Ayn Rand & Objectivism

Noteworthy news and opinion items from the week ending May 8, 2011 Note: Due to a scheduling conflict, the publication day of WiR has been changed from Sunday to Monday. One Islamist Fed to Sharks, a Few Islamist Regimes to Go The Keystone-Cops Administration Navy SEALs: Gods among Men The…

Here's a video of the talk I recently gave at UW-Madison and U Minnesota. As is usually the case when I speak on college campuses, the active-minded students and their excellent questions left me optimistic about the future. Enjoy! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XoLnjJuLME4

C. A. Wolski reviews Atlas Shrugged: Part I, directed by Paul Johansson.

Shows how the novel brilliantly dramatizes the essential principles of this science along with the fallacies involved in denying those principles.

Discusses the film, how it came together, choice of screenwriter and director, casting, score, and distribution.

Provides a concise history of the efforts to adapt Atlas for the screen.

Ayn Rand’s ethics, the centerpiece of Objectivism, is a code of morality for living and loving life. This is a beautiful thing.

An independent thinker faces reality and thinks for himself. A second-hander faces other people and expects them to think for him.

I recently posted about Vladimir Shlapentokh’s opinion piece in the Christian Science Monitor, in which he misrepresents Ayn Rand’s ideas and calls for Tea Partiers to distance themselves from her. In that post, I focused solely on his absurd claims about Rand’s politics; here, for those who may be interested…

[caption id="attachment_28169" align="alignright" width="241"] Image: Wikimedia Commons[/caption] In a recent Christian Science Monitor editorial, Vladimir Shlapentokh suggests that the popularity of Ayn Rand among Tea Partiers should “concern all Americans” and recommends that Tea Partiers distance themselves from the 20th-century philosopher and novelist. Why? According to Shlapentokh, Ayn Rand was…