The Ayn Rand Institute Podcast

In this episode of New Ideal Live, Elan Journo and Nikos Sotirakopoulos discuss President Biden’s decision to visit Saudi Arabia and meet with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in spite of Biden’s condemnation of the regime following the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. The conversation analyzes America’s relationship with Saudi Arabia and the philosophic ideas behind U.S. policy in the region. Among the topics covered: What we can learn from recent events about the nature of the Saudi regime;Whether the U.S. and Saudi Arabia can have “common interests” given the regime’s character and actions;The failure of American policymakers to take seriously the facts about Saudi Arabia and to adopt a principled stand;Why the oil shortage does not justify pursuing closer relations with Saudi Arabia;Why we should not ally with Saudi Arabia as a means of opposing Iran;The mentality behind calls to appease and ally with Saudi Arabia;Why the failure to deal properly with Saudi Arabia is ultimately a moral and intellectual failure. Mentioned in this podcast are the expanded edition of the book Failing to Confront Islamic Totalitarianism, edited by Journo and Onkar Ghate; the Ayn Rand Lexicon entry on “Foreign Policy”; and Journo’s latest book, What Justice Demands. The podcast was recorded on July 13, 2022. Listen to the discussion below. Listen and subscribe from your mobile device on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify or Stitcher. Watch archived podcasts here. https://youtu.be/QRuVPPTASyo Podcast audio:

In this episode of New Ideal Live, broadcast live from OCON 2022, Onkar Ghate, Gregory Salmieri, Tara Smith and Yaron Brook discuss the tumultuous events of the last few years and how we should evaluate the state of American political culture in light of them. Among the topics covered: The irrationality and tribalism of most Americans’ responses to Covid-19;The increasing popularity of conspiratorial thinking;How 9/11 and subsequent wars contributed to Americans’ loss of trust in institutions;The disappearance of discussion about economic policy from American political culture;The transformation of the Tea Party into the modern Republican base;The fact that America still attracts entrepreneurial people from around the world;Why the “woke” pressure to treat many points of view as off-limits is harmful, and why it might be declining;Whether some basic qualifications should be required for holding political office;Education as an avenue for Objectivists to promote positive cultural change;The absence of positive values in American culture today;How to respond to the social pressure of “woke” culture. Mentioned in this podcast is Ayn Rand’s essay “Selfishness Without a Self” from her book Philosophy: Who Needs It. The podcast was recorded on July 6, 2022. Listen to the discussion below. Listen and subscribe from your mobile device on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify or Stitcher. Watch archived podcasts here. https://youtu.be/feOZ_egPw_8 Podcast audio:

In this episode of New Ideal Live, Onkar Ghate, Ben Bayer and Yaron Brook discuss the Supreme Court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturns Roe v. Wade and allows for immediate state-level bans on abortion. They cover the philosophic ideas that led to the decision, why defenses of abortion rights failed and the options now available for defenders of abortion rights. Among the topics covered: How the majority opinion empties the right to liberty of its content;Justice Clarence Thomas’s opposition to substantive due process;Why the Ninth Amendment has not been used in Supreme Court rulings on abortion;The incrementalism behind Chief Justice John Roberts’s concurrence;Why Roe v. Wade was a good decision despite its imperfect reasoning;The dissent’s defense of individual liberty against majority will;The dissent’s forceful protest against the unprincipled, anti-individualist majority opinion;Why the dissent is right that the majority is inconsistent with its own reasoning in claiming that abortion is different from other rights;Questions about whether the court typically tailors its reasoning to fit a predecided outcome;The problem with the viability standard and the idea of balancing rights with a “state interest” in the fetus;How the dissent undermines its own case by citing Lochner v. New York as a case that was rightly overturned;How the morality of self-sacrifice contributed to the Dobbs ruling and the dissent’s failure to cite the right to the pursuit of happiness;Why the widespread acceptance of collectivist premises have contributed to the abridgement of abortion rights;Why the concept of “states’ rights” is an expression of collectivism;How the fight over abortion rights will continue at the state and federal level. Mentioned in this podcast are the New Ideal Live episodes “Roe v Wade on the Brink” and “The Supreme Court Abortion Leak vs. the Rule of Law,” Bayer’s book Why the Right to Abortion Is Sacrosanct, and Rand’s lecture “Censorship: Local and Express,” also published in her book Philosophy: Who Needs It. The podcast was recorded on June 29, 2022. Listen to the discussion below. Listen and subscribe from your mobile device on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify or Stitcher. Watch archived podcasts here. https://youtu.be/jLMf6f1kJfU Podcast audio:

