Objectivist movement and art - two approaches

[Brant Gaede]

All painting (art) is abstraction. There is no objective way to demonstrate where art ends and design begins. Much art is garbage but that's subjective. There is no objective way to show that "abstract painting" is not art. Quite a few pictures have been put up that are art but, as Dragonfly notes, also "Objectikitsch." Aside from the monetary value, there is much abstract painting I'd prefer to art that's kitsch.

The attempt to objectify some art as not art is an attempt to control the artist by shutting him up. One can define what a painting is but not show what painting is not art.

A lot of the Objectivist philosophy as commonly understood by Objectivists is only for keeping people under leaders' thumbs--in line. Shutting them up not only in regard to independent thinking but to their very personalities as they try to be Dagny or John or Howard instead of themselves. This is evident in "Atlas Shrugged" itself, where all the heroes kowtow to Galt who was on top of the heap, though he, of course, does the same to the author and her philosophy by eschewing a world of strife and conflict ("The Strike") for the comfort of a post-world cemetery where evil has been vanquished by removal of the sanction of the victim.

Evil is not to be denied by denying the potential for evil out of a normal human brain re free will. Ayn Rand never really explained how her heroes got to herohood and one presumes therefore that they were born that way and since no one in the real world grows up that way she set an impossible standard for would-be Objectivists to repair to so they pretended and pretend--that they aren't human, actually. So did Ayn Rand.

--Brant

On what basis do you say any of this?

Jeff, the basis is decades of thought and observation including introspection and actually interacting with Ayn Rand and some of her associates. You know much, much more at the age of 16 than I did at 16, more in fact than I did at twice your age, but you can't duplicate experience as a learning tool. 45 years from now I'll be long gone but you should still be around to tell another 16 year-old much the same thing. He probably won't listen, but that's all right; it's not that important that he does. I'm not trying to do an argument from authority here, just answer your question.

--Brant

To say all art is abstraction leaves too much room for argument and confusion. I've already told Victor that I think he managed to objectify what is design. Now I will merely say that I would like someone to objectify the difference between abstract and non-abstract art to the effect of denying the status of art to the former and of artist to its creator. There are hundreds of posts on the Art and Subobjectivity thread trying to deal with this (?) and I must have missed the objectification. If I didn't because it is not there then we are outside Objectivism in all respects regarding this discussion.

Consequently, attempts by Objectivists to say one kind of art is actually not art is not reasonable and reveals a religious attitude on their part toward the philosophy akin to cultism--an arbitrary attempt to exclude things and people that do not belong.

In the early days of Objectivism there was a mighty sense of being in a great fortress of rationality, a bulwark against a statist and insane world. To get in all one had to do was read a few books and become a "student" of certain teachers. There were no tests, one didn't have to actually learn the material. Of course one tried. One's job was to tell outsiders that Objectivism was while the teachers told what the was was. Ayn Rand and Nathaniel Branden didn't want the philosophy misrepresented. Fair enough, for the times.

But note the essential element of control. Objectivism from the get go was too special. Instead of investigating reality with reason it was about the ostensible discoveries of the creator, to be understood and defended and explicated upon. That's what "Atlas Shrugged" is all about. The world of "Atlas" was a world of strife and conflict with two exceptions: Galt's Gulch and the Nathaniel Branden Institute. But Objectivism, the philosophy of Ayn Rand, is not Objectivism the philosophy of anyone else. It can't be because of human dissimilarities.

Students of the philosophy found themselves abject conformists trying to twist themselves into Galtian or Randian shapes, adopting forms over substance. They were preaching (to each other) but not practicing a philosophy of individualism.

The 1968 "Break" blew up this brittle structure and the Brandens went on to be proper human beings in respect to themselves and others. Those who stayed the course are essentially the "Orthodox Objectivists" of today, still conforming to leadership dictates. Barbara Branden's unforgivable and unmentionable sin is that she insisted in her Ayn Rand biography on treating Ayn Rand as the human being she was. This explains all the nonsense she has been subjected to in and by PARC.

--Brant

(Michael, you might start another thread with this post.)

Edited February 7, 2007 by Michael Stuart Kelly

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Brant,

As you wish. I put it here in the Living Room.

btw - Very good observations. If you don't like the title, you can change it.

