Ayn Rand Had Asperger’s Syndrome

If Howard Roark were an architect in India, he would have been lynched by the mob. Howard Roark is the uncompromising architect in Ayn Rand’s passionately written novel,“The Fountainhead”. He had no sense of people, and people loathed him by sight. But he could have walked naked through the streets without noticing them. At architecture school, he loved the dry, technical, mathematical courses. When the integrity of his design was violated, he blew up a government housing project. Howard Roark always knew he was wired differently. He had to learn to think about people. Howard Roark may have had Asperger’s Syndrome.

Ayn Rand, in all likelihood, knew nothing about the autism spectrum. But she could draw from her own life and experiences. The creator of Howard Roark worked obsessively, evening after evening. She rarely went out. Ayn Rand was extremely nervous before public functions, but there was a violent intensity about her. She observed, rightly, that boredom preserves the precarious dignity of people who love small talk. Her sensitivity to cruelty and injustice has largely escaped her readers. All her life, she collected things, and kept them in separate file folders. Her grandmother gifted her a chest of drawers to store her collections, and her mother complained about all the rubbish she collected. She loved ordering and categorizing things, something very fundamental to the autistic cognitive style. Ayn Rand ticks way too many boxes. 

Ayn Rand wasn’t popular among intellectuals and critics. But I don’t think it was her political philosophy or abrasive personality that made her so unpopular. Ayn Rand had a distinctive moral and political outlook, but it was distinctive in many different ways. We all know, deep down, that the battle between the passionate and the rest can be vicious. Then there is the battle between the authentic and those who aren’t. The most vicious of all, of course, is the battle between the typical and atypical. Something about these battles makes people uncomfortable in a way politics doesn’t, and so it is not out in the open. Being on the autism spectrum, Ayn Rand didn’t have an intuitive understanding of the motives of other people. She looked at the conflict between their words and actions, and what she saw didn’t show human nature in a good light. She treated her villains very badly, and judged their faults very harshly. Her readers saw a bit of themselves, sometimes a lot of themselves, in her villains. But they couldn’t say this aloud. They looked for more socially acceptable justifications, which weren’t hard to find.

Ayn Rand wasn’t much of a scholar, and her informed critics are usually right. And it may as well be true that she had more than her own share of failings as her biographers testify. But this doesn’t fit in very easily with her moral outlook or literary personality. Ayn Rand knew how to think about morality. I don’t mean to say her derivation of ethics is convincing, or that her bizarre claims are plausible. And I don’t deny she occasionally made monstrous arguments. Ayn Rand believed in a black-and-white-morality, just as many autistics do. She is not alone here, but a black-and-white view of morality, just as consequentialism, is a way of looking at the world, and not just a set of beliefs.

Ayn Rand had many flaws, but her black-and-white view of morality wasn’t one among them. The strong conviction that one should always do the right thing runs through her work, and that’s all there is to “black and white” morality. Now, it’s true that if you believe in moral absolutes, there is no longer room for complex, nuanced and subtle moral reasoning. But this doesn’t prove what her critics think this proves.

An analogy will make this clear. I manage the most successful Airbnbs in my town, but this is not because I work extremely hard, skillfully. I write a description, upload a few photographs, and set the right price…And Voila! A mountaintop cottage becomes extremely valuable. Airbnb is very user-friendly, very effective. You don’t need to know how the Airbnb algorithm works. These aren’t terrible flaws, but features that make Airbnb so powerful. If somebody claims Airbnb is unsophisticated because it doesn’t demand much skill or effort of you, he’d be hooted off the stage. Similarly, a “black and white” moral code is extremely powerful, and this is why Ayn Rand’s moral reasoning was simple, and her moral expectations modest. If you wouldn’t even consider doing wrong, you don’t have to rack your brains over moral dilemmas. A belief in moral absolutes is important for capitalism to flourish, but you don’t need to know why. If you just do the right thing, everything will fall in its place.

People are uncomfortable with a black-and-white morality for the same reason they are uncomfortable with the slogan, “War is Mass Murder, Conscription is Slavery, Taxation is Robbery.” It gets to so many unpopular truths in so few words. It’s too good. It may be true, as they say, this does little to further the debate. But a man who believes in a black-and-white morality doesn’t engage in “nuanced” moral analysis, because he doesn’t agonize over not making the world better through mass murder. His fundamental decency gets him to the truth quickly enough.

