In my search for the monologue of Roark (the main protagonist in the Fountainhead), I chanced upon this other conversation between Howard Roark (HR) and Gail Wynand (GW) .This is a glimpse of that conversation which these two very different men share on a yatch, under the blue skies, free from the presence of the rest of the world. A world which does not understand them and a world that does not accept them. They have both lived their lives their own ways... one indifferent to the world and one trying to fight the world by gaining more and more power. These two men share these very different approaches to world and the people in it and yet they have a common thread which binds them. Both share a complete disregard for the opinion of the masses and both have lived a life on their own terms. They share an understanding that is deep and all pervasive. There is a bond between the two men from when they meet for the first time. They share camaraderie and respect for each other that defines their friendship. The difference in their ideologies is very visible in the following conversation but there is also a great affection which binds them despite the differences.
Wynand is talking about Selflessness in the absolute sense as preached by Ellsworth Toohey. He is of the opinion that true selflessness does not exist and Roark contradicts him and the conversation that follows is a masterpiece in english writing.
HR: The thing that is destroying the world. The thing you were talking about. Actual selflessness.
GW: The ideal which they say does not exist?
HR: They are wrong. It does exist - though not in a way they imagine. Its what i couldn't understand about people for a long time. They have no self. They live within others. They live second-hand. Look at PK.
I've looked at PK - at what's left of him - and it's helped me to understand. He's paying the price and wondering for what sin and telling himself that he's been too selfish. In what act or thought of his has there ever been a self? What was his aim in life ? Greatness in other people's eyes. Fame, admiration, envy - all that which comes from others. Others dictated his convictions, which he did not hold, but he was satisfied that others believed he held them. Others were his motive power and his prime concern. He didn't want to be great, but to be thought great. He didn't want to build, but to be admired as a builder. He borrowed from others in order to make an impression on others. There's your actual selflessness. It's his ego that he has betrayed and given up. But everybody calls him selfish.
GW: That's pattern most people follow.
HR: Yes! And thats the root of every despicable action? Not selfishness but precisely the absence of a self. Look at them. The man who cheats and lies, but preserves a respectable front. He knows himself to be dishonest, but others think he is honest and he derives his self-respect from that, second-hand. The man who takes credit for the achievement which is not his own. He knows himself to be mediocre, but he's great in the eyes of others. The frustrated wretch who professes love for the inferior and clings to those less endowed, in order to establish his own superiority by comparison. The man whose sole aim to make money.Now, I don't see anything evil in the desire to make money. But money is only a means to some end. It man wants it for a personal purpose - to invest in an industry, to create, to study. to travel, to enjoy luxury, he's completely moral. But the men who place money first go much beyond that. Personal luxury is a limited endeavour. What they want is ostentation: to show, to stun, to entertain, to impress others.. They're second-handers. Look at our so called cultural endeavours. A lecturer who spouts some borrowed rehash of nothing at all that means nothing at all to him - and the people who listen and don' give a damn, but sit there in order to tell their friends that they have attended a lecture by a famous name. All second-handers.
GW: If I were Ellsworth Toohey, I'd say: aren't you making out a case against selfishness? Aren't they all acting on a selfish motive - to be notice, liked and admired.
HR: - by others. At the price of their own self respect. In the realm of greatest importance - the realm of values, of judgement, of spirit, of thought, they place others above self, in the exact manner which altruism demands. A truly selfish man cannot be affected by the approval of others. He doesn't need it.
I think Toohey understands that. That's what helps him spread his vicious nonsense. Just weakness and cowardice. It's so easy to run to others. It's so hard to stand on one's own accord. You can fake virtue for an audience. You can't fake it in your own eyes. Your ego is the strictest judge. They run from it. They spend their lives running. It's easier to donate a few thousands to charity and to think oneself noble than to base self-respect on personal standards of personal achievement. It's simple to seek substitutes for competence - such as easy substitutes: love, charm, kindness, charity. But there is no substitute for competence.
That, precisely, is the deadlines of second-handers. They have no concern for facts, ideas, work. They are concerned only with people. They dont ask: "Is this true?" They ask:"Is this what others think is true?".
Not to judge, but to repeat. Not to do, but to give the impression of doing. Not creation, but show. Not ability, but friendship. Not merit, but pull. What would happen to the world without those who do, think, work, produce? Those who are the egotists. You don't think through another's brain and you dont' work through another's brain. When you suspend your faculty of independent judgment, you suspend consciousness. To stop consciousness is to suspend life. Second-handers have no sense of reality. Their reality is not within them, but somewhere in that space which divides one human body from another. Not an entity but a relation - anchored to nothing. That's the emptiness i couldn't understand in people. That's what stopped me when i faced a committee. Men without an ego. Opinion without a rational process. Motion without brakes or motor. Power without responsibility. The second-hander acts but the source of his actions are scattered in every other living person. It's everywhere and nowhere and you cat reason with him. He is not open to reason. You cant speak to him - he can't hear. You're tried by an empty bench. A blind mass running amuck, to crush you without sense or purpose.
