| | I recall that in some article about a fiction work, Rand referred to the characters speaking a "beautiful, stylized dialogue" -- the kind, she added, that people should speak in real life, but rarely do.
That captures the essence of what I believe the author of this post was driving at.
I gave a talk some years ago titled "Romanticism in Everyday Life," which dealt at length with this topic -- about the spiritual importance of stylizing one's life and actions, about creating and adding meaning to mundane tasks and routines. It is all about taking an artist's view of one's daily life: about approaching the details of everyday life just as one would a work of art, shaping and polishing that work according to standards at once aesthetic and ethical, standards which might be summarily characterized as representing "the best within us."
Of all that I associate with Ayn Rand, no single idea captures her essence more closely than this stylized -- call it "Romanticized" -- approach to living. It's what I believe that she meant when she described the "essence" of her philosophy as "Man as a heroic being."
Yet this central, core, essential aspect of Ayn Rand's outlook and spirit does not get remotely the attention that other, far more derivative aspects of her philosophy do. And it pains me when I encounter self-described Objectivists who appear to have memorized her entire system and who can regurgitate any aspect of it in a heartbeat, but who do not seem to embody, or perhaps even be aware of, that essence. I must say that for all that I gain intellectually from my encounters with Objectivists, I rarely gain as much as I'd like to spiritually. And I think that has to do with the fact that too few Objectivists seem to share that uniquely Randian outlook, and her Romantic values.
Part of my growing reluctance in recent weeks to continue to read and post much on SOLO has centered around this issue. For all the talk here of "the total passion for the total height," I have seen a great deal of passion, but not much height. Foul language, dirty jokes, ad hominems, and angry outbursts do not represent "total passion for the total height," simply because such effusions may be expressed in forceful language. In any case, "romantic" and "heroic" are not words that immediately come to mind.
That's why I liked this post on style so much. Its author reminds us of a wonderful model of class, grace, elegance, and positive, uplifting passion: Rand's incomparable fictional character, Francisco d'Anconia (who is also my personal favorite).
A thought:
I wonder what SOLO might look like -- and, by extension, what a model of Objectivism it might provide to the world -- if those posting here were to pause ten seconds before typing, think of the character of Francisco d'Anconia, and then ask themselves:
Would someone like Francisco want to read these words?
And, in considering their daily lives, they might also ask:
Would someone like Francisco care to keep my company?
(Edited by Robert Bidinotto
on 11/01, 11:46am)
|
|
