Galt's Speech on Living With Objectivism

The entire book has been leading up to this point where Ayn Rand can metaphorically shout here philosophy from the top of a mountain, and she does so in John Galt’s final long speech. Even though the name of the philosophy is not mentioned throughout the book, it is called objectivism, and the Galt speech is a summary of that. Yet he is not right out explaining objectivism he is more describing his personal philosophy, which happens to be objectivism, and how it applied to his actions and why he did what he did in terms of the strike. What is semi-ironic is that objectivism deals a lot with doing the right thing and focusing on morality, but it is based on a generally different morality where all the things that the “looters” think is good, sacrifice and charity for example, are bad and things like selfishness, greed, and hard work are considered good things, which explains why Galt can be comfortable with what he is doing. In his perspective, he is following along with the tenants of objectivism and living a life for himself and only himself, which allows him to ignore all the death and destruction that he caused. Still, he blames everyone else for destroying the world when he was the one who actively removed the smartest people in the world to prove a point. It is like blaming the people who made the cliff rather than the person who shoved the boulder down, it is a little bit backwards. But, according to objectivism, the only thing that you should strive for is personal happiness, making the previous argument relevant. If pushing the boulder off the cliff is what helps you achieve self-wealth and satisfaction, it does not matter if it falls on top of a hospital for orphaned children. This nonchalant nature towards the destruction of the world is evident in the final pages of the chapter where we see all the important people planning on basically taking over the world, all happy and joyful, while the rest of the cast of the novel are wrought with destruction, war, death, disease, poverty, despair, and general unpleasantness. If you could not tell, I somewhat dislike the character of John Galt and all that he represents in the novel and beyond. Personally, I feel like John Galt is somewhat of a psychopath or at least on some level with the stranger where the only things that drive him are money, success through money, and sex yet Galt has almost no qualms about anything else. But I feel that the way he was portrayed will be linked to be closer to that of a Jesus figure rather than a psychopath, but that is just my opinion.