Peikoff's Personal Esthetics Authority

[Jonathan]

Peikoff answers a question about why he likes Michelangelo’s Dying Slave better than the David:

http://www.peikoff.com/2016/04/04/why-do-you-like-michelangelos-the-dying-slave-more-than-the-david/#.VxAx6APzDmY.facebook

 

The gist: Peikoff digs the Dying Slave because he see it as representing “man right after sex, right after orgasmic fulfillment.”

 

He sees the slave’s ropes as “his T-shirt, which is all that was left, uh, after his actions.”

 

I’m actually pleasantly surprised that Peikoff has the independence and strength to completely ignore and reject the Objectivist method of Esthetic Judgment, and to opt instead for publicly stating his own subjective interpretation! Good for him!!!

 

 

But then he wrecks the podcast with this: “By the way, I discussed this once with Mary Ann Sures, who’s my aesthetics authority, and she went over the whole, uh, statue with me, and showed what muscle means what, and she found one muscle in the Dying Slave which is incompatible with what I said. So I have to, uh…I can’t name the muscle…’cause I don’t know wuh… I know biceps, that’s about it…um. I have to say, ‘This is my view being ignorant of the muscle that, uh, eh, interferes with it.”

 

Ugh!

 

First of all, how did Sures become an “aesthetics authority” to Peikoff and others in O-land? Well, let's see, she was selected based on the criteria that she was someone who would toe the Objectivist Esthetics line while acquiring some minor real-world credentials in the visual arts. She could be counted on, not to educate Rand and her other ignorant followers, but to parrot Rand, and to attempt to twist and bend visual arts history to fit Rand’s uninformed theory. Sures, although ending up with only minor credentials in the arts, had credentials nonetheless, which is more than could be said about anyone else associated with Rand, and she would therefore be a valuable tool in attempting to bring credibility to Rand’s imposing her literary theory on the visual arts.

 

Basically (in the voice of Rand’s subconscious): “I know nothing about the visual arts, but I have strong opinions despite my ignorance, and here’s a young woman, Miss Rukavina [later Mrs. Sures] who will soon have some visual arts credentials and who is willing to preach my ignorant opinions and therefore give them the veneer of respectability! Therefore I Objectively knight her, and dub her now and forever to be an Esthetics Authority! Heed her opinions. Believe whatever she says!”

 

And old Sir Lenny carries on the tradition. He believes that this intellectually mediocre Rand-follower, whose one known accomplishment in life is the shallow, simplistic, Rand-demented essay “Metaphysics in Marble,"  is actually an expert and authority in not only anatomy and body language, but in reading the precise meaning of the states of individual muscles! Heh. She knows “what muscle means what!”

 

"The figure's flexor digitorum profundus is extended just a millimeter too far to be consistent with orgasmic fulfillment."

 

Wowza! Pretend authority.

 

J

[PDS]

J:   I think you're forgetting the part of The Fountainhead where Howard Roark consulted various authorities for his value judgments about architecture. 

Too bad it never occurs to LP to simply say, "I don't know.   Ask somebody else."  

[Thorn]

Well, I do like Peikoff's intepretation. From the images i've seen there is some kind of peacful rapture to the statue. I guess it's hard to say without seeing it in person, but from the images it doesn't look much like a man dying. Perhaps that's what Michelangelo intended, the slave being finally free in death. I don't know.

I do wonder, however, what muscle that could so dramatically change Peikoff's interpretation.  Maybe it was the flexor digitorum longus pulling the slaves index finger... Yeah, that must be it! ;)

[Brant Gaede]

1 hour ago, PDS said:

J:   I think you're forgetting the part of The Fountainhead where Howard Roark consulted various authorities for his value judgments about architecture. 

Too bad it never occurs to LP to simply say, "I don't know.   Ask somebody else."  

Orthodox Objectivism is first and foremost about authority.

--Brant

GET IT ?!

[PDS]

9 minutes ago, Thorn said:

Well, I do like Peikoff's intepretation. From the images i've seen there is some kind of peacful rapture to the statue. I guess it's hard to say without seeing it in person, but from the images it doesn't look much like a man dying. Perhaps that's what Michelangelo intended, the slave being finally free in death. I don't know.

I do wonder, however, what muscle that could so dramatically change Peikoff's interpretation.  Maybe it was the flexor digitorum longus pulling the slaves index finger... Yeah, that must be it! ;)

Somebody is getting their leg pulled, that's for sure.  

[Thorn]

14 minutes ago, PDS said:

Somebody is getting their leg pulled, that's for sure.  

Juding by Jonathan's post it must be someone getting their finger pulled

[KorbenDallas]

Peikoff says in the beginning, "Let me say at the outset, I am not an authority on any art.  I have informed views on literature and that's it."

