Ayn Rand’s Fountainhead was published in 1943 and went on to become one of the classics of the modern generation. It influenced scores of young minds with its glorification of the individuality and greatness of man. Roark, the protagonist of the book is commissioned to build a Temple of the Human spirit and the instructions he is given are clear and concise.
“We want to capture – in stone, as others capture in music – not some narrow creed, but the essence of all religion. And what is the essence of religion? The great aspiration of the human spirit towards the highest, noblest, the best. The human spirit as the creator and the conqueror of the ideal. The great life – giving force of the universe. The heroic human spirit…”
However, as Dominique, Roark’s alter ego, prowls the streets of Manhattan, the author describes her state of mind by writing, “She had always hated the streets of a city. She saw the faces streaming past her, the faces made alike by fear – fear as a common denominator, fear of themselves, fear of all and of one another, fear making them ready to pounce upon whatever was held sacred by any single one they met. She could not define the nature or reason of that fear”.
It seems paradoxical that the exalted human spirit, the great life-giving force of the universe, is riddled by fear and prejudice, incapable of recognizing the essential humanity of all living things, ready to vent his bottled up energies in anger and frustration. This description hardly seems to conjure a vision of the greatness of man.
So what has stunted man’s growth and perverted his sensibilities. Dominique cannot define the reason for the underlying fear she senses in the streets of the city but through Roark we find some answers to the dilemma and dejection faced by men in the modern world.
On a cold winter night, Roark heads home, tired and dejected by his inability to alter the sensibilities of a society he professes to abhor. He walks alone and friendless and the author writes that “he could feel the cold, whistling pressure strike his cheeks. It was the only evidence of the flow rippling the air. Nothing moved in the stone corridor about him. There was not a tree to stir, no curtains, no awnings; only naked masses of stone, glass, asphalt, and sharp corners”.
Cement, glass, steel and plastic do not grow, decay or change color. They are mute and indestructible and neither absorb nor dissipate energy. Man is trapped in an environment which is unchanging in appearance; he is dwarfed by giant structures which tower over him and proclaim his insignificance. There are no living things surrounding him in the concrete jungle he inhabits and he finds no peace and rest for his senses or his soul. The city becomes a battleground in which the individual is continuously fighting for his survival, his financial independence, his individuality and recognition.
Fifty years ago, Braithwaite in his celebrated autobiographical novel, says that he met an old man in a park who shared the following insight with him,” Those tall buildings are more than monuments to the industry, thought and effort which have made this a great city; they also occasionally serve as springboards to eternity for misfits who cannot cope with the city and their own loneliness in it… A great city is a battlefield. You need to be a fighter to live in it, not exist, mark you, live”. The juxtaposition of the setting of this enlightening bit of advice and the ‘ tall buildings’ which are under consideration are the paradox which give lie to the proclamation of man as the ‘ great life giving force of the universe’.
A park conjures a vision of natural beauty, a scene of varied colors, life forms, growth and decay, and a place where man’s spirit experiences elevation not destruction. The flora and fauna, the peace and tranquility of the open air spaces, the unhurried and relaxed faces all around soothe the spirit and dissipate the accumulated negative energies which burden the soul. In the midst of nature man is neither threatened by his vulnerability or his incompetence nor is he deluded into believing in an exalted sense of his own grandeur. He is made aware of a force more powerful than him who has shaped a world of monumental beauty which existed eons before man ever walked on the planet and which will endure even if man succeeds in removing the last traces of his own presence from the earth.
This is why I believe that Ayn Rand’s philosophy is undesirable. Roark and Dominique, her main protagonists, are delineated as exalted creatures, blessed by an intelligence and a sensibility which is not shared by the millions of lesser mortals inhabiting their world. Then why are both of them so tortured, so unable to smile and experience blissful contentment? Why is there no peace for them in their work, their love or their contemptuous discarding of the rules of an outdated social framework?
They are ‘creators’ both of them, one an architect and the other an accepted critic of architectural works. They believe they are giving shape to a modern world designed according to their expectations and vision, a world of soaring concrete columns, glass panes and structural elegance unembellished by any artistic touches, any acknowledgement of a creative spirit drawing from natural beauty. The statue which Roark would place in his Temple to the Human spirit would be a nude figure of a woman in a state of exultation at perceiving her lover, not a representation which might draw man to contemplate an ideal higher than him. Yet neither character is accepted by society and both suffer excruciatingly for their tortured beliefs.
Life is very short and the human spirit is very frail. It needs continuous replenishment and nourishment to survive and evolve. Its food is love, a nurturing and caring heart, and the ability to move from the outward (the ego) to the very center of its being, the source and the wellspring of all its life giving energy. The human child is the most fragile among other animals. It will die immediately without someone to nurture it for an extended period of time. However, this fragility itself is the highest expression of consciousness, as the flower is fragile unlike a stone. Consciousness in man is not an awareness of his individual greatness but an ability to evolve beyond the confines and consequences of the material world and live intensely and joyously – to strive to LIVE not be REMEMBERED.
