Fountainhead
Dear Paul and Kate, Melanie and Jared, Bridget and Justin, Sara, Ben and Sarah, Heather, Audrey, Rachel, Matt via hardcopy, and Brian,
cc: file, Andrea, Tony Hafen, Sara and Des Penny,
& Maxine Shirts
Welcome to "Thoughtlets." This is a weekly review of an idea,
belief, thought, or words that will hopefully be of some benefit
to you, my children, with an electronic copy to on-line extended
family members. Any of you can ask me not to clutter your mail
box at any time.
"For years I have underlined things of interest in books. Some
books, like Critical Path by Buckminster Fuller, or The Seven
Habits of Highly Effective People by Steve Covey were almost
all underlined. When there was money, I hired people to type
these books so that I could put them in an on-line digital
repository, for retrieval with a search engine. Sherry Sump,
Sharon Boyce, David Johnson's older sister, and several others
typed a lot of these files for me. I have never put them
on-line nor have I implemented the search engine, although
the diskettes have been pulled out of storage, and are ready
to be moved onto a web site, once there is more disk space.
As mentioned in last week's thoughtlet (0420.html), on this trip to China,
we were stuck in Houston for three hours because of storms, I
went into a bookstore, and saw the 704 page book by Ayn Rand
called The Fountainhead. I read the entire book within a few
hours of returning to the house from the trip. And I underlined
passages that caught my interest. So I debated about whether
to type out as quotes the phrases and passages I underlined
from The Fountainhead, or whether to have someone else type
them out sometime and to simply to put them in a separate
file and just reference that file. For as long of a book as
it is, there was not that much underlined, and so I decided
to type it out and to include the words in this Thoughtlet.
My two reasons are:
- these words will become part of this permanent record; and
- it will give me a chance to do a detailed review on those
concepts which caught my attention.
Before this text, which I expect most of you will skip over
and not read, at least not now, let me summarize this most
recent trip to China. We arrived on Saturday and we stayed
at the Hilton International Hotel because this is where the
ConocoPhillips executives were staying. Dave upgraded us to
the executive floors. I was on the 25th floor in room 2513,
overlooking the second ring (similar to the Toll road in Houston).
I wrote in the last thoughtlet (0420.html) about the party and
dinner we had with Paul and his classmates. When I talked to
Paul last Sunday evening, after sending out that Thoughtlet,
he clarified that two of the students did not eat any oriental
food, and they were the two that went out to McDonalds to eat
dinner after the party.
I mentioned that the Westerns picked up Jeff Jurinak and me for
District Conference. I forgot to include a possible Prime Words
stanza written based on the the comments of Sister Stafford, the
Relief Society District President (a):
<![CDATA[ `The Lord doesn't love us
In spite of our weaknesses
The Lord loves us (a)
Especially in our meekness']]>
Sunday evening Want Tiejun and his son joined us for dinner
at the hotel. We had a good discussion. His son is 14, is
very tall, and like many youth in the modern 1 child China
is even more spoiled than you kids are. Monday morning we
got a call from Zhuozhou saying meetings had come up on
Tuesday with the President of Kazikhstan, where all of the
BGP executives had to be at a public signing of a major
pipeline CNPC had committed to build from the Caspian to
Western China, so our meeting in Zhuozhou was moved to Monday.
The President of BGP International is 36. His lawyer and
assistant is 33. The Vice-President of Finance for BGP is
a female who is about 35. I felt like I was in a meeting
with you kids and your friends. And these kids control
annual budgets in excess of US$500 million. Smart!
Aggressive! Self-confident! Frankly, I do not see youth
in the west who can compete with what I saw in that meeting.
The world is changing, and it is changing very fast. Our
meeting was very successful, and we came away with a list
of 8 different opportunities for BGP. We had a nice dinner
to celebrate the meeting. After the dinner we met with Mr.
Wang Xuejun, President of BGP. I gave him Ken Turner's print
of the Treaty at San Saebo. He was visibly moved by the
painting. Where as the young President of BGP International
was not touched by the painting. He just knew it should be
given to his boss, and not to him.
Tuesday Jialin took us to visit the Key Lab at Beijing
Petroleum University. These are the folks who have built
physical models similar to the ones I pioneered at the
Seismic Acoustics Laboratory. They have several other
very interesting technologies. This was the beginning of
a GDC University Program, which I expect I will get in the
middle of over the next few years. Tuesday evening I went
to the Senior High Priest Fireside with the Shakespeares,
as written about in the previous Thoughtlet (0420.html).
Wednesday morning Jialin took me to Petroleum Press to talk
about publishing Fred Hilterman's book on Seismic Amplitudes.
The Petroleum Press was founded in 1951, and they have 6,000
kinds of publications. They publish 400 books per year,
including 2 journals focused on Exploration and Development.
I had 4 calls on my cell phone during the meeting we were
attempting to have. Each of the calls were to set up a
meeting with Zhou Jiaping, the Vice-President for International
Exploration for CNPC. Turns out he had a Board meeting cut
short, and so he was available to meet with us on short notice.
The meeting did not go as well as I would have liked, and
there will be an opportunity to recover. Oh well! Wednesday
evening we had dinner with Jiafeng Yan and his brother-in-law
and the CNPC Petroleum Editor. Spicy dinner. Good
discussions and positive opportunities.
Thursday Jialin took us to Da Gang Oilfield. We gave a
presentation, listened to where they are at, and they fed
us a big lunch. This oil field is on the southern shore of
the Bohai Bay. There was crab, shrimp, and other seafood.
It is amazing how much difference there is between the
technology at Da Gang and at their sister oil field to the
north, which we visited last time we were in China. I did
not feel well at all on Wednesday or Thursday, and felt
like I had a temperature. Dave had some Doxycycline (malaria
penicillin), and he gave me seven tablets. It did the trick,
and I was feeling pretty good by the time we went to the
airport on Saturday morning. However, there were a few
minutes of reflection on my life, considering the SARS issue
and the issues of even leaving the country if you have a
temperature. Any of you that come to China with me should
plan to go to your Doctor and to get malaria medicine to
bring with you in case something like this happens to you.
Friday Dave and I went shopping again. Dave purchased about
15 purses on this trip. He would take digital photos, send
copies of the photos to his sister, and she would tell him
what she wanted. He had a great time, and I ended up doing
more shopping than I intended. Oh well! Friday afternoon
Mr. and Mrs. Yan hosted us at Beihai Park. Mr. Yan had his
guitars, and we played at two different places in the Park.
This is a beautiful park just north of the Forbidden City.
The private dining rooms were filled, and so we were in a
room with many tourists. It was a very nice evening, with
good discussions. After the dinner we were playing guitars
on the island, and a middle school teacher came with a
Chinese Instrument and played with us. She was very good,
and it was a lot of fun. As we left, she said "I believe
in Jesus." It was touching. Dave put his arm around her
and said "Bless you." When we got back to the car, I gave
the other painting I brought to Mr. Yan. It was a small
giclee print of Cortez and Montezuma.
It was a good week. I ate too much. Total swallows for
Sunday were 186, Monday 169, Tuesday 209, Wednesday 127,
Thursday 212, Friday 179, and Saturday 260. Experience
has shown I should average less than 150 swallows per day.
