New Cult of Darkness

[Victor Pross]

Michael,

Straight shoter you are! (sort of). Er, while the concept “evil” is in my vocabulary--I use it sparingly. I don't fling it at people who I merely disagree with or because somebody doesn’t fit my mood. I’m able to conceptualize the difference between THAT and genuine cases of evil. I don't bash someone over the head with a word like "evil" just to make some sort of point or because I don't care for their ways or whatever.

When I do use the word it is directed at proper targets: dictators, rapists, murderers ---and ideologues who seek to put their murderous ideas in action where it means the lost of health and lives of innocent people. I'm talking serious cases, not silly Objectivist cult like dudes. (Hey, I didn’t forget our discussion of “evil ideas” and “evil actions” and I still feel an intellectual debt to you for that).

Again: in regards to EVALLLLLLL, I’m talking serious cases, and not this silly notion of a “crowd control” sort. Really, unless the mind controller’s actions lead to Nazi Germany or Kool-aid drinks in good old’ Jones Town…..then we can resume a serious conversation, short of cryptic messages. :turned:

-Victor

Edited April 8, 2007 by Victor Pross

[Judith]

That's also a problem I have with Rand in a literary sense - mainly with her villains in Atlas Shrugged. (I hope to Galt I don't get shot down for the following.) I found them unreal. They were robots, not people. Now I perceive this as Rand's purpose - to make them as such - because certainly the world may seem to act like that at times, like senseless, malevolent automatons. But are people ACTUALLY like that? Not that I've observed. As such, I had a hard time summoning any kind of feeling - be it fear, annoyance, hate - for the oodles of oddly-named diplomats and bureaucrats. And that doesn't make for good story-telling. Jim was a little better, since he was more developed, but the part of the book that bothered me the absolute most was his demise - his "revelation" when Galt gives him The Look and he suddenly "realizes" that he is, objectively and doubtlessly, a depraved, evil, death-mongering human being.

That... would never happen. Forget theories of romanticism, forget lambasting naturalism: fiction derives its power from facts of reality; and, as a reader, I just am not ABLE to formulate a response, because there's nothing in my mind and experience to do it with. There's no worth to the literary observations as such; how would I apply them? How do they affect me? They don't - there's no such thing as a James Taggart in the real world. So why should I care?

This type of characterization WAS deliberate on Rand's part, as she said in, I believe, one of her essays in "The Romantic Manifesto". She did it, not because the world may seem to act like that sometimes, but because she was trying to portray the ESSENCE of a person, or that person's predominant personality or style, not perform a naturalistic portrayal. As she said of James Taggart, would it make a difference if she showed him bringing flowers to his mother? Would it make a difference if we knew that Hitler brought flowers to his mother? The essence or style of the soul is the same. Her method of art was selective recreation of reality, not a photographic portrait.

I found it effective, because in her essential, few-lines portrayals of certain types of characters, I recognized bits and pieces of those aspects in people I knew. Most people are mixed bags, or, as Rand would state, of mixed premises. She drew good guys and bad guys as being completely consistent. Few people are completely consistent. To be completly consistently bad, one would not survive for long. But to portray something consistently in art makes a point that one wouldn't make very clearly if one portrayed it naturalistically. The characters are unforgettable.

Judith

[Philip Coates]

> its not Studentdecadent, its Studiodekadent.

Ok, dude...you actually expect me to rmember that@#$%^&* ????

I'll make a deal with you. You come up with a real name that does not give me a headache and is easier to retain than a nine digit zip code and I will try to remember it.... :-) :devil:

Until then, I will keep playing variations.

...Next time, it's StudDisco for you!!

:purple:

Time after, StimulantDirectionality.

:-] :hairy:

then i really start to get creative... :sick:

[PalePower]

I feel somewhat hesitant to continue my own comments, because I sort of feel like I don’t know what I’m talking about. In other words, I really haven’t come to grips either with the word or the concept of “evil.” I don’t feel like it belongs in my vocabulary just yet. To me it implies intention to destroy the good – while KNOWING that it’s the good. And I just can’t see that happening. Maybe it’ll just take some more living, but I don’t understand it now.