In this episode of New Ideal Live, Ben Bayer, Agustina Vergara Cid and Don Watkins discuss their initial reactions to the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, which overturns Roe v. Wade and lays the groundwork for states to restrict or ban abortion. They outline what ARI has done and plans to do to promote Ayn Rand’s defense of abortion rights. Among the topics covered: Why ARI has been a vocal defender of abortion rights; [0:28]The panelists’ initial reactions to the Dobbs v. Jackson decision; [1:59]Responses to Vergara Cid’s recent column defending abortion; [9:31]Why Roe v. Wade and the political Left have failed to defend abortion rights; [12:17]What ARI has done recently and plans to do to advance the case for abortion rights; [16:57]The importance of keeping in mind the lives of actual women when thinking about abortion. [23:22] Mentioned in this podcast are Bayer’s book Why the Right to Abortion Is Sacrosanct and Vergara Cid’s column “The Pursuit of Happiness Includes the Right to Abortion.” The podcast was recorded on June 24, 2022. Listen to the discussion below. Listen and subscribe from your mobile device on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify or Stitcher. Watch archived podcasts here. https://youtu.be/y01zuqcDHUU Podcast audio:

In this episode of New Ideal Live, Onkar Ghate and Ben Bayer discuss Ayn Rand’s provocative view of the meaning and importance of moral judgment as articulated in her fiction and in her nonfiction philosophic work. This discussion assumes familiarity with Ayn Rand’s novel Atlas Shrugged, and listeners should note that it includes plot spoilers. Among the topics covered: Why Ayn Rand thought the slogan “judge not, lest ye be judged” is radically wrong;Why moral judgment is necessary for living life;The importance of moral judgment in Rand’s novels;The need for moral judgment in foreign policy;How to be rational when making moral judgments;Cases in which one lacks sufficient information to reach a final judgment;Rand’s view that a person’s ideas are subject to moral judgment;Whether someone can innocently adopt evil ideas;What to do after reaching a negative moral evaluation of one’s own actions;The difference between Objectivist and intrinsicist views of moral judgments;Judging people whose moral character has changed over time. Mentioned in this podcast are Rand’s novel Atlas Shrugged, her essays “How Does One Lead a Rational Life in an Irrational Society?” “The Psychology of Psychologizing” and “The Cult of Moral Grayness,” Leonard Peikoff’s essay “Fact and Value” and his course “Judging, Feeling and Not Being Moralistic.” The podcast was recorded on June 22, 2022. Listen to the discussion below. Listen and subscribe from your mobile device on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify or Stitcher. Watch archived podcasts here. https://youtu.be/JdvsrFwuDQI Podcast audio:

Tribalism is resurging, most obviously in politics. But it is also rampant on college campuses. Tribalism has moved from the fringes of society to the mainstream. We live in what’s becoming a tribal age. But even today’s most clear-eyed critics of tribal loyalties leave us with a muddled conception of tribalism, normalizing the phenomenon, pushing it further into the cultural mainstream. In this essay Elan Journo argues that we have much to gain from Ayn Rand’s philosophic analysis of tribalism. Rand not only penetrates to the essence of the phenomenon of tribalism, she lays out clearly a positive alternative, the ideal of individualism, which is the antidote to tribalism. This essay was originally published in New Ideal on May 29, 2019. Podcast audio:

In this episode of New Ideal Live, Elan Journo and Onkar Ghate discuss the public hearings of the House committee investigating the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. They analyze the philosophic significance of the attack, the investigation into it, and the cultural reactions. Among the topics covered: The significance of the January 6 terrorist attack;How to evaluate the objectivity of the hearings, given their highly produced character and the partisan makeup of the committee;Evidence that January 6 was a serious attack and should not be downplayed;The significance of the fact that many in the White House knew there was no evidence of election fraud;Whether tribalism will prevent people’s minds from being changed about the attack;Evaluating Donald Trump’s inaction and Mike Pence’s leadership during the attack;The role of arbitrary claims in the lead-up to and aftermath of January 6;Conservative attempts to downplay the attack and characterize the hearings as a “show trial;”What Trump’s continued influence over the Republican Party says about our cultureWhy Trump and his supporters believe they can get away with lying;Why the January 6 attack was not an attempted coup-d’état;The role of military coups in the creation of banana republic dictatorships. Mentioned in this podcast are Trump’s statement delivered on January 6, the recording of Trump’s phone call with Georgia election officials, Rep. Nancy Mace’s video in front of Trump Tower, the New Ideal Live episode “The Storming of the Capitol,” and Ghate’s articles “Why Ayn Rand Would Have Despised a President Trump” and “One Small Step for Dictatorship.” The podcast was recorded on June 15, 2022. Listen to the discussion below. Listen and subscribe from your mobile device on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify or Stitcher. Watch archived podcasts here. https://www.youtube.com/embed/BAn692ODItc Podcast audio:

