Hola from Colombia!
Your support of this journal is helping to stimulate exciting developments, and I’d like to tell you about a few of these.
Although things are bleak on the political front—not only in America but around the globe—interest in and support for the antidote has never been greater or more widespread. I’ve just participated in the 2021 Liberty International conference in Medellin, where nearly everyone I spoke with recognized the need for the philosophic foundation for liberty identified by Ayn Rand. Rand was mentioned repeatedly in main stage talks (including mine, of course), and I also had the honor of giving two talks about her ideas and their place in history to young scholars from around the world. The response was heartening. We talked for hours before, during, and after these sessions. Several of these students had risked life and limb crossing the border from Venezuela. They are desperate to continue learning about Objectivism and to spread Rand’s life-serving ideas in their home country, airtight as it is in the grip of a tyrant.
This event came on the heels of TOS-Con 2021: Philosophy for Freedom and Flourishing, an annual conference hosted by our sister organization, Objective Standard Institute, which is staffed by many of the same people who run this journal. Even though international travel restrictions prevented about 30 percent of registrants from attending, TOS-Con was a smashing success, bringing together nearly three hundred lovers of life and liberty. These included some forty young scholarship winners, eager to learn more about rational philosophy and to share it with their friends and classmates all over the world.
This is just a taste of what’s happening, and the network effects of these events will soon bear fruit for you directly, dear reader. I have in front of me a submission from a top entrepreneur and business writer; I have an interview scheduled with a leading self-development thinker and bestselling author; and the TOS team has made dozens of new contacts interested in contributing to this journal in some way or another.
We are building momentum, and we couldn’t do it without your support for The Objective Standard, the venue in which leading proponents of rational philosophy are refining their ideas and messaging. I hope that you enjoy the Fall 2021 issue, that you stick around for what’s to come, and that you continue helping us spread these powerful, life-serving ideas.
Stay selfish,
Jon Hersey
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