Architecture -- art or not?? (2006)

[Jonathan]

That notion has to be knocked on the head. 1. It's only a coincidence of approximately similar emotions (exultation, triumph, 'sublimity', etc.) as posited by Kant, and portrayed in Rand's fiction, 2. it hasn't any bearing on their distinctly opposing causations.

How many times, dopey, will you need to be reminded that Kant did not invent the concept of the Sublime?

How many times will you need to be reminded that Rand's novels contain representations of immense, destructive forces which stimulate her heroic characters' will to resist and overcome, as well as readers' will? Have you already forgotten about the political forces that the heroes stand against?

What you're doing, dopey, is choosing your irrational hatred of Kant over recognizing reality.

In Kant's case, an immense scene (or "terrible forces") elicits the heightened emotion(s), and brings ("stimulates") one to overcome ("resist") one's awe and dread (etc.) with one's reason (that is, Kant's ideas of "reason").

It's not just "Kant's case," dopey, that the Sublime is "an immense scene (or 'terrible forces')" which "elicits the heightened emotion(s), and brings ('stimulates') one to overcome ('resist') one's awe and dread (etc.)." It's the entire history of the concept of the Sublime.

Rand as is known, viewed emotions as one's automated response to 'something' - a fact of reality, one's action, an act of consciousness - also dependent on one's metaphysical value-judgments (his conscious view of existence). 'Something', that requires identification, extrospectively or introspectively, before its value-assessment and an emotional response (often within a brief moment).

For Rand, "consciousness IS identification" (altogether unlike anything I've read in Kant's purview).

In her various characters are men and women who in thought, word and deed, displayed: integrity, independence, productiveness, pride, egoism, rationality, and reason. Above all, as the central idea behind Romantic Realism, each possessed and lived by a volitional consciousness a). to build their character and convictions b). by which they ultimately achieve their goals. Albeit that some made mistakes, the best of those individuals judged themselves, accepted the consequences and corrected them, again, with free will. (Only one failed in her final goal, but she undoubtedly formed an unforgettable character and died trying, at the end).

Anyway, what is undeniable is that their rationality and volition (etc.) was already existing in them, prior to meeting the challenges of reality - i.e. all forces, "terrible" or not so.

None of the above changes the fact that the characters, and most readers, feel their will to resist the entities of great magnitude and destructive power. In other words, the Sublime!

I'm a little hazy recalling instances in the novels of emotional exhilaration, either narrated by the author and/or expressed by a character. A scene in the steel foundry. Dagny at the controls of a locomotive. A rising skyscraper? Not to matter. I will bet that in any such instance, it was always the virtues, reason and free will of the character which was being celebrated. As the culmination and joyful reward for their applied mental, spiritual and physical efforts. An emotion as consequence, not the cause.

And? What is the relevance of the above? You appear to be so lost in arguing with the straw men that you build in your head that you forgot to mention what you hear those straw men saying to you. What imagined argument are you arguing against?!!!

Are you saying that you somehow believe that someone has taken the position that if a novel contains the Sublime, then it can't also contain other aesthetic effects?

Are you taking the position that if some of the incidents in a novel are not examples of the Sublime, then other incidents which are examples of the Sublime cannot be examples of the Sublime?

Try to make sense, Tony.

Reduced simply:

Rand: Fact-->reason -->action-->emotion;

Kant: Fact --> emotion ----> reason.

The above is false.

He got it backwards.

No, you've just willfully misinterpreted him as having it backwards, because Rand told you to hate him. You've invented a straw man named "Kant." You assign him ideas that the real Kant never had. You put words into his mouth that the real Kant never said.

It's next to impossible to read Rand through "Sublime" goggles, I'd think.

You'd first have understand what the Sublime is, and then, second, you'd have to value reality above hating Kant and irrationally trying to misinterpret and vilify him and the concept of the Sublime.

J

[anthony]

J. Heated denials and negations and accusations are all you have lately.

"The above is false" - is meaningless, until you show how.

"...feel their will to resist the entities of great magnitude and destructive power". Huh? What? where? how?

The "political forces" the heroes withstood were only one manifestation of the reality they dealt with -- by means of their virtues, volition and rationality. You transpose 'sublimity' on this. Have we read the same novels? I'll remind you, in AR's words, her fiction upholds man as a being of volitional consciousness (not a "sublime consciousness").

