I agree Kinnan is more sympathetic, intentionally so. Like, if everyone around is a Kinnan, you just have to be good at mechanism design, and their local selfishness will, like fluid filling a container, form something good (according to the mechanism designer). I’m saying that Kinnan doesn’t kowtow to the collective in the same way; but is still a looter, is still not living up to Rand’s visionary form of selfishness that loves life, and would find his way to conflict with people, if that were in his local self-interest. In other words, I’m trying to say that although dropping selfishness altogether seems more something (less value-enacting; more able to be sucked into totally ungrounded maelstroms) than being a Kinnan, still, being selfish isn’t enough to avoid conflict.
I agree Kinnan is more sympathetic, intentionally so. Like, if everyone around is a Kinnan, you just have to be good at mechanism design, and their local selfishness will, like fluid filling a container, form something good (according to the mechanism designer). I’m saying that Kinnan doesn’t kowtow to the collective in the same way; but is still a looter, is still not living up to Rand’s visionary form of selfishness that loves life, and would find his way to conflict with people, if that were in his local self-interest. In other words, I’m trying to say that although dropping selfishness altogether seems more something (less value-enacting; more able to be sucked into totally ungrounded maelstroms) than being a Kinnan, still, being selfish isn’t enough to avoid conflict.