Category Archives: Ayn Rand

Mr. Orr has some good ideas about reviving the middle class and hinted at the fact that we have changed economically over the years but did not overtly address this change that is at the root of our problem.

Back in the late '70's there was a push to establish a new form of capitalism known as neoliberal economics. It can be traced to Ayn Rand and her acolytes, such as Alan Greenspan. It was used in Chile by the quasi-fascist dictator Pinochet with terrible results. It favors corporate power over public benefit. It's all about reduced regulation and reduced taxes on corporations, while pushing austerity on the public. It attempts to privatize public institutions and social safety nets like Social Security. It is pro monopoly and against anti-trust laws like the Clayton and Sherman Acts. As a result, monopolies and oligopolies have become rampant, destroying competition.

Our 40+ year experiment, brought to us by the neoliberal order is in direct conflict with capitalism in the 1950's.

Disclaimer: As submitted to the Arizona Daily Star.

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Letter: Re: Ethan Orr's Article on the Middle Class - Arizona Daily Star

Sixty years ago on Sunday evening, March 26, 1961 Ayn Rand walked to the lectern at Ford Hall Forum in Boston, Massachusetts, to read the speech she had written for the occasion. As an advocate of reason, freedom, individualism, and capitalism, she declared, I seek to address myself to the men of the intellect, wherever such may still be found.

Two hours later, having delivered a challenging talk and fielded questions from a captivated audience, Rand had inaugurated an important new relationship based on mutual respect for a shared value: a thinkers need to address other thinking individuals.

The very next day, the Forum mailed a letter inviting Rand to appear during its next season. Rand promptly accepted. She would go on to compose twenty speeches for Forum audiences over the next twenty years. As an assistant wrote years later on Rands behalf: The Ford Hall Forum is the only organization under whose auspices Miss Rand cares to speak.1

Rand began her first Forum talk by explaining why she, an advocate of laissez-faire capitalism, had chosen to address an audience consisting predominantly of liberals that is, of my antagonists.2 The answer, she explained, lay in the increasing difficulty she had encountered in reaching individuals with active minds.

She was unable to find such individuals among conservatives, whom the audience must have supposed were her natural allies. She was disgusted with them because, while allegedly defending individualism and capitalism, they relied upon appeals to tradition and religious faith leavened by a cracker-barrel sort of folksiness. As for liberals, Rand longed for the intellectual arguments that characterized their advocacy of collectivism in the 1930s: I disagreed with everything they said, but I would have fought to the death for the method by which they said it: for an intellectual approach to political problems based on reason, logic and science.

Unfortunately, Rand explained, in the years after World War II both camps had moved away from an intellectual approach to political problems. There are no intellectual sides anymore, Rand observed, nothing but an undifferentiated mob of trembling statists who haggle only over how fast or how slowly we are to collapse into a totalitarian dictatorship, whose gang will do the dictating, and who will be sacrificed to whom.

Having blasted any audience preconceptions of her as a partisan conservative, Rand asked her listeners: What social or political group today is the home of those who are and still wish to be the men of the intellect? None. Independent thinkers, she observed, had become homeless refugees, the displaced persons of our culture. She then expressed her belief that more of them may be found among the former liberals than among the present conservatives. I may be wrong; I am willing to find out.

Rand spoke from experience. For decades she had traveled in conservative circles, achieving prominence with publication of The Fountainhead in 1943 and with her writing and congressional testimony in the late 1940s opposing communist propaganda in American films.3 But despite many efforts to forge intellectual alliances, Rand had failed to persuade conservatives that their approach to defending capitalism was futile. After the publication of Atlas Shrugged in 1957, she was scorned by prominent conservatives such as William F. Buckley, Jr., whose National Review published a scathing review of the novel.

But Rand would not give up. To promote her new novel and argue for her controversial ideas, she began accepting invitations to speak publicly, delivering complex speeches to packed houses at universities such as Princeton, Yale and the University of Wisconsin at Madison.4 Invitations multiplied after the announcement that her first book of nonfiction was about to be published. For the New Intellectual: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand would feature a title essay surveying the history of Western civilization and arguing that philosophical ideas move the world but only when they are spread by the efforts of myriad intellectuals who apply them to particular fields and transmit the results to all areas of the culture. Metaphorically speaking, Rand saw herself as a philosophical commander-in-chief whose task was to inspire formation of an intellectual army capable of understanding and spreading her system of reason, individualism and capitalism.

As a radical thinker, however, Rand faced special challenges in communicating her ideas. As she told an editor at Esquire magazine, her views were unorthodox and difficult to summarize in todays frame of reference, lending themselves to misunderstanding and misrepresentation.5 This awareness conditioned her approach to public speaking. She sought to engage her listeners minds without needless distraction. She had no interest in debates, nor in arguing with interviewers who might be uninformed about her ideas. She was open to questions, but not to statements of opinion by anyone who sought to exploit her popularity to get their own points across.

In short, Rand knew she must reach individuals willing to bring the right method to political discussions: a fact-based, intellectual approach. In the Ford Hall Forum, she encountered a venerable institution devoted to promoting that very value.

Rand and the Ford Hall Forum were contemporaries: she was born in 1905, and the Forum was founded in 1908. Modeled after the Great Hall at Cooper Union in New York City, which had made its reputation hosting speakers such as Abraham Lincoln, Susan B. Anthony and Mark Twain,6 the Forum described its mission this way:

Here, in the Ford Hall Forum, the man who cares can strike a match and hold it closer to the subject for which he is searching. He can question or challenge the man who is shaping his mind. It was for this man that the Forum has survived the years and for whom its motto was chosen: Let there be light.7

Each Forum season consisted of twenty Sunday-evening events, split between fall and spring. All programs lasted two hours and followed the same format, designed to maximize intellectual engagement. The first hour was reserved for the speakers uninterrupted address, with the second hour devoted to unrestricted questions from the audience. Forum moderators made sure that questions were actually questions, not statements or speeches.8By early 1960, Forum leaders were concerned about a lack of intellectual diversity on the platform. Frances Smith, an insider who would later serve as executive director, president and chairman of the board, recalled:

The program committee at the time found that as we looked over the programs for a number of years that we were really overloading the programs with left-wing people giving talks, and we felt that it wasnt a good, balanced program, which is what we wanted to present. So the committee sought somebody who was of a more conservative nature who would be interesting enough to draw an audience, and thats why we asked her.9

In pondering a solution, the committee would doubtless have been aware of the excitement surrounding Rands recent appearance at Yale University in Boston. On February 17, she had spoken to a crowd of six hundred on the topic of Faith and Force: The Destroyers of the Modern World, an event reported at length in Time magazine.10

On May 18, the Forums treasurer, Louis B. Smith, wrote to Rand with an invitation to make her first appearance. I dont know if you are familiar with the Ford Hall Forum, his letter began, but it is the oldest continuous Forum in the United States and is dedicated to the discussion of the many serious problems of the day. Smith offered Rand a choice of several dates in 1960 and 1961.11

According to Leonard Peikoff, Rands close associate, she was reluctant at first to accept. She did not know the Forums distinguished history, and expected a group of unruly antagonists, Peikoff recalled.12 But she did accept, and after some scheduling difficulties the date was set for March 26, 1961, which coincided nicely with the planned March 14 publication of For the New Intellectual.13 That books theme gave rise to the topic she selected for her first Forum address: The Intellectual Bankruptcy of Our Age.

It was a talk calculated to shake the Forums predominantly liberal audience out of any complacency they might have felt concerning the intellectual landscape around them. Rand marshaled evidence blaming liberal intellectuals for a tragic failure of historical proportions the failure to identify the true nature of capitalism and defend it morally. That dereliction of responsibility, Rand argued, had left an intellectual vacuum in which the original nineteenth-century meaning of the term liberal had been reversed. No longer did it refer to defenders of individualism and economic freedom now it referred to advocates of collectivism and government controls. Meanwhile, Rand explained, the meaning of conservatism was shifting, too, away from designating defenders of individualism and freedom. The result, Rand warned, was a culture in which it was impossible to rationally discuss the merits of capitalism. She closed her talk by appealing to those in her audience who might be liberals in the original sense to understand the cultures need for a new radical, the fighter for capitalism.

