Mess or Masterpiece?


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Toohey was based on a real person.

Brant,

I was going to look this up for a quote to make a comment on the difference between "based on" and "used as a model," but I decided to Google first and came across the following in Wikipedia that says more or less what I mean. See here for link: The Fountainhead.

Rand used her memory of the British democratic socialist Harold Laski to help her imagine what Toohey would do in a given situation. New York intellectuals Lewis Mumford and Clifton Fadiman also contributed inspirations for the character.

As to Jonathan equating a certain kind of Rand follower with Toohey, I see some parallels that work and some others that don't.

I definitely see the smear campaigns and wish to impose their views on others through slogans. It's all a game of controlling others--and pretending to be superior--that runs alongside the aesthetic experience, but does not get to the essence of it. Seen through that lens, every damn thing they say about art as an attack can be used against their own understanding. I think Jonathan has done a masterful job of showing this.

I don't see these kinds of Rand followers, though, acquiring their own artistic tastes in the manner Toohey would his. They merely accept what Rand said was good or bad and sometimes turn themselves into four-leaf clover shapes trying to ape and extend her opinions. And it often seems to me that they force emotions onto what they say without presenting their honest reactions. Some even try to out-Rand Rand. I don't see any parallel with Toohey in this.

And, as Ellen has noted, there are some real aesthetic differences based on reasoning that go outside of Toohey's discourse and actions. Agree or disagree, the aesthetics themselves--as Rand presented them--are based on a view of the world and a form of experiencing art that Toohey did not share. I see the Rand-apers trying to go after that vision (even as they--way too often--miss the essence big-time) whereas I don't see Toohey ever trying to do anything similar.

There. I tried to find common ground.

I hope I didn't attract the shitstorm to me. :smile:

Michael

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The common ground is Toohey doesn't belong in the conversation because he's so bad in his own myriad ways he carries too much baggage for this particular discourse. The talk is about Kamhi (another thread?), not Toohey, and there can't be enough of one in the other if at all to mix them up in Jonathan's ad hominem bowling ball. He throws a strike every time but the ball is way to big so the strike is guaranteed. Kamhi is a standard sized bowling ball. If J sticks to that ball we can judge what he says more rationally by examining the scorecard. 300 game after 300 game after 300 game. WTF!? I can't see the trees and I can't see the forest. Just that giant ball going down the lane.

--Brant

rant, pant, pant, pant (was I rational? I don't know)

nice to let myself go--don't do this flying an airplane

I may have skipped the tracks

too much fun to take down

wrong can be fun (until Michael takes the T-bird away)

right can be boring

bring me a villain, then

bring me an angel

right for wrong

Rand's song

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To be clear: One doesn't have to become an expert on (e.g.) sentence construction, or brush strokes (and perspective) or musical composition to be able to take something grand out of art. That's what matters, the "message" above the technique. Obviously, it doesn't preclude an Objectivist developing an interest in any of these, and like anyone he'll pursue his learning further.

Art's highest function is its use and implementation by the individual (and I'm not decrying the effects of beauty for the sake of beauty).

Still, it's the 'message' which provides the fuel an individual needs to remind himself that life matters and that he is not alone.

What can be overlooked is the Big Picture behind the "big picture".

Over some stage in early life, gradually a person grasps the realization that he is a finite being. Finite physically, in his scope of consciousness - and in his span of years. He understands he is ultimately alone within himself.

So what to do? There are really two basic, but not mutually exclusive directions, one can go from here: one might escape into existential angst and despair, followed with cynicism, hedonism or nihilism - or, confront life and living, head on, with reason, purpose, courage and discovered value, flags flying and guns blazing for whatever time one has. I think that simply answers 'why philosophy?' It's also 'why art?'.

Life's too precious to indulge in low standards in anything, particularly art. Or in an excess of painful, anguished art, which reminds one what one already knows, that life can be cruel and confusing. We the rational animals occasionally need affirmation from an author's or artist's work that our path is right. This doesn't have to be the 'absolute best' of art, since evidently there are levels upon levels of delight and interest in all art forms which also meet our temporary needs.

Objectivists each have to make concepts their own. Not Rand's any longer. In the same way, each will find elements in the profusion of arts which sustain him or her. Along the way, I guess, some will be discarded as their thinking and experience evolves. I've that much confidence that nearly all will go that route.

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What started my search wasn't your remarks about Toohey as compared to Saatchi. (About those, another time, but note that I wasn't the one who posited Toohey's method as a template for Saatchi's. Alan G. Carter was...

Carter doesn't post here. You do. And you posted Carter's opinion. Which would suggest that you thought the opinion was worthy of being posted. You seemed to believe that you agreed with the opinion, or that it had merit, or that it was something more than just an emotional outburst.

...I have no idea if Saatchi has ever so much as read The Fountainhead...

