Objectivist scholar Stephen Hicks has published his long-awaited book on the intellectual causes of postmodernism. And it was well-worth the wait.
Explaining Postmodernism clearly presents the history of the ideas that gave rise to the contemporary movement characterised by nihilism, skepticism, and relativism.
The primary thesis of Dr. Hicks’ book is that “the failure of epistemology made postmodernism possible, and the failure of socialism made postmodernism necessary.” The history of modern epistemology has, by and large, failed at defending reason as one’s means of knowing the world. Similarly, the failure of socialism, both economically and morally, lead to, as Hicks calls it, a “crisis of faith” among many in the Left.
In order to maintain their belief in the superiority of socialism over capitalism, many theorists used the failures of epistemology to eschew reason, reality, and truth. One now no longer had to deal with the evidence that shows the superiority of capitalism. Thus, we ended up with the nihilistic, skeptical, and relativistic Postmodernism dominating much of academia and the political left.
I highly recommend Explaining Postmodernism to anyone ? philosopher or not ? with an interest in the history of ideas or an interest in understanding postmodernism. It is available at many bookstores and at Amazon.com.
Category: News
Cordair Gallery Celebrates 8th Anniversary
Quent Cordair Fine Art is celebrating its 8th anniversary this month. From an eMediaWire press release:
Quent Cordair Fine Art in Burlingame, California celebrates their 8 year anniversary by offering the finest in Contemporary Romantic Realism. This unique gallery is located minutes south of San Francisco.
Burlingame, CA (PRWEB) August 27, 2004 — Quent Cordair Fine Art was established by artist Quent Cordair in 1996. As a premier provider of contemporary Romantic Realism in painting, sculpture and drawing, QCFA has grown to serve an international clientele of private and corporate collectors.
Romantic Realism, the movement which renews the high esthetic standards and techniques of pre-20th century ateliers, brings a rebirth of comprehensibility, beauty, romanticism and stylization to contemporary subject matter. The gallery’s collection emphasizes themes which celebrate the moments of happiness, joy and success possible to Man on earth. Subject matter includes figurative, narrative, allegorical, still lifes, seascapes and landscapes.
The gallery features the art of Danielle Anjou, Sam Axton, Bryan Larsen, Damon Denys, Bill Mack, Karl Jesen, Han Wu Shen, Sandra Shaw, Bobbie Carlyle and many others.
Recently all ten titles of the Ayn Rand cover art painted by Nick Gaetano were released as limited-edition fine art prints on canvas.
Recent Sales Figures for Ayn Rand's Novels
Ayn Rand’s novels continue to sell well, in both hardcover and paperback editions, many years after their original publication. This is well-known. But have you ever wondered what the actual figures are?
BookMagazine.com published a table summarizing the sales figures of the top 50 classic bestsellers (books that continue to sell well more than 5 years after their publication) for the year 2002.
Ayn Rand is one of the few authors with more than one book on this list. Here are the sales figures for her two most popular novels, from January through December of 2002:
Atlas Shrugged – 130,000 copies (#19 on the list)
The Fountainhead – 81,000 copies (#35 on the list)
These figures include chain booksellers and online outlets, representing approximately 70% of the bookselling market in the United States, but do not include campus or high school bookstores (which could add a substantial number of sales).
See the full list for additional details and the titles of the other top 50 classic bestsellers.
Wanted: Objectivist Families
ABC recruiter Susie Banikarim (who tells me she has, herself, read all of Ayn Rand’s novels) extends the following invitation to members of the Atlasphere:
ARE YOU AN OBJECTIVIST?
Is Your Family Ready for Prime Time?
Is Your Family Ready for Prime Time?
ABC is currently working on a groundbreaking new series that celebrates the American family, based on a major award-winning British format.
The programs are portraits of American life and I am looking for a family that lives its life by the philosophy of Ayn Rand to participate.
If you are a two-parent family with young or teenage children, at least two of whom are over the age of eight, you can be on our show.
If you have ever wondered what it would be like to be part of a different family or if you have ever wanted an opporunity to share how your family does things with the world, this is the opportunity for you.
If you’re interested, please call me (Susie Banikarim, 212-404-1429) as soon as possible. We’re looking for families all the time.
The Concerto of Deliverance
Atlasphere member Monart Pon has commissioned and produced a new CD entitled Concerto of Deliverance, by John Mills-Cockell. The album was released on July 4, 2004.
The Concerto of Deliverance web page states that it?s a work inspired by Ayn Rand?s words in Atlas Shrugged describing such music. Readers of Atlas Shrugged would know that ?The Concerto of Deliverance? is the title of Chapter VI, Part III, and is what Richard Halley?s friends called his Fifth Concerto.
The web site for the album offers samples from the 79-minute work. Also on the site are profiles of the composer and contributors, a pre-production interview with the composer, and the post-production Composer?s Notes, as well as reviews by Objectivist musicians and philosophers.
UPDATE (Aug 12): Doug Wagoner has written a formal review of the Concerto of Deliverance for the Atlasphere.
Institute for Justice in 'Fortune' Magazine
Fortune magazine has published a terrific profile of the Institute for Justice, whose staff includes (daughter of long-time ARI Executive Director Michael Berliner) Dana Berliner and (until recently) Clint Bolick, who has been a regular speaker at the Objectivist Center’s summer conferences.
