What is the basic premise of our global story at the moment?

Our traditions, beliefs, the things that we aspire to – how did we arrive at them?  Why do we believe some things are superior to others?  Why do we consider certain things beautiful and others not?

(This quote from “The Fountainhead” by Ayn Rand)

“But I don’t understand.  Why do you want me to think that this is great Architecture?”  He pointed to the picture of the Parthenon.

“That,” said the Dean, “is the Parthenon.”

“So it is.”

“I haven’t the time to waste on silly questions.”

(text missing)

“Look,” said Roark.  “The famous flutings on the famous columns – what are they there for? To hide the joints in wood – when columns were made of wood, only these aren’t, they’re marble.  The triglyphs, what are they?  Wood.  Wooden beams, the way they had to be laid when people began to build wooden shacks.  Your Greeks took marble and they made copies of their wooden structures out of it, because others had done it that way.  Then your master of the Renaissance came along and made copies in plaster of copies in marble of copies in wood.  Now here we are, making copies in steel and concrete of copies in plaster of copies in marble of copies in wood.  Why?”

The Dean sat watching him curiously.  Something puzzled him, not in the words, but in Roark’s manner of saying them.

“Rules?” said Roark.  “Here are my rules: what can be done with one substance must never be done with another.  No two materials are alike.  No two sites on earth are alike.  No two buildings have the same purpose.  The purpose, the site, the material determine the shape.  Nothing can be reasonable or beautiful unless it’s made by one central idea, and the idea sets every detail.  A building is alive, like a man.  Its integrity is to follow its own truth, its one single theme, and to serve its own single purpose.  A man doesn’t borrow pieces of his body.  A building doesn’t borrow hunks of its soul.  Its maker gives it the soul and every wall, window and stairway express it.”

“But all the proper forms of expression have been discovered long ago.”

“Expression – of what?  The Parthenon did not serve the same purpose as its wooden ancestor.  An airline terminal does not serve the same purpose as the Parthenon.  Every form has its own meaning. 

Every man creates his meaning and form and goal.  Why is it so important – what others have done?  Why does it become sacred by the mere fact of not being your own?  Why is anyone and everyone right – so long as it’s not yourself? 

Why does the number of those other take the place of truth?  Why is truth made a mere matter of arithmetic – and only of addition at that?  Why is everything twisted out of all sense to fit everything else? 

There must be some reason.  I don’t know.  I’ve never known it.  I’d like to understand.”