Yes, it is; and in my opinion not very good mind reading which, given the twists and curlicues you've progressively added to it, has every appearance of your being set on insisting that Rand held a particular theory of the relationship between certain genetic characteristics and character which you're the one who has devised and put into her thoughts. You thus have to say "it's therefore logical that she doesn't try to present them as scientific theories,", as if "really" she thought these supposed theories were scientific, and that she "realized" "she couldn't get away with" proclaming such theories, which is why she didn't proclaim them. I think you're doing to her a similar job (on a different scale of course) to the one she did on Kant.

The photos you posted of Kay are posed to be flattering.

I found Barbara Weiss's appearance unappetizing, Brant. I'll leave it there.

Ellen

___

No it isn't.


Not at all. At least I have read everything she wrote (what she didn't do with Kant, to put it mildly) and I write about one particular aspect of her ideas, without making sweeping generalizations about her total philosophy. Rand's prejudices are not "theories", unless you call any arbitrary opinion a theory. A good example is her distrust of people with a beard. We know that she had a "theory" that someone with a beard is trying to hide something, and we also know that she acted on her aversion. But she never wrote about her "theory" in an official publication. She wasn't dumb, she must have realized that she didn't have any evidence for her theory. I think that is much more likely than to assume that she thought she could present it as a valid theory and she just didn't get to it. That's no rocket science nor mind reading.

Huh? You are the one who claimed that she had a theory about the relationship of eye color to character. I did not claim that. You did. You also claimed that she didn't present this theory because she knew she couldn't get away with it. But it's you who assumed that she had such a theory to begin with, and thus that there was any need of explaining why she kept quiet about having said theory. Now you're claiming that her belief that people who wore beards were trying to hide something somehow does what? Supports your thesis that she had the thesis that nondescript eye color means bad character?

La-da-da-da-da. Logic anyone?

And it is so mind-reading to think that you know her motives for not saying something you can't even demonstrate she thought.

You are providing me with a sort of Alice-in-Wonderland hilarity.

Ellen

___

No, I didn't. I only said that she made a link between color of the iris and character.


No, I didn't write that, you are distorting my words. I wrote "she doesn't present a theoretical treatise about the connection between color of the iris and character". "A theoretical treatise" is not the same as "this theory", I didn't refer to any theory. My point was of course that it wasn't a theory, but just an unsupported opinion or prejudice and that she therefore didn't present it as a theory. As I wrote in another post: "These are of course no objective theories but subjective feelings on her part, and it's therefore logical that she doesn't try to present them as scientific theories (she wouldn't be able to make up such a theory)". Seems quite clear to me.


Is it really that difficult? It's just another example of one of her prejudices about appearance, and in this case there is no excuse at all of a "literary device", but something she obviously believed.


It's no mind-reading but simple logic. Either she thought it was a valid theory for which evidence exists or she knew that it was a subjective notion that could not be rationally defended. Now I don't think she was a dumbass, but that she was intelligent enough to realize that didn't exist a rational argument for her idea.

I have a simpler hypotheis. Rand uses unattractive physical features to evoke antipathy toward the flawed character of her "bad guys". He likens John Deans jaw to the shape of a rat face for the purpose of implying John Dean was a "rat", one who betrayed his boss and showed contemptible disloyalty. In short the implication is that Dean is/was a rat bastard.

A skillful writer could use descriptions in various context to evoke antipathy or approval.

Ba'al Chatzaf

I find Monsieur Chatzaf's "hypotheis" most clarifying and a sufficient explanation of Rand's literary method of relating character to physiognomy, though I do find the gotcha marathon between Madame Stuttle and Monsieur Dragonfly to have some modest entertainment value.

Gotta run!
REB

If I may amplify on my prior posting: One of my grandsons, my daughter's son, is a genuine professional artist (and he is not even 16!). He once showed me a trick. He drew pictures of an elderly man in two ways, varying only the pattern of wrinkles on the man's face. One pattern made the old fellow look kindly and wise. A cheerful good old fellow. A very slightly altered pattern made the old codger look sinister and sardonic. Objectively, there was very little difference in the wrinkle layout but the impressions conveyed were opposite. I suddenly realized what the difference was. The two sets of wrinkles were mirror images or very nearly so. Clever lad.