I just can’t brand anything as “evil” because I can’t ignore the motivation behind it. There always seems to be some sort of excuse, no matter how pathetic – it works for the perpetrator. Usually it arises from some sort of insecurity – which means it IS motivated by self-interest to live comfortably with the self. The tyranny and superiority-complexes of dictators, the fear and confusion of mobs. I’m sickened by what they do, I hate it with all my heart and soul, and I can blame the ACT as evil, objectively, but I couldn’t look the person in the eye and say, “You are evil.” Because I don’t think the person themselves would believe that. And to me that is key in such a categorization.

I’ve heard – I believe – much of the arguments for the existence of evil, and it’s still extremely difficult for me to accept it. If I ever do I believe it will just arise from my own experiences and observations – something like this isn’t “explained.”

Just a quick comment – Phil said:

They either make the Elizabeth mistake of "everyone (or everyone who opposes me) is innocent".

Sorry if I wasn’t clear enough. Just because I find it difficult to label people as evil doesn’t mean I don’t incriminate them or automatically find them innocent. They ARE guilty – but only of sloppy thinking. However, that’s a pretty grave mistake to be guilty of.

~Elizabeth

[studiodekadent]

I feel somewhat hesitant to continue my own comments, because I sort of feel like I don’t know what I’m talking about. In other words, I really haven’t come to grips either with the word or the concept of “evil.” I don’t feel like it belongs in my vocabulary just yet. To me it implies intention to destroy the good – while KNOWING that it’s the good. And I just can’t see that happening. Maybe it’ll just take some more living, but I don’t understand it now.

Thats an understandable perspective. Most people in the world simply cannot comprehend absolutely honest evil, i.e. not evil based on a mistake, but fully conscious, knowing evil. I certainly have never IN PERSON come accross anyone truly like this... I know Kantian Skeptic Foucault scholars whom I would consider intellectually honest. I know Leftists that arent motivated by genuine desire to destroy the good. I know religionists that do not want the State to enforce their morality. But you are correct that this kind of evil, the "Diabolical Will" to use Kant's terminology, is quite incomprehensible, as it can only come from nihilistic death-worship, and no one with even a shred of attachment to life would see how one can embrace that nihilism.

[cjsmall]

I really haven’t come to grips either with the word or the concept of “evil.” I don’t feel like it belongs in my vocabulary just yet.

Elizabeth:

That's actually an astute self-observation. I can remember at your age, after reading The Fountainhead, that I felt that I understood the motivation of all of the characters, including Dominique (with whom many people seem to have difficulty), but for the life of me I simply could not comprehend Ellsworth Toohey. He seemed completely unrealistic and improbable. Unfortunately, now at the age of 52, I can no longer say that is true. For those of us that embrace life, it is difficult to believe that people could actually be motivated by death and destruction. When I was 18, I would look at the acts of individuals doing insane things, similar to the suicide bombers of today, and I would perform all sorts of mental gymnastics trying to imagine their perspective, inaccurately ascribing characteristics and motivations to them (i.e., projecting my values onto them) so that I could make sense out of their actions. It took me many years of interacting with a wide range of people and a lot of introspection before I was able to come to the realization that not all people are well intentioned and simply misguided. There is evil in the world, but I had to learn it from my own direct observation and was unwilling to simply accept it on the authority of others - even from Rand. Most of me is glad to have finally acquired a clearer view or reality since it stopped me from making certain types of boneheaded decisions with respect to my dealings with other people, but another small part of me misses the old world view I once had that rested upon my naivety. I remember it fondly.

You are obviously very intelligent and I have no doubt that you will continue to think and grow, arriving at your own conclusions about the world and the best way to interact with it. I wish you the best, and can only offer one piece of advice which is to embrace and enjoy your youth. Recognize that benevolent spirit within yourself that rejects the view of the world as evil and make it a goal to continue to honor and protect it throughout your life, regardless of what other lessons you learn along the way. If you can do that, you will remain forever young in spirit.

Regards,

--

Jeff

[Victor Pross]

When trying to appraise the motives of a killer, a nebbish intellectual type reprimands Clint Eastwood’s character in Dirty Harry for being so condemnatory. “How do you know he’ll kill again?” the intellectual asks, shifting the conversation. Clint’s character, sticking to his guns, answers: “Because he likes it.”

