Rand through a Nietzsche filter

[9thdoctor]

the dragon lady's victimization narrative and David and Goliath narrative (with her, of course, slaying the monster and bringing us all to our knees begging for mercy) that will undoubtedly unfold.

I was thinking Perseus and Medusa, actually.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I don't want to open a new thread for this notice, so here is as good a place as any.

Kat and I have an Internet connection problem (weak cable signal) and the Comcast people are only coming by tomorrow. This thing was not connecting since last night and only started working about half-an-hour ago, so I don't know how long it will work today.

If I get silent, it's because of technical difficulties. Tomorrow everything should be back to normal.

Michael

[Xray]

But to get back to the discussion: you said you have "no dog in the fight" when it comes to open vs. closed Objectivism.

I believe you because your focus is elsewhere indeed.

But you do have a dog (two actually) in that fight: they are called 'Faucault' and 'Nietzsche', right?

I am finished with you too. I disagree with someone - I forget who now - having decided you didn't want to know "in good faith." A pity.

How can you be "finished" when you have not even got started in terms of convincingly presenting your case here?

I "read" through Nietzsche, Foucault, Baudrilard, Virilio, Freud, Lacan. I do not argue theory as I think theory lies in the Hegelian dialectic. Foucault demolished Hegel. This demolished Marxism and Foucault did not fire a shot at Marxism to destroy Marxian theory. It's gone. Good-bye.

Marxism has not been demolished because a philosophical dayfly like Foucault allegedly "demolished Hegel"

Marxism has been demolished because subjecting it to the litmus test of reality has exposed it as fallacious.

[Brant Gaede]

But to get back to the discussion: you said you have "no dog in the fight" when it comes to open vs. closed Objectivism.

I believe you because your focus is elsewhere indeed.

But you do have a dog (two actually) in that fight: they are called 'Faucault' and 'Nietzsche', right?

I am finished with you too. I disagree with someone - I forget who now - having decided you didn't want to know "in good faith." A pity.

How can you be "finished" when you have not even got started in terms of convincingly presenting your case here?

There is no start to start.

--Brant

[seymourblogger]

But to get back to the discussion: you said you have "no dog in the fight" when it comes to open vs. closed Objectivism.

I believe you because your focus is elsewhere indeed.

But you do have a dog (two actually) in that fight: they are called 'Faucault' and 'Nietzsche', right?

I am finished with you too. I disagree with someone - I forget who now - having decided you didn't want to know "in good faith." A pity.

How can you be "finished" when you have not even got started in terms of convincingly presenting your case here?

But I am not trying to present a convincing case HERE! A convincing case cannot be presented within the dialectic. All you can ever get is interpretation, counter-interpretation, counter counter interpretation etc. Did you get that? You are asking for a hermeneutic analysis. Sorry. You won't get it from me. It's a has been discourse. Yesterday. That's why Brant never engages in it. But then he never says anything at all either.

Try reading very old textbooks you can find in thrift stores. Try reading them. It's an outdated Discourse. So is yours x-ray. Stay in it if you want.

That's the whole POV that I have been saying here. Foucault said it much much better than I.

[caroljane]

But to get back to the discussion: you said you have "no dog in the fight" when it comes to open vs. closed Objectivism.

I believe you because your focus is elsewhere indeed.

But you do have a dog (two actually) in that fight: they are called 'Faucault' and 'Nietzsche', right?

I am finished with you too. I disagree with someone - I forget who now - having decided you didn't want to know "in good faith." A pity.

How can you be "finished" when you have not even got started in terms of convincingly presenting your case here?

But It was discourse... Yesterday. That's why Brant never engages in it. But then he never says anything at all either.

Oh no, not Brant! When did this happen?..last time I looked he was saying stuff. Say it isn't so...that he is not "weary of tears and of laughter and of men who laugh and weep/ of fears of the hereafter, and those who {forget the word) to keep."

I do remember though that the great Johnson said that "He who is tired of Objectivist Living is tired of life"...

He seemed so healthy and cheerful just yesterday.

[Brant Gaede]

But to get back to the discussion: you said you have "no dog in the fight" when it comes to open vs. closed Objectivism.

I believe you because your focus is elsewhere indeed.