GW: I think your second-handers understand this, try as they might not to admit it to themselves. Notice how they'll accept anything except a man who stands alone. They recognize him at once. By instinct. There's a special insidious kind of hatred for him. They forgive criminals. They admire dictators. Crime and violence are a tie. They've got to force their miserable little personalities on every single person they meet. The independent man kills them - because they don't exist within him and that's the only form of existence they know. Notice the malignant kind of resentment against any idea that propounds independence. Notice the malice towards an independent man. Look back at your life Howard, and at the people you've met. They know. They are afraid. You're a reproach.
HR: That's because their sense of dignity always remains in them. They're still human beings. But they've been taught to seek themselves in others. Yet no man can achieve the kind of absolute humility that would need no self esteem in any form. He wouldn't survive. They're still human beings. But they've been taught to seek themselves in others. Yet no man can achieve the kind of absolute humility that would need no self esteem in any form. He wouldn't survive.
They're still human beings. But they've been taught to seek themselves in others. Yet no man can achieve the kind of absolute humility that would need no self esteem in any form. He wouldn't survive. So after centuries of being pounded with the doctrine that altruism is the ultimate ideal, men have accepted it in the only way it could be accepted. By seeking self-esteem through others. By living second-hand. And it has opened the way for every kind of horror. It has become the dreadful form of selfishness which a truly selfish man couldn’t have conceived. And now, to cure a world perishing from selflessness, we’re asked to destroy the self. Listen to what is being preached today. Look at everyone around us. You’ve wondered why they suffer, why they seek happiness and never find it. If any man stopped and asked himself whether he’s ever held a truly personal desire, he’d find the answer. He’d see that all his wishes, his efforts, his dreams, his ambitions are motivated by other men. He’s not really struggling even for material wealth, but for the second-hander’s delusion--prestige. A stamp of approval, not his own. He can find no joy in the struggle and no joy when he has succeeded. He can’t say about a single thing: ’This is what I wanted because I wanted it, not because it made my neighbors gape at me.’ Then he wonders why he’s unhappy. Every form of happiness is private. Our greatest moments are personal, self-motivated, not to be touched. The things which are sacred or precious to us are the things we withdraw from promiscuous sharing. But now we are taught to throw everything within us into public light and common pawing. To seek joy in meeting halls. We haven’t even got a word for the quality I mean--for the self-sufficiency of man’s spirit. It’s difficult to call it selfishness or egotism, the words have been perverted, they’ve come to mean Peter Keating. Gail, I think the only cardinal evil on earth is that of placing your prime concern within other men. I’ve always demanded a certain quality in the people I liked. I’ve always recognized it at once - and it’s the only quality I respect in men. I chose my friends by that. Now I know what it is. A self-sufficient ego. Nothing else matters."
Wynand is talking about Selflessness in the absolute sense as preached by Ellsworth Toohey. He is of the opinion that true selflessness does not exist and Roark contradicts him and the conversation that follows is a masterpiece in english writing.
HR: The thing that is destroying the world. The thing you were talking about. Actual selflessness.
GW: The ideal which they say does not exist?
HR: They are wrong. It does exist - though not in a way they imagine. Its what i couldn't understand about people for a long time. They have no self. They live within others. They live second-hand. Look at PK.
I've looked at PK - at what's left of him - and it's helped me to understand. He's paying the price and wondering for what sin and telling himself that he's been too selfish. In what act or thought of his has there ever been a self? What was his aim in life ? Greatness in other people's eyes. Fame, admiration, envy - all that which comes from others. Others dictated his convictions, which he did not hold, but he was satisfied that others believed he held them. Others were his motive power and his prime concern. He didn't want to be great, but to be thought great. He didn't want to build, but to be admired as a builder. He borrowed from others in order to make an impression on others. There's your actual selflessness. It's his ego that he has betrayed and given up. But everybody calls him selfish.
GW: That's pattern most people follow.
HR: Yes! And thats the root of every despicable action? Not selfishness but precisely the absence of a self. Look at them. The man who cheats and lies, but preserves a respectable front. He knows himself to be dishonest, but others think he is honest and he derives his self-respect from that, second-hand. The man who takes credit for the achievement which is not his own. He knows himself to be mediocre, but he's great in the eyes of others. The frustrated wretch who professes love for the inferior and clings to those less endowed, in order to establish his own superiority by comparison. The man whose sole aim to make money.Now, I don't see anything evil in the desire to make money. But money is only a means to some end. It man wants it for a personal purpose - to invest in an industry, to create, to study. to travel, to enjoy luxury, he's completely moral. But the men who place money first go much beyond that. Personal luxury is a limited endeavour. What they want is ostentation: to show, to stun, to entertain, to impress others.. They're second-handers. Look at our so called cultural endeavours. A lecturer who spouts some borrowed rehash of nothing at all that means nothing at all to him - and the people who listen and don' give a damn, but sit there in order to tell their friends that they have attended a lecture by a famous name. All second-handers.
