Architecture -- art or not?? (2006)

[Jonathan]

Architecture is not an art. A building is more for utilitarian purpose than it has got to do with "selective re-creation" by an Architect to represent his sense of life

By Rand's definition and criteria, architecture is indeed not art, nor is music or dance. However, photography can qualify as art by her criteria.

According to Rand's meaning of "selective recreation," and her theory of the nature of music and dance, both music and dance are art forms in that (according to her theory) they selectively re-create sense of life emotions, hence an aspect of reality.

I agree that, by "her theory," music and dance "re-create" emotions. My point is that outside of her theory -- in reality -- music and dance do not "re-create" emotions, but merely ~evoke~ a range of differing emotings in different people, very much the same way that architecture does, or abstract paintings do.

She thought of photography as merely recording not re-creating reality. I think she might have thought differently on that one if she'd known more about technical possibilities of photography.

Ellen

Yes. Unfortunately her followers are not so open to being convinced by learning about photography's technical possibilities, but are actually opposed to learning. And sometimes quite angry about it. Intellectual giants like Dr. Ex-Mrs. Dr. Diana Comrade Sonia Hsieh Mertz Brickell and the New Bohemians, PhD, and our Lord, His Emminent Royal Published Grace Majesty Highness, Roger Bissell, have adamantly refused to even consider being educated on the subject.

J

[Selene]

or the man-made, there's also a proliferation of beauty. A Ferrari, a modern appliance, pieces of furniture, a building -etc.

My favourites are bridges, from Roman times up to those amazing suspension bridges. Craft, design, form and ingenious artfulness - purposeful - but I can't call them art.

Fair point.

However, Roebling's Brooklyn Bridge is art, as I understand it.

Full disclosure, I probably have done my most shallow education in the aesthetic area of philosophy.

One of the enjoyments that I have on OL is learning more about this area from you, J., Jules, and our Baltimore artist, etc.

How would you evaluate "The Great Bridge?"

Particularly, the cathedral arches that had serious meaning to the Roebling family.

This seems to make it art...

At the time the bridge was being built, most western countries were experiencing an economic boom. The Second Industrial Revolution was taking place, and the building of the Brooklyn Bridge served as a symbol of optimism; workers were confident that they could manipulate the technology necessary to build the bridge despite the architectural feat they were about to undertake.

A...

[Brant Gaede]

"What makes it art?"--The artist makes it art. What makes the artist? The artist. He/she is the art authority on his/her work.

A consumer can do the same.

A proper esthetician describes what is--what is out there and what categories might obtain. Etc. An improper one tells us what should be instead. That "should be" can also be a should not be as photography should not be considered art. Period. It's a fascist and elitist attitude. It's only moral fascism for there's no coercion. This obscures the motivation wrapped up in a disdaining attitude.

Since philosophy is the biological mind's operating software it's full of Command and Control. C and C is philosophy and everything else isn't more than an expression of philosophy or based on it--esthetics for instance. Thus philosophy is metaphysics, epistemology, ethics and politics. Not esthetics. Not chemistry. Not medicine. Etc.

--Brant

[Roger Bissell]

1. I don't like Emminems.

2. I have indeed considered being educated on the subject of photography's technical possibilities, but I don't recall ever saying one way or the other whether I was going to study the subject. Yet, J testifies to my adamant refusal. Interesting...perhaps he is confusing me with Michelle Marder Kamhi?

3. And who are the New Bohemians, PhD?

REB

[anthony]

"Disdaining attitude"? If that's me, on the contrary, I admire the beauty man builds, to the point of elevating it for what it is, not for what it is not. Form following function, to a large degree.

I asked of the building photograph :"what makes it art?" Brant indicates that the artist knows best. If made by an artist, it is art. (qed).

If someone says he's an artist, and says he creates art - whatever form it takes - must everyone unquestioningly take his word? Say it's a beautifully designed pop-up toaster or a couch. Then, the next designer or bridge engineer makes something beautiful, but dismisses the notion it's art. Who is right, who's wrong? Where is the standard?

The "fascist and elitist attitude" is exactly what I think of the all-powerful Art Establishment, not those few voices outside those elite circles asking "what is it?"- and "why?" Epistemology, "how we know", cannot have selective blind spots or any sacred cows, that's the direction of destruction of knowledge and mind (and ethics and politics)..

