Liberty & Power: Group Blog
Entries by Chris Matthew Sciabarra
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
A Crisis of Political Economy
I have just published a rather hefty tome on my Notablog, entitled "A Crisis of Political Economy." Lots of links therein, and thanks especially to some of my colleagues here at L&P who gave me so much from which to draw!
Comments always welcome.
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
WTC Remembrance, 2008 Installment
Since 2001, I have posted an annual 9/11 remembrance at Notablog. This year, my subject is firefighter Eddie Mecner. The essay is posted here.
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
DNC, Moore, and Laissez-Faire Capitalism
The Democratic National Convention began last night, providing a few high moments for the party faithful. But I got a few chuckles while catching up on my reading last night.
Michael Moore tells the New York Daily News: "At this point, we need to try anything---and Obama is anything. And if he doesn't do the job we can throw the bum out in four years." (Just don't forget the old maxim: the job of the new president is to make the last president look good. Granted, a President Obama would have to go a long way to achieving that goal.)
Oh, and in a very interesting NY Times magazine article on "Advanced Obamanomics," David Leonhardt calls Obama a "free-market loving, big-spending, fiscally conservative, wealth redistributionist." A study in contradiction. What else is new? The article contains this classic howler:
The government has deregulated industries, opened the economy more to market forces and, above all, cut income taxes. Much good has come of this---the end of 1970s stagflation, infrequent and relatively mild recessions, faster growth than that of the more regulated economies of Europe. Yet, laissez-faire capitalism hasn't delivered nearly what its proponents promised. It has created big budget deficits, the most pronounced income inequality since the 1920s and the current financial crisis.
Laissez-faire capitalism? Laissez-faire capitalism?
It's a fairly typical exercise by contemporary political pundits; every so often, just "free-up" the mixture of regulation and market forces in the everyday see-saw of mixed economic policies and then blame laissez-faire capitalism for the mess.
Anyway, after some truly rousing Olympics in Beijing, the real political Olympics have only begun; pass the popcorn.
Cross-posted to Notablog.
Saturday, August 23, 2008
The More Things "Change"...
I just posted a few musings on the upcoming nominating conventions of the two major U.S. political parties at Notablog. Check it out here.
Sunday, August 10, 2008
After Multiculturalism
Today, I posted another installment in my SITL series; I discuss a new book by John F. Welsh, entitled After Multiculturalism: The Politics of Race and the Dialectics of Liberty. Though today's entry is a detailed review of sorts, I had provided a blurb for Welsh's book, which appears on the book's back jacket. I wrote:
John F. Welsh provides a comprehensive survey of libertarian and individualist thought on race and multiculturalism. Examining such thinkers as Ayn Rand, Murray Rothbard, Lysander Spooner, Albert Jay Nock, and Max Stirner, Welsh's provocative book demonstrates the analytical power of dialectical-libertarian perspectives. Exploring multiple, interconnected levels, Welsh offers a fundamentally radical critique of racism in all its guises, while challenging current models of thinking on this volatile subject. This is truly a much-needed addition to the growing scholarly literature.
To read my larger discussion, take a look at Notablog.
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
New Spring 2008 Journal of Ayn Rand Studies
Just a little note to inform readers that the newest issue of The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies has been published; you can check out its table of contents, with links to abstracts and contributor biographies here.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Socialism After Hayek
Today at Notablog, I post Part 2 of my series on how my "Dialectics and Liberty" work has been engaged in the scholarly literature. I examine a fascinating book by Theodore A. Burczak entitled Socialism After Hayek, which advances the discussion of a post-Hayekian socialism that takes into account those "intractable Hayekian knowledge problems."
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Marx, Reason, and the Art of Freedom
Over at Notablog, I begin a series in which I discuss how my own "Dialectics and Liberty" work has been treated in the literature. Today, I revisit a book by Kevin M. Brien, entitled Marx, Reason, and the Art of Freedom, whose second edition deals with a review I wrote back in 1988.
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
New Journal of Ayn Rand Studies + Call for Papers
The newest issue of The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies has been published; readers can check out the table of contents, with links to abstracts and contributor biographies here.
I'd also like to take this opportunity to post the journal's "Call for Papers" on the topic of "Ayn Rand, Objectivism, and War." Details and deadlines can be found here and here.
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Rudy Giuliani: A Preliminary Autopsy
I have posted a few reflections on the collapse of Rudy Giuliani's campaign at Notablog.
So much more 2008 political theater to come...
Friday, January 18, 2008
IESS Entry on "Objectivism"
I've authored an entry on Ayn Rand's philosophy, "Objectivism," which appears in the new International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, a 9-volume, 4000-page work published by Macmillan Reference USA, edited by William A. Darity, Jr. (Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2008). The article can be found in Volume 6: Oaxaca, Ronald - Quotas, Trade, pp. 6-8, but the people at Gale / Cengage Learning have been kind enough to give me permission to post the PDF of the article on my home site.
You can access the essay as a PDF document here.
Cross-posted at Notablog.
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
L&P Inside Higher Ed
L&P is mentioned in today's Inside Higher Ed, where I also plug a few L&P member blogs. Take a look at Scott McLemee's piece, "Around the Web."
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Conference Board Review: Atlas at 50
There are several essays out there discussing the forthcoming 50th anniversary of Ayn Rand's novel, Atlas Shrugged. One such essay, written by A. J. Vogl, editor of The Conference Board Review, was just published in the magazine's September-October 2007 issue. (Vogl interviewed me, among others, for his article, and a summary of my own comments appears here.)
There will be more on the golden anniversary of Atlas in the coming weeks, so stay tuned.
Cross-posted at Notablog.
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
WTC Remembrance, Annual Series
This year, as part of my ongoing annual series, "Remembering the World Trade Center," I have posted the newest installment, a Notablog exclusive: "Charlie: To Build and Rebuild."
It tells the story of Charlie Pomaro, who, as a young man, helped to build the Twin Towers, and who, in 2001, helped to pick up the shattered pieces.
An index of previous installments in the series is available in today's Notablog entry here.
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
New Journal of Ayn Rand Studies
Just a note to announce the publication of the new issue of The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies, which features contributions from some of our esteemed L&P associates, including Stephen Cox and David T. Beito.
For information on the new issue, check out the table of contents and abstracts here and the contributor biographies here.
