Do you ever read a campus newspaper and want to express your
disagreement with articles that attack capitalism or individualism, or
uphold multiculturalism, environmentalism or religion? Do you want to
promote Objectivist principles as alternatives to conventional opinion
on campus–and on a national stage?
If you answered “yes” to the questions above, The Undercurrent’s
Campus Media Response project may be for you. The Undercurrent (TU) is
the national student newspaper dedicated to spreading Ayn Rand’s
philosophy of Objectivism on college campuses. Campus Media Response
(CMR) is a new TU project which aims to create an online clearinghouse
for Objectivist commentary on the nation’s campus opinion pages.
You can always visit CMR’s list of flagged campus opinion articles,
which includes ideas for potential letters of response. This week
we’ve added 8 new articles (click “See more of TU’s shared items” at
the bottom to view earlier entries):
http://www.google.com/reader/shared/undercurrent.cmr
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announcements, please sign up for the CMR email list, here *** :
http://groups.google.com/group/undercurrent-cmr?hl=en
ARTICLES OF NOTE THIS WEEK:
Educating for the good life
Yale Daily News, January 11, 2010
TU: This author urges students to take more courses in the humanities,
arguing that a pre-professional path leads to a life of bourgeois
boredom. Why so boring? Because after taking an MBA, you’ll read the
New Yorker and won’t get the references; you’ll go to museums and
won’t appreciate modern art. Are these really the worst consequences
of failing to learn the humanities? That we won’t be able to measure
up to the wit of our hipster friends? Is there nothing more that the
study of philosophy (for example) adds to life besides the chance to
be "unemployable, disagreeable, politically eccentric, out of touch
with our generation, absent-minded and unready for bourgeois
respectability"?
Objectivists expand presence
The Stanford Review, January 8, 2010
TU: This piece in the Stanford conservative student paper takes note
of an “objectivist [sic] revival” on campus, led by campus club
president Dakin Sloss. But the article misreports the content of
Objectivism. It claims that Objectivists reject belief in God because
it betrays “mental weakness,” that every character in Rand’s books is
totally good or totally evil, that there is no such thing as honest
disagreement with Objectivism. Most egregiously, it claims that
students are attracted to Objectivism only because they have "minimal
responsibilities to others," and that the philosophy does not work for
adults. Clearly some conservatives are not ready for the "attitudinal
shift" promised by Objectivism, but is there no evidence that the rest
of the country is beginning to exhibit it?
Left behind
The Chicago Maroon, January 8, 2010
TU: In a proposal to bridge the liberal-conservative divide over the
pending health care legislation, this author urges left-liberals to
make their case by using the language of “freedom”-a concept usually
associated with opposition to health care reform. The “freedom” the
author suggests is “freedom from sickness.” But is this the kind of
“freedom” that governments should protect? What happens when a
government stops protecting the freedom from coercion, and starts
using coercion to protect the freedom from sickness?
Down to Earth: Reduce your carbon ski path
The Colorado Daily, December 16, 2009
TU: This article notes how many skiers consider themselves to be
environmentally-conscious, and offers advice for how skiers might
limit their “carbon footprint” and visit more environmentally-correct
resorts. But is it possible for a real environmentalist to condone any
skiing? Environmentalists are now pushing for carbon caps that would
it more difficult for ordinary people to drive to work and heat their
homes. How could an environmentalist possible justify the
clear-cutting of mountainsides and transcontinental air travel by
which most tourists find their way to the mountains-all or the sake of
the recreation of the rich?
God and global warming
The Harvard Crimson, December 14, 2009
TU: The author describes the invitation of religious groups to the
recent Copenhagen climate summit, and comments on the role of
religious motivation, in comparison to government policy, in the
implementation of environmentalist goals. The author may be on to more
than he realizes. The environmentalist agenda is supposed to be
motivated by scientific data about climate threats. Whatever one
thinks of the science, could the call for self-sacrifice implicit in
environmentalism be plausible without the lingering influence of
religion in the West?
If you want to comment on one of these topics or another you find on
our blog, or elsewhere, please write a one-paragraph response as you
would a letter to the editor. Submit it to our editors at:
If we accept your response, we’ll post it on the main Undercurrent
blog, in the original article’s comment section, and send it to the
paper as a letter to the editor.
Thanks,
The CMR team