her readers would not notice the repetitions, the fixations, the déjà vu descriptions, as in: “silent” (156), “silently” (74), “slowly” (217), “slow” (37), “naked” (87), “thin” (78), “scream” (72), “screaming” (42), “tight” (71), “violence” (67 ), “violent” (53), “shot” (64), “tall” (62), “fog” (52), “ugly” (43), “slender” (38), “wound” (28), “causeless” (27), “angular” (19), “transparent” (11), to name and number just a few.
6) AS IF she could not help herself.

Perhaps we could begin a creative, mindful exercise:

1) to find the best and worst Ayn Rand similes, metaphors, and comparisons through random page-flipping;
2) to debate whether Screwtape^[2] would approve or disapprove of the tenets of John Galt and his devotees;
3) to consider whether Francisco d'Anconia and Hank Rearden violated the sacred rule against sacrifice in giving up their love and lover, Dagny Taggart, to John Galt;
4) to explore the inverses of Ayn’s extremes;
5) to ask whether Ayn’s philosophy in practice might not entail many parallels to the French Revolution: as in “A movement ostensibly directed against despotism culminated in the establishment of a despotism far more complete than that which had been overthrown. The apostles of liberty proscribed whole classes of their fellow citizens, drenching in innocent blood the land which they claimed to deliver from oppression.”^[3]
6) to ponder why some readers exclaim, “AS IF …” when reading Ayn’s evidential assertion that "I trust that no one will tell me that men such as I write about don't exist. That this book has been written—and published—is my proof that they do." (891)
7) to question whether “the sign of the dollar [that] hung like a curve of shining steel engraved on the sky” is the thing we wish to have hanging over our head? (Does it not look too much like a two-edged scythe?!) Just asking.

---------------------------------/
 [1] All page references are from the PDF version of Atlas Shrugged found at http://www.mises.ch/library/Rand_AtlasShrugged.pdf . The hardcopy Plume Book version (© 1992) has 1168 pages.
[2] Screwtape was a senior demon in C.S. Lewis’ novel, The Screwtape Letters (1942).
[3] Burke, Edmund. Reflections on the Revolution in France (Illustrated). (Kindle Locations 72-74). Kindle Edition, 2011-11-22.

Who is [Ayn Rand]?

1st in a series of “Who is … ?” posts in exploration of:

1) the “Who is John Galt?” question posed in Ayn’s 1957 novel, Atlas Shrugged; and
2) the Paul Ryan/Rand mysteries.

So to the question: “Who is [Ayn Rand]?”

□ a real, historical figure (1905-1982) who named her subjectivist theories, Objectivism?
□ a passionate thinker/philosopher who spent too much time creating imaginary achievers and not enough time observing/studying REAL living and historical ones?^[1]
□ a Russian émigré whose Me-Mine philosophy^[2] nurtured a more rapid decline in America values than was ever dreamt possible by socialists, communists/Cold Warriors, and all other anti-s lumped together?
□ an atheist^[3] who scorned the concept of altruism^[4]—and pronounced Her many contraries as better than GOOD, yea even virtuous?
□ an explicator of many real problems—worsened by “more-of-the-(self)-same” solutions?
□ a visionary of class conflict^[5] between achievers/producers and most everyone else?
□ the god-mother (pardon the expression) of self-justification, self-deception, & rationalization?
□ a creator who did not believe in a Creator, but who claimed: “I trust that no one will tell me that men such as I write about don’t exist. That this book [Atlas Shrugged] has been written—and published—is my proof that they do.”^[6] [WOW! or perhaps, Woe, Woe, Woe?]
□ an incurable idealist blinded to reality by the heroic imaginations of her heart?^[7]
□ another^[8] in a long line of gifted “Aristotles”— basing a “cosmic” theory on false beliefs/assumptions?
□ a matriarch-monarch (of a collective) who despised collectives?
□ a shape-shifter as between reality lived and philosophy preached; and an eye-shifter as in the Mike Wallace interview?^[9]
□ a presenter of ½ and ¾ truths alleged to be whole?
□ a clear and present danger to economic, moral, and social verities?
□ an obsessive user of similes and metaphors?^[10]
□ an inadvertent prophetess by marking her adored $ symbol on a (cancer-causing) cigarette butt?
□ a novelist, specializing in fiction and philosophical fantasy?