A good photographer using light levels and shadows can use the same object to convey cheer or gloom.

The same sort of thing can be done by a skillful word smith and Ayn Rand was surely that.

Ba'al Chatzaf

I agree with your explanation. I don't see evidence that Rand actually believed that physical "unattractiveness" implied bad character- though obviously in the stylized universe of her novels there is strong alignment of many dimensions. In the stylized universe, information about physical attributes becomes a way to suggest the bad character which will soon be made evident as one gets to know the character. But that doesn't imply a belief in the correlation in the actual world.

Bill P (Alfonso)

Oh my gosh! The last four posts were on target and refreshing to read. Like Roger, I enjoyed and was amused by Ellen's cat to Dragonfly's mouse.

Michael

> I do find the gotcha marathon between Madame Stuttle and Monsieur Dragonfly to have some modest entertainment value. [Roger]

Geez, I sure hope this thread is not winding down.

I was hoping for at least thirty more posts before the day is done so I can focus in greater detail on who was a fatty and who was short in Rand's inner circle. We need to have that list elaborated on further or at least debated. Also, more photographic evidence of lip size from different angles. And then the accuracy of the photos themselves can be debated. . . .

And then a new lease on life for the thread can be an excursion in pointing out how this post shows I'm a control freak and only want people to talk about a short list of my favorite topics. That oversimplification should be worth a few posts at least.

Please, give us more. Much more.

(It's not as if the main points about stylization and selection of details for emphasis in literature could have been or were clearly made in the first few posts.)

Phil,
Would you mind not cluttering up my thread with off-topic rants about personality issues? Take your junior high pissing contest elsewhere, please.

Thanks,
J

Next round in the marathon.

Advice to Phil: Just don't read it if it bores you.



We're back to square one. What idea? An idea which you've attributed to her on the basis of descriptions of characters in a novel. You need to provide extra-literary evidence in order to support a contention that she actually believed that the color of a person's irises is diagnostic of the person's character.

Good luck. ;-)

Btw, while I'm at it: What do you claim that she thought about persons with monochromatic brown irises?

You earlier wrote:



Do dark brownish eyes qualify as being those of heroes? (If so, this would mean that a high percentage of the world's populace are born heroes.)

Also, what of all the Scandinavians with cool blue eyes? Are all of them heroes? Or is your claim that monochromatic irises are a necessary but not a sufficient condition for Randian herodom?

Ellen

___

I have long held a speculatioin (and a good one) that Rand's sense of physical beauty was highly influenced by Hollywood standards from around the time she was starting out.

Look at her favorite hairdo.

Does anyone else see Tarzan, Zorro, Greta Garbo, etc.? in here descriptions of heroes? Take a look at Mexican bandits and you can see some of her villains.

Michael

It would only make sense in a novel if there were a link between eye color and character, certainly while her descriptions are not accidental or random and her aversion shows clearly by her using loaded terms (like smeared yolks of eggs) for something neutral as a certain color, otherwise she would be guilty of silly symbolism: muddy colored eyes stand for muddied thinking, eyes with "cool" colors stand for cool, rational thinking. I still don't think that Rand was that bad a writer. I see here the Valliant effect at work: the more you defend Rand, the worse she looks.

It's funny that objectivists think that her stereotyping is a "literary device". I wonder what they mean by "literary", such crude stereotyping doesn't belong in literature, it belongs to the domain of propaganda with its racist overtones, especially when it concerns characterizations that are purely hereditary, like eye color, pendulous lips or a specific jaw structure. But apparently Objectivists think that such stereotyping is great literature, which is rather revealing.


As nothing in AS is accidental, it is no coincidence that none of her heroes are described with brown eyes, not even Francisco.


Of course necessary but not sufficient, that is elementary logic. Do I really need to spell it out for you?

BTW, Objectivists are rather silent about her "theory" about beards. I wonder why...

