VOLUME 1 | EDITION 1

February 2026

Index

1 - Founder’s Message

2 - Atlantis & Membership

3 - Upcoming Events

4 - Publications

5 - Podcast: We the Living

6 - Poem by Quent Cordair

7 - Bonus Trivia

1 - Founder’s Message

The Australian Centre for Objectivism exists to advance reason, individualism, and the moral case for a free society. We are building a philosophical movement.

ACO was registered on January 4th, less than a month ago. In the weeks since, we have launched our website, established a consistent, recurring events calendar across Sydney, Melbourne, and Canberra, run discussion groups in Melbourne and Sydney, and begun coordinating our work across cities under a single monthly structure. On 2 February, our Melbourne group marked Ayn Rand’s 121st birthday together.

All email subscribers will now receive a monthly PDF with discussion points on our monthly theme. The February PDF download link is included below.

February consolidates that advance.

February Plans

Our February theme is The Evil of the Initiation of Force. This theme anchors our discussion groups, Atlantis meetings, university groups, and monthly newsletter, and will change each month.

All ACO email subscribers receive the monthly materials free, and our discussion groups are free to attend. Please RSVP with your local organiser: Humairaa (Sydney), Stuart (Melbourne), or me (Canberra). Calendar links are included below.

Special Talk

On 19 February, I will be in Sydney to lead our discussion at Babylon Rooftop and Garden Bar, now the permanent home of our monthly Sydney discussions, hosted by Humairaa. I look forward to meeting many of you there in person.

We the Living Film

We are also pleased to announce that ACO now holds the exclusive Australian screening rights to We the Living, the historic Italian film adaptation of Ayn Rand’s first novel, restored by Duncan Scott with Rand’s involvement.

A national premiere and cinema screenings are now in development. More details soon. We are extremely excited about this project!

Atlantis

Alongside our public work, we have launched Atlantis, our members community for deeper engagement. Our first Atlantis meeting will take place on February 15th at 10am AEDT, with our inaugural guest to be announced shortly. Thereafter, Atlantis meetings will run on the third Sunday of every month.

Membership is required to attend.

Our Incredible Team

This progress reflects the excellence of our team. Humairaa, Krish, and Stuart built working systems immediately. Jana and Oliver established our WhatsApp communities. Connor provided early structural guidance that will shape ACO long-term.

I am genuinely proud of our team and of what we have achieved so quickly. We will continue to advance, steadily and deliberately, until the Australian intellectual scene can no longer afford to ignore Objectivism.

Join Our Movement

Those who wish to live in a rational, human society will benefit from ACO’s work. To that end, I am issuing an open call for volunteers.

Talented individuals should see ACO as a place where one is allowed to be excellent, and where excellence is welcomed, expected, and rewarded.

Tell your friends, your family, and your colleagues. Become a member or a volunteer. Support our work in every way you can.

I give you my word that I will give this work my best.

Maxim Bishev
Founder | Australian Centre for Objectivism

2 - Atlantis & Membership

Atlantis was conceived as an answer to a simple ambition: to create a place where independent minds can develop ideas over time, in the presence of others who value truth and goodwill.

Two influences shaped this vision. The first was Harry Binswanger’s weekly online Meeting of the Minds. The second was a passage from Alfred Lord Tennyson, describing a society…

“Where faction seldom gathers head,

But by degrees to fullness wrought,

The strength of some diffusive thought

Hath time and space to work and spread.”

And warning of the alternative:

“Should banded unions persecute

Opinion, and induce a time

When single thought is civil crime,

And individual freedom mute.”

Atlantis exists to stand on the right side of that divide. It is a refuge of rationality and benevolence, sustained by its members, and designed for learning and deepening our understanding of Objectivism, in order that we may lead better lives.

If this is a place you want to help sustain and take part in, you can support ACO and join Atlantis via our Support page by becoming a member.

