by Ayn Rand, critiqued by Elanor
I am disappointed. I read the first 500 pages of this 1,167 page book. I took my time, I didn't skim a single word. Ayn Rand's writing is good enough to bear close reading, for the first half of the book. The problem was, the story should have ended at page 501. I did not need another 600 pages pounding the same single idea into my head. Her claim might have been interesting at first, as was the alternate timeline in which the world had been overrun by socialism, but as the plot progressed, her characters became flatter instead of gaining more depth.
Then around page 550 came a six-page-long encomium (poem in praise of an abstract quality) on, of all things, money. To Ayn Rand, money is the representation of the human spirit; it is that which gives mankind the dignity that separates us from beasts. I could not take her seriously after that.
My attention was temporarily recaptured, later, when Rand began to spatter her characters' dialogue with specifically Christian terminology in order to present these values as misguided and, in their most extreme forms, evil. In Rand's world, charity is the worst sin, selfishness the highest virtue. The savior of humanity lives by these words: "I swear--by my life and my love of it--that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine."
I do not believe Rand is entirely wrong. She has only misunderstood the concept of charity. She sees it as "alms;" she believes the weak attempt to leech love off of the strong by imposing upon them a sense of guilt at the suffering around them. She spends way too many pages explaining this belief. In some ways, she is right, and in those ways, her massive novel is only an interminable expansion on C. S. Lewis's short sentences in The Great Divorce, something to the effect of: "misery cannot be allowed to blackmail joy."
However, Rand's perspective falls short of the truth of human nature because she is completely individualistic. If the highest virtue is for each person to live solely for his own sake, then the only relationships between individuals can be those of trade--which she fully admits and recommends. She says love should not be "given" to another person for nothing; she implies it is shameful to love a human being for nothing but "himself;" rather, it is good and right to exchange virtue for love as if paying for an order of steel railroad tracks.
Atlas Shrugged lacks depth because it does not take into account the nature of relationships between human beings. The highest state of existence is not one man standing alone at the top of the world looking back on what he has achieved; it is instead the man who gives up the world for the sake of another human being.
I came to the book expecting to find truth; I did not.
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Obituary
by Elanor, with regret
If you look down at the previous post, you can find above the label "Elanor's pet #2" a picture of a lovely, glowing ranunculus. After a long and courageous struggle, this flower sadly passed away on Sunday, March 8, and has now moved on to a better existence (or not, depending on your theology).
The plant was purchased in the Garden section at the Target located next to Berkeley. Who could know that, for a pittance of $5, a blooming being could bring so much joy to one apartment? Its owner brought it home, transplanted it into a more permanent pot, and proceeded to welcome it into the Lin residence.
Its life was not without struggle. The tap water at the above mentioned residence apparently did not agree with the brave plant's constitution. If you look more closely at the picture, you will observe a slight yellowing of the outer leaves. This greatly distressed the owner, but there was nothing to be done except continue watering and hope the plant's spirit would win out.
The first weekend, the Lins had to leave the plant in the apartment for three days while they attended to their episcopal and social commitments in San Jose. Even though they made sure to water the plant within 30 seconds of departing, upon their return the top soil was completely dry, and there were even more yellow leaves.
Seeing that the plant was not yet robust enough to fend for itself without supervision, the next weekend, the owners brought it along to San Jose. The car ride filled the plant with joy and terror. The sunlight streaming through the windshield sent it into glowing rapture, but along with this intoxication came the rattle and jolt of a car driving down ill-paved roads. The pot shook and the plant's leaves were jostled until it couldn't tell its roots from its petals.
Once in Cupertino, the plant's owner was getting desperate. The plant was still yellowing, and its petals were beginning to droop. She decided to try moving the plant to a bigger pot, to allow its roots more space. She obtained a new pot from the back yard, cleaned it, and transferred the plant yet again, hoping beyond hope that this new change would spark some health back into the fading flower.
