The Objective Standard Blog
The Objective Standard Blog
Thursday, March 11, 2010
The Spring Issue of TOS
The print edition of the Spring issue of TOS is at press and will be mailed shortly; the online version will be accessible to subscribers beginning March 20; and the Kindle edition will be delivered to Kindle subscribers on March 30. For promotional purposes, we are making Steve Simpson’s article “Citizens United and the Battle for Free Speech in America” available on our website early and for free.
The contents of the Spring issue are:
ARTICLES
Citizens United and the Battle for Free Speech in America by Steve Simpson
Government-Run Health Care vs. the Hippocratic Oath
by Paul HsiehThe Virtue of Treating People Like Animals: Why Human Health Care Should Mirror Veterinary Health Care
by Sarah GelbergThe Practicality of Private Waterways
by J. Brian Phillips and Alan GermaniNorman Borlaug: The Man Who Taught People To Feed Themselves
by Audra HilseMaking Life Meaningful: Living Purposefully
by Craig BiddleBOOKS REVIEWED
Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Reviewed by Heike LarsonWinning the Unwinnable War edited by Elan Journo
Reviewed by Grant W. JonesWhy Are Jews Liberals? by Norman Podhoretz
Reviewed by Gideon ReichCapitalism Unbound by Andrew Bernstein
Reviewed by Ari ArmstrongEssays on Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged edited by Robert Mayhew
Reviewed by Daniel WahlThe Sparrowhawk Series by Edward Cline
Reviewed by Dina Schein FedermanBorn to Run by Christopher McDougall
Reviewed by Daniel WahlYour Inner Fish by Neil Shubin
Reviewed by David H. MirmanNewton and the Counterfeiter by Thomas Levenson
Reviewed by Daniel Wahl
If you have not yet subscribed to TOS, why not do so today? You can subscribe online or by calling 800-423-6151.
Labels: Announcements, Ayn Rand and Objectivism, Business and Economics, Foreign Policy and War, Healthcare, History, Individual Rights and Law, Philosophy, Religion, Science and Technology, The Arts
Tuesday, February 09, 2010
2010 Summer Conference
Here’s an announcement from the Ayn Rand Institute:
Announcing Objectivist Summer Conference 2010!
We are pleased to introduce the Objectivist Summer Conference 2010 Web site. Objectivist Conferences is the premier venue for high-caliber presentations by Objectivist scholars, and that is what we bring you this year as Leonard Peikoff presents "The DIM Hypothesis" (part 2), the six-part sequel to the groundbreaking series of lectures that he delivered to our conference attendees in 2007. This year's conference offers eleven general session lectures, sixteen optional courses, and a variety of social activities and special events.
In addition to Dr. Peikoff's lectures, we will bring you lectures and courses on a broad spectrum of topics, including politics ("Defending Capitalism" by Yaron Brook); writing ("Writing Objectively" by Keith Lockitch); history ("The Renaissance [part 3]: Reformation and Religious Wars [1517-1648]," by Andrew Lewis); and poetry ("Making Poetry Part of Your Life," by Lisa VanDamme). We are also pleased to announce that there will be a special Q & A on ARI's 25th Anniversary, hosted by Michael S. Berliner and Yaron Brook.
This year's conference takes place in the exciting setting that only Las Vegas can provide. Besides the renowned glamour of the Vegas Strip, the area boasts excellent shopping and restaurants, and landmarks such as the Hoover Dam (subject of a general session lecture by Talbot Manvel).
We are looking forward to an inspiring and memorable conference—we hope to see you there!
Register by March 31 to take advantage of discount pricing. Details are available on our registration options and pricing page.
Note: For those who prefer to review details of Objectivist Summer Conference 2010 in print, we have made a printable PDF available online: PDF Catalog.
Labels: Announcements, Ayn Rand and Objectivism, Events
Wednesday, February 03, 2010
Virtue and the Realization of Human Life: Response to Roderick Long on Ayn Rand
But many who read Ayn Rand's works are troubled by Wilkinson's question about why it is in the egoist's self-interest to refrain from predation on others, and it is worth expanding on the answer. The question arises again in the series of posts from Cato Unbound that originally motivated Wilkinson's comment. I want to briefly sketch an answer to one of these posts, by philosophy professor Roderick Long. Long also asks the question about how egoism supports rights, and offers an answer that he regards as superior to Rand's. His position rests on a misunderstanding of Rand's view on the relationship between means and ends.
To explain his answer to the predation problem, Long invokes a distinction from the history of ethics:
But what, in Rand's view, connects our self-interest with the moral claims of others? For most of Rand's aforementioned "eudaimonist" predecessors, the requirements of moral virtue were conceived as a constitutive part of the agent's own interest; the Epicureans were the only major dissidents, regarding virtue instead as an instrumental strategy for attaining this interest (rather like Hobbes, in a way, though the Epicureans are surely closer to the main line of eudaimonism than Hobbes is). Rand appears to waver between these two approaches, treating the individual's ultimate good sometimes as a robust human flourishing that has virtue as a component, and sometimes as mere survival to which virtue is only an external means.Long sees this distinction as relevant to answering the predation problem because if we adopt the "constitutive" view rather than the "instrumental view," and regard a man's honesty and integrity as proper parts of his self-interest, then his being a man of honesty and integrity automatically contributes to his self-interest, whereas his use of force against others would contradict these virtues and automatically count against his self-interest. Long thinks that he sees elements of this "constitutive" view in Rand's fiction:
The constitutive approach predominates in her novels; the chief reason that Rand's fictional protagonists (such as architect Howard Roark in The Fountainhead or railroad executive Dagny Taggart in Atlas Shrugged) do not cheat their customers, for example, is pretty clearly that they would regard such parasitism on the productive efforts of others as directly inconsistent with the nobility and independence of spirit that they cherish for themselves, and not because they're hoping that a policy of honesty will maximize their chances of longevity.Long rightly stresses that elsewhere in her work, Rand urges that virtue is not an end in itself but a means to the end of human life. This suggests that she regarded virtue as "instrumental" to self-interest, rather than as a proper or constitutive part of it. But Long contends that this instrumental view of virtue is harder to square with an obligation to refrain from initiating force against others. If virtue consists of whatever achieves one's self-interest, and self-interest is constituted only by generic material gain, then regularly mugging one's neighbor would be virtuous. Long urges that we adopt the view that self-interest is constituted by virtue, but contends that Rand does not hold what he takes to be this more defensible view.
Long's argument begins from a faulty assumption: that there is a firm distinction between the "instrumental" and the "constitutive" in value theory, that a means to an end cannot itself be part of the end.
Rand does regard the virtues as means, not as "ends in themselves." But her point in rejecting the idea that virtue is "its own reward" is to distance her view from the altruistic view that severs the tie between virtue and the happy life. "Virtue is not its own reward or sacrificial fodder for the reward of evil. Life is the reward of virtue." Her point is not necessarily to regard virtue as a mere means to an end—as if engaging in virtuous action were external to the end of life or as if virtuous action were not itself living.
Consider further that virtues are the principle-directed actions we must engage in to live a distinctive kind of life, a human life, which is itself constituted by distinctive types of values, values of both the body and the spirit. Life is an end in itself, and part of what this means is that living is both means and end, the means to more of itself. The question to answer, then, is what is this action of living?
In an underappreciated passage in "The Objectivist Ethics," Rand makes this brilliantly clear:
Value is that which one acts to gain and/or keep—virtue is the act by which one gains and/or keeps it. The three cardinal values of the Objectivist ethics—the three values which, together, are the means to and the realization of one's ultimate value, one's own life—are: Reason, Purpose, Self-Esteem, with their three corresponding virtues: Rationality, Productiveness, Pride (pg. 25). [my emphasis].Reason, purpose, and self-esteem are the values that most crucially constitute the distinctively human way of living—as such they are both means to and part of the end. And the virtues are actions in service of these values.
Reason, purpose and self-esteem are the fundamental means to the ultimate end, which is human life. We need reason to identify the facts of reality that bear on solving the problem of survival, we need to identify the relationship of our actions and goals to our life and happiness—which is the value of purpose, and we need self-esteem to motivate these actions by reminding us that we are capable of succeeding in them and worthy of doing so.
The crucial nature of these cardinal values to a life of happiness is exhibited in Rand's fiction when her characters are shown enjoying work, and enjoying it even when it is not a part of their chosen career. When Roark can't find commissions, for example, he finds purpose in his life by working in the quarry. And when Dagny exiles herself from the railroad, she creates tasks for herself—like clearing brush and clearing paths—just because "what she needed was the motion to a purpose, no matter how small or in what form" (563).
Life itself is a process of action, and the actions that are central enough to an organism's life are by that fact also essential parts of that organism's distinctive form of life. Ayn Rand uses the language of "man's survival qua man" to describe the distinctive virtues and values that compose a distinctively human life.
