Imagine a documentary movie that starts with quoting a
fictitious moral speech. “You have sacrificed justice to mercy. You have
sacrificed independence for unity. You have sacrificed reason to faith. You
have sacrificed wealth to need.” This,
of course, comes from John Galt’s speech near the climax of “Atlas Shrugged.”
The film “Ayn Rand and the Prophecy of Atlas Shrugged”
(2011, directed by Chris Mortensen, Mad Universe Pictures) begins with this
arresting quote.
After going through Ayn Rand’s early life in Russia and her
first novels and getting to “The Fountainhead”, it quotes her hero (Howard
Roark) as saying, something like “I must love the doing and love my work first,
not the people” (before I can actually help people).
By then, the film has shown images of America from the 1920s
through the post War 50s, and makes the case that the problem is invisible, a “philosophy” (which turns into "prophecy"). America, at one time a fount of freedom, had
been overrun by social consciousness.
The film then explains Rand’s concept that all the “doers”
of the world go on strike.
The film further reviews Rand’s background, indeed how she
had protected her parents’ family in Russia, but then goes beyond the idea that
Communism is thuggery to attributing to victims the moral responsibility for
their losses at the hands of others.
Altruism, as commonly understood, becomes a moral evil in Rand’s
world. The idea that “others are more
important than me” leads to decay. But
opposition to “self-sacrifice” is not the same thing as endorsing “piggishness”
or short-term greedy behavior. As in a
chess game, it’s sometimes not a good idea to grab pawns in the opening.
Eventually, the film develops the idea of personal autonomy or
individual sovereignty. Do you own your
own life? It certainly must no belong to
“the state”. But does it somehow belong
to “the community” in a personal sense for sustainability reasons. I start to wonder.
The film then covers the overwhelmingly negative reviews of “Atlas
Shrugged” after publication. Random House had wanted John Galt’s speech
removed. The most destructive review was
from Whitaker Chambers. Yet the book
became a commercial success, at one time rising to 4th Place on the
NYTimes best seller list.
The film covers the Financial Crisis of 2008 as an example
of how of some of Rand’s predictions came true.
It describes 2008 as an example of the failure of “crony capitalism”. It then explains the term “objectivism”. One side idea is that regular people should
take place in politics occasionally and then go back to being productive. Should writers and artists be expected to run
for office?
In my own experience, a commitment to “individualism” is challenged
by coercive pressure from others to actually be willing to support some of
their goals personally, even at sacrifice of my own, if the “need is great
enough. This includes openness to
personal relationships that might have been rejected or ignored, if they are
within some moral “goldolocks zone” of me.
Why? Because I am ultimately
dependent on “sacrifices” from others that I cannot see. Will the individualism of Rand enable people
to work together in a way to give the whole planet sustainability? Can private interests protect the power grid
from existential threats, or prevent climate change from destroying many areas
of the world? Well, some of these
problems might need individuals to invent things, just as Alan Turing did
during WWII.
You can’t be your brother’s keeper when you no longer have
anything to give. As in Greece right
now, the “looting runs dry.”
There is still a division, my mind, between “altruism”
(defined as participation in social capital or “eusociality”) as a moral necessity
for sustainability, and the idea that government can enforce it (without
becoming corrupt or “cronyized”). And
there is a connection, however nuanced, between “altruism” and the way people
seek and maintain relationships (influenced by the desire to procreate, or lack
of such desire).
The end: “You believe in life. You want to fight for it, to
die for it. I only want to live it.”
I reviewed “Atlas Shrugged: Par I” on April 15, 2011 on this
blog. Part II should appear in Fall 2012. I’m rather surprised it isn’t a cable
miniseries instead. The documentary
discusses the films near the end, as long as earlier attempts to develop a film
partly because of problems with Rand’s approving a script.
I 1998, I saw an earlier similar documentary “Ayn Rand: A
Sense of Life”, directed by Michael Paxton, during a visit to Dallas. That film had been distributed by Strand
Releasing and Fox Lorber.
The film can be rented on YouTube legally for $3.99.
The official site is here.
(An alternate title is "Ayn Rand & the Prophecy of Atlas Shrugged".)
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