Author: Ayn Rand

The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand shows the incessant clash between originality and mediocrity, individualism and collectivism which occurs on a daily basis. Ayn Rand has been attacked for being controversial and selfish in her novels but this post won’t focus on that. If interested, check the additional links at the bottom.

The novel focuses on different characters. Howard Roark is one of the main characters and the story revolves around his path and his interactions throughout the novel with the other characters. Roark’s path might be that path that everyone yearns to take but only a few end up choosing. His path is a lonely and unconventional one which unless you have a rock-solid foundation of your principles and beliefs, you won’t make it very far.

“But you see,” said Roark quietly, “I have, let’s say, sixty years to live. Most of that time will be spent working. I’ve chosen the work I want to do. If I find no joy in it, then I’m only condemning myself to sixty years of torture. And I can find the joy only if I do my work in the best way possible to me. But the best is a matter of standards—and I set my own standards. I inherit nothing. I stand at the end of no tradition. I may, perhaps, stand at the beginning of one.” Ayn Rand – The Fountainhead

Howard Roark is a young architect which sets out to design modern buildings the way he believes they should be designed. The main problem with what he does is that everything that Roark believes in goes against the architectural establishment, and not just against architecture, but society too.

On the other side of the street, we have “second-handers” which are people like Peter Keating (Roark’s friend from college) and Ellsworth Toohey. Both are different cases of second handers. Keating being the common and shallow man who seeks instant fame. He cares about what everyone thinks and all he wants is reputation and fame. He goes to great lengths to please everyone. Keating has never had any original idea and seems to copy and paste everything from others.

I thought this excerpt from the book was really good, so I didn’t want to trim it. Enjoy.

“It’s only a matter of discovering the lever. If you learn how to rule one single man’s soul, you can get the rest of mankind. It’s the soul, Peter, the soul. Not whips or swords or fire or guns. That’s why the Caesars, the Attilas, the Napoleons were fools and did not last. We will. The soul, Peter, is that which can’t be ruled. It must be broken. Drive a wedge in, get your fingers on it–and the man is yours. You won’t need a whip–he’ll bring it to you and ask to be whipped. Set him in reverse–and his own mechanism will do your work for you. Use him against himself. Want to know how it’s done? See if I ever lied to you. See if you haven’t heard all this for years, but didn’t want to hear, and the fault is yours, not mine. There are many ways. Here’s one. Make man feel small. Make him feel guilty. Kill his aspiration and his integrity. That’s difficult. The worst among you gropes for an ideal in his own twisted way. Kill integrity by internal corruption. Use it against itself. Direct it toward a goal destructive of all integrity. Preach selflessness. Tell man that he must live for others. Tell men that altruism is the ideal. Not a single one of them has ever achieved it and not a single one ever will. His every living instinct screams against it. But don’t you see what you accomplish? Man realizes that he’s incapable of what he’s accepted as the noblest virtue–and it gives him a sense of guilt, of sin, of his own basic unworthiness. Since the supreme ideal is beyond his grasp, he gives up eventually all ideals, all aspiration, all sense of his personal value. He feels himself obliged to preach what he can’t practice. But one can’t be good halfway or honest approximately. To preserve one’s integrity is a hard battle. Why preserve that which one knows to be corrupt already? His soul gives up its self-respect. You’ve got him. He’ll obey. He’ll be glad to obey–because he can’t trust himself, he feels uncertain, he feels unclean. That’s one way. Here’s another. Kill man’s sense of values. Kill his capacity to recognize greatness or to achieve it. Great men can’t be ruled. We don’t want any great men. Don’t deny the conception of greatness. Destroy it from within. The great is the rare, the difficult, the exceptional. Set up standards of achievement open to all, to the least, to the most inept–and you stop the impetus to effort in all men, great or small. You stop all incentive to improvement, to excellence, to perfection. Laugh at Roark and hold Peter Keating as a great architect. You’ve destroyed architecture. Build up Lois Cook and you’ve destroyed literature. Hail Ike and you’ve destroyed the theater. Glorify Lancelot Clokey and you’ve destroyed the press. Don’t set out to raze all shrines–you’ll frighten men. Enshrine mediocrity–and the shrines are razed. Then there’s another way. Kill by laughter. Laughter is an instrument of human joy. Learn to use it as a weapon of destruction. Turn it into a sneer. It’s simple. Tell them to laugh at everything. Tell them that a sense of humor is an unlimited virtue. Don’t let anything remain sacred in a man’s soul–and his soul won’t be sacred to him. Kill reverence and you’ve killed the hero in man. One doesn’t reverence with a giggle. He’ll obey and he’ll set no limits to his obedience–anything goes–nothing is too serious. Here’s another way. This is most important. Don’t allow men to be happy. Happiness is self-contained and self-sufficient. Happy men have no time and no use for you. Happy men are free men. So kill their joy in living. Take away from them whatever is dear or important to them. Never let them have what they want. Make them feel that the mere fact of a personal desire is evil. Bring them to a state where saying ‘I want’ is no longer a natural right, but a shameful admission. Altruism is of great help in this. Unhappy men will come to you. They’ll need you. They’ll come for consolation, for support, for escape. Nature allows no vacuum. Empty man’s soul–and the space is yours to fill. I don’t see why you should look so shocked, Peter. This is the oldest one of all. Ayn Rand – The Fountainhead