In this episode of New Ideal Live, Onkar Ghate, Dan Schwartz and Ben Bayer discuss British philosopher Kathleen Stock’s book Material Girls, in which Stock bravely challenges “gender identity theory,” the influential idea that gender is determined entirely by private feelings. Among the topics covered: The controversy over Stock’s opposition to gender self-identification laws in the UK;The case that an orthodoxy has formed around “gender identity theory;”The value of Stock’s book for different audiences;Stock’s argument that biological sex is real and essentially binary despite borderline cases;Why we need a concept of biological sex;Stock’s critique of the idea that gender identity is a psychological state;Stock’s model of gender identity as a psychological assessment of one’s own sex in relation to that of others;Stock’s view that the ability to change biological sex is a fiction many are immersed in;Similarities between Stock’s view of concepts and Ayn Rand’s;The role of secondhandedness and authoritarianism in the acceptance of “gender identity theory.” Mentioned in this podcast are Stock’s book Material Girls and Rand’s book Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, especially chapter 7, “The Cognitive Role of Concepts.” The podcast was recorded on June 8, 2022. Listen to the discussion below. Listen and subscribe from your mobile device on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify or Stitcher. Watch archived podcasts here. https://www.youtube.com/embed/fbIqLa3I5Ao Podcast audio:

In this episode of New Ideal Live, Keith Lockitch and Nikos Sotirakopoulos discuss Fossil Future, a powerful new book on energy and climate change written by former Ayn Rand Institute fellow Alex Epstein. The book argues that to achieve a better world, we need to expand our use of fossil fuel energy, not decrease it. Among the topics covered: Fossil Future in relation to other recent books challenging climate alarmism;Epstein’s account of the widespread ignorance of the benefits of fossil fuels;Epstein’s concept of a knowledge system by which expert knowledge is reached and disseminated (often inaccurately) to the public;How problems in our knowledge system are caused by the acceptance of an “anti-impact” moral standard;The human flourishing framework Epstein endorses as a positive alternative;Objectivism’s influence on Epstein’s perspective on energy and climate;The persuasive power of explicitly naming the moral ideas involved in a debate. Mentioned in this podcast are Epstein’s book Fossil Future, Gregory Salmieri’s lecture “How to Be an Objective Consumer of Science,” Ayn Rand’s essay “The Anatomy of Compromise” from Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, Lockitch’s review of Fossil Future, and other articles by Lockitch. The podcast was recorded on June 1, 2022. Listen to the discussion below. Listen and subscribe from your mobile device on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify or Stitcher. Watch archived podcasts here. https://www.youtube.com/embed/fxzNw2lE6f8 Podcast audio:

In this episode of New Ideal Live, Onkar Ghate and Mike Mazza discuss academic philosophers’ dismissals of Ayn Rand’s philosophy, and some of the reasons why academic philosophers often fail to live up to the profession’s scholarly standards when addressing Rand’s ideas. Among the topics covered: The provincial view of philosophy that leads Sidney Hook to dismiss Rand as unsophisticated in his review of her book For the New Intellectual;How Robert Nozick goes wrong in his article “On the Randian Argument” by approaching Rand’s inductive arguments as if they were deductive;James Rachels’s claim, in his widely-used textbook The Elements of Moral Philosophy, that Rand’s argument for egoism is based on a false alternative;Why the ability to understand other philosophers’ fundamentals and enter into their worldview is essential to being a genuine philosopher;Reasons why academic philosophers are extremely dismissive of Rand;Whether it’s valid to classify egoistic theories into categories such as “rational,” “parasitic,” “predatory,” etc.;Ghate’s and Mazza’s experiences with both philosophic and non-philosophic people in academic philosophy. Mentioned in this podcast are Gregory Salmieri’s essay “An Introduction to the Study of Ayn Rand” from A Companion to Ayn Rand, edited by Salmieri and Allan Gotthelf; Harry Binswanger’s 1977 letter to Nozick; and two essays from the book Foundations of a Free Society, edited by Salmieri and Robert Mayhew: “Ayn Rand’s Theory of Rights” by Fred D. Miller and Adam Mossoff and “Rand (contra Nozick) on Individual Rights and the Emergence and Justification of Government” by Ghate. The podcast was recorded on May 25, 2022. Listen to the discussion below. Listen and subscribe from your mobile device on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify or Stitcher. Watch archived podcasts here. https://www.youtube.com/embed/fOBVOzRPLtA Podcast audio: