Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged" and John Galt: the allegory of The Fall Of Man

I wrote last month about Ayn Rand's magnum opus, "Atlas Shrugged" and the role of its enigmatic hero, John Galt. As said before, the thread of biblical symbolism runs deep in the story, which is made explicit in Chapter Seven of Book Three, when John Galt makes his "address to the world": an extraordinary monologue consisting of many thousands of words.

Galt's monologue is his "manifesto". In earlier threads on this topic, the author compared the role of Galt to that of Satan/ Lucifer in biblical symbolism - Galt and his followers as "fallen angels" who have rebelled against the rule of God/"government" and been forced to flee, so that they can live according to their free-will. In the same way that Satan would rather be "a lord in hell that a slave in heaven", Galt and his followers would rather be free and in "exile" than be a slave to government.

Galt's monologue explains that he equates God and faith with slavery and irrationality. As Lucifer from the Old Testament was the angel that challenged God's unquestioned power, Galt is the doing the same here. As Lucifer is the "agent of free-will" and the seeker of knowledge, Galt is the same here. John Galt sees the morality of God and the "social" morality of government as the essence of the same "evil": the idea that people should submit their will to another and should live for the sake of another. To Galt, this is anathema, and is innately against the interests of man, ultimately bringing about the death of humanity.

"Original Sin" and The Tree Of Knowledge

Galt talks in some detail about the concept of "Original Sin", and how this permeates the morality of "government" as much as that of God. As God labels man as innately irrational and evil, so, by implication, does government: that men are irrational, evil beings that can only be controlled by government. But as Galt says:
"A sin without volition is a slap at morality and an insolent contradiction in terms: that which is outside the possibility of choice and outside the province of morality. If man is evil by birth, he has no will, no power to change it; if he has no will, he can neither be good nor evil; a robot is amoral. To hold, as man's sin, a fact not open to his choice is a mockery of morality. To hold man's nature as his sin is a mockery of nature. To punish him for a crime he committed before he was born is a mockery of justice. To hold him guilty in a matter where no innocence exists is a mockery of reason. To destroy morality, nature, justice and reason by means of a single concept is a feat of evil hardly to be matched"
So creating the idea of "Original Sin" is an act that Galt/ Satan opposes for its immorality; it demonstrates the innate evil of God and "government".

Galt continues, by explicitly talking about the Tree Of Knowledge:
"What is the nature of the guilt that your teachers call Original Sin? What are the evils man acquired when he fell from a state they consider perfection? Their myth declared that he ate the fruit from the tree of knowledge - he acquired a mind and became a rational being. It was the knowledge of good and evil - he became a moral being. He was sentenced to earn his bread by his labor - he became a productive being. He was sentenced to experience desire - he acquired the capacity for sexual enjoyment. The evils for which they damn him are reason, morality, creativeness, joy - all the cardinal values of his existence. It is not his vices that their myth of man's fall is designed to explain and condemn, it is not his errors that they hold as his guilt, but the essence of his nature as man. Whatever he was - that robot in the Garden Of Eden, who existed without mind, without values, without labor, without love - he was not man. Man's fall...was that he gained the virtues required to live. These virtues, by their standard, are his Sin. His guilt, they charge, is that he lives"

Galt, then, is "the serpent", who wishes for Adam and Eve to become "like God", a rational being. God's "evil" is that he punished Adam and Eve for becoming free-thinking, "moral" beings. God wanted them to remain in the Garden Of Eden as his unthinking, helpless slaves: God would look after them, giving them all they needed, provided they did not question his authority. Galt sees "government" in the same light: an entity that exists to prevent man from bettering himself, an entity that preaches - in Galt''s words - a "Morality Of Death".

