architecture and philosophy

Architecture, my friends, is a great art based on 2 cosmic principles: Beauty and Utility. In a broader sense, these are but part of the three eternal entities: Truth, Love, Beauty. Truth - to the traditions of our Art, Love - for our fellowmen whom we are to serve, Beauty - a compelling goddess to all artists, be it in the shape of a lovely woman or a building. In conclusion, I should say to you, who are about to embark upon your careers in architecture, that you are now the custodians of a sacred heritage. So go forth into the world, armed with courage and vision, loyal to the standards this great school has presented for many years. May you all serve faithfully, neither as slaves to the past nor those parvenus who preach originality for its own sake, which attitude is only ignorant vanity. May you all have many rich, active years before you leave, as you depart from this world, your mark on the sands of time!
- Guy Francon, Message to Stanton Architecture Graduates, The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand

I just read ching's book..or rather, ayn rand's book, which i borrowed from ching, and i am typing about it because i find the author's idea about the self so amusing that i think it's worth typing about.. i don't know how many people read my blog, but whoever, by any chance, reads rand's ideas which i will be typing next, behold.. for this will be love at first sight..! hehe.. oh k, maybe not.. wala lang..

In order to understand the story, i would like to tell you more about the characters. First on the list is Elseworth Toohey, a most eloquent writer with superb knowledge of architecture. His prime philosophy? Selflessness. Altruism. He believes that religion overemphasizes the importance of individual spirit, that religion preached nothing but a single concern - the salvation of one's own soul. He believe that only when you can feel contempt for your own priceless little ego, only then can you achieve the true broad piece of selflessness, the merging of your spirit with the vast collective spirit of mankind. There's no room for love of others within the tight crowded miser's hole of a private ego. Be empty in order to be filled. He that loves life shall lose it, and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal. He was what everybody thought to be Humanitarian. He hates selfish people. And that is because he wants power. Confused now, are you..? Well, Toohey knows how to rule the world. He states, If you learn how to rule one single man's soul, you can get the rest of mankind. He doesn't like selfish people because they own the souls that can't be ruled. He has thought of various ways of killing the human soul. One is by making man feel small and guilty. Kill his aspiration and integrity. Kill integrity by internal corruption. Direct it toward a goal destructive of all integrity. Preach selflessness. Tell man that he must live for others. Tell man that altruism is the ideal. Not a single one of them has ever achieved it and not a single one ever will. Man's every living instinct screams against it. But then, 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 basis unworthiness. Since the supreme ideal is beyond his own grasp, he gives up eventually all ideals, all aspiration, all sense of his personal value. He feels himself obliged to preach what he can't practice. His soul gives up its self-respect. Then he'll obey - because he can't trust himself, he feels uncertain, he feels unclean. Another way, is to kill man's sense of values. Kill his capacity to recognize greatness or to achieve it. Great men can't be ruled. 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. Another way is to not allow man to be happy. Happiness is self-contained and self-sufficient. Happy men have no time and have no use to him. 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 the state where saying that 'i want' is no longer a natural right but a shameful admission. Toohey wants an octopus out of all men - all tentacles and no brain. Automatic levers - always saying yes. He wants a world where no man will hold a desire for himself, but will direct all his efforts to satisfy the desires of the next neighbor, who'll have no desire but to satisfy the desires of the next neighbors who have no desire - around the globe. He quotes: "Don’t set out to raze all shrines – you’ll frighten men. Enshrine mediocrity, and the shrines are razed."

2 aspiring architects arise as arch rivals in love and career in the novel: Peter Keating and Howard Roark. Peter Keating is everything Hoaward Roark is not. Peter graduated with high honors, the highest of his class, in Stanford University. Roark was expelled. Peter went to work with the most popular illustrious firm in U.S where he became a partner. Roark worked for the same firm and got kicked out. Peter has a popular building to his credit - and Roark has a hotdog stand. Peter signs autographs - and Roark is not known even to all the bathroom fixtures manufacturers. Roark's got an appointment house to do and it's precious to him like the only son - while Peter wouldn't even have noticed it, he gets them everyday. Peter stands a particular example of mediocrity but he is worshiped, enshrined upon and beats the genius Howard Roark.