3 - Upcoming Events

Topic: The Evil of the Initiation of Force

This discussion examines the initiation of physical force as a fundamental moral and social evil. The aim is to clarify what counts as force, why its initiation is uniquely destructive to human life and reason, and how many persistent cultural and political confusions arise from abusing the concept of “force”. 

Melbourne - Feb 23, Hawthorn

Glenferrie Hotel | 6pm - 9pm

Save Melbourne Calendar

Sydney - Feb 19, CBD

Babylon Rooftop and Garden Bar | 6pm - 9pm

Save Sydney Calendar

Canberra - Every Friday from 27/2, ANU

Rex Espresso, Australian National University | 11am - 12:30pm

Save Canberra Calendar

4 - Publications

From the Bondi Beach attack to the protests in Iran, December and January have offered stark reminders of the human cost of initiating force, and of the evil ideologies that seek to justify it. In response, we are republishing several articles that examine this theme in depth.

Inducing the Evil of the Initiation of Force: Three Methods

Since reality is a single, integrated whole, free of contradictions and governed by the law of identity and its derivatives, any theory that purports to describe reality from a fundamental standpoint must itself form a non-contradictory whole.

In the Name of the Best Within Us

What is happening in Iran is not repression in the ordinary sense. It is a massacre carried out deliberately by a regime that knows exactly what it is doing and has decided that its theocratic project justifies any level of unspeakable, barbaric savagery.

Terrorism and Moral Evasion

The Bondi Beach massacre was not an incomprehensible eruption of evil. It was the logical consequence of an ideology that rejects individual rights, glorifies violence, and seeks political power through slaughter.

Contributors Wanted
Future contributors to all topics are encouraged to email info@objectivism.au with their submissions.

5 - Podcast: We the Living

with Duncan Scott

In this podcast episode with Duncan Scott, we explore the unlikely survival of We the Living: its production in Fascist Italy, its suppression and near-destruction, its rediscovery in Italy decades later, the restoration process with Ayn Rand’s involvement, and the stories behind the scenes. It’s a conversation about lost art, political power, and why this film still deserves an audience.

Watch the remastered film trailer.

After the Russian Revolution, defiant student Kira falls for an elusive fugitive, their love unfolding under an unforgiving political regime. When a secret police officer becomes dangerously entangled in their lives, desire, power, and survival collide. We the Living is a haunting affirmation of the human right to live freely.

6 - Don’t Tell Me

by Quent Cordair

“Don’t tell me whom to love or loathe,

Or whom to praise or whom to rake;

The measure of my friends and foes

Is something only I can take;

I’ll walk with whom I’ll walk today;

For good or ill, I’ll find my way.”

Note to our readers

Quent and Linda Cordair own and manage the beautiful Quent Cordair Fine Art gallery in Jackson, Wyoming. Their gallery offers works of art belonging to the tradition of Romantic Realism, celebrating the heroic and the noble in man. Their artworks share a common theme: an exalted human spirit enjoying a benevolent universe.

Quent’s literary works may be purchased on Amazon.

I’d like to thank Quent for agreeing to my (entirely unreasonable) last-minute request to write a six-stanza commission poem for the ACO’s inaugural newsletter, which he submitted well past midnight in his timezone.

7 - Bonus Trivia

a) Ayn Rand writes that force “paralyses” and “negates” the mind. What is the conceptual difference between paralysis and negation in this context? Why does she insist on both?

b) What principle properly limits the kinds of weapons a private individual may legally own in a free society? How would you respond to someone who claims their rights are being violated if they are prohibited from owning nuclear weapons for “self-defence”?

c) What principle distinguishes incitement to violence from the advocacy of evil or pro–initiation-of-force ideas? What is the proper legal response to each, and why must they not be conflated?

d) Why does Rand argue that even “benevolent” force remains anti-mind? Can force ever be morally neutral if it produces desirable outcomes?

Answers will be released in the March newsletter.