Salman Rushdie: Machiavelli’s Bad Rap

in Literature, Philosophy | July 28th, 2011

Cyn­i­cism. Ruth­less­ness. Devi­ous­ness. Pow­er pol­i­tics. These words are often asso­ci­at­ed with Nic­colò Machi­avel­li, the author of The Prince (1532). But, it turns out, he was any­thing but. He was a sweet man (though some­thing of a phi­lan­der­er), a pro­found demo­c­rat, good look­ing, a par­ty ani­mal. In short, Machi­avel­li has got­ten a bad rap, says nov­el­ist Salman Rushdie.

To get more insight into this bad­ly mis­un­der­stood fig­ure, we’d rec­om­mend spend­ing time with Phi­los­o­phy Bites’ inter­view (MP3 or iTunes) with Quentin Skin­ner, one of Eng­land’s finest intel­lec­tu­al his­to­ri­ans who has writ­ten exten­sive­ly on Machi­avel­li. You can also find The Prince list­ed in our col­lec­tion of Free eBooks. H/T Andrew Sul­li­van

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. It’s a great way to see our new posts, all bun­dled in one email, each day.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Leo Strauss: 15 Polit­i­cal Phi­los­o­phy Cours­es Online

Intro­duc­tion to Polit­i­cal Phi­los­o­phy: A Free Yale Course

Alain de Bot­ton Tweets Short Course in Polit­i­cal Phi­los­o­phy

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Orson Welles Narrates an Animation of Plato’s Cave Allegory

in Philosophy | July 19th, 2011

In 1973, Orson Welles nar­rat­ed this ani­mat­ed short, which fea­tures some­what sur­re­al art­work by Dick Oden. You can see more of Oden’s work here.

The Alle­go­ry of the Cave illus­trates Pla­to’s view of knowl­edge as pre­sent­ed in Book VII of The Repub­lic: in ordi­nary expe­ri­ence, we see only shad­ows of the true world, which we can only behold by pur­su­ing rig­or­ous philo­soph­i­cal analy­sis.

This is not the only time “The Cave” has been set to film in some form. Open Cul­ture read­ers may recall this bril­liant ver­sion done with clay­ma­tion. Glut­tons for pun­ish­ment may wish to peruse this col­lec­tion of 20 YouTube ver­sions at PartiallyExaminedLife.com, many of them fright­ful­ly ama­teur­ish and some of them pre­sent­ing a warped and/or incom­pre­hen­si­ble ver­sion of the sto­ry.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. It’s a great way to see our new posts, all bun­dled in one email, each day.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Free­dom Riv­er: A Para­ble Told by Orson Welles

Orson Welles Reads Moby Dick

Free Phi­los­o­phy Cours­es

Mark Lin­sen­may­er runs the Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life phi­los­o­phy pod­cast and blog, which recent­ly released an episode dis­cussing Pla­to’s Repub­lic.

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Introduction to Political Philosophy: A Free Yale Course

in Online Courses, Philosophy, Politics | July 7th, 2011

Stephen B. Smith, a polit­i­cal sci­ence pro­fes­sor at Yale Uni­ver­si­ty since 1984, has made avail­able a 24-lec­ture course, Intro­duc­tion to Polit­i­cal Phi­los­o­phy, which cov­ers Pla­to, Aris­to­tle, Machi­avel­li, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, and Toc­queville.

His approach is high­ly lit­er­ary. In his Repub­lic lec­tures, for instance, he spends a good chunk of the time dis­cussing the metaphors and char­ac­ters involved. One of Smith’s major con­cerns is what cit­i­zen­ship amounts to. The lec­ture above is on Pla­to’s “Apol­o­gy,” and while this may be Pla­to’s most famous work (with its dic­tum that “The unex­am­ined life is not worth liv­ing”), it’s less about polit­i­cal phi­los­o­phy than about the vir­tu­ous life. Smith sees these top­ics as inti­mate­ly relat­ed, and in his clos­ing lec­ture, he gives a defense of patri­o­tism, say­ing that in the ivy league envi­ron­ment, express­ing an inter­est in patri­o­tism is like con­fess­ing an inter­est in child pornog­ra­phy.

