House of Eratosthenes

Now that I’ve picked on him, noodle on the following as an equal and opposite righteous thrashing of the other guy. Along with all those bosses you know you’ve had…the aggravating ones that, now that you’re done with ’em, they haven’t been worthy of too much thinking since then.

I was trying to find this description of Wesley Mouch in Atlas Shrugged, last year sometime, and anytime you go looking for anything in Atlas Shrugged it’s like finding a tiny needle in an enormous haystack. I came up empty back then — and then when I went looking for the passage about Cherryl Taggart (finally locating it on p. 827) I stumbled across the Mouch thing on p. 496.

It’s pure gold. Describes much in our lives. More than it should. You know people like this; you know you do.

Wesley Mouch came from a family that had known neither poverty nor wealth nor distinction for many generations; it had clung, however, to a tradition of its own: that of being college-bred and, therefore, of despising men who were in business. The family’s diplomas had always hung on the wall in the manner of a reproach to the world, because the diplomas had not automatically produced the material equivalents of their attested spiritual value. Among the family’s numerous relatives, there was one rich uncle. He had married his money and, in his widowed old age, he had picked Wesley as his favorite from among his many nephews and nieces, because Wesley was the least distinguished of the lot and therefore, thought Uncle Julius, the safest. Uncle Julius did not care for people who were brilliant. He did not care for the trouble of managing his money, either; so he turned the job over to Wesley. By the time Wesley graduated from college, there was no money to manage. Uncle Julius blamed it on Wesley’s cunning and cried that Wesley was an unscrupulous schemer. But there had been no scheme about it; Wesley could not have said just where the money had gone. In high school, Wesley Mouch had been one of the worst students and had passionately envied those who were the best. College taught him that he did not have to envy them at all. After graduation, he took a job in the advertising department of a company that manufactured a bogus corn-cure. The cure sold well and he rose to be the head of his department. He left it to take charge of the advertising of a hair-restorer, then of a patented brassiere, then of a new soap, then of a soft drink — and then he became advertising vice-president of an automobile concern. He tried to sell automobiles as if they were a bogus corn-cure. They did not sell. He blamed it on the insufficiency of his advertising budget. It was the president of the automobile concern who recommended him to Rearden. It was Rearden who introduced him to Washington — Rearden, who knew no standard by which to judge the activities of his Washington man. It was James taggart who gave him a start in the Burueau of Economic Planning and National Resources — in exchange for double-crossing Rearden in order to help Orren Boyle in exchange for destroying Dan Conway. From then on, people helped Wesley Mouch to advance, for the same reason as that which had prompted Uncle Julius: they were people who believed that mediocrity was safe. The men who now sat in front of his desk had been taught that the law of causality was a superstition and that one had to deal with the situation of the moment without considering its cause. By the situation of the moment, they had concluded that Wesley Mouch was a man of superlative skill and cunning, since millions aspired to power, but he was the one who had achieved it. It was not within their method of thinking to know that Wesley Mouch was the zero at the meeting point of forces unleashed in destruction against one another. [emphasis mine]

Kinda reminds me of a certain energetic and charismatic young man — a decidedly underqualified young man — running for President this year. But that’s just my opinion, of course.

Update: One of that underqualified young man’s supporters argues for nationalizing the refineries…as classic an illustration as can possibly exist, of confusing mediocrity with excellence.

Link: sevenload.com

Hat tip to St. Wendeler at Another Rovian Conspiracy. The uh, er, socializing, I mean, uh, whatever was acknowledged to be a Maxine Waters “oopsie” moment…mouth started getting ahead of her brain there. Well, it doesn’t seem to have been a misstatement at all. As St. Wendeler points out, they’re getting more brazen, more sure of themselves, and their true colors are starting to show.

They’re disciplined in dealing with the situation of the moment, and therefore presume that those among them who are capable of amassing power, must be cunning and brilliant and therefore their plans must be ingenious. It’s a simple case of mediocrity being confused with excellence. And plans that have been tried repeatedly, and failed, being thought to possess some sort of beneficiality or merit.

Be afraid; be very afraid.

Thing I Know #230. We’d call them “rationalists” if they thought things through rationally; that’s why they’re called “socialists.”

[…] themselves as perfect leaders for a constituency that wants to be governed by Wesley Mouch. It was not within their method of thinking to know that Wesley Mouch was the zero at the meeting […]
- House of Eratosthenes | 08/13/2010 @ 07:39
[…] who don’t have my confidence. To be frank about it, the whole sorry lot of them remind me of Ayn Rand’s description of Wesley Mouch, “…the zero at the meeting point of forces unleashed in destruction against one […]
- House of Eratosthenes | 02/05/2013 @ 07:06

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