Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!spool.mu.edu!telecom-request From: 0004133373@mcimail.com (Donald E. Kimberlin) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Ayn Rand on Privacy Message-ID: Date: 26 Jun 91 11:43:00 GMT Sender: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Organization: TELECOM Digest Lines: 30 Approved: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 11, Issue 493, Message 6 of 8 something concise and cogent to say about the Digest's several threads on matters of privacy: "Civilization is the progress toward a scoiety of privacy." Depending on how you read those several threads, we're either working like the dickens on building a civilization, or we're busy destroying the one we had. [Moderator's Note: I am ambivilent toward Ms. Rand's philosophy, known as 'objectivism'. When I was in high school in 1957, her (then) new book 'Atlas Shrugged' was just being published and she was on a tour promoting the book. As captain of the debate team, I convinced the debate teacher Arthur Erickson to convince the principal to invite her to speak at a school assembly. Afterward, Arthur took Ms. Rand and I to dinner on the way to getting her back to Ohare Airport for a trip to wherever she was going next. I remember very little from that night 34 years ago except that after dinner we sat there smoking cigarettes; Ms. Rand with her cigarette holder which she waved about from time to time to emphasize something, Arthur with a Viceroy hanging out of his lips, and me with a Pall Mall to show I was just as sophisticated and glamorous as my adult friends. One of her comments sticks in my mind: staring intently at me, she said, "You are such a smart, intelligent boy! You are too intelligent to believe in Gott! Why do you believe in Gott?" And she got a tremendous laugh when Arthur replied that even confirmed athiests like himself enjoyed reading the {Christian Science Monitor} every day. PAT]