Despite his engag­ing style, he speaks some­what slow­ly. If your lis­ten­ing device offers a “dou­ble speed” fea­ture, I rec­om­mend using this. You can obtain the whole series on the web: Yale web site — YouTube — iTunes (audio) —  iTunes (video). You can also find the course in the Phi­los­o­phy sec­tion of our col­lec­tion, 1,700 Free Online Cours­es from Top Uni­ver­si­ties.

Mark Lin­sen­may­er runs the Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life phi­los­o­phy pod­cast and blog. He also per­forms with the Madi­son, WI band New Peo­ple.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Oxford’s Free Intro­duc­tion to Phi­los­o­phy: Stream 41 Lec­tures

Online Degrees & Mini Degrees: Explore Mas­ters, Mini Mas­ters, Bach­e­lors & Mini Bach­e­lors from Top Uni­ver­si­ties

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Bertrand Russell & Other Big Thinkers in BBC Lecture Series (Free)

in Media, Philosophy | July 6th, 2011

Back in 1948, Britain was mak­ing anoth­er dif­fi­cult tran­si­tion, mov­ing from the trau­ma of World War II to the chill of the Cold War. Hop­ing to give radio lis­ten­ers some clar­i­ty on con­tem­po­rary affairs, the BBC began air­ing an annu­al series of lec­tures — the Rei­th Lec­tures — that fea­tured lead­ing thinkers of the day. 60 years lat­er, the tra­di­tion con­tin­ues, and dur­ing this long stretch, some leg­endary fig­ures have graced the BBC’s air­waves: Michael Sandel, Edward Said, John Sear­le, John Ken­neth Gal­braith, George Ken­nan, and Robert Oppen­heimer, just to name a few. (And, yes, the list unfor­tu­nate­ly skews heav­i­ly male.)

Late last month, the BBC put the com­plete audio archive online, which gives you access to 240 lec­tures in total. Where’s the best place to start? How about at the begin­ning, with the inau­gur­al lec­tures pre­sent­ed by philoso­pher Bertrand Rus­sell in 1948. His lec­ture series, Author­i­ty and the Indi­vid­ual, delved into an age old ques­tion in polit­i­cal phi­los­o­phy — the indi­vid­ual and his/her rela­tion­ship with com­mu­ni­ties and states. The head of the BBC lat­er groused that Rus­sell spoke “too quick­ly and had a bad voice.” But the real com­plaints came from the Sovi­ets, who inter­pret­ed Rus­sel­l’s lec­tures as an attack on Com­mu­nism. You can find the lec­tures here; the first lec­ture appears at the bot­tom of the page.

Note: Our Twit­ter friends around the world said that they could almost uni­ver­sal­ly access the lec­tures. If you expe­ri­ence any geo-restrict­ing, we apol­o­gize in advance.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Bertrand Rus­sell Sends a Mes­sage to the Future

Bertrand Rus­sell on God

Free Phi­los­o­phy Cours­es

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The Harvard Classics: A Free, Digital Collection

in Harvard, History, Literature, Philosophy | July 5th, 2011

Dur­ing his days as Har­vard’s influ­en­tial pres­i­dent, Charles W. Eliot made a fre­quent asser­tion: If you were to spend just 15 min­utes a day read­ing the right books, a quan­ti­ty that could fit on a five foot shelf, you could give your­self a prop­er lib­er­al edu­ca­tion. The pub­lish­er P. F. Col­lier and Son loved the idea and asked Eliot to assem­ble the right col­lec­tion of works. The result wasa 51-vol­ume series pub­lished in 1909 called Dr. Eliot’s Five Foot Shelf. Lat­er it would sim­ply be called The Har­vard Clas­sics.

