Atlas Shrugged Newbie
No, not me, but I met someone.
I often wear my gear around town, especially when shopping on Sundays. I make a round of groceries, including our co-op and also Whole Foods. At WF today, the cashier was a really young guy, early 20s. He recognized Taggart Transcontinental on my t-shirt. "It's a movie prop," I said. He was blank."The hat, too," I said. He looked up at my 20th Century Motors cap. "What movie?" he asked. I told him that there were Atlas Shrugged movies made and he could find the movie website online.
"You know the scene with Dagny's first morning in the Valley? In the movie, John Galt was drinking from an Akston Diner coffee cup." By the look in his eyes, he got all of that 100%. "I asked about buying one and they hadn't been made yet. But then they made some, so I bought one." (Actually, I bought seven, but it was time to go...)
So, when you dispair about the world, just remember that there are always new, young people coming to reason and reality but means and routes that are unperceived but continuous and continuing.
I often wear my gear around town, especially when shopping on Sundays. I make a round of groceries, including our co-op and also Whole Foods. At WF today, the cashier was a really young guy, early 20s. He recognized Taggart Transcontinental on my t-shirt. "It's a movie prop," I said. He was blank."The hat, too," I said. He looked up at my 20th Century Motors cap. "What movie?" he asked. I told him that there were Atlas Shrugged movies made and he could find the movie website online.
"You know the scene with Dagny's first morning in the Valley? In the movie, John Galt was drinking from an Akston Diner coffee cup." By the look in his eyes, he got all of that 100%. "I asked about buying one and they hadn't been made yet. But then they made some, so I bought one." (Actually, I bought seven, but it was time to go...)
So, when you dispair about the world, just remember that there are always new, young people coming to reason and reality but means and routes that are unperceived but continuous and continuing.
Side note: Really enjoyed your post on Anthropology and Rand.
They sell the cups here on the gulch site?...I'd like to have one too.
What is interesting is that he did not know about the movies.
Ayn Rand is something that young people discover by peer recommendation. The university campus might have an Objectiivst club. Many do. But mostly, it is a result of a friend passing along a book.
I work with my grandchildren and show them how to r4eason and think logically about issues. I try to teach them when emotion has a role to play (It does sometimes).
My oldest granddaughter is studying law. I try to teach her some of the objectivist philosophy and how it is applied. Hard sell against the liberal college professors who determine her future but she is learning. So far she has suffered no repercussions.
I'll offer some authorship to the affect: Rand; The Objectivist's Ethics, John Holt; How Children Learn and How Children Fail, John Gatto; The Dumbing Down of America, and, if you can find a vid, Morris Massey; What You Are Is Where You Were When.
I've found these to be some of the best, simplest expressions of how we learn and how we perceive our metaphysical surroundings.
'Interviewed Socialist College Students Don't Know Jack'.
Those youngsters, presumably students, know little.
The check -out chap you met showed at least openness,
different from the mistaken certainty of the college educated.
Thanks for the story.
https://www.aynrand.org/students
Many come from Catholic schools, Christian schools, Ivy League colleges, and one, even from Havana, Cuba. What do you think that they are taught in school?
Perhaps we just having a glass half full comparison of convenient samples.
Yes. to make a really authoritative statement there must be a stated proposition to verify or otherwise, it is easier to throw in explanations, which is what I will now do:
Denominational (perhaps not fundamentalist), private, special interest schools are better at teaching than the typical state school in that they give more supervision, more emphasis on individual achievement, more encouragement and pushing, and there are more proper subjects taught. By 'proper' I mean traditional, where there is study and respect for the achievements of the past. The mainstream in state education now focuses on experiences, journeys, feelings, expression, and working in teams. This discourages rigor in thought, it does not even promote creativity. Pop tertiary education has a multitude of subjects titled 'xx studies', courses that require no study. No wonder the graduates are unemployable, have an inflated view of their worth, and cannot think.
Side comment- my first sentence supports Popper's falsifiability which I like. It is a great way to evaluate a proposition, but as you say in another thread, it is not the last word, but a good heuristic.
It is used because of experience that it reliably gives good results.
It works, but without logical proof that it must always work.
I call Popper's falsifiable criterion an heuristic because it is a very clever way of approaching the problem of how to evaluate ideas. It cannot be called rigorous in a logical sense as a falsifying claim is subject to the same argument. (My head now hurts, I think I am describing the Oozlum Bird).
As usual, there are other definitions.
Knowing about the existence of libraries and bookstores would be even more general, "hermeneutics" perhaps.
With my education in social science, I can say that you are attempting a "structural-functional" explanations of why kids in private schools read Atlas Shrugged. It goes along with the "schools brainwash kids into being socialists" theory of why socialism continues. \
In point of fact, the numbers show that the young admirers of the works of Ayn Rand come from across the statistical spectrum, which is to be expected, actually.
I agree with your generalities about those private and public schools. However, I believe it more salient that the Catholic schools would be even less likely to teach "the virtue of selfishness" and rather would be expressly against their kids reading Atlas Shrugged.
Young people find the works of Ayn Rand on their own. It's a fact.
(Be sure to tell curi that you like Popper.)
Tellingcuri that I like Popper-
curi, who is, an expert on Popper and knows what we think, I can tell you that he's not what you think, so that step is unnecessary.
I am enlightened by being told that I have attempted "structural-functional" explanations. This reminds me of the biography of Richard Feynman by Gleick, first chapter, in which there is a little story about a Spencer's Warbler.
Like Spencer's Warbler, structural-functionalism is something you can find out about.
It is pretty easy to find fault with the movies that you did not make. There's lots to like. I still watch them.