It was not a message that Bostons intelligentsia welcomed, but to the Forums credit, the unpopularity of Rands position did not disqualify her from the podium. Quite the contrary. The day after Rands appearance, Louis Smith sent an enthusiastic letter of appreciation and invited her to appear again next season. Before the day is out, Smith wrote, I want to drop you this note in order that I may tell you how pleased we were with your coming to the Ford Hall Forum last night. Remarking on the interest and enthusiasm displayed by the audience, he celebrated Rands appearance as another banner night for the Forum.14The esteem was mutual. She loved it, Peikoff remembered. The audience that evening did not agree with her, but they listened, then peppered her with intelligent questions, the kind she always enjoyed answering.15 Responding to Smiths invitation, Rand wrote: I am happy to tell you that I was very impressed with the Ford Hall Forum, the style and efficiency of its operation and its remarkably intellectual atmosphere, which is very rare these days. Describing her appearance as a memorable and most enjoyable occasion, she said: I shall be delighted to appear again next year.16

Rands next appearance at the Ford Hall Forum took place just seven months later, with a lecture titled Americas Persecuted Minority: Big Business. She continued to speak annually (with only a few exceptions), sometimes on the fall program, sometimes the spring. Her twenty lectures surpassed all other Forum speakers but one (the liberal author Max Lerner spoke twenty-six times from 1938 to 1976).17As the accompanying list shows, Rand addressed a wide variety of topics over the years, including art, censorship, capitalism, antitrust, abortion, the moon landing, the military draft, egalitarianism, inflation, Ronald Reagan and the religious right. At the height of her popularity, thirteen hundred attendees would fill the main auditorium while another five hundred would be ushered to a separate room where they could listen on a loudspeaker.18 People came from all over the world to hear her, recalled Frances Smith. They came from Africa, from the Bahamas, from all parts of the United States.19 Said Leonard Peikoff: I have seen the lines of people waiting in the sometimes bitter Boston cold for ten hours or more until the doors to the lecture hall would open and her Ford Hall speech begin.20

Rands question-and-answer sessions became legendary among Objectivists, generating many of the extemporaneous gems collected in Ayn Rand Answers: The Best of Her Q&A, edited by Robert Mayhew. The crackling excitement of those audience encounters, audible on the many recordings of her appearances, was enhanced by the Forums remarkable moderator, Judge Reuben Lurie, who handled most of Rands appearances.

Lurie began each event by introducing Rand in a way that was factual, respectful, and not oppositional, which Rand appreciated. She especially appreciated Luries confident mastery of the question sessions. He called on audience members, admonishing them to ask a question, not make a speech.21 Because the questioners voices were not amplified, Judge Lurie would repeat the question often condensing it so that the entire audience could hear it. Luries unique intellectual and vocal style lent each Q&A session an energy that Rand appreciated.

In the aftermath of one appearance, at which Judge Lurie had reprimanded Rand for beginning an answer too soon, a fan wrote Rand a letter harshly criticizing Lurie. Through an assistant, Rand came to Luries defense: He is a man of unusual intellectual distinction, and the best moderator she has ever had the pleasure and honor to work with. His attitude toward her has been one of unimpeachable courtesy and understanding for over 10 years. He was right to reprimand her, and Rand apologized: she had heard the question, but the rest of the audience had not, and the proper procedure is for the moderator to repeat the questions through a microphone.22

Despite Rands success in attracting large audiences, the Forum struggled financially throughout the years she spoke there. This troubled her, and so she helped out in several ways. In the matter of her fees, there is some indication that she accepted significantly less money than other speakers, and in later years she stopped requiring a fee altogether.23 She also donated her support to at least three large fundraising events. In 1971, she traveled from her New York City home to be a principal speaker at a $50-a-plate luncheon in Boston honoring Judge Lurie and Louis Smith; the event attracted almost four hundred attendees for the establishment of an endowment fund.24 In 1977, when the Forum needed some money desperately, Rand agreed to be the guest of honor at another Boston fundraising luncheon.25 This event attracted an overflow crowd of eight hundred.26 In addition, Rand contributed to a fundraising auction by donating the original manuscript of a Forum talk bearing her handwritten corrections. The item brought the highest price of the evening, approximately $10,000.27

Responding to a questioner who found this unpaid support paradoxical in light of her philosophys stress on the virtue of selfishness, Rand argued that helping the Ford Hall Forum was entirely in her self-interest. She challenged the questioners implicit premise that the only possible values one can derive from any activity are financial, which amounts to placing your self-interest terribly low, and terribly cheap. Public speaking, for Rand, had value because it served her purpose of spreading ideas which I believe to be right and true. To call her efforts altruistic was to imply that her only goal was to enlighten others.

That would mean that I have no interest in a free society, that I have no interest in denouncing the kind of evil which I can see and want to speak against that all that is not to my selfish interest, its only to the interest of my audience and not to mine. That would be an impossible contradiction. If I believed it, I wouldnt be worth two cents as a speaker. I believe that I have the most profound and the most selfish interest in having the freedom of my mind, knowing what to do with it, and therefore fighting to preserve it in the country, for as long as Im alive, or even beyond my life. I dont care about posterity, but I do care about any free mind or any independent person who may be born in future centuries I do care about that.28

At the 1977 luncheon in her honor, Rand stated that the Forum, to her knowledge, is the only lecture organization in the country that takes ideas seriously as a matter of policy; it presents speakers of every viewpoint, treats them with scrupulous objectivity, and attracts audiences who have active minds. In this regard, she said, the Forum represents the best of nineteenth-century liberalism, because they are committed to upholding the freedom of the mind.29

At that same luncheon in her honor, Rand was presented with a hand-lettered parchment stating: The Ford Hall Forum expresses its admiration and profound respect to Ayn Rand, novelist, editor, playwright and philosopher.30

She has graced the Forums platform to present her views to overflow audiences; always she has expressed her position with vigor and clarity and responded to questions from the floor without hesitation or cant; in so doing, she has become a legend to Forum audiences, some of who came to applaud vigorously and some of whom came to disagree violently, but all of whom remained enthralled by her presentation and her intellectual brilliance.

In late 1981, Rand fell ill. When it became clear in early 1982 that she would not be well enough to deliver her April talk in person, she asked Leonard Peikoff to read it in her place. Initially there was some hope that she could answer questions from the audience through a telephone hookup, but all such plans ended with her death on March 6.

On April 25, 1982, Leonard Peikoff delivered the talk that Rand was scheduled to give for the 198182 season, The Sanction of the Victims. Peikoff himself would go on to deliver fifteen lectures of his own at the Forum, from 1983 to 2003. And the Ayn Rand Institutes executive director, Yaron Brook, followed in his Objectivist predecessors footsteps with five talks (20062012).31

Introducing Rands posthumous speech, Peikoff shared Rands opinion of the contrast between the Forums conduct and the hypocrisy of intellectuals who preach an open mind but remain closed to unorthodox views: The Ford Hall Forum, Miss Rand always said, was different; it was honest; it was open to dissent and to new ideas, and therefore did represent a really intellectual organization, whether she agreed with their other speakers ideas or not.32

Image credits: Ford Hall Forum, Ford Hall Forum felt banner, undated, Moakley Archive & Institute, accessed March 18, 2021, https://moakleyarchive.omeka.net/items/show/9256. Ford Hall Forum program for 53rd season, courtesy Ayn Rand Archives, Ayn Rand Papers, 107_19C_001_003.