And of course it wasn't just Kant's sublime. I've acknowledged that fact several times, and you know it. He only constructed a philosophy on it, that's all, and made it notorious/famous. Stop being so sensitive - who can "hate" him? He looks to have been an innocent dreamer whose ideas existed only in his own over-heated mind. If anything it's your embittered defence of him which shows hatred.

Reality? Kant and reality? You're joking...

Let's be hearing now specific instances of the sublime in Rand's novels, which you mention often. You, for a change, make a conceptual argument for Kant, reality, reason and the sublime, as you understand it and in your words, please.

[Jonathan]

And of course it wasn't just Kant's sublime. I've acknowledged that fact several times, and you know it. He only constructed a philosophy on it, that's all, and made it notorious/famous.

Hahaha! He constructed a philosophy on it? OMG, you are so ridiculous!

He made the Sublime "notorious/famous"? How would you know? As always, you're basing your opinion on nothing but your own personal experiences and limitations. You, personally, first heard of the Sublime in association with discussions on Kant, and therefore you stupidly assume that he made it notorious/famous.

Let's be hearing now specific instances of the sublime in Rand's novels, which you mention often. You, for a change, make a conceptual argument for Kant, reality, reason and the sublime, as you understand it and in your words, please.

Hahahaha!!! Good lord!

Have you not read the multiple posts in which I've given examples over and over again? Or have you just refused to understand?

Here's a fairly recent response to Ellen's spiteful silliness of electron-chasing and refusing to see the Sublime in Rand's novels. Read the questions, Tony, and see if you can figure out for yourself what the answers might be:

In Rand's art, she presents the individual against the what?

What threatening and destructive phenomena did Rand's art present as gray and shapeless, and as being "everywhere and nowhere"?

When Galt sought to stop the motor of the world, was he speaking of actually physically stopping the Earth from turning, or was he talking about something else? What was he rising against? Was it of immense magnitude? Was it a powerful, threatening and destructive force?

Which entities did Rand's fictional characters speak of as using "terror in place of proof," of using "fear as your weapon" and of "the horrors they practice." Which phenomena did her heroes describe as having "horrors are their ends," and that "their bloodiest horrors are unleashed to punish the crime of thinking"? To what or whom did the heroes ascribe "the terror of unreason," and as being "expert at contriving means of terror," and of "giving you ample cause to feel the fear"?

Which phenomena did the heroes in Rand's art, as well as readers, feel their power to resist and rise above?

Think hard, Tony! You can do it!!!

J

[anthony]

When it suits, you will even misrepresent The Sublime!

"Feelings of the sublime are the result of seeing mountain peaks, raging storms, and night." Wiki.

You see - instances of physical, concrete existents, among many of the type. Where are they, above?

The "phenomena" which her heroes battled in Rand's novels were fundamentally ideas, abstractions: collectivism, Statism, altruism, and so on.

Another poor attempt to shoehorn your sublime notion into Rand's novels. Many other novels too, contain emotions of exultation after effortful achievement.

Maybe because you read "fear" somewhere in her literature, you think it connects to feelings of the sublime which "arouse enjoyment but with horror".(Kant)

I think I have something in that idea of reverse causality (from emotion to cogitation) of the Sublime. Yet, I don't think you will address it. (Fall-back: Rand taught me to say that...)

No, I haven't seen your "examples over and over again". It is very seldom I've noticed in a few years that you make a clear and outright statement about ideas in art, only innuendo and supercilious questions or small details which contribute little.

The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy:

"For Kant, the other basic type of aesthetic experience is the sublime. The sublime names experiences like violent storms or huge buidings which seem to overwhelm us; that is, we feel we "cannot get our head around them"."

And isn't this true of those occasions I've felt disorientated by a vision or a sound, something so huge or loud, that I've felt a sort of 'brain shift' in which I couldn't get my head around it, for just a second. All it is, I reckon, is a brief hiatus beween my senses and my perception. Then, I'm again able to put in scale an immense object - or to find the source of the noise - and identify what it is. I believe most people have felt this, but surely it didn't need an aesthetic theory to explain and glorify it!

[Jonathan]

Think harder, Tony!

Which entities held in their minds the abstractions of collectivism, statism, altruism and so on, and acted on those abstractions?

What were those entities? There were millions and millions of them. Hmmm. What do you think the answer might be?

