Apples - Rand on Still Life Paintings, Plus


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How does the picture you describe (it's the death of Socrates, I imagine) fulfill any of those criteria, positively? Still, there is pride and nobility in the painting which is not to be overlooked, as I just indicated. Alcoholic? Heh, I don't know how you derived that even in jest.

It wasn't offered in jest, and I don't know how you can claim to not know how I derived it, since I explained precisely how I followed the Objectivist method of analyzing the content of the art while not allowing any outside considerations.

Why would you think that my identification of the painting's meaning was "in jest"? Granted, it's almost as silly as Rand's interpretations of visual art, and those of her followers. But you don't think that those were in jest! You think that they're brilliant, and the ultimate in "objectivity."

J

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[is Roark "moral"? In all his acts, no. As a total ("real") person, definitely yes.

He was not moral. He put his aesthetic tastes above morality. As a "total person" he was driven, by the obsession of his belief in the superiority of his aesthetic tastes, to abandon morality, and to lie to himself and to others about the "justice" of his immoral actions.

J

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[is Roark "moral"? In all his acts, no. As a total ("real") person, definitely yes.

He was not moral. He put his aesthetic tastes above morality. As a "total person" he was driven, by the obsession of his belief in the superiority of his aesthetic tastes, to abandon morality, and to lie to himself and to others about the "justice" of his immoral actions.

J

[is Roark "moral"? In all his acts, no. As a total ("real") person, definitely yes.

He was not moral. He put his aesthetic tastes above morality. As a "total person" he was driven, by the obsession of his belief in the superiority of his aesthetic tastes, to abandon morality, and to lie to himself and to others about the "justice" of his immoral actions.

J

A small taste was Dominique writing fraudulent theater reviews for The Banner. Could be it was "ethics of emergencies." What this ethics is is an attempt to apply a simple morality on the complexity of the human condition, well known by Hamlet.

--Brant

note that Barbara Branden wrote (said?) that Nathaniel Branden once said to her that he considered himself "amoral" and that Barbara didn't like that while agreeing with it: Nathaniel had constantly read and reread The Fountainhead throughout his adolescence, maybe the rumored 40 times (from direct personal experience I know he is much too much a man to deserve his self ad hoc label)

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On this thread, both Ellen and Tony have quoted Rand on "metaphysical value-judgments."

Is the universe intelligible to man, or unintelligible and unknowable? Can man find happiness on earth, or is he doomed to frustration and despair? Does man have the power of choice, the power to choose his goals and to achieve them, the power to direct the course of his life - or is he the helpless plaything of forces beyond his control, which determine his fate? Is man, by nature, to be valued as good, or to be despised as evil? These are metaphysical questions, but the answers to them determine the kind of ethics men will accept and practice; the answers are the link between metaphysics and ethics. And although metaphysics as such is not a normative science, the answers to this category of questions assume, in man's mind, the function of metaphysical value-judgments, since they form the foundation of all of his moral values.

What metaphysical answers does The Fountainhead give to the questions above if we base our judgment only on the content of the novel, and selectively ignore none of the content, and allow no "outside considerations" such as Rand's telling us what she intended and what she demands that we think?

If we strictly apply Rand's explicitly stated method of "objective esthetic evaluation," the answers to the "metaphysical questions" are that man cannot find happiness on earth unless he abandons his own stated, rational morality, he is doomed to frustration and despair unless he is willing to initiate force by committing fraud and destroying others' property, he does not have the power of choice (he cannot choose to live morally, but must resort to acting immorally), he doesn't have the power of achieving his goals without violating others rights, he is a plaything of forces beyond his control whose only course is fraud and destruction.

As for the question, "Is man, by nature, to be valued as good, or to be despised as evil?" The Fountainhead's answer is "none of the above" -- since a man is presented as a hero who "triumphs" by becoming immoral, then Rand's view of man's nature is that he is to be valued for his evil! "Justice" equals the will to initiate force. Might is right.

J

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Photography isn't art? I beg to differ, check this guy out...

http://www.deviantart.com/art/white-demons-329283304

Those are just recordings of reality. Ayn Rand said so. The photographer just went outside, happened to stumble across those scenes, aimed his camera in their general direction, and pushed a button. It's just a mechanical process with no selectivity or artistry involved. Kamhi and Torres and Dr. Mrs. Dr. Comrade Sonia, PhD. could do the same thing with their cell phone cameras.

J

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You can call it "art," however; it's a free country. And I bet Rand could have done the same and mesh it well into her esthetics if she had had a wont to. For instance, if her husband had done that stuff instead of painting.

