Where Religion and Politics Combine with Unexpected Results.

[_honorentheos]

Rockslider,

While you're recovering from your illness (you're in my thoughts, and I wish you a quick recovery) I'd consider listening to just about any podcast on objectivism. From what I've seen of you and your considerations regarding your fellow wo/men, I have a hard time imagining you'll find yourself on the same side of the line as Rand once the varnish is stripped to the bare nothingness of her philosophy.

While studying in college, I happened to read The Fountainhead twice - once between my freshman and sophomore years and the second time just prior to finishing my senior year following a year away with the military. The first reading left me impressed with her ideas regarding self-reliance and an emphasis on skill/talent over spin and reputation. It was, briefly, one of my favorite books. But even then there were aspects of it I couldn't quite square with my own worldview at the time.

The second time, I found myself disgusted with how I could have been so flattered into accepting such a horrific view of humanity. And to be honest, that is my own assessment of why it appealed to me as a sophomore - flattery and my own ego clouded my understanding of what she was saying about society and the individual's role in it.

So when I read Atlas Shrugged after The Fountainhead, I was not a Rand fan by any stretch of the imagination. Subsequent readings both about her and by her did little to change that, though I admit that reading, We the Living, shed a little light on her as a person that made her more human if I still considered her a very sad person for what she espoused.

Anyway, I genuinely think you would not support many of her core ideas about people and society beyond the idea that people should be rewarded for what they do rather than kept on life support by the state. Kish is right - she's not what I'd consider a good person if her writings and broad biographical outlines are a good indicator.

[Guest]

Rock, have you read Atlas Shrugged since you became an adult? For me it was a different book when I was forty than when I was seventeen. Galt's seventy page speech morphed from inspiring to simperingly insipid.

I'd speculate that the book functions best as an anthem for post-pubescent males who are gearing up for a world as they wish it would be. But no universe can tolerate the rules that Rand creates for her characters. Thank God.

A worse sin: her prose is atrocious.


Yes. What you're thinking is correct. I'm probably a socialist.

____________

Get better. Single-malt Scotch always works for me.

[_moksha]

by the way, kish is obviously a socialist ... and would never make a railroad man

Some prefer teamsters.

John Galt is an interesting case. Saying that a greedy man has the wherewithal to do much good may be true, but the fact that he is a greedy man probably negates his desire to spend the resources to do that good.

[_RockSlider]

I was just kidding about the socialist comment. I have the greatest respect for Kish. It has been years since I read the book. I'm sure it's my own naïveté, and the respect/world view that I have for the WWI/WWII/Depression era generations that left me taking away from it what I did.

I do believe there were some pretty strong anti-socialism sediments coming out of those generations, based on very hard personal life experience. Of course the ethics/morals, pros/cons of pure capitalistic verses pure socialist societies will always provide contrast. Where is this promised Zion anyway?

Sorry for my naïveté on the subject.

[_Kishkumen]

I was just kidding about the socialist comment. I have the greatest respect for Kish. It has been years since I read the book. I'm sure it's my own naïveté, and the respect/world view that I have for the WWI/WWII/Depression era generations that left me taking away from it what I did.

I do believe there were some pretty strong anti-socialism sediments coming out of those generations, based on very hard personal life experience. Of course the ethics/morals, pros/cons of pure capitalistic verses pure socialist societies will always provide contrast. Where is this promised Zion anyway?

Sorry for my naïveté on the subject.

No reason to apologize, Rockslider. My opening post was total crap anyway. I am ashamed of myself for writing it, because it was written so poorly. I think self-reliance is an important personal virtue. I believe in working for my daily bread. There was a time when I was fascinated with Ayn Rand, and I don't think that her voice has no place. But much caution is required. She ought not to be romanticized and made out to be something she was not. We may admire industrial heroes, but her heroes are closer to Greek myth than reality. No one should base a real economic philosophy on her viewpoint.

[_Buffalo]

Years ago while living in the burbs of Sacramento, our family was asked to stop attending our normal ward and starting attending a spanish branch the stake was starting. I guess we were candidates because both my wife and I served missions in Spain. I was not happy about this at all, since we had a lot of good friends in our regular ward and it felt like home. The spanish services left a lot to be desired - very small classes, almost no children (we had two small ones that obviously didn't speak spanish), very few activities etc. Basically, it was a bunch of white people speaking spanish half-assishly and running everything, just so a few immigrants in the area could feel at home.

Anyway, several times I went on splits with the spanish speaking elders to teach invesigator and new member discussions to illegals. When I questioned how we could be baptizing and teaching people who were knowingly breaking federal and state laws, the response was that it wasn't our business and that the church didn't have a position on it.

I was very conflicted about this, because from my point of view, illegals were criminals. How could the church knowingly baptize someone who is willfully ignoring the laws in the country where they reside? The church's position made no sense to me, if we really believed all the requirements for baptism.

Funny enough, this whole spanish branch episode was the beginning of the end for me. Well, not really the end since I'm still in it, but started me down the path of where I am today (agnostic towards the idea that big corporate relgions actually know what the afterlife is like and what this life really means.)

The church has really been forced to ignore its previous positions about "obeying the law of the land" on this one because I think the immigrant Latin American community is the only source for convert baptisms in America. I mean besides causation drifters and nut bags. The Latino converts are regular people (but often too poor to own a computer and Google about the church)