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

[Brant Gaede]

When you have two genetically identical twins with two different personalities then you can posit such things as the influence of relative placement in the womb as affecting personality (nurture) as opposed to genes (nature) and similarites as reflecting the genetics. The combo brainpower of my parents (IQ 170) did not result in me having anything similar although one of my sisters did. I'm only two standard deviations off 100, not Dad's 6, but it's inconceivable any of their children would have anything close to average intelligence. I do think I'd have been much more a much raw brainier with a Montessori education instead of the socialize 'em "progressive" pre-school my mother started for me in the late 1940s. It's still going strong as a cooperative still doing the same essential thing. Ironically, my mother eventually endorsed Montessori schools as an alternative because the staff had to really care about the kids, but Mom just never put much value on rational cognition much less critical thinking and no such schools were common back then. I did introspectively understand at age seven that I had passed the prime time for learning another language.

--Brant (don't call me dumb yet)

I wish I was somewhat smarter, but I'd have done much better with a sterner, early education, and I still am not using all that I have so I better get a move on before I lose any more brain cells

[Wolf DeVoon]

When you have two genetically identical twins with two different personalities then you can posit such things as the influence of relative placement in the womb as affecting personality (nurture) as opposed to genes (nature) and similarites as reflecting the genetics.

Identical Twins' Genes Are Not Identical http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/identical-twins-genes-are-not-identical/

Twin Data Highlight Genetic Changes http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/04/AR2005070400845.html

[Brant Gaede]

I didn't know that.

--Brant

[Jonathan]

J. Implicit in everything is "Know thyself". If one can't perceive that one's earliest development of sense of life (of no conscious doing by oneself)is out of whack with reality and one's adult convictions - and that it can be consciously turned around with time - then you'd have it that such a person is doomed for life, by something they were not responsible for, in childhood. This contradicts self-awareness...and a volitional consciousness.

What do you mean by "contradicts self-awareness"? Do you mean that you believe that self-awareness is an axiomatic given, and therefore that reality is wrong when people are not aware of their strengths or limitations? Are you saying that your and/or Rand's unproven hunches trump the observed reality of cognitive phenomena like the Dunning-Kruger effect? It cannot be true because Rand and/or Tony unscientifically intuited it to be false?

"Measure and evaluate a person's sense of life"? Nope, it can only be accomplished for oneself and by oneself.

Yes, that's what I'm asking. HOW does one measure and evaluate one's sense of life? By WHAT OBJECTIVE standard?

J

[Brant Gaede]

Yes, that's what I'm asking. HOW does one measure and evaluate one's sense of life? By WHAT OBJECTIVE standard?

J

Ask Mom. Who's more objective about her son than Mom?

--Brant

can't ask Rand

[Selene]

Wolf, have you read the Birth Order?

I respect any author who declares her/his window in the beginning of their book.

Scientific American "explained" that

WHEN I TELL PEOPLE I study whether birth order affects personality, I usually get blank looks. It sounds like studying whether the sky is blue. Isn’t it common sense? Popular books invoke birth order for self-discovery, relationship tips, business advice and parenting guidance in titles such as The Birth Order Book: Why You Are the Way You Are (Revell, 2009). Newspapers and morning news shows debate the importance of the latest findings (“Latter-born children engage in more risky behavior; what should parents do?”) while tossing in savory anecdotes (“Did you know that 21 of the first 23 astronauts into space were firstborns?”).

But when scientists scrutinized the data, they found that the evidence just did not hold up. In fact, until very recently there were no convincing findings

that linked birth order to personality or behavior. Our common perception that birth order matters was written off as an example of our well-established tendency to remember and accept evidence that supports our pet theories while readily forgetting or overlooking that which does not. But two studies from the past three years finally found measurable effects: our position in the family does indeed affect both our IQ and our personality. It may be time to reconsider birth order as a real influence over whom we grow up to be.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ruled-by-birth-orde

Now the Christian Birth Order book has worked in the divorce and family aspect of my practice...

A...

