Who is John Galt?

The ideal man, and no I am not talking about every girl's dream guy. I am talking about the philosophical ideal man. For Ayn Rand it was John Galt, for Nietzsche it was Zarathustra, for Aristotle... well this is what he had to say about it...

He does not expose himself needlessly to danger, since there are few things for which he cares sufficiently; but he is willing, in great crises to give even his life, knowing that under certain conditions it is not worth while to live. He is of a disposition to do men service, though he is ashamed to have a service done to him. To confer kindness is a mark of superiority; to receive is a mark of subordination...

Such is the ideal man of Aristotle's philosophy taken from his book call Ethics. It is only one small section of the entire whole. I never pretend to understand Aristotle's philosophy but I think a laymen can at least understand the quote written above.

"Who is John Galt?" was a rhetorical question asked by characters in the book called Atlas Shrugged written by Ayn Rand. It is a phrase normally said sarcastically in frustration or futility because the people in the book can't seem to do anything about a world that was crumbling all around them both economically and morally. The rhetorical question ended up having an answer that came in the form John Galt himself. The ideal man, the "messiah" who came to set things right, bring justice, right the wrongs etc...

Ayn Rand was the creator of a philosophical thinking called objectivism, her philosophy, "in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute." That was in her own words. In other words man should be a selfish being, living only to make himself comfortable and happy and he should care for on one else. That is the philosophy of Ayn Rand.

Nietzsche is the father of nihilism. Nihilism as a philosophical position is the view that the world, and especially human existence, is without meaning, purpose, comprehensible truth, or essential value. Life is meaningless, life is a fluke, God is dead. So where do we go from from a position like that? In his book "Thus Spoke Zarathustra" Nietzsche argues that since human existence is without meaning, humans must aspire to be more than human and make their own meaning in life. Thus in doing so, this group of humans will rule the earth and give it the reason to exist, they will also be superior than so called "normal" humans. He calls this group of humans "Supermen".

Now this is the scary part. Nietzsche greatly influenced a certain bloke named Adolph Hitler, Hitler decided that the "Supermen" in Nietzsche's book and his own Aryan race (If that was even his race, there are doubts about that as well) wasn't all that different. He decided to prove that by taking Germany to war and exterminating "lesser races", The Jews being the major victim here. And the list goes on, although I only covered three ideas there are many many more ideal men hanging around out there.

So after all of the babel, what is my point? Well you see, philosophy affects all of us whether we know it or like it or not. It affects the way we think, it defines our morals and ethics, it gives us something to aspire to, which is why philosophers create their ideal man and give them fancy names like Zarathustra. But these ideal men are just ideas, they are not real. People who tried to emulate them, did so with disastrous results, case in point, Hitler and personally I think if John Galt really did exist, he will be nothing more than a selfish bastard. All be it a very smart selfish bastard.

Also I am not trying to belittle people like Aristotle. Believe me, if anybody knows what makes an ideal man it is him. Considering his achievements, calling him a genius might be an understatement. But we have many practical examples of ideal men to follow, real people who despite their weaknesses and flaws turned out to be great people who made a positive influence to people and history. So next time you decide to emulate a philosophy's figment of imagination think again, it might not work as well as you think.