But you do have a dog (two actually) in that fight: they are called 'Faucault' and 'Nietzsche', right?

I am finished with you too. I disagree with someone - I forget who now - having decided you didn't want to know "in good faith." A pity.

How can you be "finished" when you have not even got started in terms of convincingly presenting your case here?

But It was discourse... Yesterday. That's why Brant never engages in it. But then he never says anything at all either.

Oh no, not Brant! When did this happen?..last time I looked he was saying stuff. Say it isn't so...that he is not "weary of tears and of laughter and of men who laugh and weep/ of fears of the hereafter, and those who {forget the word) to keep."

I do remember though that the great Johnson said that "He who is tired of Objectivist Living is tired of life"...

He seemed so healthy and cheerful just yesterday.

She's just pissed off at me for my recent remarks. Sadly, her stuff before she first left was better than her stuff when she first came back. Now she's back for the second time--third time here--and I suspect once she leaves again she'll be back again. I tried to engage her substantially when she first appeared, but all she had was her message. So I switched to humor on minor points, which I enjoyed. If I lived anywhere near her I might look her up, but I'd leave the car running. For me the stuff she hasn't talked about hardly at all seems interesting. Like her experiences in real estate. Not psychoanalysis. For me therapy is abreactive, altered states of consciousness, not talk, talk, talk.

--Brant

[seymourblogger]

But to get back to the discussion: you said you have "no dog in the fight" when it comes to open vs. closed Objectivism.

I believe you because your focus is elsewhere indeed.

But you do have a dog (two actually) in that fight: they are called 'Faucault' and 'Nietzsche', right?

I am finished with you too. I disagree with someone - I forget who now - having decided you didn't want to know "in good faith." A pity.

How can you be "finished" when you have not even got started in terms of convincingly presenting your case here?

There is no start to start.

--Brant

Correct. and now you just got #4 of 5. Unless of course I decide to get unlimited. But I don't want them. Yet.

[caroljane]

But to get back to the discussion: you said you have "no dog in the fight" when it comes to open vs. closed Objectivism.

I believe you because your focus is elsewhere indeed.

But you do have a dog (two actually) in that fight: they are called 'Faucault' and 'Nietzsche', right?

I am finished with you too. I disagree with someone - I forget who now - having decided you didn't want to know "in good faith." A pity.

How can you be "finished" when you have not even got started in terms of convincingly presenting your case here?

But It was discourse... Yesterday. That's why Brant never engages in it. But then he never says anything at all either.

Oh no, not Brant! When did this happen?..last time I looked he was saying stuff. Say it isn't so...that he is not "weary of tears and of laughter and of men who laugh and weep/ of fears of the hereafter, and those who {forget the word) to keep."

I do remember though that the great Johnson said that "He who is tired of Objectivist Living is tired of life"...

He seemed so healthy and cheerful just yesterday.

She's just pissed off at me for my recent remarks. Sadly, her stuff before she first left was better than her stuff when she first came back. Now she's back for the second time--third time here--and I suspect once she leaves again she'll be back again. I tried to engage her substantially when she first appeared, but all she had was her message. So I switched to humor on minor points, which I enjoyed. If I lived anywhere near her I might look her up, but I'd leave the car running. For me the stuff she hasn't talked about hardly at all seems interesting. Like her experiences in real estate. Not psychoanalysis. For me therapy is abreactive, altered states of consciousness, not talk, talk, talk.

--Brant

Real estate - that is interesting - to everybody really, isn't it? We all have to live someplace. I had to sell my house and endure the beratings of my sons while it was falling down and flooding, explaining that I couldn't afford to sell the wretched hovel until its sale value rose above the mortgages I owed on it. I had no reason to think that would happen, but it did (prices rose). I lucked out through sheer intertia. Then I inherited my mother's house and the roof pretty much fell off it and the taxes, though meagre, are beyond my means.

I had the impression seymour was a schoolteacher - Grade 5 or 6.Of course a lot of schoolteachers get into real estate, I have some fri colleagues who got quite rich, by my standards. It was their husbands though actually who did the deals.

I agree that the things she doesn't write about much are more interesting. She did announce her focus - spread her ideas, which are 2 by my count: 1.. Baudrillard is the Allah of knowing how to think about and look at everything, and some French lady is his Prophet.

