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Monday, November 29, 2004 - 10:49pmSanction this postReply
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For the most part, wealth today is a product of which country a man is born in and how much money and power his parents have. As for the rest, it's mostly a product of his capacity and willingness to cater to the bad tastes and low class of the massman -- and to pander to the lowest common denominator. 

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Monday, November 29, 2004 - 11:00pmSanction this postReply
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So Andre, wealth is a matter of luck or immorality?  Sounds to me like you're poor and looking to rationalize it.


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Tuesday, November 30, 2004 - 12:44amSanction this postReply
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"Analyze" not rationalize.

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Post 3

Tuesday, November 30, 2004 - 2:10amSanction this postReply
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So Andre, wealth is a matter of luck or immorality?  Sounds to me like you're poor and looking to rationalize it.
Now, hold it.  If Andre is talking about an inevitable nature of wealth, on a macroeconomical scale, I do disagree with him.  Wealth, as a function of 'philosophically objective value' in society, is all things equal the product of human action; i.e.the application of the human mind to reality.  I have no quarrel with Rand here.

But all things are very seldom equal.  They certainly are not in 2004 C.E.

If Andre is talking about 'wealth' in the sense of economic success on the micro level, I largely agree with him.  Let us remember that today's neofascist corporate order is a far cry- in principle- from a free market economy.   Let us remember the realistic stress on the importance of "fortune" emphasized by the very worldly and very commercial men who established modernity in the Renassaince.  Let us also remember that rather free economies have historically felt privileged to smile while the true fiery meteors on the Earth crashed and burned.

Van Gogh was condemned to poverty without any need for society to express its hatred of the good through statism.  Kafka was rewarded economically as an outwardly conforming businessman- while the world rejected his novels enough he begged Max Brod they be burned.  Nietzsche lived in garrets and barely saw a year of respect for his works before going insane.

The phenomena of genius scorned and punished is such a prevalent phenomena- and one hardly unknown to Rand- that I am shocked and appalled that Objectivism has managed to assume this Panglossian 'conventional wisdom' of easy assurance that virtue will bring success.  Especially given all of the subtle and not-so-subtle privileged establishments in this mixed economy, I would hope that the philosophy of Prometheus tortured on the Caucas rock would stand by the Steven Mallorys of the world above the Peter Keatings.  I am disgusted to say that in my life I have seen this precious far from the case.

Historically, all artists and philosophers have not been rejected into poverty- but those who have not have been favored for all the wrong reasons.  Indeed, from Aristotle onward, the entire tradition of the liberal arts has been uneasily concerned with the question of how activities done in one's individual pursuit of nobility can be reconciled with economic necessity.  Court patronage (with all its spiritual dangers of flattery), commerce (Thales, the first philosopher, predicted a grape harvest and cornered the market on wine presses; Spinoza tediously ground lenses), and democratic popularizing (with the dangers of shallowness) have all been tried.  Aristotle, incidentally, advocated being born rich- and when pushed maintaining leisure on the backs of slave labor.

Dealing with philosophy in particular, Leo Strauss has shown that the question of a dubious relation to civil society is inseparable from the mainline tradition of Western philosophy, and that the question of support- and survival- is inseparable from the political programs of both ancients and moderns.  The former supported aristocracy, preferring the appeasement of status and keeping their radicalism laced beneath courtly pieties; the latter promoted democracy, preferring the  economy of mass society and presenting their wisdom in the disjointed form of functional utility.  In each case, a trade off, and a price.  I personally lack the taste for acid to spell out the analogies that come first to my own mind.

The blunt fact is that society, as a whole, does not necessarily pay for those who challenge and affront its most basic spiritual values- one is quite lucky is one isn't burned or hemlocked for one's trouble.  Some geniuses find that their time is come and strike the right note and hit a market- Rand is an obvious example, and more power to them!  But even Rand had to struggle for years, and it is a very close alternative universe where shaky publishers let the Fountainhead crash as they betrayed We the Living.

