Rorschach Doesn't Shrug: The Watchmen's hero as Objectivist saint

Oh you gotta love the "I got more from Animal Farm than Atlas Shrugged" comment. Yeah, because Animal Farm had so much more to say than Atlas Shrugged? Give me a break!

Post 21

Monday, March 9, 2009 - 1:26am

Thats odd, I've found the emotional aspects of objectivism to be some of the most difficult and compelling concepts to explore. Then again, it's probably relevant that "Atlas" was a starting point for me, not the sum total of my studies. As to those that disagree with my beliefs, you're right, they should be allies and disagreement is their right. There are a hell of a lot of people out there that don't seem to believe that and I'm honestly not sure if anyone who believes in individual freedom (for almost any reason) can afford to throw away potential allies.
On an interesting aside, I tend to be somewhat of an emotionally subdued guy (possibly repressed at times). This didn't start with my studies in objectivism. If anything objectivism and specifically "sense of life" concepts have been the most useful concepts to date for constructive movement in the emotional realm for me. I'm sure a lot of objectivists are emotionally cold. I'm also sure a lot are strangers in a strange land and don't have a lot of people to connect with for a variety of very good reasons.

Post 22

Monday, March 9, 2009 - 3:18am

Hi,

Thank you for the valuable information provided by you. You have done a great team work.

Austin

Post 23

Monday, March 9, 2009 - 1:00pm

There's nothing wrong with emotion as long as they are the outward expression of your own rational values. What Rand warned against was emotionalism, the act of guiding your behavior based on the emotions themselves separated from any rational values. From Leonard Peikoff in "Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand"

EMOTIONALISM

Objectivism is not against emotions, but emotionalism. Ayn Rand's concern is not to uphold stoicism or abet repression, but to identify a division of mental labor. There is nothing wrong with feeling that follows from an act of thought; this is the natural and proper human pattern. There is everything wrong with feeling that seeks to replace thought, by usurping its function

The idea that Objectivism promotes "emotional repression" is an incomplete and ignorant observation. It promotes irrational emotional repression, not rational emotional repression.

Post 24

Monday, March 9, 2009 - 1:01pm

Y'all might find these of interest...

http://splashpage.mtv.com/2009/03/06/before-they-were-watchmen-the-characters-that-inspired-nite-owl-rorschach/

http://splashpage.mtv.com/2009/03/04/before-they-were-watchmen-the-charlton-comics-characters-who-became-dr-manhattan-ozymandias/

http://splashpage.mtv.com/2009/03/05/before-they-were-watchmen-the-characters-that-inspired-silk-spectre-the-comedian/

Post 25

Friday, March 13, 2009 - 5:43pm

John Armaos: "The idea that Objectivism promotes 'emotional repression' is an incomplete and ignorant observation. It promotes irrational emotional repression, not rational emotional repression."

Ah, did you actually mean here "... promotes repression of irrational emotions, not of rational emotions"? I don't recall Rand, Peikoff, or either of the Brandens (to note the major exegetes in Rand's lifetime) ever endorsing any variety of emotional repression, as such. Dealing with the premises and choices that give rise to them, yes.

Be that as it may, Rand, et al., may not have promoted such repression explicitly and verbally. Yet I can't even count the number of Objectivist partisans I've seen and read about who have promoted it constantly through their actions. (And those practiced by many who curried favor with them, at various times.)

Those prime partisans include, on all publicly offered evidence, Rand and Peikoff themselves, I'd say.

A friend suggested to me thirty years ago that Rand's ideas wouldn't gain any substantial public influence "until both Rand and everyone who ever knew her personally is dead." Well, we're a lot closer to that situation now ... on both sides of that assessment.

(Edited by Steve Reed on 3/13, 5:53pm)

Post 26

Friday, March 13, 2009 - 7:02pm

Nathaniel Branden, in his article on the Benefits and Hazards of the Philosophy of Ayn Rand, stated that Rand's fiction encouraged emotional repression. He talks about people he has met over the years and, "...the difficulties, the feelings of guilt, confusion and self-alienation that clearly seemed related, in some way, to the impact of Ayn Rand�s work."