It is amazing to me that I don't balloon out like a
hippopotamus when I eat like this. Chinese food is good to
me. It was good to get home. It was especially good to get
through quarantine without problems. And the best part of
all was seeing Ben, Sarah, and Ethan at the airport in
Los Angeles. I had transposed Ben's phone numbers, the
Sun Workstation at the house had rebooted because of a
power hit (0422.html), and I thought I was going to miss
you guys. But it worked out, and Ethan seemed to like his
owl kite from China (I have presents for Grant and Colby
also, but I'm keeping them until I see them). And what
I will remember about this, I believe my 28th trip to
China, was reading The Fountainhead.
So I guess I will start my discussion of The Fountainhead by
telling you the book is about a guy named Howard Ro..., no I
get ahead of myself. I will just put the quotes first,
classified as positive concepts (+) or negative concepts (-),
and then talk about who and what the book is about:
<![CDATA[ - Man's character is the product of his premises. page vii
+ Neither politics nor ethics nor philosophy is an end in itself,
neither in life nor in literature. Only Man is an end in himself.
pages vii-viii
- Religion ... has usurped the highest moral concepts of our
language, placing them outside this earth and beyond man's reach.
page ix
+ Here are my rules: what can be done with one substance must never
be done with another. No two materials are alike. No two sites
on earth are alike. No two buildings have the same purpose. The
purpose, the site, the materials determine the shape. Nothing
can be reasonable or beautiful unless it's made by one central
idea, and the idea sets every detail. A building is alive, like
a man. Its integrity is to follow its own truth, its one single
theme, and to serve its own single purpose. A man doesn't borrow
pieces of his body. A building doesn't borrow hunks of its soul.
Its maker gives it the soul and every wall, window and stairway
to express it. page 24
- Every form has its own meaning. Every man creates his meaning
and form and goal. page 24
+ But the best is a matter of standards - and I set my own standards.
I inherit nothing. I stand at the end of no tradition. I may,
perhaps, stand at the beginning of one. pages 24-25
- An architect is not an end in himself. He is only a small part of
a great social whole. Co-operation is the key word to our modern
world and to the profession of architecture in particular. page 26
+ I don't intend to build in order to have clients. I intend to
have clients in order to build. page 26
- Architecture, my friends, is a great Art based on two cosmic
principles: Beauty and Utility. In a broader sense, these are
but part of the three eternal entities: Truth, Love, and Beauty.
page 27
+ Dogmatic discipline is the only thing which makes true
originality possible. page 51
- Architecture was truly the greatest of the arts, because it was
anonymous, as all greatness. page 77
- A great building is not the private invention of some genius or
other. It is merely a condensation of the spirit of a people.
page 78
+ But I have to work somewhere, so it might as well be you ... -
if I can get what I want from you. I'm selling myself, and I'll
play the game that way - for the time being. page 88
+ `Do you always have to have a purpose? Do you always have to
be so damn serious? Can't you ever do things without reason,
just like everybody else? You're so serious, so old.
Everything's important with you, everything's great,
significant in some way, every minute, even when you keep still.
Can't you ever be comfortable - and unimportant?' `No.' page 89
+ He wondered why ineptitude should exist and have its say. page 90
- I hope I shall be forgiven for a trace of the vain child which is
in all of us. But I realize - and in that spirit I accept it -
that this tribute was paid not to my person, but to a principle
which chance has granted me to represent in all humility tonight.
page 109
+ It doesn't say much. Only `Howard Roark, Architect.' But it's
like those mottoes men carved over the entrance of a castle and
died for. It's a challenge in the face of something so vast and
so dark, that all the pain on earth - and do you know how much
suffering there is on earth? - all the pain comes from that thing
you are going to face. I don't know what it is, I don't know why
it should be unleashed against you. I know only that it will be.
And I know that if you carry these words through to the end, it
will be a victory. Howard, not just for you, but for something
that should win, that moves the world - and never wins
acknowledgment. It will vindicate so many who have fallen
before you, who have suffered as you will suffer. May God bless
you - or who ever it is that is alone to see the best, the
highest possible to human hearts. You're on your way into
hell, Howard. page 133
+ Within a week, Heller knew that he had found the best friend
he would ever have; and he knew that the friendship came from
Roark's fundamental indifference. page 135
+`A house can have integrity, just like a person, said Roark,
`and just as seldom.'
`In what way?'
`Well, look at it. Every piece of it is there because the
house needs it - and for no other reason. You see it from
here as it is inside. The rooms in which you'll live made
the shape. The relation of masses was determined by the
distribution of space within. The ornament was determined by
the method of construction, an emphasis of the principle that
makes it stand. You can see each stress, each support that
meets it. Your own eyes go through a structural process when
you look at the house, you can follow each step, you see it
rise, you know what made it and why it stands. But you've
seen buildings with columns that support nothing, with
purposeless cornices, with pilasters, moldings, false arches,
false windows. You've seen buildings that look as if they
contained a single large hall, they have solid columns and
single, solid windows six floors high. But you enter and
find six stories cut into floor lines, band corners, tiers
of windows. Do you understand the difference? Your house
is made by its own needs. Those others are made by the
need to impress. The determining motive of your house is
in the house. The determining motive of the others is in
the audience.' page 136
- It's not only that, Alvah. It's not you alone. If I found
a job, a project, an idea or a person I wanted - I'd have to
depend on the whole world. Everything has strings leading to
everything else. We're all so tied together. We're all in a
net, the net is waiting, and we're pushed into it by one single
desire. You want a thing and it's precious to you. Do you know
who is standing ready to tear it out of your hands? You can't
know, it may be so involved and so far away, but someone is
ready, and you're afraid of them all. And you cringe and you
crawl and you beg and you accept them - just so they'll let
you keep it. And look at whom you come to accept.' page 143
- You know, it's such as peculiar thing - our idea of mankind in
general. We all have a sort of vague, glowing picture when we
say that, something solemn, big and important. But actually all
we know of it is the people we meet in our lifetime. Look at
them. Do you know any you'd feel big and solemn about? There's
nothing but housewives, haggling at pushcarts, drooling brats who
write dirty words on the sidewalks, and drunken debutantes. Or
their spiritual equivalent. As a matter of fact, one can feel
some respect for people when they suffer. They have a certain
dignity. But have you ever looked at them when their enjoying
themselves? That's when you see the truth. Look at those who
spend the money they've slaved for - at amusement parks and side
shows. Look at those who're rich and have the whole world open
to them. Observe what they pick out for enjoyment Watch them
in the smarter speak-easies. That's your mankind in general.
I don't want to touch it. pages 143-144
- Do you know, Alvah, that primitive people make statues of
their gods in man's likeness? Just think of it, what a statue
of you would look like - of you nude, your stomach and all.
pages 144-145
- I can't figure her out. No one can approach her. She's never
had a single girl friend, not even in kindergarten. There's
always a man around her, but never a friend. I don't know what
to think. page 148
- Your life doesn't belong to you, Peter, if you're really aiming
high. You can't allow yourself to indulge every whim, as
ordinary people can, because with them it doesn't matter anyway.
It's not you or me or what we feel, Peter. It's your career.
It takes strength to deny yourself in order to win other people's
respect. page 154
- Think it over, ... And while you're thinking it over, think just
a bit that if you do this now, you'll be breaking your mother's
heart. It's not important, but take just a tiny notice of that.
Think of yourself for an hour, but give one minute to the thought
of others. page 156
+ You're a self-centered monster, Howard. The more monstrous
because you're utterly innocent about it. page 160
+ It's a monument you want to build, but not to yourself. Not
to your own life or your own achievement. To other people. To
their supremacy over you. You're not challenging that supremacy.
You're immortalizing it. You haven't thrown it off - you're
putting it up forever. Will you be happy if you seal yourself
for the rest of your life in that borrowed shape? Or if you
strike free, for once, and build a new house, your own? You
don't want the Randolph place. You want what it stood for.
