Today The Undercurrent published an extensive interview with ARI’s Onkar Ghate on the tension between religion and free speech, today’s atmosphere of self-censorship and the meaning of free speech. Here’s an excerpt:

The Undercurrent: Some have condemned the contest’s organizer, Pamela Geller, and the winning artist, Bosch Fawstin. They say there’s a world of difference between good-natured free expression and malicious speech intended solely to antagonize. What do you think?

Dr. Ghate: I disagree with many things that I’ve heard Pamela Gellar say but I refuse to discuss her real or alleged flaws when totalitarians are trying to kill her, as though those flaws, even if real, justify or mitigate the actions of the aspiring killers. . . .

Read the whole interview here.

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On July 4, 2015, Objectivist Summer Conference in Charlotte, North Carolina, Onkar will give a talk titled “Charlie Hebdo, the West, and the Need to Ridicule Religion.” Here’s a description of the talk:

The assassination of the journalists at Charlie Hebdo is a depressing and ominous event. Part of what it revealed — and the subject of my talk — is the West’s continued moral-philosophical decay and the growing inability, particularly in the U.S., to deal with the issue of religion. The appeasement of religion takes many forms, as we’ll discuss, but all serve to embolden religionists and encourage further demands and attacks.

Join us at OCON 2015. Register today!