"The Morality Of Death"

This "Morality Of Death", according to Galt, has two types of teacher:
"The mystics of spirit and the mystics of muscle, whom you call the spiritualists and the materialists; those who believe in consciousness without existence and those who believe in existence without consciousness. Both demand the surrender of your mind; one to their revelations, the other to their reflexes. Their moral codes are alike, and so are their aims: in matter - the enslavement of man's body, in spirit -  the destruction of his mind.
"The good, say the mystics of the spirit, is God, a being whose only definition is that he is beyond man's power to conceive - a definition that invalidates man's consciousness and nullifies his concepts of existence. The good, say the mystics of muscle, is Society - a thing which they define as an organism that possesses no physical form, a super-being embodied in no-one in particular and everyone in general except yourself. Man's mind, say the mystics of the spirit, should be subordinated to the will of God. Man's mind, say the mystics of muscle, must be subordinated to the will of Society. The purpose of man's life, say both, is to become an abject zombie, who serves a purpose he does not know, for reasons he is not to question. His reward, say the mystics of the spirit, will be given to him beyond the grave. His reward, say the mystics of muscle, will be given....to his great-grandchildren"

Man's life is therefore sacrificial, either to God or society. This is what Galt finds "evil": man is not destined to live, but to die; not to think, but to serve. As the old adage goes, the only two certainties in life are death and taxes. Galt finds these values as the opposite to man's nature; by following these values, man's only outcome will be his own death.

Man can therefore only prosper without God and government: this is the conclusion to be reached. Man can only be moral without these two entities clouding his values, forcing him to work against his own self-interest.
According to Galt, "Selfishness" is not the "evil" that brings down man to his basest vices, but conversely, the thing which helps him see what is clearly rational for his own benefit. Galt sees the idea of "sacrifice" having been subverted by the "Morality of Death". Sacrifice  - as Galts defines it, "the surrender of a value" - has become the justification for creating a more "moral" society, where people work for each other. But as Galt sees it, sacrifice is "a morality for the immoral", telling people to renounce the material world and to divorce your values from matter. This is ultimately contradictory and hypocritical, according to Galt.

Galt's morality is for selfishness and independence, loving only those things worthy of respect. In the Garden Of Eden, Lucifer, as the serpent, was showing Adam and Eve the way to become "like God". In "Atlas Shrugged", John Galt is showing the way to become "a man", instead of a slave.
Galt subverts the common telling of The Fall Of Man, into the opposite, man's evolution to a rational being, which God then "punishes".

It is telling that "God-fearing" people always fear the future and long for the simple certainties of the past: a time before modern technology and industrialisation, the "Satanic mills" and "dog-eat-dog capitalism". "God-fearing" people see modern life as immoral and unforgiving, whereas people like John Galt see modern developments as a sign of man's progress. Ayn Rand saw Capitalism as the only "moral" system of development. The "Satanic mills" and the metal foundries of the industrialised world look a great deal like the biblical descriptions of Hell; fitting then that someone like John Galt would belong there.

Ayn Rand, "Atlas Shrugged" and biblical symbolism: God, Government and Satan

Ayn Rand's magnum opus, "Atlas Shrugged" was published a little under sixty years ago. At the time, the novel - and the philosophy behind its key message - was considered unfashionable and even controversial, as it went against every moral fibre of the society that existed at the time. As one of the main advocates of pure Capitalism (i.e. a society and economy effectively without government interference), Rand took the economic ideas of the "Austrian School" and created a "moral code" from them:she called this new philosophy "Objectivism". As this novel was published in the middle of the so-called "post-war consensus", her ideas took conventional morality and turned it on its head.

Rand's sense of morality - of right and wrong - is displayed and explained in stunning clarity in"Atlas Shrugged". It tells a morality tale, but one relevant to modern times and written in an accessible, highly-readable form. As a piece of literature it is a true masterpiece; a contemporary work of art. It is breathtaking, terrifying, electrifying yet dangerous. It is breathtaking in the enormous scope of vision, a piece of literature over a thousand pages long that takes in everything from big industry to the lowest poverty. It is terrifying in its description of gradual social breakdown, with its predictions of how government can easily lose sight of how society functions. It is electrifying in the manner of how morality and ideas are explained with cut-glass sharpness and a refined clarity of thought. And yet, as a piece of writing, it is also dangerous: dangerous for the great convincing intelligence shown in its pages, but also the horrible truth of what these ideas mean in the real world.