You can still buy an old set off of eBay for $399. But, just as eas­i­ly, you can head to the Inter­net Archive and Project Guten­berg, which have cen­tral­ized links to every text includ­ed in The Har­vard Clas­sics (Wealth of Nations, Ori­gin of Species, Plutarch’s Lives, the list goes on below). Please note that the pre­vi­ous two links won’t give you access to the actu­al anno­tat­ed Har­vard Clas­sics texts edit­ed by Eliot him­self. But if you want just that, you can always click here and get dig­i­tal scans of the true Har­vard Clas­sics. Please note that the first two vol­umes appear at the bot­tom of the page. And, in case you want to deep­en your lib­er­al edu­ca­tion yet fur­ther, don’t for­get to check out our col­lec­tion 1,700 Free Online Cours­es from Top Uni­ver­si­ties. Also spend some time with these oth­er resources: 800 Free eBooks for iPad, Kin­dle & Oth­er Devices and 1,000 Free Audio Books: Down­load Great Books for Free.

A big h/t to @eugenephoto

Texts in the Har­vard Clas­sics col­lec­tion (cour­tesy of Wikipedia):

Vol. 1: FRANKLIN, WOOLMAN, PENN
His Auto­bi­og­ra­phy, by Ben­jamin Franklin
The Jour­nal of John Wool­man, by John Wool­man (1774 and sub­se­quent edi­tions)
Fruits of Soli­tude, by William Penn
Vol. 2. PLATO, EPICTETUS, MARCUS AURELIUS
The Apol­o­gy, Phae­do, and Crito, by Pla­to
The Gold­en Say­ings, by Epicte­tus
The Med­i­ta­tions, by Mar­cus Aure­lius
Vol. 3. BACON, MILTON’S PROSE, THOS. BROWNE
Essays, Civ­il and Moral, and New Atlantis, by Fran­cis Bacon
Are­opagit­i­ca and Trac­tate of Edu­ca­tion, by John Mil­ton
Reli­gio Medici, by Sir Thomas Browne
Vol. 4. COMPLETE POEMS IN ENGLISH, MILTON
Com­plete poems writ­ten in Eng­lish, by John Mil­ton
Vol. 5. ESSAYS AND ENGLISH TRAITS, EMERSON
Essays and Eng­lish Traits, by Ralph Wal­do Emer­son
Vol. 6. POEMS AND SONGS, BURNS
Poems and songs, by Robert Burns
Vol. 7. CONFESSIONS OF ST. AUGUSTINE, IMITATIONS OF CHRIST
The Con­fes­sions, by Saint Augus­tine
The Imi­ta­tion of Christ, by Thomas á Kem­p­is
Vol. 8. NINE GREEK DRAMAS
Agamem­non, The Liba­tion Bear­ers, The Furies, and Prometheus Bound, by Aeschy­lus
Oedi­pus the King and Antigone, by Sopho­cles
Hip­poly­tus and The Bac­chae, by Euripi­des
The Frogs, by Aristo­phanes
Vol. 9. LETTERS AND TREATISES OF CICERO AND PLINY
On Friend­ship, On Old Age, and let­ters, by Cicero
Let­ters, by Pliny the Younger
Vol. 10. WEALTH OF NATIONS, ADAM SMITH
The Wealth of Nations, by Adam Smith
Vol. 11. ORIGIN OF SPECIES, DARWIN
The Ori­gin of Species, by Charles Dar­win
Vol. 12. PLUTARCH’S LIVES
Lives, by Plutarch
Vol. 13. AENEID, VIRGIL
Aeneid, by Vir­gil
Vol. 14. DON QUIXOTE, PART 1, CERVANTES
Don Quixote, part 1, by Cer­vantes
Vol. 15. PILGRIM’S PROGRESS, DONNE & HERBERT, BUNYAN, WALTON
The Pil­grim’s Progress, by John Bun­yan
The Lives of Donne and Her­bert, by Iza­ak Wal­ton
Vol. 16. THE THOUSAND AND ONE NIGHTS
Sto­ries from the Thou­sand and One Nights
Vol. 17. FOLKLORE AND FABLE, AESOP, GRIMM, ANDERSON
Fables, by Aesop
Chil­dren’s and House­hold Tales, by Jacob and Wil­helm Grimm
