"In the beginning..." (Christology and Randology)


Ellen Stuttle

Recommended Posts

  • Replies 285
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

I never had any desire to meet a Galt, and I felt sorry for Dagny. It didn't occur to me until a couple years later, when I found out that there was The Objectivist Newsletter and I subscribed to it, that anyone would want to emulate Dagny.

Ellen

I don't think knowing a Howard Roark would make life anymore interesting.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

What the chapters would include:

1. The Woman Who Became God

A. Ayn Rand, the facts

a brief biographical account, mainly what's publicly known about her: background, life history, what books she published when, etc. Since my emphasis will be on the pitfalls and problems of Objectivism, an extended biographical account isn't necessary.

B. Ayn Rand, the myths

total rationality, total consistency (and why they're fallacious ideas)

alone against 2000 years (which she isn't really)

and other conceits: for instance, appointing an intellectual heir - "I who have the truth shall say who is qualified to speak it." "I am the final arbiter on what is and isn't consistent with Objectivism." "My followers are my students (and few graduate) - I shall say who is worthy to be called an Objectivist."

C. The Annointed Son

the heir himself, and NBI

the split: I'd handle that mainly from the standpoint of its effect on Objectivists. (I should really call it The Fall, shouldn't I? Fallen angels sprout horns.)

Did she or didn't she sleep with him, or want to? Lacking conclusive evidence, I have to rest with strong suspicion. What I'm sure of is that she was foolish to publish a statement that invited public speculation.

D. The Circle of the Elect

associates, again briefly, who they are (or were) and a little about them

E. The Lonely Throne of Heaven

having built a pedestal for herself, she was then expected to stand on it. It's lonely to be God, you're cut off from the human world. And it's lonely to be cut off from other intellectuals - when you tell people they're out to destroy minds, you really shouldn't expect their praise. Nonetheless, it hurts not to get it when you know you deserve it. In her isolation, albeit self-created, Rand is a tragic figure.

[Recall, she was still alive when I wrote this, hence the present tense.

===

Ellen

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I never had any desire to meet a Galt, and I felt sorry for Dagny. It didn't occur to me until a couple years later, when I found out that there was The Objectivist Newsletter and I subscribed to it, that anyone would want to emulate Dagny.

Ellen

I don't think knowing a Howard Roark would make life anymore interesting.

I had a desire to go to bed with Wynand. Especially in one scene (the one in which he and Dominique first bedded), he produced a physical reaction. My reaction to Roark was on the edge of dislike, not quite over the edge, but not liking either except somewhat in a few scenes. Roark seemed to me to lack a component which I would want to have there in a friend. However, I found the relationship between Roark and Wynand beautiful and bordering on homoerotic. (I learned later that Rand became angered when people suggested that there was a homoerotic quality in the relationship.)

I have a lot to say about my comparative reactions to Rand's fiction works, but I'll wait on that subject till I've made it through the slog of typing in my book sketch.

Ellen

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There is far less of a difference between shrugging and turning the other cheek than one might think.

Turning the other cheek, in the ancient world, was a way of humiliating the person doing the striking, i.e., by requiring the use of the backhand after a blow with the open hand.

This is a far more subtle and aggressive piece of advice than most give JC credit for.

Thanks for posting this. Next time I'll start with the backhand.

--Brant

it was so frustrating!

Robert Merrill pointed out a lot of superficial similarities

Ah, but there is the rub.

Starting with a backhand is like blowing a bullhorn that you are about to hit someone, and, if they know how to defend themselves, you will get hit or kicked first.

Turning the other cheek really is the equivalent of saying: "Go ahead, hit me again. Your violence does not deter me. You will only be further humiliating yourself." Jesus was more subversive than we think.

On a less serious note, perhaps Adam/Selene has read more of the Bible than he lets on! :laugh:

PDS:

I do so enjoy your humor, counselot oops. counselor.

Hmm, now, as a defence counselor, we could use the name Sir Counselot and capitalize on the 50 Shades of Gray.

No, I have not read any of them.

I have my sources...

Actually, I have spot read sections.

My major "reading" of either Testaments came primarily through the Asimov books:

Asimov's Guide to the Bible: The Old Testament, Vol. 1 http://www.amazon.com/Asimovs-Guide-Bible-Testament-Vol/dp/0380010321

and

http://www.amazon.com/Asimovs-Guide-Bible-Isaac-Asimov/dp/051734582X < this includes the New Testament.

