I will discuss this subject with respect to a single work of art, and relaying my own personal context as well as what I think is objectively conveyed in Bryan Larsen's painting Heroes. You can view an image of Heroes here and purchase it if you like what you see. It is a common refrain of the subjectivist, postmodernist, abstract "art" defending so-called "intellectuals" that art is subjective, and there is no such thing as objective interpretation in art. Moreover, the subjectivists claim, there is no such thing as "good" or "bad" art, and that anything can be art. This is bunk. There is on ..read more

Last Saturday, local news site BeaverCounty.com reported an Iranian-linked "hactivist" group claimed responsibility for compromising control systems in the Aliquippa, PA water grid. The attack disabled autonomous control over a pressure regulating pump, forcing operators to take manual control to prevent service disruption. The facility's HMI, an industrial computer which would usually allow plant operators to monitor and control operations, was commandeered by hackers to gloatingly display their anti-Semitic motivations: Compromised HMI in the Aliquippa facility. During the 1948 Palestine wa ..read more

Today, Marcus discusses major issues, challenges, and opportunities in the realm of education with a charter school teacher. We go through some of the most important things to consider when selecting a private school, as well as the different opportunities presented by private schools. We also discuss different philosophical approaches to education, and ways that parents can get involved and support their children’s educational development ..read more

On today’s episode, Marcus interviews a Young Liberal about the current state of Australian Politics. They discuss the current state of the Land Down Under, the fight for freedom in that country, and the positive trends with young people increasingly attracted to classical liberalism ..read more

Today, Marcus discusses major issues, challenges, and opportunities in the realm of education with a charter school teacher. We go through some of the most important things to consider when selecting a private school, as well as the different opportunities presented by private schools. We also discuss different philosophical approaches to education, and ways that parents can get involved and support their children’s educational development ..read more

Our esteemed international panel discusses the UK’s recent leadership crisis, along with the instability of the UK government more generally. The former PM failed to articulate a coherent agenda, despite being elected on a platform of reducing the role of government in the economy. We then discuss the lessons this has for Australia and the United States, and what agenda freedom-oriented individuals should push for if they intend to increase opportunity and economic growth going forward ..read more

I am the newest writer for the Objectivist blog and I live in Australia. Australia is a country that has a population of 25 million people and is the size of the USA. The political system of Australia is the result of influences from both the USA and the UK. Just like both countries we have 2 houses, the lower and upper. But unlike the UK, the upper house is elected where each of the 6 states have 12 seats each and the 2 territories have 2 seats, this adds up to 76 seats in the Senate. The recent 2022 election has brought a composition that is very threatening to the existence of Australia's ..read more

Prisoner of the State: The Tragedy of Zhao Ziyang The book cover includes this picture of Zhao (center), flanked by Hu Yaobang (left) and Deng Xiaoping (right) There are many lessons we can learn from Prisoner of the State, Zhao Ziyang’s memoirs of the economic reforms which he recorded in secret while under house arrest. One of them is the Kafkaesque experience with his captors, who refused to acknowledge that Zhao was under house arrest while forbidding him to leave without first obtaining permission (and even then, he would be accompanied by minders and forbidden from interacting with the ..read more

Potentially, motion pictures are a great art, but that potential has not as yet been actualized, except in single instances and random moments. An art that requires the synchronization of so many esthetic elements and so many different talents cannot develop in a period of philosophical-cultural disintegration such as the present. Its development requires the creative cooperation of men who are united, not necessarily by their formal philosophical convictions, but by their fundamental view of man, i.e., by their sense of life. (The Romantic Manifesto 72) As Rand predicted, today’s motion pict ..read more

Elon Musk's ongoing saga with Twitter is just one more illustration of how government regulations have a very real impact on our everyday lives. There is a great deal of discussions on poison pills (which I will cover in a later article) but I'd like to first focus on why he even had to disclose his ownership stake and make a tender offer to buy Twitter in the first place. In a free market, absent any special rules in the corporate charter, Twitter shareholders would be allowed to buy and sell their shares to whomever they wanted, at whatever price they wanted. And as often happened prior to ..read more