Next Meeting: Tuesday October 5th from 6:00pm - 8:00pm

This week we will be reading "Roarks Speech" and "Why Selfishness" in the Ayn Rand Reader (pages 71-83). We will be meeting in the same location; building 1020 in 9th street park by Einsteins on the Auraria Campus. If you don't have The Ayn Rand Reader yet, make sure to read atleast Roarks Speech in The Fountainhead.

Roark's Speech:
What is the source of human progress? Do the greatest human achievements come from those who devote their lives to serving others? Conventional wisdom says that they do. Is conventional wisdom correct? And since when do we look to conventions to find wisdom?

This week’s discussion will focus on the climactic courtroom speech by Howard Roark in Ayn Rand’s novel, The Fountainhead, in which Roark breaks with tradition and asserts the primary role of the independent egoist in human history, and his moral right to exist for himself.

“Throughout the centuries there were men who took first steps down new roads armed with nothing but their own vision. Their goals differed, but they all had this in common: that the step was first, the road new, the vision unborrowed, and the response they received—hatred. The great creators—the thinkers, the artists, the scientists, the inventors—stood alone against the men of their time. . . . But the men of unborrowed vision went ahead. They fought, they suffered and they paid. But they won.”
—Ayn Rand , The Fountainhead

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And, Why Selfishness:
We'll also be discussing Ayn Rand’s essay titled “Why ‘Selfishness’?”, in which she explains her choice of the word ‘selfishness’ to denote a virtuous quality.

At the beginning of the article when Ayn Rand is asked why she uses the word selfishness, her response is: “For the reason that makes you afraid of it.” Read this essay and come to this discussion to learn what she means by this.


See you all there!

-Kirk