"Dear Aiden's parents..."

[elfs]

Ah, what a world we live in...

When little Aiden toddled up our daughter Johanna and asked to play with her Elmo ball, he was, admittedly, very sweet and polite. I think his exact words were, "Have a ball, peas [sic]?" And I'm sure you were very proud of him for using his manners.

To be sure, I was equally proud when Johanna yelled, "No! Looter!" right in his looter face, and then only marginally less proud when she sort of shoved him.

The thing is, in this family we take the philosophies of Ayn Rand seriously. We conspicuously reward ourselves for our own hard work, we never give to charity, and we only pay our taxes very, very begrudgingly.

Since the day Johanna was born, we've worked to indoctrinate her into the truth of Objectivism. Every night we read to her from the illustrated, unabridged edition of Atlas Shrugged— glossing over all the hardcore sex parts, mind you, but dwelling pretty thoroughly on the stuff about being proud of what you've earned and not letting James Taggart-types bring you down. For a long time we were convinced that our efforts to free her mind were for naught, but recently, as we've started socializing her a little bit, we've been delighted to find that she is completely antipathetic to the concept of sharing. As parents, we couldn't have asked for a better daughter.

Yes, I'm perfectly aware that McSweeny's is satire. Pbtbtbtbtbt.

Comments

[elfs.livejournal.com]

I didn't write that, I just linked to it because I thought it was, well, about as true as it gets. I've noticed, over the years, that most of the hardcore Randites I know haven't reproduced (at least not deliberately).

I guess Objectivists are a lot like gays: they seem to be born with the tendency, and then dive into it after initiation by older Objectivists.

[jeriendhal.livejournal.com]

That's one of the reasons we should ban Objectivist Marriage.

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

[nbarnes.livejournal.com]

"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs."

- John Rogers

[starblade-enkai.livejournal.com]

What I've learned from life is that this pretty much describes everyone on this planet, including those who aren't ignorant of the fact that this means it also describes them. It's called the human condition, and it's nothing to laugh at, even if Ayn Rand and her writings are extremely eccentric.

There was indeed a vogue for the book at my high school

[dakiwiboid.livejournal.com]

mostly because of the "sexy" parts. Most of us never finished it. I got partway through, contemplated throwing it against the wall, put it into my book bag with a great deal of scorn, and went back to re-reading A Canticle for Leibowitz.

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

[starblade-enkai.livejournal.com]

You know, it figures that you are anti Objectivist, but saying that about gays is extremely bigoted. Philosophy, at least, is a choice.

[nbarnes.livejournal.com]

Are you really saying that Elf Sternberg is homophobic?

[elfs.livejournal.com]

Well, the comment was insensitive in its cheekiness. It's hard to say if my sexuality became clear when I read Geoff Main's Urban Aboriginals chapter on fisting and reacted, "OMG, that's what I want!" (Geoff was way older than I was) or the first time I actually kissed a man-- who, contra the spirit of my snark, was a little younger than me at the time.

Most Objectivists are younger than Rand, though. Who's dead. My mother married an Objectivist, who tried to get me to see the rightness of his position by feeding me lots of Nathaniel Branden. Like all truly vibrant memes, it mutated into something unRandian.

[ionotter.livejournal.com]

No, no, it's just my stalker. He's...errrmmm...well, 'broken' is the best way to put it?

I really must apologize to Elf, this was actually an experiment, and I didn't tell him beforehand. Starby the Wonderdragon is a stalker, and I wanted to see just how bad it's become, and how far he'd go.

[wannabeyote.livejournal.com]

He just hides it really, really well. Which goes to show that being homophobic is a choice, after all!

We knew it all along.