Ayn Rand's concept of a Hero

[Selene]

Sorry folks, but I just have to ask...

xray, her is a little exercise we can play together...

First, can you list your top ten values please?

you know, these ones>>>> "...completely contrary to my values."

Adam

Edited October 23, 2009 by Selene

[Xray]

Sorry folks, but I just have to ask...

xray, her is a little exercise we can play together...

First, can you list your top ten values please?

you know, these ones>>>> "...completely contrary to my values."

Adam

I have written often enough here about some of the values which I consider pivotal for me personally, for example here upthread in post # 56):

http://www.objectivistliving.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=7703&st=40so

But I harve never thought of working out any elaborate lists in that field (like e. g. Benjamin Franklin, who presented his list of personal values (in his case, it was 'virtues'), as he was trying to educate himself in becoming a 'better moral person'. )

http://www.sfheart.com/FranklinsVirtues.html

So why do you want to "play this little exercise" at all? Do you keep such a list if I may ask?

Edited October 23, 2009 by Xray

[Brant Gaede]

My top three values are solid, liquid and gas.

--Brant

[Xray]

It's because of her enormous empathy for the -victims- that she includes people crushed by the system, she includes tragic victims, she makes their fate and the enormous injustice they suffer palpable to us.

Imo Rand's hero John Galt is very remorselss when it comes to the many victims as a direct result of his going on strike, e. g. when he tells Dagny how planes are going to crash and much more will be destroyed, (which includes of course human lives too).

Are all these victims mere 'collateral damage' in Galt's eyes?

Well, they are not his victims. This reasoning is no more valid than saying that if Galt had never been born people would have died consequently--as his victims. There are over 6 billion people alive today. Most of them, even in this and other western countries, are functioning sub-optimally, mostly because of the lousy political-economical-intellectual-cultural climate. Think of all the wonderful things these people could be doing--of all the geniuses that could be loose upon the world instead of never having had much chance, wallowing in disease and poverty.

--Brant

Galt is a merciless type when it come to the people who die as result of his strike, there is not way to close one's eyes to this. The narrator Rand herself mentions on several occasions how 'ruthless' her heroes are. nd they ARE ruthless - all of them.

From DF's # 163 post re E. Willers' fate

Dragonfly: Another view could be that it is a realistic rendering of the cruel character of Rand's philosophy in practice, not unlike the gloating description of the people who died in the tunnel in chapter VIII or the already much discussed episode of Dagny shooting the guard.

"Gloating" describes it to T.

The lethal accident in the tunnel reads like some bizarre judgement day version where the people whose values differ from Rand's heroes "get what they deserve".

Rarely have I read a novel with tries to build such primitive, black and white "psychologizing" into an equally primitive black and white plot episode.

Edited October 23, 2009 by Xray

[Xray]

Dragonfly: isn't your insinuation that Dagny should have slept with Eddie on occasion... well, somewhat insulting? Dagny treats sexual intercourse as something noble and life-affirming. She doesn't degrade herself by allowing a man she doesn't love to have sex with her out of pity. If she had occasionally slept with Eddie Willers, she would have degraded herself, Eddie, and their relationship.

Dragonfly (# 163): I'm not saying that this would have been necessary, but it could have improved the story somewhat, as it would have shown that at least one of the heroes did care more for him than only as a very efficient, loyal servant with the "right" philosophy. The implied message is here: Eddie loves Dagny, but of course she can't love such a lower breed of animal as a mere Personal Assistant, no matter how capable and efficient he is (I cannot help thinking of Rand and Frank O'Connor here, where the latter was hardly some kind of Galt either). And that is in my opinion a literary flaw, as it seems to go against the message of the book that the heroes do care about people with whom they share their ideas. Another view could be that it is a realistic rendering of the cruel character of Rand's philosophy in practice, not unlike the gloating description of the people who died in the tunnel in chapter VIII or the already much discussed episode of Dagny shooting the guard.

Dragonfly: And that is in my opinion a literary flaw, as it seems to go against the message of the book that the heroes do care about people with whom they share their ideas.

Indeed, Rand clearly goes against her own premise here.