But Howard Roark doesn't care if he gets nothing but a boot in his face. He doesn't care if he sees the mediocrity snatch from him, one after the other. He doesn't care if he is beaten, ignored, or defeated not by a greater genius, or god, but by Peter Keating. He is an aspiring architect with a unique, uncompromising creative vision, which contrasts sharply with the staid and uninspired conventions of the architectural establishment. He ignores the driving preoccupations of the world around him: wealth, status, regard amongst his fellow men. Roark takes pleasure in the act of creation, but is constantly opposed by "the hostility of second-hand souls" and those unwilling or afraid to recognize his creative ability.

Dominique Francon is described by Rand as "the woman for a man like Howard Roark," with Roark representing Rand's ideal human. Dominique is the daughter of Guy Francon, a highly successful but creatively inhibited architect. Peter Keating is employed by her father, and her intelligence, insight and observations are above his. It is only through Roark that her love of pleasure and autonomy meets a worthy equal. These strengths are also what she initially lets stifle her growth and make her life miserable. She begins thinking that the world did not deserve her sincerity and smarts, because the people around her did not measure up to her standards. She starts out punishing the world and herself for all the things about man which she despises, through self-defeating behavior. She is held a protagonist, but is not (throughout the bulk of the novel) without flaw. She initially believes that greatness, such as Roark's, is doomed to fail and will be destroyed by the 'collectivist' masses around them. She eventually joins Roark romantically, but before she can do this, she must learn to join him in his perspective and purpose. However, Dominique Francon must learn the long hard way not to let a flawed society and misled zeitgeist inhibit her creative and emotional expression and drive, nor poison her hope in her own ideals. By the end of the story, Dominique no longer cares what anyone thinks or does. She lives her life for herself and no one else. She learns to love and create freely and passionately, and no longer cares whether or not the world is worthy of her expression. She has a new world now that is hers alone. Finally, it is the act of creating, loving, and living in which she finds happiness, rather than the results of these successes, no matter how good or bad the recognition may be. It no longer matters what might happen or what others think, because the happiness she finds cannot be taken away from her. She learns to be the change she wishes to see in her world. Her new world, that in which she sets the standards by which all will live in regards to any association with Dominique, is worthy of her beautiful mind and heart because it belongs to her and no one else, and is shared on her terms alone. That is, Dominique's terms as well as those with the same individualistic, objectivist and uncompromising ideals.

Gail Wynand is a powerful newspaper mogul who rose from a destitute childhood in the ghettoes of NY to control the city's print media. While Wynand shares many of the character qualities of Roark, his success is dependent upon his ability to manipulate public opinion, a flaw which eventually leads to his destruction.

Given the characters, here then is the plot of the whole story, courtesy of wikipedia:

Howard Roark, a brilliant young architect, is expelled from the Stanton Institute of Technology, an architecture school, for refusing to abide by its outdated traditions. He goes to New York City to work for Henry Cameron, a disgraced architect whom Roark admires. Roark’s highly successful but vacuous schoolmate, Peter Keating, moves to New York and goes to work for the prestigious architectural firm Francon & Heyer, run by the famous Guy Francon. Roark and Cameron create beautiful work, but their projects rarely receive recognition, whereas Keating’s ability to flatter and please brings him almost instant success at Francon & Heyer. In just a few years, he becomes a partner at the firm, after he causes Francon’s previous partner, Lucius Heyer, to suffer a fatal stroke on being threatened by Keating's blackmail. Henry Cameron retires, financially ruined, and after signing a contract with Austen Heller, Roark opens his own small office. His unwillingness to compromise his designs in order to satisfy the whims and ignorance of his clients eventually forces him to close down the office and take a job at a granite quarry in Connecticut, owned by Francon.

Keating has always been passively and lazily in love with Catherine (Katie) Halsey, the niece of Ellsworth Toohey, a columnist for The New York Banner and author of the popular column One Small Voice. Though Peter and Katie have both acknowledged that they would one day marry each other, they sometimes go months at a time without seeing each other. While engaging in various high society social functions, Peter is introduced to Francon's daughter Dominique. She is beautiful, temperamental and idealistic; and works as the columnist of "Your House" for the Banner. Peter finds himself physically attracted to Dominique, and wants her if just for the social benefit the relationship would bring. Dominique engages in the relationship for her own undisclosed reasons, but then leaves for one of her regular extended getaways and finds herself at the family home in the same Connecticut town where Roark is working the quarry.

