"Romanticist Art" Is Not The Essence Of The Objectivist Esthetics

[tmj]

So ultimately , in appreciating a work of art, what if any weight is to be assigned to the artist's explicit articulation of the theme of the work? And if no articulation is manifest how does one determine what in fact it was?

[anthony]

So ultimately , in appreciating a work of art, what if any weight is to be assigned to the artist's explicit articulation of the theme of the work? And if no articulation is manifest how does one determine what in fact it was?

Recently scanning my long-unread copy of For the New Intellectual, I saw this in the Preface. It might have some bearing:

"I am often asked whether I am primarily a novelist or a philosopher. The answer is: both. In a certain sense, every novelist is a philosopher,because one cannot present a picture of human existence without a philosophical framework;the novelist's only choice is whether that framework is present in his story explicitly or implicitly, whether he is aware of it or not,whether he holds his philosophical convictions consciously or unconsciously.This involves another choice: whether his work is his individual projection of existing philosophical ideas or whether he originates a philosophical framework of his own.

I did the second. That is not the specific task of a novelist; I had to do it, because my basic view of man and of existence was in conflict with most of the existing philosophical theories. In order to define, explain and present my concept of man, I had to become a philosopher in the specific meaning of the term."

tmj, Of course rarely are authors and artists so explicitly conscious of their metaphysical value-judgment, as Rand - but like philosophy, everybody has one. (Any who dismiss the notion are probably philosophical nihilists. They can't win!)

The question is, is an artist's value-judgment imitative, derivative and unconscious? or all his doing? or mixed?

But conscious or not, it is glaringly apparent in his work. I can't guess how many novelists/artists set out to expose their values explicitly, and how many others give themselves away, unknowingly.

But the upshot is, we the viewers unfailingly assess the artwork's metaphysics - consciously or not, as well - we 'swallow' it along with the aesthetic value, I think. (The judgment is not "ethical", as I continue to claim.)

[Jonathan]

That's why I asked if you're equating esthetic merit with beauty. You said, no, but then I don't understand bringing beauty into it. Beauty is a personal-preference response, just as pleasure is.

I brought in beauty because on the OO thread that I had mentioned, people were trying to claim that "man's life" was the standard of all judgments, including of beauty and art, as well as all other judgments of aesthetic taste, and in doing so, they were attempting to tie health and fitness to beauty in trying to back up their claim. In effect, they were saying beauty = health = good for man's life, and therefore man's life is the standard of value for judging beauty.

Which is why I think:

So possibly "Man's Life" would be considered the correct standard of beauty...

Analogously to "a rational person" liking (according to Rand) a certain kind of art, "an irrational person" another kind, "a mixed person" a mixed kind.

Are you saying that beauty, or any other form of pleasure, that is experienced by a person who believes that she has volitionally self-activated her properly human consciousness is necessarily based on "Man's life" as the standard of value? If so, that doesn't logically follow. Such a person would have to demonstrate that any pleasure that she experienced was actually rationally chosen and good for her. Simply having good feelings about something while believing oneself to be cognitively proper or superior or whatever wouldn't be enough.

All forms of pleasure are not necessarily good for a "Man," at least by Objectivist criteria. Only hedonism assumes that all experiences of pleasure are good. Objectivism rejects that view. It also rejects the view that humans can become infallible.

So, we're back to the challenge that I issued to the people at OO, as well as to Roger. If a person were to claim that she was a good Objectivist who switched on her volitional consciousness prior to judging beauty, and used "Man's life" as her standard of value, we wouldn't just take her word for it, but would require that she demonstrate how she uses her volition along with logic and reason in judging beauty, and how she has determined that her pleasure responses actually indicate that that which is causing the pleasure in her is truly good for her.

Anyone could come along and make the same type of self-reporting, self-grading, empty assertion about their volitionally activated superior rationality, and there would be no grounds on which Objectivists could deny their opposing claims and judgments regarding their tastes. They could even claim that they are even more volitionally self-activated Men than Rand and her followers have claimed to be, and that they disagree with Rand and her followers' judgments of beauty, and that such disagreement is proof that Rand and her followers were irrational, mistaken, and/or not quite ideally volitionally self-activated enough. When it comes to judging beauty when no real objective standard or no logic and reason are being used, anything can be judged to be either good or bad. Any person's tastes and judgments can be condemned as inferior and destructive. It just depends on how snooty and self-important one is willing to be in claiming volitionally cognitive superiority.

Which is basically what Rand's followers tend to do anyway. They simply assert that their tastes are "objectively superior" and that any disagreement is proof that others are scum (Pigero), that others are rationalizing and in denial (Bissell), that others are cynical products of a modern dark ages (Newberry), that others are just, like, um, like, really wrong (Dr. Hsieh, Ph.D.), etc.

