I read [Ayn Rand's essay] "The Comprachicos" during the time we were in the middle of a totally chaotic educational fiasco in this country, and it nearly brought me to tears. They were partly tears of recognition, especially her translation of the segment from Victor Hugo's The Man Who Laughs. I told Ayn that I promptly sent it to all my radical educator friends, trying to stir up dialogue. They were all the big names in education. I sent them the article with little notes on it saying, "I think you should read this, and we should talk." It was the only time they did not respond, none of them, ever.
Zons of Beetches!
Not even the courtesy of a response? The only time they didn't ever respond?
I'm past the point where this sort of corruption surprises me any longer. (If I were steaped in pragmatism, like the "educators" are, I'd devolve quite naturally into cynicism, pessimism, defeatism, and stagnation, just like they have done, and just as they've fostered it in their victims. This is why Rand, Aristotelianism and Perfectivism will win, and why they will lose (or come to the winning side by necessity). It's just a matter of time.)
It's one thing to reject the arguments in Miss Rand's article and explain why; it's another not to even address it and to pretend it doesn't exist.
I have a pretty good idea as to why they did not bother to address it: She's absolutely right-on in her masterful identification of the naked essence of what Aristotelians are up against in this country, and they have no way to refute her. This is a recurring pattern with Ayn Rand's ideas, and there's no denying it. The light comes on, and the cockroaches scatter. It's like clockwork at this juncture.
Good thing that the butchers' days are numbered, 'cause I for one am sick of 'em.
The honorable educators, whoever they might be, they can stay. But definitely not the cockroaches.
(Rand's recommended alternative.)