I'm also delighted to announce that the Jounral has entered into an electronic licensing relationship with EBSCO Publishing, the world's most prolific aggregator of full-text journals, magazines, and other sources. For further information, see Notablog.
Monday, June 25, 2007
Atlas Shrugged Companion Published
I have finally received my own copy of a new book edited by Edward W. Younkins entitled Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged: A Philosophical and Literary Companion, published by Ashgate.
L&P readers will note the presence in the volume of several L&P contributors: Lester H. Hunt, Steven Horwitz, Robert L. Campbell, Peter Boettke, Stephen Cox, Roderick T. Long, and yours truly.
I have not read the new Younkins anthology yet, but the range of topics, from the philosophical, political, and aesthetic to the literary, economic, and historical, is quite impressive.
See Notablog for further details.
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Miklos Rozsa: A Centennial Celebration
Granted, this is not directly relevant to either Liberty or Power, but I have been celebrating the centennial of composer Miklos Rozsa's birth at Notablog. For those who are interested, check out the various links in today's post.
Monday, March 26, 2007
Dialectics and Liberty (in German)
I recently heard from Matt Jenny who, with a few of his libertarian friends, runs a small German left-libertarian groupblog named paxx:blog, which includes a webzine, paxx:zine. The webzine has already published translations of articles by my Liberty & Power Group Blog colleagues, Roderick T. Long (a German translation of "Beyond the Boss: Protection from Business in a Free Nation") and Sheldon Richman (a German translation of "U.S. Hypocrisy on Iran").
This week I join Roderick and Sheldon with a German translation of "Dialectics and Liberty" (links to the English PDF), which appeared in the September 2005 issue of The Freeman. The German translation can be found here.
Cross-posted to Notablog.
Friday, March 23, 2007
Ayn Rand Goes Swedish
Just a note to let readers know that there's a new issue out of the Swedish magazine Voltaire, which focuses on Ayn Rand. Guest editor Mattias Svensson translated a revised version of my own essay, "Atlas Shrugged: Manifesto for a New Radicalism." Read more about this issue and its contents here.
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
Joseph Barbera, RIP
I grew up on a steady diet of Hanna-Barbera cartoons, among other favorites, including "The Flintstones," "The Jetsons," "Yogi Bear," "Jonny Quest," and "Huckleberry Hound."
So when I found out about the passing of Joseph Barbera, I paused for a moment to recall all the joy his wonderful animation brought me.
And this passing comes after the recent passing of Chris Hayward, a writer responsible for many of the characters featured on "Rocky and Bullwinkle," among other timeless TV shows (hat tip to David Beito).
Cross-posted to Notablog.
Friday, November 17, 2006
New Fall 2006 Journal of Ayn Rand Studies
The new Fall 2006 issue of The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies has been published. The issue includes essays from contributors such as Steven H. Shmurak, Marc Champagne, Fred Seddon (two from Fred!), Algirdas Degutis, Susan Love Brown, David Graham & Nathan Nobis, Kirsti Minsaas, Greg Nyquist, Gregory M. Browne and Roderick T. Long. And I'm delighted to report that with this issue, Roderick joins the Editorial Board of JARS!
Check out the abstracts for the new issue here, and the contributor biographies here.
Read more at Notablog.
Wednesday, November 1, 2006
Mid-Term Elections, 2006
I've received a bit of email from people who were wondering why it is I have not commented on the upcoming mid-term elections. "Sciabarra, you're a political scientist, for Chrissake! What do you think?"
Well, let's leave aside the question of how much science goes into politics: It's always nice to know that some people find value in what I say. But with all due respect: There's not a dime's worth of difference between the Democrats and the Republicans. I have not changed my views of this two-party, two-pronged attack on individual freedom by one iota: A Pox on Both Their Houses! In truth, however, the modern Democratic Party has always been honest about its Big Government agenda. But the "small-government" GOP has long embraced the politics of Big Government. As the majority party, they are a total, unmitigated disaster for individual liberty, whether they are religious rightists or so-called "progressive conservatives"—who are actually much truer to the GOP's 19th-century interventionist roots than so-called "Goldwater" or "Reagan" Republicans (those who embraced the rhetoric of limited government, while still paving the way for a growth in the scope of government intervention). You have to chuckle when even Hillary Clinton sees the hypocrisy: "The people who promised less government," she said, "have instead given us the largest and least competent government we have ever had."
Still, I must admit that my political perversity would like very much to see the Bush administration get a royal slap across the face, such that the Democrats take the House of Representatives and, at the very least, close the gap in the GOP-controlled Senate. This is purely a strategic desire: Party divisions can have utility in frustrating the power-lust on both ends. In any event, I think it's probably true that the GOP will suffer a setback, and I have been saying so for over a year.
Please understand, however: THIS WILL DO NOTHING TO CHANGE THE CURRENT DOMESTIC OR FOREIGN POLICY DISASTERS. I don't mean to shout, but with regard to foreign policy alone: The Democrats handed this administration the current foreign policy debacle on a silver platter. They will not challenge one inch of the Bush administration's Iraq policy or its ideological rationalizations for that policy: that "democracy" can be imposed on societies that have little or no appreciation of the complex cultural roots of human freedom.
Either way, I'll be watching the results of politics-as-bloodsport on Tuesday, November 7th.
Cross-posted at Notablog.
Tuesday, September 5, 2006
Remembering the World Trade Center: Sixth Installment
Today, I add the sixth installment of my "Remembering the World Trade Center" series. Whatever one's views of the historical and political causes and consequences of September 11, 2001, I believe it is important to "Never Forget."
As the fifth anniversary of that day approaches, I post this tribute to:
Cross-posted to Notablog.
Friday, August 11, 2006
Ayn Rand at 100
A new book entitled Ayn Rand at 100, edited by Tibor Machan, makes its debut on Wednesday, August 16, 2006. And it is being published by the Liberty Institute in India!!! The book synopsis states: "Eminent authors discuss the impact [Ayn Rand] has had on their contribution to philosophy and, most importantly, Rand’s Indian connection."