...

 

[9thdoctor]

3 hours ago, Jonathan said:

I Objectively knight her, and dub her now and forever to be an Esthetics Authority! Heed her opinions. Believe whatever she says!

I only defer to the World's Foremost Authority:

He's almost 102.  Still alive.

[RobinReborn]

4 hours ago, Jonathan said:

 

First of all, how did Sures become an “aesthetics authority” to Peikoff and others in O-land? Well, let's see, she was selected based on the criteria that she was someone who would toe the Objectivist Esthetics line while acquiring some minor real-world credentials in the visual arts. She could be counted on, not to educate Rand and her other ignorant followers, but to parrot Rand, and to attempt to twist and bend visual arts history to fit Rand’s uninformed theory. Sures, although ending up with only minor credentials in the arts, had credentials nonetheless, which is more than could be said about anyone else associated with Rand, and she would therefore be a valuable tool in attempting to bring credibility to Rand’s imposing her literary theory on the visual arts.

 

 

 

Because she was Rand's personal secretary and the only one in that group who cared about Art?

 

But let's be serious.  Aesthetic Authority is almost a contradiction in terms.  I appreciate the Romantic Manifesto as a book explaining Ayn Rand's esthetic values, I agree with much of what she had to say.  But to interpret it literally would be like turning myself into a zombie.

[Ellen Stuttle]

1 hour ago, RobinReborn said:

 

Because she was Rand's personal secretary and the only one in that group who cared about Art?

Yeah, Joan Blumenthal didn't care at all about Art.

Jonathan, as usual, misrepresents what "the Objectivist method of Esthetic Judgment" is.

Was Mary Ann Rand's "personal secretary" at some point?  She helped with the typing of the manuscript of Atlas Shrugged.

As to the "muscle," I'll guess that Mary Ann was referring to the state of the penis.

Ellen

[RobinReborn]

Joan Blumenthal?

 

I recall reading about her in the Brandens' books but she was a minor character.

 

How was her care for art manifest?

[Jonathan]

13 hours ago, Ellen Stuttle said:

Jonathan, as usual, misrepresents what "the Objectivist method of Esthetic Judgment" is.

Heh. I neither represented nor misrepresented what the Objectivist method of Esthetic Judgment is! I simply mentioned the term without defining it or explaining what it is. Silly, bitter Ellen, how do you imagine that I've misrepresented it? Put up or shut up: instead of snipping and sniping and petty picking and electron chasing, identify the Objectivist method of Esthetic Judgment, and then demonstrate how I've "misrepresented" it in my initial post.

 

13 hours ago, Ellen Stuttle said:

As to the "muscle," I'll guess that Mary Ann was referring to the state of the penis.

No, think bigger picture! Entire context! Notice what Lenny wrote about muscles and his belief in Sures' ability to identify which muscle means what in a sculpture. That's how expert of an art authority she is!!! Isn't Lenny and Objectivism so fortunate to have her?!!!

J 

[Jonathan]

13 hours ago, Ellen Stuttle said:

Yeah, Joan Blumenthal didn't care at all about Art.

 

Perhaps Joan didn't want to be the official Objectivist Esthetics Tool?  Didn't want to be the credentialed authority who delivered the veneer of respectability?

J

[Brant Gaede]

I read she considered Objectivism to be Rand's psychotherapy on herself.

[Brant Gaede]

14 hours ago, Ellen Stuttle said:

Yeah, Joan Blumenthal didn't care at all about Art.

Jonathan, as usual, misrepresents what "the Objectivist method of Esthetic Judgment" is.

Was Mary Ann Rand's "personal secretary" at some point?  She helped with the typing of the manuscript of Atlas Shrugged.

As to the "muscle," I'll guess that Mary Ann was referring to the state of the penis.

Ellen

I don't think if you were to Google that muscle you'd retain that conclusion.

The Blumenthals were/are primarily almost all into art. They didn't know how to handle Rand's personal demands on them except to end the relationship. I think--not know--the only person who truly knew how to handle Rand--and did--one-on-one, adult to adult, was Devers Branden. Nathaniel and Barbara had too much history as "children*" to her.

I strongly suspect the only way to have a quality peer relationship with the Blumenthals is through esthetics and you'd need to be knowledgeable and sensitive about music and painting (visual arts).

The Blumenthals never forgave Nathaniel Branden either for causing The Break of '68 and/or what he said and wrote about Allan afterwards. So when The Atlas Society took Nathaniel in they went out. I do think they got back with Barbara.

