A Few Thoughts About Rand and Objectivism

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

A Few Thoughts About Rand and Objectivism

Today I wrote on the blog of a guy named Anoop Verma. Here's his article in case anyone wants to read it: The Confessions Of An Orthodox Objectivist. You can scroll down to read my comments, but there are a few I want to leave here for future reference. So I'm cherry-picking them out.

The post below was practically the first thing I have ever written to this person.

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My distance has not been due to not having an opinion. I do and it's a strong one: There is nothing more precious than an independent mind. This is one of the reasons I am writing right now.

I have another strong opinion, too: The major enemies of the world are not to be found within the Objectivist subculture. This is not because there are no cults (yes, more than one), bad people, etc. There are these lost souls just like there are many good people. It's because in the big picture, these subculture "enemies" are irrelevant or so fringe, they pale beside the real destroyers of the earth. 

We all need enemies (for many reasons), so wisdom for me has been learning to choose my enemies wisely. My life has meaning and so does yours. Why waste it as a flyswatter?

. . .

To use a vulgar metaphor, the best, most beautiful and fragrant roses had to eat manure. Roses that don't are doomed to becoming ordinary roses.

I will be writing (or something  ) about Ayn Rand's fiction habits and techniques before too long and the following gives a few raw random thoughts as a teaser.

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On another point, you wrote: "Ayn Rand's books sell in millions but people simply don't care about the philosophical system that she started." And you blamed this on those at the head of the movement(s). That's a premise I think needs checking. 

If you look at which Rand books sell the most, and which do not, you will see a huge gap between her fiction and nonfiction sales numbers--the fiction vastly outsells the nonfiction. This doesn't happen due to subcommunity shenanigans. Hell, many Rand fiction readers--ones who love her books--don't even know the names of the movement leaders.

It's due to underlying resonance patterns (not just the hero's journey) that Rand brilliantly used as a platform for her ideas. I contend that without Rand's fiction, most of her nonfiction would probably be out of print by now.

I've been doing a deep dive on these patterns. Oddly enough, the more I learn about them, the more appreciation I have for Rand. This is one reason why I think subcommunity turf wars and bickering about O-Land personalities are a waste of time. The public doesn't care. When they want that stuff, they go to church, a townhall meeting or a football game--being that all three are vastly more entertaining.

The public buys patterns that have been honed from the beginning of human history somewhat like the telephone game. This is where one person tells another something, and that person tells another the same thing, and so on down the line. When you get to the end, the message has been totally distorted, but there is a core that remains the same. That core is the resonance pattern. Imagine this over centuries.

Rand was a master of some of these patterns, packaged them in great stories, sold them well--and many readers liked (and still like) the ideas that she conveyed with them. In O-Land, I believe people are just now waking up to this. For example, a few more folks than in the past are starting to learn how to tell a decent story, but from much of the stuff I have read, there's still a long way to go. 

Wanna see a pattern that doesn't work? Sitting in an auditorium (or watching a video) and listening to a boring uptight person preach rules to people on how they should live and think peppered with quotes from Rand, all while making derogatory comments about strawmen. That is the pattern most have used in the subcommunity up to now. With the current cast I don't see it changing anytime soon. One thing is for sure. It is not something that will ever catch on with the public at large. 

Especially not when Rand herself served up suspense, ticking clocks, riddles and mysteries, suicides, murders, rapes and rough sex, betrayals, massive acts of destruction including some rip-righteous explosions, torture, chase scenes, gunfights, etc. And, of course, some great stuff like larger than life love stories, save-the-word inventions, awe-inspiring human achievements and events, a secret hideout for the good guys, etc.)

Add all this underlying resonance stuff to great ideas and you get fiction that sells gobs decades after it was written. And with each work of fiction consumed, her ideas go with it. It's never the other way around, albeit there are some great underlying resonance patterns for nonfiction, too.

Notice that these elements are essentially the basis of most organized religions, even though many don't call the fiction parts fiction. 

