RoR: Forum

Very good question, Pete. I keep thinking of Stephen Mallory in trying to answer it.

When I tried to follow that route, I began to hate my art, my clients, and myself. I found that I could not "dumb it down" to work beneath my ability. I was literally miserable. I think it is smarter to work at something else that does not drain your love for your craft, though in all cases this may not be feasible.

If one can separate the two and still be happy/satisfied, I suppose it would be a viable option. Not an optimal one, however.

Post 41

Wednesday, December 1, 2004 - 4:24am

This thread is filled with so many great observations that I could write a book about them. To spare you all, I would just like to say that I can't ever remember reading a comment from Jeanine in any thread where I didn't have to stop and think about one of my suppositions. In particular here, I am drawn to your arguments re: the necessity of an Objectivist to approach a view of the Left with a little more respect for its centuries-long appeal ( to artists, yes, but to many others as well). I have been in a reasonably high position in business in America and can say that many of Jeanine's observations about this class go well beyond the Left's stereotyped view. I believe she is asking us to get beyond some of our stereotypical views of artists and the Left, and that is good advice.

Post 42

Wednesday, December 1, 2004 - 6:15am

Adam wrote: "The Objectivist's definition of wealth would be, one's capacity for achieving life and happiness. Posessions and money are one aspect of objective wealth, but hardly the sum."

Adam, excellent point about the meaning of *wealth*. Even those of us who are objectivist minded can err in giving more weight that is due to money and possessions.

John

Post 43

Wednesday, December 1, 2004 - 9:20am

It would certainly be interesting to hear the viewpoint of a successful Objectivist artist here, Michael Newberry.

Post 44

Wednesday, December 1, 2004 - 1:06pm

Interestingly, Andre, he told me to write what I love and get a job that pays the bills. ;) I'll let him tell you the rest.

(Edited by Jennifer Iannolo on 12/01, 1:06pm)

Post 45

Wednesday, December 1, 2004 - 1:22pm

Wait a minute. What had kept Ayn Rand down for so many years were the "artists and philosophers"--the intelligentsia who wouldn't publish or publicize her, because of her views. The American laymen, "ordinary" in Jeanine's word, were the one's who propelled her to success by buying millions of copies of her books. To the last day, she was reviled by the intelligentsia. The fact that she was so much more popular in religious parts of America, than in the cultural left, shows you who is more close-minded. If it was up to the "artists and philosophers", there would have been no Ayn Rand.

What makes America unique is the very fact that it allows "ordinary" people to rise -- almost every authoritarian society in the past has treated its artistic elite very specially. Even in Soviet countries, the only way to have a good life was to either be a (non-dissenting) artist or an athlete.
To advocate the "philosopher-king" view is to advocate Plato's Republic, and all its descendants.

Most successful artists and intellectuals today have to prove themselves to other artists and intellectuals -- they do not have to appeal to the masses. Those that do, such as Ayn Rand, gain much more financial success, but "middle America" or whatever term you like to use for ordinary people you loathe, is not the foremost arbiter of intellectual success.

And there's something to be said for an artist-intellectual being forced to prove the value of his ideas or art. To paraphrase Chris Rock: "If your comedy only appeals to smart people, it ain't that smart."

Alec

Post 46

Wednesday, December 1, 2004 - 2:49pm

The Soviet system also bred a bunch of mediocre parasites, since most of the time true artistic creative pursuits are not compatible with communist doctrines. In fact, in communist countries, arts and humanitarian sciences were extremely hazardous professions, and even talented people would try as much as they can to avoid taking on such professions. Scientists and athletes fared much better for obviously reasons, though they were also not completely safe.

"If your comedy only appeals to smart people, it ain't that smart."

This is largely true, but there are exceptions.

