Volume 20, No. 3: Fall 2025
If you are a paid subscriber, you will find PDF and EPUB versions of this issue here in the first week of September.
In this issue:
From The Editor
The Fall 2025 of TOS is Published!
Welcome to the Fall 2025 issue of The Objective Standard, the rational alternative to regressivism and conservatism.
Cover Article
The Heartbreak and Heroism of Sammy Davis Jr.
Sammy Davis Jr. climbed up from the streets of Harlem, defying Jim Crow in the most splendid ways, and even surmounted the catastrophic injuries of a nearly fatal car accident, to change the entertainment world forever.
Heroes
One Landowner’s Quiet Revolution in an Age of Serfdom
While most of Eastern Europe maintained hereditary serfdom and absolute monarchy, a Polish count, Ignacy Ścibor Marchocki, decided to push the limits of what freedom—and “good”—could mean.
Politics & Rights
The False Narrative Behind Trump’s Trade Restrictions
Lacking any basis in facts or logic, history or economics, the Trumpian narrative on trade is detached from reality. To repudiate Trump’s immoral, destructive trade war, we must refute the false narrative that’s motivating it.
Progressive Myths by Michael Huemer (Review)
Progressive Myths convincingly and succinctly demonstrates that key "Progressive" claims about the world are based on half-truths at best and outright falsehoods at worst.
Philosophy
Life vs. Faith: William Hagerup on Leaving Religion
To fit into a religion you “have to deny yourself for the sake of the ideology you believe in”—something William Hagerup decided he was no longer willing to do.
Excerpt from Principles of Nature
Elihu Palmer was a former Calvinist preacher who rejected everything he had been taught and became one of the leading critics of organized religion in revolutionary America.
The Arts
Fiction as Soul Fuel: Why Stories Move Us
Fiction engages our emotions by appealing to universal values and potentially, the audience’s sense of life. In doing so, it helps us connect with others as it provides a fun and interesting experience.
V: An Outstanding Work of Dystopian Television
If you’re a fan of deep, thoughtful dystopian fiction—or of thoughtful, intense science fiction—then you should check out a little-known 1980s TV phenomenon. Its name is simply V.
Nine Poems on the Heroism of Industry
Including works by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Rudyard Kipling, Walt Whitman, and Hart Crane.