Ayn Rand on Jesse Jackson

Though not mentioned explicitly in any of my posts, any Ayn Rand admirer can see her implicit influence in who I am through my writing. This morning I was reading a lecture of hers entitled Global Balkanization. This lecture was delivered to the Ford Hall Forum in April, 1977 available in the anthology "The Voice of Reason, Essays in Objectivist Thought" by Ayn Rand. The lecture begins with a question:

"Have you ever wondered about the process of the collapse of a civilization? Not the cause of the collapse--the ultimate cause is always philosophical--but the process, the specific means by which the accumulated knowledge and achievements of centuries vanish from the earth?"

Rand then answers the question and eloquently and concretely supports her answer. The short answer to her "have you ever wondered" question is "modern tribalism."

"If reason is not valid, what is to guide [people] and how are they to live? Obviously, they will seek to join some group--any group--which claims the ability to lead them and to provide some sort of knowledge acquired by some sort of unspecified means. The group people join is an unchosen group, the group into which you were born, the group to which you were predestined to belong by the sovereign omnipotent, omniscient power of your body chemistry."

And god bless Rand, because in the next sentence she clearly defines exactly what modern tribalism is:

"This, of course, is racism. But if your group is small enough, it will not be called "racism": it will be called "ethnicity.""

Paging Mr. Jackson, Mr. Jesse Jackson!

Now I could go on quoting almost the entire lecture, as it has numerous insights focusing issues usually left murky and defining things in thought that others would prefer to be left to "feeling." But let me try to focus my point by applying her ideas on modern tribalism and ethnicity with today's most visible, modern and repulsive example of a subhuman being. Yes ladies and gents, he's an old friend of mine, a subject I've tried to understand and define, it's Reverend Jesse Jackson.

I've dealt with Jesse in previous posts, specifically: "Jesse Jackson: What's He Qualified to Do?", "Jobs for Jesse", and the mock news story "Jesse Jackson Protests Lack of Diversity in One-Man, Home-Based Business." I dealt with Jesse in my usual and most favorite of ways, by lampooning him and using humor to make my points as razor sharp as possible, while smiling the entire time. But while reading Ayn Rand's Global Balkanization, a paragraph jumped out at me as the most accurate description of Jesse Jackson and all the other profiteers of the ethnicity business:

"The government of a mixed economy manufacturers pressure groups--and, specifically, manufactures "ethnicity." The profiteers are those group leaders who discover suddenly that they can exploit the helplessness, the fear, the frustration of their "ethnic" brothers, organize them into a group, present demands to the government--and deliver the vote. The result is political jobs, subsidies, influence and prestige for the leaders of the ethnic groups."

I have never read an author who can focus and define issues so well. Reason is her tool. I've never heard a more accurate description of Jesse Jackson--as a person, an institution and logical result of what happens when illogic is the means to illogical ends.