While Roark is working in the quarry, he encounters Dominique. There is an immediate physical attraction between the two of them. Dominique visits the quarry frequently to tempt Roark and requests that he be the one to repair some marble around the fireplace in her bedroom that she intentionally marred. He starts the work and subtly suggests to Miss Francon that she prey on someone in her own class. But she persists. When the repairs are complete, Roark and Dominique have aggressive and passionate sex. There is controversy as to whether or not it was an act of rape. While Dominique later tells Wynand that Roark raped her, Rand herself has addressed the controversy by stating "if it was rape, it was rape by engraved invitation."

Dominique has now discovered a person she not only desires but whom she cannot resist. But when she looks for Roark, he has left the quarry to design a building for a prominent New York businessman, Roger Enright. At this point she doesn't even know Roark's name or true profession.

Roark is being noted in the press for the stunning building (The Enright House) he has recently designed. However, Ellsworth Toohey sees Roark as a threat. He is an undercover socialist and is covertly rising to power by shaping public opinion through his column and circle of influential associates. He seeks to prevent men from excelling by teaching that talent and ability are to be used only for the benefit of the masses and not for personal gain, and that the greatest virtue is self-sacrifice. Toohey sets out to destroy Roark. Toohey is planning to incite the public against Roark through a smear campaign he spearheads at "The Banner."

Roark's building is finished. The building's owner hosts a gala inviting all the who's who of the town including Toohey and other critics. This is where Dominique and Roark meet again and she realizes that the brilliant architect she admired and took a stand for was the man she was involved with in Connecticut.

Dominique and Roark begin to meet in secret. Dominique urges Roark to give up building, afraid that the public will reject and destroy him because of his greatness, his talent, his character and his ideals. However, Roark has never been afraid of or moved by public opinion. He signifies time and again that it is his building (which go to exemplify his ideals and his ethics) that matters to him the most and not what people think of him. He says "I don't build in order to get clients, I get clients in order to build".

Still out to destroy Roark, Toohey convinces a weak-minded businessman named Hopton Stoddard to hire Roark as the designer for a temple dedicated to the human spirit. Roark designs the temple, with a naked statue of Dominique (carved by Steve Mallory, the man who attempted to kill Toohey), which creates the first public outcry towards Howard. As the building is shown to Stoddard for the first time just before its unveiling, its brilliance and uniqueness confuses Stoddard and Toohey takes this opportunity to further manipulate Stoddard into suing Roark for general incompetence and fraud. At Roark’s trial, every prominent architect in New York testifies that Roark’s style is unorthodox and illegitimate. Dominique defends Howard for the very first time, but Stoddard wins the case and Roark loses his business again. To add insult to injury, a number of the New York architects take on the challenge of "repairing" the Stoddard temple into a mishmash of contrived and mismatched ideas resulting in architectural tripe. When Toohey meets Howard after the trial he asks Howard what he thinks of him to which Howard famously replies "I don't think of you".

After not seeing Katie for several months, Peter pays her a visit. They had become engaged some time earlier, but Peter tells her they will be married the next day. That evening, Dominique pays Peter a visit, and makes him a one-time offer of her hand in marriage. Peter accepts, and they are married that evening. Dominique turns her entire spirit over to Peter, hosting the dinners he wants, agreeing with him, and saying whatever he wants her to say. She fights Roark, and herds all of his potential clients over to the slowly weakening Peter Keating just so that she doesn't have to see Howard's work being mutilated in the real world which doesn't deserve it.

Gail Wynand, owner of the Banner, believes he is in firm control of public opinion. People believe anything that is written in his paper, even if it is blatantly false. Born in Hell's Kitchen and a member of a gang while growing up, he had forced himself into the Gazette, eventually taking over and building up his empire. Wynand decides to build an ambitious real estate project, and because of the Depression, every architect of fame wants it. In order to sell the job to Peter, Toohey sends Wynand the Stoddard statue of Dominique as a gift. This prompts Wynand to meet with Peter and Dominique, and promises to give the project to Keating in exchange for letting Dominique take a yacht tour with him. On the tour, Wynand asks Dominique to marry him, and she agrees to leave Peter.

Meanwhile, despite bad publicity, Roark finds himself with periodic work. He is given a hotel project called the Aquitania which goes bankrupt and is not completed for years. Later, he is asked to design a resort called "Monadnock Valley", which is noted for its privacy, and is intended by the owners, in an act of fraud, to be a failure. However, the resort is a success, and Roark finds himself (perhaps for the first time) on the favored end of public opinion. Wynand finds that every building he likes is done by Roark, so he enlists Howard to build him a home. The home is built, and Howard and Gail become great friends, though Wynand does not know about his past relationship with Dominique.

