Fountain Head …
After having spend the last 36 hours to finish the last 250 pages of the book, I think I do not agree with Ayn Rand on many things although I am waiting to get hold of a hard copy of Atlas Shrugged ..
Peter Keating and Howard Roark as exact opposites ?? No, I do not think so..Strangely, inequality can exist only between two things that are equal in a way. Inequailty cannot exist between superior and inferior. 3 is not equal to 4 but both of them are equal in the sense that they are numbers. One can compare 3 with a ..It would not make sense. The book worships Howard, the perfect man(the concept in which I do not believe in ..). It shows Peter as someone to be a parasite always feeding upon other’s ideas..How can they both be compared !! If Peter would have been able to find the solution of every problem by scrolling the pages of history, by looking at efficient structure of the past and Roark would not have been able to solve a maze without the help of others, then one could have compared them ..Roark has not been shown as Hero, but a Super Hero..If one argues that Roark is only a concept made to highlight a bigger purpose, then it is too abstract atleast for me..
PS: went to AIIMS PULSE 09 to hear Sonu Nigam and can firmly say that 50% of people there are insane, rest are IITians 
.Would probably go tonight also to Euphoria concert ..
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The idea Rand probably had while introducing Roark was to introduce an ideal we should aspire towards…
and Roark and Peter are not like 3 and ,,. They are both human beings, who went to the same college, who worked in the same profession, who married the same woman… they are compared in the sense that Peter responds to a particular situation completely differently than does Roark. Given an assignment, Roark focusses on functionality, while Peter focusses on conventional aesthetics. Roark is original, Peter is a copy cat. Roark is a man with integrity, he does not take credit off others because he is not afraid of being honest and rejected. Peter does not have that kind of integrity because he is very, very scared.
and ha ha!
(for ‘50% are insane, rest are IITians’)
And Atlas Shrugged is about conditional existence… that something without a good reason is a fluke, and being selfish is good. something Roark believes in.
Put into the stack of things to be discussed when we would meet …:)
” Peter does not have that kind of integrity because he is very, very scared.”
Here is an interesting but weird situation ..
We agree that the primary aim of man is to achieve happiness. Happiness for himself by doing the work he likes most. Now if there was a Peter Keating who really liked to copy other’s design. He wants to be successful by this way and he sees nothing wrong in it and there is no sense of guilt(why should one have, anyway? who has defined the ethics) in him. Like Roark loves his work, loves to design something original .. Similarly, Peter loves what he is doing. Apparently to me, there is no difference between the two …
now
@Kalyani: What will Rand say on this ?
in doing something good and original, you have a greater sense of power, and therefore satisfaction… because by doing something original you prove to yourself and others that you are capable of finding creative solutions to problems when nothing else is working, which obviously is going to make you powerful. original is hard though, because you have to think more, and peter is scared of getting it wrong, because he does not think much of himself deep down… so he wants to be on the safer side, and copies. peter doesnt love copying, no one does, as compared to being original and good. but he chooses security over intellectual and creative satisfaction… roark is not scared of being wrong, he is original and satisfied… and so roark is never at moral crossroads or in a dilemma… when you are not in a dilemma, you are happy, because there is no other option to make you unhappy. peter is always in dilemma, and he always chooses the less satisfying easier way out… so he is unhappy.
ethics are defined as a set of protocols that enable you to function to your max in the society. roark has a very consistent, simple and powerful code of ethics… and so he’s much more satisfied.
This question came to my mind when I was reading Republic in wich Polymarchus ask Socrates about the definition of ethics and ask him why should a dictator be considered morally bad and flana flana …
Your arguements all involve that “peter is scared..” , “peter doesnt love copying” , “peter is always in dilemena” …All this are quite apparent in the novel and that what makes Roark a better person than Peter. All I am saying is what if there all were seen in an opposite way, that’s why in the question I said , “if there was a peter keating”..that would have made both of them equal..
ok… i hadn’t read your question properly. here’s the new answer, assuming the highly improbable situation that there is a peter keating whose ultimate source of pleasure is copying. ethically, perfectly no difference… peter is as consistent and as less in a dilemma as roark. so no problem there. BUT, peter still has practised his intellect less than roark has… so he’ll probably be intellectually inferior, even though not ethically. but thats not the kind of peter, ayn rand is talking of… her focus is not on intellectual superiority but on ethical superiority. and roark is ethically superior because peter is not i-love-copying peter. he’s i-am-scared peter.