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

[Brant Gaede]

Capu in the Hammer gallery acknowledged, to I don't know who, that the woman in that picture was a composite of two women--or could be--one of them Ayn Rand. The other may have been an actress. I'm pretty sure Leonard Peikoff now owns the painting.

--Brant

I thought his prices were way too high. One landscape was priced at $10,000, which is like 40-50,000 today: my way of saying I couldn't afford it

[Ellen Stuttle]

Re the Capuletti nude, if the face is a composite of two people, Rand and an actress, then the painting is a composite of three people, the body being Pilar's.

See this post, #36 on the thread, and the next posts through #39, for details.

Ellen

PS: Leonard Peikoff definitely did have the painting on the wall behind him in a photo of him in his living room from 15 or so years ago. I presume he owned it and does still.

[Brant Gaede]

Re the Capuletti nude, if the face is a composite of two people, Rand and an actress, then the painting is a composite of three people, the body being Pilar's.

See this post, #36 on the thread, and the next posts through #39, for details.

Ellen

PS: Leonard Peikoff definitely did have the painting on the wall behind him in a photo of him in his living room from 15 or so years ago. I presume he owned it and does still.

I thought it was Dali whose wife was his only model. Regardless, it's what's in the face that counts. Maybe it's her too in the face. I think that resemblance doesn't necessarily mean 'so and so' was used as an actual model in the painting, but I think the Rand touch was deliberate. After all, it got him a sale and I'm sure he greatly appreciated her Objectivist article praising him to the max. Ego feeding ego can be a dangerous thing if it is over done--distorting, as can happen in romantic love--but even if it was over done, in this case I consider it to be harmless enough. Aesthetically he and his work became part of the Objectivist sub-culture thanks to Rand. Fair enough, but one more reason for me not to call myself an Objectivist. I'm adverse to running my ideas and notions and tastes through Objectivist filters. Take classical waltzes. I absolutely loved them as a very young man and still do. Then I read all this Objectivist denigration of that type of music. WTF? Not even one good word for their outstanding elegance.

--Brant

[Ellen Stuttle]

I thought it was Dali whose wife was his only model. Regardless, it's what's in the face that counts. Maybe it her too in the face.

Did someone say that Pilar was Capuletti's only model? I think she was, for the body, except in his sketches of the Flamenco troupe. The other El Nudo (or maybe it's Desnudo) is entirely Pilar, but he rarely painted her from the front. There are other front-view paintings in which the face which looks like Rand's improved and Pilar's body are combined.

What does "it's what's in the face that counts" mean?

Second time you've talked as if you think that the body in that painting is an insignificant part of the painting.

Ellen

[Brant Gaede]

I thought it was Dali whose wife was his only model. Regardless, it's what's in the face that counts. Maybe it her too in the face.

Did someone say that Pilar was Capuletti's only model? I think she was, for the body, except in his sketches of the Flamenco troupe. The other El Nudo (or maybe it's Desnudo) is entirely Pilar, but he rarely painted her from the front. There are other front-view paintings in which the face which looks like Rand's improved and Pilar's body are combined.

What does "it's what's in the face that counts" mean?

Second time you've talked as if you think that the body in that painting is an insignificant part of the painting.

Ellen

Only insignificant for IDing the model(s) or inspiration and relative to the face as long as there is congruence, which of course there is. I'm sure Rand didn't sit for the portrait, much less nude. The beautiful body is a significant part of the painting. Doesn't matter whose it is only that it is.

--Brant

[Ellen Stuttle]

The full Table of Contents is in post #150.

3. The Chosen People (Objectivists) [continued]

B. The Objectivist Soul: Stay clear of the sewer

a. Alienation from the self (guard against irrationality)

along the lines I've expressed to you; this would probably be

the longest section of the chapter.

b. Alienation from the species

Something you said, a question you ask clients (paraphrasing):

If you divided humanity into three groups --

(1) the lousy bastards, people very unlike you, which will be a small

group (I think a lot of Objectivists would disagree with you about how

many are in the lousy category);

(2) the ones very like you, necessarily few;

(3) the middle range --

are you more like or unlike the middle range?

