Stubbornness can be a quality that not everyone enjoys. It can sometimes be a good thing, but a lot of the time, it just annoys others. Questions 102 in The Fountainhead Socratic Seminar is one that I thought was pretty interesting; "What would the world be like if Roark's ideas were the dominant philosophy? If Toohey's ideas were preeminent? If Keating's were? If Dominique's were?" As seen in the novel, Roark's idea was to be an individual and not change for anyone. This could be a really great quality in someone, but not necessarily to the extent of Roark's ways. Being able to compromise is a very good quality that Roark does not have. Like our class mentioned in the Socratic Seminar, Roark sounds like a really amazing person for a book, but in real life, no one would want to work with him. He goes as far as destroying his own building, just because it was changed a little bit. This seems a little extreme to me. If everyone in our society was like Roark, I feel like nothing would ever get done! Everyone would be too stubborn to compromise and make things actually happen. Stubbornness like this would be a huge problem. I believe that it takes teamwork to actually make something happen, so if Roark's philosophy was dominant in our society, we would have a lot of great ideas and no one to make them happen and successful. This can relate to my own life because of the people in my life who are very stubborn. Especially my older brother. If he has his idea, he's not going to change if I beg him to! It's often very very annoying. And when he is forced to change, he isn't very happy (not blowing up buildings like Roark, but still pretty unhappy).
Now, if Toohey's ideas were dominant, everything and everyone would be exactly the same. We would have one person controlling the world, and the rest of us following like zombies. It would be communism. One person could work all day and all night, and another person could barely ever work, but they would be treated the same exact way. That doesn't seem fair to me. In the novel, Toohey is the controller, and he openly states that he thinks communism is the way it should be. I personally think that someones hard work should determine their way of being treated. If someone graduates from an Ivy League school and goes to work for a major corporation, then yeah, they deserve the paycheck they earn. It wouldn't be fair if someone else works at McDonald's for a living and made the same amount of money as the other person. I understand that some people do work incredibly hard to support their family, and still don' t make a lot, but they can always work their way up in the work force!
If everyone in the world was like Keating, I don't think anything would ever get done. Throughout The Fountainhead, Keating goes to Roark for all his decisions. First its whether or not to take the job or go to school more. Then it's all of the drawings that Keating can't come up with himself. If we had a world of Keatings, no solid decisions would ever be made. Everyone would be trying to please everyone else and worrying about what others think of them, but they would be completely miserable themselves. I can kind of relate to this because I am very indecisive myself, but I am a lot more independent than Keating! I may ask someone their opinion on one of my decisions, but in the end, I always go with what I want. They just kind of help me look at the options in different ways. There are so many people in this world that could be so much more happy with themselves if they did what they wanted and didn't let people walk all over them.
If Dominique's ideas were dominant, we would have a very unhappy world. Everyone would be doing things to make themselves unhappy and others as well. No one would be happy. This relates to all the pessimists in the world. You see, I am a pretty optimistic person, so this philosophy isn't one that I would enjoy at all.
Personally, I like the way our society is with our philosophies. I think it's good that people can be independent, but still be willing to compromise and listen to what others have to say. I think that's an extremely good quality that someone could have.
