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Sanction of the Victim

(contributed by a reader)

The Sanction of the Victim is defined as "the willingness of the good to suffer at the hands of the evil, to accept the role of sacrificial victim for the 'sin' of creating values."

The entire story of Atlas Shrugged can be seen as an answer to the question, what would happen if this sanction was revoked? When Atlas shrugs, relieving himself of the burden of carrying the world, he is revoking his sanction.

The concept is supposedly original in the thinking of Ayn Rand and is foundational to her moral theory. She holds that evil is a parasite on the good and can only exist if the good tolerates it. To quote from Galt's Speech: "Evil is impotent and has no power but that which we let it extort from us", and, "I saw that evil was impotent...and the only weapon of its triumph was the willingness of the good to serve it." Morality requires that we do not sanction our own victimhood, Rand claims. In adhering to this concept, Rand assigns virtue to the trait of selfishness.

Throughout Atlas Shrugged, numerous characters admit that there is something wrong with the world, but they cannot put their finger on what it is. The concept they cannot grasp is the sanction of the victim. The first person to grasp the concept is John Galt, who vows to stop the motor of the world by getting the creators of the world to withhold their sanction.

We first glimpse the concept in section 121 when Hank Rearden feels he is duty-bound to support his family, despite their hostility towards him.

In section 146, the principle is stated explicitly by Dan Conway: "I suppose somebody's got to be sacrificed. If it turned out to be me, I have no right to complain."

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