A reprint of one of my Rand Centenary articles appears in the anthology, along with an essay by one of my L&P colleagues, Roderick Long. Here's the Table of Contents:
Preface : Tibor R. Machan: Ayn Rand at 100
Chapter 1: Bibek Debroy: Ayn Rand - The Indian Connection
Chapter 2: Tibor R. Machan: Rand and Her Significant Contributions
Chapter 3: J. E. Chesher: Ayn Rand’s Contribution to Moral Philosophy
Chapter 4: George Reisman: Ayn Rand and Ludwig von Mises
Chapter 5: Robert White: Ayn Rand’s Contribution to Liberal Thought
Chapter 6: Roderick T. Long: Ayn Rand and Indian Philosophy
Chapter 7: Chris Matthew Sciabarra: Ayn Rand - A Centennial Appreciation
Chapter 8: Fred Seddon: Ayn Rand - An Appreciation
Chapter 9: Elaine Sternberg: Why Ayn Rand Matters: Metaphysics, Morals, and Liberty
Chapter 10: Douglas Den Uyl : Rand's First Great Hit, The Fountainhead
Cross-posted to Notablog.
Saturday, June 10, 2006
Privatizing Gay Marriage
I am a bit behind in my newspaper reading, so I was particularly surprised by an article published in Thursday's New York Daily News. Written by Rabbi Michael Lerner, "The Right Way to Fight for Gay Marriage" argues that all unions should be privatized. Lerner, who is chair of the Network of Spiritual Progressives, writes:
... marriage ought to be taken out of the state's hands entirely. Let people be wed in the private realm with no official legal sanction. Then, religious communities that oppose gay marriage will not sanction them, and those like mine that sanction the practice will conduct it. Rather than issuing marriage certificates or divorces, the state would simply enforce civil unions as contracts between consenting adults and enforce laws imposing obligations on people who bring children into the world.
This approach is far more likely to be a winning strategy for those who wish to beat back the assault on gay rights.
I suppose what is most surprising to me is that a genuinely libertarian argument for privatizing marriage made it to the Op Ed of one of the most highly circulated daily newspapers in America.
Cross-posted to Notablog.
Monday, May 22, 2006
New Spring 2006 Journal of Ayn Rand Studies
It gives me great pleasure to announce the publication of the Spring 2006 issue of The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies. The issue features a dialogue on Ayn Rand's ethics, with contributions from Tibor R. Machan, Frank Bubb, Eric Mack, Douglas B. Rasmussen, Robert H. Bass, Chris Cathcart, and fellow L&P'er Robert L. Campbell. In addition, there are articles covering topics in epistemology (Merlin Jetton) and literature (Kurt Keefner and Peter Saint-Andre). Other contributors include fellow L&P'er Sheldon Richman on Thomas Szasz and Ayn Rand; Max Hocutt on postmodernism; Steven Yates on capitalism and commerce; and David M. Brown on the new Ayn Rand Q&A book.
For subscription information, see here.
Cross-posted to Notablog.
Tuesday, April 18, 2006
An Interview, Conducted by Jason Dixon
I've been super busy putting the finishing touches on the forthcoming Spring 2006 issue of The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies. But I've finally had the opportunity to publish, as a Notablog exclusive, an interview of me conducted by Jason Dixon.
Interested readers can check out that interview here. And the comments section is open here.
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
Iraq: A Perception Problem?
Today, ABC's "Good Morning America" reported on the Bush administration's claim that "negative" stories on the war in Iraq are playing right into the hands of the "enemy," and that the press is to blame for the sagging public support of the war. Bush's declining poll numbers are the result of negative publicity.
Such sagging public support, of course, has nothing to do with any erosion of the public's faith in the administration's competence, eh? Or the fact that Iraq is steeped in sectarian conflict, careening toward civil war? Nah. Nothing to do with those things.
On one level, of course, Bush is absolutely right: The press tends to focus on car bombs and murders and kidnappings as news. Well. DUH. Pick up any newspaper and the story is the same locally. Watch any local news broadcast and the story is the same there too. The news often reads or sounds like a police blotter. That has been the tendency in local news for as long as I've been alive. Why on earth would this tendency be different on a national or global level? Crime is news in this culture, and whether the criminals are local thugs or foreign ones, the play's the same.
But there is no direct correlation between news coverage and public perception, unless one believes that people are sheeple. Interestingly, even though NYC newspapers and newscasts focus on local crime all the time, it has not altered the public perception that crime is down in the Big Apple, as part of a long-term trend. And there is a good reason for this public perception: Crime is down. In reality. There were over 2,600 people murdered in NYC in 1990; that number dropped to under 600 by 2004. Whatever the continuing negative focus of the press, the reality of life in this city has inspired people's positive perceptions.
Perhaps the Bush administration needs its own reality check. The downturn in public opinion on the Iraq war is not simply the result of press brainwashing. The public perception has changed because things in reality are not going as well in Iraq as the administration claims.
I guess the administration is just frustrated with the "reality-based community." And here they thought that they created their own reality.
What is the administration's alternative? Planting positive stories in the press? Paying off journalists who ask sympathetic questions? Or maybe the press should simply be "embedded" into an official Ministry of Propaganda.
Sigh.
Cross-posted to Notablog.
Monday, March 20, 2006
Chris Tame, RIP
I just received a phone call from Sean Gabb of the Libertarian Alliance. Sean tells me that my pal, Chris Tame, passed away at 3:37 pm, London time. Having battled cancer these many months, Chris's passing was, as Sean describes it, peaceful.
I'm very sad to hear this news, and I extend my deepest condolences to his friends and family. I was fortunate enough to speak with Chris last week; it was a "goodbye" phone call, as he knew the end was near. I will miss his almost daily "Ayn Rand Watch" postings, his warped sense of humor, and, most of all, the intellectual engagement. But I know that his legacy will live on.
A press release will follow from Sean very soon. (I've added that release at the Notablog post here. Kenneth R. Gregg has also added it to the comments section here.)
Update (23 March 2006): Sean Gabb has published an Obituary for Chris Tame here and here.
Chris Tame: 1949-2006
Saturday, March 18, 2006
Chuck Hagel vs. Neocon Numbskulls
Yesterday, I posted at Notablog a brief piece that cited a fine principle enunciated by GOP Senator Chuck Hagel:
You cannot in my opinion just impose a democratic form of government on a country with no history and no culture and no tradition of democracy.
Yeah. How 'bout that?
Read more of my mini-rant here.
Wednesday, March 8, 2006
Meme of Four
Steven Horwitz has tagged me for the "Meme-of-Four" (dammit indeed!)
Okay, here goes.
