Sunday, March 4, 2012

Reading The Philosophy of Objectivism As "FLOATING SIGN" For Rand's Fiction


Part II:

In the 19th-century, some novels made use of the scholarly apparatus of footnotes: a passage in the text would have a reference such as an asterisk or a dagger, perhaps after the mention of some exotic location, which reference would signal to the reader that he should scan the explanatory note at the foot of the page for more information. This information, in rhetorical terminology, is known as "Non-Diagetic"; i.e., information that (supposedly) lies outside the fictional world of the novel itself. There was no guarantee, of course, that this footnote was objectively true. The point of having a footnote was that it resembled the truth (being a mode of communication borrowed from non-fiction scholarship) for the purpose of sustaining and further highlighting the "inner truth" — the REVEALED TRUTH — of the writer qua storyteller. The purpose of the footnote was to legitimize, in a sense, the fictional part of the novel, adding to its overall plausibility for a reader. It's important to understand that since the "tension" between the footnoting and the storytelling was stylistic — the writer wasn't merely trying to give the reader an interesting bit of information about a location mentioned in the story; he was trying to REINFORCE the plausibility of the story by means of a device normally associated with non-fiction scholarship — there's no guarantee (not even the necessity!) that the information in the footnote be objectively true; i.e., the footnote might just as easily be yet more "revealed truth" from the novelist; i.e., the scholarly-looking footnote itself might just be more fiction!

Using the analogy of a stage play, a footnote in a novel is similar to an actor's "aside" to the audience, in which he momentarily walks through that proverbial "fourth wall" and speaks directly to the audience in order to impart some information to them, or comment to them about the goings-on in the play; that would be an example of non-diagetic dialogue (i.e., dialogue that the audience can hear, but which the other characters on stage at the moment are supposed to be unaware of). It's quite apparent to the audience, however, that even the "aside" has been scripted by the playwright, and that it is still really a part of the invented world of the play. No one in the audience would seriously consider an actor's "aside" to be the same sort of communication about the goings-on in the play as, for example, a serious review of the play by a critic that might appear in the newspapers the day after the performance.

So while I consider the twin pedestals of metaphysics and epistemology in Objectivism to be in serious error, they are so only when considered as attempts at serious scholarship. They become something quite different if we think of them as extended footnotes to readers of her novels; "asides" made to them by the various characters of Galt, Rearden, Taggart, Roark, et al., for the purpose of strengthening the plausibility of the story, and, ultimately, maintaining that all-important suspension of the reader's disbelief. The philosophy of Objectivism (especially its metaphysics and epistemology) — like Atlas Shrugged itself — is ultimately meant as entertainment, not scholarship.

30 comments:

seymourblogger said...

Your "aside" on footnotes resonates with David foster Wallace's 150 pages of footnotes to Infinite Jest and that marvelous one of erupting volcanoes in Houellebecq's Lanzarote.

I was so close and yet so far away from seeing this. When I read it I knew instantly as the lightbulb went on for me.

Xray said...

Darren wrote:
"The philosophy of Objectivism (especially its metaphysics and epistemology) — like Atlas Shrugged itself — is ultimately meant as entertainment, not scholarship." (end quote)

I don't think the term "entertainment" fits. For Rand was very serious about her philosophy.

darren said...

Xray wrote: ". . . Rand was very serious about her philosophy."

That doesn't entail that WE must be serious about her philosophy; at least, not as serious scholarship (which it quite obviously is not).

Additionally, that the philosophy of Objectivism might really just be part of the entertainment of Atlas Shrugged in no way means that it doesn't have some gems of truth in it. The plays of Shakespeare are meant as entertainment and have many true insights in them; but no one (including Shakespeare himself) would claim that Shakespeare was a philospher.

curioushairedgal said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
curioushairedgal said...