He goes on to separate Rand's style of presentation from the substance of her ideas. He says, "She could be abrasive, she could make sweeping generalizations that needed explanations that she did not provide; she made very little effort to understand someone else�s intellectual context and to build a bridge from their context to hers."

I would say that there are two other areas that are more important in understanding this issue. 1.) People with less than stellar self-esteem attempt to emulate characters in her novels, and to live up to this new philosophy. And that is difficult. Some people will make use of emotional repression as way of attempting the process of changing who they are. 2.) Anything that is new to a person, or to a culture, is going to be ackward in its early stages. Going from childhood to adulthood has to go through that ackward teenage stage. People, even with adequate self-esteem, haven't a sophisticated understanding of how to live this new philosophy and are attempting to apply a new philosophy in a culture based on an antithical philosophy and they are trying to do this as a person who was formed under that old philosophy. It is really a major task. Again, some people use emotional repression to attempt to smooth things out.

But it is not Objectivism that encourages emotional repression. Objectivism describes a moral person and we adopt the image and struggle with the difficulty of changing who we are. We haven't had the kind of training or understanding of psychology on the best way to change who we are. Rand's very harsh Q & A style wasn't a good model to emulate. Lots of students of Objectivism were emotionally repressed before encountering Rand (one tends to form that style during early childhood) and were attracted to the passion they saw integrated with reason (that was me).

John said, "The idea that Objectivism promotes 'emotional repression' is an incomplete and ignorant observation. It promotes irrational emotional repression, not rational emotional repression."
I would say it differently:

Objectivism, the philosophy, makes no statement at all on emotional repression... other than clearly being opposed to blanking out - and emotional repression is a form of blanking out.
Objectivism is opposed to treating emotions as tools of cognition or of acting on emotions - but that isn't repression.
We all have irrational emotions, but we should never repress them, just don't dwell on them or act on them.

Post 27

Saturday, March 14, 2009 - 1:39pm

Steve Reed:

Ah, did you actually mean here "... promotes repression of irrational emotions, not of rational emotions"?

Yes I did. My apologies for improperly placing the adjective. Sorry for any confusion.

My point was that Rand advocated one should not be guided by emotions that are an outward expression of improper values. But there is nothing wrong with expressing an emotion if it is an outward expression of a proper value. For example you should feel angry and express that anger if someone seeks to deny your right to life or someone else's, because that is an assault on the value of life to which one should cherish.

Steve Wolfer:

John said, "The idea that Objectivism promotes 'emotional repression' is an incomplete and ignorant observation. It promotes irrational emotional repression, not rational emotional repression."
I would say it differently:

* Objectivism, the philosophy, makes no statement at all on emotional repression... other than clearly being opposed to blanking out - and emotional repression is a form of blanking out.

* Objectivism is opposed to treating emotions as tools of cognition or of acting on emotions - but that isn't repression.
* We all have irrational emotions, but we should never repress them, just don't dwell on them or act on them.

I see very little if any difference at all semantically between "not dwelling/not act on" and "repress". I believe the phrase can be used interchangeably.

With the exception of the grammatical error of misplacing the adjective, I see nothing else wrong with what I wrote.
(Edited by John Armaos on 3/14, 1:39pm)

Post 28

Saturday, March 14, 2009 - 7:43pm

John said, "I see very little if any difference at all semantically between "not dwelling/not act on" and "repress". I believe the phrase can be used interchangeably."

"Emotional repression" is a very specific psychological act - it is NOT the same as consciously choosing to set an emotion aside. Repressing an emotion is also radically different from dwelling on an emotion, which is different from acting on an emotion.

Repressing is automating a subconscious routine to keep the conscious mind from being aware of the emotion. It is a neurotic defense mechanism - a form of automated avoidance directed at specific emotions.
Dwelling on an emotion is making it the focus of ones conscious, to an inappropriate degree - and has nothing to do with acting on an emotion.
Acting on the emotion is what is referred to as emotionalism, or impulsiveness or impulse control problems.

