Beethoven and malevolent sense of life


jts

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A couple of years back Barbara Branden weighed in on the Rand-Beethoven kerfuffle:

Ted: "I've never thought I had a good understanding of Rand's condemnation of Beethoven. She stated that he was a very talented composer, though she abhorred his sense of life. I just don't perceive a malovelent sense of life in his work.

Perhaps Barbara B. can lend some insight on the connection Rand made."

Sorry. I've never had the least idea why Rand saw Beethoven as malevolent. I do know that she had heard very little of his work. My only guess is that she listened to a composition -- or part of a composition-- that was dark and gloomy. and assumed that the part gave her sufficient information about the total. I have seen her doing the equivalent successfully in the area of philosophy, that is, learning an aspect of a thinker's views and extrapolating the essence of his overall philosophy from that. aspect. It sometimes works with philosophies. It rarely works with music.

Barbara.

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A couple of years back Barbara Branden weighed in on the Rand-Beethoven kerfuffle:

Ted: "I've never thought I had a good understanding of Rand's condemnation of Beethoven. She stated that he was a very talented composer, though she abhorred his sense of life. I just don't perceive a malovelent sense of life in his work.

Perhaps Barbara B. can lend some insight on the connection Rand made."

Sorry. I've never had the least idea why Rand saw Beethoven as malevolent. I do know that she had heard very little of his work. My only guess is that she listened to a composition -- or part of a composition-- that was dark and gloomy. and assumed that the part gave her sufficient information about the total. I have seen her doing the equivalent successfully in the area of philosophy, that is, learning an aspect of a thinker's views and extrapolating the essence of his overall philosophy from that. aspect. It sometimes works with philosophies. It rarely works with music.

Barbara.

Isn't that true of anyone's extrapolating on anyone else's views on any subject? Sometimes we can quickly get an accurate sense of who someone is and what they believe by observing very little about them, and sometimes our assumptions are way off. I think the problem was that at some point in her life, Rand seemed to start believing that her successful hunches were proof of her ability to prognosticate, so much so that she took her failures as proof of other's dishonesty or of their not knowing themselves as well as she did.

J

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  • 2 months later...

The Ives Concord Sonata supposedly represents four different philosophies. None of the movements inspired me to remove my clothing and throw back my head in the joys of my Sense of Life, so I guess the New Englanders, like everybody else before Rand, got philosophy wrong.

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Judging the "sense of life" of another is basically mind reading. A very dangerous practice since it cannot be done reliably.

The only sense of life one can know for sure is his or her own.

Boo Hiss on mind reading.

Ba'al Chatzaf

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Yeah, but detecting others' "senses of life" based on the fact that they're leaping naked through the air with their heads thrown back isn't really "mind reading," but rather the act of recognizing the reality that their body language is Objectively communicating the universal sign of metaphysical joy. It's mathematical. A is A, 1 + 1 = 2, and naked head-thrown-back leaping equals a proper "sense of life."

J

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Yeah, but detecting others' "senses of life" based on the fact that they're leaping naked through the air with their heads thrown back isn't really "mind reading," but rather the act of recognizing the reality that their body language is Objectively communicating the universal sign of metaphysical joy. It's mathematical. A is A, 1 + 1 = 2, and naked head-thrown-back leaping equals a proper "sense of life."

J

No it isn't mind reading. It is body reading. That all that could be what you think it is OR it could be an act. Do you know for sure? No you don't.

Any genuine emotion shown by body language can be duplicated by verisimilitude or acting.

Ba'al Chatzaf

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Yeah, but detecting others' "senses of life" based on the fact that they're leaping naked through the air with their heads thrown back isn't really "mind reading," but rather the act of recognizing the reality that their body language is Objectively communicating the universal sign of metaphysical joy. It's mathematical. A is A, 1 + 1 = 2, and naked head-thrown-back leaping equals a proper "sense of life."

J

No it isn't mind reading. It is body reading. That all that could be what you think it is OR it could be an act. Do you know for sure? No you don't.

Any genuine emotion shown by body language can be duplicated by verisimilitude or acting.

Ba'al Chatzaf

I agree, Bob. I was being facetious. I was making fun of the type of art that results from visual artists creating art based on Rand's aesthetic theories of literature, which are an attempt to objectify or universalize her subjective tastes and judgments.

J

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Yeah, but detecting others' "senses of life" based on the fact that they're leaping naked through the air with their heads thrown back isn't really "mind reading," but rather the act of recognizing the reality that their body language is Objectively communicating the universal sign of metaphysical joy. It's mathematical. A is A, 1 + 1 = 2, and naked head-thrown-back leaping equals a proper "sense of life."

J

No it isn't mind reading. It is body reading. That all that could be what you think it is OR it could be an act. Do you know for sure? No you don't.

Any genuine emotion shown by body language can be duplicated by verisimilitude or acting.

Ba'al Chatzaf

I agree, Bob. I was being facetious. I was making fun of the type of art that results from visual artists creating art based on Rand's aesthetic theories of literature, which are an attempt to objectify or universalize her subjective tastes and judgments.

J

Without naming names, J's point is certainly confirmed by a review of galleries that ostensibly offer Objectivish art. I just really never have liked most of that art being offered, even though I was supposed to...

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Without naming names, J's point is certainly confirmed by a review of galleries that ostensibly offer Objectivish art. I just really never have liked most of that art being offered, even though I was supposed to...

The fact that you didn't like the art shows that you are an Evil Evader ™ and probably a Krypto Kantian.

Ba'al Chatzaf

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Take it easy, now. There are artists who have great technical skills who went too deep into Randland such as Silvia Bokor (sp?), but the basic question is if what you are looking at does anything interesting to your brain and in what way? She was interesting to me, but God!--I'd never buy her!

--Brant

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The art most touted as "Objectivist" was probably Capuletti's, probably now selling for less than asked for in 1970. Even back then my acting teacher, Phil J. Smith, said there were technical problems in some of his work. There were.

--Brant

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