Fiction posing as philosophy, very playful and postmodern. Reminiscent of Borges's false translations and reviews,or historigraphic fiction.
Having only read Atlas ages ago and no knowledge whatsoever of Objectivism, it will be extremely interesting for me to (re)discover Rand through this blog.

curioushairedgal aka absolute beginner

seymourblogger said...

So happy you found Rand here! I had forgotten Borges.

Xray said...

Thanks for clarifying.
I have question: did there exist a time when you were serious about Rand's philosophy?

darren said...

I'm serious about it now, but not because it's serious scholarship (which, as I pointed out above, it is not). The invented philosphy called "Objectivism" bears a similar relation to Rand's novels (especially Atlas Shrugged) as, for example, the invented language called "Elven" bears to J.R.R. Tolkien's novels (especially the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy). Was Elven a "real" language? No, not historically. Historically speaking, there has never been a language — with a unique alphabet, orthography, and grammar – called "Elven", spoken, written, and culturally transmitted by elves. But is Tolkien's invention, nevertheless, based on real linguistic principles that are common to many other languages in terms of construction? Yes. Similarly, is Rand's invented philosophy based on real philosophical principles common to many other philosophical systems, i.e., a metaphysics, supporting a theory of knowledge, supporting a theory of "ought" behavior (ethics), implying and justifying a political system and a certain economic organization? Yes. Is Tolkien's invented language intended as serious scholarship in linguistics or philology? No. It's meant as a high form of entertainment, reinforcing the detailed "story world" he labored to sustain through three novels. This would be true EVEN IF TOLKIEN HIMSELF BELIEVED THAT "ELVEN" OUGHT TO BE STUDIED AS A REAL "IDEAL" LANGUAGE! Is Rand's invented philosphy intended as serious scholarship in philosophy? No. It's meant as a high form of entertainment, reinforcing the detailed "story world" she labored to sustain through 1,100 pages. This would be true EVEN IF RAND HERSELF BELIEVED (AND HER ACOLYTES CONTINUE TO BELIEVE) THAT "OBJECTIVISM" OUGHT TO BE STUDIED AS A REAL "IDEAL" PHILOSOPHY!

The main difference in the above comparison between Rand and Tolkien is that Tolkien appreciated the difference between serious scholarship and high entertainment and Rand did not. Moreover, Tolkien's appreciation of this distinction has been transmitted to his many admirers, while Rand's blurring of it has been slavishly repeated by hers.

Xray said...

Darren,
I would not call Rand's philosophy "invented" in the same way that Tolkien "invented" ELVEN, and think that the idea of "high entertainment" played no role at all Rand's thinking, not even in in her fiction.

"I mean it", she said. Translated: 'My philosophical message is in my fiction. I'm serious about it. This is NOT for entertainment.'

And if there was blurring, imo it was due to both Rand and her followers (her followers even more so than Rand herself) not being sufficiently aware of the problems that arise if a work of fiction (Atlas Shrugged) is treated like a philosophical magnum opus.

darren said...

Xray wrote: "the idea of 'high entertainment' played no role at all Rand's thinking . . ."

But it should play a role in our thinking about Rand's work. See above for my reasons.

Xray wrote: " . . . not even in in her fiction."

Really? You claim Rand was NOT trying to entertain her readers with Atlas Shrugged? Interesting.

darren said...

Xray wrote: "I mean it", she said. Translated: 'My philosophical message is in my fiction. I'm serious about it. This is NOT for entertainment.'

And as I replied previously, one of the main differences between Tolkien and Rand is that the former understood and respected the differences between fiction and scholarship, while the latter did not. That Rand explicitly tells her readers to conflate these two modes of discourse is just more evidence in favor of what I wrote above. It's as if, in addition to an actor's asides to the audience, the playwright herself were to walk onstage and explicitly tell everyone "I'm serious! Everything you see on stage is true!" If the playwright is merely acting a part herself, and the audience is aware of that fact, there's no harm done. But if the playwright truly believes herself that the play and the asides are true, both diagetically (i.e., within the confines of the story-world) and non-diagetically (i.e., outside those confines), and if the audience senses this about the playwright, it would behoove the audience members to start doubting the complete sanity and mental balance of the playwright.

