Toward an Esthetics of Horror

[dan2100]

This is a piece I wrote shortly after the one on Lovecraft. I'd hope, at that time, that this would stir up some debate and that I'd go on to expand and refine the ideas here. That didn't come to pass and my views have changed since.

I. Rand on Horror

Horror as an art form seems to embody everything Objectivism should be against. It portrays a world dominated by fear, where the bizarre or the supernatural destroy values and life. Before relegating Horror to the reject pile in Objectivist esthetics, it should be examined with an eye toward finding any redeeming features.

Ayn Rand deals explicitly with Horror in The Romantic Manifesto. She dismisses it as "the metaphysical projection of a single human emotion: blind, stark, primitive terror" (p. 113). She believes this to be more psychologically than philosophically based. Horror writers, according to her, are not projecting what they believe the world essentially to be like but essentially to feel like.

The examples she uses, Edgar Allen Poe's tales and "Boris Karloff movies," betray that she was not well versed in Horror (pp. 112-3). While one need not become a scholar of Horror, her range of examples is equivalent to someone dismissing Romanticism after reading some of E. T. A. Hoffman's short stories and seeing a performance of Cyrano de Bergerac. Even so, from a sense of life perspective, the main component of Horror fiction is fear, as Horror writer Howard Phillips Lovecraft agrees. [1]

II. Components of Horror

Is fear the only component Horror should be evaluated by? Horror writers vary, which should not be surprising. Lovecraft and Poe are at the fatalistic end of the spectrum, while writers like Ramsey Campbell often wind up with characters winning over the monsters. Triumphant heroes sounds like the stuff of Rand novels and not of Horror, but happy endings often are found in the latter. This difference is not superficial. The endings are often integrated with the story. A Lovecraft tale exudes a sense of doom from start to finish, e.g., "The Shadow Over Innsmouth". Thus the general direction of the Horror tale is another component to judge it by.

Another dimension of Horror is how the "weird" aspects — the extraordinary if not downright unnatural parts of it — manifest themselves. A trichotomy which is both popular and seemingly valid is the division of Horror into the marvelous, the uncanny, and the fantastic. [2] The marvelous is where the weird is taken to be a bona fide supernatural occurrence. This overlaps with Fantasy fiction such as the works of C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkein. Horror writers in this vein include Lord Dunsany, Bram Stoker, and some of Stephen King.

The next category, the uncanny, too extends beyond the realm of Horror into absurd and existentialist literature. In it the weird aspect is taken to be psychological — it's all in the mind. Poe is the archetypal writer of this variety of Horror, "The Tell-Tale Heart" and "The Black Cat" being prime examples. The uncanny need not signify madness. The gothic novels of Anne Radcliffe also fit into this pigeonhole because the alleged ghosts are found by the end of the story to have natural explanations. The main characters merely misread the phenomena. (Gothic literature is another genre that should be explored by Objectivists, as it had a huge impact on the Romantic movement which Rand so admired.)

The fantastic is perhaps the category which best fits horror. It relies on not allowing the reader to figure out whether the weird is real or merely a figment of the imagination. This heightens the experience of dread and cashes in on Edmund Burke's view of clear ideas as little ideas — i.e., of clarity being manageable, while murky ideas evoke the sublime. [3] (Burke's views on the sublime apply to Horror and influenced writers like Lovecraft.) If fear of the unknown is the most powerful fear, then murkiness — the ambiguity of not knowing whether the monster exists or is just an illusion — is a double fear. One doesn't know if the unknown is even there to begin with. Almost all of Lovecraft's works, some of the short stories of Algernon Blackwood and Ramsey Campbell, and Henry James' "The Turn of the Screw" are all instances of this.

The portrayal of metaphysical eruptions of lawlessness and the refusal to be clear about their nature seem anathema to an Objectivist worldview. This is not merely an issue of context. Lack of clarity occurs throughout our lives and the Objectivist should merely try to alleviate it where practicable. She should not go on a campaign to clarify every single item or issue. Most likely, such toil would not only end in failure but would absorb her whole life. The fantastic aims at unclarity as a goal — not merely something to be tolerated. Still, the fantastic is only one aspect of a certain strand of Horror.

III. Sense of Life, Catharsis, and Entertainment

Should Horror be dismissed by people who agree with Rand's esthetics and her philosophy? This is a question which many Objectivists and their sympathizers find easy to answer in the affirmative. Yet there are two reasons to answer in the negative — at least for the moment.

The first is that one's sense of life is not open to immediate and direct change. It is doubtful one can create a list of good sense of life qualities which can then be programed merely by changing what novels one reads, what music one listens to, or one's style of dress. Changing one's sense of life must be a slow and arduous process — assuming such change can be effected and that it is desirable. A rationalistic — taking principles not as guides to thought and action but mere rules to be imitated without question — approach that permeates the styles of living of many admirers of Rand grabs on to simple formulae, such as Don't read Horror, Don't listen to Folk Music, and Read Victor Hugo. An approach more in tune with the spirit of Objectivism is to explore one's sense of life and be open to the possibility that what one feels at first as negative might not be so. This has been pointed out by others in regard to other genres of art, and there is no reason to suspect it doesn't hold here.

The second reason comes from Aristote's notion of catharsis as treated in in his Poetics and interpreted in Richard Janko's essay "From Catharsis to the Aristotelian Mean". [4] In Janko's view, catharsis involves fine tuning character, specifically one's emotional makeup. Art can serve this purpose by showing how to feel (as well as act) the right way in extreme situations. In much the same way as working out will tone up muscles even though few weight lifters have to fight hand-to-hand or move boulders for a living, literature tones up the feelings though few spectators would find themselves in the position of Hamlet, Howard Roark, or the characters in a Lovecraft story.

