Facets of Ayn Rand by Sures on the web


Michael Stuart Kelly

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Michael, the copy of Atlas Rand gave to me and inscribed -- and gave inscribed copies to Nathaniel and the Collective -- is dated August 15, 1957. That was indeed the date on which she gave me the book. It was an advance copy, and it did have a dust jacket.

Ellen, Rand did appear on radio shows, spoke to a number of literary groups, and gave interviews to newspapers, during the years before Langer's book was published. Her appearances usually, but not always, were in conjunction with the Broadway play of The Night of January 16th, and the publication of We the Livimg

Roger, why in the world would Rand allow Langer to quote her, but insist that her name not be used? She would have been proud of her statement and have welcomed the publicity. Further, you say that Langer would not have remembered Rand's remarks, which were made during 1953 or earlier, when she wrote her book. But she needn't have remembered them; she might have done what I often do. If I hear or read a statement that especially strikes me, I'll write it down and save it in a file marked "Quotes." I still keep this file, which I began when I was about thirteen years old. So I could easily quote someone's words that were spoken or written all those years ago.

We cannot know for certain how Langer learned of the comment she paraphrased, and we cannot know for certain if and by whom Rand was was influenced in her concept of "sense of life." But I can think of no reason why, had Rand known and/or corresponded with Langer, she would have pretended never to have heard of her.

Barbara

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Ellen, Rand did appear on radio shows, spoke to a number of literary groups, and gave interviews to newspapers, during the years before Langer's book was published. Her appearances usually, but not always, were in conjunction with the Broadway play of The Night of January 16th, and the publication of We the Living

Roger, why in the world would Rand allow Langer to quote her, but insist that her name not be used? She would have been proud of her statement and have welcomed the publicity. Further, you say that Langer would not have remembered Rand's remarks, which were made during 1953 or earlier, when she wrote her book. But she needn't have remembered them; she might have done what I often do. If I hear or read a statement that especially strikes me, I'll write it down and save it in a file marked "Quotes." I still keep this file, which I began when I was about thirteen years old. So I could easily quote someone's words that were spoken or written all those years ago.

We cannot know for certain how Langer learned of the comment she paraphrased, and we cannot know for certain if and by whom Rand was was influenced in her concept of "sense of life." But I can think of no reason why, had Rand known and/or corresponded with Langer, she would have pretended never to have heard of her.

Barbara

Barbara, first of all, I agree with you that the remarks almost had to have been by Rand, judging merely by the content and style of the remarks alone, and by the fact that they were made by an "excellent artist" and "articulate philosopher." I mean, how many of those were there in mid-century America who would have said just those words in just that way??

Secondly, I concede your point that Rand would not have shied (shyed?) away from the publicity, so I withdraw that suggestion.

But please note: Langer quoted Rand(?), she didn't just paraphrase her. And she even italicized an odd portion of Rand's(?) words, indicating (to me) that the remarks were written, even though Langer said she heard them spoken. (Either that, or somewhere along the line the italics got wrongly placed, perhaps by the printer/publisher, and Langer didn't catch it to correct it.)

Here again is the quote, with italics in the original:

"When I was a young child—before I went to school, I think—I already knew what my life would be like. Not, of course, that I could guess what my fortunes would be, what economic situations and what political events I’d get into; but from the very beginning of my self-consciousness, I knew what anything that could happen to me would have to be like."

Now, it's possible that these remarks were both made at some sort of public function and quoted in a write-up of the occasion, and Langer relied on the latter to accurate convey what she heard at the former.

But good heavens, that is a 67-word string! How in the world could Langer (or you or anyone) have remembered the remarks well enough to write them down word for word, even at the occasion itself--unless she either had considerable stenographic skills or asked the speaker to repeat them so she could write them down. Either is possible, I suppose. But we're sort of getting up on stilts here, with all these theories. Seems more likely to me that a written form had to have been available to her, whether from correspondence or from a newspaper or newsletter writeup.

Finally, I don't know that Rand pretended never to have heard of Langer. No disrespect intended to Dr. Hospers, but his memory about this is not sufficient proof to me about this. Langer was the foremost female aesthetician in America during mid-century, and Rand's ideas bore a considerable similarity to hers. They may have had a breach, and she may have decided not to acknowledge her.