--Brant

pretzel esthetics

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[is Roark "moral"? In all his acts, no. As a total ("real") person, definitely yes.

He was not moral. He put his aesthetic tastes above morality. As a "total person" he was driven, by the obsession of his belief in the superiority of his aesthetic tastes, to abandon morality, and to lie to himself and to others about the "justice" of his immoral actions.

J

The morality is that of rational selfishness, as I used it and obviously as Rand meant it. Roark was irrational and immoral in trying to pass off his design as Keating's. For once, he sacrificed his mind and tried to falsify reality (because of his desperate need to see his unique design made concrete) and the consequences were logical and inevitably disastrous.

"Fraud", as you call it, and any individual rights abuse, is a consequence of immorality, but "individual rights" are not a code to live by in itself..

Can you argue that "one swallow a summer makes"? In totality, this was a guy who had always lived and continued living, as an "unswerving" rational egoist. Except the once. The authorial warning by Rand is that subjective self-sacrifice is possible to anyone. Her characters were HER "ideal men and women", which means authentically and volitionally moral - not "perfect", or conventionally "moral". I.e. they make mistakes, in their drive to rational excellence. Perfectionism is a harmfully intrinsicist ideal, insinuating omnipotence/omniscience for only one thing, I think.

We have the luxury of reviewing the philosophy today in it its entirety - but it's easy to forget that TF and AS were stand alone works of literature: the theme of one is individualism (not rights), and the other- Society. I believe you exceed the scope of The Fountainhead to combine them, and include Objectivist political theory.

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The morality is that of rational selfishness, as I used it and obviously as Rand meant it. Roark was irrational and immoral in trying to pass off his design as Keating's. For once, he sacrificed his mind and tried to falsify reality (because of his desperate need to see his unique design made concrete) and the consequences were logical and inevitably disastrous.

"Fraud", as you call it, and any individual rights abuse, is a consequence of immorality, but "individual rights" are not a code to live by in itself..

Can you argue that "one swallow a summer makes"? In totality, this was a guy who had always lived and continued living, as an "unswerving" rational egoist. Except the once. The authorial warning by Rand is that subjective self-sacrifice is possible to anyone. Her characters were HER "ideal men and women", which means authentically and volitionally moral - not "perfect", or conventionally "moral". I.e. they make mistakes, in their drive to rational excellence. Perfectionism is a harmfully intrinsicist ideal, insinuating omnipotence/omniscience for only one thing, I think.

Since Roark is a fictional character, it might be better to drop Roark and run in Rand in his place and ask if you are also describing her and her life?

--Brant

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Roark was irrational and immoral

Uh-huh. The world he lived in kicked him in the teeth, took the bread from his mouth, but Roark was immoral. Instead of knuckling under, he went back to the trades as a laborer. Instead of running away with Dominique to live happily ever after in obscurity, he put her back on the train and went back to work building little retail shops in Podunk. He saved Mallory twice or three times, because Mallory was the best sculptor he could find -- and it didn't matter whether they tore down Stoddard's Temple or turned it into a whorehouse.

Apparently, you don't understand what an artist is, or what kind of life it entails.

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And actually, I do. Out of context quote, for what I've described as the only irrational behaviour he was guilty of. You are arguing with the wrong person, called preaching to the choir.

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The morality is that of rational selfishness, as I used it and obviously as Rand meant it. Roark was irrational and immoral in trying to pass off his design as Keating's. For once, he sacrificed his mind and tried to falsify reality (because of his desperate need to see his unique design made concrete) and the consequences were logical and inevitably disastrous.

"Fraud", as you call it, and any individual rights abuse, is a consequence of immorality, but "individual rights" are not a code to live by in itself..

Can you argue that "one swallow a summer makes"? In totality, this was a guy who had always lived and continued living, as an "unswerving" rational egoist. Except the once. The authorial warning by Rand is that subjective self-sacrifice is possible to anyone. Her characters were HER "ideal men and women", which means authentically and volitionally moral - not "perfect", or conventionally "moral". I.e. they make mistakes, in their drive to rational excellence. Perfectionism is a harmfully intrinsicist ideal, insinuating omnipotence/omniscience for only one thing, I think.

Since Roark is a fictional character, it might be better to drop Roark and run in Rand in his place and ask if you are also describing her and her life?

--Brant

Brant, It could have been, but I wasn't - but sharp of you to make the connection!

I don't even care to do so, since I am less and less concerned about Rand's doings.

To be rational is a lot more than one commitment, it seems to me. It's keeping your eye on the ball constantly, while knowing you're only as good as your next game - and not knowing when or where it will be. Life is one curved ball, after another -- so Roark could screw up (and so could AR). Rationality is a personal culture as much as a conviction.