What does that have to do with anything? I haven't suggested that Saatchi has read The Fountainhead.

...What I was pointing out with the excerpt is that Carter well understood Rand's depiction of what Toohey was doing.)

And I was pointing out that perhaps Carter doesn't understand what Toohey was doing, since he gave Saatchi as an example of a Toohey. One might as well accuse the entire profession of promoters and impresarios of being Tooheys. Using Carter's reasoning/emoting/smearing, Rand's publishers were Tooheys, since they also purchased, underwrote, promoted and sold art, including Rand's. Why, how nefarious and evil of them to try to make money by selling the art that they thought had worthwhile content and would make money!

As I mentioned in a recent post, Toohey was about telling others what to hate and to reject, as are the Objectivist Tooheys. Saatchi was not, at least not as far as I've ever heard, or as far as Carter has demonstrated with evidence or anything other than his feelings.

When I responded, I left out the last sentence - "It's really creepy to me that Objectivism appears to attract a type of mindset that, when it comes to the arts, is closer to that of Toohey than that of Roark." I remember thinking at the time that the comparison was mistaken in ways more complicated than I wanted to try to address.

In reading through search results for "Toohey" in your posts, I see many examples of a belief on your part that Objectivists and "Objectivish" ought to be praising, as coming from a Roark-like creative approach, art which instead they reject.

That's false. I don't accept "praising" and "rejecting" as the only two options. In fact, those terms are incommensurate judgments. "Praising" applies to the valuing of an artwork, where "rejecting" applies to its status as qualifying as art or not. The opposite of "praise" would be something like "depreciate" or "disfavor." The opposite of "reject" would be something like "accept" or "admit."

I submit that they have the implications of Roark's characterization right, whereas you're overlooking a significant point about Roark's reality focus - although you have sometimes spoken of that focus.

No, I'm not overlooking Roark's reality-focus. The fact that you admit to knowing that I have "sometimes spoken of that focus" should be the context in which you take my statements. I shouldn't have to repeat it in every sentence that I write. The absence of a comment about that focus doesn't suggest that I've suddenly stopped acknowledging that focus.

Anyway, the fact that Objectivist Tooheys claim that they are also reality-focused, and that their own personal aesthetic and cognitive limitations are the limitations of all of mankind, doesn't make it true. Unlike Roark, they are actually not focused on reality, since they arbitrarily deny the reality of others' aesthetic responses.

Consider your post #20 on this thread, quoted above. I would substitute for the first sentence of your description of Rand's "message" via Roark's characterization: Apprehend reality directly, unmediated by others' opinions, and perform your work on the basis of your understanding of reality.

Roark wasn't concerned one way or the other with "the established authorities, ideas and traditional ways."

Heh. Did you not bother to read what you just wrote?!!!

Whose are the "others' opinions" to which you referred? Why, they are the opinions of "the established authorities!" The "others' opinions" include the "traditional ways!"

What does "perform your work on the basis of your understanding of reality" mean? Does it not mean "Be yourself, think and create for yourself"? Of fucking course it does!!!

Pickety pointless pickety pick pick pick.

Ellen, you're trying not to understand. You're fighting for the purpose of fighting. You're creating straw men and picking at them.

He wasn't going against tradition in order to go against tradition; he wasn't creating new and different architectural designs in order to create something new and different.

No one said that he was. You're picking at straw men.

He was assessing architectural circumstances as problems to be solved by designing what he thought would be the best solution to the nature of the particular circumstance.

You left out the fact that he was also assessing and creating for aesthetic effect. He was working in a field of art which is non-representational, and he was rejecting the established traditional "language" of that field in favor of his own personal tastes, responses and interpretations of the effects of the forms and compositions of architecture.

Further, your employing the injunction "Be yourself" seems to me an import from an approach to creativity radically different from Rand's.

I've given no grounds for it to "seem" that way to you. You're reading into it what you want to read into it.

For instance, do you think that she'd have said of her creative process in writing her novels that what she was trying to do was to "be" - or "express" - herself? It was her intensely held view of life she was writing to dramatize, yes.

Yes, to "be" or to "express" oneself through art is to present one's "intensely held view of life."

But wait! Let's pick further! What do you mean by "view of life"? That could be taken wrong by someone who wants to take it wrong. "View" could imply actual eyesight vision, rather than an "opinion" or "appraisal," "attitude," "mindset." And "life"? That's not quite right either, is it? Perhaps "existence," "nature," "efficaciousness" or "perseverance" would be better. And even "of" needs some work. Better options would be "about," "toward," "regarding," or "pertaining to." Let's pickity pick over all of this, and then do it again and again, because it's so much fun trying our hardest to not understand because the absolute perfect words have not been chosen yet for every sentence we write.