She also does this several times in her non-fiction work. Collapses her own premises, so to speak, by which in turn she violates her own postulate of non-contradiction.

Michelle: Dagny treats sexual intercourse as something noble and life-affirming.

"Noble"? Give me a break.

Dragonfly: Eddie loves Dagny, but of course she can't love such a lower breed of animal as a mere Personal Assistant, no matter how capable and efficient he is

And Eddie as lower breed, is of course also not endowed by the author with the dazzling good looks able to sweep the heroine Dagny off her feet.

Again one can observe Rand's black and white portrayals of men.

Superb good looks are only reserved for her male heroes.

The all look somewhat like like Greek god statues.

Edited October 23, 2009 by Xray

[Brant Gaede]

Galt is a merciless type when it come to the people who die as result of his strike, there is not way to close one's eyes to this. The narrator Rand herself mentions on several occasions how 'ruthless' her heroes are. nd they ARE ruthless - all of them.

Of course they are. In the society depicted that was the only way to actually survive. Those who weren't so ruthless had already been destroyed--sacrificed completely in the altruistic furnaces of the extant society. Such was the influence of communist Russia on Ayn Rand. Communism destroyed Russia. What's left today is going under in a sea of vodka alcoholism.

It's not that Galt was destroying those people. It was his refusal to be himself destroyed that was depicted. He actually went around rescuing people. He did go too far sometimes, of course. Most notably by letting Rearden fly around Colorado for a month while Dagny was in the valley. And why did Dagny accept Galt's reasoning and then manage not to worry about the poor guy for the rest of the time she was there? Most of these Atlas characters were not real human beings and could not have been real human beings. And for Dagny to eventually want Galt because he was the top of some kind of hierarchical heap to the exclusion of Francisco and Hank?--sorry boys, you were good enough while it lasted, but I'm moving up and on. The real insanity was importing this stuff into her personal life with pernicious rationalizations and trying to live in the world of her novel. It was a disaster for her as a would-be post Atlas novelist too. One can say much the same about Objectivism and that damn speech by Galt, who was kind enough to let the world in on his secret when it was much too late for good people to make good use of those ideas. That speech was for the reader. But what good Objectivist takes it as anything but revealed (frozen) truth? Commonly understood, Objectivism is a religious dogma. The philosophy is a catechism for a religion. But if you approach and use it correctly by thinking reference to its principles and rational observations, you've got a plane that can actually fly.

--Brant

she wasn't wishy-washy

Edited October 23, 2009 by Brant Gaede

[Xray]

To late to edit my previous post, so I have to put the edited addendum here:

Dragonfly: Eddie loves Dagny, but of course she can't love such a lower breed of animal as a mere Personal Assistant, no matter how capable and efficient he is

And Eddie as a lower breed is of course also not endowed by the author with the dazzling good looks which could sweep the heroine Dagny off her feet.

Again one can observe Rand's black and white portrayals of men.

Superb good looks are only reserved for her male heroes.

The all look somewhat like statues of Greek gods, or like Barbie's 'Ken'. I found this aspect of the novel particulary ridiculous - Rearden, D'Anconia, Galt, Danneskjöld almost were physically interchangeable, as well as in terms of their "superior values" and many character traits.

The irony is that Dagny did in fact interchange the first three quite effortlessly, but I suppose Rand did not mean this be understood as irony on the author's part.

Edited October 23, 2009 by Xray

[Brant Gaede]

To late to edit my previous post, so I have to put the edited addendum here:

Dragonfly: Eddie loves Dagny, but of course she can't love such a lower breed of animal as a mere Personal Assistant, no matter how capable and efficient he is

And Eddie as a lower breed is of course also not endowed by the author with the dazzling good looks which could sweep the heroine Dagny off her feet.

Again one can observe Rand's black and white portrayals of men.

Superb good looks are only reserved for her male heroes.

The all look somewhat like statues of Greek gods, or like Barbie's 'Ken'. I found this aspect of the novel particulary ridiculous - Rearden, D'Anconia, Galt, Danneskjöld almost were physically interchangeable, as well as in terms of their "superior values" and many character traits.

