Tag Archives: ayn rand

Howard Roark…

by on 17. Dec, 2011 in Independent Thinking

It was very peculiar, thought Keating. Toohey was asking him a great many questions about Howard Roark. But the questions did not make sense. They were not about buildings, they were not about architecture at all. They were pointless personal questions — strange to ask about a man of whom he had never heard before.

“Does he laugh often?”

“Very rarely.”

“Does he seem unhappy?”

“Never.”

“Did he have many friends at Stanton?”

“He’s never had any friends anywhere.”

“The boys didn’t like him?”

“Nobody can like him.”

“Why?”

“He makes you feel it would be an impertinence to like him.”

“Did he go out, drink, have a good time?”

“Never.”

“Does he like money?”

“No.”

“Does he like to be admired?”

“No.”

“Does he believe in God?”

“No.”

“Does he talk much?”

“Very little.”

“Does he listen if others discuss any … ideas with him?”

“He listens. It would be better if he didn’t.”

“Why?”

“It would be less insulting — if you know what I mean, when a man listens like that and you know it hasn’t made the slightest bit of difference to him.”

 

Read full story • Comments { 0 }
Atlas Shrugged [Part 1] Movie Review

Atlas Shrugged [Part 1] Movie Review

by on 16. Apr, 2011 in Reviews

The Fountainhead is my favorite book. The Fountainhead is my favorite movie. One being better than the other has never been a question that makes any sense in my mind. It’s the equivalent of asking me who I love more, my mother or my father [which is not to say you should love your parents unconditionally and by default].

When it comes to Atlas Shrugged however, the tune I sing changes, because as much as I enjoyed the movie, the book is dramatically better, at least so far as Part 1 is concerned.

The actors, actresses, and their acting: fantastic, with the exception proving the rule. Hank Rearden and Dagny Taggart are especially great to see brought to life.

But beyond that, the movie falls short.

What the producers did right?

Got Part 1 factually correct. The movie does not stray from the book to any significant degree (other than as mentioned at the end of this review).

What went wrong?

Lack of detail. 9 times out of 10 detail…

Read full story • Comments { 4 }
Profoundly Disturbing, Supremely Immoral

Profoundly Disturbing, Supremely Immoral

by on 13. Mar, 2011 in Independent Thinking

I’ve wondered for a long time now exactly how it is people come to such impressively stupid conclusions. You know, the shit that makes your head spin, in pure awe of the tremendous amount of mental effort put into misguided “good intentions”.

The above comment from Gregory was a turning point in my own mind, upon re-examining it, in regards to understanding such colossal examples of stupidity and ignorance blended into one sentence.

My realization was of Gregory’s fully expressed basic premise: the complete rejection of violence, and subsequently, the complete rejection of violent force in the defense of your life and of the rights stemming from it.

Essentially, the idea that man is a slave, and has no rights – let alone the supreme right to his own life, that is worth defending, to the end of it.

Put more simply – because I am writing in such a way that it’s making people go “huh?” – Gregory is convinced that, ultimately, defending…

Read full story • Comments { 6 }
Man Breathes Life Into the World, Woman Breathes Life Into Man

Man Breathes Life Into the World, Woman Breathes Life Into Man

by on 11. Mar, 2011 in Independent Thinking

I made a statement on my Facebook account some time ago. The statement sprung from wondering why Ayn Rand never had children, yet wrote something as profoundly inspiring as The Fountainhead – so much so that it would be accurate to say it has survival value.

The statement that came to me was that

“Man breathes life into the world, and woman breathes life into man”.

I will take the time to explore this statement today, and how the dots have become connected internally for me, in regards to how accurate I was in my original remark – yet was unable to fully explain the statement then, even to my own self.

To begin, Ayn stated throughout the course of her life that the purpose of her work was to depict the ideal man.

Take note of the italicized her in that sentence, because while Ayn was human, she was of the female gender.

A woman.

While some of her critics state that…

Read full story • Comments { 38 }
In Defense of “Rape”: The Most Raped Word on Earth

In Defense of “Rape”: The Most Raped Word on Earth

by on 24. Feb, 2011 in Independent Thinking

Do you want to know a secret?

