my dark days with Ayn Rand ;)
I am working my ass off right now. Ayn Rand would be proud 🙂 And, yes Republicans, I built it! Really truly. Not the infrastructure, including the highly subsidized education that got me here, you morons, but I am FAR more impressive than Mitt or Paul… of course that great education I got was mostly courtesy of the phenomenal world changing conception invented by the Scots I believe of making free public education available to the masses.
And the scrappy side of my family who taught me to question everything. I should be in bed but Jon Stewart is at the Republican convention and he has rarely been more brilliant. My brain is on fire from watching television. Who would have thunk it?
How I am back thinking about Ayn Rand. It’s been decades… I am not sure if you know about Ayn Rand. She was a crazy Russian novelist who had been through the Russian Revolution as part of the displaced bourgeois. Seems fair she ended up an atheist elitist who hated government.
I have always been a voracious reader, one of those strange people who stressed out at a young age when they realized they would NOT be able to read ALL the books in the library! So instead I had to try and figure out what I should be reading. I asked my twelfth grade English teacher for a list of books to read. And she was the one who told me to read Ayn Rand.
Being young, impressionable and fairly conservative, Objectivism initially seemed attractive. And I was fairly bright and inordinately ambitious. Which is how I built it. A successful consulting practice soon to go into its tenth year. It’s all me. No daddy money. No mentors. Not even a country club membership.
But I wasn’t always so smart. I remember meeting some cute guy on a beach in Bermuda and he said some stuff and I knew he was quoting Ayn Rand and it was a bonding moment.
Thank god I got over it. I am not proud of my Ayn Rand days. Unlike the Republican caucus. I am really grateful to my father. He always talked very conservative and I know I leaned that way because I idolized him and thought he was very worldly and smart. But, because I thought that, when he started questioning my right wing ideas, I really took notice.
And moved toward the center. My mom and I were just talking about what a Canadian patriot he was. And the more I watch American politics, the more proud – and relieved – I am of being Canadian. We do need to pay attention though. We hear their rhetoric too often and it’s easy to be seduced.
Like people are seduced by Ayn Rand. Personally I think “The Fountainhead” and “Atlas Shrugged” are good reads. Especially when you are young and impressionable. But, thanks to my dad, even when I read them the first time, the critical reader in me was always in debate with the author.
Sure, it’s good to promote ambition instead of laziness. Government can get out of control and is not inherently good. But neither are rich people. OMG, I am just learning why Stewart and Colbert have been talking about Ayn Rand so much and bringing up my fond memories of using “Atlas Shrugged” as a pretense to make out on a beach in Bermuda.
Paul Ryan’s views are far more scary! And obviously he IS an idiot. I thought his economic policies made it obvious already – but apparently he didn’t realize Ayn Rand was an atheist. Seriously, dude? He makes his staff read the novels anyway… some kind of sneaky Republican diluted, confused, pretending to be intellectual message… read this – but only take note of part of the message… sounds pretty Republican to me 🙂
Remember – government builds infrastructure. Education is good. A great education that actually teaches you to think rationally is even better. So you can tell Ayn Rand to go to hell – altruism is good, you bitch. Selfishness and unregulated capitalism are what’s gonna take us down. And she is dead, having been born in likely the greatest capitalist economic sweet spot in the history of mankind, so why would she care…
Colbert is just interviewing an Ayn Rand expert. Gotta love these boys. Some of the stuff Ayn Rand said wasn’t bullshit. Self reliance is good. Mixing religion and politics is bad. Apparently just before she died she denounced Reagan for bringing religion into politics. So she would slug Paul Ryan. And Mitt Romney? She must be rolling in her grave! That’s what you get for promoting crap values and trying to bring the world down, lady. But thanks for the make out session on the beach in Bermuda – it was cinematic 😉
And Republicans… Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert – and all their viewers – love you. Keep talking crap! As Jon so brilliantly showcased tonight, you dudes sound like Charlie Sheen. SERIOUSLY??? I know The Expendables 2 will likely play better in foreign markets and exporting your “culture” seems to be on track, but people, you are electing the most powerful man in the world. He should be someone the rest of the world is in awe of, not a gift to smart comedians. If only Jon Stewart would run for President…
But first you would have to build the infrastructure to educate enough people to actually understand what he says… it’s brilliant…
http://www.thecomedynetwork.ca/Shows/TheDailyShow
Everyone with a brain should watch tonight’s episode. It will make you feel better about the world, if only fleetingly 😉
life on planetm 
money makes the world go round
Money gets a really bad rap. The root of all evil? I thought that was overly religious Republicans… or the crazy Muslims who thinks Jihad is a good idea. There is no shortage of crazy, evil ideas – and people with access to guns or explosives – in the 21st century. So money – be it in the form of cold, hard paper currency or even colder and harder gold – seems benign by comparison.
And money has done at least as much good for the world as modern medicine or the enlightenment. So says Niall Ferguson in “The Ascent of Money”. Nothing makes my heart beat faster than a smart guy who combines great articulation with a reverence for facts. Both sadly too easily fluffed over in the 21st century where anything over 200 characters is deemed too hard. What happened to the idea that we have BIG brains, not small ones?
And those who exercise their brains in the same way Olympic athletes with great abs do will appreciate that money is not inherently evil. It really is the stuff that makes the world go round and is a greater force for potential good than almost anything else.
But it is also the currency of the Antichrist… so you gotta think about how you are accumulating and spending those dollars, whatever their format.
I am a big proponent of the concept of money as a force for good. And even more important than money is markets. And jobs. But none of them exist without money.
Money. Risk. Markets. They drive our daily life. But most people yawn when they hear any of those words. People in the developed world yawn. But people in the developing world may not be able to articulate the words, especially in English, but they have a much more personal feeling about what they mean.
Just being there would have been enough but since I was travelling alone I had spent the previous evening having dinner with our ranger Alex so we were chatting when we stopped for lunch amid all the other tourist vehicles. He had been reconnecting with friends and it was a familiar scene in an unusual setting. Because we had become more friends than ranger/tourist by that point, he introduced me to his friends and noted how happy everyone was and how fun it was to catch up… because they had jobs.
There has been lots of talk about unemployment in the developed world over the past few years – and I have been there so I know how it feels. But unemployment when you have been born into the privileged part of the world and unemployment when you have been born into a part of the world where having a good job is like winning the lottery are totally different things.
When I was in Tanzania, I travelled with &Beyond and I would encourage everyone to do a trip with them. I have never encountered an organization that gave capitalism such a great name. They make a profit. They are well organized. Their employees love them. They give back to the community via a foundation that does everything right.
http://www.andbeyond.com/
Money is not evil. Only people are. So use your money to make the world a better place. Think when you spend. Help to create markets that make the world a better place. Read Niall’s book. He is a fantastic writer. The book is subtitled “A Financial History of the World.”
A bit ambitious? Without question. The message that I took away was how important finance has been to human development. Just ask a gorilla to break a twenty dollar bill 🙂 But what I think we all need to embrace is how we as individuals can create jobs, markets and world prosperity every time we leave the house – or go on-line to buy something.
Money can make the world a better place. Finance matters. Money can be evil. Money can buy guns, slaves and votes. But money can be used for microfinance loans, for medicine and for education. In the developed world we are all rich people by world standards – what kind of rich person do you want to be? Let your spending reflect your conscience.
Category:
life philosophy, social commentary
Tagged with: