Reason is a faculty indispensable to humans. All our senses do is to give us information about the world around us; reason is what helps us process that information and make sense of it. According to the objectivist philosophy of Ayn R@nd, author of ‘The Fountainhead’, we should trust only reason and nothing else, purely because reason is what separates the men from the animals, it is the only foolproof method to make decisions and judgements.
Glorification of reason forms a great part of objectivism, and hence the book, and rightly so. But aren’t there a few things in life that are utterly immune to reason? What about taste in music? Can there ever be a reasonable explanation why a tune which you like sounds like crap to your best friend? Can there ever be a reasonable explanation why some people love to sit down and just gaze at a sunset or a full moon while others are just indifferent to them? The answer, of course, is no.
Taking this idea a bit further, what about buildings? You might like a nice Roman style portico with statues of Greek Goddesses in your garden. True, they are not needed for the building to stand; nor do they help in things like ventilation or living space, but you still want them for the simple reason that they look beautiful to you. Would you entertain it if your architect tells you that all the statues are eating up space and hence you should not have them? Isn’t it your business what you want your house to look like? Wouldn’t you go and get an architect who is willing to build a house the way you want it? Can anyone compare any two houses and say which one is better, in an absolute sense?
This idea of intellectualizing a purely emotional response closely ties in with another of objectivism’s principal tenets: the virtue of selfishness. What this says is that men should not feel guilty in the pursuit of happiness for that is what they live for. They should feel free to derive as much happiness as they can from their lives. Yes, that is all true. But happiness is also a purely personal thing. Do you have a right to condemn a person just because their definition of happiness is not the same as yours? If someone likes Roman porticoes in their houses and you don’t, does that make you right and the person wrong? Where did you get the moral high-horse from?
Howard Roark is the kind of architect who builds with reason as his sole guiding light. He considers what the building is supposed to do, who the people living in it are, where the building is supposed to be located, and then proceeds to build it so that it blends seamlessly with its surroundings. He never borrows from any popular style because he thinks that the use of space and lighting potential is not efficient in ancient buildings. Peter Keating, on the other hand, builds for his client. He gives them what they want, and in doing so, he borrows from every popular style of architecture there ever was, mixing two or more styles together and matching them.
The book starts off with Roark at the bottom and Keating at the top (Roark gets expelled and Keating tops the university). As we plough our way through the book, we witness a slow, continuous reversal of fortunes which culminates in Roark ending up on top and Keating destroyed. The novel is hopelessly devoid of even the slightest tinge of grey. It depicts all the characters as mirror images of either Roark or Keating, who are intellectual opposites. It shows nothing in between, which is a shame really because human behaviour, if nothing else, is often an unbelievably broad spectrum full of quirks and contradictions. But all we get to see here is just a bunch of Roarks and Keatings; under different names, of course.
One of the primary faults of objectivism is that it believes that reason is the be-all and end-all of human existence. Not only are there a lot of things that just cannot be intellectualized, human reason itself is often biased because the information we get from our senses is not always accurate. Faced with so many factors, it makes sense to be tentative in what you believe so that you can always question your beliefs and refine them as more and more reliable information becomes available. Sticking to one set of ideas and saying ‘they are based on my reasoning, hence they are impregnable’ is, at best, a foolish approach. It also breeds a certain self-superiority and contempt for everyone who disagrees with you, because you assume that there is such a thing as absolute reason and that you possess it. Objectivism fell into this trap long ago. It is yet to find its feet.
Another implication of trusting your reason too much is that tolerance becomes next to impossible. When one person believes he (or she, as it is in this case) has all the answers and all his answers are right, he doesn’t give a damn about the rest of the world. R@nd was already in that position when she wrote ‘Fountainhead’; and it is not very hard to see that in her characters and hence, in her book. It seems to say, ‘Everything about objectivism is right. If you agree with everything it says, then you are a good man. Otherwise you are not’. It doesn’t give you any middle ground to work with. Neither does it even consider for one instance, that what it preaches might not be right. It is a bit like Socrates’ centuries-old axiom, ‘A cannot be not-A. If you are not A, you have to be not-A’.
That doesn’t mean that everything about objectivism is wrong. For example, it celebrates the superiority of man over nature and his power to mould it so as to maximise his happiness. It also glorifies the greatness of the human mind that enables us to create machines that achieve incredible feats. We see them everywhere around us; heaters, refrigerators, computers, nail cutters, can-openers, photocopiers, typewriters…all of them products of man’s mind with a singular will to make his life as comfortable as possible on Earth. Objectivism taught me to notice these things and appreciate them for what they are; and for that, I will be forever indebted. And for that reason alone I am recommending this book.
Forgive me if you didn’t find what you wanted to find on the actual story. Maybe after reading it, you will see why I have done this. ‘The Fountainhead’ is all about introducing you to objectivism; and the story, the characters and the settings are all a means to that end. It was the philosophy I wanted to discuss in my review rather than the book itself, and this was the result. Of course, I fully admit I have not analyzed all aspects of objectivism; it is hardly possible in 8000 words. But one can always try.