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I. INTRODUCTION There are some literary beginnings so well-known as immediately to call to mind the books in which they appear: "Call me Ishmael"; 1 "It was the best of times. It was the worst of times"; 2 and, increasingly, "Howard Roark laughed. " 3 So begins the novel, The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. Published in 1943, The Fountainhead continues to sell 100, 000 copies a year. 4 For millions it provides the introduction to a philosophical / social movement known as "Objectivism. " It has been suggested that Objectivism provided intellectual grounding for the decline of left-liberalism and the expanding influence of a libertarian shift in American culture. 5 Yet despite its influence, the book has engendered scant academic attention 6 and virtually no attention in the legal academy. In The Fountainhead, as in all of Rand's mature fictional works, the law-more specifically, one or more trial scenes-figures prominently. Indeed, in all of them trials are essential elements of the plot development. 7 Although Rand's work is hardly unique in its use of the trial for dramatic purposes, 8 it is distinctive in its use of the trial as illustrative of moral or philosophical principles. 9 One would expect, therefore, that [ 431 ] at least in the philosophical literature of Objectivism, one would find discussion about the role and meaning of law; but one would be disappointed.
Apart from occasional bromides about the importance of objective law, there is precious little, even in Objectivist literature, about law. Leonard Peikoff, Rand's intellectual heir, has written what is perhaps the most systematic exegesis of Rand's philosophy. 10 The index to his book has no independent listing for "law"; it lists law only as a subhead of government, under the rubric "as requiring objective law. " 11 His discussion consumes just a few pages and is devoted almost entirely to criminal law. 12 The couple of paragraphs on civil law are devoted entirely to the law of contracts. 13 Moreover, the treatment is incredibly superficial and seems to equate objectivity to particular concretes, as if abstractions could not be objective-a position one would think Rand would find antithetical to her philosophy, which placed a premium on the conceptual level of awareness. 14 The other leading book length interpretations of Rand's work also lack so much as an index entry for law. 15 This essay is an attempt at filling the void in legal scholarship and Objectivist literature at the intersection of law and Objectivism. I do not attempt a comprehensive examination of the Objectivist view of law. I shall leave for another day any exploration of the Objectivist view of the appropriate content or aim of law.
Such a project would require far more than this essay undertakes. Here I wish to explore the reasons legal trials figure so prominently in Rand's fiction. I believe there are two reasons: First, Rand has often advanced the position that ethical and political change follows intellect-tual change, that it is on the intellectual battlefield that the fight for a culture is waged. 16 The courtroom is the modern day intellectual equivalent of the battlefield or the tournament, and so it is an appropri-ate setting for the clash of ideas presented in Rand's work. Second, what is necessary to prevail on the courtroom battlefield are certain method- [ 432 ] ologies of persuasion and understanding-methodologies shared by Rand's literary presentations and the working out of the law through judicial opinions. Because The Fountainhead provides for so many the introduction to Rand's thought, it is appropriate to begin with that book. The plot of the novel is quite complex, and so we shall limit our study to those parts of the story-the trials-that most clearly demonstrate the intellectual conflict at the heart of Rand's work and highlight the comparison between Rand's literary method and legal method.
The Fountainhead features two trials. Both are critical to the development of the story. Indeed, the second trial is the climax of the novel. In each, Howard Roark, Rand's hero, is the defendant. He behaves quite differently in the two trials, and this difference may have much to say about the development of his character. In the next section, I summarize the story to the extent necessary to comprehend Roark's character, the nature of the cultural forces arrayed against him and thus the significance of the two trials.
The sections following include an analysis of each of the trials, more specifically of Roark's defenses, the differences between them and the importance of those differences. I conclude with a discussion of the role played by legal trials in Rand's fiction and the similarity of Rand's literary method and that of the judicial opinion. II. THE STORY The novel opens with Roark's expulsion from architectural school.
His conversation with the dean shows us his intransigent commitment to the integrity of his vision of architecture. Rather than following the dictates of his teachers to design buildings in various architectural styles, he submitted designs he was prepared to build: "I did them the way I'll build them. " 17 And the way he would build them owed nothing to historical styles. He would build according to his own best judgment. Contrasted with Roark is Peter Keating. At the opening of the story, Keating is graduating with honors from the school that expelled Roark. Keating personifies the second hand consciousness: a man with no standards of his own, who adopts the standards and values of others.