Post 29

Sunday, March 15, 2009 - 9:08am

I found the sedona method to be particularly illuminating regarding the difference between "not dwelling" and "repression". I would think the difference is fairly obvious. If a person was in a bad place, in any possible sense, there is a clear difference between "I am here and it is bad. I must cope as much as possible and use my resources to escape. When I am free, I will live my life where I am at that moment, not where I was." as opposed to "This isn't happening. I am not here."

Post 30

Sunday, March 15, 2009 - 4:48pm

Steve Wolfer:

John said, "I see very little if any difference at all semantically between "not dwelling/not act on" and "repress". I believe the phrase can be used interchangeably."

"Emotional repression" is a very specific psychological act - it is NOT the same as consciously choosing to set an emotion aside.

I'm not a psychologist, but even still I don't know why you interpret my use of the word "repression" in some kind of psychological clinical context? I didn't. But anyways repress simply means to control. To not act on something simply means to control it from happening. There is no reason to make any further distinction from that between "subconsciously" controlling something or "consciously" controlling something. The term repress can be used in a context of one willfully controlling himself. And so my term is still valid. You can consciously repress an emotion.

Plus I don't understand what it means to do something "subconsciously". I'm skeptical that such a thing as a subconscious even exists. It just sounds like Freudian wankery. I'm either unconscious (sleeping) or conscious (awake). So what is a subconscious?

But an automated emotional response is still something that is chosen from an initial action, i.e. man is a self-programmer. If man accepts a set of values and disvalues, his responses from those values and disvalues can become more automated over time, but one still must choose initially what those values and disvalues he should have.

(Edited by John Armaos on 3/15, 5:38pm)

Post 31

Sunday, March 15, 2009 - 8:53pm

John, you said, "I don't know why you interpret my use of the word "repression" in some kind of psychological clinical context?" It is a psychological context, because we are talking about how emotions are handled, but it is not just clinical. If you use the phrase "emotional repression" or talk about an "emotionally repressed" person you are using words that have a specific meaning in this context. I can choose to repress my urge to speak out at an inappropriate time, and that means 'control' - as you said - but that would not be 'emotional repression'. Don't shoot the messenger for this, I'm just telling you about a meaning that has common usage. Anyone that uses the phrase "emotional repression" when they mean consciously control a particular emotion, are mis-using the phrase.

I am a psychologist and there is a subconscious. Let's say you are walking towards the closed door and you reach out with your hand and turned the knob and opened the door - you activated the specific muscles involved in moving your feet, shifting your weight, retaining balance, reaching out, grasping the knob, etc. and all without consciously attending to each individual muscle instruction or monitoring it's intensity and timing on a conscious level. You give the conscious command or intention ("I'm leaving here."), and then monitor the general success (does the door open?). But your subconscious handles the rest. Your subconscious works on problems when you are thinking of other things, and then, at times, gives you those "ah hah!" moments. There is a massive amount of mental cpu time going on while you are awake, yet out of the range of your conscious focus. We are self-programmed in many respects, but we are also a multiprocessor unit and only some of the processors are what we call conscious focus.

Post 32

Monday, March 16, 2009 - 9:56pm

Steve Wolfer:

John, you said, "I don't know why you interpret my use of the word "repression" in some kind of psychological clinical context?" It is a psychological context, because we are talking about how emotions are handled, but it is not just clinical. If you use the phrase "emotional repression" or talk about an "emotionally repressed" person you are using words that have a specific meaning in this context. I can choose to repress my urge to speak out at an inappropriate time, and that means 'control' - as you said - but that would not be 'emotional repression'. Don't shoot the messenger for this, I'm just telling you about a meaning that has common usage. Anyone that uses the phrase "emotional repression" when they mean consciously control a particular emotion, are mis-using the phrase.

Um...ok, then please tell me what would be the correct phrasing if I wanted to express the idea that someone can willfully control an emotional response?

