Peikoff rant against libertarians


9thdoctor

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And this is why I love OL.

Bright people. Sharply creative comments. Sometimes humorous. Sometimes sharply, painfully truthful. Does not get better than this.

Thanks folks.

Pat yourself on the back too, signore.

Looking at the other O-sites,there is no doubt in my biased mind that OL is the class of the field. OL has the intellectual heavyweights in the Corners, and the freest and best commentators meditating, , expostulating,duelling, guttersniping and yes, laughing-- the "mad band of odd bods" is the creme de la creme..

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There is an entire section entitled "Humor" in The Art of Fiction. Granted, this has been edited God knows how and where and to what extent by Tore Boeckmann, but I presume it is at least in the general ballpark of Rand's original lectures.

I wanted to post the whole section since it is not very long. But it is long enough to be right on the borderline with pushing the fair use envelope. So I will merely post the beginning and ending.

Humor is a metaphysical negation. We regard as funny that which contradicts reality: the incongruous and the grotesque.

. . .

Humor as the exclusive ingredient of a story is a dubious form of writing. While some people have acquired great skill at it, such humor is philosophically empty because it is merely destruction in the name of nothing.

In sum, humor is a destructive element. If the humor of a literary work is aimed at the evil or the inconsequential—and if the positive is included—then the humor is benevolent and the work completely proper. If the humor is aimed at the positive, at values, the work might be skillful literarily, but it is to be denounced philosophically. This is true also of satire for the sake of satire. Even if the things satirized are bad and deserve to be destroyed, a work that includes no positive, but only the satirizing of negatives, is also improper philosophically.

There is no way I can agree with this if we are talking about all of humor, but I do agree that some humor is as she says. (And she creates really funny stuff sometimes within those confines.)

Hobbes proposed a superiority theory of humor that is very similar to the one Rand uses. He proposed that people laugh at things they look down on from a feeling of superiority. This aligns with Rand's view in that if you laugh at a value, you are looking down on it. She doesn't say it, but you can only do that if you feel superior to it. In other words, if you laugh at a value, you are evil (and that she does say, or at least strongly imply).

Notice that the person who laughs off his own mistakes as he learns manages to learn a lot better than one who feels guilty for screwing up. If you watch a cat do something goofy, it can send you in stitches. Back in college, I once saw a pumpkin whoosh by my 5th story window to make a most satisfying ploffp when it landed and it was hilarious. I could cite examples like this all day long and none of them involve superiority or a contradiction of reality. (The learning thing might if you look at it from the view of valuing the skill, but it's completely different from the view of making an earnest attempt. Using Rand's conception, it is not appropriate to laugh at yourself as you try your best.)

The topic of humor has a long history of disagreements and conflicting theories. It's kind of like the way Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart felt about porn. You can't define it, but you know it when you see it. If anyone wants to see how convoluted the thinking in this field is, here is a good overview in a Wikipedia article: Theories of humor.

I get the impression that Rand considered humor to be a metaphysical value judgment at root, which is way too limited to be universal, whereas Dennett (in a post above) considers humor fundamentally to be an automatic form of epistemological correction.

At the present, I am leaning toward Dennett's view--but without adopting his boneheaded illusion of consciousness stuff. That's outside the scope here, but I can say it's one banana peel I walk around instead of slipping on it and falling on my ass.

:smile:

Michael

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Here is a passage from The Fountainhead that is quite funny. Rand is at the top of her form in her form of humor. I crack up every time I think of it:

That winter the annual costume Arts Ball was an event of greater brilliance and originality than usual. Athelstan Beasely, the leading spirit of its organization, had had what he called a stroke of genius: all the architects were invited to come dressed as their best buildings. It was a huge success.

Peter Keating was the star of the evening. He looked wonderful as the Cosmo-Slotnick Building. An exact papier-mâché replica of his famous structure covered him from head to knees; one could not see his face, but his bright eyes peered from behind the windows of the top floor, and the crowning pyramid of the roof rose over his head; the colonnade hit him somewhere about the diaphragm, and he wagged a finger through the portals of the great entrance door. His legs were free to move with his usual elegance, in faultless dress trousers and patent-leather pumps.

