The mystic muck of India!

It is really painful to read the phrase “the mystic muck of India” in “Atlas Shrugged” written in 1957. There seems to be a grain of truth in what Ayn Rand wrote about our country long ago.This is what she wrote:

"You declare to your children that it is rational to loot, to torture, to enslave, to expropriate, to murder, but that they must resist the temptations of logic and stick to the discipline of remaining irrational—that skyscrapers, factories, radios, airplanes were the products of faith and mystic intuition, while famines, concentration camps and firing squads are the products of a reasonable manner of existence—that the industrial revolution was the revolt of the men of faith against that era of reason and logic which is known as the Middle Ages. Simultaneously, in the same breath, to the same child, you declare that the looters who rule the People's States will surpass this country in material production, since they are the representatives of science, but that it's evil to be concerned with physical wealth and that one must renounce material prosperity— you declare that the looters' ideals are noble, but they do not mean them, while you do; that your purpose in fighting the looters is only to accomplish their aims, which they cannot accomplish, but you can; and that the way to fight them is to beat them to it and give one's wealth away.

Then you wonder why your children join the People's thugs or become half-crazed delinquents, you wonder why the looters' conquests keep creeping closer to your doors—and you blame it on human stupidity, declaring that the masses are impervious to reason.

"You blank out the open, public spectacle of the looters' fight against the mind, and the fact that their bloodiest horrors are unleashed to punish the crime of thinking. You blank out the fact that most mystics of muscle started out as mystics of spirit, that they keep switching from one to the other, that the men you call materialists and spiritualists are only two halves of the same dissected human, forever seeking completion, but seeking it by swinging from the destruction of the flesh to the destruction of the soul and vice versa—that they keep running from your colleges to the slave pens of Europe to an open collapse into the mystic muck of India, seeking any refuge against reality, any form of escape from the mind.

Ayn Rand enjoys much greater respect and admiration here in India today.

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Ayn Rand is rather well-known in India, though of course not as widely known as she is in the US; however, it can be argued that Rand is certainly viewed more respectfully and with admiration here in India than in the US.

Now, having said that, I would still claim that Rand enjoys much greater respect and admiration here in India today. In my opinion, the main reason for this is that the Indian people who read her actually understand the truth of her arguments, for the most part. Because Indians live in the collectivist, pseudo-statist, tradition-bound, mystic society that India is, the readers grasp the validity of Rand’s ferocious criticisms of these states and agree with her description of life under these conditions.

 

For example, Indians see the reality around them–of a massive bureaucratic government, socialist and collectivist policies, the influence of mysticism and religion in politics and in every aspect of life, the burden of tradition and familial obligations, the parasitic oppression of “needy” and the lazy on the hard-working average man–and they see how well Rand describes these very scenarios and reveals the root causes of them.

I think the Indians who read Rand identify with her because they feel she is exactly right; because they see what she denounces occurring in their own lives and in their societies. Moreover, Rand’s uniquely powerful, persuasive, bold, and lucid style of writing is perfect for the tastes of the Indian audience who are not into obfuscations, meandering musings, and equivocality. As a culture in general, Indians are rather direct in their communication (verbal and nonverbal), almost to the point of being tactless and crude. Thus, Rand’s admirable style of revealing things as they are, never faking reality, and calling a spade a spade, seems superbly customized for the Indian readership.

Comments of Ayn Rand on India

Ayn Rand, in her masterpiece “Atlas Shrugged”, made comments on India that most Indians find painful. I read “Atlas Shrugged” several times when I was young. She made such comments at three places in her 1074-page tome.

Curiously enough, Ayn Rand is more popular in India than in any other country in the world. She contends that the mysticism practiced in India is the root cause of its backwardness. I would like to know how our younger generation feels about these comments that appear in the chapter entitled “This is John Galt Speaking”. This speech runs into about 40 pages, and her fans treat this discourse as a kind of Bhagavad Gita for living on this earth.

Should Indians need to introspect in the light of her views or to take objection to them? The following is the text under question:

"You, who dare to regard us as the moral inferiors of any mystic who claims supernatural visions—you, who scramble like vultures for plundered pennies, yet honor a fortune-teller above a fortune maker—you, who scorn a businessman as ignoble, but esteem any posturing artist as exalted—the root of your standards is that mystic miasma which comes from primordial swamps, that cult of death, which pronounces a businessman immoral by reason of the fact that he keeps you alive. You, who claim that you long to rise above the crude concerns of the body, above the drudgery of serving mere physical needs—who is enslaved by physical needs: the Hindu who labors from sunrise to sunset at the shafts of a hand-plow for a bowl of rice, or the American who is driving a tractor? Who is the conqueror of physical reality: the man who sleeps on a bed of nails or the man who sleeps on an inner-spring mattress? Which is the monument to the triumph of the human spirit over matter: the germ-eaten hovels on the shorelines of the Ganges or the Atlantic skyline of New York?

"Unless you learn the answers to these questions—and learn to stand at reverent attention when you face the achievements of man's mind—

“You will not stay much longer on this earth, which we love and will not permit you to damn. You will not sneak by with the rest of your lifespan. I have foreshortened the usual course of history and have let you discover the nature of the payment you had hoped to switch to the shoulders of others. It is the last of your own living power that will now be drained to provide the unearned for the worshippers and carriers of Death. Do not pretend that a malevolent reality defeated you—you were defeated by your own evasions. Do not pretend that you will perish for a noble ideal—you will perish as fodder for the haters of man.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times;

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times; it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness; it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity; it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness; it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair; we had everything before us, we had nothing before us; we were all going directly to Heaven, we were all going the other way." 

© Charles Dickens | Tale of Two Cities | Opening lines

Take each man's opinion, but reserve your judgment.

There, my blessing with you!
And see that you write these few precepts
In your memory. Give your thoughts to yourself,
And don’t act without thinking.
Be friendly, but by no means vulgar.
Those friends you have, and their friendship tested,
Anchor them to your soul with hoops of steel,
But don’t spend your money on entertaining
Each newly acquired, unproven friend. Beware
Of getting into a quarrel, but, once you are in,
Fight so that the man you fight with may beware of you.
Listen to what every man says, but speak to few.
Take each man's opinion, but reserve your judgment.
Buy as costly clothes as can pay for,
But not made fancy, rich, and certainly not gaudy.
For the clothes often tell what kind of man you are,
And the ones in France of the best rank and station
Are most choosy and generous in that regard.
Neither a borrower nor a lender be.
For a loan often loses both the loan and the friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of the economy.
This above all, to your own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
You cannot then be false to any man.
Goodbye. My blessing instill these things in you!

© Shakespeare | Hamlet | Act 1, Scene 3