Nihilist of the Day: Howard Roark

Guest Post by Doctor Biobrain

We've had groundhog nihilists and anonymous nihilists, so what's left than a fictional nihilist.  And with that, I introduce the Nihilist of the Day: Howard Roark, the protaganihilist from Ayn Rand's seminal book The Fountainhead.  Yes, I know what you're thinking.  Ayn Rand is the originator of the Objectivist philosophy and a known critic of nihilism.  But hey, who amongst us hasn't pretended to denounce the very nihilism that permeates every facet of our liberal existence?  None.  To denounce our postmodern denialist tendencies is one of the surest indications of our devout nihilism.

So why Roark?  Why today?  The answer is that I just saw the movie adaptation of The Fountainhead, starring Gary Cooper as Roark.  And let me tell you, Cooper was super duper.  Trust me, the first five minutes of the film are the best part.  The whole thing is an unintentional laugh riot, but the beginning is clearly the best. Totally worth the price of admission. Rand even wrote the script and had total creative control, so you know it's GOT to be good.

For those who have yet to experience Fountainhead, allow me to summarize: Howard Roark is a visionary architect who rejects the opinion of everyone else and absolutely refuses to compromise in any way on anything.  And in order to achieve this, he forces everyone else to submit completely to his whims and compromise on everything.  And at the end, he dynamites a building he designed because they added balconies, yet is found "Not Guilty" by a jury because they agreed with his reason for doing so.  

After all, criminal behavior is ok if you did it because you were punishing someone for defying you...if you're a nihilist, anyway. And the lesson is: Never defy a nihilist.

The Morality of Amoralness

And the message is that it is immoral to compromise yourself by not making everyone obey you. To even consider the wishes of anyone else is to betray yourself and subvert the individualistic creativity that has built the society that we should all despise. We are the only good people who should be listened to, and by "we," Rand means only herself and her protagonist.  I mean, geez, does it get any more nihilist than this?  I think not.

While many of us nihilists take amorality for granted, Rand took the extra effort to codify amorality into it's own intolerant morality; thus perverting philosophical techniques and mocking its hollow innards.  For Rand, not only was greed "good," but non-greed was evil.  And this wasn't limited to actions.  For Rand, it was immoral to not think selfishly. It was also immoral to disagree with her philosophy in any way.  She was not only the ultimate authority in Objectivism, she was the only authority. If you thought she wasn't the sole source of Objectivism, you weren't an Objectivist. And remember, Alan Greenspan was a direct disciple of hers.

And she meant it.  As this essay on Rand mentions, her followers were excommunicated just for suggesting that it was ok to discuss philosophy with non-Objectivists; defined as anyone who disagreed with any part of her philosophy.  As she once explained, "I am not looking for intelligent disagreement any longer.... What I am looking for is intelligent agreement."  Similarly, she excommunicated her second-in-command, who she had given his own Objectivist institute, because he gave her "a written statement which was so irrational and offensive to me that I had to break my personal association with him."  

Sure, it was actually a break-up letter, because she had been having a secret affair with him for thirteen years, but that's just how strict she was with her Objectivism.  She realized that any thirty-eight year old guy who would want to stop having an affair with a sixty-three year old woman must clearly be irrational and offensive.  At least, when that woman was Ayn Rand.  She apparently spent the rest of her life writing essays about how irrational and offensive he had been.  I shit you not.  And if that's not nihilism, I don't know what is.

Roark's Message

And Howard Roark was a prime example of the amoral moralist.  Here are but a few quotes from Roark's heroic six minute courtroom speech:

"No creator was prompted by a desire to please his brothers. His brothers hated the gift he offered. His truth was his only motive. His work was his only goal."

"Man cannot survive except through his mind. He comes on earth unarmed. His brain is his only weapon. But the mind is an attribute of the individual, there is no such thing as a collective brain. The man who thinks must think and act on his own. The reasoning mind cannot work under any form of compulsion. It cannot not be subordinated to the needs, opinions, or wishes of others. It is not an object of sacrifice."

"Everything thing we have, every great achievement has come from the independent work of some independent mind. Every horror and destruction came from attempts to force men into a herd of brainless, soulless robots. Without personal rights, without personal ambition, without will, hope, or dignity. It is an ancient conflict. It has another name: 'The individual against the collective'."

This, from a person who demanded ideological obedience and strict subordination by all.  Pure nihilism.  And let's not forget that her capitalist adherents insist that using the threat of poverty to compel people to work for them is a necessary good.  Again, Rand's "philosophy" only works for the person applying it and would completely fall apart if a large minority of people tried obeying it. And it was really only meant to benefit one person: Ayn Rand.  Nihilism, nihilism, nihilism.

The Power of the Individual

And the basis of Roark's speech is sheer denialism.  No longer do geniuses benefit from society or supporters.  Nor do they learn anything from anyone else.  The few individuals who have built our society did so entirely on their own and required no outside help.  No longer does Thomas Edison have teams of engineers working for him, building on the work of earlier inventors, and no education system has ever educated anyone.  Had Howard Roark been born a caveman many eons ago, he still would have been a visionary architect who built uncompromisingly functional buildings on his own terms, with no help from his fellow cavemen, who would surely have resented his work and denounced him.

Similarly, Rand developed all of her theories on her own and any similarities to Nietzsche or the avant-garde Russian philosophers she studied in her youth are entirely non-existent.  No one ever believed in objective reality before Rand introduced her philosophy, and to even imply that Rand was using shallow interpretations of other philosophers to rationalize her amoral selfishness is enough to get one excommunicated from the Objectivist community...seriously.  And god damn, if that's not the strongest nihilist rejectionist denialist authoritarianism you've heard all day, then you're a better nihilist than I.

And so we salute Howard Roark, Rand's first great protagonist (not to be confused with John Galt, her only other great protagonist).  By adopting the mantle of individualistic freedom with his feigned objectivist moralism, Roark has encouraged millions to believe that their selfish authoritarianism is a noble cause which compels them to disregard the needs of the society that made their actions possible.

Amorality is the only morality.  Compulsion is the only freedom.  Non-conformity demands conformity.  We alone create the society which seeks to destroy us. Abject nihilism can be our only purpose. To be an individualistic free-thinker requires uncritical acceptance of every part of Rand's philosophy.  Wow.  That, my friends, is nihilism we can believe in. By destroying a building because it had balconies, Howard Roark has proven that he's truly a nihilist not to be trifled with. Not just because he got away with it, but because he truly believed it was immoral to not destroy the building. Roark is a true example of the nihilist ideal.


Nihilist Factoid: Ayn Rand gave Alan Greenspan the nickname "The Undertaker" and he wasn't ashamed to admit it.