But "Be yourself" sounds to me so undisciplined, so much like an injunction to splash your emotions on the page - or canvas, drawing board, etc. And so unlike Rand's - and Roark's - iron-taskmaster way of working.

Well, if it sounds that way to you, then that's the way that it must sound to everyone! How about from now on, I'll send you my posts before I post them, and you can copy edit them so that they don't sound to you how you want to misinterpret them as sounding? Seriously, you seem to be applying for a copy editing job rather than having a philosophical discussion.

Then there's the specific content or emotional thrust of the sort of "avant-garde" art which Toohey encouraged. It's often what Tony calls "nihilist," not in keeping with Rand's moral sensibilities.

The "content and emotional thrust" to whom?

To everyone but a handful of Objectivist Tooheys, the art in question usually doesn't contain "the specific content or emotional thrust" that Tony calls "nihilist." Tony, and many Objectivishistics like him, call everything that they don't like or get anything from "nihilist." Even some artworks which normal, emotionally stable, rational people see as being quite happy, cheerful, uplifting and beautiful are called "nihilist," "ugly" or "disgusting," etc., by Rand's angry little deputies.

The moral dimension in art was very important to Rand and to her entire conception of the nature of and vital human need for art. Much more important than issues of strictly technical judgment.

In my opinion, a reader of The Fountainhead who understands what Rand was projecting via Roark - and via the contrast between Roark and the artists whom Toohey encouraged - would have no difficulty anticipating, without having read a word of the essays which later comprised The Romantic Manifesto, that Rand would be negative toward the work of Jackson Pollock, of Andy Warhol, and of other "abstract expressionist" or postmodernist painters...

And the same reader would have had difficulty anticipating Rand's being negative toward Mondrian, Malevich, Doesberg, Feininger, Gris, or Mangold, or any other abstract artist whose work was tidy, precise and geometrical. Prior to the existence of Rand's later published theories and opinions on art and aesthetics, I think that most people would have expected that anyone who could write so passionately about the effects of the abstract forms and proportions of architecture would naturally feel the same way about the exact same abstract forms and proportions whose only difference was that they were filed under a different art category name.

As far as postmodernist painters, I think that Rand might have loved many of them if she wasn't told ahead of time that they were postmodernists. I think she would have adored Richter's representational postmodernist paintings, for example.

And I think that the idea of Rand and the Objectivist Tooheys being upset about Warhol is priceless, since he created images of items from modern capitalist culture that he grew up with and loved. His images are identifiable likenesses of real objects, just as Objectivism requires, yet the Tooheys say that it's not art. I don't even know if they know why they hate it. They just love to hate, and to claim that they're virtuous for doing so, even though they contradict themselves and their own professed rules and criteria in the process.

...and that she'd have considered something like Damien Hirst's pickled shark beyond the pale (and not remotely a candidate for the classification "art").

I think that would have depended on Rand's age, and whether or not she had actually experienced the art rather than just read bout it or heard about it from a toady.

I think that the young Rand, decades prior to having established herself as a guru, if she had experienced the shark installation, might have been open to its aesthetic effect, much in the way that people have had very deep, positive aesthetic responses to Body Worlds and Bodies: The Exhibition (despite their having been produced more for scientific or educational purposes than aesthetic ones).

Contra your viewpoint that there's a disparity between a person's admiring Roark as creator while censuring many of the "avant-garde" visual artists of the last century.

They don't censure merely "many" of the "avant-garde." They condemn all abstract and postmodernist art, including the art that directly inspired the architecture that they claim to love and find deep meaning in.

I think that even Kandinsky's work could be expected to come in for censure by Roark admirers, although Kandinsky did share certain characteristics with Roark. He was disciplined and dedicated. I think he was "first-handed" in Rand's sense. His artistic goal, however, to use a locution of which Rand was fond, was almost "diametrically opposed" to Roark's.

Kandinsky was attempting to set painting free from bondage to material nature.

Architecture, as an art form, was already free from the "bondage to material nature" (as was music). It's aesthetic means was not representational.

This is so far different from Roark's goal...

No, it was very much like Roark's goal. As I just said, architecture was never mimetic/representational, and therefore there was no need for Roark to have the goal of freeing it from presenting mere outward material appearances. But he did have the same mindset of freeing his art form: He wanted to free it from the established traditional "language." He wanted to create his own new "words" to be added to the "language," just as Kandinsky did in regard to his art form.

...I don't see the disparity you do in a person's admiring Roark but not Kandinsky.

I've said nothing about seeing a disparity in people admiring Roark but not Kandinsky. People can admire or not admire anyone or anything they choose. Or any combination of things. That's their business. What is un-Roarkish, and what is very Tooheyesque, is the act of telling people what they should hate, or through which they should not experience anything. That's what Objectivist Tooheys do. Unlike Roark, they are not content to have their own tastes and experiences in art, nor even to share what they love. Instead, they need to try to destroy the art that they hate, as well as others' enjoyment of it.

