I can't call it awesome, 'cause Diana Hsieh has already used that word, but this announcement is big:
Thanks to an exclusive permission generously granted by the Estate of Ayn Rand, aynrand.org is now able to offer its registered users, free of charge, an expansive collection of Ayn Rand audio and video recordings. This unprecedented selection includes lectures, interviews, and the complete series of Ayn Rand's Ford Hall Forum lectures.
I recommend that you listen to them, for the most part, in chronological order. Since Ayn Rand's comments are often on political and cultural events, it can be interesting to see her views as expressed over the years. Unfortunately, the way ARI has listed the items makes it difficult to do that, so, as a service to readers of The Anger of Compassion, I did it myself.
My methodology was simple: I just looked up as many dates as I could in my bound volumes of The Objectivist Newsletter, The Objectivist, and The Ayn Rand Letter. Mayhew's Ayn Rand Answers helped with some ambiguities (Ayn Rand spoke often in the early Sixties, and gave the same talk or lecture on more than one occasion. In such cases, I have no idea which version we're listening to.)
The oldest stuff there dates from 1960. Here we find two items:
"Faith and Force: The Destroyers of the Modern World"
"Conservatism: An Obituary" (later reprinted as an essay and anthologized in Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal.
1961
"The Objectivist Ethics," 9 February
"The Intellectual Bankruptcy of Our Age," March
(Video) "Ayn Rand and the 'New Intellectual,'" 1961
(Video) "Capitalism vs. Communism," Dec 1961
1962
"Our Esthetic Vacuum," April
"The Fascist New Frontier," 16 Dec 1962
"Introducing Objectivism," column printed in the LA Times in June
"America's Persecuted Minority: Big Business," 17 Dec 1962
1963
"Aristotle"
1964
"Let Us Alone!" was published as an article in the Summer 1964 Yale Political Magazine
"Is Atlas Shrugging?" 19 April
"Significance of the Goldwater Campaign" would seem to fit here
The remainder of the Ford Hall Forum lectures:
"The New Fascism: Rule by Consensus," 18 April 1965
"Our Cultural Value-Deprivation," 10 April 1966
"The Wreckage of the Consensus," 16 April 1967
"What Is Capitalism?" 19 November 1967 (published as an article in 1965)
"Rebellion at Columbia" would seem to fit here
"Of Living Death," 8 Dec 1968
"Apollo and Dionysus," 9 Nov 1969
"The Anti-Industrial Revolution," 1 Nov 1970 (not listed as one of the available recordings)
"The Moratorium on Brains," 1971
"A Nation's Unity," 22 October 1972
"Censorship: Local and Express," 21 October 1973
(let's not forget, either, the classic "Philosophy: Who Needs It," which was delivered March 6, 1974 at West Point)
"Egalitarianism and Inflation," 1974
"The Moral Factor," 1976
"Global Balkanization," 1977
"Cultural Update," 1979
"The Age of Mediocrity, " 1981
(Video) "The Sanction of the Victims," 1981
Finally, my cassette tape copy of the interview "Objectivism in Brief," conducted with James Day, bears a 1983 copyright. For obvious reasons, I don't think the interview was conducted that year.
If anyone spots a mistake, or has more to add, please let me know.
The question & answer sessions are priceless. I don't mean to come off as "If you think you know Objectivism from reading the Ford Hall Forum stuff..." because there are plenty of people out there who know more than I do. But this stuff is not only entertaining but rewarding (for example, it's fun to compare Rand's comments on Mises with contemporary Misesian libertarians' comments on Objectivism). Enjoy!
(Hat tip on the announcement: Diana Hsieh at NoodleFood)
UPDATE: Some of the audio files do contain some information on when the talk, interview, or whatnot was conducted. In some cases, it's only the year, but that's better than nothing. I'll add those as I get to them.
Posted by Craig Ceely at May 27, 2007 12:12 PM