[anthony]

J. Implicit in everything is "Know thyself". If one can't perceive that one's earliest development of sense of life (of no conscious doing by oneself)is out of whack with reality and one's adult convictions - and that it can be consciously turned around with time - then you'd have it that such a person is doomed for life, by something they were not responsible for, in childhood. This contradicts self-awareness...and a volitional consciousness.

What do you mean by "contradicts self-awareness"? Do you mean that you believe that self-awareness is an axiomatic given, and therefore that reality is wrong when people are not aware of their strengths or limitations? Are you saying that your and/or Rand's unproven hunches trump the observed reality of cognitive phenomena like the Dunning-Kruger effect? It cannot be true because Rand and/or Tony unscientifically intuited it to be false?

"Measure and evaluate a person's sense of life"? Nope, it can only be accomplished for oneself and by oneself.

Yes, that's what I'm asking. HOW does one measure and evaluate one's sense of life? By WHAT OBJECTIVE standard?

J

Sense of life is (sub)consciousness, it can be assessed -by its effects- but not "measured". To examine and change all one's wrongful presuppositions and presumptions (embedded by early experiences, and probably early authority figures) one can only ask: Why did I do that? Say that? Most critically, Why do I think that? Or feel that? (That good old "pleasure-pain mechanism"). In view of the fact that they are all thoughts and acts that contradict my consciously-held rational ideas?

The examination alone is half the work, I think. It's like turning over stones in one's mind, letting in the light; once known, the faulty premises lose their potency. While I don't believe the sense of life change can be quite totally successful (starting late reduces it some), ongoing introspection is an essential exercise to sustain the confluence between it and one's explicit ideas.

[Brant Gaede]

J. Implicit in everything is "Know thyself". If one can't perceive that one's earliest development of sense of life (of no conscious doing by oneself)is out of whack with reality and one's adult convictions - and that it can be consciously turned around with time - then you'd have it that such a person is doomed for life, by something they were not responsible for, in childhood. This contradicts self-awareness...and a volitional consciousness.

What do you mean by "contradicts self-awareness"? Do you mean that you believe that self-awareness is an axiomatic given, and therefore that reality is wrong when people are not aware of their strengths or limitations? Are you saying that your and/or Rand's unproven hunches trump the observed reality of cognitive phenomena like the Dunning-Kruger effect? It cannot be true because Rand and/or Tony unscientifically intuited it to be false?

"Measure and evaluate a person's sense of life"? Nope, it can only be accomplished for oneself and by oneself.

Yes, that's what I'm asking. HOW does one measure and evaluate one's sense of life? By WHAT OBJECTIVE standard?

J

Sense of life is (sub)consciousness, it can be assessed -by its effects- but not "measured". To examine and change all one's wrongful presuppositions and presumptions (embedded by early experiences, and probably early authority figures) one can only ask: Why did I do that? Say that? Most critically, Why do I think that? Or feel that? (That good old "pleasure-pain mechanism"). In view of the fact that they are all thoughts and acts that contradict my consciously-held rational ideas?

The examination alone is half the work, I think. It's like turning over stones in one's mind, letting in the light; once known, the faulty premises lose their potency. While I don't believe the sense of life change can be quite totally successful (starting late reduces it some), ongoing introspection is an essential exercise to sustain the confluence between it and one's explicit ideas.

Or, there is no objective standard. That requires something be "measured"--not just "assessed" which is what you do before and after you measure. It's evaluate (assess and set up), measure, evaluate (assess).

--Brant

[Wolf DeVoon]

letting in the light

Miss Rand said we all learn the truth of ourselves eventually (paraphrased from memory, but that was the gist of it)

[anthony]

Why is the inclusion of a blemish on a beautiful face necessarily "a corrupt, obscenely vicious attack on man, on beauty, on all values"? If I saw such a painting, I would probably draw the opposite conclusion: that minor imperfections are of no consequence; that true beauty is transcendent.

How could you guess how you'd respond to "such a painting" unless you saw the painting?

