The state capitalists who wrecked our economy look on this character and Ayn Rand as their heroes. It's contradictory, of course, but that's how the human mind works. The purpose of progressive, liberal state capitalism has been to find the middle road between the desires of the individual and the needs of society. The founding fathers started this liberal experiment with the bill of rights and then the granting of voting rights to poor white men, and we've continued on adjusting the experiment.
Obama has recently gotten rid of NASA. Doesn't anyone remember the cold war? The time period in history when the US actually fought to be the greatest country in the world. Now, were co-operating with Russia! I remember a part in the Fountainhead when Howard refused to help build a part of the world fair unless he could do it alone. Why would we co-operate in space travel if we wanted to be the strongest country and show our skills? Obama is a Toohey! and Toohey is a socialist.
@NarWiLight Well, that's kind of a touchy subject. NASA is a Government program, and as time has told us; Government programs are bad. China/Russia are planning moon missions, and NASA supposedly is falling apart. This may seem disturbing to Americans, but we actually have private companies looking into mining H3 from the moon as a form of fusion power. I would be more proud of our country if we sent a moon mission WITHOUT government funding. That's REAL progress.
In this book, he says the same of all communal activities including: Any form of Govt (including Repubs, Tea Baggers, etc..), Corporations, Labor Unions, etc...
To try to play a political game with this book is, simply put, a 2nd handers stupidity.
Obama has added more to national debt in 2 years than Bush did in 8. Public sector jobs are about to exceed private sector jobs, i.e., the people in the wagon out number those pulling the wagon. Do the math.
If you condense the contents of this speech, you will see that what it's about is personal integrity and authenticity. Obama, more than any other recent president in recent years, is all for these values. The parasites are those who steal the creations for their own benefit, which is not the government but the corporations who claim ownership of everything their employees create and give them very little in return. Also the same people who buy up and destroy everything that competes.
@N89J00X You are joking? right. You need to look at the again. In no way could it be meant the way you are taking it. Obama having integrity what a joke. The only thing authentic about is that he is a con man.
This is idiotic, in no way can you draw comparison between then and now because Obama isn't shutting down Steve Jobs or Zuckerberg for creating and innovating, if he does that then yeah we got a correlation. Obama doesn't praise mediocrity or raise up the Parasites if you will, he just wants to give men like Roarke a shot by giving them an education and the such. I mean come on...the rich shouldn't have a hold on success because only they can get educated. I love Ayn Rand & objectivism btw.
@ShadowNeverDies Excellent comment, very well put. The Fountainhead is my favourite book of all time but the way some people are interpreting it these days is worrying.
Political parties seek to get people to buy into this fiction and that, so they can sell out themselves in the name of fear. And, in this bit of fiction, is the belief that somehow Obama will nationalize EVERYTHING. The reality? Ron Paul called him a Corporatist. He happens to be one who seeks to offer a bit more egalitarianism than you get out of the GOP. He offered an old GOP plan for health care, like Mitt Romney did. And the beat goes on. But keep believing the fiction.
I think the speech explains how the top 2% got where they are. Praise mediocrity & hate greatness for the great cannot be led. I believe the message was equality in human rights over privilege won by the sacrifice of others. No one desrves to be sacrificed like the multitudes who lost their job through no fault of theirs to bail out Wall St. for sellign products they can't even explain. It is a challenge to the American people as a whole, not just to Obama.
About as concise & impactful a summation as imaginable. Somewhat akin to individualistic effort for achieving is Einstein's old quote, " It is nothing short of a miracle that modern teaching methods have not all but destroyed the delicate process of inquiry". Nifty, huh? Bucky Krum
self sacrifice = Self righteousness, avoiding objective morality and subjecting oneself to a standard based on guilt. But then again in Rand's world whats the matter, we are all just mud and electricity. There is obviously something more to us and our selves than simple turbo-charged mud. Enter the value of the creator. Interesting......
"Mr. Speaker – I will not go into an argument to prove that Congress has no power to appropriate this money as an act of charity. Every member upon this floor knows it. We have the right, as individuals, to give away as much of our own money as we please in charity; but as members of Congress we have no right so to appropriate a dollar of the public money. "
OBAMA IS CHAINING US TO THE US GOVERNMENT...sacrificing our lives, minds, money for the power of the state and his socialist thugs. When Obama nationalized GMC, and took control of unions, he became no different than Adolf Hitler who did the same thing. Obama will fail. Why? Because there is the Internet, YouTube, and too many people respect themselves as independent human beings...who know who Ayn Rand and Christopher Hitchens are. Slavery is out...freedom is in.
Roark is describing EVERYTHING the Republicans would have us do to ourselves in THEIR NAME. In the name of 'AMERICA."
This hasn't a THING to do with Obama.He's trying to UNCHAIN us from bullshit artists who would have us stand in line for soup, while they cruise around on yachts eating lobster.AT OUR EXPENSE.
Roark is describing EVERYTHING the Republicans would have us do to ourselves in THEIR NAME. In the name of 'AMERICA."
This hasn't a THING to do with Obama.He's trying to UNCHAIN us from bullshit artists who would have us stand in line for soup, while they cruise around on yachts eating lobster.AT OUR EXPENSE.
Roark is describing EVERYTHING the Republicans would have us do to ourselves in THEIR NAME. In the name of 'AMERICA."
This hasn't a THING to do with Obama.He's trying to UNCHAIN us from bullshit artists who would have us stand in line for soup, while they cruise around on yachts eating lobster.AT OUR EXPENSE.
Isn't calling yourself an "Objectivist" collectivist? This is obviously her truth, and is a subjective response of her childhood in soviet russia. If she grew up here in the U.S., the though process would be different. Everyone is a product of their environment. Should it be this way? No... but it's not worth the time or effort to think about how "everyone" should be an individual.
No one has a claim to the letter I, it's no better or worse than the rest of the alphabet.
What I find disturbing is that even those who understand her philosophy (or at least claim to) reject it, as if they were naturally disposed to wilful self-destruction.
Ellsworth Toohey to Peter Keating: "I said I intended to rule. … I shall rule." and "…just listen to any prophet and if you hear him speak of sacrifice – run. Run faster than from a plague. It stands to reason that where there’s sacrifice, there’s someone collecting sacrificial offerings. Where there’s service, there’s someone being served. The man who speaks to you of sacrifice, speaks of slaves and masters. And intends to be the master.”
One of the greatest characters ever written....the best book ever written. Obama or anyone on the "right"? They all want to control us...they just go about it in different ways...my guess is that Roark would make a case against all who want to force individuals to just be "tools". All political parties have "collective" agendas...they try and force it on us everyday. The character Roark was an individual who did not subscibe to anything but integrity...true freedom...true individualism.
@dave4248 ...exactly. Self sacrifice is about you sacrificing yourself not someone deciding for you when you sacrifice. That takes the self out of it and then that becomes communism.
In real life, buildings are 100% an expression of the building OWNERS.
Rand was a philosopher for dunces; her ideas hold together only because she presents them in contrast with a straw man. Back in the 40's and 50's it was a cry against the collectivist monsters of fascism/Nazism and communism.
America has been about the tension between individualism and collectivism, liberty and responsibility to society. Rand thought the compromise evil, yet our ability to work together is our strength
@MikeB3542 VERY well said. i think it says something that the fountainhead is usually assigned reading in high school and many smart kids fall in love with objectivism after reading it but outgrow it by their sophomore year in college. there's nothing sophisticated or worldly about rand's theory, in fact it's as if she came up with it in a vacuum. pure paper philosophy.
@MikeB3542 You are setting up a false dichotomy between individualism and "working together". Ayn Rand did not advocate the renunciation of cooperation amongst individuals. She renounced the placement of cooperation (altruism, selflessness) as a virtue. Cooperation is meant as a secondary to individual thought. It is really just one form of action after one thinks about committing to an action.
sane in places, pompous in others with some rash generalisations...if you interpret it as a call to freethinking, I'm with you, if you interpret it as a justification to exploit your fellow humans, nope.
