Objectivism in The Fountainhead
Philosophy demands literature that can abet the understanding of social views. Without reflective literature, man cannot begin to comprehend the essential messages behind philosophy. One such philosophy, objectivism, is represented exceptionally by the novel, The Fountainhead. Through the use of compelling dialogue, Ayn Rand reveals her own feelings towards objectivism, and her thoughts towards conformity and independence. The interpretations and the implications of several of the quotes within The Fountainhead accurately depict the essence of objectivism and encourages the opposition of conventional standards through the embodiment of the uncompromising innovator "standing against the world."
Society dictates that there will be those that follow and those that will lead the followers. Peter Keating is one that adheres to conformity; a man of little independent thought, a follower. Howard Roark, on the other hand, is a man aspiring to achieve a level of complete and utter independence from traditional principles. One telling passage occurs in a scene where Keating and Roark are discussing architecture.
Keating: "How do you always manage to decide?"
Roark: "How can you let others decide for you?"
As two men on the extreme sides of conformity and independence, it is hard for Keating to understand how someone could be so sure of himself, whereas it is incomprehensible for Roark to believe that Keating could have so little self-assurance and such a lack of resolve regarding the decisions he chooses to make. In this r...
... middle of paper ...
... is most definately correct in saying that independence is the only gauge of human virtue and value. A conformist has low value because of his refusal to jump the bounds of submission; the conformist would never experiment for the sake of self- improvement. This would not be looked upon well by other.
Conformity is governed by the laws of compromise, egotism, productivity, and value. A conformist must be willing to sacrifice his philosophies simply because it does not correspond with the attitude of the clique. Independence, on the other hand relies on only one thing: the performance of the individual. A conformist must be satisfied with the performance of the group. The independent individual has himself to blame when events turn for the worse, and he solely reeps the benifit of his own performance.
Throughout the text Keating connects with people on a personal level through his word choice and tone. This connection with his audience allows him to further develop belonging, and evoke a greater emotional response in his audience. This word choice and tone can be seen in the lines, “We took the traditional lands and smashed the traditional way of life. We brought the diseases. The alcohol. We committed the murders. We practiced discrimination and exclusion. It was our ignorance and our prejudice.”
Berliner, Michael S., ed. Letters of Ayn Rand. By Ayn Rand. New York: Dutton, 1995.
Rand’s expressed the basic values of Objectivism in this magnum opus. Objectivism is a philosophical system created by Ayn Rand and later popularized by her successors. It was first developed in essays and lectures. Rand thinks of Objectivism as “a philosophy for living on earth”. She states in the Atlas Shrugged: “My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute.” Ayn Rand divides Objectivism in four parts: Ethics, Metaphysics, Epistemology and Politics.
Ayn Rand based her novel of the idea of objectivism the idea that reality exists independent of consciousness, and that the proper moral purpose of one's life is the pursuit of one's own happiness or rational self. We see this throughout the entire novel and within all of her characters. Ayn Rand had an interesting perception of selfishness and selflessness, along with her view of objectivism. As a reader we are thinking the opposite of what the characters are thinking, and never know what is going to happen next. Roark and Keating gave new meanings to selfishness and selflessness within the world of architecture.
The crash was felt far beyond the trading floors. Speculators who borrowed money from the banks to buy their stocks could not repay the loans because they could not sell stocks. This caused many banks to fail. Since bank deposits were uninsured before the 1930s depositors' their money, which in many cases was all that many people had. The stock market crash intensified the course of the Great Depression in many ways. Besides wiping out the savings of thousands, it hurt commercial banks that had invested heavily in corporate stocks. It also caused a loss of confidence in the market prolonging the depression.
The crash has started; everyone began selling because the earnign ratio was so high, but no one was buying. The more that was sold, the less the value, and bankers had to buy the stocks as they fell to try and slow them down before they hit rock bottom. The root cause of this was Dow Jones Industrial, one of the leading companies to invest in at the time. Because of their fall, many Americans lost money, everyone was trading. The market sold 12.9 million shares lost $5 billion dollars, and this was all over the course of one day.
