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

[Ellen Stuttle]

Ginny,

I think what Barbara's working on is something different from both the above, a book redoing her "Efficient Thinking" course.

About Rand crushing a few souls, I think a change occurred after Atlas, maybe partly during the writing of Atlas, but especially after. I commented on the thread featuring Frank's niece Cathy, in reading through Rand's pre-Atlas letters, I'm struck by how much "nicer" she comes across to me.

Also, how much more supportive and encouraging, not like the trouncing sort of things she could say later.

If you click the link in the above posts, you can find some stuff about the Thomas Wolfe issue between Rand and Barbara.

Ellen

[ginny]

I'm familiar with the fact that Rand didn't like Wolfe and the fact that Barbara did millade her literary-challenged. I mentioned to Cathy how nice Rand seemed. Poor Cathy seemed disappointed and mad, but I wasn't expecting such an interest and generosity in Frank's family. Yeah, I suspect she thought Atlas Shrugged would be the best thing since bread. When there was opposition, it crushed her. The bitterness (especially for a narcissist like her) had to be unbearable.

Damn, I wish Barbara would work on one of the other two books. We all know she did the original Efficient Thinking lectures. Personally, I had some problems with them and feel they could benefit from editing. Still, I wish she'd branch out of the old Obj. stuff. She can do better. I'd like to see her create something new (like a work of fiction) and I think she could.

[Ellen Stuttle]

Back to Peikoff:

J,

Here's the passage from which you quoted:

OPAR, pg. 448

Like goodness, therefore, beauty is not "in the object" or "in the eye of the beholder." It is objective. It is in the object--as judged by a rational beholder.

The context of this statement is his discussion of judging art for skill of execution, "esthetic quality," which judgment, as did Rand, he's distinguishing from judging art for its "metaphysical content."

The sentence might be the only one in the whole discussion which mentions beauty. I think he's doing a word play thing. However, he's as incorrect in bringing beauty into esthetic judgment, in talking about Rand's esthetics, as he was in the heading podcast of this thread in saying that Romanticism is "the essence" of the Objectivist esthetics. Rand did not make "beauty" the standard of esthetic quality.

In terms of whether Rand thought of "beauty" as perceptual or conceptual, his statement doesn't answer that. He's implying conceptual by bringing in "rational" - for Objectivism, perceptual is automatic, hence "rational" wouldn't apply.

However, just because Peikoff claimed in OPAR to be merely a transmitter, a reporter of Rand doesn't make the claim true. One place where he goes beyond anything Rand okayed - the doctrine of the arbitrary - has been carefully documented by Robert Campbell. Another place which I noticed in the only part of OPAR I read when it came out (and thus far the only full section I've read) is the part on volition. I think Rand's theory is flawed, but I don't think she'd have been so non-swift as to describe volition as axiom, corrollary, and theory (her particular theory) all in the same presentation!

--

Different but related issue, benevolent and malevolent universe premises, and sense of life:

I looked in OPAR's index for an entry on "beauty." There isn't one. The only entry under B is "'Benevolent universe' premise".

The pages listed are surprisingly few, 342-343 for the term, then, as a subhead, "and sex," 343-344, 348.

No entry for "'Malevolent universe' premise".

I think the book was squeezed for space come indexing time, and it has one of those bare-bones sorts of indexes which are resorted to when space is running out, although the index could have been set in significantly smaller type size than it is, so maybe the skimp was the choice of preference.

Anyway.......

On pg. 342 is a comment in parentheses which provides a hint of support for my thought that Rand got the term "sense of life" from Unamuno's The Tragic Sense of Life.

The rejection of [the "benevolent universe" premise] is what Ayn Rand calls the "malevolent universe" premise (others have called it the "tragic sense of life").

In a letter to Frank Lloyd Wright dated October 10, 1946, Rand added, after the closing "Gratefully and reverently,"

pg. 118, Letters

P.S. No, I have not read The Tragic Sense of Life by Unamuno, but I shall get it and read it.

Ellen

[Ellen Stuttle]

Too good to resist...

I was headed toward putting my paperback of Rebecca back on the shelf where it resides. I'd gotten it down to doublecheck how "Manderley" is spelled.

En route, I started to read the back jacket copy.

This is good for that sort of writing - but then the book advertised is such a classic of its sort, it lends itself bounteously to the blurb writer's graces.

"Last night I dreamed I went to Manderley again."