On the OO thread about beauty and Hsieh's attempt to equate it with health, I asked:

"It's very interesting, and highly amusing, that, like many other Objectivists, Hsieh apparently believes that she has somehow become infallible on the subject of judgments of beauty. Why is it that so many Objectivists with very little knowledge or experience in aesthetics never question their own tastes or ponder the possibility of their own aesthetic ineptitude, but instead are absolutely certain that they have somehow willed themselves to acquire very refined and purely objective tastes, and that they've done so with little or no effort? What does it say about Objectivism when ten different Objectivists have ten different judgments of something's aesthetic value, and each is asserting that his or her own judgment is objective while claiming that all of the others are being subjective and 'really wrong'?"

Ellen, I think that the belief in the "entity which [you] consider imaginary" is a big part of that snooty Objectivist attitude. I think that there are probably a lot of Objectivists who have convinced themselves that their having achieved the proper "being of volitional consciousness" status of Man makes them purely objective and infallible in their aesthetic tastes, and how dare anyone suggest otherwise. Their being volitionally self-activated Men trumps all. They don't need to have any knowledge whatsoever of beauty or the art forms in question, and they don't have to prove their positions. In fact, being presented with knowledge of which they were unaware, and being asked to prove their positions, is seen as a vicious "personal attack" by lowly creatures who haven't reached the level of Man.

Their snootiness apparently works pretty well for them. They seem to be used to intimidating others into silence with it, and they seem to be shocked and to not know what to do don't know when it doesn't work. Well, other than whine and play victim and take their marbles and go home.

J

[Jonathan]

tmj, Of course rarely are authors and artists so explicitly conscious of their metaphysical value-judgment, as Rand - but like philosophy, everybody has one. (Any who dismiss the notion are probably philosophical nihilists. They can't win!)

How would you know how explicitly conscious of their "metaphysical value-judgments" others are or are not? Have you interviewed authors and artists on the subject?

The question is, is an artist's value-judgment imitative, derivative and unconscious? or all his doing? or mixed?

But conscious or not, it is glaringly apparent in his work. I can't guess how many novelists/artists set out to expose their values explicitly, and how many others give themselves away, unknowingly.

But the upshot is, we the viewers unfailingly assess the artwork's metaphysics - consciously or not, as well - we 'swallow' it along with the aesthetic value, I think. (The judgment is not "ethical", as I continue to claim.)

One of the big problems with the Objectivist Esthetics is that it doesn't address the fitness of consumers to judge art. It offers no means of testing their abilities to judge art, or to objectively confirm that it means what they insist that it means, or that the artist holds the values and "sense of life" that they claim.

As I've said many times in many Objectivish forums, "Art is like a transmitter, and viewers are like receivers. The Objectivist Esthetics instructs the receivers that they are to judge the quality of the transmitter and its transmissions. In doing so, it doesn't address the possibility that the receivers might malfunction or be limited in some way -- that all receivers might not have the equal ability to receive transmissions clearly. The Objectivist Esthetics only addresses the issue of the transmitter's functioning or malfunctioning, and how it is to be judged. But if we are to be truly objective about it, don't we have to test and judge the levels at which both the transmitter and the receivers are functioning? If a receiver doesn't receive a message -- or even if several receivers don't -- is it rational to conclude that the transmitter failed to transmit?"

What Objectivists often claim is "glaringly apparent" in a work of art is quite often not in the art at all, but is just their distorted interpretation based on looking at everything through their Objecti-goggles. Despite their self-certainty, their judgments of art and artists are nothing but evidence of their functioning very poorly as receivers.

J

[Brant Gaede]

tmj, Of course rarely are authors and artists so explicitly conscious of their metaphysical value-judgment, as Rand - but like philosophy, everybody has one. (Any who dismiss the notion are probably philosophical nihilists. They can't win!)

How would you know how explicitly conscious of their "metaphysical value-judgments" others are or are not? Have you interviewed authors and artists on the subject?

The question is, is an artist's value-judgment imitative, derivative and unconscious? or all his doing? or mixed?

But conscious or not, it is glaringly apparent in his work. I can't guess how many novelists/artists set out to expose their values explicitly, and how many others give themselves away, unknowingly.

But the upshot is, we the viewers unfailingly assess the artwork's metaphysics - consciously or not, as well - we 'swallow' it along with the aesthetic value, I think. (The judgment is not "ethical", as I continue to claim.)

One of the big problems with the Objectivist Esthetics is that it doesn't address the fitness of consumers to judge art. It offers no means of testing their abilities to judge art, or to objectively confirm that it means what they insist that it means, or that the artist holds the values and "sense of life" that they claim.