Thursday, February 2, 2006
The Kings of Nonviolent Resistance
It is no longer news that Coretta Scott King, the widow of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., passed away this week. She was 78.
An advocate and practitioner of nonviolent resistance, Martin Luther King Jr. once uttered a classic statement: "I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear."
While a lot of discussion has ensued over the nature of the "love thine enemy" philosophy that seems to underlie King's statement, I think there is a truth therein, which was made even more apparent by King's wife. Coretta Scott King often repeated her husband's maxim: "Hate is too great a burden to bear." But she added: "It injures the hater more than it injures the hated."
I've talked about the effects of hating in other posts dealing with everything from Yoda to my articulation of "The Rose Petal Assumption," so I won't repeat my reasoning here. Suffice it to say, there is an internal relationship between hatred, fear, anger, and suffering, and, often, the transcendence of one brings forth the transcendence of all.
I think what the Kings focused on was not "loving one's enemy" per se, but the practice of a positive alternative in one's opposition to evil. Nonviolent resistance is not equivalent to pacifism. It is not the renunciation of the retaliatory use of force; it entails, instead, the practice of a wide variety of strategies—from boycotts to strikes, which remove all sanctions of one's own victimization. One refuses to be a part of a cycle that replaces one "boss" with another. One repudiates real-world monsters, while not becoming one in the process. For as Nietzsche once said: "Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you."
Nonviolence is not a social panacea, and sometimes it is absolutely necessary to use violence in one's response to aggression. But much can be learned about how to topple tyranny from the lessons provided by the theoreticians and practitioners of nonviolent resistance.
It's fitting that today I've marked Ayn Rand's birthday, for Atlas Shrugged is one of the grandest dramatizations in fiction of the effectiveness of fighting tyranny through nonviolent resistance. It is no coincidence that, while writing her magnum opus, Rand's working title for Atlas was "The Strike." Of course, Rand was no theorist of nonviolence, but her novel is instructive.
For further reading on the subject of nonviolence, let me suggest first and foremost the books of Gene Sharp, founder of the Albert Einstein Institution. See especially Sharp's books, The Politics of Nonviolent Action and Social Power and Political Freedom.
Cross-posted to Notablog.
Thursday, January 5, 2006
International Encyclopedia of Economic Sociology: Libertarianism
As I mentioned here and here, I wrote an entry on "libertarianism" for the International Encyclopedia of Economic Sociology. The entry surveys those who have contributed to a libertarian "sociology," thinkers such as Herbert Spencer, Carl Menger, F. A. Hayek, Ludwig von Mises, Murray Rothbard, and Ayn Rand.
I am pleased, today, to publish that entry, with permission from Routledge, on my website:
Cross-posted to Notablog.
Wednesday, January 4, 2006
International Encyclopedia of Economic Sociology: Karl Marx
I just received my copy of the International Encyclopedia of Economic Sociology from Routledge. Some time ago, I told the story of how I came to author two articles for that newly published reference work. The 2006 volume includes two essays authored by me: one on "Karl Marx," the other on "libertarianism."
Today, with permission from Routledge, I publish an HTML version of the essay on "Karl Marx." Given my comments today in this thread, I am happy that the essay on Marx highlights one of the most appealing aspects of his work: his use of dialectical method. Readers should point their browsers to the following link to take a look at the essay:
Tomorrow, with permission from Routledge, I will publish my Encyclopedia article on libertarianism. Stay tuned!
Cross-posted to Notablog.
Tuesday, December 20, 2005
Philosophers of Capitalism
Okay, more shameless self-promotion...
Today, I received my copy of a new book edited by Edward W. Younkins, entitled Philosophers of Capitalism: Menger, Mises, Rand, and Beyond.
The book features contributions from a number of friends and colleagues, including, of course, Ed Younkins himself, along with Sam Bostaph, Doug Rasmussen, Barry Smith, Walter Block, Richard C. B. Johnson, Larry Sechrest, and Tibor Machan, among others. Some of the articles were previously published; my own is a revised version of a piece I wrote for Philosophical Books, surveying "The Growing Industry in Ayn Rand Scholarship."
You can order it from Laissez Faire Books or Amazon.com.
Cross-posted to Notablog.
Tuesday, December 13, 2005
The 9/11 Money Trough
I have been following the week-long series in the New York Daily News focusing on the "9/11 Money Trough," the entirely predictable corrupt financial feeding frenzy generated by the infusion of massive government funds in the months and years after the attacks on Manhattan. It brings to mind what Errol Louis said about the promised revitalization of New Orleans in the aftermath of Katrina; he said that billions of dollars were about "to pass into the sticky hands of politicians. ... Worried about looting? You ain't seen nothing yet."
Well, we've seen it here in NYC. I highly recommend the series to readers.
Cross-posted to Notablog.
Friday, December 9, 2005
Bill Bradford, RIP
I am very deeply saddened to report that my dear friend Bill Bradford passed away on Thursday, December 8, 2005 at the age of 58. He was the founder of Liberty magazine and a founding co-editor and publisher of The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies. He died at his home in Port Townsend, Washington, surrounded by family and friends, after many months of battling cancer.
Stephen Cox, the new senior editor of Liberty, has announced that "an upcoming issue [of the magazine] will feature a commemoration of Bill’s life. His work will continue."
I've posted a bit more at Notablog, but hope to contribute my thoughts more formally to that upcoming commemoration.
Rest in peace, friend.
Monday, December 5, 2005
The Freeman: Dialectics and Liberty
The September 2005 issue of The Freeman includes my essay, "Dialectics and Liberty," which offers an introduction to dialectical method and its role in the works of such writers as F. A. Hayek and Ayn Rand. That essay finally makes its cyber-debut today! Another in a series of essays and interviews on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the publication of my books Marx, Hayek, and Utopia and Ayn Rand: The Russian Radical, the article is available as a PDF here:
Cross-posted to Notablog.
Sunday, December 4, 2005
Antiwar Masters of Horror
I've long been a fan of so-called "horror" films, in addition to sci-fi and fantasy.
Unfortunately, the Showtime series "Masters of Horror," thus far, has been a bit of a disappointment to me; it's a mix of schlock and gore, with just a few thrills thrown in for good measure. I prefer horror to have a purpose, maybe a bit of "Twilight Zone"-like morality play at work. At the very least, it should be suspenseful, rather than predictable.