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Footnotes

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Reaching Active Minds: Ayn Rand and the Ford Hall Forum - New Ideal

Mosaic Theater Companys web series Inherit the Windbag is a darkly funny revisitation of a debate between two larger-than-life figures. During the 1968 Democratic and Republican National Conventions, gay liberal writer Gore Vidal and conservative commentator William F. Buckley Jr. argued with each other nightly on television. In this eight-part series, these two wits return from the grave to continue their debate, joined occasionally by figures such as Norman Mailer, Ayn Rand, and James Baldwin. Written by Alexandra Petri and directed by Lee Mikeska Gardner, each episode will be released every two weeks. Watch this space for a running review.

Release date: March 23, 2021

Guest appearances abound in Episode 3, with Stephen Kime as sex researcher Alfred Kinsey, alternating between making corny jokes with Vidal and asking Buckley questions from his sex surveys. Tamieka Chavis plays Buckleys wife, Pat, with a great reserve; when Buckley reenacts how he proposed to her, she looks away from him, playing cards. Chavis also plays a broadcast announcer who enthusiastically corrects several errors in Vidals biography, while Kime plays Tinker, one of Vidals many hookups, challenging the writer on some of his beliefs.

This episode also shows the two leads in soliloquies, with Paul Morella as Vidal, combining wit with passion, explaining how homosexuality is natural. John Lescault as Buckley begins with a strange ad of sorts for peanut butter, but then gives a loving tribute to his wife, Pat, who took such good care of Buckley for so many years. Although theirs seems a relationship much lacking in passion, Lescault makes it clear how deep and genuine his love for her was. These speeches work to humanize Vidal and Buckley, as they are not trying to score points or get laughs but to talk about what is dear to them.

Sound Designer David Bryan Jackson and Lighting and Projections Designer Dylan Wremovich continue the skillful use of technology. Pat appears in a painting frame, while Buckley rolls up to her to propose. As Kinsey recounts how he and Vidal met, a ballroom becomes the background. Their jokes are met with comedic sound effects, like a drum rimshot. Set Designer Emily Lotz and Costume Designer Brandee Mathies provide a small table and cards for Pat, a lab coat for Kinsey, and a casual outfit for Tinker. Director Lee Mikeska Gardner focuses on Buckleys and Vidals individual personalities in this episode.

By now, the rhythm of the series seems much smoother, allowing the viewer to sit back and follow the action. The ending feels natural and unhurried. Perhaps after two episodes, the viewer now knows what to expect and can relax.

Release date: March 9, 2021

Episode 2 continues the debate, with Tamieka Chavis playing Ayn Rand with a thick Russian accent and a delightfully comic hatred toward Buckley. She also plays Vidals mother with a humorous Southern accent; holding a large, full martini glass, she blurts out outrageous secrets about her family. Stephen Kime plays Norman Mailer with a curious mix of aggressiveness and thoughtfulness, rolling up his sleeves prepared to box Vidal and rehashing their old arguments. Later, he gives a tender reminiscence of the tumultuous 1968 Democratic convention, remembering the protesting youth.

Lescault dazzles as an erudite Buckley, replying in Latin in parts to Rand and Mailer (translated into English onscreen). As Vidal, Morella responds in great form to his jabs, with casually delivered witty barbs.

This episode makes great use of Sound Designer David Bryan Jackson and Lighting and Projections Designer Dylan Wremovich, as well as Set Designer Emily Lotz and Costume Designer Brandee Mathies. Rands face appears in extreme close-up on a monitor, at times only her eyes showing. Vidals mother wears a large pink scarf, a brightly white domestic scene behind her. Mailer shows up in life-size, a colorful backdrop behind him. At times he interacts with Vidal, walking around him. Replicating Buckley and Vidals original televised debate, the screen changes from color to black and white. Director Lee Mikeska Gardner does a great job of keeping up the energy and comic timing.

Again, the episode seems to end just as the viewer eases into the rhythms and guest appearances. For those who enjoy fast-paced, short bursts of comedy, this quickness is no issue, but viewers who need more time may want to wait for more episodes are released, to binge watch. The production certainly knows how to keep viewers hooked for the next installment.

Running Time: Approximately 14 minutes.

Release date: February 23, 2021

Episode 1 introduces Vidal and Buckley and sets up the situation. John Lescault gives Buckley an aristocratic air of condescension toward his debate partner, while Paul Morella delivers withering putdowns. Both move quickly from wonderment at their location (Hell, or the Richard Nixon Library) to trying to take control of the situation. They work well together, arguing from the moment they first appear and each responding effortlessly to the others comments. Tamieka Chavis and Stephen Kime appear onscreen first as broadcasters, preparing for Vidal and Buckleys return, then remain in the corners, occasionally commenting on the action. Chavis also has a brief cameo as Ayn Rand, doing a wonderful accent, and Kime gives a sinister voice to a disembodied Richard Nixon.

This production translates Set Designer Emily Lotz and Properties Designer Willow Watsons set, originally intended for a live, onstage show, to the online world. Two comfortable chairs are at the edges of the screen, while a scorecard appears in a corner. Costume Designer Brandee Mathies keeps the characters distinctive, with Vidal in a black suit and Buckley wearing white.

Sound Designer David Bryan Jackson ensures each actor is clearly heard, while also adding TV static sound effects and a distortion to Nixons voice. Lighting and Properties Designer Dylan Uremovich enhances the surreal aspect with somewhat low lighting and altered parts of Nixons face appearing onscreen. Director of Photography Chris Wren and Video Editor Karim Darwish add extra drama to the production with cuts and other techniques, including a black-and-white flashback to the original debate.

Alexandra Petri expertly captures Vidals and Buckleys personalities with her witty script, while Director Lee Mikeska Gardner keeps the actors interactions feeling natural, even though they are all on separate screens. It never feels like a Zoom call. At just over 11 minutes, though, this first episode feels short and ends abruptly, just as viewers are starting to settle in. Hopefully, future episodes will be a little longer. And each episode can be watched multiple times until June. Inherit the Windbag blends the best of technology and drama in what promises to be a humorous and timely production.

Running Time: Approximately 11 minutes.

Inherit the Windbagis available for streaming through June 30, 2021, on the Mosaic Theater Company website. Episodes will be released February 23, March 9 and 23, April 6 and 20, May 4 and 18, and June 1, 2021. The series program can be downloaded here. For further information on this and future episodes and productions, please visit Mosaics home page.

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In Mosaic's darkly funny 'Inherit the Windbag,' an epic bickerfest (ep. 3) - DC Metro Theater Arts

Ralph Nader has spent a lifetime fighting on behalf of ordinary people. Life magazine ranked him as one of the most influential Americans of the twentieth century. The Atlantic named him one of the hundred most influential figures in U.S. history. Founder of Public Citizen, he is a long-time advocate for consumer safety and workers rights.

Gerrymandering puts up a resistance wall favoring the Republican state government-controlled gerrymandering. It keeps Republicans picking their own voters by these crazily shaped congressional districts in order to maximize their representation in Congress.

Nader rose to fame in the 1960s, when he took on General Motors and its unsafe Corvair car. His 1965 book Unsafe At Any Speed was instrumental in the enactment of the Motor Vehicle Safety Act; his efforts also helped create the Environmental Protection Agency.

Not only has Nader exposed the misdeeds of the corporate sector, but the U.S. political system as well. In recent years, he has led struggles around NAFTA, the WTO, corporate welfare, and single-payer health care. He is the author of numerous books including Return to Sender, Unstoppable, To the Ramparts, and Breaking Through Power, and co-author of Fake President and Wrecking America.

He spoke with David Barsamian, founder and director of Alternative Radio, on February 27, 2021. The full interview can be heard here.

Q: Its probably likely that, had there been no pandemic, Donald Trump would have been reelected. The question arises, how did 74 million Americans vote for him?