But what it stood for is what you've fought all your life.
page 163
+ The beauty of the human body is that it hasn't a single muscle
which doesn't serve its purpose; that there's not a line wasted;
that every detail of it fits one idea, the idea of a man and
the life of a man. page 165
+ Don't you know that most people take most things because that's
what's given them, and they have no opinion whatever? Do you
wish to be guided by what they expect you to think they think,
or by your own judgment? page 165
- The twelve faces before him had a variety of countenances, but
there was something, neither color nor feature, upon all of them,
as a common denominator, something that dissolved their
expressions, so that they were not faces an longer, but only
empty ovals of flesh. He was addressing everyone. He was
addressing no one. He felt no answer, not even the echo of his
own words striking against the membrane of an eardrum. His
words were falling down a well, hitting stone salients on their
way, and each salient refused to stop them, threw them farther,
tossed them from one another, sent them to seek the bottom that
did not exist. page 166
- ... carried by the torrent. He needed the people and the clamor
around him. There were no questions and no doubts when he stood
on a platform over a sea of faces; the air was heavy, compact,
saturated with a single solvent - admiration; there was no room
for anything else. He was great; great as the number of people
who told him so. He was right; right at the number of people
who believed it. He looked at the faces, at the eyes; he saw
himself born in them, he saw himself being granted the gift of
life. page 188
+ We are the guardians of a great human function. Perhaps of the
greatest function among the endeavors of man. We have achieved
much and we have erred often. But we are willing in all
humility to make way for our heirs. We are only men and we are
only seekers. But we seek for truth with the best that there is
in our hearts. We seek with what there is of the sublime granted
to the race of men. It is a great quest. To the future of
American Architecture! page 200
+ He liked the work. He felt at times as if it were a match of
wrestling between his muscles and the granite. He was very tired
at night. He liked the emptiness of his body's exhaustion.
page 201
- One must never allow oneself to acquire the exaggerated sense
of one's own importance. There's no necessity to burden oneself
with absolutes. page 242
+ There were times when he remained in the office all night.
They found him still working when they returned in the morning.
He did not seem tired. Once he stayed there for two days and
two nights in succession. On the afternoon of the third day he
fell asleep, half lying across his table. He awakened in a few
hours, made no comment and walked from one table to another, to
see what had been done. He made corrections, his words sounding
as if nothing had interrupted a thought begun some hours ago.
page 251
+ There's nothing as significant as a human face. Nor as eloquent.
We can never really know another person, except by our first
glance at him. Because, in that glance, we know everything.
Even though we're not always wise enough to unravel the knowledge.
pages 264-265
+ All things are simple when you reduce them to fundamentals.
You'd be surprised if you knew how few fundamentals there are.
Only two, perhaps. To explain all of us. It's the untangling,
the reducing that's difficult - that's why people don't like to
bother. I don't think they'd like the results, either. page 278
- ... a board of directors is one or two ambitious men - and a
lot of ballast. I mean that groups of men are vacuums. Great
big empty nothings. They say we can't visualize a total nothing.
Hell, sit at any committee meeting. The point is only who
chooses to fill that nothing. It's a tough battle. The
toughest. It's simple enough to fight any enemy, so long as
he's there to be fought. But when he isn't ... pages 311-312
+ When facing society, the man most concerned, the man who is to
do the most and contribute the most, has the least to say. It's
taken for granted that he has no voice and the reasons he could
offer are rejected in advance as prejudiced - since no speech is
ever considered, but only the speaker. It's so much easier to
pass judgment on a man than on an idea. Though how in hell one
passes judgment on a man without considering the content of his
brain is more than I'll ever understand. However, that's how
it's done. You see, reasons require scales to weigh them. And
scales are not made of cotton. And cotton is what the human
spirit is made of - you know, the stuff that keeps no shape and
offers no resistance and can be twisted forward and backward
and into a pretzel. pages 312-313
- The shortest distance between two points is not a straight
line - it's a middleman. And the more middlemen, the shorter.
Such is the psychology of a pretzel. page 313
+ Integrity is the ability to stand by an idea. That presupposes
the ability to think. Thinking is something one doesn't borrow
or pawn. page 313
+ Don't worry. They're all against me. But I have one advantage:
they don't know what they want. I do. page 313
+ We want to capture - in stone, as others capture in music - not
some narrow creed, but the essence of all religion. And what is
the essence of religion? The great aspiration of the human spirit
toward the highest, the noblest, the best. The human spirit as
the creator and the conqueror of the ideal. The great life-giving
force of the universe. The heroic human spirit. That is your
assignment, Mr. Roark. page 319
- What one desires is actually of so little importance! One can't
expect to find happiness until one realizes this completely. ...
It's not the doer that counts but those for whom things are done.
pages 321-322
+ In the first years of the Banner's existence Gail Wynand spent
more nights on his office couch than in his bedroom. The effort
he demanded of his employees was hard to perform; the effort he
demanded of himself was hard to believe. He drove them like an
army; he drove himself like a slave. He paid them well; he got
nothing but his rent and meals. He lived in a furnished room at
the time when his best reporters lived in suites at expensive
hotels. He spent money faster than it came in - and he spent it
all on the Banner. The paper was like a luxurious mistress
whose every need was satisfied without inquiry about the price.
page 410
- You wanted a mirror. People want nothing but mirrors around
them. To reflect them, while they're reflecting too. You know,
like the senseless infinity you get from two mirrors, facing
each other across a narrow passage. Usually in the more vulgar
kind of hotels. Reflections of reflections and echoes, of
echoes. No beginning and no end. No center and no purpose.
page 426
+ I acted as the world demands one should act. Only I can do
nothing halfway. Those who can, have a fissure somewhere inside.
Most people have many. They lie to themselves 0 not to know that.
... It's said that the worst thing one can do to a man is to
kill his self-respect. But that's not true. Self-respect is
something that can't be killed. The worst thing is to kill a
man's pretense at it. page 427
+ No happy person can be quite so impervious to pain. page 438
+ When I look at the ocean, I feel the greatness of man, I think
of man's magnificent capacity that created this ship to conquer
all that senseless space. When I look at mountain peaks, I think
of tunnels and dynamite. When I look at the planets, I think of
airplanes. page 446
- When the fact that one is a total nonentity who's done nothing
more outstanding than eating, sleeping and chatting with neighbors
becomes a fact worthy of pride, of announcement to the world and
of diligent study by millions of readers - the fact that one has
built a cathedral becomes unrecordable and unannounceable. A
matter of perspectives and relativity. The distance permissible
between the extremes of any particular capacity is limited. The
sound perception on an ant does not include thunder. page 471
+ She saw no apology, no regret, no resentment as he looked at
her. It was a strange glance; she had noticed it before; a glance
of smile worship. And it made her realize that there is a stage
of worship which makes the worshiper himself an object of
reverence. page 489
+ It was a contest without time, a struggle of two abstractions,
the thing that had created the building against the things that
made the play possible - two forces, suddenly naked to her in
their simple statement - two forces that had fought since the
world began - and every religion had known of them - and there
had always been a God and a Devil - only men had been so mistaken
about the shapes of their Devil - he was not single and big, he
was many and smutty and small. page 492
+ `I wish I could understand you.'
`I thought I should be quite obvious. I've never hidden
anything from you. page 498
+ He had always wanted to write music, and he could give no
other identity to the thing he sought. If you want to know
what it is, he told himself, listen to the first phrases of
Tchaikovsky's First Concerto - or to the last movement of
Rachmaninoff's Second. Men have not found the words for it
nor the deed nor the thought, but they have found the music.