Then I'll ask, how does Rand expect us to respond her argument unless we see exactly what she has in mind? Show me what's she's referring to, and I'll respond to it. But if all we are dealing with a hypothetical work of art, Rand has given us no reason to reject it "instantaneous[ly], much faster than the viewer’s mind could identify all the reasons involved." I cannot imagine how a painting of a woman with a cold sore could be interpreted as an "obscenely vicious attack on man, on beauty, on all values."

Francisco Ferrer, on 26 Jul 2014 - 11:22 AM, said:

And why must the artist's inclusion of birthmarks or warts or sores denote a negative, man-hating sense of life? Is it not possible to be intensely happy with one's life and hopeful about mankind while observing (through art) particulars that ground a subject in the real as opposed to the ideal?

How about Rand's projection of Kira's dying, grounding the subject in Rand's view of what a particular societal situation would factually produce?

Sounds a lot like kitchen sink naturalism to me.

heh, Francisco: 'Image', if you will, an entire novel of 'blemishes' - say, a Kira who has the identical character, guts, morality and promise of Rand's version--but, who chooses to live a sordid life as a streetwalker. That would equalise the contrast you raise between that imagined portrait of a beautiful woman and the finale of We the Living. Obviously, the novel, any novel, sets a continual context of a predominant sense of life and value judgments, which a visual work transfers to the viewer in an instant.

However, you bring forward an interesting point, which is that Realism(even of the Romantic sort) and Naturalism, have some commonality. Also, I often find elements of life-affirmation in Naturalism such as individuality, self-interest and reason--although I should emphasize that over all, Naturalist work by definition does not fulfil the goal of man meeting the challenge of existence, in character or existentially.

[Brant Gaede]

However, you bring forward an interesting point, which is that Realism(even of the Romantic sort) and Naturalism, have some commonality. Also, I often find elements of life-affirmation in Naturalism such as individuality, self-interest and reason--although I should emphasize that over all, Naturalist work by definition does not fulfil the goal of man meeting the challenge of existence, in character or existentially.

Is that definition tautological?

--Brant

say it again, Tony--the definition you are using

[Wolf DeVoon]

Naturalist work by definition does not fulfil the goal of man meeting the challenge of existence, in character or existentially.

Walter Kerr's How Not To Write A Play made a deep impression on me 30 years ago. He hated Kitchen Sink Naturalism, but worse was a drama in which characters were transformed (for better or for worse) off-stage between scenes, instead of performing the crisis and showing us the important stuff of drama. That raises an interesting question about Rand's heroic characters. Was Roark transformed? - no. Was John Galt? - nope.

Ayn Rand's heroes (John Galt, Howard Roark) hardly spoke at all, except to state a philosophical proof. This is no criticism of Miss Rand. She merely documented how we routinely speak to one another, how we "share" ourselves with others. We declaim facts. We declaim trivial facts, because we're not Ayn Rand. ["Individualism", G21 Magazine, 1999]

Her minor characters are destroyed downstage front and center: Andrei Taganov, Peter Keating, Gail Wynand, Cheryl Taggart.

I'm not entirely convinced that Rand was a great novelist. Tremendously important to me personally. Gifted by her knowledge and courage. Had more to say about life and death and art than any other author, and she said it brilliantly in dramatic fiction, often in the form of a mystery (who is John Galt? who killed Bjorn Faulkner?)

Based on her admitted fascination with Victor Hugo, a master of compelling themes -- Notre Dame: fatality, Les Mis: poverty -- it seems clear that Ayn Rand gave us tremendous insights about the human condition and life's limitless potential. Unlike Hugo, she depicted sunlit uplands and summoned us to the mountaintop. As a reader I was transformed by her work.

He thought of the Soviet scientist, Dr. Komar, who visited Jim Harrison’s laboratory in 1979. Thick, clunky soles on his shoes; so happy to visit America; so scared to think or do anything without checking in at his hotel, where the KGB monitored everything Dr. Komar wanted to do. Be thankful you were born in America, and you’re travelling on an American passport. You don’t know how good you have it. So what if you’re broke? Carnegie was broke when he started. Edison was broke—not just once, but a dozen times, when a project flopped, or when he gambled on something that was a little ahead of its time. Where would you be if Edison hadn’t gambled on the movie camera? What about Philo T. Farnsworth? What about Ayn Rand? You’d be dead if she hadn’t saved your scrawny little ass, and you know it! So, shut up and enjoy yourself.

