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  1. I know it's much later but I just saw this topic, so idk if OP will see this reply. As a self-employed plumber, I can say that I in no way feel "less important" than a CEO of a large scale company. I would say that I resonate deeper with Hank Rearden than I do with Eddie Willers. This is because I don't equate my success with how much my business grosses each year, or how much I "contribute to society". I find great pride in my personal success and growth in itself, in relation to nothing at all. I have achieved great success through skill, dedication, and even character (A friendly, positive, and honest personality). My identifying with Rearden as opposed to Willers has nothing to do with Bank statements, it's all about viewpoint. I find pride in my ability and I know I do my job with 100% dedication. That's where the philosophy comes in. Its really not so much, what you do, but how you do it, and how you view it. I can't quote, but I recall Ayn Rand saying something to the effect of: even someone who just files papers for a living needs to use their brain and can find pride in it. Would someone who handles millions of dollars a day consider my life and profession as "important" as theirs? I don't know... Should I care?
    3 points
  2. I'm listening to a lecture course about the history of American philosophy, and according to one of the lectures Hegel's philosophy came to the United States in part by means of theology. Theology students would often travel to Europe and bring back the philosophical and theological ideas that were current there. One of the first major Hegelian works in the United States was by a theologian who was trying to show how God had allowed history to develop through the thesis - antithesis - synthesis pattern Hegel described. Theology has had a pretty big impact on intellectual life in the United States in general, not just in this case. The most important American philosopher of the 18th century was Jonathan Edwards, a theologian who wrote a treatise defending compatibilism about free will. Also, from The Ominous Parallels, p. 119: "During the nineteenth century it became a trend and then the rule for American students, especially in philosophy and theology, to spend a year or more in Germany absorbing the latest German culture. An army of American students absorbed it. They came home, and they repeated what they had learned. They repeated it throughout the country that had been founded on the ideals of an enlightened mind and man's inalienable rights." So, yes, philosophy and theology students, but prior to the second World War when people started immigrating from Germany to escape the collectivism.
    1 point
  3. Certainly Objectivism does not hold plumbers, electricians, builders to be "moochers," let alone "useless." Honestly, when we speak of "utility" and one's "role in society," it makes me a touch uneasy. An individual is not obligated to have a "useful role in society" as judged by me, Ayn Rand, or anybody else. Worth less to whom? Every individual is (or ought to be) supremely important in his individual endeavors to himself--that's what matters. It's the only thing that matters. To be honest, I don't understand the point of Nicky comparing "electrician A" to "electrician B," either. You're right in your reply that the truth of the matter depends on their individual context. So much does, and a person born in the slums of India could fight out of their poverty tooth-and-nail, and maybe achieve a success that would appear to be middling, when viewed from middle-class America... yet in so doing be more virtuous and heroic than an apparently successful socialite who was born to wealth. (If you're familiar with The Fountainhead, Roark in the quarry was far more admirable than Keating at the top of his profession.) As for evaluating one's self, there are questions that only you can answer: are you doing the most with what you have available to you? Do you strive? Work hard? Are you as honest with yourself as you can be? Being an Objectivist is not about being a Titan of Industry, or bringing the most value to society, and being wealthy or apparently successful is no sure sign of morality. It's about being the best you can be (in your individual context/situation) for the purpose of leading the best life you possibly can.
    1 point
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