Michael

[Ellen Stuttle]

Students of the philosophy found themselves abject conformists trying to twist themselves into Galtian or Randian shapes, adopting forms over substance. They were preaching (to each other) but not practicing a philosophy of individualism.

Here's an example of the conformism in regard to judgments of painters -- painting having been the subject which led to Brant's report on what the O'ist world was like in "the Old Days." This is a passage in which Jeff Walker -- in his The Ayn Rand Cult, pg. 126 -- quotes a 1986 audiotaped presentation by Barbara Branden and a 1991 audiotape by Henry Scuoteguazza. The reports are accurate in spirit to what went on. Scuoteguazza is exaggerating a bit by speaking of "bonfires," but there were people -- I knew some of them -- who did promptly discard their Maxfield Parrish prints following the Ford Hall Forum referred to.

[The Branden quote is from "An Evening with Barbara Branden: 24 June 1986. Audiotape. Liberty Audio. The Scuoteguazza quote is from "Is Self-Interest Enough?" Audiotape. San Francisco: Laissez Faire, 1991. The ellipsis is Walker's.]

In 1986 Barbara Branden recalled seeing people who loved Mozart or some other artist on Rand's blacklist "wondering 'What was the matter with me? What have I not yet understood? What's lurking somewhere in my soul that makes me have an irrational response?' It's clearly nonsense now. It wasn't nonsense then. It was a source of incredible pain to so many people....if people had the wrong aesthetic response, something was wrong, their souls were suspect. If they doubted something that was told them as part of Ayn Rand's ideology by one of the teachers of her philosophy, it was time to see a psychiatrist and find out what lurked in their soul. I am delighted to see smiles" (among an audience of mostly neo-Objectivists or former Objectivists). "Many people would not have been smiling 18 years ago. I wasn't."

Scuoteguazza observes that because the Objectivist ethics [that would correctly be "aesthetics"] so extols romantic art, all too many Objectivists stifle their real preferences to avoid being labelled irrational and, at least publicly, play it safe by sticking to officially-approved works. Result: "a dismaying uniformity of artistic tastes among Objectivists." In the early 1970s many Objectivists thought they'd found a kindred artistic spirit in the paintings of Maxfield Parrish. At a Ford Hall Forum "someone asked Ayn Rand for her assessment of his work, to which she curtly replied, 'Trash!' One could almost hear the bonfires raging across the country."

Ellen

___

[Victor Pross]

Consequently, attempts by Objectivists to say one kind of art is actually not art is not reasonable and reveals a religious attitude on their part toward the philosophy akin to cultism--an arbitrary attempt to exclude things and people that do not belong.

Brant,

You say..."attempts by Objectivists to say one kind of art is actually not art is not reasonable and reveals a religious attitude on their part toward the philosophy akin to cultism..." Wow! Good golly Miss Molly, what are these Objectivists doing? Are they attempting to enact a law forbidding certain practices? Or are they seeking out a rational definition? Are they attempting identification of certain principles? Are they excluding caricature art because it is not romantic realism? (Well, I would have an issue there!)

You make me sound like some art dictator. This is rather ironic. Consider the following story:

While attending University years ago, I recall Objectivist Gary Hull delivered a lecture during my last year. I’ll never forget the incident that occurred the evening he gave his speech. I forget the lecture topic, but I do recall Mr. Hull speaking at one point of the “absolutism of reason and reality”—and bam! A ruffled man stood-up and shouted out: HAIL! HAIL!--all the while giving Mr. Hull the Nazi salute. He was asked to leave.

After the lecture I went to the university bar with some friends to down a few. Imagine my surprise when I saw “Mr. Hail” and learned that he was a TA! He recognized me from the lecture and decided to join my table to discuss the speech. He took it upon himself to critique Mr. Hull’s talk and it all amounted to an attack on the validity of sensory-evidence. And more: He claimed that Mr. Hull was, in effect, a “metaphysical dictator.” What nerve Mr. Hull has in excluding all the other philosophies! How dare he trash them as being un-true! Why can't they be true? And who is to say what truth is? Why is it that only “objectivity” has the exclusive rein? Who the fuck does he think he is?

Do you see where I am going with this?

We must not lose the concept of what “objectivity” actually means - as we must lose sight of what type of philosophy Objectivism is. The philosophy of Objectivism is not a separate, independent “species” of objectivity. It is the very concept of “objectivity” (little ‘o’) that Ayn Rand has identified and built her monumental system from.

