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BEN FRANKLIN’S BIRTHDAY: A CRUCIAL LESSON FROM ‘THE FIRST AMERICAN’

Posted on January 12, 2011 by TeamAtlas

BY MARSHA ENRIGHT

The self-made Atlases of the world keep the wheels of civilization turning, with many of our Founding Fathers among them. As a self-made rapper might say, “It’s all about the Benjamins.”

Born in 1706, the fifteenth child of a Boston candle maker, Benjamin Franklin was our country’s first international celebrity, lauded throughout Europe as the quintessential American. Reportedly, everyone in his era “had an engraving of M. Franklin over the mantelpiece.” A best seller in the 19th century, his Autobiography was as exciting to children then as an adventure movie is to today’s youth — and more enlightening.

January 17, his birthday, is a fitting time to ask: Why was Franklin the American icon? What can we learn from his character and achievements?

Let’s examine his Autobiography for answers.

He said that, as a child, a proverb from King Solomon profoundly influenced his life: Seest thou a man diligent in his calling, he shall stand before kings. “I from thence considered industry as a means of obtaining wealth and distinction.”

Franklin demonstrated his inexhaustible industry early. “I was fond of reading, and all the little money that came into my hands was ever laid out in books.” With merely two years of formal schooling, he didn’t wait for someone to hand him student loans and a college education, but educated himself.

At age 12 he was indentured to his brother, a printer. He made the best of his servitude: “I now had access to better books.” Highly respectful of other people’s property, he borrowed books “which I was careful to return soon and clean. Often I sat up in my room reading the greatest part of the night, when the book was borrowed in the evening and to be returned early in the morning lest it should be missed or wanted.”

At 17, Ben escaped from beatings by his brother and fear of conflict with Boston authorities over his already controversial writings. Alone and poor, he traveled down the coast seeking printing work. He endured a near-shipwreck and a 50-mile walk in torrential storms. Bedraggled and hungry, he arrived in Philadelphia, startling young Deborah Read, who stared askance at his “most awkward, ridiculous appearance.” Deborah later became his wife!

Instead of waiting for help from others, young Ben took initiative. He found work, survived mainly on bread and water, and lodged himself humbly, using his meager money to buy more books. While still a teenager, Ben became so well-read that prominent people, including the governors of two colonies, sought his conversation.

Although misled by a supposed backer and relieved of hard-earned money loaned to unreliable friends, Ben never gave up. He established himself as a printer and publisher, creating the widely read Pennsylvania Gazette, then Poor Richard’s Almanack. By putting enterprising young men into the printing business in other colonies, he created a form of franchising.

Years of toil and frugality paid off. Franklin finally accumulated enough wealth to retire early and explore other interests. His scientific and political feats are legendary. Sometimes called the greatest experimentalist of the 18th century, he turned his scientific research into useful inventions — the lightning rod, Franklin stove, and bifocals are just a few.

Known as “The First American” for his campaign to unify the colonies, he was the only person to have signed all four documents pivotal to our founding: the Declaration of Independence; the Treaty of Alliance, Amity, and Commerce with France; the Treaty of Peace between England, France, and the United States; and the Constitution.

His feats in civil society are equally remarkable. Instead of petitioning the government to solve social problems, Franklin took a do-it-yourself approach. His vast list of accomplishments includes starting the first lending library in North America, establishing an academy that became the University of Pennsylvania, organizing the Philadelphia fire department, and devising a lottery to raise money for the Pennsylvania militia.

Once a slave owner, Franklin formed an abolitionist society also tasked with aiding freed blacks in becoming self-sufficient, productive citizens.

Through Franklin’s example, privately solving civil problems became the norm for 19th century America. Private people funded universities, hospitals, museums, and other institutions.

Unfortunately, Franklin also unwittingly opened the door to the welfare state. Despite tremendous success raising private money for worthy causes, he engineered government funding for Pennsylvania Hospital. This kind of precedent has resulted in a deluge of public handouts for special groups promoting museums, shelters, sports arenas, and countless other projects.

(Contrast that to James Madison’s principled defense of property rights, insisting that government has no power to spend taxpayers’ money on objects of benevolence.)

Nevertheless, Franklin defined the American Dream, the uniquely American way of life — free, self-reliant, creative, and productive. He was the archetypical self-made man, in the first country where the self-made man could thrive — America.

Franklin’s pamphlet, “Information to Those Who Would Remove to America,” (1784) illustrates how his own values of self-reliance and industry also shaped the new nation.

In giving advice to potential immigrants, Franklin explained that there were no lucrative public offices in America, “the usual effects of which are dependence and servility, unbecoming freemen.” Such offices lead to “faction, contention, corruption, and disorder among the people.” In Franklin’s America, government played a minimal role in life. A man seeking to live off public salary, Franklin said, “will be despised and disregarded.”

In America, “every one will enjoy securely the profits of his industry.” And “if he does not bring a fortune with him, he must work and be industrious to live.” Franklin contrasted hard-working Americans with the indolent European nobility. He proudly repeated an American saying of the time, “God Almighty is himself a mechanic!” In short, “America is the land of labor, and by no means” a place “where the fowls fly about ready roasted, crying, Come eat me!”

Today, statists push freemen towards “dependence and servility” by denigrating the wealth they produce as “unfair,” by stifling their free enterprise, by confiscating the fruits of their labor, by luring them with government handouts, and by encouraging public employment.

The self-made man is the highest achievement of the individual. America, the first country founded to protect the individual’s life and property, was the highest achievement of government. This is the lesson we must take from Franklin’s life and vigorously protect once again.

**This article initially appeared in the Daily Caller

Gen LaGreca is author of Noble Vision, an award-winning novel about the struggle for liberty in health care today. Marsha Familaro Enright is president of the Reason, Individualism, Freedom Institute, the Foundation for the College of the United States.

*All Franklin quotations are taken from his Autobiography and pamphlet, “Information to Those Who Would Remove to America.” A recent Liberty Fund colloquium on Benjamin Franklin organized by Jerry Weinberger, professor of political science at Michigan State University, spawned the idea for this article.

AYN RAND’S UFO

Posted on January 3, 2011 by TeamAtlas

BY FREDERICK COOKINHAM

A recent article in Forbes magazine tells us Ayn Rand “believed in UFOs.” Did Miss Rand have a hobby none of us knew about? Don your tinfoil hat, grab your binoculars, and let’s take a look.