[Roger Bissell]

Amazing how the Establishment and their apologists and defenders frantically try to smear their critics by calling them "elitists" and "fascists" and the like. (Just like the Tea Party and NRA are "terrorists" and "extremists." Interesting...)

[Brant Gaede]

Amazing how the Establishment and their apologists and defenders frantically try to smear their critics by calling them "elitists" and "fascists" and the like. (Just like the Tea Party and NRA are "terrorists" and "extremists." Interesting...)

But your substantial reply to my #53 will soon follow?

--Brant

[Roger Bissell]

Here's my reply to your #53:

If (a)esthetics is not properly (?) prescriptive or normative, because it's not philosophy, but just an expression of philosophy, then:

1. Why, by contrast, *is* politics properly prescriptive or normative - since it's just an expression of metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics, after all?

1a. Or maybe politics is like aesthetics and is *not* properly normative (please supply explanation for this), in which case:

2. Is the prescription that all people should be free and have their rights respected just "moral fascism"?

3. Similarly, is the Hippocratic injunction to "first, do no harm" not properly part of medicine, but just "moral fascism"?

[Jonathan]

2. I have indeed considered being educated on the subject of photography's technical possibilities...

I would think that a very important published scholar of aesthetics would not only "consider" maybe someday possibly being educated on the subject of photography (as well as the other visual arts), but actually becoming educated before publishing his snooty opinions on the subject, and especially before making ignorant, Rand-brainwashed statements like the following (from "Art as Microcosm"):

"Because of the influx during the twentieth century of 'junk pile' art and non-representational art, as well as attempts to elevate the aesthetic status of photography, various design arts, etc., it is no longer true that anything called 'art' can automatically be assumed to be art in this narrower sense.{6} There is no firm, objective criterion for differentiating all of the so-called 'fine arts' from the rest of human creation."

Intellectual slop. A know-nothing pompously posing not only as an expert, but as morally and epistemologically superior. It's the attitude that being a smug Rand follower who bluffs and blusters trumps someone's actually having real knowledge of the subject at hand. It's the attitude that knowledge is not necessary to making objective judgments.

So, when, Roger, when will you educate yourself on the art forms about which you pose as being an expert? When will you get around to it? Seriously. Let me know when you've actually become educated on the visual arts, including photography, and then I'll start to consider granting you some of the scholarly respect that you're always demanding.

J

[Jonathan]

Here's my reply to your #53:

If (a)esthetics is not properly (?) prescriptive or normative, because it's not philosophy, but just an expression of philosophy, then:

1. Why, by contrast, *is* politics properly prescriptive or normative - since it's just an expression of metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics, after all?

1a. Or maybe politics is like aesthetics and is *not* properly normative (please supply explanation for this), in which case:

2. Is the prescription that all people should be free and have their rights respected just "moral fascism"?

3. Similarly, is the Hippocratic injunction to "first, do no harm" not properly part of medicine, but just "moral fascism"?

Answer: Because aesthetics -- taste, beauty, sentiment, emotion, experience, interpretation, etc. -- necessarily includes subjectivity. There is no correct or objective aesthetic response. If you or Brant find a painting to be beautiful and pleasing, it doesn't follow that anyone or everyone else also "should" or "ought to." Every work of art is subjective and complex enough to be experienced and interpreted differently by different individuals. Each will bring his or her own subjective experience to the same elements of content, and will place different subjective weight of the importance of each element and the sum of what all of the elements add up to. Howard Roark can be legitimately seen, based only on the content of The Fountainhead, as either a fraudulent, unjust, irrational vigilante and villain, or as an individualist creative hero, depending on which elements of the novel each reader subjectively prefers to rate as important versus those which he or she wishes to downplay.

So, to continue Roger's list of questions:

4. Is the prescription that all people should prefer Roger's favorite food, and that they are objectively wrong to prefer other foods, "food fascism"? Shouldn't tastes be objectively normative since ethics and politics are, and, more importantly, because Objectivish-types WANT everything to be objectively normative, especially their own tastes, interpretations and limitations in art and art appreciation?

J

[Brant Gaede]

Here's my reply to your #53:

If (a)esthetics is not properly (?) prescriptive or normative, because it's not philosophy, but just an expression of philosophy, then:

1. Why, by contrast, *is* politics properly prescriptive or normative - since it's just an expression of metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics, after all?