Dragonfly,

Because beards are evil.

So are moustaches.

Sideburns are worse. They are outright social metaphysics because they push the line without being obvious. Slimy little suckers showing slimy little souls.

We don't discuss any of this because everyone knows it.

(Don't get me started on women with moustaches...)

Michael

I see here the "Oedipus Complex" effect at work: i.e., an excellent specimen of an unfalsifiable theory -- your theory, I mean, as to Rand's "idea."

How's this for a possibility?: She gave her lead heroic characters certain eye colors because she liked those eye colors.




So then she was contradicting herself -- by your theory of what was in her mind -- when she indicated that she was the sort of heroic person she wrote about. (And there is abundant evidence for her thus viewing herself.)




Yes, since it's your theory.




You'll have to ask them. I wonder of what relevance her "theory" about beards is to your theory about her theory -- excuse me, "idea" -- of the link between eye color and character.

Ellen

___

Oh, sure, Michael, she was very influenced by Hollywood standards, from before she moved to the U.S. Remember Barbara's talking in Passion about how the movies and the operettas Ayn scrimped to have the admission fee to attend were a lifeline for her when she was still in Russia. She wrote a book, a small one, which was published there, about Hollywood films; she kept a journal of what films she'd seen.

Descriptions even in her earliest writing are Hollywood in style, including the "stage set" visuals. A place where this is strikingly so -- IMO, to tremendous potential cinematic effect -- is in the film script she did for "Red Pawn." Um. Some fantastic scenes in there -- like the description of the room with the Russian icons mixed with Marxist symbolism. The fortress prison -- reminiscent of early movies of "The Man in the Iron Mask," "The Count of Monte Cristo," etc. The heroine in her heels and silk nylons. The Commandant -- who becomes part of a triangle.

I recommend reading it if you haven't.

Ellen

___

Uh-oh! I'm in big trouble!!!

A moustache

A goatee

And (gasp!) long hair!!!!

And under moderation. Right, Michael?

--Brant

Ellen,

I know all that and probably should have mentioned it. (Time... time...)

Still, I am glad you made that post for the sake of readers. It is a very good post and gives an angle of looking at Rand's visual values that is not often discussed.

Sometimes when I read examples of overkill on deifying or demonizing Rand, I daydream about writing a book called, Ayn Rand: Human Being, but then I remember that Barbara already did.

Michael

The folks on OO even have a god: Odden

One David Odden who is equipped with both lightning bolts and a hammer.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Again it seems that I'm the only one who takes Rand seriously. I don't think she used such descriptions just while she "liked them", in particular while she was quite emphatic in those descriptions. You see the same thing with the shooting of the guard scene. Objectivists claim that she just shoots him to save Galt, while it's obvious to an objective reader that this is merely a prop to present her philosophical view that a person who cannot make a choice has forfeited his right to life. Objectivists treat AS like modern christians the bible. They pick the parts they like and put importance on the philosophical implications while the less palatable parts are neutralized as literary devices or explained away as literal descriptions without any philosophical significance, while I think that she meant it when she wrote "and I mean it".


Who said that she was consistent in her ideas and behavior? In AS her heroes also excel in everything outside their official capacities, whether it is driving speedboats, making the best hamburgers in the world or flying a plane, while Rand herself couldn't even drive a car and was rather clumsy in performing simple tasks. Of course there was a mismatch between that what she described as heroes and what she herself really was. Now I'm going to speculate, but I think that there was an element of self-hatred in her which she tried to repress by her exaggerated claims about herself and that this also contributed to her long bouts of depression.




All the heroes of which she described the eyes had monochromatic irises, so we may make the inference that this is a necessary condition for herodom. However, to claim that it is a sufficient condition we must also have data about the non-heroes. We have only data about the villains, but not about the large category of neither heroes nor villains. Without any such data we cannot make any inference, and we'll have to accept the null hypothesis that eye color doesn't make you automatically a hero. It's like the famous example of white swans. As long as we only observe white swans, we may infer that whiteness is a necessary condition for being a swan (even if this conclusion may be falsified later). But we cannot conclude that a white bird automatically must be a swan if we have no data about other birds. (Never mind that it would of course be absurd to claim that one single physical attribute is sufficient to make you a hero.)


