Tag: Ayn Rand

November 13, 2026 – The Fountainhead; Part 2, Chapters 1-7

November 13, 2026 / / 0 Comments

Things have settled into a predictable pattern in The Fountainhead. The protagonist is struggling on an upward trajectory. The Antagonist is slipping downward and the world keeps revolving. This week enters into a new part of the book titled Ellsworth Toohey. He is a character that seems to wield undue influence on the story being neither the hero nor the villain. Before we get into all of that, let us do a quick review of the reading.

Seven chapters is quite a bit to cover in such a short bit of writing without going overboard. But here is my best shot. Because Roark has no work as an architect goes to work in a marble quarry to keep his mind clear. By coincidence Dominique goes to the country for the summer and sees Roark for the first time. As a ruse, Dominique destroys her marble fireplace as a ruse to get Roark to fix it to see for herself if he represents what she thinks he is. Eventually, Dominique struggles by admiring Roark, she hates herself.

Ellsworth Toohey is introduced into the story by a sculptor Steven Mallory and an attempted assassination. That event is presented as resentment for mediocracy over excellence. As an example Toohey starts to push mediocrity by introducing Keating to the author Lois Cook. This is among the multiple groups he creates such as Council of American Builders and making Keating is president. Ultimately, Toohey allies with Dominique to destroy Roark.

I have the perfect allegory to Toohey today, that is Donald Trump. A man of seeming significant influence without a track record of actually accomplishing that much (in the realm of politics that is). Both use their pulpits to wield opinion as fact and can be extremely vindictive when scorn.

On the heels of my podcast, “The Most Important Election of Our Lives, 2026 Edition” everything played out exactly as I expected. The only thing I actually got wrong was that in County Commissioner #1, the incumbent lost despite significant advertising effort on the radio. I am also new here so I am not sure whose Cheerios he pissed in during the last term. Every incumbent Democrat won.

It seems like for the first time in several election cycles the polls were actually correct. The senate races in Texas, Michigan and South Carolina switched from Red to Blue. This was a demonstrable rebuke of Trump and his policies. Yet like Toohey, Trump was not on the ballot. It is not a far stretch to understand that people do not like what they got in the last election.

I don’t live in Texas nor do I follow things very closely but from what I had heard leading up to the election, it was inconceivable that Talarico won over Paxton. I was reading that Paxton blamed Trump for his loss despite having more support than a lot of other races. Now, let’s just think about this for a second. It is Trump’s fault that a red blooded, conservative got by Vegan progressive in Texas?

Watch the patterns here. Just two years ago the Democrats were beside themselves and were being counted out by the major media. My personal analysis says that Democrats pushed things way to far on the trans/social justice platform. The 2024 election was a rebuke of those things. It turns out that when you simply just campaign on lies, there are consequences for the next election.

Toohey is written as the personification of mediocrity. If you haven’t read ahead, we will get to some of the backstory and reasons next week. He uses deception and manipulation to get what he wants which also feeds his ego. The more his ego grows, the more of the same that we get. Hmmm… this sounds familiar. Wait, that sounds like Trump.

I wont go too much further into this because it does no good. Despite what happened on election night, it leaves little hope for this country. No longer are we the country that can make it on our bootstraps because just the pendulum swinging back and forth between parties in control is an indicator that we are lost in our direction. I could take some solace that one party or the other continuously won elections because at least then there would be a clear indication of what direction we are trending. Going back and forth means that we as a people are just bamboozled by the latest magician parlor tricks. That by definition is mediocrity.

End Your Programming Routine: I am going to let loose a little secret. I did vote in this election as I have for every one prior. I did it not as a civic duty but as a protest. Every single candidate that I voted for lost. And no I didn’t just write in somebody, it was somebody that had a chance. I have been keeping track in the last three major elections not a single candidate that I voted for has won. Just remember the word ‘mediocrity’ when you are being told that your vote matters.

November 6, 2026 – The Fountainhead; Part 1, Chapters 13-15

November 6, 2026 /

OK, OK… seems like this is going to happen. We are on a roll now and I am doing my best to stay ahead. So far, all of that I have written about I read before I committed to getting started. So, really that is no feat. Next week will have some new reading involved to make the deadline (which I have already done at this point).