In philosophy, objectivity is known as the “correspondence theory of truth.” Modern intellectuals and rank and file people, as an example of their colossal ability for intellectual dishonesty or lack of intellectual sophistication, treat the concept of “objectivity” as merely a member among a species of subjectivity--and that "species" can be dialectical, feminist, analytic, Jungian, orthodox, religious or the dogma found in modernist “art.”

It would seem that Objectivism is being tossed in the mix. This is a mistake.

There are those who regard the entire enterprise of mankind’s capacity to philosophize as an indulgence in parlor game word tactics. They don’t regard philosophy as an urgent and inescapable necessity of survival. They regard it as all “linguistic contortions” whereby one merely paints the other guy into a verbal maze. Brant, what is needed are not “intellectual authorities”—but objective and rational definitions—and definitions are, by their nature, limited. They mean only so much and no more. That goes for art as well.

Hey, I know there are a lot of people who love certain things—animals, abstract paintings, toilet installations and pizza…but just because you like something does not mean it is a work of art. So let people love their kitty cats, cars and sports…and abstract paintings! I’m all for it! Just don’t call it what it's not. Rocks are rocks...they are not art. Does that make me a cultist to say that? Come on...

-Victor

Edited February 7, 2007 by Victor Pross

[Brant Gaede]

Victor, if we are going to say something is not art re Objectivism then we need a way to objectively say so. How do we differentiate the Mona Lisa from anything by Pollock or Picasso using reason? Personally, I abhor "Objectivist aesthetics" just as I would abhor an "Objectivist physics," etc. You explained design to my layman's satisfaction. I'm awaiting the rest of it on the "Art and Subobjectivity" thread--or a reference to a post there I missed.

--Brant

Edited February 7, 2007 by Brant Gaede

[Brant Gaede]

Consequently, attempts by Objectivists to say one kind of art is actually not art is not reasonable and reveals a religious attitude on their part toward the philosophy akin to cultism--an arbitrary attempt to exclude things and people that do not belong.

Brant,

You say..."attempts by Objectivists to say one kind of art is actually not art is not reasonable and reveals a religious attitude on their part toward the philosophy akin to cultism..." Wow! Good golly Miss Molly, what are these Objectivists doing? Are they attempting to enact a law forbidding certain practices? Or are they seeking out a rational definition? Are they attempting identification of certain principles? Are they excluding caricature art because it is not romantic realism? (Well, I would have an issue there!)

You make me sound like some art dictator. This is rather ironic. Consider the following story:

While attending University years ago, I recall Objectivist Gary Hull delivered a lecture during my last year. I’ll never forget the incident that occurred the evening he gave his speech. I forget the lecture topic, but I do recall Mr. Hull speaking at one point of the “absolutism of reason and reality”—and bam! A ruffled man stood-up and shouted out: HAIL! HAIL!--all the while giving Mr. Hull the Nazi salute. He was asked to leave.

After the lecture I went to the university bar with some friends to down a few. Imagine my surprise when I saw “Mr. Hail” and learned that he was a TA! He recognized me from the lecture and decided to join my table to discuss the speech. He took it upon himself to critique Mr. Hull’s talk and it all amounted to an attack on the validity of sensory-evidence. And more: He claimed that Mr. Hull was, in effect, a “metaphysical dictator.” What nerve Mr. Hull has in excluding all the other philosophies! How dare he trash them as being un-true! Why can't they be true? And who is to say what truth is? Why is it that only “objectivity” has the exclusive rein? Who the fuck does he think he is?

Do you see where I am going with this?

We must not lose the concept of what “objectivity” actually means - as we must lose sight of what type of philosophy Objectivism is. The philosophy of Objectivism is not a separate, independent “species” of objectivity. It is the very concept of “objectivity” (little ‘o’) that Ayn Rand has identified and built her monumental system from.

In philosophy, objectivity is known as the “correspondence theory of truth.” Modern intellectuals and rank and file people, as an example of their colossal ability for intellectual dishonesty or lack of intellectual sophistication, treat the concept of “objectivity” as merely a member among a species of subjectivity--and that "species" can be dialectical, feminist, analytic, Jungian, orthodox, religious or the dogma found in modernist “art.”

