And I repeat, she needs no introduction. But for the other half of the world who might be unaware of this literary figure who has the most polar fan base I know of, follow my lead.
She’s the poster girl for free market fundamentalism. The author of ‘The Fountainhead. The founder of the philosophy of objectivism.
Chances are you have been told to read this supposedly important book ‘The Fountainhead’ sometime growing up. That was at least my introduction to her work, ‘a book I must read’.
And so this confused, hormonal, half-ambitious, half-rookie nineteen year old self took her first steps in to Rand World. To my embarrassment and your surprise, soon after I was done reading this book, I talked about it every chance that I got. Eating, thinking, discussing, studying, debating, texting, I didn’t care what the question was, it was all a cue for me to beat drums about the unchecked power of capitalism and squint my eyes at all acts of social welfare, whatsoever.
Her body of work including, the novels, plays, essays and scripts, in its essence was this and I quote
”Man, as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute”.
In case that sentence is a mouthful for you, in a nutshell, a man has three functions, his happiness, his achievement and his reason’. If you don’t follow the same, her ghost figure of 115 years would disapprove of your existence. Or like the cool kids say these days, she would cancel you.
Fleshing out the book which was most telling of her career, The Fountainhead. It’s a story of an architect, our hero, Howard Roark. Howard, the man who is. The man who wants to build things best suited to his ideal and creative vision. Revolutionary, in its light. While we assume he was celebrated for the same, he was repulsed for the same, even kicked out of his college for not making buildings the way they have been made in past.
Against our hero we have not one, two, but three villains. Peter Keating, the man who isn’t capable of independent thought and doesn’t know it. He’s a society pleaser and the biggest disappointment to his own self. Ellsworth Toohey, the man who isn’t an individual and will destroy anyone else who tries to become one. He does so keeping the shield of social welfare on his hand. And then we have Gail Wyand the man who could have been an individual but chooses not to. It’s Howard Roark against the three.
It’s an Individual against the society. Individualism against collectivism.
No spoiler alert here: Our hero wins.
But real life spoiler alert: The hero might not.
When you read this book as a young noob who’s yet to enter the work force and still basking in parental privilege, it’s convenient to buy in the idea that this is how it works. It’s like someone’s coddling your ego.There’s just too much survivorship bias at play.
It was comforting then to know, just like Howard Roark, if I keep doing things I love and work hard at it, the results will follow, as if the society owes it to me. And any fluctuation or roadblock on the way is not because of the creation of the creator but the evil society? What good is that? Even the sound of it is unfair.
If you think about this in the macro scheme of things, it amplifies the idea that we can only rely on ourselves, which strikes out cooperation and collaboration. This puts an end to uncertainty, yes. But things don’t roll like that. The world within the pages don’t follow the rhythm of the actual world where philosophy and the lack of it exists together.
Truth to be told, I used to be a fan. I even assisted my college senior in college who wrote her literature thesis on theories of several characters in an Ayn Rand novel. Her ideals helped me build a foundation of the meaningful work I want to do in my life. She glamorised the act of independent thought in a way which was life affirming. In fountainhead, or any book by Ayn Rand, the fall of the hero was a failure of mine and the becoming of the hero was a becoming of me but life is a lot more than that and people contain multitudes.
If we think of the world today from the perspective of Ayn Rand, she would champion the big boys of silicon valley despite of the damage they are causing to the society at large. She would call out the ventures for social good despite of the communities they have pushed forward. Capitalism isn’t necessarily a leap forward and collectivism isn’t necessarily an act of good for its face value. But certain people with certain traits only act in a certain way in an Ayn Rand World. Of her universe, earth really is flat.
In a dystopia of Ayn Rand, if it had a manifesto slogan, it would be this, welfare is evil, taxation is theft, social good is scam’.
Often times I think to myself what would she think of MRP. How people of different earning capacities pay the same price of the product, how fair is that? I would ask her if she lacked faith in the state, why did she claim her social security ?
The hypocrisy she called out so much of mankind, was much preached than practised.
Now I am not implying that you should brace yourselves for a life full of doom and lack of men who lead with an ideal. What I am saying is, an independent man is built by the society he’s raised in, it’s human to push both man and society forward to actually to advance the human race.
Homo sapiens survived and thrived because we collaborated, its because the man who built the wheel did not run away with the god damn wheel!
To my nineteen year old self, who’s about to pick her first Ayn Rand Book for what will follow everything she has written ever, I wouldn’t snatch the book away. I would allow her to be blown away by the fiction, but also celebration of an independent mind. For I know, she would, like many others who read The Fountainhead later in their life, dissect the fiction with reason and take home only the parts, rendered of use.