Not servants nor those served; not alters and immolations;
but the final, the fulfilled, innocent of pain. Don't help
me or serve me, but let me see it once because I need it.
Don't work for my happiness, my brothers - show me yours -
show me that it is possible - show me your achievement -
and the knowledge will give me courage for mine. page 504
+ The houses were plain field stone - like the rocks jutting
from the green hillsides - and of glass, great sheets of glass
used as if the sun were invited to complete the structures,
sunlight becoming part of the masonry. There were many
houses, they were small, they were cut off from one another,
and no two of them were alike. But they were like variations
of a single theme, like a symphony played by an inexhaustible
imagination, and one could still hear the laughter of the force
that had been let loose on them, as if that force had run,
unrestrained, challenging itself to be spent, but had never
reached its end. Music, he thought, the promise of the music
he had invoked, the sense of it made real - there it was before
his eyes - he did not see it - he heard it in chords - he
thought that there was a common language of thought, sight and
sound - was it mathematics? - the discipline of reason - music
was mathematics - and architecture was music in stone - he
knew he was dizzy because this place below him could not be
real. page 505
+ Battle ... is a vicious concept. There is no glory in war,
and no beauty in crusades of men. But this was a battle,
this was an army, and a war - and the highest experience in
the life of every man who took part in it. page 508
+ Do you remember, Howard, what I told you once about the
psychology of a pretzel? Don't despise the middleman. He's
necessary. Someone had to tell them. It takes two to make
a very great career; the man who is great, and the man -
almost rarer - who is great enough to see greatness and say
so. page 512
+ If you want me, you'll have to let me do it all, alone.
I don't work with councils. page 513
+ Most people build as they live - as a matter of routine and
senseless accident. But a few understand that building is a
great symbol. We live in our minds, and existence is the
attempt to bring that life into physical reality, to state
it in gesture and form. For the man who understands this,
a house he owns is a statement of his life. If he doesn't
build, when he has the means, it's because his life has not
been what he wanted. page 517
+ I must tell you much more about the house I want. I suppose
an architect is like a father confessor - he must know
everything about the people who are to live in his house,
since what he gives them is more personal that their clothes
or food. Please consider it in that spirit - and forgive me
if you notice that this is difficult for me to say - I've
never gone to confession. page 519
- If you want to know what to expect, just think the worst wars
are religious wars between sects of the same religion or civil
wars between brothers of the same race. page 522
+ Roark knew that Wynand seldom spoke of his childhood, by the
quality of his words; they were bright and hesitant, untarnished
by usage, like coins that had not passed through many hands.
page 529
- Did you want to scream, when you were a child, seeing nothing
but fat ineptitude around you, knowing how many things could
be done and done so well, but having no power to do them?
Having no power to blast the empty skulls around you? Having
to take orders - and that's bad enough - but to take orders
from your inferiors! page 529
+ `It has to be mine,' said Roark. `But in another sense, Gail,
you own that house and everything else I've built. You own
every structure you've stopped before and heard yourself
answering.'
`In what sense?'
`In the sense of that personal answer. What you feel in the
presence of a thing you admire is just one word - "Yes." The
affirmation, the acceptance, the sign of admittance. And that
"Yes" is more than an answer to one thing, it's a kind of "Amen"
to life, to the earth that holds this thing, to the thought
that created it, to yourself for being able to see it. But the
ability to say "Yes" or "No" is the essence of all ownership.
It's your ownership of your own ego. Your soul, if you wish.
Your soul has a single basic function - the act of valuing.
"Yes" or "No," "I wish" or "I do not wish." You can't say
"Yes" without saying "I." There's no affirmation without the
one who affirms. In this sense, everything to which you grant
your love is yours.'
`In this sense, you share things with others?'
`No. It's not sharing. When I listen to a symphony I love,
I don't get from it what the composer got. His "Yes" was
different from mine. He could have no concern for mine and
no exact conception of it. That answer is too personal to
each man. But in giving himself what he wanted, he gave me a
great experience. I'm alone when I design a house, Gail, and
you can never know the way in which I own it. But if you said
you own "Amen" to it - it's also yours. And I'm glad it's yours.
page 539
+ There's so much nonsense about human inconsistency and the
transience of all emotions. ... I've always thought that a
feeling which changes never existed in the first place. There
are books I liked at the age of sixteen. I still like them.
page 540
- If there's any connection to you at all, it's only one thought
that keeps coming back to me. I keep thinking that you and I
started in the same way. From the same point. From nothing.
I just think that. Without any comment. I don't seem to find
any particular meaning in it at all. Just `we started in the
same way.' page 543
- And then I thought of you. I thought that you weren't touched
by any of it. Not in any way. The national convention of
advertisers doesn't exist as far as your concerned. It's in
some sort of fourth dimension that can never establish any
communication with you at all. I thought of that - and I felt
a peculiar kind of relief. page 544
+ Howard, everything you've done in your life is wrong according
to the stated ideals of mankind. And here you are. And somehow
it seems a huge joke on the whole world. page 547
+ `Howard, have you ever held power over a single human being.'
`No. And I wouldn't take it if it were offered to me.' page 548
- I was thinking of people who say that happiness is impossible
on earth. Look how hard they all try to find some joy in life.
Look how they struggle for it. Why should any living creature
exist in pain? By what conceivable right can anyone demand
that a human being exist for anything but his own joy? Every
one of them wants it. Every part of him wants it. But they
never find it. I wonder why. They whine and say they don't
understand the meaning of life. There's a particular kind of
people that I despise. Those who seek some sort of a higher
purpose or `universal goal,' who don't know what to live for,
who moan that they must `find themselves.' You hear it all
around us. That seems to be the official bromide of our century.
Every book you open. Every drooling self-confession. It
seems to be the noble thing to confess. I'd think it would be
the most shameful one. page 551
- What I mean is what makes people unhappy is not too little
choice, but too much. ... Having to decide, always to decide,
torn every which way all of the time. Now in a society of
pattern, a man could feel safe. Nobody would come to him all
the time pestering him to do something. Nobody would have to
do anything. What I mean is, of course, except working for
the common goal. page 554
- If everybody were compelled to have the proper kind of
education, we'd have a better world. If we force people to
do good, they will be free to be happy. ... This is a
perfectly useless discussion. ... No intelligent person
believes in freedom nowadays. It's dated. The future
belongs to social planning. Compulsion is a law of nature.
That's that. It's self-evident. page 555
- We must help the others. It's the moral duty of intellectual
leaders. What I mean is we ought to lose that bugaboo of being
scared of the world compulsion. It's not compulsion when it's
for a good cause. What I mean is in the name of love. But I
don't know how we can make this country understand it.
Americans are so stuffy. page 556
- Something's got to be done about the masses. ... They've got
to be led. They don't know what's good for them. What I mean
is, I can't understand why people of culture and position like
us understand the great ideal of collectivism so well and are
willing to sacrifice our personal advantages, while the working
man who has everything to gain from it remains so stupidly
indifferent. I can't understand why the workers in this country
have so little sympathy with collectivism. page 556
- No, you would never be able to match Gail Wynand's career.
Not with your sensitive spirit and humanitarian instincts.