If this is so, Horror may just provide another means of attaining catharsis, and, thereby, of emotional growth. Particular works could then be judged by their contribution to this end. It would seem that the fantastic subgenre of Horror would fail in this respect, but this must be put into the context of the stories themselves. Some of the attraction of Horror probably has to do with a desire to live in a world that is not boring and where choices matter. This projection of a meaningful world, where one can live or die depending on one's immediate choices or on one's success or failure at understanding the extraordinary, is the hallmark of much Horror, though not much fantastic Horror. An example of the former is Bram Stoker's Dracula.

As for those who might declare "I like certain horror stories and that's that!", I can only ask them to plumb the depths of their feelings. Life should be lived consciously. One should not engage one's every whim — which leaves one as a plaything of one's subconscious — or be compulsively on guard for bad emotions — which makes for self-alienation not self-perfection — but attempt to understand as much as is practical one's feelings and motivations and cultivate the proper traits. This is no easy process, and the role art plays in it has yet to be treated in depth, but Aristotle and Rand provide good starting points.

This aside, aren't there certain aspects of this form of art that are mere entertainment and have little or no bearing on character beyond that? One would not think someone a bad person because they liked Thai cuisine over, say, Cajun cuisine. Does the same apply to tastes in art, at least some of the time? It is possible that the "optional" could apply here as it does in some aspects of ethics and epistemology. [5]

Notes

1. See his Supernatural Horror in Literature (New York: Dover, 1973[1945]), p. 12.

2. See Chris Baldick, The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms (New York: Oxford, 1990).

3. A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful with Several Additions (New York: Collier, 1909[1757]), pp. 52 ff.

4. In Amelie O. Rorty, editor, Essays on Aristotle's Poetics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992).

5. See Leonard Peikoff, Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (New York: Dutton, 1991).

[anonrobt]

This aside, aren't there certain aspects of this form of art that are mere entertainment and have little or no bearing on character beyond that? One would not think someone a bad person because they liked Thai cuisine over, say, Cajun cuisine. Does the same apply to tastes in art, at least some of the time? It is possible that the "optional" could apply here as it does in some aspects of ethics and epistemology. [5]

.........................

This makes for the questions - what comprises mere entertainment?, if it is of value, what is the value in a negative like horror? if mere entertainment, could not also boiling dogs? if not, what makes it different from choosing different cuisines [is it really a 'matter of tastes'?]? and if of tastes, are tastes then a-moral?

[dan2100]

This aside, aren't there certain aspects of this form of art that are mere entertainment and have little or no bearing on character beyond that? One would not think someone a bad person because they liked Thai cuisine over, say, Cajun cuisine. Does the same apply to tastes in art, at least some of the time? It is possible that the "optional" could apply here as it does in some aspects of ethics and epistemology. [5]

.........................

This makes for the questions - what comprises mere entertainment?, if it is of value, what is the value in a negative like horror? if mere entertainment, could not also boiling dogs? if not, what makes it different from choosing different cuisines [is it really a 'matter of tastes'?]? and if of tastes, are tastes then a-moral?

Poor word choice on my part?

I'm not sure horror is a pure negative in the first place.

In regards to entertainment, too, I'm not sure it's an unlimited value or something that would trump all else. Thus, I'm not sure one could defend an immoral act -- is boiling dogs an example of such? -- on the grounds that it's pure entertainment.

Regarding tastes, we discussed some of this in http://www.objectivistliving.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=8464 , but the question still remains open to me -- both of where the boundaries might be drawn and if they might be drawn at all.

Also, I think Rand would've disagreed -- or she did at times and other times contradicted herself. Here is meant that I believe she believed every choice had moral import. One can be silly and say that the choice to wear the blue tie or the red one is a moral issue -- though it might not be one worth going to war over -- but I think that's the consistent outcome of some of her views.

[Jonathan]

Horror as an art form seems to embody everything Objectivism should be against. It portrays a world dominated by fear, where the bizarre or the supernatural destroy values and life.

Couldn't Rand's novels qualify as "horror" by that definition?

Ayn Rand deals explicitly with Horror in The Romantic Manifesto. She dismisses it as "the metaphysical projection of a single human emotion: blind, stark, primitive terror" (p. 113). She believes this to be more psychologically than philosophically based. Horror writers, according to her, are not projecting what they believe the world essentially to be like but essentially to feel like.

I wonder about writers who write both scary novels and non-scary novels. Which of their differing works would Rand say represents their "essential" view of existence?

I think Rand was closer to the truth when she said that an artist presents what he feels is important or worthy of contemplation, as opposed to presenting some sort of comprehensive emotional "essence" of what life is like to him. In fact, I think it's absurd to look at an artwork and declare that the mood that one experiences from it necessarily represents the artist's "essential" view or feeling of existence.

III. Sense of Life, Catharsis, and Entertainment

Should Horror be dismissed by people who agree with Rand's esthetics and her philosophy? This is a question which many Objectivists and their sympathizers find easy to answer in the affirmative. Yet there are two reasons to answer in the negative — at least for the moment.

The first is that one's sense of life is not open to immediate and direct change.

What a shallow, malleable person one must be to accept Rand's superficial condemnations of art, and, by implied extension, her superficial condemnations of those who enjoy it, and then actually take steps to "correct" one's tastes and emotions according to her silly pronouncements.

