The Fountainhead-Ayn Rand

An Introduction

According to Rand. . .

“My philosophy [objectivism], in essence, is the concept of 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.

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At a sales conference at Random House, preceding the publication of Atlas Shrugged, one of the book salesmen asked me whether I could present the essence of my philosophy while standing on one foot. I did as follows: Metaphysics Objective Reality Epistemology Reason Ethics Self-interest Politics Capitalism

If you want this translated into simple language, it would read: 1. “Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed” or “Wishing won’t make it so.” 2. “You can’t eat your cake and have it, too.” 3. “Man is an end in himself.” 4. “Give me liberty or give me death.”

My philosophy, Objectivism, holds that: Reality exists as an objective absolute—

facts are facts, independent of man’s feelings, wishes, hopes or fears.

Reason (the faculty which identifies and integrates the material provided by man’s senses) is man’s only means of perceiving reality, his only source of knowledge, his only guide to action, and his basic means of survival.

Man—every man—is an end in himself, not the means to the ends of others. He must exist for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself. The pursuit of his own rational self-interest and of his own happiness is the highest moral purpose of his life.

The ideal political-economic system is laissez-faire capitalism. It is a system where men deal with one another, not as victims and executioners, nor as masters and slaves, but as traders, by free, voluntary exchange to mutual benefit. It is a system where no man may obtain any values from others by resorting to physical force, and no man may initiate the use of physical force against others. The government acts only as a policeman that protects man’s rights; it uses physical force only in retaliation and only against those who initiate its use, such as criminals or foreign invaders. In a system of full capitalism, there should be (but, historically, has not yet been) a complete separation of state and economics, in the same way and for the same reasons as the separation of state and church.”

Ayn Rand’s Biography

She was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, on February 2, 1905.

At age six she taught herself to read and two years later discovered her first fictional hero in a French magazine for children, thus capturing the heroic vision which sustained her throughout her life.

At the age of nine, she decided to make fiction writing her career.

Thoroughly opposed to the mysticism and collectivism of Russian culture, she thought of herself as a European writer, especially after encountering Victor Hugo, the writer she most admired.

During her high school years, she was eyewitness to both the Kerensky Revolution, which she supported, and—in 1917—the Bolshevik Revolution, which she denounced from the outset.

In order to escape the fighting, her family went to the Crimea, where she finished high school.

The final Communist victory brought the confiscation of her father's pharmacy and periods of near-starvation.

When introduced to American history in her last year of high school, she immediately took America as her model of what a nation of free men could be.

When her family returned from the Crimea, she entered the University of Petrograd to study philosophy and history.

Graduating in 1924, she experienced the disintegration of free inquiry and the takeover of the university by communist thugs.

She entered the State Institute for Cinema Arts in 1924 to study screenwriting.

In late 1925 she obtained permission to leave Soviet Russia for a visit to relatives in the United States. Although she told Soviet authorities that her visit would be short, she was determined never to return to Russia.

She arrived in New York City in February 1926. She spent the next six months with her relatives in Chicago, obtained an extension to her visa, and then left for Hollywood to pursue a career as a screenwriter.

On Ayn Rand’s second day in Hollywood, Cecil B. DeMille saw her standing at the gate of his studio, offered her a ride to the set of his movie The King of Kings, and gave her a job, first as an extra, then as a script reader.

During the next week at the studio, she met an actor, Frank O’Connor, whom she married in 1929; they were married until his death fifty years later.

Her first novel, We the Living, was completed in 1934 but was rejected by numerous publishers, until The Macmillan Company in the United States and Cassells and Company in England published the book in 1936.

The most autobiographical of her novels, it was based on her years under Soviet tyranny.

She began writing The Fountainhead in 1935 (taking a short break in 1937 to write the anti-collectivist novelette Anthem).

In the character of the architect Howard Roark, she presented for the first time the kind of hero whose depiction was the chief goal of her writing: the ideal man, man as “he could be and ought to be.”

