Throughout her long career as popular author and philosophizer, Ayn Rand has concentrated on her individualist-heroes to formulate from their absolute dedication to their own self-interests the model for all mankind. In contrast to those who have seen in the economic crises of the twentieth century the waste of capitalism, Rand, obsessed with the fear of collectivist association, has seen universal salvation possible only through even more intensive laissez-faire capitalism. In so far as exposing Rand's politics to a more enlightened historical awareness would be like smashing a pea with a hammer, this brief study suggests instead some intersections of Rand's fiction-tracts and popular culture in an attempt to explain the nature of her enormous appeal. While providing an ever-increasing audience with the soothing rationalization of self-primacy, all of Rand's works, but particularly The Fountainhead (1943) expose the sharpness of the familiar line drawn between self and other; and thus she challenges us to recognize that the society which does not encourage individualism invites a tyranny of bland mediocrity. (p. 701)

In the thirties, when American capitalism's breakdown was so conspicuous and its breakup so urgent, Rand's overwhelming fear of anything collective harmonized with the American myth of rugged individualism, and her fiction assumed a prophetic air. In her second novel, Anthem (1938), Rand created a science-fictional scenario of "total collectivism with all of its ultimate consequences; men have relapsed into primitive savagery and stagnation; the word I has vanished from the human language, there are no singular pronouns, a man refers to himself as we and to another man as they." To combat that absolute lack of individuality, Rand's new heroes operate with an absolute lack of flexibility. Crucial discoveries, of man and nature, can only be made by "a man of intransigent mind," whose theme, to be sung in Rand's subsequent novels of "rational self-interest," is typically simplistic: "Many words have been granted to me," Anthem's hero proclaims, "and some are wise, and some are false, but only three are holy: 'I will it.'" Rand's sacred word is unmistakably "EGO." (pp. 701-02)

Rand has steadfastly avoided psychological terminology and formulations, offering instead the "philosophy of rational selfinterest" as a prescription for the individualist in twentieth-century America…. Rand argues for a purely competitive world in which the best would always rise to the top. Indeed, it seems un-American to doubt the notion, "why not the best?" But, of course, under every individual capitalist's success lies the exploited working class—a state of relations which can only increase mutual hostility, even if sublimated in liberal rhetoric and rationalistic narcissim falsely promising equal opportunity. Not coincidentally, in constructing her idealized heroes, Rand has tapped the traditional justification of bourgeois individualism and, hence, of hostility toward all others: they're out to get you. (p. 702)

Rand's reductive, linear absolutism taps the popular mind anxious to live mythically, in black and white polarities, ignorant of the contradictions inherent in the worship of old possibilities and ahistorical directions.

In her major work, The Fountainhead, Rand dramatizes the struggle of an individual to maintain his integrity and not to give in to others' interests…. Beginning with her early works, Rand has been consistent in her commitment to the primacy of self, "that man exists for his own sake, that the pursuit of his own happiness is his highest moral purpose, that he must not sacrifice himself to others, nor others to himself." Rand makes Howard Roark, protagonist of The Fountainhead, an architect whose profession perfectly blends individual artistic creation with social utilization. To be constructed and used, Roark's buildings must depend on others besides himself. Although he acknowledges the importance of the ultimate occupation of his buildings, his exclusive concern is with his individual creative act and its product…. Roark does not mention the needs of the occupier, nor does his sense of aesthetics involve taking notice of the shape of the community. In addition to organizing the building materials, the architect organizes the inhabitants' lives within the structures, as well as organizing their perspectives on the world outside.

These are very definitely not the concerns of Rand when she isolates Roark in a shell of introverted self-expression, and provides him with a rationalization called "integrity."… Rand's use of "integrity" is surely based on the second definition in the Oxford English Dictionary: unimpaired or uncorrupted state, original perfect condition; and perhaps even the obsolete usage meaning sinlessness. No wonder the boundaries must be fenced, reinforced, and patrolled. If the behemoth's condition is threatened by the corrupt "hordes of envious mediocrities"—then Rand condones Any protective action, whatever the cost. When his own housing project is about to be completed with some modifications he does not approve, Roark destroys his creation—better purity in others' homelessness than corruption of his aesthetics.

Violence, as strong action, finds ample rationalization. Never mind that a basic principle of Rand's Objectivist philosophy is the prohibition of the initial use of physical force against others: to the ideal man, any attempt to thwart his will justifies any response. (pp. 703-04)

[Rather] than conceive of reason as a historical tool, one which helps clarify the intricate relationships between individuals and society, Rand emphasizes reason as the justification and expression of the pure pursuit of individualist domination. Like many other moral systematists, Rand believes arrogantly in her own infallibility. Is it a surprise that her favorite modern novelist is Mickey Spillane, whose hero, Mike Hammer, never requiring proof beyond his own personal judgment, metes out justice immediately, lethally and illegally?

In creating her psychically stiff heroes, Rand presents nothing new with which to penetrate the legitimate and salient deliberation regarding connections of self to others. She has neither come to terms with Freud's tripartite scheme of id, ego, and super-ego (which might have helped in making a "rational" case of Roark) nor operated on the previous conflict-construct of conscious and unconscious mind…. Rand concedes that "man is born with certain physical and psychological needs, but he can neither discover them nor satisfy them without the use of his mind…. His so-called urges will not tell him what to do." (pp. 707-08)

Rand proposes that we need to create a society which will foster individualists of the Howard Roark strength and type…. Erecting starkly simplistic frameworks highly antagonistic to her own views, Rand winds the key in her heroes' backs, and then commands them in rigid opposition. In Anthem the futuristic world of self-denial prevails, and in The Fountainhead a collectivist rat-race locks everyone's focus into conformity with each other's image of each other. In either situation, Rand's solution is an amalgamation of a new capitalism and a new intellectualism, a program she develops more fully in her later novel, Atlas Shrugged (1957). (pp. 708-09)

Finally, let us consider how Rand occasionally tries to humanize her heroes, for example when Roark admits how difficult it is to be so great. Unintentionally, Rand has divulged here the essential flaw of her ideal, rational man: that to consider oneself so great, to be obsessed with one's individual substance, must entail being against others, and thus invites the conceit that, alas, no one else can be his equal. Self means division, and division means superiority-inferiority hierarchies. This is the junction at which all of Rand's roads—the reality principle, the violent interpersonal domination, the extroflection, and the "objective rationalization"—converge and lead to exactly what her hated collectivists propose as their final solution, a ruling elite. Seemingly antagonistic, Toohey, The Fountainhead's collectivist, and Roark, the individualist, in fact imply the same social, political, and intellectual control, just as the Soviet Union (increasingly) and the United States are both monopoly capitalistic societies, one through state collectivism and the other through private enterprise. These, among other glaring ironies, Ayn Rand does not seem to recognize. (p. 709)