Let me first begin with how I was exposed to Ayn Rand. I am in high school and awhile back my teacher was doing a course on homelessness. In a ‘prompt’ that she gave me as to what are the causes of homelessness, I answered CAPITALISM. A week later I was astonished to get back my paper with a Zero. I showed this to many people all of whom agreed that it was in no way deserving of a zero. My dad and I took this question as to why I had gotten a zero on my paper to the teacher. I wasn’t expecting much but even after one hour of asking my English teacher why I had gotten a zero on my paper she had no reasonable answer other than that I had not followed the ‘format’ correctly, even though I had a previous organizational sheet on which I based my writing on following her format. she ended by saying I was a horrible writer; we gave up trying to get to through to such a numbskull.
I didn’t quite understand why she had given me a zero until a couple months later, and so began my experience with Ayn Rand. My teacher took us to get the book. As I read the summary I knew it would be some sort of method for her and d-11 to push their politics on students; however I had no previous knowledge of who Ayn Rand was. The next day in class she gave us a powerpoint on the background of Ayn Rand and what the book Anthem was about. It was filled with negative comments on communism including that communism supposedly takes away knowledge, individuality and free expression. As I was assigned to read more and more of Ayn Rand I realized how horrible of a writer she was. I started to listen to Ayn Rand’s interviews. I then understood that they were forcing me to read a writer who didn’t believe in helping anyone, because she was a racist, a nationalist and a pure evil witch. These interviews can be found on <youtube> and <bluecorncomics> among many other articles revealing Ayn Rand to be a racist.
The more and more I read into the book the more i was infuriated at the pure ridiculousness and hypocrisy of it. In the ending chapters it is written by Ayn Rand that
“The word WE is the lime poured over me, which sets and hardens to stone, crushes all beneath it, and that which is white and that which is black are lost equally in the grey of it. It is the word by which the depraved steal the virtue of the good, by which the weak steal the might of the strong, by which the fools steal the wisdom of the sages. What is my joy if all hands, even the unclean, can reach into it? What is my wisdom if even the fools can dictate to me? What is my freedom, if all creatures, even the botched and the impotent, are my masters? What is my life, if I am but to bow, to agree and to obey?”
As i read this I wasn’t sure whether to laugh, throw up, or rip the book apart . I was sickened by how when I had expressed my “free speech” I was given a ZERO; by how I had to read an author who believes being selfish is a virtue. And by how every day, whenever I went to class instead of being taught English literature I got the teachers Right Wing, anti-communist politics thrown into my face. Each time a question on the book was asked I didn’t hear an opinion on whether the book was good or bad i only heard questions on how communism takes away individuality and how Ayn Rand is right on what her idea of what communism is? I said the teacher was expressing personal opinion and the whole class started to yell at me to shut up. I got so alienated and depressed after they said that communism makes robots, and brain dead people even though I couldn’t find more brain dead robots as hard as I looked than the ones that were sitting right next to me.
I couldn’t take the class anymore as it was an insult to who I was, what I believed in, and all the people I respected were continually insulted and lied about. I started skipping the class after my dad not only talked at a school board meeting but also to my assistant principal, in both cases we were given the cold shoulder and treated horribly rude. I decided to go to the class again and deal with it. As I read the quote given above in that class and as I looked around i became terrified of being like them. I was torn between staying and swallowing my believes and to be JUST LIKE THOSE SHEEP or to get up and leave. The overwhelming fear of being lost into them made me get up and walk out of the class. Later that day the assistant principal took me out of a class and made me feel like an outsider, like a weird person that needed to be put in a psychiatric hospital. I complained that I was being pushed politics in a public school and his response was that no other students felt like I did. When I told him that the teacher had given me a zero and was now failing me out of the course, who had said I was a horrible writer; he said He didn’t believe me and that I was wrong. He told me that if I was to walk out again I would have to deal with the consequences even though he wouldn’t deal with a teacher pushing politics. He smiled as I cried for being looked at as being an idiot and a weirdo kid ; it took me about two hours to get with it. We continued to try to get me switched out of the class, which finally we did only to find that Ayn Rand was being taught in that course too and in all English classes for that matter.