And that’s evil for you…one type of evil anyway. They don’t care. They like it.

Edited April 8, 2007 by Victor Pross

[PalePower]

Judith,

I found it effective, because in her essential, few-lines portrayals of certain types of characters, I recognized bits and pieces of those aspects in people I knew. Most people are mixed bags, or, as Rand would state, of mixed premises. She drew good guys and bad guys as being completely consistent. Few people are completely consistent. To be completly consistently bad, one would not survive for long. But to portray something consistently in art makes a point that one wouldn't make very clearly if one portrayed it naturalistically. The characters are unforgettable.

Right - I agree. And I'm not criticizing her for her portrayal or saying that naturalistic portraits are the only type of characterization acceptable. It's up to the author to decide what effect they want to achieve by their literature. (I don't agree that there's one, perscribed way to go about story-writing. What a clamper on creativity and diversity.) Rand wanted a prototype of malevolence, and she went about creating it perfectly. And the effect of this is something that a naturalistic character couldn't achieve (at least to the same extent): you are so well acquainted with their philosophy, that you have no problem picking it out in real life. It becomes easier to assess people's premises since you know what exactly it is you should watch out for: your mind, upon recognition, doesn't make excuses or psychological allowances, it just knows what it sees.

However, the downfall is that the characters do lack a certain vitality which will evoke a powerful reader response. At least that was the case for me.

Hum hum. I wonder if you could create a character that would achieve both those effects.

**

Jeff,

When I was 18, I would look at the acts of individuals doing insane things, similar to the suicide bombers of today, and I would perform all sorts of mental gymnastics trying to imagine their perspective, inaccurately ascribing characteristics and motivations to them (i.e., projecting my values onto them) so that I could make sense out of their actions. It took me many years of interacting with a wide range of people and a lot of introspection before I was able to come to the realization that not all people are well intentioned and simply misguided.

I can relate to that - projecting my values onto other people. Right after I read Rand for the first time, I went on a mini crusade to "convert" people to reason. I mainly focused on my ardently religious friends, confident that I could show them the error of their ways and lead them to the light; and then we, dressed in pastel colors and bedecked with garlands, would go frolicking arm-and-arm through the fields belting out a perfectly-harmonized improvised choral piece and practicing our newfound powers of mind-reading and heat vision.

Sadly, this did not come to pass.

I focused in on religious people because I made the assumption that everyone was into God and religion for the same reasons I had been - passion, the love of adoration, focus, meaning, structure. And I assumed that, within the course of one or two intelligent conversations, they would abandon Christianity simply because what I had described to them served their interests so much better than their religion. But the above weren't their interests. I had - still have - a hard time coming to grips with that: that a person can live devotedly and passionately for something, not out of a clean, conscious reverence, but out of cowardliness, uncertainty, indolence, and fear of inadequacy. That people can literally be impervious to reason, just because it's a little scary. It's totally disgusting, but true. At least, I think it's true. I'm still a little incredulous. I'm still somewhat inclined to believe that the only reason these people block themselves off from reason is because they just don't understand what it is and what it implies. Ignorance is a little bit more permissible. And I still cling to this idea because I have witnessed the clean "conversion" of people, and that gives me hope that it can happen again, and again.

And don't worry, I don't intend to lose my "naive" benevolent outlook, at least not for a very long time. And even then, I believe I will still be fighting strenuously to retain it.

~Elizabeth

Edited April 8, 2007 by ENonemaker

[Dragonfly]

That's also a problem I have with Rand in a literary sense - mainly with her villains in Atlas Shrugged. (I hope to Galt I don't get shot down for the following.) I found them unreal. They were robots, not people. Now I perceive this as Rand's purpose - to make them as such - because certainly the world may seem to act like that at times, like senseless, malevolent automatons. But are people ACTUALLY like that? Not that I've observed. As such, I had a hard time summoning any kind of feeling - be it fear, annoyance, hate - for the oodles of oddly-named diplomats and bureaucrats. And that doesn't make for good story-telling. Jim was a little better, since he was more developed, but the part of the book that bothered me the absolute most was his demise - his "revelation" when Galt gives him The Look and he suddenly "realizes" that he is, objectively and doubtlessly, a depraved, evil, death-mongering human being.