Post 47

Wednesday, December 1, 2004 - 5:15pm

Hello, everyone-

Forgive me if I preface my various replies with a disgression, but I am simply in an exceptional frame of soul. I spent an unplanned night at a friend's house last night, and just walked home to my apartment through the beautiful San Francisco morning, barefoot (being unable to wear the shoes I'd brought.. the result of a little professional's overeagerness to knock off a shoe size) and munching some red-gold apples- at 3/$1.00, fruit is perhaps the only little-taxed commodity in this sad socialism. But the morning was too sunlit to worry, especially to have walked down Market Street at 10:00 AM with a proper girl's aegis of makeup but my hair- alas, I confess, left touselled. 'Tis a wonderful thing, to practice whistling the notes of Les Miserables down the foreward streets of the city- I note that even in San Francisco, the colorful splash of color in cloth and music in public remain the province of the courtesan, now as under the laws of Tiberius. Why is that, I wonder? No matter. The good wives and employees in propriety already quite know the answer to that question. I just wish I could give rendition of the dancing song in cymbal and tambourine down the avenues of their suburban Arcadia. But then I am still learning. One day, I shall!

Very well, that indulgence done; let me respond to a miscellany of comments, in my own order, and sign publically.

Post 48

Wednesday, December 1, 2004 - 5:17pm

Many thanks to the fiery and passionate Jeanine for defending me -- altho' as an intellectual I have to point out that it's fundamentally my job to defend her

Msr. Zantanovitch-

Well... thank you (*Blush*) Though Andre, you are a wicked flatterer to a girl who's sometimes, I admit, a better courtesan than feminist.

Forgive me if I don't respond to the rest of your comments at length; I think they speak for themselves. As for passion, 'tis no matter of altruism and defending you is not my primary concerns. I've simply been there, and seen friends have their souls snuffed out beneath the Protestant Ethic's scythe. That is something I will never forgive or cease to avenge.

Cave, beare.

Post 49

Wednesday, December 1, 2004 - 5:19pm

Grand Wazir Rowlands: "So Andre, wealth is a matter of luck or immorality? Sounds to me like you're poor and looking to rationalize it."

Jeanine: It was this quote that revolted me.

Msr. Dawe: Why did this quote revolt you Jeanine?

Msr. Dawe-

Because I remember my first two friends in life and one woman I loved- one young philosopher, one simply beautiful soul, and one painter whose skill made my jaw drop, who were tortured in poverty which bourgeois morality held as their guilt that respectable society slammed every door in their faces. One betrayed his soul, one gave up in despair, on fought to the bitter end until poverty forced her to return to her parents of lose a roof over their heads. I had lost contact and will never hear from them again.

Begin, to paraphrase Ayn Rand, I look at the Protestant Ethic of this vile quote and I look at my once friends and lovers and everything they stood for, and I see and will say- "This will kill that."

I walk away again.../ but there is one thing, which will make me take a stand.
[Sister Act]

Post 50

Wednesday, December 1, 2004 - 5:24pm

As for art, for the most part what these so-called 'artist' have to offer are simplistic pieces of unmelodic and incoherent music, or primitive paintings that an insane chimp could have produced.

Msr. Cordero-

Regarding my own taste in art, you are welcome to judge it ('judge and be prepared to be judged' and all, by the works I cite, my style, and my serious poetry when I get around to finding my old stuff and finishing my current work. I'll just note that I don't find at all that modern art is universally unmelodic, incoherent, or primitive. I was listening to Sarah Maclaughlan last night- utterly beautiful, and I think of the two John Stevens prints that hang in my apartment. I think most contemporary stuff is junk, but so was most XVIII or XIII or II or -V century stuff. As Heinlein said, 90% of everything is trash- we just don;t preserve the trash of the past as much. I think Objectivists- blinded by the fury of a culture war against evil postmodernists and headbanging caterwaulers- write off a great deal of serious contemporary art without taking the trouble to understand it and with scornful dismissals of a few abstract pieces (note: I'm not a particular admirer of Kadinsky or Wallace Stevens). Some Objectivists go so far as to profess aesthetic admiration for pro-Objectivist or pro-"reason" art regardless of quality, which was in Soviet Russia called socialist realism. Oops, I meant "capitalist." The principle's the same.