1a. Or maybe politics is like aesthetics and is *not* properly normative (please supply explanation for this), in which case:

2. Is the prescription that all people should be free and have their rights respected just "moral fascism"?

3. Similarly, is the Hippocratic injunction to "first, do no harm" not properly part of medicine, but just "moral fascism"?

I answered this in the last paragraph of my #53. It has to do with the C and C of philosophical software. There is no C and C for esthetics or general productive efforts. This includes being a philosopher as opposed to a philosophy. Ethics and politics have to do with right and wrong conduct. Esthetics as a philosophical expression of Objectivism has to be moral fascism for one is trying to direct, constrain and limit the artist and his art as to worthiness and sans the market too boot.

This is not political fascism which is evil. It's just wrong-headed. Now the metaphysical-epistemological construct of Objectivism is needed to base out and make the rest of it workable and it does exactly the same thing for science. But science got there first. Science beat out Rand. So did John Locke and the Founding Fathers ("Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness"). Rand put everything into one vertically integrated package which she did not include esthetics in. There is no room in that package for philosophical, contradictory folderol. You have to go inside to make repairs, additions, changes. There is no doing that from the outside. That's why most philosophy is garbage: lack of reality congruence. If it had that it would be inside Objectivism too as the basic operative principle.

Classical Objectivism, of course, is full of Randian cultural artifacts. I've not mentioned any of those but they're all worthy of discussion. ("Objectivism holds that man is a heroic being . . . .")

Re your #3: Doing harm is initiating force or just being incompetent with someone else's life, which might as well be the same thing.

--Brant

[Roger Bissell]

How is telling someone what you think they should do, or how they should make something, "moral fascism"? (As long as you're not wielding physical force or force of law over them.)

How is telling someone "if you want to achieve x, you should do y," "moral fascism"?

For that matter, how is telling someone "you should want to achieve x," "moral fascism"?

Does the word "should" become "morally fascistic" when it is connected to production - and not, when connected to non-productive, merely intellectual or moral or political action? (Is there such a thing as literally non-productive action?)

If being a philosopher, one who produces a philosophy or philosophical ideas, is a productive activity, is it "moral fascism" to tell that philosopher that he should not make an immoral philosophy (one which advocates sacrifice, humility, violation of rights, illogic, supernaturalism, etc.)?

If so, then we are in the odd situation of morally condemning evil ideas (philosophies), but not morally condemning the making of them and those who make them.

But if not, then why is it "moral fascism" to tell an artist that he should not make an immoral artwork - one which glorifies and upholds tragedy for the sake of tragedy, destruction for the sake of destruction, ugliness for the sake of ugliness, etc.? (Any of these things can be morally good if used not for their own sakes, but as a foil to happiness, constructiveness, beauty - just as the latter can be morally evil if used only as a foil to the triumph of evil.)

I'm as uncomfortable with the whole notion of "moral fascism" as I was with the dearly departed, sainted Ellen Moore's notion that lying was tantamount to a violation of individual rights and should be punishable by law. I know you're not saying that, but isn't slinging the word "fascism" around going to result in short-circuiting discussion by applying moral condemnation to those who criticize and admonish things they think are evil?

I'm also wondering why you think that aesthetics is not a "vertically integrated" component of Rand's philosophical structure. She certainly said it was, and so did Peikoff and Branden. She viewed art as flowing from the other branches of philosophy - whether explicitly or in one's sense of life view of the world - and as providing a perceivable image as a model (rather than a verbal explanation) of a perspective of the world. We get ethical and political "oughts" from the "is" of metaphysics and epistemology - and we get "here's what I mean" aesthetic models from the first four. That's how I always understood Rand et al to be vertically integrating the philosophy.

Finally, isn't logic a part of that vertically integrated structure? And doesn't logic "tell us how to think" - how to produce an argument - and how *not* to produce an argument? Medicine, education, etc. are all sciences of method, of making things. But to tell people how you think they should educate or heal others or make a house or an artwork is "moral fascism" - so why isn't it "moral fascism" to tell people how you think they should construct an argument? Logic (Rand said) is *the* science of method - of how to think, how to form arguments, proofs, explanations. Are we all "moral fascists" now?