I realize I will probably never get them to change, to respect students, parents and INDIVIDUALITY. But this continuing fight which is probably the hardest I’ve ever had to fight proved to me that I would stand up for myself against a herd of flesh eating zombies, that I would NEVER BE LIKE THEM . And I felt pride in knowing I stood up to being brainwashed by anti communist right wingers.
Indeed you are correct. I congratulate you on your ability to express yourself so well in your writing. Keep fighting the injustice and you will be rewarded with your own feeling of self-worth, but do not expect justice from the powers-that-be in the school system.
Can you explain one thing to me? How can you claim Communism or any other form of political collectivism engenders respect for individuals, when by definition they bind individuals collectively by force?
John, you mistake the theoretical communism with the practice of the post-Stalin era Soviet model which was even opposed by Lenin. Communism comes from the Latin word communis, which means “shared” or “belong to all”. In the schema of historical materialism, communism is the idea of a free society with no division or alienation, where mankind is free from oppression and scarcity. A communist society would have no governments, countries, or class divisions. I believe this is to what our writer was referring.
I was kinda of taken back by the rather harsh attack in the comments of John Donohue myself. He takes it upon himself to berate a teenager trying to deal with the alienation of what our own economic system has produced in society, not what the exSoviet Union might have done.
John, I think it would be much more pertinent in your reply to Safiyyah’s autobiographical sketch of history of a brief moment in her school time in the good ol’ USA, if you had actually dealt with the reality of the suppression of individualism that goes on constantly here in our own country, all carried out by the gigantic herd of ‘collectivist’ ‘free market’ proponents that proliferate throughout our plasticized society. After all, Safiyyah was documenting how in her personal encounters with ‘authorities’, exactly how the super monied, corproate and church richie rich set tries to collectively from the top control the mindset at ground level in public schools of the community, where our children are subjected to a continual effort to literally BRAINWASH them into becoming supporters of the dominant colectivist CORPORATIVE mind set of ‘free market’ worshippers, who somehow believe that they are defending God, Country, Military, and their Liberty to be nasty assholes, when they ramrod others with their pseudo patriotic and jingoistic bullshit.
Apparently, John was not much interested in addressing the issues that Safiyyah raised though…
PCMulkey, thank you for understanding my alienation at school and for the positive comment.
Objectivism can only be understood by those persons who are not afraid to think outside of their own box.
Hourra pour l’écrevisse sur le cul de l’institutrice!
You have to show up these scholastic prostitutes, kids.
With a single sentence, my own daughter shot down a ‘teacher’ who was slavishly indoctrinating her class with the most pernicious and intellectually insulting of Zionist hoaxes:
“That ‘gas chamber’ must have had a back door.”
Next thing you know, her classmates were reading Butz, Faurisson, Irving, De Zayas, Mattogno, and Stäglich.
Naturally, the cultmistress “Ayn Rand” ( neé ????? ?????????) was a rabid Zionist:
‘Israel is up against “a group of almost totally primitive savages, who have not changed for years, and are racist [!], and resent Israel because it is bringing industry, intelligence, modern technology…[especially nuclear and biological weapons]” “They’re terrorists… they’re monsters…”’
The only good thing I can about say about Ayn Rand is that she is no longer in a position to write anything. Of course, she has found a worthy successor in the Randnik Pamela Geller, another great prose stylist who works no doubt will soon be included in English literature curricula.
For an inside look at the zany cult, see: Murray N. Rothbard, “The Sociology of the Ayn Rand Cult: ” http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard23.html
Rothbard neglects to mention that this loudmouth of laissez-faire collected both Social Security and Medicare, though she needed mezume like a bull needs five teats. And—oh, yes—she drove her husband to drink…
@PCMulkey and Tony Logan
Be that as it may, communism is not the answer to cartelism, unless you can show how it could become real without compulsion.
misterioso, obviously you don’t get what i’m saying!
