| Posted: 12 January 2010 at 4:22pm | IP Logged | 6
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As a sidebar -- but a significant sidebar -- anyone seeking a sliver of insight into Steve Ditko's mindset should read (or watch) The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand.
A complex man cannot be reduced to a mere book or motion picture character, but when I read Ditko's essays he seems very simpatico to Howard Roark, the central character of the novel (played by Gary Cooper in the film) who serves as the voice of Rand's Objectivist philosophy. Roark is an architect who cares not for riches or fame but rather for the freedom to create and the opportunity to realize his vision unimpeded by the looters and critics that plague society:
"Before you can do things for people, you must be the kind of man who can get things done. But to get things done, you must love the doing, not the people! Your own work, not any possible object of your charity. I'll be glad if men who need it find a better method of living in the house I built, but that's not the motive of my work, nor my reason, nor my reward! My reward, my purpose, my life, is the work itself - my work done my way! Nothing else matters to me!"
"No creator was prompted by a desire to please his brothers. His brothers hated the gift he offered. His truth was his only motive. His work was his only goal. His work, not those who used it, his creation, not the benefits others derived from it. The creation which gave form to his truth. He held his truth above all things, and against all men. He went ahead whether others agreed with him or not. With his integrity as his only banner. He served nothing, and no one. He lived for himself. And only by living for himself was he able to achieve the things which are the glory of mankind. Such is the nature of achievement."
"The creator stands on his own judgment. The parasite follows the opinions of others. The creator thinks, the parasite copies. The creator produces, the parasite loots. The creator's concern is the conquest of nature - the parasite's concern is the conquest of men. The creator requires independence, he neither serves nor rules. He deals with men by free exchange and voluntary choice. The parasite seeks power, he wants to bind all men together in common action and common slavery. He claims that man is only a tool for the use of others. That he must think as they think, act as they act, and live in selfless, joyless servitude to any need but his own. Look at history. Everything thing we have, every great achievement has come from the independent work of some independent mind. Every horror and destruction came from attempts to force men into a herd of brainless, soulless robots. Without personal rights, without personal ambition, without will, hope, or dignity. It is an ancient conflict. It has another name: the individual against the collective."
Edited by Matthew McCallum on 12 January 2010 at 5:17pm
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