So let me conclude: let there be no claims that the perception of the injustice of the spiritual market must be some "rationalization for being poor".  If one is to have any feeling for the arts, for philosophy, or for that matter for honest science and invention in a world where access to funding is largely restricted to the state and its established corporatisms- then let us not blame the victim of the creative genius caught in agony between the clashing rocks of a need for leisure only wealth can provide, and societies where no amount of effort will acquire wealth unless one pays in soul's blood of conformity and routine.  There is no promise of Horatio Alger in this story.  Walk past the withered corpse of van Gogh in the gutter, O good preachers of success, before you deliver lectures on the ignobility of poverty.

I speak with some experience.  Once I tried to live by poetry and philosophy, trusting that the best product of my own mind would be recognized in truth by the world.  The result was that I lost five years of my life to sickness that was repeatedly refused treatment because it was deemed psychosomatic; the 'obvious' symptoms being my (gender) nonconformity and 'irresponsible' poverty.  The metaphysics involved was the best of our most precious positivist science; the morality involved the most responsible of Protestant Ethics.  I went to the moralists of rationalism and the free-market; what I heard was that my unemployment and illness was an index of my guilt, and proof of the irresponsibility of my nonconformity.

Eventually I found modern cultural leftists and ancient philosophers who had a clue about the actual relation of creativity to established society.  I learned my lesson and the use of my wits- and to my astonishment, a whole new world of creativity than the one I once sought.  Now I have no poverty to rationalize. 

All that is gold does not glitter.

my precise regards,
                            v
                            *
Jeanine Ring     )O(


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Post 4

Tuesday, November 30, 2004 - 2:54amSanction this postReply
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Andre, I meant rationalize.  There is no analysis there.  You've given no reason to suggest that luck or immorality are the only choices.  It's an excuse.  And given that I'm surrounded by self-made people who are wealthy due to intelligence and hard-work, I have to conclude it's a bad excuse.

Jeanine, your posts are longer than I appreciate.  Your point, if I may summarize, is that geniuses are often unrecognized.  And that is supposed to somehow prove that Andre is right and that luck or immorality are the only choices.  There is no connection between the two.  Even if geniuses were routinely rounded up and killed, it wouldn't even come close to suggesting that there was no way to become wealthy without being immoral.

I would expect these kind of arguments from socialists.  In fact, I've heard them from socialists.  They want to blame "the system" for their own poverty, and they can't be bothered with actually working to make a living.  Do either of you really think the vast majority of the people in the US work at immoral jobs?  Or do you just hate rich people?

Is virtue a guarantee of reward?  Hell no!  Of course not.  But in the long term, it's a pretty damn reliable way to.  That's why it's virtuous.

And insisting that the only way to make money is to sell out is a quick way to find yourself in the poor house.



Post 5

Tuesday, November 30, 2004 - 3:50amSanction this postReply
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Andre wrote:

>>  For the most part, wealth today is a product of which country a man is born in and how much money and power his parents have.

Sorry, I cannot agree. My parents (parent actually as my mother died when I was a baby) had no power or money to speak of, but I am now financially well-off, if not 'wealthy'.  I got to this position of relative wealth through working damn hard at any job I had and pursuing whatever opportunities crossed my path, despite having left school at 17 with virtually no qualifications.  This is not meant as a 'rags to riches' type tear-jerker, but simply as a factual rebuttal of the kind of deterministic thinking set out above. 

I find statements like this incredibly sad (in the old-fashioned sense), and am so glad that I was not exposed to such thinking as a naive but optimistic 17 year old.  Who knows what kind of sad (in the new-fashioned sense) existence I might now have if I had been.


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Tuesday, November 30, 2004 - 3:53amSanction this postReply
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And yes, sorry, but Jeanine's posts do seem to be absurdly long!

Post 7

Tuesday, November 30, 2004 - 5:30amSanction this postReply
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My point is not that wealth is always earned unjustly, but that there are as many reasons why genius will lead one to be penalized as rewarded.

