Grants Get Ayn Rand’s Ideas Covered in Kentucky Classrooms

[Ed Anger]

Hmmmm...people are fascinated by Nazis and elves...what we need is Nazi elves!  I think you have a winner here.

In some fantasy settings, elves' attitudes towards non-elves are downright Hitleresque, so they're not *that* far away.

all elves, hobbits, kender and other annoying races should be liquidated.

[grumbler]

all elves, hobbits, kender and other annoying races should be liquidated.

Isn't this German for children?

*Ice cream, Mandrake. Children's ice cream!*

[Ed Anger]

all elves, hobbits, kender and other annoying races should be liquidated.

Isn't this German for children?

*Ice cream, Mandrake. Children's ice cream!*

D&D thing.

[Razgovory]

all elves, hobbits, kender and other annoying races should be liquidated.

Isn't this German for children?

*Ice cream, Mandrake. Children's ice cream!*

D&D thing.

Dragon lance only.

[Caliga]

I personally think this is a metaphor for Rand's idea of how man treats nature, and why such putative "rape" is actually good, because nature wants to be "raped" (for chaste nature has no purpose).  But that is beside the point that Rand has confirmed that this wasn't rape (and Dominique's later claims and thoughts that it was were lies and self-delusion).

Ok, thank you for clarifying this... I didn't know Rand had made these comments about the scene.

[grumbler]

I personally think this is a metaphor for Rand's idea of how man treats nature, and why such putative "rape" is actually good, because nature wants to be "raped" (for chaste nature has no purpose).  But that is beside the point that Rand has confirmed that this wasn't rape (and Dominique's later claims and thoughts that it was were lies and self-delusion).

Ok, thank you for clarifying this... I didn't know Rand had made these comments about the scene.

Yeah.  Agree that it shows Rand's bizarre view of "what women want" but also think that one has to be careful about how one view her "protagonists."  They are almost never flawed in the way a reader would think them flawed, which is another reason not to assign her books to a high school (or any other) reading class.

Except maybe a college course on dysfunctional characters written by writers with a disdain for actual human motivations. 

[Sheilbh]

As I've stated numerous times before on Languish, I think her books are interesting and worthy of consideration if only because she presents a surprisingly different viewpoint from almost everything else a typical high schooler might encounter.

But that's not the point of an English lesson.  Perhaps you could assign it in a course on social studies, with 'The Ragged Trouser Philanthropists' as counter-point, but not in English.

I'm terribly Victorian about the purpose of English in schools - a real latter-day Matthew Arnold.  But I believe that the goal of English lessons is to set a flame that'll burn for a lifetime.  For the kids who are interested it's to provide them with what will be a life-long hinterland and love of our literary heritage.  Aside from that it's to teach people about the methods of communication and some appreciation of literature - I think they should learn meter and so on.  English is one of those courses which I think really depends on the teacher, but everyone I know who had one good English teacher - no matter what they now do - have at least one book, one poet or even one poem that they really love that that teacher helped them understand.  That's what English is for, not to learn viewpoints.  If it was about different viewpoints I imagine we would have cut Milton from the curriculum by now :p

[Caliga]

That's a good point.  When I was in school, we did not have philosophy classes, so English ended up being kind of a dumping ground for everything that couldn't easily be categorized elsewhere.  English lessons in the sense of "grammar lessons" stopped by the time I got to 9th grade.  The final years of high school English were bascially just literature courses.