From: Olga Bourlin (fauxever@sprynet.com)
Date: Tue Jul 09 2002 - 21:26:38 MDT
From: "Phil Osborn" <philosborn2001@yahoo.com>
Olga wrote:
> >>> >You're not alone. How many college professors
> take Ayn Rand even a
> >>> teensy-bit seriously? (or, to paraphrase Foghorn
> Leghorn, "she's a joke, son!")
>
> Ah, but today's response is a pale shadow of what we
> had to go through in the '60's. A lot of Rand's own
> fiesty attitude and the religious fervor of her
> following had to do with the milleau with which they
> were faced. She upset the whole establishment
> applecart.
Ah, but you give her entirely too much credit. I came of age in the 1960s,
and Aynie wasn't exactly a household word (although she did get a nodding
mention in a treacly Simon and Garfunkel song).
> Prior to her, there was virtually no one publically
> proclaiming anything but the altruist-collectivist PC
> line.
Virtually no one? Let's assume you mean the 1950s. We had legal
segregation in the South - how collectivist was that? We also had the
McCarthy witch hunts, also not exactly known for their fuzzy
PC-altruist-collectivist ways. Richard Nixon was Vice President for 8
years, and then (we're in the late 1950s/early 1960s now) almost won the
presidency running against John Kennedy (who was considered soft on Pinkos,
compared to Nixon) due mainly to his "tough" stance on Communism. Ah, the
those heady days of the John Birch Society ... the KKK ... HUAC ...
After Rand, the whole plethora of Robert
> Ringer's, Harry Browne's, etc., came along and gave us
> the trivialized selfishness of the "Me generation."
> But they were just riding Rand's coat tails.
... and, let us not forget the trivialized "selfishness" of Martin Luther
King, Rosa Parks, the Vietnam war protesters, women's rights, gay rights,
North American apartheid, South African apartheid, all owing a debt of
gratitude to .... naaaaaaaaah .... poetically speaking, Ayn never uttered a
mumbling word about the injustice and suffering in the "real" world (which
was off in the distance somewhere, past her smoke-infested bailiwick).
> Now it's unusual for someone to be criticized because
> they are following their personal dream. It's just
> assumed that this is the proper thing to do. I can
> remember a time when that was very far from the case,
> when you were expected to live - or die - for God or
> country or ideology. Yes, even here in the U.S. of A.
Jiminy Cricket was the real instigator behind the whole "follow your dream"
phenomenon. Jiminy sang his little heart out with, "When you wish upon a
star, makes no difference who you are ..." to a generation of impressionable
boomers (back when they were mere boomlets). It was really Jiminy who
influenced all those Events as We Came to Know Them ... not Ayn. I kid you
not.
Olga
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