Posted on 05/27/2005 3:55:57 PM PDT by Hank Kerchief
Galt's Gulch is a high-tech retreat in Ayn Rand's novel Atlas Shrugged—a place where all the "disappearing" productive people can meet, relax and recharge.
John Galt, the hero of "Atlas", is a brilliant engineer who has decided he will not support a corrupt system. He will not allow his mind, his talent, or his efforts to prop it up. He plans a strike like no other—a strike of all those who are the engine of civilisation, the creative producers in every field. His mission is to persuade each and every one to disappear, to simply remove their support, and thereby bring about a collapse of the existing society.
Galt's Gulch is their private hideaway spot—an anarchic, free community hidden in the mountains. It's protected by a high-tech invisibility screen, which is designed to prevent the place from being found.
It's a "retreat for the rational", a place to reenergise and spend time with like-minded people.
If you haven't read Atlas Shrugged, then I urge you to. It has the power to revolutionise the way you see the world—and more importantly, your place in it.
Galt's Gulch portrays what could be possible in a rational society—and in each new generation of readers it inspires hope, and shines like a beacon pointing to a different world.
It has also inspired speculation as to how such a society may be created in reality. Usually, this has lead to ideas like how to create a new country, or sovereign territory. Many such ideas have been floated—and come to naught. The main obstacle being the impossibility of achieving sovereignty over any existing territory. It's all spoken for. Sure you can buy land and build a city even—but you cannot buy the actual sovereignty, or true independence.
This vital ingredient of freedom is apparently not for sale. Every existing nation jealously guards its existing sovereignty, and has managed to seize every piece of real estate on earth.
You could go off-planet of course—like in Robert Heinlen's novel—The Moon is a Harsh Mistress—where an Earth colony on the moon rebels, and declares its independence. And that is still a possibility—although probably far-off.
This leaves us in a quandary. Freedom-loving individuals would simply love a place to call their "own". Trouble is, such a place does not exist—and appears to be impossible to create, under the existing notions of national sovereignty.
It could be possible to "lease" sovereignty from some existing nation—say a poor nation in need of cash. But such a move is very likely to draw the wrath of the nation state club— particularly if it were to buck the system in other ways. However, this option is also very unlikely, as the only places that may even consider it are probably a bit of a hell hole.
So, where does that leave a motivated freedom-seeker—an individual who is serious about claiming his birthright, and not content to just put up with the status quo?
A clue lies in the physical specifications of Galt's Gulch. Much has been said about the nature of that private society, but the novel is more properly concerned with the big picture—about transforming the world as a result of the "strike". However the nascent free society, that is Galt's Gulch, is able to exist because of one essential fact—the privacy shield that lies overhead.
The sky shield creates the illusion that there is nothing in the valley below—so any spying aircraft flying overhead will not see it. It is designed specifically to hide the existence of the place and to allow it to survive and achieve its purpose—that of offering a refuge to those who are on strike, until it is time to return to a transformed society.
This is where the internet comes in. The internet is like an alternative society—a place outside the normal societal structures. It's a place which is effectively uncontrolled by government. In other words, it's a place which has moved beyond the sovereignty of any individual nation. Sure, some nations try to control elements of the internet—like the USA stopping its people from gambling offshore, or China stopping its people from visiting BBC.co.uk—but at its core, the internet is free space.
It's also a very public space. But it has the capacity to be as private as you want it to be.
More importantly, the internet is the basis of a new type of community. You can see this by watching how it has developed. Whereas you used to just read newspapers and news from the official news channels—now you can read/create blogs, start your own podcast service, create and sell your own book, start your own newsletter. Then there's the buy/sell communities like eBay and others—where vast amounts of private business are transacted. And of course, the internet is littered with every type of interest group—political, economic, hobbies, sexuality. You name it and there's a group for it. It's also revolutionised how people find work, arrange travel, book hotels, and do banking. In fact, the internet has become the global, no barriers, free market. And for now, it's not taxed!
It is in this cyber-environment that a private society can be born. Any group of people can create a virtual community with its own privacy shield. Privacy, on the internet, is created by technological means. You can shield your email communications using PGP. You can shield your internet movements using an anonymising service. You can shield certain types of financial transactions using alternate value-exchange systems like e-gold. In other words, you can create a virtual privacy shield.
You can, potentially, move entire chunks of your life into this private space—if you choose. You can communicate, you can do business, you can play, you can inform and be informed. You can even find love.
The one thing you can't do is live in a physical free space—at least not yet. However, this in no way downplays the significance of what can be achieved on the net.
At its root, the net is quite subversive of the present order. It provides proof of alternative means of organisation—without the use of force. The more people interact with the net, the more they are confronted by self-organising systems—whether business or private—where order is developing, evolving and functioning.
