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| "Man's ego is the fountainhead of human progress" |
I recently read Ayn Rand's popular novel "Fountainhead" , after hearing many words of praise about her philosophy from couple of my friends. Well, the entire plot of the book revolves around this concept called "Objectivism" and its different shades. Although initially the idea seemed a bit unpractical and confused to my average intelligent mind, once I read a few chapters of the book I came to better terms with it.
The main character Howard Roark stands for what objectivism really is. He is Ayn Rand's concept of ideal man, who is a pure individualist living by his own terms despite what society thinks. He is a wannabe architect who gets expelled from college for being too unconventional creating designs of his own without following the so called standards in the architecture. As the story unveils he will be met with strict objections from the world for his own novel approach in creating buildings without even considering what the client wants. In other words no matter what, he will design his buildings according to what he feels will suit the location and the purpose of the building. And the interesting part is that he sticks to his principles even when he is pushed to extreme levels like social isolation, unemployment.
In the real world, we may never come across a strong personality with such conviction and reasons. And even if we do, we will also go with the majority of others who says you have to compromise on your ideals at least on some level to have growth in career and personal life.We may not be able to follow or to digest the concept of individualism as a whole rather than collectivism, but we can definitely try to adapt some essence of it. This book is in many ways an inspiration to us , giving answers to the questions we have at different stages in our life.
The part where Howard gives his statement explaining his actions and beliefs in a court leaves us thinking for sure. Through his speech Ayn Rand tries to tell us how hard it is to be an individualist or egoist if you are living in a collectivism oriented society. How any new idea, belief, or creation might be first met with hatred or disbelief, but latter they have proved to be the milestones in human progress.
Like how Prometheus was tortured for sharing fire with man, how Adam was punished for eating the fruit of wisdom, how man's invention of wheel, airplane were considered stupid ideas initially; every creator is met with cynical approach. The point is to swim through all the violent currents and stand by one's belief until reaching the shore.
Being a social animal we are generally expected to live by preexisting rules and norms, to live in a particular pattern, to please people or to feed on others idea. To live for others in a sense; but this book suggests that when a person lives for himself/herself first by doing his/her work to his/her full potential and happiness the society growth and progress will follow.
