Rand Quotes

"What greater wealth is there than to own your life and to spend if on growing? Every living thing must grow. It can't stand still. It must grow or perish." - Ayn Rand

Ayn Rand is most likely talking about individual growth but this stuck out to me on a societal level. The definition of the word conservative is "holding to traditional attitudes and values and cautious about change or innovation." To keep things exactly as they are, unchanging and status quo. I agree with Rand, one must grow to survive or they will perish. Society too must grow and progress or else it will die in the process. That is why it amazes me when people try to cling to the past long after it is gone and reject change or progress. That is what will kill society and they make it harder for change and progression to take place but it will anyways. No one cannot stop change, merely drag their feet and delay it. Many people think they can keep things the way they are to keep their wealth and prosperity and at the same time denying others their chance to attain such things for themselves. 

"You can avoid reality, but you cannot avoid the consequences of avoiding reality." - Ayn Rand

This is what such people are doing. No one can stop change yet they continually try to get back to the "good old days" or just keep things the same for their own benefit. They deny others' rights but denying themselves and reality. It will catch up to them. They consequences are real. They make others lives harder in an attempt to improve their own. You cannot stop change or progress. You cannot avoid reality. These are truths many do not know, or choose to forget. 

Save the Humans!

"Ecology as a social principle...condemns cities, culture, industry, technology, the intellect, and advocates men's return to 'nature,' to the state of grunting sub-animals digging the soil with their bare hands." - Ayn Rand

There would be no individual, no "self", if there was no world to live in. The problem with Rand's philosophy on Environmentalism is that she completely ignores the fact that many of the issues environmentalists focus on are for the betterment of mankind. She chooses to condemn those that fight for causes like protecting the whales, saving trees, and protecting endangered species but she completely ignores pushes for clean water for man to drink and clean air for man to breathe. Her philosophy is narrow minded and purposefully ignores the things that are for the betterment of the human race. She condemns all of those that fight to save the environment even those that fight to save the environment for the sake of man. There would be no man if there was no environment, no world to live in. There are many resources on this earth that man needs to survive and many of them are in limited supply. Once they are gone, they're gone for good. Are these resources  not something that should be protected? Because a select few see it as idiotic to fight for those things that cannot fight for themselves should we disregard any attempt to save precious resources that man needs to survive? Her very absolutist view is way off on this topic. There would be no culture, no cities, not industry, no technology if there was no earth, no habitable environment. Environmentalism can coexist with these things for the betterment of mankind, they are not antitheses as she so boldly suggests.

"The Council of Scholars has said that we all know the things which exist and therefore the things which are not known by all do not exist." - Anthem

This is a rather extreme example of a very real world problem. This does not just apply the dystopian society that Equality lives in. A real world example is in today's media. We just get tiny little thirty second blurbs about even the most important news stories and then we are told that that is all there is to it. There is clearly more to all of these important world events that the public simply does not know. The difference is that in Equality's world, no one seems to know what else out there but in our world a select few know the truth actively keep it from the masses. The difference is the active verses deliberately inactive. The Council does not experiment or try new things and purposefully does not discover new inventions as a way to keep is people in line and suppress them. They are inactive to keep the people sedate. In our world information is kept from us and we are actively kept sedate. Just because something went unreported, does not mean it disappears from existence. Think of Watergate. The initial reporting of the break-in didn't even scratch the surface of all that was there. In that scenario the entire story did eventually come out but it begs the question, in how many other cases is the truth never fully revealed? There are truths that exist that are not known by all.

Self in Anthem

In Anthem, "Self" doesn't exist. There is no "I" or "me" there is only "we" and "us". The worth of a human is measured by their ability to follow what society wants and do nothing for their own interest of pleasure. It denies them preference and preference is self. You distinguish yourself from others by, on a most basic level, your likes and dislikes. Your passions and talents and decisions to live a life tailored to those passions and talents make up who you are. Without those things everyone is the same and this Equality 7-2521's world. He commits many transgressions of preference. He is smart and desires to know and loves and want to be a scholar. All of that is his expression of himself, deep-seeded in his nature and independent of society. His society did everything it could to quash that but it still exists in him and it exists in all even those most are too scared to admit it even to themselves. I love history and the Beatles and music and film and helping other people and I play piano and get good grades and play softball and I love the idea that the work of once can benefit all. That is who I am. Those are my talents, interests and passions. That is my "self."

Not Quite

Ayn Rand holds are very strong opinion about the source of our hopes, dreams and desires. She believes that our personal goals in life are not so personal after all. She claims that society has beaten us over the head with these goals until we came under the illusion that they were our own. But they are not our own. Every single dream, ambition, goal, and desire you have are not your own but the product of years of that ideal being shoved down your throat, forcing you to believe that it is what you truly want. Ayn Rand's opinions do have foundation in reality, but they are not totally accurate. The world is not black and white anymore. Personal desires are not entirely our own but they are not entirely based on what society dictates. Individuality still exists. Not every person is an animal in the herd, blindly walking to their slaughter without ever pausing to question why, as Rand suggest. There are many that fall between these two extremes. Society does dictate so many aspects of our lives, but it can never completely kill the individual spirit. Truly personal goals do exist a midst Rand's image of chaos and dystopia.