Now washed up and out of the public eye, Peter realizes he is a failure, and rather than accept retirement, he pleads with Ellsworth for commission to build the much sought after Cortlandt housing project. Peter knows that his most successful projects were aided by Roark, and he knows Roark is the only person who can design Cortlandt. Howard agrees to design it in exchange for complete anonymity and the agreement that it would be built exactly as he designed.

When Roark returns from a spring-long yacht trip with Wynand, he finds that, despite the agreement, the Cortlandt Homes project has been changed. Roark asks Dominique to distract the night watchman and dynamites the building. When the police arrive, he submits without resistance. The entire country condemns Roark, but Wynand finally finds the courage to follow his convictions and orders his newspapers to defend him. The Banner’s circulation drops and the workers go on strike, but Wynand keeps printing with Dominique’s help. Eventually after the whole public opinion is against Wynand and all of his staff has left him, he gives in and denounces Roark on the suggestion of his board members. At the trial, Roark seems doomed, but he rouses the courtroom with a statement about the value of selfishness and the need to remain true to oneself. Roark describes the triumphant role of creators and the price they pay at the hands of corrupt societies. The jury finds him not guilty. Roark marries Dominique. Wynand asks Roark to design one last building, a skyscraper that will testify to the supremacy of man and states, "Build it as a monument to that spirit which is yours...and could have been mine."

The book ends quickly after that with time moved up eighteen months with the Wynand Building well on its way to completion. The last scene follows Dominique (now Mrs. Roark), entering the site and rushing to meet the now vindicated and strong Howard Roark, Architect.

Roark's Winning Speech:

..Roark got up. "Your Honor, I shall call no witnesses. This will be my testimony and my summation."

"Take the oath."

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 the bright words he could have said, but have not found, and hates those who robbed him if his courage. The misery of knowing how strong and able one is in ones own mind, the radiant picture never to be made real. Dreams? Self-delusions? Or a murdered reality, unborn, killed by that corroding emotion without name – fear – need – dependence – hatred?

Roark stood before them as each man stands in the innocence of his own mind. But Roark stood like that before a hostile crowd – and they knew suddenly that no hatred was possible to him. For the flash of an instant, they grasped the manner of his consciousness. Each asked himself: do I need anyone’s approval? – does it matter? – am I tied? – And for that instant, each man was free – free enough to feel benevolence for every other man in the room.

It was only a moment; the moment of silence when Roark was about to speak.

“Thousands of years ago, the first man discovered how to make fire. He was probably burned at the stake he had taught his brothers to light. He was considered an evil doer who had dealt with a demon mankind dreaded. But thereafter men had fire to keep them warm, to cook their food, to light their caves. He had left them a gift they had not conceived and he had lifted darkness off the earth. Centuries later, the first man invented the wheel. He was probably torn on the rack he had taught his brothers to build. He was considered a transgressor who ventured into forbidden territory. But thereafter, men could travel past any horizon. He had left them a gist they had not conceived and he had opened the roads of the world.

“That man, the unsubmissive and first, stands in the opening chapter of every legend mankind has recorded about its beginning. Prometheus was chained to a rock and torn by vultures – because he had stolen the fire from the gods. Adam was condemned to suffer – because he had eaten the fruit of the tree of knowledge. Whatever the legend, somewhere in the shadows of its memory mankind knew that its glory began with one and that that one paid for his courage.

“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 was 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. But they won.

“No creator was prompted by 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 own wok 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 of the 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 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. The 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 by only 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 is his only weapon. Animals obtain food by force. Man has no claws, nor fangs, no horns, no great strength of muscle. He must plant his food or hunt it. To plant. He needs a process of thought. To hunt, he needs weapons, and to make weapons – 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 from 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 man. We cannot digest in a collective stomach. No man can use his lungs to breath for another man. No man can use his brain to think for another. All the functions of the body and spirit are private. They cannot be shared or transferred.

