National Review: nothing changes in 50 years...

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

"Brothers, you asked for it!"

I don't hear those words as merely factual assessment either, but as gleeful. Likewise with some passages in Galt's Speech.

Ellen,

That's interesting.

I read this as an expression of being really pissed off--sort of like giving the finger.

And underlying this, I have always believed Francisco would have vastly preferred it to be different, but he was fed up (which is why he joined the strike). It never occurred to me that he got pleasure from this. Relief that it's finally over, maybe, but not pleasure.

This is probably because I have lived similar experiences where I knew my project was destroyed and those who took it over screwed it up beyond repair (even if they had a little "help" from me , but that was not in every case). I can think of many defiant emotions I have felt in those situations, but I assure you, glee has never been one of them. Nor pleasure. The way Francisco expressed it fits my reaction perfectly.

Revenge is sweet goes the saying. But not when your life's work has been destroyed. Rand has often been characterized in reviews as bitter. That's a good word for how I interpret Francisco's parting message. Bitter, but without showing the hurt. A big fuck you.

(This is a lot different than Roark's, "But I don't think of you.")

Inside myself, I don't relate the emotion in Francisco's gesture with that of the train disaster.

But I see a glimmer of how some people could. This comes when I read both using the humane lens.

One of the great things about great art is that it speaks deeply to different contexts and perspectives.

Michael

[Guyau]

"I suppose I should add, I am not intending what I'm saying as a moral criticism of Rand. That some people use Rand's handling of the scene as basis for moral criticism doesn't mean that everyone who's bothered by the scene is censuring." (48)

The schadenfreude at issue over the rail disaster would be taking joy in the suffering and deaths of people, in this case the suffering and deaths of the author’s philosophical opponents. Such a joy is a moral corruption. That is a kind of joy Rand gives to some villains in Atlas and in Fountainhead, one she did not take up for herself or her protagonists therein. There is a moral corruption, a different one, of the author in the original We the Living, which corruption Rand corrected in her view by the time Fountainhead was completed.*

[Ellen Stuttle]

"Brothers, you asked for it!"

I don't hear those words as merely factual assessment either, but as gleeful. Likewise with some passages in Galt's Speech.

Ellen,

That's interesting.

I read this as an expression of being really pissed off--sort of like giving the finger.

And underlying this, I have always believed Francisco would have vastly preferred it to be different, but he was fed up (which is why he joined the strike). It never occurred to me that he got pleasure from this. Relief that it's finally over, maybe, but not pleasure.

Michael,

That makes me wonder if maybe we're understanding the words "gleeful schadenfreude" quite differently, because I take them to mean something "sort of like giving the finger." The pleasure I see is pleasure in people's getting their comeuppance - similar to Bob Kolker's relishment in his uncle's dropping bombs on Germans.

I don't mean to imply that Francisco wouldn't have vastly preferred things to be different, and that he got pleasure from destroying d'Anconia Copper.

Rand has often been characterized in reviews as bitter. That's a good word for how I interpret Francisco's parting message. Bitter, but without showing the hurt. A big fuck you.

(This is a lot different than Roark's, "But I don't think of you.")

I see "bitter" and "a big fuck you," but seems to me the hurt is showing, and gladness that the bastards are going to get what they "asked for." Except, not everyone who's going to get it is a bastard or did ask for it. His revenge factually will extend to everyone, not just the deserving.

Ellen

[Ellen Stuttle]

Rand had a particularly cold, emotionless, portrayal of justice at times. I remember her description of Francisco D'Anconia's face during a moment of justice as precisely that, but I don't recall where in the book anymore. If I remember correctly, the ruthless coldness (I think that was her description or close to it) of Francisco's face in that moment caused Dagny a tremor of fear.

I've been trying to think of what scene you might mean, and nothing's surfacing, though I think there is someplace where Francisco is described as showing a look of ruthless justice, but I'm not sure where. Maybe the party where the philosophy professor is saying mind-wrecking stuff and Francisco sets a panic going over the impending crash of d'Anconia stock's value.

