"Romanticist Art" Is Not The Essence Of The Objectivist Esthetics

[Brant Gaede]

Well...you mean you claim none for yourself?

If nothing there strikes a chord with you, I'm actually quite sorry.

It's what I think.

I'm particularly talking about your integrating ignorant notions about romantic love, psychology and art. "Clarity" and "ambiguity" and "honesty" to say nothing about the epistemological redundant nothing first sentence about "concepts in consciousness." Some of this might work if you were to acknowledge the non-exclusiveness of your propositions, but I fear such might conflict with the purity of your "clarity" and sail to close to your notions of "ambiguity" and "honesty" qua art--never mind "love." The implication of this is you know so much there's no more, essentially, to know.

--Brant

Honesty - in its full sense, of truth-seeking and truth-expressing - is directly related to reality, and I maintain is one principle that life, love and art all have in common. Clarity, as in both searching for clarity and displaying clarity, is a value to rational men, artists and lovers.

Ambiguity will always be present around us, but "If one seeks or permits ambiguity..." confusion and deceit follow next - I think.

Seriously: my "ignorant notions" in these matters? I've lived and learned some, y'know.

You have ripped away the context of the discussion and replaced it with the broadest one possible and from there you defend the post I was complaining about with virtually self-evident truths. Like Jonathan, I too like you Tony, and look forward to engaging you on threads that have nothing to do with art from the standpoint of aesthetic considerations. Unlike Jonathan I have no really strong aesthetic orientation aside from knowing what I'm appreciating. For instance, I mentioned this before, the famous statue "The David"--probably the greatest depiction of the male nude in statuary. In an "Objectivist" article, edited and sanctioned by Ayn Rand, Mary Ann Rudavina (Sures) (I think), decried this art work because its perfection was ruined by the young man's furrowed brow. Now, if you correct this work you do two things: (1) turn it into something equivalent to Soviet or Nazi (inhuman) realism and (2) violate the Randian stricture of screwing around with someone else's work. It's the equivalent of rewriting Atlas Shrugged to get rid of what you don't like to make it perfect or at least better.

--Brant

I think "The David" is the world's signal greatest work of art ever, but all my reasons add up to bottom-line subjective preference

[Ellen Stuttle]

Not so acceptably optional for Peikoff who could have been a doctor-- or Blumenthal who wanted to be a concert pianist-- or Barbara who did not really want to marry |Nathan - or, ahem, Nathan who wanted to marry Patrecia.

You sound as if you think that Peikoff wanted to be a doctor. He did not. He very much did not want to be a doctor. He was being pushed into being a doctor by his father, who was a doctor. His early exchanges with Rand gave him the courage to do what he wanted to do, which was to study philosophy.

He would have been a terrible doctor. My assertion, but it's true.

Allan Blumenthal was not dissuaded from becoming a concert pianist. He couldn't get enough bookings to pursue a career as a concert pianist.

I think that Nathan didn't want to marry Patrecia until after the blow-up with Rand. From the sound of his own memoirs, he kept hoping he'd come to his senses, as it were, and revert to being a proper Objectivist hero and desiring Rand. Part of the pickle he was in was his own belief in Rand's views on sex.

It wouldn't have been acceptable for him to marry Patrecia, however, had he expressed to Rand a desire to do that. Her diaries make clear that she considered Patrecia an unacceptable choice.

What might have happened if Barbara had said, and then insisted, that she didn't really want to marry Nathan.......?

A whole lot different, I imagine.

Ellen

[anthony]

I've stuck into this thread several times the mention of "hierarchicalism", and it's gone unremarked upon.

Why? probably because it nags at the prevailing opinions here.

Hierarchy broadens the mind.

It allows for ascending concepts, where previously there were fewer concepts. (To stick my neck out, objective concepts and values 'descend' to meet the subjective level, I think; where they merge, perhaps some 'subjectivity' eventually 'becomes' objective.)

To repeat the distinction: hierarchy opens up more possibilities by building on and into the existing structure - it does not destroy or negate the present "structure".