Guy Francon was very impressive as the Frink National Bank Building, although the structure looked a little squatter than in the original, in order to allow for Francon's stomach; the Hadrian torch over his head had a real electric bulb lit by a miniature battery. Ralston Holcombe was magnificent as a state capitol, and Gordon L. Prescott was very masculine as a grain elevator. Eugene Pettingill waddled about on his skinny, ancient legs, small and bent, an imposing Park Avenue hotel, with horn-rimmed spectacles peering from under the majestic tower. Two wits engaged in a duel, butting each other in the belly with famous spires, great landmarks of the city that greet the ships approaching from across the ocean. Everybody had lots of fun.

I know it's only fiction, but what a bunch of knuckleheads!

:smile:

Michael

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Here is a passage from The Fountainhead that is quite funny. Rand is at the top of her form in her form of humor. I crack up every time I think of it:

That winter the annual costume Arts Ball was an event of greater brilliance and originality than usual. Athelstan Beasely, the leading spirit of its organization, had had what he called a stroke of genius: all the architects were invited to come dressed as their best buildings. It was a huge success.

Peter Keating was the star of the evening. He looked wonderful as the Cosmo-Slotnick Building. An exact papier-mâché replica of his famous structure covered him from head to knees; one could not see his face, but his bright eyes peered from behind the windows of the top floor, and the crowning pyramid of the roof rose over his head; the colonnade hit him somewhere about the diaphragm, and he wagged a finger through the portals of the great entrance door. His legs were free to move with his usual elegance, in faultless dress trousers and patent-leather pumps.

Guy Francon was very impressive as the Frink National Bank Building, although the structure looked a little squatter than in the original, in order to allow for Francon's stomach; the Hadrian torch over his head had a real electric bulb lit by a miniature battery. Ralston Holcombe was magnificent as a state capitol, and Gordon L. Prescott was very masculine as a grain elevator. Eugene Pettingill waddled about on his skinny, ancient legs, small and bent, an imposing Park Avenue hotel, with horn-rimmed spectacles peering from under the majestic tower. Two wits engaged in a duel, butting each other in the belly with famous spires, great landmarks of the city that greet the ships approaching from across the ocean. Everybody had lots of fun.

I know it's only fiction, but what a bunch of knuckleheads!

:smile:

Michael

It's a fairly humorous passage, but somehow from it, I get the feeling that the author never had "lots of fun" in her whole life/ I wonder why is that.

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Carol,

Sure she did. Just not with humor. For example, she had her "Tiddlywink Music."

You can hear some of it here: Music With An Ayn Rand Connection.

I don't think my sense of having fun, is the same as your examp;le here of experiencing p;easure. To me having fun is social,as in the Fountainhead gathering. the joy in music is personal, solitary

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And as a musician you must know that Michael. The audience at a wonderful concert share an individual ecstasy/ People having fun bantering on the internet, feed off each other's wit and enjoyment. Different kinds of pleasure.

PS as a musician hiow do you rate the tiddleywinks music? I have to say that the term makes me cringe. but I know it had different lingual associations to Rand.

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Carol:

Ayn's concept of music was very warped and personal.

It was also extremely narrow.

I understand your pleasure differential between social and personal. I also think the "social" type of fun was beyond her comfort zone.

Dagny's first party was very illustrative of her inner sense of that a social fun party was a false shell and not understandable.

It is interesting that the backdrop for much of her speeches and character confrontations occur at "social parties." Francisco's money speech.

The bracelet confrontation with Mrs. Rearden. Hank and Francisco. Those social "fun" parties were a canvass for her to write on.

Adam

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Carol,

I am at a point in my thinking where, when I answer questions like you asked, I no longer separate the storyline of the art (including that of the artist and the audience) from the artwork. But before I go on, your individual vs. collective experience does not resonate with me as a standard. If the story is individual, the experience has to be. Ditto for collective. And both are good within the frame of their respective storylines.

For instance, in high-school, I used to play in a marching band that helped entertain the crowd during football games. (Good thing, too, because there wasn't too much going on with the "mighty" Edison Eagles. :smile: ) I really like some of the marches we used to play and I have fond memories of that time of my life. I don't go out of my way to listen to this kind of music, but when I hear it, I usually smile.

However, if I were going to a Japanese Noh Theater presentation with Japanese hosts after dining at a Sushi bar, "Stars and Stripe Forever" or "Barnum and Bailey's Favorite" would be no fun at all. And, believe me, I would not want to see those oddly nuanced Noh happenings and strings of isolated sound-gestures during halftime. It would be laughed off the field.