My question was of course rhetorical. It is another example of a weird idea about the link between appearance and character. In this case it cannot be denied or explained away or even accepted as a personal opinion that doesn't belong to her philosophy (as is her view about a woman as president, in the words of Nathaniel Branden "one of Rand's more embarrassing lapses"), so it is ignored.

Dragonfly,

Woah theah!!!

Forfeited his right to life to whom?

The way reality works is that a person who cannot make a choice when he needs to actually does "forfeit his right to life." For example, the guy who can't decide if he needs to get out of the way of a speeding train or not, the person who needs a life-saving operation but cannot decide to go through with it, etc. They all die much sooner than they would have had they made a choice.

Just because the source of the threat in the situation of Atlas Shrugged was a person, not a non-human threat, this does not alter the reality of needing to make that choice. A person who refuses to make a choice in the face of a clear and present danger takes what he gets, and it usually means he dies.

In the face of danger, the only means of increasing the chance of survival available to any of us is making a choice (the choice to get out of the way), or someone making it for us. If that someone is not available and we refuse to choose, it's, "Goodbye Charlie!"

Where on earth does that fact ever break down?

Michael

So if someone can't decide whether he has to obey me when I threaten him with a gun, I have the right to kill him, as he has only to blame himself if he's killed?

Dragonfly,

Whoever said anyone has a right to kill? That's your projection of the message and it is based on a fallacy of forcing one perspective (Dagny's) on the other (the guard's).

Shit happens when you are angry and under extreme urgency. That is not the same thing as a right to kill.

As for the guard who refused to choose, once he was dead, he had no more rights. He forfeited them all.

I got a chuckle out of your statement: "... as he has only to blame himself if he's killed." How is a guy going to blame anything once he's dead? (There goes that perspective bouncing around again.)

Michael

Angry and extreme urgency? First Dagny has a discussion of more than a page with the guard, and then


So much for "angry" and "extreme urgency". The guard let the key drop, he wouldn't shoot Dagny, so it would have been very easy to render him harmless, making the way free to rescue Galt, even faster than with all that talking. But of course that wasn't Rand's intention, this was a demonstration that it is perfectly ok to kill someone who cannot make up his mind. She is shouting this message through a megaphone. But Objectivists are deaf to the message and try to suggest that it is the description of a fast shootout in which people will be killed, like a scene from an average thriller. It is no such thing.

Dragonfly,

Come on. Don't you get anything about the Objectivist mindset? The situation in which you distance yourself the most between your acts and your immediate emotions is when you have to be competent. Then you push the emotion aside (and even repress it) so your reason will direct your acts unhampered.

Rand has written about this and illustrated it over and over during moments of important decisions of her main characters. The more deeply felt the emotion, the calmer and in contrel the person becomes at the time to act. Rand's heroes do not give war-whoops and charge forth. They remain calm and deadly accurate. Yet here in this situation you want this to mean something else.

Do you imagine that Dagny would have shot a person in her living room during a social visit because the person refused to make a decision about what food to eat? Gimme a break!

Dagny was under enormous pressure. Or in your interpretation, does the pressure of that situation simply cease to exist because you have a pet theory?

You claim this is the case with Objectivists. I see the same kind of reasoning in your method of analysis.

Michael

Dragonfly, once more you are coming back in a reply to me by going into a tangent about some other issue besides that of eye color and by speaking in your tangent of what "Objectivists" do. I am the one with whom you're discussing the eye-color issue. Your digression about the shooting of the guard is just that, a digression. Furthermore, it isn't true that all Objectivists claim about the scene what you say "Objectivists claim." We had a thread about exactly the guard scene, recall. All the Objectivists in that thread did not say the same thing. And I was mostly in agreement with your viewpoint on the scene, although differing in details. I think that I expressed what Rand's point was better than you did. I refer you to the thread if you've forgotten what I wrote there.