J

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Art's highest function is its use and implementation by the individual (and I'm not decrying the effects of beauty for the sake of beauty).

Still, it's the 'message' which provides the fuel an individual needs to remind himself that life matters and that he is not alone.

Tony,

This is a premise worth checking to see if it is universal.

Is art fuel?

If so, what gets left over after it is burned?

With food, we get shit.

With gasoline, we get fumes.

And so on.

What is excreted or run off from burning art in one's soul?

That sounds like a frivolous question, but I'm serious.

It's still worth a smiley, though.

:)

Michael

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As to Jonathan equating a certain kind of Rand follower with Toohey, I see some parallels that work and some others that don't.

Indeed, which is why I've specified in which ways these Rand-followers are Tooheys.

There was another instance in the past where I had to remind Ellen of how metaphors, similes, analogies, comparisons, etc., work. She was pickety picknitting about one analogy or another that I had made, and it gave me the impression that she truly believed that if a person said that one thing was like another in some way, well, then it had better be like it in all ways or you were going to get an earful from Ellen.

If I recall correctly, I tried to illustrate the issue by explaining that if I said that driving in a winter storm behind a snow plow was like playing football in that you had a blocker in front of you, it would be absurd for Ellen to object on the grounds that drivers don't wear pads and helmets like football players do, and they don't huddle up and call and then run plays from a playbook. See, I wasn't comparing every aspect of football to driving in a winter storm.

And most people understand that a comparison happens between different things that have only some similarities. It's really kind of dumb to expect that the things being compared are alike in every way. I mean, imagine Ellen's ideal world in which people would say things like, "Wow, that book is just like itself!"

J

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Toohey was based on a real person.

Brant,

I was going to look this up for a quote to make a comment on the difference between "based on" and "used as a model," but I decided to Google first and came across the following in Wikipedia that says more or less what I mean. See here for link: The Fountainhead.

Rand used her memory of the British democratic socialist Harold Laski to help her imagine what Toohey would do in a given situation. New York intellectuals Lewis Mumford and Clifton Fadiman also contributed inspirations for the character.

The inspirations named here are covered in Robert Mayhew's collection "Essays on Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead" (I used Google Books to track down the passage, from a Michael Berliner essay on Howard Roark and Frank Lloyd Wright ...).

laski_One.png

laski_Two.png

"Cheap little snide Pink." Gotta love that ...

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That was one hell of a vitrine. I didn't know how big was the shark, nor had I looked up or examined any images. I only knew the shark tank from outraged talk about it.

It sold for more than $8,000,000.

shark.jpg

A comment by the artist via Wikipedia: 'Hirst's response to those who said that anyone could have done this artwork was, "But you didn't, did you?"'

It is amusing to imagine what the fictional character Toohey might have said upon viewing the Hirst work through Ayn Rand's eyes. She certaiinly had a way with words ...

At a first glance upon Ellsworth Monkton Toohey one wished to offer him a heavy, wellpadded overcoat--so frail and unprotected did his thin little body appear, like that of a chicken just emerging from the egg, in all the sorry fragility of unhardened bones. At a second glance one wished to be sure that the overcoat should be an exceedingly good one--so exquisite were the garments covering that body. The lines of the dark suit followed frankly the shape within it, apologizing for nothing: they sank with the concavity of the narrow chest, they slid down from the long, thin neck with the sharp slope of the shoulders. A great forehead dominated the body. The wedge-shaped face descended from the broad temples to a small, pointed chin. The hair was black, lacquered, divided into equal halves by a thin white line. This made the skull look tight and trim, but left too much emphasis to the ears that flared out in solitary nakedness, like the handles of a bouillon cup. The nose was long and thin, prolonged by the small dab of a black mustache. The eyes were dark and startling. They held such a wealth of intellect and of twinkling gaiety that his glasses seemed to be worn not to protect his eyes but to protect other men from their excessive brilliance.

Bazinga!

Edited by william.scherk
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Here's a Tooheyesque poet that seems to leap from the pages of The Fountainhead (if Rand had been a bit more prurient in depicting bad guys):

White House Poet Taught Kids to Sit in Circles and Watch Porn for College Class: UPenn’s ‘Wasting Time on the Internet’ completes first semester
by Elizabeth Harrington
June 23, 2015
The Washington Free Beacon

From the article:

A University of Pennsylvania English course taught by a poet who performed for President Obama at the White House ended up exactly as the professor envisioned it: college kids watching porn.

“Wasting Time on the Internet,” a once-a-week creative writing course taught by Kenneth Goldsmith that required students to stare at a computer screen for three hours completed its first class this spring.

