Acolytes and Adversaries: Public Response to The Fountainhead

In my previous post, "The Power of the Word," I talked a little bit about the impact that a well-put phrase or a even just a couple of perfectly-paired words can have on a person. I've been researching Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead, and in looking over some of my favorite quotes, it's been fun to experience Rand's writing again. She really has a way with words, and honestly, that was probably the thing that made me love her books so much -- the ideas are interesting, but I just loved the writing. I figured I'd share a quick passage from The Fountainhead, just so you can get a taste of her style, and then I'll follow up with some thoughts on the impact of her work in my life personally and the general population's consensus on the work.

The leaves streamed down, trembling in the sun. They were not green; only a few, scattered through the torrent, stood out in single drops of a green so bright and pure that it hurt the eyes; the rest were not a color, but a light, the substance of fire on metal, living sparks without edges. And it looked as if the forest were a spread of light boiling slowly to produce this color, this green rising in small bubbles, the condensed essence of spring. The trees met, bending over the road, and the spots of sun on the ground moved with the shifting of the branches, like a conscious caress. The young man hoped he would not have to die.

Not if the earth could look like this, he thought. Not if he could hear the hope and promise like a voice, with leaves, tree trunks and rocks instead of words. But he knew that the earth looked like this only because he had seen no sign of men for hours; he was alone, riding his bicycle down a forgotten trail through the hills of Pennsylvania where he had never been before, where he could feel the fresh wonder of an untouched world.

 Rand's words at times have almost a magical quality to them, as if they belong to another world or as if they are more so a song than they are just words. This was what hooked me and got me interested in her ideas. This isn't perhaps the best way to approach philosophy, as "beauty often seduces us on the road to truth," but all the same, I realized at that moment that the vehicle by which we deliver our ideas is just as important as the ideas themselves. I've thought about this idea a lot as I've been trying to figure out digital media, and I am realizing more and more each day that the way of the philosopher, of the thinker, of the dreamer, of the revolutionary lies not in dusty tomes in dustier libraries but in the living, breathing atmosphere of the now, in the coursing, pulsating vitality of modern media, of innovation, of change.

In browsing different people's blogs and Youtube channels and other resources about The Fountainhead and other works, I've noticed a general trend that people become either ardent acolytes or fervid opponents to Rand's work and her philosophical platform. Perhaps even more interesting, though, was the age-relationship existent among the friends and foes of Rand's Objectivism: people under the age of about 25 typically expressed great adoration and found real meaning and purpose in Rand's words, while those older than 25 consistently denounced not only Rand's philosophies but also her novels and her personal character as 'egotistical, godless, unfeeling, conceited, and cold.' It has been a bit of a quandary trying to understand what evokes such a polarization. In part, I think that among the under-25 crowd it has to do with the self-obsession of youth, wherein we think primarily about my education and my clothes and my friends and my career -- you get the point. As we get older, we start thinking more about families, and we realize that complete self-interest doesn't mix very well with love. Still a mystery to me, though, why older people regard The Fountainhead as such a diabolical work rather than just a step in coming to understand what's really important in life. Thoughts on the matter?