As I've said many times in many Objectivish forums, "Art is like a transmitter, and viewers are like receivers. The Objectivist Esthetics instructs the receivers that they are to judge the quality of the transmitter and its transmissions. In doing so, it doesn't address the possibility that the receivers might malfunction or be limited in some way -- that all receivers might not have the equal ability to receive transmissions clearly. The Objectivist Esthetics only addresses the issue of the transmitter's functioning or malfunctioning, and how it is to be judged. But if we are to be truly objective about it, don't we have to test and judge the levels at which both the transmitter and the receivers are functioning? If a receiver doesn't receive a message -- or even if several receivers don't -- is it rational to conclude that the transmitter failed to transmit?"

What Objectivists often claim is "glaringly apparent" in a work of art is quite often not in the art at all, but is just their distorted interpretation based on looking at everything through their Objecti-goggles. Despite their self-certainty, their judgments of art and artists are nothing but evidence of their functioning very poorly as receivers.

J

Rand said "sense of life" determines (some? all?) responses. She also asked not to be sent music; only her husband knew her well enough to do that and he never failed. (I think I got this last off some recent Internet posting.)

--Brant

[Ellen Stuttle]

About #70:

The APA Ayn Rand Society had an inconclusive discussion at one of its meetings as to whether Rand had read the Poetics. Her marginal notes establish that she first came across the can-and-ought-to-be remark secondhand in Albert J. Nock, and nobody had hard evidence that she'd read the original.

If you're talking about the meeting I think you are (I don't remember the year), one of the speakers, someone who isn't an Objectivist but is an Aristotelian scholar, made the point that the dictum Nock and then Rand attributed to Aristotle - life as it could be and should be - isn't in Aristotle.

I think that somewhere on this board there's an extended debate as to whether or not the dictum is a plausible paraphrase of Aristotle's meaning. I'm far from being an expert on Aristotle. My source is just the McKeon translation, but going by that, I'm among those who think that the paraphrase isn't accurate.

Ellen

[Ellen Stuttle]

Rand said "sense of life" determines (some? all?) responses.

No. She said "sense of life" isn't a criterion for esthetic judgment (that is, for judgment of how well an art work is executed). She also said that there were various respects in which one could like an art work short of full "sense of life" resonance. For instance, one example she gave was that of Dostoevsky, whose work she said made her feel as if she were in a chamber of horrors but with a (?) guide (I forget off-hand what adjective she used).

She also asked not to be sent music; only her husband knew her well enough to do that and he never failed. (I think I got this last off some recent Internet posting.)

--Brant

It was posted recently (April 3) here:

http://www.objectivistliving.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=13090&p=180264

For a transcription by Robert Campbell direct from the tape of the Q&A, scroll down to the segment starting "Robert Campbell...said."

Ellen

[anthony]

tmj, Of course rarely are authors and artists so explicitly conscious of their metaphysical value-judgment, as Rand - but like philosophy, everybody has one. (Any who dismiss the notion are probably philosophical nihilists. They can't win!)

How would you know how explicitly conscious of their "metaphysical value-judgments" others are or are not? Have you interviewed authors and artists on the subject?

The question is, is an artist's value-judgment imitative, derivative and unconscious? or all his doing? or mixed?

But conscious or not, it is glaringly apparent in his work. I can't guess how many novelists/artists set out to expose their values explicitly, and how many others give themselves away, unknowingly.

But the upshot is, we the viewers unfailingly assess the artwork's metaphysics - consciously or not, as well - we 'swallow' it along with the aesthetic value, I think. (The judgment is not "ethical", as I continue to claim.)

One of the big problems with the Objectivist Esthetics is that it doesn't address the fitness of consumers to judge art. It offers no means of testing their abilities to judge art, or to objectively confirm that it means what they insist that it means, or that the artist holds the values and "sense of life" that they claim.

As I've said many times in many Objectivish forums, "Art is like a transmitter, and viewers are like receivers. The Objectivist Esthetics instructs the receivers that they are to judge the quality of the transmitter and its transmissions. In doing so, it doesn't address the possibility that the receivers might malfunction or be limited in some way -- that all receivers might not have the equal ability to receive transmissions clearly. The Objectivist Esthetics only addresses the issue of the transmitter's functioning or malfunctioning, and how it is to be judged. But if we are to be truly objective about it, don't we have to test and judge the levels at which both the transmitter and the receivers are functioning? If a receiver doesn't receive a message -- or even if several receivers don't -- is it rational to conclude that the transmitter failed to transmit?"

