Objectivism and Mariage

[caroljane]

"Maybe we should ask her..."

Michael, you are right, my definition of portrayal is the mainstream one, based of the reader's participation in the story through the ways it is presented by the author.

Some writers are tour guides. They describe the scene and the characters, then lead you through the story giving illuminating extra information and pointing out salient features, interpreting and clarifying when necessary. I think AR falls loosely into this group. As a screenwriter she visualised her scenes concretely, creating striking images that linger in the reader's mind (this was what I was thinking of when I said Atlas Shrugged would make a wonderful graphic novel or series of them). In her novels she portrays (gives the main scenes to) her lead actors, and those are the images that remain most strongly in the reader's mind.

It's a truism that creative writing cannot be "taught" but only criticized, praised or edited into improvement. To me, judging a literary work is a very subjective, collective, individual, fun thing to do.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Daunce,

You can teach many things about creative writing. The part you can't teach is what the writer wants to write. That is volitional, developed over years and specific to each individual.

But you can teach him how to write it once that part becomes clear--and often even if it's not clear to him.

Here's a good example. I went through a lecture course by Steve Manning (a Canadian, incidentally) on speed-writing. He has a form of overcoming writer's block that I have never seen bashed. He claims that it has worked for all people in all of his lectures and, after doing it myself, I am prone to believe him.

He tells you to take three semi-related words (or even unrelated ones). If you get them from an external source at the beginning until you get the hang of it (say like a writing prompt--you can find many by Googling it), this is better than if you come up with them yourself. This is to avoid a beginner's trap.

The trap is knowing what the three words are in advance. It is mulling them over before writing. The trick is you have to get the three words and IMMEDIATELY start writing. If you allow yourself to think, you risk getting blocked.

The procedure is that once you see the three words, you IMMEDIATELY sit down and write like a fiend for 5 minutes without thinking. Just let come out what comes out.

The only rules are very simple.

• You have to use one of the three words as your starting word and use the other two words in the first paragraph.
• You cannot start the paragraph with a pronoun or a word like "the" or "so," etc. It must be one of the three words.
• Your opening word must be part of a sentence, not a standalone exclamation.
• You can change verb tenses or turn verbs into nouns (tempt to temptation, for example), change adjectives to adverbs, etc. But no synonyms (tempt to entice, for example). They must be variations on the word itself.

After that, anything goes but stopping. You also set a timer so you don't go over 5 minutes.

If what you are writing seems foolish, just keep on doing it. Push through it. The 5 minutes will be over shortly.

There is some sophisticated psychology going on in this approach. You essentially give rules to the subconscious it can easily obey, you tap into subconscious connections while bypassing the critical "editing" faculty, and you calm deep subconscious fears by setting easy and simple limits.

Here are some typical three-word phrases he presents:

timber | woodsman | nest

typhoon | volcano | vacation

fudge | devil | tempt

granny | feisty | thief

And so on.

He later tells you how to get these words from analyzing the prevalent themes in what you want to say. For an Objectivist (and this is off the top of my head, so please don't shoot me if the following are not the greatest examples), a good three-word phrase would be:

invention | copycat | regulation

or

selfish | vanity | meat-head

For a more libertarian example, you can use:

shoot | burglar | trader

hooker | fraud | rights

And so on.

Notice that the background of these things is the writer himself. He already has what he wants to say inside him. He just needs to find a form of expressing it. These words work almost like direct observation as he lets a story fall out of his mind.

(Now I'll switch pronouns to change gears.) After you have indulged in your five-minute fiend-fest, you edit it later. It's surprising how good some of the stuff that pours out of you is. Some ain't so good, but that's OK. The good stuff more than makes up for it.

I read somewhere else that you should write like a maniac and edit like a Supreme Court Judge. That's a pretty good image for using Manning's speed-writing technique.

Michael

[Selene]

Michael:

It worked for Snoopy!

It Was A Dark And Stormy Night

by Snoopy

Part I

It was a dark and stormy night. Suddenly, a shot rang out! A door slammed. The maid screamed.

Suddenly, a pirate ship appeared on the horizon!

While millions of people were starving, the king lived in luxury. Meanwhile, on a small farm in Kansas, a boy was growing up.

Part II

A light snow was falling, and the little girl with the tattered shawl had not sold a violet all day.

At that very moment, a young intern at City Hospital was making an important discovery. The mysterious patient in Room 213 had finally awakened. She moaned softly.

Could it be that she was the sister of the boy in Kansas who loved the girl with the tattered shawl who was the daughter of the maid who had escaped from the pirates? The intern frowned.

"Stampede!" the foreman shouted, and forty thousand head of cattle thundered down on the tiny camp. The two men rolled on the ground grappling beneath the murderous hooves. A left and a right. A left. Another left and right. An uppercut to the jaw. The fight was over. And so the ranch was saved.

The young intern sat by himself in one corner of the coffee shop. he had learned about medicine, but more importantly, he had learned something about life.

THE END

I just love this - the worlds shortest novel!