That... would never happen.

Right, I found that scene rather ridiculous, and it's true that all her villains in AS are robot caricatures. That is one of the big flaws in AS: there are only two kinds of people, glamorous, beautiful heroes and ugly, flabby, shifty villains who are all incompetent and crumble to dust when they're confronted by their own depravity, which is rather wishful thinking, evil is not incompetent. The Fountainhead was somewhat better in that regard, Toohey was certainly not incompetent, Wynand was not all good, Cameron was an alcoholic and the electrician Mike, one of the good guys, was extremely ugly; even Keating was not quite black. AS would have been better if it had not been all that black and white, which makes it rather a morality play with symbolic puppets.

[Brant Gaede]

That's also a problem I have with Rand in a literary sense - mainly with her villains in Atlas Shrugged. (I hope to Galt I don't get shot down for the following.) I found them unreal. They were robots, not people. Now I perceive this as Rand's purpose - to make them as such - because certainly the world may seem to act like that at times, like senseless, malevolent automatons. But are people ACTUALLY like that? Not that I've observed. As such, I had a hard time summoning any kind of feeling - be it fear, annoyance, hate - for the oodles of oddly-named diplomats and bureaucrats. And that doesn't make for good story-telling. Jim was a little better, since he was more developed, but the part of the book that bothered me the absolute most was his demise - his "revelation" when Galt gives him The Look and he suddenly "realizes" that he is, objectively and doubtlessly, a depraved, evil, death-mongering human being.

That... would never happen.

Right, I found that scene rather ridiculous, and it's true that all her villains in AS are robot caricatures. That is one of the big flaws in AS: there are only two kinds of people, glamorous, beautiful heroes and ugly, flabby, shifty villains who are all incompetent and crumble to dust when they're confronted by their own depravity, which is rather wishful thinking, evil is not incompetent. The Fountainhead was somewhat better in that regard, Toohey was certainly not incompetent, Wynand was not all good, Cameron was an alcoholic and the electrician Mike, one of the good guys, was extremely ugly; even Keating was not quite black. AS would have been better if it had not been all that black and white, which makes it rather a morality play with symbolic puppets.

AS would not have been better, I'm afraid. The entire structure of the novel would have collapsed if the nature of those characterizations had changed, just as the Branden/Rand affair had to be hidden from the light of real day because of its brittle artificiality.

--Brant

[Ellen Stuttle]

Right, I found that scene [wherein Jim Taggart falls apart upon seeing himself for what he is] rather ridiculous, and it's true that all her villains in AS are robot caricatures. That is one of the big flaws in AS: there are only two kinds of people, glamorous, beautiful heroes and ugly, flabby, shifty villains who are all incompetent and crumble to dust when they're confronted by their own depravity, which is rather wishful thinking, evil is not incompetent. The Fountainhead was somewhat better in that regard, Toohey was certainly not incompetent, Wynand was not all good, Cameron was an alcoholic and the electrician Mike, one of the good guys, was extremely ugly; even Keating was not quite black. AS would have been better if it had not been all that black and white, which makes it rather a morality play with symbolic puppets.

As an approximate description, I agree that "a morality play with symbolic puppets" suits Atlas Shrugged. But I don't agree that the book would be better if it hadn't been "all that black and white." The book wouldn't be what it IS if it had been written with a approach closer to that of a proper novel. Atlas is a symbolic presentation of a New Dispensation, a self-conscious, on the writer's part, dramatization of a moral code. One of the early reviewers, I've forgotten who, called the book an allegory. Although Rand objected to the description, I think this reviewer was on the right track. The book is more similar to Pilgrim's Progress than to any other "novelistic" work I know of. Pilgrim's Progress in turn was like Medieval morality plays, in which the figures represented vices and virtues. The works to which I think Atlas is most comparable, however, are major ethos myths: the Bible (specifically the New Testament Gospels), Gilgamesh, the Bhagavad-Gita. Only, whereas those works were compilations from mythic lore, Atlas was a deliberate attempt by a single author to present an ethos. I think that judging the work by the standard of proper novels doesn't do the work justice, because Atlas will come up lacking by that standard. But I don't think it "would have been better," as Dragonfly says, if it had been approached differently. Instead, it couldn't have had the kind of power which it does have. Dragonfly himself has said that he's read the book 12 times (I hope that this time I correctly remembered the number of times). Had the book been the usual sort of novel in its treatment of characters, would it have had the sort of power which inspires reading after reading? I don't think so. There are many flaws I find in Atlas judging it by novelsitic standards. But judging it by the standards of the ethos myth category in which I believe it belongs, I consider the book superb.