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Maize in Human Nutrition. Rome: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 2011.
Back track to the Great Depression, the 1920s’ was an era of progression based on social and political changes. At the time the country was just coming out of WW1 that occur two years prior and the country is looking to an era of peace and tranquility. During the 1920s era the country was facing an economic boom called the Roaring 20s. The 1920 was called the Roaring 20s due to the “new technologies like the automobile, household appliances” (Sullivan). Due to these new products consumer spending increase, and in return stimulated the economic. Every ting seems perfect until late 1929 and rather than benefiting from the economic growth and enjoying the new standard of living, people began to witness a huge decline in the economic referred to
Many people assume that they are individuals, and look down on those who conform. Although none of them have said it directly, they all fall under the influence of conformity. There have been many cases where conformity has taken control of the way people act around other conformist in society. On the other hand, individuality seems to make others want to be like the individual whose unique and different.Individuality seems to be the magnet for conformity, in a way that makes conformist want to be like that one individual. In my opinion, individuality and conformity are more alike than people may think.
Keating wins the competition and takes all the credit for himself, as no one can be the best but him (Rand 187). Later, when a normal person would feel guilty, Peter visits Roark and tries to pay for his silence about his help (Rand 192, 193). Roark gives the money back in exchange for Peter’s silence, as Roark hates the building and wants no one to know he had a hand in it (Rand 193). Keating gets very upset and starts screaming at Roark; Roark is impassive and tells him to relax (Rand 193, 194). Keating decides that he hates Roark (Rand 194). And this is where readers see the final major element of Peter’s character – fear. Keating exposes himself as weak, scared, and lesser in this exchange with Roark. Peter started as a happy, successful kid, until he succumbed to the same forces that have lost every monarch their rule – the love of power. Keating’s obsession with being the best has made him fear and hate those who may be better; this weakens him and drives him a bit crazy. And ultimately, his love of power will lead to the downfall of Peter
If you asked Mark Levinson, an economist, the crash was a result of a “failed 30 year economic social model.” (2009, 61) The blame can be assigned to two main groups’ politicians and large businesses on Wall Street. The result of politicians’ decisions allowed the businesses to make some of the bad decisions that they ended up making.
If consistency of independence or conformity in behavior is shown to be a fact, how is it functionally related to qualities of character and personality? In what ways is independence related to sociological or cultural conditions? Are leaders more independent than other people, or are they adept at following their
For Mexicans, maize is not a crop, but a deep cultural symbol for daily life. Maize is now grown all over the world. Corn is commonly found in the United States in comparison to the shapes, sizes, and colors of the traditional maize varieties by the people of Mexico. Statistics show that, according to the website, calstatela.edu, The United States purchases over 70% of Mexico’s agricultural exports. Corn may length from a couple of inches to a foot long, in colors that include yellow, red, white, brown, blue, and black. Corn is attached to the daily lives of the peasants and indigenous people of Mexico. As the basic grain, it shapes daily meals, and it’s growing cycle influences the timing of festivals and holiday events. In addition, Corn
The stock market crash of 2008 was one of the most devastating of crashes ever. During the first few weeks of October the loss of money has been relentless. It caused people to lose such a significant amount of money. On September 16, 2008, failures of massive financial institutions in the United States, due mainly to exposure to packaged subprime loans and credit default swaps issued to insure these loans and their issuers this then rapidly devolved into a global crisis. There were failures in banks in not just America but a ton of other places as well. This started to result in a number of bank failures in Europe and high reductions in the value of stocks and commodities worldwide. There was also a failure in Iceland where banks had a devaluation
It stock market crash of 2008 happened in the fall of 2008. The crash happened due to a couple of reasons. The first reason was banks were giving out subprime mortgages to people because the housing market in the United States was booming. The second reason was because banks started to go bankrupt because people weren’t paying back their loans and the third reason was that the government refused to help the big banks until after the stock market crashed. The stock market had not had a crash since the 1930’s.