Our Mission

The Atlas Hemingway Foundation exists to restore civic life in an age of disconnection. Screens dominate, voices echo endlessly online, and neighbors pass one another as strangers. The commons has been abandoned, and in its absence, division and violence are filling the void.

We answer this crisis by building a network of third spaces — Atlas Hemingway Clubhouses across America. These are not homes, not workplaces, not businesses. They are civic commons: places where people gather face to face, speak freely, argue in good faith, and live as citizens again.

Our foundation is anchored in the Western tradition and the Enlightenment ideals that shaped free societies:

• The inalienable worth of every person.
• The freedom of speech and debate as the lifeblood of liberty.
• The sanctity of life as a moral foundation.
• The ethic of duty to one’s neighbor.
• The spirit of freethinking — conscience, reason, and truth pursued without fear.
• The recognition and protection of inalienable rights — rights not granted by government, but inherent in human dignity.

These principles may feel like the default setting of the world, but they are not. They are rare, fragile, and must be defended in every generation.

History is filled with societies that rejected them. In the Soviet Union, truth was whatever the Party declared, and dissent meant prison or death. In Nazi Germany, the state decided who was fully human, and millions were destroyed. In today’s China, the very concept of “human rights” as we know it scarcely exists; the term itself does not carry the same meaning as in the West, and individual liberty is routinely subordinated to the interests of the state. In theocratic regimes, blasphemy or dissent can still cost a person their life.

The West is unique because it chose another path — the path of the Enlightenment: that rights are universal, that truth is real, that freedom belongs to all people. This path is not guaranteed. It can be abandoned, and we are abandoning it now.

The assassination of Charlie Kirk shows just how far public life has fallen. Political violence has returned to the public square, not as a rare aberration but as the natural result of a society that denies truth, silences debate, and rewards hatred. It is more urgent than ever to turn off the screen, step out of the echo chamber, and meet one another in the flesh. Only by standing together in reality can we push back against a culture that thrives on lies.

We live in a moment when even reality is being denied. We are told that words alone can transform nature — that a man may declare himself a woman and it must be so, that the boundaries of truth are set not by what is real but by what is willed. This is abject reality — the collapse of truth itself. When truth collapses, so does freedom. When freedom collapses, society unravels.

That is why our task is urgent. The disappearance of physical commons has hidden the decay, but it has not stopped it. The Atlas Hemingway Foundation exists to bring the commons back into flesh and stone, into conversation and community — to re-anchor our society in reality and to renew the values that hold liberty together.

The Foundation grows by circles. Each member is invited by one, and each in turn chooses five more — not for status or convenience, but for intellect, openness, and character. This deliberate multiplication builds strength. Circles form gatherings. Gatherings form clubhouses. Clubhouses form a national network — living civic homes rooted in Western values, Enlightenment ideals, and the defense of objective truth.

Turn Off. Stand Up. Speak Out.