David Christopher Bell is a columnist over at Cracked.com and he recently made a swing at humor by lumping Ayn Rand into an article about four public schools that did something stupid. His piece was called “4 Horrible Schools That Would Make Ayn Rand Proud” and it’s completely filled with lies, misrepresentations, false assumptions, ignorance, and misinformation. If you haven’t seen the article then read it here first:
http://www.cracked.com/quick-fixes/4-horrible-schools-that-would-make-ayn-rand-proud/
After I read that I felt compelled to complete eviscerate his article. You see, like most people that have never read anything by Ayn Rand, he gets every point wrong, takes quotes he read online out of context, and pretty much just makes things up.
So here is my response:
After reading this ridiculous and irresponsible list I’m at a loss at how the author thinks he can associate Ayn Rand with any of it. There’s not one thing listed that Ayn Rand would actually support. But I’m sure Mr. Bell, having read her material, knew all that. I’m sure the article was all his clever attempt at irony. Because, you see, like most people that disagree with Ayn Rand they’ve all “read her stuff.” I’ve seen this statement a lot. It’s ironic that so many dissenters of Objectivism bastardize all its tenets after being so well read in her philosophical publications. It’s like, I don’t know, they’re just repeating what other people have said on the internet without actually doing any of the reading themselves.
First off, Ayn Rand doesn’t approve of the public education system. That alone negates anything in the article. So, starting off on a flawed premise pretty much destroys the whole thing. She’s gone on record to say: “Jobs, food, clothing, recreation (!), homes, medical care, education, etc., do not grow in nature. These are man-made values—goods and services produced by men. Who is to provide them? If some men are entitled by right to the products of the work of others, it means that those others are deprived of rights and condemned to slave labor. Any alleged “right” of one man, which necessitates the violation of the rights of another, is not and cannot be a right.” – The Virtue of Selfishness
So if I’m to follow the logic of what is in #4 I am to presume that the author thinks it’s not okay for kids to participate in sports. Why should only the big kids get to play in football? Why should only the fast kids be able to compete in track? I guess Mr. Bell thinks that the solution to everything is that if one group of children can’t have something then no one can have it. And are we to really believe that 80% of the kids’ parents really couldn’t afford something as cheap as a field trip? They can’t afford to part with 20 bucks once a school year to send their kids to the planetarium? By the logic of Mr. Bell I can only assume that if someone can’t pay to participate in an educational outing then they’re somehow still magically granted the right to the content provided by the facility’s trained staff and the information contained within the structure.
It’s obvious that Mr. Bell wants equality for everyone at the cost of principles and for his line of thinking I offer what Ayn Rand would actually say on the matter: “If there were such a thing as a passion for equality (not equality de jure, but de facto), it would be obvious to its exponents that there are only two ways to achieve it: either by raising all men to the mountaintop—or by razing the mountains.”
The logical connections to Ayn Rand in #3 are even more farfetched. I would challenge the author to cite one location where Ayn Rand would advocate a government funded institution forcing people to buy into something (hmmm, somehow that sounds familiar). Because that’s essentially what Mr. Bell is saying. That somehow Ayn Rand would be all about a publicly funded school forcing parents to buy lavish clothing in order to attend a graduation ceremony. Because that’s what the initial article he linked to was about: some school requires kids to buy a certain type of clothing in order to participate in a graduation ceremony. Sounds a lot like when I was paying my own way through college and when it came time to do the ceremony I opted out of buying a cap and gown and just took the diploma. How the author connects that kind of news article to the philosophy of Ayn Rand is tantamount to libel. In fact here is a direct quote from “Government Financing in a Free Society” in The Virtue of Selfishness: the government is not the owner of the citizens’ income and, therefore, cannot hold a blank check on that income—that the nature of the proper governmental services must be constitutionally defined and delimited, leaving the government no power to enlarge the scope of its services at its own arbitrary discretion.” But I guess Mr. Bell still thinks that Ayn Rand would support a tax dollar operated school forcing their students to buy a certain type of clothing to participate in a graduation ceremony that’s already paid for in tax dollars, right?
