Escape From Camp 14
I'm reading this book, by Blaine Harden, now. I'm about 25 pages in. Already, some explanation is given as to why western society remains mute on this subject of prison camps in N. Korea.
Today at lunch I put this book down and just sat there watching all the people going by to go get their lunch. Ever have those moments? - where you just watch what's going on around you in a kind of detached, analytic mode? I thought to myself, "How is it that people can be so bad to each other?" I contemplated how much of these atrocities continue to occur in the far east. Is religion, or lack of, a factor? Is it that they just have never germinated the concept of liberty as we did escaping Europe? The young man who escaped this camp even saw his own mother as an enemy.
In what I read and what I see it is becoming clear to me that the family unit is key, a foundation to modern, western, civilized society. I first really thought deeply on this while reading Ayn Rand's explanation of love. Love, if I can phrase it correctly, is due to an appreciation of another's values. Well...where do we model values that allow us to be civil to one-another? The family...children being raised by loving parents. What value is more important to a developing child than their parents' value of their family unit? These commie far easterners where these Pol Pot-like conditions occur all work feverishly to destroy the family unit, trust between family members. In Camp 14 they encourage (still to this day) children to rat out their own parents.
Anyway...I'm blabbing here. I am not sure I'm going to continue to read this book. Yeah...people are still grinding others into dust. Nobody really cares. I can't change it. I can, however, raise my own children to value themselves. And, that leads me to this question. Can anybody recommend any children's books that encourage Objectivist-like concepts? I know of none. Perhaps I should start writing some...
Today at lunch I put this book down and just sat there watching all the people going by to go get their lunch. Ever have those moments? - where you just watch what's going on around you in a kind of detached, analytic mode? I thought to myself, "How is it that people can be so bad to each other?" I contemplated how much of these atrocities continue to occur in the far east. Is religion, or lack of, a factor? Is it that they just have never germinated the concept of liberty as we did escaping Europe? The young man who escaped this camp even saw his own mother as an enemy.
In what I read and what I see it is becoming clear to me that the family unit is key, a foundation to modern, western, civilized society. I first really thought deeply on this while reading Ayn Rand's explanation of love. Love, if I can phrase it correctly, is due to an appreciation of another's values. Well...where do we model values that allow us to be civil to one-another? The family...children being raised by loving parents. What value is more important to a developing child than their parents' value of their family unit? These commie far easterners where these Pol Pot-like conditions occur all work feverishly to destroy the family unit, trust between family members. In Camp 14 they encourage (still to this day) children to rat out their own parents.
Anyway...I'm blabbing here. I am not sure I'm going to continue to read this book. Yeah...people are still grinding others into dust. Nobody really cares. I can't change it. I can, however, raise my own children to value themselves. And, that leads me to this question. Can anybody recommend any children's books that encourage Objectivist-like concepts? I know of none. Perhaps I should start writing some...
