Imaginary Dialogue Between Ayn Rand, Jim Henson, Yoko Ono and Sidney Nolan

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Imaginary Dialogue Between Ayn Rand, Jim Henson, Yoko Ono and Sidney Nolan

I came across this on my Google News feed, but the link went to a BoingBoing page that does not exist. That is a news curation site, so I looked up the original:

ARPANET Test April 1976 with Jim Henson, Ayn Rand, Sidney Nolan & Yoko Ono Published on 4 March 2012.
Presented as a contribution to Roundtable Issue 1, a journal for the 9th Gwangju Biennale. Featuring guest contributor Natalya Pinchuk, an artist based in Pittsburgh, USA.

From the article:

17 April 1976 – The transcript presented here records a conversation between four figures from the broad spectrum of culture: puppeteer Jim Henson; Russian-American writer, philosopher and playwright Ayn Rand; painter Sidney Nolan; and artist and musician Yoko Ono. A few months after the fall of Saigon and the end of the Vietnam War, The Agency’s tests with the ARPANET convened these four individuals, each with a distinct sense of, as well as the potential means for, a competing world-view. These individuals, who cross different hemispheres, were to help with considerations towards the viability of broadly implementing Article 21 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.* Please note that the respective computer terminals for each participant were identified by the names of gods from Roman mythology and have here been changed to reflect the actual names of the participants. The application, still in its early stage of development, had limited syntax capability, thus punctuation was limited to the full stop. Also, the original timestamps for each transmission have been removed for the sake of legibility.

* Article 21 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: (1) Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country, directly or through freely chosen representatives. (2) Everyone has the right of equal access to public service in his country. (3) The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures.

Actually, this satire is kinda lame, but there is a reason I am posting it.

The imaginary dialogue from the Rand character does not fundamentally distort her views. There are some libertarian-like ideas incorrectly put in her mouth, but they are not too far off. I found this surprising. And, at such an intellectual distance from what I believe is the intent of this piece, I am not bothered by the minor inconsistencies.

If you look at the comments on a FARK feed about this satire (see here), you will find both Rand fundies and people who believe the image of Rand promoted by the progressive press objecting. They claim the author got her way of acting, her ideas, even her politeness all wrong.

I hold that both suffer from trying to promote an agenda-driven idealized version of Rand to the public, and that their respective image attempts do not correspond to reality. They know it this stuff is poison to their agendas, too.

Here are a couple of quotes attributed to the Rand character to show you what I mean:

Your happiness does not preclude that you are not making other people happy. Actually quite the opposite. If everyone works on their success and achievements this will bring the maximum amount of happiness to everyone.

. . .

(Regarding the Vietnam war:)

Both sides in that war were acting against the individual. My disgust of the communist ideology should be known. Unfortunately the United States was fighting a continuation of the war founded in colonialism. We were not able to transmit the glory of self determination. It was a failure.

Now how is that fundamentally different than the stuff she wrote? Granted, it's a bit different, but not like the stuff I have read where they say she preached hating weak people, was a hypocrite, and things like that.

Even though this satire is not top quality (in my humble opinion), it is getting some major media attention. And the importance is that Rand's ideas are being put forth in a manner that presents bits and pieces of the essence correctly.

I believe people who are not familiar with her will read some of that and think hmmmm... that actually sounds reasonable. Within the context of a Rand-bashing satire (which is how it is being promoted) and the public that consumes this kind of work, I think this is a big deal.

It's a cultural crack in the propaganda war. And it is an indication that Rand's ideas are penetrating to where fanatical progressives (and fanatical Rand fundies, for that matter) do not want them to go.

And the humor? I suppose it might be funny if you get in a really quirky frame of mind, like where you would enjoy Abraham Lincoln fighting vampires. Since that image actually is on the cultural radar, maybe this imaginary Internet dialogue from pre-Internet days is culturally relevant.