Here's another hint. It's like Kant's view of war being capable of stimulating the Sublime: An evil country wages war against one of its neighboring countries, and then people who are opposed to that evil country's actions experience the Sublime in that they feel their will to resist in the face of armies of immense magnitude and threatening, destructive power.

Now, think really, really hard. What are armies made up of? What types of entities get drafted by the millions into combat by the evil leaders of countries?

Any ideas come to mind?

Well, those same entities -- masses and masses of them, so many that we can't see them all at one time or get our head around how many of them there are -- are the exact same type of entities which believed the abstractions of collectivism, statism, etc.

Think extra-special hard. You can do it! I believe in you, buddy! You're my special little thinker! Yes you are!

When you figure out the answer, please let us know!

J

[anthony]

What I think is that I think I'd better not disturb you in your sublime fantasy-land. The shock when you wake up to reality.

Right, that's War and Peace, yes?

(Star Wars...?)

See, what's missing in any Kant I've read is the individual's concepts, values, convictions, free will and principles.

One size fits all: whatever emotions he imagined, it follows, must be everyone's. A dreamer, as I said (and what he advocated about war and the sublime was probably dangerous).

[Jonathan]

What I think is that I think I'd better not disturb you in your sublime fantasy-land. The shock when you wake up to reality.

Do you ever have any idea of what you're talking about?

See, what's missing in any Kant I've read is the individual's concepts, values, convictions, free will and principles.

One size fits all: whatever emotions he imagined, it follows, must be everyone's.

You're confusing Kant with yourself, and with other Objectivish aesthetic bossypantses, like His Royal Published Majesty and Kamhi. You are the ones who hold the view that whatever you experience in art is objectively what everyone who is rational must or should experience, and also that if you don't experience what others do, then they must be lying or rationalizing or mentally ill.

Kant did not take the position that you've assigned to him. As always, you're just making shit up.

A dreamer, as I said (and what he advocated about war and the sublime was probably dangerous).

Wrong. You should actually read what he wrote about war. Michael Knewbarely made the same uninformed prejudgment about Kant and war on the A Few Kant Quotes thread, and toward the end of the thread I posted some quotes from Kant which put an end to that stupidity. I'll look them up later and post them here when I have more time.

It is fun watching you skate away from your previous positions to even thinner ice. You make a stupid statement, I show it to be wrong, you make no acknowledgement of your error, and then just zip over to a new and even dumber idea. Repeat, repeat, repeat. The best part of it is that you're so attracted to Objectivism, but your squirming, slithering method of "thinking" and arguing is the exact opposite. In practice, you detest Objectivism, logic and reason.

J

[Roger Bissell]

Tony - multiple choice quiz just for you. Who do you suppose wrote this:

"The imagination (as a productive faculty of cognition) is a powerful agent for creating, as it were, a second nature out of the material supplied to it by actual nature. It affords us entertainment where experience proves too commonplace; and we even use it to remodel experience...[T[he material can be borrowed by us from nature [and] worked up by us into something else--namely, what surpasses nature. Such representations of the imagination...strain after something lying out beyond the confines of experience, and so seek to approximate a presentation of rational concepts (i.e., intellectual ideas), thus giving to these concepts the semblance of an objective reality."

1. Leonard Skynyrd?

2. Ayn Heldenleben?

3. Nathaniel HotThorn?

4. One of the Objectivish BossyPantses?

5. "The Most Evil Man in History"?

Have I made the choices too easy?

REB

[william.scherk]

Speaking of fantasy land ...

I just ordered a print of this new giclé from Cordair. It is titled Le Sublime. I freaking love it, although I understand some dreary monks of Rand will see it as a mawkish pastiche of Romantic painter Caspar David Friedrich's already sappy Hello Kanty oeuvre**, especially in exuberance and proportions and general reaching for the Total Heights.

It makes me think of a slimmer Orc-world Perigo, having vanquished the alien hordes, or a leaping jutting rock fit for a Roark. It has human grace and selfish pleasure abundant in its solitary conquest. It is ridiculous but within a benevolent universe. It thrills both the Objectivist and the post-modernist.

Others will just find it cliched and damp all over. Spaceman conquers the mountains of Titan. Ho hum.

Oh well. For whom the bell tolls, as they say ...



__________________________________

**
**

Le Voyageur contemplant une mer de nuages (1817) de Caspar David Friedrich, Kunsthalle Hamburg.
L'artiste romantique du XIX^e siècle utilise la grandeur de la nature comme une expression du Sublime.

