New Ideal, from the Ayn Rand Institute Ayn Rand Institute

In the last week in cities across the West, and especially university campuses, have been flooded with anti-Israel, even pro-Hamas protesters who have sought to grind urban life to a halt, and in some cases have threatened and harassed Jewish citizens and students. What is the moral significance of these protests, and what irrational thinking leads people to support them? Join Onkar Ghate and Ben Bayer to analyze the philosophical issues at stake in this developing issue.

https://youtu.be/FjsC7I-Qa4A









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In this episode of New Ideal Live, Mike Mazza and Aaron Smith discuss Mazza’s recently published article about why academic philosophers tend to get Rand’s ideas wrong so frequently and the parochialism involved in many of their critiques.







Among the topics covered:









* What Mazza aimed to explain in this article;







* Why responding to academic critics is important;







* What it means for philosophers to engage in parochialism;







* How the methods of academic philosophers are poorly suited to understanding Rand;







* The inductive structure of Rand’s arguments;







* The multiple factors behind philosophers’ dismissal of Rand’s ideas;







* Why the parochialism issue is particularly important to identify;







* Why historians of philosophy tend not to make the mistake of parochialism;







* How even Objectivists can be parochial and what they should do to avoid it.









Mentioned in this podcast are the New Ideal articles “Why Can’t Professional Philosophers Get Rand Right?” by Mazza and “Why Massimo Pigliucci Gets Ayn Rand Wrong” by Smith, plus the book A Companion to Ayn Rand edited by Allan Gotthelf and Gregory Salmieri (specifically Chapter 1, “An Introduction to the Study of Ayn Rand”). The podcast was recorded on April 18, 2024. Listen and subscribe from your mobile device on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify or Stitcher. Watch archived podcasts here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5Lm2YpZvyI









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In this episode of New Ideal Live, Elan Journo offers initial commentary on Iran’s April 13 attack on Israel.







Among the topics covered:









* How Iran’s attack on Israel is a consequence of its Islamic and imperial nature;







* How America’s failure to recognise and confront Iran’s nature emboldens it;







* Why America and Israel are morally justified in replacing Iran’s evil regime.









Mentioned in this podcast are Elan Journo’s book What Justice Demands: America and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Onkar Ghate and Elan Journo’s edited collection of essays Failing to Confront Islamic Totalitarianism: from George W. Bush to Barrack Obama and Beyond, and Leonard Peikoff’s article “’End States Who Sponsor Terrorism’.”







The podcast was recorded on April 13, 2024. Listen and subscribe from your mobile device on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify or Stitcher. Watch archived podcasts here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XeuU6AbIDOo









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In this episode of New Ideal Live, Onkar Ghate and Elan Journo give a preview of ARI’s 2024 presidential election coverage and comment on some of the major political issues at stake in the election.







Among the topics covered:









* How ARI uses Objectivism to analyze elections and the wider political culture;







* What the Trump phenomenon says about the state of our political culture;







* The unprincipled nature of the political responses to recent domestic and foreign crises;







* Symptoms of growing political tribalism, such as people’s increasing willingness to protest;







* How bipartisan attacks on tech companies reveal a deeper turn against producers.









Mentioned in this podcast is Onkar Ghate’s New Ideal article “One Small Step for Dictatorship."







The podcast was recorded on April 11, 2024. Listen and subscribe from your mobile device on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify or Stitcher. Watch archived podcasts here.

https://youtu.be/UmxjJI50gss









Podcast audio:















In this episode of New Ideal Live, Onkar Ghate and Elan Journo analyze Argentinian President Javier Milei’s interview at AynRandCon in Buenos Aires.







Among the topics covered:









* How the event fell short of ARI’s goal of illuminating points of agreement and disagreement with Milei;







* How to evaluate Milei as a President, considering his strange statements about abortion and mysticism;







* The contradiction between Milei’s ostensible rejection of collectivism and his administration's position on a military draft;







* How Milei’s motivation for anarchism is easier to excuse than that of other libertarians;







* Milei’s troubling rhetoric targeting journalists and dismissal of criticism;







* What is right and wrong about Milei’s defense of producers;







* Ayn Rand’s possible influence on Milei’s thinking about the nihilistic motivation of socialism.









The podcast was recorded on April 8, 2024. Listen and subscribe from your mobile device on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify or Stitcher. Watch archived podcasts here.







Note: The original version of this podcast (which still appears on some platforms) relayed statements of facts about some of Milei's personal beliefs and positions that were not born out by the facts. These have been cut from the YouTube version. We regret the error. Also, Milei's position on the draft is not necessarily the same as that discussed by his ministers.

https://youtu.be/Xh0xF5hACkw









Podcast audio:















In this episode of New Ideal Live, Sam Weaver and Nikos Sotirakopoulos discuss the recent California ethnic studies mandate. They evaluate the ideological nature of the curriculum and its assault on knowledge, the philosophical ideas that made it possible, and why it must be opposed intellectually.







Among the topics covered:









* How ethnic studies emerged from an activist assault on the idea of objective truth;







* Evidence that the proposed curriculum is non-objective;







* How lessons on "narratives" encourage prejudice among students;







* The egalitarian roots of the curriculum and its elevation of the primitive over science;







* Why the government monopoly on education causes violations of intellectual freedom.









Recommended in this podcast are Ayn Rand’s essays “Global Balkanization,” “The Age of Envy,” and “Fairness Doctrine for Education,” as well as the previous podcast episode “Political Battles Over Education.”







The podcast was recorded on April 4, 2024. Listen and subscribe from your mobile device on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify or Stitcher. Watch archived podcasts here.