However, I do concede that it's more likely that Langer simply heard Rand(?) speak the comments, then asked her to repeat them so she could write them down (or in some way relied on a written version of the comments).

It would be interesting to have a list of the public appearances Rand made between fall of 1951 and the publication in 1953 of Feeling and Form, to see whether any of those venues were places that Susanne Langer would have attended. Perhaps the less consequential appearing parts of her journals (what didn't get published) might contain that information. Again, a challenge for the right researcher at the right time...

REB

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[Rand and Langer] may have had a breach, and she may have decided not to acknowledge her.

Judging from what we know of Rand's characteristics, and from Vivas' comment, seconded by Veatch, about Langer's disposition (see my post #40), a breach isn't implausible IF they ever met and/or corresponded. Next step is to acquire a list of Rand's radio appearances prior to 1953 and try to piece together Langer's itinerary during the years between Rand's moving to NYC and 1953...

I don't think we'll find anything definitive, but the sleuthing is fun. ;-)

Ellen

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Edited by Ellen Stuttle
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[...] I am not sure what typesetting technology was used back then, but I imagine they still used movable type with a lot of stuff being done by hand. It was a long book for that technology and that short amount of time.

Are you serious? Hot-metal typesetting technology, begun with Ottmar Mergenthaler's first Linotype machine, was over sixty years old when Atlas was published.

It cast, literally, a "line of type" at a time, formed out of a molten lead alloy. This was shaped by the typesetter having selected the letter matrices for that line, which were then automatically recycled in the machine for use on subsequent lines.

What do you think allowed for publishing 24-hour editions of newspapers back then? Yoicks.

Please excuse my tone, but I find it quite difficult to believe that anyone familiar with publishing during the last century would not have heard of "hot type."

By the way, if that initial hot-type hardcover version of Atlas has even A SINGLE TYPO, I certainly haven't been able to find it, after thirty years of re-reading it. Rand had at least four of her eagle eyes on those particular galleys.

(This most emphatically does not apply to the latest hardcover and paperback editions, all re-set into "cold" digital type from optical scanning of the original editions. They are brimfull of typos, as is Oliver's CD-ROM. And Peikoff couldn't give a microscopic slice of a damn.)

Edited by Greybird
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Please excuse my tone, but I find it quite difficult to believe that anyone familiar with publishing during the last century would not have heard of "hot type."

Steve,

I would bet good money and win that the majority of readers is not familiar with what hot type means in terms of being able to visualize it. My own contact with the inner workings of printing come from visiting printing places in Brazil, including newspapers (Folha de São Paulo and O Estado de São Paulo), but I don't recall hot type being pointed out to me. I, naturally, was more impressed at the time by the big machines with enormous rollers cranking out huge sheets of papers (with lots of noise).

I tried to look this term up (using some variations, since "hot type" by itself turned up porn and other things) to see how, to use your words, the slug "was shaped by the typesetter," but the information I found with the short time I had to look it up, which meant looking at about 20 Google links or so, was very sketchy.

Maybe you have a link that can explain this better to those with inquiring minds? I am sure several readers would use it and be grateful for the information.

I do have an image that is etched in my memory with an old-world kind of wistfulness. I went to a music publisher in Brazil once (Vitale) and visited the person who made the plates for printing sheet music to see how it was done. He had a whole set of shaped punches where he would literally place one on a lead work surface like a nail and lightly hit it with a hammer to cause an indentation. The punches were in the shapes of notes, dynamics, accents, different size slurs, and so forth. The catch was that he had to do it forming a reverse image as if it were the image a mirror would show. He knew how to read music fluently both normally and in reverse, since his original copy was always a handwritten manuscript. At the time I visited him, this technology was being replaced by Letterset scrape-on transfers, which were applied to the surface of transparent plastic sheets used for imprinting Linotype plates (called fotolito in Brazil) without having to do the reverse image business. The craftsman I visited was old and he spent some time during our visit lamenting the passing of his art.

