As an aside, the proportion of the high school canon consisting of anti-utopian novels really is astounding.
On Mon, Jan 10, 2011 at 7:40 AM, James Leveque <jamespl79 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Huh, I'd missed that. That Rand had written a novel called "We The Living"
> I
> think was somewhere deep in the back of my mind, but I guess it doesn't
> stand out amongst her other novels, so I guess my characterisation of the
> list being 'important' works is probably a little bit of overstatement.
>
> Incidentally, regarding Huxley, I've met conservatives who have praised
> Brave New World. About three years ago, I was sitting on a train back to
> Oakland, where I met a guy who sort of fits the 'type' that we're talking
> about now: late-teens/early-twenties, white, working-class. His voice had a
> sort natural contempt and bitterness and he spent some time complaining
> about how he was 'so sick of all these liberals'. After I told him that I
> study literature (which he said was 'gay') he told me that one of his
> favorite books was Brave New World. I've never gotten around to reading
> that
> and only know vaguely what it's about, so I assumed that he read it as some
> sort of allegorical criticism of a stereotyped communism that carbon-copies
> its citizens, strips them of individuality, inserts them into the
> revolution, and so on. (Perhaps that's way off the mark, but I'm just
> trying
> to account for what this guy saw might have seen in it.) Afterward, I read
> that Huxley hung around with Frankfurt School types so it's probably more
> of
> an allegorical criticism of capitalist processes of replication. I supposed
> I should just sit down and read the book.
>
> James
>
> On Mon, Jan 10, 2011 at 5:05 AM, socialismorbarbarism <
> socialismorbarbarism at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Well, he also posted "We the Living."
> >
> > On Sun, Jan 9, 2011 at 7:30 AM, <123hop at comcast.net> wrote:
> > >
> > > ----- Original Message -----
> > > From: "James Leveque" <jamespl79 at gmail.com>
> > >
> > > "He also listed Plato, Orwell, Aldous Huxley, Lewis Carroll, Harper
> Lee,
> > Ken
> > > Kesey and a half dozen other very random books. It struck me a
> smattering
> > of
> > > "important" works, but nothing anybody could glean a coherent ideology
> > from.
> > > So I think the listing of Mein Kampf with the Communist Manifesto is
> more
> > or
> > > less meaningless. Much like a lot else in this whole sad crime."
> > >
> > > With the exception of Communist Manifesto and Mein Kampf, it looked to
> me
> > > like a left-leaning greatest hits.
> > >
> > > Joanna
> > >
> > >
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