Atlas Sayings

 

I receive periodic emails from The Atlas Society. From their 2/22/24 email, I am quoting four short sayings that I would like to comment on.

 

First, from Richard Salinas, this remark: “Young people are being poisoned by these collectivist ideas. The problem with universities, they have accountability to nobody—zero.”

 

My response: Collectivist brainwashing of the young is as old as humankind, and, yes, young people are being poisoned by collectivist ideas: socialism, Leftism, group rights, group-living, the claim of primary normative emphasis on group-identity, the cult of mediocrity or mass nonindividuating, the emphasis on altruist-collectivist morality.

 

Solutions: Do not pay to send your child to college if they are woke; send them to Hillsdale, or do not send them to college at all. Work with conservatives like Chris Rufo that are trying to make state colleges and universities, funded by the taxpayer, get rid of their DEI-CRT departments and promote the old-fashioned liberal arts education. BEST SOLUTION: Raise your children to think for herself as a self-actualizer, autodidact intellectual, and she will be able to withstand and surmount any brainwashing attempt to break her and convert/reduce her to true believer conformity to the Leftism mass movement that is all the rage on campus.

 

Second, from Andrew Sullivan: “End DEI in its entirety. Fire all the administrators whose only job is to enforce its toxic orthodoxy. Admit students on academic merit alone.”

 

My response: Right on: admission, hiring, promotion and assessing someone’s moral character should be based on no group affiliation or trait, but only through colorblind assessment of their individual worth based on merit, character, accomplishment and the goodness of their will.

 

Third, from Ayn Rand: “Definitions are the guardians of rationality, the first line of defense against the chaos of mental disintegration.”

 

My response: Definitions are the guardians of rationality for our words come after our thoughts, but so closely as to be or seem indistinguishable from one another. Humans must think, be rational and define their terms, concepts, and argument so they can be moral and to prosper, and this is pleasing to God, to others and to oneself.

 

Fourth, from Bari Weiss: “The universities play favorites based on the speech they prefer and the racial group hierarchies they’ve established. It’s a nasty game and they need to be called to account for it.”

 

My response: We need to rear up a generation of young Americans that are individuating supercitizens. Such paragons of excellence, honed talent and critical and original thinking require being favored by none or being disfavored by none, and they will personally refuse to favor or disfavor anyone. The individual content of character and their earned merit is how they will be objectively, impartially assessed and treated.

 

Let them speak about anything at all without restriction. Their group affiliations are intersectionally interesting, but, otherwise, of no consequence.