georgedonnelly

Romanticism is a style of art, art being a selective recreation of reality based on the artist's metaphysical value judgments (AR paraphrase). Art is about a person imagining their ideal world, or commenting on how things could be. Sure it can also be a comment on how things are or were. Who knows what can be? No one. But that's irrelevant precisely because it is art. It's not a history text or a news photo. Romanticism isn't the be-all and end-all but it's quite the opposite of drek. As to man being heroic, that is an ideal. Art is about ideals, not strictly about representing reality.

i think one can separate the "movement" (LOL) of Objectivism from the philosophy. So one can be an objectivist and yet maintain strong distate for the things you mentioned. By Objectivism/objectivist I am referring to Ayn Rand's works of philosophy and not any others'. Nor am I referring to her personality foibles. Good joke!

he should use a unique domain for that. he's building value into the domain nathanielbranden.wordpress.com, which he doesn't own. looking forward to reading it though, thanks.

Nice. Thanks for posting this.

He screwed up. That does not make him a racist or a terrible candidate for president. He's a whole lot better than the other candidates in the major parties. All candidates (persons) have warts (flaws).

great find, thanks Ba'al.

RP gave a strong rebuttal on CNN about the newsletters. All candidates have warts. This wart does not result in his campaign being over. I'm sure that your favorite candidate or desired candidate has or would have his or her own warts as well. At least RP is in the right on most issues, and a lot more in the right than the other candidates in the race.

Chris, it's unfortunate they don't like AR. I wasn't aware of that. I have noticed sometimes that when RP speaks I hear bits and pieces of AR, especially when he talks about racism. I like that. btw when I said "Ron Paul may not be a perfect objectivist" I meant that he may not always align completely or correctly with objectivism. I don't know or care whether he himself is or professes to be an objectivist. I would have expected a more reasoned argument on this website.

I'm sticking with Ron Paul to the end, no matter what happens. Ron Paul may not be a perfect objectivist but if you consider more protection for civil liberties, less initiation of force and smaller government to be in your self-interest, there is one else in this race on either side. I fail to understand why a lot of objectivists either cave in to "electability", instead of standing up for their principles, or just shrug it all off and withdraw. Galt is the great shrugger but the world of "Atlas Shrugged" is a lot farther along in the wrong direction than this world. We still have time to turn this thing around. If you truly value Ayn Rand's philosophy then you must feel compelled to take action to protect your own civil liberties, protect yourself and those you value from the initiation of force by large government and protect your own integrity by not allowing your productive capacity in the form of tax dollars to be used to murder innocents here and overseas. Ron Paul may or may not win, that's not necessarily the point. The point is to stand up for our principles and values. It's in our self-interest.

Unfortunately in today's environment I think a lot of people would interpret that as more government-business collaboration, no matter that it wouldn't be true, and would react against it in a knee-jerk fashion. IMO there is a lot of fraud being perpetrated by business and we would need a whole new class of law enforcement personnel do deal with that kind of deregulation. I think Ron Paul is on the right track by emphasizing as a first step the dismantling of the taxing apparatus and the overseas military operations. Those are 2 very unpopular items that affect a lot of voters.

I looked into this awhile back. There is little if any practical legal basis for resisting the income and "wage" taxes. immoral? I would just call it theft. unconstitutional? probably not, unfortunately.

Now you're using hyperbole and near-intimidation to ram your opinion down our throats. Since you mention Ayn Rand: Ron Paul is not an objectivist. He's an excellent candidate and if I were geographically able to vote for him I would, but I am not. If you want to we can compare how much we have contributed to his campaign. I bet I will win. In any case, even he wins the nomination and beats the Democrat and any independents, he still has to fight the Congress, ongoing public opinion and the bureaucracy. This is no small fight. So, his election does not mean we "have won". In order "to win" we not only need to win the presidency, we need congress and most importantly a majority or better of the public.

what is the url of the website?

Sadly I don't think he is going to make it, either. Even if he wins in NH, Super Tuesday will crush him. In any case, we advocates of personal liberty would do better IMO to focus on the process of reaching the goal rather than obsess too much about one visible step along the way. Whatsmore, while I like Ron Paul better than any of the other candidates, there is a lot of space between his platform and laissez-faire capitalism. Finally, most Americans still want a government safety net of some sort around them because they're afraid they may need it, afraid of what would happen under laissez-faire capitalism. We will never reach our goal as long as that statement remains true.

its good form to just post the link, title and perhaps a brief excerpt or summary. i don't think that reposting the whole article is allowed under fair use and i also believe it is a violation of the rules of this forum. otherwise, yes its a step forward.

