Atlas Shrugged Part III: Who Is John Galt?
On paper, Objectivism and other libertarian ideologies ought to appeal equally to the left and to the right. After all, libertarianism promotes economic deregulation, but also greater personal liberty, such as to take recreational drugs, have same-sex marriages, or use contraception. The parts that conservatives dislike, liberals ought to approve of, and vice versa. Yet in practice, libertarians consistently ally with conservatives and not with liberals, and treat the freedom of the rich as a higher concern than the freedom of the poor. As this page puts it, “Libertarianism [and especially Objectivism —A.L.] arose in opposition to the New Deal, not to Prohibition.”
The Atlas Shrugged movies are a case in point. Their stated mission was to stop President Obama’s reelection (and it must be salt in the wound that they failed to do that in addition to bombing at the box office). The first one premiered at CPAC. And in a last-ditch effort to give the final installment some celebrity spark, the filmmakers sought out famous Republicans for cameo roles.
The cameos come after John Galt’s speech. In the movie it takes literally five minutes, but this is apparently enough to spark a mass popular movement demanding that Galt be put in charge of the government. As to why a five-minute pirate broadcast should sway a populace that until now has meekly acceded to socialism, I’d say it’s one-half classic Hollywood cliche and one-half the belief, common to ideologues from all sides of the political spectrum, that the people would fall in line if only they could hear the undiluted truth from a pure-hearted speaker.
In addition to the common people, we see some famous conservatives reacting to the speech. Here’s Sean Hannity:
Glenn Beck, in what must be self-parody, says that John Galt is a better messenger than he himself is, because John Galt speaks with quiet confidence and doesn’t scream or rant:
Ron Paul opines that John Galt is an ideal voice for people who are tired of “endless wars”. This is puzzling, since war is the one evil that doesn’t exist in Atlasworld. The whole planet is one big, starving, united socialist family. I assume that Paul either never read the book or just thought that riding his own hobbyhorses was more important than consistency with the story.
But notice, it’s not just that we see these guys reacting to Galt’s speech. We see them reacting, apparently, as themselves. This implies that in the movie’s alternate universe, Hannity and Beck are the hosts of conservative talk shows and Ron Paul is a libertarian congressman, just as they are in our world.
This presents some problems that the filmmakers don’t seem aware of. The existence of television programs hosted by Hannity and Beck means that there’s an independent media, something that’s long since ceased to exist at this point in the book. Well before Galt’s speech, we’re told that the newspapers have stopped reporting on Ragnar Danneskjold’s raids. Television shows are yanked off the air by government censors when they don’t toe the party line, and there isn’t a single editor willing to take a brave stand against the government’s evil plans.
If things have gotten this bad, how could there still be a Fox News, or any media outlet that’s even vaguely Objectivist or pro-libertarian? Shouldn’t they all have been nationalized or shut down under the We Hate Capitalism Act or something? How did Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck get government work permits from the Unification Board?
It’s not because free speech is more protected in movie-Randworld than it is in book-Randworld. After hearing them praise Galt’s speech, we see Mr. Thompson angrily order his henchmen to “muzzle those commentators”. (We never see this order carried out, alas. It would have been kind of hilarious to have a scene where jackbooted government thugs kick down Sean Hannity’s door and drag him off to the reeducation camps.) But there’s no explanation of why they hadn’t already been kicked off the air long ago.
However, there’s a much bigger problem with these cameos, and it’s one that the filmmakers hilariously failed to notice.
Keep in mind how late in the story this is. At this point in the book, everyone that John Galt wants in the Gulch has already been recruited, except for Dagny. When he returns to the outside world, it’s purely for her sake: he calls her “the only thing I want from the world for myself”.
So could Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck and Ron Paul have been broadcasting their messages of praise from the Gulch? No, that’s impossible. Remember, people who join the strike disappear from existence as far as the rest of humanity is concerned. They couldn’t appear on TV to discuss current events. Nor would they be excitedly commenting about how the world needs a leader like John Galt, because if they’d joined him, they’d have accepted his belief that the world was beyond redemption and should be left to crumble into chaos.
What this means is that these conservative icons haven’t been invited to the Gulch and never will be. The fact that they’re still in the outside world shows that John Galt considers them unworthy and has left them to perish with the rest of the peons. I doubt the filmmakers realized it, but this is a major insult. It makes you wonder if these conservative celebrities would have agreed to appear, if they’d known what the script was implicitly saying about them.
Other posts in this series: