Randianism and Stupid Internet People
So I was crawling around the internet tonight, and happened upon this blog: http://freerangetalk.com/?p=17812.
The gist of it, for those of you too lazy to read it, is this: the writer sees someone at their state-funded college with a “Who is John Galt?” shirt, the writer sees this is hypocrisy because someone who subscribes to Rand’s philosophy should never go to a governmentally funded school.
Commenters go on about how Libertarians are all stupid, and only like the government when they need it and hate it when they think they’re doing OK. This is, I would say, the pinnacle of head-in-ass thinking.
The blog’s writer mentions that all colleges are subsidized by the government (not all, but many community (public) and private colleges). Yet for some reason, this small sentence gets thrown out with the bathwater when ignorant commenters (and an ignorant writer) laugh at my own expense.
My problem with this, is, of course, that they are wrong.
Firstly, the point of college in general. Many of Atlas Shrugged’s “heroic” figures went to college, including John Galt (the butt of the infamous “Who is John Galt” shirt and saying). These heroic people got an education, and, Galt especially, could not have achieved what they did without it.
Next, the point of subsidized college. As our (not-so) astute writer mentions, it’d be tough to find a school that isn’t state-aided. Going to college at all practically forces you to accept government aid. The book mentions that this is possible, and if it can not be avoided the best we can do is try. On top of that, only a few “heroes” from the book got into school because they could pay for it, including Francisco d’Anconia. This means that scholarships/grants are not fully against the “law” of Randianism.
College as a requirement. Dagny Taggart, the protagonist of the story, was the VP in charge of Operations of the largest Transcontinental railway in the United States. Today, there is practically no chance in hell that an un-college educated person could hold that job. As it stands, and if memory serves, Dagny went to college, too. This shows quite clearly that college is certainly not off-limits. I know I’m only in school because I practically need to be to get the job I want.
Finally, and probably the least influenced by Rand herself, is the “money-grubbing morality” of taking advantage of a system. In Rand’s book, taking advantage of a socialized system is wrong, and I believe this to be the case. However, being that it would put massive economic strain on my family to put my brother and myself through college, there is no other course to take. This puts me in a sticky situation, but I think I can weasel my way out. I am not attempting to take according to my need at the cost of those more able than I am. I am attempting to take according to my need with the understanding that eventually I can somehow repay the debt I incur by going to school. If, when I have a job and some cash, I could get records of the money I used of others’, I would certainly go and repay them, with double interest included. However, I would be opposed to simply buying back into the system, as that would propagate a slightly socialized system.
It has been said that the love of money is the root of all evil. I’ll take a leaf out of Rand’s novel and say that the love of money is to love what this country is all about. We were the first society that could understand the idea of “making money” as opposed to looting it from others. To me, I’ll try to make as much money as possible so that I can enjoy my life as much as possible. If that means I have to deal with government, then so be it. We can’t all be John Galts, we can’t all stop the motor of the world, as it were. All we can hope to do is get enough money, enough happiness, and enough power to change the world. Yes, no?
