Join us for the first meeting this semester on
Thursday, September 8th
7:30 pm
224 Herring Hall.
Our meeting schedule is out for the semester, check it out. The Undercurrent is organizing live lectures for Capitalism Awareness Week in late september. Stay tuned for more details.
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Hello All,
We shall begin meetings for the Fall semester with an audio lecture by Ayn Rand introducing Objectivism to new members of the Club. The lecture will be followed by a Q & A session. The meeting will be at 125 Herring Hall at 7:30 pm. The audio lectures we shall listen to can be found here.
Our next meeting will be on Sept 23, same time and place. We will watch a lecture on Selfishness by Tara Smith. Watch out for more details!
Hope to see you there!
Rice Objectivism Club
Its that time of the year again! The Rice Objectivism Club will be at the Activities Fair from 12:30 to 4:30 pm on 27th Aug at the Student Center. The club is for students who are interested in Ayn Rand and would like to learn more about her philosophy and how it applies to real life scenarios. You are welcome to stop by and chat with club officers. We will be giving away 100 free Ayn Rand samplers and the Undercurrent newsletter. If you have heard of Ayn Rand and would like to know more, be sure to pick up a copy. We also encourage you to sign up on our mailing list to find out about our weekly meetings and lecture events. If you don’t have copies of The Fountainhead or Atlas Shrugged, we will giving away 10 copies to new members on our mailing list.
Hope to see you there!
Rice Objectivism Club
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It is commonly believed that to be a just person, one who treats others fairly, one must be selfless. Ayn Rand demonstrated that nothing could be further from the truth. She held that justice is a selfish virtue.
In this talk, Dr. Smith, professor of philosophy at the University of Texas and author of Ayn Rand’s Normative Ethics: The Virtuous Egoist, explores Ayn Rand’s unique conception of justice. After explaining why it is in one’s self-interest to be a just person, Dr. Smith explores several related topics, including: the emphatic need to judge other people; how today’s pervasive egalitarianism is completely anti-justice; and when, if ever, forgiveness and mercy are justified.
A fuller understanding of the virtue of justice, Dr. Smith believes, can enable each of us to live more successful, happy lives.
About Tara Smith
Tara Smith is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Texas, where she currently holds the Anthem Foundation Fellowship for the Study of Objectivism. She is the author of Moral Rights & Political Freedom;,Viable Values: A Study of Life as the Root & Reward of Morality (Rowman & Littlefield, 2000); and Ayn Rand’s Normative Ethics: The Virtuous Egoist. Dr. Smith has published articles or lectured on such topics as self-interest, objectivity, individual rights, judicial “activism,” pride, justice, forgiveness, and romantic love. Dr. Smith has also presented seminars on clear thinking to businessmen.
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The Rice Objectivism Club will be at the Activities Fair from 12:30 to 4:30 pm. The club is for students who are interested in Ayn Rand and would like to learn more about her philosophy and how it applies to real life scenarios. You are welcome to stop by and chat with club officers. We will be giving away 100 free Ayn Rand samplers. If you have heard of Ayn Rand and would like to know more, be sure to pick up a copy. We also encourage you to sign up on our mailing list to find out about our weekly meetings and lecture events. If you don’t have copies of The Fountainhead or Atlas Shrugged, we will giving away 10 copies of each to new members on our mailing list.
Hope to see you there!
Rice Objectivism Club
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I am delighted to inform everyone that Yaron Brook will be speaking at Rice University on Tuesday, March 31st, at 7:30 pm in 100 Keck Hall.
Talk Description:
Virtually everyone today regards the financial crisis as a failure of the free market. In this talk, Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights, will argue that in fact it is the un-free market that has failed. It was not capitalism that held interest rates below the rate of inflation,spurring massive amounts of borrowing and a housing boom. It was not capitalism that gave us Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which promoted subprime lending and helped fuel the boom. It was not capitalism that gave us deposit insurance and the “too big to fail” doctrine, which encouraged risky financial practices. These, and many anti-capitalist measures like them, Dr. Brook will argue, laid the groundwork for the financial crisis. The only cure, according to Dr. Brook, is to set the market free. But to do that, Americans must embrace capitalism as a moral system–one that should be defended without guilt.
About Yaron Brook: Yaron Brook is president and executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute. He is a regular contributor to Forbes.com and a contributing editor of The Objective Standard. He received his MBA and Ph.D. in Finance at UT-Austin and has been published in academic as well as popular publications, and his opinion-editorials appear in major newspapers. He is frequently interviewed on national TV and radio. Dr. Brook lectures on Objectivism, business ethics and foreign policy at college campuses, community groups and corporations across America and throughout the world.
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Hello All,
Craig Biddle is the editor of The Objective Standard and the author of Loving Life: The Morality of Self Interest and the Facts that Support It. He will be presenting the talk on Capitalism on
October 23, Thursday
100 Herring Hall
7:30 pm
Summary
Capitalism is widely recognized as the practical social system because, wherever and to the extent that it is implemented, it leads to wealth and prosperity. But this same system is widely regarded as immoral because it enables people to act fully in their own self-interest—that is, to act on their own judgment and to keep, use, and dispose of the product of their own effort. More recently, many politicians and commentators would have you believe that capitalism is neither practical nor moral in light of the recent financial crisis. In fact, it is a return to capitalism that will lead to a healthy economy and prosperity. This talk demonstrates why, far from making capitalism immoral, the fact that it enables everyone to act selfishly and own property is what makes it not only the most practical but also the only moral social system ever devised.
See you all there!