This week we see that Roark has some success, maybe. He designs and builds a gas station that leads another housing commission. Both of them are critically exiled. While the owner of the home approves of the design, his wife does not and refuses to live in it. Instead she moves to Florida.

Meanwhile there is a competition for a movie studio called the Cosmo-Slotnik building. Winning the commission is huge exposure. Roark refuses to enter and ultimately Keating wins but not without the help of Roark. Roark has one last sure thing that only required a few tweaks which he refuses to do and is no longer able to pay his bills.

Due to Keating’s success, he makes partner partially because the former partner Heyer dies due to Keating’s threats of blackmail and ruined reputation. To add insult to injury, the former partner leaves his estate to Keating because at some point he was a ‘nice boy’. Meanwhile, Dominique rebuffs Keating’s offer to marry. Keating makes partner on his ‘merits’ rather than nepotism but the hypocrisy is driving him crazy as well as emboldening his ego.

I was thinking about a time where I stuck my principles to my obvious disadvantage. There was one major life event where I can point to. Although, I cannot say that I handled it as well as Roark did. That was when I quit my job in 2019. I know that I have talked about this quite a bit, but I don’t really think in this context before.

Occasionally, I have the ability to see the outcome of decisions that seem obvious to me but not to others. It all goes back to 2014 when our company merged with a larger Canadian company. Soon after the event, I was offboarded off the project that I was working on due to the extreme amount of time and effort I had put in. It was supposed to be a reward but it turned out that it was worse in so many ways.

The larger company had a major global customer but they also had a huge problem. The mismanagement of project delivery and ineptitude of company leadership to properly address the problem. Since we were new blood, I was moved to this nearly incompetent project team. I was a resource on the project and the tech lead was going to guide us to the finish. It just so happens that this was an ESOP company that paid dividends on the fiscal year which was November. Most of the employees of the old company were large shareholders and would get huge payouts around that time to the tune of $100K or more.

To date, many of the key employees in the account got chewed up and spit out due to the higher level lack of accountability and ineptitude. My tech lead gave the middle finger to the company and I was left holding the bag. I was miserable with four different bosses telling me what to do and what I did wrong every day. I went to every level of the company and finally I realized that no matter what I did, nothing was going to change.

Fortunately my struggles and efforts did not go unnoticed and I was moved to role that had zero to do with Canadian group albeit the same ownership. I was given the opportunity to run the application support group. At first nobody cared what we did. But then, we started running circles around the rest of the company. We believed in listening, owning up to mistakes, working together and continuous improvements. These were all beliefs that I held and it payed huge dividends.

Within my group was named a ‘center of excellence’ and people started to care. They were going to transform my group from application support into managed services and this was going to be the company golden goose. The new president had done this before and went from zero to $100M in revenue in one year. Unfortunately, they hired a consultant to facilitate the transition and no longer was it my methodology.

The consultant was not my adversary nor was he my peer. I began to resent what made us successful they were trying to remove because it wasn’t conventional. Apologizing for errors made made them roll in there graves over liability. The company preferred stone faced and contentious relationships compared to doing the right thing. Because I am not Roark and I was immature in these situations, I started to crack. Ultimately, the only way out was to leave completely. I wasn’t going to be successful knowing that what I did worked and I could no longer operate in that way.

The truth is, I started throwing my success in their faces and I did some things I wouldn’t do again. I looked for opportunities to fight, I felt I was wronged and marginalized for years. In contrast, I offered to anyone including my adversaries to help with what worked. That was met with stone cold antipathy. Like Roark, even a better way is not going to help a non-receptive group.

I guess I should be happy that I got the ultimate revenge. When I quit, half of my group quit as well. The company simply could not sustain business with the staffing level that they had and the company was sold within a year. None of what was planned ever came to fruition because there was not the remaining employee buy in to put profit over people. They had lost the moral and morale war.

