Strange Visitor

In Hbl of ons 5.04. there was an article titled ”Ojämlikhet är inget problem”. It reported about the event that Hanken had invited one Yaron Brook (head of the Ayn Rand Institute) to keep a presentation, which he also had done …

The ideological direction of his presentation is (presumably fittingly) characterized by formulations like ”När Yaron Brooks träffar miljadärer går han fram och tackar – eftersom de har åstadkommit något värdefullt för mänskligheten” and ”… reser runt … med sitt budskap om att den offentliga sektorn varken är kapabel att ordna hälsovård eller utbildning”.

The content of his presentation has since been well and sufficiently answered by Joel Backström (in Hbl of fre 7.04., p.25), the style of his presentation seems to have been rather similar to Trump’s demagogy (deliver claims smoothly and faster than anybody can disprove them, and never mind if among your claims there are some – or many – which have been disproven a long time ago).

The presentation’s ideas one can think interesting in that sense that they are an example of genius worship which in Germany was popular aome 150 years ago (take Richard Wagner as an example), and quite as devoid of any understanding of the effects of SYSTEMS as they were then. But aside of such historical interest one would be curious to know why a highschool saw it fit to invite such a lecturer and pay his travel expenses, and what was the effect on the audience (was there a discussion afterwards, and what was its result?).

It has happened in the past that somebody rather exotic was invited to keep a presentation (I remember an occasion in Otaniemi – the nowadays Aalto University – where an invited creationist was giving a pretty poor performance, and I am rather convinced that he did not achieve any lasting damage), but one would be grateful if the media could follow up the results. The article in Hbl anyway just had to report that one Fabian Wallgren, who had come up with the idea that one could invite Yaron Brook, was afterwards rather proud.