This week Arthur is attending and working at the Objectivist Conference in Newport Beach, California and Brandon was in New York City for the weekend, so they could not attend. (Brandon visited a few sites relevant to Ayn Rand in New York, so there may be a write-up on his trip soon.) However, Mosley was able to host the show!
The show mainly consisted of a conversation between Mosley and a caller, but first Mosley discussed a few different topics. First of all, he mentioned the Ayn Rand Institute’s new website design at http://aynrand.org/ which he finds to be much more user-friendly and easier on the eyes. Check it out!
Then Mosley had a brief discussion on video games, which he was playing before the show, and explained how they don’t have to be mindless time wasters like some people think. They can be a form of recreation like any other. In order to stay productive, one sometimes needs to take time to rest and enjoy the fruits of labor. Video games can be one way to do this — they often exercise the mind and are a good reason to get together with friends and have fun, which can promote a more benevolent view of life.
Mosley also discussed how he discovered Objectivism and gave some suggestions on where to start for newcomers. He suggests that Ms. Rand’s fiction such as Anthem, The Fountainhead, and Atlas Shrugged are great places to start and a good next step would be to move onto some of her other works such as For the New Intellectual, The Virtue of Selfishness, and Philosophy: Who Needs It.
Afterward, there was a caller who explained how he stumbled into talkObjectivism a few months ago and found it interesting. Being familiar with Objectivist ideas through reading Ayn Rand’s works (such as Atlas Shrugged many times over), he and Mosley carried on a discussion about how Objectivist ideas are in the minority and how this can be changed. The caller suggested an experiment: ask around and see how many people have heard of Objectivism and Atlas Shrugged. Other may wish to do this as well. If you do, let us know what your findings are. Also, don’t forget to recommend Ayn Rand’s works if they haven’t read them!
The topic this week was another question from a listener of the show asking about Ayn Rand’s views on gender issues such as hero-worship, femininity, a woman president, and homosexuality. For her own words, I would suggest checking out the Ayn Rand Lexicon.
The first point to be made here is that Ayn Rand’s views on these issues are not to be taken as a part of Objectivism, but as an application of Objectivism according to her understanding of psychology.
Mosley and Arthur share their thoughts on her views, and express some of their own views on these topics as well. They also reference Dr. Peikoff who discusses Ayn Rand’s views as well as his own on many of these issues in an informal Q & A entitled Love, Sex, and Romance which is available at the Ayn Rand Bookstore. Also, you can hear Dr. Peikoff’s views on homosexuality in Episode 14 of his podcasts (which are now available on iTunes thanks to Arthur).
Hello everyone, sorry for the delayed show notes. From now on, I will be posting a place holder for the show notes with a very brief description of the topic on the day of the show. Within a day or two after, I will add a more detailed description. This way it will be easier to make comments about the show ASAP and to check the site or RSS feed for the show’s topic if you missed it . Now for the notes on Show 064:
This was a shorter show to make up for the very long show last week (which was very good). The topic was a question from a frequent listener of talkObjectivism who asks: Can you be a supporter of Objectivism and still go to church?
The answer to this question depends on what you mean by “supporter of Objectivism” and why exactly you’re going to church. Does “supporter of Objectivism” mean an Objectivist or someone who accepts some of the Objectivist ideas but not necessarily all of them? Are you going to church because you’re religious, because it’s convention with your family, or are you just visiting? Mosley and Arthur discuss their views on various interpretations of this question. A short answer is that someone can support some views of Objectivism while still holding some religious views, but the two are so diametrically opposed that this can not go far. Religion, for example, upholds the supernatural, mysticism, and altruism, whereas Objectivism stands for objective reality, reason, and selfishness.
Other related topics include: Accepting religion in only some parts of one’s life; how and to what extent irrational people can experience happiness; religious and secular conceptions of duty; discussion of socialism, communism, altruism, and sacrifice; how to deal with religious friends.
For Show 063, Objectivists Mosley and Arthur have a discussion with a libertarian caller, Charles, about how Objectivism significantly differs with libertarianism.
It begins as Arthur presents his basic criticisms of libertarianism from an Objectivist point of view. Two of his mains points were that a) libertarians generally hold that an underlying philosophy is unnecessary, implicitly if not explicitly, and b) because of this, they do not grasp the concept of individual rights, and therefore have no means by which to determine that which constitutes force, something they hold to be axiomatically bad (which it is not). These deficiencies are very destructive in that they lead to the improper defense and misrepresentation of capitalism.
The discussion then briefly moves on to the topic of cultural change. Mosley and Arthur talk about how to bring about capitalism, which is by changing the dominant ideas of our culture. The continued dominance of altruistic ideas is discussed here as well.
Then the conversation goes back to politics, which lasted for the remainder of a show. It was a very interesting conversation on the initiation force, the enforcement of contracts, and the nature of government. This was an excellent show and I highly recommend that you check it out.