It would seem that Objectivism is being tossed in the mix. This is a mistake.

There are those who regard the entire enterprise of mankind’s capacity to philosophize as an indulgence in parlor game word tactics. They don’t regard philosophy as an urgent and inescapable necessity of survival. They regard it as all “linguistic contortions” whereby one merely paints the other guy into a verbal maze. Brant, what is needed are not “intellectual authorities”—but objective and rational definitions—and definitions are, by their nature, limited. They mean only so much and no more. That goes for art as well.

Hey, I know there are a lot of people who love certain things—animals, abstract paintings, toilet installations and pizza…but just because you like something does not mean it is a work of art. So let people love their kitty cats, cars and sports…and abstract paintings! I’m all for it! Just don’t call it what it's not. Rocks are rocks...they are not art. Does that make me a cultist to say that? Come on...

-Victor

I'm all for the supremacy of reality and reason. If Ayn Rand had been more rational, she would have understood the tentativeness of knowledge and not ventured absolutism into inappropriate places. But the times needed the heroic, blockbusting of her polemics. Now it is mostly obsolete behavior.

--Brant

[reason.on]

I'm all for the supremacy of reality and reason. If Ayn Rand had been more rational, she would have understood the tentativeness of knowledge and not ventured absolutism into inappropriate places. But the times needed the heroic, blockbusting of her polemics. Now it is mostly obsolete behavior.

Brant--It would be obsolete, at best, coming from Rand herself these days, but from those eagerly dismissive artistic authoritarians who adorn themselves with a plastic cape, fake domain knowledge, fabricate bogus definitions of "abstract art", avoid any critical thinking what-so-ever, feign "objectivity" with their standardless subjective interpretations of someone else's work and state-of-mind, use the pretense of Randian style to project their own worst qualities onto anyone who does not agree with their baseless proclamations, and who finally manage to accomplish little more than a bad parroting of Rand's ideas (if even that), it is downright offensive behavior; even more so I might add than the many gimmicky post-modern charlatans who also clutter the art-world with pretentious nonsense.

RCR

Edited February 7, 2007 by R. Christian Ross

[Victor Pross]

Brant,

Even outside of Objectivist circles, “Abstract art” is known as “non-Objective.” So it is not I who declares that it is not art—they do so by their own actions. If it is non-objective, it's not anything really, much less art. In Christian’s post, you see that he acknowledges such a thing as “gimmicky post-modern charlatans who also clutter the art-world with pretentious nonsense” which would mean he has ideas as to what art IS and what it is not. Unlike Christian, I would include abstract painting among the non-art items. Most of them—due to their inscrutable smears and splatters—are not even design, let alone “bad design.” It is in the end—paint on a canvas. It remains art supplies that could have been an artistic enterprise had it not been purchased by a charlatan.

I will give a fuller statement later.

-Victor

edit: Christian's post could have also read "“gimmicky modernist charlatans who also clutter the art-world with pretentious nonsense”--meaning abstract painters. Why only post-modernists, the bastard off-springs off modernists?

Edited February 7, 2007 by Victor Pross

[Danneskjold]

I'm all for the supremacy of reality and reason. If Ayn Rand had been more rational, she would have understood the tentativeness of knowledge and not ventured absolutism into inappropriate places. But the times needed the heroic, blockbusting of her polemics. Now it is mostly obsolete behavior.

--Brant

Brant, when are things not absolute?

[Brant Gaede]

I'm all for the supremacy of reality and reason. If Ayn Rand had been more rational, she would have understood the tentativeness of knowledge and not ventured absolutism into inappropriate places. But the times needed the heroic, blockbusting of her polemics. Now it is mostly obsolete behavior.

--Brant

Brant, when are things not absolute?

Jeff, I'm talking knowledge, not things.

--Brant

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I'm talking knowledge, not things.

Brant,

Sometimes I wish we had a sanction button for awarding points.

(btw - Jeff, that is not a remark against you.)

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

Brant,

Even outside of Objectivist circles, “Abstract art” is known as “non-Objective.” So it is not I who declares that it is not art—they do so by their own actions. If it is non-objective, it's not anything really, much less art. In Christian’s post, you see that he acknowledges such a thing “gimmicky post-modern charlatans who also clutter the art-world with pretentious nonsense” which would mean he has ideas as to what art IS and what it is not. Unlike Christian, I would include abstract painting among the non-art items. Most of them—due to their inscrutable smears and splatters—are not even design, let alone “bad design.” It is in the end—paint on a canvas. It remains art supplies that could have been an artistic enterprise had it not been purchased by a charlatan.