The irony is that Dagny did in fact interchange the first three quite effortlessly, but I suppose Rand did not mean this be understood as irony on the author's part.

Only Ragnar was described this way in Atlas. Peter Keating was better looking than Howard Roark who was a god to Dominique but not to other observers. You literally don't know what you are talking about.

--Brant

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

You literally don't know what you are talking about.

Brant,

I don't agree. Getting something wrong on purpose with an insulting presumption underneath is a persuasion technique used to manipulate someone into responding.

Michael

[Dragonfly]

Peter Keating was better looking than Howard Roark who was a god to Dominique but not to other observers.

That is why The Fountainhead is a better book than AS, the people there are not quite the black-and-white puppets of the latter. For example, the "good guy" Mike had "a face

so ugly that it became fascinating". Such human traits were radically removed from AS, there it is all shining angels with wings against devils with horns, hooves, tails and pitchforks (well, the Randian variant of that stereotype).

[Philip Coates]

> Getting something wrong on purpose...to manipulate someone into responding.

Michael, you're psychologizing about your opponents again. Why can't you limit yourself to simply disproving their ideas? Then it doesn't matter what their motives or their character are. And you don't have to be a mind reader and wander off into personal attacks.

Learn this point from the schoomarm: I've explained it to you before. Don't make me have to rap your knuckles.

[Xray]

Only Ragnar was described this way in Atlas. Peter Keating was better looking than Howard Roark who was a god to Dominique but not to other observers. You literally don't know what you are talking about.

I know perfectly well what I'm talking about. My focus was about the male heroes in Atlas, which Rand considered as her summum opus. So she quite obviously, in that later magnum opus, streamlined her heroes' physical looks to fit their 'heroic character'.

Danneskjöld is described as having "gold hair" and a face of such "shocking perfection" (p. 753) that Dagny "caught herself in the preposterous feeling of wishing he had no profession at all, because any work seemed too dangerous for his incredible kind of beauty." (p. 254)

And as Dagny sees Danneskjöld walk away with his equally beautiful and equally gold-haired wife Kay Ludlow:

"The last image, she caught, that evening, the sight of two tall slender figures walking together down a trail among the rocks, with the beam of a spotlight flashing once on the gold of their hair."

Did Rand have any idea of the thin ice she was skating here with such naive, fairy tale-like descriptions? For imo the danger of all this getting a comic touch IS there if an author makes her 'heroic couple' look almost as alike as Lewis Carrol's Tweedledee and Tweedledum. That Ragnar and Kay are of different gender and far more attractive that T&T does not matter, it's about the principle of portraying two figures so twin-like, often done in comedies, but in 'serious' works it's quite a flaw imo.

Edited October 23, 2009 by Xray

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Phil,

Xray is not my enemy. I don't allow people I consider to be enemies a voice on OL.

She is a specimen I am studying.

(I thought I said that already. How come you got it wrong so quickly?)

As for the purpose of using the technique (using false presumptions to manipulate others into a response), that's just the way the technique works. It's actually taught that way across many different schools. It doesn't matter which school you use, either: NLP, Madison Avenue advertising techniques, Tony Robbins and other motivational speakers, political propaganda, Saul Alinsky, Jehovah's Witness form of witnessing, etc, etc., etc. All this stuff ultimately has its roots in Pavlov's conditioned response.

As to my intention, I haven't even started. There are a lot of techniques. A large body of "evidence" on the very forum supports my "psychologizing."

If you are interested in why I am doing this right now, it's like dealing with hypnosis or magic tricks. If you show people what to focus on and where the diversionary tactics are employed, the sneaky stuff doesn't work any longer.

I'm the party-pooper right now showing how and why Xray's dirty tricks work. My intent is to take the covers off so they don't work as planned. If folks like them after that, that's up to them (I don't). But it won't be because they are being tricked any longer.

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

Only Ragnar was described this way in Atlas. Peter Keating was better looking than Howard Roark who was a god to Dominique but not to other observers. You literally don't know what you are talking about.

