Autonomy, but not the Buzzcocks

The Fountainhead is a classic movie, and if you haven't seen it, well, bah humbug!

It's a masterpiece, and Ayn Rand, the novel's author, adapted the screenplay herself--and by doing so, she lives up to the novel/movie's ultimate theme.

Autonomy is so belittled by "society" these days, whatever that means, and I really feel that Fountainhead represents what we have gotten so far away from. Its protagonist, Howard Roark, is an innovative, fiercely unique, uncompromisingly independent architect. He allows the school board to kick him out of college because he refuses to conform to the antiquated standards they went by. He went broke, he lost everything, all but his integrity, and in the end, no one could break him. He rose to success by his own standards and became one of the greatest architects of his time.

All of this without anyone's help or input, without anyone else's ideas or money, without compromising--ever.

But since Britney Spears is a more likely candidate for role model-ship these days than Howard Roark, I weep for the grandchildren of the greatest generation. The people I have to go to school with.

They're more interested in Gossip Girl than in anything substantiative (although, admittedly, it's a favorite of mine). The closest they'll get to a book is Twilight (yes, even Harry Potter, my first true love, is frowned upon now). And they've been surrounded by the news of impending (ahem, unfolding) economic doom, which was supposedly orchestrated by idiot-in-chief Bush and perpetuated by big-business goons.

Not that they watch the news or anything.

But still. What are the plebes supposed to believe? That the housing policies in the Clinton administration had anything to do with the mortgage crisis? That Barney Frank's "regulations" on AIG and other big financial companies actually forced the companies to take on low mortgage loans and sink the markets? That bailing the banks out is a good thing, that it is legal, that it will work, that it sets a good example for companies in the future, for you and me?

No, the government has been irresponsible, and while we're still expected to do the right thing (and still get arrested for cheating the IRS), Uncle Sam gets to bail out banks that failed (by their own fault and by the governments, not by the tax payers' faults, though they carry the burden). Tim Geitner is a tax cheat, and were he not the "only man capable of running the IRS in America," he would be in jail. By the way, he was one of those oversight guys before Obama annointed him. I wonder how that went...

It's time to follow the example of Howard Roark. To be autonomous. To hold ourselves accountable for our own actions, and to expect others to be accountable for theirs, too.

It's time for members of Congress to stop playing politics. To stop catering to public opinion and to do their jobs. What happened to integrity? To autonomy? To decency?

Chivalry may be dead, but integrity will never be. Believe something, not because you want others to know that you believe it, not because it's popular, not because you have to, but BECAUSE YOU CAN. We are free-thinking, free-acting, independent beings. We were not created to cater to the whims of others but to serve ourselves and to serve God.

If you're not acting out of your own self-interest, what good can possibly come of that?