I’ve seen some smears of Ayn Rand in my day, but this one reaches interplanetary heights.

The April 1, 2010 issue of Forbes Magazine included a review of Anne C. Heller’s biography Ayn Rand and the World She Made, titled “Booked Bio: Who Is Ayn Rand?” The reviewer, Hannah Elliott, lists many reasons to dislike Rand. Some of them are even true, or at least reported by eyewitnesses. But she manages to give the unsuspecting reader a far darker picture of Rand than Heller intended in her biography.

Elliott writes of Rand that she “believed in UFOs.” No more than those short words does she give us on the subject. So here is the rest of the story.

In the fall of 2007, Anne Heller asked me “Did you know that Rand saw a UFO?” Already we’re down from Elliott’s indefinite number of UFOs to just one, and the epistemology is very different than casual readers might conclude: Rand did not “believe” in UFOs; she merely reported seeing something in the sky that she could not identify.

I predicted to Heller that on her book tour, at every stop there would be some clown asking about that silly UFO story. So far, I have been dead wrong about that — thank goodness. My prediction was prompted, in part, by a TV debate among the dozen-or-so Democratic presidential contenders that fall. Moderator Tim Russert asked Dennis Kucinich about a report that he had spotted a UFO hovering over the home of Shirley MacLaine … as if there’s anything unusual about that.

The source of Rand’s UFO story is Ruth Beebe Hill, a California friend of Rand’s circa 1950 and later the author of Hanta Yo, a novel about the Dakota Indians. Ruth told Heller that Ayn had pointed out her bedroom window one day and matter-of-factly said, “A UFO came by there last night.” Ayn had seen it at night, above a line of juniper trees across the lawn. It was round and its outer edges were lighted. It made no sound. It hovered, then flew in slow motion. By the time she had awakened Frank, it had moved out of sight.

First of all, remember that Hill is recalling the incident some sixty-five years after it happened. Second, if you see something at night, in the dark, surrounded by rim lights — you may be seeing just the lights, and merely inferring something solid in their midst.

The moral that Heller draws from this story is that Rand, true to her philosophy, was relying on the evidence of her senses.

My lesson is different. Rand, like myself, was a very literal-minded person. When she first learned the expression “UFO” — if Hill is even correct in recalling that that was the term Rand used — she probably took it to mean what I take it to mean: unidentified flying object.

But my wife often reminds me that other people are not so literal-minded as I am. To most people, “UFO” means only one thing: a spacecraft from another planet, filled with little green men with antennae.

I would guess that to Rand, much as to me, if you see something in the sky and you don’t know what it is, then — to you — it is a UFO. The guy standing next to you may know what it is, and so to him it is not a UFO. People who habitually gaze at the sky see UFOs all the time: pilots, air traffic controllers, birdwatchers, astronomers, meteorologists, Grand Canyon tourists and so on. If they are trained observers, they don’t jump to conclusions about what they saw.

More recently I found a big coffee-table book on the work of Richard Neutra, the architect who designed the house in Chatsworth, at the far northwestern corner of the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles, where Ayn and Frank lived from 1944 to 1951. He had designed it in 1935 for Marlene Dietrich and Joseph von Sternberg. It was all steel, painted light blue, and was almost as long as a destroyer, and was surrounded by miles of orange and lemon groves; so military pilot trainees used it at that time as a mock bombing and strafing target. I read that and said, “Aha! That would explain Ayn’s UFO!”

If a formation of planes is flying straight at you from fifty miles away, and it is dark, then in the dry, clear, desert air of Southern California, you will see the lights of the planes for a long time, and those lights will not be moving across your field of vision, but holding steady in a formation that will appear to hover over the tree line until they either zoom over your head or veer off to one side and disappear from your window view.

I’m guessing that if Ayn had said she saw the lights come down in front of the line of junipers, Ruth would have remembered that, because since the junipers were only twelve feet high, we would be talking about a landing, not just an aerial sighting.

It would have been great for the sales of Heller’s book if she could reveal an abduction of Ayn Rand by aliens, but alas….

Jonathan Hirschfeld, a Paris sculptor who also happens to be Nathaniel Branden’s nephew, had the wisest comment on the UFO: If Ayn Rand had been abducted by aliens, then we would merely see Objectivism flowering on some other planet.

Live long and prosper. And check your premises.

Frederick Cookinham gives New York City walking tours, available through In Depth Walking Tours — including four on the subject of Ayn Rand and six of Revolutionary War sites. He was interviewed at the Atlasphere in 2005. He is the author of the book The Age of Rand: Imagining an Objectivist Future World and has also written articles for The New Individualist, Nomos, Full Context, and The Pragmatist.

FREE OR FAIR?

Posted on December 30, 2010 by TeamAtlas

BY WALTER E WILLIAMS

Cheaper prices on various goods and services from around the world are generally a good thing for American consumers. So why is it that so many ‘free trade’ advocates see this as unfair?

At first blush, the mercantilists’ call for “free trade but fair trade” sounds reasonable. After all, who can be against fairness? Giving the idea just a bit of thought suggests that fairness as a guide for public policy lays the groundwork for tyranny. You say, “Williams, I’ve never heard anything so farfetched! Explain yourself.”

Think about the First Amendment to our Constitution that reads: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

How many of us would prefer that the Founders had written the First Amendment so as to focus on fairness rather than freedom and instead wrote: “Congress shall make no unfair laws respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the fair exercise thereof; or abridging the fairness of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people to peaceably assemble in a fair fashion, and to fairly petition the Government for a redress of grievances”?

How supportive would you be to a person who argued that he was for free religion but fair religion, or he was for free speech but fair speech? Would you be supportive of government efforts to limit unfair religion and unfair speech? How might life look under a regime of fairness of religion, speech and the press?

Suppose a newspaper published a statement like “President Obama might easily end his term alongside Jimmy Carter as one of America’s worse presidents.” Some people might consider that fair speech while other people denounce it as unfair speech. What to do? A tribunal would have to be formed to decide on the fairness or unfairness of the statement.

It goes without saying that the political makeup of the tribunal would be a matter of controversy. Once such a tribunal was set up, how much generalized agreement would there be on what it decreed? And, if deemed unfair speech, what should the penalties be?