We have gone a distance from the Sidney black-out. But the issues which have come up are related, since they all revolve around Objectivist views on evil -- or Evil, even EVIL -- views which have as their first and possibly most extreme and strongest statement, Galt's Speech in Atlas Shrugged, and as their source dramatization, the characters and events of Atlas Shrugged.

Ellen

___

[Philip Coates]

> it's true that all her villains in AS are robot caricatures. That is one of the big flaws in AS: there are only two kinds of people, glamorous, beautiful heroes and ugly, flabby, shifty villains who are all incompetent [Dragonfly]

This is a commonly repeated criticism of Atlas (or Rand's fiction more widely) and it's a fundamentally mistaken one for a number of reasons:

Leaving aside the fact that it is not even correct to say there are only two kinds or people presented, there are different styles and modes of fiction writing, all equally valid. One could write a detailed character study concentrating on the life and nuances and rich description and exploration of one character at novel length: a psychological study. One could, on the other hand, do what Rand does, write a giant sprawling novel, rich in dozens of events and conflicts and dozens of characters. If you do the latter, you have less time and space to flesh out characters, than in a 'psychological novel'. It is also legitimate to draw characters as archetypes, as symbols for a 'type'. Fountainhead is a different kind of novel in which it is legitimate and necessary to develop the characters of Roark, Toohey, and a couple others in greater detail.

The difference is similar to that in painting. If your purpose is portraiture, then the person, his features and demeanor and clothing fill the frame. If your purpose is to paint a landscape (Atlas Shrugged), then the people are smaller compared to the earth, the sky, the sunlight, the contrasting play of light and shoadows, etc. Now, of course, if you include people in the landscape, they must be at least large enough to be recognizable, to 'make sense' in the larger canvass.

The exploration of this would be lengthy, but I find Rand skillful in her portrayal of characters. Not as great a writer as some others in the history of literature on this aspect, but -far better- than Dragnonfly and the "conventional criticism" grasps: It's in part an issue of stylistic preference, a desire for the 'psychological novel' perhaps...and perhaps a refusal to realize that the 'archetypal' or philosophical novel, if I can call it that, is a valid literary form.

Rand often explains her portraiture in essentials as 'stylization', omitting less important details. That is also an aspect of a legitimate writing style...as are the points I made above.

Finally, it is in fact Rand's -characters- (not her plot not her story not her philsophy) the people she creates in all their stripped-down, polished, essentialized glory and simplicity who for many millions of people provide the greatest inspiration.

Giving them "the courage to face a lifetime".

[Philip Coates]

Ellen and I posted almost simultaneously....we seem to be pretty much on the same track.

[Ellen Stuttle]

> it's true that all her villains in AS are robot caricatures. That is one of the big flaws in AS: there are only two kinds of people, glamorous, beautiful heroes and ugly, flabby, shifty villains who are all incompetent [Dragonfly]

This is a commonly repeated criticism of Atlas (or Rand's fiction more widely) and it's a fundamentally mistaken one for a number of reasons:

Leaving aside the fact that it is not even correct to say there are only two kinds or people presented, there are different styles and modes of fiction writing, all equally valid.

Although I agree that there are different, equally valid, styles and modes of fiction writing, I'd nevertheless consider Atlas lacking by the standards of any fiction-writing types except by that of the mythic type I spoke of in my post above.

Finally, it is in fact Rand's -characters- (not her plot not her story not her philsophy) the people she creates in all their stripped-down, polished, essentialized glory and simplicity who for many millions of people provide the greatest inspiration.

Giving them "the courage to face a lifetime".