[Jonathan]

Here's Kant on the subject of war, Tony:

As long as I'm typing from Guyer's Kant, here's Guyer (from pages 294-5) on Kant on war (which underscores the futility of trying to divine a philosopher's ethics or politics from an aspect of a part of segment of his aesthetics):

We cannont leave Kant's political philosophy without discussing his 1795 pamphlet Toward Perpetual Peace...

...Kant first writes that even in a condition of warfare among any kinds of states there are certain "preliminary articles" that can eliminate causes of future wars, such as the prohibition of dynastic acquisition of states, standing armies, national debts for making war, "forcible interference in the constitution and government of another state," and "acts of hostility as would have to make mutual trust impossible during a future peace," such as assassinations, encouragement of treason within another state, and so on (PP, 8:344-6). But in the long run, Kant holds that there can only be perpetual peace if all states become republics governed by the will of the whole people rather than by the whims of autocrats, especially, as is already implicit in the first preliminary article, autocrats who regard whole states as their personal property, which can be enlarged or put at risk entirely at their own choice.

The three "definitive articles" for perpetual peace are thus that "The civil constitution in every state shall be repubican" (PP, 8:349), that "The right of nations shall be based on a federalism of free states" (8:354), and that there shall be "Cosmopolitan right" consisting in "conditions of universal hospitality" (8:358). Under the last of these articles Kant launches a powerful attack upon the rampant European colonialism of his own time, arguing that no matter what the cultural and political conditions of another region are, foreigners have no more than the right to visit in order to offer their goods and ideas, never a right to establish themselves forcibly in another people's territory no matter how exalted or crass their aims may be.

(p. 363):
...As Kant famously writes:

When the consent of the citizens of a state is required in order to decide whether there shall be war or not (and it cannot be otherwise in [the republican] constitution), nothing is more natural than that they will be very hesitant to begin such a bad game, since they would have to take upon themselves all the hardships of war (such as themselves doing the fighting and paying the costs of the war from their own belongings...); on the other hand, under a constitution in which subjects are not citizens of the state, which is therefore not republican, [deciding upon war] is the easiest thing in the world; because the head of state is not a member of the state but its proprietor and gives up nothing at all of his feasts, hunts, pleasure palaces, court festivals, and so forth he can decide upon war, as upon a kind of pleasure party, for insignificant cause. (PP,8:350)

J

[Jonathan]

Tony - multiple choice quiz just for you. Who do you suppose wrote this:

"The imagination (as a productive faculty of cognition) is a powerful agent for creating, as it were, a second nature out of the material supplied to it by actual nature. It affords us entertainment where experience proves too commonplace; and we even use it to remodel experience...[T[he material can be borrowed by us from nature [and] worked up by us into something else--namely, what surpasses nature. Such representations of the imagination...strain after something lying out beyond the confines of experience, and so seek to approximate a presentation of rational concepts (i.e., intellectual ideas), thus giving to these concepts the semblance of an objective reality."

1. Leonard Skynyrd?

2. Ayn Heldenleben?

3. Nathaniel HotThorn?

4. One of the Objectivish BossyPantses?

5. "The Most Evil Man in History"?

Have I made the choices too easy?

REB

Just a little technicality, but number five should be "The Most Evil Man in Mankind's History." Artless/awkward. (Almost as bad as, "The Most Totally Utmost Evil of All Evil Human Men Who Have Ever Existed Throughout the Entire Duration of the Timeline of Mankind's History.)

Additional multiple choice quiz question:

About whom did a (real) scholar observe, "_______ assumes that all works of art are mimetic, that is, that they have a representational content or theme," because _______'s view was that "the beauty of art is a beautiful representation of a thing."

1. Mick Jaggar

2. Maxwell Parrish

3. Ayn Rand

4. Intellectually Impotent Objectivish Aesthetic BossyPantses

5. The Most Evil Man in Mankind's History

J

[Roger Bissell]

Oh, William, I am so envious! :swoon: Who is the painter? I so hope that it will be included in the 2016 Cordair Gallery calendar, which I have *yet* to receive! :scowl:

I agree with you that the maudlin, overdone "Hello Kanty" approach of Friedrich's will be off-putting to some in the ivory towers of Randishland, but would you say the same about his less frequently seen "My Little Merleau-Ponty" works? Just curious. :furrowed brow:

But back to this wonderful masterwork you have shared (an image of) with us...