The bottom line is that what’s fair or unfair is an elusive concept and the same applies to trade. Last summer, I purchased a 2010 LS 460 Lexus, through a U.S. intermediary, from a Japanese producer for $70,000. Here’s my question to you: Was that a fair or unfair trade? I was free to keep my $70,000 or purchase the car. The Japanese producer was free to keep his Lexus or sell me the car.

As it turned out, I gave up my $70,000 and took possession of the car, and the Japanese producer gave up possession of the car and took possession of my money. The exchange occurred because I saw myself as being better off and so did the Japanese producer. I think it was both free and fair trade, and I’d like an American mercantilist to explain to me how it wasn’t.

Mercantilists have absolutely no argument when we recognize that trade is mostly between individuals. Mercantilists pretend that trade occurs between nations such as U.S. trading with England or Japan to appeal to our jingoism. First, does the U.S. trade with Japan and England? In other words, is it members of the U.S. Congress trading with their counterparts in the Japanese Diet or the English Parliament?

That’s nonsense. Trade occurs between individuals in one country, through intermediaries, with individuals in another country.

Who might protest that my trade with the Lexus manufacturer was unfair? If you said an American car manufacturer and their union workers, go to the head of the class. They would like Congress to restrict foreign trade so that they can sell their cars at a pleasing price and their workers earn a pleasing wage.

As a matter of fact, it’s never American consumers who complain about cheaper prices. It’s always American producers and their unions who do the complaining. That ought to tell us something.

Walter E. Williams is a professor of economics at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. He has authored more than 150 publications, including many in scholarly journals, and has frequently given expert testimony before Congressional committees on public policy issues ranging from labor policy to taxation and spending.

YARON BROOK: CAPITALISM WITHOUT GUILT

Posted on December 29, 2010 by TeamAtlas

BY TARA OVERZAT

Brook has become a leading crusader for Ayn Rand’s ideas, in the media and elsewhere. We joined him at a recent event in Atlanta to see what his speaking events are like in person.

Energetic. Engaging. Funny.

Not words one might imagine using to describe a lecture on a college campus. But Yaron Brook delivered all of this and more at a recent talk at Mercer University’s Atlanta campus.

It is worth mentioning that Dr. Brook is punctual. These days, we are so used to events — whether plays, concerts, or lectures — starting late. (C’mon, when was the last time you were at a rock concert and didn’t hear the crowd cheer for some roadie who appeared on stage to plug in an amp, in hopes that the main act was finally about to start the show?) Without excessive pleasantries, Dr. Brook dove into the topic of the night, “Capitalism Without Guilt: The Moral Case for Freedom.”

Dr. Brook began by talking about the housing boom and bust. Government incentives for Americans to take on debt to buy a home, with HUD insuring up to ninety percent of mortgages, were setting people up for failure. For every one dollar of equity, there were one thousand dollars of debt. This also contributed to an artificially low interest rate on mortgages. No private entity would lend money to such a losing enterprise, but the government readily supported the housing market and the inappropriate loans people were procuring.

He then pondered why it is that, whenever there is an economic downturn, people are so quick to blame the free market instead of government intervention. He briefly revisited the government snafus that helped to shape the Great Depression and prolong it, including myriad mistakes by the Federal Reserve.

Next he held up Hong Kong — which he characterized as a small rock surrounded by water, with few natural resources — as an example of a free market at work. Why is it that people are flocking there, sometimes even risking their lives to go there? With its tremendous prosperity, he said that it works “because freedom works. Capitalism works. Free markets work.”

Ayn Rand Institute President Yaron Brook

But what about the human face of fiscal success? He cited Bill Gates as an example of someone who had been vilified; but now that he is giving away the millions upon millions he made, he’s a “good guy.”

In fact, Dr. Brook clarified, if Gates gave away everything he owned and moved into a hut on an island, we’d call him a great guy — even if he were nuts.

Holding up his iPhone, Dr. Brook explained to the audience that trade, not sacrifice, is best. Steve Jobs aims to make the best product possible, and owning the smartphone Brook held in his hand is worth more to him than the $200 he paid for it.

For him, and other iPhone users, the cost of the phone was more than worth the price paid for it — that’s why they bought them. The consumer benefits from a product they enjoy, and that makes their lives easier, and the company benefits by making a profit on a good product. Such free trade is always a win-win, he told the crowd; and it is sacrifice, in contrast, that creates a lose-lose situation.

So, what about Bernie Madoff? Madoff, Dr. Brook explained, is not selfish but self-destructive. Selfish people “make their lives the best that they can be,” but Madoff put himself on a path that ruined his life. He postulated that Madoff was probably relieved when he finally got caught, because the scam was over. All of the lies, the deception, the fear of getting caught, had now vanished.

Addressing the subject of global warming and the environment more generally, Dr. Brook opined that, “We change our environment in order to live in it.” People live in skyscrapers, not caves. As animals, people are “pathetic” — we have no claws, sharp teeth, or strength. It is our minds that make our survival possible.

He further explained that the best way to protect, say, the spotted owl, was to allow protections for private property. If a person liked spotted owls and wanted them around, he could contribute to a spotted owl preserve. If people want their rivers clean, private property makes that possible, since it allows you to sue the person polluting your river. In other words, your property is protected by the rule of law and cannot be contaminated by others.

Coming to the close of his talk, Dr. Brook invited questions. A man stood up and humbly asked about books that better explain Objectivism. Dr. Brook’s suggestions included Ayn Rand’s The Virtue of Selfishness and Tara Smith’s Ayn Rand’s Normative Ethics: The Virtuous Egoist. (Tara Smith is the BB&T Chair for the Study of Objectivism at University of Texas at Austin.)

The next audience member questioned Dr. Brook’s claim that a the free market system is what made Hong Kong so affluent and successful, citing instead the more oppressive Singapore as the best example of economic prosperity. I have attended many lectures at campuses in the Southeast, with notables such as Presidents Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush, Noam Chomsky, and Dennis Kucinich, to name a few. But I have never seen a speaker so graciously allow an audience member to make his point and then return with his answer without a trace of animosity — no anger at being challenged nor signs of being flustered by the question.

