• The abortion non-issue
• A new kind of surge
• Congrats Cap'n!
• Game over, man!
• Regarding Education
• Trivia Question of the Day
• What Right to Privacy?
• John McCain is 72 years old! [laughter, applause]
• Bug Braaaaaaaaaains!
• Sarah Palin
• Reich's advice to Democrats
• Women's Lib
• On Barak Obama and Joe Biden
• Late Night Punchline Imbalance: the details undermine the headline
• Better questions about climate change

• September 2008
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« US Automakers: Rising to the Challenger? | Main | A Dedication »

Atlas Blogged

I have recently taken an ironic sabbatical from blogging. To explain why it is ironic, I will have to get into a topic I have long meant to spell out for the friends and readers of AtlasBlogged: the origin and meaning of this website. And if I’ve been asked it once, I’ve been asked it a thousand times. What is the origin of this website? What is the relationship betwixt the authors?

(Okay, I have never actually been asked that question. But still.)

The relationship betwixt the authors is that these are some of my best friends. And the origin of this blog is that we were talking about all of this stuff anyway, and we thought we’d share it with the world. You see, AtlasBlogged was born of an email list that Rammage hosted to keep in touch with some of his old college buddies. For years it was just an email list – a way to share stories and have arguments when we were supposed to be working or spending time with our families. But then came that fateful day when Rammage suggested that some of the political conversations would make good blog posts… and he offered to set up and host a group blog for us, free of charge.

I’d been on political discussion groups before, but I didn’t know what the hell a blog. Still, I didn’t see how it could be harmful. And there was the potential for fun. So we went forward setting up a blog for the guys on our email list.

Obviously, we needed a name. Now this part is very important – please pay attention. The name of our blog tells people a lot about us, and it’s mostly not accurate. This is hardly a list of Objectivists or anarcho-capitalists. I haven’t even read all of Ayn Rand’s books, but the title of the blog sure implies some greater level of devotion. So, let’s clear the air on that one right now.

Atlas Shrugged, the magnum opus of a phenomenally influential writer, asks us to consider what would happen to our world if the movers of the world were to stop moving it. Most of humanity is pushed forward to better and better lives without doing anything but going along for the ride, while only the most capable of our species truly invent, invest, and innovate. If those top few producers decided that they didn’t like the way they were being treated by the rest of the population, and were feeling unappreciated and even reviled, they went on strike… well, how would that play out? We know what happens when trash collectors, steel workers, teachers and others go on strike, but what about the capitalists themselves?

I love this question, because to some degree I’ve personally been on strike for years. I mean I work, I pay the bills and I support my family, but to quote my high school teachers and college professors, I don’t work up to my potential. And I do that on purpose. Because I see no need to live up to your expectations for me. At some point in high school I decided that the difference between a “C” and an “A” was unimportant to me, so long as I understood the material to my own satisfaction. Since then, the reward for my learning and labor has come from within, not from without. Don't get me wrong; I put my all into the jobs I’ve taken, but I’ve taken jobs that afford me personal free time, personal satisfaction, and a fun work environment. Most importantly, I’ve refused to bust my ass in a job where anybody else can take credit for my work, or benefit from it unduly. John Galt I am not, but like so many others I have empathized with the character and resented the Moochers and Looters of the world.

So how does this relate to blogging? Well, I blog for my own personal satisfaction, and not because of the expectations our readers might ever have. No offense, but I feel no obligation to you. And I blog when I could be doing something else – something you might think was more productive, from your point of view. But from my point of view, if there was something better I could be doing, I would be doing it. See my recent sabbatical as evidence.

No, I am not John Galt. No, we are not Objectivists. We just thought the name was catchy, punny, and appropriate to our own motives. I just thought I’d share that info with our readers.

Consider how Rammage has paraphrased Francisco D'Anconia:

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 the 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 blog.

And if he took a sabbattical from that? What would there be to say?