Art can serve this purpose by showing how to feel (as well as act) the right way in extreme situations. In much the same way as working out will tone up muscles even though few weight lifters have to fight hand-to-hand or move boulders for a living, literature tones up the feelings though few spectators would find themselves in the position of Hamlet, Howard Roark, or the characters in a Lovecraft story.

If this is so, Horror may just provide another means of attaining catharsis, and, thereby, of emotional growth.

Indeed. In other words, experiencing our fears through art, and how we might face them, can be as valuable and meaningful as experiencing our highest hopes and dreams, or our most difficult ethical temptations or political challenges, etc.

J

[dan2100]

Horror as an art form seems to embody everything Objectivism should be against. It portrays a world dominated by fear, where the bizarre or the supernatural destroy values and life.

Couldn't Rand's novels qualify as "horror" by that definition?

I wasn't really offering up a definition there.

Ayn Rand deals explicitly with Horror in The Romantic Manifesto. She dismisses it as "the metaphysical projection of a single human emotion: blind, stark, primitive terror" (p. 113). She believes this to be more psychologically than philosophically based. Horror writers, according to her, are not projecting what they believe the world essentially to be like but essentially to feel like.

I wonder about writers who write both scary novels and non-scary novels. Which of their differing works would Rand say represents their "essential" view of existence?

I don't think it'd be a serious problem for her. You and I might not like her answer, but I could easily imagine her saying this is no different from a man who works conscientious at a job and also likes to beat his wife. Both are aspects of him and both go into judging his character.

I think Rand was closer to the truth when she said that an artist presents what he feels is important or worthy of contemplation, as opposed to presenting some sort of comprehensive emotional "essence" of what life is like to him. In fact, I think it's absurd to look at an artwork and declare that the mood that one experiences from it necessarily represents the artist's "essential" view or feeling of existence.

I think the two are linked, but I think I see what you mean.

III. Sense of Life, Catharsis, and Entertainment

Should Horror be dismissed by people who agree with Rand's esthetics and her philosophy? This is a question which many Objectivists and their sympathizers find easy to answer in the affirmative. Yet there are two reasons to answer in the negative — at least for the moment.

The first is that one's sense of life is not open to immediate and direct change.

What a shallow, malleable person one must be to accept Rand's superficial condemnations of art, and, by implied extension, her superficial condemnations of those who enjoy it, and then actually take steps to "correct" one's tastes and emotions according to her silly pronouncements.

In this case, though, imagine sense of life were open to moral judgment or even that someone just want to change hers or his. In the former case -- one's sense of life does bear on judgment about one's self -- then changing one's sense of life becomes an important issue and one might, outside of Randian philosophy, look at it simply as with any character change -- e.g., stopping a bad habit or starting a good one.

Art can serve this purpose by showing how to feel (as well as act) the right way in extreme situations. In much the same way as working out will tone up muscles even though few weight lifters have to fight hand-to-hand or move boulders for a living, literature tones up the feelings though few spectators would find themselves in the position of Hamlet, Howard Roark, or the characters in a Lovecraft story.

If this is so, Horror may just provide another means of attaining catharsis, and, thereby, of emotional growth.

Indeed. In other words, experiencing our fears through art, and how we might face them, can be as valuable and meaningful as experiencing our highest hopes and dreams, or our most difficult ethical temptations or political challenges, etc.

Yeah, I find myself more in line with this view, though I feel that this still is, too, moralizing about art -- and moralizing in a bad or crude sense.

[Jonathan]

Horror as an art form seems to embody everything Objectivism should be against. It portrays a world dominated by fear, where the bizarre or the supernatural destroy values and life.

Couldn't Rand's novels qualify as "horror" by that definition?

I wasn't really offering up a definition there.

Okay, well, then was it a "description" that you were offering? If so, couldn't Rand's novels qualify as "horror" by your description?

Ayn Rand deals explicitly with Horror in The Romantic Manifesto. She dismisses it as "the metaphysical projection of a single human emotion: blind, stark, primitive terror" (p. 113). She believes this to be more psychologically than philosophically based. Horror writers, according to her, are not projecting what they believe the world essentially to be like but essentially to feel like.

I wonder about writers who write both scary novels and non-scary novels. Which of their differing works would Rand say represents their "essential" view of existence?

I don't think it'd be a serious problem for her. You and I might not like her answer, but I could easily imagine her saying this is no different from a man who works conscientious at a job and also likes to beat his wife. Both are aspects of him and both go into judging his character.

Oh, I agree. I think that once Rand had decided what an artist's "sense of life" was, there was probably no changing her mind, including by quoting her own statement about not being able to know or judge others' senses of life without knowing them personally and intimately for years.

What a shallow, malleable person one must be to accept Rand's superficial condemnations of art, and, by implied extension, her superficial condemnations of those who enjoy it, and then actually take steps to "correct" one's tastes and emotions according to her silly pronouncements.

In this case, though, imagine sense of life were open to moral judgment or even that someone just want to change hers or his. In the former case -- one's sense of life does bear on judgment about one's self -- then changing one's sense of life becomes an important issue and one might, outside of Randian philosophy, look at it simply as with any character change -- e.g., stopping a bad habit or starting a good one.

That may be an interesting hypothetical to ponder, but I don't know what practical relevance it really has. I haven't encountered anyone in real life who was upset about their tastes in art or worried about their sense of life, other than those who felt pressured by Rand or her followers. I don't see it as being a concern among people who haven't felt the need to conform to Proper Objectivist tastes, or to bully others into conforming to them.

