May 1, 2024 • 36 mins
Today we chat with Marsha Enright, President and Program Director of Reliance College. Of the many topics we cover:
- The significance of the name Reliance.
- What is their core program of subjects.
- The Unknown beauty of the city of Chicago.
- Her essay on What Vision Do Young People Need.
- Her time spent with Ayn Rand.
Check out this delightful episode!
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Show notes with links to articles, blog posts, products and services:
- What Vision Do Young People Need? by Marsha Familaro Enright
- Jonathan Haidt
- The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure
- The Anxious Generation How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness
- Council Oak Montessori School
- College founded on Great Books and Montessori methods slated to open
- Liberal Arts education
- How Do I Use The Great Connections Seminar In My Life?
- Reason & Power Summer Seminar: Chicago, July 22-29, 2023
- Montessori Goes to College: A Vision for Self-Reliance
- Chicago Park District
- Daniel Burnham
- Frank Lloyd Wright
- Louis Sullivan
- Chicago Loop
- Nolan chart
- The Fountainhead
- Leonard Peikoff
- Nathan...
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Blair (00:08):
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.
Welcome to the secular Foxhole podcast.
Today, Martin and I have a great guest withus, Marcia Enright, who is president and
program director at Reliance College, which isin the planning stage, I understand.
Is that correct, Marcia?
Marsha (00:27):
Yes, we're hoping to open in 2025.
Blair (00:30):
All right.
Well, that's not too far off, I guess,
obviously, with the recent publicity that manyuniversities, certainly in America and maybe
around the world, are the negative publicity.
That is, at least in my mind.
Do you think Reliance College will hopefullybe an antidote to some of that?
Marsha (00:49):
Well, I'm sure that the program would be a great antidote to it.
And we actually ran a. What's called a concepttest on our program, which is a classic
marketing test.
One of our trustees is a former senior
executive from J. Walter Thompson, which was ahuge advertising agency.
And we ran a classic concept test where youask, you find your demographic, you ask your
(01:13):
market, here's what the concept is of theproduct, and here's some questions about it.
And what do they think about it?Are they interested?
That's good.
Yeah.
And we got.
I thought maybe we'd have 10% interest.
And the experts said, well, if you got a 40%interest in a product, then you would go to
market with it.
Well, we got an 82% interest.
Blair (01:34):
Wow.
Marsha (01:36):
I think there's a lot of.
A lot of people out there, parents and
students, looking for an alternative.
Blair (01:41):
Yes. Yes. I understand many of the western universities have abandoned the great
books, and there's so many, the dead whiteauthor kind of thing.
What do you propose will be part of yourcurriculum?
Marsha (01:57):
Oh, it's a core part of our curriculum, because the writers of the great
books are the people who shape the modernworld.
They're the thinkers whose ideas are stillinfluencing us till today.
And not only that, they really help you learnhow to think well and how to reason well.
(02:17):
So it's very important for people to knowabout that, to know about the full range of
ideas, you know, not just one ideological sideor another.
But if you want to be very well educated, youwant to know the full range, and you want to
have thought about it carefully so you canmake up your own mind about who you agree
with.
The core part of our curriculum, and we're
going to include important modern works,including those of free society writers of Ayn
(02:45):
Rand, people who aren't normally included, butthey should be included as equal to the great
books.
Blair (02:51):
Thank you.
I agree.
I agree.
In conjunction with that, you wrote an essay
called what vision young people need.
Can you expand on that a little.
Marsha (03:00):
Well, young people are looking for inspiration.
They're looking for what shape do they want tosee their life?
They want to know what's possible in thefuture.
And today, with all the postmodernist andnihilist influences, they see so much negative
ideas about the future.
(03:21):
You know, I know young people who don't want
to have children because they're afraid thathumans are ruining the planet, as if the
planet was a living thing, that they weresomehow killing.
And they see so many movies, plays, artisticportrayals, reports in the news about how
(03:44):
terrible human beings are, that it's a verydemoralizing vision out there.
But what they need is a positive vision.
So that's why I think that they need works
that show heroic action, show people pursuingimportant goals, acting with honor and with
(04:06):
integrity.
And that's very important for young people,
because otherwise, I don't know if yourealize, but there's been a huge increase in
suicides of young people in the last 1520years.
Oh, it's alarming.
And Jonathan Haidt, the sociologist who wrote
the calling of the american mind, he's nowcome out with a book where he places a lot of
(04:32):
the blame for that on the rise in the use ofcell phones and the influences that, the
intense influence, social influence thatstudents are, that young people are having
from other people.
And I'm sure he's right that it's contributing
to it.
But I think that what's missing in the
analysis is all of the negative ideas that areout there that are affecting the young people
(04:56):
who are getting them on their phones andvideos and from other young people.
Blair (05:01):
I have to agree, Marcia.
I mean, philosophy, the science of philosophy
is basically what moves the world, and forgood or ill.
Marsha (05:10):
Yes.
Blair (05:11):
And I know, unfortunately, I have experienced some of my family members, my
brother in laws, children rave about how muchbetter Europe is than America.
And one of my nieces will not have childrenbecause of the very many things you mentioned.
Marsha (05:34):
Really?
Blair (05:36):
Yeah. Me, too.
Me, too.
And, you know, we can't reach her.
Kids can't reach them there because they're
convinced that, you know, anybody over acertain age does, you know, you don't know
what you're talking about, so on and so forth.
Marsha (05:50):
The usual.
Blair (05:51):
Yes, the usual.
Marsha (05:53):
You know, these kids, they've been exposed to these ideas since they were in
first grade.
Blair (05:59):
That's right.
Yes.
Marsha (06:01):
When I founded a Montessori elementary school in 1990, and I ran it for many years,
and at one point, I decided that we could not.
There's a weekly newspaper for children called
Weekly Reader that.
And I said, we can't have this anymore,
because every week it had some disaster storyabout the environment in it.
(06:22):
Relentless.
And this is a newspaper that first graders are
reading.
So, you know, and they're getting this in
school, in the books that are written.
So many of the young adult novels which are
for, you know, middle school children areabout children that come from families that
are drunks or they're drug addicts or thechild is cutting themselves.
(06:46):
And it's just such a. Such a horrifying viewof the world.
I understand that the reason why they dothose, or they say that their motive to write
these is so that children who are goingthrough that problem feel understood.
Blair (07:04):
Oh, dear.
Marsha (07:05):
But, you know, it's not an inspiring point of view.
Blair (07:09):
No, no. I think one of the few positive things that have come out of the COVID
disaster, if you will, was that I think a lotof people, certainly a lot of Americans, woke
up about the horrors of public education.
And I think homeschooling increased like 20 or
30% here in these, here in the states, which Ithink is a very positive sign.
Marsha (07:34):
Oh, I agree with you.
I think it's probably the best thing that came
out of that disaster.
That disasters.
They got to see what was actually going on inschool, and the parents were horrified.
Blair (07:46):
I think, of course, the battle is still far from over.
I mean, homeschooling has a long way to go,but I've been a homeschool advocate for since
the 1980s, especially ending the publicgovernment and education.
What's the word I want?
Marsha (08:03):
Hegemony.