You said Objectivists tend to answer "unlike."

This squares with my observations, they do feel unlike. Some few of them turn their

"chosen people" status into a false sense of superiority to the rest of mankind.

Most of them, I think, find the sense of alienation painful.

===

Ellen

[Ellen Stuttle]

The full Table of Contents is in post #150.

4. Sanctity and the Life Force

a broad overview of Objectivism's effects on "growth," on the wellsprings of life:

how it stultifies thought, destroys creativity, sterilizes sexuality.

There's a quote from Gray's "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" which makes me think of Objectivists.

The poem starts [link]:

"The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,

The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea,

The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,

And leaves the world to darkness and to me."

The poet reflects on the graves where:

"Each in his narrow cell for ever laid,

The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep."

The particular quote I think of is:

"Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest,

Some Cromwell guiltless of his country's blood."

How many creative people has Objectivism produced? Milton sets a high bar which few could aspire to, but I don't know of anyone whom I think Objectivism has helped in his or her creative confidence and endeavors.

Similarly in regard to producing "Cromwells," not taking the example literally but in the respect of masculine potency. I think that Objectivism is harder on the men than on the women (though maybe it's just that there are more males than females to observe), but it's hard on both sexes. The bedroom is the ultimate test of the soul. Objectivism puts such a burden on sexuality, it desexualizes.

Thought, Objectivism locks in a box, a point I've made in my letters and would elaborate on. For the Objectivist, life is perpetual studenthood, and knowledge flows straight from the font, it never goes the other direction.

Once I was at an Objectivist picnic and there was a girl there who was getting into conversation with one person after another, asking them about their Careers and smiling with enthusiasm at their Aspirations. She flitted to E, then to T, then on to the next group. E and T looked at each other and said in one breath: "And what will you be when you grow up?"

Well, what will Objectivists be when they grow up? Their philosophy delays and thwarts the process.

[to be continued]

===

Ellen

[Brant Gaede]

Aside from Objectivism, how has Atlas Shugged or The Fountainhead helped people be more creative and productive and happy? Quite a few I suspect, but there are no real data.

--Brant

[Ellen Stuttle]

Reading my sketch all these years (thirty-four or so years) later, I see why Allan didn't want to be mentioned in the book.

The "portrait" being drawn isn't flattering.

Ellen

[Ellen Stuttle]

Aside from Objectivism, how has Atlas Shugged or The Fountainhead helped people be more creative and productive and happy? Quite a few I suspect, but there are no real data.

--Brant

I think it's probably true, Brant, that the novels on their own have helped a lot of people. It was being drawn into studentship, and into the social circumstances, which straight-jacketed people's wings. Probably the very large majority of people who read the novels never got into exploring Objectivism.

Ellen

[caroljane]

"What will objectivists be when they grow up" could be the most fascinating endnote to your book. You can interview Brant for it!

[ginny]

Aside from Objectivism, how has Atlas Shugged or The Fountainhead helped people be more creative and productive and happy? Quite a few I suspect, but there are no real data.

--Brant

. Brant. I have always suspected that Barbara, who is a superb writer, didn't get into fiction because it's almost certain that there'd be some catcalls. Totally honest? I wish she had a better backbone (I don't mean that offensively/). I think AS and TF can go either way. Either you become paralized or you become liberated.

[caroljane]

Agree Ginny, Ellen asked me somewhere what I thought would've happened if Barbara had refused to marry NB and I said I thought she would have been ousted from the movement and become a good novelist.

[anthony]

Mostly (with some thought-provoking parallels) this is an indictment of religion, some Objectivists, but less or nothing of Objectivism. Obviously, one can turn just about anything into a religion of sorts, and become a religious practitioner. But is it Objectivism? Not so long as reality and reason and the independent mind are paramount.

Oops, of course! for Oists, this is religious dogma, and Reality is God...damn!

