The End is Nigh

I'm nearing the end of The Fountainhead. It's been an amazing ride. I came across a quote a long while back, saying something to the effect that, a young man who wishes to remain an atheist cannot be too careful in what books he reads. In fact, that's very close to the original quote. Maybe by C. S. Lewis. Anyways, many acquaintances over the years have never understood why I read the books I do. True, the majority of these books are classics, which have stood the test of time, though fairly rarely in circles of wide popularity. I go for more of the undercurrent type of books; the Russians, the Beats, the antagonists fighting against something through their work. But I find that quote very applicable. It's not that I'm an atheist, nor that this thought need be religious at all; but that every book I've ever read was read (or, I should say finished, as I've begun many books deemed not worth completion) to influence me in a certain way. Call it self-molding. Take the most innocent prescription of assignments in any classroom at any level of education: it's political, hypnoidal, producing subservience and a dilution of the self. So why not fight that with my own programming? I can think of two anecdotes to demonstrate this;

In highschool, I was reading Freud's The Interpretation of Dreams. On really any account, an interesting book, regardless of it's accuracy or import. In my Latin course, we were doing translations and, after finishing mine, and having no other obligations, I took out this book to pass the time. The teacher, calling the attention of everyone in an otherwise quiet classroom, chastised me for reading something so "perverted."

In a course, "Political and Social Ethics," I answered a question to my own understanding; something to the effect that, sure, we should attempt to give everyone equal footing, but there comes a definite point where success and obligations should be the sole product of the individual's abilities and talents. The professor, again with the attention of the class, as a whole, says, "What are you? Some kind of fucking socialist?!?" (as a side note, I'm not entirely convinced that my opinions there were socialistic, but that's not really the point).

The point is that, through the last few weeks of the worst semester of my 18 years of academic experience, The Fountainhead played a large part in keeping me sane. A friend of mine asked me last week what I planned on reading this summer. When I said Rand, and how much this book, in particular, had helped me to cope with the last few weeks, he responded that, If it came to reading Rand as a way to cope with things, perhaps what I needed most was a hug. Fair. And this affinity isn't, as this same friend later said, due to a sense of individualistic, egotism, conquering the world as one man, and island unto himself capable of incredible suffering only to emerge victorious. No, instead, it's a more subtle understanding of the egoism philosophy present in Rand's work (as a disclaimer, I am not stating I agree with the Rand philosophy, nor even that I understand that philosophy to agree or disagree with);

'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 who's 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 is 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 second-handers. Look at our so-called cultural endeavors. A lecturer who spouts some borrowed rehash of nothing at all that means 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.'

'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...A truly selfish man cannot be affected by the approval of others. He doesn't need it." (p. 605-6)