 Handling Conflicts Productively
by Luke Setzer
People can argue all day long about who is "right" or "wrong" as the broad spectrum of today's news commentators and politicians shows. So let those irrelevant others "feel" they are right using this technique. Meanwhile, pause to savor how you have learned to save your precious time and energy for what you enjoy most without ever actually sanctioning your enemies. (Read more...)
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 What Does It Mean to Be Educated?
by Luke Setzer
This article, spiced with a healthy dash of rant, explores the meaning and purpose of education and how one should shape one's soul using that tool. (Read more...)
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 Six Words to Shut Their Traps
by Luke Setzer
Imagine a real life Eddie Willers struggling in today's world to make the best life possible for himself and his loved ones. He could encounter various verbal traps and handle them efficaciously. In all walks of life, you will encounter people who will attempt to divorce the cold equations of finance from their transactions with you. You should never let them get away with it. Eddie Willers would not. This article employs Eddie Willers in a way to help you in that worthy aim with six easily memorized words. (Read more...)
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University of Florida Outreach Engineering Management
by Luke Setzer
A young man once asked an old sea captain, "What do you do when you find your ship caught between a storm on one side and jagged rocks on the other?" The captain answered, "What you do is not get yourself into that situation in the first place." This article aims to help those considering a popular engineering management program to keep out of a potentially rough and dangerous situation. Laying a solid intellectual foundation and mapping a plan from start to finish before committing to this program will go a long way toward keeping you afloat once you set sail into the thick of it. (Read more...)
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Thursday
September 20, 2007 |
 Respond-Sybil-Itty
by Luke Setzer
The student complied with the principal's edict exactly as spoken. He wrote his own definition of "responsibility" by filling the page from top to bottom. He started from the top of the page and spelled the words vertically down the page to the bottom, where he then returned to the top for another vertical line of words. (Read more...)
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Wednesday
September 5, 2007 |
Advice for Those Considering NCSSM
by Luke Setzer
Between 1982 and 1984, I attended a state boarding school called the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics (NCSSM). Founded in 1980, it became the first such state school for eleventh and twelfth graders showing exceptional aptitudes in the fields of science and mathematics. It has inspired the creation of eighteen other similar schools around the world and has become part of the National Consortium for Specialized Secondary Schools of Mathematics, Science and Technology (NCSSSMST). This article represents a body of "lessons learned" for those young people considering attending NCSSM today. It examines general considerations, motives, benefits, detriments, and alternatives related to the NCSSM experience. It concludes with a suggested plan of action. These lessons remain general enough to apply to any young high school student considering any advanced, rigorous, residential high school program -- or even college. (Read more...)
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Experiencing Objectivism through Quicken
by Luke Setzer
Sadly, even primarily capitalistic nations like America suffer from socialized institutions that suppress mind, the source of economic power. Government schools in capitalistic nations neglect to teach students how to think like capitalists. As a result, most students graduate high school or even college utterly clueless about how to manage their own personal economics, i.e. the production, distribution, and consumption of the material values they need to live well as individuals. This appendix from the forthcoming book The Vision-Driven™ Individual seeks to accelerate the reader up to speed on this most crucial aspect of living well in a free society. (Read more...)
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 North Carolina Governor's School Experience
by Luke Setzer
The campus director informed the parents from the outset that it would be "best for their children" if they refrained from visiting for the first two weeks of the program. He asserted that early visits from family would disrupt the students' "adjustment" to campus life. He also sternly informed students that "if you have any kind of prejudice against others, check them at the gate. We will be too busy pursuing new and valuable ideas to have those kinds of barriers holding us back." It all seemed just a little ominous. (Read more...)
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Mister Know Enough
by Luke Setzer
I don't claim to know it all. I don't even claim full accuracy of what I think I do know. I only claim to know enough not to need pesky spammers. In other words, I am not "Mister Know It All." I am "Mister Know Enough." (Read more...)
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 Five Words That Spell Liberation
by Luke Setzer
Many speakers invite you to "make the connection" -- whatever that means. I invite you -- yes, I do mean you -- to make the disconnection. Disconnect yourself from the obstructionists, the life drainers, the destroyers. Set yourself free from the Gordian knots of troublemakers so that you can live your life your way. (Read more...)
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Wednesday
February 14, 2007 |
PROPEL(TM) Universal Club Brochure
by Luke Setzer
This article contains the text of the proposed PROPEL™ universal club brochure. To appreciate it fully, download the Portable Document Format (PDF) version of the file here. Note that the Web address has not yet gone live. (Read more...)
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Wednesday
February 7, 2007 |
Announcing PROPEL(TM)
by Luke Setzer
Creating a name with a catchy acronym that encapsulates the best of local Objectivist clubs proved a challenge. The honor of identifying that name belongs to the RoR Global Distributor J. J. Tuan. We call it: PROPEL™: Passionate Rational Objectivists Promoting Exuberant Living™. (Read more...)
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Stifler of the Noble Soul
by Luke Setzer
Despite its rich content and often caustic analysis, Steve Salerno's SHAM fails in one fundamental respect. Objectivists will see this failure interspersed all through the book. What fully grounded, objective, integrated, rational moral code does Salerno advocate in place of the messages of these various gurus? Blank out. Rather, paleoconservative seems best to describe Salerno's working ethical philosophy as he snidely sneers at self-interest in favor of a number of supposedly "higher" values such as marriage and family. (Read more...)