Blair (08:04):
Yes. Yeah, that's a good word.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Now, as far as Reliance college, I know that
you have hosting a fundraiser for it nextmonth.
Can you delve into that?
Marsha (08:16):
We are.
I was wondering if you wanted me to describe
the program a little more.
Blair (08:20):
Well, yes, please do.
Martin (08:22):
Please do.
Marsha (08:23):
Okay, so we have a uniquely designed, very rigorous enlightenment liberal arts
program.
Blair (08:31):
Nice.
Marsha (08:31):
That all the students would take.
And this is so this kind of education, what
people don't understand is that the termliberal arts comes from the idea that what
kind of education do you need to be a freeperson?
That's why liberal is in there, because it'sthe same route as liberty.
Blair (08:50):
Right.
Marsha (08:50):
When you think of the founding fathers, they were very powerful thinkers,
partly because they had gotten thisenlightenment education of all the best
thinking beforehand and very strong reasoningskills.
They were explicitly schooled and strongreasoning skills.
And this is going to be a great part of whatwe're doing.
And not only is it the content of what we'restudying, but the way that we're going to have
(09:16):
the students work, because you can't learn howto be a free and autonomous person if you
don't experience it.
And if you're in a classroom where somebody's
sitting there and they're just lecturing toyou and you are supposed to take the
information in as if they're an expert andthen spit it back to them to get your credit,
are you really examining that information?Are you really incorporating it into your
(09:41):
thinking?So what I find is if we use this very special
form of collaborative seminar in which thestudents, the teacher is basically the text
that we use, and the living teacher is a guideto the discussion, and then we use principles
where if you are going to make a comment aboutthe text, you have to use reason and evidence.
(10:06):
So the discussion is driven by the questionsof the student about what does this text mean
and what are its implications and what are itsrelationship to other things that they've read
and to what's going on in the world.
And what happens is that the students end up
being the directors of their own learning inthe classroom, but the teacher keeps them on
(10:29):
track by always focusing on, well, what are welearning from this text and how is it related
to other things that we've learned and to theworld and to your life?
Blair (10:39):
That's wonderful.
Marsha (10:41):
We've used this and thank you.
We've used this in our summer program.
We've been running a summer program since2009, a week long summer program called the
great connection Summer seminar.
It's July 20 to the 27th this year in Chicago,
and I put everything I knew about optimaleducation into it.
But I have been amazed at the results.
(11:05):
The results have been far greater than I
thought.
The end of one week, I get about 75% of the
students telling me my life has beentransformed.
That's wonderful.
I can judge anything for myself, and they keep
in touch with me and some of them have workedfor me and they keep in touch with each other.
(11:26):
It's really interesting what's happened.
Martin (11:28):
Yeah. Marcia Martin, is that why you have picked or choose the word for the school,
reliance?
Marsha (11:36):
Because. Yeah, I'm sorry.
Yes, because our aim is to help young people
become self reliant, to become theentrepreneurs of their own lives.
And I forgot to tell you that.
So in addition to this very rigorous liberal
arts program, every student every year will dosome real world will find a problem in an area
(11:58):
of their professional interest and do aresearch project on that, trying to find a
solution to that problem and trying toimplement it.
We are going to connect them up withaccomplished mentors.
So if they want to go into an art, we'll findsomebody to help them with that.
If they want to go into finance, we'll setthem up with somebody in finance, in physics,
(12:20):
you know, whatever they're interested in.
And they'll also be getting a lot of work in
economics, personal finance, the arts, and inself awareness, self understanding.
So in this way, we have an all requiredliberal arts program, but then the student
(12:40):
picks certain things that they want to studyon their own, and we can individualize what
we're doing that way.
So I don't know if this makes sense, but this
is the things we put all together, and it's,the summer program is kind of a compressed
version of what we're going to do in thecollege, so I know it works well.
Blair (12:58):
Now, do you have many, your summer program, do you have repeat students or are
they all new every year?
Marsha (13:03):
Oh, no, I've had some that have come four times.
Four or five times.
Blair (13:07):
Let's see.
Okay. Yeah, let's do.
That's great, though.
Is there, what is the cost for that, by the
way?
Marsha (13:13):
Well, the list cost is $2,500, but right now we have a special discount.
I think it would be 800 if you sign up now.
And we also offer scholarships for people that
can't afford that.
Blair (13:28):
I see.
Martin, we have to remember to put that, their
link in the notes for that.
Yeah.
Now, again, this is really fascinating.
I'm very happy to hear this, Marsha.
I appreciate the work you're doing.
I know some of that is there has to be
extension from Montessori as well, I wouldimagine.
Marsha (13:47):
Yes. Yeah. I'm very well learned in the Montessori philosophy, which is, of
course, developmentally oriented.
In other words, what kinds of learning, what
format of learning works best for each levelof development?
And so I'm very focused right now on what doyoung people need?
(14:08):
So your question about the vision, that's onepart of it.
The other part is they're looking for theirplace in the world, and they're looking for,
well, you brought up philosophy.
They're looking for answers to the question of
how should I live my life?You know, how should I live with other people?
Those are all philosophical questions, andthose things are well incorporated in what
we're going to have them study.
Blair (14:29):
That's great.
Wow. That's great.
Oh, to be young again, anyway.
Well, let's see again.
So you said in our green room that next yearthis green lights college will be underway.
So when exactly?
Marsha (14:46):
Well, we're hoping to open in September of 2025.
Blair (14:49):
Okay. Okay.
Marsha (14:50):
And right now we're, what we're doing is we're raising the money to make that
possible.
And that's one of the reasons why we're having
the dinner in New York in May 16.
Thursday, May 16.
It's to inform people about what our programis like and then also to hopefully get more
supporters for it.
Martin (15:09):
And that will be like physical campus in Chicago.
How big will it be?How many students and teachers and faculty?
Could you talk about your plans there?
Marsha (15:21):
Sure. Sure. So it definitely is going to be in person because young people need
that.
They need that desperately.
I was reading in the Wall Street Journal a fewmonths ago about these young employees who
had, you know, gone to college during COVIDand they were used to all this remote work.
And now they were back in the office and theywere having anxiety attacks about going to
(15:44):
lunch with each other.
But, you know, you, you really need to learn
how to interact with other people and knowingwhat they're like in person.
And you can't have that kind of very detaileddiscussion about things with person when
people, when you only do it remotely.
(16:05):
It's just very difficult to have those after.
You know, you could have students who are inthe same class together, but then how do they.
They don't have that when you went to college.
They don't have those incidental conversations
where you pick up on something.
Yeah.
And you get to know each other really well andyou do things together.
(16:26):
It's just a whole different experience.
So it's going to be in person.
We're looking to start with 50 students andthey will be in discussion classes of, at
maximum, 17 each.
And we've got some tutors.
We call them tutors, the teachers.
Blair (16:43):
Okay.
Marsha (16:44):
Lined up already.
Every class would have one or two tutors in it
to help guide the discussion.
And then they'll also be working very closely
with each individual student on that studentsgoals.
And what did you ask me?What else did you want to know?
I forgot.
Martin (17:02):
Yeah. How many students and if about the faculty and also about the campus and so
on.
And.