As dangerous as "The Communist Manifesto" was to society when its ideas began to put put into practice, the ideas of "Atlas Shrugged" have been as dangerous to society when implemented by governments for the past thirty-five years. Communism brought about the poverty of any society that implemented its ideas; meanwhile, trying to implement "pure" Capitalism in the last thirty years simply resulted in a complete collapse in the system. Russia after Communism was as good an example of this as any: the result was complete anarchy and a depression-style collapse in living standards. And lest we forget, it was only "government" that saved the global system from complete collapse in 2008.

For both pure Communism as preached by Karl Marx, and pure Capitalism as described by Ayn Rand, are simply dangerous - but convincing - pipedreams; opposite versions of a nightmarish dystopia.

The Word Of Rand

As said earlier, Atlas Shrugged is a morality tale. It is a document, in fictional form, of Rand's view of the world. 

In essence, the story revolves around several "heroic" characters who are people of industry. These characters (such as Hank Rearden and Dagny Taggart, who dominate the first half of the story) are moral purists, who wish to make (more) money and become (more) successful, it seems simply for the sake of becoming better. Their goal is not to do things for the benefit of others (e.g. society, or their family) but doing things that further their own goals. Any positive effect that others gain from their success is incidental. Moral purity and philosophical (and psychological) strength are key attributes, as are honesty and the principle of self-reliance. As a result, these characters have little time (and respect) for those around them that do not follow those same ideas.

Rand is a fervent believer in America as "the land of the free". In her eyes, America is the nearest thing - given she was an ardent atheist - to "heaven on earth". America for Rand was a place founded on the principles of freedom and the right to self-betterment through individual struggle and excellence without government interference. In "Atlas Shrugged", these "heroic" characters gradually fall victim to efforts by the government to prevent them from fulfilling their wishes to "become better" under their own terms. A succession of government rules obstruct them and create disincentives to working as they would wish, as the government sees these industrialists as "greedy" and "anti-social". These "heroes" are forced to either accept government's many rules, or quit.

In the end, the industrialists are shown another way of doing their work, without government interference in the "New Atlantis", which they flock to, and then thrive in.

God, Government, and The Bible

Rand sees this "New Atlantis" as a society where the only rule is that of nature and "rational self-interest". Conversely, the land of "government" is one of rules that stifle the free will and betterment of individuals who seek to make their own success and fortune - in effect, because they are rivals to the exclusive power of "government".

Anyone familiar with the Old Testament, and especially the fate of Satan, might see some interesting parallels with the morality tale of Atlas Shrugged - albeit with an important twist. 

In the Bible, Satan is God's most powerful (and beautiful) angel. Satan seeks to be as powerful as God, and (according to the theologian Origen) seeks greater free will from the will of God. When God makes man in his own image, he refuses to kneel before man when God requests it. These factors result in the "war in heaven", which culminate in the ejection of Satan and his followers from Heaven and their banishment to Hell, which Satan becomes the ruler of. It is therefore only in Hell where Satan and his followers are truly "free".

Of course, the Bible goes out of its way to portray Satan as the embodiment of evil, but this is a misleading simplification, even when directly reading the Bible itself. Satan's key role in Genesis is the temptation of Eve with the apple from the Tree Of Knowledge (Of Good And Evil), which would make her and Adam "like God". Satan's other name is Lucifer, which is Latin for "light-giver", and it was this role - as the giver of "light" or knowledge - that Satan is punished for by God after the temptation of Eve. In other words, Satan's role in Genesis is to encourage the first man and woman to better themselves, while also highlighting God's arbitrary and deceitful nature.

