Bad Boys, "swagger deficit," 'n stuff

[James Heaps-Nelson]

[...] the young people attracted to Objectivism are largely conformists, seeking spoon-fed answers to what they perceive to be life's challenges.

That's just what I don't understand, what people who are conformists find appealing in Objectivism. Is it simply the appearance of its providing "all the answers" ready-made?

Of course, the big question here is: are Howard Roarks "born," or "made"? I happen to think, when all is said and done, that they are born.

I once, back in '99, discussed the question of all the conformists with Nathaniel and he said that he thinks many who gravitate to Objectivism feel that by adopting it they therefore become the sort of hero/ines Rand portrays.

It's no surprise that many 'straight' scientist-engineer types are drawn to Objectivism, but what's wrong with an engineer (or Capitalist businessman) with the *Attitude* of a true individualist and rebel?

I think few scientists are drawn to Objectivism. For one thing, career scientists are awfully busy first learning all the math and the basics in their field and then pursuing their subject specialty. But more fundamentally, I think many of a scientific disposition recognize something inimical to the never-ending seeking of the scientific endeavor.

Ellen

Ellen,

As a chemist/chemical engineer type, I'll just say that the type of thinking necessary is very different than what Rand portrays. In addition to being able to be "rational", you also have to be able to generate interesting/fruitful hypotheses. The Objectivist system is pretty sterile when it comes to this. When it comes to economics, biology, or chemistry there is enough for a creative person to do that is fertile and doesn't come with the preset axiomatic limits Objectivism has in place. When a certain type of person encounters a Kary Mullis or Richard Feynman or John Von Neumann, they get what they need and Rand doesn't penetrate for them.

Jim

[Philip Coates]

Subject: Objectivism and a 'discussion board' means criticize and be prepared to be criticized

> I hope this thread isn't going to get deflected. The party was being fun there for awhile. [Ellen, 50]

Ellen, a strong, vigorous disagreement with your thinking method is not a 'deflection'. Nor is it damaging a party by pouring cold water on an idea of yours. And in fact my kind of critique(even if I were wrong) is vital and very relevant: If there's anything Oists need to be very clear about it's the use of language. We need to see more posts criticizing this sort of thing.

I shouldn't be the only person "wagging my finger" (to use another example of emotionally slanted and non-objective language) at it.

,,,,,,

If I'm wrong, find the words to express precisely how, instead of employing snarky and anti-intellectual retorts.

[Philip Coates]

> Just curious, Phil: do you ever tire of wagging your finger at people? [PDS, #48]

What part of this is supposed to be about vigorous debate of differing viewpoints did you miss?

[Brant Gaede]

> Just curious, Phil: do you ever tire of wagging your finger at people? [PDS, #48]

What part of this is supposed to be about vigorous debate of differing viewpoints did you miss?

It's strange how you compress two questions into one. How many answers are you expecting? One? Two?

--Brant

[Jonathan]

Subject: This is a thread displaying the use of concepts imprecisely (sloppy, shifting, or ambiguous)

"Sloppy, shifting and ambiguous" would be better used to describe your reading and comprehension skills.

The admiration or esteeming of "swagger" or being a "bad boy", whether among Oists or among the opposite sex, is foolish and will lead one into many errors in "judging people by their cover".

Did you intend that to be a criticism of Rand? Did you mean to call her foolish? I really wish you'd learn to be more civil and quit hating on Rand. Anyway, I disagree that an aesthetic appreciation of swagger or "bad boys," or of anything else, necessarily leads to ethical errors. It may be true that you, Phil, would have difficulty separating aesthetic and ethical issues, but I think most people are intellectually and emotionally mature enough to handle it.

In each case, it's a superficial attribute. It does not connote self-confidence or risk-taking but merely the ability to put on its facade.

Two analogies will make the point clear ==>

1) "Swagger" : Self-confidence and Self-esteem :: Being a "motor-mouth" : Intelligence

2) Being a "Bad-Boy" : Willingness to Act and Take Proper Risks :: The Cast of 'Jackass" : People who are Creative or Genuine Explorers

Try this one ==>

Being a "Bad-Boy" : Willingness to Act and Take Proper Risks :: A person who commits the fraud of passing off his work as someone else's and then takes "justice" into his own hands and blows up a building project while offering the excuse that the project's owners didn't abide by a contract that they didn't have with him : People who are honest and rational.

J

[Jonathan]

Trickster Tansey. I figured there was something of the sort which I didn't recognize. Did you see it immediately?

I spotted the silhouette and figured that there was more to it, but didn't recognize the entire image until I looked at my monitor from an angle, and that's when Holbein's stretched skull popped into my mind.

Do you know if there are allusions in the lower part of the painting? I can't make out detail well in that part.