Now, as to her being "quite emphatic in those descriptions": To which descriptions do you refer? And what do you mean by "emphatic"? She states the colors of the main heroic characters' eyes. She says nothing about such eye color being a requisite characteristic of being heroic.

In regard to the villains whose eye color she describes, she gives more than just eye color as negative in their appearance. Mouch's eyes, as I've already said two or three times, are those of a debauched lifestyle; it isn't simply the color of the irises which makes them unappetizing. Lillian's eyes she describes as being a "flaw" -- in Lillian's beauty.

You quoted part of the description yourself:



But then in a subsequent comment, you left out that it's Lillian's beauty which is what Rand said was being flawed.



Interestingly, in the description of James Taggart there's a detail which provides evidence pertaining to a different issue, that of the discrepancy between some of Rand's comments penned earlier than the one about "no innate 'talents'" with that comment:



In regard specifically to the eyes, however, it again isn't just their being "pale" which is described but their being "veiled." The "veiled" part is characterologic.

She gives villains eye colors presented as unattractive and heroes eye colors which sound attractive, this is there in the text.

But what you're reading in as a belief is not there in the text. Having read it in, however, you then proceed to explain away anything which doesn't agree with your interpretation.

Thus my saying that I see the "Oedipus Complex" effect at work: The Oedipus Complex is a famous example of a non-falsifiable idea. It was posited as being universal to the male. It was then assumed to be present in all cases, no matter what the contravening evidence: If a male client showed signs of having hated his mother, he had a reverse Oedipus Complex. If he showed no signs of strong affect one way or the other about his mother, he had a repressed Oedipus Complex.

You proceed by making more and more obvious that you're engaging in just such impregnable-to-evidence reasoning.

In regard to my pointing out that she herself had monochromatic brown, not light-colored eyes; thus if light-colored monochromatic eyes were necessary to herodom, she'd be contradicting herself in viewing herself as a being such as her heroes, you go to the length of speculating:



Also, in answer to my query as to whether (light-colored) monochromatic eyes are necessary but not sufficient for herodom, according to your theory of Rand's belief on the issue, you proceed by simply assuming the correctness of your hypothesis:



Sorry, but, no, we may not make this inference -- not legitimately anyway. You need some statement as to the necessity which you're espying before you have a basis for presuming that Rand thought what you say she did.

You then continue reasoning on the basis of your presumption:



And yet I fancy you'd scream at Freud's comparable method of reasoning.

Ellen

___

Heh, as if this whole thread isn't a digression.


I can't remember anyone who calls himself an Objectivist (either on this forum or elsewhere) who didn't claim that Dagny only shot the guard to rescue Galt. Perhaps there were some dissenting opinions, but they must have been a very small minority. I don't see that designating such a general opinion by Objectivists implies that every single Objectivist does share that opinion. I think the difference between your version and mine is merely a semantic quibble, related to the distinction between proximate cause and ultimate cause. In my opinion the best argument in that thread was given by Jonathan, he did express it much better than I could do.


No, but she does use a lot of loaded terms, for the villains as well for the heroes (in the latter case: cool, ice, glint of metal, pure, clear, color of the sky), implying that it reflects the character of her heroes.


But it is the color of his irises that she describes as unappetizing. And where do you get the notion that these are the result of a debauched lifestyle? I can't remember any description of Mouch's lilfestyle. Or are you concluding that he must have had a debauched lifestyle from the appearance of his irises? Now that would be begging the question.


Yes, of course, that's exactly my point. A villain cannot be beautiful, at most partly beautiful, but there must be a physical flaw.


I don't know what "veiled eyes" mean, neither what it means that this is something "characterologic".


I don't explain away anything, I just take her at her word. That has nothing to do with Oedipus complexes.


Yes, we may make this inference, as we're not talking about the real world, but about the world of Rand's ideas as presented in AS. We can be sure that the descriptions are not accidental and therefore the inference is legitimate. If she didn't mean it, she shouldn't have written it. BTW, the "light-colored" is your addition, not mine.


I don't see any resemblance with Freud's method of reasoning.

