The Undercurrent

First of all, ...

Welcome, Undercurrent Readers!

Yesterday, in his newsletter, TIA Daily, Robert Tracinski made the following point about the Terri Schiavo case. It is on the money and ominous at once. The "fight for Terri Schiavo" is really the fight against an idea symbolized by another lady: Liberty. That is, it is a symptom of a deep animus against individual rights by the religionists. This battle will not end with Terri Schiavo's death because Terri Schiavo was just a symbol, and, sadly, only a means to an end.

[The religious right] cannot value liberty, because there is an inescapable connection between faith and force. As Ayn Rand explained in her 1960 essay "Faith and Force: Destroyers of the Modern World" (reprinted in Philosophy: Who Needs It):

Reason is the only objective means of communication and of understanding among men; when mean deal with one another by means of reason, reality is their objective standard and frame of reference. But when men claim to possess supernatural means of knowledge, persuasion, communication, or understanding are impossible. Why do we kill wild animals in the jungle? Because no other way of dealing with them is open to us. And that is the state to which mysticism reduces mankind--a state where, in case of disagreement, men have no recourse except to physical violence.

And that is where the faith-driven crusade of the religious right is leading us. The overall pattern of the religious right's approach to the Terri Schiavo case shows us the steps along the way: a desperate grabbing onto any lie, rationalization, or pseudo-scientific claim needed to prop up their dogmas; an attempt to knock flat the whole structure of American government, from the separation of powers between the state and federal government to the independence of the judiciary, to eliminate anyone who can raise a principled objection to their goals; the demand for Jeb Bush to drop the process of legal argumentation altogether and simply exert raw executive power; and, as the final step, the ominous threat of mobs of religious fanatics resorting to violence against
government officials.

As ominous as that progression is, it is also instructive--and that is why it provides an opportunity. It provides an opportunity to show those who are attracted to the right for essentially secular reasons--a love of liberty and an admiration for the American system--that the religious right is no friend of those ideals. At the same time, the left no longer provides a living ideological alternative, as its absence from the controversy has demonstrated.

This is an unprecedented opportunity to make the case that the right needs to seek out a different moral foundation, a secular moral foundation for the principles of individual rights and limited government. There is only one such foundation for liberty, and it was provided by Ayn Rand: the view that liberty is a necessary requirement for the survival and happiness of a rational being here on this earth. [Some fomatting and link added.]

After reading this, I am doubly happy to have taken a small part (as a contributing author) in the birth of a new Objectivist publication, The Undercurrent, to which I have added a sidebar link. From the web site:

"It was as if an underground stream flowed through the country and broke out in sudden springs that shot to the surface at random, in unpredictable places." -- Ayn Rand

The Undercurrent is a student-run newsletter. Its content is written primarily by college students across the country, with additional articles from the Ayn Rand Institute op-ed program and other writers. The paper's goal is to persuade students of the truth and relevance of Ayn Rand's philosophy of Objectivism.

We aim to release a print edition once a month. The Undercurrent is distributed to college campuses nationally. If you're interested in distributing on your campus (or anywhere else), more information can be found here.

In its inaugural issue, editor Gena Gorlin welcomes her readers, starting off by saying what the newsletter is not:

Welcome to the The Undercurrent. Before we begin, let us tell you what we are not. We are not a political journal (though politics will be discussed); we are not a humor magazine (though we have every intention of being, at times, knee-slappingly funny); we are not a literary publication (though rest assured, arts and culture will get plenty of coverage). Our aim is deeper and more basic than all these. We aim to introduce you to a practical philosophy--one that could radically alter politics, culture, and every avenue of your life.

And then she ends by telling us what the newsletter is.

Philosophy, unbeknownst to most, runs through every nook and cranny of our culture. It is like an undercurrent that flows beneath our feet and determines our direction. Today, religion and its alleged opposite, relativism, are steering our culture toward disaster. But a new undercurrent--which has inspired thousands of people to live purposeful, productive lives and vigorously pursue their values--is slowly but surely spreading. It is Ayn Rand's life-giving philosophy of Objectivism. With your help, it can win.

In other words, there is a viable alternative to the "choice" in our culture between faith and relativism, and The Undercurrent is here to make that alternative known. I like how Noumenalself puts it in the context of the "academic freedom" debate, another front in the culture wars: "Only a philosophy that celebrates the power of the mind to know can motivate students to learn, and professors to advance the frontiers of science. Readers of The Undercurrent should have no difficulty learning which philosophy I think that is." (And this goes for my readers, as well.)

And this is what I like so much about this publication. Polemics have their place, but for the battle of ideas to be won, people have to change their minds about some very fundamental issues. They will not even consider thinking about ideas unless we make the case for the relevance of ideas to their lives, and therefore, of the great value that our ideas represent. The Undercurrent does a good job of this.

I strongly urge my readers to visit this site and look through its first issue, and then come back for more each month. This newsletter is off to a promising start, and as someone who values individual rights, I see this as a publication whose time has come. As Robert Tracinski put it in the title to the piece I quoted from, "A 'Crack-Up of the Right' Is Not a Threat--It's a Goal." But it is not a final goal, and it will be for naught, unless those of us who value our freedom propose a positive, radical alternative to the nihilistic and the religious ideologies that are threatening our freedom today.

I would like to close by again thanking the staff of The Undercurrent for holding the blogger contest, and for their professionalism. As I put it in an email to Gena Gorlin:

I've written opinion columns before, but never for an Objectivist publication. The process was harder in some respects, but for all the right reasons.

It was especially nice that the changes actually improved the piece, and that I didn't find myself either (a) fighting a hostile or indifferent editor intent on butchering what I wrote or (b) being totally surprised by the changes. This was a great experience.

Keep up the good work! I'm impressed!

PS: I have to say that I laughed out loud when I learned that my piece was being edited by the ever-elusive Noumenalself! I may be protective of my actual identity, but I have nothing on this guy. "Noumenalself is a graduate student in philosophy at an undisclosed location. His blog is found at www.noumenalself.com."

-- CAV