| | RCR wrote (post 209):
-- "In other words, I think for Rand, neither nature nor nurture is going to get you to the top of the mountain, only the on- going choice to think well will get one to the *summit* of ability.
-- "Now, even having said this, the question remains, did Rand think that *anyone* could become or achieve 'genius'? Personally, I think Rand *wanted* very much to believe this, as it is somewhat key to her optimistic view of humanity, but as Ellen has hinted, she may have been swayed later in life, at least on a semi-unconscious level, as the quality of her company waned..."
I can't say I sign on to describing Rand's view of humanity as "optimistic." Instead, I think she always had a strong streak of pessimism as regards humanity at large. ("Do they ever think?" - Dagny to the cigarette vendor, etc., etc., etc. I suppose this opens another can of worms.) But I would say that it's intimately connected to her views about volition and the self-madeness of people's "souls" (not using that in a religious sense but in the sense in which Rand used it).
However Christian is correct in indicating that my belief is that her views as to her achievements coming from "honesty" hardened as she aged and came to feel increasingly bitter and estranged from the culture. Leonard Peikoff directly refers to the cultural context (her being "a genius trapped in a rotten culture") in his "My Thirty Years with Ayn Rand," the relevant section of which I quoted in post 109.
As to the Mozart issue, Bill, the source of her views there is me recalling things Allan Blumenthal said -- see my posts 86 and 88. In psychology courses I took with Allan during the first half of the '70s, he talked about that, and I probed him for details in private questionings. (I did a lot of probing of Allan on issues pertaining to music and Rand's views of various musicians, as well as on issues of the Objectivist theory of volition, with which I never felt satisfied.) Her opinions re specifically Mozart are complexified by her not having understood anyway what the fuss is about Mozart. She was not musically inclined herself and she didn't hear what it is that arouses awe at Mozart's gift.
But even in regard to composers whom she did consider to be musical geniuses (e.g., Rachmaninoff, Tschaikovsky, Chopin), her view was that the musical ability came from an interest chosen as a child and then pursued, analogous to her having chosen at an early age to become a writer and then worked at the craft. She didn't seem to credit the idea of there being a "musical mind" sort of like a mania seizing its possessor, turning its possessor into a servant of the muse. (I'm exaggerating there for effect, but there are cases where it does seem rather like a person "possessed." Consider for instance Schubert, a striking example, and his feeling of being driven, of having to compose, as if he was almost a transcribing machine. He'd even wake in the middle of the night feeling impelled to write down music. Or Schumann is another who felt driven to compose. And Mozart himself described the music as coming to him, as if it was there and he heard it rather than "making" it.)
A relevant story is the one told of Frank O'Connor and how he started painting. On one of the occasions when the Collective was gathered (this was prior to the publication of Atlas), Joan Blumenthal claimed that anyone could be taught to draw competently and offered to support the claim by giving drawing lessons. Frank became enthused and pursued the interest. Similarly, Rand thought that anyone (within limits: barring mental retardation or other disability -- anyone "normal") could become competent at music and that some became especially interested early, that there wasn't need of a further factor of a particular type of mind. I think she was wrong about this.
Ellen
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