To the contrary in regard to what we're talking about, what I am talking about is:

your attributing to Rand as a factual belief about the real world the belief that eye color is diagnostic of character;

followed by your claim that she didn't state this belief because she "realized" "she couldn't get away with" doing so;

followed by your claim that she was rationalizing -- making exceptions to her belief -- in regard to close associates (most of her close associates) whose eye colors weren't those of the heroes in Atlas;

followed by your claim that she didn't specify monochromatic brown -- her own eye color -- as the eye color of any of the heroes in Atlas due to a repressed self-hatred.

I added the "light-colored" to try to make clear that your reference was to gray, green, blue monochromatic eyes, as distinguished from monochromatic brown eyes. Possibly there's a misunderstanding on my part of the sense in which you were using "monochromatic" -- I was thinking in terms of the meaning "single color."

Your series of progressive additions to your claims and speculations about what was in Rand's mind reminds me very much of Freud's reasoning (not only in regard to the "Oedipus Complex," btw; he used similar reasoning on some other issues; I selected the "Oedipus Complex" as the referrent because it's a particularly famous example).




"Veiled eyes" is similar to "secretive eyes." It's a reference to expression. Expression, unlike eye color, is revelatory of psychological processes. Characteristic expression is revelatory of characteristic processes, thus "characterologic." You did appear to have some degree of understanding of the relationship between expression and process when you described Rand as "shifty"-eyed in her appearance on the Mike Wallace show.

Re Lillian, I understood you to be saying that the color indicated a flaw in Lillian's character. (The "lifelessly empty of expression" is characterologic. Personally, I find that not good wording, since it sounds to me like someone who's been beaten down by life and has become resigned; something like "coldly distant" I think would have been better.)

I have the strong impression in regard to Mouch that he was someone who spent a great deal of time wheeling and deeling while boozing with those with whom he was making deals, or from whom he was currying favor, etc., etc. -- Washington-man manipulator sort of stuff. I don't want to take the time to look up the details.

In regard to the clarity of her heroes' eyes, as distinguished from just the color, I think that is characterologic with the implication of "clean living" and "clear-sighted" -- fearless, open eyes.

Ellen

___

I'm just glad my own eyes are Randian heroic, even if my hair isn't.

--Brant

I wonder which character traits anisocoria and/or heterochromia might represent if used in a Randian novel.

J

Dragonfly,

I am having a hard time understanding why you think Dagny would have shot the guard if he had not been in between her and Galt.

I admit, by then she was fed up and ready to rock and roll if necessary. But would you please explain to me where you get the idea Dagny would shoot anyone outside of a drastic life-and-death situation like that? I simply don't see it.

Michael

DF seems to be mixing up the author's motives with the character's.

--Brant

Yes, single color is a necessary condition, but not light-colored, as Galt has deep dark green eyes.


There is no speculation about what she writes, I take her at her word. The only speculation is about her self-image, and I clearly stated that this was speculation.


Then it's psychobabble and not an objective criterion.


No, because that is an objective characterization: the eyes are continuously darting sideways, you could even measure it. Further I didn't draw any conclusion from that about her character, only that she didn't come over as a mesmerizing personality on that show, because a person who's continuously looking away (and moreover has a rather wooden delivery) isn't very mesmerizing .


Ah, I see... he is a Washington manipulator, so he must spend a great deal of time wheeling and deeling while boozing and that gives him unhealthy looking eyes. Talking about drawing valid inferences... To borrow another Freudian term: this looks to me more like an example of free-association...
At least I did take the time to look up the details.


Then she shouldn't stress so much the color of the eyes in almost every case, as that implies a link between color and character.

Except that she nowhere stated what you have asserted was in her mind, so, no, you are not taking her "at her word," you're reading into her word what she didn't say. True, your only speculation was about her self-image. Each of your other progressive claims was an assertion:

(1) She believed that certain eye colors are required to be Randian heroes;

(2) She didn't dare say she believed this, since she knew she couldn't get away with it;

(3) In the case of her real-world associates who didn't have the requisite eye colors, she rationalized.

Right, you didn't speculate about any of this.