To draw a parallel: A plant's distinctive life qua plant is more than its life qua a mass of cells; its life includes the way its cells are organized to interact with each other, to allow its leaves to reach toward the sun and its roots to burrow into the earth. Were a plant to be harvested and sliced into salad bits, many of its cells would still live, but the plant's life qua plant would cease.
By the same token, a man's distinctive form of life involves more than heartbeat and respiration, and more than walking and eating and reproducing. Distinctive to human life is the way our actions are organized and integrated by the operations of a rational mind. A man in a comatose state has lost this distinctive organizing principle. His cells and his brain stem may continue to function, but his is not man's life qua man.
Being in a comatose state is not the only way to live a less than fully human life. When people fail to live lives of reason, purpose, and self-esteem, they may not exactly be vegetables, but they are not living the full, flourishing lives that they could. Wilkinson's beltway bureaucrats, to the extent that they parasitize others, live "lives" of force rather than lives of reason, of the promiscuous "why not?" instead of the purposeful "what for?", and of neurosis about whether they can maintain their ongoing parasitism, rather than self-esteem.
Which man lived a more confident, self-secure life: Thomas Edison, or Al Capone? Which man does a Rahm Emmanuel or a Timothy Geithner more closely resemble? And in our current situation, how long will either be able to maintain even the façade of the productive law-abiding citizen, rather than that of the gangster?
Images:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Da_Vinci_Vitruve_Luc_Viatour.jpg
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Leonardo_Flowers.jpg
Labels: Ayn Rand and Objectivism, Philosophy
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Force versus Egoism and Happiness: Response to Will Wilkinson on Ayn Rand
Commenting on the recent revival of interest in Ayn Rand, libertarian blogger Will Wilkinson recently asserted that while "Rand's emphasis on the role of individual rights in generating creativity and entrepreneurial effort remains enlightening," her moral justification for individual rights fails. Wilkinson, himself a former Ayn Rand enthusiast who became disenchanted with Objectivism, dismisses Rand's argument with stunning brevity:On the face of it, Rand needs to solve the compliance problem—why should a rational egoist comply with constraints on self-interested action?—and the way to solve the compliance problem is to show that mutual restraint is generally to mutual advantage. But I don't think Rand ever shows this. Instead she goes off the rails trying to argue that rational thought, and therefore a distinctively human life, is impossible in the absences [sic] of a strong version of the non-coercion principle, and that predation or parasitism are never in an individual's self-interest. None of that is convincing. (A strong version of the non-coercion principle is not in effect, but we're doing fine thinking rationally and living human lives. Lots of people live long and satisfying lives of institutionalized parasitism and predation, especially in and around Washington, DC.)Wilkinson's objection unjustly attributes a bizarre kind of naiveté to Rand's argument. Does Wilkinson really believe that in Rand's view all rational thought and happiness must cease immediately in a society that adopts even the tiniest amount of coercion? This interpretation is difficult to square with Atlas Shrugged, in which John Galt, Hank Rearden, and Dagny Taggart make important discoveries, produce innovations, and at least at times draw substantial happiness from these achievements, in spite of the coercion to which they are subject.
Rand's point, quite obviously, is that the greater the extent of force used against individuals, the less they are able to act on their own judgment, and thus the less happy they can be. As Leonard Peikoff summarizes in Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand
In all its forms and degrees, from private crimes to the incursions of the welfare state to full dictatorship, the principle is the same: physical force, to the extent it is wielded or threatened, denies to its victim the power to act in accordance with his judgment.In the context of the present mixed economy, Wilkinson's contention that we are "doing fine thinking rationally and living human lives" is ridiculous. Surely we are doing better than cave men and Medieval serfs, but as the present financial crisis illustrates, we could obviously be doing a lot better—and the crisis is demonstrably a result of government coercion.
Wilkinson's only remotely plausible objection is his allegation that Rand's egoist has no reason to refrain from coercion because it seems as though he can profit from predation and parasitism. The example of comfortable beltway bureaucrats feeding off the public trough could lend one pause. But how are we to evaluate Wilkinson's smug contention that these people live satisfying lives—and his implication that they would not live better lives if they were producers rather than plunderers?
Wilkinson is a fan of empirical "happiness studies," which measure people's self-reported happiness under different social and economic conditions. He is happy to trot out empirical evidence alleging that people in richer countries are happier than those in poorer ones, that those in less-religious countries are happier than those in more-religious ones, and that those in more-individualist cultures are happier than those in more-collectivist cultures. On one occasion, Wilkinson even provided evidence in support of the idea that people who earned their wealth reported greater satisfaction than those who inherited it or otherwise obtained it through luck. Why would this not bear on our evaluation of the happiness of those comfortable beltway bureaucrats?
Of course all of this data comes to little, because happiness is not merely the short-term feeling of satisfaction one might enjoy while sitting in comfortable house, or the elation of winning political power over the producers—and self-reported happiness is far from objective data. Wilkinson himself admits that we can be wrong about how happy we are. If that's true, then we'd better not measure the self-interest of an act by the extent to which it affords us temporary material comfort or superficial self-satisfaction. Instead we must appeal to philosophic principles that measure the value of an action or policy to the life of a being who survives by reason—principles such as the virtues of independence, production, honesty, and integrity—none of which support the initiation of force.
Happiness is not a fundamental standard of value, though it is a consequence of the achievement of values. Contrary to Wilkinson's claim that Rand never sought to understand the relationship between the use of force and the achievement of one's own happiness, her most crucial passage on the matter defines happiness as "a state of non-contradictory joy" and connects directly to the question of predation or parasitism on others:
Happiness is possible only to a rational man, the man who desires nothing but rational goals, seeks nothing but rational values and finds his joy in nothing but rational actions. Just as I support my life, neither by robbery nor alms, but by my own effort, so I do not seek to derive my happiness from the injury or the favor of others, but earn it by my own achievement. Just as I do not consider the pleasure of others as the goal of my life, so I do not consider my pleasure as the goal of the lives of others. Just as there are no contradictions in my values and no conflicts among my desires—so there are no victims and no conflicts of interest among rational men, men who do not desire the unearned and do not view one another with a cannibal's lust, men who neither make sacrifices nor accept them.
Labels: Ayn Rand and Objectivism, Individual Rights and Law, Philosophy
Thursday, January 21, 2010
The Source and Nature of Rights, Part IV
Part four of Craig Biddle’s six-hour seminar The Source and Nature of Rights has been posted to UFM’s website and is accessible for free. In this section, Mr. Biddle concludes his discussion of Ayn Rand’s ethics and theory of rights.Labels: Announcements, Ayn Rand and Objectivism, Individual Rights and Law, Philosophy
Friday, January 15, 2010
The Source and Nature of Rights, Part III
Part three of Craig Biddle’s six-hour seminar The Source and Nature of Rights has been posted to UFM’s website and is accessible for free. In this section, Mr. Biddle continues his discussion of Ayn Rand’s ethics and theory of rights.
Labels: Announcements, Ayn Rand and Objectivism, Individual Rights and Law, Philosophy
Wednesday, January 06, 2010
Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged on Stossel, Jan 7
From the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights:
The Ayn Rand Center is excited to announce that Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand’s magnum opus, will be the subject of the Thursday, January 7, edition of Stossel on the Fox Business Network.
The program airs at 8 p.m., eastern time, and features interviews with leading Objectivist intellectuals including Yaron Brook, president of the Ayn Rand Center, John Allison, chairman of BB&T Corp., and C. Bradley Thompson, executive director of the Clemson Institute for the Study of Capitalism.
If you’re not able to view the upcoming airing, please check your local listing for a possible rebroadcast.
Labels: Announcements, Ayn Rand and Objectivism, Philosophy
Tuesday, January 05, 2010
2009 Front Range Objectivism Media Output
Kudos to all the writers and activists involved with Front Range Objectivism. As reported by Paul Hsieh, in 2009 FRO members published 3 articles, 57 op-eds, and 48 letters to the editor.
Some of the topics covered include the financial crisis, health care, gun control, environmentalism, free speech, and government regulation.
The majority of this writing was done by people working in their spare time, in addition to their day jobs.
This list does not include numerous citations and interviews in local and national media, participation in Tea Party events, letters to elected officials, and blogging.
I'd like to thank my fellow FRO activists for their hard work this past year.
The detailed list of our published output includes the following:
Articles: 3
Ari Armstrong, "Lest We Be Doomed to Repeat It: A Survey of Amity Shlaes's History of the Great Depression", The Objective Standard, Spring 2009.
Monica Hughes, "A Brief History of U.S. Farm Policy and the Need for Free-Market Agriculture", The Objective Standard, Summer 2009.