I'd imagine that there could be some significance to the specific characters, but I'm not sure. I'd like to see the original, or a higher resolution scan. I suspect that the texture of the ground is probably a reference to Pollock and to the rejection of mimesis. I see the painting as representing the altering of perspectives, and of the harnessing of the power of illusion and making it reality.

J

Edited April 18, 2011 by Jonathan

[Jonathan]

Just curious, Phil: do you ever tire of wagging your finger at people?

I think he doesn't ever tire, but I hope this thread isn't going to get deflected. The party was being fun there for awhile.

Ellen

Normally I'd agree, but I think that Phil's contribution is actually beneficial to this thread: It's a great real-life example of egg-headed, Objectivist swagger-deficiency, and illustrates why Phil is in the running for the position of Mother Superior/Headmistress of The Objectivist Church School for Goodiegoodies.

J

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Just curious, Phil: do you ever tire of wagging your finger at people?

David,

Wagging his finger?

I'm biting my tongue to keep from making a quip about wagging his tail.

Opps...

I guess I just did...

Michael

[Selene]

Just curious, Phil: do you ever tire of wagging your finger at people?

David,

Wagging his finger?

I'm biting my tongue to keep from making a quip about wagging his tail.

Opps...

I guess I just did...

Michael

Geez Michael, pet the little bitch then!

before it pees on another thread ...

Edited April 18, 2011 by Selene

[Brant Gaede]

Being a "Bad-Boy" : Willingness to Act and Take Proper Risks :: A person who commits the fraud of passing off his work as someone else's and then takes "justice" into his own hands and blows up a building project while offering the excuse that the project's owners didn't abide by a contract that they didn't have with him : People who are honest and rational.

J

There's a lot more Nietzsche in The Fountainhead than Rand ever wanted to admit. She better sublimated that in Atlas Shrugged--in the novel, not herself. That's why she (and Nathaniel) liked the saying, "Take what you want, said God, and pay for it." That was very expensive. It was so expensive it retarded Objectivism for decades and retards it still.

--Brant

[Ellen Stuttle]

Just curious, Phil: do you ever tire of wagging your finger at people?

I think he doesn't ever tire, but I hope this thread isn't going to get deflected. The party was being fun there for awhile.

Ellen

Normally I'd agree, but I think that Phil's contribution is actually beneficial to this thread: It's a great real-life example of egg-headed, Objectivist swagger-deficiency, and illustrates why Phil is in the running for the position of Mother Superior/Headmistress of The Objectivist Church School for Goodiegoodies.

J

I don't agree that Phil is an example. Even O'ist Church School Goodiegoodies don't like his schoolmarming. For instance, I think he was banned on Noodlefood -- as well as on SOLO. I'd never select Phil as an example of what I was talking about.

Ellen

[Ellen Stuttle]

Being a "Bad-Boy" : Willingness to Act and Take Proper Risks :: A person who commits the fraud of passing off his work as someone else's and then takes "justice" into his own hands and blows up a building project while offering the excuse that the project's owners didn't abide by a contract that they didn't have with him : People who are honest and rational.

J

There's a lot more Nietzsche in The Fountainhead than Rand ever wanted to admit. [....]

I think that Roark's roots are Hickman, the image of whom in the dock stuck with Rand. She wanted a climax of a criminal case -- and had a lot of trouble coming up with one she found useable -- and the character calmly to face the courtroom and give a speech, as she sketched in "The Little Street."

Ellen

[Ellen Stuttle]

Do you know if there are allusions in the lower part of the painting? I can't make out detail well in that part.

I'd imagine that there could be some significance to the specific characters, but I'm not sure. I'd like to see the original, or a higher resolution scan. I suspect that the texture of the ground is probably a reference to Pollock and to the rejection of mimesis. I see the painting as representing the altering of perspectives, and of the harnessing of the power of illusion and making it reality.

J

It's called "Interception." I saw it as "spirit" domain going at cross-thrust to and aweing while infusing "earthly" domain ("power of illusion [made] reality" is a description along the same lines).

The lower part is like an arrow-head shape to the right, whereas the top shape extended to the left -- shown with the perspective of the painting -- would come to a point off the canvas.

One of the figures looks to me as if beseeching in prayerful posture, another as if running in fear. And one is at the "tip" of the lower shape.

I wish I could make out the detail better.