This applies to Rand's Romanticism (a subset of art, I should add, that has always been around to a lesser or greater intensity, ever since there was art - and others apart from her have known it, albeit not what it represented as clearly as she).

Of course, it doesn't matter that I've repeatedly pointed out the value of much Naturalism (for reasons of aesthetics, truthfulness, fine character and noble deeds) on a continuum containing the best of Romanticism - despite my protests, I've already been typecast to fit the role of "Randist" model. "He would say that" (so why bother to search for his meaning).

Rand as off-the-cuff commentator, to Rand in her finest written theories is another hierarchy.

(As with her as creator - and her personal doings.)

To level them as one is an injustice to her - but mostly to one's own mind.

"Leveling" is anti-hierarchical and anti-conceptual, anyway.

Fortunately I won't need to excuse my style, or explain the content to those who won't be reading this .

[Brant Gaede]

Hierarchical thinking is standard conceptual thinking. Hierarchical valuing is valuing more or less relative to another value.

--Brant

knowing what it is you are doing is another matter

[caroljane]

Rand as off-the-cuff commentator, to Rand in her finest written theories is another hierarchy.

(As with her as creator - and her personal doings.)

To level them as one is an injustice to her - but mostly to one's own mind.

"Leveling" is anti-hierarchical and anti-conceptual, anyway.

Tony, dear friend, I cannot let this one go by.

To "level" her finest written theories with her personal doings may be mean-minded, but it is not an injustice. She explicitly and repeatedly said her ideas were a philosophy for living on earth, and that she knew real people who exemplified her fictional hero. I think she also felt that she exemplified her fictional heroines.

I know well that the ideas live of themselves and should stand or fall by themselves. But she opened the door of "sense of life\", psychy0e-pistemology and all that, and invited her students to judge and prepare to be judged, and she cannot now untangle the individual She with "the individual"-- or as she would say, Man.

[caroljane]

Not so acceptably optional for Peikoff who could have been a doctor-- or Blumenthal who wanted to be a concert pianist-- or Barbara who did not really want to marry |Nathan - or, ahem, Nathan who wanted to marry Patrecia.

You sound as if you think that Peikoff wanted to be a doctor. He did not. He very much did not want to be a doctor. He was being pushed into being a doctor by his father, who was a doctor. His early exchanges with Rand gave him the courage to do what he wanted to do, which was to study philosophy.

He would have been a terrible doctor. My assertion, but it's true.

Allan Blumenthal was not dissuaded from becoming a concert pianist. He couldn't get enough bookings to pursue a career as a concert pianist.

I think that Nathan didn't want to marry Patrecia until after the blow-up with Rand. From the sound of his own memoirs, he kept hoping he'd come to his senses, as it were, and revert to being a proper Objectivist hero and desiring Rand. Part of the pickle he was in was his own belief in Rand's views on sex.

It wouldn't have been acceptable for him to marry Patrecia, however, had he expressed to Rand a desire to do that. Her diaries make clear that she considered Patrecia an unacceptable choice.

What might have happened if Barbara had said, and then insisted, that she didn't really want to marry Nathan.......?

A whole lot different, I imagine.

Ellen

Your points are well taken Ellen. \About \Peikoff, I think the influence of powerful others - his father then \Rand, maybe always was paramount for him. I wonder if he had met, say, Saul Alinsky instead of Rand??--

Carol

Alternate history fan

[Brant Gaede]

Not so acceptably optional for Peikoff who could have been a doctor-- or Blumenthal who wanted to be a concert pianist-- or Barbara who did not really want to marry |Nathan - or, ahem, Nathan who wanted to marry Patrecia.

You sound as if you think that Peikoff wanted to be a doctor. He did not. He very much did not want to be a doctor. He was being pushed into being a doctor by his father, who was a doctor. His early exchanges with Rand gave him the courage to do what he wanted to do, which was to study philosophy.

He would have been a terrible doctor. My assertion, but it's true.

Allan Blumenthal was not dissuaded from becoming a concert pianist. He couldn't get enough bookings to pursue a career as a concert pianist.