2.Vampirism is the only metaphor for sexuality. But she just repeats them over and over and over in the same words until even the most reluctant reader has memorised them. Maybe she has achieved her plan.

[seymourblogger]

But to get back to the discussion: you said you have "no dog in the fight" when it comes to open vs. closed Objectivism.

I believe you because your focus is elsewhere indeed.

But you do have a dog (two actually) in that fight: they are called 'Faucault' and 'Nietzsche', right?

I am finished with you too. I disagree with someone - I forget who now - having decided you didn't want to know "in good faith." A pity.

How can you be "finished" when you have not even got started in terms of convincingly presenting your case here?

But It was discourse... Yesterday. That's why Brant never engages in it. But then he never says anything at all either.

Oh no, not Brant! When did this happen?..last time I looked he was saying stuff. Say it isn't so...that he is not "weary of tears and of laughter and of men who laugh and weep/ of fears of the hereafter, and those who {forget the word) to keep."

I do remember though that the great Johnson said that "He who is tired of Objectivist Living is tired of life"...

He seemed so healthy and cheerful just yesterday.

She's just pissed off at me for my recent remarks. Sadly, her stuff before she first left was better than her stuff when she first came back. Now she's back for the second time--third time here--and I suspect once she leaves again she'll be back again. I tried to engage her substantially when she first appeared, but all she had was her message. So I switched to humor on minor points, which I enjoyed. If I lived anywhere near her I might look her up, but I'd leave the car running. For me the stuff she hasn't talked about hardly at all seems interesting. Like her experiences in real estate. Not psychoanalysis. For me therapy is abreactive, altered states of consciousness, not talk, talk, talk.

--Brant

Real estate - that is interesting - to everybody really, isn't it? We all have to live someplace. I had to sell my house and endure the beratings of my sons while it was falling down and flooding, explaining that I couldn't afford to sell the wretched hovel until its sale value rose above the mortgages I owed on it. I had no reason to think that would happen, but it did (prices rose). I lucked out through sheer intertia. Then I inherited my mother's house and the roof pretty much fell off it and the taxes, though meagre, are beyond my means.

I had the impression seymour was a schoolteacher - Grade 5 or 6.Of course a lot of schoolteachers get into real estate, I have some fri colleagues who got quite rich, by my standards. It was their husbands though actually who did the deals.

I agree that the things she doesn't write about much are more interesting. She did announce her focus - spread her ideas, which are 2 by my count: 1.. Baudrillard is the Allah of knowing how to think about and look at everything, and some French lady is his Prophet.

2.Vampirism is the only metaphor for sexuality. But she just repeats them over and over and over in the same words until even the most reluctant reader has memorised them. Maybe she has achieved her plan.

I'm not here to interest and amuse you. I repeat because you don't get it. You don't listen. You just keep coming up with dumb insults. Who cares. She this and she that. This is what serious adults write?

[Brant Gaede]

But to get back to the discussion: you said you have "no dog in the fight" when it comes to open vs. closed Objectivism.

I believe you because your focus is elsewhere indeed.

But you do have a dog (two actually) in that fight: they are called 'Faucault' and 'Nietzsche', right?

I am finished with you too. I disagree with someone - I forget who now - having decided you didn't want to know "in good faith." A pity.

How can you be "finished" when you have not even got started in terms of convincingly presenting your case here?

But It was discourse... Yesterday. That's why Brant never engages in it. But then he never says anything at all either.

Oh no, not Brant! When did this happen?..last time I looked he was saying stuff. Say it isn't so...that he is not "weary of tears and of laughter and of men who laugh and weep/ of fears of the hereafter, and those who {forget the word) to keep."

I do remember though that the great Johnson said that "He who is tired of Objectivist Living is tired of life"...

He seemed so healthy and cheerful just yesterday.

She's just pissed off at me for my recent remarks. Sadly, her stuff before she first left was better than her stuff when she first came back. Now she's back for the second time--third time here--and I suspect once she leaves again she'll be back again. I tried to engage her substantially when she first appeared, but all she had was her message. So I switched to humor on minor points, which I enjoyed. If I lived anywhere near her I might look her up, but I'd leave the car running. For me the stuff she hasn't talked about hardly at all seems interesting. Like her experiences in real estate. Not psychoanalysis. For me therapy is abreactive, altered states of consciousness, not talk, talk, talk.

