Dennis Hardin
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Posts posted by Dennis Hardin
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Moreover, what they did to the point of Nathan’s concealment of his new love from Rand was fine by my own moral standards.
Just to clarify, so there is no confusion about this: Nathaniel Branden has always acknowledged that his conduct with respect to deceiving Ayn Rand was morally wrong:
I should now like to turn to one accusation in her [Ayn Rand’s] article [“To Whom It May Concern”] that is founded on fact and that involves a grave error I did make. Several years ago, I found myself in an agonizing personal dilemma, which I saw no way to resolve. The solution I ultimately chose was wrong, because it involved resorting to a falsehood. It entailed, among other things, withholding from Miss Rand certain information about my personal life – specifically, my relationship with a young woman, with whom I was and am deeply in love…..
When I decided to close NBI (which I did by personal choice, not by legal or financial necessity), I called a meeting of the staff in order to make a statement about my break with Miss Rand. I did not want to leave them with an incomprehensible mystery. I felt very regretful over the pain I had caused Miss Rand, and wanted to assure the staff that she was fully within her moral rights in severing our relationship. I did not specify what I had done wrong; I merely acknowledged that I had taken an action that I considered wrong. I did not suspect that this attempt at candor and honesty would be used against me; but thereafter, when accusations were hurled by partisans of Miss Rand, these accusations were often accompanied by the argument: “Nathaniel Branden confessed to doing something wrong, didn’t he? What else do you need to know?” In other words, I was now to be judged guilty of any offense anyone chose to charge me with.
Nathaniel Branden, In Answer to Ayn Rand (10-16-68)
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From today’s Los Angeles Times…
“Les Miz” the most honored film of The Golden Globe Awards
“Les Miserables,” Tom Hooper’s adaptation of the long-running stage musical set in 19th century France, was Sunday night’s top honoree by the numbers, winning three trophies. In the comedy or musical categories, “Les Miserables” collected best picture and actor for Hugh Jackman as ex-con Jean Valjean, while Anne Hathaway won supporting actress for her performance as the consumptive prostitute Fantine.
Jessica Chastain also won best dramatic actress for “Zero Dark Thirty.”
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Is there something inherent in the nature of force that requires that one agency have a monopoly on the legitimate use of force?
To exert force is to control or compel another person, whether done by a government, a private organization or an individual. The person who is the object of force has no choice about it. Under anarchy, when there is a dispute about the rightness of the force being used, one party must prevail—i.e., will end up imposing its viewpoint on the other. So the private defense agency is in the same position of ‘monopolizing force’ (ie, not allowing dissent) as the single government entity. The party being coerced can always claim that it did not ‘consent’ to the coercing agency’s authority. ** The choice is whether to have one agency restricted by objective law or multiple agencies with multiple interpretations of the law.
Every individual in society could potentially refuse to “consent” to any government or any private defense agency, and the result would be as many diverse views of justice as there are citizens. Everyone would then retain their own right to use force in self-defense according to their own personal view of their rights. (Anarcho-capitalism incorrectly assumes that everyone would “consent” to some external agency.)
The choice is objective restraint on the use of force via objective law—or random bloodshed in the streets. Objective restriction on the use of force is a precondition of civilization, and limited government is the only practical way to do it.
**I want to credit Harry Binswanger for this point.
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Or it could be they just screwed up. It happens. Whatever they did they certainly paid a price for it.
Either way, if one person fails to live up to their own code it does not necessarily say anything about that code, only the person. The ideas stand alone and fall on their own based on their truth. If I say living within my means is ethical then fail to do it that says something about me, not the principle.
And that is the point. Judging ideas is one thing and a completely different topic. Here we are asked to evaluate the people and simply put I am so far removed at this stage, and there is so much information and frankly bad blood driving that information, that taking the time and energy to do so is seemingly pointless since it provides little benefit. It is an admittedly bias on my part against gossip but really it survives no purpose.
Your position is completely understandable and rational. It is also infinitely more objective than that of the admirers of Ayn Rand who leap to a total condemnation of Nathaniel and Barbara Branden, 40 years after the break, on the basis of one genuinely awful book (The Passion of Ayn Rand’s Critics)—while being explicitly told by Objectivist leadership not to read the accounts written by the Brandens.
The message has been: Just read our version and make up your mind--and their version consists of biased, illogical interpretations of Ayn Rand’s private journals.
The break occurred in 1968. PARC was published in 2005, and its author was allowed unprecedented access to the Ayn Rand archives by the guardians of her estate. Let’s just say that resurrecting old demons and then demanding allegiance to a one-sided presentation is perhaps not the best way to earn respectability for a philosophical movement founded on reason and objectivity.