End Your Programming Routine: I am not saying that I took down the company or that I am happy it ultimately failed. I had a lot of friends in the local office, I simply saw that what I thought would work worked and the failure to adopt it played a major role in the downfall. Many would say selling is different than failing, but while I worked there, the stated goal was to be the largest integration company in its space, not selling to a competitor. It is a very difficult time for me. Some very high highs and some very low lows.

October 30, 2026 – The Fountainhead; Part 1, Chapters 6-12

October 30, 2026 /

Two weeks in a row? I have almost pried the train back on the tracks. It doesn’t change the fact that I am worried about staying ahead. At this point I have read a chapter a night and yet I can feel the point that I am at reading is going to surpassed by the weekly deadline breathing down my neck. I guess if that happens I will have to pause until I catch up.

What to say about this week’s section of reading? It is really about character development. The book starts a little abruptly with the conflict between Roark and the school. This week, we see over and over the pattern of asking Roark to bend, his refusal and the consequences for not doing so. In contrast, Keating continues act within the ‘populist’ definition and successes keep coming.

Aside from the character development as well as the personal benefits of populism, we start to see the downside of it as well. For instance, Keating is introduced to Dominque Francon, (his boss’s daughter) and is struck. She recognizes his success but is romantically uninterested. He sees her upside, particularly looks and despite that attraction, he cannot stand up to his long time girlfriend.

Like many people that follow the populist trail, they end up being wishy washy and swarmy. By that I mean they end up not making a decision and playing both sides. Keating is dating Dominique as well as Catherine. Each one he pretending that the relationship is exclusive. Because he is not being genuine himself, it has mental consequences.

I was pretty certain that I was going to go here, but I wasn’t quite sure when. When I think about things, this is the perfect time to mention the political season with the mid-term elections next week. Since I did spend quite a bit of time looking at my ballot, I went over the ballot with my wife last weekend. I am going to give the benefit of the doubt here but I watch political ads and read the candidate bios with my mouth ajaw.

First of all, this is not political but an observation. I cannot trust either side. But there are some contested races and those are getting heavy ad play. One of them is in Washington (not even my state) and it is Marie Perez v John Braun. The incumbent is Perez. In the positive ads she is saying Washington (DC) is broken and she wants to go to fix it. Now wait a minute, aren’t you already in Washington already?

I want to meet the person that says “I know the solution, what we need to fix the problem is the same person that is part of the problem”. On second thought, no I really do not want to meet them. We really need to look at another paradigm of life to see how wrong and gullable the voters really are.

I am a long time Oregon Ducks hater. When I was growing up in Corvallis, home of the Oregon State Beavers there was a bitter rivalry. Both football teams were terrible and had been so all of my life at that time. But then something changed and the Ducks started having success in the mid-1990s. Now it is hard to look back and even remember that they used to be terrible. In fact, part of the reason I don’t like them is that the fans seem smug and patronizing. They say things like “I root for the Beavers too” but what is implied is “because they are no threat to the Ducks”.

This year, before the football season started all of the local talk was that this was the Duck’s year. They had a $40MM of NIL spent on the team. The quarterback was coming back for redemption after losing to Indiana in the playoffs. The schedule seemed favorable and all of that. I hate to admit it, but I almost feel bad for them. Their offense is terrible and consequently their current record is 4-3. Their playoff hopes are all but gone and they simply do not know how to lose and be happy.

The offense has been bad all year. It happens that last year’s Offensive Coordinator left to become the head coach at Kentucky. They seem to be overperforming at 6-1. The Oregon head coach Dan Lanning has been aware of the problems but this week he fired the current Offensive Coordinator. What is the lesson here? The coach didn’t say, this is your problem you need to fix it. Nope, you had your chance and now we need to go a different direction.

In what world do we say you Representative, you Governor, you Senator need to go in and clean up this mess that evolved while you involved? I will tell you what world. It is the world that people say things that they can’t do because it sounds good. I could say that I am going to get a gold medal in 2028. I could even want that but I don’t have a chance in hell of doing it. It is best that I don’t pretend that I am so tone deaf as to advertise that is something I will pursue, let alone achieve.

End Your Programming Routine: I am really not anti-populism. I am anti-populism for the sake of getting elected or getting a career advantage. Principles matter even if those principles are not as popular, especially in politics. If you truly do not have a position, taking the one that seems to be in favor is fine as long as that decision is rooted in solid principles.