This confidence that exists when one is knowledgeable of the facts and open to intellectual discourse reminded me what Objectivism is all about. Dr. Brook acceded that Singapore was in fact a wealthy city-state, but also reminded the audience of the overly-strict social rules that its government enacts, including the much-publicized caning of an American citizen for vandalism in the Nineties. However, the government of Singapore allows their economy to run as a free-market — providing further evidence, Brook observed, that it is in fact free markets that bring prosperity.

If Dr. Brook comes to a university or lecture hall near you, I highly recommend going to see him speak. I left feeling reinvigorated and further confirmed in my own beliefs in the free market and the many virtues of enlightened self-interest.

Tara Overzat is a writer and a graduate student in Clinical Mental Health Counseling in Atlanta, Georgia. She blogs at Shy Extrovert and the American Counseling Association Blog.

IS JULIAN ASSANGE A JOURNALIST?

Posted on December 24, 2010 by TeamAtlas

BY JACOB SULLUM

When it comes to the First Amendment, there is no restriction on who may publish information. Why, then, has Wikileaks been targeted so aggressively by the US government?

Despite Vice President Biden’s recent squabbling with Republican senators over the meaning of Christmas, he and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell do agree on something. They both say WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who has published thousands of confidential Pentagon and State Department documents on his group’s website, is “a high-tech terrorist.”

But assuming that President Obama is not ready to drop a bomb on Assange, punishing him for disseminating military records and diplomatic cables will require specifying what crime he committed under U.S. law. That won’t be easy, unless the Justice Department is prepared to criminalize something journalists do every day: divulge information that the government wants to keep secret.

Last week, Assange’s lawyer claimed a grand jury has been convened in Alexandria, Va., with the aim of indicting him. But under what statute?

The most obvious possibility is the Espionage Act of 1917, which makes it a crime, punishable by up to 10 years in prison, to “receive,” “deliver,” “transmit” or “communicate” any “information relating to the national defense” that “the possessor has reason to believe could be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of any foreign nation.”

In spite of the law’s sweeping language, it has almost always been applied to government employees who leak information, as opposed to people who receive it and pass it on.

The one exception was the 2005 indictment of two former pro-Israel lobbyists who were accused of receiving and disclosing classified information about U.S. policy toward Iran. Their source, a Pentagon official, was convicted under the Espionage Act, but the case against them fell apart after the judge ruled that the government would have to show they knew their disclosures were unauthorized and might damage national security.

Assange could be prosecuted even under that reading of the law, and so could all the news organizations that ran stories about the WikiLeaks documents. But the government has never used the Espionage Act to prosecute a journalist, which is what Assange claims to be.

His critics disagree. “WikiLeaks is not a news organization,” writes Washington Post columnist Marc Thiessen. “It is a criminal enterprise. Its reason for existence is to obtain classified national security information and disseminate it as widely as possible. … These actions are likely a violation of the Espionage Act, and they arguably constitute material support for terrorism.”

There is a circular quality to this argument: Assange is not a journalist because he’s a criminal, and he’s a criminal because he’s not a journalist. But for constitutional purposes, it does not matter whether Marc Thiessen, Attorney General Eric Holder or anyone else considers Assange a journalist.

“Freedom of the press” does not mean the freedom of those individuals who are lucky enough to be officially recognized as members of the Fourth Estate. It means the freedom to use technologies of mass communication, which today include the Internet. This freedom does not amount to much if the government can deny it to someone by questioning his journalistic credentials.

The government could try to avoid First Amendment problems by accusing Assange of conspiring with Pfc. Bradley Manning, the Army intelligence analyst who is charged with leaking the Pentagon and State Department documents.

Such a conspiracy could be a crime under the Espionage Act or the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, which prohibits disclosure of sensitive national defense or foreign relations information obtained through unauthorized computer access. But so far no evidence has emerged that Assange was any more culpable in the leaks than a reporter who receives confidential information from a government source.

There is another way to stop anger over the WikiLeaks document dumps from turning into an assault on the First Amendment. Assuming the allegations against Manning are true, the government should be asking why its own data security practices are so shoddy that a single low-ranking soldier with computer access was able to divulge such a huge trove of supposedly secret information.

Jacob Sullum is a senior editor at Reason magazine, and his work appears in the new Reason anthology Choice (BenBella Books). Sullum is a graduate of Cornell University, where he majored in economics and psychology. He lives in Northern Virginia with his wife and daughter.

TRON’S LEGACY OF MORAL CONTRADICTIONS

Posted on December 23, 2010 by TeamAtlas

BY ANDY GEORGE

The dazzling new Tron Legacy movie extends the original like a richly vivid fractal universe, amplifying every aspect of Tron — including Disney’s tired moral pretensions.

The new Tron Legacy movie updates the original Tron franchise to the more futuristic styles and darker looks that today’s movie going audiences enjoy. The dazzling state-of-the-art production values and computer generated imagery we’ve come to appreciate from a major studio like Disney are carefully woven into an even faster and hipper three-dimensional film tapestry.

An impressive array of contemporary industrial designers advance Tron’s costumes, vehicles, and settings, which are then skillfully balanced with its cleverly crafted new, and yet accurately derivative, story line.

After a brief segue intro from the time of the original Tron, we join Sam Flynn today as the estranged son of Tron creator Kevin Flynn. Sam is now hacking ENCOM, the software giant still exploiting his missing father’s legacy and corporate empire. Apparently as gifted as his Dad was with computer game design, Sam nonetheless languishes in his riverside loft as he schemes of ways to undermine ENCOM.

Alan Bradley, Kevin Flynn’s disgruntled former partner, opts to help Sam and tips him about an anachronistic styled phone page received from the abandoned Flynn’s video game arcade where it all began. Sam breaks into the arcade to discover the long forgotten portal that encoded and transported his Dad into his own video game’s universe. Sam’s bravado also gets him encoded and he finds himself trapped “on the grid” just like his Dad before him.

<<<Youtube Video>>>

The new Tron grid has gotten much vaster, scarier, and more powerful since the original Tron. The improved integration of better industrial design, computer graphics, and current 3D imaging creates an intense video game like reality that’s still very unique and also true to the original. More streamlined and faster by several factors, the original Tron video game thugs and bullies are also back again and ready to arrest Sam on arrival.

