the century of the second-rater.....
i was just readin thru " The Fountainhead " last nite and found this very interesting para, which almost strikes a chord with what is happenin in our country,
" But we dont wait to discover his reasons. We have convicted him without a hearing. We want him to be guilty. We are delighted with this case. What you hear is not indignation- it's gloating. Any illiterate maniac, any worthless moron who commits some revolting murder, gets shrieks of sympathy from us and marshals an army of humanitarian defenders. But a man of genius is guilty by definition. Granted that it is vicious injustice to condemn a man simply because he is weak and small. To what level of depravity has a society descended when it condemns a man simply because he is strong and great? Such , however, is the whole moral atmosphere of our century- the century of the second-rater.
We hear it shouted that Howard Roark ( here Sankaracharya) is spending his career in and out of courtrooms. Well, that is true. A man like Roark is on trial before society all his life. Whom does that indict- Roark ( SA) or society?
We have never made an effort to understand what is greatness in man and how to recognize it. We have come to hold, in a kind of mawkish stupor, that greatness is to be guaged by self-sacrifice. Self-sacrifice, we drool, is the ultimate virtue. Let's stop and think for a moment. Is sacrifice a virtue? Can a man sacrifice his integrity? His honor? His freedom? His ideal? His convictions? The honesty of his feeling? The independence of his thought? But these are a man's supreme posessions. Anything he gives up for them is not a sacrifice but an easy bargain. They, however are above sacrificing to a cause or a consideration whatsoever. Should we not then, stop and preaching dangerous and vicious nonsense? Self-sacirifce? But it is precisely the self that cannot and must not be sacrificed. It is the unsacrificed self that we must respect in a man above all.
Whatever the facts, this is not going to be a trial by facts. It's a trial by public opinion. "
-Ayn Rand in The Fountainhead
This is truly the century of the second-rater.
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Finally installed Oracle on my comp after a whole nite of installation, I now have the power of the Oracle....do u??
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im waitin for 3, 0% apr cards to settle some issues with my credit balances. I dont like to see my bank balance go down..:)
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will seeya tomorrow then....
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