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

[Ellen Stuttle]

Beauty is a personal-preference response, just as pleasure is.

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?

Not that it necessarily is but that if (hypothetically) a person were Rand's rational being, the person's responses would be those of such a being. So if a person believes he/she is such a being, ipso facto, as you proceed further on in your reply to say.

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.

I think that indeed many of them do that. I've thought so since way back.

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

Partly, it works well, depending on how secure the person feels in his/her rational-being status.

But it's a two-edged sword which can also work the other direction, producing a fear of not having the right responses and of what having the wrong ones would mean about one's present or past rationality.

"The esthetic response as a morals exam," is how I aphorized the problem in an outline I wrote years ago for a book idea I titled The Woman Who Became God. I didn't get past an extended sketch for the book, since a bit later I started studying Jungian theory and pretty much lost interest in the Objectivist world for almost a decade.

Ellen

[Ellen Stuttle]

[...] in this discussion when I say something, "Are you saying X?" I'm talking to Ellen Surrogate rather than Ellen Stuttle.

LOL at the "Ellen Surrogate."

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

Right, which is a further complication. Historically, providing an experience of beauty has been considered a major function of art.

It's noteworthy that Rand doesn't bring "beauty" in as either motivator or standard to the production, appreciating, and evaluating of art.

Ellen

[anthony]

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.

J

This is the instance you have accused me of knowing a person's "sense of life", when it was the "metaphysical value-judgment" of the work I've been constantly referring to - only.

You have seemingly jumped from one to the other.

And nobody has yet claimed that Shakespeare's plays have a "benevolent universe premise". So I'll take that as tacit agreement with Rand's assertion.

I put it another way: if the artist has not succeeded or is unwilling in portraying his metaphysical value-judgments, what has he to 'say'? Aesthetic excellence isn't enough. He'd either be faking his values or disguising them, or be piss-poor as artist.

No, not "superiority" for any reader, just seeing what's evidently there. Or do you think that's unwarranted, and one has no business appraising such things?

Sense of life, as an automatic integration of a vast array of experiences and convictions is much more complex: in a way, the artist and viewer - and any individual - has made his choice long before, subconsciously. (With sex too, Ellen.)

(The same way I think a teacher instantly puts himself in between a gunman and his pupils.)

[Ellen Stuttle]

And nobody has yet claimed that Shakespeare's plays have a "benevolent universe premise". So I'll take that as tacit agreement with Rand's assertion.I put it another way: if the artist has not succeeded or is unwilling in portraying his metaphysical value-judgments, what has he to 'say'? Aesthetic excellence isn't enough. He'd either be faking his values or disguising them, or be piss-poor as artist.No, not "superiority" for any reader, just seeing what's evidently there. Or do you think that's unwarranted, and one has no business appraising such things?

http://www.objectivistliving.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=13254&p=183593

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.

Given my view of her categorization of "metaphysical value judgment," I'm hardly going to accept her notion and argue that Shakespeare's "benevolent universe." I don't buy the parameters of the analysis.

Sense of life, as an automatic integration of a vast array of experiences and convictions is much more complex: in a way, the artist and viewer - and any individual - has made his choice long before, subconsciously. (With sex too, Ellen.) (The same way I think a teacher instantly puts himself in between a gunman and his pupils.)

So you are saying that sense of life results from choices? Choices are ethical issues, yes, in Objectivism?

And earlier you've cited Rand's "pre-conceptual" locus of sense of life. So, before a child has started talking, the child has chosen, subconsciously, his/her whole emotional attitude?

Ellen

[Ellen Stuttle]

Tony,

I don't think that you're "practicing that Objectivist tradition of implying [your] own superiority" (quoting J).

I think that you see much more merit in Rand's theories of art than J and I do and you're just stating what makes sense to you.

Ellen

[BaalChatzaf]

And earlier you've cited Rand's "pre-conceptual" locus of sense of life. So, before a child has started talking, the child has chosen, subconsciously, his/her whole emotional attitude?