This is intoxicating stuff... as it should be for any Free Mind that believes in Free Markets. Watching this again was my way of celebrating having finished "Atlas Shrugged" this morning... Gary Cooper at his finest... occasionally equalled ("High Noon," "Sgt. York," "Pride of the Yankees"), but never surpassed...
I don't know who would have been John Galt in a film version of "A.S." but Cooper would have been Hank Rearden, and Patricia Neal would have been a perfect Dagney Taggert.
My only real issue with Libertarianism is that it leaves God out of the picture. For example: There are only two ways for humans to have rights. Either men confer them upon each other based on groups, and thus groups of men can rescind them, or we have inalienable individual rights as Howard Roark states in this clip. If they are inalienable then they are inherent to us as humans. If they are inherent to us, then there is only one origin for them, and that is God.
@ObiWanBillKenobi The burden of proof rests on the one who makes an extraordinary claim. In saying that the concept of individual rights has only ONE possible origin [God], you have made an unproved assertion.
These rights are necessary to each man's survival qua Man; they are NATURAL rights, and "alienating" them from any individual will jeopardize his survival. Whether man was "created" by a god or by a process of evolution is irrelevant here. You're letting a non-issue get in your way
@ObiWanBillKenobi Libertarianism doesn't leave God out. There are many Libertarians who believe in God. Perhaps Objectivism is what you are refering to.
However, you may be correct about Libertarians not venerating an angry jealous god that demands a blood sacrifice in order to secure redemption. That's not the god I believe in.
Would this be the God that permitted the practice of slavery in the old testament that is the origin of our bodily freedom? The God that commanded that those who worship other gods be put to death the origin of religious freedom? The God who sends his son to earth to one day be worshiped as King to which "every knee shall bow" the origin of gov't "by the people, of the people, and for the people"?
Gods don't make the human rights inalienable, they make them very alienable.
To illustrate this further, on an airline adults are instructed to put their oxygen mask on FIRST, then to assist kids. SELFISH?....NO! How can you assist others if you can't breath yourself. If someone is greedy, don't interact with them either socially or financially. They will fade away. If they they attempt force, you have a right to defend yourself. Thanks for reading :-)
I read the Fountainhead many years ago. This is the first time I've seen a movie clip of Roark's speech, and it is coming out of Gary Cooper's mouth no less. I loved the book, but I have to say this was not an Oscar moment for Gary Cooper, nor any of them.
@Jkarabella That's why i said that I'm not an Objectivist. I just agree with a lot of what the speech is saying. I don't know Nietzsche's views, so i can't comment on how they are similar or different from the speech in the clip
@snuke37 Ah yes, because you say logic sides with you it must be so. You don't know what logic does or doesn't back you up, but someone told you it's logical and perfect so it must be.
@Jkarabella You biggest flaw is that you assume. You assumed I was an objectivist, first. Now you assume I am being told by someone what is or is not logical.
It's clear you just hate Rand, or objectivists. And so you make an unsubstantiated leap suggesting both are members of "cults." Either way, the flaws in your reasoning are quite clear for all to see.
@snuke37 If you consider Rand's list of virtues to be objective and indisputable virtues then you are, for all intents and purposes an Objectivists. If you do not, then you are a liar. Take whichever you prefer.
Rand is dead, but she is the founder of the cult of people who dogmatically follow her Objectivist philosophy due to it's convincing sales pitch. It's standard cult operating procedure: Promise happiness at the price of complete conformity to beliefs.
@Jkarabella Any person with half a brain can see how idiotic your cult comparison is to those who believe in the same things as Rand. It's a nice try by you in your attempt to marginalize objectivists, but ultimately very sad.
@Jkarabella Your biggest flaw is that you assume. You assumed I was an objectivist, first. Now you assume I am being told by someone what is or is not logical.
It's clear you just hate Rand, or objectivists. And so you make an unsubstantiated leap suggesting both are members of "cults." Either way, the flaws in your reasoning are quite clear for all to see.
Ellsworth Toohey looks like Jack Layton. For you Americans ... Jack Layton is the buffoonish leader of Canada's leftwing NDP (New Democratic Party) Coincidence? I say buffoonish because while quite likable ... Layton can say anything he wants because he'll never be elected to lead much of anything.
Rand would clearly be against Obama. Rand was quite fond of Presidents like Cleveland, Coolidge and Jefferson, but was not too fond of a comedian like Reagan.
I have to point out that I think that Rand also would not approve of Obama because of race. She would turn that into an argument of background culture Obama playing basketball, eating out at McDonalds, body language and black accent, but that's what race essentially is, a cultural phenomena, so Rand was not a racist but a general bigot.
Stupid comment, Rand was not a racist and there is nothing in her philosophy that is racist, on the contrary she is less racist than those who pretend to serve society.
you must be one of those uppity people who thinks everything is about race.. Pull your head out of the vortex to the 50's called your ass and look around.
...not just race alone. It is like an analogy of what Lenin said: "Look for the person who will benefit", I say: Look if race could be a factor, for almost all social things where races mix, this is an issue.
"Pull your head out of the vortex to the 50's called your ass and look around"
Dude, we are a long way from being in a racially equalized society: Until then I won't shut up and be silenced.
John Galt was the son of a gas station attendant in Ohio and left home when he was 12. So I don't think she would judge people based on background as she knew extraordinary people can come from the most obscure backgrounds. Rand would not approve of Obama though because of his collectivist language and agenda.
@hyperseauton You are saying that playing basketball is something inherently african-american, and you call RAND a racist? Race is not a 'cultural phenomena'. Race is nothing more than small variations in appearance, such as skin color. To say that race is about culture is VERY racist. You ought to read one of Rands articles simply called 'racism', where she says that racism is the most disgusting form of collectivism.
Apparently hyperseauton was too cowardous to have his response to my comment left on youtube, so I have to reply on my own comment. He told a racist joke and then wrote 'f*** off, wigga!' He really shows what kind of people objectivists have to deal with all the time. While I try to argue for my views of moral, people reply with swear words and say that I am 'pure evil'. The worst part is that this doesn't only apply to youtubers; people who aren't anonymous does the same thing. Grow up!
"The world is perishing from an orgy of Self Sacrificing".
I thought that was the best quote also. It sums up and links the fact that humans never become more important or different than they were years ago as human beings. We still are vulnerable to the same human weakness' and attitudes each and every generation. I feel like we think that we become smarter and more important than we ever were so therefore we are no longer succeptable to slippery slope type beliefs.
@rlf1967 It depends wre is the greed, if the greed is on productive people for productive ends, then it is a good thing, if greed is in the hand of the political means of beouracrats and politicians, they can only obtain their reward throug force and coercion. You see, greed is not the real culprit here.
Martintfre - you wrote to me: "allHailDiscord..good title to identify a muck of contradictions."
It's AllHailDiscordia as in welcoming chaos and the unexpected. When I read your comment I thought of what Walt Whitman wrote: "I am large, I contain multitudes"
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They should remake this - Roark works for Donald Trump. Trump has his great big tower redesigned... Roark blows the tower up as it's packed with the glitterati... Imagine the howls of outrage... Aaah..Oooohh!
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Years ago I wrote a couple of novels and I figured that since they are full of funny speeches that are nothing like real life that they had no chance commercially (though the intention is that they be funny)... they are also of a political - social nature...Ayn Rand, you give me new hope of a career as a writer!
Humans are this world's most noble creature. Selfishness is about taking care of yourself first so that you can best take care of your family & society. Do you give to charity? Why? Because it makes you feel good. Right? This is selfish.
I have a son from whom I receive the utmost in joy. This is selfish. My job as a parent is to raise this boy to be the most noble person of true compassion, who understands that love is a virtue measured by the noblest virtues you have developed for yourself.
I not only have read The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, but I actually understood them. The message of the Fountainhead to me was: collaboration can kill creativity and dilute integrity.
The message of Atlas Shrugged was defining yourself by your needs is inconsequential. No one cares about your needs if that all you use to identify yourself. Trade me your talents for mine - that means more to me than "you owe me because my need is greater than yours".
