"A is A" (Meagan Adler)

In this week’s reading it’s hard not to comment on John Galt’s particularly lengthy, yet insightfully captivating speech that explains the essence of life that is lost in the distorted opaque socialist society that is metaphorically depicted as a “child’s nightmare” (pg.948).  I was intrigued by the way Galt explicitly states that “to be or not to be” is “to think or not to think” (pg.926), further explaining that “Existence is Identity” and “Consciousness is Identification” (pg.930); here, he directly states that the key to life is the free mind, which is lost in the “fog” (pg.964) of the socialist society that programs its robotic citizens to have a “frozen mind” (pg.964).  By surrendering their mind to the distorted world, the socialists are cutting their “motor” (pg. 933) and figuratively killing themselves, furthermore defining themselves as the living dead.  In comparing the human mind to a motor, Galt communicates that surrendering it to the collective entity takes the socialists off the single independent continuous track and ultimately sacrifices their lives, for their only purpose in living is to avoid death.  Also in describing the cannibalistic society, Galt states that their system is a “legal civil war” (pg. 976), meaning that men are eating and destroying their own producers.  They are “killers for the sake of killing”.  Furthermore, the people must stop trying to authenticate the fakeness of the corrupt socialist officials and “let them drown” (pg.977); here, he describes the free mind as the peoples only “life belt” (pg. 977) that will save them from dying in the decaying society.  A part of the speech I found particularly interesting is when Galt says that to live one must have reason, purpose and self esteem, for I began to think of Maslow’s hierarchy and how the socialists refuse to abandon the collective body and think freely because they are stuck at the love and belongingness stage.  They cannot self actualize or respect themselves because they feel like to do so, they will loose the sense of comfort found in the collective entity.  Lastly, at the conclusion of the speech, we realize that it is directed at Dagny, for Galt almost gets lost in his own train of thought as he says, “Do you hear me…my love” (pg.979); this was a particularly powerful part because in my opinion it shows that Galt needs Dagny in order to fulfill his love and belongingness needs, for she is part of his identity.  The country’s vulnerable and decaying state is ultimately described as being “prostrated by the scourge of hemophilia, loosing the best of its blood from a wound not to be healed” (pg.989); I thought that this description shows the severity of the weak society, as the capitalist scabs keep abandoning it for Galt’s world. We are also exposed to the official’s inability to see clarity, for they are ignorant of the fact that the “unskilled railroad laborer” (pg. 990) in which they know exists is the actual John Galt.  Also, the society cannot see Galt’s lab, but rather see “an empty skull” (pg.1004); this shows that it is hindered by its own inability to think freely and see clearly.  The people are trapped in the distorted world, ignorantly trying to verify their own existence by “faking reality” (pg.992) as Galt sits back and bursts out “laughing” (pg.1007) at their failure to see clarity.