Asimov's Guide to the Bible is a work by Isaac Asimov that was first published in two volumes in 1967 and 1969, covering the Old Testament and the New Testament (including the Catholic Old Testament, or deuterocanonical, books and the Eastern Orthodox Old Testament books, or anagignoskomena, along with the Fourth Book of Ezra), respectively. He combined them into a single 1296-page volume in 1981. They included maps by the artist Rafael Palacios.

Including numerous black-and-white maps, the guide goes through the books of the Bible in KJV order, explaining the historical and geographical setting of each one and the political and historical influences that affected it, as well as biographical information about the main characters. Asimov treats the secular aspects of the Bible with intellectual instead of theological commentary. His appendix "Guides to the Old and New Testament" include biblical verse, footnotes, references and subject indices.

A...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There is far less of a difference between shrugging and turning the other cheek than one might think.

Turning the other cheek, in the ancient world, was a way of humiliating the person doing the striking, i.e., by requiring the use of the backhand after a blow with the open hand.

This is a far more subtle and aggressive piece of advice than most give JC credit for.

Thanks for posting this. Next time I'll start with the backhand.

--Brant

it was so frustrating!

Robert Merrill pointed out a lot of superficial similarities

Ah, but there is the rub.

Starting with a backhand is like blowing a bullhorn that you are about to hit someone, and, if they know how to defend themselves, you will get hit or kicked first.

Turning the other cheek really is the equivalent of saying: "Go ahead, hit me again. Your violence does not deter me. You will only be further humiliating yourself." Jesus was more subversive than we think.

On a less serious note, perhaps Adam/Selene has read more of the Bible than he lets on! :laugh:

PDS:

I do so enjoy your humor, counselot.

Actually, I have spot read sections.

My major "reading" of either Testaments came primarily through the Asimov books:

Asimov's Guide to the Bible: The Old Testament, Vol. 1 http://www.amazon.com/Asimovs-Guide-Bible-Testament-Vol/dp/0380010321

and

http://www.amazon.com/Asimovs-Guide-Bible-Isaac-Asimov/dp/051734582X < this includes the New Testament.

Asimov's Guide to the Bible is a work by Isaac Asimov that was first published in two volumes in 1967 and 1969, covering the Old Testament and the New Testament (including the Catholic Old Testament, or deuterocanonical, books and the Eastern Orthodox Old Testament books, or anagignoskomena, along with the Fourth Book of Ezra), respectively. He combined them into a single 1296-page volume in 1981. They included maps by the artist Rafael Palacios.

Including numerous black-and-white maps, the guide goes through the books of the Bible in KJV order, explaining the historical and geographical setting of each one and the political and historical influences that affected it, as well as biographical information about the main characters. Asimov treats the secular aspects of the Bible with intellectual instead of theological commentary. His appendix "Guides to the Old and New Testament" include biblical verse, footnotes, references and subject indices.

A...

Adam: I was hoping that bon mot had not gone to waste!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just catching up on this thread from page one (1).

Quite interesting thread.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I never had any desire to meet a Galt, and I felt sorry for Dagny. It didn't occur to me until a couple years later, when I found out that there was The Objectivist Newsletter and I subscribed to it, that anyone would want to emulate Dagny.

Ellen

I don't think knowing a Howard Roark would make life anymore interesting.

I had a desire to go to bed with Wynand. Especially in one scene (the one in which he and Dominique first bedded), he produced a physical reaction. My reaction to Roark was on the edge of dislike, not quite over the edge, but not liking either except somewhat in a few scenes. Roark seemed to me to lack a component which I would want to have there in a friend. However, I found the relationship between Roark and Wynand beautiful and bordering on homoerotic. (I learned later that Rand became angered when people suggested that there was a homoerotic quality in the relationship.)

I have a lot to say about my comparative reactions to Rand's fiction works, but I'll wait on that subject till I've made it through the slog of typing in my book sketch.

Ellen

Gail took Howard on a cruise on his yacht to the south seas. Alone except for the crew. Strongly implicit homoeroticism. It would have made more sense--heterosexual sense and not novel sense--if they had gone to the Caribbean with a bunch of naked young women.

--Brant

I don't think Rand realized she was both Roark and Wynand and she was with Roark to Wynand and Wynand to Roark hence--I speculate about all this of course--it was completely heterosexual to her (she was on the boat!)

I wanted Dominique, but I didn't want to force myself on her: best sex scene: "Take off your clothes."

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The only Rand heroine I ever felt any resonance with was Dominique, because of her petulant stubborn inexplicable core. And I felt resentful that it all got explicated by philosophy and sex. Somehow I felt she should have retained herself (the bad and good)and not given it all over to Roark.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

"Culture gods" in ancient Indo-European cultures were also "Technology gods" and frequently tortured or persecuted by other gods for sharing the divine secrets with humans. Prometheus is of course an example.