As for whether everyone who succeeds in this system is corrupt, no.  But I do know that the institutions of our system- corporations, families, universities- require compromises that I, personally, was not willing to make.  And I have seen many others I greatly admired destroyed by the same requirements to compromise, wither because they burned out, gave up, or gave in.  Here in California, I know a large number of people in another group, people who found a way not to compromise, but did so accepting a restricted level of public success- geniuses who will die as footnotes and folk history.

There are those for whom the prices one pays in cultural assimilation to have a chance at mainstream success do not seem to great; I understand and appreciate that.  I have paid my own prices, ones I know most people would abhor paying, but they aren't prices that matter so much to my own history and psychology.  That said, I would at least ask those who speak of success within the system to at least question whether there were any parts of themselves they had to disown to take part in that world.  For some of us, who dimply could not exist is the gender identities required by mainstream institutions, those prices were prohibitive.

As for hard work leading to success, I don't doubt it can.  The fact that it's possible to have the social mobility to achieve middle class wealth from poverty is a good thing.  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.  Nor do I make apologies if I find it necessary to defend authenticity and the eros of the liberal arts against those who celebrate suit-and-tie Middle America and care nothing for the conformity or intolerance it exacts.

As for socialism- well, as long as socialists show more appreciation for the dissident and creative artist, and more antagonism for the constraints and conformities of Protestant Ethic bourgeois culture, than do libertarians or Objectivists... then don't be surprised if the artistic spirit stays with the left.  I respect reason and economics and remain an Enlightenment libertarian by conviction, but my convictions do not translate into unqualified love of my mind's company.  If the issue is forced, and I fear our culture war eventually will force it, I will choose the cultural left over a bourgeois libertarian right, for I have discovered I prize my happiness over my philosophy.

Otherwise, one further note to follow.
                            v
                            *
Jeanine Ring     )O(


Post 8

Tuesday, November 30, 2004 - 5:39amSanction this postReply
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I feel amazed that this quote created any controversy at all within the confines of SOLO HQ!  This site continues to surprise me.

Post 9

Tuesday, November 30, 2004 - 6:05amSanction this postReply
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The blunt fact is that society, as a whole, does not necessarily pay for those who challenge and affront its most basic spiritual values- one is quite lucky is one isn't burned or hemlocked for one's trouble.


Do you see this as being as true of our present culture as of that of Socrates or Van Gogh? From my experience, our culture seems to be rather less hostile to those who challenge cultural norms than that of earlier eras—I commonly hear people praise works of art with phrases like “It makes you think” or “It makes you look at things another way.” The DaVinci Code, for example, is a book about which I hear these things, and it's sat at the top of the bestseller list for something like a year now. (Of course, I haven't read it, so it might just be mass-appeal pulp, but that's the evaluation of it that I hear.) Also, artists who might have gone unrecognized in another era have a lot more resources available to them today—publishers and printers are far more accessable to the common man than ever before, not to mention the even greater power of the Internet. Now, I don't doubt that your familiarity with the more artistic side of our culture is greater than mine—do you still see artists today dying the death of Van Gogh, or do you believe that our culture has progressed?

What, furthermore, do you see as the solution to the historical mistreatment of artists? Do you believe it requires changes to our sociopolitical institutions (i.e., capitalism, which is the typical scapegoat), or to our cultural expectations?

Also, I'm glad that you bring up the name of Steven Mallory, since The Fountainhead pretty directly addresses these issues—and the position taken by Rand there is that even in a hostile culture, an artist who maintains his integrity and refuses to make compromises with that society—who chooses, even, to suffer in labor at the quarry instead of living on the terms of that society—will ultimately be successful and recognized by those who matter.

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Tuesday, November 30, 2004 - 6:13amSanction this postReply
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As for socialism- well, as long as socialists show more appreciation for the dissident and creative artist, and more antagonism for the constraints and conformities of Protestant Ethic bourgeois culture, than do libertarians or Objectivists... then don't be surprised if the artistic spirit stays with the left.


Thank you. This is one of the more important comments I've seen on here.