Goldsmith wrote last fall that students could use the three hours to watch porn, and then “use it as the basis for compelling erotica.”

“I've never taught this class before, but I have a hunch that it’s going to be a success,” he said.

. . .

Goldsmith previously taught a course about erotic acts and computer code. The course was described as “often violent and disturbing” and “not for the faint-hearted.” In another course, “Uncreative Writing,” he teaches his students to plagiarize.

As a poet, Goldsmith adapts the spoken words and writings of others as his own.

He passed the autopsy report of Michael Brown off as poetry, during a performance in March. His last line was, “The remaining male genitalia system is unremarkable.”

When he performed at the White House in 2011, Goldsmith read excerpts from Walt Whitman’s “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry” and “To Brooklyn Bridge” by Hart Crane.

He then read his own poetry, which was a transcript of traffic reports from a New York City AM radio station.

Heavy, dude.

Heavy.

With a puss to go with it:

800px-Kenneth-Goldsmith_White-House_2011

:)

Michael

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That was one hell of a vitrine. I didn't know how big was the shark, nor had I looked up or examined any images. I only knew the shark tank from outraged talk about it.

It sold for more than $8,000,000.

shark.jpg

A comment by the artist via Wikipedia: 'Hirst's response to those who said that anyone could have done this artwork was, "But you didn't, did you?"'

It is amusing to imagine what the fictional character Toohey might have said upon viewing the Hirst work through Ayn Rand's eyes. She certaiinly had a way with words ...

At a first glance upon Ellsworth Monkton Toohey one wished to offer him a heavy, wellpadded overcoat--so frail and unprotected did his thin little body appear, like that of a chicken just emerging from the egg, in all the sorry fragility of unhardened bones. At a second glance one wished to be sure that the overcoat should be an exceedingly good one--so exquisite were the garments covering that body. The lines of the dark suit followed frankly the shape within it, apologizing for nothing: they sank with the concavity of the narrow chest, they slid down from the long, thin neck with the sharp slope of the shoulders. A great forehead dominated the body. The wedge-shaped face descended from the broad temples to a small, pointed chin. The hair was black, lacquered, divided into equal halves by a thin white line. This made the skull look tight and trim, but left too much emphasis to the ears that flared out in solitary nakedness, like the handles of a bouillon cup. The nose was long and thin, prolonged by the small dab of a black mustache. The eyes were dark and startling. They held such a wealth of intellect and of twinkling gaiety that his glasses seemed to be worn not to protect his eyes but to protect other men from their excessive brilliance.

Bazinga!

You can call it "art" and I can call it a "display."

Same thing.

--Brant

too big for my living room

how about a man wrestling an alligator under water for the next art project display (put it in the American Museum of Natural History)?

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Brant, you can always buy a Shark In A Jar. Only $21.95 for the eleven inch model. You not only get to share in culling a species, but gain a conversation piece:

sharks%203%20view.jpg

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Art's highest function is its use and implementation by the individual (and I'm not decrying the effects of beauty for the sake of beauty).

Still, it's the 'message' which provides the fuel an individual needs to remind himself that life matters and that he is not alone.

Tony,

This is a premise worth checking to see if it is universal.

Is art fuel?

If so, what gets left over after it is burned?

With food, we get shit.

With gasoline, we get fumes.

And so on.

What is excreted or run off from burning art in one's soul?

That sounds like a frivolous question, but I'm serious.

It's still worth a smiley, though.

:smile:

Michael

Michael, I don't know what a "universal" premise is. This is a bit like asking of an individualist if he believes that the majority is always right, or in fact, ever right.;0

The quick answer, how does it matter and how much should I care, what all people think?

What does only count as "universal", I think, is man's metaphysical nature. Following which anything can happen with individuals and people, and usually does.

I would think that the meaning and purpose of life has forever been every person's concern. Many seek those in God, religion and immortal souls, and many in secular substitutes for the former, often in the State, Science and the People. The fewest of the few however, are rational egoists who understand that reality is the "meaning" and that their own lives are the "purpose".

And even outside of ideologies: everybody seems to have a need for 'something' or somebody concrete to look up to, as a guiding principle and inspirational image - for which observe the incredible growth of popular music and film in the last 50 years (or so).

Affirmation comes in many forms, for many levels of rationality (and irrationality). I'm not knocking the popular arts as I've sometimes drawn pleasure and "fuel" from them too.

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Michael, I don't know what a "universal" premise is.

Tony,

Isn't that a bit selective? Like arbitrary selective?

I don't want to rag you, but you sound like you don't know what a universal premise is until you do know.

You did say in the same post: "What does only count as universal I think, is man's metaphysical nature."

If you say art is fuel, aren't you saying the use of art as fuel is part of "man's metaphysical nature"? That man comes pre-built to use art as fuel?