Ralph Nader: Excellent point. I was lookingat the voting statistics, and if 45,000 votes switched in three states to Trump, 45,000 out of 158 million or so votes in Arizona, Wisconsin, and Georgia, he would have tied Biden with 270 Electoral College votes. Then it would have gone to the House of Representatives where the vote is by states, and Republicans control more states. He would have been reelected without even going to the House of Representatives if you add one more state and 40,000 or 50,000 more votes, so you are still under 100,000 more votes switching. If you added one more state, and that state would have been Nevada, hed have been elected for another four-year term.

One of the reasons that is almost never mentioned is hereditary Republicans. Tens of millions of hereditary Republicans will vote for the Republican nominee, regardless of who that nominee is. Mayor Bloomberg, when he decided not to run for President years ago, said, 15 percent of Democrats will vote Democratic if Ayn Rand was the nominee. And 15 percent of the Republicans would vote for Republican if Leon Trotsky was the nominee. Those are his words. But clearly, probably 30 or 40 million would vote for the Republican ticket regardless. How about the rest?

The rest are people who are largely single or double, or triple issue [voters] only. They have low expectations of what this most powerful person in the world can do for their children, for the environment, for peace, for tax equity, for rebuilding and repairing the United States, for consumer protection, for worker rights, living wage, and full health insurance. All that they dont care about.

Heres what they care about. And heres what Trump gave them. One, the tax cut. Even though it was a tax cut for the rich, they believed his lies, and thought it was a tax cut for themselves.

Number two, deregulation, even though deregulation harmed them by exposing them to more pollution. Less protection for their children from pesticides, for example. All kinds of harm, regardless of whether they were Trump voters or Biden voters. They all bleed the same way, [theyre all] being ripped off by credit card companies, insurance companies, banks, mortgage service firms, all the fine print contracts. They loved his talk about deregulation.

And the third that they bought into was that he was opposed to abortion. Heres this consummate philanderer who for years was for abortion. They said were holding him to his word; and he did pursue policies against reproductive rights.

The fourth, probably got a few million votes, [was] his belligerent talk overseas, when he would talk about wiping a country off the map and expanding the military budget beyond what the generals themselves asked.

So, it behooves the Democrats to start looking at themselves in the mirror and asking why they came so close to disaster. They had all the money in the world. They had more campaign money than the Republicans. And they had $150 million in two relatively small states, Kentucky, where Mitch McConnell was running for re-election, the majority leader of the Senate. And South Carolina, where that travesty called Lindsey Graham was running for re-election. And the Democrats lost and lost big. One of their candidates spent $80 million, and the other spent $70 million. And they dont even have a look back to see what went wrong, so it doesnt go wrong again in 2022 and 2024.

Q: What about Supreme Court justices and the other judges that Donald Trump appointed?

Nader: He came through. He appointed three of the most reactionary judges you could conceive of and got them confirmed with Mitch McConnell in the Senate. They now have a six to three majority in the Supreme Court for many years to come. And in that sense, he fulfilled his pledge.

So, you take all these issues, and you can see why 74 million people voted for Trump. And by the way, the population keeps growing. So, the fact that he got more votes than Mitt Romney, part of that was due to the expansion of the electorate.

But there is another factor that almost never is talked about. Trump did better among Hispanics and Blacks than it was expected for him to do. People couldnt figure that out. Well, Tom Hartmann came up with the evidence: He has been listening to Latinx radio shows that have been taken over by rightwing Latinx equivalents of Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, and Michael Savage.

So lets not underestimate the transformation of millions of Reagan Democrats years ago with the rise of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and others, after the Fairness Doctrine was repealed by George Herbert Walker Bush, his Federal Communication commissioners. We have to look carefully at that, and see whether its beginning to occur in the Black media as well. And we're not talking about large percentages here. But if Trump got 10 percent more Latinx votes than he was expected to get, thats pretty worrisome for the Democratic Party going toward 2022.

Q: Why didnt Biden have any coattails. He won the popular vote by more than 7 million.

Nader: Again, the Democrats dont do the kind of post-election self-assessment that the Republicans do when they lose elections. Theyre very arrogant. They dont return calls [from] progressives to the Democratic National Committee. The House Democratic Caucus is hard to reach. They dont seek out advice.

The Democrats keep losing elections or not winning ones they should win in a landslide to the worst Republican Party in history. They have the same consultants who make huge amounts of money, 15 percent of all the TV ads, so they discourage the Democratic candidates from having a ground game. They say youve got to go on television, youve got to go on social media, so they can get the 15 percent commission. And as a result, the Biden victory was not matched. They lost two or three seats in California. Biden won California in a landslide.

Another reason is gerrymandering. Gerrymandering puts up a resistance wall favoring the Republican state government-controlled gerrymandering. It keeps Republicans picking their own voters by these crazily shaped congressional districts in order to maximize their representation in Congress. For example, 60 percent of the vote, roughly, in Pennsylvania was Democrat. And yet the majority of representatives in the House from Pennsylvania are Republicans. Thats what gerrymandering does.

Q: Talk about the Grand Old Party, the GOP. Whats going on with the Republican Party?

Nader: Its been taken over by corporatists who have shoved even honest conservatives aside. For example, the Republican Party of Dwight Eisenhower, of Senator Robert Taft, and of others in the 1950s and 1960s, had certain conservative principles. I didnt agree with a lot of them. But for example, they believed in enforcing the antitrust laws. Look at all the giant mergers that they allowed under George W. Bush in industry after industry, the drug industry, the railroad industry, communications industry, and the auto industry.

The corporatists expanded corporate welfare, which the conservatives hate, they call it crony capitalism. So, Trump was a big promoter of corporate welfare because he was a big corporate welfare [recipient], with his gambling casinos and real estate in New York City. So again, corporatism over conservatism.

Conservatives were known to be a little bit isolationist. They didnt like the empire. Some of them were hypocrites. But, generally speaking, they were hesitant about expanding their empire and not engaging in what are called wars of choice. Republicans such as Wendell Willkie, who ran for President in 1940 against Franklin Delano Roosevelt on a peace program.

The future for the GOP is purely a function of how weak the Democratic Party is. If the Democratic Party was progressive, there wouldnt be much left of the GOP. Theyd be lucky to get 30 percent of the vote.

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Ralph Nader on Corporatism's Threat to Democracy - Progressive.org

Over the last forty years we have seen the appreciation of the courageous and all conquering individual kicking back against an overbearing nanny state. Ayn Rand, the founder of the philosophy known as Objectivism, described it as . . . the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute.

The New Right of the 1980s, inspired by Reagan and Thatcher, based their economic principles on pulling back the power of the state to liberate individuals so they could compete and strive through business. By the time Clinton and Blair led the March of the Moderates in the 1990s, the power of the individual was an orthodoxy which reached well beyond the economic sphere.

Objectivism is the ideological foundation on which Silicon Valley has been built. Steve Jobs saw Ayn Rands 1957 novel Atlas Shrugged as one of his guides in life. One of Facebooks guiding principles, Move fast and break things, is a mantra of Objectivism. For many of these tech founders the question isnt Who is going to let me? but Who is going to stop me?. Ayn Rand would thoroughly endorse such sentiment.

Objectivism has not had it all its own way. The banking crisis of 2008 demonstrated that self-styled Masters of the Universe on Wall Street and in the City of London, pretending the pursuit of greed was somehow noble, could corrupt an entire financial system. It was the taxpayer who ended up with the bill, the exact opposite of Rands master plan. China has proved it can corrupt free trade for its own economic advantage, while Russia has done the same politically with free speech.

