Charles R. Anderson

It is a pleasure to have the company of nice and intelligent people, especially when they are also Objectivists who can understand my values and share so many of my interests. Thank you all for the ideas discussed here and also for the comfort you give me simply by existing.

Barbara,

I was pretty sure that you would not and could not leave Eddie behind. Thanks for your personal confirmation that we share values and live our own lives in a more complete way than the characters we love and enjoy so much in Atlas Shrugged. Our real lives are more complicated than those of characters whose role is to clarify a few, albeit important, issues. This complexity helps to make us richly individual. I think you understand this well and I am looking forward, with fascination, to learning more about your thoughts.

Thanks for the interest in and encouragement for writing more on friendships. I cannot claim to be especially expert on the subject, but I think about it and wish others would think more about it. Like you, I think that a good friendship is of comparable value to romantic love. Specifically, Objectivists should value friendships more than many do. In forming and maintaining a friendship, many, hugely many, of our values become involved. A good friendship is the result of many shared values, the investment of our most limited resource, time, and a great way to make the best in ourselves more visible. As we have a loyality to our values, we should certainly have a loyalty for our friends. If we do not, then our grasp on our values, so entangled in a friendship, is very fragile.

Many of the people close to me, loved by me, and important to me are no more intellectual and achieving giants than Eddie Willers. Of course, it would be wonderful to be surrounded by such giants, but that is not the pattern of our real lives. Eddie Willers is important to me.

Yes, I agree with your observations on the distinction between the characters of the novel and our friends in real life. It is very important for Objectivists to be careful to make these distinctions themselves. They should be careful not to expect that their wife will be Dagny Taggert. Though I must say that I find her very appealing, I would add a few characteristics before taking her as a lover. Whoa, there goes that rampant ego again!

On your comment that I came across as upset, was that in regard to my long dawn rant or was that with respect to my reply to Barbara Branden? For the reasons in my first paragraph above, I have always had concerns that might register as upset in the first case. If you speak of my reply, any upset I may have had was with myself for forgetting the context of the novel and I hope that that did not spill over into my reply as being upset with Barbara. I was not upset with her, though I may have put her on the spot to reply about how she would act in real life and maybe I should not have done that. But, that is really the question here, isn't it? I did take her comment as an attempt to answer my dilemna and it was useful in reminding me of the role of symbols. I never thought that she meant in any way to be other than constructive. I really do appreciate her comment and in the context of what I can expect she knows about me, there is no reason for me to think that she should have known that I would simply benefit from a reminder of the context of the novel versus real life.

As big as my ego is, I nonetheless have no business re-writing Atlas Shrugged. My comments on that were just my effort to keep my perspective real and to point out that Barbara's constructive response was in contrast to the unconstructive response I might easily have had elsewhere! I love Atlas Shrugged still, even though it is less than a complete blueprint for living one's life! Unfortunately, some people do not remember that and they think they are the authenitic Objectivists. Other people observe that it is not and they say that therefore Objectivism is not a philosophy for living life. They are wrong, but this is because living the Objectivist life is not fully contained in the novel. We all have to apply the principles to our own lives with continuous rational, independent thought. This then tends to make us really individualistic and unruly people!

On other forums, some people wanting to point out what Barbara Branden pointed out above would have started something like,

"You are a presumptuous dimwit to think you have any business re-writing Atlas Shrugged."

Of course, this is true. To add to this, I have made the point before that the world created for the purpose of the novel Atlas Shrugged is not the same as the real world. But in this context and at this time I was not thinking of that, though I should have been. The point in the last paragraph of my last note should have been central to the longer note on Eddie Willers above.

Thanks for your more constructive note Barbara. It reminded me of the context I was forgetting in this case. It is a context a lot of Objectivists forget even when they are too worshipful to suggest re-writing the novel.

Barbara,

I understand that this is what Ayn Rand must have had in mind. It is certainly true that Eddie Willers would prosper only in a world with men of greater intellect and ability than he had. However, the collapse and the end were far along and chaos had taken over. Real people care about the good people they know. Besides, Eddie was much better than average. He was not very philosophical and he was not a giant, but he had earned everyone's respect and friendship. While one can symbolically treat Eddie as he was in the novel, people with rational values would not do that to the real person who had been a part of their lives. It was only necessary to give him a hideaway, maybe not even in Galt's Gulch, for a few weeks or months. Eddie was of value, but the message really is that he was not of much value. People who enjoy life form real attachments to the good people who have long been close to them. Eddie had always been close to Dagny and had done his best to serve her well. How could she leave him behind without remorse? Hadn't he ever become woven into her life?

Barbara, if you had run Taggart Railways, could you have left Eddie Willers behind without feeling pain specifically for the loss of Eddie Willers? I could not have and I feel no remorse that I could not have. I do not think this is an irrational thought. The bonds that we form with good people who are not intellectual giants are rationally important to us. In this world, let alone the more deteriorated world of Atlas Shrugged, good people are not to be taken for granted.

