tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29196034.post7323591297724534018..comments2024-03-27T05:47:21.295-07:00Comments on Ayn Rand Contra Human Nature: Rand and Aesthetics 2Daniel Barneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06359277853862225286noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29196034.post-10922425624049032812011-03-17T09:34:45.707-07:002011-03-17T09:34:45.707-07:00Chris, that is a good definition. For a prime cont...Chris, that is a good definition. For a prime contemporary example, look at Maestro Perigo on SoloPassion. He's Mad King Ludwig of Bavaria over there, complete with chamber orchestra and periodic swoonfests.<br /><br />caroljanestuarthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05084026545492206558noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29196034.post-78878261393209197692011-03-17T08:59:31.438-07:002011-03-17T08:59:31.438-07:00I agree that Rand's idea of the "sense of...I agree that Rand's idea of the "sense of life" corresponds somewhat to innate temperament/personality.<br /><br />The other thing at issue is culture -- we grow up learning to value certain things, have certain preferences, express ourselves in certain ways through the culture we're raised in. Rand is no exception...Except that she'd never acknowledge anything she ever did as having precedent, so culture goes out the window. So she'll call it her chosen sense of life, instead.<br /><br />From what I remember of the Romantic Manifesto, "benevolent sense of life" corresponded to Western high culture from before 1900 (in the abstract, of course -- she always seemed disappointed with actual artworks. She liked Vermeer's realism, but hated that he that he chose to paint peasants and servants).<br /><br />"Malevolent sense of life" corresponded to everything else -- popular culture, Indian culture, African culture, whatever. Her appraisals of them read like uninformed chauvenism to me.<br /><br />So, in my view, benevolent sense of life = Ayn Rand's cultural upbringing + her personal idiosyncratic taste.<br /><br />- ChrisAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29196034.post-69391274650858854662011-03-17T02:17:51.056-07:002011-03-17T02:17:51.056-07:00^^
Rey,
This squares pretty accurately with my ow...^^<br />Rey,<br /><br />This squares pretty accurately with my own experience of objectivists - making some broad generalisation about some kind of art, before revealing they have no knowledge whatsoever about the subject, and when challenged about it, saying that this such knowledge is entirely unnecessary.BoiCymraeghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11746800400667840738noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29196034.post-14074669724339497112011-03-16T18:07:19.321-07:002011-03-16T18:07:19.321-07:00I would say that the trouble with "sense of l...I would say that the trouble with "sense of life" is that, unlike many of Rand's concepts, this one connects to something very real. Specifically, we all carry around assumptions (usually unchallenged and sometimes not even conscious) about how the world works and how we should live in it. These assumptions color our responses to the things we encounter, often in ways we aren't fully aware of. So when Rand talks about a sense of life, it resonates: it's a name for this bundle of deeply-rooted assumptions. <br /><br />Pretty much everything Rand says about sense of life, however, is just wrong. Its roots are not value judgments -- not exclusively or even predominantly, as Greg has discussed. Worse, reducing a complex set of assumptions to two "essentials" (i.e., benevolent or malevolent) is a massive oversimplification -- although it is characteristic of Rand, who, it seems, couldn't deal with the possibility that there might be more than two possibilities. Assuming that "sense of life" (or basic assumptions, character, personality, or whatever you want to call it) fully explains one's response to a work of art is also just plain wrong, as I suspect Greg will get into later. That's another oversimplification that ignores many other factors that go into how one responds to an experience.<br /><br />The worst intellectual crime of all may be applying this grossly oversimplified version of sense of life to make judgments of people's character based on what they think of some art work or other.Echo Chamber Escapeenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29196034.post-43616524640552210222011-03-16T12:57:31.207-07:002011-03-16T12:57:31.207-07:00Hi, from Guatemala. Excuse me my bad english, I pr...Hi, from Guatemala. Excuse me my bad english, I promise you write better later. I read this blog and take my time to analized; this blog is very useful to know the wrong of the Rand´s philosophy. Here in my country there is a university called Universidad Francisco Marroquin, where grown a group of randians... very, very mad about the novels of Ayn Rand and this world.<br /><br />Please, go on with analysis of the Rand´s philosophy... and fight her.<br /><br />Bye. Adios.C. Fajardo https://www.blogger.com/profile/03314963309751269943noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29196034.post-45643335204751313722011-03-16T12:06:09.893-07:002011-03-16T12:06:09.893-07:00Man, that phrase "sense of life" gave me...Man, that phrase "sense of life" gave me flashbacks to a conversation I had with an Objectivist over dinner.<br /><br />I was talking about my fondness for Shakespeare and what a freakin' genius he was, how his works encapsulate everything that preceded them and set the template for what was to come, his mastery of high and low language, etc.<br /><br />The Objectivist's response was "[Yawn] I appreciate all that, but I despise his sense of life." I asked him what he meant, and basically he felt that because Shakespeare's heroes were flawed and met tragic ends, Shakespeare had a malevolent sense of life. I pointed out that the whole tragic flaw leading to a catastrophic downfall is straight from Aristotle and Greek tragedy and that the Greeks had an arguably more malevolent sense of life because their heroes were crushed by fate (all of which he must have known because he translates Aristotle for a living), while Shakespeare's heroes destroy themselves through rash action or inaction or any number of other poor choices and that in the comedies, flawed characters actually change and become better, happier people.<br /><br />No matter. He admitted that he didn't know much Shakespeare (read a few tragedies (in school) and saw Branagh's HENRY V; he was dimly aware that Shakespeare wrote some sonnets or something, but had never read those), but literally with the same breath with which he admitted his ignorance, he said he didn't really need to read much Shakespeare because he had grasped his "essentials."Reynoreply@blogger.com