Dialogue Grab #2

Taken from We The Living, Chapter 6:

“For one reason, mainly, chiefly and eternally, no matter how much your Party promises to accomplish, no matter what paradise it plans to bring mankind. Whatever your other claims ma be, there’s one you can’t avoid, one that will turn your paradise into the most unspeakable hell: your claim that man must live for the state.”

“What better purpose can he live for?”

“Don’t you know that there are things, in the best of us, which no outside hand should dare to touch? Things sacred because, and only because, one can say: ‘This is mine’? Don’t you know that we live only for ourselves, the best of us do, those who are worthy of it? Don’t you know that there is something in us which must not be touched by any state, by any collective, by any number of million?”

Took the words out of my mouth. I did not base my philosophy of selfishness from Rand. I’ve already formulated my thoughts before reading any of her books - this being the first. Here she uses the word “state” which in fact is society. That’s because the setting was the Red Soviet and the Marxists emphasizes on the state rather than the people.

“… I don’t want to fight for the people, I don’t want to fight against the people, I don’t want to hear of the people. I want to be left alone - to live.”

Add comment May 12th, 2008