From the Editor, Winter 2024
Celebrating Individualism and the Pursuit of Freedom in Architecture and Thought
Welcome to the Winter 2024 issue of The Objective Standard.
While attending LevelUp 2024 in Atlanta earlier this year, I went for a walk to explore the area. The conference hotel was linked to several other buildings by an elevated, air-conditioned walkway—ideal in Atlanta’s June heat—so I headed across to see where it led. On the other side, I found one of the most dramatic indoor spaces I’ve ever encountered: the towering forty-eight-story atrium of the Marriott Marquis hotel, designed by Atlanta native John C. Portman. Further along was his earlier Hyatt Regency hotel, which also boasted a voluminous atrium replete with balconies, shining glass elevators, and towering sculptures. Determined to learn more about the man who had designed these phenomenal buildings, I started researching him—and discovered a renegade architect who was shocked by the “sterile, inhuman” style of his day and made it his mission to instead design buildings that people would enjoy using and visiting. In “‘Make It Something That Enhances Life’: The Architectural Philosophy of John C. Portman,” I examine some of Portman’s most exceptional buildings in the United States and beyond, his distinctive approach to architecture and business, and the individualism that fueled his many achievements.
Such individualism—and the individual rights that are supposed to protect it at the political level—have long been under attack. Unfortunately, those who speak out to defend freedom, individual rights, and capitalism often underestimate the philosophic depth of their opponents’ arguments. They make practical, economic arguments for capitalism, failing to answer the many moral and epistemological arguments arrayed against them. This is “worse than futile,” writes Jon Hersey, “because it convinces those who matter in such a setting—the audience—that advocates of freedom cannot be taken seriously, that all the intellectual power in today’s world is on the side of statists who deny any factual basis for individual rights and seek to violate those rights in sundry ways.” In “Ayn Rand and the Future of Freedom,” Hersey outlines several key philosophic problems and their political consequences, the failures of past thinkers to resolve these problems, and how Rand succeeded.
The shorts in this issue are:
“The Obscenity of Banning Books” by Angelica Walker-Werth;
“Dreaming of America: The Art of Hiroshi Nagai” by Ligeia Rose;
“Mark Knopfler: Sultan of Song” by Jon Hersey.
The reviews in this issue are:
Challenger: A True Story of Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space by Adam Higginbotham, reviewed by Timothy Sandefur;
Star Trek: Prodigy, created by Kevin and Dan Hageman, reviewed by me.
I hope you enjoy the issue!