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Howard Roark nor John Galt are anti Obama. read their drive, purity and focus while opposed by small meaningless peasants. Obama stands with other great Americans balancing between the common people and their needs and his vision of what we can be.
is that Edward Roark a finctional character from that film or he exhisted in reality? A lot of architecture we see in that movie through Cooper's character makes me think a lot about Frank Lloyd Wright.
Self sacrifice is merely a symptom of compassion. By preaching against self sacrifice she preaches against compassion. Let us be clear here, Justice is the issue. No objective principled understanding of justice will ever preserve justice. What is the point of drawing up principles to guide society when we know that our moral weakness will prevent us from keeping them ? Only compassion can guard us against doing evil to our fellow man. Rand meant well, she just didn't think it through.
Moral weakness, bah. Look how far civilisation has come already just from individuals acting on their own self-interest. Hell, Darwin showed that our species even developed on this sole principle.
Rand didn't necessarily rule out self-sacrifice -- she merely preached against masochistically placing it above self-interest. If it's in your legitimate self-interest to make a sacrifice, you should. Compassion's a fine thing, but if it's used to dictate social organisation it will undermine itself.
WE progress through life with the morality of reason, we give to those who have earned it, and we abolish those, like you, who take from us what you do not deserve. When we give up our individual freedoms for the benefit of others, we become enslaved to those which we benefit. In your futile atempt to please everyone you have become the architect of your own demise. WE will move forward, while you, will be left behind.
"Rand didn't think it through", but thankfully, beserker5 did. Rand stated that altruism was to take something of value and sacrifice it to something of lesser, or no value, through compulsion or force. She did not speak against compassion. I can have compassion for others without sacrificing myself for them.
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man if i ever had to shit down and watch this shit i'd fall asleep. too much fuck dialogue. all thse dipshits in classical movies talk exactly the same. however, i WOULD read this shit though.
I wish there was an objectivist party. It seems to me that republicans are in line with Rand on economic issues but not on social ones and vice a versa with Democrats. i.e. abortion and gay marriage. (Gov't shouldn't restrict anyone's freedoms) or taxes and bailouts (Gov't shouldn't reward incompetence or take more from the producers) Obviously, the closest candidate to Rand has been Ron Paul.
Republicans aren't in line with Rand economically: Bush was big government. After becoming the first pres. to submit a one trillion dollar budget to Congress, he became the first to submit a TWO billion dollar budget.
Well, I mean, theoretically Republicans should be in line with Rand Economically. i.e. "conservative" small gov't. Bush proves that you can't have your cake and eat it too. You can't have big gov't and try to lower taxes. Libertarians do have some interesting ideas but I think pure conservatism (before bush) is more in line with my views.
I agree with what you're saying. Obviously, me thinks at least, you've read Rands "Capitalism". . .Rand said herself that Capitalists are NOT in the pursuit of conservatism.
The first engine that was created was created first in someone's mind and only after that became real. The same is true for heavy elements. They were first hypothesized to exist and then synthesized. You essentially purport that thinking is only repurposing, but it is also extrapolating. And, *I* (personally) can imagine infinity (the abstract mathematical notion). But infinity isn't real. Your argument has a simple logical fallacy.
I didn't point out the obvious AS MUCH AS I pointed out that you were ignoring the obvious.
> Infinity is real, there is no end of numbers.
Lol, numbers are not real. There is not such thing as "2". There is 2 chairs or 2 people or 2 of whatever. The commonly that we attribute to them is a product of our perception. We identify things as being of equal weight,measure, etc if they measure up equally against a preconceived standard.
Numbers are very real and are verifiable analytically. They have the same cognitive content as any a priori concept.
Your logic would not allow the use of language as the word 'Horse', i.e that arrangement of letters, does not exist within the genes of a horse. But we have established a concept of horse e.g 4 legs, hooves, mammalian etc. which we then use to label it. But the term 'Horse' exists even if there were no horses. Just like '2' exists even though there isnt one sitting in my lounge.
I didn't say I didn't allow for a priori knowledge. I simply tried to imply that it must be carefully taken as such. An arrangement that doesn't exist in reality before we put it together (after having "thought it up") isn't real until the moment it's put together. That was the point of the argument. Numbers are abstractions. So are all symbols we use to communicate -- they are based on emphasizing one particular aspect while ignoring all others (which is what an abstraction is).
But a "horse" exists only because there is an example of a "horse". There is no example of a "two". Numbers are abstract notions of equivalence. We know what 2 chairs are only because we can match them with any 2 other objects. It is this equivalence between ALL twos that defines the number 2. It's a product of our way of thinking of objects and not of the way nature does things. We use abstractions to organize data. And this matching (comparing to a standard) is how we came up with numbers.
Judging from your examples of what is "real", I am beginning to think that you simply confuse "real" with "true". They are similar, but not identically equivalent.
This is false logic. Palpable speaks to the ability of our senses to perceive. I am sure there are many things existing beyond the ability of our senses to detect them. Take solar radiation for example. We could not detect it, that is it was not palpable to us, until we developed the proper technology. Therefore it was real but not palpable for a very long time.
Look up "a priory" vs "a posteriori". All I was trying to say was that anything known a posteriori is real. And anything known a priori is not real (even though it might be true).
An interesting idea but I still have to disagree. What do you say to the idea that nature can count. Plants and foods having precisely numbered sections. The plant outside my window were every bloom has precisely 4 leaves. Why not 3 or 5 ? The plant has no brain yet it recognizes a number evidenced by the fact, it does so repeatedly. This I think challenges your claim that numbers are merely a product of human perception.
I love the individualistic fervor of his speech and believe much of it though I do struggle with the last part. "A man's right to exist for his own sake." How can a man have a right to his own existence when he can not create himself ? A man has a claim to his work, but we can not make ourselves. Others make us and we make others.
You need to spend more time thinking this through. The true nature of man is to be free. Without freedom, man cannot create anything, least of all himself. When a baby is born, he belongs to himself, even though he needs his parents for his physical survival, without freedom, he cannot survive emotionally.
"You need to spend more time thinking this through". Ditto.
Freedom, alone, is insufficient to express mans' nature. Man seeks out togetherness. Our existence and desire for justice are evidence of this.
Man can not create anything. At best he can merely re-associate and reassemble what is before him. For example it is impossible to imagine something which does not exist.
The true nature of mankind is to exist and prosper. Freedom is the many ways we strive to obey this command.
The logical fallacy of your argument is that set of finite combinations of elements of any set (call it S) is *provably* larger than the set S itself. This is even true when the set S is infinite.
She was not an anarchist in any sense. In "Atlas Shrugged," in the chapter "This is John Galt Speaking," she sets forth exactly the proper functions of government: to defend individual rights by fielding a military to defend from external force, police to defend from internal force, and a court system to defend from force by fraud and to settle disputes between individuals. That is nothing remotely like anarchy. You should read more before you expound.
I don't view the "nightwatcher state" as essential to Rands political philosophy, but rather as a necessary evil in her idealized state. What she cared most for was the individual: his/her unhindered freedom to create, produce and exchange within a free market. She strongly opposes an authorital state, that in any way controls its citizens or the economical exchanges made between them.
This view, I'd say is very much like that of early anarchists such as Proudhon and Goodwin.
Ayn Rand said that charity and benevolence is not what she goes against, but the altruism that asks for the sacrifice of yourself. Respect each and every man as an individual. The only true way to "help" them, is to let them help themselves. Give each man the respect that they can do without your help; that they do not have the weakness to need your help and thus they will be able to blossom on their own. This is objectivism: no compromise of integrity for the sake of a "collective" bargain.
Ah, the wrong way person strikes again. The USA is the only country that bombs those who disagree with its policies, etc. In regard to your previous comment, true "free" market economy is impossible. However, a pseudo-free market economy is quite possible and, in fact, rather prevalent. You really should do more research before mouthing off like that.
You have no idea what you are saying. As a matter of fact, you have no idea how a society works. You seem to think this ideology works. A society can survive that does not work together. Life is a collective thing. A single life cannot survive without the help of others. Anyone who tells you different is completely out of touch with the world.