October 16, 2026 – The Fountainhead; Introduction to the Friday Reading Reviews

October 16, 2026 /

I know that I have been dragging my heels on this for months. Admittedly, I was scared to start because I was afraid that it wasn’t going to be as good as Atlas Shrugged or at least it was going to be repetitive. Then, there was the whole moving thing. It was hard for me to keep up with all of the things I was doing as well as AltF4. The grind of reading, thinking and writing on a consistent basis takes a lot of discipline and prioritization. I also will admit that both The Art of War and Surprised by Joy kind of took it out of me. They were not my favorites.

Actually, it is probably more correct that I really didn’t give The Art of War it’s due. I kind of went about it more like a chore than the proper philosophical study. I have been thinking that I should probably read it again without the pressure of trying to write about it every week. But, that will be for later. I have read quite a bit of The Fountainhead already and I am finding that I really like it. Maybe even more Atlas Shrugged for different reasons.

My grandfather used to use the phrase “The Lord hates a coward” somewhat frequently. I think that means that just because there are a lot of options and you don’t know exactly what to do that doesn’t mean freeze. It means without resounding evidence of what direction to go, pick one and figure it out as you go. Well, I have been a bit of a coward afraid that I cannot keep up or that I will group things together that may not go together and that has to end.

Rather than make this study go on for a year like I did with Atlas Shrugged, I will pick a path that seems reasonable to me. I want there to be enough content that I am not struggling to piece something meaningful every week but not so much reading that I have a hard time staying ahead. For that reason, it seems like chapters that fit into a 75 page block is aggressive enough. It won’t go all year and hopefully I can stay ahead.

I am proposing the following schedule.

  1. Part 1, Chapters 1-5
  2. Part 1, Chapters 6-12
  3. Part 1, Chapters 13-15 and Part 1 Summary
  4. Part 2, Chapters 1-7
  5. Part 2, Chapters 8-12
  6. Part 2, Chapters 13-15 and Part 2 Summary
  7. Part 3, Chapters 1-5
  8. Part 3, Chapters 6-9 and Part 3 Summary
  9. Part 4, Chapters 1-7
  10. Part 4, Chapters 8-14
  11. Part 4, Chapters 15-20 and Part 4 Summary
  12. Conclusion

For me, that means that I have the first month already read. It will also give me motivation to keep going. I picked the book up on a recent business trip after putting it down in April and I was able to make significant progress. It is definitely not because the book is not enjoyable but my work schedule, moving, baseball playoffs, football season and all of the usual excuses. I do need to fight my eyes closing when I lay down in bed though.

I will go ahead and save all of the deep analysis for next week but what I can tell you is that this book strikes personal to me. I think what is different between Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead is societal versus personal consequences. Since my whole moniker is about changing your programming this strikes a chord. We need to realize that no matter how much the direction that everything around us is not going the way that we wanted, the only real person we can control is ourselves. More on that in the upcoming weeks.

End Your Programming Routine: My dad is fond of the phrase “it’s the principle”. Trust me, he has the fortitude to accept the consequences of a principle based decisions. That is the way that we have to be if we are going to stand into the wind. I tend to be a little more pragmatic than that. Sometimes the cost is not worth the effort or we may simply not have enough fortitude, social capital, money or whatever to withstand the ‘the principle’. These are the lessons that The Fountainhead is going to explore. Ultimately, we will see how that works out.

December 1, 2023 – Anthem, Conclusion

December 1, 2023 /

I probably could have written this conclusion last week. I kept moving ideas and sentences into this post because I thought that they were too broad for just analyzing the last three chapters. But, I wasn’t totally ready to move on so here we are.

It should be clear that I am a fan of Rand’s work and the Objectivist movement. This books is a short and concise version of the very same message in Atlas Shrugged. Even some of the same phrasing was used. I felt like I was reading an abridged version or even a chapter of Atlas Shrugged, some of those were pretty long.