People talk like this when they’re scared. It doesn’t change where they’re going, or what they’re doing, but it kills time.

[First Feature, pp. 155-56]

I read every word that Ayn Rand wrote, including the Journals and secondary sources. I read and re-read The Fountainhead numerous times, and I gave enormous thought to the deeper dimensions of her themes, intellectual achievements (ITOE), and her struggle to make herself heard in world too frightened to listen. All good.

But I savor Chandler and Fitzgerald -- outstanding Kitchen Sink Naturalists -- for the pleasure and wonder of fine literature.

[Brant Gaede]

Based on the above, Wolfo, I'd say you were 98% convinced Rand was a great novelist.

--Brant

I check in at 97%

[anthony]

However, you bring forward an interesting point, which is that Realism(even of the Romantic sort) and Naturalism, have some commonality. Also, I often find elements of life-affirmation in Naturalism such as individuality, self-interest and reason--although I should emphasize that over all, Naturalist work by definition does not fulfil the goal of man meeting the challenge of existence, in character or existentially.

Is that definition tautological?

--Brant

say it again, Tony--the definition you are using

You mean that "...in character or existentially."?

It's a very simplified summary of passages in 'What Is Romanticism?'. [TRM]

A few excerpts: "The distinguishing characteristics of this top rank [she names earlier](apart from their literary genius) is thier full commitment to the premise of volition in *both of its fundamental areas*: in regard to consciousness and to existence, in regard to man's character and to his actions in the physical world."

Then she ranks other Romanticists, as having one attribute, but not the other:

"The distinguishing character of their work is the emphasis on action, without spiritual goals or significant moral values. [...] ...leaving the action unmotivated and the characters unintelligible".

[...]

"On the other side of the same dichotomy, there are Romanticists whose basic premise, in effect, is that man possesses volition *in regard to consciousness, but not to existence*, i.e. in regard to his own character and choice of values, but not in regard to the possibility of achieving his goals in the physical world".

The effect of separating existence from consciousness -or the reverse- by either set of Romanticists, Rand saw as leading to the "breakup of Romanticism".

[anthony]

Oh. Sorry. You meant my definition of Naturalism...

[Brant Gaede]

Oh. Sorry. You meant my definition of Naturalism...

Oh, yeah. You're up to your standard trick of burying a discussion in large conglomerations of words.

I don't see how naturalism cannot depict volition. Anyway, what's your definition again?

--Brant

[anthony]

But I savor Chandler and Fitzgerald -- outstanding Kitchen Sink Naturalists -- for the pleasure and wonder of fine literature.

...and Updike and Mailer and McEwan and Roth and Amis and O'Hara and Cruz Smith and Boyd and Richler and Theroux and TCBoyle and Banks and McInerney and MacDonald and Turow...and and - not all kitchen-sinkers, a few romantics there too. But save me from DH Lawrence!

[anthony]

Oh. Sorry. You meant my definition of Naturalism...

Oh, yeah. You're up to your standard trick of burying a discussion in large conglomerations of words.

I don't see how naturalism cannot depict volition. Anyway, what's your definition again?

--Brant

If only to save you from more words, go look it up yourself.

I am getting bored with being cast as Rand's proxy and trying to answer for her.

[Brant Gaede]

How will I know what I look up is what you are using?

--Brant

there are 344 posts on this thread--which one has it?

Rand?--Did I ask for Rand?--I don't need no stinkin' Rand!

[Wolf DeVoon]

save me from DH Lawrence!

Lawrence was a despicable bastard, indeed. Hated women.

[Jonathan]

If only to save you from more words, go look it up yourself.

I am getting bored with being cast as Rand's proxy and trying to answer for her.

Hahahahahaha!!!

J

[anthony]

How will I know what I look up is what you are using?

--Brant

there are 344 posts on this thread--which one has it?

Rand?--Did I ask for Rand?--I don't need no stinkin' Rand!