The argument that socialism does not work is a fact. Tell me one instance that a socialist country has, by itself, bee nothing but a failure? While you are at it tell me one Fascist country such as Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia that has not evolved from socialism?
While you are at it tell me why there has never been a war between two free-market democracies? You can't.
So who is valid? Ayn Rand who is trying to warn us against socialism which almost always evolves into a fascist state?
The perfect lines for Obama/Nancy Pelosi/Hillary Clinton's TRUE thoughts towards their fans....
"You've heard me preaching it for YEARS, but you didn't have the whits to know what you were hearing."
"Great men can't be ruled--why did I preach [the Fairness Doctrine]? If you kill a man's sense of personal value, he'll submit. Can you do that to [the fans of Rush Limbaugh]? NO? Than don't ask me why I want to destroy him!"
I still say Rand is a crackpot and mediocre author. And "The Fountainhead" has nothing to do with making a case against President Obama or Mother Goose even.
Obama shouldn't be president because he is opposed to life, liberty, and prosperity. His policies say man has no right to exist (abortion), no right to the proceeds of his labor (high taxes,
Love this man.
SculptedThoughts 1 month ago
The state capitalists who wrecked our economy look on this character and Ayn Rand as their heroes. It's contradictory, of course, but that's how the human mind works. The purpose of progressive, liberal state capitalism has been to find the middle road between the desires of the individual and the needs of society. The founding fathers started this liberal experiment with the bill of rights and then the granting of voting rights to poor white men, and we've continued on adjusting the experiment.
TheForwardGaze 2 months ago
man that was a shitty film.
angrydead 2 months ago
Gary Cooper's finest hour as an artist.
ts53shea 2 months ago
Thats supposed to be Wynand? Not even close.
apnwahoowa 3 months ago
Obama has recently gotten rid of NASA. Doesn't anyone remember the cold war? The time period in history when the US actually fought to be the greatest country in the world. Now, were co-operating with Russia! I remember a part in the Fountainhead when Howard refused to help build a part of the world fair unless he could do it alone. Why would we co-operate in space travel if we wanted to be the strongest country and show our skills? Obama is a Toohey! and Toohey is a socialist.
NarWiLight 5 months ago
@NarWiLight Well, that's kind of a touchy subject. NASA is a Government program, and as time has told us; Government programs are bad. China/Russia are planning moon missions, and NASA supposedly is falling apart. This may seem disturbing to Americans, but we actually have private companies looking into mining H3 from the moon as a form of fusion power. I would be more proud of our country if we sent a moon mission WITHOUT government funding. That's REAL progress.
TumisHumis 5 months ago 7
haha, I am reading "I Am John Galt" Toohey is Paul Krugman very appropriate.
teknowil 6 months ago
If we do a Part 2 to The Fountain Head..Should we make it current or should we follow Rands Template and set it at a Generic time and place?
Kris
nbyachtclub 8 months ago
Perhaps Pbama saw Toohey and said "yes! That's me!".
freezzertime 9 months ago
In this book, he says the same of all communal activities including: Any form of Govt (including Repubs, Tea Baggers, etc..), Corporations, Labor Unions, etc...
To try to play a political game with this book is, simply put, a 2nd handers stupidity.
Mephazel 9 months ago
Obama has added more to national debt in 2 years than Bush did in 8. Public sector jobs are about to exceed private sector jobs, i.e., the people in the wagon out number those pulling the wagon. Do the math.
757optim 9 months ago 8
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So obviously true, but this is not about Obama, this is about our Rupert Murdock!!
DAVIDSILVERCA 9 months ago
So obviously true, but this is not about Obama, this is about our Rupert Merdock!!
DAVIDSILVERCA 9 months ago
You're about 10 years late with all the concern about the president being out of integrity. Wrong president!
N89J00X 9 months ago
If you condense the contents of this speech, you will see that what it's about is personal integrity and authenticity. Obama, more than any other recent president in recent years, is all for these values. The parasites are those who steal the creations for their own benefit, which is not the government but the corporations who claim ownership of everything their employees create and give them very little in return. Also the same people who buy up and destroy everything that competes.
N89J00X 9 months ago
@N89J00X You are joking? right. You need to look at the again. In no way could it be meant the way you are taking it. Obama having integrity what a joke. The only thing authentic about is that he is a con man.
5nickeldoor5 9 months ago 4
This is idiotic, in no way can you draw comparison between then and now because Obama isn't shutting down Steve Jobs or Zuckerberg for creating and innovating, if he does that then yeah we got a correlation. Obama doesn't praise mediocrity or raise up the Parasites if you will, he just wants to give men like Roarke a shot by giving them an education and the such. I mean come on...the rich shouldn't have a hold on success because only they can get educated. I love Ayn Rand & objectivism btw.
ShadowNeverDies 9 months ago
@ShadowNeverDies Excellent comment, very well put. The Fountainhead is my favourite book of all time but the way some people are interpreting it these days is worrying.
Buffoon1980 7 months ago
Political parties seek to get people to buy into this fiction and that, so they can sell out themselves in the name of fear. And, in this bit of fiction, is the belief that somehow Obama will nationalize EVERYTHING. The reality? Ron Paul called him a Corporatist. He happens to be one who seeks to offer a bit more egalitarianism than you get out of the GOP. He offered an old GOP plan for health care, like Mitt Romney did. And the beat goes on. But keep believing the fiction.
richardhutnik 9 months ago
I think the speech explains how the top 2% got where they are. Praise mediocrity & hate greatness for the great cannot be led. I believe the message was equality in human rights over privilege won by the sacrifice of others. No one desrves to be sacrificed like the multitudes who lost their job through no fault of theirs to bail out Wall St. for sellign products they can't even explain. It is a challenge to the American people as a whole, not just to Obama.
bumiputrax 9 months ago 2
About as concise & impactful a summation as imaginable. Somewhat akin to individualistic effort for achieving is Einstein's old quote, " It is nothing short of a miracle that modern teaching methods have not all but destroyed the delicate process of inquiry". Nifty, huh? Bucky Krum
tomyach 9 months ago
self sacrifice = Self righteousness, avoiding objective morality and subjecting oneself to a standard based on guilt. But then again in Rand's world whats the matter, we are all just mud and electricity. There is obviously something more to us and our selves than simple turbo-charged mud. Enter the value of the creator. Interesting......
theomegawerty 9 months ago
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Americans once knew better. But no longer.
"Mr. Speaker – I will not go into an argument to prove that Congress has no power to appropriate this money as an act of charity. Every member upon this floor knows it. We have the right, as individuals, to give away as much of our own money as we please in charity; but as members of Congress we have no right so to appropriate a dollar of the public money. "
-- Congressman David "Davey" Crockett
thechinadesk 10 months ago
OBAMA IS CHAINING US TO THE US GOVERNMENT...sacrificing our lives, minds, money for the power of the state and his socialist thugs. When Obama nationalized GMC, and took control of unions, he became no different than Adolf Hitler who did the same thing. Obama will fail. Why? Because there is the Internet, YouTube, and too many people respect themselves as independent human beings...who know who Ayn Rand and Christopher Hitchens are. Slavery is out...freedom is in.
dvwxxx 10 months ago
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Not even CLOSE.
Roark is describing EVERYTHING the Republicans would have us do to ourselves in THEIR NAME. In the name of 'AMERICA."
This hasn't a THING to do with Obama.He's trying to UNCHAIN us from bullshit artists who would have us stand in line for soup, while they cruise around on yachts eating lobster.AT OUR EXPENSE.
Snap out of it.
everready59 10 months ago
This has been flagged as spam show
Not even CLOSE.
Roark is describing EVERYTHING the Republicans would have us do to ourselves in THEIR NAME. In the name of 'AMERICA."
This hasn't a THING to do with Obama.He's trying to UNCHAIN us from bullshit artists who would have us stand in line for soup, while they cruise around on yachts eating lobster.AT OUR EXPENSE.
Snap out of it
everready59 10 months ago
Not even CLOSE.
