Individualism Vs. Intellectivism In Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead

It was 1935 and Ayn Rand had something new to say. The collection of these new ideas was published eight years later in The Fountainhead. Rand’s philosophy was earth-shatteringly new and daring. The novel did not hit bestseller lists until future years, but when it did, it hit hard. What was this new philosophy? What did The Fountainhead say? Ayn Rand, in For the New Intellectual, divulged that its theme was “individualism versus collectivism, not in politics, but in man's soul” (Rand 13). Individualism is the principle of focusing on the individual, while collectivism places the whole above the individual. The Fountainheads key characters exemplify these two philosophies, each representing them in different ways through their motives and actions.

Toohey. Toohey is to collectivism as Roark is to individualism. He places no value on the individual and complete value on the collective and is loved for it. Toohey the “perfect man” in the eyes of the people. He is exactly equal with everyone and he does not care for his own self. Rand illustrates this with the words of Toohey, “Personal love is a great evil-as everything personal. And it always leads to misery. Don’t you see why? Personal love is an act of discrimination, of preference. It is an act of injustice-to every human being on the earth who you rob of affection arbitrarily granted to one. You must love all men equally. But you cannot achieve so noble an emotion if you don’t kill your selfish little choices” (322). Does that not seem “noble”? And one certainly can not say that Toohey is a hypocrite;he follows his philosophy to a T. Even though he possesses the talents to make himself a very rich man, Toohey creates success in other people's lives instead of his own. Yet, he is the antagonist of The Fountainhead. Since he places value only on the collective, he thinks individuals are worthless. Yes, Toohey promotes the success of others, but only to further the collective. For a good portion of the book, Toohey uses his influence to assist young Peter Keating in his journey to become an architect. Towards the end, however, he stops giving Keating any assistance and Keating falls apart, not only

Keating lives for man, but everything he does he does for recognition, for fame. Keating’s philosophy, as Ayn Rand writes it, is “Always be what people what you to be. Then you’ve got them where you want them” (261). This does not quite follow the true spirit of collectivism but is definitely not entirely individualistic, either. Rather, he may personify the worst of both philosophies. Keating is the petty kind of selfish we generally think of. When he first started at a large architecture firm, it was his priority to move up the success ladder. He manipulated and tricked people, broke relationships, ruined careers, and came too close to murder for ease, but he did got what he wanted and that’s what mattered. And yet as he walked all over people, he depended entirely on them. Rand wrote about Keating, “He let himself be carried by the torrent. He needed the people and the clamor around him...He was great; great as the number of people who told him so. He was right; right at the number of people who believed it.He looked at the faces, at the eyes; he saw himself born in them, he saw himself being granted life” (188). Because others saw him as great, Keating saw himself as great. Without this affirmation, he is nothing; he has no self worth. The manipulator was too easily manipulated, and in the end he realized the flaw in his philosophy. Even though he was at the top, he was not happy. In