------------------/
[1] —in contravention of her philosophic hero’s (Aristotle’s) call to knowledge through empirical observation and experience?
[2] (recycled from more ancient times?) An (inadvertent?) inside job?!
[3] (déjà vu, as in “Religion is ... the opium of the people”?)
[4] (including almost every teaching/example of spiritual leaders)
[5] (déjà vu, Marx?)
[6] From the 35th Anniversary edition of Atlas Shrugged, a Plume Book, p. 1171
[7] (déjà vu, here too?)
[8] See her romantic (unhistorical) view of industrialists operating without restraints in the 1959 interview with Mike Wallace circa 15:00 minutes at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ooKsv_SX4Y&feature=related ; then see footnote 1 above
[9] See the link at footnote 8
[10] Mark Twain is reported to have said that if the phrase “And it came to pass” had been cut from the Mormon’s Book of Mormon, it would have been a pamphlet. Likewise, if Ayn had excised but ½ of her similes and metaphors in Atlas Shrugged, the book would likely have shrunk to 1/3 and thus have doubled, if not quadrupled, its readers and its already prodigious sales. In this case, did Ayn’s self-expression exceed her profit/self-interest motive and thus her prized reason?

Inadvertent Symbolism?

During this year 2012 (which marks the 30th anniversary of the death of Ayn Rand), I have been re-reading Atlas Shrugged.^[1] Besides doing a little Ayn-alysing,^[2] I have been struck by the inadvertent symbolism of her $-sign on a cigarette butt. That symbol has proven profoundly apt for those devoted above all things to self-direction, achievement, and profit.

Yes, Ayn details huge problems that plague mankind. There is also much truth and progress in self-direction, achievement, and profit. But is it the whole truth? And are Ayn’s solutions really beneficial (as many seem to believe!) or are they more in the line of addictive, ephemeral gratifications leading to dreadful consequence?

In the words of Ravi Zacharias:

There are elements of truth in [great thinkers] thinking, but they often go into assumptions that are unsustainable and create a systemic failure.^[3]

Have we not seen that systemic failure where self-direction, achievement, and profit have been untempered by additional values?

So, considering the tortured history of man and his profit motif, it seems “divine” that Ayn should choose a mysterious $-sign imprinted on a cancer-causing, smoking stick to symbolize her single-minded worship of achievement and money.

And that $-sign sketched by John Galt upon the sky?^[4] When all things are considered, it seems that Ayn’s inadvertent symbolism trumps the purported truth of her idealism.
------------------/
[1] References are from Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand, (35th Anniversary Edition), A Plume Book.
[2] http://dejavu-timestwo.blogspot.ca/2012/06/ayn-alyzing-1.html is the first in a short series of posts entitled, “Ayn-alysing.”
[3] RZIM Canada / Spring and Summer 2012 Newsletter, p. 5
[4] Atlas Shrugged, last sentence, p. 1168

Duel of Abuse ~ Round Xn2

(Déjà vu characters from 424 BC ~ courtesy of ARISTOPHANES^[1] with some minor name changes for the sake of clarity.)

[A Duel of Economic Ideologies (including personalities): continued from the previous two posts.]

SAUSAGE-SELLER. The story is worth hearing. Listen! From here I rushed straight to the Senate, right in the track of this man; he was already letting loose the storm, unchaining the lightning, crushing the Knights beneath huge mountains of calumnies heaped together and having all the air of truth; he called you conspirators and his lies caught root like weeds in every mind; dark were the looks on every side and brows were knitted. When I saw that the Senate listened to him favourably and was being tricked by his imposture, I said to myself, "Come, gods of rascals and braggarts, gods of all fools, toad-eaters and braggarts and thou, market-place, where I was bred from my earliest days, give me unbridled audacity, an untiring chatter and a shameless voice." … then I burst open the door by a vigorous push with my back, and, opening my mouth to the utmost, shouted, "Senators, I wanted you to be the first to hear the good news; since the War broke out, I have never seen anchovies at a lower price!" All faces brightened at once and I was voted a chaplet for my good tidings; and I added, "With a couple of words I will reveal to you, how you can have quantities of anchovies for an obol; 'tis to seize on all the dishes the merchants have." With mouths gaping with admiration, they applauded me. However, [Clecon] winded the matter and, well knowing the sort of language which pleases the Senate best, said, "Friends, I am resolved to offer one hundred oxen to the goddess in recognition of this happy event." The Senate at once veered to his side. So when I saw myself defeated by this ox filth, I outbade the fellow, crying, "Two hundred!" And beyond this I moved, that a vow be made to Diana of a thousand goats if the next day anchovies should only be worth an obol a hundred. And the Senate looked towards me again. The other, stunned with the blow, grew delirious in his speech, and at last the … guards dragged him out. The Senators then stood talking noisily about the anchovies. [Clecon], however, begged them to listen to the [foreign] envoy, who had come to make proposals of peace; but all with one accord, cried, "'Tis certainly not the moment to think of peace now! If anchovies are so cheap, what need have we of peace? Let the war take its course!" And with loud shouts they demanded that the [Judges] should close the sitting and then leapt over the rails in all directions. As for me, I slipped away to buy all the coriander seed and leeks there were on the market and gave it to them gratis as seasoning for their anchovies. 'Twas marvellous! They loaded me with praises and caresses; thus I conquered the Senate with an obol's worth of leeks, and here I am.
…
[CLECON]. I will haul you before Demos, who will mete out justice to you.
SAUSAGE-SELLER. And I too will drag you before him and belch forth more calumnies than you.
[CLECON]. Why, poor fool, he does not believe you, whereas I play with him at will.
SAUSAGE-SELLER. So that Demos is your property, your contemptible creature.
[CLECON]. 'Tis because I know the dishes that please him.
SAUSAGE-SELLER. And these are little mouthfuls, which you serve to him like a clever nurse. You chew the pieces and place some in small quantities in his mouth, while you swallow three parts yourself.
…
[CLECON]. Hah! my friend, you tricked me at the Senate, but have a care! Let us go before Demos.
SAUSAGE-SELLER. That's easily done; come, let's along without delay.