Randology is older than we know.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The only Rand heroine I ever felt any resonance with was Dominique, because of her petulant stubborn inexplicable core. And I felt resentful that it all got explicated by philosophy and sex. Somehow I felt she should have retained herself (the bad and good)and not given it all over to Roark.

She was a trader. Roark gave it all over to her in return.

--Brant

the synergy of love

Link to comment
Share on other sites

"Culture gods" in ancient Indo-European cultures were also "Technology gods" and frequently tortured or persecuted by other gods for sharing the divine secrets with humans. Prometheus is of course an example.

Randology is older than we know.

Rand had the Prometheus story backward in Atlas. One of the characters, I think Francisco, says that John Galt is the Prometheus who took back fire until men withdraw their vultures.

But it wasn't men who punished Prometheus. It was Zeus.

Multiple details and variants of the story can be found on this Theoi Greek Mythology page. (All the variants I looked through say that the bird was an eagle, but I think I've seen variants where it was a vulture.) [*]

PROMETHEUS was the Titan god of forethought and crafty counsel who was entrusted with the task of moulding mankind out of clay. His attempts to better the lives of his creation brought him into direct conflict with Zeus. [....]. As punishment for these rebellious acts, Zeus ordered the creation of Pandora (the first woman) as a means to deliver misfortune into the house of man, or as a way to cheat mankind of the company of the good spirits. Prometheus meanwhile, was arrested and bound to a stake on Mount Kaukasos where an eagle was set to feed upon his ever-regenerating liver (or, some say, heart). [....]

Ellen

I'll get on with typing in my sketch in a while.

[*] Ah:

link

[....] Zeus commanded that Prometheus be chained for eternity in the Caucasus. There, an eagle (or, according to other sources, a vulture) would eat his liver, and each day the liver would be renewed. So the punishment was endless, until Heracles finally killed the bird.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

So, Galt was indeed a god.

Not if he was Prometheus. :laugh:

Prometheus was a Titan - or some say, not a Titan himself but "only a son of the Titan Iapetus (whence he is designated by the patronymic Iapetionidês, Hes. Theog. 528; Apollon Rhod. iii. 1087), by Clymene." (See the Theoi page.)

Ellen

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The full Table of Contents is in post #150.

2. The Burning Bush,

Rand as a "flaming beacon," the idealism she arouses, the

inspiration she gives, the glory she lights within:

"In the name of the best within us" -

how her followers get hooked, in other words, what's the appeal

...The Promised Land,

Rand's vision of what life could and should be -

followers respond to her portrayal of the "could,"

then get locked in by the strictures of her "should"

...The Tablets of Stone

"I've come that you might have happiness...

...someday, at a price."

how the emphasis goes wrong, so that being moral becomes the actual goal and being happy a projected future reward

Basically what I would say in this section is what I've said in letters to you [AB], with further elaboration.

Fortunate for my metaphor that the Biblical commandments were engraved on stone - fits with the atmosphere of rigid constraint.

===

Ellen

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The full Table of Contents is in post #150.

[Part 1 of this section]

3. The Chosen People (Objectivists),

first a brief demographic description:

how many are there, what background?

One can't generalize very far, I think - all ages,

professions, backgrounds. But mainly middle-class

or upper-middle-class college-educated?

A high percentage of dissident Catholics, or

people like [X], for instance, with her

strong Lutheran background, i.e., people geared

from childhood to an "embracing religion"

Also a lot of atheistic Jews, to whom the appeal

is more that of "intellectual system"

Plus people of many descriptions who were

inspired by her books

These are just my impressions based on people I know - you'd

have a much better sense of where Objectivists come from

than I have. Maybe I could ask you some questions?

The main thrust of the chapter: what Objectivism does to the

individual, why the Objectivist qua Objectivist is an uneducated robot.

What I'd try to show is the frequent harmful consequences of

trying to live as an Objectivist.

I'm a little worried about the way I've explained this chapter,

how the tone will come across. What I've put into the outline

is mainly things I haven't said to you before about Objectivist

behavior.

My worry is that the tone sounds "down on Objectivists."

If so, I'd try not to sound that way in the book. Objectivists can

irritate hell out of me, but some of my best friends are

Objectivists. And I could go so far as to consider myself

a failed student.

[section to be continued]

===

Ellen

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The full Table of Contents is in post #150.

[Part 2 of this section]

3. The Chosen People (Objectivists) [continued],

A. The Objectivist Mind

which has certain characteristics:

a. I know the answers, why listen to the questions?

examples (actual quotes of remarks made either directly to me or to someone else within earshot):

"I don't need to go to the Museum of Modern Art, I already know what's there."

