The final book read over fourth of July was Philosophy: Who Needs It, by Ayn Rand, a collection of essays collected after her death. I have read the title piece before. It was a great think to read after The True Believer.#

Philosophical Detection#

A thinker like Kant does not want you to agree with him: all he wants is that you give him the benefit of the doubt. He knows that your own subconscious does the rest. What he dreads is your conscious mind: once you understand the meaning of his theories, they lose their power to threaten you, like a Halloween mask in bright sunlight. [p. 21]

Selfishness Without a Self#

Love is a response to values. The amoralist's actual self-appraisal is revealed in his abnormal need to be loved (but not in the rational sense of the world)--to be "loved for himself," i.e., causelessly. James Taggart reveals the nature of such a need: "I don't want to be loved for anything. I want to be loved for myself--not for anything I do or have or say or think. For myself--not for my body or mind or words or works or actions." (Atlas Struggled.) When his wife asks: "But then... what is yourself?" he has no answer. [p. 48]

Faith and Force#

Do not hide behind such superficialities as whether you should or should not give a dime to a beggar. That is not the issue. The issue is whether you do or do not have the right to exist without giving him that dime. The issue is whether you must keep buying your life, dime by dime, from any beggar who might choose to approach you. The issue is whether the need of others is the first mortgage on your life and the moral purpose of your existence. The issue is whether man is to be regarded as a sacrificial animal. Any man of self-esteem will answer: "No." Altruism says: "Yes." [p. 61]