Jonathan David Leavitt
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Posts posted by Jonathan David Leavitt
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As for Kant's motives, Rand said repeatedly that Kant deliberately set out to destroy the efficacy of man's mind. This is why she did not regard him as merely mistaken, but as evil. As she put it in the "Age of Envy":
On the basis of his works, I offer Immanuel Kant in evidence, as the archetype of this species: a system as consistently evil as his cannot be constructed innocently.
Ghs
Many thanks for the links. George.. I haven't followed them all yet, bit I found what I was looking for. So, we have, in effect, Kant saying, "To the gas chambers, go!"
OK. Rand, then, was misrepresenting him? Where, I wonder, did she get the idea that Kant set out to destroy the efficacy of man's mind?
So, at one end of the spectrum, we have a continuum of evil, with Kant at the extreme maximum-evil end. (Yes, a continuum at the end of the continuum. I meant that.) On the other end of the larger continuum, we have moral subjectivism, where good and evil are not valid concepts, in fact, where valid concepts are not valid concepts.
I will refrain from calling Kant evil until I have read and digested all of his works in the original German, a project that is not among my plans for this year or next.
However, I will insist on calling the Obamacare bill evil, without reading all 2000+ pages. Well, perhaps not evil, but sort of bad. Very bad. Fair enough. Am I sounding civil now, Mr. President?
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JDL,
Cool.
Believe me, I'm no fan of Alinsky. I also have a Glenn Beck corner where his expose of Soros is featured. I know the dangers involved.
I also featured Hannity's video series on Obama's radical left roots before the 2008 election when most people were saying this was not the real problem.
(I have differences with both Beck and Hannity, but they do excellent research. Also, Beck connects dots like no one and Hannity is a hoot in how he fights the sound-bite war--just like a dog with a favorite bone.)
As far as Obama is concerned, I believe he is a highly incompetent administrator in addition to having his roots in a toxic ideology. But I believe he is also pragmatic.
I have high regard for the office of the Presidency. I believe it is made of far stronger stuff than the present occupant.
Michael
Thanks for your speedy reply.
As a US President, Obama certainly appears to be incompetent. As a manipulator of the levers of the Executive Branch in order to serve his ideological ends, I have less question about his competence.
As to Obama's pragmatic nature, it seems to me that he will do what he can to get re-elected, and to sound like a centrist if necessary, but I am skeptical that his ideology has budged.
I hadn't thought too much about the strength of the office of the Presidency. I have more concerns about the strength of Congress members to transcend their long and demoralizing history of finding clever ways to make ever more imaginative compromises between food and poison.
As to your earlier posts, I had a shock of realization that I can come across as a hater. I am surely a strong disliker of Bolshevism in its past and current forms, and those "Masters of Deceit" who cover their Bolshevik tracks. If I upset people on a website called "Objectivist Living" I obviously sound irrational, and therefore I need to find ways to tone it down without compromising my beliefs.
Is there a thread on this site about Ayn Rand's famous characterization of Immanuel Kant as "The Most Evil (Evul?) Man Who Ever Lived." I'm curious how that was received here.
Jonathan
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As for me, where do I stand on the "kook" spectrum?
JDL,
you have just now put up some choice kooky stuff that will come up on Google. Stuff like that can be easily cited as propaganda and hate-speech to sway independents.
Michael
Point well taken about Google and hate-speech. In comparing Obama and OBL I failed to specify with respect to what. That is a subject that I understand, but will not follow up with here at this time. And, I didn't think about Google at all.
Perhaps I have become too discouraged recently about the effectiveness of our checks and balances.
Jonathan
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It's not hard to get people to reject something bad when you get the facts in front of them.
Michael
Which is why I find deliberate obfuscation of facts particularly annoying.
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Well, well.
I think OBL is almost certainly dead. Could al-Qaeda and Admiral Doenitz have a reason to lie about the death of their heroes? Yes, but IMO it's doubtful they did. Ditto, the Pakistanis who harbored OBL.
Now, about where Alinsky stands on the spectrum: Pol Pot failed, and Gaddafi has at best another ten or fifteen years. Alinsky's shining moment in history is right now, and I am not convinced yet that a Gingrich, a Mitch Daniels, or a Tim Pawlenty is going to defeat the sock puppet in the 2012 election. Another four years of The One wouldn't be good, even if he is nowhere near Torquemada or Vlad the Impaler on the "evul" spectrum.
