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An Eye Opener

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Geoff

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I just recently started reading the book "Return of the Primitive" as it has been siting in my bedroom for quite sometime now, and I really wish I would have started reading it sooner. Ive been interested in Objectivism for sometime now, and I have read a number of books which have totally changed my outlook on life, but this is the first book to make me reflect back to an event in my life that has always been a mystery to me. The chapter titled "The Comprachicos" is the chapter which struck me the hardest. The event which I had reflected on was when I was about five or six years old. My mother had just dropped me off at this daycare center down the street from our house. I had a bag of Reese's pieces and as I began to open them the women at the daycare center snatched them from me and said "If you want to eat these you must share them with everyone!" I never fully understood why I was being forced to share something of mine with a bunch of people I didnt know untill I read this book. It dawned on me. It was so clear and vivid. Rand's speechs about collectivism and how everything you own belongs to the group. I was able to see and make the connection which I havent up untill now been able to make. Now all I see around me are examples of the collectivist thought process which is being ingrained in to our heads. Kids copy off of the productive kid in class as if they are entitled to it. How kids cling to groups because this is what they have been taught. I wanted to share my experience with reading this book. I truly think it is one of her best. Thank you.

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When I was in first grade, my preferred reading list had jumped past Dick and Jane, and consisted of comics in all forms. Batman and Prince Valiant taught me to read. So did Calvin and Hobbes. I remember one of my favorite strips was when Calvin is in class chewing gum, and Ms. Wormwood asks "Calvin, are you chewing gum?" "Yesh..." "Do you have enough to share with everyone?" *Calvin pulls out an enormous wad of gum* "Probably, but do you really think they'd want it?" The next scene is of him in the principal's office saying, "What?! It was her idea!"

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I went to school under Communism in Hungary, and no teacher ever made me share anything. They didn't even recommend that we share anything; the idea apparently never entered their minds.

I guess living under a collectivist government is a pretty good antidote to collectivism!

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I went to school under Communism in Hungary, and no teacher ever made me share anything. They didn't even recommend that we share anything; the idea apparently never entered their minds.

I guess living under a collectivist government is a pretty good antidote to collectivism!

I have a coworker who grew up behind the Iron curtain, the stories he has are scary...

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