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I too enjoyed your article. You provided a forthright explanation of a portion of your moral development. I can especially relate to your childhood struggle to adhere to principles and your disillusionment when God himself let you down. I had somewhat similar experiences.
My next point is nearly a cliché, but I believe that many people in this culture turn to religion in an effort to some purpose, some moral values and some spiritual sense of life. God rarely lives up to his billing, and when disillusioned the religious turn to greater mysticism (He works in mysterious ways), become hypocrites, or if they are more honest with themselves, they become atheists.
One of the truly great accomplishments of Rand was reclaiming spirituality for Objectivism.
I also agree that there are some situations in which turning the other cheek could be, and has been, an effective tactic. However, it fails as a moral rule, for the reasons that Rand stated and you quoted.
Your article met with such nearly unanimous acclaim by so many thoughtful individuals that I feel a bit like a party pooper to assert any disagreement. However, at risk of losing my immortal soul, I go on.
I disagree that Roark was turning the other cheek, in the least. Roark mounted the only defense his integrity would allow.
Roark got up and walked to the bench, the brown envelope in hand. He took out of the envelope ten photographs of the Stoddard Temple and laid them on the judge’s desk. He said, “The defense rests.” It was the same brown envelope he had when the trial began; the only thing on his desk. Roark mounted the only rational defense he could that was consistent with his morality. Roark did not turn the other cheek. In fact the defense was a perfect defense for anyone of principle. The defense failed because of the immorality of the judge and the witnesses. However, it was a defense, and the only moral defense he could offer.
Roark could have probably won the trial if he cross-examined Keating and Dominique. However, he refused to accept their standards or their immorality. We, the reader, knew that the photos were the perfect defense. The proffered defense lost for the same reason most people would not hire Roark as their architect. Roark could present no other defense for the same reason he couldn’t design a structure in any manner but his own. Roark knew he would probably lose for the very same reason he knew he was usually turned down by nearly every committee and most individuals. His refusal to change was defiance, not the turning of the other cheek.
In the John Gault example you cited, Gault is mocking them. It was the most effective attack available to a person was tied to a table and nearly unconscious.
I would not say that either Gault or Roark turned the other cheek, or used it as a tactic. I think they were refusing to recognize the right of the aggressor and refusing to accept the morality of the aggressor.
I hope you don’t think it is un-Christian of me to disagree. ( I mean that to be a joke)
Christianity does two good things. It recognizes the value of the individual; i.e., the soul. It also recognizes that seeking a moral value system is essential.
Unfortunately Christianity also happens to mention that we are born in sin and can do nothing about it, are responsible for the evil of people that lived thousands of years ago, and can save ourselves only through some mystical process, while obeying numerous intrinsic rules that make little sense.
Some people blame Christianity for dualism, but I always thought that over 1000 years of burning people at the stake for minor dogmatic difference was a more immediate danger.
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