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Out of context quote, for what I've described as the only irrational behaviour he was guilty of.

In your estimation. Nothing fraudulent, irrational or disastrous about it, unless you think Wynand deserved Dominique and vice versa.

"Fraudulent" was not my evaluation; I've been arguing against it.

"Disastrous", some hyperbole of mine there!

Irrational?

"Whatever I do, it won't be to hurt you, Peter. I'm guilty too. We both are".

"You're guilty?"

"It's I who destroyed you, Peter. From the beginning. By helping you. There are matters in which one must not ask for help nor give it. I shouldn't have done your projects at Stanton...[...]

Now we'll both pay for it. It will be hard on you, but it will be harder on me."

[TF p598]

Roark acknowledges his responsibility in cheating reality, in his part in making Keating dependent upon him. Sure, it was immoral/irrational of him and Roark knew it.

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The Fountainhead is dear to my heart. It's preposterous that Roark is saved by jury nullification, of course.

I wonder if she even knew about jury nulification well enough, even though it went back at least to the 1730s or 40s, to have better handled it. You can see how Roark can still blow up the housing project with better motivation and a better courtroom presentation in his defense without damaging the literary art of a great novel. My speculation is Rand was so rushed to finish it she had little time for more than writing out what was already in her head. She didn't have any time at all to rewrite the part where Roark gets sexually going rather too late to make much sense, especially with another partner than Dominique, but not a great loss for a great read.

The only big thing I object to in the novel is it was too much like how imagined Nazis or idealized communists might have gone at it in the famous "rape" of Dominique by Roark ("engraved invitation"), which was too much like real rape. (I'm only talking about the actual sex, literally, not that they were Nazis or communists.) Dominique's psychology was too frigid, "stupid" (supposed Rand quote) and inexperienced to be at all real so in that sense it wasn't in turn a real rape but absolutely necessary sex to get her going sexually--as well as Roark--but Rand could have been more human about the whole thing. All that needed to be done, when Roark came into the bedroom the first time to get the measurements for the marble, was for him to actually touch her in an unmistakably sexual way looking right at her in the eye apropos to what was really going on there, so when he does come back she's really ready for it, and none of that lying on the bathroom floor until morning real rape aftermath crap. He could have stayed a while for more sex ("all, night, long!"?). That would have made the "rape" catalyst of her hiting him with her riding coup even more powerful. Instead of swiping at him as hard as she could, doing that only pro-forma, so we'd know she wasn't pissed off for him having touched her, but for not coming back for more of the same. As Rand wrote it, however, she did that right. Roark needed it big and hard so he could give it back in turn, which is precisely what he did.

--Brant

don't get me wrong, I'm not rewriting anything; I'm not touching it as written; I've no right to, but every reader has a right to think about these things

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Uh-huh. The world he lived in kicked him in the teeth, took the bread from his mouth, but Roark was immoral.

The "world" didn't do anything to Roark. Individuals did things to him, and much of what they did was within their rights. They had the right to not hire him, and to dislike his aesthetic style and to campaign public opinion against it. They even had the right to sue him and accuse him of professional incompetence (Stoddard Temple case), and then he had the right to defend himself at trial, which, stupidly, he chose not to do (he was so irrationally certain of the aesthetic superiority of his own tastes and creations that he believed that all he needed to do to prove his case was to present pictures of his work in place of an argument!).

In the cases where individuals actually violated Roark's rights, he had the right to retaliate against them, and only them. He didn't have the right to blame "the world he lived in" and to destroy the property of people who were guilty of nothing but existing in "the world that he lived in."

Instead of knuckling under, he went back to the trades as a laborer.

And Hitler is said to have been nice to children. Listing one's virtues doesn't nullify one's acts of evil. The charge is that a person has committed crimes and knowingly violated his own stated morality, not that he has never committed any single act of good. See how it works? If you were to go out and kill a random person today, it wouldn't be a rational defense for you to demand that we take into account the fact that you've been a very nice and productive person during all of your years prior to the murder.

Instead of running away with Dominique to live happily ever after in obscurity, he put her back on the train and went back to work building little retail shops in Podunk.

Why was he attracted to Dominique? She was designed to represent the "malevolent universe premise." Was his "love" for her nothing but hormonal urges? That's what seems to be the case. Quite different -- opposite, even -- from what Objectivism ended up standing for in the realms of philosophy, psychology and romantic love.

