From an early age, Jim was taught to share, and it soon became a habit. Growing up, his sharing problem was limited to small things like toy, but when he entered high school, his problems quickly grew worse. Jim’s friends started seeing him commit random acts of kindness. One of his friends, John, said he saw Jim slipping a large check into an orphanage donation box. Another, Tom, swore he saw Jim sharing his lunch with a homeless man. All of Jim’s friends agreed that this destructive behavior must be stopped, so they turned to his best friend Paul for a so for a solution. Paul knew what he had to do.
The next day, Jim came in late to school. When he saw Paul, he mumbled a greeting. Jim started to walk past Paul, but he stopped him. “I know
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The woman nodded, then spoke. “Your friends told me you needed help. I cannot fix your problem, but I help your realize what your heart already knows.”
At this point, Jim’s confusion turned to annoyance. “What’s so wrong with sharing?” he asked. “I’m not hurting anybody. In fact, I’m helping people do the things they can’t do themselves.”
“That’s where you are wrong,” Ayn Rand responded. “Sharing can cause a horrifying chain reaction. Once you start sharing, others will follow in your example. If enough people starts sharing, it could become the norm. Eventually, sharing could be viewed as common
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“That seems like the kind of world I’d want my children to live in.”
“When something becomes considered common decency,” she responded, “ There is a push to make it into a law. If this push succeeds, there are no bounds to the possible damage sharing could cause to American values. Soon people will be required to share their ideas, their money, or even their food. Knowing this, people will lose the will to create. Progress and innovation will come to a standstill. Everyone will be equal, but nothing will ever change.” Jim was still unconvinced, but Ayn Rand still had one final trick up her sleeve. She grabbed Jim’s arm, and told him, “This whole dream would probably be more convincing if I show you the disastrous future your sharing could cause.” Suddenly images of the future started flashing through Jim’s head. First, he saw an image of government officials going through his files, taking away his ideas. Next, he saw image of him on his deathbed, forced to share his final meal with a man who had passed out on the street. In the final and most horrifying image, he saw the reading of his will. His kids were signing of their inheritance. While he was seeing all of this, a strangely foreign fear grasped his mind. It felt like the source was his arm, but he wasn’t able to think clearly enough to wonder why. As the dream started fading, he started screaming. He woke up in a cold
Many people seem to get entangled into society's customs. In the novel Anthem, the protagonist, Equality 7-2521, lives a period of his life as a follower. However, Equality eventually, tries to distant himself from his society. He is shaped to be a follower, but eventually emerges in to an individual and a leader. On his journey, he discovers the past remains of his community. Ayn Rand uses Equality's discoveries of self to represent the importance of individuality in a functional society.
is something that cannot be shared”, going on to say “why should anyone else have
"Paul’s Case." Short Stories for Students. Ed. Kathleen Wilson. Vol. 2. Detroit: Gale, 1997. 192-209. Short Stories for Students. Gale. Web. 21 Jan. 2010.
The Fountainhead provided and continues to provide a powerful inspiration to the individualist movement in America, and throughout the world. More than any other single work, The Fountainhead revived popular enthusiasm for a way of thinking, and a way of life, that in 1943 was regarded by virtually every sector of intellectual opinion as outmoded. Ayn Rand's courageous challenge to accepted ideas was rendered still more courageous by her willingness to state her individualist premises in the clearest terms and to defend the most radical implications that could be drawn from them.
In “The Fountainhead” Ayn Rand shows her own views on free will. She belligerently shows how the world has come to collectivism to live their lives. ““Fine.” Said Mrs. Keating, “Go to the Beaux-Arts. It’s a grand place. A whole ocean away from your home. Of course, if you go, Mr. Francon will take somebody else. People will talk about that. Everybody knows that Mr. Francon picks out the best boy from Stanton every year for his office. I wonder how it’ll look if some other boy gets the job? But I guess that doesn’t matter.”” (P.35). this quote shows collectivism by showing how “emotional” one can be about not being better than his/her peers around them. Ayn’s point of view on free will in this quote shown telling of how Peter Keating had a choice on whether to take Guy Francons job offer or go to the Beaux-Arts academy for architecture, even though his mother was pressuring him into tak...