The Fortune profile begins:
If you want to become a florist in Louisiana, a state law requires you to take a licensing exam. Your flowers are evaluated by licensed florists on subjective criteria such as whether they are “spaced effectively” and have the “proper focal point.” More than half of the applicants fail. Do unlicensed florists present a big menace? No, many believe the real explanation is that Louisiana florists want to limit their competition. In Oklahoma a similar law requires that anyone who wants to sell caskets must first obtain a funeral director’s license and embalm 25 bodies. These laws and others like them can seem unfair to entrepreneurs, and in recent years a nonprofit law firm called the Institute for Justice has helped small businesses fight them.
Based in Washington, D.C., the Institute for Justice is the only libertarian law firm in the country that handles cases coast-to-coast. (That’s libertarian with a lower-case ‘l’?IJ is not affiliated with any political party.) Working at no cost to clients, IJ’s lawyers try to limit government regulation, usually by challenging state laws. Aside from a handful of cases involving school choice and residential property rights, IJ works almost exclusively on behalf of small businesses, specifically in economic liberty, free speech, and eminent domain cases. It files suit only against the government, not private parties, and it doesn’t handle social issues such as abortion, gun control, or prayer in schools.
The firm has 12 to 15 active cases at any time, and several have been in the headlines in recent months. In March the Arizona Structural Pest Control Commission backed down from prosecuting Christian Alf, a Tempe, Ariz., 17-year-old who started an after-school business patching holes in roofs to protect homes from a local rat infestation. At $30 a job, Alf was severely undercutting local licensed exterminators. After receiving IJ’s letter stating its intention to support Alf, and unflattering coverage in the Arizona Republic (Most Irritating Pests Are Those on State Commission), the commission determined that Alf was not breaking the law and issued a letter wishing him well.
See the full profile for more information about IJ, including Ayn Rand’s role in inspiring this “merry band of litigators.”
New Issue – Journal of Ayn Rand Studies
Volume 5, Number 2 of The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies has just been published. The issue features the following contributions:
The Magnificent Progress Achieved by Capitalism:
Is the Evidence Incontrovertible? (by Hendrik Van den Berg)
Universals and Measurement (by Stephen Boydstun)
Art as Microcosm (by Roger E. Bissell)
Ayn Rand in the Scholarly Literature IV: Ayn Rand in England (by Nicholas Dykes)
An Economist Reads Philosophy: Review of Leland Yeager’s book Ethics as Social Science (by William Thomas)
Capitalism and Virtue: Review of Dinesh D’Souza’s book The Virtue of Prosperity (by Will Wilkinson)
A Direct Realist’s Challenge to Skepticism: Review of Michael Huemer’s book Skepticism and the Veil of Perception (by Ari Armstrong)
Discussion
Reply to Huemer: Egoism and Predatory Behavior (by Michael Young)
Rejoinder to Young: Egoism and Prudent Predation (by Michael Huemer)
Objectivism: On Stage and Self Destructive: Review of Sky Gilbert’s play, The Emotionalists (by Karen Michalson)
Reply to Michalson: Rand as Guru: Will it Never End? (by Sky Gilbert)
Rejoinder to Gilbert: Rand as What? (by Karen Michalson)
Visit the JARS web site for article abstracts, contributor biographies, and information on subscriptions.
Watch for Volume 6 in 2004-2005, which will consist of two special symposium issues in honor of the Ayn Rand centenary. The first will deal with Ayn Rand’s cultural and literary impact, and the second will deal with “Ayn Rand Among the Austrians.”
Tara Smith on the Case for Honesty
UT Austin associate professor and Ayn Rand Institute speaker Tara Smith has just published an article titled “The Metaphysical Case for Honesty” in the Journal of Value Inquiry.
The PDF version of the full article can be obtained by clicking on “PDF” at the top of the abstract page (which is otherwise blank; there’s no abstract).
(Thanks to Diana Hsieh for the heads-up.)
Sciabarra Fall 2004 Cyberseminar
Chris Matthew Sciabarra will be teaching a new course, “Putting Dialectics to Work,” which begins on Monday, September 6, 2004. Supplemental readings will be included from such Sciabarra books as Total Freedom: Toward a Dialectical Libertarianism and Ayn Rand: The Russian Radical.
The course will center on helping students to prepare a paper with dialectical method as their guide to inquiry, self-clarification, and exposition. Students will learn to approach a real, concrete social problem in a dialectical fashion, by focusing on the full context of its implications, by examining it from various points of view and on different levels of generality, and by understanding it as part of a larger system across time.
The cost of the course will be $150 per student for approximately 3 months of instruction. Enrollment is limited to approximately a dozen students. For further information, visit the Seminar page on Chris Sciabarra’s web site.
Nick Gaetano Giclee Prints
Quent Cordair Fine Art has announced the release of Nick Gaetano’s Ayn Rand cover art in limited edition Giclee prints on canvas:
Over the past decade, Nick Gaetano’s artwork has graced the covers of Ayn Rand’s daringly original novels and non-fiction works, including the 50th Anniversary Edition of The Fountainhead and the 35th Anniversary Edition of Atlas Shrugged, with millions of copies sold in the U.S. and around the world. Quent Cordair Fine Art and Nick Gaetano are very pleased to announce the release of the Ayn Rand Cover Art in special Limited-Edition, signed and numbered, brilliantly colored Giclee prints on canvas. Special prices are available for orders of three or more Gaetano cover art prints.
See Cordair’s Nick Gaetano page for additional information and the full selection of available prints.