What Objectivists often claim is "glaringly apparent" in a work of art is quite often not in the art at all, but is just their distorted interpretation based on looking at everything through their Objecti-goggles. Despite their self-certainty, their judgments of art and artists are nothing but evidence of their functioning very poorly as receivers.

J

J. Where errors and over-simplications by Objectivists are made, is the fault of myself or other Objectivist, not ~ generally ~ to be laid at the feet of the philosophy.

I've been a fiction reader for close to 50 years, and pre-dating Rand, as well as in retrospect where I've applied my 'Objecti-scope', I found that in the realm of literature, particularly, Rand was startling in her accurate insight.

To get back to basics before this loses direction: To be art:

1. it is a re-ordering of elements in reality to create another reality

2. it is to contain the artist's metaphysical value-judgments.

2b. when those value-judgments speak of and to man's volitional consciousness - to a greater or lesser degree - and any of the corollaries of it - this is likely Romanticist art.

The rider to (2) in my opinion, is that the metaphysical value-judgments are clearly visible to reader or viewer. NOT entailing the artist "dumbing-down" his work - by any means - but within the conventions of literary and visual language sufficient for recognition by the averagely sophisticated reader/viewer.

WhiIe I can readily agree that an evolution toward higher sophistication is essential (and natural) by your "receiver's" consciousness (and I see your frustrations with Objectivist simplifications in your specific field, visual art) I strongly oppose what I sometimes see as deliberate obfuscation in an artist's output. The cause is possibly some post-modernist elitism that desires to hold 'Art' above the ignorant plebs.

If he hides his metaphysical premises, then he usually has good reason to hide them, I think..

Clarity should not be confused with simple-mindedness.

[Jonathan]

Philosophy of Objectivism, Lecture 12, 1976:
"Nobody but my husband can give me works of art and know infallibly, as he does, that I'll like them. So please don't try it. It's no reflection on you or on me. It's simply that sense of life is very private."

In light of Ellen's emphasis on Rand's concept of "Man," I think that Rand did mean it as a reflection on others. I think she meant that you -- tiny, lowly you -- cannot know and judge others' senses of life, but that volitionally self-activated Men like her could do so, and infallibly at that.

When judging works of art, whatever Rand and some of her inner circle of volitionally self-activated followers took to be its meaning was asserted to be its true or actual meaning. End of story. There was no possibility that they had erred or simply had a different interpretation than others did due to subjectively placing more importance on certain aspects of the art than others had. And not only that, but they imagined that they were capable of knowing the artist better than he knew himself! If the artist were to say that his work meant something other than what they said it meant, these superior Men would claim that he had unknowingly exposed his real values in his art despite what he claimed them to be.

Our Tony has been practicing that Objectivist tradition of implying his own superiority. Check out posts 75 and 77 for examples. It is not possible that Tony is a poor receiver of art or that he is so hostile and malevolent in his methods of aesthetic interpretation as to misinterpret most 'benevolent' art as 'malevolent.' The only realistic option is that, like Rand, he is capable of knowing complex, deeply personal things about others based on very little information presented in the form of fiction.


Rand wrote,
"It is of course impossible to name the sense of life of fictional characters. You might name the sense of life of your closest friend – though I doubt it. You may, after some years, know the sense of life of the person you love, but nobody beyond that. You cannot ~judge~ the sense of life of another person; that would be psychologizing."

You cannot do so. She, and those like her, can. In fact, in the next paragraph she identified what she believed to be Scarlett O'Hara's sense of life!

She also said, "Please don't send me records or recommend music. You have no way of knowing my sense of life, although you have a better way of knowing mine that I have of knowing yours, since you've read my books and mine is on every page. You would have some grasp of it – but I hate to think of how little. I hate the painful embarrassment I feel when somebody sends me music the know I'd love – and my reaction is the opposite: It's impossible music. I feel completely misunderstood, yet the person's intentions were good. Nobody but my husband can give me works of art and know infallibly, as he does, that I'll like them."

Translation: I've poured my sense of life into my novels, and you still don't get it! Little you! You should know my sense of life as my husband does, but, alas, you are not a Man. It's not possible that art is complex enough to not have a single correct meaning or sense of life, and that we all see works of art differently. No. Works of art mean what I take them to mean, and it's embarrassing when you send me shit which reveals that you are incapable of grasping what it really means. You hopeless monkey.

J

[anthony]

Back to The Romantic Manifesto to see the distinction between "metaphysical value-judgment" and "sense of life".

One is conscious and explicit, the other subconscious, emotional and pre-conceptual.

You're using the second to attack the first.