Ellen

While there are tendencies built into personalities (probably genetically conditioned) attitudes and built up out of experiences and made up as the child goes along. I have four children and I did not see any evidence of rock-hard choices made in infancies. Ditto for my five grand-children.

Rand's opinion on children has to be weighed in the light that she was barren (by choice) and did not bring forth any young of her own. I seriously doubt whether she was in close contact with children of her friends or associates.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[anthony]

And nobody has yet claimed that Shakespeare's plays have a "benevolent universe premise". So I'll take that as tacit agreement with Rand's assertion.I put it another way: if the artist has not succeeded or is unwilling in portraying his metaphysical value-judgments, what has he to 'say'? Aesthetic excellence isn't enough. He'd either be faking his values or disguising them, or be piss-poor as artist.No, not "superiority" for any reader, just seeing what's evidently there. Or do you think that's unwarranted, and one has no business appraising such things?

http://www.objectivistliving.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=13254&p=183593

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.

Given my view of her categorization of "metaphysical value judgment," I'm hardly going to accept her notion and argue that Shakespeare's "benevolent universe." I don't buy the parameters of the analysis.

Sense of life, as an automatic integration of a vast array of experiences and convictions is much more complex: in a way, the artist and viewer - and any individual - has made his choice long before, subconsciously. (With sex too, Ellen.) (The same way I think a teacher instantly puts himself in between a gunman and his pupils.)

So you are saying that sense of life results from choices? Choices are ethical issues, yes, in Objectivism?

And earlier you've cited Rand's "pre-conceptual" locus of sense of life. So, before a child has started talking, the child has chosen, subconsciously, his/her whole emotional attitude?

Ellen

We judge and choose our values, yes. By the incontrovertible premise that what is subconscious first had to be conscious, every value - from the selection of color of the ribbon you put in your doll's hair - was automatically integrated into that subconsciousness. It's that seven-eighths of the ice-berg, our hardly-remembered choices and convictions, together with fleeting (or not) experiences we once passed judgment on and their corresponding emotions - our subconscious, in short - which determines our sense of life, I think.

So an artist steps up to the canvas and without hesitation makes the brush-strokes -automatically- to the complete picture he has already chosen and pre-visualized. A similar certainty prescribes the 'unthinking' act of heroism of the teacher - who affirmed way back that he would defend his valued charges in any situation, at any risk. (No wonder, when an extraordinary act like this is questioned, they say, roughly, "it was nothing, only what I had to do.")

Artist and hero (and lover) are responding 'intuitively' to earlier value-choices.

Which is why 'reading' a person's sense of life or changing one's own is close to impossible.

Metaphysical value-choices otoh are the tip of the iceberg: volitionally conscious, conceptualized and explicitly visible (in a rational individual's actions and output) - of one's evaluation of the nature of man and existence.

[Ellen Stuttle]

Tony,

Do you read what you're answering?

Ellen

[Jonathan]

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."

But so far, all that we have in what you've offered is Objectivists claiming something like superiority/authority/infallibility in claiming to base judgments of beauty on man's life. The argument is still "I am a super-rational Man, therefore anything that I like is based in my rational values, which are based on man's life." That's not a rational or logical argument.

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.

We don't know that the interpretation that you've given above about peacock feathers is the actual reason for the birds' attraction. We don't know that the birds themselves interpret such displays as being beautiful or as representing health and fitness. We don't know exactly what the animals are experiencing, or how similar or dissimilar their experiences are to ours of beauty. We don't know if its a purely sexual response that has nothing to do with health and fitness or beauty.

Additionally, animals can be attracted to evolved features that are actually harmful to their species. So it sounds like you might be proposing an unfalsifiable method in which anything and everything is accepted as proof of your position: Even being attracted to signs of illness and physical damage could be proof of beauty being based in health and fitness because we could interpret them to represent durability and toughness!

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.

Again, we don't know that such attributes and displays are perceived as beautiful, or even pleasant in any way, by the animals themselves. For all we know, they may be experienced as ugly and intimidating and something to be surrendered to. They may be experiencing the same thing that a frail man would experience walking into prison and meeting his hulking cellmate for the first time: "You are my bitch. Accept it. It'll be easier for you that way." We don't know when animals are charmed versus intimidated.