Um. I suppose she has done that, possibly for "milliions" who didn't become Objectivists. There are a whole lot of people out there in the world who have read and been inspired by Rand's fiction whom one hardly hears of in Objectivist milieus. But from what I've seen in the Objectivist world, I can't say I think the effect of adopting Rand's (hero/ine) characters as role models has been predominantly positive.

Ellen

___

[Ellen Stuttle]

Ellen and I posted almost simultaneously....we seem to be pretty much on the same track.

Depends on what you consider "pretty much" the same track. Yes, in the respect that I agree that Atlas needs to be judged by different standards than standard novelistic. Yes, in the respect that I agree that Atlas indeed has inspired a lot of people. But I find the differences in what we said as noticeable as the similarities. ;-)

Ellen

___

[PalePower]

First of all I've got to agree with Ellen in her appraisal of AS as a "mythic" ethos-centered work of fiction. That's a very good summation, I like it.

Also,

But from what I've seen in the Objectivist world, I can't say I think the effect of adopting Rand's (hero/ine) characters as role models has been predominantly positive.

Would you mind elaborating on that?

~Elizabeth

[Ellen Stuttle]

But from what I've seen in the Objectivist world, I can't say I think the effect of adopting Rand's (hero/ine) characters as role models has been predominantly positive.

Would you mind elaborating on that?

I don't have time right now to try to get inspired to do the subject justice. So often people who become Objectivists at least go through a phase of developing characteristics which make them a trial to be around. Another thing is that they often become carpingly critical of their own inner life, worrying about whether or not they're being "moral" in a way I don't suppose is much improvement over a fundamentalist Christian constant searching oneself for "sin." I haven't much acquaintance with fundamentalist Christian types; I knew a few of them in my school years but not well except in a couple cases. People I met in the O'ist world seemed to me to have very similar strictures about their inner world to those few Christian fundamentals I did know well.

Things do seem to be loosening up in this regard among younger-generation O'ists, at least of the TOC/TAS variety. I even hear reports of things improving among the ARI youngsters.

Possibly subsequent generations will have been warned enough by the mistakes of the early generations, will have heard enough lore about those mistakes, to avoid them. I hope so.

A list like this is of itself a hopeful sign.

I have to go tend to various chores before my husband arrives home from being out of town. Sorry to be hasty. I might blip on later with additional details. I'm sure some of the other older ones here could provide stories, too.

Ellen

___

[Victor Pross]

I finally got around to watching Al Gore’s little opus, “An Inconvenient truth”, and I must say that I was not the least bit impressed. The man makes me sick. Just like any Green whack-job, Gore's "mission" (as he uses that term) is to "save" the earth from man. Get a load of this: Gore faults Christianity for the abolition of belief in the "goddess religion" that gave us a "spiritual sense of our place in nature" and he speaks lovingly of Native American religions' belief that "the earth is our mother ...that the earth does not belong to man, man belongs to the earth. Yeah, whatever!

There is a lot I could say about this shit film, but I’ll confine myself to just a few remarks. I observed that not once does Al Gore factually link green house gases to Global warming amidst his cool and leveled delivery. He also makes the declaration that we are heading for another ice age ( there have been around 6 I think) and that human beings—nasty little pests—are the cause. Yeah, suuuuure. One might ask how the other ice ages occurred without green house gases. Hmmm? Fact is, Mother Nature is doing its natural thing and we have virtually zilch to do with it. I think the ideology of the greens is painfully socialist and irrationalist. I agree with Ed Hudgin’s article, they're driven by "deep malice," and this is truly an evil ideology. In this ideology, human beings are nothing—and trees and bacteria are gods.

To quote Rand from “The Anti-Industrial Revolution:

“In order to survive, man has to discover and produce everything he needs, which means that he has to alter his background and adapt it to his needs. Nature has not equipped him for adapting himself to his background in the manner of animals. From the most primitive cultures to the most advanced civilizations, man has had to manufacture things; his well-being depends on his success at production. The lowest human tribe cannot survive without that alleged source of pollution: fire. It is not merely symbolic that fire was the property of the gods which Prometheus brought to man. The ecologists are the new vultures swarming to extinguish that fire."

