It's A Great Day

Yesterday, with one daughter off to work at H & M and my other daughter on a shopping trip with my wife to Ikea, I decided to sit at Reston Town Center and read Nathaniel Branden's explanation of the differences he had with Ayn Rand. The piece, based upon a 1982 lecture, turned out to be riveting to someone who has thought so much about her philosophy:

The message she has brought runs counter not only to the dominant teachings of religion and philosophy for many centuries past, but, no less important, it runs counter to the teachings of most of our parents. Our parents, who said, "So who's happy?"; who said, "Don't get too big for your britches"; who said, "Pride goeth before a fall"; who said, "Enjoy yourself while you're young, because when you grow up, life is not fun, life is grim, life is a burden"; who said, "Adventure is for the comic strips; real life is learning to make your peace with boredom"; who said, "Life is not about exaltation, life is about duty."

Then, this incredible writer, Ayn Rand, comes along and says, in effect, "Oh, really?" and then proceeds to create characters who aren't in the Middle Ages, who aren't running around in outer space, but who are of our time and of this earth-who work, struggle, pursue difficult career goals, fall in love, participate in intensely emotional relationships, and for whom life is an incredible adventure because they have made it so. Characters who struggle, who suffer, but who win-who achieve success and happiness.

So, there is a powerful message of hope in her work. A powerful affirmation of the possibilities of existence. Her work represents a glorification not only of the human potential but also of the possibilities of life on earth.

Mr. Branden then goes on to explain one of the many problems he sees with her work:

In preparation for this presentation, I re-read the opening chapter of "�The Fountainhead." It really is a great book. I noticed something in the first chapter I never noticed before. Consider these facts: The hero has just been expelled from school, he is the victim of injustice, he is misunderstood by virtually everyone, and he himself tends to find other people puzzling and incomprehensible. He is alone; he has no friends. There is no one with whom he can share his inner life or values. So far, with the possible exception of being expelled from school, this could be a fairly accurate description of the state of the overwhelming majority of adolescents. There is one big difference: Howard Roark gives no indication of being bothered by any of it. He is serenely happy within himself. For average teenagers, this condition is agony. They read "The Fountainhead"and see this condition, not as a problem to be solved, but as a condition they must learn to be happy about-as Roark is. All done without drugs! What a wish-fulfillment that would be! What a dream come true! Don't bother learning to understand anyone. Don't bother working at making yourself better understood. Don't try to see whether you can close the gap of your alienation from others, at least from some others, just struggle for Roark's serenity-which Rand never tells you how to achieve. This is an example of how "The Fountainhead" could be at once a source of great inspiration and a source of great guilt, for all those who do not know how to reach Roark's state.

Much of what he has written I assumed that people grasped as they read her books. But if you take a look at the entire article you will see that this is far from what happened. It turns out that many admirers of her work felt guilty if they were not exactly like John Galt.

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