Trio and Friends

I first came across the phrase “Bright Lines Morality” in reference to Star Wars and in contrast to Dune. It means a universe in which the good guys are unambiguously good and the bad guys are unambiguously bad, and in which there’s no moral ambiguity, complexity, or difficulty. It’s clear what’s right and it’s clear what’s wrong: all you have to do is choose the right.

Atlas Shrugged has a Bright Lines Morality. The bad guys never show an ounce of goodness in them, and the good guys never show any badness. Furthermore, there are only two conversions in the entire book.

• Hank Rearden’s “Wet Nurse” is an example of a conversion - someone trained to think one way, who is won over by hanging round Rearden’s mills and seeing the way they work.

• Dr Robert Stadler is the other conversion - this time from the good to the evil.

But these are the exceptions that prove the rule. The Wet Nurse has a very simple trajectory from evil to good, from incorrect to correct understanding. There is no moment of wavering, no vestige of evil one he has become good. Similarly for Stadler, his conversion is clean and clear. He still has a conscience about things for a while, but once he has gone wrong, he never again does any good actions (except accidentally, by pointing Dagny to Quentin Daniels as the understudy for Galt’s motor).

Because of this moral simplicity, there’s very little good news for anyone on the path to wickedness. John Galt would not die for you “while you were still sinners” (Romans 5:8). He would abandon you to your fate, which you deserve.

I’m not sure I have much to say about bright lines or moral ambiguity. I’m not sure what your point is I guess.

He would abandon you to your fate, which you deserve.

Why is getting what you deserve bad? I don’t understand this. How will we learn to grapple with the truth without getting what we deserve. That is what facing the truth is.

This story is basically “What would happen if we hated the superheros instead of praised them? What if we forced superman to work for us, make sure all of our desires were met and if he objected we could accuse him of selfishness because we are weak.”

The world we live in is not full of people who are either fully good or fully evil. In fact, the opposite is the case. Almost everybody - probably everybody - we meet is a mix of good and bad. They have some great strengths, some virtues, some wisdom, and at the same time they have some weaknesses, some vices, and some foolishness. They perceive the truth boldly and fearlessly in some areas, and hide from the truth in other areas.

In Atlas Shrugged the evil people can be left to rot because there is no good in them. They are irredeemable. There is no point trying to persuade them, to reach out to them, to give them a second chance, or to offer forgiveness. They are beyond hope.

Similarly, in Atlas Shrugged the good people can all form a perfect utopia because there's no evil in them. They never compromise on their values or give in, in a moment of weakness, to an unfair deal. They never do less than the best job they can.

Rand's world in Atlas Shrugged is not like the real world in this way. That is a problem because it makes the book much less helpful if I want to use its ideas to help me live in the real world. The book is suppose to be a way of telling the truth, through narrative, in a way that affects our philosophy, our lives, our ideas, and our morality in this world. But how can it do that if it does not accurately reflect what the real world is like?

Ondrej wrote:Why is getting what you deserve bad? I don’t understand this. How will we learn to grapple with the truth without getting what we deserve. That is what facing the truth is.

Would you say that the Christian worldview is one in which everybody gets what they deserve, no more, no less?

Would you say that the Christian worldview is one in which everybody gets what they deserve, no more, no less?

You avoided the question.

No, the Christian "worldview" is that of a hero voluntarily sacrificing himself for the benefit of others. The others don't get what they rightfully deserve because a hero has come to save them. You will notice that what makes him a hero is that it is voluntary.

The topic of "getting what you deserve" deserves its own thread. I will create it.

It is here.