Paul Hsieh, "How the Freedom to Contract Protects Insurability", The Objective Standard, Fall 2009.
OpEds: 57
Linn and Ari Armstrong, "Shut down corporate welfare for tourism", Grand Junction Free Press, 1/5/2009.
Paul Hsieh, "Universal healthcare and the waistline police", Christian Science Monitor, 1/7/2009. (Also redistributed to ABC News, Yahoo News and multiple local newspapers.)
Linn and Ari Armstrong, "Obamanomics threaten economic recovery", Grand Junction Free Press, 1/19/2009.
Ari Armstrong, "Free Our Beer", Colorado Daily, 1/25/2009.
Linn and Ari Armstrong, "Salazar promotes special-interest warfare", Grand Junction Free Press, 2/2/2009.
Paul Hsieh, "Obama's Regulatory Chief Believes in Paternalistic Government", Pajamas Media, 2/10/2009.
Linn and Ari Armstrong, "We're From the Government and We're Here to Help You Drive", Grand Junction Free Press, 2/16/2009.
Ari Armstrong, "Food Thoughts", Boulder Weekly, 2/19/2009.
Paul Hsieh, "America Doesn't Need a Health Care Czar", Washington Examiner, 2/23/2009.
Paul Hsieh, "Ayn Rand and the Tea Party Protests", Pajamas Media, 3/2/2009.
Linn and Ari Armstrong, "Political Controls Provoke Producers to Go On Strike", Grand Junction Free Press, 3/2/2009.
Brian Schwartz, "Beware single-payer health care", Colorado Daily, 3/8/2009 (also Denver Daily News, 3/9/2009).
Paul Hsieh, "Health Insurance Industry Sells Its Soul to the Devil", Pajamas Media, 3/22/2009.
Linn and Ari Armstrong, "Everyone is welcome at Hamburger Mary’s", Grand Junction Free Press, 3/30/2009.
Linn and Ari Armstrong, "See you at the Grand Junction Tea Party", Grand Junction Free Press, 4/13/2009.
Lin and Ari Armstrong, "After tea, try long, cool drink of liberty", Grand Junction Free Press, 4/27/2009.
Paul Hsieh, "Health Care Reform vs. Universal Health Care", Pajamas Media, 5/5/2009.
Linn and Ari Armstrong, "Legislature Passes Job-Killing Bills”, Grand Junction Free Press, 5/11/2009.
Ari Armstrong, "Udall's credit controls punish the responsible", Colorado Daily, 5/24/2009.
Linn and Ari Armstrong, "Invasion forces headed for Japan", Grand Junction Free Press, 5/25/2009.
Linn and Ari Armstrong, "Are you a conservative or a liberal?", Grand Junction Free Press, 6/8/2009.
Linn and Ari Armstrong, "Reject political control of health care", Grand Junction Free Press, 6/24/2009.
Brian Schwartz, "More poison, not an antidote: Mandating employer health insurance”, Boulder Daily Camera, 6/28/2009.
Linn and Ari Armstrong, "Politicians Cause Mortgage Meltdown", Grand Junction Free Press, 7/6/2009
Linn and Ari Armstrong, "DeMint's health handouts violate liberty", Grand Junction Free Press, 7/20/2009.
Ari Armstrong, "Hope and change in Harry Potter", Denver Daily News, 7/22/2009.
Ari Armstrong, "Don’t ban or force abortions", Boulder Weekly, 7/23/2009.
Paul Hsieh, "The Federal Health Care Muggers", PajamasMedia, 7/24/2009.
Linn and Ari Armstrong, "In health debate, left and right need to check premises", Grand Junction Free Press, 8/3/2009.
Ari Armstrong, "Rationing inherent in Obamacare", Colorado Springs Gazette, 8/14/2009.
Linn and Ari Armstrong, "That government is best which protects individual rights", Grand Junction Free Press, 8/17/2009.
Brian Schwartz, "Not a health care remedy", Denver Daily News, 8/21/2009.
Linn and Ari Armstrong, "Debunking health care reform myths", Grand Junction Free Press, 8/31/2009.
Paul Hsieh, "The Free Market Is Not Another Form of Rationing", PajamasMedia, 9/2/2009.
Brian Schwartz, "Health Care Is Not a Privilege... Nor Is It a Right", PajamasMedia, 9/8/2009.
Ari Armstrong, "Atlas Shrugged relevant for modern times", Longmont Times-Call, 9/14/2009.
Linn and Ari Armstrong, "Restore free market to address preexisting conditions", Grand Junction Free Press, 9/14/2009.
Paul Hsieh, "Is Your Doctor Getting Ready To Quit"?, PajamasMedia, 9/18/2009. Edited version also appeared as "Health Overhaul Could Force Doctors to Quit", Health Care News (Heartland Institute), 10/13/2009.
Ari Armstrong, "Republican plans for health care reform similar to Obamacare", Colorado Springs Gazette, 9/18/2009.
Linn and Ari Armstrong, "Fifty Ways to Leave Obama", Grand Junction Free Press, 9/28/2009.
Paul Hsieh, "Healthcare in Massachusetts: A Warning For America", Christian Science Monitor, 9/30/2009.
Paul Hsieh, "The Real Stakes", Denver Post, 10/1/2009.
Ari Armstrong, "Pay Your Own Doctors", Colorado Daily, 10/2/2009.
Linn and Ari Armstrong, "James Warner Shares Light of Liberty", Grand Junction Free Press, 10/12/2009.
Linn and Ari Armstrong, "Radical environmentalists undermine human progress", Grand Junction Free Press, 10/26/2009.
Paul Hsieh, "ObamaCare: A National Version of RomneyCare", PajamasMedia, 11/2/2009.
Brian Schwartz, "Bizarro Health Care 'Reform': Expect Less, Pay More", PajamasMedia, 11/5/2009.
Hannah Krening, "Dissent and Nationalization of Health Care", Denver Post, 11/8/2009.
Linn and Ari Armstrong, "If planet did warm, low-cost tech could cool it", Grand Junction Free Press, 11/9/2009.
Ari Armstrong, "Why we should keep selling low-priced books", Denver Post, 11/12/2009.
Paul Hsieh, "Mafia-Style Health Insurance: An Offer You Can't Refuse", Washington Examiner, 11/16/2009.
Ari Armstrong, "Environmentalist clowns threatening human life", Colorado Springs Gazette, 11/20/2009.
Linn and Ari Armstrong, "People vote for freedom with their feet and effort", Grand Junction Free Press, 11/23/2009.
Linn and Ari Armstrong, "Have a Harry Potter Christmas", Grand Junction Free Press, 12/7/2009.
Paul Hsieh, "ObamaCare: Tightening the Noose Around Private Health Care", PajamasMedia, 12/15/2009.
Monica Hughes, "Animal fat, sugar and diabetes", Denver Post, 12/17/2009.
Linn and Ari Armstrong, "Ralph Carr shows politicians can stand for liberty", Grand Junction Free Press, 12/21/2009.
LTEs: 48
Paul Hsieh, "'Concierge' model offers a free-market solution", Baltimore Sun, 1/2/2009.
Brian Schwartz, " Come together... right now: It's the law", Boulder Daily Camera, 1/3/2009.
Gina Liggett, "Science adviser pick is pure politics", Rocky Mountain News, 1/6/2009.
Ari Armstrong, "Economic grief started with Hoover, not FDR", Denver Post, 1/7/2009.
Brian Schwartz, "New insurance law wastes taxpayer dollars", Denver Post, 1/7/2009.
Richard Watts, "Let's try capitalism for a change", Rocky Mountain News, 1/9/2009.
Brian Schwartz, "Year-round Schooling", Boulder Daily Camera, 1/10/2009.
Paul Hsieh, "Kefalas readies comprehensive health-care bill", Northern Colorado Business Report, 1/16/2009.
Paul Hsieh, "Government paternalism saps desire to make own decisions", Colorado Springs Gazette, 1/22/2009.
Brian Schwartz, "Medicare For All", Boulder Daily Camera, 2/7/2009.
Hannah Krening, "The Stimulus Plan", Denver Post, 2/11/2009.
Paul Hsieh, "Single-payer health care has failed in every other country", Rocky Mountain News, 2/18/2009.
Paul Hsieh, "Heads they win, tails we lose", Rocky Mountain News, 2/19/2009.
Ari Armstrong, "No food stamp soup for you!", Westworld, 2/19/2009.
Richard Watts, "Lincoln did not value unity above liberty", Rocky Mountain News, 2/25/2009.
Brian Schwartz, "Free market alternatives to zoning", Boulder Daily Camera, 2/28/2009.
Ari Armstrong, "Legislator’s comments on promiscuous women", Denver Post, 3/4/2009.
