“This is John Galt speaking…”

After being referred by a friend who is reading Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand to a speech made by a character in the novel called “John Galt” I’ve searched and ultimately stumbled on this series of videos which present an incredible dramatization of John Galt’s speech. For the sake of viewing convenience and because I think it contains so many ideas that I desperately wish the world of people to hear I’ve embedded all parts of the series made so far below.

Ayn Rand is usually credited as the originator of the philosophy of objectivism and had a lot to do with promoting the ideas of capitalism. She was not a voluntaryist which is evident from a brief part of this series where her character John Galt speaks of the proper role of government being only to defend against initiation of force, which is effectively the minarchist view (as close as one gets to voluntaryism without still entirely rejecting the idea of needing a coercive monopoly for anything). I don’t believe there needs to be a coercive monopoly on defense because that would mean forcing all who would want to compete in providing this service out of the market therefore making those who are supposed to merely defend against initiation of force, THE initiators of force themselves.

And while I’m at the few disagreements that I have with Rand, I have to mention I’m not entirely confident about objectivism either, at least according to my limited understanding of it as what seems to be a rather absolutist view of reality that might leave too little room for subjectivism. On the other hand I can come up with no real criticism for anything that is said in the Galt’s speech presented in the videos below as far as the philosophy goes and I realize that my acceptance of subjectivism goes only to the extent of accounting for the fact that each of us may perceive reality in somewhat different ways, have different preferences and so on.

In either case I can find no disagreement to the assertion that a human individual, his or her nature and belonging life, liberty and property are the beginning of all exploration. Before you can know the universe around you, it helps to know yourself and dare to be yourself without clearly self-nullifying delusions getting in the way, much of which is greatly explained below. So I’ll quit my babble and encourage you to click that big play button below. Give it a chance, you might just be hooked to go with it to the last part. I’ll update the post as the author uploads new parts.

Enjoy and.. think.

Tags: liberty, Philosophy