[To be continued.]

[2012 Study Questions: Who/What is our “Clecon”? Who/What is our Sausage-Seller? Who is our Demos?]

--------/
[1] “Duel of Abuse” comes from p. 14 (CHORUS) of Aristophanes' (circa 444 –385 BC) play, “The Knights,” from The Eleven Comedies, Volume 1, Public Domain Books. Kindle Edition, 2005-08-01. The text of this post is from pp. 16-18 as condensed (with minor updates in [ ]) by SMS.

Duel of Abuse ~ Round Xn1

(Déjà vu characters from 424 BC ~ courtesy of ARISTOPHANES^[1] with some names slightly amended for clarity.)

 In the last post, Dimisthenes asks, “Who will get us out of this mess?” And who should promptly show up but a sausage-seller! He is swiftly recruited to the cause. What follows is an Aristophian distillation of mankind’s perennial conflict—one we have endured in recent Republican “debates” and will yet endure, more intensely, in anticipated Rep & Dem ones.

At core, we have a duel of economic ideologies, which, in analysis (and in Artistophanes), are more alike in practice than not. Dimisthenes and the CHORUS of Knights (or the Benighted, as the case may be!) root for the Sausage-Seller.

SAUSAGE-SELLER. The oracles of the gods summon me! Faith! I do not at all understand how I can be capable of governing the people.
[DIMISTHENES]. Nothing simpler. Continue your trade. Mix and knead together all the state business as you do for your sausages. To win the people, always cook them some savoury that pleases them. Besides, you possess all the attributes of a demagogue; a screeching, horrible voice, a perverse, cross-grained nature and the language of the market-place. In you all is united which is needful for governing. The oracles are in your favour, even including that of [Phila]Delphi[a]. Come, take a chaplet [garland or wreath for the head], offer a libation to the god of Stupidity and take care to fight vigorously.
 SAUSAGE-SELLER. Who will be my ally? for the rich fear [the present demagogue, Clecon] and the poor shudder at the sight of him.
 [DIMISTHENES]. You will have a thousand brave Knights who detest him, on your side; also the honest citizens amongst the spectators, those who are men of brave hearts, and finally myself and the god [of the market-place]. Fear not, … the public have wit enough to recognize him.

[Then the demagogue CLECON arrives.]
[NOTE: Our twenty-first century words may be gold-plated, but in essence, can we not hear clear echoes of Aristophanes?!]