Brian Schwartz, "HB 1256 would aid health coverage", Denver Business Journal, 3/6/2009.
Brian Schwartz, "Ward Churchill", Boulder Daily Camera, 3/28/2009.
Paul Hsieh, "Our Health, and the Health of Insurers", New York Times, 3/30/2009.
Brian Schwartz, "Eliminating the charitable tax deduction", Denver Post, 3/30/2009.
David Weatherell, "Employee Free Choice Act", Denver Post, 4/1/2009.
Brian Schwartz, "Prepare For More Expensive Medical Insurance", Boulder Daily Camera, 4/12/2009.
Doug Kreninng, "Denver's Tea Party", Denver Post, 4/18/2009.
Brian Schwartz, "Drug legalization", Boulder Daily Camera, 4/19/2009.
Paul Hsieh, "Taking guns won't hike safety", Colorado Springs Gazette, 4/24/2009.
Brian Schwartz, "Don't Raise Taxes, Legalize Marijuana”, Boulder Daily Camera, 5/16/2009.
Brian Schwartz, "Sotomayor for Supreme Court", Boulder Daily Camera, 5/30/2009.
Anders Ingemarson, "Is Canadian Health Care Better?", Denver Post, 6/14/2009.
Brian Schwartz, "Health Care Reform: Coverage Is Not Care”, Boulder Daily Camera, 6/16/2009.
Hannah Krening, "Time to fight for your rights", Colorado Springs Gazette, 7/3/2009.
Brian Schwartz, "The Public plan will be the only plan", Boulder Daily Camera, 7/4/2009.
Brian Schwartz, "Health Care Systems", Boulder Dail Camera, 7/18/2009.
Brian Schwartz, "Democrats' health care 'reform' would reform nothing", Boulder Daily Camera, 7/25/2009.
Brian Schwartz, "Cash For Clunkers", Boulder Daily Camera, 8/8/2009.
Brian Schwartz, "Health Care Debate", Denver Business Journal, 8/10/2009.
Anders Ingemarson, "The Heart of the Health Care Debate", Denver Post, 8/19/2009.
Paul Hsieh, "Health Care Statistics", Denver Post, 8/29/2009.
Brian Schwartz, "Single payer: rationing both ideas and medicine", Boulder Daily Camera, 9/5/2009.
Doug Krening, "Health Care Debate Renewed", Denver Post, 9/13/2009.
Briain Schwartz, "Boulder land use restrictions undermine rights & personal responsibility", Boulder Daily Camera, 9/18/2009.
Diana Hsieh, "Government’s attempts to stifle speech", Denver Post, 10/20/2009.
Brian Schwartz, "Health care reform and the public option", Denver Post, 10/30/2009.
Paul Hsieh, "The Incentives Aren't To Help You", Wall Street Journal, 11/2/2009.
Gina Liggett, "Governor’s proposal to tax candy and soda", Denver Post, 11/18/2009.
Brian Schwartz, "Why To Condemn Insurance Companies", Boulder Daily Camera, 12/5/2009.
Paul Hsieh, "The Climate Science Isn't Settled", Wall Street Journal, 12/7/2009.
Paul Hsieh, "Raising Federal Debt Ceiling", Denver Post, 12/20/2009.
Remarkable!
Labels: Ayn Rand and Objectivism, Business and Economics, Environmentalism, Healthcare, Individual Rights and Law
Wednesday, December 09, 2009
The Winter Issue of TOS
The print edition of the Winter issue is at press and will be mailed shortly; the online version will be accessible to subscribers beginning December 20. For promotional purposes, we are making Robert Mayhew’s review of Jennifer Burns’s Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right available on our website early and for free.
The contents of the Winter issue are:
ARTICLES
Pharmacide: The Pharmaceutical Industry’s Self-Destructive Effort to Loot America
by Cassandra ClarkAntitrust with a Vengeance: The Obama Administration’s Anti-Business Cudgel
by Eric DanielsWhat the “Affordable Health Care for America Act,” HR 3962, Actually Says
by John David LewisThe California Coastal Commission: A Case Study in Governmental Assault on Property Rights
by Paul BeardThe Barbary Wars and Their Lesson for Combating Piracy Today
by Doug AltnerObjective Moral Values
by Craig BiddleBOOKS REVIEWED
Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right by Jennifer Burns
Reviewed by Robert MayhewHeaven and Earth: Global Warming, the Missing Science by Ian Plimer
Reviewed by Gus Van HornRed Hot Lies: How Global Warming Alarmists Use Threats, Fraud, and Deception to Keep You Misinformed by Christopher C. Horner
Reviewed by Daniel WahlIslamic Imperialism: A History by Efraim Karsh
Reviewed by Andrew LewisThe Israel Test by George Gilder
Reviewed by Daniel Wahl
Due to popular demand, we have extended our 60% off sale through January 1. Online subscriptions—including gift subscriptions—are only $19. If you have not yet subscribed to TOS, now is the perfect time to give it a try. And if you are looking for the perfect gift for an active-minded friend or relative, what could be better than a steady stream of clearly written, easy-to-read articles addressing current events and cultural issues from a rational, principled perspective? You can purchase gift subscriptions online or by calling 800-423-6151.
Enjoy your holidays!
Labels: Announcements, Ayn Rand and Objectivism, Business and Economics, Environmentalism, Foreign Policy and War, Healthcare, History, Individual Rights and Law, Philosophy, Religion
Thursday, November 12, 2009
The Objectivist Club Network's Mentoring Program
Here's a note from Matt Gerber of The Objectivist Club Network:
The Objectivist Club Network is launching a new program: providing guidance and assistance to individuals who want to start a new Objectivist community club. There are dozens of community groups currently in existence, many of them are incredibly vibrant and having a noticeable impact on their community at large. OCN has learned a lot about how to start and run a successful Objectivist club; we want to apply this knowledge to help in starting new community clubs.
If you want to start a club or if you know fellow Objectivists who have expressed intent to do so, please visit or have them visit http://www.oclubs.org/mentor-community/
We are going to select a few individuals to participate in our structured mentor program to help them build a successful club in their area. This is a limited trial of our new community mentor program before we do a wider roll out. Applicants must have a good grasp of Objectivism, be passionate about the philosophy and its application to daily living, be able to motivate like-minded individuals towards building a community group, and understand how to delegate responsibilities.
If anyone has any questions please don't hesitate to contact me!
Best,
P.S. The Objectivist Club Network (OCN) is an organization dedicated to helping all Objectivist Campus and Community Clubs. OCN is not affiliated with the Ayn Rand Institute, although we support it and its programs, and we regularly communicate with ARI to ensure our respective organizations are not duplicating efforts.
Labels: Announcements, Ayn Rand and Objectivism
Wednesday, November 04, 2009
'Atlas Shrugged' Survey Delivers Surprising Results
A recent Zogby national online survey indicates that 24.8 percent of the 2,232 respondents have read Ayn Rand’s novel “Atlas Shrugged.”
When asked why they chose to read “Atlas Shrugged,” 37.6 percent of respondents in the online survey said it was recommended by a friend or colleague, 18.4 percent had it assigned or recommended in school, 9.9 percent read or heard about it in a print/Internet article or radio/TV program, 8.4 percent saw it in a library, and 1.9 percent noticed it in a bookstore.
The survey also indicated that 19.8 percent of respondents have read Ayn Rand’s “The Fountainhead,” 6.9 percent “Anthem,” 4 percent “We the Living,” and 3 percent “The Virtue of Selfishness.”
In the past two years, national telephone surveys of about 1,100 people have indicated that 8.1 percent of respondents had read “Atlas Shrugged.” The latest online survey was randomly drawn from a pool of several hundred thousand people while the telephone surveys were drawn at random from larger lists of people who own telephones.
Copyright © 2009 Ayn Rand® Institute. All rights reserved.
Labels: Ayn Rand and Objectivism, The Arts
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Explore Atlas Shrugged
Diana Hsieh, of NoodleFood and Rationally Selfish Radio fame, has created a new website dedicated to Exploring Atlas Shrugged. The purpose of the site is to help readers deepen their understanding of Ayn Rand’s epic novel and to provide a resource for those interested in creating Atlas Shrugged reading groups. Diana has divided the novel into 20 parts, each covering about 65 pages, and for each part she plans to post a podcast along with discussion questions. Session 1, in which she discusses chapters 1–3, has been posted and is superb. I expect the next 19 sessions will be as well. Listen and see.