Of course the world of Atlas Shrugged is the stylized and symbollic world of a novel and it lives for a purpose. It is not real life. But most Objectivists forget this. Perhaps rather than objecting to Eddie being left behind in the novel, I should just remind everyone that in real life we should not leave him behind. We need to at least make the distinction between these worlds.

The first thing I should have done here was tell Inky that I really think she did a great job starting this thread.

Inky, you must be a remarkable young lady. Few people your age are interested enough in ideas to spend much time thinking about them. It is great that you are doing this. It is especially good that you want to develop your own ways of thinking about things and that you want to explore ideas beyond cookbook recipes of Objectivism. I think that Objectivism offers us a very useful framework for addressing many issues, but how can one know that without thinking about other ideas and evaluating Objectivism carefully and independently. It is your mind and your life. You are the manager of them. I am glad that you understand this and take your responsibility to yourself so seriously. Have a great time on your intellectual journey.

My last note was a first draft on some ideas I have had in the back of my mind for a very long time. It was near dawn when I started it and after dawn when I finished and realized I was in great need of the dinner I had never had. Somehow, I failed to really close the loop on the importance of better developing the concept and practice of friendship among Objectivists. It needs more work and will get more work.

Phil,

Thanks for the comment and the humor. I got a good laugh out of it. I thought Hank was counseling John to withhold the invitation until I had developed Anderson Super Material. Did they give up on that and just say, "Well, he would at least be useful doing our lab analyses for us."?

I really wish I could afford to go to the TOC Summer Seminar, but I am paying loans for sending 2 daughters to college and my laboratory has required a great deal of investment lately. If that were not enough, my Dad has been in increasingly bad health, so what little time I can get away from the lab, I want to spend with him and my mother in Oklahoma. Maybe the summer of 2007 will be different. When I have gone, before Kirsten went to college, I loved it. It was wonderful being among so many good and interesting people.

Last night and tonight, my first effort to Log On was rejected, while my 2nd, identical entry, was accepted each night. Good thing I am stubborn!

Of course, the willingness to be wrong is meant to move one along the path to being more right. Given the complexity of life, this is always an on-going process.

Ayn Rand wrote many versions of Atlas Shrugged before she thought it was ready for publication. You have to write a first draft on any new writing project or indeed on any new idea and then you work to refine it and make it more right. This is also true of relationships such as friendships.

I have thoroughly enjoyed reading the thoughts expressed on this tread. Thanks everyone.

One of the critically underdeveloped aspects of a philosophy for living life as an Objectivist is the concept of friendship. There is much more discussion of hero-worship and of romantic love in Ayn Rand's work, but there is little discussion of friendship. This is rather strange, since friendship and our desire to respect the heroic and our desire for romantic love are at least closely related. I will only sketch some of my concerns about the effect this has on Objectiivists and their forum behaviors and its implications for the development of a broad Objectivist movement here. I think this will be the subject of my next essay on my blog.

When I read Atlas Shrugged, I loved it. I really enjoyed the heroes and everthing about them. Sometimes the longer sections on the villians dragged a bit for me. The principal other disappointment for me was the fact that Eddie Willers was left to die in the crumbling world.

Eddie Willers is not a super-hero like John Galt or Hank Readen. Though one wonders that Hank had a place in Galt's Gulch even after his long guilt over not loving his wife, while Nathaniel Branden has no place in ARI Objectivism. But back to Eddie. He was a childhood friend of Francisco D'Anconia and he was always Dagny's friend. Whenever she needed assistance, he was there to do his best. After innumerable meals with John Galt, how could he not have been a friend? He had a good sense of life and he was a practical man. He loved Dagny. Now, if you know a very decent person well and you share a love with him for something or someone, isn't that person likely to be a friend?

With civilization rapidly collapsing, knowing that those most associated with the vanishing heroes will be most in danger, knowing that Eddie was reasonably successful in his work and therefore had possessions the looters were bound to steal or kill for, knowing that soon after returning to the world, the railroads would have to be rebuilt and Dagny would need help, you would not leave your friend Eddie behind. If you would, you are a real low-life. Yet, for some reason, presumably her great focus on hero-worship, Ayn Rand left Eddie to die. No one who thoroughly understands the key principles of Objectivism and lives those principles fully in their lives would do this. It is not rational and it is not consistent with our principles.

If we worship the heroic in man, we have to respect the good in man. The equivalent hero to John Galt has probably never lived. I, for sure, have never known him. One of the great fears that many Objectivists have is that they would not be invited to Galt's Gulch. I, for one, would not be. Now, if you love heroes, it is very disappointing for most people not to measure up. If Objectivism says we must all be John Galts or very close to a man of that stature, then Objectivists will feel they have failed. Failure is hard to face and a philosophy that ensures failure does not make a good philosophy for living life.

