When Does the State Not Exist...Yet Still Exist?

by Brian Eenigenburg

In the movie version of The Fountainhead, Ellsworth Toohey asks Howard Roark something like, “What do you think of me?”  Howard Roark with genuine surprise answers, “I don’t.”  Oops! Toohey has no power over him!

Suppose in essence the state was asking anarchists, “What do you think of me?”  And suppose anarchists were able to answer with genuine surprise, “I don’t.”

We’ve all heard of objectivism and objective reality, but let’s pretend for a moment that the mind is creative in the sense that the more you think about something, the more it exists for you, and as a corollary the more attention you give to something you are judging to be negative, the more negative effects this something you are giving attention to has on you.

For example, let’s look at a hypothetical story in which measured by objective standards John and Jane are equally affected by an immense tax burden. 

John fumes about this tax burden, calling it slavery, extortion, theft and any number of other names guaranteed to give himself feelings of unhappiness and maybe even drive him to doing something dangerous to his well-being like go on a rampage and shoot city council members who favor taxation.

When she thinks of taxes at all, Jane thinks to herself, “Oh well!”  But normally she gives almost no attention to the tax situation and goes about her business as a happy soccer mom even though she is working a full time job, skimping on groceries, and ignoring all the possibilities she could have dreamed about if she was able to keep the earnings of her productive work.

By the time you add the burdens John puts on himself with his subjective viewpoint, and subtract the burdens Jane saves herself with her subjective viewpoint, someone might argue that the overall tax burden on John and Jane is no longer equal. 

Even an Objectivist would have to admit that subjective viewpoint makes a difference in one’s happiness.  What Jane is basically doing in the story above is maximizing her current happiness by not focusing very much attention on a negative.  She’s going about her business as if the state didn’t exist.

Maybe Jane is closer to John Galt’s consciousness than we give her credit for.  Maybe what John Galt is really telling us is the same as science tells us: resistance creates resistance.  If I give attention to the state, I give importance to the state.  If I fight the state, I empower the state.

Maybe what John Galt was really saying was a statement something like Jane’s statement: “Yes, the state exists as an objective reality.  But I’ve got other more important things to place my attention on!  So for the most part for me the state doesn’t exist.”

April 1, 2002

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