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."
"The theme of The Fountainhead is individualism versus collectivism - not in politics but in man's soul." Ayn Rand
Ayn Rand is easily one of the most controversial, provocative and rejected philosophical minds of the 20th century. She is completely absent from Donald M. Borchert’s Encyclopedia of Philosophy where only a short reference to Rand’s compatriot Vladimir Solovyov’s “…objective forms of moral life” (125) even hints at any thing remotely to do with Rand. Rand’s utter rejection at the hands of the mainstream philosophical community stems from her controversial viewpoints on various topics and her fierce criticism of intellectuals
When one no longer relies upon society to formulate their most basic moral principles, the result is individualism. In Ayn Rand’s novel The Fountainhead, this concept of virtuous individualistic thinking is advocated through her characters as well as the roles they play within the collectivist, altruistically-dominated world they exist in. On the surface, architect Howard Roark and author Lois Cook both seemingly demonstrate individualistic qualities through their condemnation of society. However, if one were to look at the cores of their personas, he or she would find that they are indeed polar opposites.
Ayn Rand's classic story of one man's desire to become an individual in a nameless society presents a compelling refutation of collectivism in all forms. The hero, labeled "Equality 7-2521" by the State, chooses to challenge conventional authority as he learns the joys of experimentation and discovery, the ecstasy of human love, the challenge and fairness of liberty, and the happiness of self-interest. Equality 7-2521 writes three unique phrases in his journal: 1. "My happiness needs no higher aim to vindicate it. My happiness is not the means to an end. It is the end.", 2. "We know that we are evil, but there is no will in us and no power to resist it.", 3. "The word 'We' . . . must never be placed first within man's soul.". These phrases will be discussed individually in the remainder of this essay.
One major issue with the nation is their emphasis on the importance of having a timocracy society where power is measured and gained through wealth. A common ideology shared among Americans is “You don’t share things in common; you have your own things” (Burgess 236). Through this statement, Burgess remarks about how American citizens no longer have the will to familiarize themselves with
"Paul’s Case." Short Stories for Students. Ed. Kathleen Wilson. Vol. 2. Detroit: Gale, 1997. 192-209. Short Stories for Students. Gale. Web. 21 Jan. 2010.
Standing as, perhaps, one of the most controversial and, simultaneously, innovative philosophies of the twentieth century, Ayn Rand's Objectivism philosophy has gathered an unprecedented following. Demonstrated and explained in detail through the use of the characters Howard Roark, Ellsworth Toohey, Peter Keating, and Dominique Francon in her infamous novel The Fountainhead, Rand creates a storyline that effectively portrays all aspects of society - its evils and its goods. Rand's employment of both Dominique and Roark's positions in society, her explanation and justification for Dominique's seemingly cruel acts against Roark, and her weaving of Dominique and Roark's love for each other into a further enforcement of select core ideals of Objectivism, creates a perfect forum for both a promotion of the novel's core philosophy and a modeling of a flawless work of literary fiction.
Ayn Rand destroys any ideal claiming Communism is a ‘noble’ theory. She demonstrates its complete failure in practice, reveals the impossibility of a steadfast conviction to Communism, and embodies her very beliefs within her main character. Rand, with the very essence of her being, opposes Communist ideals.
For instance, it was an extremely sunny day in Ghana, West Africa, and I had gone out to the well to fetch water. It was while carrying the bucket of water on my way back that I noticed my neighbor’s children fighting over the insufficient amount of food that they had to share. My family and I were not rich but from what I saw, I knew that we were better off than other people I knew. I carried the bucket of water inside the house and came back outside to call the two youngest children that were fighting over the last grain of food. I shared my food my food with them and though it was not sufficient for all, feeding the younger ones alone was better than not helping any one of them at all. There was only little that I could possibly do but by sharing, I had helped them in a great way, even if it was just for the time being.