David Sloan Wilson - Atlas Hugged: The Autobiography of John Galt III

Copyright 2020 David Sloan Wilson

All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Redwood Publishing, LLC., and distributed worldwide. No part of this book may be used or reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from both the publisher and author, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for inclusion in a blog, website, magazine, newspaper, broadcast, or digital media outlet; and except as provided by United States of America copyright law.

Published by Redwood Publishing, LLC

www.redwooddigitalpublishing.com

Paperback ISBN: 978-1-952106-53-8

eBook ISBN: 978-1-952106-54-5

Library of Congress Control Number: 2020912913

Cover Design: Jennifer Campbell-Smith, Ph.D.

Interior Design: Ghislain Viau

Globe lineart: ShutterStock/AtthameeNi

Printed in the United States of America

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To my father, the novelist, and my mother, the nurturer.

Art is the indispensable medium
for the communication of a moral ideal.

Ayn Rand

Ayn Rands Atlas Shrugged is one of the most iconic novels of the 20th century, selling over seven million copies since its publication in 1957. Rand is widely credited for providing a moral foundation to the greed is good ideology that now dominates modern life. Alan Greenspan, who served as chair of the United States Federal Reserve between 1987-2006, was a devotee, and one still hears about politicians assigning Atlas Shrugged to their staff as a kind of indoctrination. The Atlas Society has chapters on college campuses around the world and the Atlas Group is one of the most effective conglomerates of libertarian think tanks. As Internet memes, the names Ayn Rand and her fictional hero John Galt are mentioned as often as Adam Smith and Friedrich Hayek.

Rand promoted her philosophy, which she called Objectivism, in many ways, but Atlas Shrugged was unquestionably her most effective vehicle. She understood that fiction can be more effective than dry philosophical discourse when she wrote, Art is the indispensable medium for the communication of a moral ideal.

I have written Atlas Hugged in the same spirit and as an antidote to the greed is good worldview that Rand championed. Like Rand, I am not primarily a novelist. In fact this is my first, although I come by the craft easily since my father, Sloan Wilson, wrote two other iconic novels of the 20th century: The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit (1955), which described the corporate army that formed after World War II, and A Summer Place (1958), which described changing sexual mores during the same period. I became a scientist rather than a novelist, which enables me to critique the greed is good worldview on intellectual grounds. I have done this in many academic works and three nonfiction books for the general public, most recently This View of Life: Completing the Darwinian Revolution. Conveying the same themes in fictional form for me is a kind of homecoming.

The idea of critiquing Rands worldview with a sequel to her novel (in the form of satirical academic critique) is delicious. I wish I could claim credit for it, but it was suggested by someone else during a workshop on economics that I had organized. Since Rand had been so successful at promulgating her ideas through fiction, shouldnt someone be doing the same for the ideas that we were developing? Within minutes, the title Atlas Hugged flashed into my mind, along with the beginning of a plot line. The protagonist would be an entirely new character the grandson of John Galt whose father is a libertarian media giant like Rush Limbaugh. Ayn Rand was not a character in her own novel, but since anything goes in fiction I could transport her into mine in the form of Ayn Rant. It was too delicious not to indulge!

That was seven years ago and I worked on it between my other projects ever since. I was amazed by how the story stayed alive and developed in my mind, even when I didnt have a chance to write anything for months. Every now and then a new plot development would bubble up into my consciousness and I would think: Of course! Thats how it must be! We truly evolved as storytelling animals and creating my own story at such length has been a delight.

When I began to think about sharing my story, the typical publication route was cluttered with obstacles. Whatever my reputation as a scientist and nonfiction author, I was still just a guy peddling his first novel. Also, literary critics hated Atlas Shrugged and rightly so! Judged purely as a story, it is a terrible novel. The same can be said for B.F. Skinners utopian novel Walden Two, which was rejected by two publishers and only accepted by a third under the condition that Skinner write a textbook for them! Nevertheless, both novels had a huge impact and continue to be read because the stories, despite their flaws, were good enough to serve as a vehicle for the ideas. I would like to think that my story is much better than either of those, but there is no getting around the need for a bit of speechifying to communicate the ideas.

In the end, I decided that the anti-Rand thing to do was to market my story online and let the reader decide how much to pay (including nothing for the e-book), with all proceeds going to support my nonprofit organization, Prosocial World. Such things are easy to do in the age of electronic publishing. If readers hate it, then no harm is done and maybe Ill even learn from the feedback and write Atlas Hugged 2.0. After all, writing novels is not my main line of work and there is nothing to be gained from keeping it to myself.

Like Atlas Shrugged and Walden Two, Atlas Hugged is a novel of ideas and a vision for the future. I would never have written it just to tell a story. Exchanging Shrugged with Hugged also communicates a very different moral ideal. If you want the nonfiction version, read This View of Life and my other works. Or, you can learn about it through John Galt III, Eve, and the other characters that I have grown to know and love so well. And dont worry, reading Atlas Shrugged first is not necessary. Enjoy!

Call me anything but John Galt. That is my name, but it is also the name of my father and grandfather. I am not like them and the world they created is not the one I desire. The III after my name does not sufficiently set me apart.

Not everyone remembers my grandfather, although nearly everyone has been touched by him. The first John Galt was a brilliant engineer with an unshakeable faith in himself and the folly of those who opposed him. He believed that the advances of civilization were due to a special class of men that he called the doers. Everyone else was dependent upon the doers but didnt understand the source of their welfare. Instead of being grateful and giving the doers free reign, they placed unceasing demands on the doers. My grandfather had a rich vocabulary for describing the mass of humanity as looters, moochers, and parasites, robbing and sucking the blood out of the very people who supported them. If only the doers could liberate themselves from the moochers, the ideal society could be achieved.