[Brant Gaede]

There is a lot of art that's crap, even immoral--if only for taste. That has nothing to do with the art-philosophy divide I'm talking about. I'm using "moral fascism" mostly to clearly indicate that esthetics isn't objective philosophy. Esthetics--personal esthetics--can be subjectively to one's personal taste. I'd never call you or Ayn Rand a "fascist." Fascism per se is political. Esthetics describes and categories, philosophy prescribes and proscribes. That's why it's philosophy. When philosophy jumps its banks I'm objecting and saying so and why. Sure--I could be wrong.

Telling people what you think they should do covers a complexity of situations. For instance, why are you doing that? We could easily come up with ten different scenarios and talk until the morning light eating cold pizza and drinking warm beer. (Uh, I think I won't.) Did they ask you? Are you raising children? Etc. But morality is central to Objectivism. Politics to libertarianism. I mention the latter because individual rights have everything to do with morality and is the easiest part of that and politics to objectify. There's more to morality (ethics) of course than that which obtains to rights' violations and why they are violated--initiation of force. That's a huge discussion. I don't think I'm up to it except reactively to some statements. Personally, I'd start with living with integrity. Then there's altruism/collectivism and individualism/freedom. There is now give and take on OL about the real nature of altruism. I don't think Rand considered altruism as a moral principle stolen by the collectivists, but only an evil moral principle. Of course the collectivists twisted it all out of shape if Rand was wrong. Regardless, I pass moral judgments on art all the time. Soviet and Nazi realism, "Piss Christ," aspects of Randian heroic man, etc. But not from the context of esthetics.

This is not a conversation about lying being a violation of individual rights. That has to do with the moral and political status of fraud.

Where Rand thought esthetics belonged reference her philosophy is also not part of this conversation without references if not quotes. I am no teacher of Objectivism a la Rand or pre-split Branden. If Peikoff, who isn't dumb to say the least although he frequently acts it, has to study Objectivism for 40 years and still not get it all right, he's on an intellectual train I'm not. Something is really, really wrong. Anyway, I've stated where I think esthetics belongs and why. In and of a profession. Yes, it can be at least rationalized into the philosophy. After all, so much has, like acting, to the bewilderment of an actress.

The shoulds and oughts of metaphysics and espistemology are next door to axiomatic reasoning and can be stated as A is A (reality) revealed or identified by reason. Or, you ought to use reason because A is A. That doesn't exclude flights of fancy and such; it only means reason has the final say of what is real reference what gets bumped into and works absent additional data.

To sum up: you cannot put esthetics into philosophy with ancillary reasoning. That's for illustrative purposes. Extending an illustration is like extending an analogy. Things start breaking down.

--Brant

(I don't think I have enough brains to go on much longer with this, but I'll try)

[anthony]

Each will bring his or her own subjective experience to the same elements of content, and will place different subjective weight of the importance of each element and the sum of what all of the elements add up to. Howard Roark can be legitimately seen, based only on the content of The Fountainhead, as either a fraudulent, unjust, irrational vigilante and villain, or as an individualist creative hero, depending on which elements of the novel each reader subjectively prefers to rate as important versus those which he or she wishes to downplay.

J

Ah, getting down to it at last. Roark ~could~ perhaps, be seen as any of those things - but first:

1. Clarity. What did the author/artist intend his character to be?

Which rests on the author's mastery of depiction; equally, a reader/viewer's skill at interpretation.

i.e. how obscure could the artist be - or- how dumbly insensitive the viewer? There is variability here.

2. Value. Does the art and do the reader/viewer have objective, life-affirming values, or not?

One's premises are revealed by art. You hate individualism, you'll see Roark as a villain. You admire killing and violence, blood and guts in art will please you. And so on. One's fundamental view of existence is inescapable in what one values and disvalues.

"Values" may be subjective as well as objective. But I don't accept they are inherently "subjective" for everyone, as you state, in art or elsewhere.

Considering its powers of isolation and magnification of reality--especially in art.

[Roger Bissell]

In re #64:

I agree.

Paranoid people *do* have real enemies - but that doesn't make their paranoid delusions "legitimate." Haters of the pro-life will interpret a rational producer as evil - but that doesn't make their interpretation "legitimate." Enemies of the individual right to self-defense will interpret someone who kills an attacker as being a vicious murderer - but that doesn't make their interpretation "legitimate."

Truth is not infinitely elastic and trumped by subjectivism and moral relativism.

[Jonathan]

But if not, then why is it "moral fascism" to tell an artist that he should not make an immoral artwork - one which glorifies and upholds tragedy for the sake of tragedy, destruction for the sake of destruction...