Yeah.
The plan, what you have?
Marsha (17:10):
Well, right now there's, we're planning to rent space in downtown Chicago.
Downtown Chicago has about 60,000 collegestudents there in different, in different
schools down in the downtown area.
So it's a good place for young people to be.
There's, of course, lots of things to do.
There's great transportation.
(17:32):
And so if you were starting a small schoolthis way, the students would have a larger,
you know, excuse me, social environment inthat way.
And we want to expand to, at most 1000 forany, for one particular college because that's
the best social environment for learning.
(17:53):
But what we envision in the long run is to
have multiple colleges with slightly differentflavors on the same campus, kind of like
Oxford and Cambridge.
Okay, you get the advantage of the small, the
small school experience, but you have a largerenvironment if you want to go do other things,
you know, if you want to learn other things.
So that's the vision.
(18:13):
And we plan to start a continuing educationprogram fairly soon after we start the college
because we know that there are a lot ofretired people who are, in some respects
asking the same questions of themselves asyoung people and who are looking to discover
what's their next career.
(18:33):
And we want to create a nice, we want to
create a cultural mecca for people who arelooking for inspiration.
Great, wonderful art, good learning, greatother great people to interact with.
Blair (18:48):
Well, here's a question out of left field, so to speak.
Do you have any germ of an idea for anathletic program like volleyball or track and
field or anything like that?And down the road?
Marsha (19:02):
Well, yeah, sure.
I'm sure we'll want to expand, right?
I mean, if we start in the rented quarters,we'd probably use Chicago park district.
And because they're quite extensive, Chicagohas an amazing park district itself.
So with volleyball, tennis, pickleball is verybig these days.
(19:26):
Track, you know, all those things.
And I think, you know, part of it will be to
try to see, well, what are students mostinterested in doing kind of sports, especially
if you're starting small, you want to findsports that that's good for a small cohort of
people.
So.
Blair (19:43):
True, true, true.
Now, are you a native Chicagoan by any chance?
Marsha (19:50):
I am.
Blair (19:51):
Yes, I am.
Obviously, the only news we see out of Chicago
is negative.
And I know that there's some beautiful museums
there.
What else can you.
What other positive aspects of Chicago can youenlighten our audience with, if you would?
Marsha (20:05):
Sure. Just to put this out there.
So there's a famous italian jewelry company
named Buselatti.
I don't know if you've ever heard of it, very,
very high end jewelry.
And the head of that company said that Chicago
is the most beautiful city in North America.
(20:25):
And interestingly, it's one of the most man
made because it was originally, the reason itwas founded was because the Chicago river goes
into the Lake Michigan, and Lake Michigan isconnected to all the other lakes and then to
the St. Lawrence Seaway and to Europe,basically on the west.
(20:48):
It was connected.
You could portage from the Chicago river to
the Illinois river very easily and then go tothe Mississippi and down to New Orleans.
So it was really always been a greattransportation area, but it was a scrubby,
kind of a scrubby beach with a flat plain.
That's all it was.
(21:08):
Right.
And over the years, the city, different groups
in the city have just done an amazing job onbuilding it so that now we have 29 miles of
beaches, mostly from sand.
That was from the sand dunes that they took
down to build the Gary steelworks.
We have a gorgeous layout of the city that was
(21:30):
designed by Daniel Burnham, who was thearchitect of the world's fair in 1893.
Blair (21:38):
Wow.
Marsha (21:39):
And they did things like raise the reverse, the flow of the river so that sewage
would not go out into the.
Into the lake, raise this downtown area by
20ft so that it would be away from anyproblems with the river.
It's just an amazing city.
And it has some of the most beautiful
(22:00):
architecture in the world because we had afire here in 1871 and the people here were
very.
A lot of go getters and they sent word out to
the east that there was a lot of work to bedone.
And this is one of the reasons why people likeFrank Lloyd Wright and Daniel Burnham and
Frank Lloyd Wright's mentor, Louis Cameron,not Louis.
(22:23):
Louis Sullivan.
Blair (22:24):
Yeah.
Marsha (22:25):
So we have some of the most interesting architecture here.
And the city's really, really beautifulbecause of the Burnham plan.
Blair (22:32):
Well, good.
That's great to know.
Marsha (22:34):
I just want to mention one other thing.
And unlike some of the more sprawling, moremodern cities, it's got a kind of concentrated
area downtown.
So you have a lot of museums and parks and
music and restaurants and all kinds of thingsto do.
Very easy to go their way.
The great transportation system, the loop.
(22:54):
Yes, exactly.
Blair (22:56):
Okay. Well, that's cool.
I see.
I didn't know about some of those things.
That's great to know.
My wife briefly worked there in Chicago for along back in the day, so to speak.
Let's, if we can do a little more personalexploration with you, Marcia, you were
involved in the early days of objectivism,perhaps with NBI and so on.
(23:17):
Could you relate some of that to us?
Marsha (23:20):
Sure. Actually, not NBI.
I got interested.
I had a high school teacher who had the Nolanchart.
Do you know what that is?That's that graph that shows personal freedom
on one side and economic freedom on the otherside.
Blair (23:35):
I do know that, yeah.
Marsha (23:37):
Then you plot, you know, authoritarians are at the zero zero line, and
the old style democrats were high on personalfreedom and lower on economic freedom, and the
old style conservatives were high on economicfreedom and low on personal freedom.
And at that time, the only person in the totalFreedom quadrant was Ayn Rand.
(23:59):
And he wanted us to read a novel from two ofthe quadrants.
So I read the fountainhead, and I said, wow,this is what I've always thought, but
explained a lot better than I could.
Blair (24:11):
Well, yeah, I know what you mean.
I know what you mean.
Marsha (24:15):
So then I got.
So that was 1969, and I got very interested in
her ideas, and then ended up readingeverything that she wrote.
And in the seventies, I moved to with myhusband.
Well, he wasn't my husband at the time.
With my partner, too, New York City to go to
graduate school.
(24:35):
And at that point, Peekoff and Blumenthal were
giving lectures at the Stantler Hilton, whereNBI had been.
I see town, New York.
Ok. We attended those, and Ayn Rand was always
there.
She was in the audience.
Blair (24:51):
Nice.
Marsha (24:52):
Yeah, it was fairly easy to go up to her.
Like, a lot of people were not going up to herto talk to her, you know, so.
So I just went up and was asking her questionsall the time.
And I had a wonderful experience with herbecause she would listen very carefully to my
questions, and then she would try to answerthem.
(25:12):
I asked her questions about everything from dothe higher animals have a kind of free will?
Because it seemed like she was implying thatin one of her essays, or how should we cast
Atlas Shrugged?And when that up, she.
She said, now, this is the kind ofconversation I like.
(25:33):
Yeah.
And I talked to her about my cats.
She looked pictures of my cats.
We talked about jewelry.
We talked about, oh, I had discovered that thefirst novel written by Victor Hugo when he was
19, is called Hans of Iceland.
The hero of the book becomes the first of the
(25:55):
counts of Danischld.
Blair (25:59):
Okay.
Marsha (26:00):
So I said to her, oh, I saw that you named Ragnar after this character in the book.