This is exactly why I believe that an organization like SOLO is so important to the promotion of Objectivism, and why those like ARI, possibly TOC, and probably The Autonomist from what I've seen of it are so detrimental to it.

Post 11

Tuesday, November 30, 2004 - 6:17amSanction this postReply
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Wealth is built on thought and action. Now, that does not mean that action, even virtue, will *necessarily* produce wealth. Thats not what she is saying at all.
Genius can go unrewarded. That doesnt mean Rand was wrong.


John

Post 12

Tuesday, November 30, 2004 - 6:36amSanction this postReply
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Jeanine, you wrote:

"As for socialism- well, as long as socialists show more appreciation for the dissident and creative artist, and more antagonism for the constraints and conformities of Protestant Ethic bourgeois culture, than do libertarians or Objectivists... then don't be surprised if the artistic spirit stays with the left."

Your posts often say in 500 words what could be said in 50. In the past I have thought that was simply a matter of style. Lately though, I am concluding otherwise. The statement above does not require a 1000 word explanation, as it speaks for itself, and quite badly. Socialists show more appreciation for the dissident and creative artists??? Please!

John

Post 13

Tuesday, November 30, 2004 - 6:55amSanction this postReply
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Jeanine, you wrote: "Nor do I make apologies if I find it necessary to defend authenticity and the eros of the liberal arts against those who celebrate suit-and-tie Middle America and care nothing for the conformity or intolerance it exacts."

Suit and tie middle America is what makes the creation of wealth possible. Suit and tie middle America does not support, fund, or patronize the arts. It purchases what it wants in trade, and leaves the rest. That is the nature of trade. Middle America suit and tie producers, managers, *capitalists* exact conformity and intolerance? Well yes. Conformity to the goals (production and trade), and intolerance of anything that gets in the way of that. There is a context for everything.

John

Post 14

Tuesday, November 30, 2004 - 7:03amSanction this postReply
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Jeanine, your posts are longer than I appreciate.
Well, as management of this site, you have the right and the power to moderate me if you choose.  If you do so, I will quietly leave.  Please understand however, that I do not wish to post here if I am expected to 'watch myself', and posting lengthily is the only style in which can be authentic expression.  I will speak in my own voice, or none.  So, might a lady ask if she may write these words here, since she'd like to know if this space is yours or hers by permission?  I wouldn't want to be accused of stealing anything.
  Your point, if I may summarize, is that geniuses are often unrecognized.  And that is supposed to somehow prove that Andre is right and that luck or immorality are the only choices.  There is no connection between the two.  Even if geniuses were routinely rounded up and killed, it wouldn't even come close to suggesting that there was no way to become wealthy without being immoral.
I am not necessarily agreeing with Andre's point- I am unsure of his precise meaning.  But I find the notion that wealth is the index of success to be, frankly, repulsive.

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.
I would expect these kind of arguments from socialists.  In fact, I've heard them from socialists.  They want to blame "the system" for their own poverty, and they can't be bothered with actually working to make a living.  Do either of you really think the vast majority of the people in the US work at immoral jobs?  Or do you just hate rich people?

I think the majority, not vast majority of people in America conform in ways that destroys a significant part of their creative potential- I hasten to say that it has been worse or far worse throughout most of recorded history.

And no, I don't hate rich people.  With the exception of a small elite of the extremely rich who really do comprise a different culture (who I have complicated opinions about), I find wealthy people to have much the same range of humanity, good and bad, as those with less wealth- no worse, and no better.

Or at least, that has been my impression from spending time in bed with a fair sample.

What I have found is that those who try to avoid the mainstream tracks of the system, for instance via alternative cultures, have a much more colorful, passionate, and unrepressed sense of expression- and I think that's a good thing.  I don't thus necessarily say they may not be deficient in other virtues, but I do maintain that mainstream bourgeois culture prunes some aspects of the human spirit.  For those who want to personally explore and express those particular potentials, this can be a disaster.
Is virtue a guarantee of reward?  Hell no!  Of course not.  But in the long term, it's a pretty damn reliable way to.  That's why it's virtuous.