“We inherit the products of the thought 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 what 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 a 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 mean 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 creators 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 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 a second-hander is to secure his ties with men in order to be fed. He places relations first. He places 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 taught very 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 in spirit? The conquered slave has a vestige pf 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 degraded the dignity of man and he degrades the conception of love. But that 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 the gifts he has not produced above the man who made the gifts possible. We praise the act of charity. We shrug the 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 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 if 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 od 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. This tied man irrevocably to other man and left him nothing but a choice of pain: his own pain borne for the sake of others or pain inflicted upon others for the sake of self. When it was added that man must find joy in self-immolation, the trap was closed. Man was forced to accept masochism as his ideal – under the threat that sadism was his only alternative. This was the greatest fraud ever perpetrated on mankind.

“This was the device by which dependence and suffering were perpetuated as fundamentals of life.

“The choice is not self-sacrifice or domination. The choice is dependence or independence. The code of the creator or the code of the second-hander. This is the basic issue. It rests upon the alternative of life or death. The code of the creator is built on the needs of the reasoning mind which allows man to survive. The code of the second-hander is built on the needs of a mind incapable of survival. All that which proceeds from man’s independent ego is good. All which that proceeds from man’s dependence upon men is evil.

“The egotist is the absolute sense is not the man who sacrifices others. He is the man who stands above the need of using others in any manner. He does not function through them. He is not concerned with them in any primary matter. Not in his aim, not in his motive, not in his thinking, not in his desires, not in the source of his energy. He does not exist for any other man – and he asks no other man to exist for him. This is the only form of brotherhood and mutual respect possible between men.

“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 a 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.

“In all proper relationships there is no sacrifice of anyone to anyone. An architect needs clients, but he does not subordinate his work to their wishes. They need him, but they do not order a house just to give him commission. Men exchange their work by free, mutual consent to mutual advantage when their personal interests agree and they both desire the exchange. If they do not desire it, they are not forced to deal with each other. They seek further. This is the only possible form of relationship between equals. Anything else is a relation of slave to master, or victim to executioner.

“No work is ever done collectively, by a majority decision. Every creative job is achieved under the guidance of a single individual thought. An architect requires a great many men to erect his building. But he does not ask them to vote on his design. They work together by free agreement and each is free in his proper function. An architect uses steel, glass, concrete, produced by others. But the materials remain just so much steel, glass and concrete until he touches them. What he does with them is his individual product and his individual property. This is the only pattern for proper co-operation among men.

“The first right on earth is the right of the ego. Man’s first duty is to himself. His moral law in never to place his prime goal within the persons of others. His moral obligation is top do what he wishes, provided his wish does not depend primarily upon other men. This includes the whole sphere of his creative faculty, his thinking, his work. But it does not include the sphere of the gangster, the altruist, the dictator.

“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.

“Rulers of men are egotists. They create nothing. They exist entirely through persons of others. Their goal is in their subjects, in the activity of enslaving. They are as dependent as the beggar, the social worker and the bandit. The form of dependence does not matter.

“But men were taught to regard second-handers – tyrants, emperors, dictators – as exponents of egotism. By this fraud they were made to destroy the ego, themselves and others. The purpose of fraud was to destroy the creators. Or to harness them. Which is a synonym.

“From the beginning of history, the two antagonists have stood face to face: the creator and the second hander. When the first creator invented the wheel, the first second-hander responded. He invented altruism.

“The creator – denied, opposed, persecuted, exploited – went on, moved forward and carried all humanity along on his energy. The second hander contributed nothing to the process except the impediments. The contest had another name: the individual against the collective.

“The ‘common good’ of a collective – a race, a class, a state – was the claim and justification of tyranny ever established over men. Every major horror in history was committed in the name pf altruistic motive. Has any act of selfishness ever equaled the carnage perpetrated by disciples of altruism? Does the fault lie in men’s hypocrisy or in the nature of the principle? The most dreadful butchers were the most sincere. They believed in perfect society reached through the guillotine and the firing squad. Nobody questioned their right to murder since they were murdering for an altruistic purpose. It was accepted that man must be sacrificed for other men. Actors change but the change, but the course of the tragedy remains the same. A humanitarian who acts with declaration of love for mankind and ends with a sea of blood. It goes on and will go on so long as men believe that the action is good and if it is unselfish. That permits the altruist to act and force his victims to bear it. The leaders of collectivist movements ask nothing from themselves. But observe the results.

“The only good which men can do to one another and the only statement of their proper relationship is – Hands off!

