For those who want to start a campus club, I want to share this jewel of wisdom from one of the past leaders of the University of Illinois Objectivist Club:
Here at the University of Illinois, we had our first Objectivist club meeting of the semester. I had a new idea for a beginning meeting, and I think it worked out pretty well, so I'd like to share it.
I've long thought that "Ayn Rand: A Sense of Life" was an ideal introductory video on Objectivism, because it presents Objectivist ideas in the context of the concrete life of one who lived them: Ayn Rand, herself. But the downside is that the movie is just too long for a single meeting. In the past, we've tried playing just the first half one week, and the second another, but that was awkward and it was hard for people always to make it back for the second half.
This time, however, I realized that if we were to use the DVD version of the movie, and play just some select tracks, it would be almost as good as playing the entire movie, but shorter. Here are the tracks I selected:
1. Main Titles [3:55] 3. First Heroes [8:14] 4. "What Can We Know About the Universe?" [4:42] 6. Coming to America [5:38] 9. "What Is Romantic Love?" [7:50] 11. We the Living [8:02] 12. "Under What Social System Is It Proper for a Man to Live?" [6:10] 13. The Fountainhead [9:18] 19. Atlas Shrugged [6:57] 21. Writing Philosophy [5:17] 22. Other Works [4:09] 25. Enjoying Life Until the End [6:10]
These are the tracks that discuss the essential ideas of Objectivism, and the essential parts of Ayn Rand's biography. Altogether they're just over 76 minutes, which is very manageable.
When we were done, the most interesting discussion topic was how the story of Ayn Rand's life demonstrates that people really can live by Objectivist principles, and that some in fact do. One good strategy for expanding this discussion is to come up with other real life examples of people who refuse to sacrifice their independence and integrity.
So the only thing you'll need to make this meeting work is a copy of the DVD, and some kind of DVD player and TV you can bring to your meeting location. I used my laptop and plugged it into a TV, which worked nicely after we'd figured out how to make it work.
I highly recommend this strategy. Now if we can come up with something to do for the rest of the semester!
