Ayn Rand's Fountain Head

The Hub : English Literature

Hello Guest, Login to post.

Topic started by buddysathi on Thu Sep 22 5:35:35 2005. [Full View]

I am reading Fountain Head by Ayn Rand. The author tells abt a philosophy 'Objectivism'. It looks a bit complex for me to understand,, Anyone out there, who has read this novel , strip it down to simple terms for readers like me to understand..

| RSS Feed | Email me when a reply is posted

Responses:

Full Thread
From: sundararaj on Sat Dec 2 6:10:40 2006. [Full View]

Atlas Shrugged is another of her famous books. It is true that she herself was very much affected by these writings and she led a retarded life at the end.
From: rajasaranam on Sat Jan 19 3:53:19 2008. [Full View]

few days back i finished reading 'The Selfish Gene' by Richard dawkins. The book fairly deals with life, human beings, social actions and many other things.
Revisiting AR's objectivism/Selfishness I could understand how rational RD is in comparison to AR.

From: thilak4life on Sat Jan 19 4:11:23 2008.

[Full View]

rajasaranam wrote:

few days back i finished reading 'The Selfish Gene' by Richard dawkins. The book fairly deals with life, human beings, social actions and many other things.
Revisiting AR's objectivism/Selfishness I could understand how rational RD is in comparison to AR. Not Worthy

Glad that you read that. I'm a dawkinist....And anti-AynRandist with all her one-dimensional ethos, that has a good fan base today. I'm more in line with Nietzsche.

In general, philosophy is a product thes days. People buy the one which would ultimately uplift, and um, inspire them. That's why Ayn Rand works. And, I don't think high of her literary achievements either. Rhetoricians have always got their cake among gullible people.

From: rajasaranam on Sat Jan 19 5:16:03 2008.

[Full View]

thilak4life wrote:

Yes RD gives a great lot of thought provoking writings, and insight into society's functioning. I got hold of some more books of RD. Did you read 'the blind watchmaker'.

From: thilak4life on Sat Jan 19 10:32:18 2008. [Full View]

RS,
Yes, I have read TBW. I firmly adhere to geneocenteric theory. Even though I haven't had access to the other criticisms, RD has articulated and debated his case well. I'm convinced..
From: pavalamani pragasam on Sat Apr 26 12:52:31 2008. [Full View]

At the rate of about 10 to 20 pages a day I have finished reading Rand's 'Fountainhead'. Not a gripping story to sit through nights & finish it off! A sort of medicine, a sharp tasting one, to be taken in doses!!!

Brushing aside the inevitable revulsion at the moral depravity in English novels, it is almost an achievement to have finished reading this book though the temptation to discontinue was very strong.

A definite blow to customary thought, rebelling against what has been believed so far. In spite of it being a rudely shocking, stunning, sounding true religion of EGO, an unashamed aggrandisement of EGO, to give the devil his due, a beguiling charm in the creed that is preached in the novel. The characterisation is perfect, however crazy they might seem.

The theory expounded by the author throughout the novel is finally given in a nutshell in the testimony Howard Roark gives in court. It is brilliant. I am tempted to reproduce quite a big excerpt from it:

"Thousands of years ago, the first man discovered how to make fire. He was probably burned at the stake he had taught his brothers to light. He was considered an evildoer who had dealt with a demon mankind dreaded. But thereafter men had fire to keep them warm, to cook their food, to light their caves. he had left them a gift they had not conceived and he lifted darkness off the earth. Centuries later, the first man invented the wheel. He was probably torn on the rack he had taught his brothers to build. He was considered a transgressor who ventured into forbidden territory. But thereafter, men could travel past any horizon. He had left them a gift they had not conceived and he had opened the roads of the world.
..... ... ...

Throughout the centuries there were men who took first steps down new roads armed with nothing but their own vision. Their goals differed, but they all had this in common: that the step was first, the road new, the vision unborrowed, and the response they received -hatred. The great creators - the thinkers, the artists, the scientists, the inventors - stood alone against the men of their time. Every great new thought was opposed. Every great new invention was denounced. The first motor was considered foolish. the aeroplane was considered impossible. The power loom was considered vicious. Anaesthesia was considered sinful. But the men of unborrowed vision went ahead. They fought, they suffered and they paid. But they won.

No creator was prompted by a desire to serve his brothers, for his brothers rejected the gift he offered and that gift destroyed the slothful routine of their lives. His truth was his only motive. His own truth, and his own work to achieve it in his own way. A symphony, a book, an engine, a philosophy, an aeroplane or a building - that was his goal and his life. Not those who heard, read, operated, believed, flew or inhabited the thing he created. The creation, not its users. The creation, not the benefits others derived from it. The creation which gave form to his truth. He held his truth above all things and against all men.