What to say about this book? I think that I will use a series of comparisons to do that. I would say that if you have never read or don’t know Rand, read this book first. If it turns out that you like the message, then move on to Atlas Shrugged. I kind of feel like I invested so much time into Atlas Shrugged that this was just a re-run of that story and message.

If I look at Anthem versus We, both had their idiosyncrasies. I think that the Anthem story was easier to follow minus the third person, plural language. I know that was done deliberately but I definitely found myself having to re-read things multiple times because I got sucked into this ‘who else is in this conversation?’ mode. By contrast, We often had gaps in the story line that left me guessing at what is actually happening.

I suppose that the reader needs to employ suspended animation for any of these dystopian stories. For me, it is not the flying cars or talking animals but the little things. For instance the source of the energy for the lightbulb in this book or the perfectly furnished home that exists in the middle of the forest that the character stumbles on for happily ever after that bothers me. My mind can take a leap to the non-existent but I have a hard time with the unbelievable.

Ultimately, I have to rank this below Atlas Shrugged. But I suspect that if circumstances would have been different, it would have been the other way. If you recall that review, I felt that book was way too long. It is not the length of the book per se that I mark it down, just the fact that it is the same story and the little nuances that didn’t seem to be in Atlas Shrugged. Maybe Fountainhead will be just right?

End Your Programming Routine: Let me bottom line this. If you have read Atlas Shrugged, skip this book. If you had read nothing from Rand, definitely read this book for the Objectivist point of view. Looking ahead to next week the book is going to be “Slaughterhouse Five” by Kurt Vonnegut. I have tentatively planned to cover two chapters a week. So get reading…

November 24, 2023 – Anthem, Part 10-12

November 24, 2023 /

As I announced in the podcast Monday, I am no longer going to have an introductory post for my Friday reviews maybe I should do away with the conclusion post as well. Not today however. I am going to keep it this way for now, It is just that the last three chapters are only about 20 short pages.

We now that Equality 7-2521 and Liberty 5-3000 have found an empty, yet inhabitable house in the middle of the woods. As a result of reading different books they decide to rename themselves “Prometheus” and “Gaea”. Furthermore, they go through more self-exploration and hatch a plan go back to the city and bring their friends back to the woods and start life over.

Those familiar with Rand would definitely identify the concepts in Part 12. It sounded like a carbon copy of the values espoused in Atlas Shrugged. Man should live for themselves, fight for what they have, collectivism is evil, etc. You know that I buy into all those things and I respect Rand for being so upfront with this as well. In fact, good on her for being consistent and deliberate in her beliefs.

The only thing that I really don’t necessarily agree with is the the last couple of sentences. (Spoiler Alert) “The word which can never die on this earth, for the heart of it, and the meaning and the glory. The sacred word: Ego”. This is Prometheus’ belief as the key to humanity and happiness. I don’t agree with Rand on this.

Of course, I have had my own struggles with happiness but if I could have it my way it would be the ability to pursue your passion. I suppose that it may be whether you take the Freud position or the first definition. I cannot say. 1) The self, especially as distinct from the world and other selves. 2) In Psychoanalysis, the division of the psyche that is conscious, most immediately controls thought and behavior and is most in touch with external reality.

I am getting all kinds of curmudgeonly lately in my reviews. I like Prometheus’ spirit here but have you considered how difficult it is to persuade brainwashed people to take a leap of faith that is 180 degrees of their whole lives. Just like his naivete with the light bulb, to think he is going to march into the lion’s den and covert a bunch of his friends unscathed seems pretty far out.

I think another flag is the house itself. I am pretty sure whatever conflict that occurred was well before the lives of Gaea and Prometheus. Time and weather is not kind to structures and material goods. There is reference to cloth that disintegrated but most things were perfectly serviceable.

I have a thing for this, but have you seen picture of the Sarajevo Olympic grounds from the 1980s? There are trees growing through the venues. Granted the characters are only twenty at most, but I think it is fantasy to think that they are going to find perfectly preserved shelters and live happily ever after. I think it would be more like the tunnels from earlier in the book minus the active electrical power.

So, I am already bordering on next weeks analysis of the book overall. It’s hard to believe that given all of the superstition and primitive technology, that there would be any risk of the former state coming after them or even find them let alone defeat or subjugate them.