--Brant

OL's resident digressor

*Ruth Beebe Hill

[Neil Parille]

Joan Blumenthal published a book on art three years ago:

http://www.amazon.com/Ways-Means-Painting-Mitchell-Blumenthal/dp/1492320641/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1461324755&sr=1-1

 

[Ellen Stuttle]

On April 21, 2016 at 10:55 AM, Jonathan said:

On April 21, 2016 at 9:10 PM, Ellen Stuttle said:

Jonathan, as usual, misrepresents what "the Objectivist method of Esthetic Judgment" is.

Heh. I neither represented nor misrepresented what the Objectivist method of Esthetic Judgment is! I simply mentioned the term without defining it or explaining what it is.

You both represented and misrepresented "the Objectivist method of Esthetic Judgment" in writing:

On April 20, 2016 at 3:53 PM, Jonathan said:

I'm actually pleasantly surprised that Peikoff has the independence and strength to completely ignore and reject the Objectivist method of Esthetic Judgment, and to opt instead for publicly stating his own subjective interpretation! Good for him!!!

Peikoff wasn't making what Rand called "a purely esthetic appraisal" at all.  He was talking about his personal reaction.

And your understanding of the prescribed method, as briefly summarized by you on another thread, is incorrect:

~~~ Jonathan wrote:

link

[Rand's] followers [...] don't observe the work of art and carefully, dispassionately add up its elements to identify a thematic subject and meaning, and then later come to a moral appraisal and appropriate emotional response. Instead, they immediately emote, long before they've had a chance to consider all that the art might contain and mean.

~~~ end quote

The point of Rand's cautionary addendum about "purely esthetic appraisal" is that such appraisal on the one hand and a person's emotional response and moral evaluation on the other are different issues.   She wasn't saying that first you make a "purely esthetic appraisal" and then you evaluate morally and react emotionally based on the results of your "purely esthetic appraisal."  She was saying that you put your emotional and moral appraisals aside in judging the technical quality of a work.

The O'ists (and O'vishes) you decry who react immediately emotionally are doing what she said is the nature of immediate response - response coming from the degree of perceived congruence with how the responder sees life.

---

Your stuff about Peikoff's phrase "which muscle means what" is so far-fetched a reading, as if Mary Ann was providing a lexicography of muscle "meanings."  She was explaining to him that his interpretation didn't square anatomically with some detail(s) of the statue.

Maybe she was right. I can't see the detail well enough to tell in the images I found.

Ellen

[Ellen Stuttle]

On April 21, 2016 at 11:28 AM, Brant Gaede said:

I don't think if you were to Google that muscle you'd retain that conclusion.

Notice the scare quotes.

Ellen

[william.scherk]

On 4/20/2016 at 4:57 PM, RobinReborn said:

But to interpret it literally would be like turning myself into a zombie.

!

2 hours ago, Ellen Stuttle said:

O'vishes

!!!

[Jonathan]

17 hours ago, Ellen Stuttle said:

Peikoff wasn't making what Rand called "a purely esthetic appraisal" at all.  He was talking about his personal reaction.

Yes, that's what I said!!!!!!!

I said that Peikoff ignored the Objectivist method of Esthetic Judgment, and opted instead to state his own subjective interpretation.

 

Quote

And your understanding of the prescribed method, as briefly summarized by you on another thread, is incorrect:

~~~ Jonathan wrote:

link

[Rand's] followers [...] don't observe the work of art and carefully, dispassionately add up its elements to identify a thematic subject and meaning, and then later come to a moral appraisal and appropriate emotional response. Instead, they immediately emote, long before they've had a chance to consider all that the art might contain and mean.

~~~ end quote

The point of Rand's cautionary addendum about "purely esthetic appraisal" is that such appraisal on the one hand and a person's emotional response and moral evaluation on the other are different issues.   She wasn't saying that first you make a "purely esthetic appraisal" and then you evaluate morally and react emotionally based on the results of your "purely esthetic appraisal."  She was saying that you put your emotional and moral appraisals aside in judging the technical quality of a work.

Rand was saying that the method of Objective Esthetic judgment is to "identify the artist's theme, the abstract meaning of his work (exclusively by identifying the evidence contained in the work and allowing no other, outside considerations), then evaluate the means by which be conveys it -- i.e., taking his theme as criterion, evaluate the purely esthetic elements of the work, the technical mastery (or lack of it) with which he projects (or fails to project) his view of life..."

Peikoff did not follow that method. Instead, he ignored the evidence contained in the work, such as in arbitrarily deciding that he wanted to see the slave's bindings as his "T-shirt." Peikoff arrived at an "abstract meaning" not by observing and "identifying the evidence contained in the work," but by carelessly misidentifying it, and then sticking to the misidentification. When the actual evidence is pointed out to him, he prefers his previous misinterpretation. He likes the statue not for what the evidence adds up to, but for what he mistakenly misidentified the evidence to be -- for what he wants it to be.

