In our youth, Kurt, it was somewhat natural to want to be 'John Galt' and want change the world a la Ayn Rand. That's what romance, heroism and being young is for. Back in the days, I wanted to be a nuclear physicist and bring unlimited free energy to the world.

Objectivism's 'law of identity' axioms, however, imprison you in a cul-de-sac. The truth is, you can't change the world by yourself, nor is a world were 'a' is always just equal to 'a' very open to being changed.

Our selves are in fact profoundly social. It is a new born organism's transactions with other selves that allows a self to grow into being at all. George Herbert Mead, Dewey's sidekick at the University of Chicago, is the mother lode on this topic, if you don't want to go all the way back to the Buddha.

As an antidote to Rand's A=A Aristotleanism, I like pondering an aphorism from a medieval Irish monk, John Scotus Erigena, condemned for heresy. He said, contra St Anselm, 'God is all that is and all that is not.' A = A and not A, the law of contradiction, a la Hegel.

As to the other topic, non-heterosexual folks can call themselves what ever they want, and hardly need my approval in any case, but where I come from, 'queer' is a nasty put-down and I have no intention to start using it in these late days of my life.