Ellen

[Ellen Stuttle]

The schadenfreude at issue over the rail disaster would be taking joy in the suffering and deaths of people, in this case the suffering and deaths of the authors philosophical opponents. Such a joy is a moral corruption.

Not everyone sees it as such, Stephen.

Myself, I wouldn't take pleasure in the suffering even of a brutal dictator, though I would be glad to see such a person dead and would be willing to kill such a person myself if I could do so without reprisal. For instance, I didn't feel glee at Saddam Hussein's death the way a lot of people did, just glad that he'd been removed from the possibility of harming others. A lot of people hoorayed at the thought of his suffering. I think that that kind of reaction is so prevalent and so "normal," I can't call it moral corruption.

At any rate, as I read the authorial description of the Tunnel disaster, there is relish in it.

Ellen

[caroljane]

I think we are at impasse here. Reader reactions to novels are subjective. Stephen, obviously felt no pleasure, let alone glee, at the tunnel scene. Ayn Rand created the scene. Therefore Stephen feels strongly that she intended to convey no satisfaction in the deaths, since none was conveyed to him.

[Selene]

My perception of the scene, which did not bother me at all, is that it was a sense of justice, and not vengence.

To a degree, it was a cold, cleear result of what will happen when the rational human is driven from the human community.

Are we not seeing evidence of this in many "catastrophes?"

The Italian liner that they just raised was caused by incompetence and cowardice.

I also wonder if there is a different reaction based on maleness/femaleness?

[caroljane]

That is quite possible. Certainly my strongest impression amongst her caricatures of the soon-to-die looter and moocher passengers, was the woman who had just put her children to bed, and of those children, future moochers ruthlessly despatched along with the adults.

[Guyau]

Carol, that readers are individually different would not make all their differences of reactions to a novel (or film) subjective. People can have contradictory responses, where each of those responses, in different individuals, has some objective bases in the novel. There remains the issue of which take on the novel, if either, is more sustainable under further pondering of the text. I imagine there could be objective impasses, too, not only subjective ones, depending on the text.

Similarly it is with the contrasting responses one has to a novel in rereading or subsequent study of it. In my initial reading of The Fountainhead, I was really surprised that Roark won. But with rereading and further study of the novel, I would rate that surprise as having much to do with considerations external to what was in this novel. (I don’t mean the nature of the law in real life. I mean the nature of modern novels I had read to this point.) One’s reactions can change with more reflection and more internal connections realized within the novel. They can change sometimes also according to how much of life one has experienced. I was a lot younger when I first read those two novels than was the author at the time of authoring them, which left me oblivious to some fine things therein.

Whether or not I perceive joy of the author in demise of people in the tunnel scene does not bear on the question of whether such joy would be a moral corruption in the author. I maintain, as do many, that such joy is a moral corruption and therefore would be a corruption if it is at hand in this case.

Such corruptions as this can be repaired in oneself, of course. The imperfections of crystals are one thing, the moral imperfections of people another.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Carol, re #58, doesn't that case have some heavy resonance with the case of Tony in the final scene between Rearden and him? Do you sense any schadenfreude of the author in that later scene?

[caroljane]

Stephen, I do not have your deep knowledge of the philosophical-literary relationship of \Rand's ideas. I can react only on the literary level. I must agree with Ellen that there is a "relish" in the authorial handling of this scene, based on the literary markers with which I am familiar. I see this as purely a literary relish, the author tying her theme to plot satisfactorily.Moral corruption in the author as a person, is a separate issue to me. Based on her own educed principles, morally corrupt is something Rand simply could not be.

[anthony]

My perception of the scene, which did not bother me at all, is that it was a sense of justice, and not vengence.

To a degree, it was a cold, cleear result of what will happen when the rational human is driven from the human community.

Are we not seeing evidence of this in many "catastrophes?"

The Italian liner that they just raised was caused by incompetence and cowardice.

That's what I think, Adam. Steorts got this wrong way round - deliberately, to my mind. Rand's "glee" and "viciousness" in a novel (for god's sake!) either depicts a concrete-boundedness which can't connect to principle OR reality - or, someone who knows too well what she meant. It's so evidently clear -she shocked her readers to try to prevent such evasions of reality having the tragic consequences they will usually receive. "Read'em, and DON'T weep" she effectively said.