Labels: Announcements, Ayn Rand and Objectivism, The Arts
Thursday, October 01, 2009
The Fall issue of TOS has been Posted and Mailed
The print edition of the Fall issue has been mailed, and the online version has been posted to our website. (Due to production difficulties, the print edition was mailed a few days late. I apologize for the delay.) The contents of the Fall issue are:
ARTICLES
Obama’s Atomic Bomb: The Ideological Clarity of the Democratic Agenda
by John David LewisAmerica’s Self-Crippled Foreign Policy: An Interview with Yaron Brook, Elan Journo, and Alex Epstein
An Unwinnable War?
by Elan JournoThe Creed of Sacrifice vs. The Land of Liberty
by Craig BiddleThe Rise of American Big Government: A Brief History of How We Got Here
by Michael DahlenHow the Freedom to Contract Protects Insurability
by Paul HsiehHow Morality is Grounded in Reality
by Craig BiddleBOOKS REVIEWED
Objectively Speaking: Ayn Rand Interviewed edited by Marlene Podritske and Peter Schwartz
Reviewed by Dina Schein FedermanThe Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life by Alice Schroeder
Reviewed by Daniel WahlFred Astaire by Joseph Epstein
Reviewed by Scott HolleranThe Garden of Invention: Luther Burbank and the Business of Breeding Plants by Jane S. Smith
Reviewed by Daniel Wahl
If you have not yet subscribed to TOS, there is no time like now. You can subscribe online or by calling 800-423-6151.
Labels: Announcements, Ayn Rand and Objectivism, Business and Economics, Foreign Policy and War, Healthcare, History, Individual Rights and Law, Philosophy, Religion, Science and Technology
Monday, September 14, 2009
The Fall Issue of TOS
The print edition of the Fall issue is at press and will be mailed shortly; the online version will be accessible to subscribers beginning September 20. For promotional purposes, we are making both John David Lewis’s article “Obama’s Atomic Bomb: The Ideological Clarity of the Democratic Agenda” and Paul Hsieh’s article “How the Freedom to Contract Protects Insurability” available on our website early and for free.
The contents of the Fall issue are:
ARTICLES
Obama’s Atomic Bomb: The Ideological Clarity of the Democratic Agenda
by John David LewisAmerica’s Self-Crippled Foreign Policy: An Interview with Yaron Brook, Elan Journo, and Alex Epstein
An Unwinnable War?
by Elan JournoThe Creed of Sacrifice vs. The Land of Liberty
by Craig BiddleThe Rise of American Big Government: A Brief History of How We Got Here
by Michael DahlenHow the Freedom to Contract Protects Insurability
by Paul HsiehHow Morality is Grounded in Reality
by Craig BiddleBOOKS REVIEWED
Objectively Speaking: Ayn Rand Interviewed edited by Marlene Podritske and Peter Schwartz
Reviewed by Dina Schein FedermanThe Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life by Alice Schroeder
Reviewed by Daniel WahlFred Astaire by Joseph Epstein
Reviewed by Scott HolleranThe Garden of Invention: Luther Burbank and the Business of Breeding Plants by Jane S. Smith
Reviewed by Daniel Wahl
If you have not yet subscribed to TOS, why not subscribe today? You can do so online or by calling 800-423-6151.
Labels: Announcements, Ayn Rand and Objectivism, Business and Economics, Foreign Policy and War, Healthcare, History, Individual Rights and Law, Philosophy, Religion, Science and Technology
Thursday, September 03, 2009
Yaron Brook Interviewed by Larry Greenfield
Here is part one of a four-part interview with Yaron Brook, conducted by Larry Greenfield of The Claremont Institute.
Labels: Announcements, Ayn Rand and Objectivism, Business and Economics, Healthcare, Individual Rights and Law, Philosophy, Religion
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Virtual Objectivist Club
Here’s a note from Keith Schacht, who is involved in the start up of a new organization called the Virtual Objectivist Club (OCN).
I helped start the Objectivist Club Network (OCN), an organization dedicated to helping all Objectivist Campus Clubs. OCN is not affiliated with the Ayn Rand Institute, although we support them and regularly communicate with them to ensure our respective organizations are not duplicating efforts.
Recently we've expanded our efforts to solve a new problem: there are students interested in joining an Objectivist club where no club exists. Some of these students start their own club, but others don't have time to start a club or do not find enough participants on campus to form a club.
We've created the Virtual Objectivist Club (VOC) for these students -- a phone-based discussion group dedicated to the study of Objectivism. Meetings will be weekly, beginning this September, each moderated by an experienced Objectivist. The group is open to any current students who would like to learn more about Objectivism.
My request: Please help spread the word to any students you know who may be interested in learning more about Objectivism. The deadline for applying to the VOC is August 31st. Students can learn more and apply at: http://www.oclubs.org/voc
Please let me know if you have any questions and we greatly appreciate you sharing this with others!
Keith & the OCN Team
Labels: Announcements, Ayn Rand and Objectivism
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Activism with TOS
American culture is at a critical juncture. Over the next few years, the country will move substantially toward either further violations of individual rights or better protection of individual rights. So I’d like to offer a few suggestions about how you can employ The Objective Standard in the fight for the latter alternative.
TOS, now in its fourth year of publication, is written consistently from an Objectivist perspective, which means it goes consistently to fundamentals, anchoring political arguments in the principle of individual rights and the morality of rational egoism. And TOS stands alone in this regard. No other periodical publishes essays such as “Altruism: The Moral Root of the Financial Crisis” by Richard M. Salsman, “Reason or Faith: The Republican Alternative” by John David Lewis, “The Menace of Pragmatism” by Tara Smith, “Energy at the Speed of Thought: The Original Alternative Energy Market” by Alex Epstein, “Deeper Than Kelo: The Roots of the Property Rights Crisis” by Eric Daniels, “Moral Health Care vs. ‘Universal Health Care’” by Lin Zinser and Paul Hsieh, or “The Morality of Moneylending: A Short History” by Yaron Brook.
Importantly, however, articles in TOS presuppose no familiarity with Objectivism; they are written entirely in layman’s terms and are thus accessible to active-minded people in general. This makes TOS a crucial tool for spreading the ideas on which a culture of reason and the politics of freedom depend. The articles are easy to read, easy to comprehend, and anchored in sound philosophic principles. Such articles change minds.
But few people know that TOS exists, and our articles cannot change minds if they are not read. Here is where you can make all the difference. The following are three key ways in which you can help TOS reach a wider audience:
- Let your university, alma mater, or local librarian know about the journal.
TOS is now indexed and abstracted in Columbia International Affairs Online (CIAO), Public Affairs Information Services (PAIS), and Political Science Complete (PSC). Periodicals covered by these indices are more appealing to libraries, so now is a good time to try (or retry) persuading your university, alma mater, or local librarian to subscribe. To inform a librarian about the existence and nature of TOS, please print and hand (or mail or email) him our Library Recommendation Letter, which can be found here. - Purchase PDFs of TOS articles, and distribute them far and wide.
TOS articles are now available in Portable Document Format (PDF) for $4.95 ea. For activism purposes, once you purchase a TOS article in PDF, you are welcome (and encouraged) to email or print and distribute it to as many people as you see fit—friends, relatives, colleagues, politicians, pundits, talk show hosts—anyone who might be moved by rational ideas and logical arguments. The more the merrier! We ask only that you not resell the article nor post it on the internet. PDFs of articles can be purchased here. - Give the journal as a gift.
Nothing changes minds more effectively than a steady stream of clearly written, easy-to-read articles that address current events and cultural issues from a rational, principled perspective. Gift subscriptions can be purchased for individuals or institutions (libraries, doctors’ offices, corporations, etc.), and although institutions themselves pay a higher subscription rate, gifts to institutions are sold at the regular (i.e., individual) rate. Gift subscriptions can also be purchased in packages of 5 at a discount of 15% (the “Standard-Bearer”). For more information or to purchase a gift subscription, click here.
People are looking for answers to today’s cultural and political problems. TOS articles provide principled answers in plain English on a regular basis. Please help us distribute these articles to a wider audience.
Thank you for your consideration.
Sincerely,
Craig Biddle, Editor
The Objective Standard
Labels: Announcements, Ayn Rand and Objectivism, Business and Economics, Individual Rights and Law
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Craig Biddle on the Doc Thompson Show August 17
Monday, August 17, at 4:05 p.m. (EST), Craig Biddle will be interviewed on the Doc Thompson Show (WRVA, Richmond, VA) about his book Loving Life and Ayn Rand’s morality of selfishness. The show can be heard online at www.wrva.com (click on “Listen Live”).
Labels: Announcements, Ayn Rand and Objectivism, Events, Philosophy
Monday, August 03, 2009
Invitation: Upcoming Ayn Rand Institute Event—The Atlas Shrugged Revolution
While Washington rapidly expands its control over our lives—exacerbating an economic crisis that was caused by government control in the first place—a hopeful countertrend is underway.
Ayn Rand’s classic best-selling novel Atlas Shrugged is flying off bookstore shelves at an unprecedented rate.
