Another Rand Rant
Tuesday, January 28th, 2003 02:47 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
robinturnerTo all those followers of Ayn Rand, George Bush and those parts of Nietzsche you were able to understand ...
Please admit that you are snivelling cowards.
Being a coward is not bad. On a lot of topics, I'm pretty cowardly. I find people in general rather scary. The prospect of a visit to my psychopathic mother-in-law raises my heartbeat. When I drive in Turkish traffic, I have to keep tight control of my anal sphincter. I'm ashamed of it, but I admit it.
What I don't do is construct a philosophy or political ideology based on my fears. I don't think "The world is a vicious, cruel place, and I have to look out for myself because no one else will, and if other people fall by the wayside, then that's just too bad." I don't get so paranoid about my own security that I fill my home with firearms and lobby for the right of citizens to own anti-tank weapons, or worry so much about my economic security that I resent my taxes going to help the unemployed or developing countries.
Yes, the world is a vicious, cruel place, partly because Nature does not care overly much for our health, but mainly because we have made it so. In our fear, we transform self-preservation into callousness, and sanction the deaths of millions through war and starvation in order to nurture the egos we have constructed for ourselves. And the funny thing is that many of us can't face the fact that we are doing it, and spin pretty philosophies to make it seem perfectly right and natural.
Please admit that you are snivelling cowards.
Being a coward is not bad. On a lot of topics, I'm pretty cowardly. I find people in general rather scary. The prospect of a visit to my psychopathic mother-in-law raises my heartbeat. When I drive in Turkish traffic, I have to keep tight control of my anal sphincter. I'm ashamed of it, but I admit it.
What I don't do is construct a philosophy or political ideology based on my fears. I don't think "The world is a vicious, cruel place, and I have to look out for myself because no one else will, and if other people fall by the wayside, then that's just too bad." I don't get so paranoid about my own security that I fill my home with firearms and lobby for the right of citizens to own anti-tank weapons, or worry so much about my economic security that I resent my taxes going to help the unemployed or developing countries.
Yes, the world is a vicious, cruel place, partly because Nature does not care overly much for our health, but mainly because we have made it so. In our fear, we transform self-preservation into callousness, and sanction the deaths of millions through war and starvation in order to nurture the egos we have constructed for ourselves. And the funny thing is that many of us can't face the fact that we are doing it, and spin pretty philosophies to make it seem perfectly right and natural.
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Re: good old Fritz is not all bad.
Date: 2003-01-30 02:32 am (UTC)Re: good old Fritz is not all bad.
Date: 2003-01-30 03:00 pm (UTC)