As for me, where do I stand on the "kook" spectrum?
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he is survived by much more evil people, not the least of whom is the Football-Spiker-in-Chief, Barack Hussein Obama.
You regard Obama as more evil than bin Laden? Wow. I’m disinclined to start defending him, I’m basically with Woody Allen’s character Alvy Singer, who said of politicians that ethically they’re a notch below child molester, so I’ll just register disagreement and leave it at that.
I tend to think about politicians as a notch below the herpes virus.
However, BHO is not really a politician. IMO he's a sock puppet for a neo-Bolshevik faction, which includes Soros. (If the word "faction" sounds too conspiratorial for your taste, try "religion.")
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For me, there is no joy at Bin Ladin's reported death. He was (or perhaps still is) the George Soros of Al-Qaeda funding, but, assuming that he died in the SEALS raid, or years ago, he is survived by much more evil people, not the least of whom is the Football-Spiker-in-Chief, Barack Hussein Obama. One thinks of Bin Ladin as the ultimate evildoer only because his reputation was puffed up by the press. He was just one more Muslim fanatic.
The thousands who died in the spectacular attack by Muslim fanatics on the Twin Towers were war casualties. The war is being waged by an alliance of "Leftists" (Neo-Bolsheviks) and Muslim fanatics against Americans. We may be losing the war as I write this.
Although the SEALS reportedly carried out their mission in a spectacular and admirable manner, the follow-up, reportedly dumping bin Ladin's body into the ocean, was an obscene exercise in obstruction of justice. Hitler had his body burned in order to keep the world from knowing his ultimate fate with certainty. It was not al-Qaeda, however, who ordered the destruction of the physical evidence of bin Ladin's death: it was the titular head of the "Democrat" political party.
Ultimately, I do not care whether bin Ladin is living or dead, or how many Americans are stupid enough to vote for Obama in 2012 because of the SEALS Abbottabad mission. What I do care about is the fact, reported today by the Rasmussen Poll, that 48% of likely US voters approve "somewhat" of an Alinskyite totalitarian who is deliberately destroying the American economy. Compared to him, an Arabian moneybags is or was small potatoes indeed.
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This "oh, the pooer Mexicans" is baloney. Why stop there, hmm? Why not the 5 BILLION others who are in bad situations and would LOVE to come here? It's like religion, once you let it loose in your mind, there's no limit to how far it will go, or what it will destroy. Mex's problems are not our problems, let THEM solve them, THERE, I say. So we have to invent fruit and veggie picking machines, and pay Americans a decent wage to run them, so what? So we have to pay 2-3x as much for produce, so what? It's probably a whole 1k a year, and the illegals cost MORE than that, with all their "loads" upon law enforcement, education and medical care. Even if the cost was a direct increase, why not just pay it, to get the reduction in overcrowding, pollution, etc?
The real issue, IMO, is not defending borders but defending the States from election fraud. The "Democrat" party wants to pack the polls with non-Americans who vote for their candidates because their vote is purchased with freebies.
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His precise, well-lit style is an asset, but he uses it to decidedly unromantic ends..
True enough, realism it may be, but not Romantic Realism. The one time I heard him speak, it sounded as if he found the banality itself important. The interpretation in my blogpost was mine, not Bechtle's.
However, I find his work engaging, and I like it, because of his use of light, and because of his focus on the iconic treasures of the lower middle class, a bungalow and a big car.
Vermeer, praised by Rand, also considered banalities important, and painted for the middle class. I consider Vermeer a greater painter than Bechtle, but I still like Bechtle.
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Which brings me to Left and Right.
I'm my opinion, the self-styled Left has appropriated the terms Left and Right from the French Revolution in order to avoid calling themselves what they really are, Communists and Fellow-Travelers. I prefer to call them Bolsheviks, since today's "Left" is basically an amalgam of Marxism, Leninism, and Frankfurt School "critical theory." Instead of calling their opponents "reactionaries" and "counter-revolutionaries," they smear them as "right-wing."
Fascists, as the term was used by Mussolini, are not quite the same as Nazis, i.e., "national" socialists, but both are variants of socialist collectivism. I see no benefit from calling Nazis and Fascists "right-wing."
