I had to dig this out by re-reading the book until I found it. And I was wrong, apparently. Look at Part II Ellsworth Toohey, Chapter VI. (Pages 281-282 in the bookclub edition hard back.) At the Kiki Halcombe party, Toohey rhapsodizes about Howard Roark's face, alluding to the "style of a civilization."

I remembered it as Hegel who coined the term Zeitgeist (Spirit of the Times), but that was incorrect.

In fact, after much googling, and even time in JSTOR with academic papers, I cannot find a reference to a philosopher who wrote of the "style of a civilization".

ah, yes. Peter was evil, but he didn't even get it. He asked throughout and he accepted Toohey's rationalizations. Taggart was stone cold knowing. He cheated and knew it-every step throughout. He got it-well the looter part-he completely was clueless about the nature and importance of man
IMO

"when db was young he really wanted to be in Scouts. so his dad told him he was a "potential scout" he bought that and when it came time for him to sign up-he rejected it. so did my son,"
I don't understand. Why did he accept it first and then reject it?

I thought you meant Keating and Taggart: Keating for stringing his g/f along and Taggart for being Taggart to his wife.

no-not exactly. remember the fisher woman who wanted to be a writer? they took in potentials-funny story. when db was young he really wanted to be in Scouts. so his dad told him he was a "potential scout" he bought that and when it came time for him to sign up-he rejected it. so did my son, and I am a lifelong girl scout. well actually I stopped my membership after the last crazy theocracy of enviros came through

in Rearden's case, how so?

I hadn't thought about that. And they both were really bad to their partners.

Is the Gulch only for the leaders?[sincere question, not rhetorical] I imagine the Gulch people populated with people who have no knowledge or interest in fixing policy problems. One of them is obsessed with making a quantum computer work. Another works diligently 30 hours a week as a janitor and live a lifestyle very modest in luxuries but rich with hobbies or family activities.

do you have a cite for the Hegel comment?

No. The phone conversation. It was born via AT&T.

I do not understand this comment. My point was that they both both saw sex as contemptible instead of life affirming

he told the tale, but did not act

"Roark is everyman in the Gulch. "
What about the guy who told Dagny about how at the motor plant the effort to avoid pitting people's abilities against each other's led to the worse problem of pitting their needs against one another's? One person's need for surgey was weighted against the needs of another person who's kid needed a filling and someone else who car was broken down. That contemptible woman doled out the money to sycophants. Galt said he wouldn't have it. That guy who didn't particpate but told the tale is my notion of the everyman of the Gulch.

"well, start with the sex lol"
Just like Star Trek and other franchises, there must be slash fan fic out there with Reardon and Dominique doing the "normal female/male dance." Rearden was never down-and-out working for a plumbing company welding metal pipes with a blow torch, but things would have gone along the same lines nonetheless.

so the basic idea ws born via MM?

So the basic idea was born in that conversation. Pretty cool. I think Cheryl and Catherine have some similarities. Both were manipulated by looters.

When she wrote The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand had no prescience that she would write Atlas Shrugged. Early biographical material such as Who is Ayn Rand? by Nathaniel and Barbara Branden, offers some insights. One story is that Rand was on the telephone with "an admirer" (apparently Isabel Paterson) who said that Rand "must" write another book because her readers "need" it (or "expect" it). Really? What if I stopped writing? What if all of the authors stopped writing?

About the same time - 1952 or 1953 - Fortune magazine's annual review of books complained mildly of the mild state of novels about business. Executive Suite by Cameron Hawley failed to inspire. However, said the critic, rumor has it that Ayn Rand is writing a book about business that will be as new and influential as was The Fountainhead. (I would have to sort through boxes for that. But I have it because the 11x17 color xerox cost a small bundle to get right.)

Also, to the point here, Rand's philosophy continued to grow and evolve. For one thing - just detail, but it is revealing - In The Fountainhead she quotes Hegel in a positive way. At that stage in her intellectual development, she was still open to whatever good ideas came from however culpable a source. By 1957 her attitude had changed.

Right now, I am reading The Deerslayer. The Leatherstocking Tales comprise a narrative as Nathaniel matures. However, they were written out of sequence. The Deerslayer was the last written, though it is subtitled "The First Warpath." The author does not always know where the story is going to go.

Also, for a comparison of characters, as she was asked about here, wouldn't Cheryl Brooks be analogous to Catherine Halsey?

At first I thought it would be abnormal for any of us guys to miss that but then realized it is a book. We should have know K would pick that out for starters. LOL

Oh yeah. Missed that one. :-)

well, start with the sex lol

To me, Fountainhead was the basis of objectivism applied individually. Atlas Shrugged on the other hand, further expanded the philosophy to include groups and illustrated why the philosophical change is needed.

Absolutely. I re-read the Fountainhead recently and was surprised how much of the philosophy she did have worked out.

I think the plot of the Fountainhead only allowed for a more limited exposition of her philosophy.

Excellent distinction between Toohey and Taggert. Keating and Taggert had made so many deals to get ahead that they ended up destroying themselves. Reardon and Dominique is an interesting comparison. I have to think about that one.

Just curious, did you see the philosophy in The Fountainhead?

well, she hadn't yet developed the philosophy. She did that with AS