"The reason why art has such a profoundly ~personal~ significance for men

is that art confirms or denies the efficacy of a man's consciousness,

according to whether an art work supports or negates his own

fundamental view of reality."[The Psycho-Epistemology of Art]

[Ellen Stuttle]

J,

Before I venture further into the morass of a possible Objectivist theory of beauty, I want to try to head off misunderstandings by re-stating some things I've said over the years in various contexts.

I do not now consider myself nor have I ever considered myself an Objectivist. A "fellow traveler." I think that Rand presents an "outline" or a "sketch" which is "tantalizingly close" to a good secular ethics (and I think that there's a great need for a good secular ethics), but I think that unfortunately her working-out of her ethics is off-kilter from the foundations.

Just last night I reread for the many, manyeth time pgs. 11-16 of "The Objectivist Ethics," where she presents her foundational case. My cavils and criticisms have only increased and firmed up over the years since I first read that passage - and before it her presentation in Galt's Speech.

Specifically regarding her theory of esthetics, I don't think her definition of art - a selective re-creation of reality according to an artist's metaphysical value judgments - is a good definition of the area to be defined. I think her idea "sense of life" doesn't identify a real phenomenon. I think her categorization of "metaphysical value judgment" basic types into benevolent vs. malevolent universe premises is hopeless. Also that her way of differentiating "Romantic" from "Naturalist" art is her invention. She acknowledges that standard histories of art don't define the terms the way she does. But she says that she's naming the "essence," which standard histories have missed. I think she's producing a shoe-horn force fit.

So, in suggesting that an Objectivist theory of beauty might have an analogous form to Rand's defense of the category "Romanticist art" as ethically superior to "Naturalist art" (by her definitions of "Romanticist" and "Naturalist"), I'm not subscribing to the reasoning, just trying to figure out what it might be, coherently with the general framework.

I'll pause there before turning to your reply to my wondering if you were equating esthetic merit with beauty.

Ellen

[Brant Gaede]

Rand said "sense of life" determines (some? all?) responses.

No. She said "sense of life" isn't a criterion for esthetic judgment (that is, for judgment of how well an art work is executed). She also said that there were various respects in which one could like an art work short of full "sense of life" resonance. For instance, one example she gave was that of Dostoevsky, whose work she said made her feel as if she were in a chamber of horrors but with a (?) guide (I forget off-hand what adjective she used).

She also asked not to be sent music; only her husband knew her well enough to do that and he never failed. (I think I got this last off some recent Internet posting.)

--Brant

It was posted recently (April 3) here:

http://www.objectivistliving.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=13090&p=180264

For a transcription by Robert Campbell direct from the tape of the Q&A, scroll down to the segment starting "Robert Campbell...said."

Ellen

It was "a powerful guide."

--Brant

well, I stand corrected, Ellen--first time I've ever been wrong about anything, but I'm glad it happened on OL where I can get some emotional support

[Ellen Stuttle]

Next, to have these conveniently in one post, I'll quote the passages from "The Objectivist Ethics" and from Galt's Speech stating the "standard of value" of the Objectivist ethics. (Rand hadn't yet chosen the name "Objectivism" for her philosophy when she wrote Galt's Speech.)

pg. 16, The Virtue of Selfishness, NAL 1964 hardcover

From The Objectivist Ethics," speech delivered at the University of Wisconsin Symposium on "Ethics in Our Time" in Madison, Wisconsin, on February 9, 1961.

The standard of value of the Objectivist ethics - the standard by which one judges what is good or evil - is man's life, or: that which is required for man's survival qua man.

Since reason is man's basic means of survival, that which is proper to the life of a rational being is the good; that which negates, opposes or destroys it is the evil.

Since everything man needs has to be discovered by his own mind and produced by his own effort, the two essentials of the method of survival proper to a rational being are: thinking and productive work.

pg. 149, For the New Intellectual, Random House 1961 hardcover

From Galt's Speech, Atlas Shrugged

There is a morality of reason, a morality proper to man, and Man's Life is its standard.

All that which is proper to the life of a rational being is the good; all that which destroys it is the evil.

Man's life, as required by his nature, is not the life of a mindless brute, of a looting thug or a mooching mystic, but the life of a thinking being - not life by means of force or fraud, but life by means of achievement - not survival at any price, since there's only one price that pays for man's survival: reason.

Ellen

[Ellen Stuttle]

Actually, Brant, she did say that "sense of life" determines some responses, so you're only half corrected.

Ellen

[Brant Gaede]

Rand was indeed talking down to her readers/listeners on the-sense-of-life-art-don't-send-me-stuff. What appalls me more today is how she seems bent on not experiencing anything new or interesting, yet in the mid-1960s she spent hours discussing and listening to music with the composer-father of Joan Kennedy Taylor and talking philosophy with John Hospers in the earlier part of that decade until he didn't act like her performing monkey in front of his professional colleagues.