Or is art only fuel for some humans but not others--speaking in terms of art as it relates to man's nature?

If that is the case, there is no objective way to determine any fuel-value in art. It's all subjective. Art can be fuel just as it can be junk and it's all valid for man qua man. Art thus has no universal relationship to man's nature. It serves nothing other than whim.

Is that really your position?

btw - I don't hold the view that nothing in art is objective, but the identification and reasoning have to be right.

Michael

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From our unchangeable metaphysical nature, on, it is all volitional thought and action that matters. Evidently, there is a potential which every individual can realize, given his effort and application. Assuming his will towards objectivity and integration, his level of abstractive ability isn't static, it deepens and expands in time. Therefore, I think a 'meeting of minds' (and subsequent moral or 'spiritual' fuelling) between artist and reader/viewer is contextual - not subjective.

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"While cognitive abstractions identify the facts of reality, normative abstractions evaluate the facts, thus prescribing a choice of values and a course of action. Cognitive abstractions deal with that which IS; normative abstractions deal with that which ~ought to be~ (in the realms open to man's choice).

Ethics, the normative science, is based on two cognitive branches of philosophy: metaphysics and epistemology.

To prescribe what man ought to do, one must first know WHAT he is and WHERE he is--i.e. what is his nature (including his means of cognition) and the nature of the universe in which he acts. [...]

Is the universe intelligible to man, or unintelligible and unknowable? can man find happiness on earth, or is he doomed to frustration and despair?. Does man have the power of choice, the power to choose his goals and to achieve them, the power to direct the course of his life--or is he the helpless plaything of forces beyond his control, which determine his fate? Is man by nature to be valued as good, or to be despised as evil? [...]

Consciously or subconsciously, explicitly or implicitly, man knows that he needs a comprehensive view of existence to integrate his values, to choose his goals, to plan his future, to maintain the unity and coherence of his life, in every choice, decision and action.

Metaphysics, the science that deals with the fundamental nature of reality, involves man's widest abstractions. It includes every concrete he has ever perceived, it involves such a vast sum of knowledge and such a long chain of concepts that no man could hold it all in the focus of his immediate conscious awareness. Yet he needs that sum and that awareness to guide him--he needs the power to summon them into full conscious focus.

That power is given to him by art".

----------pp18/19 TRM

There's much more that's appropriate to your question, Michael, but you have read The Romantic Manifesto, and this only serves as a partial reminder of the connection between art, metaphysics, and ethics.

Simply, it is in response to his metaphysical nature that man "needs" the conceptual concretization and moral sustenance art can provide.

The "context" is his measure of knowledge and rationality at the time he views an artwork - as well as the calibre of the art - but that's my take.

At around 7 y.o. I enjoyed a series of books 'The Famous Five', about these five English schoolboys who were always having adventures, saving somebody from trouble etc. and getting up to mischief and pranks for which schoolmasters would come down on them, while always remaining loyal to their comrades. They weren't goody-twoshoes. You can probably imagine. At my age, I was taken with their daring exploits, and that somehow with cleverness and boldness they always emerged victorious. Mostly forgotten, now; but I still recall that It was a good world the author portrayed, where challenges could be overcome by thinking, goals were attainable with action, and honesty and integrity counted for something. Of course, now I need reading material of a higher conceptual level, but in essence, still with the sense of life and metaphysical views of The Famous Five.

When I first read such passages of Rand's in her TRM, I thought:- Yes! That's it!

I hadn't the words and explanation for what I felt until then.

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Tony,

Just to be clear, I'm not agreeing or disagreeing so far. I'm just trying to work through the dodge you made when you said you didn't know what a human universal was, but then discussed a human universal. You cannot have a theory of art that is universal and not universal at the same time.

Take a stand, man! :smile:

On another point, I am reading a book called Flicker: Your Brain on Movies by Jeffrey Zacks. It just came out. It deals with neuroscience as applied to movies. Inevitably, it lands right in the middle of story.

The idea promoted in this book is that story did not evolve as "fuel," but instead as a means of understanding the world. From other studies I have read, I know we think in stories along with concepts. In fact, normative abstractions are impossible without story since causality can only be expressed through narrative.

And even story unfolds in what Zacks calls an "event model." This is a mental representation of space and time and some of the stuff and character(s) within it. This event model has fixed parts as context and moving parts as "components." Zack gives the example of a picture of Iron Man versus a plastic figure with moving arms and legs. The picture is just an image. It is not a model. The figure is a model because it has a fixed part, the body, and components, which are the arms and legs that can move. Regardless of how you move them, the model is still the same model.

(Note, there are many kinds of event models and fixed parts and components. Even characters that come and go can be components.)

Apparently we experience stories in this manner. This idea is still relatively new (as is the entire field of neuroscience), so there are some scientists who have different theories they are working on. But in Flicker, Zacks takes us on a small tour of the different areas of the brain that process each major part of normal event models and their components, so he is pretty compelling.