Well, if you don't have a copy of TRM, all you're mainly viewing are secondary interpretations from we others here. As I've said one way or other, in both threads - grok it, before you knock it. You might find it possible to take away some of its greatness, and leave the rest.

Whatever, one is not going to find Rand explaining Naturalism in any way entailing "a volitional consciousness" though, except for its lack of.

"We dance round and suppose, but the Truth sits in the middle and knows!"

[N.Srinivas]

[Ellen Stuttle]

I'm with Tony on early childhood, sense of life, and the proposition that Objectivism is for adults.

Personality is given at conception. It can be nurtured, crushed, acknowledged, ignored -- but the die is cast before birth.

Rand thought that "the die" was chosen.

Ellen

[Ellen Stuttle]

Why is the inclusion of a blemish on a beautiful face necessarily "a corrupt, obscenely vicious attack on man, on beauty, on all values"? If I saw such a painting, I would probably draw the opposite conclusion: that minor imperfections are of no consequence; that true beauty is transcendent.

How could you guess how you'd respond to "such a painting" unless you saw the painting?

Then I'll ask, how does Rand expect us to respond her argument unless we see exactly what she has in mind? Show me what's she's referring to, and I'll respond to it. But if all we are dealing with a hypothetical work of art, Rand has given us no reason to reject it "instantaneous[ly], much faster than the viewers mind could identify all the reasons involved." I cannot imagine how a painting of a woman with a cold sore could be interpreted as an "obscenely vicious attack on man, on beauty, on all values."

Apparently, she expected that her admirers would respond with horror to the very idea of such a painting. I'll quote the full material on my resources thread when I get a chance. Very busy week here.

And why must the artist's inclusion of birthmarks or warts or sores denote a negative, man-hating sense of life? Is it not possible to be intensely happy with one's life and hopeful about mankind while observing (through art) particulars that ground a subject in the real as opposed to the ideal?

How about Rand's projection of Kira's dying, grounding the subject in Rand's view of what a particular societal situation would factually produce?

Sounds a lot like kitchen sink naturalism to me.

Problem: I've pointed this out previously but not yet elaborated.

Rand started in her 1962-62 talk using the term "Naturalism" to refer to a particular group of novelists - the ones called "Naturalist" in literary terminology. Those writers were a subcategory of "Realist," but far from the whole category. Those writers (starting with Zola, who initiated use of the therm "Naturalist" in literature) were avowed determinists. They thought that choice is an illusion. "Realist" writers, on the other hand, have depicted volition, starting way back. Rand mixes up humans having control of their destiny with humans possessing volition.

An example: A galley slave has volition but little control over his destiny.

Similarly, on a level of a greater range of action choices, Kira had volition but is presented as being doomed by the Soviet society. "Realism," not "Naturalism."

Ellen

[Wolf DeVoon]

Rand thought that "the die" was chosen.

Ellen

In infancy? -- that's preposterous.

"All babies are hardwired with certain personality traits." Parenting.com

"The innate parts of your baby's personality..." Parents.com

"How infants respond to stimuli is inborn and remains stable over lifespan." Cantu notes on Feldman

"Infants have definite personality characteristics from birth onward." Honig (ERIC.gov abstract)

Caregivers can influence development, positively or negatively, but the die is cast in utero, probably at conception.

----

Sidebar 1 - When "Dallas" star Charlene Tilton was pregnant with her daughter, Cherish, she put Walkman headphones on her stomach and played soothing harp music to the fetus. "Many studies now confirm that voices reach the womb." Birth Psychology.com

Sidebar 2 - G. Gordon Liddy was (and still is) extremely proud of his five children. He pointed to his wife, Frances, and told me: "Good genes." Frances was one of the calmist, brightest, most devoted wife and mother I've had the pleasure to meet. WaPo obit and photo

Sidebar 3 - I have four brothers, all four surprisingly unique and individual, almost nothing in common with each other except a superficial resemblance of physiognomy. DNA proves it. Five male siblings have nothing alike in their potential, aptitudes, or deficits. Their thumbprints, retinae, and histories are personal. As brothers we scarcely understand each other, like space aliens from different planets. [COGIGG, p.44]