This show consisted of a discussion between Mosley, Arthur, and a new caller. They talked about many of the points from last show from different points of view. Some of the topics include the enforcement of contracts, libertarianism, and the gold standard, just to name a few.
Also, Paul Hsieh of NoodleFood Blog sent us a well-written email with commentary on the last show, whose points Mosley read and discussed on the show as well. Below is the email in its entirety.
Dear Jason,
I hadn’t heard of TalkObjectivism.com until recently, but I decided to listen to your Memorial Weekend podcast (show 061) today. First, I’d like to thank you and your co-hosts Brandon and Arthur for creating another venue for interested, active-minded people to discuss Objectivism.
I’d also like to make a few comments in response to some points that were raised during your discussion with Charles the Libertarian. I hope you’ll accept these in the spirit of constructive criticism. You are free to share this to your co-hosts or to anyone else that might be interested. (I was also going to CC this to Arthur and Brandon, but I didn’t see their e-mail addresses on the website.) You may also read any of this on the air or post it to your blog if you think it would be beneficial.
Even though Arthur and myself were not able to make the show due to conflicting events during this Memorial Day weekend, Mosley persevered and hosted the show.
He also discussed public-funded art, which is art paid for with tax money, and how this is wrong, citing a display he recently saw: a giant bronzed sculpture of a close-pin. This led to a discussion on taxes, more specifically, the Fair Tax Act and how it is not a solution to our tax problems.
Then, for the second half of the show, Charles, the once vice-chair of the Libertarian Party of Oregon, called in to express his views on capitalism and the enforcement of contracts which he debated with Mosley, and will continue to debate next week. Hope to see you there!
For Show 060, Mosley and Arthur discuss how best to bring Objectivism into the culture and ways that this is currently being done.
In order to influence the culture, one important factor is changing the academia. Presenting Ayn Rand’s ideas in schools is a great way to get young minds to start thinking about philosophy from a perspective that they might not otherwise consider because of the ideas that they have passively accepted. The Ayn Rand Institute influences the academia through various programs such as offering free classroom sets of Ayn Rand’s novels, holding essay contests on those novels, organizing campus clubs, providing talks, etc. (This is a non-exhaustive list.) Also, the Institute runs The Objectivist Academic Center which provides classes that systematically present the philosophy of Objectivism to help train the academics of the future. If you are a student and wish to help change the schools, some things you can do are: try to convince teachers to participate in the free books/essay contest program, start a campus club, and request The Undercurrent for your school.
There’s also something else that everyone can (and should) do: live Objectivism. People need to see the unity between theory and practice, so it helps to lead by example. Besides this, there are all sorts of activism by which one can contribute. Diana Hsieh has created a website for Objectivist activism, OList that is worth checking out if you’re interested.
For details on what Ayn Rand had to say on this topic of influencing the culture, see the essay “What Can One Do?” in Philosophy: Who Needs It.
The show ended with a great discussion on the use of the words “selfishness” and “greed” and whether they help or hurt the cause for Objectivism.
We hope to see you next week! (We’re working on a scheduling a debate.)
This show was a short one that basically recapped a previous show on “the common good” (Show 055), focusing on the comments made here on the blog by iheartcells (Beth) and Brandon (myself).
Mosley started the show by reintroducing the topic with a brief summary of what Ayn Rand had to say on the issue and then explaining his own views. He proceeded by reading Beth’s critique of our previous discussion and then letting me read my rebuttal.
We may give a brief closing mention of this topic on next week’s show and then move on to something new. If you have any topic ideas, please let us know!
Show 058 is a follow-up to last week’s show on children’s rights. This time around Arthur gives us his two cents on the topic. He starts the discussion by going to the heart of the issue, the basis of rights, and identifying the facts of reality that give rise to them. In order to prevent any rationalistic view of rights (the idea that rights exist as some kind of other-worldly entity/Platonic form), he examines and makes the context clear.
After a thorough and thought-provoking analysis, Arthur considers how children rights differ from those of adults. He discusses how children are dependent on their parents to survive since their rational faculty is not fully developed, and what implications this has for rights. Acknowledging that the fine details are not for philosophy to answer (but rather the philosophy of law), he gave his general views as to what rights children have and how the law should protect them.
This was an excellent and entertaining show, so I hope you check it out. If you have any comments, feel free to post here or join us next week on TalkShoe.
Also, I just wanted to note that there is now a talkObjectivism facebook group. If you like the show, join up!
Spinning off from a comment about “the common good,” Mosley discusses children’s rights and to what extent they have them. He walks through various questions about the topic such as:
What does a parent owe his or her child?
Does a child have the right run his or her own life contrary to parents’ wishes?
At what point does a child become an adult?
Does a child have the right to an education?
What constitutes neglect (by a parent)?
Check out the show for Mosley’s views and feel free to leave a comment or join the next show if you have some views that you’d like to share!
