I question my love of The Fountainhead, as I don't wholeheartedly embrace Objectivism in it's entirety. To do so would either clash with or compliment my integrity, and the line is blurred. As the lines blur with Dominique's character over the issue of her self-sacrifice - she has this ultimate goal of being free, but attempts to create it out of confining herself to miserable situations to prove that she can endure. She likens herself to Gail Wynand, announcing that they share strength but lack courage. The ultimate marriage of strength and courage would leave one beyond emotional vulnerability - truly, without avoiding risk.
I read a novel a few months back entitled Little Earthquakes by Jennifer Weiner. It was a stray from the more classic genres I typically draw my literature from. Entertaining as it was, the most poignant paragraph came in the introduction, where Weiner quotes from one of my childhood favorites, Margery Williams' The Velveteen Rabbit:
" What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"
"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become real."
"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.
"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always very truthful. "When you are real, you don't mind being hurt."
Some say that a Rand's heroism is rooted in elitist perfection... and in a way, it is. Dominique is flawed in her inability to hit the mark the first time and her hangup over emotional protection. But she's an inexonerable force of nature that meets her ultimate objectives over time. I am inspired by that. And as in the qoute, when we are real, we don't mind being hurt. Dominique took a strange route to reality, and she molded it rather than absorbed it.
Without dually killing my independance and stamping a seal of endorsement over the theory of Objectivism, I can say that I love Rand. And I mean love. I feel like something in the integrity and initiative espoused in her works breathes fire into my being and compels me forward, where my own perception of the world itself does not.
Jon Stewart interviewed Jennifer Burns, a Rand scholar and writer. The address the strange love of the right wing for Rand despite her seeming anti-altruism and Atheist beleifs. Stewart's quote "Objectivism works great for extraordinary people” makes sense to me. I don't want to implement Objectivism as the ruling political theory of society at large.. but in the academic world, it makes sense. I don't believe it in conflict with altruism to hold oneself to ultimate standards of integrity and perfection - it isn't possible, in a way. But it is motivating to shoot for that goal. And at least in academia, the kind of achievement fostered usually lends to social contribution.
The kind of dedication to research and understanding that will allow mankind to find a cure for cancer will likely require the kind of ultimate commitment that Roarke paid to his art of building. That kind of love and dedication refines the products we produce, the actions we take, and the overall power that each person has to control their lives. I believe that is good for society. At the core, holding ourselves to high standards is a very refined act of psuedo-altruism. Like and athlete playing for a team, where absolute maintainence and care for self benefits the whole.
I'm still swimming in it all, pardon my erratic strokes...
JH
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