Heroic selfishness

If you want to understand how selfishness is a virtue, go find a copy of The Fountainhead and flip to the scene where Howard Roark is offered the commission for the Manhattan Bank Building. Roark's architectural practice has been floundering and he desperately needs the commission. Mr. Wiedler fights for him, but the board keeps him waiting. Finally, they offer it to Roark, but on one condition - Roark must change the building's facade to a more conventional design. Roark believes a building should have integrity just like a man; he believes that a building's form should follow from its function. Roark refuses the commission. The board members are incredulous; Roark is on the brink of utter destitution, yet he turns down a major commission in the heart of New York City in order to protect the integrity of his design. "Do you have to be quite so fanatical and selfless about it?" they ask. And there's this wonderful moment where Roark picks up his drawings and sqeezes them to his side, then responds, "That was the most selfish thing you've ever seen a man do."