Recently, ARI Senior Fellow Ben Bayer was interviewed on the Texas Talks podcast, where he discussed Ayn Rand’s unique approach to philosophy as a practical means for living, the life-promoting philosophy she developed as a result, and how her idealist-realist heroes dramatize it. Bayer contrasted Rand’s approach and views with the dominant ones in today’s culture, focusing specifically on Stoicism and altruism.
Topics include:
The essence of Rand’s philosophy.
Why today’s philosophers don’t dramatize their philosophies in stories.
Why Rand’s heroes resonate with so many people.
How the philosophy in The Fountainhead compares to that in Atlas Shrugged.
How Objectivism differs from Stoicism.
Today’s confused oscillation between Judeo-Christian altruism and pragmatism.
Bayer’s forthcoming book, Breaking Free from Faith-Based Morality.
Bradley Swail is the host of the Texas Talks podcast, not an employee of the Ayn Rand Institute.
>Today’s confused oscillation between Judeo-Christian altruism and pragmatism.
What oscillation?! It's a working partnership. Altruism needs a pretense of practicality in a semi-rational culture. Pragmatism needs an ideal about which it can pretend to be practical. I used Peikoff on this in an early 1970s university course on Nazism. I'll be glad to provide my term paper.