Intellectuals gloss over an obvious truth. Without a black-and-white view of morality, true love and genuine trust aren’t possible. But you’ll never understand black-and-white morality if you haven’t walked a moral tightrope without even being aware. Sooner or later, you’ll learn that the assumptions so firmly etched in your mind aren’t shared by others. But if you aren’t consciously walking a moral tightrope, it is hard to know others aren’t. The possibility is not even on your radar. Then reality sets in, turning your theory of human nature upside down. Ayn Rand’s moral outlook is more honorable than her more informed critics and admirers, because she had this rare human experience others miss out on. A black-and-white view of morality is a great source of moral knowledge. On every page of her work, you can see the strong conviction that morality is sacred, that your work is precious.

When a reputed bank made unreasonable demands, Howard Roark rejected a huge commission, explaining why an honest man is dead even if the smallest part in him betrays the idea within himself. And why only the good, the high and the noble keep their integrity. I’ve never read a better summarization of black-and-white morality. Howard Roark walked away, telling a board member it was the most selfish thing he had ever seen a man do. If you have a strong emotional predisposition for doing the work you love, there is nothing selfless about this. Howard Roark found it dishonorable—morally unthinkable—to give into unreasonable demands for a huge commission. So he wouldn’t bother to weigh the costs and benefits of undertaking such actions. When the possibility of undertaking such actions doesn’t even enter your mind, you see the world with more clarity than others imagine possible.  

Ayn Rand wasn’t easy on people who were “nice” without the emotional predispositions that go with it. She despised Peter Keating, Howard Roark’s mediocre peer, who let his mother stay with him. Peter Keating wanted to impress his manipulative mother with his success, and he wasn’t supposed to refuse. Architect Henry Cameron’s sister took care of him in old age, but she didn’t do this out of genuine desire or compassion. She had lost all capacity for emotion long ago. Ellsworth Toohey, the humanitarian, is more suspect because he forgave the sculptor who tried to shoot him.

In Ayn Rand’s moral universe, you deserve no credit if you’ve no genuine desire to do good. But a moral act is more praiseworthy, her critics argue, if it doesn’t come so easily to you. The truth is that if you don’t feel like doing good, you can’t be trusted. Who would prefer a mother who needs rational deliberation to see she shouldn’t buy a hat at the expense of starving her child? No decent person would, even if she is resourceful enough to provide better. Any cost-benefit analysis here should take disgust into account. When you put things this way, this is easier to understand. But the same principle applies to all moral matters. Ayn Rand, the champion of reason over feelings, didn’t trust people who didn’t feel the right way.

But what if you don’t feel like doing good? Should we develop greater empathy as some say, or should we rely on cold reason and cost-benefit analysis as some others say? It’s common to pit empathy against cost-benefit analysis. Empathy, they say, is biased, innumerate, and blinds us to the long-term consequences of our actions. They diagnose empathy as the problem, and propose cost-benefit analysis as the solution. But it’s not so much that empathy is biased. People are biased. It’s harder to empathize with strangers, and people resent outsiders too much. There are so many seemingly victimless crimes. Empathy can only go so far.

But guilt can do what empathy can’t. If people feel guilty about doing wrong, even committing victimless crimes, that would solve the empathy problem. But as economist David Rose points out, an equally big challenge will remain. Even if people feel guilty about doing wrong, they may feel guiltier about not fulfilling their positive obligations. You may feel guilty about firing an employee who wrote a controversial, sound memo. But you may feel guiltier about lowering employee morale. You may feel guilty about conspiring against your coworker. But you may feel guiltier about placing high principles above your family. Normal human beings weigh the costs and benefits of doing wrong, instead of just doing the right thing. Far from being the solution, cost-benefit analysis is at the root of this formidable problem. Cost-benefit analysis—instead of broadening the limits of our empathy—can suppress our natural empathy, and make us cruel.

If this is true, much of what you’ve read about moral reasoning is wrong. The cost-benefit approach to moral reasoning isn’t new. It’s not a solution to the excesses of empathy, or an antidote to tribalism. The cost-benefit approach isn’t in a tug of war against our hardwired moral intuitions. The cost-benefit approach, as David Rose says in one of the most insightful works of all times, is as common as it is old. Natural selection itself is consequentialist. In our ancestral past, in small groups, in the short run, for individual decision makers, this worked fine. For modern capitalism to flourish, it is  this primitive approach to moral reasoning we should reject. We can’t trust anybody in a world where our hardwired consequentialism takes over.

Guilt isn’t enough, if it doesn’t go hand in hand with a rejection of consequentialism. If you think it’s better to undertake certain negative moral actions than to not undertake certain positive moral actions, you can’t be trusted. Because it’s easy to convince yourself you’re doing the most good you can do. Your moral values should exist in the right hierarchy. Moral tastes are important too. You can’t be trusted if you’ve no uncontrollable urge to do the right thing. A sense of horror should prevent you from doing wrong, even if it leads to better consequences. Greater the sense of horror, the less you’re likely to do wrong. Good men are men of great feeling, contrary to what academic hacks have told you. If this seems demagogic, that’s not because it’s wrong.

