Food for thought – Immigration of ideas

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Cartoon by Ryan Fletcher (concept idea credited to Sam Oldfield)
Cartoon by Ryan Fletcher (concept credited to Sam Oldfield)

In today’s world, information is travelling faster and more frequently than any time in history, and this trend will likely continue on into the future. Where some ideas advance human thinking towards remarkable innovation, it is also true that other ideas insight devastating destruction.

This brings me to contrast two competing ideologies; Islamic totalitarianism and Western Individualism.

To the Islamofascists Allah’s word must dominate an individual’s life, aiming to collectively subjugate all mankind to the Koran’s dogma of death, slavery and pursuant to the caliphate.

On the flip side exists the individualistic culture that embraces the virtues of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Where the Jihadi terrorist, (who seeks to be a walking explosive device for intentional savage force,) epitomises Islamic totalitarianism, literary characters like Howard Roark, (the hero in Ayn Rand’s book The Fountainhead,) epitomises Western Individualism.

In considering this battle for ideas and the borders which they cross, I reflect on a section of the speech delivered in The Fountainhead by Howard Roark:

“Nothing is given to man on earth. Everything he needs has to be produced. And here man faces his basic alternative: he can survive in only one of two ways – by the independent work of his own mind or as a parasite fed by the minds of others. The creator originates. The parasite borrows. The creator faces nature alone. The parasite faces nature through an intermediary.

The creator’s concern is the conquest of nature. The parasite’s concern is the conquest of men.”

Food for thought.