[CLECON]. I denounce this fellow; he has had tasty stews exported from [America] for the [enemies’] fleet.
SAUSAGE-SELLER. And I denounce him, who runs into the [public trust] with empty belly and comes out with it full.
[CLECON]. You are travelling the right road to get killed.
…
SAUSAGE-SELLER. I will baffle your machinations.
[CLECON]. Dare to look me in the face!
SAUSAGE-SELLER. I too was brought up in the market-place.
[CLECON]. I will cut you to shreds if you whisper a word.
SAUSAGE-SELLER. I will daub you with dung if you open your mouth.
[CLECON]. I own I am a thief; do you admit yourself another.
SAUSAGE-SELLER. By our Hermes of the market-place, if caught in the act, why, I perjure myself before those who saw me.
[CLECON]. These are my own special tricks. I will denounce you to the [Judges] as the owner of sacred tripe, that has not paid tithe [or taxes].
…
SAUSAGE-SELLER. Just hear what sort of fellow that fine citizen is.
[CLECON]. Will you not let me speak?
SAUSAGE-SELLER. Assuredly not, for I also am a sad rascal. …
[CLECON]. Once more, will you not let me speak?
SAUSAGE-SELLER. No, by Zeus!
[CLECON]. Yes, by Zeus, but you shall!
SAUSAGE-SELLER. No, by Posidon! We will fight first to see who shall speak first.
…
[CLECON]. I will rush into the Senate and set them all by the ears.
SAUSAGE-SELLER. And I will lug out your gut to stuff like a sausage.
[CLECON]. As for me, I will seize you by the rump and hurl you head foremost through the door.
…
SAUSAGE-SELLER. I denounce you for cowardice.
[CLECON]. I will tan your hide.
SAUSAGE-SELLER. I will flay you and make a thief's pouch with the skin.
[CLECON]. I will peg you out on the ground.
…
SAUSAGE-SELLER. … he has only made himself a name by reaping another's harvest; and now he has tied up the ears he gathered over there, he lets them dry and seeks to sell them.
…
[CLECON]. I will bring four suits against you, each of one hundred talents.
SAUSAGE-SELLER. And I twenty against you for shirking duty and more than a thousand for robbery.
…
[CLECON]. You are an impostor.
SAUSAGE-SELLER. And you are a rogue.

 [And so on and on!]

TO BE CONTINUED: Round Xⁿ².

[2012 Study Questions: Who/What is “Clecon”? Who/What is Dimisthenes? Who/What is the Sausage-Seller? Who are the CHORUS of Knights?]

------/
 [1] “Duel of Abuse” comes from p. 14 (CHORUS) of Aristophanes' (circa 444 –385 BC) play, “The Knights,” from The Eleven Comedies, Volume 1, Public Domain Books. Kindle Edition, 2005-08-01. The text of this post is from pp. 8-13 as condensed (with minor changes and updates in [ ]) by SMS.

Duel of Abuse 2012 ~ Prologue

(Déjà vu characters from 424 BC ~ courtesy of ARISTOPHANES^[1] with some names slightly amended for clarity.)

[DIMISTHENES:] I will begin then. We have a very brutal master, a perfect glutton for bean[counting], and most bad-tempered; 'tis Demos of [DC], an intolerable old man and half deaf. The beginning of last month he bought a [sidekick], a … tanner [called, “Clecon”], an arrant rogue, the incarnation of calumny. This man of leather knows his old master thoroughly; he plays the fawning cur, flatters, cajoles; wheedles, and dupes him at will with little scraps of leavings, which he allows him to get. "Dear Demos," he will say, "try a single case and you will have done enough; then take your bath, eat, swallow and devour; here are three [more profit points]." Then [this Clecon] filches from one of us what we have prepared and makes a present of it to our old man. T'other day I had just kneaded a Spartan cake …; the cunning rogue came behind my back, sneaked it and offered the cake, which was my invention, in his own name. He keeps us at a distance and suffers none but himself to wait upon the master; when Demos is dining, he keeps close to his side with a thong in his hand and puts the orators to flight. He keeps singing oracles to him, so that the old man now thinks of nothing but the [futures]. Then, when he sees him thoroughly obfuscated, he uses all his cunning and piles up lies and calumnies against the household; then we are scourged and [Clecon] runs about among the slaves to demand contributions with threats and gathers 'em in with both hands. He will say, "You see how I have had [upstarts] beaten! Either content me or die at once!" We are forced to give, for else the old man tramples on us and makes us spew forth all our body contains. There must be an end to it, friend. Let us see! what can be done? Who will get us out of this mess?

[2012 Study Questions: Who/What is Dimisthenes? Who/What is Demos? Who/What is Clecon? Hint: perhaps begin with the recent Republican primaries; and/or economic theories.]

 ----------------------/

[1] “Duel of Abuse” comes from p. 14 (CHORUS) of Aristophanes' (circa 444 –385 BC)  play, “The Knights,” from The Eleven Comedies, Volume 1, Public Domain Books. Kindle Edition, 2005-08-01. The text of this post is from p. 4 with a 2012 update by SMS.

A Series of Massive Delusions*

(or The Toxic Fallout from Ayn & Uncle Miltie)

Posted in observance of April [etc.] Fool’s Day

Here are a few quotes from Boomerang by Michael Lewis—a déjà vu of “what you sow is what you reap [eventually**]”:

“They created fake capital by trading assets amongst themselves at inflated values, … This was how the banks and investment companies grew and grew” (p. 17 ~ quote from a London hedge fund manager).

