I wanted to read Ayn Rand’s “The Fountainhead” mostly as an introduction to modern conservative philosophy. It’s also a really good book though, Ayn Rand writes beautiful prose.

Ayn Rand’s thinking seems to have a major influence on the political development in parts of the world right now. Not really the “facts are facts” part of her Objectivism-philosophy (support for scientific thinking is at an all time low after all), but rather the mindset where individualism is far superior to collectivism. Unfortunately, the black and white perspective of this narrative seems to attract a lot of followers.

How abolishing collaboration and altruism can possibly be good for anyone is beyond me, but reading texts like these at least help me understand.

The court room speech delivered by the main character, the architect Howard Roark, serves as a representative summary for this thinking. The whole speech can be found here, or if you prefer a movie version, you can watch it here. Below is in my view, the quintessential part where Roark is summarizing his views:

I came here to say that I do not recognize anyone’s right to one minute of my life. Nor to any part of my energy. Nor to any achievement of mine. No matter who makes the claim, how large their number or how great their need.

I wished to come here and say that I am a man who does not exist for others.

We should all work towards becoming as strong and independent as possible – it’s tempting to say “duh”.

Not even the strongest of us can be strong all the time, however. At some point, we all need help and support from our fellows.

Most importantly, collaboration and collectivism create wonderful things, a lot of them more wonderful than any man can create alone. Also “duh”, but has to be said anyway it seems.