In this session we shall watch The Fountainhead. In the final session (Session 10) I shall do a round up of all the texts we've studied, hopefully providing take home messages for each, so if you've missed out, please sure you attend in the last week of term.
It is fitting to end our readings with this film. Author and scriptwriter Ayn Rand has been hugely influential in American thinking to the point where Northern California seemed almost exclusively populated by Anns and Randys as Silicone Valley boomed. Her rejection of any form of altruism has been, to say the least, convenient within Late Capitalism, but it did make her an exceedingly bitter old lady.
There was a spat during 'I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here' last night between ex-Playboy mansion playmate Kendra and Edwina Currie. Kendra was pleading the virtues of the self, that she came first, in a way that almost came straight out of the Randian world. It was clear she really believed all this stuff, to the point of sobbing and wailing. Meanwhile I was reminded she only ever seemed to provide one meal for the camp in her trials; conceptually enough for herself. It is perhaps the only time in my life that I could be found agreeing with Edwina Currie, who has clearly been scarred by such thinking, and personally I'm rather rooting for 'Foggy', because he not only wins all the stars, but resigned himself to rescuing trapped campmates from the slammer.
It was a happy accident that Rand chose an architect, Howard Roark, to represent her theories. I wrote a 'Reputations' on Roark for the December 2013 issue of AR if you care to dig it out for further reference.
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