ARISTOTLE, EINSTEIN, AND AYN RAND
[This Monday’s Archive was first published on February 2, 2005, the centennial of Ayn Rand’s birthday. It was too optimistic 19 years ago to soon expect a greater appreciation of objective reality in our culture, for our current cultural curse is the pathological rejection of it, typified by the insane fanaticism that pretends a man by sheer mystical incantation can change himself into a woman and destroy women’s sports or their privacy in public bathrooms thereby. Subjectivism and moral relativism must be replaced by acknowledgement of reality for our culture to survive. This tragedy begins by Einstein mistakenly calling his theory one of relativity.]
TTP, February 2, 2005
Ever played the Ultimate Dinner Party parlor game – where you get to imagine inviting people from history to converse over dinner and explain why them? At such a party, one conversation I’d most like to hear would be between Aristotle and Einstein.
Einstein would first have to bring Aristotle up to speed with what science had learned since the 4th century B.C. In particular, he would blow Aristotle’s mind about inertia.
But once he digested this, Aristotle would ask him – “So, all of us here at dinner are famous – what are you famous for?” When Einstein answered, “The Theory of Relativity,” Aristotle would respond: “What is it that’s relative?”