"She took the last name Hugo [and is therefore pseudo and fake]; what else do you need to know?"

(I'd say, approximately everything; the only question you have evidence for is, Why?).

[since Allan knew the person referred to and knew where she got the last name, I didn't say

in the outline. She took the last name Hugo as her pen name when she was approximately six.

It was the name of a stuffed owl her mother had given her. She hadn't even heard of

Victor Hugo then, let alone Ayn Rand.]

"I'm not surprised he's difficult to live with, he wrote an article about astrology.

"He has a concrete-bound mentality, I saw him carrying one of Branden's books."

I could multiply examples of similar pronouncements for many pages.

b. Never mind the context

Despite Rand's hammering about context, especially when people ask her the wrong question

about something she said previously: "Aren't these two statements inconsistent, Miss Rand?"

"Consider the context!". Right, got it. Except Objectivists don't have it.

They're trained to be insensitive, first, to their own needs and situation, secondly,

to everyone else's.

"My professor is irrational; he's a socialist."

Never mind that he's a sixty-year-old refuge from Nazi Germany, thinks Socialism is the

opposite of Nazism, has probably never read Ayn Rand, and would probably consider

her Nietzschean if he did.

Conversation at the corner drugstore - some poor soul makes an innocent remark

about the gas shortage. He's just making conversation, you understand, just being

friendly. But he's chosen an Objectivist to be friendly to, and he's in for a political

education he didn't ask for and doesn't want.

Y, who's one of the kindest of humans and would die a thousand deaths rather

than impose on anyone if he knew he was doing it, used to think nothing of

calling me in the middle of a business day and plunging straight into

philosophy. No preparation, no: "Do you have time to talk?"

He doesn't do that any longer, and partly he did it just through an

eagerness to talk ideas, but it's a small example of a larger problem.

Objectivists are slow to learn "the social graces," the little human

considerations for one's fellow man. Simple courtesy and "social ease"

are not readily developed through an attempt to be like Roark -

he, remember, could "walk over bodies without concern."

[section to be continued]

===

Ellen

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The full Table of Contents is in post #150.

[Part 3 - last - of this section]

3. The Chosen People (Objectivists) [continued],

A. The Objectivist Mind [continued]

c. Either/Or and Better/Worse

Objectivism as constraining to artistic options.

One can't respond with full love to Rand, or to Romantic art, if one

strongly responds to works on which she looks with disfavor.

It's Beethoven or Rand, Shakespeare or Rand. To claim to love

both equally is to demonstrate that you aren't a real appreciator

of Rand. (And of course, if you love the first of the pair more than

Rand...you're morally suspect.)

The prime example of better/worse is The Romantic Manifesto:

Romantic literature is the peak of art morally - and we have to have

a metaphysical proof to justify Ayn Rand's tastes as a law of nature.

Of course we have to caricature naturalism out of recognizable shape

and do serious distorting of romanticism as well. But never mind

particulars and facts - essences, remember.

d. Citizens of a tiny world

There's a quality, an intellectual one, which I find very attractive and

which I call "citizen of the world." What I mean is a breadth, depth, scope of

outlook, a view that embraces the whole panorama of human existence,

that sees human life in all its diversity, richness, splendor - and oddity -

"the glory, jest, and riddle of the world."

Objectivists don't have an embracing view - they don't see "the riddle,"

let alone "the jest," which they deny - they become unable to see the

glory. They're "deculturated" in a tragic way, cut off from their

heritage as human beings.

e. "Come, let us talk together"

Objectivist conversations, which would be a take-off, and I hope funny/sad:

the use of cue words, the pre-programmed responses

"But let's not talk with outsiders"

(because we can't communicate with them)

A small example of what I mean:

When Capuletti had a show in New York back in '70, there was that painting which

Rand bought, the nude - she's kneeling, her arms bound behind her, and there's

a piece of crystal quartz in the lower right foreground.

Well, there was this young Objectivist who was working himself into a state

of...despair, I think. He kept trying to get Capuletti to explain his reason for

putting the crystal in the painting. And Capuletti kept saying, essentially,

"Because it's beautiful." He kept trying to give an artistic reason, proportions, etc.,

and the young man wanted a "metaphysical" explanation; he wanted to know what

it meant in a rational scheme. He was frustrated, and Capuletti seemed

bewildered as to what was sought. (There was an additional source of

incomprehension in that Capuletti's English was poor, but the main difficulty was

the Objectivist's wanting an answer which fit his idea formed from Rand of the

way artistic work was supposed to be.)

===

Ellen

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now