Ellsworth Toohey is a character a bit more complex. He might be consider the puppet master. His goal is to make sure that mediocrity and complacency keep being the default option in society. Toohey knows the game very well. He is manipulative and his only goal in life is to promote mediocrity by helping second-handers rise to stardom through literature and the arts. Keating and Toohey are just two characters out of many that the novel introduces which can be used to represent the “second-handers”. Especially, Toohey which is more aware than Peter, and with a higher social status which he uses to influence and manipulate others in order to push his agenda.

You can catalog Roark as a rebel, but not in the natural sense of the word. He doesn’t incite revolts by being loud and controversial. He does it by working day in and day out on what he believes in. Society doesn’t accept this kind of behavior by one of his members, therefore, people like Keating and Toohey try to shut down Roark at all costs before others start to realize about him and become aware of his endeavors.

When a dormant and conformist society sees an outlier like Howard Roark with new and modern ideas which defy the past and its legacy, by inertia the members of society start feeling uncomfortable about their own lives, and start casting stones at the outlier. If society were to allow more people like Roark, others would be more aware and start carving their own path as well which puts in jeopardy the facade erected and kept on by people like Toohey. There are many people like Roark in the world, yet by the same token there are many people like Toohey too, and they’re always clashing with each other. That’s why this is a never-ending battle.

“Man cannot survive except through his mind. He comes on earth unarmed. His brain is his only weapon. Animals obtain food by force. man had no claws, no fangs, no horns, no great strength of muscle. He must plant his food or hunt it. To plant, he needs a process of thought. To hunt, he needs weapons,and to make weapons – a process of thought. From this simplest necessity to the highest religious abstraction, from the wheel to the skyscraper, everything we are and we have comes from a single attribute of man -the function of his reasoning mind.” Ayn Rand – The Fountainhead

This book aims at encouraging individualism and what it comes with it which is standing up for the principles and values that one believes in. Howard Roarke is a very appealing character. He doesn’t care about what other people think of himself. His work ethic is excellent, and one could even say that is unhealthy. Others characters such as Dominique Francon and Gael Wynand see the world in a similar fashion as Roark. Nevertheless, they still have some doubts of their own which leads them to struggle to adhere to one side, and end up dabbling in on both sides throughout the novel.

All the obstacles in Roark’s way and his journey from college to achieving his dreams proves to be a very interesting arc which leads to valuable lessons to be learned such as stepping out of the comfort zone, being firm against adversity, and questioning our more sacred values and morals for our own sake. If you don’t stand for what you believe in, you might as well just don’t believe in anything at all.

All in all, it is clear that individualism all the way might not be the way to achieve one’s goals. Social interactions and collective endeavors are as important as individual ones, and necessary to succeed in life since we’re creatures who are wired to cooperate and live in groups of people. However, the moment we start thinking about others and putting them above ourselves, and the moment we conform and just go with the flow. That’s the moment when we suppress our true identities, and become the opposite of who we want to be.

Additional Resources:

Last Week Tonight clip about the controversy surrounding Ayn Rand

Great speech/excerpt from the book delivered by Ellsworth Toohey

If you want to learn more about Ayn Rand as a person, author, and more, this might be the place to start.

Similar Post:

The War of Art