tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29196034.post4080636007358970080..comments2024-03-27T05:47:21.295-07:00Comments on Ayn Rand Contra Human Nature: Hosted from Comments: An Extract from "Art And Cognition"Daniel Barneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06359277853862225286noreply@blogger.comBlogger14125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29196034.post-36101072781595471632008-01-13T22:43:00.000-08:002008-01-13T22:43:00.000-08:00Everything is periodic once you listen to it twice...Everything is periodic once you listen to it twice.<BR/><BR/>Aesthetic conformity is death aesthetic heresy is life.<BR/><BR/>Rand’s aesthetic is pungent and decaying.Kaz Maslankahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10215535360917928880noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29196034.post-38765349763441324752007-12-26T09:59:00.000-08:002007-12-26T09:59:00.000-08:00Dragonfly,Rand may have meant "nonperiodic" as "no...Dragonfly,<BR/><BR/>Rand may have meant "nonperiodic" as "not perceivable as a musical tone," but she wasn't careful or conistent in her usage.<BR/><BR/>I recall that in one of his Modern Philosophy lectures, Leonard Peikoff made a passing reference to Arnold Schoenberg and the "liberation of the dissonance." Thinking he was being funny, Dr. Peikoff said that Schoenberg was an advocate of "Noise Lib."<BR/><BR/>Robert CampbellAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29196034.post-20130424578474480272007-12-26T04:59:00.000-08:002007-12-26T04:59:00.000-08:00About the "non-periodic vibrations": if we use the...About the "non-periodic vibrations": if we use the principle of charity, we may assume that Rand meant "non-periodic" in the sense that we perceive or don't perceive the sound as a musical tone, i.e. with a well-defined main frequency larger than about 20 Hz. Her formulation may be a bit sloppy, but I think her meaning is clear.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29196034.post-80980833048838670852007-12-23T14:24:00.000-08:002007-12-23T14:24:00.000-08:00Rand said:"A composition may demand the active ale...Rand said:<BR/><BR/>"A composition may demand the active alertness needed to resolve complex mathematical relationships -- or it may deaden the brain by means of monotonous simplicity."<BR/><BR/>Hmm... The counterpoint in Captain Beefheart's "When I See Mommy, I Feel like a Mummy" calls for some "active alertness."<BR/><BR/>So why do I get the feeling that Rand wouldn't have like my example?<BR/><BR/>Robert CampbellAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29196034.post-58953243606718882712007-12-22T11:09:00.000-08:002007-12-22T11:09:00.000-08:00I think the infection by "personal prejudice" is m...I think the infection by "personal prejudice" is most obvious in Rand's asthetics theory, that it more or less "sticks out like a sore thumb" there. Although I think she kind of hints at a right ballpark in some aspects of what she says, the argumentative thrust is an attempt to prove the objective moral superiority of Rand's own tastes.<BR/><BR/>The aspects where I think she "kind of hints at a right ballpark" pertain to : <BR/><BR/>1) art being an important psychological need, not a frippery; <BR/><BR/>2) the artwork's showing instead of telling -- Susanne Langer, who I think truly understood the nature of art, called this the difference between "presentational" and "discursive" form; i.e., Rand is in kind of a right direction on the nature of the art symbol; however, she doesn't get very far because of her insistence on art having to "re-create" (an extremely problematic term) Reality (the capitalized "R" is deliberate); <BR/><BR/>3) the "feltness" of life -- "what life is like," as Langer described it -- being the dimension expressed; Rand, however, brings in her notion "sense of life," an already morality-laden idea, and -- when the details are examined -- an incoherent idea, to cover the "feltness" dimension; thus, along with rapidly heading her theories toward moral judgment, she loses vast features and complexities of the unending richness of experience explored in the artistic quest. (One result, I feel, is that even those artists she praises are demeaned by the narrowness of the praise compared to the scope of the achievement; I'd say, even, that she demeaned her <I>own</I> artistic achievement when -- after the fact -- she descriptively constrained its bounds to the specifications of her explanatory theory.)<BR/><BR/>EllenEllen Stuttlehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04425361354790876694noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29196034.post-49510655987804821702007-12-22T01:23:00.000-08:002007-12-22T01:23:00.000-08:00Incidentally, you can read ARCHN free online - see...Incidentally, you can read ARCHN free online - see the link in the sidebar.Daniel Barneshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06359277853862225286noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29196034.post-58778021356648536762007-12-22T01:22:00.000-08:002007-12-22T01:22:00.000-08:00Moony:>I'm going to go and listen to Captain Beefh...Moony:<BR/>>I'm going to go and listen to Captain Beefheart until I've cooled down a little, but how fair would it be to say that most of Rand's philosophy is infected by personal prejudice?<BR/><BR/>Moony, you need to have a read of Greg's book, the central theme of which is that Objectivism is mostly a rationalisation of Ayn Rand's vision of an "ideal man". That is to say, a rationalisation of her personal prejudices.<BR/><BR/>Then give "The Dust Blows Forward" a spin one time for me...;-)Daniel Barneshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06359277853862225286noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29196034.post-55569657676477023852007-12-22T00:41:00.000-08:002007-12-22T00:41:00.000-08:00"The products of America's anti-rational, anti-cog..."The products of America's anti-rational, anti-cognitive "Progressive" education, the hippies, are reverting to the noise and the drumbeat of the jungle."