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.
