A nation’s culture is the sum of the intellectual achievements of individual men, which their fellow-citizens have accepted in whole or in part, and which have influenced the nation’s way of life. Since a culture is a complex battleground of different ideas and influences, to speak of a ‘culture’ is to speak only of the dominant ideas, always allowing for the existence of dissenters and exceptions. — AYN RAND
Everything the Marxists said about capitalism – exploitation of the many by a privileged few; a gross inequality of wealth and opportunity simply due to an artificial arrangement of control over the means of production; a manipulation of reality to make slavery seem as if it meant freedom – was, in fact, the nature and essence, of Soviet socialism.
This egalitarian ideal sets the standard as the color of one’s skin, or sex or sexual orientation, as against the quality of the movie, performance or direction.
One of the most successful schools I visited was in an aging building in a rundown ghetto neighborhood in New York, where a friend told me that I was “brave” — he meant foolhardy — to park a car.
In his first interview, Ayn Rand Institute’s new CEO, Jim Brown, talked exclusively at his office in Irvine, California with Scott Holleran.
Teachers’ unions have fought for years to prevent charter schools from being created.
United Artists’ High Noon (1952) is a lightning rod of controversy. This compelling movie was made with the best talents and its taut, purpose-driven plot gains and keeps attention. Any honest appraisal must account for its flaws, too. I recently saw it again at...
You’re gonna make it after all.
I deeply regret the passing of Ralph Raico. In his youth, he was my brother.
Nabokov’s Favorite Word is Mauve is an enjoyable exercise in re-framing what the reader probably already knows about a favorite writer and discovering references, patterns and facts the reader may not know.
According to the authoritative “Black Book of Communism,” an estimated 65 million Chinese died as a result of Mao’s repeated, merciless attempts to create a new “socialist” China.
While often criticizing government for curtailing our freedom instead of protecting it and businesspeople (or others) for failing to act ethically, I want to focus on the positive in my last post of the year.
Even the best things come to an end. After enjoying a quarter of a century of writing this column for Creators Syndicate, I have decided to stop. Age 86 is well past the usual retirement age, so the question is not why I am quitting, but why I kept at it so long.
Any honest man, looking back on a very long life, must admit — even if only to himself — being a relic of a bygone era. Having lived long enough to have seen both “the greatest generation” that fought World War II and the gratingest generation that we see all around us today, makes being a relic of the past more of a boast than an admission.
The Washington Post Fails To Do Its Homework on Ayn Rand’s Philosophy: Objectivism
On the 15th anniversary of the worst domestic terrorist attack in history—September 11—a college student’s memorial flag display was destroyed three times.
Have we reached the ultimate stage of absurdity where some people are held responsible for things that happened before they were born, while other people are not held responsible for what they themselves are doing today?
Political, social, and economic life in the Middle Ages revolved around two sets of institutions.
A bit about my recent illustrations of scenes from The Fountainhead.
The area in which the Ancient Romans did leave a body of thought, and one that has had lasting influence and significance for future generations, especially in the West up until our own time was in the area of law and contract.
The controversial film about America’s 1831 slave rebellion undercuts the nature and power of Nat Turner’s story and makes everything seem too pat.
Watching sports satisfies a vital human need.
The civil rights movement started out in the 1950s and 1960s as against white-black segregation. And now, half a century later, we’re back to full-fledged white-black segregation at California state schools.
Ludwig von Mises’s majestic magnum opus, Human Action: A Treatise on Economics, was published on September 14, 1949. In the nearly seven decades since its appearance, Human Action has come to be recognized as one of the truly great classics of modern economics.
Clint Eastwood (Jersey Boys, American Sniper, Gran Torino, Invictus) made another little character masterpiece with Sully, starring Tom Hanks as Captain Chesley Sullenberger. Review by Scott Holleran
Work is a crucially important value. When productive, work gives us not only the material means of survival and enjoyment of life, but it is also the main source of self-esteem and provides a central purpose that makes the rest of our values achievable by helping prioritize them.
Let us not forget that over the last hundred years virtually every form of collectivism has been tried – socialism, communism, fascism, Nazism, interventionism, welfare statism – and each has failed. There is only one “ism” left to fill this vacuum in the face of collectivism’s failures.
The Soviet nightmare of “socialism-in-practice” was over.
“It’s a whole other thing if you’re encouraging and cheering on the proposed murder of Americans who are standing in defense of the freedom of speech, and then not doing anything about it. Why did the FBI only have one agent there? And not a team waiting for them to shoot back?”
This video is a glimpse into the world of VanDamme Academy – a world we hope to share even more, in a full documentary.
The American Spirit of Independence, Innovation and Benevolence
Too many in the older generation in America have lost their understanding of what freedom means and why constitutionally limited government is both necessary and desirable. And the vast majority of the young have never been taught in our government-run schools the ideas, ideals, and political institutional foundations upon which this country of ours was created.
Speed up confusing, bogged-down tasks by slowing down your thinking.
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