--Brant

Real estate - that is interesting - to everybody really, isn't it? We all have to live someplace. I had to sell my house and endure the beratings of my sons while it was falling down and flooding, explaining that I couldn't afford to sell the wretched hovel until its sale value rose above the mortgages I owed on it. I had no reason to think that would happen, but it did (prices rose). I lucked out through sheer intertia. Then I inherited my mother's house and the roof pretty much fell off it and the taxes, though meagre, are beyond my means.

I had the impression seymour was a schoolteacher - Grade 5 or 6.Of course a lot of schoolteachers get into real estate, I have some fri colleagues who got quite rich, by my standards. It was their husbands though actually who did the deals.

I agree that the things she doesn't write about much are more interesting. She did announce her focus - spread her ideas, which are 2 by my count: 1.. Baudrillard is the Allah of knowing how to think about and look at everything, and some French lady is his Prophet.

2.Vampirism is the only metaphor for sexuality. But she just repeats them over and over and over in the same words until even the most reluctant reader has memorised them. Maybe she has achieved her plan.

I'm not here to interest and amuse you. I repeat because you don't get it. You don't listen. You just keep coming up with dumb insults. Who cares. She this and she that. This is what serious adults write?

By the nature of your approach to ideas serious conversation is pretty much excluded. What would it take to falsify what you keep repeating?

--Brant

[Xray]

But It was discourse... Yesterday. That's why Brant never engages in it. But then he never says anything at all either.

Oh no, not Brant! When did this happen?..last time I looked he was saying stuff.

I have the same recollection, Carol. He was definitely saying stuff. So we already have eyewitness statements of two posters as to Brant definitely not being aphasic. I just looked again and yet another new post by him has appeared! I ask myself how on earth Janet is going to refute this overwhelming amount of evidence!!

[before Janet sails into us on the wrong premise that we don't seem to know the difference between denotation and connotation and have not been able identify her comment as figurative speech, we'd better put up an 'attention banter' sign to avoid possible misunderstandings].

Say it isn't so...that he is not "weary of tears and of laughter and of men who laugh and weep/ of fears of the hereafter, and those who {forget the word) to keep."

Is it this?

I am tired of tears and laughter

And men that laugh and weep;

Of what may come hereafter

For men that sow to reap:

I am weary of days and hours,

Blown buds of barren flowers,

Desires and dreams and powers

And everything but sleep.

-Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837-1909),

The Garden of Proserpine

I do remember though that the great Johnson said that "He who is tired of Objectivist Living is tired of life"...

Good one.

I love your sparkling wit, Carol. It lightens things up and is always on point.

[caroljane]

But It was discourse... Yesterday. That's why Brant never engages in it. But then he never says anything at all either.

Oh no, not Brant! When did this happen?..last time I looked he was saying stuff.

I have the same recollection, Carol. He was definitely saying stuff. So we already have eyewitness statements of two posters as to Brant definitely not being aphasic. I just looked again and yet another new post by him has appeared! I ask myself how on earth Janet is going to refute this overwhelming amount of evidence!!

[before Janet sails into us on the wrong premise that we don't seem to know the difference between denotation and connotation, we'd better put up an 'attention banter' sign to avoid possible misunderstandings].

Say it isn't so...that he is not "weary of tears and of laughter and of men who laugh and weep/ of fears of the hereafter, and those who {forget the word) to keep."

Is it this?

I am tired of tears and laughter

And men that laugh and weep;

Of what may come hereafter

For men that sow to reap:

I am weary of days and hours,

Blown buds of barren flowers,

Desires and dreams and powers

And everything but sleep.

-Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837-1909),

The Garden of Proserpine

I do remember though that the great Johnson said that "He who is tired of Objectivist Living is tired of life"...

Good one.

I love your sparkling wit, Carol. It lightens things up and is always on point.

Back at you., Angela. Yes, I remember now - Cheerful Charles, a favourite of Ayn Rand's I believe. I do recall his final gratitude in that poem,

"that no life lives forever/ that dead men rise up never/ that even the weariest river/wends somewhere safe to sea.." I am using him in comic context, but actually, his poetry was pretty great.