This drops the context of... under what system.  Virtue doesn't gaurantee reward under evil systems such as Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia- such systems destroy and mutilate the best within them.  That's why they're vicious.  Now, contemporary America is not Soviet Russia.  But it's not a free society either, not a rational one.  It's a mixed economy.  So we can expect mixed  rewards for vice and virtue.  And considering that America has a Puritan, Protestant Ethic history and culture goes a far more hostile to the spiritual  personal, artistic, expressive creativity than the material aspect of productivity, we can expect American culture to tend to be more vicious in regards to spiritual creation than in regards to the material form.
And insisting that the only way to make money is to sell out is a quick way to find yourself in the poor house.

Well, I, personally, am neither in the poorhouse, nor headed for it- and incidentally, although I had a wealthy upbringing, I had far from an advantaged childhood.  I have had my luck, but I am now engaging in quite a bit of bootstrapping by high heels, and those who doubt this is real work should actually experience what dedicating oneself to the Life entails- we do not call it that for nothing.

And, incidentally, I think the poor house can sometimes be honorable, and the mansion sometimes dishonorable.  As for the view that the poor are generally to blame for their misery, I seem to have heard it somewhere before.

I have heard such protestations every day for twenty years
Let's have no more explanations,
save your breath! and save your tears
     Honest work, just reward,
     That's the way to please the Lord

(Javert, Les Miserables musical)

Nothing changes.

                            v
                            *
Jeanine Ring     )O(

(Edited by Jeanine Ring on 11/30, 9:53am)


Post 15

Tuesday, November 30, 2004 - 7:07amSanction this postReply
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Jeanine said:
As for socialism- well, as long as socialists show more appreciation for the dissident and creative artist, and more antagonism for the constraints and conformities of Protestant Ethic bourgeois culture, than do libertarians or Objectivists... then don't be surprised if the artistic spirit stays with the left.  I respect reason and economics and remain an Enlightenment libertarian by conviction, but my convictions do not translate into unqualified love of my mind's company.  If the issue is forced, and I fear our culture war eventually will force it, I will choose the cultural left over a bourgeois libertarian right, for I have discovered I prize my happiness over my philosophy.

Unbelievable.


Post 16

Tuesday, November 30, 2004 - 7:27amSanction this postReply
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Suit and tie middle America is what makes the creation of wealth possible. Suit and tie middle America does not support, fund, or patronize the arts. It purchases what it wants in trade, and leaves the rest. That is the nature of trade. Middle America suit and tie producers, managers, *capitalists* exact conformity and intolerance? Well yes. Conformity to the goals (production and trade), and intolerance of anything that gets in the way of that. There is a context for everything.
Msr. Newnham-

There is nothing in the logic of material production that demands a culture of corporate conformity epitomized by 'Dilbert', or a bourgeois ethic that denies the value of authenticity.  There is no reason why one should have to look identical to everyone else and act 'respectably' to produce wealth- the merchants of the ancient and the Renassaince managed to produce wealth nicely without it.  "Middle America'- with its Protestant Ethic and family values, means a repression of spirit that is anything but productive.

And as for context... well, the content of a different kind of production suggest that those of us who prefer the 'creativity' half of the virtue- spiritual production- might be similarly intolerant of everything involved in Middle America, because the conditions for *our* production or antithetical to *your* culture.  Those who made jazz, or rock music, or the sexual revolution, or feminism, or gay liberation, created just as much value as the capitalists, and just as much contribution to human happiness.  There is a context for that as well.

Personally, I would like to see both worlds loosen up, integrate, and learn to respect one another.  There's no inherent reason capitalists could not come to the office without their culture of conformity, and I see no reason the counterculture couldn't learn to do some freakin' math.  I personally respect the value of commerce greatly; I am after, all a businessperson.

