…… and the world tumbled down !!!!
“Atlas Shrugged” is an interesting tale, almost with a fable-like quality in its use of metaphors. What many young readers mistakenly identify as their ideals from this magnanimous work are ‘arrogance’, ‘contempt for the Others’, and an almost narcissist tendency of self worship. I remember my friend telling me an amusing anecdote — A friend of his was reading “The Fountainhead” in a busy restaurant in India. An old man walked up to him and said – ‘Don’t read this book. It will make you behave rudely towards people’. Just one incident which underscores the rift between the ‘believers’ and ‘non-believers’ of Objectivism.
As an admirer of Miss Rand’s works, it was (fortunately, some of my fellow reviewers would say) quite late, in my late 20’s that I first read her works. And though I confess that in my earlier days, I did display some fiesty temperament towards religion, government and the ‘mob’ as such, it is only NOW after reading A.S. that I can fully comprehend my mental state in those tumutous years of youth. Unlike the majority of Ayn Rand followers, I firmly believe that the correct age for reading this book is not the teens, but the 20-30 age group when you can allow your personal experiences to “filter” the philosophic thought from the emulsion of “drama” ( as an aside — I quite agree that her novels are quite ‘dramatic’ than ‘melodramatic’ ).
Reading And Writing Children Read Literate
... two totally different perspectives about reading and writing in which the parents have both ... Eli and Anna attempt to carefully control the reading material that enters their home" (Fishman 239). ... them... children are left to find their own reading and writing tasks" (Heath 298). This demonstrates ... to their children or help them with school work, however this in not the case in ...
In the hands of the inexperienced youth, the tools of Objectivism lend themselves easily to fanaticism — a trait very commonly observed on the reviews for this book too !! Being a believer and a fanatic are two very different states of consciousness. Please learn to differentiate using your rational thinking.
Though I do not agree with all aspects of her novels – for e.g. her potrayal of women who always ‘look up’ to the ideal man to save them — I whole heartedly agree with the axiom — “A is A”. That “existence” is a fundamental property of the Universe, and that man is only aware of it through his faculties of cognition – his rationale.
That A.S. has proved to be a very influential book on the lives of millions of people, and that it still sells in thousands every year — is my one and only argument against those who raise the issue of it being ‘good novel’. Remember- AR never wanted to classify her works as literature – she always considered herself as a ‘novelist-philosopher’; and in that respect, I would consider her to be one of the best novelists of our times. That A.S. is second most influential after the Bible, is my case for the fanatical (and un-rational) behavior mentioned earlier.
Objectivism, as is generally thought, is not entirely something Ayn Rand dreamt up one day. She did coin the term, but the ideas of ‘individualism’, and ‘rational thinking’ are absolutely not her brainchild. They were present in the works of numerous philosophers efore her (viz. her favorite – Aristotle).
But what sets Ayn Rand apart is that she chose not the tedious and rigorous literary path to explain her ideas, but the most conventional form of ‘popular writing’ — novels. That is why she got the message across to millions of people, effectively.
It would be an insult not only to her – but to the very concept of individualism – if we think of Man as an ‘island’ and treat others with lesser abilities with contempt. I would like to state a Malaysian proverb — “Give a beggar a penny, and you feed him for a day. Teach him a job and you feed him for a lifetime”. The need is not to antagonize the government against the intellectuals. It is rather the opposite – to operate (NOT co-operate) individually upon the society — the government establishing a rational precedent, and the intellectual shaping the society by his thoughts AND deeds – after all a good businessman of money is no less a philosopher than the philosopher of truth.
The Essay on On The Aesthetic Education Of Man
On the Aesthetic Education of Man Friedrich Schiller wrote an interesting book called On the Aesthetic Education of Man. In this book he defines patterns of beauty and art and also he is trying to integrate the patterns of beauty into the educational process of humans. This is a philosophical approach that he is trying to implement in evaluating the concepts concerning the issue of aesthetic ...
