Atlas Shrugged – Day 081 – pp. 872-881
OK, for those who came in late. Things are picking up. A little. Hank and Dagny have taken the last steps they can against the looters. Jim and his cohorts are taking over the rest of the world (to loot it.)
(By the way, anyone interested in how this works in real life should read the Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism by Naomi Klein. It’s essentially about how countries are bankrupted and destroyed so that the US can come in an cash in. Personally, I think she misdirects her blame at Milton Friedman and the Chicago School of economics. Well, in truth, they were all there for the events she describes, but I think she unfairly takes issue with the free market theory. What she inadvertently reveals, is its misapplication.)
All I’m gonna say is, if this story doesn’t end with a huge 21st century battle between the looters and the industrialists with handheld x-ray machines, self-sustaining motors, giant xylophones and maybe a couple light sabers and an terminator or two, I’m gonna be pissed. Anywho…
So in response to the revelation of the radio broadcast, they took Bertie off the air. That don’t fly with Cherryl.
It didn’t answer the charges.
Jim explains it was Bert or him. And he sure wasn’t going to be the sacrificial lamb. He lays out a bit of political reality to her. It was Tinky Holloway’s group vs Chick Morrison’s. Tinky needed a favor. So Bertram was the chip he paid for the extra cards.
“Jim, is that the sort of . . . victories you’re winning?”
“Oh for Christ’s sake! Where have you been all these years? What sort of world do you think you’re living in?”
“I’m trying to find out.”
An aside — September 2, the planned date of the nationalization of d’Anconia copper is their first wedding anniversary. Huh.
Now we go off into a Rand-ian recap of Jim and Cherryl’s first year together.
At first, Cherryl was intimidated, but she vowed. . .
“…not to get scared, but to learn — she thought — the thing to do is not to get scared, but to learn…”
A lot of stuff about Jim confused her. (That should have been her first clue.)
“She told herself that she could not condemn without understanding.”
So she began trying to learn how to live in his world. She took courses in etiquette. Jim would laugh at the idea. They would go to parties where she would invariably make a mistake and embarrass herself.
“He showed no embarrassment, he merely watched her with a faint smile. When they came home after one of those evening, his mood seemed affectionately cheerful.”
Hmmmmm.
But with practice Cherryl finally got the hang of the society party circuit thing. They went out one evening and she found herself enjoying a party for once.
“…she knew that she was attracting attention, but now, for the first time, it was not the attention of ridicule, but of admiration…”
(You go girl!)
Jim was unimpressed. When they got home, he jumped all over her (and not in the romantic way.)
“I wish you’d learn to keep your place and not embarrass me in public.”
Wow. Jim is a piece of shit. Really. I don’t know what the word is when you marry someone for the express purpose of reveling in their humiliation. To prop yourself further up in your own esteem. But it ain’t good.
Then one night she tells Jim she thinks Dr. Simon Prichett is a fraud.
“Now really, do you think you’re qualified to pass judgment on philosophers?”
“I’m qualified to pass judgment on con men.”
Ooooh. Score one for Cherryl.
She fears that Jim has been taken in by their likes. But then the light goes on and her worst fears come to light. That he hasn’t been taken in – but he’s been in the whole time.
That, of course, would blow her whole mental image of the guy she worshiped and fell in love with.
In mid-April, he came home boasting of knowing what “they’re” planning. He means Directive 10-289.
He starts to revel in the idea of crushing all the giants of industry. Then switches to a tone of generosity — it’s not for them, but for the little guy. Then he falls into a defensive rant about that being the reason they’re all slandered by the industrialists. They couldn’t help it.
This scene, as Rand writes it, is particularly interesting. It shows Jim swinging through a real spread of emotions on a single subject. Vindictive triumph — to defensive hurt. I think Rand is showing us that Jim Taggart is basically nuts. Wouldn’t surprise me to see him locked away in an asylum by the end of this book.
Anyway, Cherryl is doubting herself. She was realizing that…
“…part of her zeal to believe, was her fear to know…”
Isn’t it everyone’s?
She went on a quest to find out. Talking to Taggart Trans employees. But is wasn’t until lunch with Eddie Willers she got all the details.
And what did he say when she confronted him?
“So that’s your idea of gratitude? That’s how you feel after everything I’ve done for you.”
The tactic is to shovel guilt and inferiority with a front-loader.
“For the flash of one instant, she grasped the unthinkable fact of a man who was guilty and knew it and was trying to escape by inducing an emotion of guilt in his victim.”
She’s emotionally broken. Heart-broken. And when she mentions the triumph of the John Galt line as being Dagny’s he lashes out.
“Shut up, you rotten little bitch!”
And turns immediately apologetic.
“Jim, why did you marry me?”
“That’s what everybody kept asking me. I didn’t think you’d ever ask it. Why? Because I love you.”
Yeah, Jim Taggart’s character is a mentally unbalanced piece of shit. (BUT — it’ll be a potentially Oscar-worthy role for the actor who scores it in the movie!)