RoR: Forum

I love the way Ayn Rand takes something like a steel mill and shows it as being beautiful. It strikes me as original, I don't know who else does that. Except, see my other thread about the new GE commercial.

I have to admit, though, that even though I love living in a big city because of all the beautiful, intelligent, creative, ambitious people, the beauty of the ocean and of nature strikes me much more intensely than a skyscraper or a skyline or a factory ever has.

Post 1

Wednesday, September 28, 2005 - 4:16am

Good on ya William for having a swing.

Kinda can't go wrong when your sentiment toward the natural world vs tall cities just happens to match up with the one expressed by Ayn Rand. Hope you can build on that rather than get funked in the stuck of being a Rand replicate- because some do.

I love the way Ayn Rand takes something like a steel mill and shows it as being beautiful. It strikes me as original, I don't know who else does that

Well we did a touch of that during the C18th Scottish Enlightenment, and we did it in C17th Restoration England and it's also present, I think, in Rococo designs. But, yeah.

I have to admit, though, that even though I love living in a big city because of all the beautiful, intelligent, creative, ambitious people, the beauty of the ocean and of nature strikes me much more intensely than a skyscraper or a skyline or a factory ever has.

That's an idea that Ayn Rand never seems to have got (beauty in nature) and this one is a far more original idea. The fact that you can think and feel sentiments like this we largely owe to, the much maligned elsewhere*, Jean Jaques Rousseau.

Seems to me the pendulum has swung too far and Objectivism could use a bit of balance in this area.

* Rousseau_And_Kant_-_Partners_In_Crime

Post 2

Wednesday, September 28, 2005 - 7:07am

Actually those skyscrapers or bridges or even pots and pans are all parts of nature, even though they aren't parts of the wilds. Developments and parking lots--all things made by people are part of nature. To accept that only stuff not touched by human hands can be natural is to make a serious, misanthropic mistake. And just as there is ugliness and beauty in the wilds--for the former just think of a carcass being devoured by vultures or a dead bug taken apart by ants--so there is within the human domain, also. I am a great fan of the desert and the mountains but I have to admit that a Liszt rhapsody or a Monet painting matches their beauty quite successfully. In any case, a saying I made up is relevant here: "Everything is amazing once in a while."

Post 3

Wednesday, September 28, 2005 - 8:05am

In any case, a saying I made up is relevant here: "Everything is amazing once in a while."

Even those vultures tearing apart a carcass is amazing then? I can't agree with you that "everything" is amazing, even sometimes. "Everything" is universal, it includes horrors such as the holocaust; 9/11, etc. I don't agree that those things are amazing. Please don't take away the meaning of a great word by attributing it to "everything". Once you do that, you destroy it.

Post 4

Wednesday, September 28, 2005 - 8:07am

Rick,

Hey it's my first article, cut me some slack for playin' it a bit safe. Plus I really need to brush up on my writing skills, this is just a prelude.

Post 5

Wednesday, September 28, 2005 - 9:06am

Even those vultures tearing apart a carcass is amazing then?

Are you kidding? The interplay of biology, chemistry, physics... damn right that's amazing.

Sarah

Post 6

Wednesday, September 28, 2005 - 9:14am

Good post, Tibor.

Wednesday, September 28, 2005 - 9:16am

Even those vultures tearing apart a carcass is amazing then?
Are you kidding? The interplay of biology, chemistry, physics... damn right that's amazing.

Sarah

I second Sarah on that. Which is also why I would say that oceans and forest are beautiful, there are a lot of interesting and fascinating things going on. They are not, however, as beautiful as a city.

Michael

Post 8

Wednesday, September 28, 2005 - 9:35am

This discussion reminded me of a remark by Hercule Poirot, the 'legendary' detective of Agatha Christie: "taste is one thing; brains are another"

(Unfortunately, I don't have the reference right now. If someone wants it, I can dig it up later.)

Sanjay

Post 9

Wednesday, September 28, 2005 - 1:58pm

I love both nature and the classic AR "civilization" type viewing experiences. I'm not sure which I like more. I'm not sure it matters, as long as you take a moment to contemplate either. I still get a rush whenever I drive into the view of a city. But I still spend a moment each morning looking around outside- I make a point of doing that every day. I live in a foresty-area, I just look straight up into the trees.

Post 10

Wednesday, September 28, 2005 - 8:36am

William:

Good article.

Although I experience the same feelings you expressed when I'm in a large city, I have those same feelings out in the wild. My wife and I had our honeymoon in Maui and I would definitely use the word amazing for some of the sights there

I think it's two sides of the same "benevolent sense of life" coin. While snorkeling in Maui, the sense of excitement I felt was a wonderment at everything there is to explore and learn about in this world. While visiting Chicago, the sense of excitement I felt is one of pride that I have control over my life and can achieve great things.

But in both situations the final realization is what you expressed in your article:

Exaltation! Rejoice! Challenge! Awe! Celebration! Importance! Life!