In both cases, you could provide the most skillful artistic performance in the world, but each would be a wrong element in a wrong story. It would provide an awful experience--at best.

(I can give some good examples to illustrate similar thinking with strictly individual artistic experiences, but I suspect you already see what I mean.)

Anyway, getting to your question, do I like beer barrel marches? Not really. I have not had that much contact with them and what contact I have had has mostly included humor.

(Somehow, when discussing Rand's taste in music in Objectivist settings, I have never imagined that kind of humor would be appreciated, so I have avoided it. :smile: )

But then, my story does not include listening to bands--as a rare treat--playing polkas and waltzes in a park gazebo during some really hard oppressive times. If it did, you can rest assured that I would love that kind of music.

Looking out from within the common story of today's remote-control information overload culture, nowadays people think this tiddlywink music stuff is corny. I'm an outsider with a foot in two different cultures (USA and Brazil) and half-crazy, so I don't.

I don't love it, but I have nothing negative to say about it. I can think of occasions where it would bring me a great deal of chirpy pleasure and others where it would be insufferably irritating. But mostly, I regard it in the same way I think of easy-listening elevator music.

Michael

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I don't think my sense of having fun, is the same as your example here of experiencing pleasure. To me having fun is social, as in the Fountainhead gathering. the joy in music is personal, solitary

"Fun" is commonly seen as simply "pleasure." But what is fun, as it was originally defined, etymologically speaking? The etymology resonates with Rand's view of humor as destructive, as defined as a subversion of expectation...

fun (n.) dictionary.gif "diversion, amusement," 1727, earlier "a cheat, trick" (c.1700), from verb fun (1680s) "to cheat, hoax," of uncertain origin, probably a variant of M.E. fonnen "befool" (c.1400; see fond). Stigmatized by Johnson as "a low cant word." Older sense is preserved in phrase to make fun of (1737) and funny money "counterfeit bills" (1938, though this may be more for the sake of the rhyme). See also funny.

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I think I have my own answer. having fun is an unavoidable part of normal untraumatized childhood and youth and she did not get to experience that.

Dear Daunce: you are usually not prone to categorical statements of this kind. Very few people had the luxury of an "untraumatized childhood and youth," including yours truly and (I would guess) a large majority of those who post on this site.

Yet, I find myself "having fun" a healthy amount of the time. Like now, for instance. :laugh: Seriously, one of my favorite movies is Dumb and Dumber, even though it stars a Canadian--albeit a Lapsed Canadian. Does this make me a bad person? Would it make me a bad Objectivist if "Objectivists" were ever hypothetically able to decide what an Objectivist actually is? It probably depends upon which site I would post this comment on, no?

I find discussions of humor so humorless. Is this something that really needs to be analyzed? If a horse's ass slips on the ice, it's funny. If Helen Keller does, not so much. QED.

I think MSK has it right, even though Justice Stewart had it wrong: humor is indeed in the eyes of the beholder.

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I think I have my own answer. having fun is an unavoidable part of normal untraumatized childhood and youth and she did not get to experience that.

Dear Daunce: you are usually not prone to categorical statements of this kind. Very few people had the luxury of an "untraumatized childhood and youth," including yours truly and (I would guess) a large majority of those who post on this site.

Dear PDS, but you are being even more categorical than I was. Of course childhood and youth are full of trauma, being born being the first,(apparently it is a terrible shock to the system of the newborn) but by your own account you at least, have as an adult, the ability to have fun in groups and with friends. I was thinking of the trauma of revolution and near starvation in Rand's case. Have "very few " of us here on OL, for example, escaped early trauma so severe that we cannot enjoy ourselves except in solitary splendour?

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I think I have my own answer. having fun is an unavoidable part of normal untraumatized childhood and youth and she did not get to experience that.

Dear Daunce: you are usually not prone to categorical statements of this kind. Very few people had the luxury of an "untraumatized childhood and youth," including yours truly and (I would guess) a large majority of those who post on this site.

