Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Repurposing Ayn Rand

"Listen, what's the most horrible experience you can imagine? To me--it's being left, unarmed, in a sealed cell with a drooling beast of prey or a maniac who's had some disease that's eaten his brain out. You'd have nothing then but your voice--your voice and your thought. You'd scream to that creature why it should not touch you, you'd have the most eloquent words, the unanswerable words, you'd become the vessel of the absolute truth. And you'd see living eyes watching you and you'd know that the thing can't hear you, that it can't be reached, not reached, not in any way, yet it's breathing and moving there before you with a purpose of its own. That's horror. Well, that's what's hanging over the world, prowling somewhere through mankind, that same thing, something closed, mindless, utterly wanton, but something with an aim and a cunning of its own. I don't think I'm a coward, but I'm afraid of it. And that's all I know--only that it exists."

What do you think it is?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

"it", from your rand reference in 2010, is the GOVERNMENT...
BTW I am thinking of going to UCI Law next year and read the blogs and letters on why not to be a lawyer ... depressing. I have also been thinking of going back for a grad degree in something more "fun" like Physics or Biology, both classes I loved in College. I have worked as a Realtor for the past 11 years and now, well, I dont know. I do know I will always do real estate but have also thought of academia. ????

saisai said...

No. It's the relativist (non-objective) man, the man that can't distinguish the Good and doesn't care. But I think I was using that passage to refer to something else at the time, although now I can't remember what.

If you don't know what you want to do, don't go to law school unless you are (1) wealthy, so the cost of tuition won't be a burden, and (2) not working, so the opportunity cost will be low. Law school is not a general education, it's a professional skills education, like nursing or plumbing. Are those things you would do "just for fun?"

Now, according to Randian principles, any further advice will be subject to a fee, as it is the product of my mind and judgment, which are the forces that run the world.