As to your put-down designation "psychobabble," there is no "objective" way (if I understand your meaning of "objective") to assess or to describe internal processes; assessing other humans' internal processes in real life isn't objective, in the sense I think you mean; nor is conveying in literature the psychology of one's characters. Qualitative cues which we have to subjectively interpret are how we assess others in interaction with others, and how we convey in literature the characteristics of persons we're writing about. What your complaint about AR's methods of characterization comes down to is that you don't like them, since you find them stereotyping. I even agree with you -- as I said several times in the thread -- that she did use stereotyping methods. But your further claims as to her factual beliefs are, precisely, your inferences and not demonstrable from her text.

The "defense" rests.

Ellen

___

Despite trying very carefully to walk on the eggshells over at OO, I'm back in the moderation doghouse. I had been posting on this thread about the Objectivist view that Kant was the "father of modern art."

A while after posting the message below, I returned to OO to see if there was a response to my comments, and I discovered that I had a personal message from one of the moderators waiting for me which informed me that my post had been deleted. His message advised me to ask for clarification if I needed it, so I did.

I wrote to him:


The moderator quickly responded without providing any of the promised clarification -- his post simply asserted that surely I didn't need clarification -- so I reposted my original message with the "8 cents" comment removed, and was almost immediately informed via private message from the moderator that my newly reposted-but-edited message had also been deleted.

I've asked again for clarification, but have received no response as of yet, and it appears that I can no longer post there.

It's not a big deal, the good people at OO can do whatever they want with their forum, but I don't want to leave the impression that posts have gone unanswered by me, and I wanted to maintain a publicly accessible record of what was said and what happened (if MSK and Kat don't mind) -- anyone following along at OO would not know why I suddenly disappeared from the conversation.

So, here's the original post of mine that was deleted:

I have been following along in that thread. The reason you were put into the playpen (if not banned) is that you disagreed with Mr Sniffy. Mr Sniffy knows everything there is to know about, well, everything that is worth knowing.

When you challenge Mr Sniffy with a mild snark at his sniffiness and his preposterous rectitude, you become Evul. And Evul is one thing they don't stand for at OO.

I may be entirely unjustified, but I feel (yes, feel, with a lightning fast spin of my subconscious valuation mechanism), that OO inculcates grandstanding puffery in its denizens. Sniffery and puffery, and a High Church rectitude. That is what they want, and that is what they get. A clutch of sniffy, pedantic overlords rules the roost, and all the little fresh chickens cluck in same format and the same peevish tone as the great sniffy feathered oldtimers.

Kant was evul, bad art is evul, bad evul art is due to Kant, and if you can't see the truth in that, and if you can't see that you deserve the sniffery and puffery, then you too are Evul.

(oddly enough, I PMed Jonathan before he turned clearly evul in the post he reproduces. I warned him that he was coming close to the margins of Evul: "I read threads like this just to see if how long it takes disagreement to become Evul.")

Some corners of Randland are suffused with this 'I have seen the light, and you haven't, so here's the red button' attitude.

They have learned it from the best of the clucky, sniffy, righteous and puffy exemplars, in a straight line back to Holy Writ. For example, the righteous disdain of a poster who declaimed on this thread about Courbet's and Millet's "absurdly high horizon line." Badly imitative of the Pontiff at his sniffy, righteous, pompously ignorant best. With this kind of peevish vainglory, Objectivishism will usher in a world of reason? No baluddy likely.

-- of course, maybe I am wrong, maybe you crossed some invisible line of civility that the cluckers had scraped out in the chicken coop.

It was an insult. But ...: Why post in such a place?

--Brant

Update:

My offensive post, minus the "8 cents" comment, has now been posted at OO, and I've received an interesting private message from the moderator.

More later,

J

I went over to thread mentioned above, and all I can think about is Carolyn Ray's comment to an objectivist audience: "If you are going to discuss Kant, make sure that you have read him."

I didn't get a sense that anyone on that thread has. He is actually fascinating to read once you get into it.