He saved Mallory twice or three times, because Mallory was the best sculptor he could find -- and it didn't matter whether they tore down Stoddard's Temple or turned it into a whorehouse.

That reminds me, I need to reread the parts that contain Mallory and ponder some of the aesthetic clashes that he should have had with Roark's aesthetic mindset.

Apparently, you don't understand what an artist is, or what kind of life it entails.

I think that your highly emotional dedication to Roark, despite being shown his immorality, is a testament to the power of Rand's greatness as an artist, but also proof of the wrong-headedness of the "metaphysical detection" aspects of her pseudo-philosophy of aesthetics. It's not so fun when the Objectivist PseudoEsthetics is applied to Rand's art and you and she are hoist by her own petard, is it?

J

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[is Roark "moral"? In all his acts, no.

Has any human, real or fictional, been immoral in all of his acts? Your question is irrelevant.

As a total ("real") person, definitely yes. He was not moral. He put his aesthetic tastes above morality. As a "total person" he was driven, by the obsession of his belief in the superiority of his aesthetic tastes, to abandon morality, and to lie to himself and to others about the "justice" of his immoral actions. The morality is that of rational selfishness, as I used it and obviously as Rand meant it. Roark was irrational and immoral in trying to pass off his design as Keating's. For once, he sacrificed his mind and tried to falsify reality (because of his desperate need to see his unique design made concrete) and the consequences were logical and inevitably disastrous."Fraud", as you call it, and any individual rights abuse, is a consequence of immorality, but "individual rights" are not a code to live by in itself..

The hilarious thing is how eager you are to avoid applying Rand's methods of judging major content in her art, but how desperately you want to cling to her methods in judging minor content in others' art. Your mindset is why Objectivism is called a cult.

Can you argue that "one swallow a summer makes"?

You're the one who makes that argument by mimicking Rand in enjoying condemning art that wasn't created by Rand. And while exempting Rand's art from the same standards.

In totality, this was a guy who had always lived and continued living, as an "unswerving" rational egoist. Except the once. The authorial warning by Rand is that subjective self-sacrifice is possible to anyone. Her characters were HER "ideal men and women", which means authentically and volitionally moral - not "perfect", or conventionally "moral". I.e. they make mistakes, in their drive to rational excellence. Perfectionism is a harmfully intrinsicist ideal, insinuating omnipotence/omniscience for only one thing, I think.We have the luxury of reviewing the philosophy today in it its entirety - but it's easy to forget that TF and AS were stand alone works of literature: the theme of one is individualism (not rights), and the other- Society. I believe you exceed the scope of The Fountainhead to combine them, and include Objectivist political theory.

Again, it would be nice to see you apply the same standards to other artists instead of looking for excuses to condemn them.

J

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Why was he attracted to Dominique? She was designed to represent the "malevolent universe premise." Was his "love" for her nothing but hormonal urges? That's what seems to be the case. Quite different -- opposite, even -- from what Objectivism ended up standing for in the realms of philosophy, psychology and romantic love.

He saved Mallory twice or three times, because Mallory was the best sculptor he could find -- and it didn't matter whether they tore down Stoddard's Temple or turned it into a whorehouse.

That reminds me, I need to reread the parts that contain Mallory and ponder some of the aesthetic clashes that he should have had with Roark's aesthetic mindset.

Apparently, you don't understand what an artist is, or what kind of life it entails.

I think that your highly emotional dedication to Roark, despite being shown his immorality, is a testament to the power of Rand's greatness as an artist, but also proof of the wrong-headedness of the "metaphysical detection" aspects of her pseudo-philosophy of aesthetics. It's not so fun when the Objectivist PseudoEsthetics is applied to Rand's art and you and she are hoist by her own petard, is it?

J

He was attracted to Dominique because Dominique was Ayn Rand so it was giant to giant. What he wanted--he had no real life counterpart and wasn't a real person--was irrelevant; she wanted him so she made him wanting--her. Nothing wrong with that.

Mallory was an artist. Roark was an engineer--that is he had an engineer's mindset and it wasn't especially creative though Rand kept saying it was. Qua artist, he'd likely need rescuing just as he rescued Mallory. A true artist-creator architect, who needed no rescuing except by his clients who wanted his work and because his real-life esthetic world was a better place for an artist than Roark's, was Frank Lloyd Wright. He kept turning out new designs almost to his dying day. He said he merely shook them out of his sleeve in the 1950s. Rand had to turn herself into a slave to her own engineering-biased self to do her creative work, especially in Atlas Shrugged. A staggering save-the-world accomplishment which finished the job, I speculate, of turning her into a control freak. That was the end of Ayn Rand, the artist. It's too bad, for the next novel she feebly attempted and failed to write was completely intriguing.