Dear PDS, but you are being even more categorical than I was. Of course childhood and youth are full of trauma, being born being the first,(apparently it is a terrible shock to the system of the newborn) but by your own account you at least, have as an adult, the ability to have fun in groups and with friends. I was thinking of the trauma of revolution and near starvation in Rand's case. Have "very few " of us here on OL, for example, escaped early trauma so severe that we cannot enjoy ourselves except in solitary splendour?

Three responses:

1. I am allowed to be more categorical, because I do it all the time. :laugh:

2. Your clarification sounds much more reasonable. Query, however, whether it matters which particular degree of trauma is in play. An average boy subjected to "garden variety" child abuse--having mostly his own world to worry about and not much context for worrying about the suffering of others--can certainly be as traumatized or moreso than a very strong willed genius growing up against the backdrop of revolution and starvation. Ducking a right cross from dad is no less traumatizing on a full stomach, in other words.

3. Your lack of willingess to take a stand on the artistic and comical merits of Dumb and Dumber is troubling, to say the least.

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As to #2, yes, degree of trauma is the real issue. I was thinking of "natural shocks the flesh is heir to", not deliberate assaults by the ones who are supposed to love and protect us. I know how lifelong devastating this can be, how much more prevalent than the lucky ones imagine. I honour you for your triumphant survival. Being well is the best revenge, if revenge is needed.

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As to Rand's family, I am thinking maybe she did not get trauma so much as gave it. I remember a great CBC show on Leopold Mozart, a fine composer and reluctant stage father, who struggled valiantly to cope when "genius fell crashing on the Mozart household in a ceaseless barrage"

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As to Rand's family, I am thinking maybe she did not get trauma so much as gave it. I remember a great CBC show on Leopold Mozart, a fine composer and reluctant stage father, who struggled valiantly to cope when "genius fell crashing on the Mozart household in a ceaseless barrage"

Uh, what? In the context of the communists taking over Russia, you come up with this?

--Brant

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As to Rand's family, I am thinking maybe she did not get trauma so much as gave it. I remember a great CBC show on Leopold Mozart, a fine composer and reluctant stage father, who struggled valiantly to cope when "genius fell crashing on the Mozart household in a ceaseless barrage"

Uh, what? In the context of the communists taking over Russia, you come up with this?

--Brant

"Don't be deceived by the weather. Benath the lovely exteriors, life beats on."

-Philip Roth

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  • 2 weeks later...

The second half of this has David Boaz talking about John Allison coming on board at Cato. Sounds like he doesn't know what's coming, and seems justifiably hopeful.

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As to Rand's family, I am thinking maybe she did not get trauma so much as gave it. I remember a great CBC show on Leopold Mozart, a fine composer and reluctant stage father, who struggled valiantly to cope when "genius fell crashing on the Mozart household in a ceaseless barrage"

Uh, what? In the context of the communists taking over Russia, you come up with this?

--Brant

"Don't be deceived by the weather. Benath the lovely exteriors, life beats on."

-Philip Roth

You can't literary your way out of this one.

--Brant

but good try

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  • 2 weeks later...

This looks like really good news:

http://www.slate.com/blogs/weigel/2012/08/30/cato_shrugged_panic_about_an_incoming_leader_s_admiration_for_ayn_rand.html

In fact, now that I have a deeper understanding about Cato, I believe almost all the name calling between libertarians and objectivists is irrational. I have come to appreciate that all objectivists are libertarians, but not all libertarians are objectivists.

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This looks like really good news:

http://www.slate.com...r_ayn_rand.html

In fact, now that I have a deeper understanding about Cato, I believe almost all the name calling between libertarians and objectivists is irrational. I have come to appreciate that all objectivists are libertarians, but not all libertarians are objectivists.

That's right all right, but what about libertarians and Objectivists?

--Brant

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That's right all right, but what about libertarians and Objectivists?

I believe the shift key on his keyboard is busted. Autocorrect will capitalize most stuff automatically, but not “Objectivism”. Alternately, he dictated this to a secretary and she (he?), being a Cato employee, is utterly ignorant of Objectivism and doesn't know to capitalize it.

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That's right all right, but what about libertarians and Objectivists?

I believe the shift key on his keyboard is busted. Autocorrect will capitalize most stuff automatically, but not “Objectivism”. Alternately, he dictated this to a secretary and she (he?), being a Cato employee, is utterly ignorant of Objectivism and doesn't know to capitalize it.

That might be right all right but I'm right to asssume it's wrong all right.

--Brant

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