An absurd comment... With regard to Courbet's painting, the writer apparently doesn't know the difference between a hill and a horizon. I wonder what he'd say about these paintings or this one, these or this one, full with hills, absurdly high horizon lines or even no horizon at all, and that on a site that is highly regarded by orthodox Objectivists! How is it possible that they would recommend a site with so much Kantian paintings!

I think that terms "Kantian" and phrases such as "the problem is epistemological" have become, well, standard catch-phrases which are applied at times with a shocking lack of thought or even of understanding of what Kant actually said (not that such is an easy task - having read a lot of Kant, I'm tempted to say "which Kant" when someone asks me!) or what epistemology means.

Strange: Philosopher R forms an opinion re what PHilosopher K said, to all evidence based on minimal reading of first sources (meaning, what Philosopher K actually wrote, and not just snippets quoted by someone), and then Person O takes what Philosopher R wrote about Philosopher K, and lets that be a shortcut to knowledge for them.

The phrase "second-hander" comes to mind as applicable to Person O.

Note added in edit: I'm not suggesting you as person O, Dragonfly... I hope that is clear.

Bill P (Alfonso)

Sure, I think it was clear enough that I don't take this use of the epithet "Kantian" seriously...

Bill P: "I think that terms "Kantian" and phrases such as "the problem is epistemological" have become, well, standard catch-phrases which are applied at times with a shocking lack of thought or even of understanding of what Kant actually said...

"Strange: Philosopher R forms an opinion re what PHilosopher K said, to all evidence based on minimal reading of first sources (meaning, what Philosopher K actually wrote, and not just snippets quoted by someone), and then Person O takes what Philosopher R wrote about Philosopher K, and lets that be a shortcut to knowledge for them."
.

Michael Newberry: "I went over to thread mentioned above, and all I can think about is Carolyn Ray's comment to an objectivist audience: 'If you are going to discuss Kant, make sure that you have read him.'

"I didn't get a sense that anyone on that thread has. He is actually fascinating to read once you get into it."

The sound you hear is my applause for you both, The ignorance of many Objectivists about what Kant actually wrote is appalling, and the prevalence of second-hand opinions, stated as gospel, about what he wrote is more appalling.

And yes, Michael, he is fascinating to read, and instructive.

Barbara

I agree. You find many, many germs of Objectivist thought in his writings. Perhaps...perhaps...not even ~one~ of them originated from Kant but instead were independently created by Rand. But it is impossible, for instance, to read her writings on aesthetics without wondering if Rand got the inspiration for her view of art as "re-creation of reality" from him.

In general, I think that the "barking dogs" of the Movement (Rand included) have scared far too many people away from reading Kant -- not just for the "horror quotes" about his epistemology, but for the overall systematic sweep and fascinating details of his philosophy.

No, I'm not a Kantian, certainly not any more one than Rand was herself! But there is less distance between their ideas than some would have us believe.

REB

I started wondering years ago -- back when Rand was still writing major articles -- if it was precisely the nearness of the distance which was what incensed her. It often does happen that people become angriest with those whose views are close to their own. Later, when I learned how little of Kant in the original AR herself had read, the hypothesis of its being the similarity more than the difference which angered her began to look not as plausible to me as before, but I still think that to the extent she understood what Kant wrote, the lack of distance might have contributed to her vehemence.

Also, I think she needed a Satan figure, a colossal supposedly "antipode" antagonist.

Ellen

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In other words, just like the Old Days? (I don't read OO, but the description could well apply to the way it was back then. Of course, the overlords denied that what they got was what they wanted, but since what they got was the predictable result of what they did..., the denials weren't easy to believe.)

Ellen

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Ellen -

I think your analysis is sound in the list of explanations you identify. My read is the your latter explanation (the need for a antipode antagonist) is the most likely candidate for the core reason, with the lack of extensive first-hand exposure to Kant's writing being a contributing factor. (It's easier to misunderstand someone by imputing to them positions they don't hold when you don't know their writings very well.) Your first explanation might explain the vehemence of the attacks on Kant, but not the stated grounds of them.

Bill P (Alfonso)

Thanks. Yep, fascinating he is.

Michael