Author: s1e2t3u4p5

A Passion Against Man

Posted on by s1e2t3u4p5

Onkar Ghate has written a criticism of The Passion of the Christ for the ARI MediaLink. From the article:

When charges of anti-Semitism, denied by the producers, surrounded the film before its opening, there was outrage from many circles. But when the principals behind the film tell us openly that its message is that not only Jews but all men are implicated in the death of Jesus, the voices of moral outrage fall silent. (In what follows I leave aside the question of how successfully the film conveys its intended message.)
So, let us ask some questions no one is asking. Why is it immoral to ascribe guilt to all Jews, but not immoral to ascribe guilt to all mankind? How can anyone know, without first considering our specific choices and actions, that you or I are guilty? How can you or I be responsible for the death of a man killed some two thousand years ago? To make any sense of the accusation, one must recognize that one is here dealing with, albeit in a more sophisticated form, the same collectivist mentality as the racist’s. For the anti-Semite, to be Jewish is to be evil. For the devout Christian, to be human is to be evil.

Read the full review for further details.

New Issue of 'Navigator'

Posted on by s1e2t3u4p5

The latest issue of The Objectivist Center‘s monthly journal, Navigator, is out.
In his cover article “Fortress Americanism,” Roger Donway examines the dangerous influence of foreign ideas on the founding philosophy of America. Noting two contrasting philosophies of liberty, Donway writes:

Since the dawn of the Enlightenment, liberty in America has rested on the political philosophy of John Locke to a degree unequaled in any other country, even Great Britain. By contrast, liberty in continental Europe has rested on a political philosophy rooted in medieval Christendom, secularized by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and radicalized by romanticism and socialism.

And in the article “Art and Ideas,” TOC Executive Director David Kelley tackles the age-old question of why humans started creating art:

Why did humans begin doing this sort of thing? Unlike tools for hunting, cooking, building, scraping animal skins, and the like, these artifacts have no clear survival value. Why did people whose daily life was a struggle for subsistence and whose life expectancy was probably less than twenty years spend time and energy making two-dimensional images in dark places? Why did they spend time and energy making instruments to produce rhythmic, tonal sounds? Why did they invent stories of things that never happened? What was the purpose of such activities? What needs did they satisfy? Why has art been such a pervasive feature of human life?

See the full issue of Navigator for these and other articles.

Hatred of Martha for Being the Good?

Posted on by s1e2t3u4p5

Writing for Men’s News Daily (“Loud, Proud, & Unbowed”), Amber Pawlik says the handling of the Martha Stewart case is just what Ayn Rand warned people not to do:

It is very obvious Stewart was prosecuted mercilessly because of who she is, i.e. a successful businessperson and not what she did. It has nothing to do with her being a female ? Bill Gates gets the same treatment. If you don?t believe this, consider what a juror said after the trial ? that the verdict was a victory for the ?average guy.? (Apparently making successful CEOs grovel in jail is somehow a victory for average people).
The defense put up by Stewart, however, was completely incompetent. They relied on telling the jury that what Stewart gave up by selling the stock was ?pocket change,? and asked how a woman so smart could have done something so stupid. Ya, that will work on a jury that already considers Stewart elitist.
Martha Stewart is no Enron executive. The government has no business regulating ?insider trading? in the first place ? it is something the market itself can regulate on its own. The scandal around her is ridiculous ? more ridiculous that she is going to jail over it.
I?ve avoided writing on this topic, because the witch-hunt against Stewart is too unbearable for me to handle. This case is evidence of what Ayn Rand called a hatred of the good for being good. Stewart is not being dragged through this hell because of her vices but because of her virtues.

Read the full article….