The Fountainhead was rejected by twelve publishers but finally accepted by the Bobbs-Merrill Company.

When published in 1943, it made history by becoming a best-seller through word of mouth two years later, and gained for its author lasting recognition as a champion of individualism.

Ayn Rand returned to Hollywood in late 1943 to write the screenplay for The Fountainhead, but wartime restrictions delayed production until 1948.

Working part time as a screenwriter for Hal Wallis Productions, she began her major novel Atlas Shrugged, in 1946.

In 1951 she moved back to New York City and devoted herself full time to the completion of Atlas Shrugged.

Published in 1957, Atlas Shrugged was her greatest achievement and last work of fiction.

All information on slides 2-18 are from the Ayn Rand Institute. http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=objectivism_essentials

Student Learning Map

EQ: How does The Fountainhead relate American ideals and issues?

Ideals and issues

Life

Liberty

Pursuit of happiness

Individuality

Family

Religion

Key Terms

independence vs. dependenceINDEPENDENCE reliance on one's own thinking in the search

for truth, and on one's own effort to support oneself. To Ayn Rand, independence is fundamentally a cognitive concept. It means the willingness to think, to go by one's own best judgment, to never accept a claim as true merely because others believe it. Independence does not preclude cooperation or friendly relations in human society, e.g., Roark's cooperative work, in different forms, with Cameron, Mallory, Mike Donnigan--and his close relationships with several, notably Dominique, Cameron and Wynand. It is important for the student to recognize that independence is not the rugged individualism of the type that entails survival by oneself in the wilderness or mountains. The best examples of independence are the great men of the mind who have discovered new truths, often in the teeth of intense social opposition, and have consequently carried mankind forward, e.g., inventors like Robert Fulton, innovative architects like Frank Lloyd Wright, scientists like Marie Curie, entrepreneurs like Henry Ford.

DEPENDENCE

permitting other people to dominate one's thinking and one's life; a refusal to think, a willingness to derive one's beliefs uncritically from others, either by means of blind obedience or an equally blind rebellion. Both conformists and non-conformists, each in their own way, are examples of dependency.

conformity

living in unthinking adherence to the judgment, the standards, the values of others. In the novel, Peter Keating is, of course, the outstanding example of this.

individualism vs. collectivismINDIVIDUALISM the philosophy of man that

emphasizes the reality and cognitive efficacy of the individual. Individuals are real, not splintered fragments of the group; they can and should be autonomous thinkers, not molded playthings of "social conditioning." Politically, individuals must be free to act on their own thinking and live their own lives. The political/economic system that is the logical culmination of individualism is limited Constitutional government and laissez-faire capitalism, because it is this system alone that protects the rights of the individual. Howard Roark is, of course, an outstanding fictional representative of individualism.

COLLECTIVISM

in contrast to individualism, the philosophy of man that emphasizes the reality and cognitive efficacy of society as a whole. Only the group is real, only the group's beliefs determine truth. The individual is merely a fragmented chunk of the whole, whose thinking is conditioned and controlled by the beliefs of society. Individuals have no rights. Politically, the state is all-powerful and the individual must unquestioningly obey the will of society. The political/economic system that is the logical culmination of collectivism is socialism in some form, whether National Socialism (Nazism), Communism or Fascism. In the book, Ellsworth Toohey is the leading advocate of collectivism.

first-handers vs. second-handers

FIRST-HANDER

those independent thinkers who face nature directly and thereby survive first-hand, i.e., by their own effort. These are the individuals who discover how to make fire, how to grow crops and domesticate livestock, how to cure diseases, how to build homes, etc.--and also those who use their own minds to learn from the innovators, and are therefore able to live productively.

SECOND-HANDER

those dependent persons who, in one form or another, are not productive, do not survive by means of their own mind or effort, but who, rather, survive second-hand by leeching off of others. There are many types of second-handers--criminals, family bums, welfare recipients, military conquerors, political dictators, social climbers (like Keating) and others.