Using the title as a possible guide to deciphering its meaning, I tried to explore the painting in terms of Schopenhauer's six stages of the transition from the beautiful to the most sublime. (See volume 1 of his The World as Will and Representation - not to be confused with The Atlas Society as Will, Ed, and David.)

1. Feeling of Beauty – Light is reflected off a flower. (Pleasure from a mere perception of an object that cannot hurt observer).
2. Weakest Feeling of Sublime – Light reflected off stones. (Pleasure from beholding objects that pose no threat, objects devoid of life).
3. Weaker Feeling of Sublime – Endless desert with no movement. (Pleasure from seeing objects that could not sustain the life of the observer).
4. Sublime – Turbulent Nature. (Pleasure from perceiving objects that threaten to hurt or destroy observer).
5. Full Feeling of Sublime – Overpowering turbulent Nature. (Pleasure from beholding very violent, destructive objects).
6. Fullest Feeling of Sublime – Immensity of Universe's extent or duration. (Pleasure from knowledge of observer's nothingness and oneness with Nature).

There's really enough sublimity of each gradation to go around for art appreciators of whatever level of exalted enlightenment or crushing ignorance. But to me, what leaps out (or up) from the painting is something roughly between turbulent and overpowering turbulent nature (4 and 5). I'll explain...

First of all, look at the full head of hair on the hero in the painting. Could that be Donald Trump? (Who, as we all know, not only has hair to die for, but is totally unafraid of heights.) (Those distant peaks are probably symbolic of Iowa and New Hampshire - and beyond them, out of the frame of the picture, are the rest of the primaries, the national convention, and the November election. Not to mention the White House, which would not show up well in such an image, anyway.)

If so, then what of that enormous, jutting...whatever it is...that he's standing on, casually, seemingly without a care in the world? At first, it seemed to me to resemble a gargantuan seal, but then it dawned on me. Could it be that the painter is playing almost a juvenile prank on the viewer? Could it be...a common, Iowa barnyard crow??? And another one, lower and to the left? Like the hackneyed (and facetious) newspaper headline, "Man bites dog," this looks for all the world like the artist is trying to pull a really clever visual switcheroo: "Crows (about to) eat man."

This could indeed explain the experience of the sublime (I for) one can get from this richly nuanced artwork. If a sensitive viewer projects him- or her- or theirself into the picture, then glances down, those crows certainly *would* arouse at least a sense of being threatened and a vivid awareness of their violent, destructive nature. A sense, to put it in more humanistic terms, that "he who lives by the crow, dies by the crow." (Perhaps in the Ayn Rand Archives, there are notes for an unpublished essay, "The Crow Esthetics" - though no mention of it was made by Harry Binswanger in his chapter of the new Blackwell Companion to Ayn Rand.)

So, William, thanks again for sharing this with us (and please feel free to post more of the same!). I hope that other fans of the truly Romantic in visual art will weigh in with their thoughts and (rational) feelings about "Le Sublime."

REB

[Jonathan]

Oh, William, I am so envious! :swoon: Who is the painter? Because of the style, I'm inclined to think that it is noted Objectivist scholar Onkar Ghate's less well known brother, Claude.

Are you not aware of how the name "Ghate" is pronounced?

It's "guh-TAY," not "gate."

J

[anthony]

Here's Kant on the subject of war, Tony:

As long as I'm typing from Guyer's Kant, here's Guyer (from pages 294-5) on Kant on war (which underscores the futility of trying to divine a philosopher's ethics or politics from an aspect of a part of segment of his aesthetics):

We cannont leave Kant's political philosophy without discussing his 1795 pamphlet Toward Perpetual Peace...

...Kant first writes that even in a condition of warfare among any kinds of states there are certain "preliminary articles" that can eliminate causes of future wars, such as the prohibition of dynastic acquisition of states, standing armies, national debts for making war, "forcible interference in the constitution and government of another state," and "acts of hostility as would have to make mutual trust impossible during a future peace," such as assassinations, encouragement of treason within another state, and so on (PP, 8:344-6). But in the long run, Kant holds that there can only be perpetual peace if all states become republics governed by the will of the whole people rather than by the whims of autocrats, especially, as is already implicit in the first preliminary article, autocrats who regard whole states as their personal property, which can be enlarged or put at risk entirely at their own choice.