Tales, by Hans Chris­t­ian Ander­sen
Vol. 18. MODERN ENGLISH DRAMA
All for Love, by John Dry­den
The School for Scan­dal, by Richard Brins­ley Sheri­dan
She Stoops to Con­quer, by Oliv­er Gold­smith
The Cen­ci, by Per­cy Bysshe Shel­ley
A Blot in the ‘Scutcheon, by Robert Brown­ing
Man­fred, by Lord Byron
Vol. 19. FAUST, EGMONT, ETC. DOCTOR FAUSTUS, GOETHE, MARLOWE
Faust, part 1, Egmont, and Her­mann and Dorothea, by Johann Wolf­gang von Goethe
Dr. Faus­tus, by Christo­pher Mar­lowe
Vol. 20. THE DIVINE COMEDY, DANTE
The Divine Com­e­dy, by Dante Alighieri
Vol. 21. I PROMESSI SPOSI, MANZONI
I Promes­si Sposi, by Alessan­dro Man­zoni
Vol. 22. THE ODYSSEY, HOMER
The Odyssey, by Homer
Vol. 23. TWO YEARS BEFORE THE MAST, DANA
Two Years Before the Mast, by Richard Hen­ry Dana, Jr.
Vol. 24. ON THE SUBLIME, FRENCH REVOLUTION, ETC., BURKE
On Taste, On the Sub­lime and Beau­ti­ful, Reflec­tions on the French Rev­o­lu­tion, and A Let­ter to a Noble Lord, by Edmund Burke
Vol. 25. AUTOBIOGRAPHY, ETC., ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES, J.S. MILL, T. CARLYLE
Auto­bi­og­ra­phy and On Lib­er­ty, by John Stu­art Mill
Char­ac­ter­is­tics, Inau­gur­al Address at Edin­burgh, and Sir Wal­ter Scott, by Thomas Car­lyle
Vol. 26. CONTINENTAL DRAMA
Life is a Dream, by Pedro Calderón de la Bar­ca
Polyeucte, by Pierre Corneille
Phè­dre, by Jean Racine
Tartuffe, by Molière
Min­na von Barn­helm, by Got­thold Ephraim Less­ing
William Tell, by Friedrich von Schiller
Vol. 27. ENGLISH ESSAYS: SIDNEY TO MACAULAY
Vol. 28. ESSAYS: ENGLISH AND AMERICAN
Vol. 29. VOYAGE OF THE BEAGLE, DARWIN
The Voy­age of the Bea­gle, by Charles Dar­win
Vol. 30. FARADAY, HELMHOLTZ, KELVIN, NEWCOMB, ETC
The Forces of Mat­ter and The Chem­i­cal His­to­ry of a Can­dle, by Michael Fara­day
On the Con­ser­va­tion of Force and Ice and Glac­i­ers, by Her­mann von Helmholtz
The Wave The­o­ry of Light and The Tides, by Lord Kelvin
The Extent of the Uni­verse, by Simon New­comb
Geo­graph­i­cal Evo­lu­tion, by Sir Archibald Geikie
Vol. 31. AUTOBIOGRAPHY, BENVENUTO CELLINI
The Auto­bi­og­ra­phy of Ben­venu­to Celli­ni
Vol. 32. LITERARY AND PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS
Essays, by Michel Eyquem de Mon­taigne
Mon­taigne and What is a Clas­sic?, by Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve
The Poet­ry of the Celtic Races, by Ernest Renan
The Edu­ca­tion of the Human Race, by Got­thold Ephraim Less­ing
Let­ters upon the Aes­thet­ic Edu­ca­tion of Man, by Friedrich von Schiller
Fun­da­men­tal Prin­ci­ples of the Meta­physic of Morals, by Immanuel Kant
Byron and Goethe, by Giuseppe Mazz­i­ni
Vol. 33. VOYAGES AND TRAVELS
An account of Egypt from The His­to­ries, by Herodotus
Ger­many, by Tac­i­tus
Sir Fran­cis Drake Revived, by Philip Nichols
Sir Fran­cis Drake’s Famous Voy­age Round the World, by Fran­cis Pret­ty
Drake’s Great Arma­da, by Cap­tain Wal­ter Bigges
Sir Humphrey Gilbert’s Voy­age to New­found­land, by Edward Haies
The Dis­cov­ery of Guiana, by Sir Wal­ter Raleigh
