In this clip from The Daily Objective, Mark and Nikos discuss life as a primary.
Shortly before this clip, Mark and Nikos talked about the misinterpretation of selfishness as a foundation for cruelty, and claims that Rand doesn’t care about suffering — which they refuted with the help of quotes from Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead.
It’s one thing to not care about suffering; it’s another thing to not hold suffering as metaphysically important. And those are different types of values — it’s a different orientation toward suffering. One holds it as a primary and orients its moral code around it. Another says it’s an aspect of life, but life itself is what we have to orient our values around. And certainly, that includes the alleviation of suffering, but it’s not a primary because life is the primary. And that’s a very different orientation.
Mark Pellegrino
And what is a better struggle and fight against suffering than saying life is not about suffering?
Nikos Sotirakopoulos
Isn’t that beautiful? Life isn’t about suffering, guys; it’s about living. It’s about joy. And suffering happens, right, because we’re sentient beings. We feel the knocks that life offers us. Sometimes overcoming obstacles is hard, but it’s overcoming the obstacles that makes life worthwhile.
Mark Pellegrino