When I did think “outside the box” I was given an F and told that I was wrong because i’m the only one that is expressing an idea “outside of the box”. The one that needs to think “outside the box” and think of some of the issues that Ayn Rand raised, such as democracy will only be accomplished if the poor are controlled by the rich instead of the poor having a say which in her opinion would cause barbarism because she thinks the rich by being rich are wise and the poor are impotent and fools, is you. Why don’t you get out of thinking in your own little box and actually exam that Ayn Rand was not for individualism; she just wanted the rich to have the right to control everyone else. Those that go along with that idea obviously haven’t thought outside the box and seen what a contradictory and ridiculous idea Ayn Rand expresses. The whole point of my history and experience was to show that when people do think outside the box they are punished and squashed- what a democratic country that is – for you “in the box thinkers”.
Safiyyah (who is, I presume, named after the rabbi’s daughter Muhammad chivalrously rescued from slavery) mentions that one of the books she and her classmates were forced to read was Anthem (1939), a work that “Miss Rand” plagiarised from Eugene Zamiatin’s We («??», 1920) and Jerome Klapka Jerome’s The New Utopia (1891) during her pseudo-Nietzschean phase.
Of course, the sparest definition of Socialism is: A world-outlook and /or political system that ranks the “We” above the “I.” Classical Anarchism, Syndicalism, Social Democracy, and certain other systems of thought and action I shall forbear mentioning are all manifestations of the “We.” Not every one of them posits “communism” as an ideal. In fact, an official of one the states in the temporarily disbanded Soviet amphictyony confided in me that, while a confirmed socialist, he personally regarded “communism” as no more than a “nice idea.” — “Something like the heaven of the Christians.”
Before tossing about terms like “socialism “and “communism” one would do well give a bit of thought to what they actually mean: For good start I suggest reading a descriptive treatise like Werner Sombart’s Sozialismus und soziale Bewegung (English: Socialism and the Social Movement).
http://www.archive.org/details/sozialismusunds04sombgoog
http://www.archive.org/details/socialismsocialm00sombuoft
If the purpose is education, not indoctrination, I have no problem with including, every now and then, some tendentious colportage in a literature course. Literature is, after all, in the broadest sense what people read, good and bad. Had the schoolmarm’s purpose been the former, however, she would have counterpoised “Miss Rand’s” production to something generally comparable but of a different tendency, for example, The Iron Heel (1908) by Jack London or Looking Backward (1888) by Edward Bellamy, who noted of the men of his time :
‘In a word, they believed — even those who longed to believe otherwise — the exact reverse of what to us seems self-evident; they believed, that is, that the antisocial qualities of men, and not their social qualities, were what furnished the cohesive force of society’
That is to say, the most one can expect of our species is a free-for-all of rutting and rooting.
And this is the real message of Ayn Rand.
Quite the thing to teach kids!
You are awesome! And you’re right!!! There’s no way Ayn Rand should be taught in high schools as anything but a cautionary tale. I wish I could tell you it’s different in college. It may be different but most liberal arts departments don’t have a lot of Marxists. You have to look for them. Solidarity!
Socialism is: A world-outlook and /or political system that ranks the “We” above the “I.”
…and they mean it! In fact, “rank” always means force in any variant of collectivism. That air-definition nicely avoids the messy details of what is required to impose collectivism on free minds and free human beings.
And once enacted collectivism never fails to provide the illusion of “cohesion.” Brother bonded to brother. With a gun.
Thank you Teri, I appreciate the nice comment.
John, you haven’t a clue to what you are talking about, do you? What the Hell is this supposed to mean for just one example?
‘In fact, “rank” always means force in any variant of collectivism.’
Did you get the capitalist USA’s military confused with ‘communism’?
