Who Is John Galt? November 29, 2005
Posted by Resident Egoist in : Misc, Philosophy , comments closedIf you answered Sam Walton, get to the front of the class kiddo.
Mystery solved by The Hartford Courant.
Technorati Tags: Ayn Rand, John Galt, Sam Walton, Objectivism, Atlas Shrugged
Dialectical Calculus November 11, 2005
Posted by Resident Egoist in : Culture, Philosophy , comments closedRobert Tracinsky has a great article at Capitalism Magazine on the current riots in France and their root cause: the ideology of multiculturalism, i.e., racism. In it he provides an interesting quote by Nazi chief Adolf Hitler, which goes as follows:
“Du bist nichts, dein Volk ist alles”?”you are nothing, your race is everything.”
Many would be be surprised to learn that they essentially agree with Hitler. Yet all they have to do to see that they do is to replace the word “race” with such words as “society”, or “class”, or “proletariat”, or “ethnic group”. The underlying fact is that in all these cases, the individual is wholly unimportant, while the collective is considered to be everything. Hell, everywhere you turn today you are told to turn away from the illusion of the self, and embrace the undeniable reality of the omni-maximus collective.
But now I come to my question for all the collectivists out there, including the Hitlerites: The collective, whether it be race, or gender, or “proletarians of the world”, or society, or whatnot, is necessarily a collection of individuals. There can be no collective without the individuals that constitute it. To put it another way again: a collective is merely an aggregate finite number of individuals. But now, if the individual is nothing, how can a certain sum of individuals amount to something or anything?! Since when did 0 + 0 + 0 + … start yielding anything other than 0?
So much for the validity of “scientific” socialism.
Technorati Tags: Nazism, Individualism
New Objectivist Magazines October 2, 2005
Posted by Resident Egoist in : Philosophy , comments closedAt Noodlefood, Don Watkins just announced the inauguration of Axiomatic magazine — his new “forum for Objectivists who want to write about Objectivism for other Objectivists.”
This first issue will include
[a]n analysis of the relationship between risk and values (?The Value of Risk? by Don Watkins); a new perspective on Albert Einstein and his role in the development of quantum theory (?Einstein?s Contributions to Quantum Theory? by Travis Norsen); a look at what it means to say Ayn Rand created a scientific ethics (?The Last Gasp for The God of the Gaps? by Greg Perkins); and a fascinating interview with Andrew Bernstein, author of the recently published book, The Capitalist Manifesto.
Another Objectivist publishing platform that is soon to come to life, is The Objective Standard — which is
[a] quarterly journal of culture and politics written from the perspective that man?s life on earth is the proper standard of morality [and] provides a rational, principled alternative to the ideas of both liberalism and conservatism …
Contributing writers [will] include Craig Biddle, Yaron Brook, Alex Epstein, Elan Journo, John Lewis, Keith Lockitch, Larry Salzman, and Lisa VanDamme.
[Hat Tip to the Armchair Intellectual.]
The first issue of The Objective Standard is scheduled to come out in Spring of 2006.
Technorati Tags: Axiomatic Magazine, Objective Standard
Rational Mysticism? September 30, 2005
Posted by Resident Egoist in : Philosophy , comments closedThere’s an interesting essay by Sam Harris, the author of The End of Faith, at Free Inquiry Magazine — the essay is titled “Rational Mysticism“. Knowing my definintions, I know that that is a contradiction in terms — for the last time I chekced, “rationality” and “mysticism” were mutually exclusive terms.
Read the full essay, and witness the workings of a mind that has rejected religious — Abrahamic — faith, but has not yet discovered Reason, which it confuses with “secular-ism” — alas, the fate of a substantial number of people nowadays.
P.S: As perspective, you might also want to read Gus Van Horn’s excellent review of Mr. Harris’ greatly misnamed claim to fame: The End of Faith.
Technorati Tags: Sam Harris, The End of Faith