That's the position we are in as admirers and readers of Ayn Rand. We should enjoy her writings, but doubt the complete mental balance of its authoress.

seymourblogger said...

Whoa darren!You are perfect until you get into sanity (a legal term) and mental balance a psychological term.

Consider Antonin Artaud, Dostoievsky, and all the others who walked the fine line and sometimes fell over. As Foucault distinguishes, it is the work or lack of it that determines madness.

To enter the sticky swamp of psychological interpretation is not necessary or sufficient as an explanation.

Rather Zizek:

as he paraphrases Rumsfeld in Reading Lacan:

There are the

known knowns
known unknowns
unknown unknowns


Rumsfeld left out the third philosophical permutation:

the unknown knowns

which I am trying to get to in reference to Rand.

seymourblogger said...

x-ray said quoting Rand:

"I mean it", she said. Translated: 'My philosophical message is in my fiction. I'm serious about it. This is NOT for entertainment.'


Anything which is asserted that vehemently can also be read as its opposite. (Freud and Lacan) And it is no secret the level of denial Rand maintained at different times.

seymourblogger said...

For x-ray

The word invented is used across the pond in a different way, the way darren is using it. More in linkage with creating.

In speaking about mathematics education, the mathematician Dienes said, "If I had my way I would have a math cafeteria of materials so the child could invent the new math."

Ursula LeGuin invents an entire anthropological culture in many of her novels with a language sometimes. While not "inventing" a philosophical system, LeGuin projects a different philosophy of life and living.

curioushairedgal said...

Here's an interesting piece on fake footnotes used by an obviously sane and balanced biographer.
http://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2012/02/21/the-tyranny-of-footnotes/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheParisReviewBlog+%28The+Paris+Review+Blog%29

Xray said...

Darren wrote (on Mar 2012):

"Really? You claim Rand was NOT trying to entertain her readers with Atlas Shrugged? Interesting." (end quote)

Imo "entertain" is too playful a term in that context; it does not fit Rand's agenda.
I'm not saying that she did not put effort into crafting a gripping plot, but the gripping plot served as a means to make her "message" stand out in bold relief: "altruism" and "collectivism" bring about the ruin of society.
Imo Rand's mission was political more than philosophical.

seymourblogger said...

Now you are quibbling about words x-ray. (Actually the young Rand was playful.)Walter Benjamin's Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction when he slices into contemplation and in your face art that destroys contemplation and the memory that rests on it. The work of art as to content and the work of art as to intent.

Rand was coming to terms with her great teacher Nietzsche, whose words "written in blood and learnt by heart" were as interfaced in her mind as the Law of Non-Contradiction is embedded in yours. Disproved BTW by modern physics.

darren said...

Xray wrote: "Imo "entertain" is too playful a term in that context"

There's no arguing with subjective opinion.

Xray wrote: "it does not fit Rand's agenda."

A creative work should be judged on its own merits, and not on its creator's stated agenda.

seymourblogger said...

And following Nietzsche and Babich,and all the post modern thinkers, artists, musical composers, the text is "read" by the reader (viewer).

Reading Rand through Lacan - "I mean it!" - is to "hear" the opposite screaming at you.

The child, "I will never let a boy put his tinkle in me!"

Xray said...

