Lost in Galt's Gulch

With the introduction of the Freighter's captain - Captain Gault - fans of L O S T have been digging around for literary references to the name. This Captain Gault has already been identified, and seems most immediately applicable to the overarching mythology of our favorite show.

But as other bloggers have pointed out, there is also a John Galt of a different type (and different spelling, of course): the John Galt of Ayn Rand's famous novel, Atlas Shrugged.

In this post I'd like to draw attention to the ethics of isolated communities; in particular, isolated communities like Ben's island and Galt's Gulch, where the "good guys" hole up and separate themselves from the rest of the world. But before I do that, I just want to draw some parallels between Ben's island and Galt's Gulch.



Atlas Shrugged is a long novel that encapsulates Ayn Rands main philosophy, Objectivism, and John Galt especially embodies that philosophy. In short, Rand's (and Galt's) philosophy is:

Man - every man - is an end in himself, not the means to the ends of others. He must exist for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself. The pursuit of his own rational self-interest and of his own happiness is the highest moral purpose of his life.

With this philosophy in mind, Rand's John Galt recruits the world's most successful business men - the "Captains of Industry" - to his cause, and seemingly spirits them away to Galt's Gulch: a secret enclave located in a valley in the mountains of Colorado, and is hidden from the rest of the world. Galt is able to recruit the best of the best - the real movers and shakers of the world - because in the Universe of the novel, the world is sinking into an orgy of collectivism and the inevitably increasing nationalization of industry by the governments of the world.

Aside from sharing a geographical similarity to New Otherton



as team Darlton like to call it - both Ben's island and Galt's Gulch are invisible to the rest of the world. Ben's island seems to get its invisible properties from electromagnetism; whereas Galt's Gulch has a man-made (by Galt) high-tech invisibility screen, which is designed to prevent the valley from being found.

Both places elicit an atmosphere of "us versus them." And both leaders consider their people the "good guys."

Let's assume for the sake of argument that Ben is telling the truth when he says that the Others are the good guys. And let's assume that John Galt's philosophy is justified. So is it ethical to take the best, the most creative people from the world and keep them to yourself? Is it ethical to take their benefits to society away?

Do they have an inalienable right to rescind their gifts and use them in their own isolated community? Or are they obligated by some implied social contract to use their gifts and talents for the benefit of society?

Does a human being exist for her own sake, or does she exist for the sake of others? Or does she somehow balance existing for both herself and others?




Lost