Hudgins on 'The Passion of the Christ'

Posted on by s1e2t3u4p5

In his latest op-ed, Objectivist Center Washington Director Ed Hudgins is critical of the moral message in Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ.” Arguing for a morality of self-interest over a morality of self-sacrifce, Hudgins writes:

In “The Passion” we see Jesus passively submitting to his own brutal torture and death, even forgiving his tormenters. Many see Jesus’s sacrifice as a moral model: He forfeited his life to save us sinners; we are all responsible for the problems of the world; thus we each should sacrifice ourselves for the good of others. But this is exactly the wrong moral lesson. A morality of life requires the pursuit of happiness and pride in oneself, not self-abnegation and acquiescing in the role of a sacrificial victim. It requires that we judge both others and ourselves, both their actions and our own, by standards of justice, and not offer moral absolution for the most heinous crimes and criminals.
This is the key to the right moral code: We each have a right to our own lives and should act out of self-interest, not self-sacrifice. True self-interest means seeking rational values that preserve and enrich our lives. It means we should each seek the best within us. It means neither sacrificing ourselves to others nor asking others to sacrifice themselves for us. It means engaging in relations with others because we value them and they value us. For example, when we give up time and money to help a sick spouse — someone with whom we share our values, interests, and deepest thought and feeling; someone to whom we bare our souls; someone who we love — we are not sacrificing but, rather, affirming our highest values and self-interest.

Read the full article…

Objectivist Parents Discussion Group

Posted on by s1e2t3u4p5

Atlasphere members who have their own children may be interested in the Objectivist Parents Discussion Group at Yahoo:

A moderated discussion group for parents, particularly parents of teenagers, who share an interest in Objectivism. Open discussion of applying Objectivism to issues of teenagers and children of all ages.

Visit the Objectivist Parents Discussion Group page at Yahoo! Forums for further information. (Thanks to Michelle Fram-Cohen, who also moderates the group, for this news tip.)

Media Production Internships

Posted on by s1e2t3u4p5

Interested in becoming involved in TV or film production? Check out the production internships offered by the Institute for Humane Studies:

Documentary / TV Investigative Journalism
Spend the summer working on a documentary at a production company or an investigative journalism television program. Gain hands-on experience, tackle an important issue, make valuable connections within the industry, and contribute to the production of a film or television program that can make a difference.
Internships are available in Los Angeles, New York City, Washington, DC, and Toronto.
Participants receive:
$2000 stipend
Housing and travel allowance
Technical and career workshops
Unique networking opportunities
Application deadline: March 15, 2004

According to the IHS internship FAQ, last year’s interns worked at:

  • Inland Sea Productions in Washington, DC working on the IMAX film We the People
  • John Stossel’s unit at ABC News in New York helping produce segments for 20/20
  • Levels Audio in Hollywood, CA doing post-production work for a variety of prime time television programs
  • Stornoway Productions in Canada conducting research for a documentary series
  • Duncan Scott Productions in Santa Monica CA helping with the new theatrical release of the Ayn Rand film classic We the Living

For more information and access to an online application form, visit the IHS internships page.

Liberty English Camp in Lithuania

Posted on by s1e2t3u4p5

Atlasphere member Stephen Browne forwards the following newsletter about the Liberty English Camp in Eastern Europe:

Dear Friend of Liberty,
This is just an introductory note for those of you who have expressed an interest in teaching at our next Liberty English Camp. […] Right now I?m in Wroclaw (formerly Breslau in the turbulent history of this region) in West Poland (once Eastern Germany) taking a teacher training course and have limited time and internet access.
To introduce myself; I am an American now resident in Eastern Europe. I have lived in Poland, Bulgaria, Serbia and Saudi Arabia since 1991 and work here as an English teacher, freelance writer and editor for various foundations and the Polish Academy of Science Annual Report. I also teach marital arts to a small clientele. My wife Monika is Polish and is one of the teachers at our camp. We have a son, not quite two years old now, named Jerzy Waszyngton Browne (that?s George Washington in Polish).
I conceived the idea of the English courses more than ten years ago when I had private lessons with a Polish lawyer who wanted to read Adam Smith in the original. (In the old times he defended dissidents and kids caught putting subversive stickers up in public places ? an offense that could get you seven years hard.) I warned him that the dialect was a bit archaic, he replied that it was, but that it was so much easier to understand because the argumentation was so logically laid out. I don?t even want to think about what this means about modern writing?
From this came the idea of an English course designed to teach students how to read, understand and discuss the documents important to the history of liberty in the English speaking world, in the original language. I have been working on the course material on and off for several years and include it as an attachment. It is not complete, nor am I totally happy with its present form, but this will give you an idea of what we are trying to do. And the introduction gives a quick overview of the methodology we use to get people who are not professional ESL teachers into teaching quickly.
It is our hope that as more people get involved, and perhaps more libertarians over here as full-time teachers, we will have more input into the development of liberty-oriented English teaching materials. For example, we badly need a Business English course. There is a tremendous demand here for Business English ? and everywhere I?ve been, nobody is really happy with the available courses.
The idea of a camp for teaching an intensive course was actually suggested by a young Bulgarian girl (now a professor at Cambridge University in England) who had been to a few libertarian-sponsored seminars in Eastern Europe. She remarked to me that a great many of the young participants arrived with inadequate English preparation and were simply sitting through lectures nodding politely, understanding perhaps one word in ten. She suggested that a week-long intensive course before such a seminar would help prepare them to participate more fully in the presentations and discussions.

