Atlas Shrugged LO9815

GaltJohn22@aol.com
Sat, 7 Sep 1996 19:03:28 -0400

Replying to LO9800 --

No offense but I would say that the following is a dire misinterpretation
of John Galt's role in Atlas Shrugged. Far from being a "loner" as you
say, Galt collected up the finest minds in the world and bound them
together in a common cause of huge scope and import. He was, obviously,
an inspirational leader as well as an individual innovator - bearing the
mark of both these types of genius. By bringing these people together, in
fact, innovation after innovation resulted, so much so that the characters
in the novel treat the innovations quite "matter of fact"ly - Little doubt
that John Galt had formed the epitome of the Learning Organizations.

- Hal Popplewell

-----Quote from prev msg -----

Rand's John Galt is a mythic hero not too unlike Eastwood's Dirty Harry
and Schwarzeneggar's Conan. The character shows up repeatedly in Western
sagas including, of course, "High Noon" and "Shane." The loner hero is a
peculiar fixation of Americans, especially American men. We all want to
see the cavalry riding over the hill to rescue everyone. We fantasize
about personally leading the charge, but the bottom line is someone is the
victim and someone is the hero. The stories inspire some to greatness but
lull most into complacency. I don't have to worry about my business being
unscrupulous; the Board will figure things out soon and appoint a better
CEO. I don't have to try to change the way my country does business; I'll
just elect a better president. Why should I worry about the schools in my
community; let's get the school board to appoint a new superintendant and
he can fix everything.
----end of quote---

-- 
Hal Popplewell
GaltJohn22@aol.com
 

Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>