So the second Mrs. Maxim de Winter remembered the chilling events that led her down the turning drive past the beeches, white and naked, to the isolated gray stone manse on the windswept Cornish coast. With a husband she barely knew, the young bride arrived at this immense estate, only to be inexorably drawn into the life of the first Mrs. de Winter, the beautiful Rebecca, dead but never forgotten, her suite of rooms never touched, her clothes ready to be worn, her servant - the sinister Mrs. Danvers - still loyal. And as an eerie presentiment of evil tightened around her heart, the second Mrs. de Winter began her search for the real fate of Rebecca...for the secrets of Manderley.

Ellen

[ginny]

And the movie so lived up to the book. They had real actors in those days. Mrs. D. still gives me the chills. And for a small part, the actress playing Mrs. van Hopper took over the screen. The only difference between book and movie is that the book has an epilogue with Mr. and Mrs. de Winters years later in Paris, living a quiet life.

[Ellen Stuttle]

Yeah about the movie, although Olivier doesn't look anything like my idea of de Winter from the book, and Joan Fontaine can't help but convey a glamor which the book's character doesn't have. But Judith Anderson as Danvers. That first scene, her look. Chill to the blood.

I was recalling, vividly, scenes from the movie earlier.

It was directed by Hitchcock, 1940, his "first American project," according to Wikipedia - link.

Ellen

PS: Actually, the description of the quiet life in Paris is at the start, as prelude to the remembered events. The end of the book is the fire. "It's Manderley" (the strange glow of the sky they're seeing on the drive home) and a bit beyond that.

"It's in winter you see the northern lights, isn't it?" I said. "Not in summer."

"That's not the northern lights," he said, "that's Manderley."

I glanced at him and saw his face. I saw his eyes.

"Maxim," I said. "Maxim, what is it?"

He drove faster, much faster. We topped the hill before us and saw Lanyon lying in a hollow at our feet. There to the left of us was the silver streak of the river, widening to the estuary at Kenneth six miles away. The road to Manderley lay ahead. There was no moon. The sky above our heads was inky black. But the sky on the horizon was not dark at all. It was shot with crimson, like a splash of blood. And the ashes blew towards us with the salt wind of the sea.

Ellen

[Ellen Stuttle]

What I signed on for was to make an aphoristic comment:

The Objectivist theory of art is like trying to constrain the ocean in a wire net.

Ellen

[Brant Gaede]

What I signed on for was to make an aphoristic comment:

The Objectivist theory of art is like trying to constrain the ocean in a wire net.

Ellen

Uh, a metaphor too far. Her ideas are substantial to the point your example illustrates nothing.

--Brant

A for effort, D- for result: this is a non-grading exam

[Ellen Stuttle]

Brant,

What do you find substantial in Rand's theory of art?

Ellen

[Jonathan]

I think Rand's theory is flawed, but I don't think she'd have been so non-swift as to describe volition as axiom, corrollary, and theory (her particular theory) all in the same presentation!

Speaking of Peikoff's non-swiftness (I envision Rand as akin to a chess player who could think several moves ahead, where Piekoff often doesn't see what's coming one move ahead), here's his podcast response to a question of whether or not it's a moral crime to buy work from artists who have nasty core values:

Q:

Is it a moral crime to purchase the work of artists who oppose your core values?

...Is it okay to set certain flaws aside in appreciation for the virtues it does have?

A:

It depends on how obtrusive and vicious the immorality is...

For example, suppose it was a piece of music you love, like opera music, talking about love and service in a kind of mushy way, you know, it wouldn't be my philosophy, but it's very easy to set aside because it's not a concrete practical message, and it's so conventional for the time. I can easily set that aside.

...suppose it was some of these popular songs which tell you, for instance, to kill the police, rape women, etc. That, I think, is so vicious, and so offensive...if you take your moral values seriously, that would be so repellant that you couldn't set it aside.

Okay, so, purchasing a song like Cop Killer which contains a fictional treatment of a character who wants to kill police officers in response to police brutality (police initiating force) is morally wrong, but it's perfectly moral to purchase a novel which contains a fictional treatment of a heroic character who kills a security guard who doesn't know that the facility that he is being employed to guard is being used to commit brutality?

A rap song which contains a line about taking advantage of a woman who has passed out from too much champagne is morally wrong, but certain novels which contain rape scenes are perfectly moral? What if the rapper later explains that the fictional molestation in his song was "by engraved invitation"? Is it okay then? What if the woman in the song went to the rapper's apartment or hotel room late at night, got hot and heavy with the rapper, and, right before passing out, reached the point at which Peikoff thinks that it's no longer acceptable for a woman to revoke implied permission for sex? Is it okay to buy the song then?