I think that Nathan didn't want to marry Patrecia until after the blow-up with Rand. From the sound of his own memoirs, he kept hoping he'd come to his senses, as it were, and revert to being a proper Objectivist hero and desiring Rand. Part of the pickle he was in was his own belief in Rand's views on sex.

It wouldn't have been acceptable for him to marry Patrecia, however, had he expressed to Rand a desire to do that. Her diaries make clear that she considered Patrecia an unacceptable choice.

What might have happened if Barbara had said, and then insisted, that she didn't really want to marry Nathan.......?

A whole lot different, I imagine.

Ellen

Your points are well taken Ellen. \About \Peikoff, I think the influence of powerful others - his father then \Rand, maybe always was paramount for him. I wonder if he had met, say, Saul Alinsky instead of Rand??--

Carol

Alternate history fan

Some of these statements are factual and some are speculative. The problem is real people disappearing into mythos. What I think is this: it is generally much easier to get into a relationship than to get out so be extremely careful about your new ones. And as I once told Nathaniel Branden after some psychological work--he asked me what I thought about what I had just done: "I think it shows how a little bit of cowardice can go a long way in--in screwing you up." (This was in 1976 in NYC.) He just sat there in his chair--there were about 25 people in the very large room, sitting in chairs in a circle, with his eyes closed nodding his head as if almost in physical pain.

--Brant

[Ellen Stuttle]

Rand and some of her followers don't seem to like the idea of others' having wide ranges of taste, especially if the include things that Rand and her followers don't like. They seem to see a virtue in hating certain things, and have the mindset that if you don't join them in choosing a side in matters of taste, then you don't actually like anything, or you're somehow degrading what they like by also liking what they don't. I think that's why Pigero often has the confused notion that others "haven't tried" Romanticism if they don't join him in hating non-Romanticism -- you can tell him over and over again that you love Romanticism, but he just doesn't believe you if you admit to liking something else as well. I think Tony, Newberry, Cresswell and others have the same view: Despite what you say, you can't really like what they like if you like something else as well; liking that other thing is an attack on what they like!

J

I ran out of steam before I got around to commenting on that yesterday. You're naming something which I think is very important to understanding the intensity of censure Objectivists can exhibit toward a divergence in responses to art.

Eclecticism is moral equivalence. Liking something else too along with the something they like (if they see a sufficient type difference) indeed is "an attack on what they like."

Art has a moral purpose in Objectivism. What the art work presents is a view of reality as conducive or not (with possible degrees in between) to the existence of MAN (rational, heroic volitional-consciousness-activated being).

You can't have it both ways, liking The Fountainhead and, say, The Magic Mountain too, not with a "personal" response. (You might be allowed to appreciate features of the technique in The Magic Mountain, depending on which features.)

The attitude goes way back with Rand - to when she was a child and formed likes which were "hers" and contrasted with "theirs." She's quoted in one of the Essays on We the Living as saying of herself that after she'd heard the band during the vacation in the Crimea when she was six, she categorized music as whether it was "hers" or not and would run pouting from the room if the wrong music was played on the gramophone her grandmother had.

She's also described in Barbara's biography as talking about how she became possessive of things she liked and didn't want people she thought unworthy liking them too. The attitude is the forerunner of Dominique's throwing the statue down the elevator shaft.

Wynand expresses a comparable attitude in the scene on his boat where he's talking to Dominique and he says something to the effect of it's not being possible really to value Joan of Arc and __ too (I forget what he named as contrast).

Logically, according to Rand's mature theory of art, one can't really respond personally to works which present contradictory "metaphysical value-judgments," unless one's purported mechanism of response, one's "sense of life," is a mixed sort and thus not the sort which could have full-throttle "personal" response to works which, according to Objectivism, present completely or nearly completely correct "metaphysical value-judgments."

So what you're picking up - "Despite what you say, you can't really like what they like if you like something else as well" - directly follows from Rand's theory of art.

Ellen

[ginny]

Wait a minute. Are you saying I can't like AS and Anna K. at the same time?

[Ellen Stuttle]

Wait a minute. Are you saying I can't like AS and Anna K. at the same time?