The significance of this "education" should not be minimised— because it is allowing individuals to discover a world that works without the gangster class called government. It is a prime example of what can be achieved when people work together for their mutual benefit.
This re-education is a crucible for change. It has the power to fundamentally alter the social order—to cause a mind shift.
Let me give you just one example. The net is full of business opportunities. Now, many of these end in tears. But look at the larger picture. Many of these provide valuable learning experiences—opportunities for people to actually come to grips with the idea that they, as individuals, can create their own wealth—that they are not entirely at the mercy of someone else who may or may not want to employ them.
Now, this type of education is NOT available at school or university—but it is available on the net. And people are soaking it up.
Take another example—my own private cyber-community for those seeking more practical freedom—SovereignLife.com. On the face of it, this may not seem like a revolutionary hotspot—but in fact it is. You see, by attracting like-minded individuals it sets in process a "meeting of minds", and allows for interchange between those wishing to expand their life options. Somebody joins up and wants to learn more about how to open an offshore bank account, or how to get another legal passport, or how to start a business online. At once they are able to communicate, in private, with others on the same road. This community allows for exchange of ideas, inspiration, new strategies, advice on common pitfalls—all of which is invaluable, and which can shorten the learning curve that would normally be expected.
In being part of such a community, a member is exposed to a variety of thought-provoking ideas, and given the freedom to respond, ask questions, make suggestions and take action.
Over time, this type of freedom community builds a commitment to the very idea of personal freedom. It strengthens the foundations of each participant's desire to lead a freer life. And each of these people know other people, who talk to other people—and so are ideas are spread.
Of course, to read your average newspaper, you'd think nothing was happening—that the world is as it has always been. But that's because the average newspaper, TV channel and politician are living in a bubble. You only have to listen to any leader of any nation to realise they're either stupid or ignorant—or both. And certainly, they have no idea what is really happening beneath the surface of their perceived world. They may believe they are the movers and shakers, but the reality is quite different.
Desire for freedom starts in the mind. It then looks for actual expression in the real world. The real world is much more than what you hear on TV. It is emerging and evolving at the cutting edge of social change—the internet.
Like when the Berlin Wall collapsed—bringing to an end the totalitarian monstrosity that was the Soviet Union—the present order is not nearly as robust as the purveyors of nonsense would have you believe. Change can happen—and it can happen fast. All that is necessary is a catalyst—a sudden event that can shake the foundations of the present order. If that happens, and you already have alternative social organisational systems in place, then the resultant social transformation could be sudden and profound.
The internet provides the type of space for a virtual Galt's Gulch—and place of respite from the silliness of political pontificating; a place to recharge your life battery in the company of like-minded souls—and a place to learn the strategies of making your life as free as you want it to be.
Don't underestimate the power of ideas—or the capacity of individuals to self-organise to achieve their goals.
P.S. Why wait for the "big bang". Get started now, be prepared. Go to: http://www.sovereignlife.com/kickstart.html
SovereignLife Enterprises, 126 Aldersgate St, London, EC1 A4JQ, Great Britain
Agreed.
However, when looking at a potential bell curve of 'Gulch' residents, my guess is that you would have more Eddies than Quentins.
Love = altruism. Selfishness, not love, is the definition of virtue. Thus, no love for Dagny.
Her main thrust in the book was about the evils of communism.
"So commies don't want to ruin civilization?"
You are having a logical disconnect here, it does not matter to this subject, if the commies want to ruin civilization or not. This book was about value for value, not something for nothing(communism)...worked by your ability, paid by your need.
Maybe you should reread this book? I still don't think you've read it, but that's just based on your comments here, and what do I know...
Lurker
Good post, you have read this book.
Lurker
From the little to nothing that you've said about the book, I doubt you've read it.
Actually, Joe, She shows more insight into the capitalistic system than most who people live it.
"She holds up the accumulation of material wealth as the height of virtue."
Wrong, she states that you should take care of yourself first, then you have the power, if you choose, to take care of others. With out the self, how would you take care of others?
"Conservatives believe in more than just amassing wealth and gratifying the self. We do not believe that voluntary self-sacrifice is an evil. We believe in charity."
With out wealth how will you provide for your charities?
Voluntary self-sacrifice is not one of the things she addresses in this book, and that would cover the "where are the children" comments that keep coming up in this thread.
"We do not believe that voluntary self-sacrifice is an evil."
Voluntary...VOLUNTARY, remember this word! What about forced self-sacrifice Joe, at the point of our Governments guns...is that okay too?
Lurker
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bookmarked
I'm pretty sure objectivists do see self-sacrifice as bad. They have a problem with the very idea of altruism. This is why they are antagonistic to Christianity.