Roark is describing EVERYTHING the Republicans would have us do to ourselves in THEIR NAME. In the name of 'AMERICA."
This hasn't a THING to do with Obama.He's trying to UNCHAIN us from bullshit artists who would have us stand in line for soup, while they cruise around on yachts eating lobster.AT OUR EXPENSE.
Snap out of it.
everready59 10 months ago
Isn't calling yourself an "Objectivist" collectivist? This is obviously her truth, and is a subjective response of her childhood in soviet russia. If she grew up here in the U.S., the though process would be different. Everyone is a product of their environment. Should it be this way? No... but it's not worth the time or effort to think about how "everyone" should be an individual.
No one has a claim to the letter I, it's no better or worse than the rest of the alphabet.
quidnick 10 months ago
@quidnick Yes, well your environment definitely affects you, but an adherence or hatred of it is not necessarily always the by-product.
machineswhatbanghtem 10 months ago
@quidnick That's the lamest attempt at trying to sound smart I've seen in a while. I wish I had video that I had recorded of you saying that.
Do I own "I" now?
michaelchull 10 months ago
What I find disturbing is that even those who understand her philosophy (or at least claim to) reject it, as if they were naturally disposed to wilful self-destruction.
forgottenbooks 11 months ago
I am reminded of a current parasite that copies and lives off the accomplishments of others - China. There ways are evil, and must be opposed.
dgdeckard 11 months ago
Ellsworth Toohey to Peter Keating: "I said I intended to rule. … I shall rule." and "…just listen to any prophet and if you hear him speak of sacrifice – run. Run faster than from a plague. It stands to reason that where there’s sacrifice, there’s someone collecting sacrificial offerings. Where there’s service, there’s someone being served. The man who speaks to you of sacrifice, speaks of slaves and masters. And intends to be the master.”
jeffpblues 11 months ago 3
This is utter bullshit. The speech at the beginning is so poorly written I can't even begin to mock it.
SmashHits000 1 year ago
What does this have to do with Obama?
joshuancts 1 year ago 4
@joshuancts The Teabaggers are involved in an Ayn rand circle jerk at the moment.
angrydead 1 year ago
@angrydead : while taking social security and Medicare and unemployment. As they protest others taking "gummint money".
mowriter 1 year ago
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mitchie124 1 year ago
@joshuancts learn how to analyze and make connections. judging from your profile, that's something you don't have the ability to do.
510shredder 11 months ago
this is not a case against obama. is a an objection to group think. the perverted politics of division and destruction.
novmoonchile 1 year ago
@novmoonchile
in other words it's a case against obama and everyone like him
Kuner1 1 year ago
secret society stuff hidden in plain view
wunnybabbit 1 year ago
One of the greatest characters ever written....the best book ever written. Obama or anyone on the "right"? They all want to control us...they just go about it in different ways...my guess is that Roark would make a case against all who want to force individuals to just be "tools". All political parties have "collective" agendas...they try and force it on us everyday. The character Roark was an individual who did not subscibe to anything but integrity...true freedom...true individualism.
gfrucci 1 year ago 2
Self sacrifce is a great thing...........provided it's COMPLETELY voluntary. We've forgotten the words of Robert Goodloe Harper
"Millions for charity, but not one penney for tribute."
dave4248 1 year ago 2
@dave4248 ...exactly. Self sacrifice is about you sacrificing yourself not someone deciding for you when you sacrifice. That takes the self out of it and then that becomes communism.
weaponx1969 1 year ago
I would replace "Barack Obama" with "statism," but the clip is still good. It speaks for itself.
BlueCarp 1 year ago 3
In real life, buildings are 100% an expression of the building OWNERS.
Rand was a philosopher for dunces; her ideas hold together only because she presents them in contrast with a straw man. Back in the 40's and 50's it was a cry against the collectivist monsters of fascism/Nazism and communism.
America has been about the tension between individualism and collectivism, liberty and responsibility to society. Rand thought the compromise evil, yet our ability to work together is our strength
MikeB3542 1 year ago
@MikeB3542 VERY well said. i think it says something that the fountainhead is usually assigned reading in high school and many smart kids fall in love with objectivism after reading it but outgrow it by their sophomore year in college. there's nothing sophisticated or worldly about rand's theory, in fact it's as if she came up with it in a vacuum. pure paper philosophy.
WikeddTung 1 year ago
@MikeB3542 You are setting up a false dichotomy between individualism and "working together". Ayn Rand did not advocate the renunciation of cooperation amongst individuals. She renounced the placement of cooperation (altruism, selflessness) as a virtue. Cooperation is meant as a secondary to individual thought. It is really just one form of action after one thinks about committing to an action.
AlexanderEBott 1 year ago
Liberty, or Death. For without freedom, no life! There are no Rights but individual Rights, and no one else to have them.
JaysThoughts 1 year ago
sane in places, pompous in others with some rash generalisations...if you interpret it as a call to freethinking, I'm with you, if you interpret it as a justification to exploit your fellow humans, nope.
Tostig68 1 year ago
This is intoxicating stuff... as it should be for any Free Mind that believes in Free Markets. Watching this again was my way of celebrating having finished "Atlas Shrugged" this morning... Gary Cooper at his finest... occasionally equalled ("High Noon," "Sgt. York," "Pride of the Yankees"), but never surpassed...
I don't know who would have been John Galt in a film version of "A.S." but Cooper would have been Hank Rearden, and Patricia Neal would have been a perfect Dagney Taggert.
tuxguys 1 year ago
My only real issue with Libertarianism is that it leaves God out of the picture. For example: There are only two ways for humans to have rights. Either men confer them upon each other based on groups, and thus groups of men can rescind them, or we have inalienable individual rights as Howard Roark states in this clip. If they are inalienable then they are inherent to us as humans. If they are inherent to us, then there is only one origin for them, and that is God.
ObiWanBillKenobi 1 year ago
@ObiWanBillKenobi The burden of proof rests on the one who makes an extraordinary claim. In saying that the concept of individual rights has only ONE possible origin [God], you have made an unproved assertion.
These rights are necessary to each man's survival qua Man; they are NATURAL rights, and "alienating" them from any individual will jeopardize his survival. Whether man was "created" by a god or by a process of evolution is irrelevant here. You're letting a non-issue get in your way
xalambalax 1 year ago
@ObiWanBillKenobi Libertarianism doesn't leave God out. There are many Libertarians who believe in God. Perhaps Objectivism is what you are refering to.
However, you may be correct about Libertarians not venerating an angry jealous god that demands a blood sacrifice in order to secure redemption. That's not the god I believe in.
josephonwhidbey 1 year ago
@ObiWanBillKenobi
Would this be the God that permitted the practice of slavery in the old testament that is the origin of our bodily freedom? The God that commanded that those who worship other gods be put to death the origin of religious freedom? The God who sends his son to earth to one day be worshiped as King to which "every knee shall bow" the origin of gov't "by the people, of the people, and for the people"?
Gods don't make the human rights inalienable, they make them very alienable.
ShadowPa1adin 1 year ago
To illustrate this further, on an airline adults are instructed to put their oxygen mask on FIRST, then to assist kids. SELFISH?....NO! How can you assist others if you can't breath yourself. If someone is greedy, don't interact with them either socially or financially. They will fade away. If they they attempt force, you have a right to defend yourself. Thanks for reading :-)
wyatt92562 1 year ago
What original film is this from?
burntbit 1 year ago
@burntbit
The Fountainhead (book by ayn rand)
KardinalKrampus 1 year ago
I keep coming bak to this, its so inspirational when the world around me is conforming, to values they can't even comprehend
Earthlad 1 year ago 2
I read the Fountainhead many years ago. This is the first time I've seen a movie clip of Roark's speech, and it is coming out of Gary Cooper's mouth no less. I loved the book, but I have to say this was not an Oscar moment for Gary Cooper, nor any of them.
Now, where the Hell is Toohey's speech?
FierceGuppy 1 year ago
If nothing, this video is an awesome display of why Objectivists are hilarious.
