Mark Twain, who famously (Read his biography) had issues figuring out how windows worked in relation to his household alarm system, was demonstrably not a technical man. And yet, he understands what technical men are like, for he is, during his life, surrounded by them. An excerpt from “Yankee”

“I am an American. I was born and reared in Hartford, in the State of Connecticut — anyway, just over the river, in the country. So I am a Yankee of the Yankees — and practical; yes, and nearly barren of sentiment, I suppose — or poetry, in other words. My father was a blacksmith, my uncle was a horse doctor, and I was both, along at first. Then I went over to the great arms factory and learned my real trade; learned all there was to it; learned to make everything: guns, revolvers, cannon, boilers, engines, all sorts of labor-saving machinery. Why, I could make anything a body wanted — anything in the world, it didn’t make any difference what; and if there wasn’t any quick new-fangled way to make a thing, I could invent one — and do it as easy as rolling off a log. I became head superintendent; had a couple of thousand men under me.”

That is the type of man John Galt is designed to resemble, writ somewhat larger, perhaps, but with the same ink.

Hank goes on later to discuss his “new” position.

“I was just as much at home in that century as I could have been in any other; and as for preference, I wouldn’t have traded it for the twentieth. Look at the opportunities here for a man of knowledge, brains, pluck, and enterprise to sail in and grow up with the country. The grandest field that ever was; and all my own; not a competitor; not a man who wasn’t a baby to me in acquirements and capacities; whereas, what would I amount to in the twentieth century? I should be foreman of a factory, that is about all; and could drag a seine down street any day and catch a hundred better men than myself.”

This is a world where one could “Go Galt” because Hank was the ONLY one of his kind. Unfortunately, he went about making himself obsolete by training others to be him. And some petty witchery gets to him, in the end.

Also unfortunately, this is a fantasy, just like Shrugged is a fantasy; Twain being Twain, at least his fantasy is compelling and entertaining, and was never meant to be anything but that. The sheer volume of Rand acolytes whose feathers get horribly ruffled if you suggest her vision was not superhuman is amazing to me; as Tam says, it’s a novel, a fictional one. The caliber of people who read that novel and latch onto it’s wierdness is identical to the caliber of people who watch Farenheit 911 and think it’s the Word of God.