It really is all very clear. If there ever was—in fact—an evil anti-human ideology, Environmentalism wins it hands down. Why? It is the idea of “intrinsic value.” Nature, the Environmentalist leaders persist, has "intrinsic value”---to be venerated for its own sake, regardless of any benefit to human beings. Man is to be barred from using nature for his own ends. Since nature allegedly has “value in itself” (does this notion reek of Kant?) any human action which changes the environment is necessarily pegged as debauched. And take note: In the environmentalists' worship of "Nature”---man's nature is omitted. How nice.

In the Environmentalist ideology, the "natural" world is a world without human beings. THAT is the objective. The canon of “intrinsic value” - as applied to nature - is clearly a rationalization for an existing hatred of human beings. To even give this philosophy the “benefit of the doubt” is intellectual lunacy.

-Victor

Edited April 10, 2007 by Victor Pross

[Ellen Stuttle]

Just like any Green whack-job, Gore's "mission" (as he uses that term) is to "save" the earth from man.

I observed that not once does Al Gore factually link green house gases to Global warming amidst his cool and leveled delivery. He also makes the declaration that we are heading for another ice age [....]

I don't know what movie you saw, Victor, but I think it wasn't the Gore movie "An Inconvenient Truth." The backbone of Gore's thesis is the attempt to present as established science a relationship between human-produced CO2 and a warming trend (predicted, by the model he uses, to become catastrophic unless counteracted). Warming, not "another ice age."

Nor is his "mission" to "'save' the earth from man." Instead, to "save" the earth FOR future generations of humans. His contention -- the "inconvenient truth" he touts -- is that unless radical steps are taken now to curtail fossil fuel use, by 50 years from now the planet will in a number of ways be significantly less hospitable for humans.

I'm not entering this corrective in praise of the movie of course. As I've said elsewhere I think the movie is one of the slickest propaganda jobs ever filmed. But the movie Victor describes isn't the movie by the name "An Inconvenient Truth" which I saw twice.

Ellen

___

[Victor Pross]

Ellen,

You wrote: I don't know what movie you saw, Victor, but I think it wasn't the Gore movie "An Inconvenient Truth." The backbone of Gore's thesis is the attempt to present as established science a relationship between human-produced CO2 and a warming trend (predicted, by the model he uses, to become catastrophic unless counteracted). Warming, not "another ice age."

Ellen, please excuse my meshed thoughts, but I’m taking the total Gore and not just the celluloid version. I’m taking the movie and his book, 'Earth in the Balance', into account with my summation of the man. (Agreed that global warming and an ice age contradict each other, but this is all apart of the pseudo-science that is environmentalism).

Nor is his "mission" to "'save' the earth from man." Instead, to "save" the earth FOR future generations of humans.

Well, Ellen, I really don’t see the difference. Amazingly, it still translates to “people are the problem” as they are a UN-natrual hindrance. We—actual living human beings in the NOW--are messing it up somehow--we are a plague to the floating abstraction that is "future generations." Yeah, right. George Reisman said it best: “Evil needs the cooperation of the good to disguise its nature and to gain numbers and influence it could never achieve on its own. Thus, the doctrine of intrinsic value needs to be mixed as much as possible with alleged concern for man's life and well-being.” So this --cheery as it sounds--“for future generations” jazz is just more slick sounding sales talk and I don’t fall for it. Do you? The “FOR” business is a ruse---and if you take the total of his ideas (taking his book into account) he is a standard-issued Green.

His contention -- the "inconvenient truth" he touts -- is that unless radical steps are taken now to curtail fossil fuel use, by 50 years from now the planet will in a number of ways be significantly less hospitable for humans.

What are the radical steps he would have us take? THAT is a crucial question. Stop and focus on the man's message, in his book and this film.

I'm not entering this corrective in praise of the movie of course. As I've said elsewhere I think the movie is one of the slickest propaganda jobs ever filmed…

Agreed. And why is it propaganda? I know why, but what would you say? What is false about all of it? I merely touched on it. Read his book, if you have the time or interest.

But going back to the film, we can take as direct evidence of Gore’s show bizz tactics by knowing the writings Stephen Schneider, who is very popular for his prophecy of global calamity. In an issue of Discover magazine, he is quoted (with approval) as follows:

". . . To do this, we need to get some broad-based support, to capture the public's imagination. That, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we may have. This "double ethical bind" we frequently find ourselves in cannot be solved by any formula. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest."

