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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 Ayn Rand Society 2005 - Paper 3
by Stephen Boydstun
Rand thought that Aristotle’s ethical system was merely a carving of accepted ideals. He failed to answer: Do humans really need a code of values? What for? Is there a noncircular basis of the good? Rand said that Aristotle “based his ethical system on observations of what the noble and wise men of his time chose to do, leaving unanswered the questions of: why they chose to do it and why he evaluated them as noble and wise.” (Read more...)
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 Machan's Musings - The New York Times on Alito's Advance
by Tibor R. Machan
The New York Times made much of the fact [01/15/06] that Democrats couldn't trip up Judge Samuel Alito during the recent hearings at the Senate Judiciary Committee. The Times fretted a lot about how Democrats felt outflanked both by Alito and by the Republicans. (Read more...)
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 Principles of Activism 5: Unique Advantages
by Joseph Rowlands
What kinds of activism should we focus on? That can be a tough question with no easy answer. The problem is that there are so many things you can do to promote Objectivist ideas. We could promote life-affirming art, less taxation, financial responsibility, or countless other ideas. Any of these ideas move us closer... (Read more...)
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Machan's Musings - Tyranny Taught at Yale Law School
by Tibor R. Machan
Yale Law Professor Kenji Yoshino wrote a piece for The New York Times Magazine, "The Pressure to Cover" [01/15/06], that's a frightening diatribe in favor of a police state. Its ideas pretty much match the worst portions of the Right Wing's Patriot Act-another piece of evidence that Left and Right are mostly two sides of the same coin. (Read more...)
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New Testament Myths: The Diary of a Madman Named Saul.
by Robert Davison (Wolf)
The greatest irony in history is that the religion named for Christ is the religion of Paul and of Rome. (Read more...)
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Machan's Musings - Writer vs. Reviewer: Sunstein’s Bifurcation
by Tibor R. Machan
The University of Chicago Law School’s Cass Sunstein is now nearly as prominent a modern liberal—Leftists—legal scholar as is Harvard Law School’s Lawrence Tribe—just the other day I heard someone mention him as the equivalent on the Left to Samuel Alito on the Right, someone who might be nominated for the Supreme Court by a Democratic President. (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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Machan's Musings - What Does "Unalienable" Mean?
by Tibor R. Machan
It would really be extremely valuable for today’s children to understand what is meant for a right to be unalienable. But it isn’t likely they will be taught about this much in today’s school—from elementary to graduate ones, in fact. (Read more...)
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Epicurus on Freedom and Happiness
by Edward W. Younkins
Epicurus (341-270 BC), a major philosopher of the Hellenistic period, largely relied upon Democritus for his materialistic and atomistic theory of nature. However, he does modify Democritus’ metaphysics because of its skeptical and deterministic implications. Epicurus founded his physics based upon Democritus but disco... (Read more...)
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Wednesday
January 11, 2006 |
Indians and Finance Reform
by Robert Davison (Wolf)
By now, it should be apparent, to one and to all, that ‘patching’ Senate rules will not mend the fabric of the republic. Because Senators are elected they advocate, not what is moral or what is best, but for that which will get them elected; and once elected they spend most of their time fund-raising and campaigning to be reelected. (Read more...)
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Wednesday
January 11, 2006 |
Machan's Musings - Don’t Export America’s Failed War on Poverty
by Tibor R. Machan
Only one thing stops poverty. It’s wealth. And there is but one sure fire way to gain wealth. Work. (Read more...)
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Principles of Activism 4: Non-sacrificial activism
by Joseph Rowlands
A question that has come up often in the past is whether activism is even compatible with a morality based on self-interest. Isn't activism a kind of sacrifice? Aren't you throwing away your happiness to try to improve the lives of others? If someone dedicated his life to "the cause", wouldn't he be betraying the ve... (Read more...)
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Ayn Rand Society 2005 - Paper 1
by Stephen Boydstun
Professor Lennox first presented Rand’s views on axiomatic concepts, then Aristotle’s view on axioms and their validation. He then briefly compared their views in this area. (Read more...)
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Machan's Musings - Woody Allen the Subversive
by Tibor R. Machan
Woody's subversive idea about how it's all about luck is just what the Left likes to propagate about how economic success has nothing to do with achievement, with accomplishment, with virtue, with hard work--It's all just an accident. Bunk. (Read more...)
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On Spiritual Visualizing
by A. Robert Malcom
One of the things which have come to mean so much to me is the recognition that the purpose of an artist is far more than has generally been considered. An artist is, by the fact of 'showing' that which is of importance to that artist, a Spiritual Visualizer, a person who has undertaken the responsibility of... (Read more...)
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The Ethics and Methodology of Capitalism
by Neil Parille
A review of Edward Younkins' Philosophers of Capitalism: Mises, Menger, Rand, and Beyond (Read more...)
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Objectivist Clubs and Holidays
by Luke Setzer
A global Objectivist club network must take full advantage of the holiday phenomenon to serve the four basic human needs effectively. (Read more...)
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Machan's Musings - Slavery & Property - Communal vs. Individual
by Tibor R. Machan
If another person may not own me, what good is this if my assets and earnings may be taken from me without my permission? (Read more...)
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Objectivism in China
by JJ Tuan
Objectivism is a philosophy unheard of in China. In fact, a cursory online search of Objectivism yields some hits in Japanese, but none in Chinese. Yet as the most populous country in the world, China presents a unique opportunity as an untapped market for promoting Objectivism. What are its characteristics that woul... (Read more...)
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Machan's Musings - Romantic Games and Why We Play Them
by Tibor R. Machan
I never read this book but "The Rules" is supposed to be an instruction manual guiding women on how to deal effectively with men in the course of a budding romance. The central idea, not original to this little tract, is to keep the men coming while not showing them that you want them to. The idea is, of course, pretty familiar to most of us: in order to gain someone's interest, we need to play hard to get. It is supposed to apply to all of us, not just women aiming to get their man. (Read more...)
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Principles of Activism 3: Head in the right direction
by Joseph Rowlands
I've been asked many times over the years how I expect to get from where we are now to where we want to be. How do I expect to create an Objectivist world? I think they were expecting me to pull out a notebook with a timeline, some graphs, and a list of milestones, and titled "The Master Plan". Maybe they don't expe... (Read more...)
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Machan's Musings - Misunderstanding Xmas Shopping
by Tibor R. Machan
You get it from all sides around this time of the year-"Xmas has become too commercial, too materialistic, lost its spirituality, blah, blah, blah." At the same time, of course, we also hear a lot of people urging us to be generous, give of ourselves, give to those who are in need, etc. (Read more...)
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Machan's Musings - Optimism or Pessimism?
by Tibor R. Machan
At year's end, after columns and commentaries galore lamenting the state of contemporary society with respect to the slow growth and frequent setbacks on the road to individual liberty, it's worth asking whether an attitude of pessimism or optimism is warranted. These attitudes are, unlike, say, hope or anxiety, capabl... (Read more...)
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Machan's Musings - Castro in My Dream
by Tibor R. Machan
So then last night I had this dream of being at some kind of shindig, kind of like that one in Rumor Has It, where I meet Fidel, of all people. (Read more...)
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