(On a side note, I contend that story form is just as important to an objective epistemology--just as important to reason--as concept form is, but that's a long discussion.)

Finally, one thing has become clear to me over time, but I've never really said it openly. So I'm saying it here.

I'm not indifferent to intelligent people regardless of where they come from, I have a huge love quotient for intelligent independent minds, but as a first, second, third, fourth and fifth impression, I'm not wowed by people who profess to be experts in Rand, who profess to promote Rand, but are funded as intellectuals by the government. Call it a bias that has been growing in me over time.

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Re cultural impact, I'm sitting here wondering who funds "the academics, the media intellectuals, the think tanks, etc." and why these folks don't need much of an audience. Not needing an audience to me is a drawback, even for philosophy. Why should philosophy not need one? I'm talking about cultural impact. If it's just to be the equivalent of a crossword puzzle--something to do in your spare time and discard when you get bored--I'm fine with exempting it from audience. But culture means people.

Anyway, when I look at the money trails, it all becomes clear: it's the G word (government). So I don't see that particular environment as worth very much. Oh, there is some value, but nobody is going to change the world among those folks. Especially when almost all money roads lead back to government subsidies in one form or another (including the vastly inflated student loan fraud).

Besides, does anyone really think Rand would have wanted her ideas to be spread through government funding?

I'm not trying to be snarky. Just looking at reality. 

People who print and buy Rand's books on the open market use their own money. I claim that's where real culture happens and real cultural change unfolds.

Maybe this was not as valid in former times, but with the wonders of the capitalist market and modern communication technologies, we are moving into a world where gatekeepers--intellectual and otherwise--are losing their power. (Thank goodness!)

Apropos, don't you find it odd that the main think tanks promoting Objectivism--the quintessential philosophy on the morality of capitalism (among other issues)--are nonprofits? That never seems to bother anybody in O-Land.  

For as much as anyone may bash the Brandens, NBI never suffered from that sin. It was a capitalist venture funded by selling services and products to paying customers.

This, to me, is a talk-the-talk versus walk-the-walk thing. Not gotcha-level, but as a general rule of thumb. Sort of like don't take diet advice from fat people. Don't take money advice from broke people. Don't take advice about free-market capitalism from those who live on charity, grants and government funds. 

And, most of all, don't take reason advice from unreasoning bullies.  

So there it is.

Anyone want to add anything? It's been awhile since we've righteously bashed folks in the subcommunity.

Michael

[dldelancey]

1. Do all non-profit organizations "live on charity, grants, and government funds?" 
2. Are non-profit organizations free to pick and choose which charity, grants, and government funds they seek?
3. Is there no room in a free market for non-profit organizations? 
4. Isn't objectivistliving.com a non-profit organization?  (Love ya, MSK!)

 

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

1 hour ago, dldelancey said:

1. Do all non-profit organizations "live on charity, grants, and government funds?" 
2. Are non-profit organizations free to pick and choose which charity, grants, and government funds they seek?
3. Is there no room in a free market for non-profit organizations? 
4. Isn't objectivistliving.com a non-profit organization?  (Love ya, MSK!)

Deanna,

LOL...

In order:

1. Yes. An organization is either funded through selling services and/or products for profit, or it is funded by money from other areas to pay for it. That last is a nonprofit. I'm talking conceptually here, not tax law, but there is a huge overlap between the two. 

2. Of course. Hell, even churches are nonprofits and they choose member donations.  But any nonprofit can fundraise wherever it can get funds, although I would avoid money laundering of criminal activity if I did fundraising for one.

3. Yes. I think it's kind of odd that the major Objectivist think tanks can't make profits, but they sure like to preach to businesses how moral it is to make profits. You can't help but wonder, if it's so moral, why don't they do it?  

