In 1949, a college junior named Barbara Beattie wrote a letter for a school journalism assignment. We can only speculate on Beattie’s youthful expectations: Was she so naive to expect a response, or were these different times? She’d written playwright Arthur Miller at a time when the Broadway run of his most famous work, The Death of a Salesman, was in full swing. He had every reason to ignore a college student’s inquiries into the “formal genesis” of his now-legendary work. What Beattie received–a sprawling and deeply thoughtful essay on man’s common and timeless tragedies–must have impacted her greatly. After all, she’s kept it for seventy-five years. Beattie’s daughter found the letter when helping her mother, now 94, move out of her home.
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Arthur Miller on Man’s Timeless Tragedies
The beginning of Miller’s letter directly addresses Beattie’s question, relating Elizabethan and Shakespearean drama to his then-modern work. Owing to either his thoughtful and helpful nature or a large tumbler of bourbon, Miller continued into something far more philosophical. On happiness, Miller wrote:
“I see man’s happiness frustrated until the time arrives when he is judged, given social honor and respect, not by what he has accumulated but by what he has given to his society.”
Arthur Miller
Miller appeared to value not what man could do for himself, but what he could offer his society.
Ayn Rand’s Individualistic Worldview
Another contemporary author, the ever-controversial Ayn Rand, offered a profoundly different take. Her landmark novel, The Fountainhead, celebrated the self. As detailed in her character development notes, she believed the protagonist, the uncompromising Howard Roark, to be “the noble soul par excellence. The man as man should be.”
In the story, Roark, an architect with clear and unbending values, continuously finds himself rejected by a society that favors continuity and conformity over individualistic expression. His ideas are different. And different ideas–especially those that threaten identity—make people uncomfortable. Self-sufficient and living for himself completely, Roark is unwilling to mold his standards. He exhibits strength and conviction under enormous reputational and financial pressures.
The Fountainhead’s antagonist, Ellsworth Toohey, a public-facing intellectual and humanitarian, seeks prominence and distinction by celebrating the collective of the masses. Rand styles Toohey as inherently weak, a man incapable of greatness. He achieves respect and standing by preaching virtue, not by building or creating. In other words, he says what people want to hear.
Toohey, in his widely read newspaper column, advocates for charity and social programs. In Rand’s worldview, such endeavors only serve to elevate the mediocre and subordinate at the expense of the truly great. One can almost imagine her clenched-jaw scorn as she outlined this value system in her development entries. She noted, “the open arrogance of the inferior who no longer try to imitate their superiors, but boldly flaunt their inferiority, their averageness, the ‘popular appeal.’” But what makes Toohey antagonistic is not necessarily his belief in charity or collective good, but that it’s all for show—he uses this philosophy to gain power. In a particularly revealing scene, Toohey explains his sinister vision to another character:
“A world where no man will hold a desire for himself, but will direct all his efforts to satisfy the desires of his neighbor who’ll have no desires except to satisfy the desires of the next neighbor who will have no desires—around the globe…. Since all must serve all. A world in which man will not work for so innocent an incentive as money, but that headless monster—prestige. The approval of his fellows—their good opinion—the opinion of men who’ll be allowed to hold no opinion. An octopus, all tentacles and no brain.”
Ellsworth Toohey, The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
Are Rand and Miller So Different?
The Rand and Miller worldviews are at least superficially at odds. Rand believes that greatness comes from great individuals, while Miller appears to advocate for acts in service of the greater good. Historical context is key here, too. The Death of a Salesman (and the letter quoted above) was written in 1949. The Fountainhead in 1943. These were times of deep turmoil and despair—populism, world wars, and economic depressions. But from this darkness came the bright glow of greatness and ingenuity, incredible feats of science, engineering, and progress. Were these tragedies and triumphs the result of strong-willed individualism, or the champion of collective action? Or can collective action only be useful when built from the sturdy foundations of strong individuals?
