Holly (![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} several_bees) wrote,@ 2004-01-28 00:49:00 |
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Objectivists: please scroll down to the next post. Normal service will resume shortly.
I clamber upwards from four days of trudging through second-hand bookshop price lists to issue a warning, and the warning is this: if you're coming up with a topic for a thesis, don't decide it would be fun to do something vaguely connected to Sapir-Whorf and constructed languages in fiction. If you do, you'll be a year in when you realise that you have to read something by Ayn Rand, and you've invested too much work in the subject to change now.
Fortunately the something by Ayn Rand that you'll have to read is Anthem, one of her shorter works.
Unfortunately, "shorter works" in Ms Rand's case still means "253 pages", approximately 252.9 pages more than would be necessary to communicate the story, which, in a startling stroke of Randian originality, seems to consist of a bloke being oppressed by the Evil Majority, and then he running off with a girl to start a Capitalist Utopia. Those Evil Majorities, always getting in the way of the Capitalist Utopias that would come up if only there were some sort of free market in governments... er...
I'm not being peeved about Objectivism here, though. I wouldn't mind being peeved about Objectivism at some other time, because any philosophy predicated on the view that mankind as inherently rational is clearly irredeemably broken. But hey, Christianity's also never struck me as a model of clearly-thought-out exhaustively-evidenced internal coherence, and that doesn't stop Paradise Lost and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe from being a lot of fun - so, no, I'm not currently particularly annoyed by Ms Rand's theoretical underpinnings.
What I am annoyed by is the fact that she reads like a 1980s dragon-fantasy author rewritten to remove the excessive naturalism. And the dragons. Does this simile make any sense? Well, no. No, it does not. But it makes as much sense as
The walls are cracked and water runs upon them in thin threads without sound, black and glistening as blood.
That would be quite glistening and not at all black, then, would it? And what sort of dystopia is this?:
Dare not choose in your minds what you would like to do when you leave the Home of the Students. You shall do that which the Council of Vocations shall prescribe for you.
Note to anyone considering a job as an oppressive majority: if you don't want people to think about choosing their own jobs, it might not be a good idea to go around saying "Oh, and by the way, don't think about choosing your own jobs." This is similar to the way in which you might, if you're trying to stop them from thinking about purple elephants, want to think twice about sending out a weekly reminder postcard with a picture of a purple elephant on the front and a cheery "Remember not to think about them!" on the back.
And actually, I am going to be peeved at Objectivism, because the persistent claims that Rand is not just an enlightening philosopher but also an astounding writer is rooted so deeply in the fact that she tells people it's okay to be selfish. No it's bloody not, if you're so stupid you never thought of being selfish on your own, and found it miraculously enlightening to be told it might be a good idea. If that's the case, you should be kept away from books with long words, and just to make sure you don't buy any of them secretly you should send any excess money you have to me. If you don't, you'll just end up writing reviews like this:
The book is written for a few MEN, not meant to be read by women or woman-like men. For these men, their life is to create and lead the society to a brighter future.
I don't know where that leaves Rand, with her claims that "what is proper for a man is proper for a woman... there is no particular work which is specifically feminine", not to mention her being, you know, a woman, with breasts and a woman's name and maybe even girly girly girl bits. Still, I have no sympathy. Wherever it leaves her, it probably serves her right.
I clamber upwards from four days of trudging through second-hand bookshop price lists to issue a warning, and the warning is this: if you're coming up with a topic for a thesis, don't decide it would be fun to do something vaguely connected to Sapir-Whorf and constructed languages in fiction. If you do, you'll be a year in when you realise that you have to read something by Ayn Rand, and you've invested too much work in the subject to change now.
Fortunately the something by Ayn Rand that you'll have to read is Anthem, one of her shorter works.
Unfortunately, "shorter works" in Ms Rand's case still means "253 pages", approximately 252.9 pages more than would be necessary to communicate the story, which, in a startling stroke of Randian originality, seems to consist of a bloke being oppressed by the Evil Majority, and then he running off with a girl to start a Capitalist Utopia. Those Evil Majorities, always getting in the way of the Capitalist Utopias that would come up if only there were some sort of free market in governments... er...
I'm not being peeved about Objectivism here, though. I wouldn't mind being peeved about Objectivism at some other time, because any philosophy predicated on the view that mankind as inherently rational is clearly irredeemably broken. But hey, Christianity's also never struck me as a model of clearly-thought-out exhaustively-evidenced internal coherence, and that doesn't stop Paradise Lost and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe from being a lot of fun - so, no, I'm not currently particularly annoyed by Ms Rand's theoretical underpinnings.
What I am annoyed by is the fact that she reads like a 1980s dragon-fantasy author rewritten to remove the excessive naturalism. And the dragons. Does this simile make any sense? Well, no. No, it does not. But it makes as much sense as
The walls are cracked and water runs upon them in thin threads without sound, black and glistening as blood.
That would be quite glistening and not at all black, then, would it? And what sort of dystopia is this?:
Dare not choose in your minds what you would like to do when you leave the Home of the Students. You shall do that which the Council of Vocations shall prescribe for you.
Note to anyone considering a job as an oppressive majority: if you don't want people to think about choosing their own jobs, it might not be a good idea to go around saying "Oh, and by the way, don't think about choosing your own jobs." This is similar to the way in which you might, if you're trying to stop them from thinking about purple elephants, want to think twice about sending out a weekly reminder postcard with a picture of a purple elephant on the front and a cheery "Remember not to think about them!" on the back.
And actually, I am going to be peeved at Objectivism, because the persistent claims that Rand is not just an enlightening philosopher but also an astounding writer is rooted so deeply in the fact that she tells people it's okay to be selfish. No it's bloody not, if you're so stupid you never thought of being selfish on your own, and found it miraculously enlightening to be told it might be a good idea. If that's the case, you should be kept away from books with long words, and just to make sure you don't buy any of them secretly you should send any excess money you have to me. If you don't, you'll just end up writing reviews like this:
The book is written for a few MEN, not meant to be read by women or woman-like men. For these men, their life is to create and lead the society to a brighter future.
I don't know where that leaves Rand, with her claims that "what is proper for a man is proper for a woman... there is no particular work which is specifically feminine", not to mention her being, you know, a woman, with breasts and a woman's name and maybe even girly girly girl bits. Still, I have no sympathy. Wherever it leaves her, it probably serves her right.