Art can serve this purpose by showing how to feel (as well as act) the right way in extreme situations. In much the same way as working out will tone up muscles even though few weight lifters have to fight hand-to-hand or move boulders for a living, literature tones up the feelings though few spectators would find themselves in the position of Hamlet, Howard Roark, or the characters in a Lovecraft story.

If this is so, Horror may just provide another means of attaining catharsis, and, thereby, of emotional growth.

Indeed. In other words, experiencing our fears through art, and how we might face them, can be as valuable and meaningful as experiencing our highest hopes and dreams, or our most difficult ethical temptations or political challenges, etc.

Yeah, I find myself more in line with this view, though I feel that this still is, too, moralizing about art -- and moralizing in a bad or crude sense.

In what way is it "moralizing" to recognize that we can experience value and meaning in a "horror" novel?

J

[dan2100]

Horror as an art form seems to embody everything Objectivism should be against. It portrays a world dominated by fear, where the bizarre or the supernatural destroy values and life.

Couldn't Rand's novels qualify as "horror" by that definition?

I wasn't really offering up a definition there.

Okay, well, then was it a "description" that you were offering? If so, couldn't Rand's novels qualify as "horror" by your description?

I know you want to trash Rand here, but I don't believe this scratches that particular vexing itch of yours. Part of the problem is, of course, that the description wasn't offered up as defining or delimiting. But let's say it is somehow. Then the description would lead to concluding so many other stories -- e.g., Gide's Immoralist and James' The Aspern Papers -- would have to be called horror too. If that's so, then I'd question the value of the description in the first place.

Ayn Rand deals explicitly with Horror in The Romantic Manifesto. She dismisses it as "the metaphysical projection of a single human emotion: blind, stark, primitive terror" (p. 113). She believes this to be more psychologically than philosophically based. Horror writers, according to her, are not projecting what they believe the world essentially to be like but essentially to feel like.

I wonder about writers who write both scary novels and non-scary novels. Which of their differing works would Rand say represents their "essential" view of existence?

I don't think it'd be a serious problem for her. You and I might not like her answer, but I could easily imagine her saying this is no different from a man who works conscientious at a job and also likes to beat his wife. Both are aspects of him and both go into judging his character.

Oh, I agree. I think that once Rand had decided what an artist's "sense of life" was, there was probably no changing her mind, including by quoting her own statement about not being able to know or judge others' senses of life without knowing them personally and intimately for years.

At least you seem to admit that her basic theory might have some merit -- even if she didn't always apply it consistently.

What a shallow, malleable person one must be to accept Rand's superficial condemnations of art, and, by implied extension, her superficial condemnations of those who enjoy it, and then actually take steps to "correct" one's tastes and emotions according to her silly pronouncements.

In this case, though, imagine sense of life were open to moral judgment or even that someone just want to change hers or his. In the former case -- one's sense of life does bear on judgment about one's self -- then changing one's sense of life becomes an important issue and one might, outside of Randian philosophy, look at it simply as with any character change -- e.g., stopping a bad habit or starting a good one.

That may be an interesting hypothetical to ponder, but I don't know what practical relevance it really has. I haven't encountered anyone in real life who was upset about their tastes in art or worried about their sense of life, other than those who felt pressured by Rand or her followers. I don't see it as being a concern among people who haven't felt the need to conform to Proper Objectivist tastes, or to bully others into conforming to them.

I hope you don't take this as an insult, but you must not get out much. Political correctness is another widespread example of how people try to change their tastes. A fictional example of this is the movie Storytelling, but the girl being savagely (in my mind) satirized in that film is the type of person I met often enough in high school and college.

Indeed. In other words, experiencing our fears through art, and how we might face them, can be as valuable and meaningful as experiencing our highest hopes and dreams, or our most difficult ethical temptations or political challenges, etc.

Yeah, I find myself more in line with this view, though I feel that this still is, too, moralizing about art -- and moralizing in a bad or crude sense.

In what way is it "moralizing" to recognize that we can experience value and meaning in a "horror" novel?

Because you still seem to believe you need a reason to enjoy horror. In other words, it seems almost as if you're saying that "experiencing our fears through art, and how we might face them, can be as valuable and meaningful" and, therefore, justifies enjoying a good horror story or movie, whereas if it weren't for that we should be ashamed of ourselves for enjoying such -- and we ought to stop. Don't you see that?

[Jonathan]

I know you want to trash Rand here, but I don't believe this scratches that particular vexing itch of yours.

You don't see how Rand's novels could be seen as portraying worlds dominated by fear, where the bizarre (Toohey, Boyle, Taggart, Mouch, the sublimely formless gray masses of collectivism, envy and hatred of the good, etc.) destroy values and life?

My identifying the dark, destructive worlds presented in Rand's novels is not an attempt to "trash" her or her work.

At least you seem to admit that her basic theory might have some merit -- even if she didn't always apply it consistently.

I think there's a lot of merit in Rand thoughts on aesthetics. I just think that Objectivists, including Rand herself, are/were sometimes absurd in the superficiality, inconsistency and "context-dropping" with which they claimed to know the senses of life of artists and their art. The frantic eagerness to condemn, often without looking first, is what I find perplexing.

Because you still seem to believe you need a reason to enjoy horror. In other words, it seems almost as if you're saying that "experiencing our fears through art, and how we might face them, can be as valuable and meaningful" and, therefore, justifies enjoying a good horror story or movie, whereas if it weren't for that we should be ashamed of ourselves for enjoying such -- and we ought to stop. Don't you see that?

