A day late on getting this posted due to, well, illness, work and snow. Its funny how getting sick when there is a ton of snow can really mess with your schedule.
Philosophy in Action – Usually Dr. Diana Hsieh and Greg Perkins give really in-depth answers to questions but from time to time they do a “Rapid Fire Extravaganza” which is what they did this week. Rather than just answering
Excellent talk given by Yaron Brook on free speech,”an issue that goes to the core of what Western Civilization is about.” During this talk Dr. Brook discusses why free speech is fundamental to what separates Western culture, meaning that culture which originated in, but is not limited to, Western Europe during the Enlightenment, from what existed previously and still exists in some parts of the world. As he puts it in the talk, “The protection of speech is the protection of
Three weeks in a row being able to find time to listen to these podcasts. I find them very helpful in thinking about how the principles of Objectivism can be applied to everyday situations ranging, as seen this week, between sex and office parties.
Peikoff.com Episode 357 – This week Dr. Peikoff posted a 30 minute segment from a talk he gave about 30 years ago in which he answered questions dealing with sex and relationships. In this segment he answers questions about:
You can get the
(h/t Yaron Brook for sharing this video via Twitter)
In the fascinating video, journalist Leslie T. Chang talks about some of what she learned spending two years in one of China’s booming mega-cities. In this brief, less than 15 minutes, video she disposes of the idea that we in the West are somehow “exploiting” these workers and explains that they take what we would consider low paying jobs because they are better than their alternatives and give them a chance at a better life.
photo from www.ecuadortimes.net
The Washington Post’s Matt O’Brien has a great article about the current situation in Venezuela. Early on he relates what can be described in philosophy as the primacy of consciousness, the idea that what you think is of greater importance than what is actually out there in reality.
It shouldn’t be this way. Venezuela, after all, has the largest
There was another great batch of podcasts this week that are well worth listening to. This week’s podcasts cover topics from marriage without love, to advice for Japan (any country actually) to help solve economic problems, to what the new Republican congress should do first and why.
Well, two weeks in a row that I have been able to listen to what had been my regular podcasts. That is a good start for the new year that hopefully I can maintain. Lots of great things to listen to this week covering topics from historical novels, free speech, how we think to plays as great literature and more.
Dr. Leonard Peikoff answers questions on:
Dr. Diana Hsieh and Greg Perkins answer questions applying rational principles to problems of everyday life. While they have not posted the
A panel discussion by Dr. Yaron Brook, Executive Director of the Ayn Rand Institute and Dr. Daniel Pipes, Director of Middle East Forum, on free speech from 2006, about a year after cartoons critical of Islam were published in Denmark and riots protesting them broke out across the Muslim world.
Dr. Pipes makes the point that this was not really about the cartoons, but the more fundamental question of whether the West will accept some form or aspect of Sharia law. The cartoons were just the
Some great questions answered in this week’s editions of the podcasts I try to listen to. I am glad that I am finally able to set aside the time to listen to them again. I find it helps me keep my mind moving along the right track in my own thinking.
In this presentation from 2006, Dr. Onkar Ghate presents a fascinating discussion on the relationship between religion and morality. He makes the case that the rise in religion is the result in the remnants of the American sense of life seeking some code of absolute moral values in the absence of such values in the secular culture. As Dr. Ghate says:
It [religion] is in large measure a quest by individuals who have been abandoned in a moral desert and think they see in religion an oasis.
Onkar