“Ayn Rand” is a name either avoided like the plague or tossed around in philosophy as a joke. She was introduced to me two years ago, hand in hand with the death throes of capitalism. Put off by her defense of a system that breeds inequality, I left her at that assumption until “The Fountainhead” led me to her protagonist Howard Roark.
After being expelled from the fictional Stanton Institute of Technology’s architecture school, Roark gives no thought to his reputation as he works towards becoming a modern architect. In contrast, Roark’s former classmate Peter Keating who only ever thinks about his reputation treats the architectural realm as a business, a competition, anything but a chance to design something as his own. As “The Fountainhead” progresses, readers question whether Rand’s archetype of complete selfishness could survive in a workplace reality where “what others think” might as well dictate what you do.
Rand is known for her philosophical system called objectivism that propagates selfishness as the one source of moral gratification and happiness. She defends this proposition with another idea: that productive creation comes from the self, not the many. She thinks that for unique minds and inventions to exist, equality cannot exist. To portray this, in her dystopian novella “Anthem”, Rand creates a terrifying, drab world of complete equality. The pronoun “I” is nonexistent – characters refer to themselves as “we” (which was admittedly insanely confusing in the beginning), for they only live for each other. Their “selves” or senses of self are nonexistent. Humankind has reverted to the lowest common denominator of development, with candles for light, low buildings, and no technology. When the main character secretly discovers electricity and presents his invention to his society, he is rejected and slandered. How dare he discover something on his own in a world where no “self” should exist?
This is Rand’s image of equality: a stifling world where no individual pursuit is entertained, where absolute selflessness is everyone’s sole drive to life, where innovation is condemned as a rebellion against the masses.
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I think Rand’s ideas are worth considering, but I don’t believe they can justify inequality in the name of “creation.” I want to weigh her ideas shown in “The Fountainhead” and “Anthem” from two perspectives: her polarization of selfishness and selflessness, along with her thoughts on creation.
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In both “The Fountainhead” and “Anthem”, selfishness and selflessness are presented as near polar opposites in terms of character likeability. Readers find themselves despising or pitying Peter Keating – someone who is “self-less” in a literal manner as he is essentially just a culmination of people’s opinions about him. Readers then begin to root for Howard Roark as he creates brilliant designs, yet repeatedly falls to rock bottom. Though the novel has more than a few moral quandaries (including framing rape in a romantic manner), “The Fountainhead” victimizes the selfish, honest folk as the victims and selflessness as either an act to gain public approval, or a symptom of a mindless person.
When I say “polarize”, I am not talking about how these words are antonyms. I’m talking about how they are used in manners where one cannot exist when the other is present. Rand is not the only one to polarize the two emotions – many of us polarize them in an opposite way. For instance, selfishness commonly carries a negative connotation – one of a lack of care for others, of arrogance, of stinginess.
I think it’s difficult to discuss Rand’s ideas when a polarization of selfishness and selflessness is everywhere. Humans are complex creatures, and our values coexist with each other all the time. You can’t be 100% selfish or 100% selfless – more often than not, we live in a grey area between being selfish and selfless at the right times.
A popular, rather cynical argument for complete selfishness is that people derive pleasure from doing nice, “selfless” things. It feels good to give someone a gift, to do something nice for them, and it might feel even better because they could give you something back. I think this is a flawed mentality. Just because there is pleasure from giving gifts doesn’t mean that your own pleasure was a motivating factor. You don’t give someone a gift, thinking that it will make you feel good. It’s a side effect you are aware of. Reducing a complex blend of human emotions down to selfishness is overly simplistic.
To Rand, selflessness is something like a disease, sucking at society’s potential for innovation. But, I think the way she portrays selflessness as a dystopian, dreary society in “Anthem” is misleading. Its exaggeration may speak strongly to someone who completely agrees with her, but not many else. Selflessness is not just something “tiring” that sucks away at your sense of self; it could be many things, from a survival tool, a way to reduce inequality, or a way to avoid the tragedy of the commons. It’s a topic of heated debate – whether or not humans are “naturally selfish.” Charles Darwin with his theory of evolution believed that humans evolved to be more selfless, social creatures to benefit and survive as a whole; Hobbes believed that humans in their states of nature are selfish, but in that way, “life is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”
Selflessness is not equivalent to a lack of innovation – you can give and create at the same time. Bill Gates co-founded Microsoft, then started the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation where they “seek to unlock the possibility inside every individual” as they “see equal value in all lives” (Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation). Citizens of reality are not polarized between The Selfish and The Selfless, The Creators and The Parasites; rather, it’s somewhere in between in that infamous “gray area.”
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A part of Rand’s ideas that I see often left out of critiques is the element of “creation.” At least in “The Fountainhead” and “Anthem”, both protagonists are primarily creators. Roark is a modern architect with revolutionary designs; Equality 7-2521 discovers electricity and “creates” light. In objectivism, these independent, rational minds is the justification for selfishness – that creation gives the rational mind happiness and replenishes the ego. Ego as in egosim – acting in one’s self interest.
I agree with this part of her ideas to a certain extent. Artists have a unique ability to transpose themselves into writing, music, or paintings. Though books of poetry are dedicated to others and musicals are written inspired by others, it takes selfishness for a poet to write and explain his or her own style.
Yet, this form of justified selfishness is a privilege. Not everyone has the time to muse over poetry or critique film and theatre, nor could many afford to. Especially now during quarantine times, many are left without their sources of income; children in public schools don’t have cafeteria food to depend on; those who live paycheck to paycheck are unable to pay rent.
Even so, “her ideas are clearly being used to justify inequality, giving credence to institutionalized wealth-based elitism” (Bekiempis 2012). As she glorifies selfishness, she belittles selfless humanitarianism as nothing but a publicly approved show of pity. Rand slanders humanitarianism as a mindless cause for people who can’t think for themselves; yet, select work of organizations like UNICEF or Doctors Without Borders have quite literally changed lives. Denigrating selflessness doesn’t erase realities of inequality, poverty, and starvation. While Rand’s writing is mind-numbing and comforting to read, it is key to take a step back from her selfish protagonists and consider the ramifications of her ideas upon the minimum wage workers, the poverty trap victims, the ones not blessed to have free time for creative invention.
Citations:
Bekiempis, Victoria. “Confessions of a Recovering Objectivist | Victoria Bekiempis.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 10 June 2012, www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/jun/10/confessions-recovering-objectivist-ayn-rand.
“Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.” The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, 1 Jan. 1AD, www.gatesfoundation.org/.
Godfree, Tori E. “Epideictic Oratory in Ayn Rand’s ‘The Fountainhead’.” Inquiries Journal/Student Pulse 2.04 (2010). <http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/a?id=234>
Rand, Ayn. “Cover of ‘The Fountainhead.’” Goodreads, Goodreads, Inc., 1 Sept. 1996, https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2122.The_Fountainhead.