Post 11

Wednesday, September 28, 2005 - 10:57am

     To "amaze," to affect with great wonder, to astonish, to perplex. The city does this to me, also. But, how can you say that something as great as a mountain or an ocean does not amaze you? Life in itself is amazing. Ayn Rand herself was amazed with life. Although she never specified anything about the "natural" part of the world, I don't think it's possible to be amazed by life if it's only by a small part of what life entails. The city not only amazes me for the fact that its skyline is beautiful, but I think one thing that I stop and think about is that man erected the city of Chicago and every other city everywhere without any other outside force but himself and machines. That amazes me, which I'm sure it also does you. I am amazed at the mountains and the ocean, though, simply for it's beauty and nothing else. The way a mountain stands so tall and strong, as if it has so much pride. (That is, if it were possible for a thing such as a mountain to have pride.) Think about, for example, Mt. Rushmore, how amazing it is to look at the four presidents heads in awe to know that a man sculpted these intricate faces. It wouldn't have been so amazing, though, if the rock that the sculptor, Gutzon Borglum, used to carve these faces out of was not so vast and did not stand so tall and strong. I stand in awe at the rock itself first, and then at the accomplishment of this man.

     Most of the time even the little things in life amaze me, like it being possible for an enormous pine tree to grow as large as it does from a simple, diminutive seed. Also, just as Sarah said, physics also amazes me. As of now, I sure as hell can barely understand any of it, but the small portion of it that I do, the formulas that determine gravity and force and speed, that's also just as amazing as a building, although maybe in a different sense. Anyway---this is my first post EVER, so sorry if it came out to be a little long and not as good as it could be. But anyso-bottom line, William--don't be amazed at only a minute part of life, but everything else that makes the small part to also be so amazing.

Post 12

Wednesday, September 28, 2005 - 2:10pm

William what about a deserted city? would you still like it?

(Edited by Ciro D'Agostino on 9/28, 4:05pm)

Post 13

Wednesday, September 28, 2005 - 3:33pm

Ciro,

What brings about a deserted city?........is that something that should be considered amazing? Or should it be appalling?

Katherine,

Ayn Rand loved life, that doesn't mean that she was amazed at every little thing.

don't be amazed at only a minute part of life, but everything else that makes the small part to also be so amazing.

No. I won't attribute the feelings I have when I'm downtown to everything that makes up "downtown". You talk about being amazed at Mount Rushmore, would you be as "amazed" if it were a blank mountainside? Of course not, it's just another mountainside. Mount Rushmore is Mount Rushmore, an amazing spectacle created at the hands of man. Do you feel pride in man when you look at a mountain?

At a time when there are so few people that can do even the simplest of tasks, to look at Chicago for everything it is, is amazing that man can do that. It say,"This is what you are capable of, now you better damn well own up to it!"

To take the sight of Chicago, a part of the world that man has taken into his hands and shaped to his liking, and compare it to something such as a body of water, or an emptiness of sand, or a giant rock; seems almost blasphemous to me.

As far as I'm considered, those things are only temporary, I wait to see that things that will be there when man gets through with them.

-William Bardel

(Edited by William Bardel on 9/28, 9:24pm)

Post 14

Wednesday, September 28, 2005 - 3:48pm

I can't speak for William but there is something beautiful about a deserted city at 3 in the morning. No lights save for street lamps, the moon and your headlights. As the glass reflects the sky and you can truly appreciate the empty roads as the veins and arteries of human activity that you take for granted in a crowd.

That is pretty amazing

---Landon

Post 15

Wednesday, September 28, 2005 - 3:51pm

I took "deserted" as meaning that no one lives there anymore, like that town in A.S. where they found the motor.

Post 16

Wednesday, September 28, 2005 - 3:55pm

I'll tell you what's beautiful, the integration of cities with nature! Downtown Seattle is surrounded by lakes and mountains all around. I walk out my door on top the hill and I look down and see Lake Union at dawn with 1000s of little lights blinking and reflecting in the water surrounded by the Cascades, the turn and see Elliot bay surrounded by the Olympics, punctuated by MY favorite structure, the Space Needle (sadly next the the Gehry designed Experience Music Project.) Mt. Rainier looms in the South, as an accent to the Seattle Skyline. It's not as structured as the Philadelphia skyline, which is very cool from the right angle, but Philly doesn't have the natural surroundings to finish it. I feel like it's the best of both worlds out here, almost like my own little Modanock Valley.

Post 17

Wednesday, September 28, 2005 - 4:01pm

As much as I rag on it I know someday I'm going to miss Indy. I've lived in the country too long to really appreciate nature but I just feel so alive when I walk downtown. The structure of Monument circle (a soldiers monument in the center of a circular road with businesses built onto the four corners of the square surrounding the circle.) Blocks and blocks of sleek modern buildings, the spacious luxury of the RCA dome, the massiveness of circle center mall. The steel bridges and all the major buildings for the city/state's major businesses. That's it I need to take the bus down there on my next day off.

---Landon

Post 18

Wednesday, September 28, 2005 - 4:07pm

I took "deserted" as meaning that no one lives there anymore

William you love the city because the people?

Post 19

Wednesday, September 28, 2005 - 4:20pm