On what grounds is it morally acceptable to buy a novel in which the fictional hero dynamites others' property over a mere aesthetic disagreement after he committed the fraud of passing off his architectural work as someone else's? How is that okay? Isn't that a "concrete practical message" which can't be "set aside"?

I'm on the way out the door for the long holiday weekend, but I'm looking forward to addressing more of the substance of some of the posts above when I return.

Have a great weekend everyone!

J

[ginny]

Jonathan, since when did buying a CD involve morality in the first place. Ayn, if we are to use her as the standard (I don't) paid to hear that Towhey wanna-be because she thought it was worth her while. Was that - dare I say it - immoral?

There may be a perfectly good reason for someone to buy that Cop CD or any other damned CD and as far as I am concerned, explanations are owed to NOBODY.

The word moral as been f**ed around to the point it is totally worthless.

[Brant Gaede]

Brant,

What do you find substantial in Rand's theory of art?

Ellen

I'm not aware of what her theory of art is apart from the definition. She has pieces of theories of art in music, literature, painting that I think are substantial, plot, for instance, the beat in music. I doubt there's much originality there, but no wire net. I do like the definition; it sounds--reads--substantial.

--Brant

[Ellen Stuttle]

Brant,

Just wow. You don't know what Rand's theory of art is, "apart from the definition," which "sounds - reads - substantial."

Ok.

Ellen

PS to try to prevent a possible misinterpretation: I didn't say, or mean to imply, that Rand's theory of art isn't "substantial." Brant's missing the point of the analogy. I just asked what he finds substantial in her theories out of curiosity.

What I was actually imagining, and literally feeling a shudder at the prospect, when that analogy popped into my head, was Objectivists analyzing Rebecca.

[Ellen Stuttle]

J,

Regarding whether Rand was thinking of beauty as perceptual in that Q&A answer, I was alerted, via its being quoted in Stephen Boydstun's "Beauty, Goodness, Life" sequence of posts, to a statement of Rand's I'd forgotten.

This is toward the end of "Art and Cognition," in the context of her discussion of "the decorative arts." I don't have the re-issue of The Romantic Manifesto, which includes that essay, so I can't give you a page number to that source. I'm quoting from the article as it appeared in the June 1971 Objectivist, where this is on pp 4-5.

Visual harmony is a sensory experience and is determined primarily by physiological causes. There is a crucial difference between the perception of musical sounds and the perception of colors: the integration of musical sounds produces a new cognitive experience which is sensory-conceptual, I.e., the awareness of a melody; the integration of colors does not, it conveys nothing beyond the awareness of pleasant or unpleasant relationships.

Ellen

[ginny]

"What I was actually imagining, and literally feeling a shudder at the prospect, when that analogy popped into my head, was Objectivists analyzing Rebecca. "

That's just vile. Wash you mind out with soap..

[anthony]

"What I was actually imagining, and literally feeling a shudder at the prospect, when that analogy popped into my head, was Objectivists analyzing Rebecca. "

That's just vile. Wash you mind out with soap..

Most Platonist. (Anyway - strawman. At several hierarchical levels, 'Rebecca' has many qualities, the kind of qualities for which Rand showed appreciation, and a well-read Objectivist would admire. du Maurier was a superb writer.)

I think the sin Rand commited was to at all apply analysis to art in the first place.

A study of art is also a study of man's consciousness - but the Platonist would have his 'Art' as above mere consciousness and reality, in the realm of epiphany and Divine inspiration, where it has been traditionally ensconced.

Rand dissected, brilliantly, the "What?" and the "How?" of art, from the point of view of the artist's consciousness as well as the viewer's.

But further, she went on to identify the "Why?" - the what for? - of art, and discovered the highest *purpose* for it. Not content with leaving it for the mystic-intrinsicists to insist that art is valuable, just because it is valuable - she responded that art, like any existent, has value only to a valuer. Therefore: "objective". For her and Objectivists it is not nearly enough that an art-work is "good" (in conception and execution) but "good" for whom, and for what?

Rand's big sin was to find moral purpose in art, for which she will never be forgiven, it seems.

After all, the gall to compare Shakespeare unfavorably with Mickey Spillane...

(Gasp! Horrors!)