“Now observe the results of a society built on the principle of individualism. This, our country. The noblest country in the history of men. The country of greatest achievement, greatest prosperity, greatest freedom. This country was not based on selfless service, sacrifice, renunciation or any precept of altruism. It was based on man’s right to the pursuit of happiness. His own happiness. Not anyone else’s. A private, personal, selfish motive. Look at the results. Look into your own conscience.

“It is an ancient conflict. Men have come close to the truth, but it was destroyed each time and one civilization fell after another. Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy. The savage’s whole existence is public, ruled by the laws of his tribe. Civilization is the process of setting men free from men.

“Now, in our age, collectivism, the rule of the second-hander and the second-rater, the ancient monster, has broken loose and is running amuck. It has brought men to a level of intellectual indecency never equaled on earth. It has poisoned every mind. It has swallowed most ofEurope. It is engulfing our country.

“I am an architect. I know what is come by the principle on which it is built. We are approaching a world in which I cannot permit myself to live.

“Now you know why I dynamited Cortland.

“I designed Cortland. I gave it to you. I destroyed it.

“I destroyed it because I did not choose to let it exist. It was a double monster. In form and in implication. I had to blast both. The form was mutilated by two second-handers who assumed the right to improve upon that which they had not made and could not equal. They were permitted to do it by the general implication that the altruistic purpose of the building suspended all rights and that I had no claim to stand against it.

“I agreed to design Cortland for the purpose of seeing it erected as I designed it and for no other reason. That was the price I set for my work. I was not paid.

“I do not blame Peter Keating. He was helpless. He had a contract with his employers. It was ignored. He had a promise that the structure he offered would be built as designed. The promise was broken. The love of man for the integrity of his work and his right to preserve it are now considered a vague intangible and an unessential. You have heard the prosecutor say that. Why was the building disfigured? For no reason. Such acts never have any reason, unless it’s the vanity of some second-handers who feel they have a right to anyone’s property, spiritual or material. Who permitted them to do it? No particular man among the dozens of authority. No one cared to permit or to stop it. No one was responsible. No one can be held to account. Such is the nature of all collective action.

“I did not receive the payment I asked. But the owners of the Cortland got what they needed from me. They wanted a scheme devised to built a structure as cheaply as possible. They found no one else who could do it to their satisfaction. I could and did. They took the benefit of my work and made me contribute it as a gift. But I am not an altruist. I do not contribute gifts of this nature.

“If it is said that I have destroyed the home of the destitute. It is forgotten that but for me the destitute could not have had this particular home. Those who were concerned with the poor had to come to me, who have never been concerned, in order to help the poor. It is believed that the poverty of the future tenants gave them a right to my work. That their need constituted a claim on my life. That it was my duty to contribute anything demanded of me. This is the second-hander’s credo now swallowing the world.

“I came here to say that I do not recognize anyone’s right to one minute of my life. Nor to any part of my energy. Nor to any achievement of mine. No matter who makes the claim, how large their number or how great their need.

“I wished to come here and say that I am a man who does not exist for others.

“It had to be said. The world is perishing from an orgy of self-sacrificing.

“I wished to come here and say that the integrity of 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.

“I wished to come here and state my terms. I do not care to exist in any others.

“I recognize no obligations toward men except one: to respect their freedom and to take no part in a slave society. To my country, I wish to give the ten years which I will spend in jail if my country exists no longer. I will spend them in memory and in gratitude for what my country has been. It will be my act of loyalty, my refusal to live or work in what has taken its place.

“My act of loyalty to every creator who ever lived and was made to suffer by the force responsible for theCortland I dynamited. To every tortured hour of loneliness, denial, frustration, abuse he was made to spend – and to the battles he won. To every creator whose name is known – and to every creator who lived, struggled and perished unrecognized before he could achieve. To every creator who was destroyed in body or in spirit. To Henry Cameron, To Steven Mallory. To a man who doesn’t want to be named, but who is sitting in this courtroom and knows that I am speaking of him.”

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I like Rand's books because they force me to think and become rational. Remember that most of the lines i used in this posting came from the book itself (and the plot, thanks to wikipedia because i'm too lazy to create my own plot..haha), but i like to claim them as mine because it gave me an experience that i definitely did enjoy. Good author, that Rand.

So as an absolute non-sequitur, I encourage you to please do answer the following dNeero survey about the U.S Presidential Race. Akala mu pinoy lang gumagamit ng kapangyarihan ng showbiz personalities to win..? Yeah well, think again.. Answer the survey and gain insight.