No, I don't see it. My pointing out that artworks classified as "horror" can satisfy Rand's criteria for art (both morally and aesthetically) -- that "horror" can be interpreted as presenting positive, pro-Objectivist meanings, "senses of life", "metaphysical value-judgments," etc. -- in no way implies that I agree that art must be justified on those grounds. In fact, it implies that my view is the opposite: That not only can "horror" be valued and appreciated according to my tastes and standards, but according to Rand's official Objectivist Esthetics as well.

Likewise, if Rand had asserted that people should choose to eat food based only on its nutritional value, and then claimed that steak should not be eaten because, although it tastes good, it has no nutritional value, you could not conclude that I was agreeing with her that people should choose to eat food based only on its nutritional value if I provided evidence of steak's nutritional value. In providing such evidence, I would be saying that even by Rand's uptight criteria people could choose to eat steak.

J

[dan2100]

I know you want to trash Rand here, but I don't believe this scratches that particular vexing itch of yours.

You don't see how Rand's novels could be seen as portraying worlds dominated by fear, where the bizarre (Toohey, Boyle, Taggart, Mouch, the sublimely formless gray masses of collectivism, envy and hatred of the good, etc.) destroy values and life?

Not unless you want to classify all similar stories as horror. That means just about any thriller would become horror.

My identifying the dark, destructive worlds presented in Rand's novels is not an attempt to "trash" her or her work.

Okay.

At least you seem to admit that her basic theory might have some merit -- even if she didn't always apply it consistently.

I think there's a lot of merit in Rand thoughts on aesthetics. I just think that Objectivists, including Rand herself, are/were sometimes absurd in the superficiality, inconsistency and "context-dropping" with which they claimed to know the senses of life of artists and their art. The frantic eagerness to condemn, often without looking first, is what I find perplexing.

I don't doubt that. But so? You can merely take her esthetics and run with it, chucking out all the junk, including the uninformed condemnations. If you do that, you'll likely make Randians fume with rage -- which would be worth it, no?

Because you still seem to believe you need a reason to enjoy horror. In other words, it seems almost as if you're saying that "experiencing our fears through art, and how we might face them, can be as valuable and meaningful" and, therefore, justifies enjoying a good horror story or movie, whereas if it weren't for that we should be ashamed of ourselves for enjoying such -- and we ought to stop. Don't you see that?

No, I don't see it. My pointing out that artworks classified as "horror" can satisfy Rand's criteria for art (both morally and aesthetically) -- that "horror" can be interpreted as presenting positive, pro-Objectivist meanings, "senses of life", "metaphysical value-judgments," etc. -- in no way implies that I agree that art must be justified on those grounds. In fact, it implies that my view is the opposite: That not only can "horror" be valued and appreciated according to my tastes and standards, but according to Rand's official Objectivist Esthetics as well.

Yes, well, in that case, my piece that started off this topic was an example of that: attempting to justify horror on Objectivist esthetics grounds -- well, as I saw them at that time.

I think there's a point to be made here, too, about judging a work according to any esthetics or standard. One should be careful to give the work the best possible chance in judging it -- following the idea put forth in An Experiment in Criticism by C. S. Lewis. I think Objectivists, especially, would benefit from not prejudging many works. (Didn't Erika Holzer, for example, do a review of "2001" that makes you think she went in there looking to condemn the film?)

Likewise, if Rand had asserted that people should choose to eat food based only on its nutritional value, and then claimed that steak should not be eaten because, although it tastes good, it has no nutritional value, you could not conclude that I was agreeing with her that people should choose to eat food based only on its nutritional value if I provided evidence of steak's nutritional value. In providing such evidence, I would be saying that even by Rand's uptight criteria people could choose to eat steak.

Understood, though, to me, it wasn't clear you were making that point.

Edited April 28, 2010 by Dan Ust

[Jonathan]

I think there's a lot of merit in Rand thoughts on aesthetics. I just think that Objectivists, including Rand herself, are/were sometimes absurd in the superficiality, inconsistency and "context-dropping" with which they claimed to know the senses of life of artists and their art. The frantic eagerness to condemn, often without looking first, is what I find perplexing.

I don't doubt that. But so? You can merely take her esthetics and run with it, chucking out all the junk, including the uninformed condemnations. If you do that, you'll likely make Randians fume with rage -- which would be worth it, no?

I'm usually not motivated by the enjoyment of making Randians fume, which isn't to say that I'm opposed to enjoying making them fume. Their fuming can be a pleasant by-product. What I'm more interested in is observing the mindset behind the fuming. I'm fascinated by how impervious to evidence and reason many self-proclaimed advocates of evidence and reason can be, and I've been interested in exploring which means are effective at getting through to people while challenging their cherished beliefs. I much prefer witnessing (if not causing, or experiencing for myself) a "Eureka!" moment to laughing at emotionalism and the mental gymnastics that people employ in order to cling to irrational beliefs.

J

[dan2100]

I think there's a lot of merit in Rand thoughts on aesthetics. I just think that Objectivists, including Rand herself, are/were sometimes absurd in the superficiality, inconsistency and "context-dropping" with which they claimed to know the senses of life of artists and their art. The frantic eagerness to condemn, often without looking first, is what I find perplexing.

I don't doubt that. But so? You can merely take her esthetics and run with it, chucking out all the junk, including the uninformed condemnations. If you do that, you'll likely make Randians fume with rage -- which would be worth it, no?