4. I love you right back.  

About OL--it is basically a nonprofit right now--paid for by my pocket (Kat used to carry this cost--she's the one who set it up, bless her) and some member donations (charity--I don't kid myself, but hopefully OL is worth it to them), but I would never tolerate that status as permanent, meaning nonprofit is all I would ever want to do with OL as the end game.

I consider the current phase to be a seed phase--an investment phase if you will--for later growth into a successful for-profit enterprise. I never talk about the larger project in public because I don't want to jinx it, but I am working on it backstage with other people and here is a teaser. OL will eventually belong to a larger undertaking that includes a social media platform, entertainment productions, training in how to do that stuff, etc. All for profit.

We will offer some things for free, but don't worry. OL will always be free. But we also have some other surprises coming. The freebies will be the wide end of a marketing funnel--a place for the kind of people who interest us to hang out. In other words, we will generally have audience generators for free, and services and products to sell to that audience (and to the public at large).

btw - OL regulars will be an elite in the new organization, they will have an elevated status, even if they turn into assholes.  

I have to give one caveat to my blast of O-Land think tanks, though. TAS was involved with the AS movies. It doesn't matter what anyone thinks of those movies for my point. They were commercial free-market ventures. I don't know if TAS was involved financially, but David Kelley was an advisor on those movies, so hats off to them on that score. 

But to be honest, I have more market respect for people like Terry Goodkind than I do for most of the people within the formal Objectivist movements. Also, that guy knows how to tell a story and most O-Land movement folks don't.

We don't discuss this stuff much yet because I'm still getting my act together as a writer. But I'm coming along. Man, did I have to unlearn a lot of shit (preconceptions about writing I soaked up from Rand and followers) to relearn writing correctly.

Apropos of nothing (and, of course, it's here in the wrong section on OL  ), I have discovered a gem of a story creating teacher--a guy named Peter Russell. This guy was almost made for filling in what most Objectivist fiction writers lack--at least from what I can see. I'm not sure if others will resonate with him, but he sure as hell filled in some major gaps for me--gaps that I attribute to misunderstandings I got about writing from O-land.

From my neuroscience and modern psychology studies, I know his patterns work and, often, I know why.

He's got a quirky way of talking and I suspect he's a flaming progressive, but I don't pay any attention to that. He knows human nature and how to walk the line between making the real interesting (by cutting out the boring stuff) and keeping it real in fiction (by focusing on what makes people tick). It's really easy to deconstruct Rand's fiction according to his patterns, but, based on some of the dramas he likes (American Beauty, etc.), I bet this thought would cause him indigestion.  

Here are two marvelous YouTube videos of Peter if you are interested.

And this:

I'm going through his online classes right now. I'm not sure he's written much of anything good as an author, but he (and his wife) came up through the ranks as script readers--he claims he has read and analyzed over 7,000 scripts, and now he's a top script-doctor for major Hollywood studios and productions.

I've learned more about story patterns from this guy than I have from any other single source. And that includes most of the classic fiction writing literature. Also, Peter's crazy, certifiably nuts, so I perfectly resonate with him.  

See? I don't just bash O-Land folks. I try to provide some value, too. 

 

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

The changes we want take more than anyone's lifetime or even several lifetimes.

The main job of the good guys is don't fuck things up in the meantime.

--Brant

like nuclear war

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

52 minutes ago, Brant Gaede said:

The changes we want take more than anyone's lifetime or even several lifetimes.

Brant,

Do you really believe that?

Why?

To give time for the sundry O-Land dorks and their progeny to die off?

   

I think change is going to be happening faster and faster. You and I belong to a generation where communication was slower and full of gatekeepers. So we got used to their pace and realms of influence. It's like we grew up with horse and buggy, but what's happening now is personalized rocket ships.