Darren wrote (on Mar 12, 2012 10:55 PM):

"A creative work should be judged on its own merits, and not on its creator's stated agenda." (end quote)


Darren,

all my comments on this thread refer to what you verbatim wrote in the last sentence of your essay:
"The philosophy of Objectivism (especially its metaphysics and epistemology) — like Atlas Shrugged itself — is ultimately meant as entertainment, not scholarship." (end quote Darren)

"Meant as" clearly refers to author's intent.
So the focus of my replies is NOT on "judging a creative work on its own merits", or examining it in terms of its reception (the technical term is "reception aesthetics") - my replies address what you claimed to be the author's intent.
Think about: if entertainment was what Rand intended with her philosophy - do you really think she would have written a book like "Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology?"
Isn't it far more likely that all her efforts went into endowing her philosophy with seriousness by presenting an epistemological (and ethical) foundation?
(I'm not saying that she succeeded; ITOE is full of inconsistent terminology; what she calls "concept formation" is basically about something fairly simple: the formation of hyponyms and hyperonyms - which is accomplished quite effortlessly by an individual in the process of language acquisition).
But as to Rand's efforts - they certainly were directed towards seriousness.
The same goes for "The Virtue of Selfishness", her ethical manifesto.

seymourblogger said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
darren said...

Xray wrote: "Meant as" clearly refers to author's intent.

Check your premises. And while doing so, check an English dictionary. "Meant", the preterit form of the infinitive "to mean", has several closely-related but nevertheless distinguishable senses. The one I had in mind was the following:

"to have as its sense or signification; signify:"

Which sense has nothing to do with anyone's subjective, desired intention. Ironically, it has to do with objective criteria inherent in a given instance of discourse itself, irrespective of what an author might claim about it, or claim about his or her subjective, personal motives or agenda in creating it.

No doubt, you're not a native speaker of English. So just to make it crystal clear: What Miss Rand's subjective, personal motives or intentions were in attempting to create a tightly cohesive philosophical system dubbed "Objectivism" are utterly irrelevant to the system's actual significance or objective meaning. That she subjectively intended it as serious criticism and rejection of 2,000 years of western philosophy (as she claimed) in no way mitigates the fact that what readers are left with is really one long aside — actually, one long reiteration of Galt's Speech — by her fictional heroes. Galt's Speech is part of the narrative, fictional world of Atlas Shrugged — part of the novel's entertainment — ergo, so is The Virtue of Selfishness, Capitalism The Unknown Ideal, The Romantic Manifesto, and (the most ridiculous of all) Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology.

Your position is charming, if utterly naive. It amounts to this: "Ayn Rand subjectively intended her writings labeled 'the philosophy of Objectivism' to be taken by readers as serious philosophy, therefore, it IS serious philosophy; because the subjective intentions of an author determine the 'real' meaning and nature of his or her discourse."

In a word: WRONG.
In two words: NOT SO.
In three words: CHECK YOUR PREMISES.

Xray said...

Darren,
Right back at you: CHECK YOUR PREMISES.

You wrote:
"Your position is charming, if utterly naive. It amounts to this: "Ayn Rand subjectively intended her writings labeled 'the philosophy of Objectivism' to be taken by readers as serious philosophy, therefore, it IS serious philosophy; because the subjective intentions of an author determine the 'real' meaning and nature of his or her discourse."

Your inference that this is my position is WRONG.

seymourblogger said...

x-ray x-ray this is discussed more fully in a more recent blog on Rand and "Floating Signs".

It is not important what Rand intended It is important what the reader brings to the reading. Babich on Nietzsche's genealogy is a reading concerning Nietzsche's anti-semitism. Nietzsche was completely opposed to war. Not for the killing, but for the complete destruction of the young men fighting it who develop in a warrior mode rather than in another way that would further the culture. War destroys the culture. It destroyed Germany. It has destroyed the US.

Babich takes Nietzsche to task for injecting anti-semitism into the reader, I would say subliminally, she describes it differently and more effectively than I. Her complaint is that being the superb rhetorician that he was, he should have known better what he was doing.

And this is Nietzsche she is whipping, a far greater intellect than Rand, who didn't comprehend what he was doing!

It is the reader, not the writer, who determines what the text says.

I am saying, and challenging Darren on this, that Rand knew, but didn't know she knew. The unknown knowns Zizek discusses.

