5 ms·

I read the Fountainhead, and it was hard to square the views expressed in that book with her extreme enthusiasm for capitalism and business that she expressed i

I read the Fountainhead, and it was hard to square the views expressed in that book with her extreme enthusiasm for capitalism and business that she expressed in other writings (I didn't read the other books). In the Fountainhead, capitalism comes off as looking rather corrupt and dishonest, a system that was exploited by Peter Keatings at the expense of Howard Roarks. I couldn't really discern a clear and consistent philosophy from that book, so I interpret it as basically a romance, set in an ideal fantasy world, between a heroic uber-mensch, Howard Roark, and a beautiful woman whose high standards admit only uber-mensches, Dominique Francon. The Dominique character I interpret as an idealized Ayn Rand.

chris_wot 13y ago
Romance? Doesn't Roark rape Francon at one point?
- mtdewcmu 13y ago
  Yes. And she still likes him. It's not an unknown fantasy.
  - javert 13y ago
    If I remember correctly, Dominique intentionally hit Roark in the face with a huge stick while she was riding a horse through the woods. That was before the rape scene. I think she had to "bring him down" because she loved him, and she always destroyed that which she loved (e.g. a statue), because she didn't believe that such things belong in a corrupt world. The point of all this was not to condone such a sequence of actions, but to tell a psychological story about two people.
alipang 13y ago
Rand rejected the Nietzchian ubermensch, favoring free and voluntary association. Fountainhead specifically references this with the downfall of Gail Wynand. The characters are idealized though, yeah.
javert 13y ago
> In the Fountainhead, capitalism comes off as looking rather corrupt and dishonest There is a lot of corruption and dishonesty in the Fountainhead. Ayn Rand was trying to show the difference between firsthanded and secondhanded people (i.e., people who try to let others think for them or dictate their values). That can happen in any society, whether it's a capitalist one or not. Ayn Rand does not simply equate "capitalism" with "business." By "capitalism" she means "pure capitalism" (as opposed to a mixed economy or something else), which is a system where all people are completely free from having force used against them unless they first initiate it. (In other words, a system purely based on trade, never on coersion.) This whole issue was not really a topic in The Fountainhead. > exploited by Peter Keatings at the expense of Howard Roarks Was it? Peater Keating's life was completely miserable. > I couldn't really discern a clear and consistent philosophy from that book The point is that Howard Roark lives for his own happiness and his own values and actually achieves them, while all the other characters live in some secondhanded way and are miserable. > a heroic uber-mensch, Howard Roark Gail Wynand, the newspaper baron, was the Nietzschean uber-mensch in the book. He achieves complete domination over New York (he controls what people read enough to control public sentiment, has all the politicians in his pocket, and is wealthy enough to buy anything he wants). Yet he ultimately hates himself and is miserable. Because dominating other people is not a means to happiness; it is empty and ultimately miserable. Gail Wynand did not achieve _his own_ values. That was the point of that character, and it was also Ayn Rand's response to Neitzche, who she rejected. > The Dominique character I interpret as an idealized Ayn Rand. There is a character that can be interpreted that way, but it's Dagny from Atlas Shrugged. Dominique was psychologically perverted because she didn't believe that values were possible in a world full of second-handers; that's why she goes around smashing artwork in the beginning. This is definitely not an idealized version of Ayn Rand.
- philwelch 13y ago
  I think Ayn Rand described Dominique as "myself on a bad day".
- mtdewcmu 13y ago
  > The point is that Howard Roark lives for his own happiness and his own values and actually achieves them Roark doesn't provide a useful model for how to achieve this, because he is sui generis -- a genius. IIRC, there were characters that were first-hand that had ordinary jobs, but the book didn't dwell on them. It may be because first/second-hand make a big difference for an artist, but not so much difference for a grocery clerk. > Because dominating other people is not a means to happiness It's not a means to happiness, but it's clearly a means to capital accumulation, according to the book. > Dominique was psychologically perverted because she didn't believe that values were possible in a world full of second-handers But she came around by the end, and lived happily ever after with the hero, didn't she? I read the end quickly. It got strange. I haven't read Nietzsche, but Roark is a kind of perfection, given that he is artistically-gifted, has total confidence in himself, and loves his work. He has strong values that he never wavers from. He has trouble achieving success in the market, though. I guess you could say that that's because the market is dominated by second-handers, who don't value people like Roark. If ideal capitalism requires every participant to be a Roark, then it's not any more achievable than ideal Marxism.