I'm usually not motivated by the enjoyment of making Randians fume, which isn't to say that I'm opposed to enjoying making them fume. Their fuming can be a pleasant by-product. What I'm more interested in is observing the mindset behind the fuming. I'm fascinated by how impervious to evidence and reason many self-proclaimed advocates of evidence and reason can be, and I've been interested in exploring which means are effective at getting through to people while challenging their cherished beliefs. I much prefer witnessing (if not causing, or experiencing for myself) a "Eureka!" moment to laughing at emotionalism and the mental gymnastics that people employ in order to cling to irrational beliefs.

I don't think Randians have a monopoly on this sort of hypocrisy. Again, no offense intended, but you must not get out much. Randians don't even have a monopoly on the "evidence and reason" thing. Hang out with some science geeks for a while and you're bound to run into someone praising himself for relying only on "evidence and reason" when forming opinions but who is the paragon of pigheadedness in the face of "evidence and reason."

[Jonathan]

I don't think Randians have a monopoly on this sort of hypocrisy. Again, no offense intended, but you must not get out much. Randians don't even have a monopoly on the "evidence and reason" thing. Hang out with some science geeks for a while and you're bound to run into someone praising himself for relying only on "evidence and reason" when forming opinions but who is the paragon of pigheadedness in the face of "evidence and reason."

I don't hang out with a lot of science geeks, so what you say may be true. What I've been talking about is my impression of people's attitudes toward aesthetics, and art is a subject about which I do "get out much." The general population is nowhere near to being as uptight aesthetically as the Objectivist population.

J

[dan2100]

I don't think Randians have a monopoly on this sort of hypocrisy. Again, no offense intended, but you must not get out much. Randians don't even have a monopoly on the "evidence and reason" thing. Hang out with some science geeks for a while and you're bound to run into someone praising himself for relying only on "evidence and reason" when forming opinions but who is the paragon of pigheadedness in the face of "evidence and reason."

I don't hang out with a lot of science geeks, so what you say may be true.

Merely one example. I've seen the same with Marxists, Left anarchists, transhumanists, and others.

What I've been talking about is my impression of people's attitudes toward aesthetics, and art is a subject about which I do "get out much." The general population is nowhere near to being as uptight aesthetically as the Objectivist population.

But what I've noticed is that most people tend toward the view that it's all subjective -- that there are no objective esthetic standards of any sort. That might completely pre-empt moralizing about tastes, but it seems to do so at a high price. (Not that people are looking at the price and saying, "It's not so high. I'll buy it!" It's just the default view in the culture, I think.)

[Jonathan]

But what I've noticed is that most people tend toward the view that it's all subjective -- that there are no objective esthetic standards of any sort. That might completely pre-empt moralizing about tastes, but it seems to do so at a high price. (Not that people are looking at the price and saying, "It's not so high. I'll buy it!" It's just the default view in the culture, I think.)

I haven't met many people who believe that "there are no objective esthetic standards of any sort." I've heard a lot of Objectivist-types claiming that that's what others think, but I think the Objectivists just aren't listening or reading carefully enough to what people are saying, and are distorting everything with their all-or-nothing, black-or-white O-mentality. Most non-Objectivists I talk to think that there are indeed objective standards in the arts, but that our tastes and judgments also involve a lot of subjectivity. When people say that aesthetic tastes are subjective, or highly subjective, they don't mean that there are no objective aesthetic standards of any sort, but that aesthetic judgments are a mix of objectivity and subjectivity. They mean that the pure objectivity that Objectivists pretend to achieve is not possible in regard to aesthetic judgments.

FWIW, the older I get, and the more "objective" aesthetic judgments that I hear from Objectivists, the more I agree with the non-Objectivists. If anything demonstrates the extreme subjectivity of tastes, it's the average Objectivist art essay or review.

J

[jriggenbach]

But what I've noticed is that most people tend toward the view that it's all subjective -- that there are no objective esthetic standards of any sort. That might completely pre-empt moralizing about tastes, but it seems to do so at a high price. (Not that people are looking at the price and saying, "It's not so high. I'll buy it!" It's just the default view in the culture, I think.)

I haven't met many people who believe that "there are no objective esthetic standards of any sort." I've heard a lot of Objectivist-types claiming that that's what others think, but I think the Objectivists just aren't listening or reading carefully enough to what people are saying, and are distorting everything with their all-or-nothing, black-or-white O-mentality. Most non-Objectivists I talk to think that there are indeed objective standards in the arts, but that our tastes and judgments also involve a lot of subjectivity. When people say that aesthetic tastes are subjective, or highly subjective, they don't mean that there are no objective aesthetic standards of any sort, but that aesthetic judgments are a mix of objectivity and subjectivity. They mean that the pure objectivity that Objectivists pretend to achieve is not possible in regard to aesthetic judgments.

FWIW, the older I get, and the more "objective" aesthetic judgments that I hear from Objectivists, the more I agree with the non-Objectivists. If anything demonstrates the extreme subjectivity of tastes, it's the average Objectivist art essay or review.

J

"I haven't met many people who believe that 'there are no objective esthetic standards of any sort.'"

In forty-odd years of talking with people about this issue, I've met with almost nothing else. The conventional view of the arts is that it's all about "what I like." "Good" is defined as "what I like." People who talk about "objective standards" for judging the aesthetic value of works of art, people who talk about making "arguments" to "prove" that a particular work is or is not "good" - these people are trying to tell other people what to like. If someone challenges your view that, say, the novels of Sidney Sheldon are really good, the way you "argue" for your view is to shout it louder and louder until your interlocutor abandons his efforts.

As I said in another thread, the sweaty, insensate herd.

