Socialism is Favoring Relationships Over Individuals

The latest news from China is that a "circuit breaker" has been applied to their stock market to keep it from crashing.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-04/chinese-stocks-in-hong-kong-extend-annual-slump-as-yuan-declines

In other words, the "needs"  of society to have a stable stock market have been placed above the rights of individual stockholders to sell or buy as they please. That in a nutshell is the entire dilemma of looking at everything from a social perspective. How can society be more important than the people of which it is composed?

I made a second book trailer for Our Lady of Kaifeng: Courtyard of the Happy Way that addresses this issue.

This trailer is about the personal and spiritual issues addressed in the novel, but if you are an economist or a political science major, don't let this put you off. The issues are all the same, whether the relationship in question is one between two people or among all the people in a country or region. What is paramount, the individual or his relationships?

Over and over again, we are told that relationships are more important than individuals. For instance, yesterday, I saw a TED video that claimed people are happiest if they have stable relationships, not when their personal achievements are at their best. In other words, if you spend your entire life loafing on the couch, but your sweetheart is right there with you, that is better than being a successful athlete, businessman,  hunter-gatherer, explorer,  artist, writer, scientist, farmer, rancher, privateer, craftsman, silversmith or shopkeeper.

http://www.ted.com/talks/robert_waldinger_what_makes_a_good_life_lessons_from_the_longest_study_on_happiness

Why do you suppose those people are trying so hard to sell us on being low-achievers with good social connections? Could it be because that is what socialism is all about? People who work in factories as automatons and people who work in offices as bureaucrats have this in common: that they try to solace themselves for their less than creative day-to-day life by having good personal relationships outside work.

But, of course, these relationships cannot be based on admiration, respect or hero worship, so then the connection itself is elevated to a place of worship over and above the individuals. People sacrifice their own desires in order to keep the relationship aloft. They put in circuit breakers  to prevent themselves and their partners from getting out of the relationship --  for the sake of the relationship and against the best interests of those involved.

I once had a friend in England who was a big fan of 1984 and Animal Farm.  I  convinced him he should read Atlas Shrugged. But all he liked out of that huge book was the story of the Twentieth Century Motor Company.  He thought the whole rest of the book should have been trimmed off as excess. He especially did not see what the point was of recounting Dagny Taggart's love life. To him, that was entirely spurious.

Unless we understand that the minimal relationship -- one consisting of only two people -- is a model for all our more complex relationships, we won't be able to fix the problem of putting society before the individual.  That's why the relationships in Rand's books are important.  That's also why unrequited love needs to be the model for all love.  Love precedes the relationship. It does not derive from it. The person comes first. The relationship is built on individual feelings,  not the other way around.  Society could not exist if it were not for the people. No god could survive without worshipers. If we all die of starvation, where does that leave society?

Unrequited Love of Country

As the publication date for Theodosia and the Pirates: The War Against Spain approaches, I am having to find new ways to describe the book. Publicists and readers alike want to know: what is your book about? Why did you write it? What's in it for me?

There are many, many different ways to answer that question. Today, I want to give an answer that focuses on patriotism. And not just any kind of patriotism, but passionate,  unrequited love of country.

When I set out to write Theodosia and the Pirates, I was a little tired of unrequited love. I had just finished writing the first half of Our Lady of Kaifeng, which is a story about a woman who travels halfway across the world in the hopes of having a conversation with someone she loves, but who does not love her.

It was quite a release to be able to write a joyous story of love that is reciprocated, and in part, that is what Theodosia and the Pirates represents for me. But as I was writing it, I became aware of a theme of rejection that ran just under the surface. And this rejection was not about the love between a man and a woman. It was about being rejected by your own country, or by a country you love and long to help.

How does this theme manifest itself? Here are a few instances:

• Zora Nadrimal, Jean Laffite's grandmother, was a loyal Spaniard. And yet she and her husband were arrested and tortured by the Inquisition, and she was forced to flee the country after her husband's death, never to return. Spanish was still her native language. She raised her daughter speaking Spanish. She spoke Spanish to her grandchildren and educated them in the culture of Spain. But how did she really feel about her native country? What about her behavior inspires Jean to take up his "War Against Spain", an endless vendetta against the country that rejected his grandparents?
• Theodosia Burr Alston was a loyal, patriotic American. Yet her father was accused of being a traitor, and even after he was acquitted of the charges, his name was dragged in the mud. If you open a history book today, Aaron Burr is known for two things: killing Alexander Hamilton in a duel, and plotting to "separate the Western territories" from the United States. Burr went into exile for a time after his acquittal, but he returned to the United States and lived in poverty and obscurity for the rest of his life. How did Theodosia Burr really feel about the country that could do this to her father, after he had been a revolutionary war hero, had served as Vice President, and had always championed the freedoms of all Americans?
• Jean Laffite, despite being a hunted man, gave the Americans information about their enemies the British that was designed to help them avoid being conquered. What did they do in response? They sent a raiding party against him. He ordered his men not to fight back against the looters, and even after his ships were stolen and storehouses looted, he contributed to the American cause by donating gunpowder and flint, artillery and trained cannoneers, and he fought for the US cause right alongside the men who looted him: Patterson and Ross. Yet when the conflict was over, he was never compensated for what was taken from him, and he was forced to find another place to continue his privateering business. Not content with driving him out of Barataria, the Americans required him to leave Galveston, too. And even when he was enlisted in the Columbian Navy, the  Americans were still out to get him. What would you feel toward a country that did that to you? Paradoxically, Jean Laffite felt only love for the United States of America, despite the actions of its government. 

Some people feel that everything in life is based on turn taking and reciprocity. It's all you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours. But real love, whether it is for a person or a country, is not like that. True love transcends the need for reciprocation.

That's the big theme in Theodosia and the Pirates. It was present in the first book from the beginning, but it is given a final expression in The War Against Spain. Sometimes love of country is so strong, that it transcends borders and rulers. It is like a weed that flowers despite everything that is done to eradicate it. In this sense, the book is a tribute to the triumph of love over hatred.