目迷五色，心空四象
一生负气成今日，四海无人对夕阳
这期的<<纽约客>>有一篇关于安兰德(Ayn Rand)活动小组的文章"Ayn Crowd", 很有意思, 作者Lizzie Widdicombe. 说到了安兰德的<<阿特拉斯耸耸肩>>在眼下经济不景气时期的热卖, 也讲到格林斯潘这个Ayn Rand的前信徒现叛徒在国会宣称"found a flaw" in his trust in free-market capitalism后, 这些粉丝们的反应.
我也是Ayn Rand的粉丝, 十分欣慰地承认, 她多多少少改变了我的人生观. 今年一月份, 我还特意赶到纽约上州Ayn Rand的墓地, 向这位不可多得的伟大女士致敬, 并且希望哪天自己死了也能葬在那个墓区:)
ABSTRACT: Talk story about a meeting of Ayn Rand enthusiasts. Every month, a group of Ayn Rand enthusiasts get together at the Midtown Restaurant, on Fifty-fifth Street, for a discussion of Objectivism—the philosophy, expressed in Rand’s novels, that celebrates the selfish individual over the collective, and argues that laissez-faire capitalism is the only just social system. There was a special buzz at the most recent meeting: for months, Rand’s novel “Atlas Shrugged”—which describes a kind of American economic apocalypse, spurred by socialist-style government intervention—has been on the bestseller lists. “This economic crisis has sparked so much interest!” Robert Flanzer, a dentist, said. About twenty participants gathered around a long table at the front of the restaurant. They included a former “spiritual care manager” who now works in wealth management, an exercise coach, a shamanic healer, a flight attendant, a musician, and the designer of the covers for two books about Rand. Paul Bell, another discipline of Rand’s, rose and started a discussion about Alan Greenspan, Rand’s best-known disciple, who offended Objectivists last fall by announcing, in testimony before Congress, that he’d “found a flaw” in his faith in free-market capitalism. Bell suggested that Greenspan, who had been an Objectivist since the sixties, changed after he went to Washington—that he got “Potomac fever.” The discussion moved on to other signs of social decline: the M.T.A., gangs on the Lower East Side. Benny Pollak, a computer programmer, asked, “If Ayn Rand were alive today, what do you think would be her attitude toward the current meltdown?” “ ‘I told you so’?” another group member suggested.
