Culture — VOICES for REASON

We at Voices for Reason would like to wish all you a very happy New Year. And what better way to start the New Year than by reading Alex Epstein’s op-ed, “The Meaning of New Year’s Resolutions”?

This New Year’s, resolve to think about how to make your life better, not just once a year, but every day. Resolve to set goals, not just in one or two aspects of life, but in every important aspect and in your life as a whole. Resolve to pursue the goals that will make you successful and happy, not as the exception in a life of passivity, but as the rule that becomes second-nature.

Whole thing here.

Image: Flickr

Amid the economic collapse and backlash against the growth of government, interest in Ayn Rand exploded in 2009. Within six months of 2009, bookstore sales of Atlas Shrugged had doubled the record of 200,000 set in 2008, and they are expected to exceed 400,000. Discussion of Rand and her views was a regular occurrence in the media, with some even dubbing 2009 “the year of Ayn Rand.”

Undoubtedly Ayn Rand’s popularity 27 years after her death was remarkable, and I view it as a positive sign that so many Americans saw on some level the connection between Atlas Shrugged and current events. I’d like to think, however, that the year of Ayn Rand would not be characterized by billion dollar government bailouts, the inauguration of a statist president elected on a platform as vacuous as “hope and change,” and government takeovers of automakers, financial institutions and the health care system.

On the contrary, a truly “Ayn Rand year” would witness the casting off of these and all other government chains. But this would require a much deeper process of intellectual and cultural change than we have yet seen. Read the rest of this entry »

That’s the intriguing start to an essay by Onkar Ghate, senior fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute (and Voices for Reason blogger), in the latest issue of U.S. News & World Report. The magazine invited him to address the “con” side of this debate: “Have the Holidays Become Too Secular?”

His answer, in essence, is that the true meaning of Christmas is secular, not religious. “Christmas in America is not a Christian holiday,” Dr. Ghate writes, explaining the paradox this way:

Christmas’s relation to goodwill leads many to believe the holiday inseparable from Christianity, allegedly the religion of goodwill. But the connection is tenuous. A doctrine that tells you that you’re a sinner—that you must seek redemption but cannot earn it yourself—and that Jesus, sinless, has endured an excruciating death to redeem you, who doesn’t deserve his sacrifice but who should accept it anyway—can hardly be characterized as expressing a benevolent view of man.

Read the rest of this entry »

In Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, there’s an unforgettable Thanksgiving scene at the mansion of Hank Rearden, a self-made millionaire industrialist whose achievements include the invention—after ten years of toil—of a revolutionary new metal, stronger, cheaper and more durable than steel. In addition to Rearden, seated at the table for Thanksgiving dinner are his mother, his wife Lillian, and his brother Philip, all of whom are wholly dependent on Rearden and his wealth.

Here’s is Rand’s description of the setting:

The roast turkey had cost $30. The champagne had cost $25. The lace tablecloth, a cobweb of grapes and vine leaves iridescent in the candlelight, had cost $2,000. The dinner service, with an artist’s design burned in blue and gold into a translucent white china, had cost $2,500. The silverware, which bore the initials LR in Empire wreaths of laurels, had cost $3,000. But it was held to be unspiritual to think of money and of what that money represented.

A peasant’s wooden shoe, gilded, stood in the center of the table, filled with marigolds, grapes and carrots. The candles were stuck into pumpkins that were cut as open-mouthed faces drooling raisins, nuts and candy upon the tablecloth.

In keeping with Thanksgiving tradition, Rearden’s family gives thanks for the bounty before them.

Read the rest of this entry »

Today is the 20^th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, arguably the most famous event signaling the fall of Communism. In the days following November 9, 1989, the world saw residents of East Germany—a satellite state of the supposedly great and powerful Soviet empire—flee en masse to West Germany, revealing how hellish life under Communism truly was. The sight of Germans literally breaking down the wall is an inspiring one that should be remembered as a great landmark of the 20^th century—as Yaron Brook and Onkar Ghate explain in this must-see interview.