And as for my art- I'm working on a poem that's 24 pages long at 10 point type right now, and hope to write novels someday- I have not asked anyone to patronize me.  I am an independent; I trade value for value- trading the spectacle and pleasure of a fantasy persona in exchange, ultimately, for leisure.  That was always the theory once used to justify royalty and luxury, except I work purely be voluntary trade.  And that is the only honest aristocracy.

my regards,
                            v
                            *
Jeanine Ring     )O(
stand forth!


Post 17

Tuesday, November 30, 2004 - 7:36amSanction this postReply
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Jeanine, you wrote: "I am an independent; I trade value for value- trading the spectacle and pleasure of a fantasy persona in exchange, ultimately, for leisure."

And for that, I salute you, Jeanine.

John

Post 18

Tuesday, November 30, 2004 - 8:09amSanction this postReply
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For the most part, wealth today is a product of which country a man is born in and how much money and power his parents have. As for the rest, it's mostly a product of his capacity and willingness to cater to the bad tastes and low class of the massman -- and to pander to the lowest common denominator.
The assertion carries some truth.  When you consider fastfood, so-called "utility" vehicles, and fashions in clothing, it is pretty clear that most people are not deep thinkers. In our high-tech society, most wealth still comes from real estate and banking, two of the most heavily governmentalized and conservative markets.  One of my hobbies is numismatics -- what most people call "coin collecting" -- and there is no doubt that you can make a lot of money selling worthless baubles to idiots.
 
The best thing about "being here now" is that you, the producer, do have a choice, in fact, many choices.  To take the last point first, there are dealers who only traffic in truly relevant collectibles and they succeed because there are educated collectors who want only the best and will pay for it.  (The price differences between "worst" and "best" are often less than an order of magnitude.)  So, that is one perhaps trivial example of whether you, as a producer of wealth, want to take the quick route or the high road.
 
My other hobby is aviation.  For many reasons, the fact is that most Certified Flight Instructors (CFIs) are just young people, passing through this stage in their careers, on their way to the airlines.  They have little passion for teaching.  They typically earn $10 to $20 per hour, with the low end being more common.  This might be the Iron Law of Wages in action.  However, there are others who earn much more.  (See my essay, "The $75 per Hour CFI", on www.studentpilot.com.)  They earn Master CFI or Gold Seal CFI ratings because they have a passion for education and they do not compromise.
 
Many other examples and counter-examples exist, of course.  It is not so much a matter of what other people do, or how they measure up to your standards, as who you are inside and how you deal with the world you are born into.  The book Merchants and Moneymen by Joseph Gies opens with the story of a trader in the seventh century AD in Italy, planning a trip to Constantinople.  For an objectivist, there could hardly be a worse time and place. Yet, born into that world, I could only do what I do now: live my own life by my own standards.  I might have to show up to Church regularly, but since 9/11 I have said the "Pledge of Allegiance" many times.  Going through the motions seems more rational than denouncing other people's choices.  In the words of Samhaber from Merchants Make History: a good merchant never argues religion with a client.  To me, this means that other peoples' subjective value choices are none of my business.  If I can offer them something they want, we have a meeting of the minds.  If not, then I move on.


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Post 19

Tuesday, November 30, 2004 - 8:19amSanction this postReply
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Do you see this as being as true of our present culture as of that of Socrates or Van Gogh? From my experience, our culture seems to be rather less hostile to those who challenge cultural norms than that of earlier eras—I commonly hear people praise works of art with phrases like “It makes you think” or “It makes you look at things another way.” The DaVinci Code, for example, is a book about which I hear these things, and it's sat at the top of the bestseller list for something like a year now. (Of course, I haven't read it, so it might just be mass-appeal pulp, but that's the evaluation of it that I hear.) Also, artists who might have gone unrecognized in another era have a lot more resources available to them today—publishers and printers are far more accessable to the common man than ever before, not to mention the even greater power of the Internet. Now, I don't doubt that your familiarity with the more artistic side of our culture is greater than mine—do you still see artists today dying the death of Van Gogh, or do you believe that our culture has progressed?
Msr. Leseul-

I think our society has progressed in degree- I don't doubt that, especially in that there is now a broad cultural left instead of a small Bohemia, and a 'counterculture lite' sympathy among many not-so-enthusiastic bourgeoisie.  And that's a good thing.  But the main centers of moral authority remain locked down fairly tight.  I know many people- not all of them gay or lesbian by any means- here on the West Coast who left the East Coast (which Californians seem to think includes the South and the Midwest) because they just felt choked for life where they came from.  I am one of them.