And do you know what she said to me?Well, there really were counts of danish gold.
Blair (26:12):
Okay.
Marsha (26:13):
Know how I took this? I took it as she didn't want to.
Looked like she was riding on Victor Hugo'scoattails.
I took it as she was giving a tribute to him.
Right.
But she was very concerned about whether shedid the right thing.
And she was like that.
That was my experience of her.
You know, I never felt like she was talking tome as if she was the great thinker, and I was,
(26:37):
you know, just a nobody.
It was always mind to mind.
She was very serious and very.
But fun, too, to talk to.
Blair (26:45):
Yeah.
Marsha (26:45):
And so I had a great experience with her.
Oh, and there was one time when I was waitingto talk to her, and she was sitting in a row
with her husband.
Frank was on the outside.
I was in the aisle.
She was next to Frank.
And then she was talking to somebody on theright side of her.
Now, Frank had obviously something.
(27:08):
She had had a stroke or something because he
was aphasic at this point, which means that hecould understand what you were saying, but he
had a hard time talking.
That's typical.
Is a very common stroke that men can get.
Especially.
That leaves you like that.
And so I was making conversation with him, and
I was asking him about his paintings andthings like that, and she was very protective
(27:30):
of him.
I wanted to bring this up because I could tell
every time I saw her with him, she was veryprotective of him because of his condition.
Blair (27:38):
Okay.
Marsha (27:39):
I assumed it was because of his condition.
So I was talking to him, and I was makingconversation about asking him about his
painting and that kind of thing.
And she kept looking over at me and getting
madder and madder.
And then all of a sudden she says to me, don't
bother him.
He's not an objectivist.
He's my husband.
(28:00):
And I thought, oh, well, she didn't know what
we were talking about.
And she knew that I was somebody to always be
asking her questions about philosophy.
So she thought.
Probably thought I was pestering him aboutthat, you know?
So I walked away.
And during the next break in the lecture, she
came over and found me.
And she said, please, darling, forgive me.
(28:21):
I didn't know what you were talking about.
Blair (28:23):
Okay. That's nice to know.
Marsha (28:26):
She wasn't acting like I'm the great person that, you know, she wanted to make sure
that she did the right thing.
Blair (28:32):
Well, I never.
I've never considered her a, you know, an
ogre, if you will, or a, you know, like, Iwish.
She struts around thinking how superior she isto everyone.
I've never.
I've never thought of that.
Of her.
Marsha (28:47):
She doesn't come across like that in any of the interviews.
I don't?
Blair (28:50):
No, of course not.
Marsha (28:51):
No, I just wanted to confirm my experience with her.
Blair (28:55):
Well, I appreciate that very much.
Martin (28:56):
So, yes, thanks for sharing.
It's.
It's adding value, and it's like takingstories from a facets of rand.
So.
Marsha (29:06):
Yeah. Oh, and, you know.
Oh, that reminds me of something.
So I have three other stories, if you don'tmind, please?
Martin (29:12):
Yeah, please.
Marsha (29:13):
One is that she had some plastic jewelry on and I was admiring it.
We talked about jewelry, and she said, oh,that was, that was designed by Joan
Blumenthal.
And another time I brought a copy of the
fountainhead to have her autograph it.
And she said, to whom should I autograph it?
And I said, John Enright.
(29:33):
And she says, that's a nice name.
And I thought that was funny because of RogerEnright.
Of course, you know that she liked that name.
Gosh, what was the last one?
Oh, oh, yes.
So she and I had had these various
conversations about cats, and I brought herthese pictures of my cats and things like
that.
(29:54):
And it was funny because at one point I teased
her and I said, oh, I'm going to bring my catsto the next lecture.
She says, oh, no, darling, you can't do that.
And one day this was in between periods.
The lectures were in the fall and maybe thiswas in the winter when no lectures were going
(30:15):
on.
So I saw this pin of a cat that was arching
his back, hissing and kind of, and it was alljeweled and everything.
So I bought it.
It was $3, and I wrapped it up.
And for her birthday, which is in February,went to her office and I went to drop it off.
And her secretary, I think it was ElaineKalberman, said, oh, no, she doesn't accept
(30:38):
any gifts.
And I said, it only costs dollar three.
So the secretary took it.
Well, the next fall, when there were some more
lectures, I saw she was wearing the pin.
So I said, oh, I gave that to you.
And she says, oh, it is the essence of cat.
Martin (30:58):
Thanks for sharing that, Marsha.
We have here a support, how you could support
our show.
And in a way I created, you could call it like
boostogram, like a number.
And that's 221905.
So that rand's birthday in status.
So then, now we could make a clip of this and
(31:20):
share it and see if listeners value that andthey want to donate and support.
And then we could make a split of that.
So that's great with sharing with sunlight
universe.
So could you go back a little bit with your
bio and your, you have done lots of writingand papers and so on.
(31:42):
Could you tell us a bit more?You talked about one about, you said about
animals, higher animals, and you have done arecent study there in a paper.
Could you tell a little bit about that?
Marsha (31:56):
Yes. Well, after many years of reading and thinking about it, I wrote a paper, a
philosophy of biology paper.
Recently it was published in the Journal of
Ayn Rand Studies.
And it's called life is not a machine or a
ghost.
And it's about the naturalistic basis of
(32:16):
life's ability to pursue goals, to haveconsciousness, to have free will, and to have
meaning.
And what I do is talk about the fact that the
way that biologists and philosophy of biologypeople have approached life has been through
the lens of mechanoreductionism, which is theidea that we can reduce everything to physics
(32:41):
and chemistry.
And consequently, they've had a hard time
explaining many of the unique characteristicsabout living things.
So what's happened is then you get, if youcan't explain it that way, people just kind of
throw up their hands scientifically, then youhave other people saying, well, it must be
that there's a life force or there's amystical force that's enabling life to follow
(33:07):
goal, to have goals and to have consciousness.
So what I do in the paper is discuss these
issues and then show a way to understand howlife can have in itself the ability to pursue
goals and how consciousness is related to thatability, how it arose, what it is in the body,
(33:27):
and how free will arises out of the sameability.
So that's, that's what I'm trying to answer inthis paper.
Blair (33:37):
I see.
Well, that's something, though, obviously,
we'll link to, and I'll have to read myself.
Marsha (33:43):
Okay. Well, it's, you know, it's basically what I'm trying to do is give a
naturalistic account for where these powers ofhuman life, of not human life, of life itself
come from.
Blair (33:55):
Okay, great.
All right.
Well, Marcia, we've enjoyed having you on theshow, and we wish you well with your endeavor
with, as program director and president ofReliance College.
And ladies and gentlemen, Marcia enright.
Marsha (34:13):
Thank you so much for having me.
I really appreciate it.
Martin (34:16):
Yeah. And Blair, I want to add a little bit at Andy here.
You had in the show notes about your futureplans and also where the listeners could find
your writings and also things about college.
And, yeah, if you want to apply for something,
for example, the dinner, the details there andso on, you can.
Marsha (34:36):
Find information about the college at Reliance, reliancecollege.org, comma reliance,
like self reliance.
Blair (34:43):
Okay.
Marsha (34:44):
And also there is where you can find out about the Jefferson dinner, which is going
to be in New York.