Michael

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An hypothesis occurs to me which could explain: (a) Langer's having an exact quote, complete with italicization, from Rand (this is assuming that the quote indeed is from Rand); (b ) Rand's showing no recognition of Langer's name:

Suppose that at some point, say in the '40s, Langer wrote to Rand about The Fountainhead and Rand made the quoted remark in a reply... I don't think such a letter is in Letters, but it's obvious that by no means all of the letters Rand wrote responding to mail about The Fountainhead were included. I doubt that Rand would have remembered all the names of all those who wrote to her.

Ellen

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[Rand and Langer] may have had a breach, and she may have decided not to acknowledge her.

Judging from what we know of Rand's characteristics, and from Vivas' comment, seconded by Veatch, about Langer's disposition (see my post #40), a breach isn't implausible IF they ever met and/or corresponded. Next step is to acquire a list of Rand's radio appearances prior to 1953 and try to piece together Langer's itinerary during the years between Rand's moving to NYC and 1953...

I don't think we'll find anything definitive, but the sleuthing is fun. ;-)

Ellen

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Radio and other public appearances prior to 1953. They may have met at one of those literary club meetings that Rand attended and addressed (that Barbara referred to).

As for Langer's itinerary from fall 1951 to her book's publication in 1953, I presume that she was spending most of her time writing Feeling and Form. There is no indication from her bio/resume that she held a teaching position during that time.

But how would we "acquire a list of Rand's" appearances during this time period? If she was at all diligent in writing down her schedule and preserving it among her journal writings, it should still exist in the Ayn Rand Archives. But who is going to be granted permission to search for such information??

Yes, sleuthing is fun, usually, but not much so when Gatekeepers prevent access to your data sources. :-/

REB

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An hypothesis occurs to me which could explain: (a) Langer's having an exact quote, complete with italicization, from Rand (this is assuming that the quote indeed is from Rand); (b ) Rand's showing no recognition of Langer's name:

Suppose that at some point, say in the '40s, Langer wrote to Rand about The Fountainhead and Rand made the quoted remark in a reply... I don't think such a letter is in Letters, but it's obvious that by no means all of the letters Rand wrote responding to mail about The Fountainhead were included. I doubt that Rand would have remembered all the names of all those who wrote to her.

Ellen

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Yup, makes sense to me, Ellen. I give that possibility approximately equal weight to the possibility that Rand spoke to a literary group that Langer attended, and that Langer got Rand to re-read or re-speak the comment so that she could write it down accurately. Either hypothesis (I have often thought that Anne Hypothesis might be a fun pseudonym!) would require access to the archives, in order to attempt to establish or rule it out. Good thinking, though.

REB

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Roger, you wrote: "But please note: Langer quoted Rand(?), she didn't just paraphrase her."

No, it is a partial paraphrase. Here's the statement again:

"When I was a young child—before I went to school, I think—I already knew what my life would be like. Not, of course, that I could guess what my fortunes would be, what economic situations and what political events I’d get into; but from the very beginning of my self-consciousness, I knew what anything that could happen to me would have to be like."

Rand usually described her early days as when she was "a little girl," not "a young child." And "I'd get into" is not quite the way she would have put it, especially at that period of her life; the phrase is a very American slang, and though she loved good slang and often used it in her writing, this particular one would have struck her as not clear enough in meaning. Nor would she have been likely to say "from the very beginning of my self-consciousness"; more likely, she would have said something like "from the very beginning of my awareness of such issues." And the italicized words do not fit Rand's style; they are not the important words in her statement.

You also wrote: "They may have had a breach, and she [Rand] may have decided not to acknowledge her." To refuse to acknowledge someone with whom she'd had a breach would not have been at all typical of Rand. But you added, "I do concede that it's more likely that Langer simply heard Rand(?) speak the comments, then asked her to repeat them so she could write them down (or in some way relied on a written version of the comments)." This seems quite plausible.

Ellen, you wrote: "Suppose that at some point, say in the '40s, Langer wrote to Rand about The Fountainhead and Rand made the quoted remark in a reply... I don't think such a letter is in Letters, but it's obvious that by no means all of the letters Rand wrote responding to mail about The Fountainhead were included. I doubt that Rand would have remembered all the names of all those who wrote to her."

