INDIVIDUAL FREEDOM AND THE NEEDS OF OTHERS: WHICH PREVAILS

  

I just watched the movie The Fountain Head, again. It been years since I first saw the movie based

 on the book by Ayn Rand . I also read the book with the same title. At that time I was completely enthralled by and in love with the concept of ethical and artistic integrity. Being young it was easy,  at the exclusion of life based on reality, to champion moral concepts.

At age 21 I married and lived a comfortable suburban life. At age 32 I was divorced and abandoned without the necessities for life, such as housing, food, etc. Yes that was possible and common in 1975 and yes that situation would not only bring a change in belief but, for me a revolutionary new addition to my belief system. Social programs were a necessity for those who fell out of the main stream even when following what was desirable and expected. A female of my era was expected to marry. To do otherwise was suspect. Also I could envision men without jobs because of lay offs not of their own doing, and the poverty of males who went to war for their countries instead of college.  All of these real scenarios accumulated in me to understand that the dance between individual creativity whether artistic or industrial and the social needs of others must be flexible and in flux.

 

That ability would not be possible under any other political system but our own.

After WWI Americans were tired of war and wanted no more. After WWII the economy shot upwards and took off. Prosperity was blooming everywhere. The threat of Communism' began to seed and perhaps to some seemed altruistic and appealing.

 

Ayn Rand who was born in Russia and originated the philosophy of 'Objectivism' could very well have known what would happen under a system which would ignore the gifts of the artist who creates for self fulfillment only and not for the initial benefit of others. Although we all do benefit eventually.
For me, the flaw in her system is that it is ridge with no room for any change much like it's opposite, totalitarian socialism.

 

She also wrote another wonderful book called. Atlas Shrugged with the same theme of what happens when artistic integrity and individuality are stifled and an attempt is made to subvert these attributes.

Keep flexible America and take the temperature of the democracy often so that the line can be adjusted often.

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