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 From Objectivism to Neo-Tech and Back
by Luke Setzer
Disclaimer: I no longer have anything to do with Neo-Tech. I post this article only as a historical account of my past involvement with them and to enlighten those who may want to learn more about it. I confess some embarrassment at supporting them as long as I did but, as the saying goes, "Better late than never." (Read more...)
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Tough Storge
by Luke Setzer
Parents have a moral obligation to do their best to raise their offspring into fully functioning adults. This obligation comes as close to "duty" as one would ever come in the Objectivist ethics, but it still arises from causality, i.e. from the parents causing the effects of their children's very existence in the first place. The task of nurturing incapable infants into capable adults must include conditioning children to deal with the best and worst aspects of both the metaphysical and the man-made. Helping them to confront the very nature of self-responsibility and its difficult values choices becomes a necessary aspect of sound parenting. These three stories offer concrete, real life instances of such instruction. Objectivists would serve themselves well by learning from them. (Read more...)
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Objectivism and the Five Loves
by Luke Setzer
This submission delivers on my promise to post an article with this title. It also constitutes the eighth chapter of my book The Vision-Driven Life which I outlined on this site earlier this year. This particular selection continues the Objectivist examination of the rational basis of emotions and its ties to recent research. It discusses how one must deliberately embrace the Objectivist ethics in order to program his emotions most effectively for living in this world. (Read more...)
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Table of Contents for The Vision-Driven Life
by Luke Setzer
Imagine a fully rational alternative to Rick Warren's religious screed The Purpose-Driven® Life. Visualize a book that takes its overall structure from the ethics of Objectivism, the philosophy of Ayn Rand. Envision using the suggested reading list of the Ayn Rand Institute -- 25 items -- as a subject of study for each chapter of such a book. See each chapter broken into seven days of brief insights, gems of advice, and thought-provoking assignments drawing on Ayn Rand and many other sage authors from a wide range of fields. Picture in your mind's eye how the conscientious completion of such a book would yield a life blueprint and how such a blueprint could chart a course for your life. (Read more...)
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From Vision through Values to Mission
by Luke Setzer
My previous articles about developing a global Objectivist club network have focused on "learning lessons" from various proven companies and clubs ranging from BB&T to Toastmasters. Given those lessons learned, what would an overall blueprint for the proposed Objectivist network resemble? To answer that question requires identifying the actual components of a good blueprint followed by an outline of the particulars that concretize those abstract components for this network. (Read more...)
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Learning Lessons from Toastmasters
by Luke Setzer
Nothing in reality prevents the conception, incubation, birth and growth of a global Objectivist club network into a towering giant. The Toastmasters International club network offers an ideal colossus to emulate. Its enormous success shows that one man can indeed start a global phenomenon. Its sweeping yet grounded vision, mission, values and strategic plan illustrate the role of reason in creating global culture change. Its rigorous procedures for selecting members, officers and contest winners exemplify objectivity in action. Its training systems arise from decades of experience. In short, it offers many lessons for how a good Objectivist club system should do business. (Read more...)
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Learning Lessons from Beachbody
by Luke Setzer
An Objectivist club network Web site needs a testimonials page as motivating as that of Beachbody. The writers of such testimonials need to spell vividly their states of flourishing before and after embracing Objectivism. They must make clear to all newcomers the vast increase in quality of life that Objectivism delivers. (Read more...)
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Drama Queen versus Ice Queen
by Luke Setzer
I contend that passion can exist across a wide spectrum of "emotional temperatures." My contention respects the context of an individual's unique character and situation to dictate what temperature proves "just right" to cause flourishing for that person. To illustrate this principle, I introduce two polarized archetypes of passion: the Drama Queen and the Ice Queen. (Read more...)
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Learning Lessons from the Fellowship of Reason
by Luke Setzer
Before I became involved with SOLO and now RoR as a way to place my local Objectivist club under a wider umbrella, I briefly explored the idea of opening a local chapter of the Fellowship of Reason® (FOR) for that purpose. Unfortunately, I learned that FOR had a substantially different vision, so I abandoned the effort. I also did not renew my membership with them when dues time came. Their new Executive Board sent a survey to all current and former members to learn lessons about what they could do to improve FOR. I offer my responses to their survey here. I have changed names to protect privacy. (Read more...)
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Roles and Rational Egoism
by Luke Setzer
Chapter 12 from the forthcoming book The Vision-Driven Life™: Becoming the Self You Might Be and Ought To Be examines how one can best form relationships using the virtue of Justice. It shows how one must master the role of Island in order to have the greatest freedom to form the most flourishing relationships possible. It ends with an exercise to identify current roles and their emotional payoffs. (Read more...)
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Wednesday
January 18, 2006 |
Radio Opportunity Vanishes into Mystical Fog
by Luke Setzer
My personal Web site has the title "Attitude Adjustment" because I consider that to be the central theme of the material I present there. The employment of Objectivism in conjunction with personal dreams, values and goals and other material aimed at flourishing do indeed empower a person to adjust his attitude about living. Such a theme drew the attention recently of a radio talk show host. (Read more...)
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Learning Lessons from McDonald's
by Luke Setzer
Among the New Intellectuals of the business world, Ray Kroc stands as an example of the most grandiose, world-dominating possibilities available. If Objectivists want to change the world, they would do well to study his methods at franchising McDonald's across the globe. This especially holds true when considering how best to franchise a global Objectivist club network. (Read more...)
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