Catpop

As rationally selfish beings, isn't it our right to push technology as far as we see fit? What about the three holy words, "I will it"?

One of the most troubling things I notice these days, is that emotions tend to take presidence over facts.

I'm sorry -- it's really terrible -- but every time I see your user name, I think it says ... uh, nevermind.

I get that a lot

Just take note that The Fountainhead has little to do with Objectivism which as a philosophy is based on Galt's speech in Atlas Shrugged and then elaborated on in Rand's non-fiction essays plus Nathaniel Branden teaching it in the late 1950s through the late 1960s. Also: Objectivism, commonly taken and understood, is The Philosophy of Ayn Rand and if you try to make that philosophy yours as such you'll end up in second-hander land, not necessarily psychologically but waste-your-time philosophy. Rand had two philosophies. One primarily artistic, as in the novel you are reading, which we can label "Randian." The other philosophical starting and reflected greatly in her magnum opus--her next, greatest novel--as a shift from the psychological to a cornucopia of ideas.

It's all much more complicated than this, of course.

A mature perspective is everyone who embraces Objectivism has his or her own take on it through natural human uniqueness and autonomy while non-contradictorily embracing the basics common to man--as in the concept man--and those are, briefly, reality plus reason plus rational self-interest plus freedom as expressed through the invention and application of individual rights out of the Lockean tradition (upon which this country was founded).

What unites these basics in vertical integration from top to bottom or vice versa is the individualism of the single thinking brain. The social aspects of human existence work off that but cannot be primary. That's because you have to have a person before you have the interactive person. This is neither Adam and Eve nor the chicken or egg first riddle, which would make my statement arbitrary. It's the baby, just born, now with a social existence as a primary but must develop off his previous primary biological existence. As a dependent being he must develop into an autonomous being--an adult--guided by his rationality and critical thinking and all knowledge fortunately acquired thereby and through life circumstance.

Everybody has a philosophy, even all who never gave philosophy as such a single thought. That's why most people's philosophies--the operating software of the mind--are screwed up by a hodepodge of conflicting, contradictory structures and content endlessly repeated making mental highways hard to displace. Education is so important. Right education.

Finally, I digress from my digressions: philosophy and psychology are two different thoughts and systems and subjects and are so studied if not professionally used. However, both are integrated inside the brain biased one way or the other depending on nature and nurture creating the appropriate ratio if not dominance, sometimes with freakish results.

--Brant

As far as my phisophy goes being born and raised Catholic, I must admit to having some trouble letting go of curtain beliefs, such as the belief in an afterlife. However after listening to some lectures from the Ayn Rand Institute and interviews with Ayn Rand herself, I've come to understand and accept objectivism as the most the reasonable and therefore beneficial phisophy one can have. Despite this I still have a lot to learn, again thank you guys for the helpful comments.

Are you a student, worker, business man?

Finally, what have you read by Ayn?

A...

I'm a student and a sequential artist, I first came across Objectivism through the popular video game "Bioshock". I'm currenty reading " The Fountainhead".

Wow, you guys are really cool. Thanks

One of the most common arguments I hear against laissez-faire capitalism is that it by definition supports the creation and preservation of so-called intrinsically evil monopolies, and that the only way to keep these monopolies in check is through government regulation. Why is this wrong? Is the Gilded Age a good example of monopolies running wild? I ask these questions knowing I probably sound like a moron, but I am young and new to objectivism. So when people make these arguments, I genuinely have no idea how to refute them. Thanks in advance for your help.