Not really, in a sense-of-life personal way, unless your sense of life is a mixed brew which wouldn't give a full response to AS but instead a wishy-washy sort not sufficient to the "objective" merit of the view of existence presented in AS. A is A.

Ellen

Please understand, I'm answering according to Rand's theory. I do not buy the theory.

[ginny]

Rand's theory? Sorry, but my only response can be "fuck Rand's theory."

[Ellen Stuttle]

Rand's theory? Sorry, but my only response can be "fuck Rand's theory."

Well, I think that's a sensible response.

Ellen

[anthony]

Rand as off-the-cuff commentator, to Rand in her finest written theories is another hierarchy.

(As with her as creator - and her personal doings.)

To level them as one is an injustice to her - but mostly to one's own mind.

"Leveling" is anti-hierarchical and anti-conceptual, anyway.

Tony, dear friend, I cannot let this one go by.

To "level" her finest written theories with her personal doings may be mean-minded, but it is not an injustice. She explicitly and repeatedly said her ideas were a philosophy for living on earth, and that she knew real people who exemplified her fictional hero. I think she also felt that she exemplified her fictional heroines.

I know well that the ideas live of themselves and should stand or fall by themselves. But she opened the door of "sense of life\", psychy0e-pistemology and all that, and invited her students to judge and prepare to be judged, and she cannot now untangle the individual She with "the individual"-- or as she would say, Man.

Hi Carol.

Off hand I can't think of any big name person who has invited his public to compare his life to his teachings.

It could be likened to Jesus - and there's the rub... to Christians, who would excoriate such confident pride as arrogance.

After all, she turned "Judge not!"[or else God will judge you severely] into "Judge, and prepare to be judged."

Any guesses on the only standards she (or Objectivists) would accede to being "judged" by?

Not the standards of collective and conformist Society.

The Objectivist 'perfection concept' does not jibe with religious Perfection, and actually they are opposites.

"Justice", as well, is personal justice from reality, not from society.

As for leveling the person with his creative/intellectual output: You are very well read, do you know of anyone whose private life has almost overtaken their intellectual life, to the point of undermining his explicit works? Read the life of Auguste Rodin, for instance, for a crazily chaotic existence - but nothing's heard of that.

I have little clue what Rodin's inner state was, or what drove him and if he was ever fulfilled; but given his art, I hardly care. I think equalizing the one with the other is irrational intrinsicism. Rand was neither a saint (intrinsicism) nor a demon (skepticism) but a life as an end in itself. It's what she taught, and she succeeded.

All the rest is pretty low on my value totem pole.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Brant,

To me, Mary Ann's critique of The Thinker is one of the embarrassing blemishes on official Objectivism (i.e., that endorsed by Rand). You can read a larger quote by her from The Objectivist here:

One of Rodin's most famous and popular works, The Thinker, sums up his view of man's wretched state. The figure is seated, hunched over in a position that combines strain and limpness. The muscles in his arms, legs and toes are knotted and cramped. The size and development of his body indicate that it was once powerful and energetic, but is now exhausted. His external, physical state reveals his inner strain: the strain of engaging in mental activity.

What a crock.

I don't even feel like rebutting this. Let's just say that she was not a good storyteller, but a great rationalizer. If you need a theory in search of some facts that can be twisted to fit it, she's your man. (God, that sounds awful. )

I shudder to imagine what goes on in a mind that looks at something magnificent like The Thinker and immediately feels "man's wretched state."

For Pete's sake...

Michael

If the thinker were an ectomorph and had a glorious look of enlightenment on his face he would have been better received.

Ba'al Chatzaf.

After all this time, I finally looked up what ectomorph means.

For those interested it means: "An individual having a lean, slightly muscular body build in which tissues derived from the embryonic ectoderm predominate."

In other words, a person who is lean and fit.

In further other words, not me.

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

There's no Objectivism-Randianism in that statue. That was the beef--too much beef, too much figuring, too much not knowing what Rand has taught you for if you knew it you'd not be thinking but doing--she did the thinking already for you. In the Objectivist Esthetics, a statue is as next to fuckable as a statue can be (female) or the fucker (male) and The Thinker isn't in that space or place although being stark naked is a start. Nor does he look like Frank O'Connor.