I know perfectly well what I'm talking about. My focus was about the male heroes in Atlas, which Rand considered as her summum opus. So she quite obviously, in that later magnum opus, streamlined her heroes' physical looks to fit their 'heroic character'.

Danneskjöld is described as having "gold hair" and a face of such "shocking perfection" (p. 753) that Dagny "caught herself in the preposterous feeling of wishing he had no profession at all, because any work seemed too dangerous for his incredible kind of beauty." (p. 254)

And as Dagny sees Danneskjöld walk away with his equally beautiful and equally gold-haired wife Kay Ludlow:

"The last image, she caught, that evening, the sight of two tall slender figures walking together down a trail among the rocks, with the beam of a spotlight flashing once on the gold of their hair."

Did Rand have any idea of the thin ice she was skating here with such naive, fairy tale-like descriptions? For imo the danger of all this getting a comic touch IS there if an author makes her 'heroic couple' look almost as alike as Lewis Carrol's Tweedledee and Tweedledum. That Ragnar and Kay are of different gender and far more attractive that T&T does not matter, it's about the principle of portraying two figures so twin-like, often done in comedies, but in 'serious' works it's quite a flaw imo.

Thx for your reply. Let's be a little crude: Why isn't Peter Keating god-awful ugly and why isn't Roark looking like a Greek god? Isn't that the way it's supposed to be?

In regard to Atlas, Ragnar is the only hero who is described as you claim they all look like. BS!

In regard to your larger claim about the good looking-being good or great inside and out and the bad guys not--so what? That's art. Write your own novel and show us how it should be done. Personally, in my experience bad guys really do look bad because the ugly inside revealed ruins their physiognomy so matter how that might come across otherwise in a photograph. Nobody's uglier than Hitler, even Elephant Man.

--Brant

Edited October 23, 2009 by Brant Gaede

[Xray]

Michael, you're psychologizing about your opponents again. Why can't you limit yourself to simply disproving their ideas?

I agree, Phil.

Getting personal by trying to discredit the source is no substitue for refuting arguments.

WHAT is said should be the focus and not WHO says it.

If Michael finds error in my arguments in this discussion, I would appreciate it if he quoted quote alleged error and explain why it is in error in his opinion.

Edited October 23, 2009 by Xray

[Xray]

Thx for your reply. Let's be a little crude: Why isn't Peter Keating god-awful ugly and why isn't Roark looking like a Greek god? Isn't that the way it's supposed to be?

Rand probably would have made Keating look ugly and Roark beautiful had she written TF later in life when her heroes became more fantasy-like.

Brant: In regard to Atlas, Ragnar is the only hero who is described as you claim they all look like. BS!

Ayn Rand said of herself that she was a "hero worshiper".

Galt is described as very good-looking too, the "poured-metal planes of his skin" (p. 811) evoke the picture of a statue. Imo Rearden as well is described in a way which evokes the visual of a 'heroic' figure.

As for D'Anconia, he is of noble breed, and quite obviously attractive enough to draw countless women toward him when he "plays the playboy" during twelve years. That he never had a single sexual encounter with any of those female admirers only adds to the unrealism in a novel of which the author claimed that similar people existed in reality.

I wouldn't go as far as calling and Rearden, D'Anconia and Galt - (excuse the pun derived from L. Carroll's Tweedledee and Tweedledum) - the "Tweedlethree" ;) but they come close imo.

Edited October 23, 2009 by Xray

[Brant Gaede]

Thx for your reply. Let's be a little crude: Why isn't Peter Keating god-awful ugly and why isn't Roark looking like a Greek god? Isn't that the way it's supposed to be?

Rand probably would have made Keating look ugly and Roark beautiful had she written TF later in life when her heroes became more fantasy-like.

Brant: In regard to Atlas, Ragnar is the only hero who is described as you claim they all look like. BS!

Ayn Rand said of herself that she was a "hero worshiper".

Galt is described as very good-looking too, the "poured-metal planes of his skin" (p. 811) evoke the picture of a statue. Imo Rearden as well is described in a way which evokes the visual of a 'heroic' figure.