According to whose interpretation? When an Objectivist aesthetic dunce asserts that his interpretation of a work of art is that an artist has glorified and upheld tragedy for the sake of tragedy, or, say, that he has "(dis)honored the average" in his art and that he values deformity, and this Objectivist dunce insists that his interpretation of the work of art is the one truly objective interpretation, and that anyone who claims to disagree and to find the artwork in question to be heroic is lying or delusional and is a valuer of the notion of mankind being broken and pitied, might you begin to consider the possibility that it might be fitting for people to metaphorically think of the Objectivist dunce as an aesthetic fascist? (Try really hard for a moment to not go all Rainman on us over the idea that the Objectivist aesthetic dunce in question hasn't used force and therefore can't literally qualify as a fascist. Try to keep the context in focus, m-Kay?)

When programmed Objectivist morons refuse to listen to and accept others' interpretations of art as being valid, and then gleefully vilify them for position that they do not hold, might that be legitimately called aesthetic fascism?

When a visual arts novice is posing as a guru, and, having no knowledge of the relevance of the history styles of dress and decor included in a painting, she misidentifies the art as being about "the folks next door," and she proceeds to make irrational, unfounded moral and psychological diagnoses of the artist and of those who enjoy his art, if you're all worked up about the technical impropriety of referring to her behavior as a sort of "fascism," might you at least agree that her behavior is not good?

ugliness for the sake of ugliness, etc.?

Ugly or beautiful to whom?

Objectively define "beauty" and "ugliness." Provide objective criteria by which to measure beauty. I've challenged you to do so in the past, Roger. You evaded the challenge. It's time to quit bluffing. Demonstrate that judgments of beauty are objective, and that others "ought to" share your opinions of what is or is not beautiful.

Clearly identify what rational, objective standards and logical methods we are to use to determine which of two conflicting Objectivish aesthetic bossypantses is correct when both believe that their own judgments of beauty are the only truly Objective ones: if you and Kamhi disagree on a given object's being beautiful, and you're each as shrill and overbearing as the other in asserting how certain you are of the objective purity of your aesthetic tastes, by what rational, logical means would you propose that we objectively prove which of your judgments of beauty was correct?

... (Any of these things can be morally good if used not for their own sakes, but as a foil to happiness, constructiveness, beauty - just as the latter can be morally evil if used only as a foil to the triumph of evil.)

What objective method do you use to arrive at the conclusion that an artwork was intended to be ugly, versus that the artist might have different tastes in beauty than you do? What objective method do you use in concluding that he was using "ugliness for the sake of ugliness," versus that you, personally, may have failed to identify his purpose?

I've encountered many Objectivish-types who have asserted that a given artwork portrayed ugliness for the sake of ugliness, or other similar, frantic Objectivist nonsense, and they refused to consider all evidence to the contrary, including evidence in the art that they had missed due to their having been rather aesthetically visually limited and inexperienced, and also including statements from the artist which contradicted the Objectivish-types' accusations.

So, what rational, objective means would you, Roger, propose that we use to objectively measure the competence of people to judge art as well as artists' motives? How would we objectively test individuals' aesthetic capacities and limitations? In my experience in online O-land, those who are the most unaware and unobservant are usually the ones who are squawking the loudest about the objectivity and superiority of their tastes and interpretations. Those who are the least able always seem to believe that their own personal aesthetic limits are the limits of all mankind. Anyone can squeal and posture and pose like that, so how would you propose that we objectively settle the matter?

J

[Jonathan]

Ah, getting down to it at last. Roark ~could~ perhaps, be seen as any of those things - but first:

1. What did the author/artist intend his character to be?

Which rests on the author's mastery of depiction; equally, a reader/viewer's skill at interpretation.

i.e. how obscure could the artist be - or- how dumbly insensitive the viewer? There is variability here.

Objectivists often argue that artists' intentions are irrelevant, and that we are to judge only the content of the work. Then they switch when it comes to Rand's art. Suddenly intentions -- outside considerations -- not only can but should be taken into account.

As for your statement about reader/viewer skill at interpretation, I agree. The consumer's aesthetic limitations are quite relevant. But I don't simply accept anyone's assertions of their own aesthetic competence. I would require proof to back it up.

2. Does the art and do the reader/viewer have objective, life-affirming values, or not?

One's premises are revealed by art. You hate individualism, you'll see Roark as a villain. You admire killing and violence, blood and guts in art will please you. And so on. One's fundamental view of existence is inescapable in what one values and disvalues.