You might find this discussion of my personal web Salon interesting,
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Salon_Total_Freedom/message/32

quote: "I wonder, if I were to post links in Objectivist forums to the works of postmodern artists Mark Tansey and Gerhard Richter, would faithful Objectivists stop heaping praise on mediocre Objectivist artists so as not to denigrate true genius? Or would I merely discover the unwritten rule that Objectivist banality trumps postmodern magnificence?"

Please understand, I am not critiqueing your particular aesthetic tastes, as I lack the knowledge of your reasons for you evaluation of contemporary art and artists, and do not know your education, exposure, or sensitivity in this regard. I respect that rational disagreement is possible, but I do firmly note my convictions.

This is especially more prevalent in the intellectual and moral sewers of our larger urban cities of the east and west coast.

Now, the evaluation of a culture as a "moral sewer", depends upon one's standard of morality. Personally, I would hold the South and the suburbs- with their repressiveness, their patriarchy, their convention and lives thralled to respectability and family, corporatism and bourgeois duty- to be the most noisome examples of stagnant filth pools in this land called America.

The cities of today's America have their faults, no argument; a tendency towards economic statism is in my opinion one of the most serious. But if we consider authenticity and passion for life, the aesthete's virtue's of spontenaity and color, if we consider these to be virtues (and I do)- if we hold value tolerance for those- like myself- for whom Middle America was a choking trap- for those whose birth or sexuality or inconoclasticism made them flee for some shore of exile- then I hold Liberty's New York City and my Venice on the Pacific to be sparkling beacons in an enclosing darkness.

The classical liberals Herbert Spencer and Karl Popper once spoke of the Open Society and the Closed Society or the Society of Status. From the times of the Bible, 'moral cesspool' has been the accusation hurled at the cities where anonymity and trade and wealth made 'decadence'- pleasure and freedom from moral taboos possible. As the reactionaries of other times cursed Egypt, cursed Babylon, cursed Rome, cursed Venice, so today they curse the fleshpots of the great cities of America. The accusers change- Hebrew shepherds, Arcadian Hesiod and Ovid, Christians, Protestant prohibitionists, and now the bourgeois cultural right. But the essential issues do not. Civilization has always meant pleasure as well as avarice Venus as well as Mammon, desire as well as self-interests. Ultimately, those bourgeois moralists who want the first but not the second cannot have it both ways.

Support suburbia's transplanted peasant virtues against the city if you will, but do not be surprised if you find that pride, greed, and lust are won or lost together.

I pass by Jerusalem for Ishtarte's Babylon.

Post 51

Wednesday, December 1, 2004 - 5:25pm

I am surprised no one even raised the question that the 'arts' that are so supposedly supported by socialistic concerns, and is so unsale-able, is even properly art - and perhaps is not bought for the very reason it is largely crap.

Msr. Malcolm-

I've never myself said that socialism was good for the arts- I think it's very bad for them. What I have said is that today's alternative culture left is more culturally friendly toward the artistic spirit, and that by contrast the libertarian right often dismisses any criticism of business culture, Middle America, or the Protestant Ethic out of hand, mindlessly approving all of these things because they are historically American and associated with capitalism.

Post 52

Wednesday, December 1, 2004 - 5:52pm

My comment on your length was just to let you know that if you're goal is to communicate to people, the length is hurting not helping. You're welcome to continue as is...but I for one don't read half of what you write.

Grand Wazir Rowlands-

Well, I am very happy to have misinterpreted you here. As for the expediency of my length, I feeling is that I am reaching those for whom I am interested in taking the time to speak. If I am wrong, 'tis my loss.

It takes a pretty shallow understanding of Objectivism to think that wealth is the only standard of success. I'm more inclined to believe the socialists, who you think are so benevolent when it comes to disagreement (and yet somehow Communists countries aren't...hmmm...), are the ones who worship wealth as an end in itself. Objectivists understand that wealth is potential value. You can trade it for all kinds of things, but it's not a substitute for those things.