If they lived up Ayn Rand's virtues, they wouldn't confirm to her virtues.
Jkarabella 1 year ago
Hmmmm. I am not an Objectivist, but the speech that starts at 03:35 is pretty good. I don't think it is hilarious.
engine2truck6 1 year ago
Objectivism, like most philosophies, makes good points on some topics but doesn't provide a complete solution and tends to fall into fallacy.
Example: If you can't trust anyone's ideas other than your own then you can't trust Ayn Rand's, so you can't call yourself an Objectivist.
Personally I preferred Nietzsche's views, but it's got it's problems too.
Jkarabella 1 year ago
@Jkarabella That's why i said that I'm not an Objectivist. I just agree with a lot of what the speech is saying. I don't know Nietzsche's views, so i can't comment on how they are similar or different from the speech in the clip
engine2truck6 1 year ago
@Jkarabella Um, no. First, they aren't "her" virtues. They are virtues. Conformity has nothing to do with it.
Nice try.
snuke37 1 year ago
@snuke37 Thanks. I lol'd and briefly considered correcting you, but then I remember it'd pointless to argue with a cult.
Jkarabella 1 year ago
@Jkarabella Yes, because all individuals that think logically must be part of a cult. Well done.
snuke37 1 year ago
@snuke37 Ah yes, because you say logic sides with you it must be so. You don't know what logic does or doesn't back you up, but someone told you it's logical and perfect so it must be.
This is why I don't argue with cults.
Jkarabella 1 year ago
@Jkarabella You biggest flaw is that you assume. You assumed I was an objectivist, first. Now you assume I am being told by someone what is or is not logical.
It's clear you just hate Rand, or objectivists. And so you make an unsubstantiated leap suggesting both are members of "cults." Either way, the flaws in your reasoning are quite clear for all to see.
snuke37 1 year ago
@snuke37 If you consider Rand's list of virtues to be objective and indisputable virtues then you are, for all intents and purposes an Objectivists. If you do not, then you are a liar. Take whichever you prefer.
Rand is dead, but she is the founder of the cult of people who dogmatically follow her Objectivist philosophy due to it's convincing sales pitch. It's standard cult operating procedure: Promise happiness at the price of complete conformity to beliefs.
Jkarabella 1 year ago
@Jkarabella Any person with half a brain can see how idiotic your cult comparison is to those who believe in the same things as Rand. It's a nice try by you in your attempt to marginalize objectivists, but ultimately very sad.
snuke37 1 year ago
@snuke37 Of course, you say it's true. It must be, you need not supply your reasoning.
Jkarabella 1 year ago
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@Jkarabella Your biggest flaw is that you assume. You assumed I was an objectivist, first. Now you assume I am being told by someone what is or is not logical.
It's clear you just hate Rand, or objectivists. And so you make an unsubstantiated leap suggesting both are members of "cults." Either way, the flaws in your reasoning are quite clear for all to see.
snuke37 1 year ago
WHY MUST WE BICKER OVER THIS VIDEO?
MrGentlemanly 1 year ago
Ellsworth Toohey looks like Jack Layton. For you Americans ... Jack Layton is the buffoonish leader of Canada's leftwing NDP (New Democratic Party) Coincidence? I say buffoonish because while quite likable ... Layton can say anything he wants because he'll never be elected to lead much of anything.
ZELIG500 2 years ago
Rand would clearly be against Obama. Rand was quite fond of Presidents like Cleveland, Coolidge and Jefferson, but was not too fond of a comedian like Reagan.
I have to point out that I think that Rand also would not approve of Obama because of race. She would turn that into an argument of background culture Obama playing basketball, eating out at McDonalds, body language and black accent, but that's what race essentially is, a cultural phenomena, so Rand was not a racist but a general bigot.
hyperseauton 2 years ago
Stupid comment, Rand was not a racist and there is nothing in her philosophy that is racist, on the contrary she is less racist than those who pretend to serve society.
f252863 2 years ago
as I said: Rand was intelligent enough to hide her true motivations.
Seen the black conservative special on Glenn Beck? watch?v=R2Ne9t6tsXo
There is no racist derogatory language thrown around, then again the implicit message is very racist indeed.
I am sure Rand would have been able to play semantics games so no one could call her out on it.
hyperseauton 2 years ago
you must be one of those uppity people who thinks everything is about race.. Pull your head out of the vortex to the 50's called your ass and look around.
daPlumber702 2 years ago
...not just race alone. It is like an analogy of what Lenin said: "Look for the person who will benefit", I say: Look if race could be a factor, for almost all social things where races mix, this is an issue.
"Pull your head out of the vortex to the 50's called your ass and look around"
Dude, we are a long way from being in a racially equalized society: Until then I won't shut up and be silenced.
hyperseauton 2 years ago
"Dude, we are a long way from being in a racially equalized society..."
And until you and those like you learn to just shut the hell up we never will be.
daPlumber702 2 years ago 2
@hyperseauton Now you're just being contrary. All things conservative, be they black, white or green, are racist.
Riiiight.
wrlord 1 year ago
John Galt was the son of a gas station attendant in Ohio and left home when he was 12. So I don't think she would judge people based on background as she knew extraordinary people can come from the most obscure backgrounds. Rand would not approve of Obama though because of his collectivist language and agenda.
JCJ77 2 years ago 2
the flaw in your logic is stupifying -.-
ObjectivstK 2 years ago
@hyperseauton You are saying that playing basketball is something inherently african-american, and you call RAND a racist? Race is not a 'cultural phenomena'. Race is nothing more than small variations in appearance, such as skin color. To say that race is about culture is VERY racist. You ought to read one of Rands articles simply called 'racism', where she says that racism is the most disgusting form of collectivism.
Eikus89 2 years ago
Comment removed
hyperseauton 2 years ago
Apparently hyperseauton was too cowardous to have his response to my comment left on youtube, so I have to reply on my own comment. He told a racist joke and then wrote 'f*** off, wigga!' He really shows what kind of people objectivists have to deal with all the time. While I try to argue for my views of moral, people reply with swear words and say that I am 'pure evil'. The worst part is that this doesn't only apply to youtubers; people who aren't anonymous does the same thing. Grow up!
Eikus89 2 years ago
"The World is perishing from an orgy of self-sacrificing..." what a timeless quote
"one half works for a living, the other half votes for a living" ----de Toqueville
timthecop 2 years ago 28
"The world is perishing from an orgy of Self Sacrificing".
I thought that was the best quote also. It sums up and links the fact that humans never become more important or different than they were years ago as human beings. We still are vulnerable to the same human weakness' and attitudes each and every generation. I feel like we think that we become smarter and more important than we ever were so therefore we are no longer succeptable to slippery slope type beliefs.
roofer10 2 years ago 3
@timthecop wronmg the world is perishimng cause of greed and beuarcracy
rlf1967 7 months ago
@rlf1967 It depends wre is the greed, if the greed is on productive people for productive ends, then it is a good thing, if greed is in the hand of the political means of beouracrats and politicians, they can only obtain their reward throug force and coercion. You see, greed is not the real culprit here.
megatherium100 7 months ago
@rlf1967 Greed is Good.
TumisHumis 6 months ago
I am my own person...and will gladly go there.....
booperkitty 2 years ago 3
On some issues Obama is okay, but on economics, he's batshit crazy.
pookiehohn 2 years ago 4
@pookiehohn Indeed
poopster102 1 year ago
Martintfre - you wrote to me: "allHailDiscord..good title to identify a muck of contradictions."
It's AllHailDiscordia as in welcoming chaos and the unexpected. When I read your comment I thought of what Walt Whitman wrote: "I am large, I contain multitudes"
AllHailDiscordia 2 years ago
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They should remake this - Roark works for Donald Trump. Trump has his great big tower redesigned... Roark blows the tower up as it's packed with the glitterati... Imagine the howls of outrage... Aaah..Oooohh!