"Values" may be subjective as well as objective. I don't accept they are inherently "subjective" for everyone, as you state, in art or elsewhere.

Bullshit. Laughable psychologizing bullshit.

I have life-affirming values. I love individualism. I don't admire killing and violence. I have a more rational, creative, productive, passionate and self-disciplined view of existence than you do, and I recognize the reality that the content of The Fountainhead is that Roark behaves irrationally. He commits the fraud of passing off his own work as someone else's, because he wishes to subvert the right of others to not hire him. By Objectivist standards(which didn't exist at the time that the novel was written), Roark behaves immorally. He claims to have destroyed others' property as a means of enforcing a contract that he did not have with them (in fact, he knowingly, actively hid his involvement from them). He is a villain, a bad boy. Just like Rand's abandoned Danny Renahan, or even her fantasy vision of William Hickman, Roark Is ultimately a bad boy with some charm. I would suggest that you brush up on what Rand had to say about the aesthetic effects of such bad boys before continuing with your amateurish psychologizing and smearing, because otherwise you'll only end up splattering Rand with you broad brush Rorschach patterns.

One's premises are not "revealed" by art. It's not that easy or simplistic. People interpret art differently for a variety of reasons, including people who share the same values and outlook on life. Your statement to the contrary is nothing but bluff. It's as if you have the need to vilify anyone who interprets a work of art differently than you do. Over the years here, you've shown yourself to be quite unaware and unobservant when it comes to art, and a bit resentful when others point out that they notice a lot more that you do. Does it make you feel better about yourself if you belive that they've "revealed" themselves to be haters of existence when they saw more than you noticed and therefore came to a positive appraisal where you expressed typical Objectivist bile?

J

[Brant Gaede]

Roark's immorality concerned a government housing project. The weak implication is he had a right to do what he did for that reason. In truth, that would have been a rationalization and Rand didn't explicitly go there. Roark really reflects Rand's Nietzscheanism. In Atlas Shrugged this was toned down in some ways and buffed up in others. I mean, the heroes left the world in ruins. (They weren't heroic enough to save it--or even try for the conceit of the novel was if they had tried they'd have been fighting reality al la Dagny and Hank and sanctioning the existence of the looters--only to destroy it--that is, get out of the way of the destroyers for the sake of the destruction. [Alan Greenspan as Francisco d'Anconia?*].)

--Brant

*for 28 years now Greenspan and his two successors have been destroying the economy--if not most of the world's economy--with debt without surcease

[anthony]

The psychologizing is all yours, J.

Roark the bad boy and villain... wow, some joke.

Did I mention skill at interpretation?

Did I say that one's premises are revealed in art?

I double down on them.

I suppose that Rand commented, in another context, about bad boys - throw in Renahan and Hickman, and your psychologized theory of Roark is complete, and so far off. "Outside considerations", remember? Mainly, though, the non-self-sacrificing individualist is a hard concept for many to take in, I freely admit.

I am not entering into another drawn-out debate of perspective (etc.etc.) for you to flaunt techniques and skill-sets, as if that gives you authority over people seeing and thinking about art.

To aver that one HAS to have a technical/historical/tutored background in art to appreciate and understand it, is of course a flaming false dichotomy.

[Brant Gaede]

To look at Roark as a villain of sorts is okay for clarity of understanding by tearing the veil off the not quite obvious.

But you can't stay inside the novel to do that. You need to remove him from that alternate reality and put him into the real one, where, of course, he dies.

In Rand's last novel the characters with one exception--the Wet Nurse--are all plot driven. Not quite as much in the middle novel and the least in her first.

What happens to the Mona Lisa when you yank her out of the painting? There goes that smile!

--Brant

[anthony]

To look at Roark as a villain of sorts is okay for clarity of understanding by tearing the veil off the not quite obvious.

But you can't stay inside the novel to do that. You need to remove him from that alternate reality and put him into the real one, where, of course, he dies.

--Brant

Without doubt, Roark is not a "good boy" either. In here is the moral confusion some will feel, it seems to me. In TF, Rand drew a completely new polarisation of morality, in which Roark's high value cannot remotely be related to the nominally, traditional "good" and "perfect". (And against an entirely new "evil", with Toohey).