[Xray]

But then he never says anything at all either.

Brant "says" a lot. It lies behind what one could perceive, but only at first sight, as being mere banter.

I think Brant is quite a philospohical type of person. But this is what conveys itself only after one has read many of his posts over a longer period of time.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I find Brant perfectly intelligible and subtle. (I even understand why he resonates negatively with jokes about elderly women.)

It's kind of funny, though, to witness a person's constant condescending clamor, "There's nothing to see, you poor thing," when she has her eyes shut.

It reminds me of a very naughty joke. A monkey was making love to an elephant as she ambled along. The elephant bumped into a cocoanut tree and a cocoanut fell on her head. She let out a loud, "Gruhhhhck!" Then the monkey asked, "Am I hurting you, darling?"

Some people are just hopelessly clueless.

Michael

[Xray]

But I am not trying to present a convincing case HERE! A convincing case cannot be presented within the dialectic. All you can ever get is interpretation, counter-interpretation, counter counter interpretation etc.

Your exclusive focus on discourse is so strong that it blanks out an essential element: facts.

Facts are facts regardless of the various discourses interpreting them. This is the beauty of facts,.

Basing one's argumetation on the factual (instead of deploring the alleged impossibility to present one's case within a specific dialectic) is the epistemological via regia in any philosophical discussion. Won't you at least give it a try?

You are asking for a hermeneutic analysis. Sorry. You won't get it from me.

I'm asking for facts in the first place. How one interprets them is another issue.

So if both parties in a discussion agree on making clear that what they state is either a fact or their personal opinion (because they happen to prefer discourse X to all others), this would be a lot already.

As opposed to you, I do believe that it is possible to engage in a fruitful exchange with others even if their 'discourse' should differ from mine.

I take this confidence from having been, quite often in my life, surrounded by persons having different "discourses".

I'm not saying that a fruitful mutual exchange is always possible (it is virtually impossible with dogmatic (religious or secular) fanatics). But since OL is not a place where fanatics tend to post, the conditions for such an exchange are excellent.

Try reading very old textbooks you can find in thrift stores. Try reading them. It's an outdated Discourse. So is yours x-ray. Stay in it if you want.

That's the whole POV that I have been saying here. Foucault said it much much better than I.

Foucault's ideas will be (and probably already have been) replaced by new, other philosophical hypes pervading the academic world.

I well remember the time when, all of a sudden, the postmodernists came cracking into the orderly world of structuralism like an earthquake. Suddenly "deconstruction" instead of construction was on the agenda; instead of seeking meaning one got the refusal to offer meaning, and so on.

Suddenly it was 'chic' to quote Foucault & Co as the vanguard of the new movement.

Here is where working with a dialectic analysis makes sense:

Philosophical or political movements leaning heavily toward one side are most likey to be followed by movements that are antithetical to them.

Therefore it was only logical that the 'order' sought by the structuralists was to be followed by postmodern 'chaos'. (I'm using the term "chaos" merely descriptively, not as negatvie value judgement. Chaos can be quite inspiring actually).

These movements come in waves, and waves are a passing thing.

This does not mean that movements cannot contain some nuggets of gold that will pass epistemological litmus tests instead of falling through the sieve.

Since epistemological litmus tests are an ongoing process, premises that have been exposed as false due to newly acquired knowledge will ultimately collapse.

[Brant Gaede]

But I am not trying to present a convincing case HERE! A convincing case cannot be presented within the dialectic. All you can ever get is interpretation, counter-interpretation, counter counter interpretation etc.

Your exclusive focus on discourse is so strong that it blanks out an essential element: facts.

Facts are facts regardless of the various discourses interpreting them. This is the beauty of facts,.

Basing one's argumetation on the factual (instead of deploring the alleged impossibility to present one's case within a specific dialectic) is the epistemological via regia in any philosophy discussion. Won't you at least give it a try?

You are asking for a hermeneutic analysis. Sorry. You won't get it from me.

I'm asking for facts in the first place. How one interpretes them is another issue.

So if both parties in a discussion agree on making clear that what they state is either a fact or their personal opinion (because they happen to prefer discourse X to all others), this would be a lot already.

As opposed to you, I do believe that it is possible to engage in a fruitful exchange with others even if their 'discourse' should differ from mine.