Michael

[anthony]

As a an aside, I think it's interesting how this fellow sometimes evokes Rand's writing about literature. We all (I believe) don't want to read or view onscreen from the main character, a same old, same old - he did this, he did that - and the next day did similarly. That's the most basic 'documentary' naturalism and it shows life as being drab. Why bother to report it? Dramatic tension - "change" - has to be introduced to appeal and hold our interest. Either the man or woman changes due to unforseen circumstances - or he/she changes those circumstances. At first level, a viewer/reader always likes to know that the character he identifies with, struggles and triumphs in the end. The naturalist position is that life is blah or ugly and there's not much one can do about it, but the naturalist writer can't escape that any fiction still requires plot. Goals, purpose and action - by an individual. Except, when the guy gets the girl or the money, or both, it was fortunate, or he was just a better lover or fighter (or something superficial). But it's not convincing, his triumph is inauthentic, without personal merit or excellence, and he is not much better than his foes and competitors, morally. He was merely reacting to circumstances which he is unthinkingly unable to control.

Deeper, I think everyone needs from fiction and screenplay to know that one can change one's circumstances due to virtue, character and rational acts - self-efficacy, not dumb luck or simple physical prowess. So, the genuine "hero". Rand's hero is one whose character and purpose is remarkably - some will say fixatedly - unchanging to every changing threat, upset and challenge. We understand that Rand consciously set out to portray man's volitional consciousness (which is the hallmark of romantic realism) - through her protagonists. Her hero's outcome is never predetermined since he shapes it. I'll add that I've read and seen many variations of "Romanticism/Naturalism", and in combinations of both. I believe there's been excellent semi-naturalism, and mediocre romanticism. The author's originality, writing style and absorbing characters has to grip one first.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Tony,

To use Peter Russell's frame (albeit only part of his jargon), we could say that Rand's heroes come in two flavors, those with core wounds and those who are steadfast. Steadfast in this context is a technical term in screenwriting (from the Dramatica folks) meaning a character who doesn't have an internal change like James Bond, Superman, etc. John Galt is a steadfast character. Many villains are steadfast characters. Rand-wise, Ellsworth Toohey is a steadfast character.

Hank Rearden had a core wound. He believed in a big fat lie, that his word was his bond when he dealt with evil people--that he had a duty to be honorable to dishonorable people and the dishonorable people could make that moral claim on him. Rand called this "sanction of the victim" and depersonalized it by calling the reason for it altruism, but it's still a personal wound Rearden continued to maintain as self-inflicted, even as he became disgusted with it. And, man, did Rearden suffer from his wound. Rand was in wild-eyed sadist mode, especially about his sex life--talk about twisting the knife.

That is, until Rearden learned how to heal the wound (reject the false morality and verbalized view of human nature that came with it). Healing a core wound in Russell's meaning involves learning a life lesson and Rearden sure as hell learned. His whole storyline is about him trying to reconcile his false sense of duty to what he really felt and thought. 

I could go through character after character in Rand's work like that. (Ya' think Dominique Francon had a core wound? Even a villain like James Taggart?  )

The main two characteristics of a core wound (in the way I understand Russell's meaning of it), from the perspective of the character who has one, is that (1) he will not identify it openly to himself, and (2) he holds it as absolute and will not compromise on the way he has learned to deal with it. When people try to talk about it, he gets evasive, irritated, brusk and dismissive, etc. 

But there's this little thing called reality  that keeps screwing with him and challenging him to look at his core wound--through loss after loss, feeling bad or guilty all the time, missed opportunities that he really wanted, failures he did that should not have been failures, etc., ...

Incidentally, the way to keep a steadfast character interesting is have this core wound stuff play out in characters next to him--to show his impact on their core wounds.

This runs parallel to outer storylines (solving a murder, rescuing someone, building something, etc.), but that's another discussion.

Don't get me started. I could go on all day and still be nowhere near done other than the equivalent of scratching an iceberg with a paper clip.

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

The Earth is not being destroyed; not as such and not the human one. Not in the aggregate. As for the last, the Nazis came the closest with the Jews.

Things are generally getting better for humanity albeit not in some of the ways some of us want--yet. So why should humanity (generally) give up one thing and put in another while knowing comfortably that one thing and only knowing the other speculatively at best?