Hell, I don't know. This weird stuff makes me feel like an outsider. It just doesn't resonate with me.

What's worse--far, far, worse--is that I catch myself smiling at it when I bend my mind in a certain direction. And I just don't know what to think about that...



Michael

[Reidy]

The passage

Your happiness does not preclude that you are not making other people happy. Actually quite the opposite. If everyone works on their success and achievements this will bring the maximum amount of happiness to everyone.

is (in addition to its ample bad grammar) fundamentally different from what Rand said in that it's textbook utilitarianism, theory she opposed vociferously.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Pete,

In my understanding, Rand objected to that as a fundamental principle to base a code of ethics on. And she was ticked at conservatives who tried to defend capitalism using that as their fundamental basis.

I never saw her disagree with it as a result, though. I'll have to look it up, but I think she actually agreed with it as a general observation, but considered it as some kind of secondary result.

Michael

[Reidy]

She agreed that this is the way to maximize material prosperity, but I can't recall her ever saying it about hapiness.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Pete,

You may be right. (If I get time, I'll look into it.) But if so, it is one of those inconsistencies (minor distortions by the author of the satire) I mentioned that is not too far off.

This is a lot different than saying Ayn Rand used to eat ground babies for breakfast and here is the proof (yada yada yada), which is a stretch metaphorically, but is one of the principle subtexts of most anti-Rand criticism in the mainstream media I have read over the years. A good explicit example from the early days is Whittaker Chambers's "To a gas chamber -- go!"

I don't see that in this satire and this shift is my point. Think Overton window, like I have discussed before:

The Overton Window

I am beholden to Glenn Beck for bringing this idea into my life. This is basically a method for making incremental change on a fundamental level. You will see the importance of this idea later in this post.

Wikipedia does a pretty good job of explaining it: Overton Window:

The Overton window, in political theory, describes a "window" in the range of public reactions to ideas in public discourse, in a spectrum of all possible options on a particular issue. It is named after its originator, Joseph P. Overton, former vice president of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy.

. . .

When the window moves or expands, ideas can accordingly become more or less politically acceptable. The degrees of acceptance of public ideas can be described roughly as:

- Unthinkable
- Radical
- Acceptable
- Sensible
- Popular
- Policy

Wikipedia did not do such a good job on explaining how it works. You can get a much better idea of how to use it here: A Brief Explanation of the Overton Window. Here is an example of the degrees using Overton's original freedom as a standard.

Least government intervention
Most freedom

No government schools
Parents pay for the education they choose
Private and home schools monitored, not regulated
Tuition tax credits
Tuition vouchers
Private and home schooling moderately regulated
Charter schools
Public-school choice
State-mandated curricula
Private and home schooling highly regulated: parents pay twice
Home schooling illegal
Private schools illegal
Compulsory indoctrination in government schools

Most government intervention
Less freedom

Basically, the window includes any four of these ideas, but keeps them in order. At the site, there is a cool gadget you can move to highlight the four ideas.

And here is how it works. If, for instance, a person is convinced that home schooling should be illegal, the closest you will be able to discuss something with him and still connect will be to talk about people being able to choose their public schools. That is within the window. If you up up further and talk about things like tuition vouchers, you will not connect with that person and, if you insist, the discussion will eventually become a yelling match or worse.

We see this behavior all the time in discussing philosophy online.

The big takeaway here is that if you get the person focused on choosing public schools as priority instead of making home schooling illegal, you shift the window. Now you can include a discussion of tuition vouchers and he will take you seriously as you move more in the direction of freedom. (The opposite is true, too.)

This approach also works well on the level of personal outlook on life.

Imagine the premises needed to understanding Ayn Rand's ideas being put on an Overton list, or even what Rand actually said going from the totally false to the 100% correct, then watching this change in the culture through a 4-item window.

This is what I am seeing. Within anti-Rand satire, there is a shift in this window. I believe this indicates a shift in the culture. And that gives me hope.

Michael