(Damn! Had this post all queued up and forgot to hit the button…)
Atlas Shrugged – Day 019 – pp. 184-193
The State Scientific Institute, the smartest science guys in the land as proclaimed by the G, have issued a paper condemning Rearden Metal by inference. An indefensible proposition…
She saw the sentences:”It may be possible that after a period of heavy usage, a sudden fissure may appear, though the length of this period cannot be predicted . . . The possibility of a molecular reaction, at present unknown, cannot be entirely discounted . . . Although the tensile strength of the metal is obviously demonstrable, certain questions in regard to its behavior under unusual stress are not to be ruled out. . . Although there is no evidence to support the contention that the use of the metal should be prohibited, a further study of its properties would be of value.”
That’s brilliant G propaganda. And it had its desired effects…
“Taggart stock had crashed. Ben Nealy quit. The National Brotherhood of Road and Track Workers has forbidden its members to work on the Rio Norte Line. Jim has left town.”
And it has had another more psychological effect
“Dagny,” he asked, his voice low, “what is happening to people? . . . You’d think a decent person would throw it in the gutter. . . . how could they accept it? Didn’t they read it ? Didn’t they see it? Don’t they think” . . . What is it in people that lets them do this?”
Fear and panic, Eddie. The second phase of Batra’s cycle of civilization. You want to rally the public behind you and surrender their freedoms to you, give them a great menace to be afraid of.
Anyway, it’s off the SSI to see Doc Stadler the brilliant, genius head of the institute.
Over the entrance, a dedication was cut into the marble, “To the fearless mind. To the inviolate truth.”
Nice.
Dr. S is one of the most brilliant theoreticians living on earth (or maybe anywhere from the way Rand describes him.) Let me emphasize “theoretician.” I suspect anytime theory is brought to the fore in this book, it’s signaling something bad.
Stadler endorsed the establishment of the SSI in order to…
“Set science free of the rule of the dollar.”
Dagny confronts him on the report. The Doc insists he’s out of the loop. That his involvement one way or the other wouldn’t make a difference. And he can’t make a statement about it now.
“Why not?”
The situation is much too complex to explain in a casual discussion.”
“But if you should find that Rearden Metal is in fact, an extremely valuable product which –”
“That is beside the point.”
“The value of Rearden Metal is beside the point?”
“There are other issues involved, besides questions of fact.”
Maybe he’s not such an idealistic man of science. Lines later…
“How can one deal in truth when one deals with the public?”
I guess not…
She goes on to tell him about the importance of Rearden Metal — to her company, to the rail line, to the state of Colorado, even to the country. And she wants a reason for his decision.
“I’ll tell you if you wish. It’s the truth that you want isn’t it? Dr Ferris cannot help it, if the morons who vote the funds for this Institute insist on what they call results.”
(YOU CAN’T HANDLE THE TRUTH!) Coming under criticism of not actually doing anything, the Institute has become a pawn of the G to keep its funding going…
Why did they issue such a damning statement against Rearden Metal?
“I wouldn’t think you’d find them hard to deduce. If you consider that for thirteen years this Institute has had a department of metallurgical research, which has cost over twenty million dollars and has produced nothing but a new silver polish and a new anticorrosive preparation, which, I believe is not so good as the old ones — you can imagine that the public reaction will be if some private individual comes out with a product that revolutionizes the entire science of metallurgy and proves to be sensationally successful!”
“Men are not open to truth or reason. They cannot be reached by a rational argument. The mind is powerless against them. Yet we have to deal with them. If we want to accomplish anything, we have to deceive them into letting us accomplish it. Or force them.”
Dr S is another conflicted man. I suspect he knows the situation he is in and is growing steadily weary of it. But, I don’t think he has options.
He wants to try to make her to understand. He tells a story of his younger, more idealistic (as he claims Dagny is now) years teaching at Patrick Henry University. There, once, he had the pleasure of teach three brilliant young students. Students he believed would go on to change the world.
He shared these students with a professor of philosophy, Hugh Akston. There was a bit of a rivalry between them over these three. They each thought of these prodigies as “theirs.”
“When I endorsed the establishment of this Institute, one of these three damned me. I have not seem him sine.”
Who were they?
“These three men, these three who held all the hope which the gift of intelligence ever offered, these three from whom we expected such a magnificent future — one of them was Francisco d’Anconia, who became a depraved playboy. Another was Ragnar Danneskjold, who became a plain bandit. So much for promise of the human mind.”
“Who was the third one?” she asked
He shrugged. “The third one did not achieve even that sort of notorious distinction. He vanished without a trace — into the great unknown of mediocrity. He is probably a second assistant bookkeeper somewhere.”
Foreboding.
So Dagny’s tracked down Jim who’s holed up in one of the Taggart properties on the Hudson. He claims he’s sick.
“It was your idea! I hope you’ll admit to the Board that it was your idea. That’s what your goddamn Readern Metal has done to us!”
Jim continues to fire the blame cannon until Dagny can take no more.
“…Christ! What are we going to do?”
She waited. “Through Jim?” she asked coldly. “If you are, I’ll tell you what we’re going to do.”
He kept silent. looking up at her from under his heavy eyelids.
“This is not a proposal, Jim. It’s an ultimatum….”
Same Atlas time… Same Atlas channel…