In his letter, Miller goes on to express ideas that might have had Rand nodding along—perhaps even smiling (but I doubt it). Here is an extended quote:
“…Frustration of the creative act is the cause of our hatred for each other, and hatred is the cause of our fears. We reward our dealers, our accumulators, our speculators; we penalize with anonymity and low pay our teachers, our scientists, our workers who make and do and build and create. And so the urge that is in all of us to give and to make is turned in upon itself, and we accept the upside-down idea that to take and to accumulate is the great good. And whether we succeed in that or not, we are sooner or later left with the awareness of our emptiness, our inner poverty, and our isolation from mankind. When a man reaches that knowledge and has the sensitivity to feel the loss of his true self deeply, he is a tragic figure; but not unless he tries to find himself despite the world can he raise up in us the actual feeling that something fine and great and precious has been discovered too late. The history of man is his blundering attempt to form a society in which it pays to be good. The tragic figure now, and always, is the man who insists, past even death, that the stultifying combinations of evil give way before the outpouring of humanity and love that is bursting from his heart. This is why tragedy endures, and this is why it has really never changed excepting in its superficial aspects of rank etc.”
Arthur Miller
Miller claims that society rewards the wrong pursuits—dealers, accumulators, speculators—while penalizing teachers, scientists, and workers who make, do, build, and create. By worshiping the dealers, accumulators, and speculators, we eventually believe that we also must deal, accumulate, and speculate. This infatuation in time leads to spiritual emptiness and “inner poverty.”
Strength in Absence of Validation
Rand’s Howard Roark isn’t strong and wonderful because he serves only himself. He’s brilliant, at least to Rand, because he forbids the tyranny of groupthink from obscuring his unique sense of taste and creativity. He does not waver in the face of disapproval, because meaningful cultural revolutions always grow from the seed of unpopularity. He does not falter when he finds his ideas dismissed as tasteless, because he knows that taste is plastic and easily molded. In today’s world, it seems plausible that Rand’s protagonist would know better than to fritter away hours on social media. He would avoid other tools, say website statistics, used to assess the degree of one’s popularity or self-worth. Because in those places approval is sought, not built.
Miller and Rand both believed in the safety-seeking commonality of man. Rand considered rugged individualism the driving force of unique (and more worthy) taste. Miller perhaps thought it inconsequential so long as man could “find himself despite the world.”
What I’ve Learned About Validation and Acceptance
When efforts only serve the self, inner peace is unobtainable. We are not evolutionarily built for physical, emotional, or spiritual solitude. Technology and busyness can temporarily distract us from this reality but cannot erase the nagging disconnect within. And this, Miller appeared to believe, is the perpetual tragedy of man.
Egoism vs Altruism
The egoism school in philosophy makes the compelling case that self-interest is central to all actions. Yes, even charitable and other public-serving undertakings are inherently selfish. The ever-heartwarming life of the party, the seventeenth-century English philosopher Thomas Hobbes, had this to say:
“No man giveth but with intention of good to himself, because gift is voluntary; and of all voluntary acts, the object is to every man his own good; of which, if men see they shall be frustrated, there will be no beginning of benevolence or trust, nor consequently of mutual help.”
Thomas Hobbes
So, does greatness come from individuals who, through first reducing distractions, come to know and define their unique sense of taste? And then, perhaps for wholly selfish reasons, are those who stay true to their values (and not the values of others) most capable of benefiting society? That case isn’t clear. While many laud the maddened and unfiltered expression of someone like Vincent Van Gogh or Kurt Cobian, sympathies for Hitler are (rightly) less extravagant.
The Folly of Seeking Acceptance and Validation
A lesson I do feel comfortable accepting is that true expression is compromised when we overly value outside acceptance and validation. A need for acceptance, while primal and important, might be the most profound distraction and limiter of creativity. What good comes from handwringing over our neighbor’s thoughts if said neighbor is only concerned with the next neighbor’s thoughts? We should feel obligated to few, namely family and a small group of close friends with whom love is shared.
To elaborate on distractions, I’ll offer a few more rhetorical questions. When writers, journalists, or other content creators are expected to tweet or cater to mass appeal, what doesn’t get said? How do those practices affect thought? What ideas aren’t developed or challenged? After all, writing is thinking. By thinking only about what is most likely to drive the ever-nebulous “engagement,” we aren’t really thinking at all.
I once based post ideas on previously popular posts. I assumed that what people liked in the past was more likely to be popular in the future. But that approach wasn’t a driver of creativity, it was an attempt to seek validation and approval from strangers. Now I rarely check website statistics and I’m writing about the philosophy of Ayn Rand. Give it a go and see what bubbles up.
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