--Brant

of Rand's three novels, the first was the most naturalistic, the second the most literary, and the third the greatest and most transcendent

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[Roark] knowingly violated his own stated morality [...].

Does Roark somewhere in the book state a morality - his morality - which he knowingly violated?

He violated Objectivist morality, which the author of The Fountainhead hadn't worked out when she wrote The Fountainhead. Is Objectivist morality what you mean, or some explicit statement by Roark?

The morality is that of rational selfishness, as I used it and obviously as Rand meant it.

Same type of question: Does Rand mention "rational selfishness" anywhere in The Fountainhead? She hadn't taken "rationality" as her primary virtue when she wrote The Fountainhead. "Independence" was the virtue she considered primary then. The change occurred in the course of her working on a non-fiction piece called "The Moral Foundation [*] of Individualism" which she started writing after The Fountainhead was published.

Ellen

[*] Edit: The correct tittle is "The Moral Basis of Individualism."

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[Roark] knowingly violated his own stated morality [...].

Does Roark somewhere in the book state a morality - his morality - which he knowingly violated?

He violated Objectivist morality, which the author of The Fountainhead hadn't worked out when she wrote The Fountainhead. Is Objectivist morality what you mean, or some explicit statement by Roark?

Yes, I mean explicit statements by Roark. He talks about his opposition to public housing projects, and his opposing the unfairness of hard working people living in worse conditions than those whose better housing they're being forced to pay for.

J

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When I was 18 I was caught in bed with my brother in laws sister. He got all angry at me and asked me what I had to say for myself.

I replied " You've been banging my sister for years and you are now mad at me for banging yours once?" He stopped, had a thoughtful look and started laughing his face off. Lol. Oh the immorality!

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When I was 18 I was caught in bed with my brother in laws sister. He got all angry at me and asked me what I had to say for myself.

I replied " You've been banging my sister for years and you are now mad at me for banging yours once?" He stopped, had a thoughtful look and started laughing his face off. Lol. Oh the immorality!

At least your sister didn't catch you in bed with your brother-in-law.

--Brant

what would you have said then?

(I can't resist this stuff)

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[Roark] knowingly violated his own stated morality [...].

Does Roark somewhere in the book state a morality - his morality - which he knowingly violated?

He violated Objectivist morality, which the author of The Fountainhead hadn't worked out when she wrote The Fountainhead. Is Objectivist morality what you mean, or some explicit statement by Roark?

The morality is that of rational selfishness, as I used it and obviously as Rand meant it.

Same type of question: Does Rand mention "rational selfishness" anywhere in The Fountainhead? She hadn't taken "rationality" as her primary virtue when she wrote The Fountainhead. "Independence" was the virtue she considered primary then. The change occurred in the course of her working on a non-fiction piece called "The Moral Foundation of Individualism" which she started writing after The Fountainhead was published.

Ellen

All due to not being prepared to conceptualize, to abstractify an art work, which has been prevalent throughout this thread. The type of person Roark was can only be seen by deduction - of what he did, and what he did not do. Those percepts add up to a concept, one that is instantly grasped by the first-time reader.

I suppose it's significant to a scholar-historian of Objectivism, that Rand's timeline was independence before rational egoism. It's of less interest for me. But implicit in TF, is that Roark was already there. If one could conceptualize it. Rand's art, conceivably, led her the way to her final ethics. Independence- as "the true opposite and enemy of altruism" - and rational egoism, are so intimately and mutually over-lapping that the abstract of the man, Roark, represented her morality to a 'T'.

Does anyone for a second believe Roark (despite his author) was immoral? Or was ~meant~ to be immoral? (Outside of his giving a weak man, Keating, a helping hand, to the latter's disadvantage, and against his own independence and "egotism"??)

Ha!

Perhaps Roark tried to undermine Rand's purpose, without her knowledge?! Heh.

She's -somewhere- written about the need for 'authenticity' in literature.

Romantic-'Realism', anybody? The reader can then apply the identical process of reason to an art work, as he does to anything in concrete existence.

So, she creates a character who is credible, who's morality is not above men's possibility.

There is a mystical premise, and a false alternative here:

Either "Perfection", OR "Immorality".

Objectivism naturally dismisses it. Volition is key to understanding this.

All literalism, folks, is due to non-conceptualism. Not seeing the forest for the trees.

"...whether the universe is knowable or not; whether man has the power of choice or not; whether man can achieve his goals or not". [AR].

Like him or not, despise the ethics or not: that's Roark.

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