David Kelley covered it in observing the intrinsicism of Peikoff, and the damage it was doing:

"One of Ayn Rand's great insights... is her recognition that knowledge and values are objective, not intrinsic or subjective...

"As a theory of knowledge, intrinsicism holds that facts are revealed to us, that the mind is a passive mirror, absorbing the truth by revelation or the unthinking acceptance of authority...

So any failure to grasp the truth is a moral failure, a willful refusal to see, properly to be condemned...

"Intrinsicism is characteristic of religious and authoritarian movements; subjectivism has been the hallmark of secular relativist thought...

"Fundamentally, the choice is objectivity versus non-objectivity in its various forms. Being objective

in practice, however, does require a kind of mental balancing that sometimes feels like striking a compromise. We have to hold in mind the requirements both of reality and of our own nature, and if we focus too narrowly on one or the other, we tend to slide into intrinsicism or subjectivism".

[D. Kelley, Truth and Toleration, TCLOAR]

I think the intrinsicism that pervaded Objectivism early on, "slid" - for some - into its false opposite, skepticism. Kelley's insights are essential reading to Objectivism, blowing the lid off its elements of authoritarianism.

[Ellen Stuttle]

Tony,

Are you familiar with the "no true Scotsman" self-confirming maneuver?

I haven't finished posting the sketch. There's material directly pertaining to the philosophy as such.

Rand said in her "To Whom It Might Concern" that Objectivism is a dangerous philosophy to accept halfway.

I think it's an almost sure-fire invitation to trouble to try to accept in full.

This isn't to say that I see no value in Objectivism. I see considerable value in it as a prototype attempt. I think that Rand pretty much provided a good outline for a viable secular system, but that the system needs to be redone.

I know of various people who have come to or are coming to much the same conclusion and who are making efforts at redoing.

Ellen

[Brant Gaede]

Tony,

Are you familiar with the "no true Scottsman" self-confirming maneuver?

I haven't finished posting the sketch. There's material directly pertaining to the philosophy as such.

Rand said in her "To Whom It Might Concern" that Objectivism is a dangerous philosophy to accept halfway.

I think it's an almost sure-fire invitation to trouble to try to accept in full.

This isn't to say that I see no value in Objectivism. I see considerable value in it as a prototype attempt. I think that Rand pretty much provided a good outline for a viable secular system, but that the system needs to be redone.

I know of various people who have come to or are coming to much the same conclusion and who are making efforts at redoing.

Ellen

What does it mean to fully accept Objectivism? It means you pull enough self out of yourself to make room to run Objectivism in--the whole ball of wax a la Ayn Rand.

--Brant

that's selflessness and that is "dangerous" and that's the contradiction so, ergo, since contradictions can't exist Objectivism doesn't exist except as a bunch of words, so sayeth the slayest, Ayn Rand O'Connor (1905 - 1982)

[Brant Gaede]

Objectivism

Four basic integrated principles

>reality

>reason

>(rational) self interest

>individual rights (laissez-faire capitalism, freedom, etc.)

Only dangerous if ignored or contradicted or wrongly expanded on and sans the necessary critical thinking

(The first two are shared by science and all four should be shared by all and sundry--including scientists--though they never will be (ought from is the "is" being what the philosophy "ought" be: it's not circular because it's not the base--the base is the human animal [man (a man, a woman--men and women) ought have this philosophy because of the nature of human nature])

--Brant

the law giver (just joking)

extensions of the philosophy beyond these principles are tentative postulations and suggestions as if "if, then then", not absolutist moral laws save for oneself for oneself and for others respecting oneself--and if you can't get that respect you either disrespect and/or disconnect or correct, which is what Ayn Rand did (her contradiction was she didn't personalize enough but wrongly over-generalized off the base as in "For Whom it May Concern")

[Ellen Stuttle]

I think the intrinsicism that pervaded Objectivism early on, "slid" - for some - into its false opposite, skepticism. Kelley's insights are essential reading to Objectivism, blowing the lid off its elements of authoritarianism.

