Did Rand believe in Romantic Loyalty?
Posted by FlashGordon 11 years, 4 months ago to Culture
If you read Rand's novels her female heroine's always seem to just move on to a better man if one appears. In fact I thought of renaming Atlas Shrugged to "Who's Hank Rearden" because she just seems to forget about Hank when she meets John Galt. So did Rand believe if you meet someone "better" and they're interested in you, you just move on? I know she got upset with N. Branden when he picked someone else (we're all human). So those that study Rand more seriously than me, did she believe in marriage (ignore the question of children for the moment) or other forms of romantic committment?
Rand's non-fiction books provide a great supplement to her novels when it comes to things such as this. If you have time you can also check out the Ayn Rand Lexicon online and look up what she has to say about Romantic Love.
But really, when you think about it, don't we all move on when we find someone else that better represents our ideal values? How many significant others did you date before you married? In Francone's case, she married to punish herself for not being brave enough to be with Roark which is different than that of Dagny. In "We the Living" Kira didn't really "hop" around so much.
The issues with Branden, well aside from their "personal" relationship, I believe there was a disagreement about certain aspects of the philosophy as it pertained to psychology (don't quote me on that) that pertained to the split too. Consider that one's arguments, or their philosophy is not invalidated by one's actions necessarily. To suggest that would be a logical fallacy. Moreover, Rand seemed to include in her writings examples of the personal shortcomings of certain characters in this regard. There is some anecdotal evidence that supports the notion that Rand would advocate that if one married another, and after some years the spouse took up a derivative of Altruism or some other repugnant ideology, one would right in parting ways.
So I guess, yes and no. You don't trade up the "homely" version of John Galt for the "holywood sexy" version of John Galt, but you don't continue to stay with a person that sacrifices themselves or their values to the undeserving, when there is another relationship with a virtuous individual that could flourish.
By the way, *heroine's* isn't possessive. It should be written *heroines.* I just have this thing about apostrophe abuse.
Look here for seven species that have not changed for millions of years, (Exclaimer, I do not endorse pop-sci or anything they say, but this information is factual)
http://www.popsci.com/science/article/20...
The heart is a powerful thing, and even though it can place us in difficult situations, it also inspires us to the integrity that honors both ourselves and the others we care for.
This is a plausible explaination for the storyline in one of AR's early works, "The Husband I Bought" circa 1920's. Irene marries her great love, Henry. They are very happy for a number of years, then Henry takes a fancy to another women, but his commitment ot Irene is strong. Pity? I don't know. Irene creates a lie and tells Henry she, is in love with someone else and they divorce. She sets him free to be with his new infatuation/love. Irene leaves town and lives a secluded life alone loving Henry until she dies.
AR's literary skills grow tremendously over the years along with the development of her philosophy. Her views on romantic love and its connection with marriage had roots very early in her life.
Here is the underlying significance:
Francisco - copper from the ground - produced raw materials
Hank - took the copper and raw materials and produced valuable man made objects
John - discoverer of harnessing static electricity - energy - which makes everything else possible
All through the book, we are talking about being able to shape the world in the image of the heroic within ourselves - the best within ourselves, and that would mean being able to take raw materials, shape them so we can use them, and all life, all purposeful activity requires energy. Without energy all would be lost. And it is in Atlas Shrugged when the lights finally go out. Does that help to explain why Dagny's character moves on? That is how I see it.
I find it amusing that so many modern "Christians" have glommed on to Rand's philosophy. Rand was ardently anti-Christian. You cannot USE these ideas and also adhere to the fundamental Christian principle of altruism to the poor and unfortunate.
Rand had at least one abortion and believe that abortion was a RIGHT for women. She was sexually promiscuous into her old age. She was unfaithful to her compliant husband and summarily dismissed her lovers when she was tired of them. She banished Nathaniel Brandon from her "Collective" when he was no longer able to function sexually with her. She publicly rejected the idea of "God" and intelligent creation. I say this because this is who she was and what she thought and espoused. Objectivism is a COMMITMENT. You cannot pick and choose what you'll follow and what you won't. All these ideas are reliant on each other. The values of Christ are diametrically opposed to the values of Ayn Rand. If you're not 100% in you are holding the movement back.
Not so! Rand had respect for Christian ethics. It was the mysticism, and martyrdom that she objected to.
http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/religi...