The three "definitive articles" for perpetual peace are thus that "The civil constitution in every state shall be repubican" (PP, 8:349), that "The right of nations shall be based on a federalism of free states" (8:354), and that there shall be "Cosmopolitan right" consisting in "conditions of universal hospitality" (8:358). Under the last of these articles Kant launches a powerful attack upon the rampant European colonialism of his own time, arguing that no matter what the cultural and political conditions of another region are, foreigners have no more than the right to visit in order to offer their goods and ideas, never a right to establish themselves forcibly in another people's territory no matter how exalted or crass their aims may be.

(p. 363):

...As Kant famously writes:

When the consent of the citizens of a state is required in order to decide whether there shall be war or not (and it cannot be otherwise in [the republican] constitution), nothing is more natural than that they will be very hesitant to begin such a bad game, since they would have to take upon themselves all the hardships of war (such as themselves doing the fighting and paying the costs of the war from their own belongings...); on the other hand, under a constitution in which subjects are not citizens of the state, which is therefore not republican, [deciding upon war] is the easiest thing in the world; because the head of state is not a member of the state but its proprietor and gives up nothing at all of his feasts, hunts, pleasure palaces, court festivals, and so forth he can decide upon war, as upon a kind of pleasure party, for insignificant cause. (PP,8:350)

J

J. I believe you've missed the mark. I'd remembered Kant and the sublime and warfare has come up here before. It is not all as blandly civilized as you make it appear in your selected quote (about nations, peace, etc.).

It took me 5 minutes to search and find two sources, and there are several more:

"Crowther backs Kant by asserting "the major reason why, for Kant, war can be regarded as sublime, is that in the ultimate analysis, it is conducive to the realization of the final end -- morality.""

And by Robert Doran, from his

'The Theory of The Sublime from Longinus to Kant':

"Thus "war is sublime", to Kant, due to the heroic mentality it supports. Kant contrasts the sublimity of war with "a long peace that causes the spirit of mere commerce to predominate, along with base selfishness, cowardice and weakness, and usually debases the mentality of a populace"".

At least, quote Kant's bad with the good, if you are going to quote him.

Kant's ideas of warfare and sublimity (and his partially derived 'morality' from them) - "are dangerous", I repeat. I will leave it up to others to speculate on the effects on Europe of his glamorized ideas of war, after him.

[Jonathan]

Um, okay. The point was that it's not pronounced "gate," and therefore the attempt at humor fails.

J

[edited to add:] Apparently Roger deleted the post above mine which I was responding to.

[Jonathan]

Here's Kant on the subject of war, Tony:

As long as I'm typing from Guyer's Kant, here's Guyer (from pages 294-5) on Kant on war (which underscores the futility of trying to divine a philosopher's ethics or politics from an aspect of a part of segment of his aesthetics):

We cannont leave Kant's political philosophy without discussing his 1795 pamphlet Toward Perpetual Peace...

...Kant first writes that even in a condition of warfare among any kinds of states there are certain "preliminary articles" that can eliminate causes of future wars, such as the prohibition of dynastic acquisition of states, standing armies, national debts for making war, "forcible interference in the constitution and government of another state," and "acts of hostility as would have to make mutual trust impossible during a future peace," such as assassinations, encouragement of treason within another state, and so on (PP, 8:344-6). But in the long run, Kant holds that there can only be perpetual peace if all states become republics governed by the will of the whole people rather than by the whims of autocrats, especially, as is already implicit in the first preliminary article, autocrats who regard whole states as their personal property, which can be enlarged or put at risk entirely at their own choice.

The three "definitive articles" for perpetual peace are thus that "The civil constitution in every state shall be repubican" (PP, 8:349), that "The right of nations shall be based on a federalism of free states" (8:354), and that there shall be "Cosmopolitan right" consisting in "conditions of universal hospitality" (8:358). Under the last of these articles Kant launches a powerful attack upon the rampant European colonialism of his own time, arguing that no matter what the cultural and political conditions of another region are, foreigners have no more than the right to visit in order to offer their goods and ideas, never a right to establish themselves forcibly in another people's territory no matter how exalted or crass their aims may be.