I did enjoy Friday night's episode, "Homecoming," directed by Joe Dante, which made a few biting political points. For me, the funniest right-wing caricature was played by Thea Gill, who was a "skank"-like right-wing pundit, curiously comparable to Ann Coulter. It was quite a change for Gill, who portrayed the mild-mannered Lindsay in "Queer as Folk."
The Dante-directed "Homecoming" gives us a zombie tale, in which fallen soldiers come back from the dead to right the wrongs of a Presidential administration that involved them in a no-win war. No spoilers here; if you haven't caught the episode, check it out.
Cross-posted to Notablog.
Friday, November 18, 2005
The Illusion of the Epoch
President Bush and his VP have been railing against the "Democrats" for "rewriting" the history of the 2002-2003 march toward war. (Some good commentary on this can be found here, here, and here.)
In the meanwhile, the critics keep a comin' and most of them, indeed, were former champions of the war. Vietnam combat vet, and current Democratic Congressman John P. Murtha, who supported the war, now calls it "a flawed policy wrapped in an illusion..."
The flaws have been legion. And the illusion? Well, H. B. Acton once spoke of communism as "the illusion of the epoch." For me, the biggest illusion of this epoch is a neoconservative one: that it is possible to construct a liberal democracy on any cultural base whatsoever. Now, I'm not looking to re-open the tired debate over whether it was right or wrong to go to war in Iraq; but even the politicians realize that the time has come for a debate about the future of that war.
But that won't stop the administration from its tarring of critics, like Murtha, as a "Michael Moore ... liberal" because he is questioning the wisdom of the war. Except the charges won't stick this time, because even though the President doesn't read polls, apparently, the politicians in his own party are reading the handwriting on the walls of the Pew Research Center and the Gallop organization. The American people are becoming increasingly pissed off over this war and its conduct. And if current trends continue, the party in power, gerrymandering notwithstanding, is going to suffer in the 2006 midterm elections.
I'm tickled, of course, that the administration puts such a priority on "consistency" in its defense of the US invasion and occupation of Iraq. As the ineffectual John Kerry said, effectively, during one of the 2004 Presidential debates: Consistency is great... but "you could be wrong!" Cheney is so busy reminding opponents of the war about how they've changed their positions that he doesn't even recognize how far he's come over the last decade or so.
Cross-posted to Notablog.
Thursday, November 3, 2005
Iran, Again
After last week's pronouncements by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that Israel should be "wiped off the map," there's been a lot of saber rattling about Iran. (I've written on the subject of Iran a number of times over the past few years; see here, here, and here, for example).
There is nothing shocking or unexpected about Ahmadinejad's rhetoric. The Iranian theocrats have been talking like that for years. Their overthrow of the US-backed Shah was a clarion call for fundamentalists across the Islamic world to mobilize against both Israel and the United States. Many others in the Islamic world have uttered the same view, including those who reside in countries that are, ostensibly, current US allies.
The fact is, of course, that US actions in Iraq have emboldened the Iranian regime significantly; some are even suggesting that the US was the "useful idiot" for Iranian foreign policy goals to undermine a hostile Baathist regime in Iraq, substituting a friendlier Shiite majoritarian theocracy in its place. With the antagonistic Taliban held at bay in Afghanistan on its eastern flank, and Hussein gone on the western side, Iran has emerged as a central geopolitical power in the Middle East—and was made so in significant part as the direct result of actions taken by the United States, purportedly in our own defense.
But it is a state that is in a deepening cultural crisis, a crisis that will have profound political ramifications over time.
Today, I've read an interesting NY Times essay about "Our Allies in Iran." It's the kind of title that is meant to surprise. The writer, Afshin Molavi, makes some very important points. Molavi states:
The new president's confrontational tone threatens to deepen the isolation of Iran's democrats, pushing them further behind his long shadow. Western powers have a dual challenge: to find a way to engage this population even as they struggle to address the new president's inflammatory rhetoric. By the time Mr. Ahmadinejad was elected in June, a sustained assault by hard-liners had left Iranian democrats disoriented and leaderless, their dissidents jailed, newspapers closed and reformist political figures popularly discredited. But democratic aspirations should not be written off as a passing fad that died with the failure of the reform movement and the replacement of a reformist president, Mohammad Khatami, with a hard-liner, Mr. Ahmadinejad. The historic roots of reform run deep in Iran, and support for democratic change remains widespread.
Iran's modern middle class, which is increasingly urbanized, wired and globally connected, provides particularly fertile soil for these aspirations. The Stanford University scholar Abbas Milani has described Iran's middle class as a "Trojan horse within the Islamic republic, supporting liberal values, democratic tolerance and civic responsibility." And so long as that class grows, so too will the pressure for democratic change.
Molavi warns, however, that war against Iran could have an adverse effect on that country's "democracy-minded middle class," providing "additional pretexts for the regime to frighten its people and crack down on dissent." Anything that undermines Iranian contact "with the foreign investors, educators, tourists and businessmen who link them to the outside world," says Molavi, undermines the movement toward political and cultural reform. That movement requires a strong private sector and a growing civil society in Iran, which can be encouraged by an extension of the global market. Such an extension would nourish "a strong and stable middle class" and the "inevitable winds of change" so crucial to peace and prosperity in the region.
It is ironic that those who speak glowingly about the need for "democratization" in Iraq as a key to Mideast peace are the same people who now speak about the need for military action in Iran, which would most assuredly sabotage the trends toward democratization in that country.
The saber-rattlers tell us that they are worried about the long-run problem of a "nuclear" Iran. Fair enough. But they don't seem to worry about the long-run consequences of military intervention in Iran, given the current context in Iraq, a context that the saber-rattlers themselves did much to create. As Arthur Silber writes here:
We now have a voluminous record, in news accounts, in government documents and in other forms, to prove beyond any doubt that the Bush administration gave almost no attention to the aftermath of the Iraq invasion. No one had any serious question about our taking down the Saddam Hussein regime, except about how long it might take and the details. Despite that certainty, we know that the Bush administration did not listen to many of its own experts and planners about what should be done once Saddam was gone. To put the point simply, the Bush administration never seriously addressed the multitude of inordinately complex issues encompassed in the question: What then?
This much is true, and this much we can agree with, as Arthur puts it: "Iran is run by viciously destructive and dangerous leaders." But as people clamor for military action against Iran, they are not asking and answering the crucial question: "What then?"
