What does this passage mean from Fountainhead?

[jwwceo]

I have read the Fountainhead a few times, and I have a question about one passage.

It comes at the end of part I, where all the architects are at the dinner to celebrate the partnership of Peter Keating.

Halcombe rises to speak, intending to say something, then off the top of this head he spits out this

.We are the guardians of a great human function. Perhaps of the greatest function among the endeavors of man. We have achieved much and we have erred often. But we are willing in all humility to make way for our heirs. We are only men and we are only seekers. But we seek for truth with the best there is in our hearts. We seek with what there is of the sublime granted to the race of men. It is a great quest...

Anyone have any thoughts on this?? I think its a great piece of prose, and pretty profound (especially the last 3 sentences)...but not something you would expect Halcombe to say. Why did Rand add this in, and from this character??

James

[musenji]

You know, on my last read-through I had the same thoughts. Seems odd coming from a guy who thought that Renaissance was the end-all supreme style of architecture.

edit: (not odd because Renaissance is necessarily bad, but because his speech implies that the field is still evolving, in contrast to believing the evolution ended with Renaissance.)

Edited May 12, 2009 by musenji

[phibetakappa]

It's a parity. Ayn Rand is poking fun of the kind of meaningless drivel, psychological-dependents mouth when they attempt to garner the approval of others and try to sound profound.

Edited May 12, 2009 by phibetakappa

[agrippa1]

(parody? )

This is the mystic view of human achievement.

"We are the guardians of a great human function. [argument from tradition] Perhaps of the greatest function among the endeavors of man. [ambivalent, meaningless abstraction] We have achieved much and we have erred often. [equivocation and admission of powerlessness] But we are willing in all humility to make way for our heirs. [false humility] We are only men and we are only seekers. [seeking for what?...] But we seek for truth with the best there is in our hearts. [whose truth? And what about what's in our heads?] We seek with what there is of the sublime granted to the race of men. [sublime, in whose eyes, and granted by whom?]It is a great quest. [a Holy Grail, perhaps?] To the future of American Architecture!" [i.e., to its past]

[phibetakappa]

It's a parity. Ayn Rand is poking fun of the kind of meaningless drivel, psychological-dependents mouth when they attempt to garner the approval of others and try to sound profound.

The quote is from page 200 of the Fountainhead.

Given the context of the paragraphs just before this one a point for point contrast can be made between the circumstances Keating's undeserved "success," & the above quoted speech, and what Roark is thinking as he embarks on what will be the low point of his life, i.e, his sentence of hard labor in the quarry.

By conventional standards, this is the darkest moment of Roark's life up to this point; and at the same time, Keating's brightest success: compare what Holcombe is celebrating, in contrast to what Roark is thinking.

The distance had flattened the city. The single shafts stood immeasurably tall, out of scale to the rest of the earth. They were of their own world, and they held up to the sky the statement of what man had conceived and made possible. They were empty molds. But man had come so far; he could go farther. The city on the edge of the sky held a question—and a promise.

"But man had come so far; he could go farther."

What does Holcombe say,

"We are the guardians of a great human function."

He thinks of himself as a guardian of what was, as if there was no improving on the past; as if the greatest achievements are long since behind men, and all that's left for men to do is to circle the wagons and protect the a "human function."

Note: Ayn Rand thought the purpose of Art (Architecture being an Art), as to project how things might be and ought to be; to take a particular artistic medium, and "shape it in the image of one's values; so that one could not just "seek" some goal never to be reach, but to objectify one's values, in the here and now and to experience, in art, what one's future ideal would look like.

Holcombe says, 'We are only men and we are only seekers."

The phrase "we are only men..." is very telling. Roark would never say he is "only" a man, as if there was something greater to be besides a lowly "man." Roark would say, I am a man, therefore, everything is possible!

Roark would not say, he is "only a seeker," ever seeking but never reaching his goals; as if achieving our goals is something out of reach and only to be perpetually yearned for.

Contrast this with Roark's speech in the court room where he describes what he receives in payment for giving his plans to Keating. He says that he likes to be pay for his work, but in this case, if his building is finished, he will achieve what no other man can "give him," he will have built, actualized, objectified his values in reality.

(parody? )

Yes! Thank you. I guess "I am only a man, only a seeker of perfect spelling and English usage." LOL

Edited May 12, 2009 by phibetakappa

[jwwceo]

Thanks for awesome answers guys!!!

[KendallJ]

I think its a great piece of prose,

What makes it a great piece of prose?