Continue reading “Liberty English Camp in Lithuania”

'We the Living' Movie in San Francisco

Posted on by s1e2t3u4p5

Forwarded by Duncan Scott (who was also recently interviewed by the Atlasphere on this subject)….
We the Living is opening in a few days in San Francisco’s historic Castro Theatre. You, or someone you know in Northern California, can save $5.00 on a pair of general admission tickets, but only if you act soon!
Through our website www.wethelivingmovie.com you can purchase your tickets today and get an $8.50 regular price ticket for just $5.50 (plus $1.00 for handling per order). It’s fast and easy to order online and the more tickets you order, the bigger the savings (save $11.00 on four tickets!).
Your tickets will be waiting for you at the theater’s “Will Call” desk — no need to wait on the box office line. These tickets are NOT available at the theater box office and must be ordered online before March 2, 2004. Regular priced tickets may be purchased at the theater prior to each screening.
We are pleased to make this exclusive offer by special arrangement with the Castro Theatre. Visit www.wethelivingmovie.com today to order.
Not in Northern California? Visit www.wethelivingmovie.com to see where We the Living will be playing next. Also at the website, enjoy photos from the movie, highlights of newspaper reviews, biographies of the cast and stars, and the fascinating story of the making of this classic film.

We the Living Screening Schedule
Wednesday & Thursday, March 3rd and 4th, 2004 ONLY!
Screenings at 2:00pm and 7:30pm
The Castro Theatre
429 Castro Street
San Francisco, CA 94114
Tel 415 621-2120
Discount Screening: Wednesday, March 3RD, 7:30PM ONLY

Visit www.wethelivingmovie.com for further details.

Capitalism: The Cure for Education Failures

Posted on by s1e2t3u4p5

In a review of Education and Capitalism: How Overcoming Our Fear of Markets and Economics Can Improve America’s Schools (Hoover Press, 362 pages, $15) for the Chicago Sun-Times, Jonathan Hoenig writes:

[Authors Herbert Walberg and Joseph Bast] present a compelling and thoroughly researched argument for introducing market-based reforms into public schools.
The vast majority of children in the United States attend public schools, and in a methodic and disciplined fashion, the authors make a comprehensive case why the free market can better educate more students at a lower cost.
The authors begin by describing the horrible condition of public education, which, make no mistake, is a complete mess nationwide. Although government schools maintain a monopoly on public funds, they’ve failed miserably by almost every conceivable benchmark.
Even more depressing is that even as results have dropped, the size and cost of the government school bureaucracy has soared.

The solution?

The solution is capitalism, the same incredible force of productive change that brought civilization out of the Dark Ages and propelled this country to the highest standard of living, for rich and poor alike, in all of human history.
The authors’ thesis, built on the groundwork laid by the University of Chicago’s Milton Friedman, is that just as the free market has created unparalleled innovation in medicine, agriculture and communication, so could it vastly improve education. The ability for parents to choose their schools, and for schools to compete for their attendance, would raise standards and lower cost, just as it has in every other area of our lives.

Walberg and Bast devote a good deal of space to refuting common misconceptions and criticisms of capitalism, and describe how a free market in education might work. But they go beyond that:

[I]n the tradition of economist Ludwig von Mises and philosopher Ayn Rand, they ground their arguments in moral as well as practical terms. Capitalism isn’t simply the most efficient social system ever devised, but the most just as well.

Read the full article for more details!

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