Yep, Gore took heed.

-Victor-

Edited April 10, 2007 by Victor Pross

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Ellen,

Sometimes Victor is useful. What he just did in mischaracterizing everything with condemnatory rhetoric and almost nothing else is precisely what the image of Objectivism is by the general public on this issue (and even other issues) and it is precisely why Objectivists don't convince anybody.

My interest in maintaining strict objectivity and looking at facts from both ends is to correct this image of fanaticism and possibly reach people. The more I learn about this issue, the more I am convinced I was right to acknowledge the power of Gore's well put-together argument. I am starting to see more distortions than what is on the surface. Gore's rhetorical power comes from the fact that he built up his argument in the same manner a concept is integrated. The only way to refute this properly for laypeople is to do it from the ground up, re-integrating the whole thing (like I am intending to do).

The stakes are too high for play-acting.

Michael

[Ellen Stuttle]

I'd expected Victor to delete his post #68 upon being confronted by his incorrect reportage, but, no, instead he's "explained" how, really, he was right while being wrong.

A point of curiosity, Michael: You keep speaking of your goal of reaching "laypeople." What laypeople, where, how? Do you have some idea of trying to write an article for a major media outlet? Or are you thinking in terms of the readership of this list? (Or...some possibility I'm not imagining?) Certainly, you're not going to reach more than an almost nonexistent fraction of "laypeople" at large through this list. Just look at the readership figures and the subscriber base.

Ellen

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[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Ellen,

First you build it. Then you sell it. Like it says in Field of Dreams:

If you build it, they will come...

They certainly won't come to a Gore bashing party. Please have patience. These things always take very surprising twists when they are done right.

Michael

[Dragonfly]

But I don't agree that the book would be better if it hadn't been "all that black and white." The book wouldn't be what it IS if it had been written with a approach closer to that of a proper novel.

I disagree. That is, of course it wouldn't be what it is, but it might have been better. After all Rand did better than that in The Fountainhead, and that was not quite unsuccessful, I think.

Dragonfly himself has said that he's read the book 12 times (I hope that this time I correctly remembered the number of times). Had the book been the usual sort of novel in its treatment of characters, would it have had the sort of power which inspires reading after reading? I don't think so. There are many flaws I find in Atlas judging it by novelsitic standards. But judging it by the standards of the ethos myth category in which I believe it belongs, I consider the book superb.

I don't remember exactly how often I'd read it, but I guessed it must have been "a dozen" times. When I read it many times, I was still young, I think I couldn't read it anymore now. What I found fascinating was the writing technique, the fact that every word in every sentence was meaningful. At a first reading you only grasp a small part of that. Therefore it remains fascinating after more readings, as you discover more and more meaning in the words. But now I'm at a stage where I understand every hint in every statement, and then you're looking further and you see that there are also flaws, and serious flaws at that. I don't say that every personage in such a book has to be fully developed psychologically, but the main actors should be. There isn't any reason why AS could not have the same impact if the villains had been more believable than this and if the tone had been lesss preachy, on the contrary, I think the impact might have been even bigger. I've seen many people who reject AS still can admire The Fountainhead. How many people, the die-hard Objectivists excepted, are really fascinated by Galt's speech?

We have gone a distance from the Sidney black-out. But the issues which have come up are related, since they all revolve around Objectivist views on evil -- or Evil, even EVIL -- views which have as their first and possibly most extreme and strongest statement, Galt's Speech in Atlas Shrugged, and as their source dramatization, the characters and events of Atlas Shrugged.

But that part is far from effective! Who can be impressed by the impotent evil in AS, the laughable villains, who disintegrate when a man of integrity talks to them, when the villains in real life are much worse and much more dangerous?

[Ellen Stuttle]

Ellen,

First you build it. Then you sell it. Like it says in Field of Dreams:

If you build it, they will come...

They certainly won't come to a Gore bashing party. Please have patience. These things always take very surprising twists when they are done right.

Michael

That's a masterful non-answer. In other words, you don't know who your intended audience is and how you'll reach it?

Clears that up. ;-)

Ellen

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