For decades creationists have sought to replace evolution with the book of Genesis. But defenders of evolution have consistently prevailed in the schools and the courts of law. This struggle for intellectual survival has led to the evolution of a new “species” of creationist, better adapted to its inhospitable environment. The new Creationism goes by the name “Intelligent Design” and poses a greater danger than old-style creationism. In this talk Dr. Lockitch will examine the Intelligent Design movement focusing on its similarities and differences with standard creationism. By hiding its religious nature in a cloak of pseudo-science, the movement seeks to make itself more palatable to intellectuals and the general public. And because the collapse of philosophy has left today’s academics — including the most passionate and vocal defenders of evolution — incapable of answering its most fundamental arguments, the doors of our colleges and schools are ominously open to primitive mysticism masquerading as science. (Recorded November 17, 2005.)

About The Author

Keith Lockitch

Vice President of Education and Senior Fellow, Ayn Rand Institute

Amid the self-doubt and anti-Americanism paralyzing the nation after 9/11, Neoconservative intellectuals appeared self-confident and pressed for military action. Since then they have become architects of U.S. foreign policy. They support the Bush administration’s campaign to plant “freedom” in the Middle East. To secure our “national interest,” they argue, America must assert its unrivaled military power throughout the world.

Despite their tough-sounding policies, however, Neoconservatives in fact reject the moral need to pursue only America’s self-interest, and instead urge us to sacrifice ourselves in order to bring “democracy” to the world. While U.S. troops are dying in the campaign to “liberate” Iraq, ominous threats to our security are left to fester: Iran, the arch-sponsor of Islamic terrorism, is chasing nuclear weapons with undiminished vigor. And the grisly terrorist bombings in London — like those in Madrid last year — portend further suicide attacks on U.S. soil.

Who are the Neoconservatives, and where are they leading us?

In this talk Dr. Brook critiques Neoconservative foreign policy, exposes the real meaning of their vaunted patriotism, and argues that their policies will lead to failure in America’s war against Islamist totalitarians. (Recorded September 12, 2005.)

About The Author

Yaron Brook

Chairman of the Board, Ayn Rand Institute

With the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, America has accepted a permanent, institutionalized state of siege on its own soil. But is this the correct strategy? In this lecture Dr. John Lewis examines several examples from history — including Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome — in which great nations, facing attack, have acted defensively rather than with bold offense. The results are clear: such a policy is suicidal. Rather than bracing against further attacks at home or spreading “democracy” abroad, America should destroy her enemies.

But this strategic lesson needs a moral foundation. The moral requirement of victory is self-interested action, not appeals to the needs of others. Wars cannot be fought altruistically. Once the civilian government has set clear goals, the military must be allowed to win. History illustrates the deep connection between intellectual clarity, moral certainty and the offensive strategy needed to defeat a ruthless enemy. Only Ayn Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism provides the moral basis for a successful military response to the threats we face today. (Recorded March 23, 2005.)

Although America has waged two wars, in Afghanistan and Iraq, in as many years, the threats to our security persist. We face many more years of continuing military strife in the Middle East and elsewhere. Our military is awesomely powerful, but the moral guidance it receives from Washington is shockingly meek. What moral principles should guide a nation in war?

In this lecture Dr. Brook explains and evaluates the dominant views on the morality of fighting a war. Questions to be addressed include: When is it morally proper and necessary to wage war? What should be the goal of a war? Under what conditions is it proper to strike preemptively? Is the military morally obliged to spare civilian lives? What treatment do prisoners of war deserve? Should war be fought for the sake of humanitarian ends? Under what conditions, if any, is it morally proper to use biological, chemical or nuclear weapons? (Recorded September 9, 2004.)

About The Author

Yaron Brook

Chairman of the Board, Ayn Rand Institute

Tens of millions have read Ayn Rand’s novels, including <em>The Fountainhead</em> and <em>Atlas Shrugged</em>, and half a million copies of her works now sell each year. But far fewer people know of the radical system of ideas underlying the stories she created. Standing alone like her fictional hero Howard Roark, Ayn Rand defied the ideas of more than two millennia by championing individualism, capitalism, egoism and reason.

This lecture by Dr. Onkar Ghate, dean of the Objectivist Academic Center and senior fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute, introduces some of the main ideas of this controversial thinker — and their vital importance today. (Recorded June 2, 2003.)

About The Author

Onkar Ghate

Chief Philosophy Officer and Senior Fellow, Ayn Rand Institute

Dr. Peikoff analyzes and rejects  — as appeasement-ridden and ineffectual  — the entire Bush administration response to the terrorist attacks on the U.S., from 9/11 until today.  America, he says, should have reacted to 9/11 as it did to Pearl Harbor, by declaring war not on Afghanistan or Iraq, but on Iran.

The public’s approval of Bush’s policies, he argues, indicates the tragic deterioration of the American mind in the last 60 years, owing to the influence in our schools and colleges of Progressive educators and irrationalist intellectuals. (Recorded April 21, 2003.)

About The Author

Leonard Peikoff

Leonard Peikoff, author of Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand, is the foremost authority on Rand’s philosophy. Learn more at his website.

Central to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the question of whether the state of Israel has a moral right to exist. Will the establishment of a sovereign Palestinian state bring peace? What is the solution—and which side of the conflict should America support?

In this talk Dr. Yaron Brook argues that Israel deserves—but is not receiving — America’s moral and political support; that by sacrificing its loyal ally for the sake of appeasing our common enemies, America is undermining its own war on terrorism. Dr. Brook outlines a solution that unites ideals and action in its defense of America’s self-interest. (Recorded December 12, 2002.)

About The Author

Yaron Brook

Chairman of the Board, Ayn Rand Institute

This is Ayn Rand’s final public talk, given in November 1981 to an audience of businessmen at a conference in New Orleans sponsored by the National Committee for Monetary Reform.

In this lecture, Rand observes that profit-seeking businessmen, despite conferring huge benefits upon society in the form of higher standards of living, are the “most hated, blamed, denounced men” in the eyes of so-called social humanitarians. This injustice is further compounded when these same victimized businessmen accept their attackers’ moral standards and end up guiltily apologizing for their own productive virtues.

As an example of this phenomenon, which Rand calls the “sanction of the victims,” she points to the steadfast financial support that businesses give to higher education, without regard to the ideas that their dollars propagate. “[M]illions and millions and millions of dollars are being donated to universities by big business enterprises every year,” Rand says, “and the donors have no idea of what their money is being spent on or whom it is supporting. What is certain is only the fact that some of the worst anti-business, anti-capitalism propaganda has been financed by businessmen in such projects. . . . It is a moral crime to give money to support your own destroyers. Yet that is what businessmen are doing with such reckless irresponsibility.” (Recorded November 21, 1981.)

In this interview, which took place upon publication of For the New Intellectual, Ayn Rand discusses: the nature of cultural leadership; the influence of Plato, Aquinas and Kant; the creeping mysticism infecting science; and the lengthy process by which individuals become the “new intellectuals” of tomorrow. (Recorded May 15, 1961.)

The conflict between capitalism and communism, Ayn Rand says, is really a war of reason vs. mysticism. She warns businessmen: “You do not hire witch doctors as mechanics or engineers; do not hire them as PR men.” (Recorded in 1961.)