"Interception" --Mark Tansey

[Philip Coates]

The usual 'snark' and cartoons, but no one who disagrees with me was capable of answering my points intellectually:

The admiration or esteeming of "swagger" or being a "bad boy", whether among Oists or among the opposite sex, is foolish and will lead one into many errors in "judging people by their cover". In each case, it's a superficial attribute. It does not connote self-confidence or risk-taking but merely the ability to put on its facade. Two analogies will make the point clear ==>

1. "Swagger" : Self-confidence and Self-esteem :: Being a "motor-mouth" : Intelligence

2. Being a "Bad-Boy : Willingness to Act and Take Proper Risks :: The Cast of 'Jackass" : People who are Creative or Genuine Explorers

...So can I assume my points were accepted, and that I'm being thanked for pointing them out?

Edited April 18, 2011 by Philip Coates

[PDS]

The usual 'snark' and cartoons, but no one who disagrees with me was capable of answering my points intellectually:

The admiration or esteeming of "swagger" or being a "bad boy", whether among Oists or among the opposite sex, is foolish and will lead one into many errors in "judging people by their cover". In each case, it's a superficial attribute. It does not connote self-confidence or risk-taking but merely the ability to put on its facade. Two analogies will make the point clear ==>

1. "Swagger" : Self-confidence and Self-esteem :: Being a "motor-mouth" : Intelligence

2. Being a "Bad-Boy : Willingness to Act and Take Proper Risks :: The Cast of 'Jackass" : People who are Creative or Genuine Explorers

...So can I assume my points were accepted, and that I'm being thanked for pointing them out?

Honestly, Phil? Do you really crave attention that much?

[Ellen Stuttle]

...So can I assume my points were accepted, and that I'm being thanked for pointing them out?

Only if you're very silly.

Ellen

[Brant Gaede]

Being a "Bad-Boy" : Willingness to Act and Take Proper Risks :: A person who commits the fraud of passing off his work as someone else's and then takes "justice" into his own hands and blows up a building project while offering the excuse that the project's owners didn't abide by a contract that they didn't have with him : People who are honest and rational.

J

There's a lot more Nietzsche in The Fountainhead than Rand ever wanted to admit. [....]

I think that Roark's roots are Hickman, the image of whom in the dock stuck with Rand. She wanted a climax of a criminal case -- and had a lot of trouble coming up with one she found useable -- and the character calmly to face the courtroom and give a speech, as she sketched in "The Little Street."

Ellen

She read Nietzsche before Hickman.

--Brant

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Try this one ==>

Being a "Bad-Boy" : Willingness to Act and Take Proper Risks :: A person who commits the fraud of passing off his work as someone else's and then takes "justice" into his own hands and blows up a building project while offering the excuse that the project's owners didn't abide by a contract that they didn't have with him : People who are honest and rational.

Jonathan,

Or how about Ragnar Danneskjöld‎ or Bjorn Faulkner or Steven Mallory with a gun?

Michael

[Philip Coates]

> Honestly, Phil? Do you really crave attention that much?

PDS, do me a favor: don't buy the claim that I post to "get attention". Read the posts I make carefully and notice that I'm making logical points or arguments.

Don't psychologize about people you don't know and their motives.

[Xray]

Interesting comments by Rand about the profound appeal of the "noble crook" in fiction.

But I don't think that people's "vague, undefined, unrealized groping toward a concept, or a shadowy image, of man's self-esteem" is the reason for the noble crook's appeal.

Imo it is something rooted deeper, of biopsychological nature.

It has been pointed out that women are often attracted to "bad boys", in fiction as well as in reality.

My theory: all "bad boys", of whatever provenience, have one common denominator: they are all risk takers. Being a risk taker implies a certain amount of fearlessness, and at the time when our human ancestors still lived in caves, the fearless man was more likely to protect the females and their offspring against attackers.

It sounds as if you're pretty much saying the same thing that Rand was getting at. Aren't risk-taking and fearlessness the outward manifestations of self-esteem?

J

Imo fearlessness and risk-taking are not necessarily a manifestation of self-esteem.

For example, an individual can engage in a high-risk sport to compensate for a feeling of low self-esteem; while someone who already possesses self-esteem may not feel any urge to seek appreciation from others by e. g. parachuting.

There are good and bad and calculated risks; the willingness to take them would reflect a trust in your own judgment. But fearlessness would entail a suspension of judgment altogether; not to assess risk or danger at all,but to proceed anyway.Trust in your own judgment is part of self-esteem certainly, but to decide that one's own knowledge overrides every factor of reality in a dangerous situation, is not rational self-esteem as I understand it, and not to feel fear is not to be human. I interpret fearlessness here not as overcoming fear, but not feeling it.

Good points, Daunce.

Edited April 18, 2011 by Xray

[Ellen Stuttle]

Being a "Bad-Boy" : Willingness to Act and Take Proper Risks :: A person who commits the fraud of passing off his work as someone else's and then takes "justice" into his own hands and blows up a building project while offering the excuse that the project's owners didn't abide by a contract that they didn't have with him : People who are honest and rational.

