Rights—Reason—Reality: Ayn Rand's Answer to the Intellectual Crisis of Our Time by Dr. John Ridpath   After September 11, 2001, no one can escape the ominous paradox of the century just passed: a century of astonishing scientific advance, technological innovation and rising living standards, but also a century of dramatic horrors, including mass governmental enslavement, world wars, murderous tyrants and crazed religious fanatics, all of these enmeshed in their ultimate cause: philosophical collapse into pragmatic cynicism and crusading irrationality.   In this talk, Dr. Ridpath will examine the significance of the work of novelist/philosopher Ayn Rand, within the context of the 20th and 21st centuries.   He will discuss the apparent and actual crises of today; the role of philosophy in human life and human history; the disastrous trends toward mysticism, altruism and statist collectivism in 21st-century culture; and the philosophy of Ayn Rand, which—in its advocacy of the individual rational mind, the virtue of self-interest, of capitalism and individual rights—is the desperately needed philosophical antidote to the real crisis of our time.