I often wonder, for example, how the Shiites in Iraq, with whom the US has cast its political lot, would deal with a US military strike against Iran. How long would it take for a strike against Iran to destabilize the situation with the US's Shiite-Iraqi allies? The Sunni insurgency against the Shiites in Iraq has been awful; I can't even begin to think of the conditions that might arise should a Shiite insurgency unfold against the US—a Shiite insurgency aided and abetted by its own ideological brethren in Tehran.
And what then? In addition to the internal combustion of Iraq, might there not be counterattacks from other Arab governments? Might not the Mideast be thrown into further chaos? And what if additional US troops are needed to "finish the job" started by planes and missiles? Where are these troops coming from? How long before military conscription is reinstituted?
As Richard Cohen tells us today in the New York Daily News, in the Middle East, "bad could get worse."
The central problem in the Middle East is not strategic. The central problem is not the spread of nuclear weapons of mass destruction. The central problem is the spread of ideological and cultural weapons of mass destruction. And these weapons have been manufactured at a maddening pace for generations by countries like Saudi Arabia, a US "ally." As Jason Pappas reminds us (see here and here), the Saudis have been funding the worldwide proliferation of the very jihadist ideology that targets Western values and institutions.
But the odds are very slim that there will be any fundamental change in the relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia. That's because the House of Sa'ud remains a key player in US global political economy (see here). The dismantling of that neocorporatist politico-economic system is not likely to happen anytime soon.
And yet, despite its role in the proliferation of jihadist fanaticism, the collapse of the House of Sa'ud at this point could be catastrophic: it would most likely lead to the transference of power into the hands of the very worst jihadists, those who have been a by-product of Saudi education.
Yes, it's one gigantic mess of internal contradictions at work. But, currently, I have no reason to believe that a military attack upon Iran would resolve these contradictions, without engendering a host of newer and far more lethal ones.
Comments welcome. Cross-posted to Notablog.
Friday, September 16, 2005
Bush, Krugman, and the Old Deal
Today's NY Times article by Paul Krugman, "Not the New Deal," gave me a few chuckles.
With George W. Bush projecting a huge federal government effort to reconstruct Louisiana and Mississippi and other areas affected by the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, fiscal conservatives are already murmuring. But little stands in the way of this vast projected increase in government spending.
As my colleague Mark Brady has asked: "Did You Really Expect Anything Else?"
A Bush critic such as Paul Krugman is busy objecting to a Heritage Foundation-inspired plan that would include "waivers on environmental rules, the elimination of capital gains taxes and the private ownership of public school buildings in the disaster areas." But he also believes that "even conservatives" must recognize that "recovery will require a lot of federal spending." Since this will have an appreciable effect on the deficit, Krugman wonders "how ... discretionary government spending [can] take place on that scale without creating equally large-scale corruption." Given the Bush administration's penchant for awarding so much pork to favored corporations in places like Iraq, Krugman is understandably concerned about "cronyism and corruption."
This, says Krugman, is in marked contrast to the efforts of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, whose "New Deal" provided "a huge expansion of federal spending" without corruption or cronyism. The New Deal, says Krugman, "made almost a fetish out of policing its own programs against potential corruption. In particular, F.D.R. created a powerful 'division of progress investigation' to look into complaints of malfeasance in the W.P.A. That division proved so effective that a later Congressional investigation couldn't find a single serious irregularity it had missed." For Krugman, FDR was committed to "honest government," because he understood that "government activism works. But George W. Bush isn't F.D.R. Indeed, in crucial respects he's the anti-F.D.R."
Is Krugman kidding me?
Throughout his presidency, Bush has looked to such American Presidents as Woodrow Wilson and FDR for inspiration. Bush believes that FDR himself "gave his soul for the process" of taking America out of the Depression and into a world war against authoritarianism.
As for the New Deal: There are no "honest government" spending programs that don't involve some kind of structurally constituted cronyism and corruption. That's just the nature of the beast. And FDR's New Deal is no exception. It was, in many ways, a paradigmatic case, no different from the "war collectivism" policies of World War I or World War II, all of which entailed using the vastly expanding power of government to privilege certain groups at the expense of other groups. Not even Herbert Hoover's response to the government-engendered Great Depression was "laissez faire" (see Rothbard's "Herbert Hoover and the Myth of Laissez-Faire" in A New History of Leviathan, and, of course, his fine book on the subject).
A cursory look at Jim Powell's recent book, FDR's Folly: How Roosevelt and His New Deal Prolonged the Great Depression reveals "why so much New Deal relief and public works money [was] channeled away from the poorest people." From its inception, the New Deal was inspired by the corporatist model of Italian fascism. Even Krugman's beloved Works Progress Adminstration was constructed on the basis of patronage schemes. Citing economic historian Gavin Wright, Powell tells us that "a statistical analysis of New Deal spending purportedly aimed at helping the poor" gives us evidence that "80 percent of the state-by-state variation in per person New Deal spending could be explained by political factors."
Mainstream politics offers no genuine opposition to FDR's Old "New Deal" or Bush's New "Old Deal," not when "conservatives" and "liberals" are united in their support for massive government intervention.
Cross-posted to Notablog.
Wednesday, September 14, 2005
The Comic Book Geek Revolutionaries
Throughout the years, I have met a number of libertarians who were, growing up (and, uh, are still...) "Comic Book Geeks." I don't know if there have been any statistical surveys correlating "Comic Book Geek" beginnings and libertarian ends. But you might want to take this test or this test to examine your own "Comic Book Geek Purity."
There are a few CBGs among us at L&P, including Roderick Long and Aeon Skoble, the latter of whom is the central focus of my Notablog post today: "The Comic Book Geek Revolutionaries."
Tuesday, September 13, 2005
New Fall 2005 Journal of Ayn Rand Studies
Today, the Fall 2005 issue of The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies has been published. It begins our seventh volume, our seventh year.
Here is the Table of Contents:
The Rand Transcript, Revisited - Chris Matthew Sciabarra
Mimesis and Expression in Ayn Rand’s Theory of Art - Kirsti Minsaas
Langer and Camus: Unexpected Post-Kantian Affinities with Rand’s Aesthetics - Roger E. Bissell
The Facts of Reality: Logic and History in Objectivist Debates about Government - Nicholas Dykes
Ayn Rand versus Adam Smith - Robert White
Feser on Nozick - Peter Jaworski
Kant on Faith - Fred Seddon
Seddon on Rand - Kevin Hill
Reference and Necessity: A Rand-Kripke Synthesis - Roderick T. Long
Reply to Ari Armstrong: How to Be a Perceptual Realist - Michael Huemer
Rejoinder to Michael Huemer: Direct Realism and Causation - Ari Armstrong
Abstracts for this issue are available here; contributor biographies can be found here.