Sam is immediately thrust into the games, the same as his Dad was, where he survives victorious thanks to his advanced video game skills. As the plot unfolds, Sam continues to prevail in various scenarios derived from his Dad’s ordeals in the original Tron.

The bearded, robed, Moses-like, and now wiser and older Kevin Flynn

We’re also quickly reminded of certain lingering moral contradictions within the Tron story. Kevin Flynn’s claim that his original Tron video game design ideas were stolen by evil ENCOM executive Ed Dillinger smacked of the typical Hollywood evil capitalist clichés — and this cliché is coming absurdly from Disney, one of the biggest and oldest entertainment corporations of all time.

Trying to be hip and get “in” with the new generation of software hacker countercultures, Disney reveals a gigantic, astounding example of absurd crony capitalist conservative me-to-isms. And since they’re stuck with this absurd plot cliché in order to expand the Tron franchise, they’re forced to exaggerate the contradiction rather than resolve it.

The new Tron’s explicit championing of its own self-fulfilling prophesy of the open source free-for-all business model, now even more prevalent than in old Tron’s, shines a giant CGI 3D spotlight on this inherent contradiction.

Quorra, the isometric algorithmic miraculously and spontaneously grid-generated program

Quorra, the newest Tron character and an isometric algorithmic miracle program created spontaneously by the grid itself, espouses Zen-like selflessness — and practices it too. Her altruistic sacrifice backfires, though, and she’s necessarily resurrected by the bearded, robed, Moses-like, and now wiser and older Kevin Flynn.

All the “heroes” are out to sink the real corporation from within their own virtual dream world, courtesy of that same corporation and its own technologies. Further contradictions abound as multiple characters morph and shape-shift morally to fit all sizes and forms of computer nerd fallacies inside Tron’s infinitely more flexible and relativistic video game universe.

Game grid player

Multiple dualisms and digital mysticism refract in a fractal house of CGI 3D mirrors that seem to extend into infinity. Anti-capitalism and anti-technology have now entered the perfect hypothetical environment from which to attack reality — all thanks, paradoxically, to the massive financial and creative resources of Disney Corporation.

Complex plot reversals and revisionist history only draw more attention to the twisting of the truth. This extreme exaggeration between several moral contradictions in the new Tron actually offers an amazing opportunity to examine Hollywood chasing its own CGI 3D tail on the global 150-million-dollar scale: Any of the soul, humor, or innocence of the original is finally displaced by faith and force.

Greetings, program!

While several scenes — like the awesome extreme-speed spectacle of the light cycle battles — are breathtakingly graphic and visually revolutionary, the irrational and derivative script and plot-twists soon unfold as being equally, if not more, underwhelming than the original Tron.

The impressive orchestration of the multiple layers of live action special effects, computer generated imagery and fantastic-looking costumes and sets soon crush the extremely strained narrative of backtracking and extrapolations.

The new Tron attempts to address some of the more scientific logical contradictions of its own legacy while distracting the audience from, and ignoring, the more important moral contradictions that have always been present in Tron. Such a huge waste of impressive production values is truly tragic at any price.

Light cycle with rider

Last, but by no means least, the new movie’s Daft Punk soundtrack is good and may be better suited for today’s modern audiences — but the original Tron’s Wendy Carlos soundtrack was vastly richer and deeper in scope, range and even innocence.

I’m somewhat biased, since its music is actually why I went to see the original Tron in the first place — at which point I was quite pleasantly surprised by its imaginative CGI work. I had even overlooked its altruistic themes, so distracted was I by the music and visuals. But you can be sure I’ll be paying much closer attention in the real future.

Greetings, program!

Andy George is an independent electronics product development craftsman and technician in New York City. He’s a drummer, a fan of science and science fiction films, and a pioneer of LED fashion technologies. He also participates actively in the NYC Objectivist community. His website is at www.andy-george.com.

CAPTURING THE SPIRIT OF ATLAS SHRUGGED

Posted on December 20, 2010 by TeamAtlas

BY DONOVAN ALBANESI

What was it like to attend the ten-minute sneak-peek of the Atlas Shrugged movie earlier this month in New York City? An Atlasphere member relates his firsthand experience.

On December 7, 2010, I attended the Atlas Shrugged movie event hosted by the Atlas Society. I had no idea how many people would attend; I had made my RSVP through Facebook, which listed only seven registered attendees.

I traveled from my home in Dallas, Texas to be at this historic event. As I walked in the cold along the streets of New York City, I found myself in front of St. Patrick’s Cathedral on 5th Avenue.

I turned my head to the right and there, in front of Rockefeller Center, was the bronze statue of Atlas carrying the world on his back. I smiled; I had not anticipated seeing the statue. This only set the stage for what would prove to be an experience of a lifetime.

The statue of Atlas in front of Rockefeller Center in New York City

Since the announcement of the production of the film in June 2010, expectations among fans of Atlas Shrugged and among Objectivists in particular have been mixed, and the attitude in some circles has been decidedly pessimistic.

Some people expressed prejudicial concerns that the film would be a flop, because it was not a major Hollywood undertaking.

Due to the modest production budget and the limited time available to complete the filming, some critics have been either indifferent to or contemptuous of the endeavor.

Some blog writers actually hoped that John Aglialoro, a former founding contributor of the Ayn Rand Institute and now a trustee of the Atlas Society, would fail to meet his filming deadline, so that the movie rights would revert back to Leonard Peikoff, trustee of the Ayn Rand estate.

Other bloggers wrote that they wanted the film to fail simply because, were it to succeed, it would be an achievement for the Atlas Society, a competitor to the Ayn Rand Institute. My thinking has always been that the grandeur of this story could carry the film, just as Atlas, the mythological Greek god, carried the world on his shoulders.

Hank and Dagny in Hank’s office

This is not the first attempt to produce a film of Atlas Shrugged. Ed Snider, a highly successful businessman and one of the original founders of the Ayn Rand Institute, tried to produce a movie version of the book in the 1980s in collaboration with Peikoff. Snider lost over half a million dollars in the process due to Peikoff’s apparent unwillingness or inability to see the project through.

Decorations at Columbus Circle, from the author’s trip to New York City

Peikoff later sold the Atlas Shrugged movie rights to Aglialoro for a million dollars, granting him full artistic license. In my view, Aglialoro exemplifies the spirit of a Hank Rearden: taking on the Herculean task of adapting to film one of the most challenging books ever written and investing millions of dollars of his own money into the enterprise.

