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
Q: What can meditation do for me? A: People who meditate are generally trying to reduce stress. Reducing stress is fine. However, there's nothing mystical about meditation that can help you. Letting your mind stop can be useful, but it also can be an indication that...
The nation’s primary and secondary education is a national disgrace; will we allow our undergraduate education to become so as well?
Loving Life is an introduction to the Objectivist Ethics that assumes no prior knowledge of Ayn Rand’s ideas.
If the liberals truly wish to maintain the separation of Church and State (and its corollary – intellectual freedom), then they must reverse their antagonism to individual rights, and join us, the capitalists, in championing for a return to the original American form of government, i.e. to a constitutional republic enacted to protect the full and consistent individual rights of all.
Sousa was above all a “Salesman of Americanism” through his music.
Can a nation of freedom, individualism and the pursuit of happiness be based on the Ten Commandments?
I'm wondering just when parents, especially poor minorities, will refuse to tolerate day-to-day school conditions that most parents wouldn't dream of tolerating. Lisa Snell, director of the Education and Child Welfare Program at the Los Angles-based Reason Foundation,...
To paraphrase Ayn Rand in The Fountainhead, George Lucas created Star Wars and George Lucas has the right to destroy Star Wars.
On Columbus Day, in sum, we celebrate Western civilization with the utter certainty that it is good according to an objective standard: man’s life. America therefore deserves to prevail against the religious totalitarians who would destroy industrial civilization and return mankind to the Stone Age.
The hardest thing for Westerners to understand is not that a war with militant Islam is underway but that the nature of the enemy’s ultimate goal. That goal is to apply the Islamic law (the Shari‘a) globally. In U.S. terms, it intends to replace the Constitution with the Qur’an.
What, the first question must be, is the distinguishing essence of heroism?
Controversial art historian Lee Sandstead will speak this Monday evening at the Johnson Center on something this campus hasn't seen or heard about in decades--art.What? How can I say this? Isn't there art everywhere at Mason?Well, yes, there is a lot of "art" on...
Q: What do you think of the old saying, "It takes one to know one"? A: It's a package deal. By package deal I mean the lumping of a true concept with a false one. The evil of a package deal is that the truthful part of the statement motivates one to accept the full...
When a student at New York University committed suicide recently, it was the 6th suicide at that same institution this year. The suicide of someone in the prime of life, and getting an education that promises a bright future, should be much rarer than it is. But NYU...
Q: What's more important, being nice or being self-interested? A: It's good to be nice. Being nice is more often in one's self-interest than not. For example: Are you more willing to spend your money at a business who treats its customers nicely or who treats its...
"Reflecting Absence," the winning WTC memorial design, offers a list of randomly scattered names, a pool, and some trees, which elicit in most viewers nothing but bemused boredom. For those of us who loved the sight of the Towers and still grieve over the thousands of...
Vouchers effectively turn private schools into public schools.
The New York Sun has wisely opposed campaign finance regulations as violating the freedom of speech. The Sun has also argued that New York City's public campaign financing system deserves to be scrapped. Wasn't it Thomas Jefferson who wrote "that to compel a man to...
After three out of six rotations in the Men's All-around Olympic Gymnastics, American gymnast Paul Hamm was ranked first place in the standings. His next event was the vault. Hamm's vault was to be a Tsukahara--named after Japanese gymnast Mitsuo Tsukahara. It was...
Picture this scenario: a group of heavily armed Roman Catholics, led by a priest, swarms into St. Joseph's Cathedral in New York. They claim it as a military base. They fire grenades from its windows. They set explosive charges, in order to blow it up and blame the...
The Olympics were born, and then reborn, in essentially secular, man-worshiping societies.
When stuck with the question, "What should I do?" don't stay stuck. Don't fall prey to the temptation to blindly asking someone else what you should do. Instead, ask yourself -- and answer -- the following questions: What are my options in this situation? (If there is...
Fahrenheit 9/11 is propaganda for the converted.
In recent decades, the field of psychology made a mistake. That mistake was treating self-esteem as the root of mental health. The root of mental health is actually personal responsibility. Personal responsibility refers to a core conviction that you are in the...
With all the noise being made -- from traffic noise to Al Gore's ranting -- you might never suspect that there was a National Day of Silence. What you might also not suspect is that this day is observed in schools and colleges across the country, where students agree...
A mythical hero whose mind is his means of understanding the world and whose happiness is his primary goal.
The basic rule to follow in a process of identification is to choose the career in which you will spend the most time doing the activity you love to do the most.
The enemy has problems of his own. I keep reminding my readers of this fact, because it is a crucially important context for today's events. It is easy to become discouraged as we watch our leaders dither over Iraq, and as we watch the press and the political...
1. How many students are enrolled in public and private schools in the United States? According to U.S. Department of Education estimates, there are 47.6 million students in public schools and 5.9 million in private schools.[1] As many as 2 million children are...
May 2, 2004 will mark the hundredth anniversary of the birth of Bing Crosby, whose recorded voice continues to sing "White Christmas" every Yuletide. Other singers who came after him, including Sinatra and Elvis, had their day but it was Bing Crosby who first put...
A reader writes in, taking issue with Dr. Hurd's contention that forgiving the unforgivable (e.g. snipers, drunk driving) is neither noble nor healthy: Forgiving someone who committed a crime against you after they have served their sentence and you have had time to...
In far too many instances, what passes as college life and education today is no less than shameful. Under the name of diversity and political correctness, billions of taxpayer dollars and donor contributions are used to promote what might be charitably called...
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