[Roger Bissell]

In re #67:

If Roark was irrational and fraudulent in contracting with Keating to submit as his own Roark's design without modifications, then so is every ghost writer in relation to the authors they contract with. Perhaps for different reasons than Roark was rejected for, those ghost writers could not have gotten a book contract under their own names either. So, I don't see a rejection of the principle of contract rights on Roark's part, nor on Keating's - only on the part of the government bureaucrats. Furthermore, Roark was willing to stand trial, in order to justify his actions, which is more the behavior of a civil disobediant than a vigilante.

(Had the government contract specified that the design was Keating's creation and property and in no wise encumbered, Keating's signing would have been a fraud on his part, as well as a violation of his contract with Roark. But Keating played it straight and got absolutely nowhere. Perhaps Roark was naive in not realizing this would happen - though he did warn Keating he would have to be on guard for such things for at least several years.)

As for the dynamiting of Cortlandt itself, existing contract and intellectual property law in the 1940s would not have allowed legal remedy for either Keating or Roark. Peikoff's ex, Amy, has written a cogent and well researched essay on this, "A Moral Dynamiting," in Mayhew's 2007 compilation, Essays on Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead. As she points out, Roark/Keating would have a somewhat better chance to press a lawsuit against the government nowadays, in light of some court rulings. But back then, things would have gone pretty much as Rand depicted them - and thus her resolution of the situation was morally uncompromised.

[Selene]

Folks:

The human being is capable of all actions moral to immoral.

I have always, failed to understand this position of Orthodox Objectivism as it has attempted to sell the idea of "objective" beauty which is absurd on it's face.

Second, and this has to do with my favorite member of the Holy Trinity, Ragnar.

He, of the three, takes the most direct approach to evil which is to kill it.

Her brilliance in having these three archetypal heroes, who all exhibit violence in how they strike, Ragnar with flat out offense, kinda like the old Oakland Raiders of Al Davis which attacked and stretched the offensive field, to Francisco, systematically planning the sabotage of multiple facilities world wide, which would be "economic terrorism" today, to Galt, who just destroys his motor.

Yet, the Orthodox Objectivist decries the initiation of physical force, really?

A...

small "o"bjectivist, realist and cynic [a humanist with experience]

[anthony]

or the man-made, there's also a proliferation of beauty. A Ferrari, a modern appliance, pieces of furniture, a building -etc.

My favourites are bridges, from Roman times up to those amazing suspension bridges. Craft, design, form and ingenious artfulness - purposeful - but I can't call them art.

Fair point.

However, Roebling's Brooklyn Bridge is art, as I understand it.

Full disclosure, I probably have done my most shallow education in the aesthetic area of philosophy.

One of the enjoyments that I have on OL is learning more about this area from you, J., Jules, and our Baltimore artist, etc.

How would you evaluate "The Great Bridge?"

Particularly, the cathedral arches that had serious meaning to the Roebling family.

This seems to make it art...

At the time the bridge was being built, most western countries were experiencing an economic boom. The Second Industrial Revolution was taking place, and the building of the Brooklyn Bridge served as a symbol of optimism; workers were confident that they could manipulate the technology necessary to build the bridge despite the architectural feat they were about to undertake.

A...

Adam, Seeing this (and other pictures I've seen of the Brooklyn Bridge sometimes) it gives me the sense of a vision I'd like to wake up to every day. Kind of stable, always there. She's aged well and still showing her class, like a dignified, elderly duchess. The arches were a masterly stroke. I won't quibble about the eccentric cornices ontop the towers - if anything now, it only adds to what I first thought of her, she's venerable.

[Jonathan]

Paranoid people *do* have real enemies - but that doesn't make their paranoid delusions "legitimate." Haters of the pro-life will interpret a rational producer as evil - but that doesn't make their interpretation "legitimate."

Bullshit. In reality, you can't know how anyone, regardless of their beliefs, "will interpret" anything. Tastes and interpretations of art and its contents cannot be predicted or equated to a viewer's ideology or hatreds. Heh. Pigero once tried the same stupidity by asserting that the evil people he was ranting about would love rock music and would have Jackson Pollocks on their walls, when the reality turned out to be that the people in question (who I would agree were evil) loved opera and had rather safe, traditional, realistic still lifes and landscapes on their walls.

The Objectivist method of moral and psychological divination/vilification via art and artistic response has been a miserable failure. It's a little hateful fantasy that Rand's followers like to indulge in but which doesn't hold up in reality.