This then brings us to the Bush policies of bailout and suspension of civil rights. The former, in my opinion, is pure fascism. Extension of civil rights to foreign assassins and saboteurs who are making a declared war on the USA seems absurd to me, even if not sanctioned by a foreign state, but suspension of civil rights of US citizens is unjustified given the current refusal of the government (neither Bush nor Obama) to clarify who our foreign enemies are. Aiding and abetting a foreign enemy is treason, a crime falling under US law, with no suspension of civil rights before conviction.
In my opinion, Major Nidal Hassan, the US Army psychiatrist who allegedly massacred his comrades in arms in the name of Islam, should be charged with treason as an agent of Iran, a declared enemy of the United States, but is entitled to a fair trial.
In my opinion, the sooner we stop mollycoddling the Bolsheviks and their Fellow Travelers by calling them Leftists, the better. And, no, Thomas Jefferson was not a right-wing extremist.
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Although I listened to jazz since high school, I recently rediscovered it as "emotional fuel." I was thinking about 1959, the year I graduated from high school, when friends introduced me to some of the musical technicalities of the art form. (Yes, it's art.) Reminiscing a few months ago, I started researching jazz on the Internet, and found that it was a major year in jazz history, with the emergence of West Coast "cool" jazz.
There are two more pertinent facts: During the pre-election and post-election period of 2010 I began to become very demoralized listening to radio debates (conservative rants, mostly) and I would switch to the jazz station which rapidly recharged my so-called benevolent universe sense of life. I stlll listen to conservative rants, but I can't take them in the higher doses I used to enjoy, and jazz is always a welcome alternative.
The third fact is this: a few days ago I re-read "Art and Cognition" in The Romantic Manifesto. I was appalled. I will summarize my reaction by saying there was some baby and a lot of bath water. No glue in any work of art? Not even the rabbit-skin glue used by the Old Masters to prep their canvases? Photography is not a tool for making art? Anything not photo-realistic and created with brushes and paint, can't be called art? And no whim! Not even a little eensy-weensy smidgen of whim, so you'd hardly notice?
I've mentioned in other posts that I like Picasso. I have good reasons for liking Picasso, and I will write about that some other time.
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Jon,
I like that image you posted, so I went to some of the links.
Although Bechtle is described as a "photo-realist," I see a flatness to the image that is not really typical of photographs. That flatness is what attracted me. It somehow seems to highlight the subject and make the background even more backgroundish (i.e., not very noticeable). And I like the effect.
I am a bit frustrated about how many links you have to click to start seeing some of his other paintings. You have to go all over the place. Maybe you have a good link? After all, if we're talking about a painter, it's good to see some paintings so we know what we are talking about.
Here's a link with some of his prints at Crown Point Press: Robert Bechtle. (There's a video of him talking there, too, but he's not a good talker, so I didn't post it here.)
Michael
I merely googled Robert Bechtle, than clicked on the Images link on the left side of the page, and came up with this. I hope it works on the forum: lots of Bechtle images. Please notify me if it doesn't work.
Beware: some of the images are not of Bechtle's paintings or prints.
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I'm not an expert in history, but if I trust Peikoff's analysis in the "Ominous Parallels", one factor that created Nazi Germany was the left/right paradigm, where leftists try to strip one set of rights, and rightists try to strip you of the other set. The rightists have just in the last decade continued their escalation of war against Americans, e.g., the Patriot Act, or the fascist bailout of big business of 2008. Obama is continuing this rightist agenda, but note that all you criticize him for is the leftist aspects. This is a folly.
Shayne
A point well taken. Ayn Rand wrote repeatedly that Bolshevism functions as a form of fascism, while trumpeting altruist propaganda in the name of Marxist egalitarianism.
I have written about this in several blogposts, the first under my own name, and the second under the name of Liberty Rant:
http://www.doublesquids.net/coffeeblog/archive/theright.html
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Jon:
You used one of my favorite words banal.
Great post.
TED ALERT:
Usage Note: The pronunciation of banal is not settled among educated speakers of American English. Sixty years ago, H.W. Fowler recommended the pronunciation (b
n
l, rhyming with panel), but this pronunciation is now regarded as recondite by most Americans: no member of the Usage Panel prefers this pronunciation. In our 2001 survey, (bnl) is preferred by 58 percent of the Usage Panel, (b
nl) by 28 percent, and (b-näl) by 13 percent (this pronunciation is more common in British English). Some Panelists admit to being so vexed by the problem that they tend to avoid the word in conversation. Speakers can perhaps take comfort in knowing that these three pronunciations each have the support of at least some of the Usage Panel and that none of them is incorrect. When several pronunciations of a word are widely used, there is really no right or wrong one.I pronounce it like anal with a "b".
