I
do not even know where to start with that speech of John Galt’s. It was literally 50 pages of Ayn Rand
ranting using John Galt’s character.
It had so much information and opinions in it that I got sick of reading
it after a few pages. I felt like
the speech was never going to end!
Even thought I liked Galt when we first met him, he made me mad in this
speech. He was acting like
everyone should listen to him because he is greater and more superior to
them. To me, he was acting like he
thinks he is God to these people.
I thought this because of his line, “I am the man whom you did not want
either to live or to die. You did
not want me to live, because you were afraid or knowing that I carried the
responsibility you dropped and that your lives depended upon me; you did not
want me to die, because you know it,” (page 959). I do not think that the people cared that much about John
Galt before because they did not know who he was. However, I did like the fact that John Galt finally
addressed the world because he is the most talked about character in the book
but no one really knows who he is.
People asked the question, “Who is John Galt?” when there is question
that they have no answer for. Now
that question cannot be asked though because the world finally hears who he is. Even though I did not like the speech
that much, I did like the part about how everyone needs to stop the looters
from taking over the world. The
simile about how looters are like parasites is also very clever of Ayn
Rand. The looters are like
parasites because they feed of other people, their host, and take over what
they made or did.
Lastly, I found it cool how John Galt has
been in the book the whole time even though we did not know he was there. He was always disguised as someone
watching Dagny in everything she did.
It was kind of creepy to hear that John Galt was always watching over
Dagny, but at the same time it was kind of sweet. He knew that she was someone worth watching and that she was
someone superior to others. Overall,
the speech was long and I was glad when John Galt finally finished on page 979.
I agree with Carlye in that I initially liked John Galt's character. I also found his speech a bit annoying because it did seem to drag on for longer than it needed to. However, there were some aspects of the speech that I did like. For example, he talked about how morality should come from within individuals rather than from some sort of outside force. I agree with this because I think it makes sense for individuals to determine their own definitions of morality, rather than a single entity defining it. Nevertheless, there were many parts of the speech that I did not agree with and it did seem as though he felt his ideas were the only ones that could be accepted, as Caryle pointed out. I also liked the comparison of looters to parasites. Both feed on others while they are gaining for themselves. This idea ties in to John Galt's idea that self-interest should be a priority. The looters, like the parasites, are only concerned with their personal gain, so they do not care that they are leaving a negative impact on something else.
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