That's what's holding you down, Mitch, not your money. Who
cares about money? The age of money is past. It's your
nature that's too fine for the brute competition of our
capitalistic system. But that, too is passing. page 560
- Change is the basic principle of the universe. Everything
changes. Seasons, leaves, flowers, birds, morals, men and
buildings. The dialectic process. page 567
- Howard, I'm a parasite. I've been a parasite all my life.
You designed my best projects at Stanton. You designed the
first house I ever built. You designed the Cosmo-Slotnick
building. I have fed on you and on all the men like you
who lived before we were born. The men who designed the
Parthenon, the Gothic cathedrals, the first skyscrapers.
If they hadn't existed, I wouldn't have known how to put
stone on stone. In the whole of my life, I haven't added
a new doorknob to what men have done before me. I have
taken that which was not mine and given nothing in return.
I had nothing to give. This is not an act, Howard, and I'm
very conscious of what I'm saying. And I came here to ask
you to same me again. If you wish to throw me out, do it
now. page 575
+ Now listen to me. I've been working on the problem of
low-rent housing for years. I never thought of the poor
people in the slums. I thought of the potentialities of
our modern world. The new materials, the means, the
chances to take and use. There are so many products of
man's genius around us today. There are such great
possibilities to exploit. To build cheaply, simply,
intelligently. I've had a lot of time to study. I didn't
have much to do after the Stoddard Temple. I didn't
expect results. I worked because I can't look at any
material without thinking: What could be done with it?
And the moment I think that, I've got to do it. To find
the answer, to break the thing. I've worked on it for
years. I love it. I worked because it was a problem I
wanted to solve. You wish to know how to build a unit
to rent for fifteen dollars a month? I'll show you how
to build it for ten.
Keeting made an involuntary movement forward.
But first, I want you to think and tell me what made me
give years to this work. Money? Fame? Charity? Altruism?
Keeting shook his head slowly.
All right. You're beginning to understand. So whatever
we do, don't let's talk about the poor people in the slums.
They have nothing to do with it, thought I wouldn't envy
anyone the job of trying to explain that to fools. You
see, I'm never concerned with my clients, only with their
architectural requirements. I consider these as part of my
building's theme and problem, as my building's material -
just as I consider bricks and steel. Bricks and steel are
not my motive. Neither are the clients. Both are only
the means of my work. Peter, before you can do things
people, you must be the kind of man who can get things
done. But to get things done, you must love the doing,
not the secondary consequences. The work, not the people.
Your own action, not any possible object of your charity.
I'll be glad if people who need it find a better manner of
living in a house I designed. But that's not the motive
of my work. Nor my reason. Nor my reward. pages 577-578
- Have you ever seen an architect who wasn't screaming for
planned cities? I'd like to ask him how he can be so sure
that the plan adopted will be his own. And if it is, what
right has he to impose it on others? And if it isn't, what
happens to his work? I suppose he'll say that he wants
neither. He wants a council, a conference, co-operation
and collaboration. pages 578-579
+ Yes. Cortlandt. Well, I've told you all the things in
which I don't believe, so that you'll understand what I
want and what right I have to want it. I don't believe in
government housing. I don't want to hear anything about
its noble purposes. I don't think they're noble. But that,
too, doesn't matter. That's not my first concern. Not who
lives in the house nor who orders it built. Only the house
itself. If it has to be built, it might as well be built
right.
You ... want to build it?
In all the years I've worked on this problem, I never hoped
to see the results in practical application. I forced myself
not to hope. I knew I couldn't expect a chance to show what
could be done on a large scale. Your government housing,
among other things, has made all building so expensive that
private owners can't afford such projects, nor any type of
low-rent construction. And I will never be given any job
by any government. ... I've never been given a job by any
group, board, council or committee, public or private,
unless some man fought for me. ...
I love this work. I want to see it erected. I want to make
it real, living, functioning, built. But every living thing
is integrated. Do you know what this means? Whole, pure,
complete, unbroken. Do you know what constitutes an integrating
principle? A thought. The one thought, the single thought
that created the thing and every part of it. The thought which
no one can change or touch. I want to design Cortlandt. I
want to see it built. I want to see it built exactly as I
design it. ...
I like to receive money for my work. But I can pass that up
this time. I like to have people know my work is done by me.
But I can pass that up. I like to have tenants made happy by
my work. But that doesn't matter too much. The only thing
that matters, my goal, my reward, my beginning, my end is the
work itself. My work done my way. Peter, there's nothing in
the world that you can offer me, except this. Offer me this
and you can have anything I've got to give. My work done my
way. A private, personal, selfish, egotistical motivation.
That's the only way I function. That's how I am. pages 479-480
+ I'm giving you a trust which is more sacred - and nobler,
if you like the word - than any altruistic purpose you could
name. Unless you understand that this is not a favor, that I'm
not doing it for you nor for the future tenants, but for myself,
and that you have no right to except on those terms. page 580
+ Why, no. I'm too conceited. If you want to call it that.
I don't make comparisons. I never think of myself in relation
to anyone else. I just refuse to measure myself as part of
anything. I'm an utter egotist.
Yes. Yes you are. But egotists are not kind. And you are.
You're the most egotistical and the kindest man I know. And
that doesn't make sense. page 582
+ I'd like to look at it from here ... I spent all day here
yesterday, watching the light change on it. When you design
a building, Howard, do you know exactly what the sun will do
to it at any moment of the day from any angle? Do you
control the sun? page 583
+ Wynand watched her as she walked across a room, as she descended
the stairs, as she stood at a window. She had heard him saying
to her: "I didn't know a house could be designed for a woman,
like a dress. You can't see yourself here as I do, you can't
see how completely this house is yours. Every angle, every
part of every room is a setting for you. It's scaled to your
height, to your body. Even the texture of the walls goes with
the texture of your skin in an odd way. It's the Stoddard
Temple, but built for a single person, and it's mine. This is
what I wanted. The city can't touch you here. I've always felt
that the city would take you away from me. It gave me everything
I have. I don't know why I feel at times it will demand payment
someday. But here you're safe and you're mine." She wanted to
cry: Gail, I belong to him here as I've never belonged to him.
page 584
+ It's the hardest thing in the world - to do what we want.
And it takes the greatest kind of courage. page 598
- I've never owned anything. I've never wanted anything. I
didn't give a damn - in the most cosmic way Toohey could ever
hope for. I made myself into a barometer subject to the
pressure of the whole world. page 603
+ I'm not an altruist, Gail. I don't decide for others.
page 604
+ What have you been thinking about these past weeks?
The principle behind the dean who fired me from Stanton.
What principle?
The thing that is destroying the world. The thing you were
talking about. Actual selflessness.
The ideal which they say does not exist?
They're wrong. It does exist - though not in the way they
imagine. It's what I couldn't understand about people for a
long time. They have no self. They live within others.
They live second-hand. page 605
- He borrowed from others in order to make an impression on
others. There's your actual selflessness. It's his ego
he's betrayed and given up. But everybody calls him selfish.
That's the pattern most people follow.
Yes, And isn't that the root of every despicable action? Not
selfishness, but precisely the absence of a self. Look at
them. The man who cheats and lies, but preserves a respectable
front. He knows himself to be dishonest, but others think he's
honest and he derives his self-respect from that, second-hand.
The man who takes credit for an achievement which is not his own.
He knows himself to be mediocre, but he's great in the eyes of
others. The frustrated wretch who professes love for the
inferior and clings to those less endowed, in order to establish
his own superiority by comparison. The man whose sole aim is to
make money. Now I don't see anything evil in a desire to make
money. But money is only a means to some end. If a man wants
it for a personal purpose - to invest in his industry, to create,
to study, to travel, to enjoy luxury - he's completely moral.
