Atlas Shrugged and Rational Egoism

I’m excited to announce that the Students of Objectivism will be hosting Craig Biddle on Nov. 2 at 7pm in Angell Hall Auditorium C for a lecture on Atlas Shrugged and Rational Egoism. Hope y’all can make it!

Andrew Bernstein Event

I have a terribly, terribly exciting announcement. We’re having a lecture event! And it is next Tuesday! That’s right, Tuesday, October 5 we’ll be hosting Dr. Andrew Bernstein for his lecture on “Global Capitalism.” The lecture will take place at 7:30pm in Angell Hall Auditorium B. Maps to the event are located here: http://tiny.cc/q951m and http://tiny.cc/64iba

Welcome Back!

Welcome back students of Objectivism! It’s the start of a new academic year, and we hope to see you at some of our meetings and events. Our first event is Festifall tomorrow (September 8) from 10am to 4pm. Come join us on the Diag to promote the club! The first meeting, which is a mass meeting, will be taking place Monday September 13 at 7pm in Room C on the 3rd floor of the Michigan League. Our regular meetings this semester will also be on Monday nights at 7pm, but they will take place in the same location as last year, Boardroom 1 on the 6th floor of Palmer Commons. Hope to see everyone soon!

Meeting tonight!

There is a meeting tonight at 7:00pm in boardroom 1 on the 6th floor of Palmer Commons. We’ll be discussing Rand’s Collectivized Rights. The full text is available online here: http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=ari_ayn_rand_collectivized_rights

See you there!

Edison Hour Tonight!

Remember to turn on your lights from 8:30 to 9:30 tonight in celebration of technology and progress. Also, check out this piece that Adam wrote for the Michigan Daily. Join our facebook event!

UPDATE: We made National Geographic! Read the article here. (We’re near the bottom.)

The Law Quad: A Probelematic Relationship with Progress

Article by Kat Koehl, originally posted March 16, 2010 on the LEAD magazine website.

The cheating of progress is readily visible to anyone who wanders through the Law Quad. Yes, I admit the Gothic architecture is picturesque. Yet the functions that the signature features were designed to serve had no practical purpose for buildings erected in the 1920’s. Pointed arches, ribbed vaults, and flying buttresses were invented for cathedrals. They allowed architects of the Middle Ages to stretch the limits of how tall a building could be; at the time it was an engineering marvel.

Yet in the twentieth century this was technology long since surpassed. We had new materials and methods capable of erecting skyscrapers, structures that exceeded anything those architects of the Middle Ages could have imagined. The Law Quad is beautiful, but that does not except it from being a testimony to the ignorance of innovation. Instead it is the Business School that is critiqued for actually suiting the time period it was erected in. This is not a matter of esthetic taste; it is symbolic of mankind’s problematic relationship with progress.

History is our security blanket. We are comfortable with what has already been tested and proven. It is easier to let others take the risks and profit from their success (or failure) secondhand. If everyone adheres to this malicious practice, society will eventually cease to exist. We cannot survive if we refuse to evolve. And evolution requires a break from imposed norms that serve only to suppress creativity. We are told to promote the end of the status quo. Yet in our attempts to move forward, we cling to the tenets of the past.

The past does have knowledge to impart upon us. It also imposes restrictions upon our actions. One may think that paying homage to the past is doing good for the present and making glory for the future. Those who mimic the achievements of others are not catalysts. Nothing new can come from the repeated use of the same form. Stagnation is the only good such people produce. Using the products of the past does not further progress; it can only regress humanity back to where we came from.

Dr. Brook’s lecture event

Here are some videos of Dr. Brook’s Q/A segment from his lecture event at the University of Michigan. Cool!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1iGYOEbKlw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIvyh1X9TEg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsi_3EvS6Jc

No Meeting This Week

There will be no meeting on March 4 because of the undergraduate spring break. See you all on March 11, where we will be discussing Man’s Rights from the reader.

Meeting Feb. 25

Just a reminder for everyone, we will be discussing the second part of the essay “Of Living Death” this Thursday.  The essay is in The Ayn Rand Reader or you can listen to it here.  Also, there will be pie if you can convince Adam to give me my baking pan back. Hope to see you there!

Feb. 18 Meeting

Due to the circumstances of the last meeting, we have shifted our discussion of the first part of the essay Of Living Death to this week.  See you all at the meeting!