--Brant

[Brant Gaede]

Actually, Brant, she did say that "sense of life" determines some responses, so you're only half corrected.

Ellen

I know, but I was too much of a gentleman to say anything.

--Brant

unlike Nathaniel Branden who didn't take "it" to his grave

~croak~

[Ellen Stuttle]

And next, the only entry on "Beauty" in the Lexicon.

This comes from a Q&A, the question period following Lecture 11 of Peikoff's 1976 "The Philosophy of Ocjectivism" course.

I don't know what the question was.

Beauty is a sense of harmony. Whether it's an image, a human face, a body, or a sunset, take the object which you call beautiful, as a unit [and ask yourself]: what parts is it made up of, what are its constituent elements, and are they all harmonious? If they are, the result is beautiful. If there are contradictions and clashes, the result is marred or positively ugly.

For instance, the simplest example would be the human face. You know what features belong in a human face. Well, if the face is lopsided, [with a] very indefinite jawline, very small eyes, beautiful mouth, and a long nose, you would have to say that's not a beautiful face. But if all these features are harmoniously integrated, if they all fit your view of the importance of all these features on a human face, then that face is beautiful.

In this respect, a good example would be the beauty of different races of people. For instance, a black face, or an Oriental face, is built on a different standard, and therefore what would be beautiful on a white face will not be beautiful for them (or vice-versa), because there is a certain racial standard of features by which you judge which features, which face, in that classification is harmonious or distorted.

That's in regard to human beauty. In regard to a sunset, for instance, or a landscape, you will regard it as beautiful if all the colors complement each other, or go well together, or are dramatic together. And you will call it ugly if it is a bad rainy afternoon, and the sky isn't exactly pink nor exactly gray, but sort of "modern."

Now since this is an objective definition of beauty, there of course can be universal standards of beauty - provided you define the terms of what objects you are going to classify as beautiful and what you take as the ideal harmonious relationship of the elements of that particular object. To say, "It's in the eyes of the beholder" - that, of course, would be pure subjectivism, if taken literally. It isn't [a matter of] what you, for unknown reasons, decide to regard as beautiful. It is true, of course, that if there were no valuers, then nothing could be valued as beautiful or ugly, because values are created by the observing consciousness - but they are created by a standard based on reality. So here the issue is: values, including beauty, have to be judged as objective, not subjective or intrinsic.

Ellen

[anthony]

Actually, Brant, she did say that "sense of life" determines some responses, so you're only half corrected.

Ellen

"(A sense of life is a pre-conceptual equivalent of metaphysics,an emotional,subconsciously integrated appraisal of man and existence.)

It is the artist's sense of life that controls and integrates his work, directing the innumerable choices he has to make, from the choice of subject to the subtlest details of style. It is the viewer's or reader's sense of life that responds to a work of art by a complex, yet automatic reaction of acceptance and approval, or rejection and condemnation.

This does not mean that a sense of life is the valid criterion of aesthetic merit, either for the artist or the viewer.

A sense of life is NOT infallible. But a sense of life is the source of art, the psychological mechanism which enables man to create a realm such as art." [Art and Sense of Life]

A 's.o.l.' appears to me to be a sort of instant shorthand - like Rand's "lightning-rod" (vis-a-vis emotions.)

Crucial to expression and experience of art, but it is always the red herring that leads debates astray.

Then everyone misses the point - sense of life is an automatic response, dammit, not a moral judgment..

It's the "pre-conceptual" secondary, to the conceptual primary of metaphysical evaluation, so of lesser

priority although instantaneous.

[Ellen Stuttle]

That's why I asked if you're equating esthetic merit with beauty. You said, no, but then I don't understand bringing beauty into it. Beauty is a personal-preference response, just as pleasure is.

I brought in beauty because on the OO thread that I had mentioned, people were trying to claim that "man's life" was the standard of all judgments, including of beauty and art, as well as all other judgments of aesthetic taste, and in doing so, they were attempting to tie health and fitness to beauty in trying to back up their claim. In effect, they were saying beauty = health = good for man's life, and therefore man's life is the standard of value for judging beauty.

Doing this piecemeal, because I want to bring in an issue different from Objectivism.

I agree with you that Rand doesn't make "Man's Life" ethical considerations the standard of esthetic merit, in the sense of the standard of esthetic proficiency. However, she does argue for the "Man's Life" superiority of Romantic art over Naturalist art (using her depictions of those categories).

I think she might also have argued that irrational people would differ from rational people in what they find beautiful, though she didn't go into that kind of consideration in the answer I quoted above.