JR

[dan2100]

But what I've noticed is that most people tend toward the view that it's all subjective -- that there are no objective esthetic standards of any sort. That might completely pre-empt moralizing about tastes, but it seems to do so at a high price. (Not that people are looking at the price and saying, "It's not so high. I'll buy it!" It's just the default view in the culture, I think.)

I haven't met many people who believe that "there are no objective esthetic standards of any sort."

As I've mentioned earlier, I think you don't get out much. The default view of almost everyone I've talked to about art, with rare exceptions, is that there are no objective standards in esthetics. Here is one example online from a discussion early last year:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LeftLibertarian2/message/27586

I've heard a lot of Objectivist-types claiming that that's what others think, but I think the Objectivists just aren't listening or reading carefully enough to what people are saying, and are distorting everything with their all-or-nothing, black-or-white O-mentality.

I hope you realize that Objectivists are a tiny minority. The average person -- even the average intelligent person or the average intellectual -- is not an Objectivist.

Also, there is a difference between the claim that there are objective standards in esthetics, what those particular standards are, how they might be applied (including the limits on their application), and errors in application, don't you think? To use an analogy, someone might hold there's an objective difference between a fish and a whale and then go on to tell us butterflies are whales while moths and cats are fish -- and further that we're depraved we disagree with her on this. Would this rather insane claim about butterflies, moths, and cats mean there are no objective differences between fish and whales?

Most non-Objectivists I talk to think that there are indeed objective standards in the arts, but that our tastes and judgments also involve a lot of subjectivity. When people say that aesthetic tastes are subjective, or highly subjective, they don't mean that there are no objective aesthetic standards of any sort, but that aesthetic judgments are a mix of objectivity and subjectivity. They mean that the pure objectivity that Objectivists pretend to achieve is not possible in regard to aesthetic judgments.

I'd like to see of some examples of this. The people I meet who are not Objectivists or Randians or even familiar with Objectivism tend to hold the view that there are no objective esthetics standards and that art is purely a matter of subjective tastes. In other words, they tend to think that if someone says X is a better work of art (novel, poem, painting, dance, whatever) than Y that that someone is merely telling us she or he likes X more than Y.

FWIW, the older I get, and the more "objective" aesthetic judgments that I hear from Objectivists, the more I agree with the non-Objectivists. If anything demonstrates the extreme subjectivity of tastes, it's the average Objectivist art essay or review.

It's more likely that the problem with that last, if you're being honest here and know what you're talking about, is that the writers of such tend to either not know what objective standards of esthetics are or not know how to apply them correctly. Yes, I agree, much of what some might call objective esthetic judgments by Objectivist writers is merely such writers (the Objectivists) offering up, mistakenly, their likes and dislikes (or the likes and dislikes of their in group) as the application of objective standards to a particular work, genre, or form of art. But that's not evidence against objective standards -- any more than people who commit logical fallacies is an argument against logical argument. Don't you agree?

[Jonathan]

In forty-odd years of talking with people about this issue, I've met with almost nothing else. The conventional view of the arts is that it's all about "what I like." "Good" is defined as "what I like."

I think that's more of an indication that most people recognize that they don't have the technical knowledge or experience to be making informed, objective criticisms of the arts, and that their views therefore include much more subjectivity than objectivity. I don't think it means that they think there are "no objective standards of any sort," but that they don't wish to pretend to possess the expertise needed to comment objectively. They merely "know what they like," and they want to share with others their enthusiasm, without pretending to speak with authority.

I prefer their attitude to that of the Objectivist members of the "sweaty, insensate herd," who don't recognize that their lack of technical knowledge prevents them from making informed, objective criticisms. They smuggle in their subjective preferences, and they pretend that the satisfaction of those preferences "objectively" constitutes aesthetic technical mastery, just as Rand did when commenting on the arts about which she was uninformed (for example, Rand liked "bold, pure colors," and disliked "smears," "blurs," "dissolving shapes," and "messy brushstrokes," so those subjective likes and dislikes became the standards that she used in the absence of any actual knowledge of the visual arts when raving about what she called Capuletti's "disciplined power," "virtuoso technique," and "sheer perfection of workmanship.")

People who talk about "objective standards" for judging the aesthetic value of works of art, people who talk about making "arguments" to "prove" that a particular work is or is not "good" - these people are trying to tell other people what to like. If someone challenges your view that, say, the novels of Sidney Sheldon are really good, the way you "argue" for your view is to shout it louder and louder until your interlocutor abandons his efforts

As I said in another thread, the sweaty, insensate herd.

Doesn't almost everyone run with herd to one degree or another? I think there are very few people who comment on art in Objectivish venues who have the requisite expertise, and the discipline not to stray beyond it, to avoid being tagged members of the herd. From what I've seen of your writings, JR, I think you have more than sufficient knowledge of literature. I think the same of Michael Newberry in regard to painting and drawing. On the other hand, although Kamhi and Torres are very knowledgeable of art history and philosophies of aesthetics, I think they lack the technical knowledge to make some of the "objective" evaluations of art that I've seen them make, and Newberry and other informed professionals (like Peter Cresswell, for example) join them among the herd when they feel the need to comment on art forms about which they too have only enough knowledge to "know what they like."

J

[Jonathan]

The default view of almost everyone I've talked to about art, with rare exceptions, is that there are no objective standards in esthetics. Here is one example online from a discussion early last year:

http://groups.yahoo....2/message/27586

Here's what the poster at that link wrote:

I don't think there can be any such thing as an "objective estheticjudgement."

As we move from "did I like it?" to "I didn't I like it because," we move from statements about whether I liked it to implicit hypotheses about whether other people with similar tastes would like it.