Francisco d'Anconia: "let me give you a secret to men's moral character. The man who respect wealth has earned it; the man who does not has obtained his dishonestly."

I understand the Objectivist theory of wealth. I am, actually, not even attacking it as such, as I've actually said a number of times now. What I am attacking is the notion that poverty should generally be considered the result of vice- a principle I do not find clearly in Rand, but I do find in much of the current Objectivist subculture. and the prevalent Objectivist view of today's culture war.

Actually, I'd be pretty happy to go with the Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, at least in broad essentials. What I will not sign on to is this repulsive Republican Party notion that the wealthy are generally the salt of the earth, and the poor generally vicious. Especially in the context of a semi-statist society. Especially in the context of a Protestant Ethic by which the centers of wealth are generally also the centers of a repressiveness hostile to that creativity which is the spiritual component of innovation.

With regard to socialism, you are putting words into my mouth. I am saying that the cultural left has more respect for artistic creativity, which lends credence to socialism. I oppose socialism, in favor of libertarianism (I dislike the term "capitalism" which suggests that economic freedom is more basic that social or personal freedom, and which suggests that the institutions of 'capital'- i.e., big business, are more at the moral center of liberty than science, art, culture, etc.)

But that doesn't mean that wealth is not an indicator of success at all. It certainly is. Wealth is of huge importance to our lives. Even by your own hedonistic standard money should be important. And it certainly is to those who claim life as the standard. And yet here we have you and Andre saying that the creation of wealth is immoral.

No, I have never said and do not believe this, and have specifically denied this. What I claim is that the conformist culture of much of today's established society slams doors to economic mobility on those who challenge society's values. And I deny that there is something moral about those aspects of our business culture that are intolerant towards creativity and demand cultural conformity to bourgeois norms.

Under such conditions, the best and most passionate human spirits may be to a small or great degree penalized for their virtue by having economic doors slammed in their face. If this is the case, the claim that actual wealth should make us think of success is suspect. The claim that poverty should make us generally suspect moral failure is an obscenity.

And yes, as a hedonist, I do believe that wealth is of value to my life.

Personally, what I find repulsive is those people who live in poverty and try to morally justify it by cursing wealth. And equally those who set up a wealth/virtue dichotomy, and try to claim productive ability is a vice, instead of a virtue.

Well, I do neither. If you mean to imply I do, please validate your claim. I do think that under conditions of statism and/or a Protestant Ethic, virtue can be economically penalized, but this is a protest against evil institutions that dualize social conditions, not an implication of an essential duality. I am after all a supporter of Chris Sciabarra's concept of dialectical methodology.

And I find it strange to believe that our mixed economy- which after all, according to Objectivists, operates on a socialist principle penalizing virtue as often as a capitalist principle rewarding virtue, should particularly reward virtue with wealth.
The bold is mine. And it constitutes a significant disagreement. A mixed economy sometimes penalizes virtue, it's true. But to suggest that the US equally (or even close) punishes and rewards virtue is ridiculous.

Why? Ayn Rand talked about a choking establishment that destroyed young innovators in both business and the arts ("the establishing on an establishment") in the 1960s. Statism has only increased apace since then.

But I don't that's greatness, and a morality and civilization which prizes the chance of ordinary people to attain decent wealth, but tortures its artists and philosophers, is not one I personally care to expend any effort to defend.
I'll just say that I think it's the artists and philosophers that are torturing the ordinary people, and not the other way around. As for the real artist and philosophers out there, they're more likely to be hurt by the professional artists and philosophers than the public.

I speak in defense of those on the cultural left I have known- many of them libertarians- who had their creative spirits burnt out by slammed doors. I don't deny that much of the cultural left also takes it out on Middle America, sometimes justly, sometimes not. This is a pointless cycle of violence.