Tony, you don’t fool me for a minute…I know you wrote “Safiyyah’s” rant, as shown by the following: “Each time a question on the book was asked I didn’t hear an opinion on whether the book was good or bad i only heard questions on how communism takes away individuality and how Ayn Rand is right on what her idea of what communism is?” No one else is so ungrammatical as to think that a statement is converted into a question merely by placing a question mark at the end of it. Further, no member of the teacher’s union, even in D-11, would support Anthem. The ad hominem attacks fail to persuade.
@ Tony Logan
I have the major and devastating “clue” and you know it. There is no such thing as voluntary political collectivism. All forms of it depend on coercion at the root. Since every human being is born free, with a free soul and a body that belongs to her and her alone, all forms of political collectivism constitute violent rape of the individual.
Michael, and who in the Hell has Safiyyah supposedly attacked in ‘ad hominem’ manner? The teachers of Palmer High School? You make me laugh now, Buddy. Teaching the poorly written book ‘Anthem’ with its Right Wing politics is across the board being done by ENGLISH teachers there. So I’m beginning to think that you might be one of the dumbest lawyers out there in practice to not understand what Safiyyah clearly laid out for you at the D11 schools.
‘Further, no member of the teacher’s union, even in D-11, would support Anthem. The ad hominem attacks fail to persuade.’
Michael, before you shoot off your little pistol in my directionagain, you might try imagining that perhaps Safiyyah is actually my daughter. Imagine that, Lawyer Guy! And imagine that my daughter actually goes to high school at Palmer High (just as she wrote that she does!) And imagine that there is nothing made up in her personal tale at all. Imagine, if you can, Michael? Just use your imagination some, PLEASE. Don’t be a dullard here, Michael.
And, John, you really are clueless just as I said that you were, and I use your own words again to reach that conclusion. Here is what you just said to us…
‘There is no such thing as voluntary political collectivism. All forms of it depend on coercion at the root.’
Come now! I guess you believe that our all volunteer army is not a collectivist entity? Or that the NAZIs never ever had any gung ho volunteers? Honestly, your defense of Libertarianism ‘Thought’ is getting more bizarre and unreasoned by the every post you are making. Can’t you Libertarians use your brains in anything? Many people leap into what you term ‘collectivism’ world wide in capitalist societies, and the US society is evidence in hand that that is sadly so.
Here in the US, ‘collectivism’ should be defined as the worship of MONEY. Collectivism is made up of millions of VOLUNTARY lemmings in the Grand Ol’ USA as they rush themselves around in circles in the pursuit of personal selfishness, ala Ayn Rand Thought. They all hope to get rich and live off the ripped off work of others. Total ‘COLLECTIVISM’ with the ‘collectivist’ Ayn Rand influenced lemmings at the hoped for top. Now go mall shopping, John.
It’s the ‘collectivist’ Ayn Rand thing to do, is it not?
The reason some people leap into collectivism is because others who reject it, and would otherwise remain free, are cocerced into it. There is no such thing as voluntary political collectivism. All forms of it depend on coercion — of those who would rather be free — at the root.
‘Collectivism’ is a meaningless Ayn Randist term which means absolutely nothing, and is meant to be a confusing nothing of a word anyway by the FOLLOWERS of Libertarianism. What exactly is ‘collectivism’, John?
After all, grouping together in order to try to achieve some common goal is ‘collective’ behavior, is it not? So what in the Hell is wrong with that to you great Libertarian ‘individualists’? Don’t Libertarians themselves collectively organize themselves in such a manner to achieve common goals? It would be stupid to not organize one’s own followers collectively, and the Libertarians in fact do just that, same as all other groups of like minded people.
“Collectivism” is standard nomenclature. Sorry Google was not your friend before you spouted off. Here is your homework:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collectivism
Most socialists, communists and other collectivists are proud of the word. They consider it highly moral and just. Get with it.