We're also going to hold one in California in
September.
And the summer seminar.
If anybody is a young person who'd beinterested in coming, please look up our
summer seminar on the same website.
It's under participate now.
(35:05):
And all the links to all these things arethere.
And my writing website is Marsha, M A r S H A.
Famolaro, f a M I l a r o dash enright.
Enright.com.
Blair (35:22):
All right.
I think very good.
Very good.
Well, Marcia, thanks for manning the foxhole
with us.
Marsha (35:28):
Thanks for having, thank you very much.
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.
Welcome to the secular Foxhole podcast.
Today, Martin and I have a great guest withus, Marcia Enright, who is president and
program director at Reliance College, which isin the planning stage, I understand.
Is that correct, Marcia?
Marsha (00:27):
Yes, we're hoping to open in 2025.
Blair (00:30):
All right.
Well, that's not too far off, I guess,
obviously, with the recent publicity that manyuniversities, certainly in America and maybe
around the world, are the negative publicity.
That is, at least in my mind.
Do you think Reliance College will hopefullybe an antidote to some of that?
Marsha (00:49):
Well, I'm sure that the program would be a great antidote to it.
And we actually ran a. What's called a concepttest on our program, which is a classic
marketing test.
One of our trustees is a former senior
executive from J. Walter Thompson, which was ahuge advertising agency.
And we ran a classic concept test where youask, you find your demographic, you ask your
(01:13):
market, here's what the concept is of theproduct, and here's some questions about it.
And what do they think about it?Are they interested?
That's good.
Yeah.
And we got.
I thought maybe we'd have 10% interest.
And the experts said, well, if you got a 40%interest in a product, then you would go to
market with it.
Well, we got an 82% interest.
Blair (01:34):
Wow.
Marsha (01:36):
I think there's a lot of.
A lot of people out there, parents and
students, looking for an alternative.
Blair (01:41):
Yes. Yes. I understand many of the western universities have abandoned the great
books, and there's so many, the dead whiteauthor kind of thing.
What do you propose will be part of yourcurriculum?
Marsha (01:57):
Oh, it's a core part of our curriculum, because the writers of the great
books are the people who shape the modernworld.
They're the thinkers whose ideas are stillinfluencing us till today.
And not only that, they really help you learnhow to think well and how to reason well.
(02:17):
So it's very important for people to knowabout that, to know about the full range of
ideas, you know, not just one ideological sideor another.
But if you want to be very well educated, youwant to know the full range, and you want to
have thought about it carefully so you canmake up your own mind about who you agree
with.
The core part of our curriculum, and we're
going to include important modern works,including those of free society writers of Ayn
(02:45):
Rand, people who aren't normally included, butthey should be included as equal to the great
books.
Blair (02:51):
Thank you.
I agree.
I agree.
In conjunction with that, you wrote an essay
called what vision young people need.
Can you expand on that a little.
Marsha (03:00):
Well, young people are looking for inspiration.
They're looking for what shape do they want tosee their life?
They want to know what's possible in thefuture.
And today, with all the postmodernist andnihilist influences, they see so much negative
ideas about the future.
(03:21):
You know, I know young people who don't want
to have children because they're afraid thathumans are ruining the planet, as if the
planet was a living thing, that they weresomehow killing.
And they see so many movies, plays, artisticportrayals, reports in the news about how
(03:44):
terrible human beings are, that it's a verydemoralizing vision out there.
But what they need is a positive vision.
So that's why I think that they need works
that show heroic action, show people pursuingimportant goals, acting with honor and with
(04:06):
integrity.
And that's very important for young people,
because otherwise, I don't know if yourealize, but there's been a huge increase in
suicides of young people in the last 1520years.
Oh, it's alarming.
And Jonathan Haidt, the sociologist who wrote
the calling of the american mind, he's nowcome out with a book where he places a lot of
(04:32):
the blame for that on the rise in the use ofcell phones and the influences that, the
intense influence, social influence thatstudents are, that young people are having
from other people.
And I'm sure he's right that it's contributing
to it.
But I think that what's missing in the
analysis is all of the negative ideas that areout there that are affecting the young people
(04:56):
who are getting them on their phones andvideos and from other young people.
Blair (05:01):
I have to agree, Marcia.
I mean, philosophy, the science of philosophy
is basically what moves the world, and forgood or ill.
Marsha (05:10):
Yes.
Blair (05:11):
And I know, unfortunately, I have experienced some of my family members, my
brother in laws, children rave about how muchbetter Europe is than America.
And one of my nieces will not have childrenbecause of the very many things you mentioned.
Marsha (05:34):
Really?
Blair (05:36):
Yeah. Me, too.
Me, too.
And, you know, we can't reach her.
Kids can't reach them there because they're
convinced that, you know, anybody over acertain age does, you know, you don't know
what you're talking about, so on and so forth.
Marsha (05:50):
The usual.
Blair (05:51):
Yes, the usual.
Marsha (05:53):
You know, these kids, they've been exposed to these ideas since they were in
first grade.
Blair (05:59):
That's right.
Yes.
Marsha (06:01):
When I founded a Montessori elementary school in 1990, and I ran it for many years,
and at one point, I decided that we could not.
There's a weekly newspaper for children called
Weekly Reader that.
And I said, we can't have this anymore,
because every week it had some disaster storyabout the environment in it.
(06:22):
Relentless.
And this is a newspaper that first graders are
reading.
So, you know, and they're getting this in
school, in the books that are written.
So many of the young adult novels which are
for, you know, middle school children areabout children that come from families that
are drunks or they're drug addicts or thechild is cutting themselves.
(06:46):
And it's just such a. Such a horrifying viewof the world.
I understand that the reason why they dothose, or they say that their motive to write
these is so that children who are goingthrough that problem feel understood.
Blair (07:04):
Oh, dear.
Marsha (07:05):
But, you know, it's not an inspiring point of view.
Blair (07:09):
No, no. I think one of the few positive things that have come out of the COVID
disaster, if you will, was that I think a lotof people, certainly a lot of Americans, woke
up about the horrors of public education.
And I think homeschooling increased like 20 or
30% here in these, here in the states, which Ithink is a very positive sign.
Marsha (07:34):
Oh, I agree with you.
I think it's probably the best thing that came
out of that disaster.
That disasters.
They got to see what was actually going on inschool, and the parents were horrified.
Blair (07:46):
I think, of course, the battle is still far from over.
I mean, homeschooling has a long way to go,but I've been a homeschool advocate for since
the 1980s, especially ending the publicgovernment and education.
What's the word I want?
Marsha (08:03):
Hegemony.
Blair (08:04):
Yes. Yeah, that's a good word.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Now, as far as Reliance college, I know that
you have hosting a fundraiser for it nextmonth.
Can you delve into that?
Marsha (08:16):
We are.
I was wondering if you wanted me to describe
the program a little more.
Blair (08:20):
Well, yes, please do.
Martin (08:22):
Please do.
Marsha (08:23):
Okay, so we have a uniquely designed, very rigorous enlightenment liberal arts
program.
Blair (08:31):
Nice.
Marsha (08:31):
That all the students would take.