End Your Programming Routine: There is a quote that I like from Jack Spirko. “Never attribute to malice that can be explained by incompetence”. I will let you noodle that out but it basically puts a dagger in a lot of conspiracy theories. I am not saying that the candlemakers are bumbling idiots, but they may not be the scholars that they proport.

November 17, 2023 – Anthem, Part 7-9

November 17, 2023 /

These three chapters are the heart of the book. I suppose it is serendipitous that I chose to break the book up in this way. So, let’s get into it.

Chapter seven begins with Equality 7-2521 marching into the World Counsel of Scholars with his lightbulb. It went exactly how I expected that it would. In fear for his life, Equality escapes the city into the forest where he is sure no one will ever come after him. After surviving the night, he understands that he will never be able to return. The next day, who shows up in the woods out of the blue but the Golden One. Apparently, she has pretty good tracking ability.

It is pretty easy pickings to figure out what to talk about with this session. It is the sunk cost fallacy and the Council of Scholars. First of all, to be in the conversation you have to be part of the group. “A Street Sweeper! A Street Sweeper walking in upon the World Counsel of Scholars! It is not to be believed! It is against all the rules and all the laws!”. The first level of security is only having conversations with those initiated and approved.

There is now a closed feedback loop for any ideas. Once Equality connected the lightbulb, now there was sheer terror in the room. For some unknown reason, the light scared the scholars. But, then the next tool that is used is the power play. “How dare you think that your mind held greater wisdom than the mind of your brothers? And if the Councils had decreed that you should be a Street Sweeper, how dared you think that you could be of greater use to men than sweeping the street?”

Oh, but why? “Then it would bring ruin to the Department of Candles. The candle is a great boon to mankind, as approved by all men. Therefore it cannot be destroyed by the whim of one man.” So, this is the real problem. I don’t know if they were shocked that someone found something that they were not supposed to or that they were scared of the technology, both are possible.

How many times have we seen something surpassed by better technology? Using the automobile, it is clear that the 2023 version is highly superior (in most aspects) to the 1963 version. I can state this empirically because looking at studies, the average age of a vehicle on the road is 12 years old. In 1963, vehicles were lucky to make it to 100,000 miles. In fact, some vehicles in the 1970s were lucky to survive more than a handful of years.

On the other hand, how many times have we seen government prevent innovation by doing things for our own good. Let us just use the minimum square footage building requirement. This is strictly to protect tax base. Look at old houses that are one bedroom and one bathroom. The way this is effecting innovation is that it is not rewarding good design. It is also wastes resources via utilities, heating, cooling and lighting unused space. I don’t think that we suffer from houses that are too small, we suffer from poorly designed houses. If there is limitless space, there is no incentive to build better structures from an ergonomics standpoint.

Finally, there are forces in the industrial military complex that desperately want to replace the A-10. But, then there are greater forces that do not see the need. Why replace something that does the job effectively. This is the final insight, money of course. If something perpetually did the job and did it well, it negatively impacts someone’s ability to profit on the change. But then again, there is always the opposite perspective of someone supporting the status quo.

End Your Programming Routine: I am resisting the urge to jump ahead since I have already finished the book at this point. But, I am controlling myself. I don’t really understand the fear of the woods outside of the city. I don’t rationalize how they travel or even have a network of other cities if they are so contained to the space. But, I guess those are questions that won’t get answered. For now, I will settle on fighting the status quo head to head is bound to be nearly impossible.

November 10, 2023 – Anthem, Part 4-6

November 10, 2023 /

This was three quick chapters and in many ways not much has gone on. How could it, there are not many pages? If we try hard enough, then we can probably sift something out of this. That is what I am going to try and do.

I am not going to try and make something that it is not. Part 4 is and interaction between Equality 7-2521 and Liberty 5-3000. She is now calling him the ‘Unconquerable’. Part 5 has him discovering how a lightbulb works and keeping a secret and Part 6 is about Equality 7-2521 getting punished for staying in his secret lair too long. Unwilling to divulge the reason, he is beat severely. This causes him to have a plan and reveal the lightbulb at the Counsel of the Scholars who will meet shortly.

