The second passage—which explains the title of the novel—
is:
“Mr. Rearden,” said Francisco, his voice solemnly calm, “if you saw Atlas, the giant who holds the world on his shoulders, if you saw that he stood, blood running down his chest, his knees buckling, his arms trembling but still trying to hold the world aloft with the last of his strength, and the greater his effort the heavier the world bore down upon his shoulders—what would you tell him to do?”
“I … don’t know. What . . . could he do? What would you tell him?”
‘To shrug.”
The story of Atlas Shrugged presents the conflict of two fundamental antagonists, two opposite schools of philosophy, or two opposite attitudes toward life. As a brief means of identification, I shall call them the “reason-individualism-capitalism axis” versus the “mysticism-altruism-collectivism axis.” The story demonstrates that the basic conflict of our age is not merely political or economic, but moral and philosophical—that the dominant philosophy of our age is a virulent revolt against reason—that the so-called redistribution of wealth is only a superficial manifestation of the mysticism-altruism-collectivism axis—that the real nature and deepest, ultimate meaning of that axis is anti-man, anti-mind, anti-life.
Do you think that I was exaggerating?
During—and after—the writing of Atlas Shrugged, I kept a file which, formally, should be called a “Research or Documentation File.” For myself, I called it “The Horror File.” Let me give you a few samples from it.
Here is an example of modern ideology—from an Alumni-Faculty Seminar, entitled “The Distrust of Reason,” at Wesleyan University, in June 1959.
Perhaps in the future reason will cease to be important. Perhaps for guidance in time of trouble, people will turn not to human thought, but to the human capacity for suffering. Not the universities with their thinkers, but the places and people in distress, the inmates of asylums and concentration camps, the helpless decision-makers in bureaucracy and the helpless soldiers in foxholes—these will be the ones to lighten man’s way, to refashion his knowledge of disaster into something creative. We may be entering a new age. Our heroes may not be intellectual giants like Isaac Newton or Albert Einstein, but victims like Anne Frank, who will show us a greater miracle than thought. They will teach us how to endure—how to create good in the midst of evil and how to nurture love in the presence of death. Should this happen, however, the university will still have its place. Even the intellectual man can be an example of creative suffering.
Do you think that this is a rare exception, a weird extreme? On January 4, 1963, Time published the following news story:
“Ultimate performance in society”—not just brains and grades—should be the admissions criterion of top colleges, says Headmaster Leslie R. Severinghaus of the Haverford School near Philadelphia. In the Journal of the Association of College Admissions Counselors, he warns against the “highly intelligent, aggressive, personally ambitious, and socially indifferent and unconcerned egotist.” Because these self-centered bright students have “little to offer, either now or later,” colleges should be ready to welcome other good qualities. “Who says that brains and motivated performance represent the dimensions of excellence? Is not social concern a facet of excellence? Is it not exciting to find a candidate who believes that ‘no man liveth unto himself?’ What about leadership? Integrity? The ability to communicate both ideas and friendship? May we discount spiritual eager-
ness? And why should we pass over cooperation with others in good causes, even at some sacrifice of one’s own scholastic achievement? What about graciousness and decency?” None of this shows up on college board scores, chides Severinghaus. “Colleges must themselves believe in the potential of young people of this sort.”
Consider the meaning of this. If your husband, wife, or child were stricken with a deadly disease, of what use would the doctor’s “social concern” or “graciousness” be to you, if that doctor had sacrificed his “own scholastic achievement”? If our country is threatened with nuclear destruction, will our lives depend on the intelligence and ambition of our scientists, or on their “spiritual eagerness” and “capacity to communicate friendship”?
I would not put a passage of that kind into the mouth of a character in the most exaggerated farce-satire—I would consider it too absurdly grotesque—and yet, this is said, heard, and discussed seriously in an allegedly civilized society.
Are you inclined to believe that theories of this kind will have no results in practice? I quote from the Rochester Times Union, of February 18, 1960, from an article entitled “Is Our Talent Running Out?”
Is this mighty nation running short of talent?
At this point in history, with Russia and the United States “in deadly competition,” could this nation fall behind because of a lack of brainpower?
Dr. Harry Lionel Shapiro, chairman of the department of anthropology at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, says, “There is a growing uneasiness, not yet fully expressed . . . that the supply of competence is running short.”
The medical profession, he says, is “profoundly worried” about the matter. Studies have shown that today’s medical students, on the basis of grades, are inferior to those of a decade ago.
Some spokesmen for the profession have been inclined to blame this on the dramatic and financial appeal of other professions in this space age—engineering and other technological fields.
But, Dr. Shapiro says, “This seems to be a universal complaint.”
The anthropologist spoke before a group of science writers at Ardsley-on-Hudson. This same group listened to some 25 scientists over a 2-week period—and heard the same lament from engineers, physicists, a meteorologist and many others.
These scientists, outstanding spokesmen for their fields, found this subject of far greater importance than the need for more money.
Dr. William O. Baker, vice president in charge of research at Bell Telephone Laboratories in Murray Hill, N.J., one of the top scientists in the country, said more research is needed—but that it will come not as a result of more money.
“It all depends on ideas,” he said, “not very many, but they have to be new ideas.”
Dr. Baker argued that the National Institute of Health has continually increased its grants but the results of the work have remained on a level, “if they are not on the downgrade.”
Eugene Kone, public relations director of the American Physical Society, said that in physics, “We are not getting anywhere near enough first-class people.”
Dr. Sidney Ingram, vice president of the Engineering Manpower Commission, said the situation “is absolutely unique in the history of Western Civilization.”
This news story was not given any prominence in our press. It reflects the first symptoms of anxiety over a situation which may still be hidden from the general public. But the same situation in Great Britain has become so obvious that it cannot be hidden any longer, and it is being discussed in terms of headlines. The British have coined a name for it: they call it “the brain drain.”
Let me remind you, parenthetically, that in Atlas Shrugged, John Gait states, referring to the strike: “I have done by plan and intention what had been done throughout history by silent default.” And he lists the various ways in which exceptional men had perished, in which intelligence had gone on strike against tyranny psychologically, deserting any mystic-altruist-collectivist society. You may also remember Dagny’s description of Gait before she meets him, which he later repeats to her: “The man who’s draining the brains of the world.”
No, I do not mean to imply that the British have plagiarized my words. What is much more significant is that they haven’t; most of them, undoubtedly, have never read Atlas Shrugged. What is significant is that they are facing—and groping to identify—the same phenomenon.
I quote from a news story in The New York Times of February 11, 1964:
The Labor party is calling for a Government study of
the p.mitrratinn of Rritish scientists to the United States.
a problem known here as the “brain drain.” Labor’s action … followed the disclosure that Prof. Ian Bush and his research team are leaving Birmingham University for the Worcester Foundation for Experimental Biology in Shrewsbury, Mass.
Professor Bush, who is 35 years old, heads the department of physiology at Birmingham. His team of nine scientists has been investigating the treatment of mental diseases with drugs.
Tonight it was learned that a leading physicist, Prof.
Maurice Pryce, and a top cancer research pathologist,
Dr. Leonard Weiss, would take posts in the United
States
Tom Dalyell, a Labor spokesman on science, will ask if the Prime Minister, Sir Alec Douglas-Home, will appoint a royal commission “to consider the whole problem of the training, recruitment, and retention of scientific manpower for service in Britain”….
Professor Bush’s decision was termed “tragic” by Sir George Pickering, president of the British Medical Association. He described the professor as the “most brilliant pupil I ever had and one of the most brilliant people I have ever met.”