| | Will Objectivism spread overseas faster than in America - at least in some cases?
Argentina now is ahead of the U.S. in having Atlas as one of the ten most popular books in the country.
I would express gratitude to Manfred for his wonderful work in starting the ball rolling and to the libertarian? foundation he mentions. But in the U.S., the pump-priming and fertilization of the soil is approaching fifty years in duration: there have been two foundations since the eighties (ARI and TOC), a long-standing libertarian party in fifty states running national campaigns, a chain of think tanks across fifty states, decades-old taped courses, lectures at colleges across the country first by Ayn Rand herself...and now by Objectivists like Peikoff and many others. Enormous effort and decades have been spent to get the return we've seen here.
Perhaps the major factor David hints at in his first point - "Argentinians have seen first hand the evils of government. In the same way, I think East European countries are more fertile breeding ground".
The spread of ideas is about timing as much as about the rationality of the ideas.
Bad ideas spread despite their lack of rationality.
To a very large extent throughout history radical ideas have spread the most rapidly in places which have been the most hungry and desperate...and the least complacent and self-satisfied.
Here is what I have gleaned from newspaper and journal articles (Manfred can correct me on any of these points) Argentinians once rivalled Europeans in terms of prosperity. But now their average personal wealth is a -fraction- of that of Americans. Argentina's political and particularly economic state has been at the -bottom- of the Latin and Central American countries, its economy in free fall, it's once prosperous people angry and desperate. It's system and rulers more corrupt than most.
Who is more likely to feel the need to pick up and read a book that radically challenges all their beliefs and their whole system, prosperous middle class Americans whose system basically works...or those in parts of the world where it doesn't?
How many of us have experienced how much it is like pulling teeth to get a complacent, busy American to pick up a thousand page book ... or to be motivated to seriously stick to the years-long process of mastering and integrating a whole new way of looking at the world.
This also helps illuminate why Objectivism and Rand's works are making essentially no ripple in places like Britain, France, Germany.... compared to India where Rand is well-known and influential.
And why Christian missionaries are most successful in the most backward or dissatisfied or transitioning parts of the world - Africa, the "third world", communist or former communist countries, not the staid, moderate, largely safe and successful "center".
If I had a million dollars, I would go seek out new untapped frontiers to spread Objectivism.
And many of them are overseas. Frontiers are where change happens.
((Please don't reply to this here...the spread of Objectivism in various countries has been moved to the new Objectivism in Argentina thread..))
(Edited by Philip Coates
on 4/01, 11:32am)
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