Thus, yes, an Objectivist might argue, seems to me, that "beauty = health = good for man's life, and therefore man's life is the standard of value for judging beauty."

I also think, leaving Objectivism aside, that the way the idea of "beauty" arose in evolutionary development was an issue of suited to life (of a particular sort of animal) and of suited for replication. The strong, the fit, mate gets selected more often in mating displays.

Consider the peacock's tail. The display fans out the feathers, and the pattern highlights the structural integrity and vitality of the feathers, thus providing a filtering method for choosing the best mate in fitness terms, the mate best capable of protecting the female and offspring.

Similarly with other features in courtship displays, such as the antlers of deer and cognate species.

This is a popular biological theory which strikes me as plausible, so in this case if an Objectivist argued a fitness-is-perceived-as-beauty line, the Objectivist would be in keeping with evolutionary theorizing.

Ellen

[anthony]

No objection to the appearance of the 'metaphysical given' (natural beauty) having value to man.

Somehow, in our distant hunter-gathering past we learned to appreciate certain combinations of color and form, I think. (Whether there was survival value in it is fascinating to consider. Apart, evidently, from the human face and form, that is.)

Aesthetics are an expansion of this, formalized, aren't they ... so, on to the metaphysical 'man-made', art.

I have an uneasy sense of over-reach however, when it comes to measuring, quantifying and qualifying natural beauty, since it seems to approach primacy of consciousness. That amazing light after a thunderstorm just IS - independent of the viewer.

[Ellen Stuttle]

sense of life is an automatic response, dammit, not a moral judgment.. It's the "pre-conceptual" secondary, to the conceptual primary of metaphysical evaluation, so of lesserpriority although instantaneous.

Tony,

Every value response has moral weighting in Objectivism - for me or against me.

And Rand argued that Romantic art is a superior category, and that the rational person goes for romantic art. See the post on the previous page quoting Rand on the function of art. (#72)

I wonder, do you think she was saying there's no moral significance in the hero/heroine's sexual response? See Francisco's speech to Rearden about that.

Sexual response, notice, is the other area where she says "sense of life" is operative.

Rational man ("man qua man," essential characteristic volitionally turned on) is a producer with Romantic art as his fuel and sex with a heroine as his reward.

Ellen

[Jonathan]

J,

Before I venture further into the morass of a possible Objectivist theory of beauty, I want to try to head off misunderstandings by re-stating some things I've said over the years in various contexts.

I do not now consider myself nor have I ever considered myself an Objectivist. A "fellow traveler." I think that Rand presents an "outline" or a "sketch" which is "tantalizingly close" to a good secular ethics (and I think that there's a great need for a good secular ethics), but I think that unfortunately her working-out of her ethics is off-kilter from the foundations.

Just last night I reread for the many, manyeth time pgs. 11-16 of "The Objectivist Ethics," where she presents her foundational case. My cavils and criticisms have only increased and firmed up over the years since I first read that passage - and before it her presentation in Galt's Speech.

Specifically regarding her theory of esthetics, I don't think her definition of art - a selective re-creation of reality according to an artist's metaphysical value judgments - is a good definition of the area to be defined. I think her idea "sense of life" doesn't identify a real phenomenon. I think her categorization of "metaphysical value judgment" basic types into benevolent vs. malevolent universe premises is hopeless. Also that her way of differentiating "Romantic" from "Naturalist" art is her invention. She acknowledges that standard histories of art don't define the terms the way she does. But she says that she's naming the "essence," which standard histories have missed. I think she's producing a shoe-horn force fit.

So, in suggesting that an Objectivist theory of beauty might have an analogous form to Rand's defense of the category "Romanticist art" as ethically superior to "Naturalist art" (by her definitions of "Romanticist" and "Naturalist"), I'm not subscribing to the reasoning, just trying to figure out what it might be, coherently with the general framework.

I'll pause there before turning to your reply to my wondering if you were equating esthetic merit with beauty.

Ellen

Ellen,

I think we're on the same page. In my last post, I was addressing your comments under the assumption that you're being something of a devil's advocate or surrogate for Rand, while not necessarily agreeing with the reasoning that you're offering in her stead. I see myself as responding to the line of reasoning that you're offering, while recoginizing that you're not subscribing to it. So, in this discussion when I say something, "Are you saying X?" I'm talking to Ellen Surrogate rather than Ellen Stuttle.

As for Rand's inventing her own definitions of things like "art," "romanticism" and " naturalism," she also misidentified "esthetics" as "the study of art." Historically, the field has also included aesthetic phenomena in nature. It's not just about art.

J

[Brant Gaede]

Rand eschewed nature for the artificial.

