For twelve years, you have been asking: Who is John Galt?
This is John Galt speaking. I am the man who loves his life. I am
the man who does not sacrifice his love or his values. I am the man who
has deprived you of victims and thus has destroyed your world, and if
you wish to know why you are perishing-you who dread knowledge-I am the
man who will now tell you.
You have heard it said that this is an age of moral crisis. You
have said it yourself, half in fear, half in hope that the words had no
meaning. You have cried that man’s sins are destroying the world and
you have cursed human nature for its unwillingness to practice the
virtues you demanded. Since virtue, to you, consists of sacrifice, you
have demanded more sacrifices at every successive disaster. In the name
of a return to morality, you have sacrificed all those evils which you
held as the cause of your plight. You have sacrificed justice to mercy.
You have sacrificed independence to unity. You have sacrificed reason to
faith. You have sacrificed wealth to need. You have sacrificed
self-esteem to self-denial. You have sacrificed happiness to duty.
You have destroyed all that which you held to be evil and
achieved all that which you held to be good. Why, then, do you shrink in
horror from the sight of the world around you? That world is not the
product of your sins, it is the product and the image of your virtues.
It is your moral ideal brought into reality in its full and final
perfection. You have fought for it, you have dreamed of it, and you have
wished it, and I-I am the man who has granted you your wish.
Your ideal had an implacable enemy, which your code of morality
was designed to destroy. I have withdrawn that enemy. I have taken it
out of your way and out of your reach. I have removed the source of all
those evils you were sacrificing one by one. I have ended your battle. I
have stopped your motor. I have deprived your world of man’s mind.
Men do not live by the mind, you say? I have withdrawn those who
do. The mind is impotent, you say? I have withdrawn those whose mind
isn’t. There are values higher than the mind, you say? I have withdrawn
those for whom there aren’t.
While you were dragging to your sacrificial altars the men of
justice, of independence, of reason, of wealth, of self-esteem-I beat
you to it, I reached them first. I told them the nature of the game you
were playing and the nature of that moral code of yours, which they had
been too innocently generous to grasp. I showed them the way to live by
another morality-mine. It is mine that they chose to follow…
the man who does not sacrifice his love or his values. I am the man who
has deprived you of victims and thus has destroyed your world, and if
you wish to know why you are perishing-you who dread knowledge-I am the
man who will now tell you.
You have heard it said that this is an age of moral crisis. You
have said it yourself, half in fear, half in hope that the words had no
meaning. You have cried that man’s sins are destroying the world and
you have cursed human nature for its unwillingness to practice the
virtues you demanded. Since virtue, to you, consists of sacrifice, you
have demanded more sacrifices at every successive disaster. In the name
of a return to morality, you have sacrificed all those evils which you
held as the cause of your plight. You have sacrificed justice to mercy.
You have sacrificed independence to unity. You have sacrificed reason to
faith. You have sacrificed wealth to need. You have sacrificed
self-esteem to self-denial. You have sacrificed happiness to duty.
You have destroyed all that which you held to be evil and
achieved all that which you held to be good. Why, then, do you shrink in
horror from the sight of the world around you? That world is not the
product of your sins, it is the product and the image of your virtues.
It is your moral ideal brought into reality in its full and final
perfection. You have fought for it, you have dreamed of it, and you have
wished it, and I-I am the man who has granted you your wish.
Your ideal had an implacable enemy, which your code of morality
was designed to destroy. I have withdrawn that enemy. I have taken it
out of your way and out of your reach. I have removed the source of all
those evils you were sacrificing one by one. I have ended your battle. I
have stopped your motor. I have deprived your world of man’s mind.
Men do not live by the mind, you say? I have withdrawn those who
do. The mind is impotent, you say? I have withdrawn those whose mind
isn’t. There are values higher than the mind, you say? I have withdrawn
those for whom there aren’t.
While you were dragging to your sacrificial altars the men of
justice, of independence, of reason, of wealth, of self-esteem-I beat
you to it, I reached them first. I told them the nature of the game you
were playing and the nature of that moral code of yours, which they had
been too innocently generous to grasp. I showed them the way to live by
another morality-mine. It is mine that they chose to follow…
Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Comments