 | Put this in your Rand-sighting file: "Egoless Egoists: The Second-Hand Lives of Mad Men" by Robert White, published in Mad Men and Philosophy: Nothing Is as It Seems (part of the Philosophy and Pop Culture Series.)
Much of Mad Men fits the theme of The Fountainhead in its expose of second-handers, and White gets it right:
"Presumably, Cooper believes Rand to be a defender of nonconformity. However, Cooper is mistaken. Rand defended the virtue of independence. The independent person is primarily oriented to reality, rather than to other people."
It's a pretty interesting book overall, since the field of advertising lends itself inherently to philosophical discussions ideas like objectivity versus subjectivity, conformity versus authenticiy, and the manipulation of the ego and reality itself. |
MAD MEN AND PHILOSOPHY: Nothing Is as It Seems by Rod Carveth
