"In the beginning..." (Christology and Randology)

[caroljane]

This is a matter for the Committee, of course, and we do not discuss policy aside from public publications. But rest assured that if this individual gives himself up peacefully he will not be harmed, much, and will have full opportunity to explain his actions to our expert Board of Assessors.

[Brant Gaede]

Misquoting, my shinpad. He is obviously air quoting here, in public, and must be taken into custody by the NO NRQQ.

And then what? Have you rescinded your prescribed punishment? See. (If not, it's you who deserves the torments of the damned, though maybe I wouldn't go so far, though I'm tempted to, as to suggest burning at the stake.)

Ellen

Hang = Hanged

Draw = Drawn

Quarter = Quartered

or: Hanged, drawn and quartered!!!

--Brant

and you all thought I was a nice guy

[Ellen Stuttle]

--Brant

and you all thought I was a nice guy

Oh, yeah?

Ellen

[caroljane]

No, no! You misrepresent the message of NO NRQQ, which are to correct misconceptions, clarify our message through speaking and writing and thinktanking (donations appreciated!) and make examples of the most egregious offenders against common decency.

[Brant Gaede]

--Brant

and you all thought I was a nice guy

Oh, yeah?

Ellen

No shame in admitting you were taken in.

--Brant

the master of deceit

[caroljane]

Also, people who wear sunglasses indoors who do not have serious eye problems.

Something must be done about them.

[Brant Gaede]

Also, people who wear sunglasses indoors who do not have serious eye problems.

Something must be done about them.

Something must be done about (with?) me. Right now, this very minute, except for my socks, I'm starkers.

--Brant

a body any 69 yo might be glad to have (and women of all ages)

I wear my sunglasses at night!

[caroljane]

Socks and sunglasses.. why didn't Michelangelo think of that?

[Ellen Stuttle]

The full Table of Contents is in post #150.

5. Heaven and Earth (continued)

B. Rational but non-human Man

"Man is a being of volitional consciousness," Rand wrote in Galt's Speech. It took me some while before I thought that I understood what she meant, although in a way she says her meaning in the speech: Being biologically human doesn't qualify one as "man.". To be "man," one must activate, and keep activated, a particular type of consciousness which exists only as a result of effort. If one makes the effort of activating "volitional consciousness," then certain results follow in one's actions, desires, and likes and dislikes, including in one's sexual responses and aesthetic tastes.

Multiple prescriptions are given in the Objectivist literature, by Branden along with Rand. The prescriptions are a field day of decrees as to what a "rational" versus "irrational" versus "mixed" person thinks, does, and feels. Especially harmful among those decrees, in my opinion, was Rand's turning aesthetic responses into a morals exam. I've seen in practice a great deal of worrying by Objectivist friends over artistic responses which they fear - or, worse, know - are at variance with Rand's.

Yet I think that Rand's theory of art, though it does kind of capture some important truths, is mostly an invention and not how the artistic process and artistic response really operate.

More basically, I think that Rand isn't correct in the fundamental distinction she draws between humans and other animals. There are other animals besides humans which have category recognition - an ability which I'd call first-order conceptual functioning - and a limited ability to draw inferences. But no other animal, as best I'm aware at this time, has the human ability for symbolic expression. I think that man would better be called "the symbolic animal.". This is a major thesis, and I don't know to what extent I'd get into it. To some extent.

===

Ellen

[Ellen Stuttle]

The full Table of Contents is in post #150.

6. "In the Beginning Was the Word"

A discussion of Rand's literary works.

Something I particularly want to discuss is what I call "The Fountainhead phenomenon." I know a number of Objectivists for whom The Fountainhead has a dominant place - and it was The Fountainhead which attracted Nathaniel, very much so, and Barbara, and the others in the original "collective."

I have difficulty understanding the appeal, since I don't think that I'd have become particularly interested by Rand if The Fountainhead were the only work of hers I knew. The major attraction seems to be Howard Roark and his quality of being "untouched," his immunity to "the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune." But I don't find that believable, or even admirable.

There are features of her "exemplar" characters in Atlas Shrugged which also leave me non-admiring. I'd want to discuss these features, and the issue of Rand's characters' "unidimensionality," in the context, however, of considerable praise for Rand's literary achievement.

7. Is Objectivism a Religion?

My answer, as I said in the introductory remarks, is yes and no. It became a quasi-religion in the bad respect of a dogmatic belief system. In the respect of meeting the needs served by religion - providing a unified view of man's place in the cosmos, and a lift of sublimity to the spirit - I think that it will do that better as the good and bad in Rand's ideas get disentangled.

===

Ellen

[Ellen Stuttle]

Here are links to the full set of sections of my sketch for a book idea, probably written in early 1979:

Introductory comments to AB - 1 (#148)

Introductory comments to AB - 2 (#149)

Table of Contents (#150)

Chapters:

1. The Woman Who Became God (#153)

2. The Burning Bush, the Promised Land, the Tablets of Stone (#172)

3. The Chosen People (Objectivists) (#173, #174, #175, #181)

4. Sanctity and the Life Force (#182)

5. Heaven and Earth

Animals and "Howling Savages" (#265)

Rational but non-human Man (#284)

6. "In the Beginning Was the Word" (#285)

7. Is Objectivism a Religion? (#285)

===

Ellen