I am a psychologist and there is a subconscious. Let's say you are walking towards the closed door and you reach out with your hand and turned the knob and opened the door - you activated the specific muscles involved in moving your feet, shifting your weight, retaining balance, reaching out, grasping the knob, etc. and all without consciously attending to each individual muscle instruction or monitoring it's intensity and timing on a conscious level. You give the conscious command or intention ("I'm leaving here."), and then monitor the general success (does the door open?). But your subconscious handles the rest. Your subconscious works on problems when you are thinking of other things, and then, at times, gives you those "ah hah!" moments. There is a massive amount of mental cpu time going on while you are awake, yet out of the range of your conscious focus. We are self-programmed in many respects, but we are also a multiprocessor unit and only some of the processors are what we call conscious focus.

So rapid automated responses are what you call a "subconscious". But I still maintain, how we develop these fast automated responses are from the individual choices we make about how to respond to our environment and the values we choose to have. If I've automated a response for emotionally repressing angry outbursts to particular situations for what I have originally perceived to be not in accordance to a rational value, then there is nothing wrong with that. Automated emotional responses if they were originally developed out of a recognition of proper values is perfectly acceptable. Whether it is automated or not shouldn't make a difference.

So even if we went by your understanding of the words I used; "emotional repression", then I stand by those words, since one should repress emotions that are the outward expression of irrational reasons, automated or done so consciously.

Note I am not saying all emotions should be repressed, only ones that are the result of irrational motives.

(Edited by John Armaos on 3/16, 10:05pm)

Post 33

Tuesday, March 17, 2009 - 12:22am

Repressing emotions should never be done. that is the 'hiding' of ones emotion from oneself. Like a person who refuses to own the fear he feels. Emotional repression is an internal disconnection.

What you are talking about is control of ones behavior and one's focus. For example, a person feels that they are afraid but focuses on what needs to be done - and, in effect, dials down the fear, and shifts the focus. This can be come habit - a good habit of not being a puppet to one's emotions and making choices based upon reason.

Many of our rapid automated responses are, as you say, the product of choices made early on. But others are just part of the mental machinery - routines that get lots of work done in the background.

You said, "...one should repress emotions that are the outward expression of irrational reasons..." One should never repress an emotion - there are always harmful consequences. What one controls is their actions and their focus. The more fully one can feel that emotion, not repress it, not deny it, not excuse it, but feel it fully and acknowledge that at that moment in ones life, that is part of who they are. This is the fastest way and healthiest way to replace that emotion with one that represents a rational choice in that context.

Post 34

Tuesday, March 17, 2009 - 4:32pm

Steve:

Repressing emotions should never be done. that is the 'hiding' of ones emotion from oneself. Like a person who refuses to own the fear he feels. Emotional repression is an internal disconnection.

What you are talking about is control of ones behavior and one's focus. For example, a person feels that they are afraid but focuses on what needs to be done - and, in effect, dials down the fear, and shifts the focus.

I don't agree that certain emotions borne out of particular circumstances should never be repressed. If the fear is borne out of a rational response to your environment, then one should feel fear as it motivates the individual to act. If however it is an irrational fear, like a fear of the dark, then one ought to expunge themselves of that feeling because it is uncalled for and will only serve to cloud one's judgment. If it's an automatic response yet still a rational one, then it is perfectly fine.

You said, "...one should repress emotions that are the outward expression of irrational reasons..." One should never repress an emotion - there are always harmful consequences.

I don't agree that is necessarily the case. There may be instances where one habitually represses a rational emotional response, which I would agree is harmful as it may prevent you from acting on that emotion when action may be needed. If however you habitually repress irrational emotions, that is proper to your existence and serves your well-being as that prevents you from acting irrationally.

What one controls is their actions and their focus.