Suspending disbelief for a minute, how is it that this society has no modern utilities and yet somehow there is live power available for Equality 7-2521 to power a light bulb? When I was first reading the book, I thought that maybe he found a flashlight or something. To my knowledge, power needs continuous generation capability as well as infrastructure to deliver. Maybe some hydro-electric dam is generating power being used by the elites somewhere. At this point, we just don’t know.

So it is dystopian science fiction… alright then the bigger concept in these chapters is the ignorant messiah. Equality 7-2521 really believes that he is going to change the world by showing the Scholars what he has rediscovered. I think that we can see the foreshadowing of trouble ahead.

This reminds me of the famous historical figure Galileo Galilei. Today, he is a big name in science, particularly Astronomy, Physics and Math. We are probably all aware of his fate. Galileo promoted the idea of heliocentrism or better known as the planets revolve around the sun. This of course was labelled as anti-biblical and his ultimate fate was imprisonment until death.

I want to point out that many of these ideas were theories based on empirical observation. You see this is how science works. Perform an observation and then design an experiment to see if you can prove that your hypothesis is true or not. Galileo and other peers such as Brahe who worked to perform the mathematic supporting the observation. That was not quite good enough to keep him in the good graces of the church.

If you are going to play politics, then what side you are on is really more important than the truth. Galileo had a habit of backing the opposite side of who was in power. That really didn’t work out too well for him. Truth is not quite powerful enough when going against the state. The Catholic church has now changed it’s tune on on Galilei but who wants to be honored post-mortem, especially considering when a person was right all along?

I really don’t think that Equality 7-2521 is Ayn Rand’s Galilei but I suspect that his fate is going to end the same way. The establishment is going to come down on him like a house of cards and crush him. I suspect that some of these secrets like electricity are known by those that control society. Whether they use is or not is a different question, but don’t be surprised. Remember the mask mandates (you didnt think that was coming back did you).

End Your Programming Routine: It’s nice having a quick and short book to read. I am getting behind on my other reading and trying to catch up, this helps. Ignorance has its pluses and minuses and without it sometimes we don’t have heroes or huge scientific break throughs. WIth it, we often have martyrs.

November 3, 2023 – Anthem, Part 1-3

November 3, 2023 /

I didn’t realize this when I picked this book up after “We”. But it almost feels like we are in the same universe. The characters have amorphous names and the language is strange (more on that later). Like We, the characters do not pick their career destinations and small talk is deemed subversive and deviant. There is no unstructured fraternizing and no individualism.

Maybe I am going to drag this out too long. Reading the first three parts puts us almost halfway through the book. I may speed up if it seems like there is nothing unique about my arbitrary divisions. That I will take as I go. There is some good nuggets in this book.

The story’s main character is named Equality 7-2521. Like all citizens, he is born into institutionalism. He is raised until the age of fifteen where he finds his ultimate assignment which is to be a street sweeper. This part seems a a lot like Brave New World. On the job, Equality 7-2521 finds an old tunnel, maybe a subway tunnel. This becomes a sacred space from which he writes his journal i.e. this story.

On the way to his job, Equality 7-2521 sees a girl, Liberty 5-3000 which he nicknamed the “Golden One” and falls in love with without meeting. Because his work is in the same area every day, he passes by her on his way to his job daily. Apparently, women of childbearing age are sent to reproduce at some point in their lives. We know how this civilization sustains itself by descriptions in chapter 2.

The big bang in this section is the dream that Equality 7-2521 has after seeing the Golden One. He dreams about the Unmentionable Times which sounds like some sort of revolution or pre-revolution. A character called the Transgressor is burned at the stake for using the word ‘I’ instead of all the plural pronouns that are used in the rest of the book. Apparently, that is the only crime that carries the death penalty.

Reading this book, it sometimes seems like I am reading a long soliloquy of Golem or Yoda or something. Maybe I got the analogy wrong, but anyway, all of the pronouns are plural. So, if I am not paying close attention to the words, I start to get confused about what is going on because the language is just too confusing.

