The Value Of Individual Self Realization

I have sought to review my own positions on these ideologies of individualism by

returning as a teacher to an author who work has bothered me for many years. I could not dismiss Ayn Rand out of hand, as many of my literary and leftist friends did, because Rand's novels resonated with Emerson's "Self-Reliance," which had inspired my youth. Her work perennially appeals to the young, because her fiction affirms the value of individual self-realization in a passionately engaging and thought-provoking way. But her knack of presenting her truth compellingly is all the more tantalizing for Merrell Shoes the ways in which it goes wrong.

Rand was rejected by the literary and academic establishment for her propagandistic writing; nevertheless, her fiction led, in her heyday, to a cult following, which prompted her to write volumes on the philosophy of "Objectivism" that underpinned her fiction. In order to understand why her idea of "the virtue of selfishness" appealed to so many (including me), despite myself, I revisited Rand's work by trying out a novel of hers in my Literature and Popular Culture course. I chose The Fountainhead for a class that was dominated by English majors not only because it is the shorter of her two most famous novels but also because, more so than Atlas Shrugged, her magnum opus, it focuses on personal career aspirations that are relevant to students. In preparing and teaching The Fountainhead, I wondered whether I might influence the class excessively if I presented my concept of selfhood, which encompasses Rand's virtue of selfishness yet retains the altruism that she dismisses. I also did not want to advocate explicitly an alternative theory in class because of my cultural difference from most University of Hawai'i students, which might elicit resistance. As a minority Caucasian, I was aware of some prejudice especially against Pidgin-suppressing English teachers in the students' past in the current renaissance not only of Hawaiian culture, but of all of the Asian-Pacific-Portuguese cultures that are amalgamated with pride in the local Pidgin-speaking community. Another aspect of my cultural dissonance was being a woman in authority, a position that is resisted by males from those traditional cultures. Thus, in conducting the course, I lectured only minimally on Rand's theory, much of which her novel explicitly states and implicitly exemplifies. I preferred to emphasize egalitarian class dialogue, in keeping with the theory of a dialogic self. Students responded to the reading in small groups that fed into all-class discussions, in addition to posting weekly letters on an anonymous feedback website and commenting on one another's letters and remarks. I could enter the conversation disguised as a peer, modeling Socratic-style questioning of their ideas.

Before reading Fountainhead, the class read excerpts from Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations and Emerson's "Self-Reliance" for historical perspectives on individualism. Song of me introduced a debate between egocentrism and other-centeredness in Whitman, to set up the selfishness-altruism dichotomy. The readings following Fountainhead included two other long novels, Doris Lessing's Four-Gated City and Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man, to contrast complex modern protagonists with Rand's one-dimensional hero. Here I critique Rand's theory by discussing 1) how The Fountainhead both carries out and undermines it; 2) how the class responded to the novel; and 3) how a dialogic theory of self corresponds to classroom dialogue and restores what's missing from Rand's ethical individualism.

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by: allanleelovemonica

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