Vol. 34. FRENCH AND ENGLISH PHILOSOPHERS, DESCARTES, VOLTAIRE, ROUSSEAU, HOBBES
Dis­course on Method, by René Descartes
Let­ters on the Eng­lish, by Voltaire
On the Inequal­i­ty among Mankind and Pro­fes­sion of Faith of a Savo­yard Vic­ar, by Jean Jacques Rousseau
Of Man, Being the First Part of Leviathan, by Thomas Hobbes
Vol. 35. CHRONICLE AND ROMANCE, FROISSART, MALORY, HOLINSHEAD
Chron­i­cles, by Jean Frois­sart
The Holy Grail, by Sir Thomas Mal­o­ry
A Descrip­tion of Eliz­a­bethan Eng­land, by William Har­ri­son
Vol. 36. MACHIAVELLI, MORE, LUTHER
The Prince, by Nic­colò Machi­avel­li
The Life of Sir Thomas More, by William Rop­er
Utopia, by Sir Thomas More
The Nine­ty-Five The­ses, To the Chris­t­ian Nobil­i­ty of the Ger­man Nation, and On the Free­dom of a Chris­t­ian, by Mar­tin Luther
Vol. 37. LOCKE, BERKELEY, HUME
Some Thoughts Con­cern­ing Edu­ca­tion, by John Locke
Three Dia­logues Between Hylas and Philo­nous in Oppo­si­tion to Scep­tics and Athe­ists, by George Berke­ley
An Enquiry Con­cern­ing Human Under­stand­ing, by David Hume
Vol. 38. HARVEY, JENNER, LISTER, PASTEUR
The Oath of Hip­pocrates
Jour­neys in Diverse Places, by Ambroise Paré
On the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Ani­mals, by William Har­vey
The Three Orig­i­nal Pub­li­ca­tions on Vac­ci­na­tion Against Small­pox, by Edward Jen­ner
The Con­ta­gious­ness of Puer­per­al Fever, by Oliv­er Wen­dell Holmes
On the Anti­sep­tic Prin­ci­ple of the Prac­tice of Surgery, by Joseph Lis­ter
Sci­en­tif­ic papers, by Louis Pas­teur
Sci­en­tif­ic papers, by Charles Lyell
Vol. 39. FAMOUS PREFACES
Vol. 40. ENGLISH POETRY 1: CHAUCER TO GRAY
Vol. 41. ENGLISH POETRY 2: COLLINS TO FITZGERALD
Vol. 42. ENGLISH POETRY 3: TENNYSON TO WHITMAN
Vol. 43. AMERICAN HISTORICAL DOCUMENTS
Vol. 44. SACRED WRITINGS 1
Con­fu­cian: The say­ings of Con­fu­cius
Hebrew: Job, Psalms, and Eccle­si­astes
Chris­t­ian I: Luke and Acts
Vol. 45. SACRED WRITINGS 2
Chris­t­ian II: Corinthi­ans I and II and hymns
Bud­dhist: Writ­ings
Hin­du: The Bha­gavad-Gita
Mohammedan: Chap­ters from the Koran
Vol. 46. ELIZABETHAN DRAMA 1
Edward the Sec­ond, by Christo­pher Mar­lowe
Ham­let, King Lear, Mac­beth, and The Tem­pest, by William Shake­speare
Vol. 47. ELIZABETHAN DRAMA 2
The Shoe­mak­er’s Hol­i­day, by Thomas Dekker
The Alchemist, by Ben Jon­son
Phi­laster, by Beau­mont and Fletch­er
The Duchess of Mal­fi, by John Web­ster
A New Way to Pay Old Debts, by Philip Massinger
Vol. 48. THOUGHTS AND MINOR WORKS, PASCAL
Thoughts, let­ters, and minor works, by Blaise Pas­cal
Vol. 49. EPIC AND SAGA
Beowulf
The Song of Roland
The Destruc­tion of Dá Der­ga’s Hos­tel
The Sto­ry of the Vol­sungs and Niblungs
Vol. 50. INTRODUCTION, READER’S GUIDE, INDEXES
Vol. 51. LECTURES
The last vol­ume con­tains six­ty lec­tures intro­duc­ing and sum­ma­riz­ing the cov­ered fields: his­to­ry, poet­ry, nat­ur­al sci­ence, phi­los­o­phy, biog­ra­phy, prose fic­tion, crit­i­cism and the essay, edu­ca­tion, polit­i­cal sci­ence, dra­ma, trav­el­ogues, and reli­gion.

