Interesting Debate on Thursday

This Thursday evening the Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI) is sponsoring"Conservatism and Libertarianism: A Debate" between Doug Bandow of CATO and Peter Lawler of Berry College. It promises to be a lively exchange. The one occasion I heard Bandow speak, I thought he spoke very well. And it seems that Lawler is well thought of by his students. The debate will take place at 7 PM on Thursday, December 9, in Room 108 of the Intercultural Center on the main Georgetown University campus in northwest DC. Unfortunately, there is no Metro train service to the immediate vicinity of the school. The two nearest Metro train stops are Rosslyn (in Virginia) and Foggy Bottom (in DC). I hope to see some of our readers from the DC area there.

What Is ISI?

Recently ISI celebrated what it chooses to call its fiftieth anniversary. Although the website provides a brief history and cites the Georgist and individualist Frank Chodorov as its founder, it fails to point out that he founded the Intercollegiate Society of Individualists and that it was only many years after his death that this organization became the Intercollegiate Studies Institute.

In a 1956 letter to National Review, Chodorov stated:"As for me, I will punch anyone who calls me a conservative in the nose. I am a radical." Cited in Charles H. Hamilton, ed., Fugitive Essays: Selected Writings of Frank Chodorov (Indianapolis: Liberty Press, 1980), p. 29.

Judging by the speakers at the fiftieth anniversary gala, one might think ISI was now an affiliate of the Republican Party. See George H. Nash's, The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America, since 1945 (New York: Basic Books, 1976; updated edition, Wilmington, Delaware: Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 1996) for a history of ISI. I also recommend Murray N. Rothbard's"Frank Chodorov: Individualist" reprinted here.