Now, let us get to the heart of the matter, pronouns. How is it that a person writing 90 years ago understood that by undermining identity, undermines society? I guess maybe the better question is how is it that it is understood and it is still happening? It has to be either stupidity or ignorance.

I shouldn’t have to qualify that you should know that I have a live and let live attitude. But, I think that there is a problem that goes part and parcel with that is today’s pronoun fluidity. I will ignore what I consider normal. I can even kind of understand a he wanting to be called a she and vice versa. It is the they/them that makes no sense to me whatsoever.

I was listening to a podcast about gender identity in the “Art of Manliness” a few weeks ago. I don’t want to turn this into a review of that but the crux of it was that in the 1980s the ratio of males to females in college was roughly equal. Now is about 60% female to male. Corresponding to that, the number of people that identified as LBGQ etc was about 2% in the 1980s. Meanwhile, it is now more like 20%. The point was the feminization of the education system is corresponding to increasing gender turbidity.

I don’t want to get bogged down in analysis of that conclusion. I think that there were some poignant theories and definitely worth a listen. I cannot tell if this is a chicken or an egg scenario and it may be some of both. But, the reality is that this change is effecting ‘maleness’. They are increasingly not exceling in school and in proxy, life. ‘He’, the single, 40 year old living in the parents basement playing video games is a product of failing to thrive in a ‘they/them’ world.

Just like all great, uniformity activities, you have to break the old to build the new. The military does it, politics and cults do it as well. And these are all organizations that put some kind of objective ahead of the individual. Removing individualism and blurred identity are sure tickets to extended manipulation.

End Your Programming Routine: This seems like a good place to end. It also seems like Rand has created another strong work that we have just flat out ignored. But that is OK because it is illegal to be unhappy. And we all want to be good citizens don’t we. As long as authority tells me the right path, then everything is going to be good and I will be happy.

October 27, 2023 – Anthem, Introduction

October 27, 2023 /

And we are back to an old friend. We have now moved on to Anthem by Ayn Rand. Atlas Shrugged and Anthem cannot be more different from an outward appearance. Anthem is described as a novella. My copy is barely over 100 pages and I was planning on breaking it up into four groups. The first three chapters are going to be almost half the book (and about one chapter in Atlas Shrugged).

I got to thinking that it is interesting that both Rand and Zamyatin were Russian ex-pats writing at the same time on very similar subjects. Maybe, just maybe there is something to the similarities, just saying. It seems like people experiencing the same situation and writing their thoughts have come to very similar conclusions.

Sometimes I have read the book, sometimes I haven’t before I start writing the introduction. In this case I read the first chapter to get a sense of what is going on. I don’t like to be influenced by what others think it is about or concepts but it is also hard to introduce the book without having any prior knowledge.

I plan on breaking the book into four segments plus a conclusion. That means that we will finish this series in the beginning of December. Not to spill the beans but the next author will be a new one for me. I have a reserve of books that I have not yet read and I am trying to vary the authors a little bit even though there is more Rand in the future (already have the book).

This is another dystopian, science fiction story. We will talk all about what is in the book from a concept and a story line next week. I didn’t know this, but when I was reading the plot summary in Wikipedia, there is reference to We as the only related work. I suspect that it may be because the main character’s name is a number sequence. It also takes place in a dystopian future, etc.

The story was originally conceived as a play, then it was going to put in a periodical. Finally, it was published in the United States after the success of Fountainhead. Reading the history in Wikipedia, Rand tried to persuade Disney to make an animated film using stick figures. That would have been really interesting.

I am leaning more and more on moving away from the dystopian genre exclusively. Maybe, I will move from Friday book reviews even. I really enjoyed 1984, Fahrenheit 451 and Atlas Shrugged. But, it started to slip with Lord of the Flies. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy checking these things off of my list but it is starting to feel like a chore trying to extract things week over week. I will leave it open for now. I do want to get through this one and the next one before I make the decision. For sure, I will continue to read and review books, it just may not be in one genre and chapter a week.

End Your Programming Routine: I am even struggling to get through the introduction. It has taken me three days to write this. But what do you write about a book that you don’t know anything about? Maybe I shouldn’t do these series before I have actually read the book? You get the point. Next week I will have more substance.