Phillipines Discovers Ayn Rand...

[Spano]

Just found an interesting story brought by google alerts. According to author Mark Skousen (whose book I highly recommend), a university there has banned books by free market thinkers, including Ayn Rand.

Link

Ayn Rand's books must be having a substantial impact if they are going to such lengths to hide them.

Edited December 13, 2005 by Spano

[softwareNerd]

You'll know Objectivism is winning...

... when universities are so scared of her books, they'll ban them from the library.

Actually, a quiet banning probably works in the interest of the Marxist professors. However, imagine if this were made public. It would be nice if a whole lot of Philippine college kids were told there's a book they must not read!

Anyone know any popular Philippine bloggers?

[Felix]

I love this part:

One of the most controversial chapters is chapter 6, “Marx Plunges Economics into a New Dark Age.” The student was a member of a Communist front student organization at University of the Philippines, but was so impressed with my critique of Marx that he typed the entire chapter into an email and sent it to all his Marxist friends and sociology professor. As a result, they all abandoned Marxism in favor of free-market economics, including his professor.

I need this book.

[scottkursk]

Also, banning students from doing something tends to encourage them to do it. I remember in college (dating myself here) but after Iran issued the fatwa to kill Rushdie, they had a marathon reading of The Satanic Verses. Everyone took a paragraph and passed it to the next person to read aloud. Hmmm.

That is about the only way anyone would have recomended his writing. I know it wasn't because of quality of writing.

[Dikaiosyne]

Paraphrasing Star Wars here, but applicable:

"The More that you tighten your grasp, the more free minds will slip through your fingers."

[softwareNerd]

Here is what one Filipino blogger [not an Objectivist or anything like that] replied to me when I asked about this story...

Regarding the story about a certain book being banned in the University of the Philippines, I would really have serious doubts about it. Although I do not come from UP (University of the Philippines), I have great respects for this institution as a cornerstone of free and critical thinking among Filipino students.

There may be other reasons for its disappearance from the shelves. And the school library administrators may not have anything to do with it. It may just be the work of some students who are against the ideas espoused by the book. But your guess is as good as mine.

As I said, I don't think an educational institution as respected as UP can do that. In the school where I came from (the other premier university near UP), I still remember that way back in college, I was able to read various books regarding Marxism and other economic theory books from our library. I was an Economics major so it is safe to safe that I am acquainted with both ends of the spectrum in economics. But my point is, these books are available to us for us to read, analyze their differences, discern which to adapt, and form our own opinions. The Martial Law days ended with Marcos. And I don't think the left-leaning elements in our society would have that much influence as to order the censure of a particular book in all major universities here in the Philippines.

And for someone to claim that a certain chapter in a book was enough to convert a whole class, including professors, to the opposite paradigm of economic thinking, is simply preposterous. Come on, these left-leaning radicals have molded their lives with the words of Marx as their Gospel. Do you really think they would easily abandon those with just the reading of one chapter of a book? Give the leftists more credit.

Edited to add: Another Filipino blogger claims to have checked the library catalog and founds are still listed, therefore speculating that far from being banned, students may have been asked to read them.

Edited December 14, 2005 by softwareNerd

[vonjobi]

Edited to add: Another Filipino blogger claims to have checked the library catalog and founds are still listed, therefore speculating that far from being banned, students may have been asked to read them.

thanks for linking to what i wrote. please check out what clair and gelo wrote, too. as far as i know, skousen has yet to reply.