This, too, is highly possible, even despite the fact that there was some paraphrase in Langer's quote. I imagine we've all had the experience of thinking we have an exact recollection of something that was said or written to us, only to find, if we didn't consult the original, that we made one or two mistakes in wording when we attempted to reproduce it.

(P.S. Roger, I got a chuckle from your pseudonym, "Anne Hypothesis." May I call you "An?")

Barbara

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If it was from a letter sent by Rand to Langer, the partial paraphrase could have resulted from Langer's wanting to avoid any problems of having to get permission to use the quote. I, too, have thought since I first read the quote in 1967 and wondered if the person Langer referred to was Rand that the "get into" didn't sound like Rand -- "encounter" would have seemed more like her word choice; likewise the "from the very beginning of my self-consciousness" sounded un-Rand. Your alternate wording, Barbara -- "from the very beginning of my awareness of such issues" -- does sound like her style. I disagree, though, about the italicization. To me, that sounds like the way Rand would have italicized it -- which is why I went seeking in the original text when the italics were left out of Roger's posting the excerpt from his article; I wanted to refresh my memory of just where the italics were. The detail of "a little girl" versus "a young child" I didn't think of, but now you mention it, I agree that Rand more plausibly would have said "a little girl," just judging from those occasional references to herself when young which I heard in direct speech and from things she said which you report in Passion.

Ellen

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Edited by Ellen Stuttle
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OK, here I am again. I'm trying to turn my thoughts to things I need to do before Wednesday. But it's not as if that quote from Langer which Roger, Barbara, and I have been analyzing hasn't bugged me for upward of 40 years with wondering if it was Rand whom Langer was quoting. [*]

Barbara's commenting that Rand would have typically referred to her childhood self as "a little girl" leads me to further emphasize a point (Roger's already spoken of this) which might not be glaringly obvious to everyone: Langer knew who the person was she was quoting.

Repeating the full original quote from Roger's post #38. Roger has meanwhile re-instated the italics and corrected the page numbers. One minor additional detail which he didn't correct, I've corrected. A semicolon was used before the "but," not a comma. (Once a copyeditor...) (Edit: Make that two additional details; I've deleted a comma which wasn't in the original, after "self-consciousness.")

I once heard an excellent artist, who is also an articulate philosopher, say: “When I was a young child—before I went to school, I think—I already knew what my life would be like. Not, of course, that I could guess what my fortunes would be, what economic situations and what political events I’d get into; but from the very beginning of my self-consciousness I knew what anything that could happen to me would have to be like. (390–91; emphasis in original)

Notice that Langer specifies "an excellent artist, who is also an articulate philosopher." She isn't repeating a remark she heard (or read) someone somewhere say; she's withholding the person's name, but she knows the name. One of the details Barbara talked about (see her post #59 and my post #60), that of Rand's typically speaking of childhood circumstances in terms of her being "a little girl" rather than "a young child," I think lends weight to Roger's suggestion that Langer didn't want to say the name because of not wanting to deflect from the point by identifying someone so controversial as Rand. Supposing it was Rand, and Rand did say "a little girl," then on Roger's theory, Langer would have changed this wording so as not to state the sex of the person quoted.

Also of course the reference to "economic situations" and "political events" would fit with the speaker's being Rand talking about her early life, prior to the Russian Revolution.

Ellen

[*] See corrective in post #63.

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Barbara's commenting that Rand would have typically referred to her childhood self as "a little girl" leads me to further emphasize a point (Roger's already spoken of this) which might not be glaringly obvious to everyone: Langer knew who the person was she was quoting.

Repeating the full original quote from Roger's post #38. Roger has meanwhile re-instated the italics and corrected the page numbers. One minor additional detail which he didn't correct, I've corrected. A semicolon was used before the "but," not a comma. (Once a copyeditor...) (Edit: Make that two additional details; I've deleted a comma which wasn't in the original, after "self-consciousness.")