Enemies of the individual right to self-defense will interpret someone who kills an attacker as being a vicious murderer...

So, by Tony and Roger's views on what artistic tastes, responses and interpretations "reveal" about people, they (Tony and Roger) value injustice, fraud, unwarranted destruction of others' property, and irrational out-of-proportion vigilantism in response to mere aesthetic disagreements. The also think it is virtuous to promote and work on projects to which they are morally opposed. They are "enemies of individual rights" because they have praised The Fountainhead whose main character and alleged "hero" or "ideal man" conspires to commit the fraud of passing off his own work as someone else's, who forces his way onto a project by means of deception because he states that he knows that no committee, public or private will voluntarily hire him, but he wishes to deny them their right to not hire him. He also voices his moral objections to the existence of the housing project, but wishes to work on it anyway, just to satisfy his own desire to have fun attempting the challenge (he's willing to just whimsically cast aside his alleged moral convictions). In court, he also concocts the highly irrational and false excuse that he was not paid what he was contractually due, when the reality was that he did not have a contract with the owners of the project, but hid his involvement from them. His only contract was with his co-conspitator in fraud. Tony and Roger have both expressed their admiration of the novel, and therefore, by their reasoning, they value all of the vices listed above. Haters of existence! Destroyers! Enemies of individual rights!

Ive seen many Objectivish-types, including art-police-wannabes like Ed Hudgins and Pigero, express their admiration for and enjoyment of Turandot. As I've explained several times over the years, by any truly objective analysis of the production, it represents the view that man lacks volition and is a plaything of his libido. The story's hero abandons all that is rationally valuable in the name of pursuing mere physical beauty. So, apparently by Tony and Roger's methods of looking into people's souls via their tastes and interpretations of art, Objectivish fans of Turandot believe that a man is being virtuous in overlooking the fact that the woman he is physically obsessed with is a torturer and murderess. That's their "sense of life" and the way they think that the world "ought to be." That's apparently the type of culture that they're fighting for. Haters of existence! Destroyers! Enemies of individual rights!

Do you still want to cling to your half-baked theories, Roger and Tony? If we exclude your subjective responses to The Fountainhead, and, therefore, your admiration of Roark despite his being immoral by Objectivist standards as well as his own, then the only "legitimate" objective interpretation and moral judgment that we must come to, by your own standards, is that you are evil.

...but that doesn't make their interpretation "legitimate."

What does make anyone's interpretation (or tastes, sentiments, or other aesthetic responses) "legitimate"? Are only Roger Bissell's aesthetic responses "legitimate" (as well as those who happen to agree entirely with his every interpretation)? If so, by what objective means has it been established that Roger's aesthetic responses are the universal standard and limit, other than his simply declaring himself to be objective and legitimate, while arbitrarily declaring anyone who has different interpretations to be "rationalizing"?

Truth is not infinitely elastic and trumped by subjectivism and moral relativism.

Who has claimed that truth is infinitely elastic and trumped by subjectivism and moral relativism?!!! No one has! You seem to be panicking and fighting straw men.

The discussion is about aesthetic responses, not about "truth." Understand? Try to calm yourself and stay within the limits of the discussion. The world isn't going to end if we accurately identify certain phenomena as being subjective. It doesn't logically follow that if some things are subjective, then it's a slippery slope which will eventually cause all things to be subjective and "infinitely elastic." When someone identifies aesthetic responses as being subjective, there is no reason to panic and jump to the irrational conclusion that he is claiming that "truth" is elastic. So settle down and get a grip on your emotions.

Truth is indeed not infinitely elastic. Reality is what it is. And aesthetic responses are, in reality, subjective. They do not become objective just because Roger or Tony want them to be. But if you insist on disagreeing, then answer the questions that you've been evading with your pouting and claims of victimization. Start with the first one first: Identify objective criteria for measuring beauty.

The Objectivist notion of objectivity is that it is the process of volitionally adhering to reality by following logic and reason using a clearly identified objective standard. Apply that method to the concept of beauty. Identify the objective standard and demonstrate its being applied in reality by displaying images of persons and objects and, following logic and reason, show how to arrive at the conclusions of which entities are beautiful and which are not. Put up or shut up. No more crying and panicking. No more evading. No more distractions. Rationally demonstrate your position. Back it up with something other than bluff and bluster.

J