(p. 363):

...As Kant famously writes:

When the consent of the citizens of a state is required in order to decide whether there shall be war or not (and it cannot be otherwise in [the republican] constitution), nothing is more natural than that they will be very hesitant to begin such a bad game, since they would have to take upon themselves all the hardships of war (such as themselves doing the fighting and paying the costs of the war from their own belongings...); on the other hand, under a constitution in which subjects are not citizens of the state, which is therefore not republican, [deciding upon war] is the easiest thing in the world; because the head of state is not a member of the state but its proprietor and gives up nothing at all of his feasts, hunts, pleasure palaces, court festivals, and so forth he can decide upon war, as upon a kind of pleasure party, for insignificant cause. (PP,8:350)

J

J. I believe you've missed the mark. I remember Kant and the sublime and warfare has come up before. It is not only as blandly civilised as you make it appear in your selected quote about nations, peace, etc..

It took me 5 minutes to search and find two sources, and there are several more.

"Crowther backs Kant by asserting "the major reason why, for Kant, war can be regarded as sublime, is that in the ultimate analysis, it is conducive to the realization of the final end -- morality.""

And by Robert Duran, from his 'The Theory of The Sublime, from Longinus to Kant':

"Thus "war is sublime", to Kant, due to the heroic mentality it supports. Kant contrasts the sublimity of war with "a long peace that causes the spirit of mere commerce to predominate, along with base selfishness, cowardice and weakness, and usually debases the mentality of a populace".

At least quote Kant warts and all, if you are going to quote him.

Kant's ideas of warfare and sublimity (and his partially derived 'morality' from them) - "are dangerous", I repeat. I will leave it up to others to speculate on the effects on Europe of his glamorized ideas of war, after him.

You're still not grasping the concept of the Sublime. ANYTHING of "grate" (as Apey would say) magnitude and immense destructive power, including war, can stimulate in people the Sublime -- their will to overcome and resist the terrific phenomenon.

And again, Kant didn't invent the concept! The stimulation of our vital forces via the threatening phenomenon is what the Sublime has always meant. And, once again, that which stimulates the Sublime is not what is valued; our reaction -- our will to resist -- is what is valued. War is not what Kant valued. He valued our will to resist and overcome it!

Kant's observation about cowardice and weakness is correct. In the absence of having something to challenge them, most people do, in reality, become complacent and weak. You're such a person. You need to make Kant the grand destroyer because doing so allows you to feel your will to resist and overcome his evil powers. You have such a slack and debased mentality that the only "heroism" in your life involves pathetically fighting the phantom Kant that you've created.

The point of Kant's statement is not that war is good, but that challenges are good. Facing challenges is good. The point being that when peace time comes after war, people should continue to find challenges to which they can rise, albeit productive ones rather than destructive ones.

Kant didn't "glamorize war." Experiencing the Sublime in witnessing war means, by definition, that the viewer is opposed to the war. The Sublime means rising to overcome it.

J

[Roger Bissell]

I'm sure that Manny would have nodded approvingly if he had read the pro-war comments by Herbert Croly, editor of the "liberal" magazine The New Republic. He thought that "The American nation needs the tonic of a serious moral adventure." (Too much material greed and selfishness; gotta draw off the spiritual infection by sending a few thousand young men off to die for no good reason.)

[Jonathan]

I'm sure that Manny would have nodded approvingly if he had read the pro-war comments by Herbert Croly, editor of the "liberal" magazine The New Republic. He thought that "The American nation needs the tonic of a serious moral adventure."

I agree that Kant would have approved of the tonic of a "serious moral adventure," as would have Rand.

(Too much material greed and selfishness; gotta draw off the spiritual infection by sending a few thousand young men off to die for no good reason.)

Kant wouldn't have agreed with that, as evidenced by the quotes that I provided above.

J

[anthony]

J.

Crap. Reality alone brings all the challenges, and more, one can handle.

Kant had to invent much more than those to justify his all-transcending morality.

(transcending reality and the Self).

You're avoiding what he said in his own words and making up your own palatable explanations.

[Jonathan]

J.

Crap. Reality alone brings all the challenges, and more, one can handle.

Kant had to invent much more than those to justify his all-transcending morality.

(transcending reality and the Self).

Kant didn't invent the concept of the Sublime. How many times do you have to be told?

You're avoiding what he said in his own words and making up your own palatable explanations.

I quoted his words, and have taken all of them into consideration. You, on the other hand, selectively ignore his words which refute your predetermined conclusion. You want to hate on Kant, so you ignore his statements against war, and his identifying it as an evil which is to be avoided.

You're the perfect Rand-follower!