But go to this link for more: http://aynrand2.blogspot.com/2012/03/objectivism-as-floating-sign-of-atlas.html

curiousgairedgal is also a translator living in Bosnia. You and she have something in common, eh.

Delete

darren said...

>>>my replies address what you claimed to be the author's intent.

But I claimed nothing about the author's intent. I never said that Rand meant for us to take her writings on philosophy as entertainment. I said that the philosophy of Objectivism IS MEANT to be understood as part of the entertainment narrative of her fiction novels, irrespective of what she intended. I assume that easy-to-grasp idea should be clear by now, as I've said the same thing several times and in several ways.


>>>Think about: if entertainment was what Rand intended with her philosophy - do you really think she would have written a book like "Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology?"

It makes no difference what Rand intended with her philosophy. For a reader, the only thing is how to approach her work, based on an appraisal of it according to criteria with a bit more objectivity than admirers' claims regarding what they believe "Rand wanted", or "Rand intended", or "Rand believed", or "Rand thought". I don't care what Rand wanted, intended, believed, or thought (and neither should any other reader). I care only about what she did. What she did was eschew most, if not all, of the usual scholarly apparatus — not to mention the usual scholarly groundwork like RESEARCH —in her non-fiction writing in favor of introspection, and (amusingly, though not surprisingly) quoting and referencing herself, both from her own non-fiction and fiction works.

It's especially funny being asked to take as serious scholarship inter-textual quotations of novel dialogue that she herself wrote and put into the mouths of fictitious characters in an invented story-world. This is not serious scholarship, but a continuation (using a different stylistic) of the fiction narrative.

Wasn't it Clausewitz who said something like "War is diplomacy continued by other means"? Well, for readers of Rand, "Objectivism is Atlas Shrugged continued by other means". The "other means" are the superficial appearance via scholarly-sounding titles (e.g., "Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology"; "The Virtue of Selfishness") of serious non-fiction scholarship.


>>>Isn't it far more likely that all her efforts went into endowing her philosophy with seriousness by presenting an epistemological (and ethical) foundation?

Philosophies don't get "endowed with seriousness" simply by their authors inventing an epistemology and an ethics and declaring it to be a "foundation". I will say this, however: though it's certainly not serious or legitimate scholarship, it IS compelling poetry. There's something downright Wagnerian in her approach. Wagner was already something of a cult figure in the musical world of his day, but he missed his calling; he could have been the leader of a cult philosophical movement. Imagine the end of the "Ring", with Richard Wagner walking out on stage and declaring to the audience, "And I mean it!"


>>>But as to Rand's efforts - they certainly were directed towards seriousness.

I don't pay attention to her agenda or efforts when reading her work. I'm too busy reading her work.

seymourblogger said...

Darren I have read this any number of times. And now I am reading your reading of Rand as another way of her writing within the label of "post modern thinking". Zizek himself constantly elaborates philosophy and Lacanian thought through fiction, film, media, and Events. Baudrillard did this also. It is now the accepted academic way of opening up a concept or text by reading through another Event, text, book, film, character that resonates with the cultural experience of the reader.

Rand is touching base over and over with her own fiction rather than someone else's, but isn't this the same in a way as Baudrillard and Zizek? I know as we await his book on Hegel in April, many are hoping he will not do this with Hegel, that he will be more "serious" and not write quite so playfully. I hope they are wrong.

It is a non-linear expression and deepens the understanding. Linear explanation is considered totalitarian, an authoritative Discourse that you are supposed to listen to, read, learn and add to your store of knowledge. As Nietzsche said, we are like bees, constantly bringing honey home to the hive, stuffing our heads with stuff the way we stuff our homes and storage units with stuff.

curioushairedgal said...