Keating has been successful at school, completing his assignments by adopting various historical styles, originating nothing. When stumped on design issues, he had sought and received Roark's help on assignments, but did not acknowledge it. [ 433 ] The story recounts Roark's career, its occasional triumphs and more frequent disappointments as the second hand consciousness that pervades society inevitably fails to recognize the greatness of his work. More specifically, Roark is targeted for destruction through the machinations of Ellsworth Toohey, the villain of the novel. Toohey is the personification of evil, one who resents the good for being the good and whose life's project is the destruction of all values.
Toohey works through pawns such as Peter Keating, who cling to him as a substitute for the values they are incapable of achieving, or even recognizing. As Roark struggles for work, Keating becomes wildly successful and the fashionable architect of the day. At one point Roark is hired by Keating to work as a draftsman and, as at school, when Keating is having difficulty with a design problem, he comes to Roark, who does the work, still without acknowledgment. This pattern continues even when Roark is no longer employed by Keating's firm. Indeed, Keating's greatest architectural achievement, a design that wins a major architectural competition, was the work of Roark. Unbeknownst to Roark, Toohey arranges for Roark to be given a commission by Houston Stoddard, another unwitting pawn of Toohey, to design a "Temple of the Human Spirit. " 18 In response Roark designs a building that reflects his vision of the heroic in man.
Toohey had planned on Roark discharging the commission with precisely the sort of building Roark designed. After a sustained buildup in the press about the Temple, orchestrated by Toohey, Stoddard returns from an extended trip and is persuaded by Toohey that Roark has designed an insult to God that would damn Stoddard if it went unchallenged. He persuades Stoddard to sue Roark and then creates a cause celebrate, leading the public attack on Roark through a variety of cultural outlets. His goal is to destroy any man of integrity and independent judgment, qualities personified by Roark. Stoddard sues Roark for breach of contract and malpractice on the theory that Roark was hired to build a temple and that Roark's design was not a temple "by any known standards. " 19 At the trial, Stoddard presents a string of "expert witnesses" to prove that Roark is income-tent or worse. Roark represents himself, having refused to engage counsel.
He presents no witnesses and makes no verbal argument, nor does he cross-examine any of the witnesses against him. Instead, his [ 434 ] entire defense consists of presenting the court with photographs of his building; he presents no other evidence. 20 He is found liable. After the fiasco of the Stoddard Temple, Roark's practice goes into a steep decline, as Toohey intended. Yet, over time, commissions start to come in from people who had seen Roark's work and admired it. As Roark's career begins to burgeon, Keating's begins to decline. Each year brings fewer commissions, and he must reduce the size of his firm.
Keating, of course, does not understand the decline in his fortunes, just as he did not understand the reasons for his success. Keating learns that a public housing project is to be built and that Toohey will be influential in the selection of the architect. Keating believes the commission for Cortland Homes would revive his decaying career, and he pleads with Toohey for the commission. Toohey tells him that no architect can be found to design it with sufficient economy to support the low rentals to be charged the tenants, but that Keating is free to attempt it. After determining that the task is beyond him, Keating does what he has done in the past under similar circumstances: He approaches Roark to solve it for him.
Roark agrees to undertake the design of Cortland, not out of any feeling for Keating or out of any sense of duty to the poor who are to tenant the project, but to see it built just as he designs it. Keating is to get all the credit and all the fees, but Roark is to get the satisfaction of solving a difficult problem and seeing his building plan realized. Keating takes Roark's plan to Toohey, who instantaneously realizes that it is not Keating's design, but Roark's. Seeing a new opportunity to destroy Roark, Toohey guarantees that Keating will get the commission. Keating enters into a contract that purports to guarantee that the project will be built exactly as designed. During the construction of Cortland, Roark is away (following another important subplot in the novel not relevant to our purpose).
When he returns he discovers that his plans for Cortland have been bastardized. Most of the genius of economy, but the integrity of the design has been tortured and twisted into an architectural monstrosity. Roark dynamites Cortland, and is arrested and brought to trial. At the trial, it is revealed that Roark, not Keating, designed Cortland.
Roark is portrayed by Toohey and his minions, as well as the rabble they stir up, as a heartless monster who chose to destroy a housing project out of pique that his design preferences were not honor...
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Research essay sample on Peter Keating Second Hand