And this is so this kind of education, what
people don't understand is that the termliberal arts comes from the idea that what
kind of education do you need to be a freeperson?
That's why liberal is in there, because it'sthe same route as liberty.
Blair (08:50):
Right.
Marsha (08:50):
When you think of the founding fathers, they were very powerful thinkers,
partly because they had gotten thisenlightenment education of all the best
thinking beforehand and very strong reasoningskills.
They were explicitly schooled and strongreasoning skills.
And this is going to be a great part of whatwe're doing.
And not only is it the content of what we'restudying, but the way that we're going to have
(09:16):
the students work, because you can't learn howto be a free and autonomous person if you
don't experience it.
And if you're in a classroom where somebody's
sitting there and they're just lecturing toyou and you are supposed to take the
information in as if they're an expert andthen spit it back to them to get your credit,
are you really examining that information?Are you really incorporating it into your
(09:41):
thinking?So what I find is if we use this very special
form of collaborative seminar in which thestudents, the teacher is basically the text
that we use, and the living teacher is a guideto the discussion, and then we use principles
where if you are going to make a comment aboutthe text, you have to use reason and evidence.
(10:06):
So the discussion is driven by the questionsof the student about what does this text mean
and what are its implications and what are itsrelationship to other things that they've read
and to what's going on in the world.
And what happens is that the students end up
being the directors of their own learning inthe classroom, but the teacher keeps them on
(10:29):
track by always focusing on, well, what are welearning from this text and how is it related
to other things that we've learned and to theworld and to your life?
Blair (10:39):
That's wonderful.
Marsha (10:41):
We've used this and thank you.
We've used this in our summer program.
We've been running a summer program since2009, a week long summer program called the
great connection Summer seminar.
It's July 20 to the 27th this year in Chicago,
and I put everything I knew about optimaleducation into it.
But I have been amazed at the results.
(11:05):
The results have been far greater than I
thought.
The end of one week, I get about 75% of the
students telling me my life has beentransformed.
That's wonderful.
I can judge anything for myself, and they keep
in touch with me and some of them have workedfor me and they keep in touch with each other.
(11:26):
It's really interesting what's happened.
Martin (11:28):
Yeah. Marcia Martin, is that why you have picked or choose the word for the school,
reliance?
Marsha (11:36):
Because. Yeah, I'm sorry.
Yes, because our aim is to help young people
become self reliant, to become theentrepreneurs of their own lives.
And I forgot to tell you that.
So in addition to this very rigorous liberal
arts program, every student every year will dosome real world will find a problem in an area
(11:58):
of their professional interest and do aresearch project on that, trying to find a
solution to that problem and trying toimplement it.
We are going to connect them up withaccomplished mentors.
So if they want to go into an art, we'll findsomebody to help them with that.
If they want to go into finance, we'll setthem up with somebody in finance, in physics,
(12:20):
you know, whatever they're interested in.
And they'll also be getting a lot of work in
economics, personal finance, the arts, and inself awareness, self understanding.
So in this way, we have an all requiredliberal arts program, but then the student
(12:40):
picks certain things that they want to studyon their own, and we can individualize what
we're doing that way.
So I don't know if this makes sense, but this
is the things we put all together, and it's,the summer program is kind of a compressed
version of what we're going to do in thecollege, so I know it works well.
Blair (12:58):
Now, do you have many, your summer program, do you have repeat students or are
they all new every year?
Marsha (13:03):
Oh, no, I've had some that have come four times.
Four or five times.
Blair (13:07):
Let's see.
Okay. Yeah, let's do.
That's great, though.
Is there, what is the cost for that, by the
way?
Marsha (13:13):
Well, the list cost is $2,500, but right now we have a special discount.
I think it would be 800 if you sign up now.
And we also offer scholarships for people that
can't afford that.
Blair (13:28):
I see.
Martin, we have to remember to put that, their
link in the notes for that.
Yeah.
Now, again, this is really fascinating.
I'm very happy to hear this, Marsha.
I appreciate the work you're doing.
I know some of that is there has to be
extension from Montessori as well, I wouldimagine.
Marsha (13:47):
Yes. Yeah. I'm very well learned in the Montessori philosophy, which is, of
course, developmentally oriented.
In other words, what kinds of learning, what
format of learning works best for each levelof development?
And so I'm very focused right now on what doyoung people need?
(14:08):
So your question about the vision, that's onepart of it.
The other part is they're looking for theirplace in the world, and they're looking for,
well, you brought up philosophy.
They're looking for answers to the question of
how should I live my life?You know, how should I live with other people?
Those are all philosophical questions, andthose things are well incorporated in what
we're going to have them study.
Blair (14:29):
That's great.
Wow. That's great.
Oh, to be young again, anyway.
Well, let's see again.
So you said in our green room that next yearthis green lights college will be underway.
So when exactly?
Marsha (14:46):
Well, we're hoping to open in September of 2025.
Blair (14:49):
Okay. Okay.
Marsha (14:50):
And right now we're, what we're doing is we're raising the money to make that
possible.
And that's one of the reasons why we're having
the dinner in New York in May 16.
Thursday, May 16.
It's to inform people about what our programis like and then also to hopefully get more
supporters for it.
Martin (15:09):
And that will be like physical campus in Chicago.
How big will it be?How many students and teachers and faculty?
Could you talk about your plans there?
Marsha (15:21):
Sure. Sure. So it definitely is going to be in person because young people need
that.
They need that desperately.
I was reading in the Wall Street Journal a fewmonths ago about these young employees who
had, you know, gone to college during COVIDand they were used to all this remote work.
And now they were back in the office and theywere having anxiety attacks about going to
(15:44):
lunch with each other.
But, you know, you, you really need to learn
how to interact with other people and knowingwhat they're like in person.
And you can't have that kind of very detaileddiscussion about things with person when
people, when you only do it remotely.
(16:05):
It's just very difficult to have those after.
You know, you could have students who are inthe same class together, but then how do they.
They don't have that when you went to college.
They don't have those incidental conversations
where you pick up on something.
Yeah.
And you get to know each other really well andyou do things together.
(16:26):
It's just a whole different experience.
So it's going to be in person.
We're looking to start with 50 students andthey will be in discussion classes of, at
maximum, 17 each.
And we've got some tutors.
We call them tutors, the teachers.
Blair (16:43):
Okay.
Marsha (16:44):
Lined up already.
Every class would have one or two tutors in it
to help guide the discussion.
And then they'll also be working very closely
with each individual student on that studentsgoals.
And what did you ask me?What else did you want to know?
I forgot.
Martin (17:02):
Yeah. How many students and if about the faculty and also about the campus and so
on.
And.
Yeah.
The plan, what you have?
Marsha (17:10):
Well, right now there's, we're planning to rent space in downtown Chicago.
Downtown Chicago has about 60,000 collegestudents there in different, in different
schools down in the downtown area.
So it's a good place for young people to be.
There's, of course, lots of things to do.
There's great transportation.
(17:32):
And so if you were starting a small schoolthis way, the students would have a larger,
you know, excuse me, social environment inthat way.
And we want to expand to, at most 1000 forany, for one particular college because that's
the best social environment for learning.