What has all this got to do with Ayn Rand? She gets all this very right. Gail Wynand, the antihero of The Fountainhead, wasn’t troubled by caution when the honest police captain of his precinct was framed. He wasn’t driven by cool, calculated reason, but by the single impulse to do the right thing. Gail Wynand knew he’d lose his job, but didn’t care. To control the rage within him, he’d to walk far across the town. Ayn Rand was on a stronger theoretical and empirical grounding here than social scientists who believe calmness and deliberate reasoning are more important for moral behavior. We know from the extremely important, but underappreciated work of economist Robert Frank that without the right emotional predisposition, it’s hard to summon the motivation to do the right thing. If Gail Wynand was angrier, he’d have gone ahead with his plan to destroy the newspaper he worked for. There’s something to be said for rational analysis, but cold reasoning can only take us so far. Ayn Rand, the champion of conscious rational judgment, got this very right.

Ayn Rand knew a decent fellow wouldn’t feel guilty about not undertaking positive moral actions. When he worked on the problem of low-rent housing, Howard Roark didn’t think of the poor people in the slums. He thought of the great possibilities of the modern world. To donate to charity, he said, was much easier than keeping personal standards. Howard Roark believed decency begins where altruism ends, and he was right.

Did Ayn Rand approve of positive moral actions at all? Austen Heller, the star journalist of The Fountainhead, didn’t donate to charity, but spent more money than he could, on defending political prisoners. Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes, another fully-fledged autistic hero in literature, was another such campaigner. Autistics, as psychologist Simon Baron-Cohen observes, are the most passionate defenders of innocent victims. This strain runs through her work, in Gail Wynand’s failed efforts to save an honest police officer, and in his campaign to save Howard Roark. Gail Wynand’s first philanthropic campaign pitted a struggling young scientist starving in a garret against an unmarried, pregnant chambermaid. Wynand drove a saloonkeeper to suicide years later, because he closed the door on him when he crawled, after being beaten by a longshoreman. Ayn Rand had a rare compassion which made her wonder why people didn’t care about Steven Mallory, a talented sculptor who couldn’t find the work he loved. The only time Howard Roark was murderously angry was when he saw Steven Mallory cry. A man can be generously angry, and this is a view that would make many people, well, angry. In her moral world, the moral status of the victims matter a lot. Not all poverty is made alike. It matters why people do “good”.

Ayn Rand believed, if possible, we should help innocent victims and people in emergency situations. The principle that we should volunteer to help strangers in emergency situations, she argued, shouldn’t be extended to all human suffering. One shouldn’t go around looking for victims to save. This is in striking contrast with the philosopher Peter Singer’s view that spending money on luxuries is no different from not saving a drowning child fearing that would ruin your expensive shoes. The money you spend on luxuries, Peter Singer thinks, should go to helping the truly needy global poor. What difference does distance and nationality make? Peter Singer is wrong here, in assuming that distance makes no difference. There are situations where the difference between positive and negative obligations disappears.  As David Rose points out, not doing X is usually not the perfect equivalent of doing Y. Saving a life is usually not the perfectly equivalent of murder. So, the decision to not save a drowning child, even at no cost to oneself, should be seen as a negative moral action. But such exceptions are rare, and not hard to see when there isn’t much distance. And when there is distance, it is very difficult to morally evaluate the recipients of your help.

A world where nobody undertakes negative moral actions would be a world of unprecedented prosperity. To argue that we’re obliged to help the truly needy everywhere, as Singer does, implies that we’re responsible for poverty. This means we’re responsible for the negative moral actions of others. It’s hard to see how this worldview wouldn’t lead to doing wrong yourself. It’s a war against moral integrity, though consequentialists may deny this. This maybe why, as philosopher Bernard Williams observed, there is a superficial high-mindedness about utilitarianism, a false rigorousness masquerading as objectivity. In the service of the greater good, they urge you to set aside your deepest values, desires and emotions. In other words, your moral integrity.

Ayn Rand’s worldview is a revolt against such resentment. You can give up anything, but your thoughts and desires, Ayn Rand says through her heroine, Dominique Francon. Because it’s your soul which thinks, values and makes decisions. In Ayn Rand’s moral universe, your character matters the most, your behavior comes next, and then the consequences of your acts. Utilitarians, on the other hand, elevate the principle of impartiality into a moral virtue. But it’s the worst sort of impartiality which sees no difference between your wrongdoings and that of others. It’s moral impartiality. Gail Wynand had this in mind when he said you’ll love God and sacrilege impartially only if you didn’t know sacrilege has been committed, and you’ll miss this only if you didn’t know God.