J

[Jonathan]

This is the instance you have accused me of knowing a person's "sense of life", when it was the "metaphysical value-judgment" of the work I've been constantly referring to - only.

No, you've judged both sense of life and metaphysical value-judgments, and I'm talking about both. You claim to know others' senses of life (see your post 75) as well as their metaphysical value-judgments when you don't know either. You don't have enough information to know either. You selectively ignore any aspect of art which doesn't confirm your predetermined conclusions. You ignore entire works of art which don't support your Objecti-goggled opinions. You ignore Shakespeare's comedies, for example.

One could apply the same method to any artist, including Rand, and come to the same conclusions. Rand's We The Living has a tragic ending. Therefore her sense of life and metaphysical value-judgments were that mankind is fated to struggle heroically but to inevitably fail. Howard Roark, her fictional ideal man, was an anarchist vigilante and fraud. He had to lie, cheat and destroy in order to prevail. Therefore Rand's view was that certain people are above the law, and have the right to initiate force against those whom they unsuccessfully conspired to defraud. All of which is way worse than anything that Shakespeare ever wrote.

And nobody has yet claimed that Shakespeare's plays have a "benevolent universe premise". So I'll take that as tacit agreement with Rand's assertion.

Shakespeare's plays can be interpreted as either having a "malevolent universe premise" or as having a "benevolent universe premise." The same is true of all art. It just depends on how much importance those doing the judging wish to place on which elements within the art.

I put it another way: if the artist has not succeeded or is unwilling in portraying his metaphysical value-judgments, what has he to 'say'?

If the artist hasn't succeeded to whom? To you? Is your personal ability to grasp his value-judgments the standard by which we should judge whether or not his art is successful?

How should the artist go about trying to endear himself to you so that you are willing to selectively overlook his use of tragic endings in some of his art, or fraud and anarchist vigilantism? Would it help if he over-explained his art in writings outside of his art? Would it help if supplemented his art with lots of self-congratulatory "outside considerations"?

Aesthetic excellence isn't enough. He'd either be faking his values or disguising them, or be piss-poor as artist.

Actually, the opposite is true. His spelling out his values so that even aesthetic-deficient Rand-followers can understand his art would make him a piss-poor artist. Generally speaking, Rand was a great artist, but she sometimes lapsed into zealously pounding her message home. In those moments, she ceased to by a quality artist and became a didacticist. The fact that you or other Rand fans may like propaganda as a substitute for art when it's a message that you agree with doesn't make pounding the message home the essence of great art.

No, not "superiority" for any reader, just seeing what's evidently there. Or do you think that's unwarranted, and one has no business appraising such things?

You have no business claiming to know such things. Why not focus on the art and the experience that it affords you, rather than on pretending to know the artist and his evil ways? Why not treat all artists with the same generosity that you bring to your selectively positive interpretations of Rand and her art? Why not be realistic, and truthfully phrase your statements as being your interpretations of works of art rather than identifications of others' outlooks on existence?

J

[Jonathan]

"The esthetic response as a morals exam," is how I aphorized the problem in an outline I wrote years ago for a book idea I titled The Woman Who Became God. I didn't get past an extended sketch for the book, since a bit later I started studying Jungian theory and pretty much lost interest in the Objectivist world for almost a decade.

Ellen

That sounds very interesting. Do you still have the extended sketch?

J

[anthony]

Tony,

Do you read what you're answering?

Ellen

Ellen, More, I think what I answered. What do you mean?

[Brant Gaede]

Doesn't architecture recreate, selectively, the "reality" of the cave?

--Brant

and music, noise?

Rand apologist (sorry to ruin all of Jonathan's stuff)

[Jonathan]

Doesn't architecture recreate, selectively, the "reality" of the cave?

Not according to Rand. Her view was that architecture "does not recreate reality."

J

[anthony]

This is the instance you have accused me of knowing a person's "sense of life", when it was the "metaphysical value-judgment" of the work I've been constantly referring to - only.