(17:53):
But what we envision in the long run is to
have multiple colleges with slightly differentflavors on the same campus, kind of like
Oxford and Cambridge.
Okay, you get the advantage of the small, the
small school experience, but you have a largerenvironment if you want to go do other things,
you know, if you want to learn other things.
So that's the vision.
(18:13):
And we plan to start a continuing educationprogram fairly soon after we start the college
because we know that there are a lot ofretired people who are, in some respects
asking the same questions of themselves asyoung people and who are looking to discover
what's their next career.
(18:33):
And we want to create a nice, we want to
create a cultural mecca for people who arelooking for inspiration.
Great, wonderful art, good learning, greatother great people to interact with.
Blair (18:48):
Well, here's a question out of left field, so to speak.
Do you have any germ of an idea for anathletic program like volleyball or track and
field or anything like that?And down the road?
Marsha (19:02):
Well, yeah, sure.
I'm sure we'll want to expand, right?
I mean, if we start in the rented quarters,we'd probably use Chicago park district.
And because they're quite extensive, Chicagohas an amazing park district itself.
So with volleyball, tennis, pickleball is verybig these days.
(19:26):
Track, you know, all those things.
And I think, you know, part of it will be to
try to see, well, what are students mostinterested in doing kind of sports, especially
if you're starting small, you want to findsports that that's good for a small cohort of
people.
So.
Blair (19:43):
True, true, true.
Now, are you a native Chicagoan by any chance?
Marsha (19:50):
I am.
Blair (19:51):
Yes, I am.
Obviously, the only news we see out of Chicago
is negative.
And I know that there's some beautiful museums
there.
What else can you.
What other positive aspects of Chicago can youenlighten our audience with, if you would?
Marsha (20:05):
Sure. Just to put this out there.
So there's a famous italian jewelry company
named Buselatti.
I don't know if you've ever heard of it, very,
very high end jewelry.
And the head of that company said that Chicago
is the most beautiful city in North America.
(20:25):
And interestingly, it's one of the most man
made because it was originally, the reason itwas founded was because the Chicago river goes
into the Lake Michigan, and Lake Michigan isconnected to all the other lakes and then to
the St. Lawrence Seaway and to Europe,basically on the west.
(20:48):
It was connected.
You could portage from the Chicago river to
the Illinois river very easily and then go tothe Mississippi and down to New Orleans.
So it was really always been a greattransportation area, but it was a scrubby,
kind of a scrubby beach with a flat plain.
That's all it was.
(21:08):
Right.
And over the years, the city, different groups
in the city have just done an amazing job onbuilding it so that now we have 29 miles of
beaches, mostly from sand.
That was from the sand dunes that they took
down to build the Gary steelworks.
We have a gorgeous layout of the city that was
(21:30):
designed by Daniel Burnham, who was thearchitect of the world's fair in 1893.
Blair (21:38):
Wow.
Marsha (21:39):
And they did things like raise the reverse, the flow of the river so that sewage
would not go out into the.
Into the lake, raise this downtown area by
20ft so that it would be away from anyproblems with the river.
It's just an amazing city.
And it has some of the most beautiful
(22:00):
architecture in the world because we had afire here in 1871 and the people here were
very.
A lot of go getters and they sent word out to
the east that there was a lot of work to bedone.
And this is one of the reasons why people likeFrank Lloyd Wright and Daniel Burnham and
Frank Lloyd Wright's mentor, Louis Cameron,not Louis.
(22:23):
Louis Sullivan.
Blair (22:24):
Yeah.
Marsha (22:25):
So we have some of the most interesting architecture here.
And the city's really, really beautifulbecause of the Burnham plan.
Blair (22:32):
Well, good.
That's great to know.
Marsha (22:34):
I just want to mention one other thing.
And unlike some of the more sprawling, moremodern cities, it's got a kind of concentrated
area downtown.
So you have a lot of museums and parks and
music and restaurants and all kinds of thingsto do.
Very easy to go their way.
The great transportation system, the loop.
(22:54):
Yes, exactly.
Blair (22:56):
Okay. Well, that's cool.
I see.
I didn't know about some of those things.
That's great to know.
My wife briefly worked there in Chicago for along back in the day, so to speak.
Let's, if we can do a little more personalexploration with you, Marcia, you were
involved in the early days of objectivism,perhaps with NBI and so on.
(23:17):
Could you relate some of that to us?
Marsha (23:20):
Sure. Actually, not NBI.
I got interested.
I had a high school teacher who had the Nolanchart.
Do you know what that is?That's that graph that shows personal freedom
on one side and economic freedom on the otherside.
Blair (23:35):
I do know that, yeah.
Marsha (23:37):
Then you plot, you know, authoritarians are at the zero zero line, and
the old style democrats were high on personalfreedom and lower on economic freedom, and the
old style conservatives were high on economicfreedom and low on personal freedom.
And at that time, the only person in the totalFreedom quadrant was Ayn Rand.
(23:59):
And he wanted us to read a novel from two ofthe quadrants.
So I read the fountainhead, and I said, wow,this is what I've always thought, but
explained a lot better than I could.
Blair (24:11):
Well, yeah, I know what you mean.
I know what you mean.
Marsha (24:15):
So then I got.
So that was 1969, and I got very interested in
her ideas, and then ended up readingeverything that she wrote.
And in the seventies, I moved to with myhusband.
Well, he wasn't my husband at the time.
With my partner, too, New York City to go to
graduate school.
(24:35):
And at that point, Peekoff and Blumenthal were
giving lectures at the Stantler Hilton, whereNBI had been.
I see town, New York.
Ok. We attended those, and Ayn Rand was always
there.
She was in the audience.
Blair (24:51):
Nice.
Marsha (24:52):
Yeah, it was fairly easy to go up to her.
Like, a lot of people were not going up to herto talk to her, you know, so.
So I just went up and was asking her questionsall the time.
And I had a wonderful experience with herbecause she would listen very carefully to my
questions, and then she would try to answerthem.
(25:12):
I asked her questions about everything from dothe higher animals have a kind of free will?
Because it seemed like she was implying thatin one of her essays, or how should we cast
Atlas Shrugged?And when that up, she.
She said, now, this is the kind ofconversation I like.
(25:33):
Yeah.
And I talked to her about my cats.
She looked pictures of my cats.
We talked about jewelry.
We talked about, oh, I had discovered that thefirst novel written by Victor Hugo when he was
19, is called Hans of Iceland.
The hero of the book becomes the first of the
(25:55):
counts of Danischld.
Blair (25:59):
Okay.
Marsha (26:00):
So I said to her, oh, I saw that you named Ragnar after this character in the book.
And do you know what she said to me?Well, there really were counts of danish gold.
Blair (26:12):
Okay.
Marsha (26:13):
Know how I took this? I took it as she didn't want to.
Looked like she was riding on Victor Hugo'scoattails.
I took it as she was giving a tribute to him.
Right.
But she was very concerned about whether shedid the right thing.
And she was like that.
That was my experience of her.
You know, I never felt like she was talking tome as if she was the great thinker, and I was,
(26:37):
you know, just a nobody.
It was always mind to mind.
She was very serious and very.
But fun, too, to talk to.