I find it very interesting that Objectivism's self-declared "intellectual heir" doesn't practice Objectivism when dealing with visual art, but prefers to abandon it in favor of what he wants to see in the work. I think it says a lot about the impracticability of the Objectivist aesthetic hermeneutics.

 

Quote

The O'ists (and O'vishes) you decry who react immediately emotionally are doing what she said is the nature of immediate response - response coming from the degree of perceived congruence with how the responder sees life.

False. One is not advised by Objectivism to immediately emotionally respond to visual art. One is to set aside one's emotions and evaluations until one has "identified the evidence contained in the work." One is not to disregard the evidence.

 

Quote

---

Your stuff about Peikoff's phrase "which muscle means what" is so far-fetched a reading, as if Mary Ann was providing a lexicography of muscle "meanings."  She was explaining to him that his interpretation didn't square anatomically with some detail(s) of the statue.

You're not thinking it through. Peikoff's interpretation of the figure being presented "right after sex," is not refuted by the figure not having an erection. Spent erections can fade quickly, if not instantly. Additionally, you're not coming at it from the perspective of a visual artist. You're not envisioning what the inclusion of an erection would do to the piece. It would not convey spent sexual energy, but an active, yet-to-be-statisfied state.

As for your comment about "which muscle means what," Peikoff is stating that he believes that Sures is an expert at objectively reading the expressiveness of anatomy and body language, including down to individual muscles. He mentions that the only muscle he knows is the bicep, and that he can't remember the specific muscle which Sures cited as invalidating his interpretation.

Added to that mess of pretension is the fact that artists deviate from reality for the purpose of expression, especially artists who deal in romantic styles. They pose and exaggerate the human form, and twist and bend it into positions that people would not take in reality.

Sures' expert, objective body-reading status is pretend. She is cited as an authority, and she received that position of authority by agreeing with the views of people who are not authorities, let alone novice students. She was granted the position of authority by repeating the position of people who had no knowledge of the subject about which she was being appointed authority.

J

[Jonathan]

14 hours ago, william.scherk said:

!!!

 

Yeah, I like "O'vishes" too!

J

[BaalChatzaf]

1 hour ago, Jonathan said:

Yes, that's what I said!!!!!!!

I said that Peikoff ignored the Objectivist method of Esthetic Judgment, and opted instead to state his own subjective interpretation.

 

All aesthetic judgment is subjective.  There is nothing in the physical makeup of the cosmos that defines or determines beauty.  Beauty is a matter of taste. The taste is in our tongues and our brains,  not in the Great Out There. 

[Jonathan]

1 hour ago, BaalChatzaf said:

All aesthetic judgment is subjective.  There is nothing in the physical makeup of the cosmos that defines or determines beauty.  Beauty is a matter of taste. The taste is in our tongues and our brains,  not in the Great Out There. 

Indeed, but you'd think that Peikoff would at least try to pretend to be objective by following Rand's stated "objective" method.

J

[Ellen Stuttle]

On April 27, 2016 at 4:17 PM, Jonathan said:

On April 27, 2016 at 10:49 PM, Ellen Stuttle said:

Peikoff wasn't making what Rand called "a purely esthetic appraisal" at all.  He was talking about his personal reaction.

Yes, that's what I said!!!!!!!

I said that Peikoff ignored the Objectivist method of Esthetic Judgment, and opted instead to state his own subjective interpretation.

You again miss the point.  Repeat: Peikoff wasn't making an esthetic appraisal at all.  He was talking about his personal reaction.  He wasn't assessing the work's technical merit, which is the only issue to which that passage you dub "the Objectivist method of Esthetic Judgment" applies.  You've elevated that passage into worse than the tail wagging the dog.  You've turned it into the tail replacing the dog.

(Besides which, there's nothing uniquely Objectivist about it.  The idea that one sets aside one's reaction to the "what" while judging the degree of skill displayed by the "how" is common.)

I do wonder how long it's been since you read the whole set of three essays.  Sounds like you've forgotten what Rand's theory of art says and how she says artistic response operates.  She does not preface the final cautionary addendum about confusing personal response with appraisal of technical skill by saying words to the effect, "And now, reader, you're supposed to ignore everything I've written in this set of essays up to here and turn it all backward, so as to start with a technical appraisal and then respond."

Ellen

[Ellen Stuttle]

On April 27, 2016 at 4:17 PM, Jonathan said:

Peikoff's interpretation of the figure being presented "right after sex," is not refuted by the figure not having an erection. Spent erections can fade quickly, if not instantly.

Duh, I know that.  However, there are anatomical traces.  I don't know specifically what Mary Ann meant, just making a guess.

Ellen