TNI: A New Beginning
by Robert Bidinotto
With this special issue of The New Individualist you can see that we’re instituting many changes. The magazine is bigger, more graphically appealing, and, I think, more interesting than ever before. Even more changes are coming. I welcome your feedback, and will publish as many of your letters as possible.
One reason for the expanded size of this issue is to justify its status as a combined “Fall 2005” issue. We promise subscribers ten issues per year, but because of our recent move to
In upcoming issues TNI will break exciting new ground. I want to take a moment to tell you what you can expect.
Each month, The New Individualist covers modern life, culture, and politics from the philosophical perspective of rational individualism. We aim to reach intelligent readers and opinion leaders with lively, stylish, and provocative articles, essays, and reviews. Our “beat” includes ideas, politics, movies, business, education, science, music, novels, law, art, theater, psychology—the range is almost boundless. But always, the magazine focuses on the values at the center of contemporary controversies. TNI looks at the world through the eyes of the thoughtful individual who values self-realization, self-esteem, and self-responsibility.
For the record, The New Individualist champions the basic principles of Objectivism, Ayn Rand’s philosophy of rational individualism. Among those principles:
Each individual is an end in himself—not a means to the ends of others—and his own happiness and well-being is his highest moral purpose. Reason is the individual’s only reliable guide to knowledge and action; he should therefore rely on his own rational judgment and live by the creative efforts of his own mind. He has the moral right to pursue his life and happiness in freedom—as a peaceful producer and trader, neither sacrificing himself to others nor others to himself. Government should be limited solely to the task of protecting individual rights and liberties. Cultural institutions should nurture independence, self-esteem, and personal achievement, honoring the individual at his creative best. To advance these ends, artists should strive to project a heroic, inspiring vision of human possibility.
That rational, heroic vision of the individual sharply distinguishes this magazine from other opinion journals—left, right, libertarian, religious, or skeptic. Rational individualism is the philosophy of human potential: a challenging new perspective to meet the challenges of the new millennium.
Unlike previous incarnations of this journal, The New Individualist is not aimed primarily at Objectivists. It is an “outreach” magazine, directed toward a much broader audience of intelligent readers, particularly opinion leaders. To reach them, we intend to put TNI on newsstands within a year, where it can become a distinctive and influential cultural presence.
Attracting that new readership will require writing that is provocative, persuasive, stylish, interesting. You won’t find in these pages boring theoretical papers or vituperative ideological rants masquerading as opinion journalism. Such articles only attract those who already agree with them. But TNI isn’t aimed at those who already agree with us. We don’t assume reader familiarity with our philosophical outlook. Nor will the tone in articles here condescend to or insult the very people whom we wish to engage and persuade.
My goal is to present compelling writing by outstanding thinkers on interesting intellectual and cultural topics—articles, essays, and reviews that assess our world from an individualist perspective. However, I welcome articles by good writers who are not necessarily Objectivists, as long as their submissions on specific topics are congruent with our stated principles.
This last requires elaboration.
I’ve already heard some complaints that certain authors in these pages not Objectivists. I confess: it’s true. Some are not. But their specific articles are consonant with Objectivist principles and values. In some cases their arguments may not go as far as I might take them. Yet these authors do present valid and valuable ideas and information, often bringing special expertise and unique perspectives to bear. Moreover, they can write rings around most of their armchair critics.
As editor, my responsibility is to police the contents of the magazine. But that’s also where my responsibility to you, our readers, ends. I can’t be a moral or intellectual policeman concerning the private lives, philosophical pedigrees, or personal views of contributors. Nor can I concern myself with what they may publish elsewhere.
Except for criminals, and those who publicly express hostility to TNI’s philosophy, I don’t care what an author may believe, do, or write outside of the four corners of the pages that he submits for my consideration. I can only weigh the quality of the manuscript that he puts before my eyes. If I think that it will engage, educate, and entertain you—and that it’s consonant with the principles of rational individualism—then you’ll probably see it within these covers.
For that is the mission of The New Individualist: to engage, educate, and entertain all who share the heroic vision of human potential—and to promote the principles that can make that inspiring vision a living reality.