When I arrived at the event, I was surprised to see around 150 people in attendance.

At the same time, I was disappointed; I knew how many people should have been there, and why they weren’t.

The atmosphere, however, was incredibly positive. The speeches preceding the ten-minute movie clip were inspirational and passionate. When the preview began, I was swept into the world of Atlas Shrugged — the actors and the visual effects captured the spirit of the story!

I was immediately drawn into the context of an America that is in serious economic peril, a society on the brink of total collapse. The world looks dirty, corrupted, and cold.

Hank Rearden and Dagny Taggart at the 20th Century Motor Plant

Even if you have not read Atlas Shrugged, you will quickly know the difference between the heroes and the villains, the achievers and the looters.

Taylor Schilling plays Dagny Taggart

Still-frame pictures on the movie’s Facebook fan page cannot begin to portray the total power of the film: the imagery, the background sounds, the music, the voices of the characters, and the thunder of the trains.

Taylor Schilling is a beautiful, confident, and thrilling Dagny Taggart.

Grant Bowler is a fantastic Rearden: his posture, his facial expressions, and his deep voice embody the strength of steel.

At the end of the preview, I was deeply moved as Dagny cries out a screaming and guttural “NO!” as she watches Ellis Wyatt’s oilfields burn.

The final clip showed a mysterious man ominously asking the question, “Who is John Galt?”

If the full movie is consistent with the preview, it will be a heroic tribute to Ayn Rand’s magnum opus.

Donovan Albanesi is the founder and president of The Culture of Reason Center, a resource and study center for students of Objectivism located in Dallas, TX. His website provides many interesting downloadable materials.

CHRISTMAS BOOKS

Posted on December 17, 2010 by TeamAtlas

BY THOMAS SOWELL

If you happen to be stuck for last-minute holiday gift ideas for the rational thinkers in your life, these books carry a wonderfully weighty endorsement!

It is hard to come up with Christmas gifts for people who already seem to have everything. But there are few — if any — people who can keep up with the flood of books coming off the presses. Books can be good gifts for such people.

Among the books I read this year, the one that made the biggest impact on me was New Deal or Raw Deal by Burton Folsom, Jr., a professor at Hillsdale College. It was that rare kind of book, one thoroughly researched by a scholar and yet written in plain language, readily understood by anyone.

So many myths and legends glorifying Franklin D. Roosevelt and his New Deal administration have become part of folklore that a dose of cold facts is very much needed.

The next time someone repeats one of the many myths about FDR, or tries to use the New Deal as a model of how we should try to solve current economic problems, whoever reads this book will have the hard, documented facts with which to shoot down such claims.

The Myth of the Robber Barons

Another book by the same author was published this year — the 6th edition of The Myth of the Robber Barons. When I have asked people, “Just whom did the robber barons rob?” I have never gotten an answer. This book shows why.

Apparently the real sin of the so-called “robber barons,” like that of Wal-Mart today, is that they charged lower prices than their competitors, many of whom went out of business because they were not efficient enough to be able to bring down their prices.

A book more focused on our contemporary culture is Spoilt Rotten! by Theodore Dalrymple. Its subtitle gives its theme: The Toxic Cult of Sentimentality. Dr. Dalrymple sees sentimentality as not just a silly foible but as a serious danger to government policy-making, as well as a corruption of personal relations.

A new book on the New York Times by award-winning journalist William McGowan is titled Gray Lady Down: What the Decline and Fall of the New York Times Means for America.

The New York Times is not just another newspaper. It has long been a major influence on the rest of the media and on public opinion, so its degeneration into a propaganda publication in recent years is a national tragedy. McGowan spells it all out in plain words and with numerous examples.

The fact that the New York Times has lost both circulation and credibility is its problem. The fact that America has lost a once reliable source of news is a national problem.

I don’t usually read autobiographical books but two very good ones came out this year. My favorite is Up from the Projects by economist, columnist and personal friend Walter Williams. It is a small book with a big punch. Once you start reading it, it is hard to put down.

Up From the Projects

Up from the Projects is not only a remarkable story of a remarkable man’s life, it is the story of both progress and retrogression in the black community. Everyone wants to take credit for the progress but nobody wants to take the blame for the retrogression.

An even smaller book by a very different man in very different circumstances is Inside the Nixon Administration — subtitled “The Secret Diary of Arthur Burns, 1969-1974.” Distinguished economist Arthur F. Burns was chairman of the Federal Reserve System in those years, and these posthumous excerpts from his diary paint a chilling picture of the irresponsibility, vanity, dishonesty and incompetence in the Nixon White House.

This book is not just about the Nixon administration, however. It is about the ugly realities of politics behind the pious talk of “public service.” And it is about what it means to have a very strange man as President of the United States — something that is all too relevant to our own times.

Intellectuals and Society

My own new books this year are Intellectuals and Society, an account of another strange and dangerous group of people, and the 4th edition of Basic Economics, which is more than twice as large as the first edition. It has been putting on weight over the years, like its author, but the weight is muscle in the case of the book.

Basic Economics has sold more copies than any other book of mine and has been translated into more foreign languages. Apparently there are a lot of people who want to understand economics without having to wade through graphs and equations.

Thomas Sowell is a Senior Fellow at The Hoover Institution at Stanford University in California. He has published dozens of books on economics, education, race, and other topics. His most recent book is Intellectuals and Society, from January 2010.

BERNIE, BERNIE: WAS IT SELFISH?

Posted on December 16, 2010 by TeamAtlas

BY WALTER DONWAY

Many would say Bernie Madoff was a very selfish man — a man who hurt others, including his own family, because he acted only for himself. But did he?

Bernard Madoff announced yesterday, through his lawyer, that he will not attend the funeral of his oldest son, Mark Madoff, 46, who committed suicide over the weekend. Mark hung himself in his Soho, New York, apartment, using a dog leash slung over a pipe. He left his second wife, his two-year-old daughter, and also a previous family that includes two grown children.