One can also control their emotions. Man is his own master, and his emotions are his own to control and use. One would have to ask why he's feeling an emotion? Is it a response from a proper value/disvalue? Or is a response from an improper value/disvalue? And thus perhaps one should change their values and by doing so, would change the way they emotionally respond to their environment. I don't believe that we can't help what we feel. We most certainly can. When a liberal feels anger when he hears of a CEO getting a large bonus, his feelings are unwarranted, and he most certainly can use introspection to realize why he feels that anger, and if he is rational will come to the conclusion he shouldn't feel that anger if he had proper values. Thus if the liberal embraces values proper to man's existence, including the value of Capitalism, he can expunge that automated response of anger to someone else's honestly earned wealth.

Post 35

Tuesday, March 17, 2009 - 9:50pm

John, you are wrong. All I know from studying under and working with Branden, all I know from working as a licensed clinician, and all I know from all of my studies, says you are wrong and that you don't know what you are talking about in this area.

You said, "If however it is an irrational fear, like a fear of the dark, then one ought to expunge themselves of that feeling because it is uncalled for and will only serve to cloud one's judgment." You can't expunge yourself of a feeling. All you can do is shift focus away from it will still feeling it, use other techniques to lower the intensity of the feeling, work at uncovering the roots of that irrational feeling which takes time, diminish it over time with some form of therapy, or repress it. If you repress it you will suffer unwanted side-effects because it will still be inside you like a toxin that you refuse to admit exists - that you have blocked from your consciousness.

I won't argue with you over this.... This is pretty basic stuff in psychology. It would be like a doctor trying to convince a layperson that blood letting is not the right approach for treating low blood pressure.

Post 36

Wednesday, March 18, 2009 - 11:39am

Steve:

John, you are wrong. All I know from studying under and working with Branden, all I know from working as a licensed clinician, and all I know from all of my studies, says you are wrong and that you don't know what you are talking about in this area.

Steve, you are wrong, and I couldn't care less who you studied with and who thinks they are right. That means absolutely nothing to me and you should know better than to make that kind of appeal. You are just making an 'appeal to an authority' argument, which is not holding truth up to reality but to an authority figure.

You said, "If however it is an irrational fear, like a fear of the dark, then one ought to expunge themselves of that feeling because it is uncalled for and will only serve to cloud one's judgment." You can't expunge yourself of a feeling.

Yes you most certainly can! People do it all the time. They can rationally assess why they feel a certain way, see if they are justified in feeling that way, and if after realizing they are not justified in feeling a certain way, they stop feeling that emotion. If people can sit down, introspect, and rationally assess their emotions and alter them to be more beneficial to their well-being, it is beneficial.

All you can do is shift focus away from it will still feeling it, use other techniques to lower the intensity of the feeling, work at uncovering the roots of that irrational feeling which takes time, diminish it over time with some form of therapy, or repress it.

You are drawing this bizarre line in the sand between "shifting focus away from" and "diminishing" with "repressing". All of those words, "diminishing" and "shifting" are merely varying degrees of "repressing". You are taking an emotion that is irrational to feel, and making attempts to shift yourself away from feeling it by doing certain things to accomplish that. You're just trying to play this semantics game which I don't understand why.

If you repress it you will suffer unwanted side-effects because it will still be inside you like a toxin that you refuse to admit exists - that you have blocked from your consciousness.

How can you experience unwanted side-effects if you are repressing an irrational emotion that if left unchecked would only serve to hurt you? There would be an obvious side-effect to not repressing an irrational emotion, doing things that will undoubtedly hurt you.

I won't argue with you over this.... This is pretty basic stuff in psychology. It would be like a doctor trying to convince a layperson that blood letting is not the right approach for treating low blood pressure.

Analogies are not a substitute for a reasoned argument. I could just easily say to you "I won't argue with you over this...This is pretty basic stuff in semantics. It would be like an English teacher tying to convince an immigrant with English as his second language that a complete sentence requires a subject and a predicate"

You can see this style of argumentation is not very convincing. It's also condescending and very belittling.

