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Hey Y'all,

Welcome to the 6th Episode of The Architect's Purpose Podcast!

This episode springboards of which the inaugural episode laid the groundwork by expanding on the original notion of the individual vs the collective, especially in the realm of quality.

On a macro level, this discussion starts off with the critique of the critic who intentionally espouses something bad. This is dangerous when there’s drones of people who only follow a consensus, fads, or what “experts” say, this can quickly turn into illogical fodder that serves no purpose for pushing individuals forward, which pushes society forward.

This fodder is peddled in the fountainhead by two main characters, Dominique Francon (later, Keating, Wynand, then Roark) and Gail Wynand, which have wildly different motives but the same result. In this discussion we compare and contrast the two of them.

Why is the Mona Lisa so popular? It is spectacular, no doubt, but is it worthy of its superb notoriety, or does it simply have the best marketing? This kind of value judgement really must come from within instead of without as we have a psychological proclivity towards wanting to be in agreement with others (of course, there’s extremes the other way)

This kind of sheer notoriety leads people to wanting copies of the past and not innovations into the future. It is perfectly culminated in the anecdotal story of the president of the Huawei company wanting an exact copy of the Gum (Russia) and Michel turning down the project for the sake of architectural integrity.

But what is architectural integrity? That also must come from within more than from without.

Of course, collaboration, learning, and expanding horizons is the only way to grow, but it must be taken through a careful lens, as everyone else is just as flawed as you, so who gives them supreme sovereignty over you as an individual?

The simple argument is this: only a voluntary collective of strong individuals can push society forward, and not the collective that makes individuals lives better.

This argument has its sides depth, both macro and micro, but the simple reality is this, life is experienced as an individual. You and me. That’s not some highfalutin academia handing down his solution to society online. This is about You and Me right now doing all that we can offline to better our lives.