But still the power of the liberated individual continued to rise. In recent years, the dominance of the unbridled self has seemingly rendered collective wisdom worthless and informed debate meaningless. Personal belief is now treated as an objective reality, so facts can be discounted, experts ignored and lies made truths. Objectivism intended by Ayn Rand to rest upon an objective reality independent of ourselves seems to have begotten its opposite: a subjectivism of fake news, culture wars and populism. There are now Your Truths and My Truths neither of which need have anything to do with facts.

The impact of this highly personal, subjective relationship with truth is all around us. It is largely agreed that Vote Leaves infamous statement We send the EU 350 million a week, lets fund the NHS instead had a strained relationship with fact. It is also largely agreed there was a contentious relationship with truth every time Donald Trump tapped out a tweet.

But personalisation of truth is not just found on the Right of the political spectrum. No-platforming, mainly a phenomenon of the far-Left, demonstrates that self-truth is so powerful that debate becomes worthless or even dangerous. Jeremy Corbyns inability to be an effective Leader of the Opposition was caused by a deeply-held personal belief that his actions and thoughts were inviolable universal truths: any criticism was evidence of mainstream media bias. Debate with Corbynism became evidence of conspiracy.

But after the long night of the Covid pandemic, a belief in society seems to be dawning and the power of the individual might just be brought back in check. It is a source of personal joy that, other than a few notable exceptions, the rules of lockdown have been largely accepted and followed by society. Many predicted mass rioting and looting when western governments took away liberties from citizens, as there was no Chinese authoritarian stick to beat the populace with. Yet the majority have recognised that the fight against Covid would have to be societal, not merely personal. Notably Millennials, in the main, willingly locked down and were subsequently hit hardest by the economic ravages of coronavirus, despite the medical consequences impacting them least.

At the start of Objectivisms surge to power, Ronald Reagan said the nine most terrifying words in the English language were Im from the government and Im here to help. How hollow this now sounds, with the citizens of every nation dependent on the states ability to get jabs into arms.But its bigger than just the state. Covid has asked questions of society, too, and, in the main, society has stepped up to the challenge. As society starts to reassert itself against the individual, let us hope we will once more start to value experts, engage in debate and recouple reality with The Truth rather than My Truth. Even Ayn Rand would have approved of that.

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There is such a thing as society: it has overcome Covid and restored the truth - TheArticle

Recently inThe Tribune-Democrat, therewas an article, UPJ leaders support private vendors online course offerings.

The vendor in question is known as Outlier. At least one UPJ faculty member notes that the connection with Outlier will get our name out there.

However, after pursuing the Outlier website a month ago, I noticed that there was no mention of UPJ anywhere on the site.

At the end of the trailer describing the philosophy course there is a small blurb that mentions a collaboration with the University of Pittsburgh together with the main campus logo. Again there is no indication that UPJ even exists.

To think that this will publicize the Johnstown campus is an example of what Ayn Rand once called magical thinking. But, surprisingly, on the Outlier website, is the discovery that Pitt Provost Ann Cudd, who brought Outlier to the University, is one of the instructors in the philosophy course.

I wonder, can you spell conflict of interest any more clearly?

Martin Rice

Johnstown

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Letter to the editor | UPJ nowhere to be found on Outlier site - TribDem.com

ANN ARBOR, MI A large mural along Liberty Street depicting Woody Allen and four other famous writers has been part of the downtown Ann Arbor landscape for the past 37 years.

But since the airing of a new HBO documentary series revisiting 1992 accusations that Allen molested his 7-year-old daughter, the question of whether to remove him from the mural has resurfaced, and Allens image was defaced recently with a spray-painted X and the word rapist.

Who should replace Woody Allen on this downtown mural? a member of the Ann Arbor Townies! Facebook group asked this week, generating hundreds of responses ranging from American novelist Kurt Vonnegut to Ann Arbor-native musicians Iggy Pop and Bob Seger to Madonna, the pop star who once lived in Ann Arbor and attended the University of Michigan.

The Bookstore Mural, as its known, was painted by artist Richard Wolk in 1984 outside what was Discount Records, now the Potbelly Sandwich Shop, and Davids Books. In addition to Allen, it features Edgar Allan Poe, Hermann Hesse, Franz Kafka and Anais Nin.

The mural is occasionally tagged with random graffiti, but the specific targeting of Allen was unusual, said Jeff Hauptman, CEO of Oxford Companies, owner of the building, who notes his maintenance team already covered over the graffiti.

What isnt new are calls to replace Allen on the mural people ask about that about every few years, Hauptman said, indicating hes open to the idea if the citys Historic District Commission would allow it. Oxford is more than happy to listen to the public sentiment and try to do the right thing, he said.

I can appreciate the frustration people have with seeing Woody Allen on there, Hauptman said, adding whoever replaces Allen should be another writer, and he likes the idea of replacing him with a woman to have more diversity.

Hauptman said he liked the idea some suggested: the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Since she wrote legal opinions, I think that counts, he said.

She would be one of my first choices, he said, calling that his initial gut reaction, though he also likes the idea of adding a Black female writer.

The question of who could replace Allen is continuing to generate discussion in online forums.

Some of the many other suggestions from the Ann Arbor Townies! discussion include poets Amanda Gorman and Maya Angelou, science fiction writer Octavia Butler, novelists Toni Morrison and Ayn Rand, and Joe Dart, bassist for funk group Vulfpeck, which originated in Ann Arbor.

Others suggested poet Robert Frost, who taught at UM and lived in Ann Arbor in the 1920s, Ann Arbor street musicians Shakey Jake and the Violin Monster, Michigan football coach Bo Schembechler and documentary filmmaker Ken Burns, a 1971 graduate of Ann Arbors Pioneer High School.

Some of the more unlikely suggestions include wrestler Hulk Hogan, and actors Keanu Reeves and Mr. T.

Others suggested reggae musician Bob Marley, First Lady Michelle Obama and musicians Bob Dylan and Frank Zappa.

And some argue Allen should be innocent until proven guilty and shouldnt be replaced based on accusations.

Iggy Pop, who once worked in the old Discount Records store that was in the building where the mural is now painted, seemed to be a popular suggestion for replacing Allen until others pointed out an old Iggy Pop lyric: I slept with Sable when she was 13 / Her parents were too rich to do anything.

Another person pointed out Edgar Allan Poe, who is depicted in the mural, married his 13-year-old cousin when he was 27.

No actual human, someone else responded to the question of who should replace Woody Allen. We all have skeletons. Some much bigger than others.

Mural artist Richard Wolk mixes paint in September 2010 as he touches up the mural he originally painted in 1984 at the corner of Liberty and State streets in downtown Ann Arbor.Melanie Maxwell | The Ann Arbor News

Wolk, who has come back to touch up the mural a number of times over the years, couldnt be reached for comment, but he said in 2010 he chose Allen because of the murals proximity to both the State and Michigan theaters. And since Allen is both a writer and filmmaker, he definitely counts, Wolk said in 2010.

Hauptman recalled there was a proposal many years ago to modify the building, which would have included removing the section of the mural with Allen on it. The Historic District Commission wouldnt allow that to happen, he said.

If the commission tells him the mural itself is not protected, Im open to change, Hauptman said, noting the commission controls modification of facades in the historic district.

Since the mural was painted after 1944, it is not considered historic, said City Planner Jill Thacher, the citys historic preservation coordinator. She doesnt have a record of the commission denying a building modification that would have impacted the mural, she said.

The mural is painted on panels affixed to the buildings historic brick facade. In the early 2000s, Potbelly wanted to remove the portion including Allen to expose an original wood and glass storefront entrance along Liberty Street, but the commission was against modifying the mural, Hauptman said.

Given that, Oxford has felt kind of stuck when people have asked over the years about replacing Allen, he said.

But that may no longer be the case.

The citys historic preservation code chapter was replaced with a new one in 2008, Thacher said.

The mural could be altered today with an HDC staff approval from me, as long as the new content isnt advertising something and the area of paint isnt expanding, she said, adding its good that its painted on panels and not the original brick.