(Edited by John Armaos on 3/18, 11:50am)

Post 37

Wednesday, March 18, 2009 - 12:16pm

John, to start with emotions aren't rational or irrational - because they are feelings and incapable of comprehending reality. We talk about them "as if" they were rational or irrational but that is just short-hand for not having to spell out the full meaning which is that emotions imply a belief about reality that implied belief would have rational or irrational elements. This obvious fact makes a difference, but I doubt you want to hear about that anymore than you have wanted to hear about any of your other errors in this area.

You can believe what ever you want. The simple matter is that you don't know enough to argue in this area. I'm sorry that sounds condescending... I was aware of that when I wrote it, I was aware that my last post was also condescending. Yes, I did make an "appeal to authority" type of argument - you are correct about my arguments not being on sound logical ground. But you pay no attention to your limitations in this area or to basic definitions, or to the sound arguments I did make. You don't leave any room for logic when you plow ahead ignorant of an area, and unwilling to observe established definitions.

A person does NOT have to be an expert or have degrees or experience in the field, but they should pay attention when someone in the field takes the time to point out that they are misusing a word. You, clearly, did not do that and are persisting in misusing and talking about processes you don't understand, and you don't want to hear anything I know on the subject and you haven't gone off and educated yourself from some other source. You would rather just create these interminable zebra-stripped posts. Well, have fun, because I'm done.

Post 38

Wednesday, March 18, 2009 - 2:16pm

Steve:

John, to start with emotions aren't rational or irrational - because they are feelings and incapable of comprehending reality.

This is a non-sensical identification of emotions and one I never made. An emotion is not divorced from the being that feels it. An emotion is a descriptive term that describes a particular expression that a conscious being makes. Emotions are a part of a human being and the two are inseparable, just as there can be no consciousness if there is no brain. Emotions arise out of an experience, that is they come out from a response to comprehending reality and is a mechanical reaction in the brain to what is happening in the environment which usually compels that being to act. So when I say a particular emotion is irrational, I mean there are instances where it would be irrational to feel a certain emotion because they are the outward expression of an improper value/disvalue. I don't mean the emotions the themselves are a being that comprehends reality and that is simply a strawman of my arguments. If you can at least make an attempt to try to understand what I a mean by my statements it may lead to a more fruitful discussion.

This obvious fact makes a difference, but I doubt you want to hear about that anymore than you have wanted to hear about any of your other errors in this area.

Again with the belittling and condescension. First you make the pronouncement you weren't going to argue any further with me about this (yet you continue, perhaps you can show a little integrity and stand-by your stated intentions) and make an analogous comparison of me to some kind of medieval doctor, and now you psychologize my intentions for continuing to discuss the topic. I could just as easily say you don't want to hear any of your errors in your squabbling over an issue of semantics. You see, every time you do this, I can just take your words and substitute out a few of them out with my side of the argument and turn them around on you. Maybe at some point when you keep experiencing this kind of insulting dialogue, you can see how little value there is to arguing this way.

If this is how you want to carry yourself I don't see how there can possibly be a reasonable exchange of ideas. You're just interested in insulting me.

You can believe what ever you want. The simple matter is that you don't know enough to argue in this area. I'm sorry that sounds condescending... I was aware of that when I wrote it, I was aware that my last post was also condescending. Yes, I did make an "appeal to authority" type of argument - you are correct about my arguments not being on sound logical ground. But you pay no attention to your limitations in this area or to basic definitions, or to the sound arguments I did make. You don't leave any room for logic when you plow ahead ignorant of an area, and unwilling to observe established definitions.

A person does NOT have to be an expert or have degrees or experience in the field, but they should pay attention when someone in the field takes the time to point out that they are misusing a word.

Steve, I made it plainly clear I never meant to use the term "repress" in any kind of psychological clinical context, you are the one erroneously twisting it into a psychological textbook definition of the word. There is no need to speak of emotions as an expert on psychology. Emotions are not beyond the purview of non-psychologists. But you instead make no effort to understand my own words and plow ahead without any regard for what I might be trying to convey here.

(Edited by John Armaos on 3/18, 2:44pm)

Post 39

Wednesday, March 18, 2009 - 8:33pm