Google Alerts lets one set up keywords or interest. Google sends out email when it finds fresh news-articles with those keywords. Today, there’s a link to the Galveston County Daily News, with over 10 reader’s letters about Anthem. (Presumably, the paper previously ran an article about Anthem being taught in a local school, but a search didn’t turn up any such article online).
Google Alerts lets one set up keywords or interest. Google sends out email when it finds fresh news-articles with those keywords. Today, there’s a link to the Galveston County Daily News, with over 10 reader’s letters about Anthem. (Presumably, the paper previously ran an article about Anthem being taught in a local school, but a search didn’t turn up any such article online).
Thanks for the link. It’s good to see ARI’s efforts coming through.
Anthem was the first Ayn Rand book I read, and interestingly I read it for a project in English 2 Pre-AP as well (Though not everyone read the same book; in fact no two people could chose the same author). I remember my reaction to it: Disgust at the thought of collectivist government, and a feeling of dignity and pride reading the chapter after Equality discovers I. I don’t think any of the ones who wrote those letters got anything like that out of it. Reading those, I can’t help but wonder how they missed the obvious. It’s like they interpreted Ayn Rand from collectivist, irrationalist, and egalitarian viewpoints :lol: . I can’t help but wonder whether Haley Ringe even finished reading the novel. I don’t know if any of it got through to them. It’s rather sad, really. I can only hope they simply didn’t publish the letters from the ones who even remotely got it. I know Anthem changed my life, and I think that it could do it for others, especially at that age, but it might have been wasted on that class.
The most disturbing letter for me to read was the one from Ben Seidnesticker. His attempt to distinguish dictatorship from extreme socialism is baffling. He also seemed to grasp the book’s thesis better than many of his classmates, which makes his conclusion all the more perverse.
Maybe what this world needs is a governing system that can limit our technology, such as was done in “Anthem.” Maybe, it would be worth taking a chance with a truly equal society.
But even if some of the kids misinterpreted parts of the book, at least most of them seemed to relate to the idea of individualism and freedom being an important value.
(Small consolation.)
And it is good that ARI is successful in its attempt to get schools reading Ayn Rand.