Hundreds of thousands of concerned Americans are turning to Atlas Shrugged—and discovering Ayn Rand’s morality of rational egoism and her uncompromising defense of laissez-faire capitalism.
Why is this happening? And what can those of us who uphold reason, individual rights and capitalism do to encourage and support this trend?
For an evening devoted to the discussion of these questions, we invite you to join us in New York City on September 15, 2009, for a special dinner event, The Atlas Shrugged Revolution.
At this benefit dinner event, Yaron Brook, president and executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute, and John Allison, chairman of BB&T Corporation, will discuss why Americans are turning to Rand’s magnum opus—and why the novel’s revolutionary ideas are crucial to the future of freedom in America. You’ll also learn what the Ayn Rand Institute is doing right now to promote even greater public interest in Atlas Shrugged and Ayn Rand’s philosophy.
We hope you’ll be able to join us on September 15th for The Atlas Shrugged Revolution!
Sincerely,
Mark Chapman
Vice President of Development
The Ayn Rand Institute
P.S. In addition, a number of rare Ayn Rand books and manuscripts will be auctioned at the event. Images and descriptions of the items are available for viewing on the Web site for this event at www.arievents.com.
Copyright © 2009 Ayn Rand® Institute. All rights reserved.
Labels: Announcements, Ayn Rand and Objectivism, Business and Economics, Events, Individual Rights and Law, The Arts
Saturday, August 01, 2009
NYT Article on BB&T, John Allison, and Ayn Rand
Andrew Martin has a nice article in today’s New York Times, titled “Give BB&T Liberty, but Not a Bailout.” The piece is, for the most part, positive, and I highly recommend it.
I must point out, however, that the article includes a smear by subjectivist philosopher Brian Leiter, who expresses his wish that Rand is “irrelevant” and that her ideas are “simple-minded in the extreme” and “embarrassing.” Well, I suppose her ideas would be embarrassing to someone such as Leiter, who, in the article, exposes his method for answering such questions as whether or not a given person is a philosopher: Take a poll.
The reason why Rand’s philosophy is not for Leiter & Company is that it is for those who are willing to think for themselves rather than follow the herd, and who are not embarrassed by clear, straightforward arguments, which characterize Rand’s work.
Labels: Ayn Rand and Objectivism, Business and Economics, Philosophy
Friday, July 24, 2009
Ayn Rand Institute Announces $2 Million Fundraising Campaign—the Atlas Shrugged Initiative
Ayn Rand Institute Announces $2 Million Fundraising Campaign—the Atlas Shrugged Initiative
IRVINE, CA, July 24, 2009—The Ayn Rand Institute has announced a $2 million fundraising campaign—the Atlas Shrugged Initiative—in an unprecedented effort to increase readership of Ayn Rand’s best-known novel, Atlas Shrugged.
The impetus behind the Atlas Shrugged Initiative, explains ARI President and Executive Director Yaron Brook, is the fact that “At no time in history has there been greater public interest in Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged. And its message has never been more urgent.
“The torrent of destructive, statist policies emanating from Washington represents both a crisis—and an opportunity. Through the Atlas Shrugged Initiative, we intend to capitalize on the soaring grassroots interest in Ayn Rand and her ideas.”
Adds Dr. Brook, “The Atlas Shrugged Initiative is off to an outstanding start. A very generous benefactor has already offered to match every dollar donated to this Initiative—up to a total of $500,000—and as a result of early and substantial funding, the bookstore promotions that are a key component of the Initiative are already well underway.”
Key elements of the Atlas Shrugged Initiative include significant bookstore promotions of the novel; an expansion of ARI’s web-based efforts to spur readership of Atlas Shrugged; expansion of ARI’s long-running educational programs for high school and college students; and targeted outreach to pro-liberty, pro-capitalist activists around the nation.
Visit the Ayn Rand Institute’s Atlas Shrugged Initiative campaign page to learn more or to support this campaign.
### ### ###
Dr. Yaron Brook is available for interviews. To interview Dr. Brook or book him for your show, please e-mail media@aynrand.org.
For more articles by Yaron Brook, and his bio, click here.
Copyright © 2009 Ayn Rand® Institute. All rights reserved.
Labels: Announcements, Ayn Rand and Objectivism
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
ARI Free Books to Teachers Program Shatters Record
The following is a reprint of a message from Yaron Brook to ARI donors.
Dear Contributor:
Since the first of the year, you’ve read a great deal about the work that ARI has done—primarily through the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights—to bring public attention to the economic and political problems facing our country.
Our work on that front continues—and I will continue to update you, through letters and e-mails, on the great strides we are making in ensuring that Ayn Rand’s ideas are given increased consideration among policy-makers and the media.
But while we are all preoccupied with the news of the day, and the ever-increasing assaults on freedom and capitalism coming from Washington, ARI has continued to keep the long-term picture in clear focus.
Even as ARC has capitalized on an unprecedented public and media interest in Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand, and her ideas, ARI is completing what appears to be another marvelously successful year in our efforts to introduce young readers to Ayn Rand’s novels.
Results to Date
As of this writing, the total number of copies of Anthem, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged shipped to classrooms this school year is 342,984. This represents a 17 percent increase over last year’s total of 293,295—and represents a new all-time record for the program.
Since we inaugurated the Free Books to Teachers program with a pilot program in late 2002, the success of the program has been truly staggering. Adding the results above to the results from previous years, we can report the following for the lifetime of this program:
- More than 1.4 million copies of the novels have been sent to teachers.
- More than 30,000 teachers have participated in the Free Books to Teachers program since its inception.
- Ayn Rand’s novels are being taught in an estimated 40,000 high school classrooms in the United States and Canada.
- And because many of the novels are read in subsequent years by new groups of students, we now estimate that a total of nearly four million students have been introduced to Ayn Rand’s novels since this project began.
These achievements would not have been possible without the continued financial backing of our donors; so I thank you once again for your support of this program.
Feedback from Educators
Nearly every day we hear from teachers participating in the Free Books to Teachers program. Below are a few comments from the more than 300 we received from teachers this year. These are the impressions of teachers actually using the novels in their classrooms.
Their remarks, I believe, eloquently attest to the real impact that this program is having on students.
My students primarily come from lower-socio-economic homes and would have never had the chance to engage in such a rich lesson during these hard economic times when money for books is not available to us. I have seen a true personal and educational growth as students learn about Ayn Rand’s philosophy through her characters, plot, and the lessons provided for us.
—Bakersfield, CA
The Fountainhead started out as a road to the essay contest and college funds for my seniors, but has become so much more. The critical thinking and literary engagement that has come from reading this text is of amazing worth! . . . Rand was an amazing author; her texts are timeless.
—Baltimore, MD
I have never seen my students so excited about reading a book. Tenth graders who have refused to read any of the books that we’ve done so far finished reading Anthem weeks before it was required. Students who read The Fountainhead came in everyday to tell me how excited they were about the book. . . . Thank you from the bottom of my heart!
—Springville, UT
Thanks! Please keep this amazing program going! Over the past 7 years I have introduced over a 1,000 students to the work of Ayn Rand through the use of these books . . . I know it has helped to produce some exceptional debaters and influenced the writings of countless students. THANK YOU!
—Hope Mills, NC
I’m sure that you hear it all the time; however, I must tell you that my students cannot stop talking about Anthem. In fact, one student read it seven times! We have had some fascinating group discussions.
—Cocoa, FL
Thank you so much for the copies of Anthem and The Fountainhead. Our students will greatly benefit from the instruction of Ayn Rand’s contributions to world literature, and her enduring message of the triumph of the individual against all restrictive systems.
In an age of repetitive sound and thought, it is certainly a privilege to have Ayn Rand’s books in America’s classrooms.
—Laurel, MS
I am so appreciative of the Institute’s generosity and concern for education. I have been using the book for the past 5 years and will continue to do so in the future. I truly believe that the lessons learned from reading the book are totally applicable to the direction that our society seems to be moving in. Students enjoy reading the book and discussing how it is applicable to their lives, today. Once again, thank you for all that you do in providing an invaluable service to our students.
—Rosemont, PA
Conclusion
At the beginning of this letter, I alluded to the work we are doing at the Ayn Rand Center to combat the immediate challenge we face in Washington.
Make no mistake—the immediate challenges we face are severe.
But these challenges—among them the unprecedented intrusions of government into nearly every conceivable sector of our economy—represent a symptom, albeit an alarming one.
So while we will fight on the level of immediate, concrete political symptoms—and with ARC we have never been better able to do so—we must continue to treat the underlying disease of collectivism and unreason. The political battles must be fought now; but the culture must be repaired in the long term.
Through the Free Books to Teachers program; our essay contests (which have set new all-time records this year); the continued growth and success of the OAC and the Anthem Foundation for Objectivist Scholarship, we are continuing to work to address the fundamental, underlying problems that have led us to the political challenges we currently face.
