“Thats because some sense of dignity still 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. So after centuries of being pounded with the doctrine that altruism is the ultimate ideal, men have accepted it in the only way it can 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 concieved. And now, to cure a world from selflessness we’re asked to destroy the self. Listen to what is being preached. 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 weath, 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 suceeded. 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 is unhappy. Every form of happiness is private. Our greatest moments are personal, self motivated, and cannot 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 wuality i mean-for the self sufficiency of man’s spirit.”
Post 7: Passage from Ayn Rand’s “Fountainhead” (WC 324)