I once heard an excellent artist, who is also an articulate philosopher, say: “When I was a young child—before I went to school, I think—I already knew what my life would be like. Not, of course, that I could guess what my fortunes would be, what economic situations and what political events I’d get into; but from the very beginning of my self-consciousness I knew what anything that could happen to me would have to be like. (390–91; emphasis in original)

Notice that Langer specifies "an excellent artist, who is also an articulate philosopher." She isn't repeating a remark she heard (or read) someone somewhere say; she's withholding the person's name, but she knows the name. One of the details Barbara talked about (see her post #59 and my post #60), that of Rand's typically speaking of childhood circumstances in terms of her being "a little girl" rather than "a young child," I think lends weight to Roger's suggestion that Langer didn't want to say the name because of not wanting to deflect from the point by identifying someone so controversial as Rand. Supposing it was Rand, and Rand did say "a little girl," then on Roger's theory, Langer would have changed this wording so as not to state the sex of the person quoted.

I'm not so sure, Ellen -- and Barbara. I mean, there may be evidence that Rand did, in some contexts, refer to herself as a "little girl." But the only example I could find from ~any~ of the published works (including Who is Ayn Rand?, The Passion of Ayn Rand, Letters of Ayn Rand, and Journals of Ayn Rand) was Rand writing a letter dated Nov. 12, 1944 to Leonard Read, founder of Foundation for Economic Education and editor of Freeman, the postscript of which read, "And I'm the little girl who hates to write letters!" And this seems to be a somewhat derogatory or self-deprecating usage of "little girl." (Letters, p. 172), in contrast to the mystery "paraphrase", which Barbara suggests may have read "When I was a little girl...etc."

Secondly, there is ~also~ evidence that Rand referred to herself not as a "girl" or "little girl," but as a "child." Exhibit A is found in Barbara's The Passion of Ayn Rand! In her interviews with Rand, there was discussion of the biography Rand read of Catherine the Great. Barbara quotes Rand as saying "This was my feeling as a child...I thought that I was exactly like Catherine..." (Passion, p. 15) Now, to me, that suggests that when Rand was speaking seriously, rather than jocularly or self-deprecatingly, she referred to her young self as "child" rather than "girl." Or ~at least~ that she ~also~ used the word "child," contra Barbara's suggestion about Rand's "typical" way of referring to her childhood.

I know that this somewhat dilutes my argument that Langer may have deliberately covered up both the mystery person's name and gender (the latter, Barbara suggests, by paraphrasing "little girl" into "young child"). But it's still the case that Langer didn't say he or she, and that she didn't say anything further about the person. She just tossed the comment out there, as a neutered blurb. If the philosopher/artist were a guy, there would have been no need to obscure the speaker's gender, because there were probably enough such men (in contrast to the number of women who qualified) that anonymity would probably have been preserved just by withholding the name and not also the gender. But saying "she" (if it were a she) would have probably given away the game! (Female artist-philosophers being scarce as hen's teeth in mid-century America.)

REB

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[...] it's not as if that quote from Langer which Roger, Barbara, and I have been analyzing hasn't bugged me for upward of 40 years with wondering if it was Rand whom Langer was quoting.

Corrective: Through writing in haste, I might have left a misleading impression of the extent to which I've wondered over the years about the identity of the artist who sounds so much like Rand whom Langer quoted or paraphrased without naming. As best I recall, when I first read Feeling and Form in 1967, I just kind of figured that the person was Rand, that somehow or other Langer had heard Rand talk and been struck by the comment. If I'd been obssessively curious about it, I'd have written to Langer and asked her. She might not have replied, but no harm in asking. By the next time I read the book, in 1981, Langer was very old and not well and was hoping to finish her magnum opus Mind (she didn't finish it) before she died, so I felt that writing to her at that stage would be intrusive. By then there was a whole lot else I'd have liked to ask her, had I had time to pen my questions and had I not felt that bothering her with them would be an imposition.

At no stage, as I've indicated, was it my view that there'd been a cross-influence, or even a one-way influence between Langer's and Rand's theories. I think this is a case of separate developments, though plausibly with a common influence in Unamuno. Despite some ballpark resemblances, I think that their respective approaches have important differences. I might have a chance to say something about the differences later on.

Ellen

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  • 5 years later...

Stephen,

It's been a long time since I've read that article (I have the The Objectivist and The Objectivist Newsletter and sometimes I delve into them). It will be nice to read it again and, this time, look at the pictures.

Thanks for posting the link.