This movie promotes terrorism. That is all.
lordhighexecutioner 2 years ago
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Years ago I wrote a couple of novels and I figured that since they are full of funny speeches that are nothing like real life that they had no chance commercially (though the intention is that they be funny)... they are also of a political - social nature...Ayn Rand, you give me new hope of a career as a writer!
lordhighexecutioner 2 years ago
Humans are this world's most noble creature. Selfishness is about taking care of yourself first so that you can best take care of your family & society. Do you give to charity? Why? Because it makes you feel good. Right? This is selfish.
I have a son from whom I receive the utmost in joy. This is selfish. My job as a parent is to raise this boy to be the most noble person of true compassion, who understands that love is a virtue measured by the noblest virtues you have developed for yourself.
PopModalxCom 2 years ago 45
@PopModalxCom So true.
snuke37 1 year ago
AllHailDiscordia clearly has never read any Ayn Rand.
mturczi 2 years ago
mturczi
I not only have read The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, but I actually understood them. The message of the Fountainhead to me was: collaboration can kill creativity and dilute integrity.
The message of Atlas Shrugged was defining yourself by your needs is inconsequential. No one cares about your needs if that all you use to identify yourself. Trade me your talents for mine - that means more to me than "you owe me because my need is greater than yours".
AllHailDiscordia 2 years ago 4
I guess you're right. John Galt would totally support government bailouts of corporations and free health care for those who can't afford it.
mturczi 2 years ago
CrosCros72 - you sound like the American from the Battle of the Bulge. Thanks for sharing your opinion.
AllHailDiscordia 2 years ago
This comment has received too many negative votes show
Howard Roark nor John Galt are anti Obama. read their drive, purity and focus while opposed by small meaningless peasants. Obama stands with other great Americans balancing between the common people and their needs and his vision of what we can be.
Hail Ayn Rand - Hail Barack Obama
AllHailDiscordia 2 years ago
Nuts!
Croscros72 2 years ago
What planet are you from The Planet Contra?
PopModalxCom 2 years ago
common people and their 'needs'. exactly what Rand believed no one had the right to serve with the help of a gun.
reejis99 2 years ago 4
allHailDiscord..good title to identify a muck of contradictions.
Martintfre 2 years ago
I think the oath in court should be changed to,
" Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth so help you Richard Dawkins?"
yourass117 2 years ago
sorry, in meant HOWARD not Edward.
yepheth 2 years ago
is that Edward Roark a finctional character from that film or he exhisted in reality? A lot of architecture we see in that movie through Cooper's character makes me think a lot about Frank Lloyd Wright.
yepheth 2 years ago
Roark was Ayn Rand's creation. His architectural philosophy was based on Wright's.
Basically, he was FLW as he should have been....
RushLimborg 2 years ago 2
Self sacrifice is merely a symptom of compassion. By preaching against self sacrifice she preaches against compassion. Let us be clear here, Justice is the issue. No objective principled understanding of justice will ever preserve justice. What is the point of drawing up principles to guide society when we know that our moral weakness will prevent us from keeping them ? Only compassion can guard us against doing evil to our fellow man. Rand meant well, she just didn't think it through.
beserker5 2 years ago
Moral weakness, bah. Look how far civilisation has come already just from individuals acting on their own self-interest. Hell, Darwin showed that our species even developed on this sole principle.
Rand didn't necessarily rule out self-sacrifice -- she merely preached against masochistically placing it above self-interest. If it's in your legitimate self-interest to make a sacrifice, you should. Compassion's a fine thing, but if it's used to dictate social organisation it will undermine itself.
hayesism 2 years ago 3
WE progress through life with the morality of reason, we give to those who have earned it, and we abolish those, like you, who take from us what you do not deserve. When we give up our individual freedoms for the benefit of others, we become enslaved to those which we benefit. In your futile atempt to please everyone you have become the architect of your own demise. WE will move forward, while you, will be left behind.
yourass117 2 years ago
"Rand didn't think it through", but thankfully, beserker5 did. Rand stated that altruism was to take something of value and sacrifice it to something of lesser, or no value, through compulsion or force. She did not speak against compassion. I can have compassion for others without sacrificing myself for them.
pointy07 2 years ago
Yes..very eloquently put MashkaTekoa.
AntiSCO 2 years ago
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man if i ever had to shit down and watch this shit i'd fall asleep. too much fuck dialogue. all thse dipshits in classical movies talk exactly the same. however, i WOULD read this shit though.
MashkaTekoa 2 years ago
I wish there was an objectivist party. It seems to me that republicans are in line with Rand on economic issues but not on social ones and vice a versa with Democrats. i.e. abortion and gay marriage. (Gov't shouldn't restrict anyone's freedoms) or taxes and bailouts (Gov't shouldn't reward incompetence or take more from the producers) Obviously, the closest candidate to Rand has been Ron Paul.
drummingreg 2 years ago 3
Republicans aren't in line with Rand economically: Bush was big government. After becoming the first pres. to submit a one trillion dollar budget to Congress, he became the first to submit a TWO billion dollar budget.
Have you considered the Libertarian Party?
hayesism 2 years ago
Well, I mean, theoretically Republicans should be in line with Rand Economically. i.e. "conservative" small gov't. Bush proves that you can't have your cake and eat it too. You can't have big gov't and try to lower taxes. Libertarians do have some interesting ideas but I think pure conservatism (before bush) is more in line with my views.
drummingreg 2 years ago
Agreed. There are still many good paleoconservatives in the GOP, its just been overrun lately with big govt whackos.
hayesism 2 years ago
Again, we agree, here, too! Nice!
beattific89 2 years ago
I agree with what you're saying. Obviously, me thinks at least, you've read Rands "Capitalism". . .Rand said herself that Capitalists are NOT in the pursuit of conservatism.
beattific89 2 years ago
Ron Paul? Ron Paul's pro-life--and his policy of defense is NOTHING like that of the Objectivists. He himself said so!
Rand's man in '08, frankly, was Rudy Guliani!
RushLimborg 2 years ago
post below me has been trolled :3
Tehmolez 2 years ago
Post below me has pitched a tent in the vacant lot of the abandoned mind.
Recardwizard, my compliments.
marquisdejustin 2 years ago
post below me is a faggot.
Gorgaga 2 years ago
> I already explained this.
I disagree.
> Engines are real.
The first engine that was created was created first in someone's mind and only after that became real. The same is true for heavy elements. They were first hypothesized to exist and then synthesized. You essentially purport that thinking is only repurposing, but it is also extrapolating. And, *I* (personally) can imagine infinity (the abstract mathematical notion). But infinity isn't real. Your argument has a simple logical fallacy.
docmoriarti 2 years ago
The combinations of things is greater than the number of things itself. Wow, you pointed out the obvious.
Substantiate your ability to imagine something unreal. Infinity is real, there is no end of numbers.
I'd be amazed if you can, but just as I showed you before every THING you imagined was a real thing.
beserker5 2 years ago
> Wow, you pointed out the obvious.
I didn't point out the obvious AS MUCH AS I pointed out that you were ignoring the obvious.
> Infinity is real, there is no end of numbers.
Lol, numbers are not real. There is not such thing as "2". There is 2 chairs or 2 people or 2 of whatever. The commonly that we attribute to them is a product of our perception. We identify things as being of equal weight,measure, etc if they measure up equally against a preconceived standard.
docmoriarti 2 years ago
> *commonly*
bleh... you can't edit posts... i meant "commonality".
docmoriarti 2 years ago
Numbers are very real and are verifiable analytically. They have the same cognitive content as any a priori concept.
Your logic would not allow the use of language as the word 'Horse', i.e that arrangement of letters, does not exist within the genes of a horse. But we have established a concept of horse e.g 4 legs, hooves, mammalian etc. which we then use to label it. But the term 'Horse' exists even if there were no horses. Just like '2' exists even though there isnt one sitting in my lounge.
getyurhandsoffmywife 2 years ago
I didn't say I didn't allow for a priori knowledge. I simply tried to imply that it must be carefully taken as such. An arrangement that doesn't exist in reality before we put it together (after having "thought it up") isn't real until the moment it's put together. That was the point of the argument. Numbers are abstractions. So are all symbols we use to communicate -- they are based on emphasizing one particular aspect while ignoring all others (which is what an abstraction is).
docmoriarti 2 years ago
But a "horse" exists only because there is an example of a "horse". There is no example of a "two". Numbers are abstract notions of equivalence. We know what 2 chairs are only because we can match them with any 2 other objects. It is this equivalence between ALL twos that defines the number 2. It's a product of our way of thinking of objects and not of the way nature does things. We use abstractions to organize data. And this matching (comparing to a standard) is how we came up with numbers.
docmoriarti 2 years ago
The important question wouldn't be does 2 exist, but more so does -2 exist?
