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This year’s Objectivist Conference (OCON) was an amazing experience as always. I attended Leonard Peikoff’s final course, The DIM Hypothesis Part 2, based on his forthcoming book about integration. I studied Aristotle’s theory of knowledge and the films of Howard Hawks. I attended the Objectivist Academic Center (OAC) annual mixer and graduation, networked and met with new scholars, patrons, and entrepreneurs, visited with friends and generally enjoyed a vacation in Las Vegas, bowling three consecutive strikes (a turkey), celebrating a triumphant intellectual’s wedding anniversary ceremony with his equally triumphant wife, walking and laughing and celebrating capitalism along the strip with the best among men, seeing Toy Story 3 again, and being surprised with a chauffered limousine to the Rio for an evening of magic and comedy with Penn and Teller. OCON was an incredible experience. The lectures were generally good, with a couple of exceptions (the Hoover Dam lecture was a series of interesting facts more than a cohesive lecture) and Dr. Peikoff’s last public lecture series was thoughtful, bold, and ultimately breathtaking. He presented an unassailable case for what looks to him like a bleak future based on facts and evidence and he did so with stamina, seriousness, and an occasional and appropriate use of his delightful sense of humor. Decades ago, Dr. Peikoff was right about the rise of Islamic fascism and the appeasement of the United States. He was right about Bush, Clinton, and Elian Gonzalez, whose individual rights he was among the first and only to defend. He was right in his assertion that health care is not a right and he was right about what he called the “ominous parallels” between America and Nazi Germany and he usually delivered his analyses way ahead of anyone else, sometimes, as in the case of his warnings about totalitarian Moslems, years in advance of catastrophic attacks that he had all but forecast. Though he describes himself as a teacher, commentator, and observer, his mark on the philosophy of Objectivism, which is, as he put it in his last public course lecture, “Aristotelianism purified of Platonic elements”, is crucially important and indelible. Leonard Peikoff, author of The Ominous Parallels, Objectivism: the Philosophy of Ayn Rand and the forthcoming book on integration, is my hero. His powerfully somber conclusion ended with a passionate call for the audience to “Give ‘em Hell!”, which cemented the memorable OCON Las Vegas 2010 as one of the finest moments in his exciting and brilliant career.

Posted in Philosophy