Objectivism In James Taggart's Atlas Shrugged
A central pillar of Objectivism is the concept of an objective reality characterized by absolutes: What exists exists, and has certain properties, and obeys certain laws. James Taggart, like many of the villains of Atlas Shrugged, refuses to accept these principles.
A world of immutable absolutes is a world not subject to his whims, and this frustrates him endlessly. His first words in the novel, “Don’t bother me,” foreshadow his relentless struggle to deny reality.
Taggart is speaking, in this case, to an employee who approaches him with a pessimistic report about Taggart Transcontinental’s recent failures. That cry of “Don’t bother me” characterizes Taggart’s habitual approach to this and other unpleasant truths. To shield himself from reality, …show more content…
The moral purpose of a conscious being, as John Galt explains in his radio speech, is its own life; therefore, “all that which is proper to the life of a rational being is good” (927). Because “man’s mind is his basic tool of survival” (926), he must learn and apply his knowledge in order to reshape his environment in service of his life and happiness. To live “by means of achievement” (928) is the only moral path, because the law of cause and effect does not allow human values to be fulfilled through inactivity or failure. Therefore, a person’s worth lies …show more content…
Because he wants to be loved simply for existing, not “for anything I do or have or say or think” (809), he argues that it is intrinsically virtuous to love and praise the undeserving. In Taggart’s ideal world, his incompetence in the physical realm would imply a nobility of spirit; his unhappiness would be the “the hallmark of virtue” (248); and to admire him unconditionally would be a “supreme gesture of charity” (361).
For all his denial of objective reality, however, Taggart is powerless to alter it. Instead, he constructs the facade of his utopia on the backs of producers. Taggart is able to leverage his political skills to achieve personal victories at the expense of others, but depends entirely on the “master[s] of reality” (1048) to provide the loot. He receives an unearned position of power in a company built by his ancestors and operated by his subordinate sister, the Railroad Unification Plan permits him to seize his competitors’ profits, and he even wins his wife’s admiration by taking credit for his sister’s achievements. Yet his parasitic empire is unsustainable. It can persist only so long as there is something to steal, and this is yet another truth that Taggart cannot bear to
A world of immutable absolutes is a world not subject to his whims, and this frustrates him endlessly. His first words in the novel, “Don’t bother me,” foreshadow his relentless struggle to deny reality.
Taggart is speaking, in this case, to an employee who approaches him with a pessimistic report about Taggart Transcontinental’s recent failures. That cry of “Don’t bother me” characterizes Taggart’s habitual approach to this and other unpleasant truths. To shield himself from reality, …show more content…
The moral purpose of a conscious being, as John Galt explains in his radio speech, is its own life; therefore, “all that which is proper to the life of a rational being is good” (927). Because “man’s mind is his basic tool of survival” (926), he must learn and apply his knowledge in order to reshape his environment in service of his life and happiness. To live “by means of achievement” (928) is the only moral path, because the law of cause and effect does not allow human values to be fulfilled through inactivity or failure. Therefore, a person’s worth lies …show more content…
Because he wants to be loved simply for existing, not “for anything I do or have or say or think” (809), he argues that it is intrinsically virtuous to love and praise the undeserving. In Taggart’s ideal world, his incompetence in the physical realm would imply a nobility of spirit; his unhappiness would be the “the hallmark of virtue” (248); and to admire him unconditionally would be a “supreme gesture of charity” (361).
For all his denial of objective reality, however, Taggart is powerless to alter it. Instead, he constructs the facade of his utopia on the backs of producers. Taggart is able to leverage his political skills to achieve personal victories at the expense of others, but depends entirely on the “master[s] of reality” (1048) to provide the loot. He receives an unearned position of power in a company built by his ancestors and operated by his subordinate sister, the Railroad Unification Plan permits him to seize his competitors’ profits, and he even wins his wife’s admiration by taking credit for his sister’s achievements. Yet his parasitic empire is unsustainable. It can persist only so long as there is something to steal, and this is yet another truth that Taggart cannot bear to