Rand's grand morality tale, "Atlas Shrugged", could then be called a re-imagining of the tale of Satan's fall from Heaven told from the perspective of Satan rather than God. Substitute the word "God" for "Government" and Satan and his followers for the "heroic" industrialists, and the narratives are in many ways parallel, except that the sense of perspective is reversed. In the Bible, Satan and his followers are forced to leave Heaven as they refuse to follow God's (arbitrary) commands and (to their minds) twisted philosophy, and feel held back from their full potential. In "Atlas Shrugged", the "heroes" flee the control of "government" for the same reasons.

It could also be argued that God represents to Satan the same idea that "government" represents to Rand. Satan rebelled against God partly because of what he saw as God's arbitrary power, but also because Satan refused to bow before man, God's creation. In this way, Satan refused to offer man his unconditional love or respect, as he felt it was undeserved or unearned. This idea (of "conditional love" or undeserved respect or charity) also features strongly in Atlas Shrugged. For example, Hank Rearden, one of the industrial "heroes", refuses to give a job to his brother because he is unqualified and undeserving. Later, he threatens to throw his brother out of his house, rather preferring to see his brother on the street than getting charity from him for simply being part of the family. Rand's philosophy reels against the idea of charity and "brotherly love" precisely because she sees it as unearned, detrimental and pointless. Satan, given his attitude towards man, would doubtless agree: part of what Satan stands for is the opposite to the concept of Judaeo-Christian selfless, "brotherly love". Satan represents the advancement of the "self" to its moral conclusion - severing connection to "God", and the rejection of the idea of selflessness and self-sacrifice for (undeserving) others e.g. by refusing to unconditionally "love" man, or to blindly obey God's commands.

To follow "God", then, is to abandon the idea of the "self" for the benefit of the whole; this is what Satan rejects, resulting in his Fall From Heaven. Likewise, Rand's philosophy rejects the idea of "government" having the right to arbitrary power over individuals, and in her novel, Atlas Shrugged rails against this (calling those who support government's arbitrary power "looters"), and also strongly rejects the idea of (wealthy and talented) individuals sacrificing for the benefit of others who are poorer (and less talented) - the "heroic" industrialist Hank Rearden, during his trial in the novel, calls himself a "sacrificial victim". However, he refuses to accept this quietly.

Seen in this light, "Atlas Shrugged" not only turns conventional morality on its head, but its symbolism - to those knowledgeable of The Bible - makes a morality tale like the "Fall From Heaven" seem instead a "Flight From Hegemony": Satan and his followers escaping the "tyranny" of God's power and  "sacrificial" morality to establish their own "freedom" outside of Heaven. In Atlas Shrugged, the "heroic" industrialists similarly wish to escape the "tyranny" of government. So Rand could - arguably - be called a "Satanist" of a kind, looking at the evidence above.

Dangerous stuff, indeed...

(Part Two of this thread continues here)

Islam, Christianity and Paganism: the pagan origins of world's two biggest religions

The three major monotheistic faiths of the world (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) have clear, historical ties to each other; particular, Christianity sees itself as a "superior" successor to Judaism, while Islam sees itself as "superior" to both Christianity and Judaism.

Judaism is the oldest of the three, with its roots in the stories of Moses, the exile from Egypt, the visions and revelation at Mount Sinai, and so on. The God of the Jews is therefore a product of the circumstances of its adherents; a God of the desert that wreaks righteous destruction on the polytheistic Egyptians, for example.

But what of Judaism's successors?

Zeus, or the Sun-God?

Christianity's religious symbolism is a natural by-product of the culture and circumstances of the day. It has been well-documented (and easy to find on the internet) that much of Christian symbolism stems from a combination of Egyptian, Roman and Greek influences.

For example, the importance of Christ's birthday coinciding with the winter solstice, and the coming of the "three kings". This fits in with an ancient Egyptian fable of the importance of Orion during the winter solstice: Orion's belt at its lowest point is level with the horizon at this time of year in that time of year. The "three kings" thus arrived from heaven, after spending the rest of the year in the stellar plane. The belief in Christ as the "son of God" also has parallels in Egyptian religious symbolism, as well as in other pagan Middle Eastern religions.

