The Fountainhead

I remember reading this book and enjoying it immensely about 10 years ago. Now, however, as I watch the film ( see previous post ) it is a caricature. It's extremely preachy and poorly thought out.

I like the theme of an extremely talented individual, a genius of sorts, succeeding and doing his best because he knows what he believes is the best course of action.

But the folly of the film is in this statement: The world is perishing from an orgy of self-sacrificing. Certainly this must be what Ayn Rand thought. And lots of people think it today. The whole Ayn Rand Institute, I would guess.

But that's just pure idiocy. Look at the marathon. I could have charged ahead, never talking to others, determined to push out my peak performance. I could have run the race perhaps 30 minutes faster. But I wouldn't have had as much fun talking to other runners. What would that headline have been? The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner. The Loneliness of the Transcendent Individual. And, of course, my race wasn't much. Just a fun goal I set for myself. But there are all those other people who run races to raise money for cancer research or honor the memory of loved ones. Sacrifice.

And, of course, sometimes we have to make sacrifices for ourselves as well. Self-sacrifice for yourself is still a form of self-sacrifice.