Objectivism, like many other philosophies cover various topics. Her philosophy of Capitalism is as useful to Christians as it is to any other faction. You can pick and choose any portion of any philosophy you choose. It just means you are not an "Objectivist"... you are not doctrinaire. It does not mean you can not appreciate the other facets of the philosophy.
Respectfully,
O.A.
Quite right. That was my understanding of Rand's position. However she was not the only philosopher worth study. She was brilliant but not omniscient. Each of us have our own philosophy, i.e. understanding of the world. I am a student of Objectivism. I am not an Objectivist.
Regards,
O.A.
You make a good point. Rand, herself, studied many philosophies that she never would have claimed to have lived by. The primacy of existence was not her idea, nor were the basic axioms, but they certainly became the foundation of her philosophy.
I hadn't really considered whether I am a student of Objectivism, an Objectivist, or, if possible, both. I'm fairly certain that "omniscience" cannot exist without contradicting Objectivist principles - hope I didn't imply that I thought her to be omniscient.
I do agree with Rand, however, that "a philosophy should be fully integrated from the ground up and free of any contradictions".
Thanks for your comments!
We are on the same page. You may be interested in her perspective on who could be an "objectivist." If my recollection is correct she claimed that we are all students except of course for herself... :)
A is A. Contradictions can not exist!
Thank you!
I'd wager that Ayn and Jesus would have an interesting discussion about the destructive power of guilt over tea... I wonder if she'd offer him a cigarette?
I'm not sure how a conversation between Jesus and Rand would go. She would not be easy on him if her interview with Mike Wallace is any indication: http://youtu.be/1ooKsv_SX4Y
I'm a sort of odd atheist with a great respect for what I can glean about what/who Jesus was. I happen to be married to a true Christian. We've bridged many gaps by applying some very simple translations, and even read from the bible periodically.
I replace the word "God" with "the essence of man", "the essential man", "every man", or "the spirit of man" - essentially all those attributes which make a man a man (naturally with their measurements omitted).
I often replace the word "create" with "conceptualize".
"Heaven" is simply a state of mind.
And so on...
It's quite interesting to read, say, Genesis, and realize that the beginning can easily serve as a description of what every man goes through during birth and the first few years of life.
While our approaches to interpreting a given religious concept are often dramatically different, we often arrive at the same conclusions... It's a quite lively and entertaining way to affirm each other's values.
What I love most about my wife is that we can share all of our translations and doubly support our values knowing there are 2 different paths to them.
The Parable of Parables
One mother told her daughter this:
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"If you do not send a "Thank You" note to every person who gives you a gift, no one will like you, God will frown upon you, and you may be stung by 1,000 bees."
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Another mother told her daughter this:
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A mother once told her two daughters that If they did not send a Thank You note to every person who gave them gifts, no one would like them, God would frown upon them, and they may be stung by 1,000 bees.
Yet another told her two daughter that if they sent a Thank You note to some people that gave them gifts, that they might enjoy the experience of gratitude and the feeling of being special for several more moments, and that as they grew older, they would be happier at remembering how wonderful the world was and how generous it's inhabitants were.
The first daughter of the first mother ignored her and refused to send Thank You notes to anyone who had given her gifts because she felt that it would satisfy her lying mother. She lived a life in which she always felt betrayed and always suspected people of trying to manipulate her.
The second daughter of the first mother believed her mother because she felt that was what a good daughter ought to do. She lived her life resenting the thousands of Thank You notes she was obliged to write, never felt gratitude upon receiving gifts, and feared the wrath of God when she failed to send a note or sent one late.
The first daughter of the second mother ignored her and did not send any Thank You notes. She did not feel particularly happy or special, but nor did she fear deception.
The second daughter of the second mother believed her and sent out some Thank You notes to specific people for special gifts she had received or for special things they had done. She did, in fact, feel enriched for the experience, and led a generally happy life.
-----
The first daughter laughed at her mother and said "that's the God of the old testament. Jesus taught that it is good to give thanks, and so I will do so in the way that I choose". She learned nothing from her mother that day, and went on to live an interesting life that was not particularly fulfilling.
The second daughter learned to speak in parables like her mother before her, and spent her life spreading health, wealth, happiness and good will.
Rand on Evolution. I disagree. Her non commitment to well established and powerful scientific theory was wrong.