J

There's a lot more Nietzsche in The Fountainhead than Rand ever wanted to admit. [....]

I think that Roark's roots are Hickman, the image of whom in the dock stuck with Rand. She wanted a climax of a criminal case -- and had a lot of trouble coming up with one she found useable -- and the character calmly to face the courtroom and give a speech, as she sketched in "The Little Street."

Ellen

She read Nietzsche before Hickman.

--Brant

Hardly means that Nietzsche was the source of the image and dramatic set-up she wanted to use for the climax of The Fountainhead.

Ellen

[Brant Gaede]

Being a "Bad-Boy" : Willingness to Act and Take Proper Risks :: A person who commits the fraud of passing off his work as someone else's and then takes "justice" into his own hands and blows up a building project while offering the excuse that the project's owners didn't abide by a contract that they didn't have with him : People who are honest and rational.

J

There's a lot more Nietzsche in The Fountainhead than Rand ever wanted to admit. [....]

I think that Roark's roots are Hickman, the image of whom in the dock stuck with Rand. She wanted a climax of a criminal case -- and had a lot of trouble coming up with one she found useable -- and the character calmly to face the courtroom and give a speech, as she sketched in "The Little Street."

Ellen

She read Nietzsche before Hickman.

--Brant

Hardly means that Nietzsche was the source of the image and dramatic set-up she wanted to use for the climax of The Fountainhead.

Ellen

We can both make contrary claims about that and neither of us top the other with justifiable certitude. I find it hard to believe, though, when Rand had Roark blowing up Cortlandt she was thinking of a cowardly, scumbag murderer hacking up a little girl.

--Brant

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

> Honestly, Phil? Do you really crave attention that much?

PDS, do me a favor: don't buy the claim that I post to "get attention". Read the posts I make carefully and notice that I'm making logical points or arguments.

Don't psychologize about people you don't know and their motives.

Phil,

Here is a typical situation where you totally drop context. I have followed PDS's posts as I follow those of others. He is definitely not a "me-too" kind of guy. Sometimes we disagree, but he thinks for himself, comes to his own conclusions, and holds to them under challenge if he thinks he is right.

Do you really think he is going to transform like an on-off switch into a mush-minded follower who will bash without thinking just because someone said something and the topic is suddenly you? That's a premise I would check if I were you. PDS is a good person with a fine independent mind.

And here's another. Rather than bossing him around and telling him what to do and think, I suggest you look at your own act and ask yourself, "Am I really communicating such a needy desire to get attention that someone who doesn't know me well--but wishes me well--speaks about it?"

I don't think you are going to do that, but that is my suggestion. Who knows what terror you may encounter--like you may be mistaken on something basic? God, how would you survive if you ever discovered that?

(It's actually easy, but that's another issue.)

And, yes, your communication style carries a strong message of desperately needing approval--and if you can't get it, taking a martyr's comfort as the second place prize.

I just might haul out my template notes on your martyr routine again, but actually publish the thing this time. You are right on cue and completely within the steps I have outlined.

Michael

[Ellen Stuttle]

We can both make contrary claims about that and neither of us top the other with justifiable certitude. I find it hard to believe, though, when Rand had Roark blowing up Cortlandt she was thinking of a cowardly, scumbag murderer hacking up a little girl.

--Brant

I'm not saying she was thinking of that, nor am I talking about the blowing up of Cortlandt. That's what she finally used as the plot means to result in the climactic trial scene. It's the trial scene I'm talking about in seeing direct lineage. I'm saying that I think she'd formed an image which stuck with her of a protagonist in the dock calmly facing the courtroom. She wrote about that image in her sketch for "The Little Street." If you re-read the sketch, I think you could see that the abstraction is the core of the scene she ultimately used years later -- and remember, she said even at the time she wrote "The Little Street" sketch that it was what Hickman suggested to her, not Hickman himself, she was thinking of as the basis for her character. My belief is that she quickly gave up on that project with a stern admonition (see the final Journal comment of the sequence) not to be self-indulgent because she found out more about Hickman and became disgusted. But the image she'd meanwhile sketched is just the abstraction of the scene with Roark on trial, calmly facing the courtroom and delivering a speech (as she planned to have the character Danny in "The Little Street" do).

Ellen

[Jonathan]

I don't agree that Phil is an example. Even O'ist Church School Goodiegoodies don't like his schoolmarming. For instance, I think he was banned on Noodlefood -- as well as on SOLO. I'd never select Phil as an example of what I was talking about.

I think Phil is definitely swagger-deficient, but not an Objectivist Church School Goodiegoodie. He wants to convert everyone else into Objectivist Church School Goodiegoodies, without following his own rules and becoming one himself, and he wants to be their Mother Superior/Headmistress.

J