A father ordinarily might wish to attend the funeral of his oldest son, but Bernard Madoff is serving a 150-year prison sentence for perpetrating the largest, most damaging (non-governmental) Ponzi scheme investment fraud in history, which devastated the lives of thousands of investors who trusted him. If he attended his son’s funeral, his presence would create a media circus of epic proportions, turning the funeral into a horror show for Mark Madoff’s wife and baby daughter and other family members, including Bernard Madoff’s wife.

It was the firestorm of anger and hate for the very Madoff name, and also an endless stream of lawsuits, criminal and civil, that drove Mark Madoff to kill himself on the second anniversary of his father’s arrest for the legendary Ponzi scheme. The same vehement notoriety caused Bernard Madoff’s wife to petition a court to change her name and the name of her two children from Madoff to something — anything — else.

As Bernard Madoff’s various homes, boats, and other possessions, including even his shoes, have been auctioned off to raise a few dollars to help compensate his victims, his name has become synonymous with dishonesty — the very embodiment of ugly immorality. Given the sentence he received, he will die in jail, but this is viewed as inadequate punishment for his crimes.

Our culture has one virtually universally agreed-upon term for Bernard Madoff’s behavior: “selfish.”

Bernie Madoff

That was the motivation, was it not, of this man who ruthlessly devastated the lives of so many people, so many friends, family members, and associates who trusted him with their savings?

He acted only for himself; and, we have been taught, selfish behavior in all its forms is the cardinal moral danger to the social order.

To act merely for oneself, one’s own values, goals, interests, implies a possible range of behavior from merely mean to monstrous.

Given no principle but selfishness to guide behavior, there supposedly are no limits to destructiveness. Hence Bernard Madoff.

But this brief description of Bernard Madoff’s life, today, raises an obvious question: How did behavior motivated solely by concern for himself, for his own self-interest, lead to the life he now lives — and will live until his death behind bars?

He has nothing of his own, save personal effects in his prison cell. His wife seeks only to sever herself from his name. His eldest son timed his suicide to mark the anniversary of Bernard Madoff’s arrest and public disgrace, and Madoff himself is viewed as such a fascinating object of loathing and morbid curiosity that he dare not attend his son’s funeral.

Bernard Madoff was and is a brilliant man. He created and maintained a mind-bogglingly complex scheme of deception that over decades fooled government regulators, bankers, brokers, and investment professionals of every kind — as well as his associates, closest friends, and family. He built an empire based on out-witting all comers in one of the most scrutinized and competitive businesses in the world. If he set his mind to pursuing only his self-interest, his own values and fulfillment, how could he have gone so completely, disastrously wrong?

Posed this way, the question has no satisfactory answer. The problem, I think, is with one of our assumptions. Before we accept the assumption that Bernard Madoff acted selfishly, we should pose a commonsense test. If we were in young Bernard Madoff’s shoes, beginning his career, what would be some obvious selfish goals? To be plain, and perhaps unimaginative: to earn lots of money to obtain and enjoy comforts, such as luxurious apartments, and pleasures, such as perhaps travel, vacation homes, boats — and to enjoy these acquisitions in peace.

Perhaps to marry an attractive woman (he did) who would love us and admire us, and to have children who would admire us and make us proud by succeeding in their own right. To enjoy the admiration and friendship of colleagues and friends. Simple and obvious things — and nary a mention of what are deemed unselfish pursuits, such as philanthropy, service to our fellow men, religious piety, or sacrifice for supposed ideals such as public service, patriotism, making a better world.

But I would suggest that Bernard Madoff, by any common reckoning, pursued none of those selfish values. He did not earn money, he stole it; and, although he acquired many possessions, he hardly could have enjoyed them in anything like peace and serenity, given his constant vigilance, scheming, deception, and manipulation. And, of course, he lost everything and is spending what should be his years of achievement and satisfaction in a medium-security federal prison.

Did he enjoy the admiration and love of his wife, given what he knew all along about the life he had created for her? And what do any years in which she did love and admire him mean now, as she seeks to disown his very name? His sons, his friends, his colleagues? He did not in fact pursue any of these values; he pursued the pretense of them: the appearance of achievement, the misguided love and admiration of wife, sons, and friends. He pursued not one real value, not one real interest of the self.

I would suggest to you that Bernard Madoff pursued only an image in the minds of others: the image of a successful businessman, the image of a caring husband and father, the image of the creator of wealth and plenty, the image of a man on top of the world. He was not selfish; he created a life in which his existence was solely in the deluded minds of others.

Bernard Madoff’s “self” was a mere misapprehension in other minds. When he dies, nothing real will die. Whatever existed will continue to exist in the minds of others — but now as an avatar of contemptible and ultimately pathetic futility.

Bernard Madoff is a very selfless man.

And we should be very, very afraid of unselfish men.

Walter Donway is a founding trustee of The Atlas Society and author of the book Touched by Its Rays.

WHY ARE LANGUAGE RULES SO BAFFLING?

Posted on December 14, 2010 by TeamAtlas

BY DON HAUPTMAN

Whatever your goals, it’s essential to possess the skills to express your ideas effectively and persuasively. When you master the tools of communication, you have an edge in work and in life.

Some years ago, a friend who is, like me, an admirer of Ayn Rand and her philosophy of reason, asked me to review an article he had written. Suddenly, he interrupted our conversation with this outburst:

“How does anyone know what’s right and wrong, anyway? Everyone disagrees! Why can’t English be as logical and consistent as mathematics?”

His frustration is understandable. When it comes to matters of English grammar and usage, how can we be sure of what’s correct and what isn’t? The answers aren’t always simple.

Why is the question important? A series of articles in The Wall Street Journal reported that poor writing and speech habits can damage an executive’s career prospects. What’s more, when you express your ideas and arguments with clarity and precision, people take them more seriously and are more likely to be persuaded.

First, let’s tackle my friend’s objection. He might be happier in France, which has a government-run academy that serves as the official authority for the French language, decreeing what’s acceptable and what’s prohibited.

Here in America, fortunately, we don’t have a language dictatorship but rather something of a free market. No single oracle dispenses the ultimate answers. But that freedom comes with a tradeoff. Each of us must consider various sources of language guidance, which sometimes conflict, and make our own decisions.

Language gurus generally fall into one of two schools. The prescriptivists offer explicit rules and advice. The descriptivists advocate recording how language is used, without passing judgments.

I’m often tempted to call the second group permissivists.