However, no matter how ‘high-purposed’ the intention purportedly at the root of a political collective, the essence, right at the root, is coercion of free people. On the other hand, a group of people voluntarily acting together to accomplish something is not “collectivism.”
Like I said, the word ‘collectivism’ is an utterly meaningless Right Wing Libertarian term meant to mainly help confuse gullible American people by claiming that fascism and socialism are essentially one and the same thing.
Even your Libertarian over at wikipedia which you had your link lead us to says as much. Here is what he wrote…
‘Many socialists, particularly Libertarian socialists, democratic socialists, individualist anarchists and some Marxists criticize the concept of collectivism. Some anti-collectivists often argue that all authoritarian and totalitarian societies are collectivist in nature. Socialists argue that modern capitalism and private property, which is based on socialized production and joint-stock or corporate ownership structures, is a form of organic collectivism that sharply contrasts with the utopian picture of capitalism painted by its proponents as a system of free individuals exchanging commodities.’
So what is meant actually by a term that could include our current capitalist US society, the ex Soviet Union under Stalin, and fascist Nazi Germany all together? I think the term ‘collectivist’ means basically nothing because it is way too broad with the paint brush, John. Your wikipedia entry which you had us go to helps prove my point, in fact.
I am not a libertarian. “Libertarian Socialism” is a contradiction in terms, unless the owner of it thinks “liberty” can include coercion or “socialism” can be achieve without it. Both are absurd. The paragraph you cherry picked does not invalidate the adoration of the term by collectivists, the article in question, let alone the entire history of the word ‘collectivism.’ Political collectivism has at its root the coercive binding of individuals by law, regardless of their desires. That’s how you discover if a political system is collectivist.
Anyone who attempts to construct voluntary activity among free people as “collectivist” (simply because they are willfully cooperating) is merely wishing to steal the beneficence of such cooperation in order to take the fatal poison out of their love of actual collectivism.
The original American Revolution is still supposedly in effect. The radical political system it intended to establish was not collectivist. It was co-opted, starting from the moment Jefferson’s screed against slavery was deleted from his first draft and when the Constitution failed to firmly place individual rights as an absolute right at the top. It has taken 200 years, but gradually collectivist principles have wormed their way in. We now have a mixed political system: mixed freedom with collectivist coercion.
I reject all collectivist elements in the US, including coercive taxation, conscription, ‘takings’, and especially the federalization of money.
So you are against taxation and the Fed issuing paper money, John, and that alone DOES put you firmly into being an American Right Winger Libertarian. As does your whole worship of the term ‘collectivist’, which you apply to others as supposedly being.
Another definition of the word ‘collectivist’, that is much more mainstream than that of American Libertarian usage, is simply the meaning that a ‘collectivist’ prioritizes collective action over individual action alone. Do you have a problem with those who fit that definition? If so, then why?
And a funny thing about you Libertarians, too, John. You guys love red baiting and labeling others as being ‘collectivists’ but you, great in your own heads individualist folk, never complain about wage slavery. Why is that so? What is more destructive to individual freedom in the world than the wage slavery of the capitalism you so adore? So why don’t you Libertarians, John, ever talk it up against wage slavery? You are collectively a group of phoneys IMO. Real individualists hate wage slavery and you Libertarians do not.
there is no such thing as wage slavery.
i am not a libertarian.
“prioritizes” and “action” as you used it and applied to a political system is coercion of free people who do not wish to be coerced. Go ahead and prioritze and take action, voluntarily with those you can pursuade to do ‘whatever,’ but do not enact laws that hold a gun to people’s head as “action” to “prioitize” the whims of others against their own.
You are just like a standard protypical Libertarian to claim that there is no such thing as wage slavery, John.
Have you never ever worked for somebody else to get rich from? Have you never ever worked with ZERO benefits? Have you never ever been without a job when there is the whole world of needs for all people to be working productively, John? Have you never ever seen a family suffer because they have too little or no income, John?