--Brant

not ashamed to over-cook an analysis

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Ah, come on. The guy's a hunk.

A body like this is used to doing, not just thinking about doing. Those muscles don't come from wishing for them. They belong to a body that could walk through the side of a battleship and probably does on some metaphorical level.

Also, the pose he is in makes him look poised to get up and do something as soon as he reaches a decision. Hair-trigger poised. If he were a basketball player, if he were not sitting but still in the same position, and if there were a ball in his hands, he would be getting ready to score.

Note that his arms look like he's embracing the very thoughts he is thinking, protecting them with his body like one protects a little child. This demonstrates the love and respect he has for what goes on in his mind, especially as he prepares to spring into action and give material birth to them.

I can do this kind of stuff all day with one hand tied behind my back. Let me let loose with a slew of heroic adjectives, get rid of the campy basketball reference, and I can make this sound quite Objectivish.

But I can also lampoon it, too.

The guy's naked, so I hope that's not a makeshift toilet he's sitting on.

btw - Seriously, I happen to love that sculpture. Thinking thoughts that one must transmute into action--sacred thoughts--should be hard and treated with the utmost seriousness. That's what I actually get from it.

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

Who allowed you to get what you got? No control freak I know of.

--Brant Hooey

the world wants to know; the control freaks need to be re-trained or we need more of them or both!

yes, I am worse, much worse, than Ayn Rand ever dreamed of!

[BaalChatzaf]

What is a "sense of life" and how can it objectively and accurately be determined by a second party?

[BaalChatzaf]

I shudder to imagine what goes on in a mind that looks at something magnificent like The Thinker and immediately feels "man's wretched state."

For Pete's sake...

Michael

What you see there is constipation in action.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Ellen Stuttle]

What is a "sense of life" and how can it objectively and accurately be determined by a second party?

Something Rand made up. It can't even be properly defined.

Ellen

PS: Have you never read any of Rand's works on aesthetics? Or how about posts on this board in which her definition of "sense of life" has been quoted?

Here is a link to the Ayn Rand Lexicon entry for "sense of life."

[Brant Gaede]

Benevolent sense of life: I am not depressed. I think good, positive things. The sun is shinning shining; the birds are singing. Joy!

Malevolent sense of life: I am depressed. I think bad, negative things. The sun isn't shinning. The birds are gone. No Joy.

--Brant

a dog can help a lot

Edited July 25, 2014 by Brant Gaede

[caroljane]

"Something Rand made up" , yes indeed Ellen. her relentless creativity made up a whole little world, as Heller.s bio title acknowledges.

I recently read a review of a book about the shameful lynching of Joseph Smith, who created Mormonism. Although his book was not even original to him (the most plausible explanation of Its provenance to me is that Smith stole it from a literary clergyman he worked for ) and makes the Quran look like a font of spiritual wisdom (think L Ron Hubbard with no writing talent whatsoever) nevertheless loyalty to Smith laid the foundation of a thriving religion.The reviewer argued that it was the sheer force of his personality that caused so many to accept the ridiculous precepts, or perhaps I should call them percepts, of this new American religion.

I wonder! if Rand could have lived and proselytized as freely as Smith (without being martyred, one hopes)

And especially if she could have left behind a dozen grieving husbands and scores of children...where might Objectivism be now?

[BaalChatzaf]

"Something Rand made up" , yes indeed Ellen. her relentless creativity made up a whole little world, as Heller.s bio title acknowledges.

I recently read a review of a book about the shameful lynching of Joseph Smith, who created Mormonism. Although his book was not even originals to him (the most plausible explanation of Its prOvenance to me is that Smith stole it from a q

What is a q?

[caroljane]

A quavery hand, obviously!

[Selene]

Let me get this "straight," a masculine body is ok to admire, however, a female/transgender/alien/new-semantic designation is not?

Confused and objective in the northeast vortex...

A...