Adam

[caroljane]

Michael,

That is really interesting. Still, I would think of it as enabling, facilitating or jump=starting the writing--not teaching it per se. I agree entirely that knowing what you want to write is always there. Even when you don't consciously know that you want to write about it.

[Xray]

But see what careless statements about someone like Rand does? Instead of us discussing relationships with some kind of seriousness and what to do to improve the human lot, we now have "AYN RAND IS DEAD AND USELESS" people like Xray crawling out of the wood-works.

If I equated a philosopher's being dead with "uselessness", I would have to throw most works of philosophy in my home out the window.

Nor am I in any woodworks; I have always been standing out in the open here.

Instead of us discussing relationships with some kind of seriousness and what to do to improve the human lot,

You construct an unnecessary opposition here. For discussing relationhships seriously is independent of one's philosophical position. All that counts is one's commitment to the topic.

I'm very interested in the topic of "mixed" philosophical positions in a relationship because I have lived in such a "mixed" marriage for many years now and have always found it to be enriching and inspiring. I'm no advocate of ideological inbreeding, on the contrary, the mutual influence can create a dynamic which helps each partner evolve, at least this is the experience I have made.

Edited January 31, 2011 by Xray

[caroljane]

But see what careless statements about someone like Rand does? Instead of us discussing relationships with some kind of seriousness and what to do to improve the human lot, we now have "AYN RAND IS DEAD AND USELESS" people like Xray crawling out of the wood-works.

If I equated a philosopher's being dead with "uselessness", I would have to throw most works of philosophy in my home out the window.

Nor am I in any woodworks; I have always been standing out in the open here.

Instead of us discussing relationships with some kind of seriousness and what to do to improve the human lot,

You construct an unnecessary opposition here. For discussing relationhships seriously is independent of one's philosophical position. All that counts is one's commitment to the topic.

I'm very interested in the topic of "mixed" philosophical positions in a relationship because I have lived in such a "mixed" marriage for many years now and have always found it to be enriching and inspiring. I'm no advocate of ideological inbreeding, on the contrary, the mutual influence can create a dynamic which helps each partner evolve, at least this is the experience I have made.

Thanks X. I know of such relationships in real life and suspect that many if not most of our partnered correspondents here (mostly male) have knowledge of this subject. Let's face it, there are way fewer Over-40 objectivist women than men THOUGH I DO NOT HAVE THE DATA ON THAT.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

You construct an unnecessary opposition here. For discussing relationhships seriously is independent of one's philosophical position. All that counts is one's commitment to the topic.

Xray,

Cool.

Now that that's settled, what does the following have to do with relationships? It is what I was responding to.

Imo Objectivism as a movement is already history.

Since there exists no such thing as a standstill in life, many of Objectivism's premises can't survive scrutiny anymore today.

Vita in motu.

I think I get it. Staying on topic about relationships means taking swipes at Objectivism in general.

Got it...

(btw - I agree that many people can be--and are--happy in relationships where the partners adhere to different world-view bodies of thought. I don't believe it is a condition of a successful relationship, though. Not by a long shot. If you look around, it's easy to see that holding different world-view bodies of thought (or vice-versa) is fundamentally important only in a small number of relationships.)

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

Thanks X. I know of such relationships in real life and suspect that many if not most of our partnered correspondents here (mostly male) have knowledge of this subject. Let's face it, there are way fewer Over-40 objectivist women than men THOUGH I DO NOT HAVE THE DATA ON THAT.

Behind every Objectivist MAN there is an objectionist WOMAN pushing and encouraging him on to bigger and longer lasting accomplishments! Sometimes the man gets behind the woman! Some men find that encouraging too! Women? They just enjoy it. Men? They've got this enslaving idea they have to be productive. They really get screwed when she ends up on topic! That's a sight for any him to behold if he's got a mirror on the ceiling. Anyway, that's why there aren't so many Objectivist women. They're too busy with Objectivist men.

--Brant

all--all night--all night long!

Edited February 1, 2011 by Brant Gaede

[caroljane]

Thanks X. I know of such relationships in real life and suspect that many if not most of our partnered correspondents here (mostly male) have knowledge of this subject. Let's face it, there are way fewer Over-40 objectivist women than men THOUGH I DO NOT HAVE THE DATA ON THAT.

Behind every Objectivist MAN there is an objectionist WOMAN pushing and encouraging him on to bigger and longer lasting accomplishments! Sometimes the man gets behind the woman! Some men find that encouraging too! Women? They just enjoy it. Men? They've got this enslaving idea they have to be productive. They really get screwed when she ends up on topic! That's a sight for any him to behold if he's got a mirror on the ceiling. Anyway, that's why there aren't so many Objectivist women. They're too busy with Objectivist men.

--Brant

Mr. Gaede,

If this is your coy circumlocutious way of indicating you are indeed the billionaire in our midst, I renew my offers of long walks on beach and epistemological mud wrestling.

If not, and if you are the username "Generic Viagra" on another site, who complained about the lack of pictures accompanying the Popperian analyses,I suggest you try the brand names.

all--all night--all night long!