Atlas Shrugged [83]
"But, look . . . isn't that sort of a contradiction?"
"Not in the higher philosophical sense. You must learn to see beyond the static definitions of old-fashioned thinking. Nothing is static in the universe. Everything is fluid."
"But it stands to reason that if-"
"Reason, my dear fellow, is the most naive of all superstitions. That, at least, has been generally conceded in our age,"
"But I don't quite understand how we can-"
"You suffer from the popular delusion of believing that things can be understood. You do not grasp the fact that the universe is a solid contradiction."
"A contradiction of what?" asked the matron.
"Of itself."
"How . . . how's that?"
"My dear madam, the duty of thinkers is not to explain, but to demonstrate that nothing can be explained."
"Yes, of course . . . only . , ,"
"The purpose of philosophy is not to seek knowledge, but to prove that knowledge is impossible to man."
"But when we prove it," asked the young woman, "what's going to be left?"
"Instinct," said Dr. Pritchett reverently.
At the other end of the room, a group was listening to Balph Eubank. He sat upright on the edge of an armchair, in order to counteract the appearance of his face and figure, which had a tendency to spread if relaxed.
"The literature of the past," said Balph Eubank, "was a shallow fraud. It whitewashed life in order to please the money tycoons whom it served. Morality, free will, achievement, happy endings, and man as some sort of heroic being-all that stuff is laughable to us. Our age has given depth to literature for the first time, by exposing the real essence of life,"
A very young girl in a white evening gown asked timidly, "What is the real essence of life, Mr. Eubank?"
"Suffering," said Balph Eubank. "Defeat and suffering."
"But . . . but why? People are happy . . . sometimes . . . aren't they?"
"That is a delusion of those whose emotions are superficial."
The girl blushed. A wealthy woman who had inherited an oil refinery, asked guiltily, "What should we do to raise the people's literary taste, Mr. Eubank?"
"That is a great social problem," said Balph Eubank. He was described as the literary leader of the age, but had never written a book that sold more than three thousand copies. "Personally, I believe that an Equalization of Opportunity Bill applying to literature would be the solution."
"Oh, do you approve of that Bill for industry? I'm not sure I know what to think of it."
"Certainly, I approve of it. Our culture has sunk into a bog of materialism. Men have lost all spiritual values in their pursuit of material production and technological trickery. They're too comfortable. They will return to a nobler life if we teach them to bear privations. So we ought to place a limit upon their material greed."
"I hadn't thought of it that way," said the woman apologetically.
"But how are you going to work an Equalization of Opportunity Bill for literature, Ralph?" asked Mort Liddy. "That's a new one on me."
"My name is Balph," said Eubank angrily. "And it's a new one on you because it's my own idea."
"Okay, okay, I'm not quarreling, am I? I'm just asking." Mort Liddy smiled. He spent most of his time smiling nervously. He was a composer who wrote old-fashioned scores for motion pictures, and modern symphonies for sparse audiences.
"It would work very simply," said Balph Eubank. "There should be a law limiting the sale of any book to ten thousand copies. This would throw the literary market open to new talent, fresh ideas and non-commercial writing. If people were forbidden to buy a million copies of the same piece of trash, they would be forced to buy better books."
"You've got something there," said Mort Liddy. "But wouldn't it be kinda tough on the writers' bank accounts?"
"So much the better. Only those whose motive