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See the rest here:

Talks of replacing Woody Allen in Ann Arbor mural reignited after new documentary - MLive.com

Artificial barriers exist to truly realizing a just, equitable society wherein the inherent rights of the individual protect others; primarily, worship of an ideal so perverse it corrodes the core of community everywhere. Obfuscating the simple truth, that everything is political, only hurts everyone. Being political should only mean being related to a view on the structure of society, not shifting blame.

May I elaborate?

Many wish we could rejoice silently as Thanksgiving dinner is devoid of discourse about views that, ultimately, are direct expressions of personal viewpoints as to how we interact. Whatever that consists of, it certainly boils down to fundamental viewpoints.

Yet this will never happen, for one reason: we all believe in something. If we were mindless drones, devoid of ideals, we would shuffle around, content with the world. Nothing would be political, and nothing would be everything.

Imagine asking Ho Chi Minh about why it is so difficult to live in this world. There would be compassion in the answer. Ayn Rand would likely be equally compassionate. Yet suffering is universal?

Redefining what it means to be political is urgent. When we castigate those who represent us, who are us, by artificially separating the political from something purportedly intrinsic, we transfer the blame of our failure to accept our ties to others into some abstract realm, dominated by what we view to be political.

We are political beings; our existence is defined by those around us, our society. Covid-19 has assured us of that.

Luke Brown

Bluefield, W.Va.

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We wince; therefore, we are | Our Readers Speak | register-herald.com - Beckley Register-Herald

Back in the mid-1990s, when the Republican-controlled Congress briefly considered cutting off funding for the National Endowment for the Arts, I remember seeing an editorial cartoon that portrayed Newt Gingrich taking an axe to Michelangelo's David, over the caption "Counter-Culture." It captured a historical snapshot of our political debate, one that was probably already antique at the time: a portrayal of conservatives as yokels and religious obscurantists, indifferent to art and literature, while the left was the party of education and cultural refinement. Though somehow I can't recall the NEA ever funding anything remotely like the David.

Today, of course, the situation has reversed. Not that conservatism under the influence of Donald Trump has become the party of highbrow intellectualismfar from itbut the left has become the party of a literal iconoclasm, tearing down sculptures and monuments that they imagine represent the old order. They are the new obscurantists seeking to purge our culture of some of its most important art and literature.

This is not exactly unprecedented. In her notes for The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand defined her villain Ellsworth Toohey, a distillation of the 20th-century totalitarian intellectual, in these terms: "He says that he is fighting Rockefeller and Morgan," the big industrialists of the previous era, but "he is fighting Beethoven and Shakespeare." Toohey's left-wing anti-capitalism is just cover for a wider attempt to subordinate the individual to the collectiveand, in service to this goal, to deny the existence of any extraordinary individual. In the real world, this sort of outlook explained, for example, the old left's mania for folk music, because, as Alan Lomax put it, it was "equalitarian," providing us with "a people's culture, a culture of the common man." Beethoven was not a common man.

Under today's left, this desire to cut down the tall poppies is given a racial gloss, and today's "woke" Ellsworth Tooheys are now openly fighting Beethoven and Shakespeare on the grounds that they were white men and thus have been unjustly foisted upon us.

In our age, librarians are not the guardians of great books but their denouncers, so we find them leading the charge against Shakespeare.

A growing number of "woke" academics are refusing to teach Shakespeare in US schools, arguing that the Bard promotes racism, white supremacy, and intolerance, and instead are pushing for the teaching of "modern" alternatives.

Writing in the January issue of School Library Journal, Amanda MacGregor, a Minnesota-based librarian, bookseller, and freelance journalist, asked why teachers were continuing to include Shakespeare in their classrooms. "Shakespeare's works are full of problematic, outdated ideas, with plenty of misogyny, racism, homophobia, classism, anti-Semitism, and misogynoir," she wrote, with the last word referring to a hatred of black women ....

Jeffrey Austin, Writing Center director at Skyline High School in Ann Arbor, Michigan, agreed. "There is nothing to be gained from Shakespeare that couldn't be gotten from exploring the works of other authors," he said. "It's worth pushing back against the idea that somehow Shakespeare stands alone as a solitary genius when every culture has transcendent writers that don't get included in our curriculum or classroom libraries."

I don't know what's worse about this story. Maybe it's the teachersall of them white, by the waywho only assign "authors and characters [who] look and sound like my students," as if it is the job of teachers to keep their students within the confines of their existing lives rather than to expand their horizons. Or maybe it's the ones who do teach Shakespeare, but only ifthey can filter him through their trendy political obsessions, teaching Romeo and Juliet "through the lens of toxic masculinity analysis" or using Coriolanus "to discuss Marxist theory."

It seems strange to have to defend the greatness of Shakespeare, but perhaps people can get away with canceling him because we have taken his status for granted for so long. So let me just list three big reasons we study Shakespeare.

The first is the prodigious variety and creativity of his plots, which have been so endlessly stolen and reworked over the centuriesa few years back it seemed that every movie made for teenagers that didn't have a plot stolen from Jane Austen had a plot stolen from Shakespearethat we forget he was the one who did them first.

Then there is the vast fund of words and phrases in English that Shakespeare created.

If you cannot understand my argument, and declare "It's Greek to me," you are quoting Shakespeare; if you claim to be more sinned against than sinning, you are quoting Shakespeare; if you recall your salad days, you are quoting Shakespeare; if you act more in sorrow than in anger; if your wish is farther to the thought; if your lost property has vanished into thin air, you are quoting Shakespeare; if you have ever refused to budge an inch or suffered from green-eyed jealousy, if you have played fast and loose, if you have been tongue-tied, a tower of strength, hoodwinked, or in a pickle, if you have knitted your brows, made a virtue of necessity, insisted on fair play, slept not one wink, stood on ceremony, danced attendance (on your lord and master), laughed yourself into stitches, had short shrift, cold comfort, or too much of a good thing, if you have seen better days or lived in a fool's paradisewhy, be that as it may, the more fool you, for it is a foregone conclusion that you are (as good luck would have it) quoting Shakespeare; if you think it is early days and clear out bag and baggage, if you think it is high time and that that is the long and short of it, if you believe that the game is up and that truth will out even if it involves your own flesh and blood, if you lie low till the crack of doom because you suspect foul play, if you have your teeth set on edge (at one fell swoop) without rhyme or reason, thento give the devil his dueif the truth were known (for surely you have a tongue in your head) you are quoting Shakespeare; even if you bid me good riddance and send me packing, if you wish I was dead as a door-nail, if you think I am an eyesore, a laughing stock, the devil incarnate, a stony-hearted villain, bloody-minded, or a blinking idiot, thenby Jove! O Lord! Tut tut! For goodness' sake! What the dickens! But me no buts!it is all one to me, for you are quoting Shakespeare.

Shakespeare, more than anyone else, is the creator of modern English, and the reason we study him is because of his outsized influence in shaping our language.

But the final reason is the one that makes the attempt to racialize Shakespeare utterly ridiculous. Shakespeare is the most global playwright in history, endlessly translated, adapted, and appropriated by every culture in the world, outside of North Korea. No, strike that, even there.

Only a "woke" American could be so parochial as to imagine Shakespeare to be a restrictively white or English writer. So what purpose is to be served by pretending this is the case?

For an answer to that, let's look at the assault on Beethoven.

As a fan of classical music, this is the shoe I've been expecting to drop for some years now: the claim that classical music is somehow racist and must therefore be canceled.

For now, this takes the form primarily of an attack on music theory, on the body of knowledge that helps us to understand classical music. But you can see the obvious motive. If we can no longer understand or explain classical music, then we won't be in a position to promote it or defend it.

Hence the assault on a tiny little academic journal devoted to the study of early 20th-Century music theorist Heinrich Schenker.