So present day cultural/intellectual inertia requires time to be diverted into new channels and it's done via need and practicality. A crisis might accelerate this.

The totalitarian Nazi moral arrogance has been destroyed. The Marxist's is next. The Marxists have already lost most intellectual pretense. That evaporated in the Vietnam War protests and never came back. Rand could argue/debate with the likes of a Newton Minnow, not with what followed, as she so stated way back then.

--Brant

[BaalChatzaf]

3 hours ago, Brant Gaede said:

The Earth is not being destroyed; not as such and not the human one. Not in the aggregate. As for the last, the Nazis came the closest with the Jews.

Things are generally getting better for humanity albeit not in some of the ways some of us want--yet. So why should humanity (generally) give up one thing and put in another while knowing comfortably that one thing and only knowing the other speculatively at best?

So present day cultural/intellectual inertia requires time to be diverted into new channels and it's done via need and practicality. A crisis might accelerate this.

The totalitarian Nazi moral arrogance has been destroyed. The Marxist's is next. The Marxists have already lost most intellectual pretense. That evaporated in the Vietnam War protests and never came back. Rand could argue/debate with the likes of a Newton Minnow, not with what followed, as she so stated way back then.

--Brant

The Second Coming

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

--- W. B. Yeats --- his reaction to the Great War which in its time appeared to be an unrecoverable disaster

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

9 hours ago, Brant Gaede said:

The Earth is not being destroyed; not as such and not the human one. Not in the aggregate. As for the last, the Nazis came the closest with the Jews.

Things are generally getting better for humanity...

Brant,

Generally?

How about a population explosion and doubling life expectancy within a century? There you have collective and individual, so somebody's doing something right among us humans.

As to my phrase "destroyers of the earth," this is actually from the Bible and it sounds so Randian I had to use it.

In the Randian sense, this would not mean global warming, but instead, killing the human spirit for living well on earth. To be anally exact, it should be something like "destroyers of rational human flourishing and happiness on earth." But "destroyers of the earth" has a dramatic appeal to it the other doesn't.

btw - In the Biblical sense, "destroyers of the earth" means those who live by violent conquest and excesses--like, in Revelation, the Seven Headed Beast (Rome) and the Whore of Babylon (insiders in the corrupt system of all persuasions). Apropos of nothing in particular, the Whore of Babylon used to ride the Beast until the Beast stripped her naked, killed her and ate her.  

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

2 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Brant,

Generally?

How about a population explosion and doubling life expectancy within a century? There you have collective and individual, so somebody's doing something right among us humans.

As to my phrase "destroyers of the earth," this is actually from the Bible and it sounds so Randian I had to use it.

In the Randian sense, this would not mean global warming, but instead, killing the human spirit for living well on earth. To be anally exact, it should be something like "destroyers of rational human flourishing and happiness on earth." But "destroyers of the earth" has a dramatic appeal to it the other doesn't.

btw - In the Biblical sense, "destroyers of the earth" means those who live by violent conquest and excesses--like, in Revelation, the Seven Headed Beast (Rome) and the Whore of Babylon (insiders in the corrupt system of all persuasions). Apropos of nothing in particular, the Whore of Babylon used to ride the Beast until the Beast stripped her naked, killed her and ate her.  

Michael

My oh my.

--Brant

gotta read the Bible

[Peter]

Michael wrote, “btw - OL regulars will be an elite in the new organization, they will have an elevated status, even if they turn into assholes.”

Don Corleone wrote, “You take my money and den youse disrespect me.”

I am curious about the changes coming to OL. I don’t have one of those new fangled cell phones yet though most of the members of my family do. Can I still type into my computer, send and get a reply?

Landline, Louis.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

1 hour ago, Peter said:

I am curious about the changes coming to OL. I don’t have one of those new fangled cell phones yet though most of the members of my family do. Can I still type into my computer, send and get a reply?

Peter,

You will have god status.

Michael