Early Christianity was an underground religion in the Roman Empire for its first few centuries. There were no "churches" as we know them today; adherents either used caves or catacombs as impromptu places to worship their faith, with only richer people of faith building converted chapels in rooms of their villas. Interestingly, when Christ was portrayed in artistic form in these early years, he was usually shown to have an uncanny likeness to Alexander The Great; with curly hair, head tipped to one side, with a smooth-skinned (almost child-like) face and carrying a staff. These were his "hallmarks". An alternative version is that he was seen as an alternative to Apollo, the Sun-God, and that the symbolism of worshiping the "Sun-God" as the primary source of religious power on earth. In those early centuries, many Christian converts were still hedging their bets, and it comes as no surprise that Christians saw the need to drape their faith in familiar pagan symbolism that wooed the waverers (more on that tactic later).

Christianity became the official faith of the Roman Empire with the conversion of the Emperor Constantine on his death bed in the middle 4th century. However, prior to that he made public his advocacy of Christianity throughout the empire, if not publicly declaring his faith. His moment of "revelation" came in battle, when he was fighting in a civil war to secure his position, at the battle of Milvian Bridge. Here he saw the "light of God" in the sky, seeing it as a sign that God was on his side. Still, he hedged his bets, using the battle to declare "Sol Invictus" (the undefeated Sun) as his official motto. The worship of the Sun as God-figure is found in a multitude of pagan belief systems (such as "the Logos" of the Greek philosophers), historically borrowed by Christianity.

During his reign as emperor, one of his most important decisions was to make churches public buildings, no longer hidden from view. Here, Constantine borrowed from existing Roman structural design. Roman magistrates' courts were known as "basilicas"; Constantine simply copied the design, but moved the entrance from the middle of the longer wall, to the middle of one of the end walls, thus changing the perspective for the building's purpose to emphasize its length.
Finally, Constantine presided over the changing of the understood face of Christ; from that resemblance to Alexander/Apollo, to the bearded face of Zeus/Jupiter. It is this image that has stood (barring cultural modifications) ever since.

There are plenty more pagan links with Christianity, but for the sake of brevity, this will suffice. Now, we can look at Christianity's "successor"...

The cube in the desert

Islam's holiest site, which every Muslim prays in the direction of, is the "Kaaba" ("Cube" in Arabic). What is it, and what does it represent?

According to Islam, the Kaaba was a cube-shaped stone structure built by Abraham as a temple to God (Allah). But by Mohammed's time, it had become a temple for the many gods that the local tribes worshiped (as many as there were days in the year). Mohammed's role was then to restore the Kaaba to its original purpose; so the temple was cleared of the many idols, and had a mosque built around it. Centuries later, after many modifications and extensions of the mosque (and rebuilding of the Kaaba after floods), this is the structure that Muslims pray towards. According to Islam, the Kaaba is older the the temple in Jerusalem, and thus the oldest temple devoted to God (Allah).

That is the official version; the evidence shows something very different.

For Mohammed's version of events to be true (i.e. that the Kaaba is older the the Temple Of Solomon in Jerusalem), the Kaaba would have had to have been built around two thousand years before Christ. However, (as we see here), Mohammed himself seems to contradict this point. Besides, respected authorities on the topic (see the previous link) seem clear the the Kaaba was a relatively contemporary building in Mecca at the time of Mohammed's birth.
The fact that it is still standing at all (and wasn't destroyed completely as a pagan temple) was probably due to an act of compromise to cultural sensitivities by Mohammed. There is also evidence that there were other "Kaabas" in the Arabian peninsula at the time of Mohammed, albeit not made of stone, but wood, for example.

Another important feature of the Kaaba is the "black stone", embedded in one of the outside corners of the wall. This is recognised as a fragment of a meteorite that descended to earth in ancient times, close to Mecca. Of all the idols existing in the Kaaba before Islam, this one alone was retained by Mohammed. Pre-Islamic Arabs had a tradition of kissing the Black Stone; this "pagan" tradition has continued in Islam, and is an important feature of the "Hajj".