I take this confidence from having been, quite often in my life, surrounded by persons with different "discourses".

I'm not saying that a fruitful mutual exchange is always possible (it is virtually impossible with dogmatic (religious or secular) fanatics). But since OL is not a place where fanatics tend to post, the conditions for such an exchange are excellent.

Try reading very old textbooks you can find in thrift stores. Try reading them. It's an outdated Discourse. So is yours x-ray. Stay in it if you want.

That's the whole POV that I have been saying here. Foucault said it much much better than I.

Foucault's ideas will be (and probably already have been) replaced by other philosophical hypes the academic world will get crazy about.

I well remember the time when, all of a sudden, the postmodernists came cracking into the orderly world of structuralism like an earthquake. Suddenly "deconstruction" instead of construction was on the agenda; instead of seeking meaning one got the refusal to offer meaning, and so on.

Suddenly it was 'chic' to quote Foucault & Co as the vanguard of the new movement.

Here is where working with a dialectic analysis makes sense:

Philosophical or political movements leaning heavily toward one side are most likey to be followed by movements that are antithetical to them.

Therefore it was only logical that the 'order' sought by the structuralists was to be followed by postmodern 'chaos'. (I'm using the term "chaos" merely descriptively, not as negatvie value judgement. Chaos can be quite inspiring actually).

These movements come in waves, and waves are a passing thing.

This not to say that movements cannot contain some nuggets of gold that will pass the epistemological litmus test instead of falling through the sieve.

While you ask Prometheus for "facts" the fire is going out--fool!

--Brant

[Brant Gaede]

Maybe I should ask Michael to change my screen name to "Brant-Says-A-Lot."

--Brant

[Xray]

Maybe I should ask Michael to change my screen name to "Brant-Says-A-Lot."

--Brant

"Brant-Says-A-Lot". Hmm, that sounds good.

It also makes me think of the Westerns stories I read as kid, that had 'Indian chiefs' with those colorful names in them.

Especially intriguing from from real life examples I found "Young Man Afraid of His Horses". I asked myself how on earth a warrior could have a name referring to his fear.

I just looked it up - the title was obviously a mistranslation:

http://www.accessgen...iefs.htm#Horses

His Sioux name, Tasunkakokipapi, is not properly interpreted; it really means that the bearer was so potent in battle that the mere sight of his horses inspired fear.

Now that makes sense.

While you ask Prometheus for "facts" the fire is going out--fool!

--Brant

Brant-Says-A-Lot has spoken - howgh!

[Xray]

On another thread, you [seymourblogger] wrote that you want to place Rand among the post-modernist philosophers. What are your criteria for this?

But Rand certainly is no postmodern writer.

I have dug out some old notes from a seminar on modern vs postmodern literature I attended during my student years; the characteristics of post-modern llterature listed there in no way fit Rand's writing. On the contrary, those post-modern traits are diametrically opposed to everything Rand valued highly, for example the disjunction, deconstruction, the indetermination, the refusal to offer a definite meaning, to name but a few. All that is completely un-Randian.

Janet,

And isn't it one of the characteristics of postmodern literature that the so-called objective reality (to whose unquestionable existence Rand devoted her whole philosophical life!) is not only being dismantled right in front of the readers' eyes - the readers themselves are made participants in the dismantling process as a result of the narrator denying them certainty.

So when for example in a postmodern novel, signals are given that the characters cannot be certain whether what they perceive is real or imagined, and no additional info is provided by a reliable narrator as to whether character X is imagining things or not - then the reader cannot be certain either.

So the reader often wanders around 'together' with the characters of the novel in search of a truth that will never reveal itself. Thomas Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49 is a typical example of a postmodern novel where this happens.

This denying of certainty is, again, completely un-Randian.

[seymourblogger]

But to get back to the discussion: you said you have "no dog in the fight" when it comes to open vs. closed Objectivism. I believe you because your focus is elsewhere indeed. But you do have a dog (two actually) in that fight: they are called 'Faucault' and 'Nietzsche', right?

I am finished with you too. I disagree with someone - I forget who now - having decided you didn't want to know "in good faith." A pity.

How can you be "finished" when you have not even got started in terms of convincingly presenting your case here?

