(Intended for Objectivists)
I recently came across a scene from the TV series Yellowstone where there was an amusing exchange between a student and his teacher. You can watch it here:
She says power is “the ability to direct or influence another’s behavior or course of events…. That’s power. And you don’t have any.”
This could have been said to any of us by a government bureaucrat. When Nietzsche spoke of a “will to power” he could have had in mind the modern government official. They are hungry for power—they want it as much as they want food. To have power over others gives their life meaning. They want to tell us what we can and can’t do. I think of Jonathan Edwards and his song of personal freedom and defiance: “He can’t even run his own life, I’ll be damned if he’ll run mine.”
One regulatory body, one regulation at a time, we are losing our precious American freedom. How can we win back the freedom that once existed in America?
First, recognize that the anti-freedom ideologies that justified the successful attacks on our freedom, were disseminated in the U.S. by indoctrinating an endless stream of American students attending colleges and universities where life-loving, freedom-loving dissent is rarely tolerated.
To counter this anti-American, anti-life, anti-freedom movement, I am creating a Great University which will foster reason, objectivity, and the pursuit of truth into the American culture and, indeed, worldwide. I had originally discussed a Great University with Leonard Peikoff over 30 years ago, and then I created a college 15 years ago for ARI. Now, this new Great University will be launched in March of next year. Stay tuned.
Carl Barney
December 24, 2024