It might have worked. We shall never know. On Sunday morning, since they were on their way back to Berkeley, the Lins brought the plant with them to church. It was cool in the early morning. The plant remained in the front seat during Sunday school at South Valley. At 10:45, the Lins made their way to Cupertino to attend the Joint's Sunday service. When they disembarked from their vehicle at 11:15, the sun was still hidden behind grey clouds, so they again left the plant in the car during their religious function. Never again. At 12:30, they exited the building to a parking lot filled with warm, spring sunlight, suspecting nothing. When they reached the car, they saw. The plant was dead. Its petals were wrinkled and brown, its stems fallen over, its leaves entirely yellow and drooping. After all the love poured onto it, the plant had been killed by a moment of thoughtless neglect.
It was a brave plant, and we do honor to its memory. We shall tell its story to our future household greenery, how its strength and joy brought light to our lives, for a little while.
If you look down at the previous post, you can find above the label "Elanor's pet #2" a picture of a lovely, glowing ranunculus. After a long and courageous struggle, this flower sadly passed away on Sunday, March 8, and has now moved on to a better existence (or not, depending on your theology).
The plant was purchased in the Garden section at the Target located next to Berkeley. Who could know that, for a pittance of $5, a blooming being could bring so much joy to one apartment? Its owner brought it home, transplanted it into a more permanent pot, and proceeded to welcome it into the Lin residence.
Its life was not without struggle. The tap water at the above mentioned residence apparently did not agree with the brave plant's constitution. If you look more closely at the picture, you will observe a slight yellowing of the outer leaves. This greatly distressed the owner, but there was nothing to be done except continue watering and hope the plant's spirit would win out.
The first weekend, the Lins had to leave the plant in the apartment for three days while they attended to their episcopal and social commitments in San Jose. Even though they made sure to water the plant within 30 seconds of departing, upon their return the top soil was completely dry, and there were even more yellow leaves.
Seeing that the plant was not yet robust enough to fend for itself without supervision, the next weekend, the owners brought it along to San Jose. The car ride filled the plant with joy and terror. The sunlight streaming through the windshield sent it into glowing rapture, but along with this intoxication came the rattle and jolt of a car driving down ill-paved roads. The pot shook and the plant's leaves were jostled until it couldn't tell its roots from its petals.
Once in Cupertino, the plant's owner was getting desperate. The plant was still yellowing, and its petals were beginning to droop. She decided to try moving the plant to a bigger pot, to allow its roots more space. She obtained a new pot from the back yard, cleaned it, and transferred the plant yet again, hoping beyond hope that this new change would spark some health back into the fading flower.
It might have worked. We shall never know. On Sunday morning, since they were on their way back to Berkeley, the Lins brought the plant with them to church. It was cool in the early morning. The plant remained in the front seat during Sunday school at South Valley. At 10:45, the Lins made their way to Cupertino to attend the Joint's Sunday service. When they disembarked from their vehicle at 11:15, the sun was still hidden behind grey clouds, so they again left the plant in the car during their religious function. Never again. At 12:30, they exited the building to a parking lot filled with warm, spring sunlight, suspecting nothing. When they reached the car, they saw. The plant was dead. Its petals were wrinkled and brown, its stems fallen over, its leaves entirely yellow and drooping. After all the love poured onto it, the plant had been killed by a moment of thoughtless neglect.
It was a brave plant, and we do honor to its memory. We shall tell its story to our future household greenery, how its strength and joy brought light to our lives, for a little while.