Rand's ethical system is based in the understanding of evolution!
let's turn it around as long as you're worried about false Objectivists holding the movement back? Where do you stand on patents?
"the harder you hold them back, the more explosive their effect when they ht the market."
Love the optimism, but it just isn't true. It is no coincidence that a Jobs or a Edison or a Gates grew up in a country fundamentally founded on reason and natural rights (which includes intellectual property rights). It is no mistake that the rights of inventors and authors are the ONLY rights enumerated in the original Constitution.
Srinivas Ramanujan shows that genius appears anywhere. To be RECOGNIZED and REWARDED requires a special society. He came to the attention of mathematician G. H. Hardy at Cambridge, who nearly set the letters aside as being just from another crank because Ramanujan did not use standard notation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Srinivasa_R...
Also, read about the life of Newton. The Principia came from the Royal Society with its "imprimatur" but with no royal copyright. Also, Newton was not interested in publishing at all only Sir Edmund Halley's efforts upon him made that possible at all. Newton was certainly the most brilliant man of his time, and perhaps the greatest scientist of all time. However, he could have been born anywhere. By comparision, about 100 years later, Joseph Priestley FLED England for America because copyrights and patents strong as they were held no barrier to a mob of ignorant royalists.
Moreover, Newton HID many of his RELIGIOUS works for the same fear of persecution. He was a Unitarian, perhaps even an Arian. No copyright laws help with that.
As far as Priestly goes, I don't know enough. Many inventors did come to the US because it was easier to get patent protection and therefore funding.
and your analysis regarding patents, their protection and scope is wrong.
"What about Rand's understanding of Evolution do you disagree with?" Her lack of it.
On Evolution: secondhand, Nathaniel Branden in "The Benefits and Hazards of the Philosophy of Ayn Rand" :
"I remember being astonished to hear her say one day, "After all, the theory of evolution is only a hypothesis." I asked her, "You mean you seriously doubt that more complex life forms — including humans — evolved from less complex life forms?" She shrugged and responded, "I'm really not prepared to say," or words to that effect. I do not mean to imply that she wanted to substitute for the theory of evolution the religious belief that we are all God's creation; but there was definitely something about the concept of evolution that made her uncomfortable." (Neil Parrile, Rebirth of Reason, "Ayn Rand and Evolution.")
A scientific theory is not a hypothesis. Evolution is one of THE most well documented, most explanatory scientific theories Man has.
How about the interview in which she stated very few of us were deserving of love?
I completely understand Rand's point of view on this. Evolution is not a religious concept which we must wholeheartedly accept or accept "intelligent creation." There are things we still don't know. Much about evolution falls into that category.
What she said was that those who do not love themselves first do not deserve love and here too, she was perfectly correct. Here's that interview: http://youtu.be/1ooKsv_SX4Y
Relativity does not explain what happens in an atom, and quantum mechanics does not explain gravitational fields. They are incomplete. We do not have a theory that explains, and we do not need such. Most scientists would find it depressing if had theories that explained everything. Let's use the language correctly. First of all a "fact" is a specific instance, a theory explains many facts and has predictive as well as explanatory powers. If you are asking for a list of every "fact" that Evolution explains or predicted, we'd fill up the Encyclopedia Brittani ca and more.
"It is not the ONLY mechanism for genetic change, however. We now know of EPIGENETICS."
Odd, I still have issues with relativity and quantum physics, but for some reason I want to believe in willful evolution... Doesn't bode well for my status as an Objectivist.
Maybe I'm a quack, but while I certainly don't subscribe to creationism or intelligent design, evolution seems to occur too fast to simply be the product of random mutation.
You're right though, in that it has little to do with philosophy. I don't think that makes it nonsense though.
There's proof ;)
Edit: To be honest I agree on almost all accounts of what you have said, I remember being told by a prof. years ago was what the difference between a 'fact' and the truth was , "It was a fact that the sun revolved around the earth, the truth is the earth revolves around the sun."
On facts. hmmm. you and I are going to disagree. I feel it coming...;)
On that I can agree on...