His statement that there is no such thing as an "objective esthetic judgement" is not necessarily the same thing as believing that "there are no objective esthetic standards of any sort." We'd have to know more about what he means by "objective esthetic judgement." Does he mean something like an ultimate aesthetic appraisal that a person might make about a work of art as a whole, or would he include appraisals of technical elements which make up one's ultimate aesthetic appraisal as also being "objective esthetic judgments"? Would he think that identifying the fact that, say, a singer isn't consistently singing in tune is to employ an "objective aesthetic standard," or would he call that an example of the employment of an objective scientific standard as opposed to an aesthetic one?

If the poster were to discover that an artist has admitted that she lacked the control to achieve her intended technical precision, would he call our recognizing her lack of control an "objective aesthetic evaluation" (in other words, might he accept the validity of the idea of "objective aesthetic evaluations" in cases where the artist's intentions are clearly known)?

Is his denial of the existence of "objective aesthetic evaluations" based, in part, on the recognition that those judging a work of art may have a "tin ear," or other appropriate "tin" organ as the case may be, which impedes their ability to judge adequately, and that we'd first have to identify objective criteria by which to judge the judges' qualifications before accepting their judgments as objective?

Have you discussed such details with any of the thousands of people with whom you've debated aesthetics while getting out so much more than I do?

Also, there is a difference between the claim that there are objective standards in esthetics, what those particular standards are, how they might be applied (including the limits on their application), and errors in application, don't you think? To use an analogy, someone might hold there's an objective difference between a fish and a whale and then go on to tell us butterflies are whales while moths and cats are fish -- and further that we're depraved we disagree with her on this. Would this rather insane claim about butterflies, moths, and cats mean there are no objective differences between fish and whales?

I understand. Would you mind providing examples of what you think are "objective aesthetic evaluations" of works of art from the various art forms (examples which don't contain any subjective preferences smuggled in)?

Also, do you think that there is one single purely objective aesthetic evaluation per work of art, or can there be more than one? In other words, can you and I make differing -- or even opposite -- objective aesthetic evaluations of the same work of art? If, for example, you purely objectively evaluate a painting by Capuletti to be a superbly masterful tour de force of expert workmanship, and, in comparison, you rate a drawing by Degas to be awkward and mediocre, can I be purely objective in disagreeing with you and evaluating the Capuletti to be student-grade work and the Degas to be great art?

If not, how would we determine which of us has made the objective evaluation? Or, if there can be more than one objective aesthetic evaluation of the same work of art, can there also be more than one objective evaluation of non-aesthetic phenomena? Can you objectively judge one ethical or political system to be superior while I objectively judge its opposite to be superior?

I'd like to see of some examples of this. The people I meet who are not Objectivists or Randians or even familiar with Objectivism tend to hold the view that there are no objective esthetics standards and that art is purely a matter of subjective tastes. In other words, they tend to think that if someone says X is a better work of art (novel, poem, painting, dance, whatever) than Y that that someone is merely telling us she or he likes X more than Y.

Perhaps part of the reason that they believe that anyone who claims to be making an objective aesthetic judgment is actually saying that they like the work of art in question is because, in their experience, people who are the most adamant about claiming the objectivity of their aesthetic evaluations are quite blatantly and obviously smuggling in their subjective preferences and simply calling them "objective"? Perhaps they have yet to see a purely objective aesthetic judgment?

It's more likely that the problem with that last, if you're being honest here and know what you're talking about, is that the writers of such tend to either not know what objective standards of esthetics are or not know how to apply them correctly. Yes, I agree, much of what some might call objective esthetic judgments by Objectivist writers is merely such writers (the Objectivists) offering up, mistakenly, their likes and dislikes (or the likes and dislikes of their in group) as the application of objective standards to a particular work, genre, or form of art. But that's not evidence against objective standards -- any more than people who commit logical fallacies is an argument against logical argument. Don't you agree?

Again, please give examples of what you think are objective evaluations of works of art. I'd be especially interested in reading examples of aesthetic judgments which identify the standards selected, and how they were selected to be applicable (without access to detailed knowledge of an artist's intentions, how would one determine that the artist didn't intentionally deviate from the standards that one employs? -- after all, great artists are notorious for rejecting established standards, and it can take decades, or even centuries, for the sweaty, insensate herd to finally get a hint of an inkling of the importance of the artist's innovation).

J

[Jonathan]

Here's Rand on "objective aesthetic judgments":

"In essence, an objective evaluation requires that one 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 he 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..."

How would one determine that one has identified the "artist's theme," as opposed to misidentifying it, if at no point one bothers to try to discover, by some means other than the art, what the artist intended to accomplish?

Here's Rand's statement rewritten so that it's about objective evaluations of tasks in general, and not just aesthetic ones:

"In essence, an objective evaluation requires that one identify the person's task, the purpose of his work (exclusively by identifying the evidence contained in the work and allowing no other, outside considerations), then evaluate the means by which he achieved it — i.e., taking his purpose as criterion, evaluate the purely technical elements of the work, the technical mastery (or lack of it) with which he accomplished (or failed to accomplish) his task..."

With that as our method of objective evaluation, please objectively evaluate the following:

A worker installs pipes on the ceiling of a chemical factory and then turns on a faucet, and the pipes spray water from what appear to us to be random seams.

Following Rand's method, identify the plumber's task and the purpose of his work. How well did he perform the task? Were the pipes supposed to spray water, or did he fail to connect all of them properly?

J

Edited May 1, 2010 by Jonathan