I was sitting in class in Demarest Elementary School. My teacher was called out of the room and we sat quietly waiting for her return. We heard her voice in the hallway, talking to the Principal. I wondered who was in trouble. Then the teacher walked back in and, looking utterly shaken, she informed us that President Kennedy had been shot and killed. I was terrified, not because of the notion that JFK was shot–I was seven years old and somehow the concept seemed very far away–but because our teacher was fighting back tears and wasn’t entirely succeeding. I had never in my life seen an adult cry. I thought that was something that only kids did; that when you grew up, you outgrew crying somehow.
I learned otherwise that day. When I came home, my mother was crying, and when my father got back in that evening, even his eyes looked red rimmed.
Adults cried. Who knew?
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Alas, this is a sad (historical) fact. Sadness and crying are a part of life. And who knows how the world would have turned out if Kennedy hadn’t been assassinated that day ?
Differently.
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“And who knows how the world would have turned out if Kennedy hadn’t been assassinated that day?”
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Doug Naylor – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xL2bnJvwQyk
I remember when a student died during my freshman year of high school and my teacher was unable to hold back the tears long enough to read the announcement. A student had to finish for her. The student in question had been heavily involved in extracurricular activities at school, so a large portion of the staff were really upset and struggling for the rest of the day.
Just tangentially related, I just saw this audio-link about Ayn Rand comparing Kennedy’s sacrifice speech to Hitler’s mass exterminations.
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http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=reg_ar_frontier
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Whenever someone tries to contemporize Rand’s “philosophy”, its good to have examples like this one to draw a line in the sand.
She said some crazy things and her philosophy is poisonous if taken too far. But you can say exactly the same of any of her collectivist political opponents.
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Personaly, I’m glad her philosophy exists as a counterbalance to socialism. Between the push-and-pull of the two of them, we can find a way to live.
The problem is that her contemporary followers and admirers (including Rep. Paul Ryan and Alan Greenspan) seem to believe that Rand’s philosophy be taken at least as far as she advocated.
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What is remotely as popular or influential on the other side of the US political/economic spectrum as to make Rand an equalizing corrective? Unless you sincerely believe that hardcore Stalinist or Maoist philosophy is prevalent in current American political debate, you’re using an anvil to counterbalance a feather.
Rene:
Her philosophy doesnt counterbalance collectivism, it counterbalances old school liberalism and democracy. It erodes the very concept of society as an association of people with equal rights to replace it with aristocracy, under the basis that “having” is a reason enough for “deserving” and the fantasy that personal worth will reward those deservings, the “creators”.
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“Collective” is not a filthy word, it just describes what people do together. The problem with collectivism is its forceful nature, but collective efforts in a democracy (like the ones Kennedy proposed) are not a bad thing and are far from beign similar to mass executions.
Sasha, I was thinking globaly.
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El Hombre, Ayn Rand’s family escaped communist Russia. She had firsthand perspective of how cruel collectivism can be, if unchecked.
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I think she is a little nuts, she went too far, but I understand her madness. You too might get a little anxious about a charismatic leader urging people to ask what they can do for your country, when your family business was expropriated for the sake of the people’s revolution.
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Rand’s outlook can be seen as a reaction, equally extreme, to what she was exposed to as a child.
Actually, she was the one who left, her family stayed. And she severed the contact with them years later because they actually said it wasnt so bad. Because it was bad, but it wasnt as bad as her fantasies made her think.
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Moreso, her problem was not with the effect collectivism could have on people but on her and others she perceived to be her equals and who she perceived to be deserving of anything they could get at the expense of others (she later excluded violence from the acceptable means).
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Really, her family never left? I didn’t know that.
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I agree that Ayn Rand had some sociopathic traits to her character. Nonetheless, some of her ideas can be refreshing when you’re swimming among hardcore collectivists that think the individual truly is expendable.
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I wonder what her fantasies of Soviet Russia were. Ayn Rand was a person that saw in black and white. But it was still a very bad place, and the Leftist intelligence in the 20th century tended to whitewash it. I do think it was good to have a voice like Rand’s.
My understanding is that she was unable to bring her family over to the USA because the Soviets would not allow it. Later, one sister was able to come over but they did not get along. from the evidence, one can probably assume they all would have left when she did had they been allowed to, which tells you plenty about how swell things were going in Russia.
I grew up in a place where many still had sympathy and admiration for the Soviet Union. And even today many admire Cuba, China, and Venezuela.
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To those people, I’d always say one of the differences between capitalist and communist countries is that people always want to enter the former and escape from the later.
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And that really says it all about the relative merits of the systems.
One has to understand where these kind of feelings come from. I grew up in a house where there was more simpathy towards the URSS than to the USA. After all, the soviets sent help to the Republic while the USA made deals with Franco and even gave him military aid. I outgrew all that and I rather live in a (social)democracy than a dictatorship, however well meant. But then I have had access to education and a good deal of confort and opportunities. If I lived in certain countries I might decide to exchange the freedom to starve for the chance to collectivize by force what others took (by force) for themselves.
Well said, good sir. I’m trying to remember now the first time I saw an adult cry. It’s definitely unnerving when you’re young.
Off-topic #1: I know you grew up in New Jersey, and you mention Demarest School. Would that be the one in Bloomfield, by any
chance? I only ask because my nephew attends that Demarest now.
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Off-topic #2: While it doesn’t have the global impact of JFK, someone else now shares November 22 with him: it was just announced that Anne McCaffrey has passed away.
I have to disagree. Her impact may not have been as flashy – but I believe it was easily as wide-ranging.
He was a US President – he created policies, and a few dreams.
She was an author – she created *MILLIONS* of dreams.
True enough, Tara. I was thinking “global” in terms of name recognition — there are lots of people who have no idea who Anne McCaffrey was, but pretty much everyone’s heard of JFK. In terms of what they accomplished, you’ve certainly got a valid argument.
Peter did indeed live in Bloomfield when he was a child, as he indicated in the “But I Digress…” that ran in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1251 (November 7, 1997).
That’s the one, Tim.
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Neat; thanks, Peter. I’ll have to share it with my family later today; my nephew may or may not care (he’s 5), but my brother (whom I believe you’ve met a few times) will certainly be amused.
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And a Happy Thanksgiving to all!
I was in the seventh grade in rural South Carolina.
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The principal announced it over the PA.
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Barney Davis cheered.
Mike,
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I hope “Barney Davis” is a fake name because it seems a bit pointless to remind someone of how clueless they were in the seventh grade.
I was in the sixth grade at a Catholic grade school. When the principal announced the shooting on the intercom system our teacher rushed out of the room. When she came back we had a discussion about why he may have been a target. Being a Catholic was a suggestion. Yeah, paranoia strikes deep.
Oh, Barney Davis. THAT dìçk.
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I was nine when Yitzchak Rabin was murdered. I don’t remember much, but the rabbi called out all into the synagogue chapel and talked to us about how we need to come together in a time of sorrow. I remember a lot of people arguing, some hating him and some mourning him and me just being so sad for his family and the realization that death could (and would) come to people.
Umm, synagogue “chapel”? I was raised with Reform Judaism and that’s not a term I’m used to seeing anywhere. (Granted, some online dictionaries have a very broad definition of the term.)