Adam
I use "bin-AL" to describe Bechtle's work, and "BANE-ul" to describe the comedy of that most sphincteresque of purported but unfunny comedians, Jon Stewart.
(Just kidding, actually, but the pronunciation variants are interesting.)
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I forgot to read your pieces...
(I'll do that and get back to you.)
Michael
Glad I piqued your interest, and I'm eager to hear your thoughts on my five-year-old blogposts.
The Crown Point works tend to focus on the Sunset area of San Francisco, which has sparse vegetation and conveys a more wistful, Hopperesque look.
Bechtle images are not easy to find on the Internet. The ones I describe in the blogpost have been painted from slides Bechtle took of East Bay bungalow neigborhoods, such as Albany and Oakland. In many of these the car in front of the house, is the focus of attention. In my opinion, the car in these paintings functions as an avatar for the heroic human figures hijacked by the Social Realists, Communists, and Nazis.
No hybrids, BTW, appear in Bechtle paintings, to the best of my knowledge.
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Jazz is not Rachmaninoff, yet some aspects of it, in my opinion, may fulfill the criteria for music according to Ayn Rand's views.
Most jazz comes from 20th century "tiddly-wink music" (show tunes), improvised upon and developed by skilled musicians, conveying a "benevolent universe" sense of life. There are, however, left-wing political jazz, and anti-conceptual chaotic jazz.
I am not aware of anything Ayn Rand wrote about jazz, but if she did, I would like to read about it. She did, I know, advocate tap-dancing, which is a dance form emanating from the jazz tradition.
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It sort of looks like an American Motors full-sized sedan, maybe The Ambassador. Regardless, only AM would have made a car that looks like that and it dates the picture to the mid-1960s.
--Brant
Good observation. American Motors, of course is defunct. The title of the painting, from the gallery, "'58 Rambler [1967] Artist: Robert Bechtle [American, b. 1932] Size: 30"x32" / oil on canvas"
1967 was the year Stalin's daughter defected to the USA. This link shows other events of that year just prior to the 1968 world-wide "anti-industrial revolution." Middle-class prosperity was banal. In 2011, unemployment is now banal.
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Everyone knows why I'm here. I'm an objectivist. I advocate for that position. I have come to an objectivist website and was intrigued by this thread, so I registered and have enjoyed pushing all of you a bit to stand up and make some noise. Get out of the armchairs. Actually get in the fray. My biggest complaint is that we are NOT proactive enough; and that position (I think) should be obvious.
I'm a (relative) newbie here myself, and GeekGirl, I agree with you in your support of the original topic thread.
I believe that the key political issue now is support for the Constitution. During the past two years, especially the last, the "Democrat" party has passes legislation, which if ignored, amounts to a Bolshevik (New Leftist) takeover of the USA. The details are buried in the thousands of pages of hidden levers of power. That legislation is blatantly unconstitutional, but well-crafted from the viewpoint of flouting any fragile Supreme Court majority who would declare it so.
The "Tea Party," named by a stock trader, has given the statist mass media a label for supporters of the Constitution, to be smeared endlessly as "right-wing," racist, and violent.
I am personally appalled that those once close to Ayn Rand, whatever their reasons, prefer to quibble over solutions to the "problem of induction," whatever that means, and to leave the battlefield to religious or semi-secular "conservatives," whose philosophical premises are based on Locke, Hobbes, Hume, the Vatican, and the Book of Mormon, as the sole defenders of the Constitution.
However, not all post-Randian thinkers are in lock-step regarding the battle against neo-Bolshevism and its Soros-fueled propagandists who quote Popper's "open society." From time to time I read polemics from self-described Objectivists criticizing the nameless leftist writers of law and their sock puppet Obama.
Sure, the conservatives are wrong on many counts, but to quote the mass murderer Mao Zedong in a rare moment of agreement with him, "the enemy of my enemy is my friend," at least in this instance.