As a matter of specialization, I share in the artistic passions more than the commercial. If there is no peace in this cultural war, why on Earth would I do anything but defend those whose passions I share- among whom I have had friends and lovers, whose world is a haven to me and whose style of living gives my life passion? I do think Middle America has its virtues- such as economic rationality, and as I've said, I wish both subcultures would learn from each other. Ultimately, I think the culture war is destructive to both sides, and only encourages the worst in repression among the cultural right, and nihilism among the cultural left... instead of promoting mutual benefit from the creativity and tolerance promoted by one, and the clarity and economy promoted by the other.

But if the cultural right insists on a Protestant Ethic that demands repression and respectability and the marginalization of the cultural left, then I know which side I will fight to the death on. I will live in this world or none,.

As for "real artists and philosophers", this is a transparent attempt to claim artists and philosophers you approve of are "real" artists, and those artists and philosophers you do not approve of are not, without argument.

But this really sounds like the old Public Broadcasting excuse. You want to live off of being a philosopher, but nobody will pay for you. So it's their fault. The fact that you offer nothing they want is a problem with their wants, not what you have to offer.

Excuse me, I don't expect other people to support me, and you have no moral right to make these extremely insulting insinuations here- I don't care if you do administer this site. I may actually lay out my personal history for you to judge, but not for the present time, and I refuse to discuss this issue in these terms and sanction this attitude.

Otherwise, I note that I find it ridiculous that while in aesthetic matters, many Objectivists sneer down their nose at mass culture. But when it comes to business and economics, what's common and typical has to be good. I personally think both should be judged with understanding and criticism.

And you throw around the term "genius" too easily.

Maybe. I leave it to others to judge.

And finally, yes the poor are generally to blame for their poverty. And yes, under some contexts (Soviet Russia for one), it's not true. But not in this country. Not in a place where wealth mobility is so common. Not in a land where anyone can get a college education, and there is such a lack of engineers, scientists, and doctors that they have to important most of them from other countries, and they pay very well.

1) Relative freedom and justice does not say anything about absolute freedom and justice.

2) Social mobility to the technical professions says nothing about the tolerance for creativity and nonconformity. BTW, why is it there is a lack of Americans interested in becoming engineers, scientists, and doctors under the current terms?

3) As others have mentioned, the most money is in the most state-controlled (and most socially conformist) sectors of the economy- banking and real estate- I add law and medicine. Leonard Peikoff wrote a very good article in the 80s arguing that virtue was all but choked out of the medical profession; things have not gotten better. As for law, if you wish to argue that financial success in law positively correlates with virtue, please go right ahead.

4) Incidentally, I suppose you are committed then to maintaining that 6-figure multicultist college professors, 'caterwauling' rock stars, and mass-paperback writers are (generally) virtuous? What about escorts?- I could be very wealthy if that was my motive, yet I do not assume you respect my profession. If not, why is criticizing the social institutions or moral climate of these businesses any more reasonable than my criticism of the moral climate of more conventional businesses?

But it still takes trading value for value. And those with nothing to offer will always curse those who don't want it.

Those with everything will always find ways to rationalize its reflection of their moral virtue.

No, I don't believe this. But the injustice of this statement is no worse than reverse-Marxist well-poisoning of yours.

Post 53

Wednesday, December 1, 2004 - 6:06pm

Andre and Jeanine immediately took this to mean that the amount of material wealth an individual possesses is proportionate to his rational capacity. Both of them being philosophical intellectuals, they scoffed at the notion that uncreative corporate chumps and trust fund babies (which is clearly their conception of the wealthy) possess a greater capacity for thought than them, and therefore they took issue with the quote.

Where they are mistaken, as has already been pointed out, is that thought is required merely to produce wealth, not necessarilly to acquire or inheirit it. A family fortune wasn't infinitely inherited through generation before generation; someone somewhere along the way was enterprising enough to generate a massive amount of wealth, and by his choice passed it on to his future progeny. If you meet any respectable self-made person - and you're honest with yourself - you will quickly see that the "wealth is luck" or "wealth is immoral" gambits are false.