There is no controversy over whether Schenker held racist viewsdespite himself being a Jew whose work and family were later targeted by the Nazis. (We live in a complicated word.) The question is whether this makes his theories on music invalid. That is precisely the claim made by musicologist Philip Ewell in a broadside arguing that "Schenker's racism permeates his music theories" and "accusing generations of Schenker scholars of trying to 'whitewash' the theorist in an act of 'colorblind racism.'" When the Journal of Schenkerian Studies tried to push back against these claims, it got canceled.

That last phrase from Ewell, "colorblind racism," is the curious one, because the upshot is that Schenker scholars stand accused not of broadcasting Schenker's racism but of attempting to separate it from the valid ideas in his musical theory.

If we are going to reject any idea ever developed by a racist as the fruit of a poisonous tree, then I suppose we had better get rid of Woodrow Wilson's entire "progressive" agenda, including the income tax, on the grounds that it was championed by an out-and-out racist and a defender of segregation. Somehow nobody (on the left at least) ever seems to want to draw that conclusion.

Yet it is far more plausible to say that political ideas should suffer guilt by association than it is to apply this standard to science or scholarship. If we found out Copernicus was a racist, would the sun stop being at the center of the solar system? The very notion is an absurdityyet that is essentially Philip Ewell's argument against Schenker and music theory.

No, really. Here is his whole argument for Heinrich Schenker's music theory being racist: "As with the inequality of races, Schenker believed in the inequality of tones." So is an octave consonant and, say, a tritone dissonant, just because a music theorist thought black people were inferior? Would it be "anti-racist" to pretend to hear no difference between the two intervals?

You might as well claim that all numbers also have to be equal and thereby cancel the entire field of mathematics. This is not just an analogy, because as the Greek philosopher Pythagoras discovered 2,500 years ago, musical intervals are directly related to numbers. You can easily replicate his ancient experiments yourself. If you pluck a guitar string, for example, and then you hold the string down against the fingerboard at exactly half its full length and pluck it again, you will get a tone one octave higher. Pythagoras did this and concluded that an octave represents a mathematical ratio of 2:1. (In modern terms, we know that a pitch one octave higher is produced by air that is vibrating exactly twice as frequently as in the original pitch.) Two pitches with this interval between them are so consonant with each other that they are experienced as being the same note, just higher or lower.

Pythagoras then went on to identify the next simplest ratio, 3:2, which sounds to our ear as the next most consonant interval, what is called a fifth or a dominant interval, which is so ancient and widely recognized that it features in the simple pentatonic scales of folk music from around the world. The next most consonant interval, 4:3, is called the subdominant, and if youve ever been to church, you will recognize it instantly as the amen chord progression. And so on.

Thats all that music theory really is. Not that its just the mathematics of the notes. Starting with the rediscovery of Pythagoras in the Renaissance, musicians and scholars began to learn more about the relationships between musical pitches and used this both to create and to understand new forms of melody and harmony, along with developing new ideas about the structure of a piece of music, how to progress from one melody to another, and so on.

Finding out that one influential theorist was a racist does not invalidate thousands of years of accumulated knowledge of music, nor does it change the mathematical relationships between musical pitches, and it is preposterous to think that it ever could.

But to go back to Ellsworth Toohey, let's follow a piece of advice he gave us: "Don't bother to examine a follyask yourself only what it accomplishes." In this case, it's not about a musical theorist unknown to the general public. It's about bringing down the classical composer everyone has heard of: Ludwig van Beethoven.

So Ewell goes on to disparage Beethoven as an unfairly uplifted mediocrity. "To state that Beethoven was any more than, say, above average as a composer," or to say that "Beethoven's Ninth Symphony is a masterwork, born of the genius of a titanic composer," he writes, is to perpetuate "music theory's white racial frame, which works in concert with patriarchal structures to advantage whiteness and maleness." "Beethoven occupies the place he does because he has been propped up by whiteness and maleness for two hundred years."

So Beethoven was just a middling guy foisted upon us in order to keep down "persons of color."

The only way Ewell and the rest of the woke crowd can get away with it is because of decades of neglect of musical education in our schools. Music theorists may know better, and as a musician, Ewell definitely knows better. But he's depending on being able to dupe the public, who only know Beethoven as the guy who wrote the song that begins "duh-duh-duh-DUN."

The insult behind these claimsand the implied intimidationis that we venerate the achievements of a Shakespeare or a Beethoven unthinkingly, out of mere prejudice or chauvinism, without knowing the reasons their work is great. So let's call that bluff by talking for a moment about what's great about Beethoven.

"Duh-duh-duh-DUN" is how most people remember the opening notes of the first movement of Beethoven's Fifth Symphonythree forcefully delivered short notes, followed by a long, sustained note one whole step lower. This is not the opening melody. It's what is called a "motif," a fragment of a melody, something too short and simple to be a melodic theme on its own, but which can be extended or combined with other motifs to become a theme. And that's precisely what Beethoven proceeds to do with it.

This, by the way, is the main difference between classical music and popular music or folk music. You will find that most popular songs have perhaps 15 to 20 seconds of actual, unique musicusually, just enough melody to sustain a single line of the lyrics. That melody is then repeated over and over again, with only the lyrics changing (if you're lucky). Maybe there's a brief hook or refrain, and maybe there's a bridge, a second melody briefly introduced for contrast before returning to the opening melody. But popular and folk music tends to rely on repetition. That's what makes it seem less complex and demanding to listen to, and it's what makes classical music seem more "serious" by comparison.

Classical music is generally built on the opposite approach. Once a melodic theme is introduced, it is meant to be varied, modulated, transformed, inverted, and contrasted. So in the Fifth Symphony, once Beethoven introduces the "duh-duh-duh-DUN" motif, he immediately repeats it one whole step lower. Then he turns it into a full-fledged melody based on the repetition of the motif at progressively higher and lower pitches, first going down, then going up, then put into counterpoint against itself in a kind of call and response. Then the whole process is repeated and extended.

After a little while of this, the opening motif is repeated,at about 0:51, in a horn call that carries the same rhythm but extends itthree short notes followed now by three long notesand spaces out the pitches at wider intervals. The pitches of these notes are then taken as the basis for a second melodic theme, and you will notice that this one sounds much happier. The symphony as a whole is in the key of C minor, and carries the ominous, slightly dissonant tension of a minor key, made all the stormier by Beethoven's urgent, brooding rhythms. But this second theme appears in the key of E-flatmajor. This is the "relative major" of C minor, which just means that if you take all the same notes as a C-minor scale and play them in a different combination, it sounds like a major scale. It's a neat trick for seamlessly changing from an ominous to a happy mood, and back again.

Beethoven then brings back the duh-duh-duh-DUN motif, but this time in a mood that is not brooding buttriumphant, ending (at 1:33) with a variation in which the final note, the DUN, reaches up rather than down.

This sense of triumph is cut short by a return of the original, ominous version of the motif, and this establishes the basic idea for the rest of the first movementa contest between the ominous and the joyous, a sense of impending doom that is transformed into a sense of triumph. After another section of variation and development, the initial theme is broken down, reduced (at4:02) from four notes to two, then to only one, and the heartbeat of the movement nearly flatlines, only to be revived by an adrenaline shot of the opening motif.

If this were a movie, this is the point at which our protagonist, after a series of early victories, suffers a series of setbacks. It looks like he might finally lose, but with the help of some soul-searching (represented here by a quietly introspective oboe solo), he manages to rally for one last superhuman effort.

That's exactly what happens here. The happier second theme makes a triumphant return, at5:38, now in C major, briefly changing the dominant mood of the whole movement from a minor key to that of a major key, leading to a triumphant version of the "duh-duh-duh-DUN" theme that keeps on going this time and rises to new heights. But then the second theme evolves into a form that is darker, more brooding and defiant (atabout 6:55). The piece ends with the opening motif returning, but this time stated (at7:49) in a form that is neither despairing nor triumphant but assertive and indomitable.