As we celebrate an event that revealed to the world the oppression of Communism, it is important and instructive to note that for the seven decades of the Soviet Union’s existence, many journalists, authors, and intellectuals in the West evaded the atrocities of Communism, even as Communist states were racking up death tolls in the tens of millions.

Read the rest of this entry »

At Brown University, the faculty voted earlier this year to ditch Columbus Day in favor of “Fall Weekend.” In years past, Berkeley, California made a similar move to “Indigenous Peoples Day,” and South Dakota now marks “Native American Day.” Even where the Columbus name has been kept, virtually all enthusiasm for celebrating the holiday has disappeared.

Why does an embarrassed, guilty silence descend on the nation each Columbus Day? Because people don’t know how to celebrate the blossoming of Western civilization over the past five centuries without seeming to rejoice in the misery of American Indians. Modern historians have distorted the facts, finding fault with Columbus, America, and Western civilization for evils and tragedies that they did not create—while extolling mysticism and tribalism, which actually are the causes of history’s darkest chapters.

Read the rest of this entry »

“Let’s Take Back Columbus Day” is the theme of talks that I’m giving on several college campuses this month. (The official holiday is October 12, the 517th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’s discovery of America.) I spoke at New York University on October 5, and the following events are planned for next week:

• October 12: University of Virginia, Charlottesville – 7 p.m.
• October 13: University of Maryland – College Park, 6:30 p.m.
• October 15: University of Texas – Austin, 8 p.m.

At these events, I give prepared remarks for less than an hour and then spend at least that much time fielding questions. I’m really looking forward to hearing from students and addressing their concerns. It’s not often they are presented with a clear alternative to the multiculturalism and America-hatred so prevalent on college campuses, and it’s always rewarding when I can clear up confusion. For more details, consult the campus events calendar at the Ayn Rand Center’s website.

Meanwhile, here’s the lecture description:

Read the rest of this entry »

The Wall Street Journal recently commissioned Karen Armstrong, author of numerous books on religion, and Richard Dawkins, author of numerous books on evolution and atheism, to answer the question: “Where does evolution leave God?”

What I found most interesting about the exchange was an issue that neither discussed explicitly, but which lurked just beneath the surface of their answers: the fact that religion has co-opted the entire realm of the spiritual.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Washington Post has come out swinging against Yale University Press for deciding to cut visual depictions of Mohammad from a new scholarly book on the Danish cartoons crisis. The book, Cartoons that Shook the World by Jytte Klausen, was purged not only of the 12 infamous cartoons, but also of an illustration from a children’s book and other artistic depictions of the prophet. None appear in the book, for fear that Islamists may launch attacks in response. The Post’s editorial observes that the cartoons are “inflammatory and tasteless” but notes that “it’s difficult to imagine a more legitimate place for them” than in a scholarly work. By refusing to publish the images, “Yale University Press is allowing violent extremists to set the terms of free speech.”

Yes, the decision is a victory for enemies of free speech, but everything in this stinging editorial could be directed right back at the Washington Post – and  practically every major newspaper in the West that refused to publish the Danish cartoons when that crisis erupted. Read the rest of this entry »

[Last time I began discussing conservative responses to D'Souza's book, focusing on the review by Andrew Sullivan; let's see what kind of reception the book got from other conservative intellectuals. ]

In taking the wider perspective on the book, Sullivan was very much an outlier. Many other reviewers missed the fundamental issues. Critical reviews in conservative publications challenged, for the most part politely, the book’s contradictions and fuzziness. They picked apart D’Souza’s factual errors and tendentious, collage-like approach to quotations. Some said that he fell far short of demonstrating his case. Some were even troubled by D’Souza’s soft spot for Islamists — evidenced by passages such as:

Yes, I would rather go to a baseball game or have a drink with Michael Moore than with the grand mufti of Egypt. But when it comes to core beliefs, I’d have to confess that I’m closer to the dignified fellow in the long robe and prayer beads than to the slovenly fellow with the baseball cap.

Read the rest of this entry »