Home » Did you know that…

Comments

Did you know that… — 17 Comments

  1. Am I the only person out there who took the Harlem and Hudson commuter train north from NYC so often in years past that now I can’t read the words “Valhalla, NY” without hearing, in my head, a train conductor’s voice chanting, “Vaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaalhallanext” ?

  2. So where’s John Galt buried?

    Neo, have you seen the previews for Atlas Shrugged?

    Any first thoughts?

  3. LAG,

    John Galt is buried approximately 3 miles north of highway US 36 and 1 mile west of highway US 281 near Lebanon, Kansas. RIP.

  4. How sad! I thought you were supposed to live forever in Valhalla, although the eternal drinking feasting fighting and wenching might get a little old after a few hundred years…

  5. Thanks, Parker, good to know. I didn’t think of him as a middle American, but it figures.

    Wm Lawrence, I’m worried about you–can you get tired of feasting, fighting, drinking, and wenching?

  6. It’s unfortunate that Ayn Rand, for as much as she detested collective hive minds, had her own cult worshipping circle.

    Egoism has its own risks and detriments.

    It’s the lack of a fundamental brake on human weaknesses. No matter who the person is, they have personal weaknesses. And it doesn’t take the state to exist for those weaknesses to be revealed in all their garish nastiness.

    By removing God as a higher power to judge human behavior, Ayn Rand set her group apart on a sea of self-determination. And where they determined things was according to Ayn Rand’s views, rather than the individual views of each group member. Even at the lowest level, hierarchies work in such a fashion for humans. A leader is chosen to represent and Speak for the rest.

    Any system that seeks to elevate human individuality, must take into consideration this limiting factor of human nature and behavior. Humans need somebody to tell them what to do. They are in fact, the best thinkers for themselves, when they are part of a functioning social circle and hierarchy.

    While this seems rather counter-intuitive, the evidence shows that when you give people freedom to decide for themselves, they actually stop thinking for themselves when they have no functional hierarchy to belong to. The chaos reminiscent of post revolutions as one example. The rise to power of fascism or some other organization that “tells people” what to do.

    If people want others to think for themselves, they first need to give them a structure they can obey and feel secure in. Security is the first requirement before liberty.

    The age old contradiction. To be free, people need duties and responsibilities to tell what to do.

  7. Been there…

    but then again, most dont realize that Brom Bones and Ichabod Crane are also located in NY.

    [for those not getting the trivia, the town is Sleepy Hollow NY]

    ny is a wonderful state for people who love history and it can range from small almost nothing museums that are barely a building and a shed, to other locations there is nothing on. you can go to the Metropolitan museum of art and cruise suits of recently newly restored armor, paintings from centuries ago, and even egyption stuff (including an oblisk in the park itself – actually there are quite a few around given the early part of last century).

    there is macabre history, like the small gazebo people sit at in central park. most dont remember what a rich girl tripping with a boy and a man did there years ago (her case recently popped up for something but i didnt pay attention).

    famous fields of battle dot the whole area. a mamoth skeleton was found near bear mountain. you can visit and still see a piece of the steel chain that was laid across the river. and dont forget the reason why, which is another great place to see, west point. though it will never be the same as it was years ago when it was completely open like a college campus (well, mostly).

    as to ayn…

    ayn is hard to understand especially today. even then she was, but she grew up under both the Czars AND later Soviets…

    even up to her last days she was a very sharp tack. but her answers were blunt, and rational, even though they weren’t what everyone was taught to answer.

    one of the more interesting things was to hear her connect how much we pay for educating people at the bottom of the scale, and how little we fund education at the top of the capability scale. now its even worse!

    i dont think that she ever realized that most people couldn’t take the leap that was often required with one of her short answers. the point that was addressed, often assumed that the person she was talking to would know that charity used to fill the void and personal conscience, when they didn’t or didn’t think it and were horrified with implications that were not what she was saying.

    one thing that’s certain is that she was definitely of the opinion and vehemently expressed how mentally sick and wrong certain things we now find common and accept that she knows where they lead to vividly.

    there are quite a few interviews on you tube that one can find, both early and late. the early one is interesting in what level of quality was acceptable, and how they compare with later.

  8. It’s unfortunate that Ayn Rand, for as much as she detested collective hive minds, had her own cult worshiping circle.

    if you are saying she was a part of that cult she HATED them. in the Donahue interviews she thought a woman was one of them and knee jerked responded as to that. take some time to see the interview (i think the later one as there is more than one with Donahue).

  9. Artfldgr: Rand had some personal experience with people wanting to educate one group at the expense of the other (the “other” being the group of which she was a part):

    Following the Russian Revolution, universities were opened to women, including Jews, allowing Rand to be in the first group of women to enroll at Petrograd State University, where she studied in the department of social pedagogy, majoring in history…Along with many other “bourgeois” students, Rand was purged from the university shortly before graduating. However, after complaints from a group of visiting foreign scientists, many of the purged students were allowed to complete their work and graduate, which Rand did in October 1924.

  10. Her first novel, We the Living, is often overlooked but worth reading. It was published in the mid-1930s and was the story of a young woman in the Soviet Union. She later said that it was the closest she would ever come to writing an autobiography.

    For those who find Atlas Shrugged too daunting, I strongly recommend her (much shorter) nonfiction essays. There are several collections available.

  11. It is usually unknown in US, but feminist movement originated in Russia in 1860, after abolishment of serfdom. Ivan Turgenev described it several of his novels. A new impulse it took in the end of 19 century, when many women students were taken in universities and several special colleges were founded especially for women education. Ayn Rand was a feminist of a sorts, but in Russian style, which did include man-bashing. My grandmother, who was university student in biology and medicine at this time, told me a lot about their intellectual fads, so many ideas found in Ayn Rand were not as original as they look to Americans: they were common among female, secular Jewish students in Russia.

  12. Neo, women university education began in Russia in 1878, when Bestujev Courses were created. Since 1906 women were admissible to all Russian universities, and diploma of Women Medical Institute and of many other women’s special institutes gave the same rights as usual university diplomas.

  13. LAG says “can you get tired of feasting, fighting drinking and wenching?”

    Anymore the feasting just adds inches to my midsection. I never was much of a fighter. A couple beers will put me to sleep before my favorite TV show comes on. And as for wenching; Hmm. I can’t recall. Guess I’ll ask my wife…

    I guess that’s the up side of the shorter life expectancies in olden times. Valhalla would be just too tough for a senior citizen. I doubt if they have Laz-E-Boys or TV remotes.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

HTML tags allowed in your comment: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>