I will give a fuller statement later.

-Victor

Victor, it might be "non-Objective," whatever that is in respect to the object at hand, but that's not the same as saying "non-art." If it's "Objective," whatever that is, it's, like most art, probably trash though made more offensive for the ideological baggage. Bad art is still art. If I say a painting is "bad," "non-Objective art," I'm not entitled to say on that basis that it's not art.

--Brant

[Victor Pross]

Brant, don’t take my comments in isolation. Here, let me ask you this: is a bare canvas and paints in tubes freshly purchased from the art store art? I mean, the materials alone. If not, why not? When does 'art' become a reality? When the paint hits the canvas? Is that it? Is that your idea of art? Is arbitrarily splattering paint on that canvas depicting nothing --art? How so? As I said: it is paint on a canvas. I’m sooner to say that a drawing –a drawing of something--using the medium of tar on a concrete block is a work of art.

Edited February 7, 2007 by Victor Pross

[reason.on]

Victor, it might be "non-Objective," whatever that is in respect to the object at hand, but that's not the same as saying "non-art." If it's "Objective," whatever that is, it's, like most art, probably trash though made more offensive for the ideological baggage. Bad art is still art. If I say a painting is "bad," "non-Objective art," I'm not entitled to say on that basis that it's not art.

Exactly.

RCR

[Brant Gaede]

Brant, don’t take my comments in isolation. Here, let me ask you this: is a bare canvas and paints in tubes freshly purchased from the art store art? I mean, the materials alone? If not, why not? When does 'art' become a reality. When the paint hits the canvas? Is that it? Is that your idea of art? Is arbitrarily splattering paint on that canvas depicting nothing art? How so? It is as I said: paint on a canvas. I’m sooner to say that a drawing –a drawing of something--using the medium of tar on a concrete block is a work of art.

Victor, all your replies to me beg the question of what differentiates art (Objective art) from non-art (abstract painting). I don't know. You claim to know but don't let us in on your secret knowledge. We both agree garbage is garbage, but that's mostly subjective too, in regard to art. Frankly, I think all art is "objective," for the same reason I think every thing that is is. For subjectivity, one needs higher concepts than those with direct perceptual referents (table, chair, etc.).

There is no "City On a Hill" or Galt's Gulch for art or anything else save for Utopians.

--Brant

[Roger Bissell]

What is this discussion doing in The Living Room? It's almost entirely about what is art vs. non art? and as such, doesn't it belong in the Aesthetics folder? I do see the germ of a different topic in the very first post and maybe in another post, but nearly all the comments are focused on the justification (or lack of same) by Objectivists for what they include in the category of art.

REB

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Roger,

You are absolutely correct. When Brant suggested that I spin it off, I saw that the bulk of his post was about the early Objectivist movement, so I thought it would be good here, figuring that it would grow that way. Then it grew into the "abstract art is not art" thing again.

Let's see where it goes. If it stays on this, I will move it back.

I call this moving furniture around. (I know you have discussed whether furniture is art or not, but is there art to moving furniture? That is the question. )

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

Roger,

You are absolutely correct. When Brant suggested that I spin it off, I saw that the bulk of his post was about the early Objectivist movement, so I thought it would be good here, figuring that it would grow that way. Then it grew into the "abstract art is not art" thing again.

Let's see where it goes. If it stays on this, I will move it back.

I call this moving furniture around. (I know you have discussed whether furniture is art or not, but is there art to moving furniture? That is the question. )

Michael

Better move it back. Everything.

--Brant

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Brant,

Done. I also changed the title to make it more aesthetic:

"Objectivist movement and art - two approaches"

Michael

[Danneskjold]

All in favor of taking whatever discussion on this over to the Art and Subobjectivity thread and discussing early Objectivism on here. That part is really what piqued my interest and we have PLENTY of threads about art right now.

[Brant Gaede]

All in favor of taking whatever discussion on this over to the Art and Subobjectivity thread and discussing early Objectivism on here. That part is really what piqued my interest and we have PLENTY of threads about art right now.