Pete-

Actually, I have specifically denied, on at least two occasion, objecting to the truth of Rand's words as such. For instance, here: http://solohq.com/Forum/Quotes/0454_1.shtml#20.

And I have specifically said that I believe the wealthy (minus a small elite of extreme wealth whom I reserve complex judgement on) are much like the rest of the population- no more, no less. I also haven't, to my knowledge, made any reference to "trust fund babies" at all.

What I am denying is that the best get on top. I think there are some vectors in our society which reward the best within us, some which punish the best within us, and some which have no relation to virtue. I simply no not think society particularly supports the most beautiful aspects of the human spirit- particularly art and philosophy. And I have repeatedly stressed that the problem is not with a free market, but with a Protestant Ethic with little use for spiritual innovation, and with the mixed economy, which supports an established corporate order but chokes off many venues to independence.

Discipline and delayed gratification are essential virtues to financial security.

Authenticity, integrity, and an openness to insight and experience are necessary virtues of artistic production. I have no objection to the virtues Rand lists in Galt's speech, but they focus much on the Lockean-Hobbesian questions of health and wealth, and do less justice to passion and beauty.

As for discipline, that depends what you mean. If you mean rational planning, I agree. If you mean restraint and repression of emotions, authenticity, or expressivity, I disagree.

As for delayed gratification, it's only logical value can be towards a superior gratification that is not delayed. Holding "delayed" gratification is of value in itself is exactly as rational as revering "delayed" creation because one can'r produce well without intelligently planning meals and a night's sleep. The value of delayed gratification for delayed gratification's sake is nonsense, a way for the bourgeois version of altruism to dodge the fact that it's actually gratification- enjoyment, pleasure, happiness- that the Protestant Ethic fears and despises.

What we need is the rational planning of gratification- the intelligent living of a life that is both a continuous, structured pursuit of joy and the shameless congruent indulgence in the pleasures of the moment that are part of the good life. I have no admiration for mindless grabbing of any pleasure in sight at the cost of a ruined life, but I have not the slightest bit more respect for the mindless postponement of every pleasure in sight, which also leads to the ruin of life. The bourgeois moralists can hollar all they want to this isn't want they mean- but their actually reflex of hatred to any present enjoyment that admits openly that it is enjoyment (instead of sublimating joy into a moral virtue such as 'achievement') speaks volumes otherwise. Altruists pretend they aren't against personal happiness too, but the fact they try to kill it on reflex proves their real motives as well.

The 'virtue' of "delayed gratification" means exactly what is says: it is good in itself to put off pleasure. This is evil, and I do not hesitate from applying that label those Objectivists (the Objectivist Center comes to mind) who dare call their philosophy a program for human happiness and yet support bourgeois culture without selectivity or criticism.

People skills are also essential. If you want to generate a very large income, you must be prepared to effectively manage a division of labor process. (I omit, without intended malice, the next few paragraphs explicating the virtues required for successful big business)

I actually do not disagree with any of this, at least in principle... I don;t have the specialist's knowledge to judge in entirety. I respect the commercial virtues, and have no difficulty admiring successful businesspeople who really do possess a creative fire. There are real Dagny Taggarts and Henry Reardens in the world, and I respect them. But that does not prevent me from saying that the general culture of today's business world is stultifyingly and irrationally conformist, or that today's economy resembles the crony corporate capitalism of Orren Boyle and James Taggart as much as the capitalism of the libertarian free market- which Ayn Rand rightly called an 'unknown ideal'.

All power and respect to the productive businesspersons, but no respect whatsoever to the culture of today's business as a fallicious inference from the observation that wealth, qua wealth, is a good thing and takes virtue to produce. And less than no respect for those who blame people for being poor as a general principle, without serious investigation into the causes and reasons for that individual's being poor.