Notice how Beethoven starts with the initial motifa short, bare fragment of a melody, so mindlessly simple that anyone can remember itand takes it through so many variations, modifications, and transformations that it can capture a whole gamut of emotions: from dread to joy, from despair to triumph, from stormy defiance to confident assertiveness.

And what does it all add up to? It's helpful to know the context of Beethoven's life. He wrote the Fifth Symphony from 1804 to 1808, years in which he was beginning to lose his hearing and was giving up his career as a concert pianist, turning his energies fully to composing, and that suggests what the Fifth Symphony is about.

Beethoven's secretary, Anton Schindler, later said that the opening motif represents the hand of fate knocking on the door, and his story became so popular that this is known as the fate motif. But most historians agree that Schindler is not a reliable source, and musically, I'm not buying it. The Fifth Symphony is not about fate. It is about Beethovens defiance of fatehis determination to triumph over his circumstances. He is the one who knocks.

To take such a simple motif and weave it, not just into a complex musical tapestry, but into a profound yet personal statementthat is the achievement of a musical genius.

This is precisely why Beethoven is under attack. Ewell says that part of his purpose is to expose the "myth of the artistic genius." Beethoven has to be knocked down a peg.

But the broader motive is the same as Ellsworth Toohey's: to herd us all into a collective and make us think about everything in terms, not of the individual, but of the group. Just as with the supposed anti-racists who want us to see hard work and rational thinking" as "white" values, so Ewell lists the following among his catalog of euphemisms for whiteness": authentic, civilized, classic, function, fundamental, genius, opus, piano, sophisticated. Oh, and also science, theory, and the calendar, because I guess the Gregorian calendar is colonialist. We are not allowed to think of anything independent of the political dogmas of the moment or outside of a racial frameand this is billed, in the final insult to our intelligence, as anti-racism.

This is also, obviously, condescending and infantilizing toward the supposed objects of its concern, conceding as it does the denial to black people of civilization, sophistication, and the ability to appreciate or learn from Beethoven and Shakespearein defiance of all actual evidence. But disparaging the common man under the guise of being his champion is the whole point, which takes us back to the idea Ayn Rand was trying to embody in the character of Ellsworth Toohey. He tears down greatness in order to make man feel small. He fights Beethoven and Shakespeare (and Rockefeller and Morgan) because he wants people to think of themselves as small and weak and thus to allow themselves to herded into undistinguished collectives in need of a rulersomeone like him.

In that regard, notice what this woke analysis accomplishes for its contemporary Ellsworth Tooheys: It allows them to elevate themselves by tearing other people down. They do not have to discover a new continent or unlock the secrets of the universe; they do not need to found a free nation or fight a war to free other men from bondage; they do not need to write a play or a poem or a symphony, or develop their own theories of music; they need merely point out the flaws of the people who did all of these things.

All they need to be better than the best is to display their mastery of the latest catchphrases.

To state it in those terms is to expose the absurdity. And here we need to remember another piece of wisdom from Ayn Rand: The uncontested absurdities of today are the accepted slogans of tomorrow. The collectivist doctrine of anti-racism is the uncontested absurdity that is rapidly becoming our culture's accepted slogan.

Perhaps the best antidote to that, the best way to combat the absurdity, is simply to keep ourselves grounded in the great works that the woke intellectuals want to cut down. Keep on reading Shakespeare and listening to Beethoven, keep our minds broadened by focusing on the broad vistas they illuminate and the potential for human greatness than they reveal. By contrast to that, the political dogmas of the moment will seem as petty and narrow as they really are.

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Why We Need Shakespeare and Beethoven - The Dispatch

Quarterfinal Game 2

3 p.m. CT, Sunday, March 14

From the front windows of Compton Family Ice Arena, one massive parking lot away from Notre Dames famed football stadium, you can almost see the iconic Touchdown Jesus mosaic that is a landmark of this place most known for exploits on the gridiron.

Before heading to Notre Dame for the Sunday afternoon playoff opener, it was perhaps appropriate for Minnesota Gophers coach Bob Motzko to be thinking in football terms when scouting his opponent.

Theyve had a tough stretch, but its over. Theyre going to get a fresh set of downs now, Motzko said of Michigan State, which the Gophers beat four times in the regular season. Theyve got a chance to remedy some things into the playoffs...Theyre a big strong team, theyre well-coached their goaltender (Drew) DeRidder has been one of the best in the conference.

In fact, just a few weeks ago the Gophers chased DeRidder from the net in a 5-1 victory in Minneapolis. That was one of a NCAA-best 20 wins in the regular season, but the Gophers did not get a banner to show for that effort, and head to the next phase of this most unique season with unfinished business.

Well-assured that they will be in the NCAA tournament in a few weeks, the conference playoffs are a different atmosphere for the Gophers. They played three playoff games at home versus Notre Dame last season before college hockey shut down due to the pandemic. These Gophers have no experience playing at a neutral site in the postseason, but that is not to say they have not experienced higher-pressure hockey in the past. For many players, there is a feeling in the air in March that signals the stakes going up.

This is the best time of year. Growing up as a kid in Minnesota this was state tournament time, said freshman defenseman Brock Faber. When the weather starts to warm up a bit, this is always fun. I wouldnt say (there are) nerves, Id say more excitement for me.

For the Gophers to win a trophy in South Bend, the formula is pretty straightforward. Goalie Jack LaFontaine needs to keep doing the things that have him solidly in the running as the Big Tens top goalie, and Motzko noted that a few of the teams more talented goal-scorers need to be heard from.

Weve got a guy like Ben Meyers who is maybe one of the big spark plugs in our conference, that can explode, Motzko said. Sammy Walker, at any moment. (Blake) McLaughlin (Sampo) Ranta for the first time now is heading into a tournament. Rantas been pretty steady all year. There are not many weekends that he doesnt have a goal.

Like every team except Wisconsin, the Gophers will need to win three games in three nights if they want to raise the Big Ten playoff banner for just the second time (after 2015) in program history. The players who spoke to the media this week said their sole focus is Sunday, and anything past that will be dealt with as it comes.

Thats the biggest game of the season so far. Just focusing on the next one is huge for us, Faber said. Focusing on Michigan State, theyre a heavy team and theyll play physical on a smaller ice sheet that fits their game a lot better.

There are good times ahead for Michigan State, which has an extensive remodeling and modernization project underway at Munn Ice Arena. And there have been good times in the past, as the Spartans remain the most recent Big Ten team to win a NCAA title (in 2007, under former coach Rick Comley).

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The present is more challenging in East Lansing, where Coles teams have finished sixth or seventh in the seven-team conference in all four of his seasons at the helm of his alma mater. They made a valiant stand versus Wisconsin in the season finale, leading the Badgers with a minute to play in the second period before falling 2-1. Although the pessimist will note that the Spartans closed the regular season going 1-9-0 in their last 10 and scoring one goal, total, in their final three games.

Cole was philosophical when talking with the media prior to their fifth game versus the Gophers, quoting both Ayn Rand and Sun Tzu, and making correlations to hockey and hinting that his team may need to play a more aggressive game versus the Gophers in the playoffs.

Even when we havent played well, I do like the way our guys have competed, but you can do that in a lot of ways, he said. If you stand at the bottom of the hill and the opposing army runs down the hill, and you just stand there and they run you over, I guess youre competing, trying to hold your ground. But its not very smart, tactfully.

Like they did in hanging close to the Badgers last weekend, the Spartans are likely to try to make things defensive, as they have averaged 1.5 goals per game this season and scored more than three just twice.

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B1G tourney preview: After 20 wins in NCAA regular season, Gophers still have something to prove in playoffs - Brainerd Dispatch