But the men who place money first go much beyond that. Personal
luxury is a limited endeavor. What they want is ostentation:
to show, to stun, to entertain, to impress others. They're the
second-handers. Look at our so-called cultural endeavors. A
lecturer who spouts some borrowed rehash of nothing at all that
mans nothing at all to him - and the people who listen and don't
give a damn, but sit there in order to tell their friends that
they have attended a lecture by a famous name. All
second-handers. page 605
+ If I were Ellsworth Toohey, I'd say: aren't you making out a
case against selfishness? Aren't they all acting on a selfish
motive - to be noticed, liked, admired?
-by others. At the price of their own self-respect. In the
realm of greatest importance - the realm of values, of judgment,
of spirit, of thought - they place others above self, in the
exact manner which altruism demands. A truly selfish man cannot
be affected by the approval of others. He doesn't need it.
pages 605-606
+ I think Toohey understand that. That's what helps him spread
his vicious nonsense. Just weakness and cowardice. It's so
easy to run to others. It's so hard to stand on one's own record.
You can fake virtue for an audience. You can't fake it in your
own eyes. Your ego is the strictest judge. They run from it.
They spend their lives running. It's easier to donate a few
thousand to charity and think oneself noble than to base
self-respect on personal standards of personal achievement.
It's simple to seek substitutes for competence - such easy
substitutes: love, charm, kindness, charity. But there is no
substitute for competence. page 606
- That, precisely, is the deadliness of second-handers. They
have no concern for facts, ideas, work. They're concerned only
with people. They don't ask: `Is this true?' They ask: `Is
this what others think is true?' Not to judge, but to repeat.
Not to do, but to give the impression of doing. Not creation,
but show. Not ability, but friendship. Not merit, but pull.
What would happen to the world without those who do, think,
work, produce? Those are the egotists. You don't think
through another's brain and you don't work through another's
hands. When you suspend your faculty of independent judgment,
you suspend consciousness. To stop consciousness is to stop
life. Second-handers have no sense of reality. Their reality
is not within them, but somewhere in that space which divides
one human body from another. Not an entity, but a relation -
anchored to nothing. That's the emptiness I couldn't understand
in people. That's what stopped me whenever I faced a committee.
Men without an ego. Opinion without a rational process. Motion
without brakes or motor. Power without responsibility. The
second-handers acts, but the source of his actions is scattered
in every other living person. It's everywhere and nowhere and
you can't reason with him. He's not open to reason. You can't
speak to him - he can't hear. You're tried by an empty bench.
A blind mass running amuck, to crush you without sense or
purpose. Steve Mallory couldn't define the monster, but he
knew. That's the drooling beast he fears. The second-handers.
page 606
- I think your second-handers understand this, try as they might not
to admit it to themselves. Notice how they'll accept anything except
a man who stands alone. They recognize him at once. By instinct.
There's a special, insidious kind of hatred for him. They forgive
criminals. They admire dictators. Crime and violence are a tie. A
form of mutual dependence. They need ties. They've got to force
their miserable little personalities on every single person they meet.
The independent man kills them - because they don't exist within him
and that's the only form of existence they know. Notice the malignant
kind of resentment against any idea that propounds independence.
Notice the malice toward an independent man. Look back on your own
life, Howard, and at the people you've met. They know. They're
afraid. You're a reproach. pages 606-607
- That's because some sense of dignity always remains in them
They're still human beings. But they've been taught to seek
themselves in others. Yet no man can achieve the kind of
absolute humility that would need no self-esteem in any form.
He wouldn't survive. So after centuries of being pounded with
the doctrine that altruism is the ultimate ideal, men have
accepted it in the only way it could be accepted. By seeking
self-esteem through others. By living second-hand. And it
has opened the way for every kind of horror. It has become
the dreadful form of selfishness which a truly selfish man
couldn't have conceived. And now, to cure a world perishing
from selflessness, we're asked to destroy the self. Listen
to what is being preached today. Look at everyone around us.
You've wondered why they suffer, why they seek happiness and
never find it. If any man stopped and asked himself whether
he's ever held a truly personal desire, he'd find the answer.
He'd see that all his wishes, his efforts, his dreams, his
ambitions are motivated by other men. He's not really
struggling even for material wealth, but for the second-hander's
delusion - prestige. A stamp of approval, not his own. He can
find no joy in the struggle and no joy when he has succeeded.
He can't say about a single thing: "This is what I wanted because
I wanted it, not because it made my neighbors gape at me." Then
he wonders why he's unhappy. page 607
+ Every form of happiness is private. Our greatest moments are
personal, self motivated, not to be touched. The things which
are sacred or precious to us are the things we withdraw from
promiscuous sharing. But now we are taught to throw everything
within us into public light and common pawing. To seek joy in
meeting halls. We haven't even got a word for the quality I
mean - for the self-sufficiency of man's spirit. It's difficult
to call it selfishness or egotism, the words have been perverted.
page 607
+ If one doesn't respect oneself one can have neither love nor
respect for others. page 607
- What do you ... want ... Ellsworth?
Power, Petey. page 634
- I've always said just that. Clearly, precisely and openly.
It's not my fault if you couldn't hear. You could, of course.
You didn't want to. Which was safer than deafness - for me.
I said I intended to rule. Like all my spiritual predecessors.
But I'm luckier than they were. I inherited the fruit of their
efforts and I shall be the one who'll see the great dream made
real. I see it all around me today. I recognize it. I don't
like it. I didn't expect to like it. Enjoyment is not my
destiny. I shall find such satisfaction as my capacity permits.
I shall rule.
Whom?
You. The world. It's only a matter of discovering the lever.
If you learn how to rule one single man's soul, you can get the
rest of mankind. It's the soul, Peter, the soul. Not whips or
swords or fire or guns. That's why the Caesars, the Attilas, the
Napoleons were fools and did not last. We will. The soul, Peter,
is that which can't be ruled. It must be broken. Drive a wedge
in, get your fingers on it - and the man is yours. You won't
need a whip - he'll bring it to you and ask to be whipped. Set
him in reverse - and his own mechanisms will do your work for you.
Use him against himself. Want to know how it's done? See if I
ever lied to you. See if you haven't heard all this for years,
but didn't want to hear, and the fault is yours, not mine.
There are many ways. Here's one. Make man feel small. Make
him feel guilty. Kill his aspiration and his integrity. That's
difficult. The worst among you gropes for an ideal in his own
twisted way. Kill integrity by internal corruption. Use it
against itself. Direct it toward a goal destructive of all
integrity. Preach selflessness. Tell man that he must live for
others. Tell men that altruism is the ideal. Not a single one
of them has ever achieved it and not a single one ever will. His
every living instinct screams against it. But don't you see what
you accomplish? Man realizes that he's incapable of what he's
accepted as the noblest virtue - and it gives him a sense of
guilt, of sin, of his own basic unworthiness. Since the supreme
ideal is beyond his grasp, he gives up eventually all ideals,
all aspirations, all sense of his personal value. He can't be
good halfway or honest approximately. To preserve one's
integrity is a hard battle. Why preserve that which one knows
to be corrupt already? His soul gives up its self-respect.
You've got him He'll obey. He'll be glad to obey - because he
can't trust himself, he feels uncertain, he feels unclean.
That's one way. Here's another. Kill man's sense of values.
Kill his capacity to recognize greatness or to achieve it.
Great men can't be ruled. We don't want any great men. Don't
deny the conception of greatness. Destroy it from within.
