In the clip, from the Year 1 seminar on Objectivism, Onkar Ghate discusses what it means to be an Objectivist—whether it’s important to think of oneself as such, and what it takes to be an active-minded student of any philosophy.
The Objectivist Academic Center (OAC) is ARI’s premier intellectual training program, providing elite instruction in Objectivism and its applications, in how to communicate ideas, and—above all—in how to think philosophically.
This is the eleventh episode in a series looking at Objectivism’s approach to Happiness. John Allison joins Dave Rubin to discuss how the Objectivist ethics enabled his business success.
John Allison highlights the key role Objectivism has played in his success. Allison, the former Chairman and CEO of BB&T, was selected by the Harvard Business Review as one of the one hundred most successful CEOs in the world.
Mayhew discusses humor in Ayn Rand’s popular novel, The Fountainhead, as displayed by the satire of Dominique Francon with the prevalence of the bad kind of “snarky” humor in today’s culture as dramatized by the villain in The Fountainhead, Ellsworth Toohey:
“Kill by laughter. Laughter is an instrument of human joy. Learn to use it as a weapon of destruction. Turn it into a sneer. It’s simple. Tell them to laugh at everything. Tell them that a sense of humor is an unlimited virtue. Don’t let anything remain sacred in a man’s soul—and his soul won’t be sacred to him. Kill reverence and you’ve killed the hero in man. One doesn’t reverence with a giggle. He’ll obey and he’ll set no limits to his obedience—anything goes—nothing is too serious.” — Ellsworth Toohey