The biggest problem I see in Objectivism from a practice standpoint - the standpoint to trying to live as an Objectivist - is the moralism. (I see logical and factual errors in the total philosophy, but here I'm focusing on the attempt to live by the ethics.) I think that the moralism can't be avoided without altering the strongly virtue-oriented approach.

I mentioned in a recent post on another thread (#99 on the "National Review..." thread) that I'd worked out guidelines of my own before the first time I read Atlas.

In doing a search on "guidelines" in my posts, I came up with another in which I wrote:

Briefly answering the revised question, I don't think in terms of living by Objectivism. I'd worked out my own little ethical guidelines before the first time I read Atlas Shrugged (June 1961). I've lived by those little guidelines ever since and liked the results. My thinking about Objectivism is from an abstract perspective, wanting to understand where I think Rand got it right and where I think the "system" (such as it is, far from a complete system) needs fixing.

The circumstance which led me to thinking that I needed some sort of guidelines for living by was a course I took my first quarter at Northwestern on Greek philosophy.

I got to thinking about Plato's notion of "the Good" as a Form which was "out there" somewhere in a world of Forms. This seemed strange because it wasn't the way I would usually think of "good." Instead, I would think of "good" as good FOR some purpose - for instance, a good car, an example which readily came to mind because of my driving a lot in those days and having a car which, though it got me there, did so not without difficulties (the biggest of the difficulties was starting the motor).

Then I thought, What does "good" mean in thinking of a "good" life? What's the "good" of a "good life" FOR?

Well... (Note: I make no claims of this progression's displaying "good" logic. It's simply the way the progression actually went.)

What is one living for?

To be happy.

But some courses of action aren't going to work to get to happy.

And one has no choice about making choices all the time. One is always deciding what to do and what not to do.

So there's a need for some principles - a blueprint - which will increase the chances of being happy. (I used the word "blueprint" then, though I don't like the implications of fixity today and prefer "guidelines.")

Then came the part on which I spent quite awhile, pacing in the basement of our house, where on one wall there was a little blackboard which I'd sometimes use in working out algebra problems and which I used on this occasion for jottings.

I came up with a set of questions to keep in mind to guide me:

1) What do I want, and why?

2) Can I get it, and if so how?

3) Then, as a safety test against pursuing some self-defeating goal,

And if I get it, will I like it?

Easy to keep in mind, not so easy to employ, since in practice it would need being really clear on motives and reasons, plus careful attention to causality. But I thought it would work.

I've been pleased with the results - and spared a whole lot of racking over the coals which I've seen Objectivists and others focused on whether or not they're being virtuous get themselves into to.

Ellen

[anthony]

Tony,

Are you familiar with the "no true Scotsman" self-confirming maneuver?

I haven't finished posting the sketch. There's material directly pertaining to the philosophy as such.

Rand said in her "To Whom It Might Concern" that Objectivism is a dangerous philosophy to accept halfway.

I think it's an almost sure-fire invitation to trouble to try to accept in full.

This isn't to say that I see no value in Objectivism. I see considerable value in it as a prototype attempt. I think that Rand pretty much provided a good outline for a viable secular system, but that the system needs to be redone.

I know of various people who have come to or are coming to much the same conclusion and who are making efforts at redoing.

Ellen

Yes, reading Rand saying one should swallow Objectivism "in one gulp", I imagined telling her "Easy for YOU to say, kid!"

If you divide O'ism roughly into body of knowledge and methodology, the first is easy but I reckon it's the second that takes the really tough digestion. For instance, it took me really long to find out that intrinsicism is more than a simple fallacy (i.e. no knowledge without knower, no value without valuer) but a whole philosophy too - and equal to subjectivism as Objectivism's arch-rival. Would I have known, but for Kelley's gently understated criticism of Peikoff? I evidently didn't pay enough attention to ITOE, back then.

