The Fountainhead

Author/Philosopher Ayn Rand is something of a controversial icon among libertarians and conservatives. Rand's Objectivist school of thought, with its emphasis on rugged (perhaps ruthless) individualism, laissez faire capitalism, and man's personal happiness as a moral end, has had as significant an impact on some in the modern conservative movement as the late, great William F. Buckley. (Ironically, or perhaps not, Buckley's National Review mocked Rand's novel Atlas Shrugged when it was first published. Whittaker Chambers's review included the now-famous: "from almost any page of Atlas Shrugged, a voice can be heard, from painful necessity, commanding: "To a gas chamber — go!")

Rand summed up Objectivism as "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." Anything that detracts from man achieving his highest is immoral. This can include anything from personal cowardice to planning committees to government intrusion. To Rand it was natural that the objectivist pursuit could only occur in a society based on the principles of lassez faire capitalism and minimal government intrusion. It is not suprising that she held this view when one considers the events of her life: Born in St. Petersburg, Russia, Rand was twelve years old at the time of the Russian Revolution of 1917. She lived under Soviet opression until she was fortunate enough to obtain a travel visa to the United States in 1926. Shortly after her arrival, Rand defected and adopted America as her home.

The fountainhead portrays this battle between objectivism and totalitarianism in very stark terms. On the one hand, You have Howard Roark, the living embodiment of Objectivism, who comes across as much a force of nature as a man, the essence of will personified -- the book begins with Roark's expulsion from architecture school. When the dean asks Roark whom he supposes will "let him" build his buildings, Roark responds "that's not the point. The point is, who will stop me?"

On the other side of the battle stands Ellsworth Toohey, who desires to quash a man's spirit and therefore to rule him. (Toohey makes it his primary ambition to destroy Roark from the moment he lays eyes on him).

Both men are ardent atheists, Toohey being the archetypal communist and Roark viewing mankind at its full potential as godlike. The conclusions that both men draw from their atheism are perverse in their distinct ways. Roark's crowning achivement is a temple that he builds to humanity, for the worship of humanity. Toohey wants to drive all hope or sense of exceptionalism from humanity in order to control it.

Toohey is the obvious villain, Lenineqsue if not Stalinesque: "I shall rule...Make a man feel small. Make him feel guilty. Kill his aspiration and his integrity...His soul gives up self respect. You've got him and he'll obey...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 allow men to be happy...Happy men are free men...If you get caught at some crucial point and somebody tells you that your doctrine doesn't make sense, you tell him...that he must not try to think, he must feel...Can you rule a thinking man? We don't want any thinking men."

Roark is clearly meant as the hero by Rand, but his worldview and its practice lead to outcomes that can also be troublesome if not repugnant. As his defense in the climatic trial at the end of the novel, Roark delivers a lengthy manifesto which contends that "the first right on earth is the right of the ego. man's first duty is to himself. His moral law is never to place his prime goal within the persons of others. His moral obligation is to do what he wishes, provided his work does not depend primarily on other men. This includes the whole sphere of his creative faculty, his thinking, his work. But it does not include the sphere of the gangster, the altruist and the dictator." Perhaps not the dictator, but there is room for the sexual predator. Roark rapes the female protagonist Dominique Francon. Rand attempts to mitigate this by suggesting that a woman as strong as Francon has to be be dominated by a superman like Roark in order to be satisfied (Rand later said it was "rape by engraved invitation."); the reason he is standing trial is because he has blown up a partially completed high rise building. His reason, for which he feels fully justified, is because other architects have modified his original designs.

While Roark's relentless individualism can be at times refreshing, the Objectivism which he embodies must necessarily be repugnant to the Christian, for it is worship of the self.