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Ari Needs To Raise $52,000

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From their letter:

...

I'm excited to report that we are nearing the day when Ayn Rand's books are widely taught in schools--thanks to an enormously successful ARI program.

...

ARI began offering free classroom sets of the novels to teachers and we are now inundated with requests for books.  Thanks to the generosity of ARI donors, we have so far been able to place more than 50,000 copies of Ayn Rand's novels in schools across America--in classrooms of teachers who planned to assign the books to their students.

...

In order to fulfill the overwhelming requests for books, we must campaign to raise $52,000 over the next two months.  We need your help to ensure that every teacher who requests a set of books receives them in time to assign them to their students durring this school year.  A contribution of $50 or more towards this campaign will raise the necessary funds to provide all of the books requested.

...

This seems like a good oppurtunity to catalyze some change in this country. To donate, go here.

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I want to encourage others on this forum to donate specifically to this project. I consider it to be the most crucial aspect of the effort to spread Objectivism to future generations (with the possible exception of the essay contests).

The best salesman for Objectivism is the author herself. Putting copies of her books in as many hands as possible (especially the hands of eager young minds) is the best way to reach potential Objectivists. At the very least, future Hank Reardens will be aware of Ayn Rand's defense of them.

While training new Objectivists to be teachers and professors is sorely needed, a broader cultural awareness of Objectivism is needed to provide a society receptive to Ayn Rand's arguments and consequently turning the culture around. By analogy, while an army needs well-trained generals, it needs far more enlisted soldiers in order to succeed.

So if you are disgusted by the prospects of the upcoming election, take a moment to realize that Kerry and Bush come from the contemporary American culture, and that we must change the culture if we are to hope to have more admirable candidates in the future. To change the culture, we need to present the public with better ideas. This project will place those ideas in the hands of as many high school students as possible.

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I want to encourage others on this forum to donate specifically to this project.  I consider it to be the most crucial aspect of the effort to spread Objectivism to future generations (with the possible exception of the essay contests).

Betsy Speicher had a great suggestion with regard to the political campaigns -- whenever you feel the urge to send money to a political candidate, send it to ARI instead. Made sense to me, so I did.

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The best salesman for Objectivism is the author herself.  Putting copies of her books in as many hands as possible (especially the hands of eager young minds) is the best way to reach potential Objectivists.

While training new Objectivists to be teachers and professors is sorely needed, a broader cultural awareness of Objectivism is needed to provide a society receptive to Ayn Rand's arguments and consequently turning the culture around.  By analogy, while an army needs well-trained generals, it needs far more enlisted soldiers in order to succeed.

Consider a three-pronged attack:

1. Flood the culture with Ayn Rand's books.

2. Quietly take over the universities.

3. Infiltrate the Republican Party while we're at it.

:yarr:

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Consider a three-pronged attack:

1. Flood the culture with Ayn Rand's books.

2. Quietly take over the universities.

3. Infiltrate the Republican Party while we're at it. 

:)

3. Infiltrate all the significant parties while we're at it, so that we can set the terms of the debate from both sides in the future. ;)

(Well, once we've gained more of a cultural basis using prongs one and two, why not?)

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3. Infiltrate all the significant parties while we're at it, so that we can set the terms of the debate from both sides in the future. :)

(Well, once we've gained more of a cultural basis using prongs one and two, why not?)

I think the Democratic Party would be VERY hard to infiltrate. The left is based on nihilism and subjectivism and this will make it difficult to get a foothold. I see them as almost a lost cause.

Still, it wouldn't hurt to try.

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I think the Democratic Party would be VERY hard to infiltrate. The left is based on nihilism and subjectivism and this will make it difficult to get a foothold. I see them as almost a lost cause.

The left may be based on nihilism and subjectivism, but most individual leftists are not hardcore nihilists or subjectivists. The vast majority of them have genuine values. That gives us an opportunity to get our foot in the door. Granted, it may be more difficult than doing the same with the Republican party, but it would be doing the same. Because it's directly analogous to how the Republican Party is based on blind faith in a higher power--another form of irrationalism to which we could not appeal directly--and yet most individual Republicans are not hardcore intrinsicists, and acknowledge, for example, that murder is wrong because of its real consequences and not just because God decreed it in the Bible.

Still, it wouldn't hurt to try.

Exactly. :yarr:

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  • 4 weeks later...
  • 1 month later...
I was thinking about evengelists going to other countries to spread their "gospel" and suddenly I had an idea that ARI should one day try to spread the ideas of Rand in countries like Iran and China.

Do you mean instead of in the U. S. and other most-Westernized countries, or do you mean in addition to them?

What criteria would you suggest for deciding which countries to select as targets, given ARI's extremely limited resources?

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I was thinking about evengelists going to other countries to spread their "gospel" and suddenly I had an idea that ARI should one day try to spread the ideas of Rand in countries like Iran and China.

From the November 2004 Cybernet --

You'll know Objectivism is winning when ...

... Ayn Rand invades Asia.

_Atlas Shrugged_ has just been translated into Japanese <http://tinyurl.com/3wh3j> and so has _The Fountainhead_ <http://tinyurl.com/52wnc>. PHIL OLIVER, creator of the Objectivism Research CD-ROM, provided some assistance to the translator.

There is also news that a mainland Chinese publisher has licensed Ayn Rand's works for publication in Chinese. (A billion potential new readers!)

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  • 2 weeks later...

I was introduced to Objectivism by my English teacher a couple of years ago. She encouraged me to enter the essay contest and let me borrow Atlas Shrugged. I talked with her last year and she ordered books through ARI and taught The Fountainhead this year (it was the AP English student's summer reading).

Definitely cheery news!

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ARI currently runs the Free Fountainhead & Anthem for Schools program. They solicit language arts teachers in sponsored counties to teach the Fountainhead, with ARI footing the bill for books for all students (via individual donors who sponsor a county or school district...or state!)

I think this is, dollar for dollar, the best program ARI runs. Thousands of new school students will become familiar with The Fountainhead this way. Additionally, the books stay with the schools -- next year, thousands more will become familiar with The Fountainhead again! (...until the books wear out, at which point, if it as become a popular curriculum piece, perhaps the schools will foot their own bill).

I have sponsored the county I live in (Lee County, Florida.) A friend has sponsored the county immediately south of me, and next year we intend to sponsor the counties to the east of us.

A hopeful suggestion: if anybody is wishing they could sponsor a county, but cannot presently afford it, it may be a good goal for a group fundraiser (e.g., car wash, bake sale, etc.)

A not-unrelated value to this activity: within a year or two, one's own locality will have significantly more Ayn Rand-inspired individuals (that's my assumption, at least). When sponsoring a Renaissance, think globally, act locally! :P

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