[ginny]

She found moral purpose in everything. I think she took whatever she personally liked and called moral. Whatever she didn't like, she called immoral. I'll say one thing. She got me to hate the word moral because she devoided it of all meaning. About a year ago, some of her faithfulls at OO had a thread asking, Which is more moral, vanilla or chocolate ice cream? You can't make that stuff up! I'm not sure who won, but I know I'm in eternal purgatory for wanting coffee ice cream.

Once you place Hitler and chocolate ice cream in the same moral realm, the game is over.

Rand would sayonce you place Hugo and Danielle Steele in the same realm, you destroy literature. I say thank god for Hugo,and if you don't like Steele (I don't), don't read her but defend her right to do what she wants.

[Brant Gaede]

Brant,

Just wow. You don't know what Rand's theory of art is, "apart from the definition," which "sounds - reads - substantial."

Ok.

Ellen

PS to try to prevent a possible misinterpretation: I didn't say, or mean to imply, that Rand's theory of art isn't "substantial." Brant's missing the point of the analogy. I just asked what he finds substantial in her theories out of curiosity.

What I was actually imagining, and literally feeling a shudder at the prospect, when that analogy popped into my head, was Objectivists analyzing Rebecca.

The definition pretty much is the theory and from that she goes a theorizing. "A selective recreation of reality according to an artist's metaphysical value judgments." (Not sure of the exactness of this quote.)

--Brant

sounds substantial

I'll go see if I can find The Romantic Manifesto is my storage shed after I finish preping my bathroom for painting and review any substantial parts I can find before reporting back, either in triumph or shame

[Jonathan]

J. Your frustration is apparent when you argue that a reader cannot have, may not have, or rarely has, an idea of what is being imparted to him of the author's metaphysical value-judgments.

Tony, are you not even following what YOU write?!! You accused me of being frustrated with Romanticism, not with people who claim to infallibly know others' metaphysical value-judgments through art. That is what I asked you about. I said "WTF?" in response to your stupid assertion that I was frustrated with Romanticism. Could you please try to focus your mind a little, at least enough to pay attention to what you yourself are writing?

Besides, contrary to your muddled impression of what I've been saying, I've made no claims about what "a reader" cannot know about an author's metaphysical value-judgments, but only about what YOU (and similar Objecti-goggled muddlers) claim to know about them. I've challenged you to prove that you've identified others' metaphysical value-judgments, and you've failed to do so. All that you've done is to assert that your personal little muddling interpretations of works of art are identifications of the artists' true metaphysical value-judgments. In other words, like the "science" of global warming alarmists, you take everything as proof of your predetermined conclusions, when actually the "evidence" that you're basing your opinions on is usually nothing but proof of your muddling things up and jumping to illogical, unwarranted conclusions.

If they are that much unknowable - what's the point? Or if one person 'reads' this, another 'reads' that - you have blown away the central premise of Romantic art.

It's not a central premise to Romantic art. It was only Rand's personal preference in art. Art is like the holodeck on Star Trek. It's an experience through simulation. The fact that you and Rand and some others prefer to be taken by the hand and guided by the creator, step by step, told where to look and what to think, and when, doesn't mean that that preference is essential to art, or to any genre of art, including Romanticism.

it is not just implicitly that the artist creates "according to [his] metaphysical value-judgments" (man is volitional etc etc, - or not) it's also explicitly, i.e. that he demonstrates those judgments in concrete form.. consciously and selectively, by every choice he makes from selection of subject matter to rendition.

It is, or should be, of value to the "receiver" - who won't find that value, if he is unable to perceive it.

I think the problem here is that you still haven't grasped or accepted the idea that you, or anyone else, might be an incompetent receiver of certain artworks' transmissions. What I've been doing is proposing that you objectively demonstrate your competence, as opposed to your merely asserting it.

Rand had some very foolish, wrongheaded opinions about what metaphysical value-judgments certain creators had conveyed through their art. Like you, the question of her own competence to make such judgments never seemed to occur to her. Like you, she took any interpretation that popped into her head to be objective proof that she had identified the artwork's true meaning and the artist's metaphysical value-judgments. Like you, she apparently failed to recognize that the assumption of her competence and infallibility was irrational.

So I'm saying that it's no great shakes to be able to perceive metaphysical value-judgments by any good or great artist:

He wants them to be visible!

I want the position that I'm arguing on this thread to be visible, yet, despite the fact that others here have grasped it quite easily, you're still struggling with it. Why should anyone accept your assertions about what you can glean from a work of art when you have such difficulty following a conversation which is much more explicit and clear than any work of art?

I'm afraid you've continually mixed up 'sense of life' with 'mv-j''s, which doesn't help our progress here.

