Atlas Shrugged

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 "Why don't you want to fight?"
"Because they had the right to do it."
"Dan," she asked, "have you lost your mind?"
"I've never gone back on my word in my life," he said tonelessly. "I don't care what the courts decide. I
promised to obey the majority. I have to obey."
"Did you expect the majority to do this to you?"
"No." There was a kind of faint convulsion in the stolid face. He spoke softly, not looking at her, the
helpless astonishment still raw within him. "No, I didn't expect it. I heard them talking about it for over a
year, but I didn't believe it. Even when they were voting, I didn't believe it."
"What did you expect?"
"I thought . . . They said all of us were to stand for the common good. I thought what I had done down
there in Colorado was good.
Good for everybody."
"Oh, you damn fool! Don't you see that that's what you're being punished for—because it was good?"
He shook his head. "I don't understand it," he said. "But I see no way out."
"Did you promise them to agree to destroy yourself?"
"There doesn't seem to be any choice for any of us."
"What do you mean?"
"Dagny, the whole world's in a terrible state right now. I don't know what's wrong with it, but
something's very wrong. Men have to get together and find a way out. But who's to decide which way to
take, unless it's the majority? I guess that's the only fair method of deciding, I don't see any other. I
suppose somebody's got to be sacrificed. If it turned out to be me, I have no right to complain. The
right's on their side. Men have to get together."
She made an effort to speak calmly; she was trembling with anger.
"If that's the price of getting together, then I'll be damned if I want to live on the same earth with any
human beings! If the rest of them can survive only by destroying us, then why should we wish them to
survive?
Nothing can make self-immolation proper. Nothing can give them the right to turn men into sacrificial
animals. Nothing can make it moral to destroy the best. One can't be punished for being good. One can't
be penalized for ability. If that is right, then we'd better start slaughtering one another, because there isn't
any right at all in the world!"
He did not answer. He looked at her helplessly.