GW: If I were Ellsworth Toohey, I'd say: aren't you making out a case against selfishness? Aren't they all acting on a selfish motive - to be notice, liked and admired.
HR: - by others. At the price of their own self respect. In the realm of greatest importance - the realm of values, of judgement, of spirit, of thought, they place others above self, in the exact manner which altruism demands. A truly selfish man cannot be affected by the approval of others. He doesn't need it.
I think Toohey understands that. That's what helps him spread his vicious nonsense. Just weakness and cowardice. It's so easy to run to others. It's so hard to stand on one's own accord. You can fake virtue for an audience. You can't fake it in your own eyes. Your ego is the strictest judge. They run from it. They spend their lives running. It's easier to donate a few thousands to charity and to think oneself noble than to base self-respect on personal standards of personal achievement. It's simple to seek substitutes for competence - such as easy substitutes: love, charm, kindness, charity. But there is no substitute for competence.
That, precisely, is the deadlines of second-handers. They have no concern for facts, ideas, work. They are concerned only with people. They dont ask: "Is this true?" They ask:"Is this what others think is true?".
Not to judge, but to repeat. Not to do, but to give the impression of doing. Not creation, but show. Not ability, but friendship. Not merit, but pull. What would happen to the world without those who do, think, work, produce? Those who are the egotists. You don't think through another's brain and you dont' work through another's brain. When you suspend your faculty of independent judgment, you suspend consciousness. To stop consciousness is to suspend life. Second-handers have no sense of reality. Their reality is not within them, but somewhere in that space which divides one human body from another. Not an entity but a relation - anchored to nothing. That's the emptiness i couldn't understand in people. That's what stopped me when i faced a committee. Men without an ego. Opinion without a rational process. Motion without brakes or motor. Power without responsibility. The second-hander acts but the source of his actions are scattered in every other living person. It's everywhere and nowhere and you cat reason with him. He is not open to reason. You cant speak to him - he can't hear. You're tried by an empty bench. A blind mass running amuck, to crush you without sense or purpose.
GW: I think your second-handers understand this, try as they might not to admit it to themselves. Notice how they'll accept anything except a man who stands alone. They recognize him at once. By instinct. There's a special insidious kind of hatred for him. They forgive criminals. They admire dictators. Crime and violence are a tie. They've got to force their miserable little personalities on every single person they meet. The independent man kills them - because they don't exist within him and that's the only form of existence they know. Notice the malignant kind of resentment against any idea that propounds independence. Notice the malice towards an independent man. Look back at your life Howard, and at the people you've met. They know. They are afraid. You're a reproach.
HR: That's because their sense of dignity always remains in them. They're still human beings. But they've been taught to seek themselves in others. Yet no man can achieve the kind of absolute humility that would need no self esteem in any form. He wouldn't survive. They're still human beings. But they've been taught to seek themselves in others. Yet no man can achieve the kind of absolute humility that would need no self esteem in any form. He wouldn't survive.
They're still human beings. But they've been taught to seek themselves in others. Yet no man can achieve the kind of absolute humility that would need no self esteem in any form. He wouldn't survive. So after centuries of being pounded with the doctrine that altruism is the ultimate ideal, men have accepted it in the only way it could be accepted. By seeking self-esteem through others. By living second-hand. And it has opened the way for every kind of horror. It has become the dreadful form of selfishness which a truly selfish man couldn’t have conceived. And now, to cure a world perishing from selflessness, we’re asked to destroy the self. Listen to what is being preached today. Look at everyone around us. You’ve wondered why they suffer, why they seek happiness and never find it. If any man stopped and asked himself whether he’s ever held a truly personal desire, he’d find the answer. He’d see that all his wishes, his efforts, his dreams, his ambitions are motivated by other men. He’s not really struggling even for material wealth, but for the second-hander’s delusion--prestige. A stamp of approval, not his own. He can find no joy in the struggle and no joy when he has succeeded. He can’t say about a single thing: ’This is what I wanted because I wanted it, not because it made my neighbors gape at me.’ Then he wonders why he’s unhappy. Every form of happiness is private. Our greatest moments are personal, self-motivated, not to be touched. The things which are sacred or precious to us are the things we withdraw from promiscuous sharing. But now we are taught to throw everything within us into public light and common pawing. To seek joy in meeting halls. We haven’t even got a word for the quality I mean--for the self-sufficiency of man’s spirit. It’s difficult to call it selfishness or egotism, the words have been perverted, they’ve come to mean Peter Keating. Gail, I think the only cardinal evil on earth is that of placing your prime concern within other men. I’ve always demanded a certain quality in the people I liked. I’ve always recognized it at once - and it’s the only quality I respect in men. I chose my friends by that. Now I know what it is. A self-sufficient ego. Nothing else matters."
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This is an ideal to aim for. This is a philosophy to live by but I am perhaps stuck somewhere in between. Stuck in transition. In between these two worlds, where I to care for the opinions of some people even as I try to build my life my way.
And then as Roark says, " I can die for my friends, but I can't live for them."
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