The Fountainhead: What was Gail Wynand's crime?
A little back and forth with KHALLING on the "OBJECTIVIST BAD GUYS?" post got me to thinking.
I'm an Objectivist. I've read most of the books and consider myself well informed on the subject. I understand all about force and fraud.
But now I'm at something of a loss.
If I had been one of Wynand's victims, if he had destroyed my life for no better reason that profit and power - I would have killed him.
No joke. Really.
Why not?
What recourse does an average Joe have against a billionaire with a newspaper?
Only Sam Colt can equalize that kind of social disparity.
As for his life - he was the one who set the stakes when he chose to DESTROY mine.
Sure for me it was only my hopes and dreams, my career, my family - lets see what else can I add to the list?! At some point that kind of damage warrants killing.
Consider also, how many more innocent people would he crush if he's not stopped.
No, I would have no compunction about pulling that trigger.
But, if his smear campaign is just the usual "absent malice" BS that papers often resort to - the half-lies/half-truths that pass for reporting sometimes, then he has actually committed no fraud.
What crime has he actually committed that warrants his death?
(Before you say "none" remember that Mrs. Rand herself killed him off to atone for his sins.)
I'm sure I'm missing something.
'Little help here?
I'm an Objectivist. I've read most of the books and consider myself well informed on the subject. I understand all about force and fraud.
But now I'm at something of a loss.
If I had been one of Wynand's victims, if he had destroyed my life for no better reason that profit and power - I would have killed him.
No joke. Really.
Why not?
What recourse does an average Joe have against a billionaire with a newspaper?
Only Sam Colt can equalize that kind of social disparity.
As for his life - he was the one who set the stakes when he chose to DESTROY mine.
Sure for me it was only my hopes and dreams, my career, my family - lets see what else can I add to the list?! At some point that kind of damage warrants killing.
Consider also, how many more innocent people would he crush if he's not stopped.
No, I would have no compunction about pulling that trigger.
But, if his smear campaign is just the usual "absent malice" BS that papers often resort to - the half-lies/half-truths that pass for reporting sometimes, then he has actually committed no fraud.
What crime has he actually committed that warrants his death?
(Before you say "none" remember that Mrs. Rand herself killed him off to atone for his sins.)
I'm sure I'm missing something.
'Little help here?
Previous comments... You are currently on page 2.
and that's exactly what he tried with Roark and Roark called his bluff.
Freedom of Speech is absolute, and you do not have the right to shoot someone if they are not slandering you. I have a right to myself and a right to my opinion. Even with a megaphone in my hand. If I do not have that right, I am your slave.
In "Atlas Shrugged" all of the passengers on the train in the Taggart Tunnel Disaster "deserved" to die because they held mixed-premise personal philosophies. In "The Fountainhead" Steven Mallory shoots (misses) Elsworth Toohey only because Toohey "knows the nature of the drooling beast." Like Wynand, Toohey only works in the arena of public opinion. He never coerces anyone. In "Atlas Shrugged" when Galt is rescued, all of the other men of the Valley overpower their targets; one soldier is wounded. Dagny kills her defenseless target because he refuses to surrender, but has lost the advantage and cannot stop her. He dithers and she shoots him for not being able to make up his mind.
So, the next time someone says, "I dunno..." do you shoot them for being mindless?
Fiction is not philosophical argument. Good fiction deals with values; and values come from ideas. We are working our way through the Deep Space 9 series. All kinds of moral conflicts play out. We do not always see the choices we would make under those circumstances. That is a discussion.
So, too, here, you can say "Wynand this... Toohey that..." ultimately, like Aesop's Fables, the Bible, Shakespeare, and Uncle Remus, the stories only frame a problem. But you cannot say, "If I were the fox, I would eat the stork rather than be insulted." You have to take the story on its own terms. We can discuss something else, entirely, which you seem to offer. But that would not be textual criticism of a novel.
(BTW - It is "Miss Rand." Miss Rand was Mrs. O'Connor.)