The problem with #2 is simple. The program this school was trying out was an effort to get the kids to act a bit more responsible, to use the restroom during recess so that they’ll stay in the classroom longer by not having to take extra bathroom breaks during lessons. Sure, it might not have been the best idea in the world as some kids have a different biological makeup than other kids making them need to use the restroom more often. But the real problem with #2 on the list is that Mr. Bell thinks that Ayn Rand would support a publicly funded school that makes kids pay to use their facilities in fake money. By this logic I guess Mr. Bell thinks he has the right to use any restroom in any establishment he happens to hove by. I can only assume Mr. Bell loathes those “restroom is for paying costumers” signs. I’m guess because maybe some facilities don’t think you have the right to just waltz into their store, use their water (seeing as how they have to pay a city bill for that), use their hand soap, use more water from the faucet, and then use a bunch of paper towels – all paid for by the establishment which has to pay a bill to the city for the water, a bill to the manufacturer for the soap, a bill to the janitorial supply chain which supplies the hand towels, and a bill to the electric company for keeping the lights on so you can see where to pee.
But I guess Mr. Bell thinks he has a right to all that as well?
In the case of the school system, the bathrooms have all been paid for by tax dollars by not only the parents but by every person living in the area. The kids should be allowed to go to the bathroom whenever they feel like they have to go. The school was just trying to get them to stay in the classroom longer. And how strange that you think Ayn Rand would support a public school that wants kids to use fake money when this is what she said in “The Sanction of the Victims” in The Voice of Reason: “Money is a great power—because, in a free or even a semi-free society, it is a frozen form of productive energy. And, therefore, the spending of money is a grave responsibility. Contrary to the altruists and the advocates of the so-called “academic freedom,” it is a moral crime to give money to support ideas with which you disagree; it means: ideas which you consider wrong, false, evil. It is a moral crime to give money to support your own destroyers.” This is key when you read the final paragraph of my response.
The problem with #1 on the list is that it’s actually lying to the reader. The issue in the article is about parents forgetting to put money into their kid’s school lunch account. The school sends a warning to the parents telling them that they’re out of money in their kids account. If the kid doesn’t tell the parent or the parent forgets then the kid doesn’t get the meal they normally would’ve paid for; instead they get milk and fruit. The kids still get a meal but not the one they paid for – in fact, they get one for “free.” If you read the article #1 is based on you’ll see the problem resides in how the schools solve the problem of finding out which kids have a lapsing account. It’s not so much an issue about “class warfare” as it is an issue about how certain parents need to wake the fuck up and remember to pay into their kid’s school lunch account.
Oh, but why should one group of kids have nice lunches while the other group of kids have poor kid lunches? It’s this type of rational that really irritates me. It’s the argument that if every kid can’t have the best then no one can have the best. You’re right, Harrison Bergeron, let’s make everyone equal by any means necessary.
But I’m sure your response would be, “but my joke was that IF Ayn Rand were to support a public school then….”
Really?: “Of all the government undertakings, none has failed so disastrously as public education. The scope, the depth, and the evidence of this failure are observable all around us. To name three of its obvious symptoms: drug addiction among the young (which is an attempt to escape the unbearable state of a mind unable to cope with existence)—functional illiteracy (the inability of the average high-school or college graduate to speak English, i.e., to speak or write coherently)—student violence (which means that students have not learned what savages know to some minimal extent: the impracticality and immorality of resorting to physical force).” – “Tax-Credits For Education,” The Voice of Reason
But if you really want read some excerpts from her stance on the public school system you can read it for yourself here: http://principlesofafreesociety.com/separation-of-education-and-state/
But I’m sure you’ve already read that seeing as how your article was so well researched. “Irony For Assholes,” Jay Lamm