--Brant

or man made

[Brant Gaede]

Esthetics growing out of ethics or morality might be logically linked for an extremely delimited esthetics qua Rand or Objectivism or something else, but the essence of that would be control as to a standard; morality is all about self control and direction and ethics about both self control and control by others as with a government through law or even the state, the latter being like today's rule of the elected and bureaucratic elite with little actual controlling input by sanctioning hoi polloi.

--Brant

[Jonathan]

And next, the only entry on "Beauty" in the Lexicon.

This comes from a Q&A, the question period following Lecture 11 of Peikoff's 1976 "The Philosophy of Ocjectivism" course.

I don't know what the question was.

Beauty is a sense of harmony. Whether it's an image, a human face, a body, or a sunset, take the object which you call beautiful, as a unit [and ask yourself]: what parts is it made up of, what are its constituent elements, and are they all harmonious? If they are, the result is beautiful. If there are contradictions and clashes, the result is marred or positively ugly.

For instance, the simplest example would be the human face. You know what features belong in a human face. Well, if the face is lopsided, [with a] very indefinite jawline, very small eyes, beautiful mouth, and a long nose, you would have to say that's not a beautiful face. But if all these features are harmoniously integrated, if they all fit your view of the importance of all these features on a human face, then that face is beautiful.

In this respect, a good example would be the beauty of different races of people. For instance, a black face, or an Oriental face, is built on a different standard, and therefore what would be beautiful on a white face will not be beautiful for them (or vice-versa), because there is a certain racial standard of features by which you judge which features, which face, in that classification is harmonious or distorted.

That's in regard to human beauty. In regard to a sunset, for instance, or a landscape, you will regard it as beautiful if all the colors complement each other, or go well together, or are dramatic together. And you will call it ugly if it is a bad rainy afternoon, and the sky isn't exactly pink nor exactly gray, but sort of "modern."

Now since this is an objective definition of beauty, there of course can be universal standards of beauty - provided you define the terms of what objects you are going to classify as beautiful and what you take as the ideal harmonious relationship of the elements of that particular object. To say, "It's in the eyes of the beholder" - that, of course, would be pure subjectivism, if taken literally. It isn't [a matter of] what you, for unknown reasons, decide to regard as beautiful. It is true, of course, that if there were no valuers, then nothing could be valued as beautiful or ugly, because values are created by the observing consciousness - but they are created by a standard based on reality. So here the issue is: values, including beauty, have to be judged as objective, not subjective or intrinsic.

Ellen

It's too bad that Stephen deleted my posts from his corner on the subject of beauty and Rand's opinion that it is a "sense of harmony." I went into some detail about contrast and conflict also being beautiful. I've also posted on the subject over at OO, so maybe I'll be able to find my comments and repost some o them here.

In response to Rand's rather half-baked comments on the subject of human beauty, I've written on OO:

First of all, technically, all human faces are a bit "lopsided," and most people think that beauty includes some asymmetry (they tend to see perfect symmetry as cold, inhuman, artificial, etc.). So, by what objective standard would Objectivists propose that we measure lopsidedness and how much of it is acceptable or required in a beautiful face, and how much results in ugliness?

People from different times, cultures and races have thought that "indefinite jawlines" were beautiful. By what objective standard would you propose that we measure and rate the sharpness versus indefiniteness of a jawline and its beauty ranking?

"Small eyes" are ugly? Objectively, how small can eyes be before they're ugly? What objective principles of proportion are being used to make such claims? Is there anything to back up any of these assertions?

What does Rand mean by a "beautiful mouth"? Beautiful by what objective standard? And precisely how long can a nose be before it's objectively deemed to be ugly? What are the objectively proper proportions of the attributes of the human face, and by what objective standard were those proportions established? What percentage of deviation from objectively proper proportions is acceptable, and how was that percentage objectively arrived at?

Finally, in the quote I provided above, Rand says that "you would have to say thats not a beautiful face." Why is she claiming to know what others must think? Was she not aware of the fact that other rational people did not share her tastes, and would not necessarily "have to say" that a face was not beautiful just because she judged it to be not beautiful?

Btw, notice that Rand, unlike Hsieh, does not attempt to tie beauty to health. Instead, she discusses judgements of the types of proportions and relationships that Jennifer earlier correctly identified as being subjective. Facial asymmetry, an indefinite jawline, small eyes and a long nose are not health issues (nor are they necessarily ugly -- ask the average caricaturist to draw a face which is lopsided, small-eyed and long-nosed, and yet beautiful, and he'll have no difficulty doing so). So, Hsieh's foray into attempting to objectify her subjective aesthetic tastes by equating beauty with health is a deviation from Rand's Objectivism.

J