Although not covering everything in the philosophy of Objectivism I think, it demonstrates quite a lot of the points of the philosophical system. The ideas of ethical egoism, rationality and why it is a moral imperative (especially as opposed to faith,) independence, the need for principles as guides and others are covered for example. The main protagonist of the story is one example of what a person would be like and how they would live who lived up to the philosophy. Other characters by the end of the story are pretty good about it too, but except for the main protagonist Roark, those characters all are in some way still flawed in their beliefs and those holes in their philosophical views do impact negatively on their lives until after meeting Roark they eventually see the flaws in their views and go through some changes, at which point then they're internal conflicts are pretty much sorted out and things get better for them. You can find more explanations about all the ways it demonstrates the philosophy I'm sure in a brief google search and probably mo in depth explanations (I'm short on time right now, so no big explanations from me at the present time.)
Posted: Mon Oct 24, 2011 6:55 am
bluecherry
Although not covering everything in the philosophy of Objectivism I think, it demonstrates quite a lot of the points of the philosophical system. The ideas of ethical egoism, rationality and why it is a moral imperative (especially as opposed to faith,) independence, the need for principles as guides and others are covered for example. The main protagonist of the story is one example of what a person would be like and how they would live who lived up to the philosophy. Other characters by the end of the story are pretty good about it too, but except for the main protagonist Roark, those characters all are in some way still flawed in their beliefs and those holes in their philosophical views do impact negatively on their lives until after meeting Roark they eventually see the flaws in their views and go through some changes, at which point then they're internal conflicts are pretty much sorted out and things get better for them. You can find more explanations about all the ways it demonstrates the philosophy I'm sure in a brief google search and probably mo in depth explanations (I'm short on time right now, so no big explanations from me at the present time.)
Obviously Roark had sooooome flaws... he seemed to subscribe to the "No means yes and yes means a**l" theory...
Obviously Roark had sooooome flaws... he seemed to subscribe to the "No means yes and yes means a**l" theory...
That scene referenced, admittedly, is one of the more . . . complicated parts of the book. It essentially relies heavily on the characters having an understanding of each other verging on mind-reading practically for him to get that her motivation for resistance is basically . . . sort of like thinking it's too good to be true. So, yeah, not something to do outside of fiction, because we definitely can't just assume in reality that we know somebody else's internal ticking THAT reliably. I've generally figured that "nearly mind reading" understanding they have of each other in the start is just a plot convenience, to speed up the development of the connection between two characters in a book that already is over many hundreds of pages long with a plot that takes place over - I think it's 8 years if I recall correctly.
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