Rand's works explain in great detail why there is no equivalence between the two concepts:
"Altruism holds that no man has the right to exist for his won sake, that service to others is the only justification for his existence, and that self-sacrifice is his highest moral duty, virtue, and value...The American political system was based on a different moral principle: on the principle of a man's inalienable right to his own life - which means: on the principle that man has the right to exist for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself, and that men must deal with one another as traders, by voluntary choice to mutual benefit." -- Conservatism, An Obituary, Ayn Rand, 1960
Altruism is a philosophy that gave us Nazi death camps and Soviet gulags - it has nothing to do with romantic love, which is the very definition of a voluntary exchange.
So did Heinlein, but with fewer words and the style wasn't painful.
Greater love than this no man hath, that a man lay down his life for his friends. (2 Mark 12)
Love = self-sacrifice for the sake of others = altruism. That's Jesus' definition of love. So which definition is correct? Whom should I believe-- Rand or Christ? Ayn Rand taught that selfishness -- love of self -- is the greatest virtue. Jesus taught that "to love one's neighbour as one's self, is a greater thing than all holocausts and sacrifices (3 Mark 12). Rand taught that rational self-interest is the benchmark of morality. Jesus taught that "whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, he is the greater in the kingdom of heaven" (12 Matthew 20). Rand taught that altruism was evil. Jesus taught that "thou shalt love God with all thy [being]... and thy neighbour as thyself. There is no other commandment greater than these" (4 Matthew 9). And in the end, Ayn Rand died and was buried under the sign of the dollar, the sign of wealth, the sign of gold. She's still in that tomb today. Jesus of Nazareth died and was buried beneath the sign of the cross, the sign of shame, the sign of death and decay. His tomb is empty!
"Ye foolish and blind; for whether is greater, the gold [i.e. self-interst], or the temple that sanctifieth the gold [i.e. God]"? (16 Matthew 23). I know what my answer is. I'll trust the Man who said He was God and proved it by coming back from the dead. When Ayn Rand comes striding forth from her dollar-sign-encrusted casket, I'll reconsider her ideas. Until then, you'll pardon me if I stick with Jesus Christ's definition of love.
I grew up on a farm snuggled deep in the Maine woods - living with my grandparents in the 30-40's (Grampa was a Maine Guide, blacksmith, woodworker, etc.) We grew and canned, sewed and made, fished and hunted, producing most of our needs ourselves. (There's a big difference between "need" and "want"...the "garbage" produced was minimal. There was no need for garbage trucks.)
Milk, soda, and such came in glass bottles, which were returned and washed and reused. If you bought a comb, you got only that, a comb - without plastic and cardboard packaging. We traded eggs and berries and butter for flour, molasses, sugar and such.
People can live much simpler and be more content doing so - else why do people save and yearn all year to get a fews days vacation in a little cabin somewhere - "away from it all?" Our houses, our kitchens, our closets, our lives, are stuffed with things-things and more things...many times more than we need. We fowl our own nests, or keep them uncluttered.
Galts Gulch always sounded good to me. I love to horse trade and barter my art work or eggs for, say, seamstress work or firewood. Swapping honest goods for honest goods and labor for labor is a heck of a lot more fun than working like a drone ant for some low-level high mucky-mucks's.
Somewhere in between how we lived back on the farm and the way we live now, there's a gentler way to live - to be more producers of our needs instead of mega-consumers. (I have to chuckle when I see the "kitchen makeovers" with a dozen or more lights, and enough cabinets and islands and paraphernalia to open a four-star eatery. Grammie put banquets - real meals = on the table three times a days in a "cook room" about 12' x 14" - including the big oak table. Her water came from the little red pump on the side of the soapstone sink. Hot water was heated by the stove, etc.)
Oh - and as to your "human waste" worry - That was also handled far more efficiently back then" - and left no permanent scar on the land.
Altho; I wouldn't want to give up my indoor facilities , (I don't miss the two-holer out at the end of the granary.) There are more efficient methods than what we use today.
Our biggest problem is that we live to close to one another. No elbow room. At the same time, we spin from task to task - flit-flit-flit - In the long run, accomplishing less than folk used to.
I don't live "too close" - I'm back snuggled into the woods - it's rural, we have septics tanks. Doesn't take sewer workers. I 'produce' an average of one garbage can out to the curb per month. I could cut that down if I got serious.
Bottom line - there are ways and there are ways. The ways of a Galt's Gulch is to simplify. Whittle life down to the basics. Get unfettered with overabundance. learn to make and grow and trade.
We make our own prisons...
Wrong again Joe, you must first have the "SELF" before one can sacrifice.
"ALTRUISM"...The un"SELF"ish devotion to the interests and welfare of others.
Where is the church or state involved in this equation?
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