But It was discourse... Yesterday. That's why Brant never engages in it. But then he never says anything at all either.

Oh no, not Brant! When did this happen?..last time I looked he was saying stuff. Say it isn't so...that he is not "weary of tears and of laughter and of men who laugh and weep/ of fears of the hereafter, and those who {forget the word) to keep." I do remember though that the great Johnson said that "He who is tired of Objectivist Living is tired of life"... He seemed so healthy and cheerful just yesterday.

She's just pissed off at me for my recent remarks. Sadly, her stuff before she first left was better than her stuff when she first came back. Now she's back for the second time--third time here--and I suspect once she leaves again she'll be back again. I tried to engage her substantially when she first appeared, but all she had was her message. So I switched to humor on minor points, which I enjoyed. If I lived anywhere near her I might look her up, but I'd leave the car running. For me the stuff she hasn't talked about hardly at all seems interesting. Like her experiences in real estate. Not psychoanalysis. For me therapy is abreactive, altered states of consciousness, not talk, talk, talk. --Brant

Real estate - that is interesting - to everybody really, isn't it? We all have to live someplace. I had to sell my house and endure the beratings of my sons while it was falling down and flooding, explaining that I couldn't afford to sell the wretched hovel until its sale value rose above the mortgages I owed on it. I had no reason to think that would happen, but it did (prices rose). I lucked out through sheer intertia. Then I inherited my mother's house and the roof pretty much fell off it and the taxes, though meagre, are beyond my means. I had the impression seymour was a schoolteacher - Grade 5 or 6.Of course a lot of schoolteachers get into real estate, I have some fri colleagues who got quite rich, by my standards. It was their husbands though actually who did the deals. I agree that the things she doesn't write about much are more interesting. She did announce her focus - spread her ideas, which are 2 by my count: 1.. Baudrillard is the Allah of knowing how to think about and look at everything, and some French lady is his Prophet. 2.Vampirism is the only metaphor for sexuality. But she just repeats them over and over and over in the same words until even the most reluctant reader has memorised them. Maybe she has achieved her plan.

I'm not here to interest and amuse you. I repeat because you don't get it. You don't listen. You just keep coming up with dumb insults. Who cares. She this and she that. This is what serious adults write?

By the nature of your approach to ideas serious conversation is pretty much excluded. What would it take to falsify what you keep repeating? --Brant

True and false belongs to the dialectic, the world of opposites. We are no longer in that world anymore. I don't want to do it. If you have seen Polanski's Carnage it's about that, referring of course to his problem with the US. Would you like me to send you a very short essay on Nietzsche from Babette Babich. If you have read Nietzsche's Genealogy then reading Babich's reading of Nietzsche's Genealogy is like crawling inside someone's mind to watch, listen, savor the way their mind thinks. She is letting you read her mind. She is not lecturing, explaining, convincing you or any of those things we are used to in our past education. BTW this is how Nietzsche's aphoristic writing did just that to his readers.

I would send you just the link and you could download it PDF but I need to be home where I can do it on my apple because that's where it is. If you want to wait I will remember. I hope. No, just kidding.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

True and false belongs to the dialectic, the world of opposites.

Presented as truth while claiming to refuse to be in "the dialectic."

We are no longer in that world anymore.

Presented as truth while claiming to refuse to be in "the dialectic."

... this is how Nietzsche's aphoristic writing did just that to his readers.

Presented as truth while claiming to refuse to be in "the dialectic."

I could probably go deeper and jazz up an argument, but this stuff is really nothing more than sophomoric yawp. I used to call it cheap profundity

Michael

[seymourblogger]

On another thread, you [seymourblogger] wrote that you want to place Rand among the post-modernist philosophers. What are your criteria for this? But Rand certainly is no postmodern writer. I have dug out some old notes from a seminar on modern vs postmodern literature I attended during my student years; the characteristics of post-modern llterature listed there in no way fit Rand's writing. On the contrary, those post-modern traits are diametrically opposed to everything Rand valued highly, for example the disjunction, deconstruction, the indetermination, the refusal to offer a definite meaning, to name but a few. All that is completely un-Randian.

