How Subconscious Works As An "integrating Mechanism" At A "peconceptual" Stage In Reality?

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The contents of that "unit," the attributes Chanel Jewelry of one's specific self-concept, change as one ages and depend on internalized experiences, including social influences. By reducing the human mind to a rationality that is relatively free of social influence, Rand oversimplifies the complexity of the human psyche on physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual levels, all interconnected with others.

For example, she repeatedly dismisses intuition as the workings of a purely subjective imagination that is disconnected from objective reality, instead of recognizing its Jewelry On Sale correspondence to her idea of how the subconscious works as an "integrating mechanism" at a "preconceptual" stage in touch with that objective reality. This subliminal (intuitive) grasp of reality is one's "sense of life," which is necessary to produce art (Romantic Manifesto 31).

The extensive development of her chief villains, both consciously self-directed, belies Rand's simplistic self-formulation. ...
... Ellsworth Toohey is the diabolic archvillain of the novel, who, unlike the hapless Keating, does not act simply out of weakness in response to social pressure. When we first meet Toohey, he appears kindly and humble, with even an impressive reputation that precedes him.

But, in Toohey's history as a child with a deformed and sickly body, he develops a devious mind attributable to the martyr complex of his mother, who dotes on his disability as if it made him morally superior. Her twisted notion inculcates his contempt for attractive, healthy, and capable peers, whom he secretly envies and determines to vilify by clever plotting, while appearing saintly himself. Hence, his villainy is not formed in a vacuum.

In adulthood, he continues his ambition to tear down others who are capable, such as Roark, preaching an ideal of self-effacement to eliminate anyone whose individual achievement might challenge his power. As a popular writer and speaker masterfully manipulating public opinion, Toohey doesn't preach the ideology of "getting ahead" that Keating's mother follows, but that of socialism, which was on the rise during the period that the novel depicts, from the 1920s to the 1940s.

Toohey's goal is not mere materialistic success, but power over other minds, which he reveals as a youngster in response to the biblical question "What shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul" His reply is "Then in order to be truly wealthy, a man should collect souls". Undermining souls with a self-sacrificing ethic is his way to rule the world.

He has cynically chosen socialist activism over a career as a clergyman, because religion's emphasis on the salvation of the individual soul is not as totally demanding of self-sacrifice as is the god of the secular collective. His hypocrisy is realistic, but his stated principles misrepresent socialism and altruism.

The prime victim of Toohey's subtle power is his niece, Katie, the naive and open-minded girlfriend of Keating. She represents a kind of tabula rasa, whose simple generosity is to love her man unconditionally (despite how Keating neglects her in his ambivalence) and to pursue a college education to learn more about the world.

She has very little mind of her own and can thus be easily inscribed by her uncle's eloquent discourse. By the time she intuitively understands and wants to escape her uncle's power over her, it is too late. Keating has been lured away from her by his self-hating lust for Dominique, whom he marries knowing that she despises him, leaving Katie to succumb to her diabolical uncle's mantra of self-sacrifice. Her loss of Keating clinches her loss of self in her undesired career as a social worker, which Toohey prods her into (as if a socialist dictates careers).