Robert M—

I  thought your discussion of reason and integration (post #93) was excellent. Sorry for the delayed response.  You end with this caveat:

now - whether this would work among college students is another matter - considering how corrupted their thinking process so often has become, I would not make guarantees..

That’s an important issue: How do we counter all the crap college students have thrown at them by their professors day after day?  It mght be a mistake to target that audience.  Given their academic estrangement from common sense, it may be a long time before they wake up and smell the logic.  Most of them are far too cut off from the harsh challenges of daily living in the real world.  As Ayn Rand did with her novels, I think Objectivists should try to address prevailing misconceptions from outside the academy—and let the sheer expository power of the Objectivist viewpoint thrive in the free market. 

The cloistered halls of higher learning may well be the last cultural bulwark to fall.  Their stakeholders have a vested interest in hiding behind all their verbal obfuscation for as long as possible.  The professors will try to shield the students from the truth under the guise of higher level sophistication—and the largely rebellious-minded students will buy it. Much like they are presently marching lockstep for the cause of Obama-mania.

I know this sounds contrary to Rand’s theory of the university as the intellectual foundation of a given culture, but that’s how I see the practical logistics of the formidable struggle ahead.