This is just a quick list of the things that get under my skin about fiction these days. For those wondering where I've been, I'm up to my eyeballs in work (they cut back my hours, but holy fuck if I couldn't tell given they've got me pulling several 9 hour days a week now), and I'm working on three separate project: The Second Blue Pimpernel novel; a transhuman novel called Terra Firma, which concerns itself with politics, journalism, and the ethics of terraforming Venus; and a perennial favorite of mine, White Rabbit, Black Swan, I book I can't describe without you thinking I'm on some kind of narcotic.
Showing posts with label Objectivism Analysis. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Objectivism Analysis. Show all posts
Monday, October 29, 2012
Saturday, May 12, 2012
Understanding Anthem
It's been a while since I've done a philosophy post, so I think it's long over due. So today, I'm going to do what seems to be the thing that all the cool kids in the blogosphere are doing: take a look at a book.
Back when I was doing my student teaching, I had the cruel irony of getting stuck with an English teacher who, that year, was going to use Anthem as a teaching tool. Now, for those of you who don't know the kind of person I am, I'm an open socialist. I'm a techosocialist; a progressive in the purest form who sits in the very far bottom left hand corner on the four-point politics chart. By contrast, Objectivism and Ayn Rand sit on the diametric opposite of me - in the far upper right hand corner of the chart. I'm afraid I probably wasn't as impartial as I could've been, but I was teaching an ideology that was not only totally alien to me, but also anathema to everything I stand for. Think about a life-long NRA member trying to impartially teach about why we need to make guns illegal and you're getting close.
But, I swallowed my ideology for the sake of the students (and prayed to god - I wasn't an atheist at the time - that none of them adopted it as their own personal philosophy). This actually had the unforeseen benefit of allowing me to get to know Rand's "philosophy" in depth, and it gave me the foundation that I stand on today in order to criticize her beliefs. Unlike most everyone who criticizes Rand on the internet, I actually studied Objectivism. I know all the ways in which it really fails.
Also, for those who know me personally, this won't come as a shock: to kick the unit off, I let the students play Bioshock, and we studied Ryan's speech, and if I had the chance to do the lesson again, we'd look at the different ways in which Objectivism failed in that game. That's right. This Bioshock:
The book that we studied was Anthem. Anthem was also the first book that Rand wrote, and it was also the first book by her that I ever read. It was also the last book by her I read, too - Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged are somewhere in my house, acting as doorstops. I started Fountainhead but I never finished it; we watched the movie and, surprise surprise, it was every bit as boring as the book was (and the female lead... gawd. There was something wrong with her. She had some sort of personality disorder). But Anthem has the upshot of being short (I know. A Rand book that's short) and being not being as blunt about her ideology. And by that, I mean rather than stamping it into your forehead with a 2 ton truck die, it "merely" brands it on a baseball bat and beats you with it.
Back when I was doing my student teaching, I had the cruel irony of getting stuck with an English teacher who, that year, was going to use Anthem as a teaching tool. Now, for those of you who don't know the kind of person I am, I'm an open socialist. I'm a techosocialist; a progressive in the purest form who sits in the very far bottom left hand corner on the four-point politics chart. By contrast, Objectivism and Ayn Rand sit on the diametric opposite of me - in the far upper right hand corner of the chart. I'm afraid I probably wasn't as impartial as I could've been, but I was teaching an ideology that was not only totally alien to me, but also anathema to everything I stand for. Think about a life-long NRA member trying to impartially teach about why we need to make guns illegal and you're getting close.
But, I swallowed my ideology for the sake of the students (and prayed to god - I wasn't an atheist at the time - that none of them adopted it as their own personal philosophy). This actually had the unforeseen benefit of allowing me to get to know Rand's "philosophy" in depth, and it gave me the foundation that I stand on today in order to criticize her beliefs. Unlike most everyone who criticizes Rand on the internet, I actually studied Objectivism. I know all the ways in which it really fails.
Also, for those who know me personally, this won't come as a shock: to kick the unit off, I let the students play Bioshock, and we studied Ryan's speech, and if I had the chance to do the lesson again, we'd look at the different ways in which Objectivism failed in that game. That's right. This Bioshock:
They were seniors, by the way. So I wasn't letting my 7th graders bash splicer skulls in. I did mention I had difficulty staying unbiased, right? (It begs the question as to how I would introduce the students to socialism is I was teaching, say, Sinclair. I'm not sure, but not with Bioshock 2. I'm not a very good teacher.)
The book that we studied was Anthem. Anthem was also the first book that Rand wrote, and it was also the first book by her that I ever read. It was also the last book by her I read, too - Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged are somewhere in my house, acting as doorstops. I started Fountainhead but I never finished it; we watched the movie and, surprise surprise, it was every bit as boring as the book was (and the female lead... gawd. There was something wrong with her. She had some sort of personality disorder). But Anthem has the upshot of being short (I know. A Rand book that's short) and being not being as blunt about her ideology. And by that, I mean rather than stamping it into your forehead with a 2 ton truck die, it "merely" brands it on a baseball bat and beats you with it.
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