No, you've judged both sense of life and metaphysical value-judgments, and I'm talking about both. You claim to know others' senses of life (see your post 75) as well as their metaphysical value-judgments when you don't know either. You don't have enough information to know either. You selectively ignore any aspect of art which doesn't confirm your predetermined conclusions. You ignore entire works of art which don't support your Objecti-goggled opinions. You ignore Shakespeare's comedies, for example.

One could apply the same method to any artist, including Rand, and come to the same conclusions. Rand's We The Living has a tragic ending. Therefore her sense of life and metaphysical value-judgments were that mankind is fated to struggle heroically but to inevitably fail. Howard Roark, her fictional ideal man, was an anarchist vigilante and fraud. He had to lie, cheat and destroy in order to prevail. Therefore Rand's view was that certain people are above the law, and have the right to initiate force against those whom they unsuccessfully conspired to defraud. All of which is way worse than anything that Shakespeare ever wrote.

And nobody has yet claimed that Shakespeare's plays have a "benevolent universe premise". So I'll take that as tacit agreement with Rand's assertion.

Shakespeare's plays can be interpreted as either having a "malevolent universe premise" or as having a "benevolent universe premise." The same is true of all art. It just depends on how much importance those doing the judging wish to place on which elements within the art.

I put it another way: if the artist has not succeeded or is unwilling in portraying his metaphysical value-judgments, what has he to 'say'?

If the artist hasn't succeeded to whom? To you? Is your personal ability to grasp his value-judgments the standard by which we should judge whether or not his art is successful?

How should the artist go about trying to endear himself to you so that you are willing to selectively overlook his use of tragic endings in some of his art, or fraud and anarchist vigilantism? Would it help if he over-explained his art in writings outside of his art? Would it help if supplemented his art with lots of self-congratulatory "outside considerations"?

Aesthetic excellence isn't enough. He'd either be faking his values or disguising them, or be piss-poor as artist.

Actually, the opposite is true. His spelling out his values so that even aesthetic-deficient Rand-followers can understand his art would make him a piss-poor artist. Generally speaking, Rand was a great artist, but she sometimes lapsed into zealously pounding her message home. In those moments, she ceased to by a quality artist and became a didacticist. The fact that you or other Rand fans may like propaganda as a substitute for art when it's a message that you agree with doesn't make pounding the message home the essence of great art.

No, not "superiority" for any reader, just seeing what's evidently there. Or do you think that's unwarranted, and one has no business appraising such things?

You have no business claiming to know such things. Why not focus on the art and the experience that it affords you, rather than on pretending to know the artist and his evil ways? Why not treat all artists with the same generosity that you bring to your selectively positive interpretations of Rand and her art? Why not be realistic, and truthfully phrase your statements as being your interpretations of works of art rather than identifications of others' outlooks on existence?

J

J., You're quite fun, do you know that?

Let's say this: If an artist/writer's metaphysical value-judgments in his work is not be known - cannot be known - then you have succeeded in proving that "Romanticist Art is Not the Essence of the Objectivist Esthetics". You won't be able to.

Because then, how would man gain his spiritual food from art? Or however Rand put it.

With fiction, I'll baldly state that I have nearly always - in my reading of Naturalist, semi-Romanticist and Romanticist novels - been able to elicit the mv-j's of whatever I read.

Though I do find it gets harder with visual arts. Mostly here, esthetic value and metaphysical value-judgments are inextricably inter-mixed - and can even sometimes be in contradiction to each other, I've experienced.

I've made one, single reference to "sense of life" upthread ("To say nothing of his [WS] sense of life!") and you seized on that.

I have not made one moral judgment - certainly not "Evul! - but repeatedly insisted on making *metaphysical* judgements, and you did the rest, by beating your -"moral-judgment by Objectivist, yet again!" - drum.

Frankly, if I hadn't become so accustomed to your cavils about Romanticism and Objectivists I might resent your implications that I cannot think for myself, and have to rely on Rand. Her exposition fitted and explained what I always thought or sensed, you must take my word for it.

