That, precisely, is the deadlines of second-handers. They have no concern for facts, ideas, work. They're concerned only with people. They don't ask: 'Is it true?' They ask: 'Is this what others think is true?' Not to judge, but to repeat. Not to do, but to give the impression of doing. Not creation, but show. Not ability, but friendship. Not merit, but pull. What would happen to the world without those who do, think, work, produce? Those are the egotists. You don't think through another's brain and you don't work thorough another's hands. When you suspend your faculty of of independent judgement, you suspend your consciousness. To stop consciousness is to stop life. Second-handers have no sense of reality. Their reality is not within them, but somewhere in that space which divides one human body from another. Not an entity, but a relation - anchored to nothing. That's the emptiness I couldn't understand in people.
Ayn Rand - The Fountainhead