Post 54

Wednesday, December 1, 2004 - 6:09pm

The Objectivist's definition of wealth would be, one's capacity for achieving life and happiness. Posessions and money are one aspect of objective wealth, but hardly the sum. There are many things that people do for money, which in fact are injurious to their happiness and life. Peter Keating wasted his life designing schlocky structures because that was what other people paid him to do. He earned piles of money, but was this money, in objective relation to his own happiness, wealth?

Msr. Reed-

I'm very sympathetic to the morality you embody here, and if you mean to define wealth as synonymous with the total sum of the mental and spiritual goods of a good life, I infinitely agree. However, there still needs to be a concept for financial wealth as such, and I know of no good reason not to use the term in this sense. Since Objectivists do often assume that those with purely financial wealth are likely to be more virtuous people, implying that the poor are generally unvirtuous, and erasing the concept of those who are impoverished through no fault of their own, or for their virtues- forcing a presumption of guilt upon those who are poor, I think it is unavoidable to use the term 'wealth' in a more narrow sense.

But I reiterate, I quite agree with and admire your Epicurean or eudaimonistic conception of the good life. I myself do not consider wealth (in the narrow sense) to be the true measure of my goods in life, although I certainly prefer plenty over poverty all things equal, and expect once I get my business fully established I will maintain an urban middle class standard of living (though certainly not a middle-class style of living)- and as my profession permits, devote the rest of my time to leisure.

Post 55

Wednesday, December 1, 2004 - 6:10pm

As a "poor" musician myself, I have to weigh in here. I don't make much money, but I hardly consider myself a "starving artist". I have tried higher paying jobs, but personally have not found much satisfaction emotionally or rationally there, and find myself attracted to book stores. [etc.]

Joe-

I concur with those who have said they admire your life, and shine on! And I concur that our relative economic liberty, to the degree it exists, is a boon to artists. And I certainly don;t deny that some true creators manage to do somewhere in between hanging in there and thriving, and I think that's wonderful. But many others don't, often because the institutions of established business- like those higher paying jobs you could not find satisfaction in- are in too many cases alien and hostile to the creative spirit. I would just reiterate, I have seen people of wonderful creativity be ruined in this culture. And this is a serious evil, one that those who trumpet today's business culture as the body and blood of the Virtue of Selfishness are collaborating with. I merely with to have us remember that the creativity that led Howard Roark to walk out of employer after employer has its analogues among the cultural left- in fact, largely is the cultural left. Let us admire those who can flourish (I'll likely be one of them). But so many are left behind.

Oh, and I love book stores too. My last job was selling used books online over the internet; in trade jargon I was a weasely 'book scout', a term that carried only a little more respect than 'whore'. (I did like the work, but it didn't provide enough passion and took too much of my time and energy)

Oh, and email me your web page where you sell CDs. When I'm more wealthy, I'd love to hear your music.

Post 56

Wednesday, December 1, 2004 - 6:12pm

Well, �as it could be and ought to be� and all. :-)

And thank you�your reply here makes your position clear to me, as well as making it hopefully clear to everyone that you do indeed belong on this site.

Msr. Leseul-

Well you're quite welcome. As for "is and ought to be"- I'm personally more romantic symbolist and not romantic realist, but I certainly admire, qua novelist, Rand's artistic credo. With no slight, I just want to point out that one of the promises of romantic realism is that it can show that life could be- in this living world- as romanticism portrays. My only regret with Rand here is that unlike the rest of the Fountainhead, I don't feel she really showed this outcome was a world one could create- that twelve people in all the compromises and resentments of ordinary life would disregard fact and law and jury nullify to set a Promethean demigod like Roark, not of their kind, free. Otherwise, Rand's portrayal of Roark's career stretches my sense of artistic license- but not vastly. I merely think that there are many Roarks who end their lives as tortured Mallorys- as Cameron did, many who survive in a bit battered spirit, and a few who triumph. Roark has been a great inspiration to me, and the Fountainhead has pulled me through at least one dark night of the soul. I just don't believe it's promise is a gaurantee, and I have seen too many who shared Roark's fire perish in screaming sadness to forget that Rand tells one half of life; Victor Hugo, the other half.

