Leading with shameless self-promotion: Richard Reinsch and I introduced a needed (Orestes) Brownsonian dimension to the Yuvalism (or reform conservatism) that is sweeping (maybe a slight exaggeration) America in National Affairs.

Turning to what I’m doing right now: I’m running a conference with Dan Mahoney (see below) on freedom and community in America. We opened with Hayek and Ayn Rand explaining why they’re not conservatives. According to Rand, either you’re a CAPITALIST or a STATIST. And either you’re a sucker who embraces the anti-morality of ALTRUISTIC SELF-SACRIFICE or you rationally affirm the objectively true morality of (unbridled) SELF-ESTEEM–which turn out to be that nothing trumps ME. Question for discussion: Isn’t our NONFOUNDATIONAL, LEFT-LIBERTARIAN morality morphing in her direction, without her toughness? Capitalism is replaced by a selective libertarianism, with room for a little person-sustaining statism and a lot of transhumanism, that’s about a progressively more reliable environment for ME.

My question to the basically anti-libertarian students: Is there something true in Rand’s radical refusal to be reduced to a a PART of a whole “greater” than oneself?