Because I 've regularly claimed to understand a writer's - most particularly a Romanticist's and radical Naturalist's - value-judgments, (as can anyone) is not a claim that I CAN PERCEIVE HIS SENSE OF LIFE. As with psychologizing a person, I might privately make informed guesses - that's all.

Are you intentionally lying in the above, or are you just so incompetent at reading comprehension that you can't identify reality? In the post to which you're responding, I said nothing about sense of life. I discussed only the issue of metaphysical value-judgments and your claims to know them in others without objectively verifying your opinions by some means outside of their art. So stop telling falsehoods, please.

A mv-j is a conscious conviction held by the artist, which "confirms or denies the efficacy of man's consciousness, according to whether an art work supports or negates his [the viewer's] own fundamental view of reality"; the other (s.o.l) is "a preconceptual equivalent of metaphysics, an emotional, subconsciously integrated appraisal of man and existence".

"A sense of life is formed by a process of emotional generalization..."[AR]

In the simplest terms, sense of life is a product of what a man deemed as "What is important?" in his life so far - subconsciously - and is the driving motivation to create... while mv-j's appear in the finished content, signifying: "What is good?" .

From far back, I had always basically seen the artist as a person who creates the world again in his own image. Philosophically, this means in regard to his own value-system. To be of value to others - although not necessarily his first ambition - it must be recognizable.

(While looking the definitions up in TRF, I notice Rand validates my earlier induction/deduction hypothesis :

" Speaking metaphorically, the creative process resembles a process of deduction; the viewing process resembles a process of induction."[p.35]

I must have read this once and forgotten it, but either way it's good to see it confirmed.

As an artist, J., it would explain your deductive dominance.

Tony, don't pretend to know my mindset or my creative process. You're not identifying either, but, rather, once again you're demonstrating nothing but your own presumptuousness and incompetence. You know nothing about me, and you're not actually describing me or my ideas, of anything resembling them. You're doing nothing but describing the illusion seen through your distorted Objecti-goggles.

Without induction, we can't track-back the overall value-judgements in a piece of art. Without induction, and volition, in fact, we could not and would not conceptualize, as you know. (And without Romanticist art, the effort of volition would be that much harder and lonely.)

The point is that without knowing the artists' actual views and intentions, we can't know if we've correctly identified his "metaphysical value-judgments" through his art, or if we've mistakenly misidentified them either due to his intentionally not being transparent, or to his incompetence, or to our own incompetence as viewers/readers. Without considering different possible valid interpretations of his work, as well as the fact that not all readers or viewers of his art will be equally capable of understanding the art, no one is justified in the smug type of confidence that you exhibit in your assertions about what the art means and what its creators' think and value.

J

[Jonathan]

What I was actually imagining, and literally feeling a shudder at the prospect, when that analogy popped into my head, was Objectivists analyzing Rebecca.

God, I can't begin to imagine what a potential clusterfuck that would be!

J

[Jonathan]

J,

Regarding whether Rand was thinking of beauty as perceptual in that Q&A answer, I was alerted, via its being quoted in Stephen Boydstun's "Beauty, Goodness, Life" sequence of posts, to a statement of Rand's I'd forgotten.

This is toward the end of "Art and Cognition," in the context of her discussion of "the decorative arts." I don't have the re-issue of The Romantic Manifesto, which includes that essay, so I can't give you a page number to that source. I'm quoting from the article as it appeared in the June 1971 Objectivist, where this is on pp 4-5.

Visual harmony is a sensory experience and is determined primarily by physiological causes. There is a crucial difference between the perception of musical sounds and the perception of colors: the integration of musical sounds produces a new cognitive experience which is sensory-conceptual, I.e., the awareness of a melody; the integration of colors does not, it conveys nothing beyond the awareness of pleasant or unpleasant relationships.

Ellen

First of all, do we know that Rand held the same view of the status of the beauty of colors and that of the beauty of the human face or other entities? She obviously didn't think that colors were integratable into conceptual meaning, but I would have to assume that she didn't feel the same about all forms of beauty since physical beauty and ugliness had conceptual meaning to her (cold sores and other blemishes in a painting were an attack on all values; even her own fictional characters had physical features which reflected their inner states, etc.).