The pagan history of the Kaaba, and the meteorite fragment revered in its wall, seem to jar badly with Islam as a religion so seemingly hostile to the concept of idolatry. And yet Muslims today emphasize that they are not praying to the "Kaaba" itself, let alone to the meteorite fragment within its walls, but instead use the building a worldwide point of reference that all Muslims can relate to, uniting them.

The Moon-God?

Apart from the Kaaba, the symbolism of Islam also features many other parallels to other (pagan) faiths. The major deity that the Pre-Islamic Arabs worshiped was the Moon-God, Hubal. This was a deity whose idol had a human form (probably from red agate), but whose right hand was gold. Seven arrows were used for the purposes of divination before the idol during rituals.

As anyone knows, the crescent moon is integral to the symbolism of Islam. Every mosque in Islam has a crescent moon at its highest point; the crescent moon is the most famous symbol of Islam. Does this mean that the "Moon-God" was replaced by  "Allah"?

Muslims vehemently refute this, and it is clear that the use of the moon as symbol was probably not a direct form of replacing Hubal with "Allah"; in battle at the battle of Badr, his enemy Abu Sufyan evoked Hubal with the words: "O Hubal, be high", to which the Prophet replied: "Allah is greater". Is this where Mohammed also got the inspiration for Islam's most famous verse?
From this we can make an educated guess that the use of the moon as the primary symbol in Islam may have been partially to assuage local Arab pagans with some familiar imagery, while yet claiming that "Allah" is higher than Hubal.
Furthermore, the use of the moon is also an essential part of a Muslim's practical life: it is needed to calculate the correct time to pray (more on that in a moment). It was for this very practical reason that the early Muslims became such expert astronomers compared to their contemporaries.

Other aspects of Islamic rituals also have parallels to other faiths.

The importance of praying five times a day (and ablution beforehand) predates Islam. Zoroastrianism uses this ritual as part of its sun-worship (though they pray in the direction of the sun, wherever it is in the sky at the time). However, in Mohammed's day, the Pre-Islamic Arabs would pray in the direction of Mecca.

An essential part of the "hajj" is the seven-times circumambulation around the Kaaba. Again, this ritual of passing seven times around an object of veneration predated Islam. Pre-Islamic Arabs did the same around the Kaaba, only in order to please Hubal instead. This ritual is also practiced in Hinduism; a faith older than Islam. In the Hindu marriage rite of  "Satphere", the couple pass seven times around a fire, where religious phrases are recited, the same concept as in Islam.

There are other rituals, such as that of "Ihram", which is another Pre-Islamic ritual involving washing as wearing "Ihram" clothes to enter Mecca. A final example is the seven-times walk between Safa and Marwa mountains close to Mecca, which was another Pre-Islamic ritual retained by Mohammed for the "hajj".

So as we can see, both Christianity and Islam as replete with pagan symbolism.
It is no surprise that both faiths would have needed to adapt to the social and cultural rituals and circumstances of the time in order to flourish; it allowed waverers of the time to have their cake and eat it.

The irony here is that Christianity chooses the symbolism of the sun as its religious banner; Islam, on the other hand, sides with the moon. No wonder the two don't get on.

The sad truth is that while the pagan origins of Christianity can be debated in Christian societies without seriously expecting to receive physical harm or threats (except perhaps for parts of the Evangelical USA, or Africa), the same cannot be said of large elements of Muslim society. This is something that Muslims have to an extent brought onto themselves, by moderate (and progressive) Muslims refusing to tackle the problem of the growth of Radical Islam in the last thirty years.
Radical Islam sees any debate within the faith (such as of the pagan origins of some Islamic rituals) to be worthy of a death sentence, or a severe punishment at best; go to Pakistan, for example, and see what happens, if you try to discuss the pagan origin of some key Islamic rituals. Only a very brave (or foolhardy) soul would do so. It is no wonder that Islam has such a poor image with the rest of humanity.

Herein lies the problem with many aspects of religion; it is immune to debate.