Seems like we are on the brink of war. Not that you'd know from the MSM. Misinformation and pressure to conform dominate.
Hopefully reason will prevail (forlorn hope).
Unfortunately, seems the West would lose and morally imo deservedly so.
So anyway it was with great interest that I read The Fountainhead in summary the first thing to say is that it's from 1943, written in the midst of world war by a Russian born American writer.
It's a work of philosophy and fiction.
It has not aged a bit, on the contrary as we've got more and more individualistic, the book has gained a bigger and bigger following.
The central character is Howard Roark, an individualistic and innovative architect. It explores typical arty pre-occupations of creativity, integrity, but adds in a struggle between individualism and collectivism which is fascinating because we in the West are going through that transition, losing our freedom and being ground down in the mass society that was just starting out when this book was written.
Roark, the hero, is a guy with a vision and principles, he won't compromise his artistic integrity in spite of pressure to conform to conventional norms.
I've done a couple of Blog posts on books around this theme of pressure to conform - one is the psychology of crowds a book from 1925, other is Jacques Ellul on propaganda from 1962. And I'm going to do The Manufacture of Consent from 1988.
Holding contrarian views bordering on the dissident at times, wrt this war in Ukraine and Palestine, means fighting off the nonsense they feed us in the MSM.
Anyway, here is this creative genius driven by the desire to design buildings that reflect his own ideas, rather than pandering to popular tastes or government diktat.
After the 1917 revolution, the Soviet government sought to reshape society, including how people lived, in alignment with socialist ideals. Pre WW2 public housing architecture was strongly influenced by these new political and social ambitions.
Kommunalka
I will here digress on this Soviet idea of communal living aka Kommunalka.
Kommunalka means communal apartment. These were large, formerly private apartments that were subdivided to house multiple families, HMOs we'd call them except Kommunalka had shared kitchens, bathrooms, and hallways. The kommunalka was seen as a way to break down class distinctions and promote socialist ideals by encouraging collective living. This form of housing aimed to create a communal lifestyle - privacy was minimal reflecting the government's goal of fostering collective identity and equality.
If you think that was bad, bear in mind that Rand was writing 20 years before the start of mass council housing build in the UK.
Philosophy
(Alissa Zinovievna Rosenbaumis) is an Objectivist, it's her own school of thought. She was a Russian-born American (1905–1982) So she grew up in the formative years of communism in the Soviet Union. She promotes the idea that "reality exists independently of consciousness, that individual rights and rational self-interest are paramount, and that the pursuit of personal happiness is the moral purpose of life".
Ie the real world is real and not something cooked up by propagandists, we are individuals entitled to freedom and have individual rights (this is before the "invention" of human rights after the last war), we should stay rational in our dealings with the real world and not allow ourselves to be swamped by pressures to conform, God is dead and it's up to us to find our own values and purpose and way in life, and so we should keep our sense of individual responsibility and not succumb to collective, lemming-like mentalities, attitudes or phobias.
So, rational self interest and integrity and strength of ego. All very inspiring in today's stressed-out, war-torn, group-think, Western world.
Conclusion
Ayn Rand was not an architect, anymore than author Martin Cruz Smith was a Russian spy. While she wrote The Fountainhead and made its central character Howard Roark an architect, Rand herself did not have formal training or a career in architecture.
But what she did do as an author was to conduct extensive research on the field, including studying architecture and speaking with professionals, in order to create a realistic and informed portrayal of Roark’s profession.
Ayn Rand was not a dissident in the traditional sense, but she was highly critical of the Soviet regime and its ideology. Born in Russia in 1905 as Alisa Zinovyevna Rosenbaum, she experienced the Russian Revolution and the rise of Communism first-hand. She actually witnessed the confiscation of her family’s business and the widespread repression of individual rights (now "human rights") under the Soviet system. It is clear that her strong views were the result of this experience and translated into her philosophical views and writings.
Rand emigrated to the United States in 1926 at the age of 21 and became an outspoken critic of collectivism, communism, and the Soviet Union. Her works, especially The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, promote individualism and capitalism, in contrast to the then collectivist ideals of the Soviet regime (Russia is a different place today and the subject of another post on this blog). As we've seen, Rand used architecture as a metaphor for individualism, creativity, and integrity, themes that are central to her philosophy of Objectivism. Roark's character represents her ideal of a person who remains true to their own vision and principles, even in the face of societal and government pressure.
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