Philosophy for the masses

At the urging of many, I have begun to read Ayn Rand. Praise for her work (among my friends) has been pretty much unanimous, as have their reactions to my not having read any of it ("You haven't read Ayn Rand!", "You haven't read Ayn Rand?","You haven't read Ayn Rand?" and more in the same vein). I decided to take the plunge, therefore, and bought The Fountainhead.

It has been disappointing so far (150 pages). Characters are stereotypical, seemingly possessing little depth. The prose is uninspiring. The plot is predictable. And, because I know enough about Randian philosophy (such as it is), I know exactly what will happen to each one of these characters at the end of the book. It is one thing to read something in the nature of a traditional hero-villain yarn and know that the characters we like will, beyond the slightest doubt, rout the ones that we loath; it is quite another to be confronted with a similar situation when the yarn in question is supposed to be a "hymn in praise of the individual", and appears to be one of the mainstays of modern thought.

It all boils down to this -- can a philosophy be insightful and profound while simultaneously appealing to attention starved TV watchers around the world? My guess is no. Answers to most questions worth asking are subjective, depending not only on the individual asking the questions but also the context in which the questions are asked. In fact, even after being provided a context and an individual, most answers only lead to more questions. It is incumbent upon the individual in question to develop a philosophy based on his answers to questions; philosophies that establish absolutes, philosophies such as Rand's, are extremely unlikely to help him.


A philosophy for the masses is at best an ersatz one.