![]() Thinking with thoughts instead of instinct. ![]() Rationality, in the context Rand and I describe it, means simply that you think with your brain, that you can accept A is A and that 2 + 2 = 4. In discussing my own atheism, many people claimed that rationality meant rejecting everything that could not be proven. Much of The Fountainhead goes to push this belief by showing the flaws of characters who live their lives through the opinions of other people. Rand even suggests that living can only happen if you accept the proposition that you think with your own mind. That is, rationality (thinking with your own brain) is the ultimate ideal you can live for. Rand phrases so well an idea I’ve tried to capture in my own writings. You Can’t Think With Another Persons Brain This is Economics 101, but so often you hear about greedy rich people hurting the world instead of being the maximum contributors. If you accept the basic idea that money is a medium of exchanging value, then the person who earns $400,000 in a year should create about ten times the value that a person earning $40,000 per year. Here are a few ideas I found useful in the book: Money is GoodĪll other things being equal, the person who makes more money contributes more value. I’ve changed some of my perceptions because of these two books. Selfishness is evil selflessness is good. ![]() Reading the two books challenged many of my assumptions, including: I felt Shrugged offered a better glimpse at Rand’s philosophy, but had less entertainment value than the Fountainhead. Later in the book, however, you start to admire Roark as his system of values unfolds and it becomes clear he isn’t willing to compromise his truth to become popular.Ītlas Shrugged follows a similar group of characters, this time involving a man who refuses to produce his greatest invention because a corrupt government would steal it from him. He is hopelessly stubborn and often suffers because I feel he fails to communicate his vision to other people. Roark is Rand’s personification of the supremely ethical man who reasons with his own mind, lives his own life and has himself as the center of his own purpose.Īt the beginning of the book I disliked Roark. Serving other people, material wealth and recognition are unimportant compared to that he lives according to his vision of how a building should be. The Fountainhead tells the story of Howard Roark, an architect who lives to make buildings. However, if you want books to challenge you to think, these two would have to be at the top of anyone’s list. There are many parts with the books I agreed wholeheartedly and other areas where I believe Rand has made errors in reasoning. Epic in scope (Atlas Shrugged is 1200 pages) the two books make the case that selfishness is the ultimate human ideal and that human progress is based on a man’s ego.Īlthough many of you have no doubt read these books, I wanted to do a quick overview on my take on Rand’s philosophy. If you’ve been following this blog over the last few months, you’ll know I just finished reading The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand.
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