Rand cared. She cared one-hundred fold more than do her detractors.

As you indicate, every day's headlines illustrate deaths, most often a result of somebody who tries to defy reality. There's where all self-righteousness should rather be aimed.

[Ellen Stuttle]

Whether or not I perceive joy of the author in demise of people in the tunnel scene does not bear on the question of whether such joy would be a moral corruption in the author. I maintain, as do many, that such joy is a moral corruption and therefore would be a corruption if it is at hand in this case.

Stephen,

I'd like to try to be sure of the implications and extent of applicability of what you're saying.

In an earlier post you wrote:

The schadenfreude at issue over the rail disaster would be taking joy in the suffering and deaths of people, in this case the suffering and deaths of the authors philosophical opponents. Such a joy is a moral corruption.

"...taking joy in the suffering and deaths of people ...."

What of the example I cited of the whooping and hollering at Saddam Hussein's execution (#55)? Likewise what of the example of joy at the thought of people killed in bombings of German cities during World War II (#53)?

Do you consider such examples instances of moral corruption?

Ellen

[anthony]

Ellen: A question I was asked not long ago: How would you react to seeing a man being executed? Predictably, I replied : disgust and sadness. Ha, he said triumphantly - but if you then learned it was Hitler's execution?!! I thought about it. Eventually: No, still disgust and sadness.

[Ellen Stuttle]

Rand's "glee" and "viciousness" in a novel (for god's sake!) either depicts a concrete-boundedness which can't connect to principle OR reality - or, someone who knows too well what she meant. It's so evidently clear -she shocked her readers to try to prevent such evasions of reality having the tragic consequences they will usually receive.

Excellent example of the kind of diagnostic weapons Objectivism provides: "a concrete-boundedness which can't connect to principle OR reality - or, someone who knows too well what she meant."

(Btw, I don't know what wording Steorts used. I haven't read his piece. However, both Carol and I do see a quality of glee or relish in Rand's description of the scene. Ergo, your diagnosis applies to us too.)

Also note that you presume to know what Rand was thinking, also your indication that in your interpretation the scene is meant to shock.

Ellen

[PDS]

Ellen: A question I was asked not long ago: How would you react to seeing a man being executed? Predictably, I replied : disgust and sadness. Ha, he said triumphantly - but if you then learned it was Hitler's execution?!! I thought about it. Eventually: No, still disgust and sadness.

Hear, hear. I've never been able to muster a hoot or a holler over someone's death, not even Saddam's.

This is an extremely interesting thread. I have learned something about why Atlas Shrugged just never appealed to me all that much, especially in proportion to The Fountainhead.

[anthony]

To repeat, [Ellen] better for our delicate sensibilities to suffer in literature, than in life.

Like the emotions of the fictional execution I mentioned, I'll get over it.

[Guyau]

Ellen, re #62

Yes, certainly. Likewise, the getting even and grave dancing that goes on at these posting sites sometimes upon the death of fellow posters or of Objectivist persons more widely known. Such corruptions can be reformed, just as Rand reformed the one she was displaying as of the initial writing of We the Living.

[Ellen Stuttle]

This is an extremely interesting thread. I have learned something about why Atlas Shrugged just never appealed to me all that much, especially in proportion to The Fountainhead.

That's interesting in regard to something I was wondering about on the Christology/Randology thread about what one or the other of the Donway brothers, in a summer of 2000 car ride in Vancouver, called Fountainhead Objectivists - folks who first came to Rand via The Fountainhead. I wonder if on average Fountainhead Objectivists exhibit fewer O'ism-related problems than Atlas Objectivists.

I think you've said that The Fountainhead was the first of Rand's books you read, but I don't recall your mentioning before that Atlas didn't appeal "all that much" to you relatively.