<BR/><BR/>In this whole farrago of prejudices dressed up as rational analysis this is the statement that makes me seethe the most! I'm going to go and listen to Captain Beefheart until I've cooled down a little, but how fair would it be to say that <B>most</B> of Rand's philosophy is infected by personal prejudice?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29196034.post-81340888932882774182007-12-22T00:36:00.000-08:002007-12-22T00:36:00.000-08:00Tis done.Tis done.Daniel Barneshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06359277853862225286noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29196034.post-29201616124227402722007-12-21T20:54:00.000-08:002007-12-21T20:54:00.000-08:00Since the extract has been turned into a new threa...Since the extract has been turned into a new thread start, I'll repeat this remark I added on the initial thread:<BR/><BR/>'A comment about the above excerpt. It's so illustrative of Rand's methods of "arguing." She isn't saying much of substance, and most of that is assertions. But the whole way she goes about it has a dramatic force that can leave a reader already "turned onto" Rand afraid of liking the "wrong" music (even though what that is isn't clearly specified).'<BR/><BR/>Ellen<BR/><BR/>___Ellen Stuttlehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04425361354790876694noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29196034.post-54525437954754552912007-12-21T20:43:00.000-08:002007-12-21T20:43:00.000-08:00This comment has been removed by the author.Ellen Stuttlehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04425361354790876694noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29196034.post-63018951899177855182007-12-21T17:08:00.000-08:002007-12-21T17:08:00.000-08:00Ellen quoted Rand:"A brief word about so-called mo...Ellen quoted Rand:<BR/>"A brief word about so-called modern music: no further research or scientific discoveries are required to know with full, objective certainty that it is not music. The proof lies in the fact that music is the product of periodic vibrations -- and, therefore, the introduction of nonperiodic vibrations (such as the sounds of street traffic or of machine gears or of coughs and sneezes), i.e., of noise, into an allegedly musical composition eliminates it automatically from the realm of art and of consideration."<BR/><BR/><BR/>With Rand's insistence that "real art" must present "recognizable physical objects" and must "communicate," I think that the Objectivist theory of music should enthusiastically ~embrace~ the idea of using the types of sounds that Rand mentioned in the quote above (sounds of street traffic, machine gears, coughs and sneezes, etc.), or at least imitations of them created on musical instruments.<BR/><BR/>Back when I used to play trumpet, I got pretty good at using a plunger-mute to mimic the sound of a child whining "I want my mama" and other phrases. I've heard various other instruments played so that they sounded very much like birds and other small animals. Steve Vai can make his guitar talk, laugh and wolf whistle (without using a TalkBox). I once heard Eddie Van Halen make his guitar sound exactly like a charging elephant (via some squealing feedback harmonics and a whammy bar), and Eddie's brother Alex can make his drums sound like an engine revving.<BR/><BR/>So, since instruments CAN realistically mimic reality, I think Objectivist consistency demands that they MUST do so in order to be considered art: if abstract colors on a canvas are meaningless "blobs of color" in comparison to "real art," which is defined by the fact that it contains realistic likenesses of physical objects, then regular music is just meaningless "blobs of sound" in comparison to realistic likenesses of the sounds of objects.<BR/><BR/>The "noises" that Rand finds objectionable are actually the solution that will make music fit her aesthetic requirements of objective intelligibility and communication!<BR/><BR/>JAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29196034.post-84201004386080100452007-12-21T16:49:00.000-08:002007-12-21T16:49:00.000-08:00Sorry, bad Lou Reed linkSorry, bad <A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metal_Machine_Music" REL="nofollow">Lou Reed</A> linkDaniel Barneshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06359277853862225286noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29196034.post-23793140085183852892007-12-21T16:45:00.000-08:002007-12-21T16:45:00.000-08:00This is vintage Rand. For example:"There is a grea...This is vintage Rand. For example:<BR/><BR/>"There is a great deal of evidence to support the hypothesis that the cause of the musical differences is psycho-epistemological (and, therefore, ultimately philosophical)."<BR/><BR/>But whoops! She forgot to include any!<BR/><BR/>Or:<BR/>"The deadly monotony of primitive music -- the endless repetition of a few notes and of a rhythmic pattern that beats against the brain with the regularity of the ancient torture of water drops falling on a man's skull -- paralyzes cognitive processes, obliterates awareness and disintegrates the mind."<BR/><BR/>But on the other hand:<BR/><BR/>"A brief word about so-called modern music: no further research or scientific discoveries are required to know with full, objective certainty that it is not music. The proof lies in the fact that music is the product of periodic vibrations --" <BR/><BR/>Drumbeats, water torture aren't <I>periodic</I>? Surely Phillip Glass is therefore as musical as all get out. So is <A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metal_Machine_Music<br/>" REL="nofollow">Uncle Lou</A>, clearly.<BR/><BR/>Further:<BR/>"...and, therefore, the introduction of nonperiodic vibrations (such as the sounds of street traffic or of machine gears or of coughs and sneezes), i.e., of noise, into an allegedly musical composition eliminates it automatically from the realm of art and of consideration."<BR/><BR/>What is particularly "non-periodic" about traffic noises? Engines have regular, recognisable beats, traffic lights are periodic, traffic itself has predictable ebbs and flows, such as rush hour.Daniel Barneshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06359277853862225286noreply@blogger.com