Sam Harris is one of the few intellectuals today willing to speak frankly about the Islamic totalitarian movement. I agree broadly with his account of how the movement is fundamentally animated by religious ideas (rather than primarily political or economic grievances). Moreover, Harris has been courageous and articulate in fighting the smear of “Islamophobia,” a dishonest term intended to silence debate and marginalize dissenting views.
On The Yaron Brook Show this past weekend, Don Watkins and I discussed freedom of speech and the many campus protests and controversies that have broken out over the past few weeks. It’s a really good discussion (if I do say so myself) of a lot of issues that bear on the campus protests, including racism, inequality and even helicopter parenting. During the show, Don and I mentioned a number of essays by Ayn Rand that bear on the campus protests that are worth elaborating on a bit more.
A timely addition to the Ayn Rand Institute eStore is a recording of the panel on Racism, which was delivered at the 2015 Objectivist Summer Conference.
In this talk, Onkar Ghate, Senior Fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute, argues that the assassination of the journalists at Charlie Hebdo is an ominous event. It revealed the price of the West’s ongoing appeasement of religion. This appeasement takes many forms, but all serve to embolden religionists and encourage further demands and attacks. Onkar argues that we need to talk with our fellow Americans about the right to deliberately ridicule religion, and offers some advice on how to do that in the face of religious attacks.
In this interview, Peter Schwartz discusses his new book In Defense of Selfishness: Why the Code of Self-Sacrifice Is Unjust and Destructive and talks about the actual meaning of selfishness, the difference between altruism and benevolence, the appeal of altruism and why you should be selfish.
In this video, ARI Distinguished Fellow Peter Schwartz explains what readers will learn from his new book In Defense of Selfishness: Why the Code of Self-Sacrifice Is Unjust and Destructive. Topics include: the real meaning of selfishness and altruism, why selfishness requires moral principles and why “the public interest” is a myth.
In Defense of Selfishness, a new book authored by Peter Schwartz, boldly challenges the idea that self-sacrifice is a virtue. Since its June 2 release, the book is, unsurprisingly, often discussed in relation to Ayn Rand’s The Virtue of Selfishness since the dominant theme is reminiscent of Rand’s earlier work. In light of this commentary, Schwartz addresses this comparison.