It’s for this reason that I hope that I can count on your continued—and if possible, increased—support, as we prepare for the eighth year of the Ayn Rand Institute’s Free Books to Teachers program, and the 25th year of our annual essay contests.
Your continued and increased support will allow us to continue to tackle both the immediate problems—and ultimately, cure the underlying causes.
Thank you in advance for your consideration and your support.
Sincerely,
Yaron Brook
President and Executive Director
Copyright © 2009 Ayn Rand® Institute. All rights reserved.
Labels: Announcements, Ayn Rand and Objectivism
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Help Fight for a Future of Reason and Freedom
Dear Reader,
I’m writing to ask for your help.
Because of the parallels between Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged and current events, Rand’s ideas are increasingly mentioned on talk shows, the internet, the news. This burgeoning interest in Rand’s philosophy is promising, but to fully grasp the practicality of Objectivism, people need to see how its principles apply in real life—which is not obvious.
The Objective Standard, now in its fourth year of publication, is dedicated to elucidating these principles and applying them to the cultural and political issues of the day. TOS consistently delivers crystal-clear, highly concretized essays on subjects ranging from “The Hierarchy of Knowledge: The Most Neglected Issue in Education” to “‘Just War Theory’ vs. American Self-Defense” to “Moral Health Care vs. ‘Universal Health Care’” to “The Mystical Ethics of the New Atheists” to “Reason or Faith: The Republican Alternative” to “Altruism: The Moral Root of the Financial Crisis.” Such articles change peoples’ minds—and TOS is the only periodical publishing them.
With the West being consumed by mysticism and altruism, people need not only to read Atlas, but also to see how the principles of Objectivism apply to their concerns—whether education or terrorism or religion or the economy. This is where you can help.
By giving gift subscriptions of TOS to active-minded friends, relatives, colleagues, intellectuals—whoever you think might be interested—you can help spread not only the ideas on which civilized society depends, but also the all-important understanding of what these ideas mean in practice. And now through May 8, to encourage a concerted effort among TOS fans and subscribers, we are cutting the prices of all gift subscriptions by 15%.
Please help us educate people about the practicality of Objectivism. Whether you can afford ten gift subscriptions or five or one, the price is right, and the future is worth it.
Thank you for your consideration.
Sincerely,
Craig Biddle, Editor
Three quick and easy ways to save now and profit later:
- Place your order(s) online by clicking here.
- Print and mail or fax our order form.
- Or call us toll free at 800-423-6151.
Labels: Announcements, Ayn Rand and Objectivism, Individual Rights and Law, Philosophy
Saturday, April 11, 2009
ARC on the Tea Parties
Dear Admirer of Ayn Rand,
Earlier this week, we wrote to you to promote a new video, titled "Atlas Shrugged and the Tea Party Revolts." Today we're writing to let you know that we are expanding this effort with two new videos, along with a new Web page of Tea Party resources.
The new videos expand upon the moral meaning of the Tea Party efforts, and the ideas that will be needed in order to make the defense of individual rights a success.
Once again, we want to bring these videos to as wide an audience as possible, and we encourage you to view them and, if you like them, pass them along to others. Remember also that you can watch our videos as they are produced by subscribing to our YouTube channel for updates.
We are also proud to present our new Web page, titled "ARC on the Tea Parties." There you'll find relevant material on the morality of capitalism, Atlas Shrugged, and ARC's tea party resources. Materials on the page include:
- Flyers that can be used as Tea Party handouts
- Speaker resources
- Video presentations by ARC spokesmen
- Radio interviews
- Recordings of Ayn Rand
- ... and much more.
I'm grateful for the outpouring of activism that we have seen from our audience in recent times. I encourage you to continue, so that we may influence the culture towards Ayn Rand's vision of individual rights and laissez-faire capitalism.
Sincerely,
Yaron Brook
Executive Director
The Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights
Copyright © 2009 Ayn Rand® Institute. All rights reserved.
Labels: Announcements, Ayn Rand and Objectivism, Events, Individual Rights and Law
Friday, March 27, 2009
'Atlas Shrugged and Ayn Rand’s Morality of Egoism' Now Online
Because of the burgeoning internet discussion about Ayn Rand’s novel Atlas Shrugged and her ethics of selfishness, I’ve posted an expanded, written version my campus talk “Atlas Shrugged and Ayn Rand’s Morality of Egoism” to the TOS website. A permanent link to the essay can be found on our “About” page.
Enjoy!
Labels: Announcements, Ayn Rand and Objectivism, Business and Economics, Philosophy
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Objectivist Summer Conference 2009 early registration discounts expire soon!
We are writing to remind you that the deadline to take advantage of our deepest price reductions is just twelve days away.
Objectivist Summer Conference 2009 will take place from July 3 to July 11, 2009, bringing you nine days of social and intellectual stimulation that you'll find nowhere else during the year.
This summer's conference will be hosted at Boston's Seaport Hotel and World Trade Center, known for its comfortable and enjoyable accommodations and meeting spaces. In the surrounding downtown area attendees can explore fine dining, shopping, and historical landmarks.
Recent months have poignantly demonstrated the importance of philosophy in human life, as current events seem to spring directly from the pages of Atlas Shrugged. As most Americans look towards government to rescue them, our speakers show what alternative solutions Ayn Rand's philosophy can offer to today's world with presentations such as "The Separation of Church and State," by Onkar Ghate; "Principled Leadership," by John Allison; “'Humanity’s Darkest Evil:' The Lethal Destructiveness of Non-Objective Law," by Tara Smith; "Free Minds and Free Markets," by Peter Schwartz; and "Property Rights—and Wrongs," by Thomas A. Bowden. Other stimulating topics will be available as well, including history, psychology, drama, epistemology, mathematics, and the nature and necessity of friendship. In all there will be ten general session lectures and sixteen optional courses. Attendees may register for the entire nine-day conference, or use à la carte registration options to choose those parts that best fit their schedule and budget.
As usual, we also bring you a variety of special events and social opportunities, including two different dance worshops (Swing and Salsa), our annual opening and closing banquets and a special Independence Day celebration.
We look forward to creating a unique and memorable conference in Boston, and we hope to see you there!
Discount reminder: Even if you missed out on our special advance-planning bonus this year, you can still claim early registration price incentives (price reductions available through March 31). Details are available on our registration options and pricing page.
For more information visit the Objectivist Conferences Web site.
Copyright © 2009 Second Renaissance, Inc. All rights reserved.
Labels: Announcements, Ayn Rand and Objectivism, Events
Atlas Shrugged Tops Amazon's Bestseller List
Washington, D.C., March 18, 2009—Earlier this year Ayn Rand’s prophetic novel Atlas Shrugged was selling at triple the rate it sold at in the beginning of 2008. Now the novel is soaring to even greater heights, and its trade paperback edition is currently in first place in the Classics category on Amazon.com’s best-seller list for sales in the United States. The 50th anniversary mass-market paperback edition of Atlas Shrugged ranks as #2 and the trade paperback Centennial edition ranks as #3. For several weeks Atlas Shrugged has been holding steady in the top 10 best-sellers in the broader United States Literature and Fiction category, and as of the writing of this release, different editions of the novel stand at #3, #5 and #6 in Amazon’s ranking.
In a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed, Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute, explained the parallels between Atlas Shrugged and today’s events.
“In Atlas Shrugged, Rand tells the story of the U.S. economy crumbling under the weight of crushing government interventions and regulations. Meanwhile, blaming greed and the free market, Washington responds with more controls that only deepen the crisis. Sound familiar?”
Brook also stressed the importance today of the book’s often overlooked message that capitalism cannot be properly defended without morally defending profit and self-interest: “. . . only an ethic of rational selfishness can justify the pursuit of profit that is the basis of capitalism—and that as long as self-interest is tainted by moral suspicion, the profit motive will continue to take the rap for every imaginable (or imagined) social ill and economic disaster. Just look how our present crisis has been attributed to the free market instead of government intervention--and how proposed solutions inevitably involve yet more government intervention to rein in the pursuit of self-interest.”
Those interested in understanding the morality of capitalism can learn more in Ayn Rand’s The Virtue of Selfishness—which, at #12 in the Classics category, is setting records of its own.
Copyright © 2009 Ayn Rand® Institute. All rights reserved.
Labels: Ayn Rand and Objectivism, Business and Economics, The Arts
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Yaron Brook on Ayn Rand: A Triptych
1. If you’ve not yet read it, don’t miss Yaron Brook’s excellent op-ed “Is Rand Relevant?” in the Wall Street Journal. Here are the opening paragraphs:
Ayn Rand died more than a quarter of a century ago, yet her name appears regularly in discussions of our current economic turmoil. Pundits including Rush Limbaugh and Rick Santelli urge listeners to read her books, and her magnum opus, "Atlas Shrugged," is selling at a faster rate today than at any time during its 51-year history.