Ellsworth Toohey, architectural critic and the archvillain of The Fountainhead, was considered impartial. Ellsworth Toohey, the friend of humanity, didn’t have a single friend. Ellsworth Toohey, the one-man holding company of altruism, donated to many organizations, but never to individuals. He urged his rich friends to support charitable institutions, but never a person in need. Ellsworth Toohey’s life was crowded, public and impersonal. He accepted everybody, because his affection wasn’t discriminating. The busy days of his life were no different from each other. He disliked the idea of family. Sex, he said, wasn’t important in the face of weightier problems. Ellsworth Toohey was not merely a servant of humanity. He was a blind servant of humanity. Ayn Rand hated him like poison.

Economist Tyler Cowen was right in saying that Ayn Rand’s greatest strength was her analysis of the mentality of resentment. Resentment was the file against which Ayn Rand sharpened her intellectual tools. Too eager to prove he’d no particular dog in the hunt, Ellsworth Toohey wrote in a calm, detached style, with a hand betraying emotions his prose concealed. But why did Toohey—who stood for emotions above thought and heart above mind—desperately want to seem so dispassionate? Ayn Rand doesn’t say. Just as he loathed prose that stood out, Toohey hated architects who asserted their egos and followed their personal fancies. There was nothing theatrical about Toohey—even when a shot missed him—except the conspicuous absence of theatricality. Toohey wished the murder attempt wasn’t in the style of an operetta. What could have been worse? Ellsworth Toohey had something against the style of an operetta. All claims to individual taste, he said, were bad taste. He loved the anonymous nature of architecture. Except in footnotes, he didn’t name architects. Ellsworth Toohey loathed the hero-worshipping method of historical research.

When he splashed water on a bright, attractive schoolyard bully, little Ellsworth Toohey didn’t claim martyrdom. His mother did, and everybody else agreed. When Toohey was sent to his room without supper, he didn’t complain. He obeyed, and didn’t accept the food his mother sneaked up to him. At Harvard, his snobbery took the form of somebody trying too hard not to appear snobbish. Ayn Rand, who modeled Toohey on Harold Laski, didn’t like his condescension, but had no antipathy toward anger. Nobody had seen Toohey angry. Instead, he made stinging remarks calmly. This gave him power at home, and in the schoolyard. He was a bully in his own way, but not the sort others complain about.  Ellsworth Toohey was calm. He was contemptible.  Toohey’s manipulation was always the sort of thing you can’t put your finger on, often an act of inaction, but always effective. Ellsworth Toohey was subtle, very subtle. Ellsworth Toohey was the human embodiment of resentment. Ellsworth Toohey was anti-Asperger’s.

All the behavioral traits of Toohey stemmed from his deep-seated resentment. His feigned calmness, his superficial forgiveness, his reluctance to complain or accuse, his hatred of style, of individuality. Then there was the pretence that he didn’t care about his enemies, neither about what he did to them, nor about what they did to him. There was a high-mindedness about Toohey.

Ellsworth Toohey didn’t mention the name of Howard Roark, the architect he resented the most, in his columns. Toohey knew there was no better way to do him down. When asked about Roark, Toohey pretended to not even have heard of him. He then went on to ask many, many personal questions about Roark. Toohey worked hard to get Roark assignments that would get him in trouble. Toohey pretended not to remember the name of Steven Mallory, the sculptor who tried to shoot him. But this didn’t stop him from purchasing a statue Mallory sculpted, and gifting it to Gail Wynand. Ayn Rand shows, in a Girardian fashion, how Ellsworth Tooohey was fascinated with his victims.

Toohey’s tactics are eerily reminiscent of some real world villains I knew, but her critics claim they’re unbelievable. Ayn Rand had a deeper understanding of scapegoating than she is given credit for. As primatologist Frans de Waal observed in “Our Inner Ape”, scapegoating is one of our most basic, most powerful and least conscious psychological reflexes. It’s a powerful reflex men share with animals. But Ayn Rand’s detractors find all this bizarre. They can’t stand her over-the-top style. They say this sort of thing makes impressionable adolescents paranoid. They read her novels, wince, and deny that people are the way they are. I wonder why.   

Shanu Athiparambath

Shanu Athiparambath is a writer who lives in the Himalayas. He is working on his debut novel on human heterogeneity.