chris_wot 13y ago

Romance? Doesn't Roark rape Francon at one point?

mtdewcmu 13y ago
Yes. And she still likes him. It's not an unknown fantasy.
- javert 13y ago
  If I remember correctly, Dominique intentionally hit Roark in the face with a huge stick while she was riding a horse through the woods. That was before the rape scene. I think she had to "bring him down" because she loved him, and she always destroyed that which she loved (e.g. a statue), because she didn't believe that such things belong in a corrupt world. The point of all this was not to condone such a sequence of actions, but to tell a psychological story about two people.

alipang 13y ago

Rand rejected the Nietzchian ubermensch, favoring free and voluntary association. Fountainhead specifically references this with the downfall of Gail Wynand. The characters are idealized though, yeah.

javert 13y ago

> In the Fountainhead, capitalism comes off as looking rather corrupt and dishonest There is a lot of corruption and dishonesty in the Fountainhead. Ayn Rand was trying to show the difference between firsthanded and secondhanded people (i.e., people who try to let others think for them or dictate their values). That can happen in any society, whether it's a capitalist one or not. Ayn Rand does not simply equate "capitalism" with "business." By "capitalism" she means "pure capitalism" (as opposed to a mixed economy or something else), which is a system where all people are completely free from having force used against them unless they first initiate it. (In other words, a system purely based on trade, never on coersion.) This whole issue was not really a topic in The Fountainhead. > exploited by Peter Keatings at the expense of Howard Roarks Was it? Peater Keating's life was completely miserable. > I couldn't really discern a clear and consistent philosophy from that book The point is that Howard Roark lives for his own happiness and his own values and actually achieves them, while all the other characters live in some secondhanded way and are miserable. > a heroic uber-mensch, Howard Roark Gail Wynand, the newspaper baron, was the Nietzschean uber-mensch in the book. He achieves complete domination over New York (he controls what people read enough to control public sentiment, has all the politicians in his pocket, and is wealthy enough to buy anything he wants). Yet he ultimately hates himself and is miserable. Because dominating other people is not a means to happiness; it is empty and ultimately miserable. Gail Wynand did not achieve _his own_ values. That was the point of that character, and it was also Ayn Rand's response to Neitzche, who she rejected. > The Dominique character I interpret as an idealized Ayn Rand. There is a character that can be interpreted that way, but it's Dagny from Atlas Shrugged. Dominique was psychologically perverted because she didn't believe that values were possible in a world full of second-handers; that's why she goes around smashing artwork in the beginning. This is definitely not an idealized version of Ayn Rand.

philwelch 13y ago
I think Ayn Rand described Dominique as "myself on a bad day".
mtdewcmu 13y ago
> The point is that Howard Roark lives for his own happiness and his own values and actually achieves them Roark doesn't provide a useful model for how to achieve this, because he is sui generis -- a genius. IIRC, there were characters that were first-hand that had ordinary jobs, but the book didn't dwell on them. It may be because first/second-hand make a big difference for an artist, but not so much difference for a grocery clerk. > Because dominating other people is not a means to happiness It's not a means to happiness, but it's clearly a means to capital accumulation, according to the book. > Dominique was psychologically perverted because she didn't believe that values were possible in a world full of second-handers But she came around by the end, and lived happily ever after with the hero, didn't she? I read the end quickly. It got strange. I haven't read Nietzsche, but Roark is a kind of perfection, given that he is artistically-gifted, has total confidence in himself, and loves his work. He has strong values that he never wavers from. He has trouble achieving success in the market, though. I guess you could say that that's because the market is dominated by second-handers, who don't value people like Roark. If ideal capitalism requires every participant to be a Roark, then it's not any more achievable than ideal Marxism.