Reading Atlas Shrugged is an experience without any parallel. It reaches to one's core. At the same time, it's got a suspenseful, riveting plot. I've read it 9 times over the years. Each time, I get more out of it, find deeper levels of meaning and more understanding not only of philosophy but of human relations.
Atlas is not really about politics. That's only the consequence. The fundamental is the new moral standard--man's life qua man--and a new code of values and virtues, with the primary virtue as rationality, the choice to use one's mind to the fullest.
"If I were to speak your kind of language, I would say that man's only moral commandment is: Thou shalt think. But a 'moral commandment' is a contradiction in terms. The moral is the chosen, not the forced; the understood, not the obeyed. The moral is the rational, and reason accepts no commandments.
"My morality, the morality of reason, is contained in a single axiom: existence exists -- and in a single choice: to live. The rest proceeds from these. To live, man must hold three things as the supreme and ruling values of his life: Reason -- Purpose -- Self-esteem. Reason, as his only tool of knowledge -- Purpose, as his choice of the happiness which that tool must proceed to achieve -- self-esteem, as his inviolate certainty that his mind is competent to think and his person is worthy of happiness, which means: is worthy of living."
Recent Comments
Atlas is not really about politics. That's only the consequence. The fundamental is the new moral standard--man's life qua man--and a new code of values and virtues, with the primary virtue as rationality, the choice to use one's mind to the fullest.
"If I were to speak your kind of language, I would say that man's only moral commandment is: Thou shalt think. But a 'moral commandment' is a contradiction in terms. The moral is the chosen, not the forced; the understood, not the obeyed. The moral is the rational, and reason accepts no commandments.
"My morality, the morality of reason, is contained in a single axiom: existence exists -- and in a single choice: to live. The rest proceeds from these. To live, man must hold three things as the supreme and ruling values of his life: Reason -- Purpose -- Self-esteem. Reason, as his only tool of knowledge -- Purpose, as his choice of the happiness which that tool must proceed to achieve -- self-esteem, as his inviolate certainty that his mind is competent to think and his person is worthy of happiness, which means: is worthy of living."
Harry Binswanger, Ph.D.