The great is the rare, the difficult, the exceptional. Set up
standards of achievement open to all, to the least, to the most
inept - and you stop the impetus to effort in all men, great,
or small. You stop all incentive to improvement, to excellence,
to perfection. Laugh at Roark and hold Peter Keating as a great
architect. You've destroyed architecture. Build up Lois Cook
and you've destroyed literature. Hail Ike and you've destroyed
the theater. Glorify Lancelot Clokey and you've destroyed the
press. Don't set out to raze all shrines - you'll frighten men.
Enshrine mediocrity - and the shrines are razed. Then there's
another way. Kill by laughter. Laughter is an instrument of
human joy. Learn to use it as a weapon of destruction. Turn
it into a sneer. It's simple. Tell them to laugh at everything.
Tell them that a sense of humor is an unlimited virtue. Don't
let anything remain sacred in a man's soul - and his soul won't
be sacred to him. Kill reverence and you've killed the hero in
man. One doesn't reverence with a giggle. He'll obey and he'll
set no limits to his obedience - anything goes - nothing is too
serious. Here's another way. This is most important. Don't
allow men to be happy. Happiness is self-contained and
self-sufficient. Happy men have no time and no use for you.
Happy men are free men. So kill their joy in living. Take
away from them whatever is dear or important to them. Never
let them have what they want. Make them feel that the mere fact
of a personal desire is evil Bring them to a state where saying
"I want" is no longer a natural right, but a shameful admission.
Altruism is of great help in this. Unhappy men will come to you.
They'll need you. They'll come for consolation, for support,
for escape. Nature allows no vacuum. Empty man's soul - and
the space is yours to fill. ... The farce has been going on
for centuries and men still fall for it. pages 634-637
+ But if ever you hear a man telling you that you must be happy,
that it's your natural right, that your first duty is to
yourself - that will be the man who's not after your soul.
That will be the man who has nothing to gain from you. But let
him come and you'll scream your empty heads off, howling that
he's a selfish monster. page 637
- You're afraid to see where it's leading. I'm not. I'll tell
you. The world of the future. The world I want. A world of
obedience and of unity. A world where the thought of each man
will not be his own, but an attempt to guess the thought of the
brain of his neighbor who'll have no thought of his own but an
attempt to guess the thought of the next neighbor who'll have
no thought - and so on. page 637
- I just forced to sell your soul. You've used people at least
for the sake of what you could get from them for yourself. I
want nothing for myself. I use people for the sake of what I
can do to them. It's my only function and satisfaction. I
have no private purpose. I want power. I want my world of
the future. Let all live for all. Let all sacrifice and none
profit. Let all suffer and not enjoy. Let progress stop.
Let all stagnate. There's equality in stagnation. All
subjugated to the will of all. Universal slavery - without
even the dignity of a master. Slavery to slavery. A great
circle - and a total equality. The world of the future.
pages 638-639
- They jerked the wires and you moved. You were a ruler of men.
You held a leash. A leash is only a rope with a noose at both
ends. page 660
+ Throughout the centuries there were men who took first steps
down new roads armed with nothing but their own vision. Their
goals differed, but they all had this in common: that the step
was first, the road new, the vision unborrowed, and the response
they received - hatred. The great creators - the thinkers, the
artists, the scientists, the inventors - stood alone against the
men of their time. Every great new thought was opposed. Every
great new invention was denounced. The first motor was considered
foolish. The airplane was considered impossible. The power loom
was considered vicious. Anesthesia was considered sinful. But
the men of unborrowed vision went ahead. They fought, they
suffered, and they paid.
No creator was prompted by a desire to serve his brothers, for
his brothers rejected the gift he offered and that gift destroyed
the slothful routine of their lives. His truth was his only
motive. His own truth, and his work to achieve it in his own way.
A symphony, a book, an engine, a philosophy, an airplane or a
building - that was his goal and his life. Not those who heard,
read, operated, believed, flew or inhabited the thing he had
created. The creation, not its users. The creation, not the
benefits others derived from it. The creation which gave form
to his truth. He held his truth above all things and against
all men.
His vision, his strength, his courage came from his own spirit.
A man's spirit, however, is his self. That entity which is his
consciousness. To think, to feel, to judge, to act are functions
of the ego.
The creators were not selfless. It is the whole secret of their
power - that it was self-sufficient, self-motivated, self-generated.
A first cause, a fount of energy, a life force, a Prime Mover.
The creator served nothing and no one. He had lived for himself.
And only by living for himself was he able to achieve the things
which are the glory of mankind. Such is the nature of achievement.
Man cannot survive except through his mind. He comes on earth
unarmed. His brain has no claws, no fangs, no horns, no great
strength of muscle. He must plant his food or hunt it. To plant
he needs a process of thought. From this simplest necessity to
the highest religious abstraction, from the wheel to the skyscraper,
everything we are and everything we have comes fro a single
attribute of man - the function of his reasoning mind.
But the mind is an attribute of the individual. There is no such
thing as a collective brain. There is no such thing as a
collective thought. An agreement reached by a group of men is
only a compromise or an average drawn upon many individual
thoughts. It is a secondary consequence. The primary act - the
process of reason - must be performed by each man alone. We can
divide a meal among many men. We cannot digest it in a collective
stomach. No man can use his lungs to breathe for another man.
No man can use his brain to think for another. All the functions
of body and spirit are private. They cannot be shared or
transferred.
We inherit the products of the thoughts of other men. We inherit
the wheel. We make a cart. The cart becomes an automobile. The
automobile becomes an airplane. But all through the process that
we receive from others is only the end product of their thinking.
The moving force is the creative faculty which takes this product
as material, uses it and originates the next step. This creative
faculty cannot be given or received, shared or borrowed. It
belongs to single, individual men. That which it creates is the
property of the creator. Men learn from one another. But all
learning is only the exchange of material. No man can give
another the capacity to think. Yet that capacity is our only
means of survival.
Nothing is given to man on earth. Everything he needs has to be
produced. And here man faces his basic alternative: he can
survive in only one of two ways - by independent work of his
own mind or as a parasite fed by the minds of others. The
creator originates. The parasite borrows. The creator faces
nature alone. The parasite faces nature through an intermediary.
The creator's concern is the conquest of nature. The parasite's
concern is the conquest of men.
The creator lives for his work. He needs no other men. His
primary goal is within himself. The parasite lives second-hand.
He needs others. Others become his prime motive.
The basic need of the creator is independence. The reasoning
mind cannot work under any form of compulsion. It cannot be
curbed, sacrificed or subordinated to any consideration
whatsoever. It demands total independence in function and
in motive. To a creator, all relations with men are secondary.
The basic need of the second-hander is to secure his ties with
men in order to be fed. He places relations first. He declares
that man exists in order to serve others. He preaches altruism.
Altruism is the doctrine which demands that man live for others and
place others above self.
No man can live for another. He cannot share his spirit just as
he cannot share his body. But the second-hander has used altruism
as a weapon of exploitation and reversed the base of mankind's
moral principles. Men have been taught ever precept that destroys
the creator. Men have been taught dependence as a virtue.
The man who attempts to live for others is a dependent. He is a
parasite in motive and makes parasites of those he serves. The
relationship produces nothing but mutual corruption. It is
impossible in concept. The nearest approach to it in reality -
the man who lives to serve others - is the slave. If physical
slavery is repulsive, how much more repulsive is the concept of
servility of the spirit? The conquered slave has a vestige of
honor. He has the merit of having resisted and of considering his
condition evil. But the man who enslaves himself voluntarily in
the name of love is the basest of creatures. He degrades the
dignity of man and he degrades the conception of love. But this
is the essence of altruism.
