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The New Fascism: Rule By Consensus: Ayn Rand

Posted by khalling 8 years, 2 months ago to Philosophy
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Ford Hall Forum, 1965, via Ayn Rand Institute


All Comments

  • Posted by MarjoriePeters 8 years, 2 months ago
    Hello, all. I'd like to introduce myself. I've been a lurker for a very long time, but would now like to join the discussion. I read Atlas Shrugged in 1960 and was immediately changed. Rand's ideas were a justification of what I had believed for most of my adult life, but I was too afraid and guilt-ridden to assert them and live by them. I still cared too much what others thought. In 1961, I attended Nathaniel Branden's taped lectures on Objectivism in Chicago and met some people I could actually exchange ideas with, one of them being my future husband. It was an exciting time. In 1963 I met Nathaniel Branden's business manager, the man who arranged for Ayn Rand's speech, "America's Persecuted Minority, Big Business," a Ford Hall Forum lecture, to be presented at McCormick Place in Chicago. I helped by manning the book table, and that is how I met Ayn Rand, and Nathaniel and Barbara Branden. I was only a fan, but it was exciting to meet them. I have studied and lived by Objectivism
    all my life. After 55 years, all her ideas still hold true.

    I'm happy to meet all of you, and I'm sure we will have many rewarding exchanges in the future.
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  • Posted by PURB 8 years, 2 months ago
    I have it and other NBI records of AR talks available. If interested, contact me at Pen Ultimate Rare Books. Michael
    archangels@att.net
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  • Posted by ewv 8 years, 2 months ago in reply to this comment.
    It's not a matter of what is going on today. You wrote, "we have a complete record of almost everything Any Rand thought about, I say almost because with her death she could not think anymore, but while she was alive think she did and commit it to paper so we have it." What does her death have to do with it? How does stopping thinking at death affect how much we have of what she did think about and document?
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  • Posted by CircuitGuy 8 years, 2 months ago in reply to this comment.
    "What you are describing was denounced by Ayn Rand as the "pressure group warfare" that it is."
    That was the point of this lecture.
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  • Posted by jabuttrick 8 years, 2 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I didn't know about the Columbia interviews. Are they available anywhere? Actually, Columbia makes a lot of sense because Rand lived in NYC but refused to fly and didn't drive so her effective geographic range for interviews and speeches was pretty limited.
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  • Posted by wiggys 8 years, 2 months ago in reply to this comment.
    You miss the point, since she is gone she can no longer express her thoughts about what is going on. Yes, a significant amount of her thoughts do most certainly apply to what has gone on since her death. However, unless you know something I don't know once we die we cease to exit.
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  • Posted by ewv 8 years, 2 months ago in reply to this comment.
    She also gave a number of lectures at major universities, which were very popular. In addition to the interviews on major TV networks, she also granted a series of extensive interviews broadcast at Columbia University.
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  • Posted by ewv 8 years, 2 months ago in reply to this comment.
    There is much, much more to this than conservative emphasis on the particulars of the Constitution. The Constitution provides the best structure devised, but it can't save a country from bad philosophy dominating its culture. The issue is fundamental premises and ideas, not run of the mill frailties. That is why Ayn Rand was always analyzing political events philosophically and explaining what it needed.
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  • Posted by ewv 8 years, 2 months ago in reply to this comment.
    In addition to her books, and essays now republished in anthologies, large portions of her journals, letters and marginal notes in books she read have been published in Journals of Ayn Rand, The Passion of Ayn Rand's Critics, Letters of Ayn Rand, and Ayn Rand's Marginalia: Her Critical Comments on the Writings of Over 20 Authors.

    Answers to questions and interviews have been published in Ayn Rand Answers: The Best of Her Q&A, Objectively Speaking: Ayn Rand Interviewed and Ayn Rand: The Playboy Interview -- in addition to numerous recordings of the audio, and sometimes video, of lectures and interviews.

    Her views on communist propaganda in Hollywood, including testimony before
    Congress, have been covered and analyzed in Ayn Rand and Song of Russia: Communism and Anti-Communism in 1940s Hollywood.

    Oral history from recorded interviews are covered in 100 Voices: An Oral History of Ayn Rand and Facets of Ayn Rand: Memoirs by Mary Ann Sures and Charles Sures.

    Private lectures and seminars are covered in The Art of Fiction, The Art of Non-Fiction and Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology.

    A comprehensive list and summaries of books and recordings is at the Ayn Rand Institute web site at https://estore.aynrand.org/ and the Ayn Rand Institute Archives contains a large private collection of original material.

    But what do you mean in saying that someone no longer thinks after death means we know "almost everything Ayn Rand thought about" as opposed to everything?
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  • Posted by jabuttrick 8 years, 2 months ago in reply to this comment.
    It was produced by Nathaniel Branden Institute (NBI). It does not have the Q&A (I do have that on cassette tape though). I believe they sold almost all of the Ford Hall lectures separately over the course of a decade or so before "the split." I have 3 or 4 of them. I also have an NBI LP of Branden reading Galt's speech from AS. Rand made very few public appearances in the 60's and 70's. Ford Hall on an annual basis and intro lectures for NBI in New York and the odd TV appearance (e.g. The Tonight Show).
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  • Posted by LibertyBelle 8 years, 2 months ago
    I read it decades ago. I remember one quote (this
    is from memory, and it may be from the sequel,"The Wreckage of the Consensus"): "Com-
    romise does not satisy, but dissatisfies everybod-
    y..." that a partial victory emboldens the side which pushes injustice, and "the partial victory
    of an unjust claim discourages and paralyzes
    the victim."
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  • Posted by ewv 8 years, 2 months ago in reply to this comment.
    What you are describing was denounced by Ayn Rand as the "pressure group warfare" that it is.
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  • Posted by ewv 8 years, 2 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Ayn Rand discussed this in her non-fiction. I think you have said you haven't read that.
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  • Posted by ewv 8 years, 2 months ago in reply to this comment.
    The "New Fascism: Rule by Consensus", the follow-up "Wreckage of the Consensus" and a few more Ford Hall lectures are in Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal. All or most of the Ford Hall lectures were also published in her periodicals. These are not just transcripts, the lectures were carefully written out in advance.

    ARI was collecting audio recordings from its beginning and made them available on its website long ago, possibly in the 1990s but I don't remember the dates. I don't think the Q&A sessions were always included and don't know if all of those are available now. There was always an enthusiastic Q&A session after the Ford Hall lectures. I have some original tape reels, which I "inherited" from a student organization and did not record myself, of some of the lectures.
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  • Posted by ewv 8 years, 2 months ago in reply to this comment.
    When was the LP produced and who did it? Is it just the one lecture or a collection in a series? Is the Q&A included?
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  • Posted by jabuttrick 8 years, 2 months ago in reply to this comment.
    It would have to expressly incorporate the shutting down of the IRS. By the way, Browne often stated that when he asked this question the most frequent response was: "What favorite government program?"
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  • Posted by CircuitGuy 8 years, 2 months ago in reply to this comment.
    " But what politician today would have the courage to even make such an offer?"
    I wish they would. It would be the beginning of a discussion, no the end. People would immediately think it's a ploy to shut down their favorite program to leave money for someone else's. It would be up to the coalition of politicians who promoted the plan to convince people it's real and won't be perverted into a funding someone else's program.
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  • Posted by 8 years, 2 months ago in reply to this comment.
    :) I was only 3 at the time. But I have enjoyed it several times since my early 20s [edited to remove "audio." I read transcripts until maybe 2015? that's when I discovered I could download]
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