That we walk that path between the devil of skepticism-subjectivism and the blue sea of intrinsicism- as Kelley indicated - provided a big AhA! moment for me. (Good on you, DK and OL). As for them appearing too within Objectivism - well, hell.

A "prototype" that needs "re-doing", I'm very dubious about. The clues are all there, if scattered and often in Rand's terse delivery, and one only has to connect the dots. (With an eye on the real scholars). There's greater satisfaction and knowledge penetration this way, than absorbing somebody's reworked presentation.

(And the only way to avoid getting drowned by intrinsicism's revelation by authority).

[anthony]

The biggest problem I see in Objectivism from a practice standpoint - the standpoint to trying to live as an Objectivist - is the moralism. (I see logical and factual errors in the total philosophy, but here I'm focusing on the attempt to live by the ethics.) I think that the moralism can't be avoided without altering the strongly virtue-oriented approach.

In doing a search on "guidelines" in my posts, I came up with another in which I wrote:

Briefly answering the revised question, I don't think in terms of living by Objectivism. I'd worked out my own little ethical guidelines before the first time I read Atlas Shrugged (June 1961). I've lived by those little guidelines ever since and liked the results. My thinking about Objectivism is from an abstract perspective, wanting to understand where I think Rand got it right and where I think the "system" (such as it is, far from a complete system) needs fixing...

Then I thought, What does "good" mean in thinking of a "good" life? What's the "good" of a "good life" FOR?

Well... (Note: I make no claims of this progression's displaying "good" logic. It's simply the way the progression actually went.)

What is one living for?

To be happy.

But some courses of action aren't going to work to get to happy.

Ellen

First, I see the challenge of not throwing out the morality with the "moralism". Again, Kelley offers a non-intrinsic approach to "judgmentalism" without straying from Rand in the least, as far as I can tell. It remains essential for one to judge - to choose - people, since other people are fundamental to our well-being, or sometimes to our detriment.

Otherwise, where is there fault with the egoist morality? If one stops to think about it, conventional, other-centric moralities are self-contradictory: they presume that man is no good, and has to be commanded to be good. Valuing anonymous 'others', for the sake of, well...value. Intrinsicism, again. Or wishing we could all get along and love each other. Subjectivism. Practically, it's not as though they've even been successful - but only raised levels of guilt and resentment.

It's a marvel they've survived as long, in fact.

Whereas, a self-centric morality is the inevitable outcome of reality: a man can be good or bad - to himself, his own existence - at any time, so must find his way according to a code only he can ascertain. With the assumption that anyone who adheres to rationality will dedicate himself to volitionally choosing 'real' goals in keeping with man's nature - so additionally hasn't the slightest thought to harming others.

You showed how you selected your purpose and your values, and I don't see a strong departure from Objectivist ethics. It was the Ellen-consciousness that observed, that wanted, and aimed toward gaining the virtues and character required to earning and keeping your values. (And can even recollect the process, now.) Can you imagine anyone else taking charge of, or protecting, your consciousness: intimately knowing what you want, and your chosen, self-directed path to those ends? (Which may change as you go along?) The most loving individual cannot, and wouldn't wish to, anyway. Who else can know your emotions and subconscious, and their source in your consciousness but you? Who most knows the gratification of the most modest success, or most feels the pain of a small defeat?

Rhetorical, natch.

Pardon the ramble.

[Brant Gaede]

Without love, the idea of love, the aspiration of love, the remembrance of love, nothing else matters much unless you're a sociopath or psychopath.

--Brant

[caroljane]

Perfectly said, Brant.

[anthony]

Without love, the idea of love, the aspiration of love, the remembrance of love, nothing else matters much unless you're a sociopath or psychopath.

--Brant

Yes, but not selfless. Never self-less.

[PDS]

Without love, the idea of love, the aspiration of love, the remembrance of love, nothing else matters much unless you're a sociopath or psychopath.

--Brant

Yes, but not selfless. Never self-less.

Is there such a thing as selfless love?

[caroljane]

No. It is possible to love another person more than you love yourself, but it is still yourself doing the loving.