Blair (26:45):
Yeah.
Marsha (26:45):
And so I had a great experience with her.
Oh, and there was one time when I was waitingto talk to her, and she was sitting in a row
with her husband.
Frank was on the outside.
I was in the aisle.
She was next to Frank.
And then she was talking to somebody on theright side of her.
Now, Frank had obviously something.
(27:08):
She had had a stroke or something because he
was aphasic at this point, which means that hecould understand what you were saying, but he
had a hard time talking.
That's typical.
Is a very common stroke that men can get.
Especially.
That leaves you like that.
And so I was making conversation with him, and
I was asking him about his paintings andthings like that, and she was very protective
(27:30):
of him.
I wanted to bring this up because I could tell
every time I saw her with him, she was veryprotective of him because of his condition.
Blair (27:38):
Okay.
Marsha (27:39):
I assumed it was because of his condition.
So I was talking to him, and I was makingconversation about asking him about his
painting and that kind of thing.
And she kept looking over at me and getting
madder and madder.
And then all of a sudden she says to me, don't
bother him.
He's not an objectivist.
He's my husband.
(28:00):
And I thought, oh, well, she didn't know what
we were talking about.
And she knew that I was somebody to always be
asking her questions about philosophy.
So she thought.
Probably thought I was pestering him aboutthat, you know?
So I walked away.
And during the next break in the lecture, she
came over and found me.
And she said, please, darling, forgive me.
(28:21):
I didn't know what you were talking about.
Blair (28:23):
Okay. That's nice to know.
Marsha (28:26):
She wasn't acting like I'm the great person that, you know, she wanted to make sure
that she did the right thing.
Blair (28:32):
Well, I never.
I've never considered her a, you know, an
ogre, if you will, or a, you know, like, Iwish.
She struts around thinking how superior she isto everyone.
I've never.
I've never thought of that.
Of her.
Marsha (28:47):
She doesn't come across like that in any of the interviews.
I don't?
Blair (28:50):
No, of course not.
Marsha (28:51):
No, I just wanted to confirm my experience with her.
Blair (28:55):
Well, I appreciate that very much.
Martin (28:56):
So, yes, thanks for sharing.
It's.
It's adding value, and it's like takingstories from a facets of rand.
So.
Marsha (29:06):
Yeah. Oh, and, you know.
Oh, that reminds me of something.
So I have three other stories, if you don'tmind, please?
Martin (29:12):
Yeah, please.
Marsha (29:13):
One is that she had some plastic jewelry on and I was admiring it.
We talked about jewelry, and she said, oh,that was, that was designed by Joan
Blumenthal.
And another time I brought a copy of the
fountainhead to have her autograph it.
And she said, to whom should I autograph it?
And I said, John Enright.
(29:33):
And she says, that's a nice name.
And I thought that was funny because of RogerEnright.
Of course, you know that she liked that name.
Gosh, what was the last one?
Oh, oh, yes.
So she and I had had these various
conversations about cats, and I brought herthese pictures of my cats and things like
that.
(29:54):
And it was funny because at one point I teased
her and I said, oh, I'm going to bring my catsto the next lecture.
She says, oh, no, darling, you can't do that.
And one day this was in between periods.
The lectures were in the fall and maybe thiswas in the winter when no lectures were going
(30:15):
on.
So I saw this pin of a cat that was arching
his back, hissing and kind of, and it was alljeweled and everything.
So I bought it.
It was $3, and I wrapped it up.
And for her birthday, which is in February,went to her office and I went to drop it off.
And her secretary, I think it was ElaineKalberman, said, oh, no, she doesn't accept
(30:38):
any gifts.
And I said, it only costs dollar three.
So the secretary took it.
Well, the next fall, when there were some more
lectures, I saw she was wearing the pin.
So I said, oh, I gave that to you.
And she says, oh, it is the essence of cat.
Martin (30:58):
Thanks for sharing that, Marsha.
We have here a support, how you could support
our show.
And in a way I created, you could call it like
boostogram, like a number.
And that's 221905.
So that rand's birthday in status.
So then, now we could make a clip of this and
(31:20):
share it and see if listeners value that andthey want to donate and support.
And then we could make a split of that.
So that's great with sharing with sunlight
universe.
So could you go back a little bit with your
bio and your, you have done lots of writingand papers and so on.
(31:42):
Could you tell us a bit more?You talked about one about, you said about
animals, higher animals, and you have done arecent study there in a paper.
Could you tell a little bit about that?
Marsha (31:56):
Yes. Well, after many years of reading and thinking about it, I wrote a paper, a
philosophy of biology paper.
Recently it was published in the Journal of
Ayn Rand Studies.
And it's called life is not a machine or a
ghost.
And it's about the naturalistic basis of
(32:16):
life's ability to pursue goals, to haveconsciousness, to have free will, and to have
meaning.
And what I do is talk about the fact that the
way that biologists and philosophy of biologypeople have approached life has been through
the lens of mechanoreductionism, which is theidea that we can reduce everything to physics
(32:41):
and chemistry.
And consequently, they've had a hard time
explaining many of the unique characteristicsabout living things.
So what's happened is then you get, if youcan't explain it that way, people just kind of
throw up their hands scientifically, then youhave other people saying, well, it must be
that there's a life force or there's amystical force that's enabling life to follow
(33:07):
goal, to have goals and to have consciousness.
So what I do in the paper is discuss these
issues and then show a way to understand howlife can have in itself the ability to pursue
goals and how consciousness is related to thatability, how it arose, what it is in the body,
(33:27):
and how free will arises out of the sameability.
So that's, that's what I'm trying to answer inthis paper.
Blair (33:37):
I see.
Well, that's something, though, obviously,
we'll link to, and I'll have to read myself.
Marsha (33:43):
Okay. Well, it's, you know, it's basically what I'm trying to do is give a
naturalistic account for where these powers ofhuman life, of not human life, of life itself
come from.
Blair (33:55):
Okay, great.
All right.
Well, Marcia, we've enjoyed having you on theshow, and we wish you well with your endeavor
with, as program director and president ofReliance College.
And ladies and gentlemen, Marcia enright.
Marsha (34:13):
Thank you so much for having me.
I really appreciate it.
Martin (34:16):
Yeah. And Blair, I want to add a little bit at Andy here.
You had in the show notes about your futureplans and also where the listeners could find
your writings and also things about college.
And, yeah, if you want to apply for something,
for example, the dinner, the details there andso on, you can.
Marsha (34:36):
Find information about the college at Reliance, reliancecollege.org, comma reliance,
like self reliance.
Blair (34:43):
Okay.
Marsha (34:44):
And also there is where you can find out about the Jefferson dinner, which is going
to be in New York.
We're also going to hold one in California in
September.
And the summer seminar.
If anybody is a young person who'd beinterested in coming, please look up our
summer seminar on the same website.
It's under participate now.
(35:05):
And all the links to all these things arethere.
And my writing website is Marsha, M A r S H A.
Famolaro, f a M I l a r o dash enright.
Enright.com.
Blair (35:22):
All right.
I think very good.
Very good.
Well, Marcia, thanks for manning the foxhole
with us.
Marsha (35:28):
Thanks for having, thank you very much.
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