The Objective Standard Blog

Thursday, October 26, 2006

New Streaming Videos from the Ayn Rand Institute

Posted by Craig Biddle at 7:18 pm

The following new videos are free (with a quick registration). The first is Dr. Yaron Brook’s enlightening explanation of why the Forward Strategy of Freedom has failed and will continue to fail to bring security to America. The second is Dr. Onkar Ghate’s excellent discussion of why religion cannot provide a foundation for an objective morality and of what philosophy can. Both talks are highly recommended.

Democracy versus Victory: Why the “Forward Strategy of Freedom” Had to Fail
By Yaron Brook

After Sept. 11 the Bush administration declared that we must go on a mission to bring freedom to the Middle East nations that threaten us; thus, the Forward Strategy of Freedom. According to this strategy, establishing democracies in key Muslim countries, starting with Afghanistan and Iraq, would spur a revolution in the rest of the Muslim world—a revolution that would bring free, pro-Western, anti-terrorist governments to power.

But the strategy has failed. With the rise of the religious Shiites in Iraq, of Hamas and of Hezbollah, and with the electoral victories of Islamic radicals elsewhere in the Middle East, the Muslim world has grown more militant.

Why has the Forward Strategy of Freedom failed, and why was failure inevitable? What are the flaws inherent in the strategy? How does it necessarily undermine victory? What motivates it and what strategy should replace it? These are the questions Dr. Brook addresses in this talk.

Religion and Morality
By Onkar Ghate

From the teaching of “Intelligent Design” in the classroom to federal prohibition on the funding of stem cell research to the Terri Schiavo case, religion is playing an increasing role in America’s public life. The advocates of religion claim that only religion can restore values to America—by combating moral skepticism and relativism with an absolute view of right and wrong, applicable to everyone. If God is dead, it is often thought today, then everything would be permitted. But does morality rest on religion? Can it rest on religion? Are moral absolutes possible with religion? Without religion? What approach to morality can actually bring values to American culture? These are the questions this talk addresses.

Posted in: Announcements, Foreign Policy and War, Religion