He didn't mention the following notion--this comes from me connecting some dots. But here goes anyway. Have you ever been lost in a story? Where you lost your sense of who you were, of time and of where you were? And you saw the story unfolding in front of you as if you were there? This is called a "story trance."

In Zacks's event model, which I now consider part of my epistemological understanding, we use the same event models for reality as we do for stories. So when we get lost in a story, we turn the reality event models off to be able to turn new story ones on. We have to because the same areas of the brain process both.

An evolutionary reason for this would be to economize effort. Caveman 1 finds berries over on top of the second hill after the woods. Instead of taking Caveman 2 all the way there, he tells a story about how he found them. Caveman 2 stops using the event model of the cave that is right in front of him and goes into a story trance where his event model includes the woods and the hills and the bushes, thus he is later able to go there without being led. So here we have one evolutionary use of story, which is to communicate information to save effort. (There are other uses, but this is a long discussion.)

Now here's a kicker for ya'. According to the many experiments mentioned in chapter 4 of Flicker, we often recall living through events we didn't actually experience. Instead, we saw something in a movie or heard someone tell us a story about it and this got entangled in our memory with things that actually happened to us. But we swear we lived it until we can get other elements to prove otherwise, including something that jars the correct memory. This confusion happens to all humans at times and is too well documented to ignore or rationalize away.

The event model idea provides an excellent reason as to why it happens since the same areas of the brain use the same kinds of event models for reality and for fictional stories. If you like, I will list some of the sources Zacks cites, but I suggest getting the book. It is fascinating and I am only starting chapter 5 so far.

All this story stuff is art, but it has nothing to do with moral or spiritual fuel.

I don't deny that art can be used as fuel (like for inspiration), but so can a magnificent view of nature. In fact, if you want some stomp-down righteous spiritual fuel for action, be a caveman and see a saber tooth tiger coming at you as it is salivating and roaring. You will act. You will act fast, even as you might think what a magnificent beast it is. :smile:

So I do deny that fuel is the main purpose or function of art in man's make-up. I believe this was a misfire in Rand's theory of art (including that division of art into naturalism versus romanticism that she borrowed from 19th century French thinkers), even as I admire many of the same works she did and feel the heroism, exaltation, etc., she liked to describe. Ditto for me looking down on a lot of art she did. Not in all cases, but I easily get into "Rand mode" when I consume a lot of art.

In my world, she was a hell of an artist, but a mediocre-to-poor art theorist. The more I learn about art and the human brain, the worse her art theory gets, especially on the cognitive level. I think some of her tastes can be well-grounded in rational explanations, but not using her notions and jargon like sense of life, romanticism versus naturalism, spiritual fuel, subconscious integrations, and so on.

I firmly believe we have to rebuild Rand's whole theory of art from the bottom up--starting with how the mind truly functions--if we want to do proper justice to her as a thinker. Otherwise, her theory--including her tastes--will only make sense within a super-restricted Objectivist core storyline. In that frame, none of it will be universal to all humans.

There's a good word that is in common use for similar contexts that have appeared in human history.

It is called dogma.

Michael

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At around 7 y.o. I enjoyed a series of books 'The Famous Five', about these five English schoolboys who were always having adventures, saving somebody from trouble etc. and getting up to mischief and pranks for which schoolmasters would come down on them, while always remaining loyal to their comrades. They weren't goody-twoshoes. You can probably imagine. At my age, I was taken with their daring exploits, and that somehow with cleverness and boldness they always emerged victorious. Mostly forgotten, now; but I still recall that It was a good world the author portrayed, where challenges could be overcome by thinking, goals were attainable with action, and honesty and integrity counted for something. Of course, now I need reading material of a higher conceptual level, but in essence, still with the sense of life and metaphysical views of The Famous Five.

This rang a bell. I think I must have read at least one of the Enid Blyton series. To add some heft to your nostalgia, Tony, have a look here. Or here.

I love the tomboy George. Sorry for the thread drift.

01%20Five%20on%20a%20Treasure%20Island%2

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How could I forget?! Enid Blyton's Five were a girl, three boys and a dog! A sweet memory, thanks William.

And still, what has lasted for me after all forgotten, was her world-and-life image.

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Tony,

Just to be clear, I'm not agreeing or disagreeing so far. I'm just trying to work through the dodge you made when you said you didn't know what a human universal was, but then discussed a human universal. You cannot have a theory of art that is universal and not universal at the same time.

Take a stand, man! :smile:

Michael

Michael,

I've tried to explain. As has come up before in evaluating artworks, I believe "universality" can't be applied in the way of establishing what is common and agreeable to all people, everywhere and for all time. Basically, it's an invalid attempt to find empirical 'proof' by consensus. One, it's untestable; two, there evidently can't be 100% consensus; three, even partial consensus would not make anything 'right or wrong', 'good or bad', objectively.

