Articles

Gus Van Horn, one of the best bloggers on the Web, is leading in the final polling of the 2007 Weblog Awards in the “Best of the Top 6751–8750 Blogs” category. Gus deserves this and much more, so vote, vote, vote this year (you can vote every 24 hours), and…

During the question period of the otherwise unremarkable debate between Christopher Hitchens and Dinesh D’Souza on the question of “Is Christianity the Problem?” the following two questions were posed to Hitchens: 1) “What [does atheism] have to offer us as an ethics?” and 2) “What standard [of value] can you…

Roger Scruton challenges Ayn Rand’s concept of selfishness—by committing the very fallacy Rand identified as the cause of confusion on this issue.

In celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of Atlas Shrugged, I’ll be speaking at UCLA this Thursday, October 11. What: A talk on “Atlas Shrugged and Ayn Rand’s Morality of Egoism” by Craig Biddle Where: UCLA - Los Angeles, California: Kinsey Pavillion (Knudsen) 1220B When: Thursday, October 11, 2007, 7:00pm–9:00pm Admission…

In a letter called "Yesterday's Highlights," I periodically describe my observations of classes to the VanDamme Academy parents. I have decided to share these highlights with readers of this newsletter as well. I hope you enjoy your glimpse into a VanDamme Academy classroom. Dear Parents, This week and last, I…

There is a good article in Forbes today, titled “Atlas Shrugs Again,” by Marc Babej and Tim Pollack, focusing on the recent swell of interest in Ayn Rand’s ideas and on what it takes to “market something as amorphous as a [philosophical] movement.” After citing some of the recent items…

I have often been told that, when asked what was special about their VanDamme Academy education, graduates say, "We always understood why we were learning what we were learning." This important effect has many causes, the most significant among them being that what the students are learning is, in fact,…

In case the relativist “principle” guiding Lee Bollinger’s choice to invite Ahmadinejad to speak at Columbia was not clear enough in his earlier statement, here is a brief video of him making it even clearer. The “principle” is that anyone willing to “debate”—regardless of his complicity in the torture and…

That the Bush administration is permitting Ahmadinejad to enter America for any reason other than to kill him on sight is a moral travesty. But, then, given that Bush and company’s philosophy counsels us to “resist not evil” and “turn the other cheek” and “judge not that ye be not…

The online version of the Fall issue has been posted to our website. In connection with all the press surrounding the fiftieth anniversary of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged—from the New York Times article “Ayn Rand's Literature of Capitalism,” to the Los Angeles Times piece “Ayn Rand's Epic Storytelling,” to Lionsgate’s…

In connection with Yaron Brook’s essay “The Morality of Moneylending,” Edward Glaeser’s NY Sun op-ed “Vilifying Lenders” is a hopeful sign. Glaeser makes some good points: Not so long ago, banks were routinely vilified for not lending to the less fortunate. Over the past 15 years, a revolution in credit…

In an article titled “Freedom Fetishists: The Cultural Contradictions of Libertarianism”— which has been published in both Commentary and the Wall Street Journal—Kay S. Hymowitz has labeled Ayn Rand a “libertarian.” This would be unworthy of comment were it not for the fact that, as Rand herself put it, “the…

Exploit the Earth or die. It’s not a threat. It’s a fact. Either man takes the Earth’s raw materials—such as trees, petroleum, aluminum, and atoms—and transforms them into the requirements of his life, or he dies. To live, man must produce the goods on which his life depends; he must…

Dear Craig, Thank you for this article on your blog, which I very much enjoyed, especially your "Mafia hitmen" analogy. In your article, you state "The way to accomplish [Iran's defeat] is by waging a massive bombing campaign from high altitude and long distance—and by sustaining this campaign until the…

The Bush administration’s plan to declare Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist organization is worse than a waste of time: It is an outright evasion of the Iranian assault on America. There is a good reason why the New York City Police Department does not make official pronouncements to the…