TOS Weekly - How to Stop Trump’s Tyranny
Plus debunking misconceptions about the Enlightenment, taking your calls about philosophy, revisiting Ayn Rand's theory of rights, and celebrating Mozart's music on his birthday.
Welcome to this week’s TOS Weekly!
In recent weeks, Donald Trump’s lack of principle has been on display perhaps more than ever. After failing to fulfill his promise to defend the Iranian protesters, he sidestepped that crucially important issue to focus on his obsession with conquering Greenland, needlessly threatening more destructive tariffs and penning an embarrassing letter to the prime minister of Norway blaming that country for not awarding him a Nobel Peace Prize. This kind of behavior is expected from Trump at this stage, but it points to the president’s dangerous fixation on his own image at the expense of due process and individual rights. Nicholas Provenzo’s double review of two new books about dealing with dictators shines a light on the cultural trends that have given rise to two Trump presidencies and the steps Americans must take in order to protect what remains of the freest nation on Earth.
The cultural trends that have made our current situation possible go back centuries and ultimately stem from a widespread abandonment of the principles of the Enlightenment—the ideas that reason is man’s means of knowledge and that all people should be free to use their reason to identify and pursue their values. Good books on the Enlightenment—especially accessible, clearly written ones—are a rarity in today’s academia. This week, Margherita Bovo reviews one of those rare diamonds in the rough, Ritchie Robertson’s The Enlightenment: The Pursuit of Happiness, drawing out the core Enlightenment values that so many other writers seem to misunderstand or overlook altogether but which are crucial to achieving happiness and building a better society.
I hope you enjoy this week’s articles.
Thomas Walker-Werth
What’s New?
From the Archive
Ayn Rand’s Theory of Rights: The Moral Foundation of a Free Society
We need a moral principle to protect ourselves from people and governments that attempt to use force against us. That principle involves the concept of rights.
Birthdays
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