Sunday, March 1, 2009
1951 Chestnut St. Apt. 108
Bed
Bookshelf
Couch! And wall hanging from Hawaii, and fluffy white rug
Entertainment
Elanor's pet #1
Kitchen
Kitchen table, window
Elanor's pet #2
Walk-in closet
MirrorThings I Probably Won’t Ever Have the Chance to Teach at Youth Group
Part II: The Bible
by Elanor
When I was growing up, they taught us in Sunday School that if you are a Christian, you should be reading the Bible. Note the use of the ongoing present tense: not “should read,” but “should be reading.” I was twenty years old before I was able to rid myself of the guilt incurred by this simple injunction, because, stated in that way, my Sunday School teacher should be able to check in at any point in time and find me reading my Bible. And since God can and does “check in” on me at all times, I felt almost a constant sense of neglecting something I was supposed to be doing. I would think of the Bible and drop my eyes to the floor. I would hastily attempt to distract myself from the thought of the chapters I hadn’t read that day, of the verses I was not in the process of memorizing. It took over a year of decidedly refusing to read the Bible on my own before I could beat the guilt out of my subconscious. I had to experience firsthand that I can be a Christian, God does teach me things, God even uses me to influence other people’s lives, when I don’t read the Bible.
My feelings of guilt are one symptom of a shortsighted understanding of the Bible. I saw it as nothing more than a means to my own personal righteousness. Other symptoms might be the tendencies to use the Bible as a self-help book or a moral law. These misguided views of the Bible are sometimes exacerbated by our tendency at church to try and draw an application from a few verses at a time, or from a single chapter of one book, without ever placing the short passages in the context of the entire narrative.
Here, I want to draw back from a close study of individual passages. I want to discuss what the Bible is, why it was given to us, and why, at the risk of incurring guilt in the heart of other poor hapless children, Christians should read (but not “be reading”) the Bible.
The Bible is the story of human salvation. That is its scope. There are many people who read it looking for information on the metaphysical composition of angelic beings or a decisive conclusion to the creationist-evolutionist debate. These are the kinds of students who, during a class lecture on the quadratic formula, ask the teacher who invented algebra in the first place. The question might be fascinating, but it is detrimental to the rest of the class: if the teacher spends her limited time teaching about Arabian mathematics, none of the students will learn how to solve quadratic equations, and none of them will pass the test at the end of the week.
In this way, although it also happens to be the greatest work of literature the world has ever seen, the Bible is an eminently practical book. It tells us what we need to know and then advises us to stop asking irrelevant questions until we can first demonstrate a working knowledge of the foundational material. Seen in this light, it is also quite inflexible. We ask it at what point during the pregnancy does the fetus become a human soul, and it answers Jesus—which is completely useless from our perspective; from the Bible’s, it’s the only useful answer there is.
I seem to have answered two questions in one: the Bible is the story of human salvation, and it was given to us so that we might be saved. In accordance with God’s customary elegance, the story of salvation is also the means to salvation in that it is a way for us to encounter the Person of salvation: Jesus.
My third question also seems to be mixed into the first two: we as Christians should read the Bible because it is one way for us to encounter Jesus. Because of the nature of the book, and because of the Holy Spirit inside of us, it is possible for us to have such an encounter by reading only a single verse. And that is very good. But we were not given only one verse. We were given an epic history spanning at least six thousand years. Why should that be?
I believe there is a second reason why we should read the Bible: because it is the story of human salvation. It is our story—ours, as humanity. In the entirety of the tale, we learn where we come from, which in turn enables us to understand where we are now. We are even told where we are going. From paradise lost to Solomon’s temple to year 0 on the calendar to the heavenly Jerusalem: this is who we are.
Why not read history books instead? Don’t they perform the same function of placing our lives in the context of the human story? For Christians they are not enough, because we understand ourselves in the present as being in contact with God. We believe He can and does interact with us and with the world. History books are so far silent on the matter of divine intervention, so until they address the matter, we look to the Bible, not only as the story of humanity being saved, but also as the account of its Savior stepping into the created world and transforming it.
So I amend my initial description. The Bible is the story of God’s people, how they fell into slavery, how their Father did not leave them alone but came to rescue them, how He Himself died in the attempt. But, just when we think all is lost, He rises again, and the family reunites for a wedding feast in a glorious city by the crystal sea.
It is wrong to guilt one another into reading the Bible. We can read it as the Psalmist did: songs of delight in the house of our sojourning, sweeter than honey, more precious than fine gold.
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