John Wright@johncwright2001
"Going Galt" means going on strike, refusing to lend your genius and hard work to a social order that grows increasingly malign. It means refusing to help one's own destroyers.
We have seen communists and collectivists from Marx to modern Wokesters make endless demands on more productive men, demand we provide them with doctors and medicine, food and housing and basic income, entertainment, comfort, and changing pronoun use, all to accommodate those whose only contribution to society is their utter inability to contribute to society.
Myself, I would caution against departing from a society even if it is hostile to Christ, to life, to reason, to common sense. Even when the society is filled with irrational hatred for your religion, race, tradition, history, accomplishments and virtues, we still owe certain civic duties to the laws heaven has placed over us. We are to obey secular law in all things, until and unless we are asked to disobey divine law.
But why, John Galt might ask (were he real) should a genius aid a fool, particularly when that fool means to use whatever aid he is given to destroy the genius?
Good question. I can only answer as someone who is not a genius, quoting those wiser than I.
I take this as a case of almsgiving: when we have abundance, and the needy need our help, it is a Christian duty out of brother love to aid him. Generally, this is done without regard to the merit of the needy person, just as all shipwrecked sailors without distinction are received in a port, so we should not sit in judgment upon those who have fallen into poverty, but hasten to help them in their misfortune.
But prudence says there are exceptions to this.
St. Thomas considers the case in which a needy person begs alms in order to commit sin: “We ought not to help a sinner as such, that is by encouraging him to sin, but as man, that is by supporting his nature” (II-II q32 a6).
Fr. Francis Spirago discusses this further, mixing prudence with mercy: "To give to those who are known to be idle and addicted to drink, is to encourage them in sin; but it is better to err on the side of charity than of severity"
John Galt, alas, is morally crippled. The Atlas Shrugging character is portrayed as selfish, and regards altruism as a sin (but, ironically, altruism is allowed when one is in love with another, or respect another, provided this love and respect is ultimately self-centered -- a matter of what you want to do, regardless of the merit of the, provided you authentically and deeply want to do it as an act of rational willpower. Or something).
To Galt, all acts of public service, even participation in the market economy, if it benefits the common good, is immoral unless one is rewarded in due proportion. "Going Galt" is sulking. It is a womanly thing to do -- John Galt is a woman's idea of what a man should be like, after all -- because one way women get needed attention is by pretending indifference. To withdraw her companionship from an ungrateful lover, so that, agonized by loneliness, he realizes his error, is a matter of feminine revenge fantasy.
The anger of Ayn Rand, in part, may be due to the fact that she is wise and clear sighted enough to see that Communists will never realize error, never admit wrong, and would rather die than allow their self-righteous self-esteem to be diminished. Ironically, with her insistence on reason, logic, and results, Ayn Rand is far more masculine, in that sense, than any Communist. Collectivism is pure maternal instinct inverted to evil: a smothering mother insisting everyone share everything, and no games have winners or losers.
Ayn Rand is angry because the prime maternal instinct in life, namely, to teach wayward children to return to the right path, the path of life and happiness, can never work on Communists. They do not want happiness. They want you miserable. They do not want to live. They want you to die.
JCJW