Ought to start an early Objectivism thread. Michael, why don't you set one up and borrow a few apropos posts from here? You might also take this entire thread and tack it onto the Art and Subobjectivity thread.

--Brant

[Danneskjold]

I second.

[Brant Gaede]

Brant, don’t take my comments in isolation. Here, let me ask you this: is a bare canvas and paints in tubes freshly purchased from the art store art? I mean, the materials alone. If not, why not? When does 'art' become a reality? When the paint hits the canvas? Is that it? Is that your idea of art? Is arbitrarily splattering paint on that canvas depicting nothing --art? How so? As I said: it is paint on a canvas. I’m sooner to say that a drawing –a drawing of something--using the medium of tar on a concrete block is a work of art.

Victor, I don't know when something becomes art. We can certainly define what a painting is. Ayn Rand's definition of art is so broad that we can't use it to say this painting is art and that one over there isn't as long as both are "paintings."

You have aesthetic issues with Kevin, not me. All I want to know is how can we define a painting as "art" so as to exclude what we commonly think of as "abstract art" or painting? Or, what is the difference between objective and non-objective art?

--Brant

[Victor Pross]

Brant, don’t take my comments in isolation. Here, let me ask you this: is a bare canvas and paints in tubes freshly purchased from the art store art? I mean, the materials alone. If not, why not? When does 'art' become a reality? When the paint hits the canvas? Is that it? Is that your idea of art? Is arbitrarily splattering paint on that canvas depicting nothing --art? How so? As I said: it is paint on a canvas. I’m sooner to say that a drawing –a drawing of something--using the medium of tar on a concrete block is a work of art.

Victor, I don't know when something becomes art. We can certainly define what a painting is. Ayn Rand's definition of art is so broad that we can't use it to say this painting is art and that one over there isn't as long as both are "paintings."

You have aesthetic issues with Kevin, not me. All I want to know is how can we define a painting as "art" so as to exclude what we commonly think of as "abstract art" or painting? Or, what is the difference between objective and non-objective art?

--Brant

Brant,

For 30,000 years, painting and sculpture—as works of art--are allied to the universality of human vision and touch, and these modes of human expression have always been in alignment with the human mode of cognition and physiology: Intelligible representation. Modernism and Postmodernism is essentially an anti-art movement. It is “anti-art” because it has spun in nihilistic opposition every principle of art man has developed from the days of cave dwellers. Because they oppose objectivity, the modernists preach that there are to be no objective standards in art---such as comprehensible representations or clarity. By opposing definitions and standards as "restrictive," they sermonize that the artists must be "free" to "create" anything he desires. These falsehoods remain their chief means of destroying art and thereby make their deliberately nonrepresentational, incomprehensible "art" anti-art.

Brant, what we see is a dramatic episode in history. For the past one hundred years, the modernist and postmodernist horde had infiltrated the art world in all the fields: painting, dance, music, theatre, creative writing. The theme of the “plot” is the clash between classical realists, representational painters who are pitted against the postmodernist swarm. Like any drama, the story is comprised of protagonists and antagonists. The conflict is not between two opposing schools of thought: it is a clash between actual art and the forces of anti-art. As Shayne said in one post, the modernists are parasites on actual art: we have a group that wants the admiration, the status conferred to actual artists--but they lack the skills. But instead of living a life of study and discipline, they have sought a more deconstructive method. They have not raised themselves on to the stage, but lowered the stage to them.

-Victor

Edited February 8, 2007 by Victor Pross

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Brant,

Welcome to the club.

Victor wants to see two warring camps and no amount of evidence showing how oodles of highly trained (even great) representational painters also do abstract work makes a dent in his vision. Total blank-out. They do not exist. Only two warring camps exist and all discussion will go back to these two warring camps.

Instead of clearly defining a concept and establishing a proper term for it, and then fighting for that, he prefers the method of trying to destroy a valid concept and trying to control people's thinking. I know it is hard to believe, but there is no rational argument here. The sad part is that I actually agree with much of what he says (and I am sure many others do too), but the error is too fundamental for anyone to jump on board.

Then there is an awful lot of writing he has done on a projected novel where the theme is precisely this issue over terminology. If he agrees with you, he will have to rewrite the entire thing. That's a lot of work.

Michael