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The Rice Objectivism Club is sponsoring yet another speaker this semester! We figure who better to challenge the status quo and to present a rational, this-worldly approach to common philosophical, social, and political issues.This time around, we’re going to challenge the environmentalists! You’ve seen the dire predictions about global warming; you’ve been warned about the evils of fossil fuels; you’ve been encouraged to “go green.” But does any of this make sense? Are these predictions and warnings based upon scientific fact? More importantly, will “going green” actually make your life better or worse?
Our speaker Richard Salsman, an Ayn Rand scholar and economist, will address these issues and more in his talk Capitalism and Environmentalism: The Virtues of Exploitation, taking place next Tues., March 25th, at 7:30 p.m. in 212 Herzstein Hall. Take time out of your studies to get an entirely new perspective on environmentalism, a viewpoint that you probably won’t hear in class.
Summary
Man achieves his survival by using his mind to alter his environment to suit his needs and improve the conditions of his existence. It is this process — expressed in science, technology, and capitalism — that has allowed man to rise from the hunger, drudgery, and misery of primitive existence to the comfort of modern civilization. But it is precisely this process that is under attack by the reactionary “greens” — who want to return man to the pre-industrial era or even to the Stone Age.
In this talk, Mr. Salsman does not merely discredit the scientific claims of environmentalism; he demolishes its moral and philosophical base. He demonstrates that: (1) the doctrine that nature has “intrinsic value,” i.e., some sort of mystical value entirely apart from its relation to man, is nothing but the desire to destroy human values, (2) the improvement of the environment — for man — can be provided for only by laissez-faire capitalism, and (3) that it is the environmentalist movement itself that is today’s greatest danger to human health and happiness.
About Richard Salsman
Richard M. Salsman is president and chief market strategist of InterMarket Forecasting, which provides quantitative research and forecasts of stocks, bonds, and currencies to guide the asset allocation decisions of institutional investment managers, mutual funds, and pension plans. He is the author of numerous books and articles on economics, banking, and forecasting from a free-market perspective, including Breaking the Banks: Central Banking Problems and Free Banking Solutions (American Institute for Economic Research, 1990) and Gold and Liberty (American Institute for Economic Research, 1995). Mr. Salsman’s work has appeared in The Intellectual Activist, the New York Times, Investor’s Business Daily, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, The Economist and Barron’s. From 1993 to 1999, he was a senior vice president and senior economist at H. C. Wainwright & Co. Economics. Prior to that he was a banker at Citibank and the Bank of New York. Mr. Salsman is an adjunct fellow at the American Institute for Economic Research.
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Hello All,
Dr. Bernstein is a well known scholar on Objectivism and will be presenting a talk on Religion Vs. Morality
Religion is winning the culture wars because it seems to answer the common misconception that morality is relative and, as such offers us no guidance for living our lives. But religion quite literally gives us no earthly reason to accept its code of morality. Do our options in ethics really boil down to no guidance at all vs. pie in the sky? Or can we discover an absolute morality for living on this earth by means of reason?
In his upcoming lecture, “Religion vs. Morality”, Andrew Bernstein argues that we can, through reason, discover the proper code of morality, and that it offers us practical guidance for living our lives. The talk will be at 7:30 pm at 309 Sewall Hall on Feb 7th, this Thursday.
Summary
Conventionally, most people believe that morality can only be based in religious faith that in a world without God no principles of right and wrong could exist. Related to this, philosophers have long held that no objective, fact-based, rational code of values is possible. Regarding both points, this talk shows that the exact opposite is true. The purpose of morality is to guide human life on earth and religion is utterly incapable of it. Flourishing life requires a code of secularism, rationality, egoism and freedom. Religious faith clashes with every principle of a proper moral code, and, as such, has led, and can only lead to, hell on earth.
About Andrew Bernstein
Dr. Bernstein is a Visiting Professor of Philosophy at Marist College; he also teaches at SUNY Purchase (which selected him Outstanding Teacher for 2004) and formerly at Pace University, and Marymount College (which selected him Outstanding Teacher for 1995). Dr. Bernstein lectures regularly at American universities and appears frequently on the radio talk shows. His op-eds have been published in such newspapers as The San Francisco Chronicle, The Chicago Tribune, The Baltimore Sun, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Washington Times, The Los Angeles Daily News, and The Houston Chronicle. Dr. Bernstein is the author of three Ayn Rand titles for CliffsNotes: Atlas Shrugged, The Fountainhead, and Anthem. He also authored Penguin’s Teacher’s Guide to The Fountainhead, and The Capitalist Manifesto: The Historic, Economic and Philosophic Case for Laissez-Faire.
See you there !
Rice Objectivism Club.
Hello All,
The Rice Objectivism Club (ROC) is sponsoring its first event this semester on Thursday, Jan. 24th, at 7:30 p.m. in Fondren Library, Room 412. We are showing the video Introduction to Objectivism by Leonard Peikoff, a philosophy professor and associate of Ayn Rand’s for over thirty years. This video is a great introduction to the ideas Rand presents in her novels Anthem, The Fountainhead, and Atlas Shrugged.
Why come to this event? It will give you a chance to meet other people who admire Ayn Rand’s novels and want to learn more about her ideas. We also plan on having our first speaker event on Feb 7th. Dr. Andrew Bernstein will be giving a talk on Religion Vs. Morality. If you are unfamiliar with Ayn Rand’s philosophy, this video lecture will set the background for the upcoming speaker event as well as future events of the club. You can also find out about the college essay contest for Atlas Shrugged (with a $10,000 first prize with a deadline in Sept.) and get a coupon for a FREE copy of Atlas Shrugged. Watching this video may also help you in formulating your ideas for the essay contest. Plus, this gives you a chance to get involved at Rice outside of your classes.
I hope to see you at our first meeting. Please e-mail me should you have any further questions at rice.objectivism@hotmail.com
President,
Rice Objectivism Club