… bankers buying stuff from one another at inflated prices, borrowing tens of billions of dollars and relending it to members of their little … tribe, who then used it to buy up a messy pile of foreign assets (p. 19-20).

One of the hidden causes of the current global financial crisis is that the people who saw it coming had more to gain from it by taking short positions than they did by trying to publicize the problem (p. 20).

Inside Greece [or nation X—take your pick], there was no market for whistle-blowing, as basically everyone was in on the racket (p. 63).

Extremely smart traders inside Wall Street investment banks devise deeply unfair diabolically complicated bets, and then send their sales forces out to scour the world for some idiot who will take the other side of those bets (p. 153).

… Morgan Stanley designed extremely complicated credit default swaps so they were all but certain to fail, so that their own proprietary traders could bet against them … (p. 153).

The American bond traders may have sunk their firms by turning a blind eye to the risks in the subprime bond market, but they made a fortune for themselves in the bargain, and have for the most part never been called to account (p. 161-2).

They’d [Americans] been conditioned to grab as much as they could, without thinking about the long-term consequences. Afterward, the people of Wall Street would privately bemoan the low morals of the American people who walked away from their subprime loans, and the American people would express outrage at the Wall Street people who paid themselves a fortune to design the bad loans (p. 202).

“We have lost the ability to self-regulate, at all levels of society. The five million dollars you get paid at Goldman Sachs if you do whatever they ask you to do—that is the [reptilian scarcity/abundance trigger that short-circuits long-term benefit for short-term biology/gratification; in other words, diet versus] chocolate cake upgraded” (p. 205, quoting/ paraphrasing Dr. Peter Whybrow—UCLA neuroscientist).

The extent of the corruption, self-service, and criminality is so pervasive and incredible that too many view it as just that—not credible; or in the alternative, as a regrettable, collateral zit on the divine face of free markets. These nice-people-in-suits who furnish/entice us with consumables, loans, investments opps, and aspirations can’t be so bad!

Well folks, the bad news is: it is BAD, BAD, BAD; BADDER (Yes! BADDER because worse doesn't sufficiently describe it) than you even imagine. And the toxic fraud and fallout will continue till we demand a new cultural paradigm of balance, where libertarianism is seen for what it is—an untenable extreme of individualism—as untenable and devastating as extreme collectivism. (What it really amounts to is a concentrated collectivism on the right as opposed to a supposedly broad one on the left. At both extremes, the status of the majority is impoverished, despite the hype.)

Perhaps it is time the “masses yearning to [be] free” of massive fraud and corruption demanded a massive right-wing correction in a déjà vu mirror image from 1987: “Tear down this Wall Street!” And “Let my people go find a more just and equitable way.”

------------/
* p. 198 from Boomerang: Travels in the New Third World by Michael Lewis (2011)—a book every adult should read; every libertarian should read twice (a day); and every bond trader (and accomplice) should have piped into their Leavenworth/FCI-Tallahassee (etc.) cell 24/7 on a rotating basis with other exposes, including The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine also by Michael Lewis.
** If not now, then hereafter, as in “For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. (New Testament 1 Timothy 6:10)

“Tear down this wall!” reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tear_down_this_wall !

Déjà vu: Back & So-Forth



Isocrates ~ 436-338 BC: “Democracy destroys itself because it abuses its right to freedom and equality. Because it teaches its citizens to consider audacity as a right, lawlessness as a freedom, abrasive speech as equality, and anarchy as progress.”

WikiCommons ~ Public Domain

I am almost finished Boomerang: Travels in the New Third World (2011) by Michael Lewis* ~ another witness to the insanity of our financial times. Thousands of witnesses now stacked in chronological order upon the prescience of Isaiah the prophet.

Why is it that seeing, so many still do not see and hearing, so many still do not hear, decade after decade, debacle after debacle, libertarian upon libertarian?

Has not corruption proven itself to be the encoded, invariable, inexorable constant of unregulated, deregulated, poorly regulated:**

▪ Money concentration
▪ Power concentration
▪ Speculation (read: financial markets, etc.)
▪ BIGGER is better obsessives
▪ Charities
▪ Corporations
▪ Governments
▪ Lobbyists
▪ NGOs
▪ PACs
▪ PR firms
▪ Profiteers (of every stripe)
▪ Work sites (of every kind)
▪ & so forth, & so forth?

Doesn’t balance mean a little right, a little left, and a whole lot of middle in controlling these “feet that be swift in [forever] running to mischief” (Prov. 6:17)?

------------------
* (where he quotes the above Isocrates at page 81)
** (read: appropriate, enforceable checks and balances)