The United States of America are fighting for their life. The Bolshevik/Kantian cancer has metastasized, and in my opinion, Rand's philosophical ideas are the most likely chemotherapy to work over the long run. They must be tested on the 50 patients, and not kept sequestered away by an "Objectivist" establishment which views itself as the FDA of ideas.
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It ain't Norman Rockwell.
Ba'al Chatzaf
Nope.
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Looking at some of the art in this section, and recalling that Rand appreciated clarity in painting and called her art "Romantic Realism," I remember having posted two articles about the San Francisco painter Robert Bechtle:
Robert Bechtle's religious art
At the time, I was not thinking in Objectivist terms, and was working from my own mixed-premises sense of life; but it has been interesting to revisit what I had written.
At this time, I would like to believe that Bechtle was celebrating the "benevolent universe" sense of life which permeated California at the time he painted these scenes. The ever-present automobile indicates, to me, Bechtle's respect for man's productivity, mobility, and freedom.
A man of mixed premises, Bechtle, I believe, used "banality" as a cover to get his art past the left-wing critics, and although currently out of vogue, he is generally considered historically one of California's better artists.
Another link for Bechtle (Wikipedia).
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Jonathan,
When people work through ideas, it's often a messy process. (It certainly is with me.)
I prefer to let folks work through their own thinking than to tell them what they have to think. We start with Objectivism, but then it's on each person to do his/her own thinking.
In other words, I'm not big on preaching.
That's why there is such a variety here.
Don't worry. If people go overboard and start gumming up the forum with sermonizing on this viewpoint or that (or playing intimidation games, etc.), I take steps to reestablish balance. I don't want anyone muted except nasty folks like trolls, but I don't want the religiosity in attitude of anyone to overrun the forum, either.
Also, I think it is great to be able to answer the best criticisms that can be thrown at Objectivist ideas. Then you know for sure that the ones that stand are solid. And the ones that don't shouldn't be adopted in the first place.
The only way to do that is to engage other viewpoints fairly. I'm not perfect at keeping this kind of environment going, but from looking at the results, I do a pretty good job.
Michael
Thanks for the clarification. I find that everyone I've encountered on the site so far seems to be interesting, altruist mystics though they might be.
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ND,
my mother remembers being a kid when that episode was preempted by the assassination.
Everyone Else -
In the book "By Way of Deception" a former Mossad officer explains the Israelis recreated the conditions of the shooting. The speed of the car, position of the alleged shooter etc. Two of their best snipers couldn't make the shot. From what I recall the Mossad believes the Mafia ordered the hit and paid off crooked cops and politicians to keep it covered up.
Good book, btw http://www.amazon.com/Way-Deception-Making-Mossad-officer/dp/0971759502
Of course it was the Mafia. The commie Mafia, specifically. Under the the direction of LBJ. Look who became President immediately after the shot from the grassy knoll.
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I must say that I am surprised so soon after joining an Objectivist forum website to encounter zealous advocates of altruism. Perhaps I should have a look at some Christian websites to see if there are advocates of crucifixion and/or sin.
There are a whole host of masochists here. Skeptics, contrarians, socialists, materialists with inconsistent math fetishes, pacifists, conspiracy theorists, borderline racists, Unitarians, even, until recently, a "libertarian" Mohammedan convert who only advocates jihad against targets such as Israel, not indiscriminately. In Xray's case, she confesses she cannot express in her own words what a stolen concept is, or why it is important. As for being an altrust - maybe - but I'd be surprised if she stands up for any principle. On occasion these people do post interesting comments. It is the orthodox among us you really have to worry about. And the prancers.
Gee, whiz. As Obama would say (or was it Bush?) "it looks like America." Prancers? Yikes!
Osama bin Laden Killed
in Mideast
Posted
I agree with Barbara Branden, whose critique of Obama is well thought out and articulated. My impression, based on the speeches that Obama has given, especially abroad, is that Obama views himself as a citizen of the world, of which America is only the place he was born by chance, and on his personal balance sheet between whatever good things America has done (if any) versus slavery, racism, imperialism, neo-colonialism, greed, and — yes — selfishness, he appears to believe America has done more bad than good.
Of course I can and will never know what Obama really thinks about America and his own role as an American citizen, because I believe he is an epistemological relativist, who has some core values based on faith (similar to the values of Jeremiah Wright), and whose secondary values are derived from feelings.
If I am a kook for having and expressing the aforegoing opinions, so be it.
—Jonathan