| Type | Title | Author | Date |
| FrontReport | Mad Hot Ballroom | David Kelley | 7/5/2005 |
| Description: A review of the film Mad Hot Ballroom. |
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| Article | The Ideas That Promote Terrorism | David Kelley | 4/1/2005 |
| Description: In an address to the March against Terror in Washington, D.C., David Kelley appealed to all who stand for happiness, freedom, progress, and reason to join in opposing those who want to control the mind, roll back progress, stifle freedom--and who are willing to kill and maim to do so. |
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| Article | The History, Economics, and Philosophy of Social Security | David Kelley | 3/1/2005 |
| Description: The problem with Social Security is the blithe indifference to economic reality, on the assumption that "we're all in this together." And the problem with that appeal to solidarity as a moral premise is that it encourages such indifference. |
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| Article | Generosity and Self-Interest | David Kelley | 1/7/2005 |
| Description: People give directions to strangers, contribute to charities, volunteer in hospitals, and send food and supplies to earthquake victims. Why? |
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| Article | Epistemology and Politics: Ayn Rand's Cultural Commentary | David Kelley | 12/1/2004 |
| Description: The events Rand wrote about are long past, the people long gone. Many of the issues and trends have disappeared off the rader screen. But her essays remain relevant today and her comments have staying power because she brought a philosophical perspective to bear. |
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| FrontReport | The Incredibles | David Kelley | 11/22/2004 |
| Description: The Incredibles: David Kelley reviews the movie, the many references to Ayn Rand that have been made by reviewers, and the culture of egalitarianism. |
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| Interview | An Interview with Charles Murray | David Kelley | 4/1/2004 |
| Description: David Kelley talks with the author of Human Accomplishment about his work’s philosophical premises and arguments, including the objectivity of excellence and the significance of expert opinion. They discuss as well the cultural history of the modern world and what it says about the driving forces underlying creativity. |
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| Perspectives | Art and Ideals | David Kelley | 2/1/2004 |
| Description: The earliest known paintings and musical objects are approximately thirty to forty thousand years old, a time when man's life was a struggle for survival. Yet, unlike tools, these art objects have no clear survival value. Why, then, did humans begin creating such objects at that point in time? One hypothesis points to the development of man's conceptual capacity. |
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| Article | The Party of Modernity | David Kelley | 11/1/2003 |
| Description: The values of modernity, which flourished in the Enlightenment, still animate much of American life. Yet people do not think of themselves as sharing an outlook, comparable to Catholicism or Buddhism. If the modernist perspective is once again to be a force in the culture, we must articulate it as a unique, coherent philosophy. |
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| FrontReport | Report from the Front: The Witless Battle Over General Boykin | David Kelley | 10/24/2003 |
| Description: The irrationality and fruitlessness of the conservative and liberal sides of the culture war shows itself in the controversy over General William Boykin and his evangelical Christian view of America as a Christian nation. |
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| Article | For a Museum of Capitalism | David Kelley | 6/23/2003 |
| Description: We need a museum of capitalism to celebrate the producers who make civilization possible. |
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| Perspectives | What Is the Objectivist View of Libertarianism? | David Kelley | 3/31/2003 |
| Description: William Thomas and David Kelley provide an answer to this frequently asked question in Navigator’s new feature: "The Essentials of Objectivism." |
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| Commentary | Ban Government Racism, Not Discrimination | David Kelley | 2/28/2003 |
| Description: The current argument for affirmative action is undermined by government funding and corrupted by collectivist premises. But advocates of individualism should recognize that a "meritocratic" approach relying solely on grades and tests is not the answer. The answer is a rational and free society in which a wide variety of schools would be allowed to create widely varying types of student bodies by discriminating among applicants in any number of ways. |
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| Article | The State-Made Crisis in Health Insurance | David Kelley | 12/18/2002 |
| Description: The health insurance "crisis," like other problems of the health care industry, is the product of government interventions in the market. |
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| Op-ed | Islamism and Modernity; Lou Dobbs is right. | David Kelley | 6/10/2002 |
| Description: Lou Dobbs is right. Islamism is at war with Modernity. |