As for D'Anconia, he is of noble breed, and quite obviously attractive enough to draw countless women toward him when he "plays the playboy" during twelve years. That he never had a single sexual encounter with any of those female admirers only adds to the unrealism in a novel of which the author claimed that similar people existed in reality.

I wouldn't go as far as calling and Rearden, D'Anconia and Galt - (excuse the pun derived from L. Carroll's Tweedledee and Tweedledum) - the "Tweedlethree" but they come close imo.

Real life Francisco would never have left Dagny. If he had he'd have gotten someone else to tide him over.

--Brant

[Dragonfly]

As for D'Anconia, he is of noble breed, and quite obviously attractive enough to draw countless women toward him when he "plays the playboy" during twelve years.

Description of D'Anconia:

Nobody ever wondered whether Francisco d'Anconia was good-looking or not; it seemed irrelevant; when he entered a room, it was impossible to look at anyone else. His tall, slender figure had an air of distinction, too authentic to be modern, and he moved as if he had a cape floating behind him in the wind. People explained him by saying that he had the vitality of a healthy animal, but they knew dimly that that was not correct. He had the vitality of a healthy human being, a thing so rare that no one could identify it. He had the power of certainty.

Nobody described his appearance as Latin, yet the word applied to him, not in its present, but in its original sense, not pertaining to Spain, but to ancient Rome. His body seemed designed as an exercise in consistency of style, a style made of gauntness, of tight flesh, long legs and swift movements. His features had the fine precision of sculpture. His hair was black and straight, swept back. The suntan of his skin intensified the startling color of his eyes: they were a pure, clear blue. His face was open, its rapid changes of expression reflecting whatever he felt, as if he had nothing to hide. The blue eyes were still and changeless, never giving a hint of what he thought.

Not exactly the Hunchback of the Notre Dame, I think.

[Xray]

Brant: And for Dagny to eventually want Galt because he was the top of some kind of hierarchical heap to the exclusion of Francisco and Hank?--sorry boys, you were good enough while it lasted, but I'm moving up and on. The real insanity was importing this stuff into her personal life with pernicious rationalizations and trying to live in the world of her novel.

IIRC, Barbara Branden mentions in her book that AR tried to recreate the hero/heroine relationships of her novels in her private life.

[Xray]

As for D'Anconia, he is of noble breed, and quite obviously attractive enough to draw countless women toward him when he "plays the playboy" during twelve years.

Description of D'Anconia:

Nobody ever wondered whether Francisco d'Anconia was good-looking or not; it seemed irrelevant; when he entered a room, it was impossible to look at anyone else. His tall, slender figure had an air of distinction, too authentic to be modern, and he moved as if he had a cape floating behind him in the wind. People explained him by saying that he had the vitality of a healthy animal, but they knew dimly that that was not correct. He had the vitality of a healthy human being, a thing so rare that no one could identify it. He had the power of certainty.

Nobody described his appearance as Latin, yet the word applied to him, not in its present, but in its original sense, not pertaining to Spain, but to ancient Rome. His body seemed designed as an exercise in consistency of style, a style made of gauntness, of tight flesh, long legs and swift movements. His features had the fine precision of sculpture. His hair was black and straight, swept back. The suntan of his skin intensified the startling color of his eyes: they were a pure, clear blue. His face was open, its rapid changes of expression reflecting whatever he felt, as if he had nothing to hide. The blue eyes were still and changeless, never giving a hint of what he thought.

Not exactly the Hunchback of the Notre Dame, I think.

Frankly, I often thought what Dagny's reaction would have been to John Galt had he looked like Quasimodo.

Imo AR as a writer would have been totally incapable of dealing with the challenge such a constellation would pose, for in that case she would have had to present "the values of Galt's Gulch" without a dazzlingly good-looking hero (perceived as sexually attractive by the heroine) inviting the heroine to stay in that valley for good.

Edited October 23, 2009 by Xray

[merjet]

Frankly, I often thought what Dagny's reaction would have been to John Galt had he looked like Quasimodo.

Are you trying to say that if you wrote a novel with a hero, your hero would look like Quasimodo?

