1. Another month and another Kindle Book. The Atlas Society just published Robert Tracisnki’s Pocket Guide to Ayn Rand.
2. The Ayn Rand Fan Club had an interesting discussion of “Social Hierarchies In and Out of Objectivism.” They mention a recent interview with economist Walter Block who was involved in the Objectivist movement in the 1960’s. He confirms the cultish side of Objectivism and says Rand would excommunicate people if she thought they were failing to see the implications of her thought. They also include an interview with up-and-coming Objectivist psychologist Gena Gorlin. Gorlin is asked if she’s read Nathaniel Branden’s The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem (a post-Split book). She says she hasn’t read it or much of Branden. She says he’s a minor figure in psychology and implies his theory of self-esteem is outdated. Certainly, Branden’s exaggerated view of the importance for self-esteem hasn’t held up well in recent research (for example, it’s been shown that criminals have high self-esteem and even commit crime to keep their self-esteem up).
3. The Ayn Rand Institute Press just published a collection of writings by Tara Smith and others called The First Amendment. I enjoyed Smith’s essays and in particular her discussion of religious exemptions to government laws and regulations. Of note is Onkar Ghate’s essay on the “separation of church and state.” As long time readers of the ARCHN Blog know, the First Amendment applied only to the federal government. States could and did support religion in various ways. Ghate doesn’t mention this or even appear to know this. He mentions Thomas Jefferson’s letter to the Danbury Baptist where he coined the phrase. However, in his Second Inaugural Address, Jefferson wrote, “I have therefore undertaken, on no occasion, to prescribe the religious exercises suited to it; but have left them, as the constitution found them, under the direction and discipline of state or church authorities acknowledged by the several religious societies.” And what would an essay on religion be without the Tertullian misquote – “I believe because it's absurd”?
4. The big news this year is that the Ayn Rand Institute is moving from California to Austin, Texas, minutes away from the University of Texas at Austin. The ARI has purchased the land and will construct an Ayn Rand Center and an Ayn Rand University campus. I don’t know if there is a backstory here, other than the ARI’s major donor lives in Austin and the ARI funds some professorships at UT-Austin.
4 comments:
It’s amazing that they have the funds to build a campus and a new office complex. Who is still giving them money, and why?
They must have at least two big donors. It costs a lot of money to do upkeep on buildings like this.
Their new donor is Gary Brinson, who looks like a billionate.
If Yaron Brook has any gift at all, it's for bringing in big money donors. Under his watch, donation-ased revenues for ARI increased by 250%, and I would guess that's probably mostly due to a handful of big money donors (John Alison, Carl Barney, et al).
I suspect this latest scheme revolves around forming this so-called Ayn Rand University. It was probably too expensive to do that in California, so they had to move to another state. In order to bring new donors in, Brook and his ARI cohorts have to convince people like Gary Brinson that they have some new scheme that which actually have an impact on the culture, and I suppose that's what the AR university is supposed to be. But the fact that it will not likely be an accredited institution and its graduates won't, in any case, be able to find jobs in academia, it seems like much ado about very little. But the point is they have to pretend like they're doing something to change society if they want to appeal to these big money Ayn Rand fans. There's apparently still wealthy people who read Ayn Rand and would like to "do something" to give her ideas greater exposure. The trouble is when each of these ventures fails (as it must in the nature of things), at some point the sheer impossibility of what they're trying to do must make itself manifest to anyone with a few brain cells to rub together. Which means over time ARI will fall under the hands of increasingly mediocre administrators. Some of this already happening. That Brooks should have made himself one of the leading expositors of orthodox Objectivism is risible. Outside of his fund raising skills, he's mediocrity personified.
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