Print-out and mail-in your subscription form today! (Shameless commercialism...)
Thursday, September 8, 2005
New Installment in My WTC Remembrance Series
I've added a new installment to my annual series, "Remembering the World Trade Center." Noted at Notablog, this newest essay is entitled:
Burke was the principal of the public high school closest to Ground Zero on September 11, 2001.
Tuesday, September 6, 2005
Santorum and Big Government Conservatism
For several years now, I have been going on and on about the continuing growth of the religious right in conservative circles. My antipathy to theocratic conservatism had been at fever pitch long before I wrote my essay, "Caught Up in the Rapture," which, with its sister essay, "Bush Wins!," predicted a Bush victory a good six months prior to the 2004 election.
In this context, a recent Jonathan Rauch essay, "America's Anti-Reagan isn't Hilary Clinton. It's Rick Santorum," has been making the rounds all over the blogosphere; it's a dissection of Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum's anti-libertarian philosophy.
What one will not find in Rauch's essay, however, are two words: "Bush" and "Iraq." In my view, Santorum's new book, It Takes a Family: Conservatism and the Common Good, is only the newest manifestation of a religious conservative movement, whose titular head is George W. Bush. Whereas the religious conservatives wish to remake the culture and politics of this country, the neoconservatives wish to remake the culture and politics of the Middle East. Together, these tendencies make for one very potent anti-libertarian, anti-individualist politics.
What hope does a religiously based conservative administration have to inspire secular, liberal democracies in the Middle East when it is at war with both secularism and liberalism at home?
I discuss these themes in greater depth at Notablog.
More on Hurricane Katrina
I don't think there is much I can add to the discussion of this horrific human tragedy. But I have a few thoughts, which I've posted to Notablog.
My best wishes to all of those who are dealing with this catastrophe.
Thursday, August 18, 2005
More Anniversary Posts
As I mentioned here, I've been celebrating the tenth anniversaries of my first two books in my "Dialectics and Liberty Trilogy": Marx, Hayek, and Utopia (which was published 10 years ago today) and Ayn Rand: The Russian Radical (which, though my second book, was published 10 years ago, this past Sunday).
In any event, over the last few days, I've had a number of new posts to Notablog, including links to an interview conducted by Sébastien Caré and an interview conducted by Sunni Maravillosa.
Today, Ed Younkins also posted his review of my book, Total Freedom (which was published five years ago); the review has generated some discussion at SOLO HQ.
Sunday, August 14, 2005
Ten Years After
File this blog entry under the category of "Self-Promotion." I suspect I'll be forgiven a bit of that by my L&P colleagues, who know my admiration for Ayn Rand.
On this date, ten years ago, my book Ayn Rand: The Russian Radical was published by Penn State Press. It was actually my second book, but it arrived four days before the publication of my first book, Marx, Hayek, and Utopia, by SUNY Press. These books, together with my Total Freedom: Toward a Dialectical Libertarianism (also published by Penn State Press), make up my "Dialectics and Liberty Trilogy."
So, this week, I'll be looking back at Notablog, at L&P, and at SOLO HQ, which publishes one of my retrospective pieces today, entitled "Ten Years After." There will be interviews posted to different sites throughout the week, and additional pieces will be published into the Fall 2005 semester.
Thanks to those readers who have given me their support, even if they didn't always agree with my conclusions.
Thursday, August 4, 2005
The Art of Cyber-Pedagogy
Yesterday, I read a really interesting article by Michael J. Bugeja in The Chronicle of Higher Education, entitled "Master (or Mistress) of Your Domain" (shades of Jerry), with the descriptive subtitle: "Creating a Web site for your latest book can showcase the work and aid your case for tenure and promotion."
I'll put aside the issue of aiding one's case for tenure and promotion. I'd like to suggest that it might actually aid one's cause (which might not actually aid one's tenure or promotion). And I think more classical liberal and libertarian scholars should consider doing it.
First, let's take a look at Bugeja's points. He writes:
For better or worse, the Internet is playing a larger role in editorial decisions about books and in promotion and tenure evaluations. It is commonplace for external reviewers to Google Web sites or troll databases before rendering their decisions on behalf of publishing houses and institutions. Search committees also are using the Web to evaluate the writing or scholarship of job applicants before inviting them to on-campus interviews. ...
I advise authors to create a Web site with the title of their texts as the domain name and to assemble other sites with domain names identifying their scholarship. ... Authors are responsible for getting their books reviewed, purchased by libraries, and adopted by professors for use in research or in the classroom. In the past, that required an author to fill out a questionnaire for the publisher, identifying editors, book reviewers, and colleagues who might have interest in the work. The Internet has changed that.
Bugeja explains how he marshalled his own resources to promote his own work. Who is a better salesperson than the person who authors the work and knows it, inside-out? He "e-mailed reviewers and technology columnists, directing them to the Web site" he had established for his book, "asking if they would like a copy. Several said yes, generating reviews and citations that I added to my site under 'latest news.' Without the site, the book would have died along with the trees that gave it life at the printing press. Instead, it went on to win a research award with reviews in top publications. That's the benefit of a book site."
Bugeja tells us that his book site boosted classroom sales too. He reminds us that those who surf the web expect some things for free. The Internet may not be a "medium for professors concerned about copyright issues or intellectual property," but Bugeja encourages authors "to share [their] pedagogies or methodologies," giving readers, potential teachers and students alike, "all manner of free information, including lectures for each chapter; sample syllabi for large, middle-range, senior, master's, and doctoral classes; end-of-chapter materials; forms for paper assignments, journal exercises, and presentations; sample midterms and final exams; a bibliography; and an index." He even provides
a 103-page instructor's manual in both Word and PDF formats. Online manuals save the publisher printing costs and allow potential users to manipulate syllabi, lectures, and other downloads. The most popular free feature on my site is a twice-monthly teaching module meant to stimulate classroom discussion. To date, I've added more than two dozen such modules to the site on content too topical to include in a new edition but nonetheless related to the concept of the work.