There's a reason. In "Atlas," Rand tells the story of the U.S. economy crumbling under the weight of crushing government interventions and regulations. Meanwhile, blaming greed and the free market, Washington responds with more controls that only deepen the crisis. Sound familiar?
The novel's eerily prophetic nature is no coincidence. "If you understand the dominant philosophy of a society," Rand wrote elsewhere in "Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal," "you can predict its course." Economic crises and runaway government power grabs don't just happen by themselves; they are the product of the philosophical ideas prevalent in a society—particularly its dominant moral ideas.
Read the whole thing here.
2. Brook expands on these points in his recent interview with The Objective Standard. Here’s an excerpt:
YB: Atlas Shrugged is not primarily a political novel. It is a novel about what happens to a world that denounces its best minds as greedy and immoral. It’s a novel about what happens when, instead of thanking and rewarding the brightest and most successful, a nation denounces, despises, and shackles them. It’s a novel about what happens when the best minds stop allowing that to happen. Whether this last aspect of the plot will play out in real life is yet to be seen, but the parallels to date are remarkable.
CB: What would you say is the fundamental reason for these parallels? What enabled Ayn Rand some fifty years ago to effectively project what we are witnessing today?
YB: Ayn Rand understood that ideas shape society. A society that values reason, the individual, and freedom creates the United States of America. A society that denounces the mind, preaches self-sacrifice, and worships the collective creates Nazi Germany.
Thus, once Rand identified the basic ideas driving American society in the 20th century, she could predict the course we would take. She could not predict the details, or the timing, but she could see where in principle a country committed to the ideas that prevail in the United States would have to end up—if it did not reject those ideas.
Above all, Ayn Rand understood that our culture’s dominant moral ideal, altruism, is incompatible with freedom.
Virtually no one in Rand’s time or today questions the precept that we are our brother’s keeper, that self-sacrificially serving others is good, and that being selfish is evil. What Rand saw was that this was irreconcilable with the vision of man as an independent, self-sufficient, sovereign being who deserves and requires freedom. If a society believes man’s duty is to sacrifice for others, then it cannot countenance capitalism—a political-economic system that enables and encourages men to pursue their own interests, their own profit, their own welfare.
The deepest reason Rand saw America as moving toward statism, however, was our deteriorating respect for reason. A culture that respects reason, such as the Enlightenment culture of the 18th century, will embrace a political system that leaves men free to exercise their own reason. But for more than a century now, our intellectuals have been preaching that reason is limited, that faith is superior to reason.
Read the whole TOS interview here.
3. Brook is interviewed on Pajamas TV, where he discusses the increasing sales and philosophical depth of Atlas Shrugged, the crucial role of bankruptcy, the statism of Alan Greenspan, the phenomenon of today’s “tea parties,” and the need of a moral revolution in support of capitalism.
Check out all three!
Labels: Announcements, Ayn Rand and Objectivism, Business and Economics, Individual Rights and Law
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
A Letter from Dr. Yaron Brook
Last November, in the wake of the election results and the mounting crisis in the financial markets, I wrote . . . that the months ahead could be a golden opportunity for ARI and for the advancement of Objectivism.
It appears that this opportunity is, in fact, upon us.
- Since the first of this year, sales of Atlas Shrugged have skyrocketed—selling at a rate three times that of the same period last year.
- CNBC’s Rick Santelli made headlines around the world with an impassioned call for resistance to Obama’s economic plans—making clear reference to Atlas Shrugged.
- On the radio, Rush Limbaugh has referred repeatedly to Atlas Shrugged in broadcasts to his tens of millions of listeners—and has applied the ideas of Atlas to the crisis we now face.
- Elsewhere, mentions of Ayn Rand and Atlas Shrugged in relation to the current economic and political mess exploded across cyberspace: from Instapundit to The Economist; from Forbes magazine to Michael Savage; and from Michelle Malkin to (of all places!) an online publication in Abu Dhabi, UAE. A U.S. Congressman even declared that “We’re living in Atlas Shrugged”—and gives copies of the novel to his interns. Even the New York Times felt compelled to report on the skyrocketing sales of Atlas Shrugged—as well as the so-called “Going Galt” phenomenon.
- Spontaneous protests, styled as “Tea Parties,” in the spirit of America’s original 18th-century tax revolt, have erupted across the country—some with protesters making specific references to Ayn Rand; more protests are planned.
In other words, people are looking for answers, as I noted last November. And they are beginning to see that those answers can be found only in Objectivism.
ARI and our Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights (ARC) in Washington, DC, have worked tirelessly to capitalize on this growing public discontent, and on the emerging public interest in Ayn Rand and her ideas.
- ARC’s special Web page on the financial crisis adds new, hard-hitting commentary weekly; the site has attracted thousands of online readers—many of whom are directed there by links from the pundits listed above;
- ARC’s new blog, Voices for Reason, has further strengthened our ability to issue rapid-response commentary on the news of the day.
- Three public lectures in Washington, under the aegis of ARC, have drawn more than 600 attendees—an extraordinary turnout!
- ARC is working right now to finalize several promising partnerships with think tanks, industry groups, policymakers, and media outlets. These are institutions and entities that are seeking us out, who are eager to learn the Objectivist perspective on the current crisis, and who are committed to working with us going forward.
- I have received a number of invitations from a variety of groups seeking to learn more about the Objectivist perspective on the current political and economic crisis. One notable event will be an appearance at the Virginia state GOP convention in May, when I will deliver a 30-minute address to more than five thousand Republican activists.
The magnitude of the crisis appears to have served as something of a “wake-up call”—at least for some Americans.
But with a growing number of citizens now roused, and aware of the need to change course, they need to understand not just the basic, summary “plot line” of Atlas Shrugged. They need to know the full story—the full, philosophical background behind the novel.
In short, what’s needed—and what only we can provide—is the philosophical foundation for this nascent but growing opposition to the toxic ideas that animate Congress and the administration. That foundation, of course, is Objectivism.
The opportunity we have at this moment in history is unprecedented. On the other hand, however, we do not know how much time we have. There is a very real risk that either:
- Public attention will turn elsewhere; or
- The economic and political situation will deteriorate beyond the point of no return.
Which is why, in conclusion, I am turning to you for your assistance.
Please help us to capitalize on this unprecedented opportunity. You can contribute right here and right now to help the ARC expand, and help us to get out the Objectivist message.
Your support will strengthen ARC’s media capabilities, our online presence; it will fund speakers and underwrite articles and publications; it will give us the resources to seek out and secure strategic alliances with organizations who are coming around to our point of view.
As I suggested might happen in November, people are looking for answers.
Better still, they are looking to us for answers.
At no point in recent history has there been such public interest in what Objectivism has to say on matters that affect the everyday life of Americans.
With your support, we will be able to take that public interest, give it a firm, philosophically sound foundation—a foundation rooted in individual rights and reason—and help lead and give direction to the growing public discontent.
Every day, we read accounts of bad economic developments—and of even worse political ones.
Given the dire news, we should consider the fact that not only is this an unprecedented opportunity for the advancement of Objectivism—and thus an American renaissance—but that it may be one of the last such opportunities that many of us will see in our lifetimes.
With that in mind, I thank you in advance for your consideration and support.
Sincerely,
Yaron Brook
President and Executive Director
Copyright © 2009 Ayn Rand® Institute. All rights reserved.
Labels: Announcements, Ayn Rand and Objectivism, Business and Economics, Individual Rights and Law
Blog Feed
Click the button below to subscribe to our blog's feed.
Get the Feed
Subscribe to the journal for people of reason.
Topics
- Announcements
- Ayn Rand and Objectivism
- Business and Economics
- Education
- Environmentalism
- Events
- Foreign Policy and War
- Healthcare
- History
- Individual Rights and Law
- Philosophy
- Psychology
- Religion
- Science and Technology
- The Arts
Blog Archive
- May 2006
- June 2006
- July 2006
- August 2006
- September 2006
- October 2006
- November 2006
- December 2006
- January 2007
- February 2007
- March 2007
- April 2007
- May 2007
- June 2007
- July 2007
- August 2007
- September 2007
- October 2007
- November 2007
- December 2007
- January 2008
- February 2008
- March 2008
- April 2008
- May 2008
- June 2008
- July 2008
- August 2008
- September 2008
- October 2008
- November 2008
- December 2008
- January 2009
- February 2009
- March 2009
- April 2009
- May 2009
- June 2009
- July 2009
- August 2009
- September 2009
- October 2009
- November 2009
- December 2009
- January 2010
- February 2010
- March 2010
Advertisement