As for dying the death of Van Gogh, I speak very seriously when I say a culture that punished creativity and enthusiasm destroyed the spirits of most of my college friends, who were all humanities or liberal arts majors.  Here in San Francisco, I've known artists who literally became homeless after they couldn't make anything with music or painting. I also know for a fact that a great number of sex workers are simply women trying to support an art habit.  True, I don't think this is a horrible thing in itself, but the majority of sex workers see the Life as a terrible last resort, and only become neutral-positive towards sex work after turning out.

People joke about the career options available to liberal arts majors, but they don't really think that behind that joke lies the horror of what sometimes really does happen to those who blindly or not take the risk and invest their life in artistic passion.  Sometimes, they make it.  Sometimes, they don't.

In fairness, it really doesn't help things that the areas of the countries most culturally tolerant are also those areas which are most economically moronic.  There would be far better prospects for artists if the liberal economic controls here in California didn't choke up and skyrocket the price of the supply of jobs and housing.
What, furthermore, do you see as the solution to the historical mistreatment of artists? Do you believe it requires changes to our sociopolitical institutions (i.e., capitalism, which is the typical scapegoat), or to our cultural expectations?

Well, I would essentially say two things would be helpful:

1) Politically, the promotion, socially and economically, of a libertarian polity.  This will allow a wealthier society with more money and leisure for the appreciation for the arts, reduce the labor required for an artist to sustain her- or himself, increase the venues for economic self-support for artists, and end direct and indirect state persecution and marginalization of alternative lifestyles.

2) Culturally, it means opposing the bourgeois or Protestant Ethic, which is really a form of altruism or mixed spiritual altruism and economic rationality.  The Protestant Ethic holds that joy for its own sake is guilt, work for work's sake an inherent virtue, utility an unquestioned god, luxury a suspicion, and respectable integration into family and nation, a necessity.  Corporate conformism, sexual repression, the sex-gender system, heteronormativity, familialism, authoritarian religion- these all constitute the moral order vaguely called 'family values' which, under pro-sex feminist theory such as that of Ellen Willis, is the essence of patriarchy.  Patriarchy defines the essential unit of society as not the individual, but the nuclear family, and entrusts to it the control of 'untrustworthy' desires and impulses as the basis of civilization.  This is what generates antagonism to art and free-spirited thinking above all, and we need to uproot the moral, social, and institutional structures that define the patriarchal system, in the name of that aspect of that individualism which should demand moral sanction for desire, as egoism demands moral sanction for interest.
Also, I'm glad that you bring up the name of Steven Mallory, since The Fountainhead pretty directly addresses these issues—and the position taken by Rand there is that even in a hostile culture, an artist who maintains his integrity and refuses to make compromises with that society—who chooses, even, to suffer in labor at the quarry instead of living on the terms of that society—will ultimately be successful and recognized by those who matter.
Then why does today's Objectivism glorify those who do, like Peter Keating, choose to live on the terms of our society, and why does it not expect to find the Howard Roarks of today's world in quarries?

I honestly think a more realistic rendering of the Fountainhead would have seen Roark fight a neverending struggle that never really succeeded, and I certainly never found the jury's vindication at its conclusion believable.

But let me set this aside- I myself am finding life more benevolent that I once thought possible- by the grace of 'those who matter'.  Let me ask, what would the doctrine that poverty is guilt say to a young Howard Roark or a Steven Mallory?

And again, we don't live in the free society Rand portrays in the Fountainhead.  How many young artists have their lives destroyed after being sent to prison on a marijuana charge?  We live in the society of the housing project- and the police station- that is always a prelude to the age of the cave.

my regards,

                            v
                            *
Jeanine Ring     )O(




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