Ellen

[anthony]

Rand's "glee" and "viciousness" in a novel (for god's sake!) either depicts a concrete-boundedness which can't connect to principle OR reality - or, someone who knows too well what she meant. It's so evidently clear -she shocked her readers to try to prevent such evasions of reality having the tragic consequences they will usually receive.

Excellent example of the kind of diagnostic weapons Objectivism provides: "a concrete-boundedness which can't connect to principle OR reality - or, someone who knows too well what she meant."

(Btw, I don't know what wording Steorts used. I haven't read his piece. However, both Carol and I do see a quality of glee or relish in Rand's description of the scene. Ergo, your diagnosis applies to us too.)

Also note that you presume to know what Rand was thinking, also your indication that in your interpretation the scene is meant to shock.

Ellen

Yup. Those diagnostic tools are effective, aren't they?

But let's assume I'm wrong and have been giving Rand a too positive spin.

Why would you or Steorts be giving her an entirely negative spin?

[Ellen Stuttle]

Thanks, Stephen, re # 67.

I do agree about the "getting even and grave dancing" that sometimes goes on on O'ist sites, but as I said in #55, I think the reactions in the Hussein and the bomb-dropping examples are so common and "normal" (meaning statistically here), I don't think of them as actually indicative of moral corruption.

Ellen

[Ellen Stuttle]

Yup. Those diagnostic tools are effective, aren't they?

Yeah, effective all right, for presuming you know what you don't.

But let's assume I'm wrong and have been giving Rand a too positive spin.

Why would you or Steorts be giving her an entirely negative spin?

I repeat, I haven't read Steorts article. And, as said, I'm not basing a moral evaluation of Rand on how I read that scene, I'm not drawing the moral conclusions Stephen would draw if he read the scene as I do.

Also as I've said, the description of the scene struck me as having a quality of relish the first time I read the book. I was eighteen and a half, I'd never heard of Rand before, I was fascinated by the book. Why would I give her an entirely negative spin? I DON'T. Again, you've presumed - and in the face of plenty I've said before about my reaction to that book.

Ellen

[Darrell Hougen]

This is an extremely interesting thread. I have learned something about why Atlas Shrugged just never appealed to me all that much, especially in proportion to The Fountainhead.

That's interesting in regard to something I was wondering about on the Christology/Randology thread about what one or the other of the Donway brothers, in a summer of 2000 car ride in Vancouver, called Fountainhead Objectivists - folks who first came to Rand via The Fountainhead. I wonder if on average Fountainhead Objectivists exhibit fewer O'ism-related problems than Atlas Objectivists.

I think you've said that The Fountainhead was the first of Rand's books you read, but I don't recall your mentioning before that Atlas didn't appeal "all that much" to you relatively.

Ellen

What about people that first became interested in Rand through reading The Virtue of Selfishness?

Darrell

[anthony]

Oh - Okay. I've been arguing this with a 18 year-old first time reader.

(You should have mentioned it more often.)

Given what you know now, does the informed Ellen think Rand showed relish?

[Ellen Stuttle]

What about people that first became interested in Rand through reading The Virtue of Selfishness?

Darrell

Interesting question, too. I think I only know about four or five examples, if that many. Are you an example?

Ellen

[Darrell Hougen]

Thanks, Stephen, re # 67.

I do agree about the "getting even and grave dancing" that sometimes goes on on O'ist sites, but as I said in #55, I think the reactions in the Hussein and the bomb-dropping examples are so common and "normal" (meaning statistically here), I don't think of them as actually indicative of moral corruption.

Ellen

I think that celebrating the suffering of another human being (in the case of Hussein) or celebrating that German civilians could represent moral corruption. I can understand celebrating the death of Hussein; he was a net disvalue to a large number of people. But how would those people gain from his suffering? His suffering served no purpose. And, in general, there are reasons to oppose making people suffer.

I would ask the same question in the case of the German civilians. There would be reason to celebrate if it were felt that killing civilians would help bring the war to an end more quickly. On the other hand, that would be tempered with the knowledge that some of the people were likely innocent, or at least, not that bad. Some children were undoubtedly killed. So, even if the action were necessary, it wouldn't seem to be an occasion for celebration.

Darrell