At first I wondered if I had been tricked into watching an ad for Fred Thompson. Really very well done. Thanks.

Thank you for your replies, Barbara and Michael, very kind of you. I don't plan to artificially enforce Objectivism, or my understanding of it, on my life, no. I want to know exactly where I stand in relation to it, carefully examine the differences and, yes, see if I think I am in the right or not and either make changes or note in my journal my differing opinion and why. I've done the same thing with other statements of principles / philosophies as a way to clarify my own beliefs. For example, I've done it recently with the books "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People" and "Think and Grow Rich", a lot of Howard Zinn's works, a good amount of Libertarian and Progressive literature, the Green and Libertarian Party platforms, and a good amount of fiction. I try to live an examined life so its a kind of an experiment, one might say. Yes, serenity is a good work to describe the atmosphere in Kyoto.

I found the article to be shallow. I don't think the writer is very familiar with Rand's works. Also, it seems that a lot of people hear about or even read Atlas Shrugged and come away with some wrong-headed ideas about Objectivism. Some people think the message is 'greed is good' or 'corporations rule'. I wish more people would read the philosophy books, and not just stop at AS or Fountainhead.

thanks chris. i was there from 1997-2001 in the Kansai region. I taught English to company employees all over the region, from Himeji to Nagoya, including Osaka and Kobe. I got a close look at these miracle Japanese companies, e.g, Mitsubishi, Omron, and some other big names that escape me atm. I met some very interesting people but they were the exception. Most of the 'salarymen'/executives i taught were good order-takers and not interested in learning or thinking. The most motivated among them were studying so they could get promoted and make more money or work less. These companies put a heavy emphasis on face time and workers compete to see who can arrive earlier and leave later. It's a grueling death match. These executives lose touch with their families and themselves. It is not pleasant to watch. That said, I loved the food and many aspects of the culture, including the respect people pay each other in public. Of course this sometimes was very false and patronizing. The orderliness and natural beauty were also enjoyable. I especially liked being in Kyoto, a refined religious and cultural center where you can feel a divinity in the air. I think this was a case of the worshipers becoming objects of worship, to paraphrase Rand.

Hi I recently joined the forum and was invited to introduce myself. I've been fascinated by Ayn Rand and Objectivism since a friend told me 15 years ago that the Fountainhead was for me. I immediately identified with it and read all of her other published works, multiple times, studying and analyzing them. At first, I felt the individualism was over the top. After all, I was studying political economy at the University of Chicago with Marxists. Yet, the more I read the more I realized that Objectivism was essentially what I always believed was the truth, except precisely defined and carried to its logical conclusions. I realized that a good number of the ideas I held about ethics, my relationships with others and politics were nonsense and not aligned with my basic ideals (which aligned almost perfectly with Objectivism). Foolishly I laid down Rand's books for almost a decade as I have been living outside the US, both because I couldn't carry them all around and because I wanted to test an idea some friends kept pushing on me that my exposure to Rand's works was not allowing me to see other points of view. Well, I can lay that silly idea to rest. Its nonsense. In my case at least, Objectivism is my native philosophy, precidely codified and taken to its logical conclusions. Its not something that has 'taken me over' or 'warped my mind'. Its a tool that has removed the cloudiness from my view of many spheres of life, including ethics, politics and art. So I am picking up her works again, both fiction and philosophy and analyzing my life and future goals to see where exactly I stand, how that differs from Objectivism and what, if any, actions I may need to take as a result. I'm 36 y/o, married, father to a beautiful 16-mo-old boy, owner of multiple businesses and aspiring writer. I graduated from the University of Chicago with a degree in history. I have lived in Japan, the US and Colombia. I'm originally from Pennsylvania. I'm the lucky owner of a 4 y/o Golden Retriever. I frequent reddit.com, where you'll often find spirited, if primitive, discussions of current events, often dominated by progressives but with a good contingent of folks in the same ballpark as us. The more I think and the more I see, the more I realize that the ideas we use to guide us make all the difference in our lives, so I am looking forward to participating in this forum. Thanks!