Once upon a time, dictionaries were prescriptive; they functioned as authorities that told us what was right and wrong. Increasingly, however, they have become descriptive; they simply reflect language as it is used. Thus, if a sufficient number of people use a word in the wrong sense, that sense is deemed “right” by popular, “democratic” vote.

I’m not making this up! The argument never struck me as especially sane, but descriptivism is now accepted practice among many lexicographers.

When people disagree about the meaning of a word, someone is bound to say, “Let’s look it up in the dictionary.” As if that will settle everything. But as the above analysis suggests, this solution doesn’t always work.

If you need the definition of an uncontroversial word, such as modicum or portico, a dictionary is an appropriate resource to consult. The problems occur with words that are routinely misused or that have disputed meanings.

Here are three examples of prescriptivism vs. descriptivism in practice. In each case, there’s a traditional, prescribed definition and an “everyone uses it that way” — otherwise known as incorrect — meaning.

disinterested: This word doesn’t mean uninterested. Rather, it means impartial, unbiased, having no vested interest in the matter under consideration.
enormity: Don’t use it to refer to something that’s merely large. The word means a great evil, wickedness, or atrocity, as in “the enormity of Nazism.”
verbal: Not a synonym for spoken. It means having to do with words or language, whether spoken or written. When you refer to the spoken as opposed to the written word, use oral.

When meanings are blurred, as often occurs with the words cited above, we lose valuable distinctions. The English language is thereby cheapened, a process analogous to the devaluation of a nation’s currency.

Some people say, in effect: “Who cares? What do the persnickety rules matter as long as we communicate?”

The answer is that not observing rules and definitions often means that we don’t communicate, or not very well. It’s important to express thoughts and ideas with precision. When a sentence is sloppy, it can cause ambiguity, confusion, and misunderstandings. Badly written prose can also appear awkward, clunky, or illiterate. Craft, style, eloquence, and erudition still count.

In general, I advise observing traditional rules, which constitute what’s called “Standard English,” unless a compelling reason exists to disregard them. Here’s why.

Customs and conventions aren’t irrelevant, nor are they “collectivist” injunctions that stifle individualism and creativity. They’re part of civilized society, and we ignore them at our peril.

We’re judged by how we use language. In your career and social life, you’re constantly viewed as educated or uneducated, literate or illiterate, on the basis of how well you speak and write. Like it or not, such first impressions help determine your status, advancement, wealth, romantic success, and so on. What’s more, many of the important people who pass such judgments respect tradition and care about standards. So it’s wise to act on the side of caution.

Take the prohibition on splitting infinitives. For centuries, language purists insisted on this taboo. Then the permissivists scoffed, derided the rule as a “superstition,” and proclaimed that nothing is wrong with the practice.

My view: Let’s respect the rule — unless the result sounds awkward or unnatural. I wonder if anything would have been lost if the Star Trek mission had been “to go boldly where no man has gone before.”

The sometimes puzzling and arbitrary rules of English inspired me to create what I archly call “The Necktie Principle.” No rational reasons exist to wear these sartorial embellishments, and one could offer several compelling arguments against them. But a male in the corporate world who abandons this accessory will likely come to regret that decision.

So it is with language. Even the permissivists don’t spell physician with an F, or knowledge without the K, although those revisions would, after all, be more “logical.” As for those who proclaim, “It’s in the dictionary,” don’t forget that dictionaries include the word ain’t, which will never be accepted in cultured circles no matter how many people use it.

As you might guess, I incline toward the prescriptivist camp. But language changes, and I’m willing to concede that the rules may be modified, revised, or bent when a good reason to do so exists.

If following a rule creates an awkward or stilted result, you might need to break it. But first, try rephrasing the sentence, a trick that often sidesteps the problem.

As for words with evolving meanings, consider mutual. Traditionally, it refers to a direct interaction between two or more persons or things, not between, for example, two people and their relationship to a third person. By this definition, Dickens erred when he titled his novel Our Mutual Friend. But “shared friend” and other alternative locutions are clumsy and tortuous. Thus, I’m willing to sanction “mutual friend” and “mutual acquaintance” because in this case there’s a reason to violate the rule.

As with many things in life, balance and common sense should prevail. And, of course, there are levels of discourse: A formal piece of writing, such as an academic paper or job application, requires a different style than a casual conversation or a note to the dry cleaner.

So what practical action can you take to improve your writing and communication skills? A solution is at hand.

In addition to a dictionary, every writer should own a good usage guide. By their nature, usage guides are prescriptivist. Many choices exist, of varying quality and reliability, and no single volume covers everything.

Here are four favorites that have served me well. Keep one or more of these recommended volumes on your desk, and you’ll deploy the written and spoken word with greater clarity, power, and effectiveness.

The Elements of Style by William Strunk, Jr. and E.B. White. This is the classic — a slender volume packed with advice on how to write well, along with clear explanations of frequently disputed words and expressions. The current Fourth Edition is a revision that followed the deaths of the authors, and some sticklers object to the changes. If you’re a purist, you may want to track down an earlier edition.

The Careful Writer by Theodore M. Bernstein. This is a much larger book, so it covers many issues not found in Strunk and White. The author explains each point clearly and elegantly, with common sense and vivid examples. But the book was published almost five decades ago, and in a few instances the advice is dated or excessively rigid.

The Accidents of Style by Charles Harrington Elster. This quirky, entertaining usage guide was published in 2010, so it addresses many current language matters. In 350 wry and well-reasoned entries, the author resolves a host of thorny problems.

Garner’s Modern American Usage by Bryan A. Garner. If you’re a serious writer, this comprehensive volume — almost 900 pages — should be on your shelf. I’ve rarely had a question that Garner doesn’t cover, and the guidance he offers is almost always sound.

Finally, here are a few tips for perfecting your writing. Good writers edit their work through multiple drafts. Revise them on printouts as well as on your computer screen. Ask one or more trusted reviewers to vet your drafts. Read them aloud. This procedure will help ensure that your communications achieve their objectives … and make you look good as well.

Don Hauptman is a New York City-based advertising copywriter and humorist, and a longtime Objectivist. He writes a weekly online column on language. He is also author of The Versatile Freelancer, an e-book that shows creative people how to diversify into public speaking, consulting, training, and other profitable activities.

Author: TeamAtlas