Mark Perry runs a great blog called Carpe Diem and I encourage you to check out some of the things he posts. This particular link will show you the Google hits and Amazon books sales graphs for the book Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand.
http://mjperry.blogspot.com/search?q=atlas+shrugged
If you haven’t read the book (and as of this post I haven’t, but it’s sitting next to my bedside waiting for me to finish up the book “Blink”), it is a novel published in 1957 that was an expose on socialism and the loss of individual rights. It begins with a simple question, “Who is John Galt?” If you’ve seen that on a tax party day sign, this is the source.
Here is a video with pictures of Ayn and quotes from the book. The quotes go too fast to read them completely so you’ll have to pause the video periodically.
Hi Oak,
I have a couple of questions. In this and various other posts, you seem to support the writing and teachings (if you will) of Ayn Rand. I assume then that you are in support of her ideology, much of which goes as follows:
“Faith, as such, is extremely detrimental to human life”
“faith, is only a short-circuit destroying the mind”
“Faith is the worst curse of mankind, as the exact antithesis and enemy of thought”
“These two — reason and freedom — are corollaries, and their relationship is reciprocal: when men are rational, freedom wins; when men are free, reason wins. Their antagonists are: faith and force. These, also, are corollaries: every period of history dominated by mysticism, was a period of statism, of dictatorship, of tyranny.”
“mysticism [or faith] will always lead to the rule of brutality”
This seems odd to me, especially because you seem so adamantly opposed to the teachings of John Goodlad based solely upon his stance on morality and politics. Yes, John Goodlad is an atheist, humanist, socialist, etc. and yes, Ayn Rand is an atheist, capitalist, and an ethical egotist. Neither of these individuals stand for the typical “Mormon” values you seek so desperately to promote. However, these “negative” traits do not negate the good things that both of these people stood for. Nobody gets everything right, everybody has their rough edges. My question is, why do you seem to promote the writings of Ayn Rand while ignoring her radical, anti-Christ, anti-faith lifestyle and beliefs and yet you lift the negative traits of John Goodlad into the spotlight while ignoring the sound, positive philosophies he seeks to use to better the education of the masses. Philosophies such as:
The role of teachers is “to provide for every child the richest kind of environment where the youngster can develop as a responsible human being”
“We must encourage people to recognize freedom as an inherent part of what it means to be human”
“It is our moral obligation to maintain and enhance human dignity results in the human rights to equal freedom, equal consideration, and brotherly/sisterly love”
John Goodlad “believes there to be moral dispositions that should be acceptable to all people in a democratic society: fairness, equality, justice, freedom, caring, community, and relatedness”
“There has not been, for me, any place outside the family, either as child or parent, that has offeren equivalent degrees of freedom and unconditional love”
It look like what we have here is a bit of a double standard!
Hi Chris,
Thanks for writing. If you read the post above closer you’ll find that I’m not endorsing Rand, nor have I written elsewhere about her in any other way. I linked to a fascinating graph and posted a video sharing quotes from her book related to the graph on Mark Perry’s website.
I’m sure you read a variety of things from different perspectives. I’ve never read Rand’s works and so I would like to read Atlas Shrugged or perhaps some of her essays on capitalism because it seems she had a clear grasp on natural rights. She was fiercely anti-socialist (polar opposite to Goodlad) which of course matches my belief system.
I’ve read from Goodlad’s books and found them to be quite disturbing. Just the first dozen pages of his Developing Democratic Character in Youth is quite alarming as he talks about the need for population control. Surely you’ve read enough of Goodlad to understand that when he talks about justice and fairness he’s talking about social justice via socialism. It’s why Bill Ayers the Marxist terrorist was invited by Goodlad to be the keynote speaker at last month’s NNER conference.
As for a double standard, I’ve just looked to verify things and it appears this is my only post specifically about Rand aside from one other post on my UtahsRepublic.org site where I quote someone else who mentions Rand in his quote. That sort of makes your comment look like you’re grasping at straws here. I’m not trying to promote Rand being taught in the school district classrooms or having her philosophy made into teacher training sessions for the district which is what has happened with Goodlad. This is hardly a double standard.
I also find it interesting that you have a BYU email address and yet you say I’m “desperately” trying to promote Mormon values. Don’t you believe in your values enough to promote them? Goodlad is actively pushing the gay agenda (http://www.nnerpartnerships.org/pdf/GLBTQQIIAA.pdf) and he’s tried to push it through his NNER organization into BYU (http://www.utahsrepublic.org/education/daily-herald-what-social-democracy-means-to-utah-county-educators/). I would have to think you’d find that very alarming and I wonder why you wouldn’t rise up and call attention to this if you are LDS.