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Stephen Fry on Philosophy and Unbelief

in Comedy, Philosophy, Religion | July 4th, 2011

Come­di­an Stephen Fry has the clas­sic British intel­lec­tu­al voice, much like philoso­pher Bryan McGee. It turns out that he knows some­thing about phi­los­o­phy, and this clip is a short­ened ver­sion of a longer video called “The Impor­tance of Unbe­lief.”

A more gen­tle ver­sion of George Car­lin, Fry’s views appear heart­felt while par­tak­ing of seri­ous irony. He claims that in order to prop­er­ly appre­ci­ate our present lives, “even if it isn’t true, you must absolute­ly assume that there is no after­life.” Choos­ing his posi­tions to argue as much for their rhetor­i­cal audac­i­ty as any­thing else, he argues for poly­the­ism in favor of monothe­ism, and he treats the issue of the divine pres­ence in nature by ref­er­enc­ing the life cycle of a par­a­sitic worm. He seems an apt voice to add to the new athe­ist debates, at least as amus­ing as Dawkins and much more­so than Sam Har­ris. This clip is added to our col­lec­tion of 250 Cul­tur­al Icons.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Stephen Fry: What I Wish I Had Known When I Was 18

Stephen Fry Gets Ani­mat­ed about Lan­guage

Mark Lin­sen­may­er runs the Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life phi­los­o­phy pod­cast and blog. He also per­forms with the Madi­son, WI band New Peo­ple.

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The “Ask Sam Harris Anything” Hour

in Philosophy, Religion | June 30th, 2011

Sam Har­ris — he wrote the best­sellers The End of Faith and Let­ter to a Chris­t­ian Nation. He’s also one-fourth of the New Athe­ist quar­tet infor­mal­ly called The Four Horse­men (where you’ll also find Richard Dawkins, Christo­pher Hitchens and Daniel Den­nett.) And he has most recent­ly argued that neu­ro­science can even­tu­al­ly answer all moral ques­tions. Sam Har­ris is very much a pub­lic intel­lec­tu­al. He’s out there and in the mix. And he’s now answer­ing ques­tions from Reddit.com users. Give Har­ris 54 min­utes and he’ll tell you how to pro­mote pub­lic ratio­nal­i­ty, why med­i­ta­tion can change your life, and much, much more …

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Christo­pher Hitchens Answers Red­dit User Ques­tions

Richard Dawkins Plays the Piano: “Earth His­to­ry in C Major”

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The Ayn Rand Guide to Romance

in Life, Philosophy | June 14th, 2011

Can Ayn Rand tell us some­thing about achiev­ing a deeply sat­is­fy­ing rela­tion­ship? It’s hard to imag­ine. She was noto­ri­ous­ly churl­ish, dumped friends and allies who did­n’t give her works pos­i­tive reviews, and cheat­ed on her hus­band with a man 24 years her junior, then even­tu­al­ly expelled the young Nathaniel Bran­den from her intel­lec­tu­al cir­cle. And heck, she even made her hus­band wear a bell on his shoe, to warn her about his com­ings and goings.

But, no mat­ter, you have to sep­a­rate the phi­los­o­phy from the per­son … or so many acolytes of flawed thinkers have argued. Right fans of John Edwards? All three of you? So here you have it, The Self­ish Path to Romance, a love man­u­al based on Ayn Rand’s Objec­tivist phi­los­o­phy. The video almost screams par­o­dy, but it’s appar­ent­ly not. You can snag a copy of the book on Ama­zon here…

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Ayn Rand Helped the FBI Iden­ti­fy It’s A Won­der­ful Life as Com­mu­nist Pro­pa­gan­da

In Her Final Speech, Ayn Rand Denounces Ronald Rea­gan, the Moral Major­i­ty & Anti-Choicers (1981)

Flan­nery O’Connor: Friends Don’t Let Friends Read Ayn Rand (1960)

Ayn Rand Argues That Believ­ing in God Is an Insult to Rea­son on The Phil Don­ahue Show (Cir­ca 1979)

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