From what we understand up to now, evolution is purely based on genetics, in other words the best genetic codes get passed on because they provide the give the life-form the best chance at survival. It's often based on reproduction and passing on of traits but can also be by environmental changes, chemicals like teratogens, or radiations that cause pyridine cross-links etc. Adaptations usually fall under things such as epigenetics and chromosomal changes but can also be genetic, depending on the circumstance. I can tell you this, and most don't like it, but there really is no theory of 'evolution' sure their is some context that things change but truly evolve, from simply lifeforms to more complex lifeforms there has been no evidence of from a genetic point of view. For example the Daphnia pulex, or the water flea has the most genes, about 31,000. We humans have only about 23, 000 genes. Does it mean it is a more complex life form or more advanced? Also there is no sound mechanism of adding genetic material to an organism that could actually be used 'constructively' by that organism. There are many, many holes yet to fill in about 'evolution'. I can go on for a long time discussing this as well as 'confirmation bias' in the sciences. But I'll stop for now.
But one example mentioned has always 'stuck' in my memory:
Darwin concluded that there were once sighted fish living in the absolute darkness of cave pools.
Every so often, a fish would be born sightless (a mutation?), and that fish would have his other senses sharpened by comparison. This fish had a better chance of finding food, etc. He would mate, and eventually even more 'blind' fish would be born. Same thing...the 'blind' fish had the greatest chance of survival.
At some point, all you will find are sightless fish living in dark caves.
Survival of the fittest.
Made sense sitting in the classroom.
(Try not to beat me to death with what I just posted, although that could make me the best survivor!)
http://animals.about.com/cs/evolution/a/...
thanks Rozar.
Evolution may be "explanatory" but so is astrology. A science must meet a standard of falsifiability and Darwinian Evolution does not. Known facts about fertile hybrids show that the theory is incomplete, at best.
As for patents, protecting the intellectual property of the inventor is one thing, but whether present law does it right is a different question.
More on those later.
I agree with your last statement.
But she was a great woman who asked the right questions about life on earth and brought philosophy to new heights of rationality. She should not be discounted because she didn't have all the answers. Why would a fish happy in water want to seek dry land?
By the way, if I sold all my property and gave the money to the poor to free myself up to pursue something I valued more highly, that would be an action quite consonant with Objectivism.
Only if it was to to improve his own lot and his own ideas. Jesus is demanding self-sacrifice. Self-sacrifice is at complete odds with Objectivism: http://youtu.be/1ooKsv_SX4Y
As far as Dagny's romantic experiences are concerned, I can see her in love with Francisco or Rearden, but Galt is (in my estimate anyway) not even a character. He is much too abstract. Eddie Willers is a more interesting character than John Galt. In fact, he may be the most interesting and intriguing character in the whole story.
Amen, brother!
I think Dagney was just a typical alpha female, searching for the most alpha male. Rand seems to have instinctively known about this before the terms "alpha male" and "alpha female" came into popular use.
I was totally dissatisfied with Rearden's confrontation with Lillian in ASp2. I would have immediately asked her why she cared, since she didn't want to sleep with him anyway. He'd done nothing to threaten what *did* matter to her, after all.
But, I was amused when he apologized to Dagney for dragging *his wife* into "our world". Uh... no, you dragged Dagney into your and your wife's world.
Either he didn't say traditional wedding vows, or his word means nothing to him.
I think that Ayn Rand believed in romantic loyalty, just as I do.
A is A. Stop kidding yourselves and take responibility for your choices and start thinking with your big head instead of the little one. Sorry for that last comment, I could not resist.
Favorably? Or just an obstacle in the way of a possibly better relationship...?
I'm not the one here to answer that question.
All the mystery of Hank was gone, by the time Dagny finally meets John Galt. Galt was 'new', and far more mysterious to her.
She never had a chance...!
Thanks for the reading suggestion!
So I could see her growing and thinking, and changing her mind as she went.
How anyone can imagine grunting and sweating to get "high" is a celebration of human values escapes me. Don't get me wrong; I appreciate the pleasure of sex as much as the next guy, but I don't confuse it with love or real intimacy.
Dagney's attraction to D'Anconia, Rearden and Galt was a result of her (instinctively, not rationally) finding them increasingly preferable mating prospects. Each one emitted a stronger perception of power, and women are attracted to power (a more powerful male will be able to provide for and protect her and her offspring better).
Rearden's attraction to her was understandable in terms of deprivation; he found a woman who actually *wanted* to screw him. And who made no demands of him, even in that regard.
Galt's attraction to her is simple to explain; pathological. He was a stalker, in today's parlance.
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