Pirat inspires visions of Mel Brooks dancing across the stage singing about producers and non-producers and making the producers produce more!

because that’s what the world is made up of, isn’t it? producers and non-producers. So whether you produce chairs, tables, houses, gas-chambers, sideways-oil drills, mercenaries, killing-machines, or all the shredded cheeses in Borat’s cheese aisle, you’re far superior to some bullshit taoist who sits on a rock and contemplates a leaf.

I once rewrote the end of The Fountainhead as it was summarized on the Wikipedia entry. I have a screenshot of it here:

http://lacunacabal.blogspot.com/2009/05/bye-bye-wiki.html

That’s a good point, Kyle. I wonder if it ever would have occurred to Ayn Rand.

In my opinion, the problem is not that people have that mindset, it’s when someone only projects it outward (other people have to do this to earn my affection) without focusing it inward as well (I have to do this to earn other’s affection). Read differently it’s not so bad…

“My brothers are neither foe nor friend to me, but such as I shall deserve of each of them. And to earn my brothers love, I must do more than to have been born. They do not grant their love without reason, nor to any chance passer-by who may wish to claim it. They honor men with their love. And honor is a thing to be earned.”