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| Article | The War against Modernity | David Kelley | 5/31/2002 |
| Description: Islamists do not hate the United States because of its international policies. Nor is their antipathy based primarily on the long-standing struggle between Western civilization and Islamic civilization. Rather, it is the culture of modernity—born of the Renaissance and Enlightenment—that has drawn the hatred of this distinctly contemporary and untraditional manifestation of Islam. |
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| Commentary | Robert Nozick and the Good Fight | David Kelley | 3/21/2002 |
| Description: Robert Nozick used the flawed methods of analytic philosophy to defend the classical-liberal state. But his book Anarchy, State, and Utopia is nonetheless a genuine classic in the literature of freedom. |
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| Review | The Virtue of Profit and the Profitable Virtues | David Kelley | 2/28/2002 |
| Description: In Ayn Rand and Business, Donna Greiner and Theodore Kinni address the moral foundations that Objectivism provides for business and management. The result is a work that will be of value to Objectivist and buiness readers alike. |
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| Op-ed | The State of The Union and The Culture of Responsibility | David Kelley | 1/30/2002 |
| Description: In his powerful State of the Union address, President Bush gave voice to the two deepest truths of a free society: that the essential function of its government is to provide security, and that it depends on a culture of responsibility. |
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| Article | In Memoriam: George Walsh | David Kelley | 1/11/2002 |
| Description: The Objectivist Center's staff has been saddened to learn of the death of Professor George Walsh, a trustee since the center's founding. |
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| FAQ | FAQ: Objectivism and Religion | David Kelley | 1/5/2002 |
| Description: David Kelley answers the frequently asked question, Is Objectivism compatible with religion? |
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| Commentary | The Underground Offers No Escape | David Kelley | 12/7/2001 |
| Description: The underground offers no escape from government, either for terrorists or for pro-freedom advocates. Technology alone can't support freedom or prevent government encroachments on freedom. Only reason and persuasion can. |
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| Commentary | The Assault on Civilization | David Kelley | 9/13/2001 |
| Description: David Kelley, Executive Director, comments on destruction of the World Trade Center by terrorists on September 11, 2001 as an attack on the symbols of the values of civilization. |
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| Commentary | The Corruption of Democracy | David Kelley | 4/1/2001 |
| Description: It is not money that is corrupting American democracy, says TOC’s executive director, David Kelley. It is the collectivist philosophy underlying many contemporary views of democracy. |
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| Commentary | Supply-Side Ethics | David Kelley | 3/1/2001 |
| Description: David Kelley, TOC's executive director, notes that Ayn Rand was the first thinker who proposed a genuine supply-side ethic. She recognized that achievement, not suffering, is the central fact of human existence. She honored the act of creating value above the act of giving it away. Pride of place in her moral code went to the virtues that make achievement possible rather than the virtues of benevolence to others. |
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| Commentary | Morality and Politics | David Kelley | 2/1/2001 |
| Description: A nation's political trends are governed by a host of factors, the most fundamental of these being the moral factor, according to TOC's executive director, David Kelley. In this commentary, Kelley illustrates his point by showing how morality permeates the seemingly pragmatic debate over Social Security privatization. |
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| Article | Ideological Differences and Political Evolution | David Kelley | 1/1/2001 |
| Description: With both presidential candidates advocating education plans, health-care plans, and tax-cut plans, and parading their religiosity, voters might be excused for believing that Election 2000 presented an arbitrary choice between Tweedledum and Tweedledee. In these two articles, however, David Kelley and Patrick Stephens argue that an important difference did exist between the philosophies of the two main candidates, while Roger Donway contends that a country seeking ordered liberty should not want transcendent leaps in its politics. |
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| Commentary | A Message from the Executive Director | David Kelley | 1/1/2001 |
| Description: This issue of Navigator sports some changes in content and layout. TOC executive director David Kelley explains the need for these changes and how they help further the Objectivist movement. |
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| Commentary | The Best and the Brightest | David Kelley | 1/1/2001 |
| Description: Despite a poor overall showing by American students in mathematics and science tests, America's future intellectual resource bank is well-stocked, as two recent major science competitions make clear. |