Lets accept for a moment that O'ists are too quick to apply total, 100% objectivity to art. I can agree.

Let's also recognise that avoiding apportioning the true quantity of objectivity to art, is worse. Art would then be 'anything goes' 'it's all cool' mysticism.

Apart from all the other consequences, I think that would be the greatest insult to any artist, Romanticist or Naturalist.

[Jonathan]

J., You're quite fun, do you know that?

I'm glad that you think so, and that, unlike certain others, you're capable of not acting like a whimpering little puppy when challenged bluntly and directly. It's good to see you taking it with good humor.

Let's say this: If an artist/writer's metaphysical value-judgments in his work is not be known - cannot be known - then you have succeeded in proving that "Romanticist Art is Not the Essence of the Objectivist Esthetics". You won't be able to.

Because then, how would man gain his spiritual food from art? Or however Rand put it.

I can, and have, gained "spiritual fuel" from art that you and/or others like you have asserted means the opposite of what I take it to mean. I don't need to identify the artist's intended meaning in order to gain spiritual fuel from his art. His art doesn't have to successfully communicate his "metaphysical value-judgments" in order for viewers to interpret it as having values with which they identify.

With fiction, I'll baldly state that I have nearly always - in my reading of Naturalist, semi-Romanticist and Romanticist novels - been able to elicit the mv-j's of whatever I read.

No. You've interpreted artworks to have certain meanings. That doesn't mean that the meanings you've interpreted them to have are what the artists intended, or that they represent their "metaphysical value-judgments." Art is complex enough that some people can take an artwork to mean the opposite of what others take it to mean, while all of them are basing their opinions on the evidence contained in the art.

And you haven't answered my earlier questions. One of the more important questions that I've asked is if you've interviewed authors and artists so as to confirm your assertions that you've identified their senses of life and/or metaphysical value-judgments. In other words, by what means have you proven that you've "been able to elicit the mv-j's of whatever [you] read"? It sounds as if you're saying that any interpretation that pops into your head is the artist's mv-j; there's no need to actually ask him if you've gotten it right, or to consider the possibility that other interpretations are just as valid, or that you might be a bad receiver of art's transmissions.

You seem to be not grasping the problem of open-endedness of Objectivism's requiring viewers to both identify the meaning of a work of art and to evaluate the means of achieving it.

As I've written before on the subject:

"Let's say that an artist wants to paint [or write] his vision of mankind as heroic, but he's just a bit lacking in skill, which makes his figures look a little distorted, or maybe even contorted, which makes some people interpret them as sick or tormented. These viewers interpret the artwork to mean that sickness and torment is man's nature or fate. Since they think that the art conveys that vision very effectively, they conclude that it's great art [even though they disagree with its meaning, they think that it conveys that bad meaning very well]. The problem is that it's not great art. If they don't know the artist's intentions, they have no objective standard by which to decide if he failed or succeeded in his task. Once they feel that they've identified any meaning based on the content of the art, only a positive evaluation is possible: to them, the art successfully conveys what they've decided it means."

That's what you're doing, Tony. You're assuming that any meaning that you get from a work of art is the artist's meaning, that it represents his sense of life and metaphysical value judgments.

Without asking the artist about his views and intentions, you cannot know what you claim to know about him, his views or his art.

Though I do find it gets harder with visual arts. Mostly here, esthetic value and metaphysical value-judgments are inextricably inter-mixed - and can even sometimes be in contradiction to each other, I've experienced.

I've made one, single reference to "sense of life" upthread ("To say nothing of his [WS] sense of life!") and you seized on that.

I have not made one moral judgment - certainly not "Evul! - but repeatedly insisted on making *metaphysical* judgements, and you did the rest, by beating your -"moral-judgment by Objectivist, yet again!" - drum.

Frankly, if I hadn't become so accustomed to your cavils about Romanticism and Objectivists I might resent your implications that I cannot think for myself, and have to rely on Rand. Her exposition fitted and explained what I always thought or sensed, you must take my word for it.

Lets accept for a moment that O'ists are too quick to apply total, 100% objectivity to art. I can agree.

