When I read Ayn Rand’s ‘The Fountainhead’ at the age of 16, I fell in love with the novel. Set in New York City in the 1920s, the novel centers around Howard Roark, a young architect who aspires to design architecture in his own style. When he refuses to compromise his values to comply with the architectural norms of beauty, he is mocked and made an outcast. Bowing neither to public shame nor pressure, Roark stands with an unflinching commitment to his values, creating masterpieces that are later recognized for their brilliance. I greatly admired Howard Roark (my mother soon regretted giving me this book).
In Fountainhead, Ayn Rand was painting a world where Roark, an individualist, reigned supreme over collectivism. Today, her world has arrived. Removing the constraints of community, the individual has been emancipated from conformity. But this has come at a cost, as inequality reaches new heights, as humans become each other’s greatest threat and as we recklessly damage the earth, the individual has lost the duty of communal morality. We need to bring it back to solve the communal problems we face today and for this, I believe, we need to judge and shame. It sounds harsh, I know, but let me explain.
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The Ramblings of a Hypocrite 