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| Article | Rand and Objectivity | David Kelley | 10/1/1999 |
| Description: An essay by David Kelley presenting Ayn Rand's ideas on objectivity. |
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| Article | The Lessons of Littleton: A Letter to Teens | David Kelley | 6/1/1999 |
| Description: A letter to teens regarding what lessons we should learn from the incident at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. |
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| Article | The Stamp of Greatness | David Kelley | 4/22/1999 |
| Description: An article by David Kelley marking the unveiling of the Ayn Rand stamp by the US Postal Service. |
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| Perspectives | Hope | David Kelley | 1/1/1999 |
| Description: A philosophical defense of hope and its expression in Ayn Rand's novels |
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| Excerpt | Two Strains of Altruism | David Kelley | 10/1/1998 |
| Description: David Kelley distinguishes two strains of altruism—self-sacrifice and egalitarianism—how they have been masked throughout history and the different political consequences of each, as well as a program by which Objectivists can meet the challenges of each. |
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| Article | Is it Nobler to Give than to Create? | David Kelley | 2/1/1998 |
| Description: David Kelley's article analyzing the ethical difference between giving and creating, arguing that creating is far nobler. |
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| Review | Autobiography of an Idea | David Kelley | 2/1/1998 |
| Description: A review of Journals of Ayn Rand edited by David Harriman |
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| Article | Ruled -- Or Principled? | David Kelley | 2/1/1997 |
| Description: An article about the differences between rules and principles, and the great importance of the latter. |
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| Article | I Don't Have To | David Kelley | 4/1/1996 |
| Description: A focus on one's heirarchy of values and choices, shows how much choice we really do have in our lives. |
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| Article | Better Things To Do | David Kelley | 3/1/1994 |
| Description: We prefer to live in peace with our intellectual neighbors,
but we see no basis for a civil relationship with those (ARI) who deny the legitimacy of our
existence as an independent Objectivist organization, and who launch unprovoked and
irrational attacks on us. |
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| Article | Altruism and Capitalism | David Kelley | 1/1/1994 |
| Description: An article on altruism and capitalism by David Kelley of the Objectivist Center. |
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| Excerpt | The Code of The Creator | David Kelley | 9/1/1993 |
| Description: Excerpt from the 50th Anniversary Celebration of The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand |
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| Review | Peikoff's Summa | David Kelley | 3/1/1992 |
| Description: A review of Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand by Leonard Peikoff |
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| Article | Early Light | David Kelley | 6/1/1991 |
| Description: An article by David Kelley describing the motivation for forming the Institute for Objectivist Studies (now The Objectivist Center). |
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| Article | Is There a Right to Health Care? | David Kelley | |
| Description: An article on health care, rights, and welfare |
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| Excerpt | Introduction to Unrugged Individualism | David Kelley | |
| Description: The introduction to David Kelley's monograph Unrugged Individualism: The Selfish Basis of Benevolence. |
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| Excerpt | Introduction to Contested Legacy of Ayn Rand | David Kelley | |
| Description: The introduction of Truth and Toleration by David Kelley. Truth and Toleration has been republished as The Contested Legacy of Ayn Rand |
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| Study Guide | Foundations Study Guide: Epistemology | David Kelley | |
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| Audio | The Epistemology of Perception | David Kelley | |
Description: Audio Excerpt.Dr. Kelley answers the critics who have challenged the reliability of the senses and tackles the important distinction between sensation and perception.
Buy the Foundations of Knowledge audiotapes at The Objectivism Store |
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| Audio | Choosing Life | David Kelley | |
Description: Audio Excerpt. Objectivists have debated whether life is a value because one chooses to live, or whether one should choose life because it is a value. David Kelley illuminates the logic of this abstract issue, and then shows its concrete meaning in our lives.
Buy the audiotape at The Objectivism Store |
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| Excerpt | Objectivism, Chapter 5 of Truth and Toleration | David Kelley | |
| Description: Chapter Five of Truth and Toleration by David Kelley. Truth and Toleration has been republished as The Contested Legacy of Ayn Rand |
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