Most thinkers throughout history have held a negative or, at best, neutral view of productive work. If not scorned outright, production has usually been viewed as having no moral significance. But Ayn Rand had a unique view of the human potential, central to which is the importance she accords to the act of production. Productive achievement, in her philosophy, is man’s “noblest activity.” This talk explores what Objectivism means by the virtue of productiveness and discusses aspects of our culture’s positive and negative attitudes toward producers and productive activity.
No one can speak for the dead. But as an expert on Ayn Rand’s philosophy, I’m often asked what Rand would have thought of President Trump, especially now, on the one-year anniversary of his election and in light of stories in the Washington Post and elsewhere trying to link Trump to Rand.
What is free will? In this episode of Yaron Brook’s Living Objectivism, Onkar Ghate, senior fellow and chief content officer at the Ayn Rand Institute, calls in to discuss Ayn Rand’s unique perspective on the nature of free will; the validation of free will; why determinism is self-refuting and incoherent; free will as axiomatic; why free will is associated with mysticism; Objectivism on materialism and idealism; the nature and significance of the primary choice, and other issues.
On October 19, 2017, Onkar Ghate, senior fellow and chief content officer at the Ayn Rand Institute, joined Dave Rubin and Jordan B. Peterson to discuss the state of free speech in America.
October 10 is the 60th anniversary of the publication of Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. To commemorate that event, we asked Jeff Britting, curator of the Ayn Rand Archives, to supply us with images and text from one of the many exhibits he has mounted over the years, this one devoted to Rand’s handwritten notes and drafts for the novel, which was published in 1957.
Today we at ARI will unapologetically celebrate Columbus Day — and so should you. Why? Because Columbus Day celebrates the life-promoting core of Western Civilization; namely, reason and individualism.