You talk about systems that ‘hold a gun to the head’, but that is capitalism world wide for the wage slaves that you deny even exist. You Libertarians are a fraud when it comes to your claims that you are all supposedly freedom loving individualists.
next time you start screaming Ayn Rand’s name (yes I know it hurts you) at least be ready to defend your hatred on Objectivst terms when we arrive. You didn’t say anything interesting.
Signing off…
John Donohue
Objectivist
No such thing as wage slavery. That’s rich. Does Ayn Rand attract only pinheads?
As for Michael, give him credit for sniffing out that grammatical quirk of yours Tony, the orphan question mark. How was he to guess it was the result of you editing your daughter’s piece? I’m sure we’re all better off leaving the punctuation to someone who’s still in school.
But best of all, Michael validates Safiyyah’s main contention with his incredulity: “no member of the teacher’s union, even in D-11, would support Anthem.”
Unfortunately, the reality is much much worse. Did I know it from reading above, or because I heard the back story? Sufiyyah was able to transfer out of that class, but every English class is teaching Ayn Rand. ENGLISH class. And there’s a Libertarian Club. Because this city is so ignorant, it can’t even want its children to escape the stupid tree.
Thank you, Eric. I’m surprised and shocked that members of the teacher’s union would teach Ayn Rand. There may be some hope in this world……(I never really understood grammar until I read “Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology”).
English teachers of American freshmen high school students are supposed to teach Grammar and Literature, not Ayn Rand Collectivist Thought and Libertarianism, Michael. The fact that the nutty D11 Administration has allowed this forcing of one political thought in mass onto innocent students and teachers alike is rather sad and no signs of any ‘hope in the world’, but just the opposite. No wonder so many students can’t make it through to graduate there in these brain washing schools.
Ayn Rand is a front. She speaks some truths to appeal to naive youth and aggravate her politically inclined and historically illiterate opponents. But her ideals are totalitarian and her hypocrisy is legend. She is a narcissist posing as an individualist. Look behind the surface people. Her polemic words are meant to instill the unconscious hatred for free-enterprise that all propagandized youth feel when confronted with artificial black-and-white issues of communism/socialism vs. the contrived ideal of crony capitalism, which has nothing to do with free-enterprise.
“There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves Orcs.”
Of course, most youth quoting Ayn Rand nowadays, in some sort of pissing contest of sociopolitical ideals, have most likely never read any history and have spent more time twittering nonsense to their electronic friends than actually researching their charge.
I was warned in advance not to read Ayn Rand by the people who worship her. When they call it a sin to help ones neighbors. And start in on the pure racism and quote her as a source. I do read warning signs.
Like at the zoo when they post signs telling anybody who can’t recognize the danger of lions and tigers and bears but actually are literate enough to read a sign… like “Don’t stick your arm into the enclosure with that savage carnivore with very sharp teeth and whose species has a long and hideous record of eating OUR species”
Stuff like that.
Sometimes it seems really superfluous. Like the signs at the creek bottoms saying “in case of rising water go UP THE HILL”
Beware of Dog. Beware of Dogma. Beware of Right Wing Dogmatic Authors Who Say Kindness and Love are “stealing” from those who don’t love and don’t express kindness. Beware of people who believe they personally have exclusive ownership of the world and all its riches.
Not that they’ll do anything themselves. Oh Hell no. They’ll hire somebody like a cop or soldier to do it for them. And treat that cop or soldier like a servant, and then cheat on his pay.
Don’t work for people who believe their employees are overpaid.
A well-written and readable warning sign is always good.
Sadly, the ones who need it the most are too busy reading Glen Beck or Limbaugh or Ayn Rand.
YES GIRL! Jeez, I’m reading this book for school and I’m cringing all the way. I started hating it in the beginning with that hackneyed forbidden romance (UGHHHH!) and then the sexism started to show through and everything else you mentioned. Before reading, my sister told me similar things about the book, but I was like pshhh. NOW I SEE! ugh ugh!