Collective Intelligence

Blog Post 8 Kiki He
This blog post would be my last one, and I think it is pretty good to talk about Ayn Rand and individualism which she is so obsessed with. In fact, what I’m doing now is completely against Rand’s individualism. I’m writing the blog post to express my opinions to others, hoping to share and exchange ideas with my peers and professor. Writing blog is not about individualism at all because it is an activity that requires mutual understanding and exchanging. While different voices are welcomed, the activity itself is collective. Through this kind of collective activity, we are able to express and defend our thoughts, and therefore gaining opinions from different perspectives and aspects which I might have not thought about. Collective activities promote learning and improvement.

I was very glad to hear the professor’s comments on “what about the other people who also put their efforts to build that skyscraper?” That was the question I kept asking myself while reading and tried so hard to find an answer from the book. However, Ayn Rand disappoints me by not even mentioning those people who do the most fundamental and probably most tiring job. Where are they? Why are they neglected? Howard Roark, as described and depicted in the last scene, is almost a god-like man who stands at the top of everything as the ultimate winner who won the battle by sticking to his value of individualism. Moreover, Rand not only ignores all those people, but also gives all the credits to the glorious Howard Roark. 

Today when I was tutoring at CSLC right after our seminar, I showed videos to my tutees about Shanghai’s incredible development. That documentary talks about Shanghai’s growing prosperity, and interestingly, it talks a lot about all those new skyscrapers in Shanghai! When one of the tutees saw the skyscraper, she said “There must be workers died when they were building it.” Her comment immediately dragged me to some deeper thinking related to The Fountainhead. Despite Rand’s critics on altruism and collectivism, everyone needs to admit that one’s growth, whether physically, mentally, or intellectually, cannot be achieved without others’ help. From a even broader perspective, collective intelligence plays an important role in the world’s development. Especially nowadays since internet shortens the distance between nations, huge numbers of people coming from different backgrounds are able to work together in new ways, bringing all valuable perspectives together to come up with new ideas. 

In this class we actually talked a lot about freedom. In my opinion, freedom is of course not a bad thing and yes everyone has the right to choose what he or she wants. However, at the end of the day, it is crucial to realize that no one is the center of the world, and no one should ever ignore the countless help he or she has been receiving from others, including his or her parents, friends, mentors and even strangers.

Last but not least, since it is my last blog post, I would like to make a so-called ending as a reflection. I’m glad that I took this seminar in which I am able to know and become friends with these brilliant people. Of course there were struggles and stress, but those things were necessary to help me grow. The topics covered in this course are insightful and diverse. Discussions can be deep, dynamic, and even heavy sometimes, especially considering what’s going on in the world as well. However, this class teaches that besides darkness, despair, and corrupt, we still have love, respect and hope. 


Thanks everyone.

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