Men have been taught that the highest virtue is not to achieve,
but to give. Yet one cannot give that which has not been created.
Creation comes before distribution - or there will be nothing to
distribute. The need of the creator comes before the need of any
possible beneficiary. Yet we are taught to admire the second-hander
who dispenses gifts he has not produced above the man who made the
gifts possible. We praise the act of charity. We shrug at an act
of achievement.
Men have been taught that their first concern is to relieve the
suffering of others. But suffering is a disease. Should one
come upon it, one tries to give relief and assistance. To make
that the highest test of virtue is to make suffering the most
important part of life. Then man must wish to see others suffer
- in order that he may be virtuous. Such is the nature of
altruism. The creator is not concerned with disease, but with
life. Yet the work of the creators has eliminated one form of
disease after another, in man's body and spirit, and brought more
relief from suffering than any altruist could ever conceive.
Men have been taught that it is a virtue to agree with others.
But the creator in the man who disagrees. Men have been taught
that it is a virtue to swim with the current. But the creator
is the man who goes against the current. Men have been taught
that it is a virtue to stand together. But the creator is the
man who stands alone.
Men have been taught that the ego is the synonym of evil, and
selflessness the ideal of virtue. But the creator is the
egotist in the absolute sense, and the selfless man is the one
who does not think, feel, judge, or act. These are functions of
the self.
Here the basic reversal is most deadly. The issue has been
perverted and man has been left no alternative - and no freedom.
As poles of good and evil, he was offered two conceptions: egotism
and altruism. Egotism was held to mean the sacrifice of others to
self. Altruism - the sacrifice of self to others. pages 678-681
+ The code of the creator is built on the needs of the reasoning
mind which allows man to survive. The code of the second-handers
is built on the needs of a mind incapable of survival. All that
which proceeds from man's independent ego is good. All that
which proceeds from man's dependence upon men is evil. page 681
+ Degrees of ability vary, but the basic principle remains the
same: the degree of a man's independence, initiative and personal
love for his work determines his talent as a worker and his worth
as a man. Independence is the only gauge of human virtue and
value. What man is and makes of himself; not what he has or
hasn't done for others. There is no substitute for personal
dignity. There is no standard of personal dignity except
independence. page 681
+ A man thinks and works alone. A man cannot rob, exploit, or
rule - alone. Robbery, exploitation and ruling presuppose
victims. They imply dependence. They are the province of the
second-hander. page 682
+ Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy.
page 683
+ ... the integrity of a man's creative work is of greater
importance than any charitable endeavor. Those of you who do
not understand this are the men who're destroying the world.
page 684 ]]>
I find it fascinating that the Copyright for this book was 1943,
then renewed in 1971, and 1993 by The Bobbs-Merrill Company of
New York. If you took the time to read through the sections
I quoted, I'm sure you will recognize things similar to my
philosophy of life, particularly as I have striven to live my
life. When Andrea proofed it she said some of the negatives
should be positives, and some of the positives negative. She
also said the quotes are very good examples of how philosophies
of men are always learning and never coming to a knowledge of
the truth. Maybe this is a summary of of my life. I hope not.
The book does a wonderful job of capturing the evil of power
and of those who seek power through plagiarism, through tearing
others down, and through money. I don't buy into all of the
ego, self-interest first stuff Ayn Rand writes about, but I
do enjoy my work, like to focus on it and truly work at it, and
I have spent much of my career fighting against those who have
told me I was wrong or out in left field or what I'm working on
is completely impractical. And then the changes we have been
able to participate in are called wonderful by some, while
others simply hold me responsible for their unemployment.
There is no way that the passages I marked will pass on the
story, the framework, or the characters written about. The
book is about an architectural student named Howard Roark
(not Howard Roice), who is dispelled from school because he
refuses to compromise his work and do as his instructors
insist. It is his life story, along with the story off four
other major players: Peter Keating; Ellsworth Toohey; and
Gail Wynard.
Peter Keating is a fellow student who graduates at the head
of his class. However, Howard spent his three years at
architecture school living with Peter and his mother.
Howard had designed all of Peter's successful projects.
Peter went to work for Francon & Heyer, Architects, a
traditional firm that borrowed most designs from the ancient
Greeks. Peter would visit when he was stuck, and Howard
would show him the errors of his designs and in effect
continued to do the design on the projects which made Peter
famous. Howard went to work for Henry Cameron, an idealistic
hard-nosed architect who had spent his career attempting to
build things functionally, and tied to usage and environment.
Peter played politics, got people fired, took their positions,
and became the partner of Guy Francon. He even married Guy's
daughter Dominique Francon, whom Howard had raped (yea, there
was some of this type of stuff in the novel). Dominuqe left
Peter and married Gail Wynard.
Ellsworth Toohey was a socialist/communist, who wrote in the
newspaper and formed different study groups to become the
promoters of his ideas and plans. Ellsworth is painted as
a very enjoyable person, and it is only after 600 pages his
true intentions of seeking power by tearing everyone else
down come out. He is the prominent architectural critic,
and as such he slams Howard Roark's work and builds up the
work of those architects who pursue projects he is interested
in and in the way he wants them pursued.
Howard Roark is discovered by Roger Enright, who has him build
a house for him. This house becomes Howard's calling card,
and he gets several commissions because others see and fall
in love with the house. Including Gail Wynard, a self-made
media mongol, who is the publisher of The Banner, a tabloid.
He becomes good friends with Howard Roark, talks Dominique
into leaving Peter, and ends up loosing Dominique to Howard.
It is fascinating how Ayn Rand takes the various characters
and builds a caricature of all of the types of folks I have
worked with in my career. The description of people copying
Howard's work and taking credit for it perfectly describes
people in several oil and service companies that have built
their career on my ideas and work. The description of what
it was like for Howard to be waiting on the next commission
parallels what I have felt the last few years. The way the
author describes Howard going to the granite pits and doing
manual labor to meet ends is not unlike how I look at
getting on the Katy Freeway some mornings. The way Ayn
Rand describes those who work for money (power), position
(power), connections (power), prestige (power), etc. is
an apt summary of why it is so hard for me to work in a
corporation with the petty politics and the other baloney.
And I guess the thing that most surprised me about this book
was the name of the person it was about: Howard Roark. I
recall at Aunt Mary's funeral someone, I think it was Big
Roice or Aunt Elaine, talking about how Mom insisted that
I be named Howard. I recall Dad telling me about how Mom
first met him when Grandpa Hafen came by the farm to sell
Grandpa Nelson some cattle, and Dad was working in the fields.
I recall Mom describing how she had read every book in the
St. George library, and how she fascinated she had been with
the ones the Liberian's said she should avoid. Ayn Rand,
like writers today, 60 years later, included in her novels
information best avoided. As I was reading The Fountainhead,
I had a picture come to my mind, and I have a question I would
love to be able to ask my Mom, and obviously won't ask her in
this life: Was I named for my Dad, or was I named for the
hero, Howard Roark, in Ayn Rand's book The Fountainhead?"
I'm interested in sharing weekly a "thoughtlet" (little statements
of big thoughts which mean a lot to me) with you because I know how
important the written word can be. I am concerned about how easy
it is to drift and forget our roots and our potential among all of
distractions of daily life. To download any of these thoughtlets
go to http://www.walden3d.com/thoughtlets or e-mail me at
rnelson@walden3d.com.
With all my love,
Dad
(H. Roice Nelson, Jr.)