While I haven't seen the spelled-out Objectivist position, I could extrapolate a good guess at what it is. I think the distinction is chalk and cheese: Universality tries to find *outcome* - what men and women have done with their capacity. The "capacity", the metaphysical nature of man, is the progenitor to everything. Between potential and outcome is a huge range of possibility for men. Nothing 'has to be' (within bounds of reality). One can choose to think, and to act on those thoughts (volitional focus). Or put off thought and action, temporarily - or act on emotions and whim - or follow others' actions (which all boil down to the same).

Apart from his biology, the only "human universal" is then man's metaphysical nature.

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One can choose to think and to act on those thoughts (volitional focus). Or put off thought and action, temporarily - or act on emotions and whim - or follow others' actions (which all boil down to the same).

Apart from his biology, the only "human universal" is then man's metaphysical nature.

Everything human pivots upon that singular fulcrum... the choice of whether or not to act on a thought.

Greg

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Tony,

Just to be clear, I'm not agreeing or disagreeing so far. I'm just trying to work through the dodge you made when you said you didn't know what a human universal was, but then discussed a human universal. You cannot have a theory of art that is universal and not universal at the same time.

Take a stand, man! :smile:

Michael,

I've tried to explain. As has come up before in evaluating artworks, I believe "universality" can't be applied in the way of establishing what is common and agreeable to all people, everywhere and for all time. Basically, it's an invalid attempt to find empirical 'proof' by consensus. One, it's untestable; two, there evidently can't be 100% consensus; three, even partial consensus would not make anything 'right or wrong', 'good or bad', objectively.

While I haven't seen the spelled-out Objectivist position, I could extrapolate a good guess at what it is. I think the distinction is chalk and cheese: Universality tries to find *outcome* - what men and women have done with their capacity. The "capacity", the metaphysical nature of man, is the progenitor to everything. Between potential and outcome is a huge range of possibility for men. Nothing 'has to be' (within bounds of reality). One can choose to think and to act on those thoughts (volitional focus). Or put off thought and action, temporarily - or act on emotions and whim - or follow others' actions (which all boil down to the same).

Apart from his biology, the only "human universal" is then man's metaphysical nature.

Man's nature: metaphysical

A man's nature: metaphysical/epistemological

The definition of man: the rational animal

The definition of a man: the could be/should/might be rational animal sometimes in extremis purely rational or purely animal

--Brant

free will is not to think or not to think--good luck doing that--it's choosing, which is the essence of morality, and the quality of the thought before and after choosing--how rational one is via the critical thinking that made the thinking rational even though there's much more going on in the brain or will be of concern to the brain (and consciousness) than mere, atomistic rationality or there'd be no creativity whatsoever much less emotional responses to assorted stimuli some of which evoke "flight or flight" in the same sense touching a too hot frying pan causes one to jerk one's hand away before the brain even begins to get involved (one's brain in the described reactive sense isn't just in the head but all over and in and of the human body)

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Michael, There is more that has to be considered in your post, but for now, this:

"It is called dogma".

I think that dogma only works on the dogmatic.

iow, it presupposes a mind which is an empty vessel ready to be filled with...anything.

We all perhaps had instances like I did when younger when we allowed ourselves to be convinced by somebody's or some ideology's 'great idea', or scheme, or slightly shady deal. Despite vague reservations about its practicality, morality and rationality, sometimes one may have gone along with it--only to beat oneself up later for the wasted time and energy, worse, for not staying true to reality as we knew it to be.

I think my wide and pretty esoteric reading of fiction has stood me in good stead on this. You pick up a novel, you know that it's a concrete thing, with concrete print and words. From there on, if you choose to give it its full due (and we should, for our sake), you suspend belief as you enter another person's created, conceptual world that's not 'concrete' - and simultaneously, very 'concrete' (while you're in it or are thinking later about it).

A part of one's mind -objectively- understands that, all through taking it in.

(NOT -skeptically- I must add).

Whether a novel or a philosophy, one can cultivate the ability of taking in something completely - but momentarily - without it washing away one's mind and sense of reality. This way, one can absorb its premises and predict its consequences without yet 'believing in' it. In other words, to isolate the ideas and after consideration, later integrate into one's mind much of them - or parts - or none - as one's value judgment and independent mind decides. Right here, in the practice of reading, is the epistemological value in literature for an individual.

Dogma as such exists, but I think dogma is what a person makes it to be, largely. When one is unprepared for it. Or is mystic-intrinsically inclined, by earlier dogmatic learning.

The obverse to intrinsicism is skepticism, from Rand's thoughts. I keep finding more truth in that observation.

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