Second, Rand's personal inability to integrate colors on the same level that she thought that she could integrate musical sounds into a new cognitive experience isn't proof that the integration of colors is not possible to anyone and therefore merely a sensory experience. If it is valid for Rand to assert that she integrated musical notes into a conceptual experience, it is just as valid for me or anyone else to assert that we are capable of doing the same thing with colors. And, in fact, I've demonstrated such integration abilities many times in Objectivist fora, and on a level of descriptive precision and objectivity that exceeded anything Rand ever said in explaining her interpretations of specific musical integrations.

So, once again we're back to the question of the error of certain people promoting their own aesthetic incompetence as the standard of judgment, and as universal. The act of judging anything should not be misidentified as being on the sensory level just because certain people are limited to experiencing it on that level. If some forms of beauty are on the conceptual level, like music and human faces, then all forms should also be on that level as long as someone claims to experience them in the same way that Rand experienced music and faces.

J

[Jonathan]

Jonathan, since when did buying a CD involve morality in the first place. Ayn, if we are to use her as the standard (I don't) paid to hear that Towhey wanna-be because she thought it was worth her while. Was that - dare I say it - immoral?

There may be a perfectly good reason for someone to buy that Cop CD or any other damned CD and as far as I am concerned, explanations are owed to NOBODY.

The word moral as been f**ed around to the point it is totally worthless.

Yeah, it's insane, isn't it?!

The whole issue is aesthetically incompetent people taking the position that their personal blundering interpretations of works of art represent the single, true, objective identification of its meaning and of its creator's values. It's an issue of the least qualified people trying to establish themselves as authorities. It's laughable, especially considering the fact that laughing at them is taken by them as further proof of their genius.

J

[Brant Gaede]

Jonathan, since when did buying a CD involve morality in the first place. Ayn, if we are to use her as the standard (I don't) paid to hear that Towhey wanna-be because she thought it was worth her while. Was that - dare I say it - immoral?

There may be a perfectly good reason for someone to buy that Cop CD or any other damned CD and as far as I am concerned, explanations are owed to NOBODY.

The word moral as been f**ed around to the point it is totally worthless.

Yeah, it's insane, isn't it?!

The whole issue is aesthetically incompetent people taking the position that their personal blundering interpretations of works of art represent the single, true, objective identification of its meaning and of its creator's values. It's an issue of the least qualified people trying to establish themselves as authorities. It's laughable, especially considering the fact that laughing at them is taken by them as further proof of their genius.

J

Look, it's not the position(s) so much as the reasoning(s) behind them. This is not a site for estheticians so much as thinkers and if the thinkers are stinkers then get upwind, at least.

--Brant

art, the value there of it and the nature of it, are subjective; it's the same as the Austrian subjective theory of value in economics; it is objective if you posit an objective standard for measuring it, but that "objective standard" is only objective because it is fixed and where it is fixed is arbitrary qua art--qua man, even, is arbitrary unless man is reduced to an axiomatic proposition--that is, man is the rational animal--wrong?--that is, man is the thinking, conceptual animal--right!--capable of apprehending facts of reality (but so does any organism with any kind of brain), but in spite of this confusing, muddled and incomplete analysis, you can't get from an axiom to art without actually doing the work and must accept the subjectivity of it all or waste your valuable time arguing that is better devoted to making more art

science, reality and reason--so why is Objectivism needed?: integrity

the language of science is mathematics, the language of art is the experience, call it what you will, objective, subjective, whatjective--what you experience has to do with you and your values--your human psychology-philosophy: if your philosophy is Objectivism you just might think art should be objective, but that's the horse on the wrong end of the art cart; the horse should be wild and free or you, the artist and the art consumer and the art critic are caught in the spider's web of thinking, refusing the immediate experience of personal expansion through this short-circuiting

[tmj]

The thought that strikes me after reading various threads on art/aesthectics is that I think Rand would at least concede that art existed prior to her esthectics, not sure what conclusions to draw from that yet, but I think there maybe something there.

[ginny]

Ellen, I can't get your comment about Objs analyzing Rebecca out of my mind. It's been haunting me, and since justice is a value, you'll need to pay for that. I was dozing off yesterday, and I had a vision of Rand on the podium. "What can one say about a book so disgusting? The title character is beautiful and full of spirit. She bravely lives by her rules and no one else's. Yet she is portraid as evil for her virtues. The so-called heroine is a mousy non-entity who does'nt even have a name. The hero, of course, kills Rebecca, a woman so beautiful he must destroy her. Beauty and spirit scare him. The heroic in life is being depicted as vile. This is ultimate in an evil sense of life. This is the horror of today's literature."

You know what's even scarier than the above? How easily words can be used to twist something around.