Ayn Rand's Objectivism

Ashley
In Chapter 5 of “Gail Wynand,” Steven Mallory says of Roark, “You know how people long to be eternal. But
they die with every day that passes. When you meet them, they’re not what you met last. In any given hour, they
kill some part of themselves. They change, they deny, they contradict-- and they call it growth. At the end there
is nothing left, nothing unreversed or unbetrayed; as if there had never been any entity, only a succession of
adjectives fading in and out on an unformed mass.” (470)

I thought this was a particularly charming passage by Ayn Rand that captures why Roark appeals to a lot of
people, especially the young and ambitious (as stated in her introduction). Ayn Rand’s notion of objectivism
rests on the idea of an objective, permanent reality,  which is why I think architecture-- with its huge
immovable physical structure-- is a representative craft for the players in the The Fountainhead.

I strongly disagree with Mallory’s statement that changes and contradictions diminish one’s self though. It
seems to suggest as human beings we ought to never adopt other people’s ideas. If Rand proposes that Roark,
who is around our age when he leaves Stanton, is old enough to act on his own individual thoughts without any
regard for other people, I wonder what’s the acceptable age range at which one begins to have this agency. I
mean, no one grows up without learning from the exterior world. I would like to ask Rand if she thinks a ten-
year-old with very original thoughts should be encouraged to follow his own morals and intellectual pursuit.

At least for me, I think a even more important skill than having original thought is the ability to distinguish
whose opinions are worth listening to. True maturity, as it seems to me, is not stubbornly being “creative” but
realizing that while some people might be as clueless as I’m, others are not. The latter are the ones I should
devote my time to.

On a side note, I thought the existence of the Ayn Rand organization is somewhat ironic given the negative
portrayals of collectivism in The Fountainhead. The “Council of American Builders” does little but chat and
drink root beer, and it seems that the author herself should disapprove of the more collaborative activities that
the so-called “Ayn Rand Institute” puts up.

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