This realization makes many Objectivists very insecure and that insecurity looks for very unprincipled ways to reassure itself. One way is to make oneself a hero-worshipper by worshiping the goddess Ayn Rand and seek acceptance by other worshippers in a parallel to the acceptance so many Christians and other religious people seek from others. Another way is to substitute a knowledge of Ayn Rand's writings and viewpoints for one's own and become immersed in that. Then no one, of the religious group, can say that one is unworthy, at least as long as you only quote Ayn Rand.

If we are to end the bickering in Objectivism, people need to have the means to develop a greater sense of security in being themselves. They need to respect Eddie Willers and give him their friendship. Most people who cannot respect him, will not be able to respect themselves. We need to realize that heroes come in many sizes. We need to appreciate the heroic acts that many people do and rather than constantly griping that they are not always heroes, we need to encourage them with praise for those acts that are heroic. We need to make room for Eddie Willers. We also need to make room for Nathaniel Branden.

No mass acceptance of Objectivism will ever occur until Objectivists offer more people encouragement for maximizing the best in them. If Galt's Gulch only has room for John Galt, Francisco, Dagny, and their equivalent, the Objectivist movement will remain small and nasty. This does not need to be the fate of Objectivism. There are many wise and nice Objectivists. There need to be many more and they need to become at least as visible as the insecure cultist type of Objectivist.

Such people are not really the real thing since they are not rational, do not think independently, do not sufficiently value achievement to risk making the mistakes that inevitably come with pushing the boundaries of our knowledge, and do not have well-developed self-esteem. Being an Objectivist is not simply parroting Ayn Rand's views. To be an Objectivist, you must be able to think rationally and independently. You must also be able to develop a strong understanding of your own individuality and a mastery for managing your own life. Our lives and the world we live in are tremendously complex. Ayn Rand, prodigious though she was, did not figure it all out for us. She told us to do that for ourselves. On our own, though having learned much from her, we will make mistakes, as she did. We must learn from our mistakes and hers, accept that we will make mistakes, and accept that others will also. This is an unavoidable part of life and we should not allow it to keep us from living our lives.

Thanks, Michael and Kat for the welcome. I have spent at least 12 hours trying to catch up on the content of this new site and I have barely made a dent in it. I am really enjoying it.

Thanks for the compliment, Michael. As you know, I think that achieving wisdom is the real aim of seeking knowledge. If I were the best materials physicist ever in this world (I am not), I might have precious little wisdom. I think of wisdom as knowing how to live life well. Having given this much thought, I am always finding that there is much more to think about. Life is very complicated.

One thing is certain: we either stand still in gaining wisdom, we go backwards with excessive theoretical analysis, or we risk the experiment to anchor ourselves to reality. In science, the experiment and the observation of reality is the reality check to going down many a false path in theory. The experiment proves a viewpoint to be right or wrong. Objectivists need badly to be more willing to be wrong. They need to be willing to do the experiment or to learn from history if the experiment has already been done. The chief experiment is our own life.

Hello,

I read The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged in early 1965 as a senior in high school, subscribed to The Objectivist Newsletter and got all of the back issues. That summer I decided I was an Objectivist, though I had pretty much known that while reading Atlas Shrugged. But, of course, I was already an independent thinker with the highest regard for reality, reason, productive achievement, and Capitalism. Objectivism sure helped to integrate my knowledge, however.

I am also a materials physicist. This is not because of John Galt or Rearden metal, but because I decided to be a physicist when I was 10. Then the summer before I read Ayn Rand's works, I had attended a summer program at Brown University for high school students and decided that I liked the investigation of materials best. I have my own laboratory now where I love solving materials problems for industry.

It appears that the fine people in this forum have a genuine interest in learning and understanding things. I respect that. Our commitment is to using our rational faculty for that purpose. We will all make mistakes. It we do not, then we are not very actively trying to apply our minds to life. Mistakes are a part of the learning process. Philosophy is a tough subject, as is science. The real world is very complex. We just keep doing our best to understand it. We can all use a great deal of help in doing that. I thank goodness every day that I am not the first man trying to figure out how to use fire, invent the wheel, plant wheat and corn, make tread and cloth, understand the need for clean water, make many vaccines, make steel, railroads, planes, TVs, computers, SEMS, XPS spectrometers, and a million other things that others figured out and gave me for almost nothing.

Objectivism, as a philosophy for living, is not only about being able to live alone with reality. It is also about being able to live so much better because we live among civilized human beings. Some Objectivists miss the importance of this. I do not believe the good people here are ignorant of this.

So, from the start, you have my thanks. I expect to enjoy your company immensely.