From: Technotranscendence (neptune@mars.superlink.net)
Date: Mon Jun 03 2002 - 21:34:01 MDT
On Monday, June 03, 2002 10:16 PM Olga Bourlin fauxever@sprynet.com
wrote:
>>> I can see that continuing this would be fruitless. Olga, you seem to
>>> dislike Rand because she wasn't suffering from poverty and wasn't
>>> focused
>>> on those worst off. Her lack of concern may be a shortcoming, but
not
>>> a
>>> good reason to reject her ideas as a whole.
>>
>> This is a good point.
>
> No, Techno, this was a very, very bad point - and totally erroneous.
In my
> reply to Max I stated this was not about poverty (if you disagree with
my
> post, let me know why this is about poverty). I brought up an
example
> using white kids and black kids, and someone "read" poverty into this.
This
> in itself is somewhat telling, don't you think?
For the record, I don't read everything on this list. There really is
too much to wade through. Let's see. You originally said:
"And yet, the hardships my relatives faced didn't come anywhere close to
the nightmarish conditions under which many people in the USA lived ...
in their very own country. I'll say it again ... in their very own
country. A white immigrant Jewish-albeit-agnostic woman (i.e., Ayn)
could live a far, far better life than black people anywhere (especially
in the South). Ayn married an American actor. Doors opened. Speaking
of "earning" - it's a luxury even to speculate about whether Ayn "earned
anything." My concern at that time (early 1960s) was with why many
black children couldn't swim in the same pool as "white" children.
Whatever did white children "earn" to be given this privileged status?"
I won't totally disagree with this, but so what? Not every "immigrant
Jewish-albeit-agnostic woman" (she was an atheist not an agnostic, but
that's a minor point here:) doesn't turn into a an Ayn Rand, so there
must have been something different about her, especially immigrating
here in the late 1920s. I'm not saying that if she would have had, say,
a Black cousin who immigrated at the same time -- e.g., someone like
Zora Neal Hurston sans the religious stuff -- with the same skill set
and ambition, that the Black Ayn would have done as well or better than
the White Ayn.
Is your point that Rand had nothing to struggle with? That her life was
made from the moment she stepped off the boat? Or from the moment she
was conceived?
Now, I'm not trying to defend her too much here. Like many others, I
owe an intellectual debt to her, but that by no means makes me blind to
her flaws. (Heck, I have an intellectual debt to Nietzsche that
predates Rand, but I'm not about to embrace his flaws either.:) She had
plenty of them. (I've gone over a few minor ones at my site -- though
my focus there is mostly on her esthetics.) What else is new?
>> Also, Rand pointed out once -- I forget the exact
>> quote -- that one of the best ways to help the poor is by not being
one
>> of them.
>
> And I say - money can't make up for mediocrity.
Non sequitir and it doesn't add anything to the discussion. I think
everyone knows by now your opinion of Rand.
However: A poor person who gets out of poverty -- even if she or he is
a mediocrity -- or a non-poor who stays out of povery -- even if
ditto -- and does this not through harming others is at least in a
better position to be generous and helpful. It's sort of like how would
you help the AIDS pandemic? By getting AIDS or not getting it?
Cheers!
Dan
http://uweb.superlink.net/neptune/
After great pain, a formal feeling comes --
The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs --
The stiff Heart questions "was it He, that bore,"
And "Yesterday, or Centuries before?"
The Feet, mechanical, go round --
Of Ground, or Air, or Ought --
A Wooden way
Regardless grown,
A Quartz contentment, like a stone --
This is the Hour of Lead --
Remembered, if outlived,
As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow --
First -- Chill -- then Stupor -- then the letting go --
--Emily Dickinson
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sat Nov 02 2002 - 09:14:35 MST