Let's also recognise that avoiding apportioning the true quantity of objectivity to art, is worse. Art would then be 'anything goes' 'it's all cool' mysticism.

Apart from all the other consequences, I think that would be the greatest insult to any artist, Romanticist or Naturalist.

Actually, there's something worse than "anything goes," which is the Objectivist position of "anything goes, as long as I am the one who says what goes; my contradictions and whimsical double standards are okay, everyone else's are a vicious attack on all values." Also, worse than "anything goes" is "no one can experience in art what I cannot; I am the cognitive limit of all of mankind, the perfect receiver of art; it is not possible that I have a "tin ear" or its equivalent in any of the various art forms."

J

[Jonathan]

Doesn't architecture recreate, selectively, the "reality" of the cave?

--Brant

and music, noise?

Rand apologist (sorry to ruin all of Jonathan's stuff)

My serious answer would be that architecture re-creates reality in the same way that abstract art does: it uses abstract forms and compositional relationships to suggest human traits. The reality that is being re-created is not the cave, or any other space or environment, but human characteristics and attitudes like those contained in Rand's descriptions of the effects of Howard Roark's architecture:

"The building stood on the shore of the East River, a structure rapt as raised arms. The rock crystal forms mounted in such eloquent steps that the building did not seem stationary, but moving upward in a continuous flow -- until one realized that it was only the movement of one's glance and that one's glance was forced to move in that particular rhythm. The walls of pale gray limestone looked silver against the sky, with the clean, dulled luster of metal, but a metal that had become a warm, living substance, carved by the most cutting of all instruments -- a purposeful human will. It made the house alive in a strange, personal way of its own, so that in the minds of spectators five words ran dimly, without object or clear connection: '...in His image and likeness...' "

"Its lines were horizontal, not the lines reaching to heaven, but the lines of the earth. It seemed to spread over the ground like arms outstretched at shoulder height. Palms down, in great silent acceptance. It did not cling to the soil and it did not crouch under the sky. It seemed to lift the earth, and its few vertical shafts pulled the sky down."

J

[Brant Gaede]

While Rand's writing stepped up with each of her novels, literarily The Fountainhead was her apotheosis. Beautiful writing for its own sake. And Roark was going to blow up that housing project regardless of any damn philosophy came to be called Objectivism because it was much too good a climax to pass up and, of course, have his way with Dominique, who was created for him to be him--any other woman would have been shattered, IMHO, although he wouldn't have ~raped~ any other woman. (I wonder what he did with that actress who was cut out of the novel?)

--Brant

she couldn't hide her roots

[Jonathan]

Bingo.

J

[Ellen Stuttle]

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."

But so far, all that we have in what you've offered is Objectivists claiming something like superiority/authority/infallibility in claiming to base judgments of beauty on man's life. The argument is still "I am a super-rational Man, therefore anything that I like is based in my rational values, which are based on man's life." That's not a rational or logical argument.

Um, did I say it is?

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.

We don't know that the interpretation that you've given above about peacock feathers is the actual reason for the birds' attraction.

[....]

Right, we don't. Nor did I say that we do, only that I find the theory plausible.

A question here though, one I've been wondering about for some while: What are you looking for as demonstration?

You seem to me to be looking for a proof of what beauty IS "out there," independent of any perceiver, a demonstration of something structural in the entity, like the atomic structure.

Ellen

[Ellen Stuttle]

"The esthetic response as a morals exam," is how I aphorized the problem in an outline I wrote years ago for a book idea I titled The Woman Who Became God. I didn't get past an extended sketch for the book, since a bit later I started studying Jungian theory and pretty much lost interest in the Objectivist world for almost a decade.

Ellen

That sounds very interesting. Do you still have the extended sketch?

J

Yes. In case you're inclined to ask next, Would I post it? Not at this time. It's long and would have to be retyped. Plus I'd have to excise some stuff which was directly addressed to Allan Blumenthal (to whom I'd sent the sketch), and I'd have to stitch in some replacement connective tissue. Although I occasionally consider doing that project, I have too many other projects ahead of it in priorities.

