The Fountainhead, Ethical Egoism and my EE

Genre: Philosophical fiction
Title: The Fountainhead
Author: Ayn Rand

Rating: 2.9/3
Justification: It killed me to take that 0.1 off a perfect rating, but I think it was the right thing to do. I agree with practically every damn idea this book says, but if conversations with other people are anything to go by, you might come to hate me for it. So read at your own risk.


Plotline (from Goodreads):

When The Fountainhead was first published, Ayn Rand's daringly original literary vision and her groundbreaking philosophy, Objectivism, won immediate worldwide interest and acclaim. This instant classic is the story of an intransigent young architect, his violent battle against conventional standards, and his explosive love affair with a beautiful woman who struggles to defeat him. This edition contains a special afterword by Rand’s literary executor, Leonard Peikoff, which includes excerpts from Ayn Rand’s own notes on the making of The Fountainhead. As fresh today as it was then, here is a novel about a hero—and about those who try to destroy him.

My take:

I. Freaking. Adore. This. Book. No joke. This book is basically advocating ethical egoism. I love it.

For anyone who doesn't know what ethical egoism, here's a brief lesson:

Ethical egoism, or self-interest theory, is basically the idea of doing things to serve your own self-interest.

Now, this is not to be confused with selfishness, which often has a negative connotation. Ethical egoists simply believe that by pursuing your own interests instead of trying to serve others is the best way to go.

Here's an example:

A person starts a business. In order for his business to be successful (which is in his own self-interest), he uses the money his company generates in order to grow his business. By not donating any of this money to charity (as would be the 'altruist' thing to do), he is able to grow a successful business. Due to his growing business, he will need to hire more people for jobs, which reduces unemployment rates. So in the end, he is actually creating happiness (for others who would've been jobless before) by simply pursuing his own self-interest.

(Of course, this scenario could be altered depending on what a person's self-interest was. If this guy, for example, was not after becoming filthy rich but rather wanted to feel a peace of mind derived from helping others in need, the situation would've gone down differently.)

I could rant a lot more about ethical egoism and why it makes so much sense, but that might make this blog post a tad too long. Maybe I'll make a longer post detailing my thoughts on this matter at a later point in time.

What I think must've gone on in Ayn Rand's mind:

Goodness, what is with this bullshit of pretending everyone loves everyone else, and that everyone gets happiness from putting others first? Everyone's innately selfish dammit. The world would be a whole lot easier if we all just had some damn common sense and followed our own dreams, instead of getting held back trying to help others! If everyone focused on themselves, the world would progress instead of wallowing in this stinkhole! Hmm... this would make for a good book...

The philosophy is technically the most important component of the novel, but there were other elements to be praised as well. Ok, maybe just one other element.

The characters.

Roark had me over the moon for most of the book. This guy is like the epitome of strength, power, alpha-maleness, *descends into incoherent blabber of respect and admiration while in fangirl-mode*

I guess I've always just loved characters (and real-life people) who are able to chase after what they want. And Roark definitely does that. It's fracking beautiful.

The one thing I didn't like is... come on... why is the female character always weaker dammit?! I guess that compared to other books Dominique isn't even that bad, but compared to Roark her determination is still weak. It's kind of disappointing that even in such an individualist book, Ms. Rand still chooses to conform with her patriarchal society's views of the two genders.

Despite that, the book was... amazing. That's why I've chosen to write... drumroll please... my EE on it!

EE = Extended Essay. IB stuff. Yucky stuff. But hopefully writing it on this book will make things not quite as tedious :)

I Am Sometimes Unstable

It's been awhile since I've done a random post, but since it's March Break and I'm in a cynical mood, here we go...

I've been living in Canada for most of my life (WOOT! Polar bears. Igloos. Penguins. I've seen literally none of any of those. Stop judging, you stereotypers. Also, penguins aren't even on our side of the globe. Geesh.) I've gone to elementary and middle school here, and now I'm attending high school here as well.

I decided I wanted to do the IB program in grade 9, and subsequently entered the pre-IB stream. (For those of you who don't know, IB stands for International Baccalaureate, which is basically this program  whose standards are the same worldwide. It's perfect for kids who move countries a lot, so their academic standards don't change all the time. I'm not planning on moving any time soon, so I don't know why I'm putting myself through this hell.) The first two years were pretty chill: I lived about an hour and a half away from the school so that was annoying, but the accelerated curriculum wasn't too much of a pain to keep up with.

Then came grade 11, or the IB1 year as my school calls it.

I like to call it my own personal hell.

I had graduated with a 95 average the year before without trying too hard, so I entered this year with pretty high expectations.

You know when you go into a test confidence you'll do well, come out of said test confident you did well, then go get your test back and realize you failed miserably? (If you've never had an experience like this, just trust me when I say it sucks.) Yeah, multiply that by the number of days in the first two terms. (I'd say 1st semester but we're not a semestered school so that'd be pretty pointless.) (No, I don't have ADHD, brackets are just a very convenient way to input more information that has nothing to do with anything.) You know those people who feel as if their self worth is tied to their academic success? Yeah, I'm DEFINITELY one of those people. My self-confidence was absolutely demolished.

Then the freak-outs began.

FREAK-OUT: noun. That moment when temporary failure leads a person to conclude that success will forever evade them and they will end up jobless and on the streets in a few year's time.

*the only known cure for freak-outs are copious amounts of Fanfiction, ice cream, and Big Bang Theory.

Okay, maybe "began" isn't the right word. I'm a pretty emotional person, so I freak out often. But the freak-outs got much, much worse. My thought process went something like this:

Oh gosh. This mark is actually too terrible.

Oh no. All my marks for this course are pretty much terrible.

In fact, all the marks for all my courses are pretty terrible.

OH MY GOODNESS MY AVERAGE IS TOO UGLY TO LOOK AT. 

 I AM A FAILURE. WHY DO I FAIL AT EVERYTHING.

 AND THIS IS THE YEAR THAT MATTERS. I WON'T BE ABLE TO GET INTO WATERLOO LIKE THIS. (I want to go to Waterloo for math, and the cut-off mark is really high.)

I SHOULD DROP IB. I'M OBVIOUSLY TOO DUMB TO BE DOING IT. (IB is considered a lot more rigorous than the average Canadian high school program.)

NO NO I CAN'T DO THAT. WHAT IF I STILL DO BADLY AFTER I DROP. I WILL HAVE HIT ROCK BOTTOM. THERE WILL BE NOWHERE TO GO. NO, I MUST STAY.

 BUT WHAT IF MY MARKS ARE SO BAD I DON'T GET INTO ANY OF THE UNIVERSITIES I APPLY FOR? WHAT IF I DON'T GET INTO UNIVERSITY?!

WITHOUT UNIVERSITY I WILL NOT SUCCEED IN LIFE AND WILL TURN INTO A HOBO AND DIE ALONE OH NO OH NO OH NO 

...
...
...
My mental state of mind is definitely unhealthy.

It got up to the point where I couldn't even study for tests without flipping out. I would convince myself that no matter how hard I studied I would fail anyways, so I might as well not study at all and just accept the fail. It's not hard to imagine the wonders THAT did to my marks...

Things did improve after awhile, so I can look back on that time and laugh at how stupid and silly I was. Still, it made me realize just how much I need to... hm... how to put this...