Here are two interesting bits from Robert Louis Stevenson's essay "Books Which Have Influenced Me" (1887) that resonated with me:

"The gift of reading, as I have called it, is not very common, nor very generally understood. It consists, first of all, in a vast intellectual endowment--a free grace, I find I must call it--by which a man rises to understand that he is not punctually right, nor those from whom he differs absolutely wrong. He may hold dogmas; he may hold them passionately; and he may know that others hold them but coldly, or hold them differently, or hold them not at all. Well, if he has the gift of reading, these others will be full of meat for him. They will see the other side of propositions and the other side of virtues. He need not change his dogma for that, but he may change his reading of that dogma, and he must supplement and correct his deductions from it. A human truth, which is always very much a lie, hides as much of life as it displays. It is men who hold another truth, or, as it seems to us, perhaps, a dangerous lie, who can extend our restricted field of knowledge, and rouse our drowsy consciences. Something that seems quite new, or that seems insolently false or very dangerous, is the test of a reader. If he tries to see what it means, what truth excuses it, he has the gift, and let him read. If he is merely hurt, or offended, or exclaims upon his author's folly, he had better take to the daily papers; he will never be a reader."

"The most influential books, and the truest in their influence, are works of fiction. They do not pin the reader to a dogma, which he must afterwards discover to be inexact; they do not teach him a lesson, which he must afterwards unlearn. They repeat, they rearrange, they clarify the lessons of life; they disengage us from ourselves, they constrain us to the acquaintance of others; and they show us the web of experience, not as we can see it for ourselves, but with a singular change--that monstrous, consuming ego of ours being, for the nonce, struck out. To be so, they must be reasonably true to the human comedy; and any work that is so serves the turn of instruction."

seymourblogger said...

This is so wonderful. My mother had a love for Stevenson and so I read and reread A Child's Garden of Verses by him.

Why don't you do a post on this book at say focusfree.

Really. I mean it!

curioushairedgal said...

Shall I go lacanian on your vehement "I mean it!"? hahaha

If I say "I'll do it!" then there'll suddenly be a million of other things I'll need to finish before tackling that, so I won't say it. I'm letting it come to me, you know, I'm being an open system. My Rand arrived today, a neat 50th anniversary edition of The Fountainhead and Atlas.

It's always so endearing to hear you mention things past.

abbeysbooks said...

On reading Zizek - who admits he has a great love for Ayn Rand - around 211 in his Living In The End Times where he has been thinking about Marx and use value and exchange value which is a breathtaking ride, he continues into an "economic fantasy" by Tim Hartford of The Undercover Economist and then deconstructs it. These pages by Zizek take a wire whisk to your thinking so be warned.


And then it hit me. All of Objectivism is an "economic and philosophical fantasy" so accurately perceived by Darren. This validates Darren's observation that Objectivism is a footnote - a very long one - to all of Rand's fiction. Maybe not a "floating signifier" exactly as I have labeled it. But I think Zizek's term "Master-Signifier" applies here. The empty Master-Signifier. So Rand's "defense" of capital, or rather her excessive embracement of capital, of being more capitalist than any capitalist, more radical, as Zizek says in his JARS article, is a philosophical and economic fantasy and "Ayn Rand" has become a "Brand Name" , a Master-Signifier for free market capitalism, via Atlas Shrugged, Fountainhead, and all her non-fiction writing. A powerful Brand Name eh. Like Hershey. Like Nike to use two of Zizek's examples.


Greenspan, clutching her skirts rode into the Ford administration, with the Brand Name Master-Signifier Ayn Rand engraved on his forehead, an empty sign based on a philosophical and economic fantasy, He became Chairman of the Federal Reserve, the most powerful money position in the world at that time, appointed by Reagan, based on an empty Master-Signifier Brand Name which was only a fantasy idea. But as Diane Rubenstein deconstructs Reagan, Reagan, his employer, was only a B actor playing the role of President. another empty Master-Signifier ruling the free world.




Ouch!


Well, Darren if you want to keep splitting hairs over a fantasy philosophical and economic system, well........what can I say.