Ellen

[Jonathan]

It's noteworthy that Rand doesn't bring "beauty" in as either motivator or standard to the production, appreciating, and evaluating of art.

Yes, it is interesting. It's also interesting that many of her followers appear to mistakenly think that Objectivism does hold that beauty is essential to art, and that anything which is not representational is necessarily, by definition, ugly (they apparently forget that Rand believed that non-representational designs, such as those in wall paper, wrapping paper or clothing patterns, could be beautiful).

On OO I've discussed the issue on this thread, "Banishment of Beauty," in response to "Trebor's" posting links to Stephen Hicks' attempt to objectify his own subjective tastes and set them up as the universal standard, and to therefore ignore the fact that abstract painters were very concerned with the beauty of their forms.

As I said on that thread,

"Modernism and Postmodernism have had a wide variety of practitioners, each with individual mindsets and 'senses of life,' and their works are very diverse in style and content. They are not limited to Hicks' caricature of negative expressions. Many contain what would traditionally be thought of as very pleasing and harmonious compositions and colors, as well as positive themes or meanings.

"Besides, even granting that there are Modernist and Postmodernist artworks that people consider to be ugly or negative, it's false to assume that art was always about beauty prior to Modernism. Artists have always created horrific images along with beautiful ones. Even Rand's novels contain human ugliness.

"Objectivism doesn't hold that beauty is the essence or purpose of art. It's not a requirement. According to Objectivism, an artwork is to be judged by how well it presents the artist's view of existence, not by how beautiful it is. An artwork can be horribly ugly and present a view that is antithetical to Objectivism and still be considered aesthetically great. An artwork can be ugly and consistent with Objectivism and be judged to be both aesthetically and morally great."

J

[Ellen Stuttle]

Tony,

Do you read what you're answering?

Ellen

Ellen, More, I think what I answered. What do you mean?

Tony,

See for instance your post #107.

You show no awareness of my having said that I don't buy Rand's theory. Instead you continue with assertions which presume that theory. And you didn't actually answer the questions I asked. Instead, your further statements are at variance with the "pre-conceptual" in Rand's definition of sense of life.

Ellen

[Ellen Stuttle]

About "metaphysical value judgments" and their being (1) necessarily present in and (2) identifiable in an art work, here's a little example I pose for consideration.

When I was a freshman in high school, among the pieces I wrote for my English and literature class was a short short short story, about four medium-sized paragraphs and then a two-sentence final paragraph.

The piece started with a statement that I was looking from a window. I then described a bucolic sort of afternoon scene. Gentle breezes, light wispy clouds, blossoms in bloom, robins and other birds chirping, the sound of children playing. I spelled all this out in evocative language for about four paragraphs.

And then:

"But the scene holds no hope for me. For I gaze from a prison window, and I have only twelve minutes to live."

When my teacher walked into the classroom the day after I'd handed that little item in, she said, "Ellen!"

I grinned and asked, "Did you like it?" (She did like it.)

So: diagnosis?

Ellen

[Jonathan]

But so far, all that we have in what you've offered is Objectivists claiming something like superiority/authority/infallibility in claiming to base judgments of beauty on man's life. The argument is still "I am a super-rational Man, therefore anything that I like is based in my rational values, which are based on man's life." That's not a rational or logical argument.

Um, did I say it is?

No you didn't, but that's what Ellen Surrogate appeared to be saying.

Right, we don't. Nor did I say that we do, only that I find the theory plausible.

A question here though, one I've been wondering about for some while: What are you looking for as demonstration?

You seem to me to be looking for a proof of what beauty IS "out there," independent of any perceiver, a demonstration of something structural in the entity, like the atomic structure.

I'm looking for Objectivists to back up their claim that beauty is not a matter of subjective taste, but is objectively "out there" in the proportions of the objects being viewed, and that such judgments of objects, including inanimate ones, are based on man's life as the standard of value. So it's really not an issue of my expecting them to put forth proof of judgments of beauty being independent of any perceiver, but, more accurately, of judgments of beauty being independent of any perceiver's subject tastes and preferences.

J