SugarMagnolia20 2 years ago
> Numbers are very real and are verifiable
> analytically. They have the same cognitive
> content as any a priori concept.
> Your logic would not allow the use of
> language as the word 'Horse', i.e that
> arrangement of letters, does not exist within
> the genes of a horse.
We treat numbers as objects. But they have no physical manifestation as objects -- only as properties of objects.
docmoriarti 2 years ago
Judging from your examples of what is "real", I am beginning to think that you simply confuse "real" with "true". They are similar, but not identically equivalent.
docmoriarti 2 years ago
To elaborate, that which can exist, but doesn't YET exist is not "real". It becomes "real" the moment it begins to exist in a palpable manner.
docmoriarti 2 years ago
This is false logic. Palpable speaks to the ability of our senses to perceive. I am sure there are many things existing beyond the ability of our senses to detect them. Take solar radiation for example. We could not detect it, that is it was not palpable to us, until we developed the proper technology. Therefore it was real but not palpable for a very long time.
beserker5 2 years ago
Look up "a priory" vs "a posteriori". All I was trying to say was that anything known a posteriori is real. And anything known a priori is not real (even though it might be true).
docmoriarti 2 years ago
An interesting idea but I still have to disagree. What do you say to the idea that nature can count. Plants and foods having precisely numbered sections. The plant outside my window were every bloom has precisely 4 leaves. Why not 3 or 5 ? The plant has no brain yet it recognizes a number evidenced by the fact, it does so repeatedly. This I think challenges your claim that numbers are merely a product of human perception.
beserker5 2 years ago
Then why? The four leaf clover.
sixchip 2 years ago
a mistake, perhaps. It still consistently counts 3, what, 90, 95% of the time ?
beserker5 2 years ago
I love the individualistic fervor of his speech and believe much of it though I do struggle with the last part. "A man's right to exist for his own sake." How can a man have a right to his own existence when he can not create himself ? A man has a claim to his work, but we can not make ourselves. Others make us and we make others.
beserker5 2 years ago
You need to spend more time thinking this through. The true nature of man is to be free. Without freedom, man cannot create anything, least of all himself. When a baby is born, he belongs to himself, even though he needs his parents for his physical survival, without freedom, he cannot survive emotionally.
catouski 2 years ago
"You need to spend more time thinking this through". Ditto.
Freedom, alone, is insufficient to express mans' nature. Man seeks out togetherness. Our existence and desire for justice are evidence of this.
Man can not create anything. At best he can merely re-associate and reassemble what is before him. For example it is impossible to imagine something which does not exist.
The true nature of mankind is to exist and prosper. Freedom is the many ways we strive to obey this command.
beserker5 2 years ago
> For example it is impossible to imagine
> something which does not exist.
Lol...Would you care to point a naturally occurring internal-combustion engine? How about a naturally occurring Rutherfordium?
docmoriarti 2 years ago
I already explained this. Please, pay attention.
"At best he can merely re-associate". This is what you did.
Natural is real. Internal is real. Combustion is real. Engines are real.
Ruthrerfordium is real. You can imagine absurd combinations of THINGS (re-associating) but as I said, every THING you imagined IS real.
"I once read half a book all the way through".
It would serve you well to follow this quote instead of laughing at people.
Rutherfordium ? Really, you're trying to hard.
beserker5 2 years ago
The logical fallacy of your argument is that set of finite combinations of elements of any set (call it S) is *provably* larger than the set S itself. This is even true when the set S is infinite.
docmoriarti 2 years ago
the true nature of man is to exist, prosper and be right.
beserker5 2 years ago
"The creator requires independence, he neither serve nor rules" sounds an awful lot like "no gods, no masters" to me.
Ayn Rand was more of an anarchist than most people, herself included, realized.
esgietheqroue 2 years ago 3
She's also atheist too so that could contribute to that saying being similar
IbanezCookies 2 years ago
She was not an anarchist in any sense. In "Atlas Shrugged," in the chapter "This is John Galt Speaking," she sets forth exactly the proper functions of government: to defend individual rights by fielding a military to defend from external force, police to defend from internal force, and a court system to defend from force by fraud and to settle disputes between individuals. That is nothing remotely like anarchy. You should read more before you expound.
recardwizard 2 years ago 3
Dear Mr Wizard.
I don't view the "nightwatcher state" as essential to Rands political philosophy, but rather as a necessary evil in her idealized state. What she cared most for was the individual: his/her unhindered freedom to create, produce and exchange within a free market. She strongly opposes an authorital state, that in any way controls its citizens or the economical exchanges made between them.
This view, I'd say is very much like that of early anarchists such as Proudhon and Goodwin.
esgietheqroue 2 years ago
Ayn Rand said that charity and benevolence is not what she goes against, but the altruism that asks for the sacrifice of yourself. Respect each and every man as an individual. The only true way to "help" them, is to let them help themselves. Give each man the respect that they can do without your help; that they do not have the weakness to need your help and thus they will be able to blossom on their own. This is objectivism: no compromise of integrity for the sake of a "collective" bargain.
ClearSkyOpening 2 years ago
Ah, the wrong way person strikes again. The USA is the only country that bombs those who disagree with its policies, etc. In regard to your previous comment, true "free" market economy is impossible. However, a pseudo-free market economy is quite possible and, in fact, rather prevalent. You really should do more research before mouthing off like that.
protoborg 2 years ago
Many countries do that.
beserker5 2 years ago
You have no idea what you are saying. As a matter of fact, you have no idea how a society works. You seem to think this ideology works. A society can survive that does not work together. Life is a collective thing. A single life cannot survive without the help of others. Anyone who tells you different is completely out of touch with the world.
protoborg 2 years ago
thanks for putting together this little gem!
send this to every damn socialist you know!
IT IS TERRIFIC!
ron paul is my president
itsmesunny 2 years ago
Patricia Neal is a hotty
fomastephanovitch 2 years ago
The argument that socialism does not work is a fact. Tell me one instance that a socialist country has, by itself, bee nothing but a failure? While you are at it tell me one Fascist country such as Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia that has not evolved from socialism?
While you are at it tell me why there has never been a war between two free-market democracies? You can't.
So who is valid? Ayn Rand who is trying to warn us against socialism which almost always evolves into a fascist state?
Obamamania 2 years ago
"That's what they mean--your noble ideals.... You believed in me--well, what's left of you now?"
RushLimborg 2 years ago
The perfect lines for Obama/Nancy Pelosi/Hillary Clinton's TRUE thoughts towards their fans....
"You've heard me preaching it for YEARS, but you didn't have the whits to know what you were hearing."
"Great men can't be ruled--why did I preach [the Fairness Doctrine]? If you kill a man's sense of personal value, he'll submit. Can you do that to [the fans of Rush Limbaugh]? NO? Than don't ask me why I want to destroy him!"
RushLimborg 2 years ago
Cogent message, probably received too little too late.
davidgyt 3 years ago
I still say Rand is a crackpot and mediocre author. And "The Fountainhead" has nothing to do with making a case against President Obama or Mother Goose even.
1814Brandan 3 years ago
what don't you like about her writing?
BanjoNaps 3 years ago
This comment has received too many negative votes show
A crappy film version of a so-so novel tells us why Obama shouldn't be president? I think not. Rand was a crackpot anyways.
1814Brandan 3 years ago
Obama shouldn't be president because he is opposed to life, liberty, and prosperity. His policies say man has no right to exist (abortion), no right to the proceeds of his labor (high taxes,