So, how do you believe that a libertarian political philosophy can be best presented to left-leaning creative artists? What do we have to offer them that can compete (in their minds) with the siren's call of socialism?

Stop linking libertarian politics to the Protestant Ethic!
Stop linking libertarian politics to the Protestant Ethic!
Stop linking libertarian politics to the Protestant Ethic!

Forgive me, but for once my words scream in simple clarity!

Beyond that, what does libertarianism have to offer? In a word, everything. First of all, freedom. An utterly principles commitment to the defense of art from the sexual, religious, and familial orthodoxies that threaten art. A sense of truly unlimited roads- there was a time when a Shelley, a Goethe, an Ibsen could be inspired by the bright promise of a liberal future, without feeling a need to worship at the altar of business-as-usual convention. Let's remember the stance of Ibsen's Dr. Stockman, "a man is strongest when he stands alone". Let us remember that this artist was not afraid to defend heated individualism against the petty, cowardly convention and dishonesty of the businessmen of the type represented by Aslaksen.

What else? Properly understood, a pure sense of revolt, unsullied by the hypocrisy of begging the state for help- leftist artists aren't able to be very proud about admitting this. THe offer of freedom not only from repressive conservatisms but from the altruist need to subjugate art to politics- the best leftist artists- I think of Tony Kushner today, have often lamented privately they do better art when they are free from political duties.

Above all- artists usually think of themselves as free spirits- even the cultured classical conservatives of the Yeats and Eliot variety. Show them that they can trust themselves to make it under freedom, stop lecturing artists that it's "their fault" if they don't succeed under vicious Protestant Ethics- and tell them that under real individualism, which is not bourgeois convention, the artistic spirit will neither be compromise nor triumph but has a good chance to survive and a fair sense to triumph.

Above all, show them that the cause of egoism against altruism in the morality of economy is the same fight as the cause of desire against the bourgeois in the morality of authenticity. I think many people here might be surprised at how many artistic types, leftist, whom I know, will suddenly treat libertarianism respectfully and start listening when it's clear that one can respect and admire the cry for authenticity against the crushing convention that artists usually meet in the form of family, business, and morality despising them in the name of the 'business' of the so-called 'real-world'.

I think a good place to start is to share with leftists artists a book called the Fountainhead *without* telling them its a book about capitalism. I've done this many times, and several cultural leftists have said they felt deeply touched by its presentation of the struggle of artistic integrity. The capitalism came later. Two people I've known have become in this way committed libertarians.

I hope that answers.

Post 57

Wednesday, December 1, 2004 - 6:12pm

Jeanine,

Let's just take a look at this little argument. Andre says that wealth is a sign of luck or immorality. I disagree with him, and suggest he's rationalizing his poverty. You jump to his defense. I take that to mean, quite clearly, that you are defending the position that wealth is based on luck or immorality. You've now tried to turn it around to try to say that I'm arguing that wealth automatically means virtue. Shall I take the sudden turning of the discussion to mean you no longer want to say that wealth is immoral?

It's simple, and doesn't need a 3000 word response. Do you think that wealth is gained through luck or immorality? Yes or no?

Post 58

Wednesday, December 1, 2004 - 6:15pm

Jeanine, I thoroughly enjoyed your first post even at its length. You strike me as a character from Homer or Victor Hugo. You are noticed. Please take that as a compliment.

Msr. Moore-

You offer one of the noblest compliments I have ever received, and I take it as such and am honored- let me hope to deserve it. And this sistren of Circe and Calypso does love both authors. Let me merely say, if my profession makes any think of Fontine, that life- the Life- has not has killed the dream I dream, and that is what I intend to show the world.

Post 59

Wednesday, December 1, 2004 - 6:17pm