[Philip Coates]

"Nobody ever wondered whether Francisco d'Anconia was good-looking or not; it seemed irrelevant; when he entered a room, it was impossible to look at anyone else. His tall, slender figure had an air of distinction, too authentic to be modern, and he moved as if he had a cape floating behind him in the wind. People explained him by saying that he had the vitality of a healthy animal, but they knew dimly that that was not correct. He had the vitality of a healthy human being, a thing so rare that no one could identify it. He had the power of certainty.

Nobody described his appearance as Latin, yet the word applied to him, not in its present, but in its original sense, not pertaining to Spain, but to ancient Rome. His body seemed designed as an exercise in consistency of style, a style made of gauntness, of tight flesh, long legs and swift movements. His features had the fine precision of sculpture. His hair was black and straight, swept back. The suntan of his skin intensified the startling color of his eyes: they were a pure, clear blue. His face was open, its rapid changes of expression reflecting whatever he felt, as if he had nothing to hide. The blue eyes were still and changeless, never giving a hint of what he thought."

--What a wonderful, dramatic, powerful, effective, fascinating description and piece of writing!! Notice how much of this is spiritual description, not only physical or about being handsome or harmonious or pleasing "looks".

Edited October 23, 2009 by Philip Coates

[Philip Coates]

Subject: Rand didn't Oversimplify or Stereotype her Characters, Unperceptive Critics Did

> black-and-white puppets [the characters]...human traits were radically removed from AS, there it is all shining angels with wings against devils with horns, hooves, tails and pitchforks [Dragonfly]

No, in fact, there is quite a lot of variation among the characters. It's not just identical, interchangeable good guys vs. lockstep bad guys like a Hollywood "shoot 'em up" western. There are characters 'in the middle' -- the Wet Nurse, Cherryl, Eddie -- who either change sides or are good but not quite as strong or lacking in some area. There are characters who have weaknesses or misunderstandings like Rearden. There are characters who always knew and understood, like Galt. Then there is Francisco who has to struggle with a personal value. Dagny and Readen and Francisco are different in many ways.

Even among the villains, one of them starts out in one place and slides downhill through choosing to side with the looters. [Everyone knows who that is, right?] The characterization of various looters and moochers is varied and different. James and Lillian are motivated by slightly different things [POP QUIZ: what are they?] and have rather different personalities. Floyd Ferris is different from both.r

Even the negative figures who get less "air time" in the book -- and thus have to be drawn more broadly -- like Wesley Mouch, Cuffy Meigs, Orren Boyle, Eugene Lawson, Simon Pritchard, and the Twentieth Century Motor heirs -- are not all the same. They vary in a number of significant ways. If you read carefully enough.

Not also that there is a spectrum from outright villains to fellow travelers and those too weak to resist. Example: Some of Rearden's fellow industrialists and businessmen.

A pretty rich spectrum with good variety (and I'm sure I'm forgetting a few). Not all 'angels' or 'demons'.

"Human traits" removed? Not so much.

Edited October 24, 2009 by Philip Coates

[Xray]

"Nobody ever wondered whether Francisco d'Anconia was good-looking or not; it seemed irrelevant; when he entered a room, it was impossible to look at anyone else. His tall, slender figure had an air of distinction, too authentic to be modern, and he moved as if he had a cape floating behind him in the wind. People explained him by saying that he had the vitality of a healthy animal, but they knew dimly that that was not correct. He had the vitality of a healthy human being, a thing so rare that no one could identify it. He had the power of certainty.

Nobody described his appearance as Latin, yet the word applied to him, not in its present, but in its original sense, not pertaining to Spain, but to ancient Rome. His body seemed designed as an exercise in consistency of style, a style made of gauntness, of tight flesh, long legs and swift movements. His features had the fine precision of sculpture. His hair was black and straight, swept back. The suntan of his skin intensified the startling color of his eyes: they were a pure, clear blue. His face was open, its rapid changes of expression reflecting whatever he felt, as if he had nothing to hide. The blue eyes were still and changeless, never giving a hint of what he thought."