Janet, And isn't one of the characteristics of postmodern literature that the so-called objective reality (to whose unquestionable existence Rand devoted her whole philosophical life!) is not only being dismantled right in front the reader's eyes - the reader himself is also made a participant in the dismantling process because the narator denies him certainty. In a postmodern novel where, for example, signals are given that the characters cannot be certain whether what they perceive is real or imagined, and no additional info is provided by a reliable narrator as to whether character X is imagining things or not - then the reader cannot be certain either. So the reader often wanders around together' with the characters of the novel in search of a truth that will never reveal itself. Thomas Pynchon's The Crying of LOt 49 is a typical example of a postmodern novel where this happens. This denying of certainty is, again, completly un-Randian.

Ah this is nice. Thank you for replying to me like this.

Yes this is all opposite of what she said, antagonistic to all she said. But not to what she wrote in her fiction. In fact she anticipated much of this fiction in her own fiction, that's how good she was.

Rand is different from the post modern fiction writers who came after her. Robbe-Grillet's first fiction was 1959, but Klossowski was earlier. and neither were best seller type books. Rand's difference is her lifelong love affair with Nietzsche. As reading Babich will reveal to you how Nietzsche seduced and owned the mind of a reader who read him seriously, the way he instructed his reader to read him. Babich has read him exactly the way he wanted a reader to read him. Words that are written in blood are not meant to be read, but to be absorbed, learnt by heart. This is what Rand did. She learned Nietzsche by heart. "O whan that aprille with its shores swoote" (not so good anymore but the sound and music is there). This knowing of Nietzsche is shared by no other post modern thinker except Baudrilard. Foucault came to Nietzsche too late to love him that way. BTW this is the way Houellebecq loves Lovecraft, not Lovecraft's officially recognized biographer though.

Babich has gone to Nietzsche the same way. In Germany. In German. she has become completely his and emerged on the other side to tell us of her journey into Hades and her return. Rand never got out. She fought her mentor all the rest of her life after Fountainhead. she fought Nietzsche through the dialectic, on her turf, not his, and she has given us in Objectivism the final authoritative critical confrontation with Nietzsche within the dialectic and Nietzsche has crushed her, laughing all the way.

But Rand has given us something much greater in her fiction. I am just scratching the surface. In F she writes aphoristically and musically in many places. It is not an even book. So what. F has been interpreted through Nietzsche with ready-mades: superman; Overman; one who does evil (Roark Cortland Project blow up) and does not show remorse. This is superficial Nietzsche, the top sound-bite layer and if readers on this site can't understand that after what Rand herself went through, and knowing all that, well, then, who can?

F has been critically reviewed, taught, academic papers written, etc within the dialectic, her characters receiving psychological motivations. This is not my reading of Fountainhead. My reading is through her linguistic mother's milk language of Nietzsche, not a superficial 101 lecture on Nietzsche. The heart of Nietzsche, not the content of Nietzsche as Walter Benjamin might have said.

Do I think Rand knew any of this consciously? No I don't. Does it matter. Not a question.

Aphoristic writing beckons to be learned by heart, as does poetry. Rand learned Nietzsche by heart. Nietzsche is dangerous, as Babich warns. the LIndbergh's found this out with the murder of their baby by two very intelligent college students who decided to act on Beyond Good and Evil. Nietzsche

is "worse" as he might have put it. He crawls into your mind and occupies it. Colonizes it. And you don't even know he is there.

And Rand's writing has crawled into our minds, she has occupied our minds, colonized them with her fiction. Objectivism has tried to put the lid on the box to seal it. But the splinter groups keep trying to get out, to find reasons to convince those still there, to drag them out, argue, and even kill.

Heller has said this about Rand herself. Rand devoured people around her. As someone here said about my liking vampires, I do. Rand was a vampire.

Since I am only allowed 5 posts a day until I reach 99,999 approved posts, I do have to make them longish. Sorry. If I get 10 attacks I will only be able now to respond to 3. And if they beget 10 more, then.......law of diminishing returns. For me. A pity.

[Xray]

[replying to Brant Gaede]:

Would you like me to send you a very short essay on Nietzsche from Babette Babich.

What is the title of the essay?

[caroljane]

While you ask Prometheus for "facts" the fire is going out--fool!

--Brant

While you are blathering on about philosophy the buzzards are zooming in at my liver! OWWWW-- HELP!

-Prometheus