J

[anthony]

The point of Kant's statement is not that war is good, but that challenges are good. Facing challenges is good. The point being that when peace time comes after war, people should continue to find challenges to which they can rise, albeit productive ones rather than destructive ones.

Kant didn't "glamorize war." Experiencing the Sublime in witnessing war means, by definition, that the viewer is opposed to the war. The Sublime means rising to overcome it.

J

"...it is conducive to the final end -- morality".

"..."war is sublime", to Kant, due to the heroic mentality it supports".

("...feelings of the sublime arouse enjoyment but with horror").

Consistent, one has to call Kant. "The phenomena" of esthetics, war and morality, in the same category: enjoyment but with horror.

Objectively, of course, each has an identifiable nature and separate concepts.

[Jonathan]

"...it is conducive to the final end -- morality".

"...war is sublime, to Kant, due to the heroic mentality it supports".

("...feelings of the sublime arouse enjoyment but with horror").

Those aren't quotes from Kant, dipshit! They're opinions that you've given from other people!

Hahahaha!!!!

Read Kant. He specifically identifies the idea that the horrible phenomena are not what are Sublime, but our reaction to them are. You're being an obstinate idiot.

Consistent, one has to call Kant. "The phenomena" of esthetics, war and morality, in the same category: enjoyment but with horror.

Objectively, of course, each has an identifiable nature and separate concepts.

Same is true of Rand's art and aesthetics. She included horrific things in her art. She practiced Kantian Sublimity.

J

[anthony]

J.

Crap. Reality alone brings all the challenges, and more, one can handle.

Kant had to invent much more than those to justify his all-transcending morality.

(transcending reality and the Self).

Kant didn't invent the concept of the Sublime. How many times do you have to be told?

You're the perfect Rand-follower!

J

How many times do I have to say, I know? I give Kant more credit than you do. He thought his philosophy out originally. At the very least, he 're-invented' sublimity to fit his philosophy - and a much more extensive and expansive one it was, than any earlier sublimist, I gather.

What are you saying? I mustn't credit Kant or I mustn't blame Kant? make up your mind.

[anthony]

"...it is conducive to the final end -- morality".

"...war is sublime, to Kant, due to the heroic mentality it supports".

("...feelings of the sublime arouse enjoyment but with horror").

Those aren't quotes from Kant, dipshit! They're opinions that you've given from other people!

Hahahaha!!!!

Read Kant. He specifically identifies the idea that the horrible phenomena are not what are Sublime, but our reaction to them are. You're being an obstinate idiot.

Consistent, one has to call Kant. "The phenomena" of esthetics, war and morality, in the same category: enjoyment but with horror.

Objectively, of course, each has an identifiable nature and separate concepts.

Same is true of Rand's art and aesthetics. She included horrific things in her art. She practiced Kantian Sublimity.

J

But you see, I'll put Crowther's and Doran's takes on him over what you know of Kant, any day of the week.

The quote on cowardice and "mere commerce"? Kant's.

Again you miss the point. Aesthetics, war, morality, (and commerce) - they are different things, yes? they require different concepts. No?

Conversely, The Sublime blankets all of them and all their concepts.

It could explain why IK wasn't big on identity and identification, or consciousness.

[Jonathan]

"...it is conducive to the final end -- morality".

"...war is sublime, to Kant, due to the heroic mentality it supports".

("...feelings of the sublime arouse enjoyment but with horror").

Those aren't quotes from Kant, dipshit! They're opinions that you've given from other people!

Hahahaha!!!!

Read Kant. He specifically identifies the idea that the horrible phenomena are not what are Sublime, but our reaction to them are. You're being an obstinate idiot.

Consistent, one has to call Kant. "The phenomena" of esthetics, war and morality, in the same category: enjoyment but with horror.

Objectively, of course, each has an identifiable nature and separate concepts.

Same is true of Rand's art and aesthetics. She included horrific things in her art. She practiced Kantian Sublimity.

J

But you see, I'll put scholars like Crowther and Doran over what you know of Kant any day of the week.

The quote on cowardice and mere commerce? Kant's.

Again you miss the point. Aesthetics, war, morality - they are different things, yes? they require different concepts. No?

Conversely, The Sublime blankets all of them and all their concepts.

It could explain why IK wasn't big on identity and identification, or consciousness.

What is it about Rand and/or Objectivism that you're attracted to? Seriously. You're the most adamantly irrational and illogical person I've ever encountered in O-land. What is it about Objectivism that you imagine that you like?

J