--What a wonderful, dramatic, powerful, effective, fascinating description and piece of writing!! Notice how much of this is spiritual description, not only physical or about being handsome or harmonious or pleasing "looks".

Jmpo, but I see D'Anconia's description mostly as a assortment of various clichés (evoking the noble Ancient Roman, the cape-wearing aristocrat of bygone 'romantic' times etc.) combined with traits borrowed from "Leo", the student who had swept Ayn Rand off her feet at the moment she laid eyes on him (see BB's book, p. 47).

And in terms of the language used: what for example does "too authentic to be modern" mean? Would 'modern' signify "inauthentic" then?

"His face was open, its rapid changes of expression reflecting whatever he felt, as if he had nothing to hide. The blue eyes were still and changeless, never giving a hint of what he thought."

This description is psychologically very unconvincing imo. One the one hand, it is stated that whatever D'Anconia felt was reflected in his face, on the other hand, it says that his eyes remained still and changeless. But since the eyes have an essential part in conveying feelings, if they remain still and changeless while feeling is suggested, the expression becomes inauthentic, like e. in a 'frozen smile' with curved lips but the expression of the eyes not matching.

Rearden btw is described not that differently. He too is tall and gaunt, "he had always been too tall for those around him" (p. 28) (again Leo was the model here, who had towered above the others because he was very tall), with Rand 'loading' the term 'tall' suggesting her heroes were standouts in terms of 'greatness' too.

Rearden's face is "unyielding, and cruel, and expressionless."

When reading that, it made me shudder that AR would find such a man appealing at all.

What Rand had liked about Leo was "his arrogance and the haughty smile". Leo is described as "perfectly good-looking", with having a "very intelligent face, determined, clear-cut, aristocratic, self confident".

It looks like she always kept that easy impressionability of hers when came to men who looked and behaved like "her type of man".

Edited October 24, 2009 by Xray

[Philip Coates]

Subject: The Lingering Nietzschean Element

Rearden's face is "unyielding, and cruel, and expressionless."...Leo [had] "his arrogance and the haughty smile"

Xray, yes, although I think Rand is a great writer, she has flaws. And your two quotes indicate perhaps the greatest flaw Rand had in her fiction (very fortunately, she excises it from her philosophy).

One of them is the above, what I am going to call a Nietzschean element in her characterization. She does it with Roark also. She is trying to make a contrast with the weak, the appeaser, the social metaphysician, the person who gives in to or is afraid of society. So she swings to the opposite, the contemptuous hero.

Unyielding, arrogant, cruel, haughty, expressionless -- yes I know Rand wants to throw them in the face of a too altruistic, too soft world -- yes, I know she means them in a sense metaphorically or this is how ordinary people -intrpret- their expression and facial look...and the characters are capable of much, much more -- yes, I know a hard shell and tough imperviousness are probably a good way to survive Soviet Russia.

But we do not live in Soviet Russia. And these are not positive traits.

Nor are they how you deal with a hostile world, one full of buffets and disappointments. The "big" man, Aristotle's large-souled man, the magnanimous man is characterized by benevolence not contemptuousness.

She does "the Nietszche thing" less and less as the years go on in her fiction, as I recall. She rewrote books to remove much of the element. Francisco, for example, is a far more appealing character -- and a better, more rounded human being -- than Roark. (And, as I'll try to indicate in another post about Atlas, there is a great deal of compassion, sensitivity, and empathy in the book - often wholly missed by people rapidly turning the pages to follow the 'action'.)

But the N. elements are still not appropriate. Nor are they necessary literarily. I think there are probably other ways to make clear the unshakeable independence and integrity of a character. And they are probably a big part of what turn off (unfortunately since they are only one element and a residual one) some readers, particularly among those who are older and many people who have greater kindness, understanding of and appreciation of people than she did in some moods.

There are people folish and misguided enough among Objectivists to think that Roark's utter disinterest in what people think is a virtue. And there are people who dislike Rand's literature or philosophy foolish and misguided enough to think that this imperviousness is the essence of her characters, her literature, or her view of life.

Edited October 24, 2009 by Philip Coates