His vision, his strength, his courage came from his own spirit. A man's spirit, however, is his self. that entity which is his consciousness. To think, to feel, to judge, to act are functions of the ego.

The creators were not selfless. It is the whole secret of their power - that it was self-sufficient, self-motivated, self-generated. A first cause, a fount of energy, a life force, a Prime Mover. The creator served nothing and no one. He lived for himself.

And only by living for himself was he able to acieve the thing which are the glory of mankind. such is the nature of achievement.

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.

But the mind is an attribute of the individual. There is no such thing as a collective brain. There is no such thing as a collective thought. An agreement reached by a group of men is only a compromise of or an average drawn upon many individual thoughts. It is a secondary consequence. the primary act - the process of reason - must be performed by each man alone. we can divide a meal among many men. we cannot digest it in a collective stomach. No man use his lungs to breathe for another man. No man can use his brain to think for another. All the functions of the body and spirit are private. They cannot be shared or transferred.

... .. .. ..

Nothing is given to man on earth. Everything he needs has to be produced. And here man faces his basic alternative: he can survive in only one of the two ways - by the independent work of his own mind or as a parasite fed by the minds of others. The creator originates. The parasite borrows. The creator faces nature alone. The parasite faces nature through an intermediary.

The creator's concern is the conquest of nature. The parasite's concern is the conquest of men.

The creator lives for his work. He needs to order men. His primary goal is within himself. The parasite lives second-hand. He needs other. Others become his prime motive.

The basic need of the creator is independence. The reasoning mind cannot work under any form of compulsion. It cannot be curbed, sacrifice or subordinated to any consideration whatsoever. It demands toatl independence in function and in motive. To a creator, all relations with men are secondary.

The basic need of the second-hander is to secure his ties with men in order to be fed. He places relations first. He declares that man exists in order to serve others. He preaches altruism.

Altruism is the doctrine which demands that man live for others and place others above self.

No man can live for another. He cannot share his spirit just as he cannot share his body. But the second-hander has used altruism as a weapon of exploitation and reversed the base of mankind's moral principles. Men have been taught dependence as a virtue.

.... ... .. ...

Men have been taught that the highest virtue is not to achieve, but to give. Yet one cannot give that which has not been created. creation comes before distribution - or there will be nothing to distribute. The need of the creator comes before the need of any possible beneficiary.

men have been taught that their first concern is to relieve the suffering of others. But suffering is a disease. Should one come upon it, one tries to give relief and assistance. To make that the highest test of virtue is to make suffering the most important part of life. Then man must wish to see others suffer - in order that he may be virtuous. Such is the nature of altruism. The creator is not concerned with disease, but with life. Yet the work of the creators has eliminated one form of disease after another, in man's body and spirit, and brought more relief from suffering than any altruist could ever conceive.

Men have been taught that it is a virtue to agree with others. But the creator is the man who disagrees. Men have been taught that it is a virtue to swim with the current. But the creator is the man who goes against the current. Men have been taught that it is a virtue to stand together. But the creator is the man who stands alone.

Men have been taught that ego is the synonym of evil, and selflessness the ideal of virtue. But the creator is the egotist in the absolute sense, and the selfless man is the one who does not think, feel, judge, or act. These are functions of the self.

... ... ... ...

In all proper relationships there is no sacrifice of anyone to anyone.

The first right on earth is the right of the ego. Man's first duty is to himself.

.... ... ..
The only good which men can do to one another and the only statement of their proper relationship is -Hands off!"

However clever & convincing the above exposition sounds my intuition tells me there is something somewhere dangerously, diabolically, deceptive Cannot be accepted wholly, without resrvations, without counter arguments!!!

From: crazy on Sat Apr 26 13:11:52 2008.

[Full View]

pavalamani pragasam wrote:

At the rate of about 10 to 20 pages a day I have finished reading Rand's 'Fountainhead'. Not a gripping story to sit through nights & finish it off! A sort of medicine, a sharp tasting one, to be taken in doses!!!

From: pavalamani pragasam on Sat Apr 26 13:19:19 2008. [Full View]

samaththaa marunthu kudichchathukku paaraattaa?
From: crazy on Sat Apr 26 13:22:56 2008. [Full View]

pavalamani pragasam wrote:

samaththaa marunthu kudichchathukku paaraattaa?

avanga puththagathai porumaiya padichathukku
From: pavalamani pragasam on Sat Apr 26 13:25:12 2008. [Full View]

podi printi-il 679 pages padichchi mudichathu periya saathanai- ippadi oru subject novel-ai!!!

| RSS Feed | Email me when a reply is posted

Want to post a response?

(Hello Guest, you need to Login to post a response. Are you a New User? Register first.)

Back to English Literature forum