Yaron Brook was back in Colombia at Elite University for his third visit in three years and this tour did not disappoint. ARI has found a dedicated partner in Elite, a university focused on engineering and business. Brook describes Dr. Carlos Felipe Escobar, the school’s president, as a “big fan of Ayn Rand who, in his own words, ‘would love to create a university John Galt would be proud to attend.’” Brook looks forward to these visits and loves to engage with these intellectually oriented students about the crucial principles of freedom.
This year, 2017, marks the 60th anniversary of the publication of Atlas Shrugged. Start the celebration with this fascinating commemoration from ARI’s eStore: Ayn Rand and the Atlas Shrugged Years: Reminiscences and Recollections.
Michael Paxton, writer, producer, director and author, will be speaking at Objectivist Summer Conference 2017 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. This year, OCON will include a screening of his Academy Award-nominated Ayn Rand: A Sense of Life, a documentary on Ayn Rand’s life, in celebration of the film’s 20th anniversary. This will be an opportunity for those who have never had the chance to “see it on a big screen with an audience,” says Paxton.
Is Ayn Rand primarily a novelist or a philosopher? In response to one such questioner, Rand answered: “I am primarily both.” What did she mean by that? And why do you have to pay attention to both Rand’s fiction and nonfiction to learn Objectivism? In this session, Onkar Ghate explores the relationship between Rand’s philosophy and her literary goals.
“In view of what they hear from the experts, the people cannot be blamed for their ignorance and their helpless confusion. If an average housewife struggles with her incomprehensibly shrinking budget and sees a tycoon in a resplendent limousine, she might well think that just one of his diamond cuff links would solve all her problems. . .”
This video moment from the Ayn Rand Institute highlights novelist-philosopher Ayn Rand’s escape from Soviet Russia and why she chose to build a new life in America.
This week at the Ayn Rand Institute, employees got a sneak peek at a new Atlas Shrugged banner, created in celebration of the novel’s 60th anniversary. The banner features various Atlas Shrugged book covers from around the world. “These are graphically interesting covers from Japan to Russia,” according to Ayn Rand Archives curator Jeff Britting.
The life of a creature without free will is determined by factors outside its control, so it is not responsible for what it does or what becomes of it. But because human beings have free will, the shape our lives take is up to us. True, we are born into circumstances that are not of our own making, and there are facts of nature that we cannot change, but there are countless lives possible to each of us, and by recognizing what you cannot control and taking responsibility for what you can, you can create a life of which you can be proud and in which you will be happy.