I especially like Bugeja's suggestion that authors archive "reviews, recent articles, and information about" themselves. I've been doing such things for over ten years now on my own site, and I've had URL forwarding for the titles of all of my books. Just try typing totalfreedomtowardadialecticallibertarianism.com or, more simply, marxhayekandutopia.com, and see where that takes you. I'll never forget how my pal and colleague, Lester Hunt, once characterized my site. Linking to it from his site, he wrote: "Chris is a true liberal. In the interest of provoking dialogue, he puts some very adverse criticisms of his controversial work on his site, together with his replies." I think that's actually very important. And I think more liberal/libertarian scholars should be doing it precisely because it documents the history of a discussion of a particular work, while also providing the basis for future dialogue.
The one thing authors should not supply, of course, is: the book. But links to services where you can order the book online are always helpful. As Bugeja puts it: "That's the point of the site, and all links lead to that outcome."
I've not yet put a syllabus for my books online, but I do have one available for use in a cyberseminar that I give now and then on my "Dialectics and Liberty" trilogy. But Bugeja has given me a good idea about developing more study guides and syllabi for my various publications so as to facilitate their use in the classroom.
It would be a good idea, I think, if those in the liberal/libertarian academy do more to develop these kinds of web resources in a more formal manner. It is one way to develop a "parallel institution" of learning, while at the same time providing a blueprint for the use of such materials in established institutions of learning. Additionally, it gives each of us, as authors of the works, a chance to frame the discussion in a way that is most likely to generate further interest in our own contributions and the contributions of our colleagues in the libertarian academy. I've seen some development of this model on the sites of some of my colleagues; in the light of Bugeja's essay, I think this is something that can benefit each of us individually and the cause of liberty more generally.
Cross-posted to Notablog.
Tuesday, July 26, 2005
Revolutionary Jokes
I really like the name of this magazine. In it, Carl Schreck reviews a new book by Bruce Adams entitled Tiny Revolutions in Russia: Twentieth-Century Soviet and Russian History in Anecdotes. I've not read the book, but it does look as if it is "No Laughing Matter," insofar as it shows how jokes served as a means of critiquing the Soviet police state.
Here are a few excerpts from Schreck's piece:
Jokes, or anekdoty, were indeed risky business in the Soviet Union, Bruce Adams maintains in the introduction to "Tiny Revolutions in Russia," his light if thoroughly entertaining recap of Soviet history told through a mix of amusing, tragicomic, baffling and plain unfunny jokes that will strike a familiar chord with any foreigner who has shared a couple bottles of vodka with a table full of Russians.
George Orwell was the first to dub jokes "tiny revolutions," but it's an especially fitting title for Adams' book, which reminds us that humor can have very serious consequences when the joke is on a totalitarian regime. The eight years Nobel laureate Alexander Solzhenitsyn spent in prisons and labor camps came as punishment for jokes he had made about Josef Stalin in his private correspondence, Adams writes. "The anecdotes were necessarily underground humor shared only with close friends."
So, how about a few jokes?
When no African delegates showed up at a Comintern Congress, Moscow wired Odessa [a very cosmopolitan port city with a large Jewish population]: "Send us a Negro immediately." "Odessa wired right back: 'Rabinovich has been dyed. He's drying.'"
"Who built the White Sea-Baltic Canal?" "On the right bank -- those who told anecdotes, on the left bank -- those who heard them."
Because the BBC always seemed to know Soviet secrets so quickly, it was decided to hold the next meeting of the Politburo behind closed doors. No one was permitted in or out. Suddenly Kosygin grasped his belly and asked permission to leave. Permission was denied. A few minutes later there was a knock at the door. A janitress stood there with a pail: "The BBC just reported that Aleksei Nikolayevich shit himself."
Read the whole article here. And check out Adams' book here.
Cross-posted to Notablog.
Thursday, July 14, 2005
Paglia, Rand, and Women in Philosophy
Camille Paglia, who contributed to the anthology Feminist Interpretations of Ayn Rand, which I co-edited with Mimi Reisel Gladstein, has raised her voice in defense of women philosophers who were marginalized by a recent BBC-Radio 4 Greatest Philosopher poll that placed Karl Marx at the top. Paglia writes in The Independent:
For most of history, the groundbreaking philosophers have all been men, and philosophy has always been a male genre. Women had neither the education nor the time to pursue the life of the mind. ... Now that women have at last gained access to higher education, we are waiting to see what they can achieve in the fields where men have distinguished themselves, above all in philosophy. At the moment, however, the genre of philosophy is not flourishing; systematic reasoning no longer has the prestige or cultural value that it once had. ... Today's lack of major female philosophers is not due to lack of talent but to the collapse of philosophy. Philosophy as traditionally practised may be a dead genre. This is the age of the internet in which we are constantly flooded by information in fragments. Each person at the computer is embarked on a quest for and fabrication of his or her identity. The web mimics human neurology, and it is fundmentally altering young people's brains. The web, for good or ill, is instantaneous. Philosophy belongs to a vanished age of much slower and rhetorically formal inquiry.
Paglia is spot on with regard to a number of points here. Systematic reasoning is clearly at a disadvantage in a culture that embraces atomizing and dis-integration as the preferred mode of analysis.
But there are a number of women thinkers, says Paglia, who merit our attention. Among these: Simone de Beauvoir and Ayn Rand. Paglia writes:
Both Simone de Beauvoir and Ayn Rand, another favourite of mine, have their own highly influential system of thought, and therefore they belong on any list of great philosophers. Rand's mix of theory, social observations and commentary was very original, though we see her Romantic sources. Her system is broad and complex and well deserves to be incorporated into the philosophy curriculum. Simone de Beauvoir's magnum opus, The Second Sex (which hugely influenced me in my youth), demonstrates her hybrid consciousness. It doesn't conform to the strict definition of philosophy because it's an amalgamation of abstract thought and history and anthropology—real facts. The genre problem is probably why both these women are absent from the list. But Plato too was a writer of dramatic fiction—so that it is no basis for dismissing Rand.
It's a worthwhile read.
Hat tip to David Boaz.
Cross-posted to Notablog.
Friday, July 8, 2005
"Home" is Now London
I wrote a brief reflection piece at Notablog on the terror attacks in London. Here's an excerpt:
Suffice it to say, we have been told by the leaders of the "coalition of the willing" that "we" have to "take