I'm afraid I, too, disagree with many of Sures's notions on how to interpret art (for instance, her views on Rodin), but we must not forget that this approach was fully sanctioned by Ayn Rand. According to Rand's express statements, all the material in those publications are to be considered a part of official Objectivism. That would include Sures's essay.

So rather than look at the glass half-empty, I want to reread that essay and see where it filled its half.

Rand and the people around her were seeing a vision back then that rivaled reality itself. I don't believe they communicated that vision well at times (Rand's fiction excepted), I don't believe many of its details worked when it collided with the rest of the world's production, and I also don't believe it serves as a fundamental standard to judge all of art, but it was a beautiful vision of what life could and should be like.

If anyone seeks to see it in the manner they did, even if only as a curiosity (but it can be so much more), I have no doubt such person will be in for a treat.

I suspect a glimpse of that vision is in the half-full part of the glass with Sures's essay.

Michael

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.

Sic 'er! Get the 'ol woman's person, not just her ideas. Get revenge. Cut 'er up while she and some of her loved ones still live. Then too, don't neglect the grave-pissing.*

I was talking about her ideas and her methods. They are, as I said, psychologizing bullshit. They are vicious interpretations written in a style of posing as an authority. They are aesthetically moronic. They are unwarranted attacks and undeserved condemnations of artists and their art. The are smear jobs. They represent some of the worst examples of Rand's pee-on followers applying some of her worst ideas to creative giants. It's Ellsworth Toohey-type of behavior.

Stephen, if you want to bitch and whine about grave-pissing and such, then a proper target would be a nobody little Rand-coattailer like Sures pissing on great artists. They were creative geniuses. They and their artworks don't deserve to be pissed on by Rand's followers trying to impress each other with how well they can identify evil in all of the art that wasn't created by Rand.

Try to pull your head out of ass, Stephen.

J

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Okay, MSK.

Actually, now I'm curious as to which people Stephen thinks we shouldn't criticize. First it was the dead, which I agree with in certain contexts -- my view is that if you have nothing good to say about somebody on a thread announcing their passing, keep your mouth shut. But now it appears that people who are just old are not to be criticized. Somehow I'm hurting Sures' "loved ones" by mentioning that I don't like the way that she pissed on artistic giants. So, what are the rules or guiding principles behind Stephen's scoldings? Am I also going to be scolded if I mention that, say, James Holmes was murderous shitbag, because my doing so might upset his relatives?

J

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I think Stephen is saying that by bashing Sures, whose views were basically Rand's (and certainly fully Rand-endorsed), you are thereby pissing on Rand('s grave).

I'm not "bashing" Sures, but simply identifying her behavior for what it was. She was pissing on giants. Her approach to art is childish, petty, highly subjective, and very biased/tainted by Rand's mistaken theories and methods.

By at least some of the names you are trying to paste on Sures, you are also posthumously pasting them on Rand, and thus bashing her, too. Is this not obvious?

Oh, absolutely, my comments apply to Rand as well (though I'm also not "bashing" Rand). I've already specifically stated that Sures is an example of someone following Rand at her worst. So, therefore, yes, I'm saying that Rand also engaged in aesthetic psychologizing bullshit.

Criticizing the departed--whether Rand or Rodin--is not "pissing" on them. Not even if you're a "nobody little Rand-coattailer." It's just criticism, which you may or may not agree with, and are free and welcome to intellectually challenge, without needing to become verbally abusive. This, too, ought to be obvious.

The problem is that Objectivist-types, including you, Roger, never follow their own advice. So, what you seem to mean is that it is unacceptable for me to be "verbally abusive," but it it's perfectly acceptable for you and those with whom you agree .

Saying that someone is a "murderous shitbag" or an "authority-wannabe aesthetic moron" is not "mentioning"--it is name-calling and verbal abuse. Obvious.

So, are you saying that you don't think that Holmes was a "murderous shitbag"? My calling him that is very upsetting to you?

Anyway, my identifying Sures as a nobody Rand-coattailer and authority-wannabe aesthetic moron is actually less insulting and abusive than her claiming to know artists' "metaphysical views of man" based on her shallow, Rand-tainted interpretations of their art. I'm merely identifying and appraising her behavior, where she is claiming to know artists' minds and motives better than they do.

(Any guess as to who will be Jonathan's next target?)