I’ll tell you one: rape is one of, if not the most, “raped” terms on earth.

It’s meaning and usage are so far distorted that there isn’t a starting focal point to zoom in on – it was pillaged and plundered of meaning upon inception.

Why should you care? It’s just a stupid word right? … Right? …

Wrong.

To the contrary, the heavily lubricated ease of use it has in our diction, and subsequently, in most judicial systems found around the world – including those found in the American States – is a fountainhead of problems for young men and women alike.

Rape, as…

Read full story • Comments { 19 }
Rape

Rape

by on 26. Jan, 2011 in Independent Thinking

As far back as I can remember, I have been at war with the world.

I didn’t always think of it in those terms of course, but never the less — even as far back as four years old – I have vivid memories of standing up to the many, to the bigger, the stronger, the older, the “wiser” — to any individual or group of individuals I believed were acting in the wrong.

The qualities of those who were in the wrong, by my standards — and the quantity of such individuals — was not even a distant thought to me at such times.

All that mattered was my inflexible demand for what was right in those particular situations.

As I age, I feel the need to expand my focus. Those of you who have followed The Dream Lounge and The 21 Convention from their infancy, can attest to this ever broadening expansion of interests.

And now I think I know why. To win my war with the world, by necessity, I have…

Read full story • Comments { 12 }
Individualism

Individualism

by on 04. Jan, 2011 in Independent Thinking

 

Roark took the oath. He stood by the steps of the witness stand. The audience looked at him. They felt he had no chance. They could drop the nameless resentment, the sense of insecurity which he aroused in most people. And so, for the first time, they could see him as he was: a man totally innocent of fear.

The fear of which they thought was not the normal kind, not a response to a tangible danger, but the chronic, unconfessed fear in which they all lived. They remembered the misery of the moments when, in loneliness, a man thinks of his bright words he could have said, but had not found, and hates those who robbed him of his courage. The misery of knowing how strong and able one is in one’s own mind, the radiant picture never to be made real. Dreams? Self-delusion? Or a murdered reality, unborn, killed by that corroding emotion without name – fear – need – dependence – hatred?

Roark stood before…

Read full story • Comments { 3 }
Time to Win

Time to Win

by on 21. Nov, 2010 in Independent Thinking

I found the following blog post today, which contains an excerpt from Ayn Rand.

Link: The Tea Partier’s Ayn Rand (blog post contains links I chose not to transfer).

Begin quote, with bolding by me:

Young people are constantly asking what they can do to fight today’s disastrous trends; they are seeking some form of action, and wrecking their hopes in blind alleys, particularly every four years, at election time. Those who do not realize that the battle is ideological, had better give up, because they have no chance. Those who do realize it, should grasp that the student rebellion [at Berkeley] offers them a chance to train themselves for the kind of battle they will have to fight in the world, when they leave the university; a chance, not only to train themselves, but to win the first rounds of that wider battle.

If they seek an important cause, they have the opportunity to fight the rebels, to fight ideologically, on moral-intellectual grounds – by…

Read full story • Comments { 5 }
It Only Takes One Man

It Only Takes One Man

by on 25. Aug, 2010 in Independent Thinking

What follows is a quote from The Fountainhead (more specifically, a quote from the latter part of the 25th anniversary edition introduction). I quote the following today – the day of my 22nd birth day – because this passage strikes me like few other collections of ink on paper ever have.

As such, rather than ask for something on the anniversary day of my birth, this is my gift to all those that read my blog and follow my work.

I have not modified it in any way, other than the bolding of specific parts that I found especially moving.

From The Fountainhead

It is this highest level of man’s emotions that has to be redeemed from the murk of mysticism and redirected at its proper object: man.

It is in this sense, with this meaning and intention, that I would identify the sense of life dramatized in The Fountainhead as man-worship.

It is an emotion that a few – a very few – men experience consistently; some men experience it in rare…

Read full story • Comments { 23 }