What does the word explore mean?
When might individuality be detrimental (hurtful) to a society?
When might individuality benefit a society?
When might collectivism be detrimental (hurtful) to a society?
When might collectivism better a society?
“When men accepted that worship (of the word “we”), the structure of centuries collapsed about them, the structure whose every beam had come from the thought of some one man, each in his day down the ages, from the depth of some one spirit, such spirit as existed but for its own sake. Those men who survived- those eager to obey, eager to live for one another, since they had nothing else to vindicate them- those men could neither carry on, nor preserve what they had received. Thus did all thought, all science, all wisdom perish on earth. Thus did men- men with nothing to offer save their great numbers- lose the steel towers, the flying ships, the power wires, all things they had not created and could never keep.” (43-44)
“I understood that centuries of chains and lashes will not kill the spirit of man nor the sense of truth within him.” (42)
“But what is freedom? Freedom from what? There is nothing to take a man’s freedom away from him, save other men. To be free, a man must be free of his brothers. That is freedom. That and nothing else.” (43)
“I am neither foe nor friend to my brothers, but such as each of them shall deserve of me. And to earn my love, my brother must do more than to have been born. I do not grant my live without reason, nor to any chance passer-by who may wish to claim it. I honor men with my love. But honor is a thing to be earned.” (40-41)
“I guard my treasures: my thought, my will, my freedom. And the greatest of these is freedom.” ( 40)
“I shall choose friends among men, but neither slaves nor masters. And I shall choose only such as please me, and them I shall love and respect, but neither command nor obey. And we shall join our hands when we sih, or walk alone when we so desire.” ( 41)
Ayn Rand writes, “In popular usage the word ‘selfishness’ is a synonym of evil; the image it conjures is of a murderous brute who tramples over piles of corpses to achieve his own ends . . . and pursues nothing but the gratification of the mindless whims of any immediate moment. Yet the exact meaning and dictionary definition of the word ‘selfishness’ is: concern with one’s own interests. This concept does not include a moral evaluation; it does not tell us whether concern with one’s own interests is good or evil; nor does it tell us what constitutes man’s actual interests. It is the task of ethics to answer such questions.”
Do you view being selfish as a negative thing?
Do you think Ayn Rand was saying that one must ignore society and be totally selfish?