High School Pynchon vs. Angst

[mglosup at randomc.com]

On  6 Feb 97 at 20:34, argus. wrote:
   
> I have to step in here & defend Ayn Rand for Formative Years.  I
> know I couldn't have gotten out of Protestant Guilt and on to 
> proper thinking without her, as silly as it all seems now.  And 
> golly, but aint they good stories?   And as for Pirsig, I'm sure
> he's responsible for more people on motorcycles caring how they
> work, which can't be a bad thing. 

I too had an adolescent Rand flirtation, a common rite of passage in
certain US socio-economic groups.  However, most of the people I know
who read Rand in high school never graduated to GR with its depth of
probity and complexity of analysis, but  instead remain inured in her
utterly vicious and vacuous theology, maybe with the slightest of 
experientally rooted softenings. 

A culture which inculcates its young  with the values of Atlas
Shrugged is a culture which is undisturbed at the prospect of
starving, feral children roaming urban  streets as a result of
"reform" or which manufactures anxiety about the stability of a
social insurance program in the hope of migrating its assets to
where they properly reside--in the hands of speculators.

Protestant guilt may be a healthier alternative for our 
impressionable young than  Rand's canon..
Thanks,

Michael Glosup