*
* COS is not an official non-profit so your donations are not tax exempt.

Atlas Shrugged Reading Group

Session Seventeen

These discussion questions and podcast were prepared by Diana Hsieh for ExploreAtlasShrugged.com for people interested in creating their own Atlas Shrugged Reading Groups, as well as for anyone wishing to study the novel in more depth. They may be freely used for the study and discussion of Atlas Shrugged, provided that this paragraph remains intact in any reproduction.

Readings

Atlas Shrugged, Part 3, Chapters 7

  • Part 3, Chapter 7: This Is John Galt Speaking

Or:

Learn More

Discussion Questions


(Note: The listed page numbers are for the larger edition, softcover or hardback.)

Part 3: Chapter 7: This Is John Galt Speaking

Section 1 (1000-1069)

  • What is Dagny's response to the news that Hank Rearden has quit?  What does it mean to her?  What does it mean to Jim Taggart, the other looters, and ordinary people? (1000-3)
  • Why does Hank Rearden send the message that he does to Dagny from the valley?  Why is the message so important to Dagny?  (1002-3)
  • Why was Dagny Taggart invited to the radio broadcast?  Why does she refuse to participate?  (1005-7)

Speech: Overview (1009-1069)

  • What is the purpose of John Galt's radio speech? Who is his intended audience? What does he hope to accomplish? (1009-69)
  • What was Ayn Rand's purpose in writing full text of speech into novel? Why do the readers of the novel need to hear the speech too? (1009-69)

Speech: Introduction (1009-1011)

  • How does John Galt motivate and intrigue his listeners? What does he tell them that's news to them? (1009-11)

Speech: The Morality of Life (1011-1025)

  • Why and how is morality necessary for life, according to Galt?  Does man have an automatic knowledge of or desire for survival?  Why not? (1012-5)
  • What is the standard of value? Why? What is the alternative to that standard? How is the contrast concretized in the novel? (1012-15)
  • What are the three basic axioms?  How are they fundamental to thought and life? What role have they played in the events of the novel? (1015-6)
  • How -- and why -- is a person's use of his mind fundamental to morality? What does it mean to think -- or not? How is the refusal to think different from ignorance?  How do Hank Rearden and Robert Stadler exemplify that difference? (1016-8)
  • What are the basic virtues identified by John Galt?  What is the basic meaning of each virtue and how does it promote a person's life and values? What is an example of each virtue in action (and its opposite vice) from the novel? (1018-21)
  • What is the proper role of emotions in life?  How are emotions shaped by choices? How does a person achieve happiness? (1021-2)
  • What is Galt's view of a person's obligations to others?  What does it mean to trade with others in matter and spirit? How has that been dramatized in the novel? (1022-3)
  • What is the initiation of force? How does that "negate and paralyze [a man's] means of survival"? What examples of that have we seen in the novel?
    (1023-4)

Speech: The Morality of Death (1025-1034)

  • What is the doctrine of Original Sin? Why does Galt condemn it? Why does he discuss it? (1025-6)
  • What is Galt's view of the idea that mind and body are antagonists?  What are the moral implications of that view?  What characters have illustrated the mind-body split in the novel? (1026-7)
  • Who are the "mystics of muscle" and the "mystics of spirit"?  How are they different?  How are they similar?  Who are the best examples of these mystics in the novel? (1027)
  • What does Galt mean by sacrifice?  Why does he reject sacrifice as immoral? What is the goal and result of the morality of sacrifice?  (1028-9)
  • How -- and why -- is the morality of sacrifice impossible to practice? How and why does it ultimately demand the sacrifice of virtue to vice? How and why does it poison relationships between people? What events of the novel have dramatized that?  (1030-3)
  • What does Galt think of the ideal of universal brother-love?  Why?  What is the proper view of love?  (1033-4)

(Recommended Break between Sessions 17 and 18)