Perhaps I’m putting a bit of my own spin on it as well:

“The thinker creates. The parasite destroys.”

It’s the fundamental question of any utilitarian philosophy: by existing, do you add anything? Or do you take away? Is the world better or worse for your influence on it? True, destruction makes way for new creation, but it’s foolish to praise the effects of a fire or earthquake because they enable people to build more houses, for example – better to credit the builders for the very human feat of creating in spite of the destructive forces that oppose them.

Thus it is desirable to destroy only as much as is required to replace with a better creation. Anything further is gratuitous, unnecessary, …even evil.

And thus the principle of additivity finds its application and its grounding in utilitarian philosophy (perhaps with some Objectivism thrown in, though Rand’s aim was to create a philosophy for living according to one’s own principles within society, while my aim is to create a philosophy for the act of creation itself).

Rand defines the worth of society as the amount of freedom it affords its citizens. It’s a good definition, but I’d also factor in the amount of unnecessary destruction it requires for creation (or even just life in general) – destruction of the environment, destruction of people’s fortunes, destruction of people’s ideas, etc. Anything that doesn’t need to be cleared for creation shouldn’t be.

Slowly, the concept of Panidealism is being fleshed out (through the usual method of subconsciously generating unrelated ideas and tying them together in surprising ways, or “painting a house with a paintball gun”). It’s going to be quite a philosophy when I’m finally ready to write it up. Unfortunately, I don’t think it will happen before I graduate.

(Update: Why do I always add an “e” to the end of his name? Subconsciously, “Roark” just lacks a sort of linguistic “balance”).