CosmosStag ·
Ayn Rand shows marked similarities to Victor Hugo, who was a favorite novelist of hers, only more extreme, though on the right rather than left. Rand not only deserves credit as an early founder of libertarianism but as an early writer on narcissism. In The Fountainhead, the villain Elsworth Toohey is described in very similar terms to the way we think about narcissism today, as a kind of empty man with no self who is driven to project that emptiness onto everything around him, who invades organizations and controls them from an inferior position. The thing that Rand got wrong about him is his frank self-awareness. Narcissists are not naturally self-aware but rather are deeply confused by their own fantasies. The Fountainhead makes more sense if you interpret all the characters as narcissistic. Although Howard Roark is portrayed as a man of integrity who does not cheat, in contrast with Elsworth, he is, himself, like a machine with no soul who, when he has no business, simply sits at his desk staring ahead waiting for the phone to ring. His willing to let his girlfriend Dominique Francon (who could easily be interpreted as having borderline personality disorder) humiliate him by marrying other men for seven years before he finally gets together with her. Not all narcissists are equally dangerous but Howard Roark is truly self-destructive like a typical narcissist; the novel simply covers up for him. The scene near the end where a jury exonerates him for blowing up a government housing project because the government deprived him of his right to design the building is fantastical and would never really happen. Rand was a great exposer of covert narcissism but the vagueness of the concept of "virtue of selfishness" enabled her to promote overt narcissism over true morality, although I agree with her that morality is ultimately about self interest.