Okay, so let me get this straight. You stick your nose into a thread that has nothing to do with you, and then you pre-whine that I'm going to "target" you. Heh.

Roger, I'm really not interested in being scolded by you, or hearing you pre-whine about your victimhood at my hands. But I would be interested if you have something substantial to contribute, like if you ever got around to coming up with objective criteria for measuring and judging beauty.

J

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The article by Mary Ann Sures is an Objectivist cultural artifact. It was through the Ayn Rand prism and edited by Ayn Rand too. All these Objectivist articles were written to impress Ayn Rand, even Alan Greenspan's on gold (and economic freedom?). The Objectivist movement was an ironic pit of second-handerism. You can surely see this even in Peikoff's first book, The Ominous Parallels. She wouldn't let him do it and get it done. What came out in 1982 was essentially the same thing as the lectures he gave in the spring of 1968.

Not speaking to her art, but Joan Blumenthal is a real esthetician. For that matter, I think Barbara Branden was quite sensitive to great art or her idea of it apart from any Objectivist imput. She suffered for the former for the same reason she suffered in her marriage.

--Brant

to yourself be true

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.

Mary Ann Sures' 1969 article "Metaphysics in Marble" is now available online here, wonderfully enhanced with images.

S

Complete and utterly vicious psychologizing bullshit from an authority-wannabe aesthetic moron.

J

Jonathan,

Your response makes me wonder if possibly you've never read that article before. (The response sounds to me like an immediate reaction of disgust to something with which you weren't familiar before.) Is this the first time you've read it? (I've thought that you had all the issues of The Objectivist Newsletter and The Objectivist.)

Ellen

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Jonathan,

A word from a friend.

I see the art in what you generally do when you criticize something or someone. I've often seen you use the same verbal expressions, or emotional postures, or scorched earth value judgements that they present when talking about a great artist. Except you reverse it and apply it to ideas you find weak or behavior you find inconsistent. Also, I've seen you harshly jump on ideas like how to measure a heroic soul in art and things like that, which I believe should be questioned. Especially in light of all the nonsense in artistic opinions that float around O-Land.

However, recently, your expression has been extremely negative and hostile--disproportionately so by comparison with before. That leads me to be concerned. (I said I was a friend and I meant it.)

Ayn Rand herself allowed this kind of negativism and hostility creep into her soul. It grew. She started expressing it more and more and, I believe, it gradually purified (as is the case in humans as they automatically learn and hone skills through repetition). The humor went away and only the bitterness and disgust remained when she got like that, which, in my opinion, was way too often to be healthy. I am going on what I have read, of course, and the videos of her public presentations. In fact, I am convinced part of her health issues later in life were due to her long intense negative bouts.

I would hate to see that happen to you. In my experience and observation, the term "negative spiral" corresponds to an increasingly toxic reality. There is a lot of proof in neuroscience and modern psychology that supports the conclusion that biological vulnerability is aggravated by extended intense negative emotions.

So I call your attention to this. Most people who are in the middle of a phase where their emotions are high are usually not aware of what is happening. They are too busy living it.

Take this as you will as I will not discuss it more (unless you wish), but my intent is to sound a wake-up call out of concern, not out of trying to control you.

Michael

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Mary Ann Sures' 1969 article "Metaphysics in Marble" is now available online here, wonderfully enhanced with images.

S

Complete and utterly vicious psychologizing bullshit from an authority-wannabe aesthetic moron.

J

Jonathan,

Your response makes me wonder if possibly you've never read that article before. (The response sounds to me like an immediate reaction of disgust to something with which you weren't familiar before.) Is this the first time you've read it? (I've thought that you had all the issues of The Objectivist Newsletter and The Objectivist.)

Ellen

I thought that I had read it, but apparently I had only read excerpts or an abridged version. And, yes, I think that reading it in its entirety is what caused the immediate reaction of disgust. Honestly, to me it's like watching someone use a Rorschach test as a weapon. It's like watching a witch-hunter's glee in making accusations of witchcraft.

I apologize for the strong reaction, but I find it hard to be a fan of The Fountainhead and to not react strongly to real-life behavior that is so reminiscent of Ellsworth Toohey.

J

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