Hi everybody. I guess I’ll get right to it. My real name is Mike, and I first started reading Ayn Rand in 2001 after seeing Yaron Brook on CNN. In the fall I will be a freshman at Rutgers University. I’m looking forward to some good conversations. If you want to know more than ask, otherwise that’s it for now.
Hi Mike, nice to meet ya. What did Yaron Brook say to make you pick up and read a 1000 page book?
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good question.
By the way, “The Dude”—Big L?
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Yup, Big L. Brook was talking about environmentalism and some hippie greenpeace-type guy said something about respecting trees. At the time I was expecting Brook to give some kind of lame conservative response but instead he kind of laughed and said, “Men should live by the standards of men, not of trees.” I was very impressed because of all the conservatives/libertarians I had been reading at the time, none gave such powerful arguments. I went to the ARI website, but it was kind of weak and not very helpful at the time, so I went to the bookstore and bought Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal. I recently saw Brook speak at UPenn in March and then in April. The first talk was about the war on terrorism, the second was the In Moral Defense of Israel, which was amazing. Dr. Brook is the man. I actually didn’t read AS until after I read all of her non-fiction. I have always highly suspicious of all fiction, most likely because in school we read horrible books, although when I read Rand’s books I loved them. Ever read Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s 100 years of Solitude? Biggest load of crap ever.
I think the collective works of James Joyce are much worse! And yeah, Brook is quite cool.
I’ve only met Yaron Brook once, very briefly, and he was rather busy at that moment so I didn’t really get to talk to him. And I’ve never had the opportunity to hear him speak. Hopefully I will see him at the conference in a couple weeks, though.
And by the way, welcome to the board, Mike! :lol:
I’d never heard of Brook until now. Has he written anything or can you only access his ideas via his public speeches? That initial comment sounds amazing. How wonderful to be able to face total absurdity and laugh at how ridiculous it is to take itself seriously! When I face it, I just want to scream. His method is much more impressive :lol: .
I’d never heard of Brook until now. Has he written anything or can you only access his ideas via his public speeches?
Mr. Brook is the current executive director of The Ayn Rand Institute. If you go to www.aynrand.org and visit the “Medialink” page and scroll down a ways through the op-eds, you can find some articles (albeit brief ones) that he has written. You can also link from ARI to the Ayn Rand Bookstore, where they have some of his lectures on tape for sale.