'The Age of Mediocrity' by Ayn Rand

Ayn Rand at the Ford Hall Forum - Lesson 19 of 19

In this 1981 lecture, Ayn Rand laments the growing political influence of the religious right, focusing especially on the incoming Reagan administration’s support for and sponsorship of such movements as the campaign against abortion rights, the advocacy of “creationism” in schools, the veneration of “family,” and the Moral Majority. Observing that American culture “has been growing progressively grayer, duller and more desolately empty,” Rand argues that the nation has entered an “Age of Mediocrity.”

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[corteMcarol]

"there are no arabs to help us out in this crisis" Loved it. thks for posting this.

[ljsmithwv]

@40:28 - "No, a president does not have to be a philosopher. But, there ought to be a moral limit on his ignorance of the subject."

[ljsmithwv]

@:58 - "I did not vote for Mr. Reagan. I did not vote for any presidential candidate in the last election. There is a limit to how much I can think the object of voting for the lesser of two evils." Unfortunately, not much has changed in 40 years.

[davee]

Thank you so much for this!! I'm so glad I can have this here!! I learn quite a lot.

[johnnash]

Ayn keeps arguing abortion is only practiced as a zygote, which isn’t true; a high percentage of abortions occur when the fetus is independently viable. She ignores the millions of people wanting to adopt and the forced subsidization of abortion through taxation.

[haroldstewart]

I learned a lot by listening to this! She disappointed me in a big way, ON ABORTION AND FAMILY! 😢

[cbromsey]

Lesser of two evils are most decisions in life. This is a sophomoric comment. The baby is capable of living outside the mother’s body starting with the sixth month. She was slippery on this one. In this country the polling seems to indicate that there is general agreement on banning abortion after 15 weeks.

[LyingEyes-tm]

Her comparisons of a fetus and nails shows she had the potential to be unsophisticated. She also claimed stopping it would be Middle Ages however the killing of children by their mothers has been going on for 1000’s of years. I will have to assume she has an abortion which led her to be misguided at best.

[konradzawadzki]

I understand her pro choice argument with regard to fetus composed of a couple of cells, but what is the validity of the claim that only the fetus that can survive outside a womans womb shall be protected by law? A todler also wont survive alone. Objectively life begins somewhere in the middle of this process, when basic organs are formed...

[science]

Hannah Arendt was a New Left scholar. Unreason.

[frank-rksq]

A big disappointment: the equation of a fetus with hair or skin is egregiously silly. Also, family life has become more important, while empty nesting has declined with inflation in housing. Sharing a house can be terrible because the "co-sharers" are frequently not motivated by good behavior, cleanliness, or reason.