Ayn Rand meets the Marquis de Sade

(Warning: contains "adult" language .)

A MASH UP OF QUOTES FROM AYN RAND’S ATLAS SHRUGGED AND SADE’S 120 DAYS OF SODOM (CAN YOU TELL THE DIFFERENCE??)

Ayn Rand is the favorite philosopher of middle class kids worldwide who had a particularly hysterical reaction when they were told by their parents “you must share.”

Lo and behold, Rand penned a manifesto called “The Virtue of Selfishness.” Rand gave the exiting promise of being able to throw off the yoke of Judeo-Christian guilt and still be a goody two shoes: an “ethical” selfish person.

The Marquis de Sade was under no such obligation. He anticipated Social Darwinism and “Objectivism” with one difference; he ditched the whole “virtue” pretense. Sade was simultaneously trolling both religion and the enlightenment.

SODOM SHRUGGED

The chief engineer was the only one able to move; he ran to a television set and struggled frantically with its dials. But the screen remained empty; the speaker had not chosen to be seen. Only his voice filled the airways of the country-of the world, thought the chief engineer-sounding as if he were speaking here, in this room, not to a group, but to one man; it was not the tone of addressing a meeting, but the tone of addressing a mind.

For twelve years, you have been asking: Who is John Galt?

I was born treacherous, harsh, imperious, barbaric, and selfish as lavish in the pursuit of pleasure, as miserly when it were a question of useful spending, a liar, a gourmand, a drunk, a dastard, a sodomite, fond of incest, given to murdering, to arson, to theft, no, not a single virtue compensated that host of vices.

You have heard it said that this is an age of moral crisis. You have said it yourself, half in fear, half in hope that the words had no meaning. You have cried that man’s sins are destroying the world and you have cursed human nature for its unwillingness to practice the virtues you demanded. Since virtue, to you, consists of sacrifice, you have demanded more sacrifices at every successive disaster. Why, not only did I never so much as dream of a single virtue, I beheld them all with horror, and I was frequently heard to say that to be truly happy in this world a man ought not merely fling himself into every vice, but should never permit himself one virtue.

Who is John Galt? A person of sixty years and to a singular degree jaded by all the pleasures of lubricity, used only to be able to restore his senses to life by having the flames of burning candles applied to every part of his body. This is John Galt speaking. I am the man who loves his life. I would have my thighs seared, my prick, my balls roasted, and above all else my asshole: while all this was going forward, I'd wash them with my balls' acrid humor.

I am Firm in my principles because those I formed are sound and were formed very early, I always act in accordance with them; they have made me understand the emptiness and nullity of virtue; I hate virtue, and never will I be seen resorting to it. They have persuaded me that through vice alone is man capable of experiencing this moral and physical vibration which is the source of the most delicious voluptuousness; so I give myself over to vice.

Crime is a natural mode, a manner whereby Nature stirs man, makes him to move. Why would you not have me let myself be moved by Nature in this direction as well as in the direction of virtue?

Nature needs virtuous acts, and vicious ones too; I serve Nature as well by performing the one as when I commit the other. I win by means of nothing but logic and I surrender to nothing but logic. I do not surrender my reason or deal with men who surrender theirs. I have nothing to gain from fools or cowards; I have no benefits to seek from stupidity or fear. The only value men can offer me is the work of frigging a prick whose incredible littleness, I assure you, isn't worth the bother describing.

My crimes serve Nature; I should be a fool to disobey her. Thus, nothing but the law stands in my way, but I defy the law, my gold and my prestige keep me well beyond reach of those vulgar instruments of repression which should be employed only upon the common sort.

This is John Galt speaking. I like to burn down poorhouses. I endeavor to lure a beggar into my own home, upon the pretense of bestowing charity; I embugger my victim, then break his back and leave him thus discomfited to die in a dungeon.

I have always beheld charity with the most authentic horror, regardless of the appeals from the United Way and 1-877-KARS4KIDS that I have heard pronounced in its favor. I maintain that there must be poor in this world, that Nature wishes that such there be, that she requires it, and that it is to fly in the face of her decrees to pretend to restore equilibrium, if it is disorder she wants.

I subscribe to Reason magazine and possess all of Ayn Rand’s books––by selfishly stealing them, of course!