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I ran across an argument for anarchy in Marsha Enright’s new book, Ayn Rand Explained, and I want to comment on it here because of its relevance to the article cited in the heading of this thread: The Childs-Peikoff Hypothesis. In the following excerpt, Enright rephrases a statement by Ronald Merrill in The Ideas of Ayn Rand. (Her book is a revision of Merrill’s earlier work.)
The strong point of the anarcho-capitalist critique is that [John] Locke’s compact between government and citizen is not really voluntary. The State, like Don Corleone, makes you an offer you can’t refuse. The individual must sign or, at minimum, be forcibly ejected from the country of his birth….So Locke’s Just State is nothing of the kind, for its basic moral justification—voluntary acceptance by its citizens—does not really exist.
The anarcho-capitalists reject the social contract as a group contract. They demand an arrangement under which each person can voluntarily make an individual social contract. But, in their view, if government is a monopoly, then those who reject its terms have no viable options. The ‘consent of the governed’ is extorted, not truly voluntary…
In this interpretation, the anarcho-capitalist position must be conceded to have great force…
Ayn Rand Explained, pp. 181-182
This is simply a restatement of the rationalist argument that, if there can be no legitimate initiation of force, then government cannot “initiate force” against private defense agencies. It seems to have “great force” only to those who hold their ideas in the form of rationalist floating abstractions, as many Objectivists (including apparently Marsha Enright) continue to do. The beauty of Peikoff’s 1983 lectures on Understanding Objectivism was to show exactly how rationalism is contrary to Objectivism.
Rationalism is the epistemological policy of holding ideas above reality, of using concepts in such a way that you effectively ignore their concrete referents. Example: One may never initiate force, therefore no organization may stop others from using force—including the agency whose task it is to objectively prohibit the initiation of force.
If there is something inherent in the nature of force that requires that one agency have a monopoly on the legitimate use of force—if, in reality, that is a precondition of freedom--then limited government is not at all inconsistent with Objectivism. The ‘consent of the governed’ means: the members of a society recognize the reality that society can only exist if individuals relinquish the use of private, nonobjective force—and that those who do not recognize this threaten the liberty of everyone else.
Anarcho-Capitalism is pure, undiluted rationalism. Because it ignores the reality of the nature of force, it is not remotely consistent with the philosophy of Objectivism. It is only from a simplistic, rationalist perspective that the anarcho-capitalist argument “must be conceded to have great force.”
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The Academy Awards nominations came out today, and Les Miserables is nominated for Best Picture, Best Actor (Hugh Jackman) and (praise the Lord) Best Supporting Actress, Anne Hathaway. Almost makes me want to take back all those bad things I said about today’s Hollywood. If Les Miz should actually win even two of these major awards, I may have to revise my earlier estimate.
BTW, I am truly delighted to see that Jessica Chastain was nominated for Best Actress for Zero Dark Thirty, which I saw last weekend. She plays an extremely admirable character—a fiercely independent woman whose courage and judgment appear to have been essential factors in finding and killing Osama bin Laden. If Dagny Taggart worked for the CIA, this movie could have been about her.
There is some speculation about whether the CIA operative Chastain portrays is an actual person or not. Some reviewers have suggested that more than one person may have been responsible for pushing the mission forward when most others were wishy-washy about the identity of the mystery person in the Pakistani compound. Regardless, as portrayed in the film, the female CIA agent is a genuine heroine.
Scene: Sitting at a conference table, various CIA staff are asked about the probability that the mystery person is bin Laden. Everyone else says 60 % or something similar, and they all express strong misgivings about whether the mission should proceed. Chastain’s character says 95%, then adds: “It’s actually 100 %, but I know you people get uncomfortable with certainty.”
The audience roared. The scene could have been written by Ayn Rand.
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That's interesting that you call Branden charismatic. I have seen and heard mixed things. In recent videos he looks and sounds like a zombie who barely knows where he is. From someone who knew him back in the day, he was describes as a "game show host" with a lot of flash and suface charm, but a lack of substance and willingness to engage in intellectual rigor. On the other hand, I have also heard from other people who agree with your assessment. Can you elaborate on what Branden was like back then and how he complimented Rand?
Prior to the break, Ayn Rand made it known that she considered Branden her equal in all respects regarding Objectivism. She often said that she gave him a blank check to speak for her. Peikoff has never occupied a leadership position comparable to Branden’s.
Anyone familiar with Rand’s view of femininity will understand why she may given Branden so much authority. She desperately wanted to find a man whom she could regard as her equal.
Take a look at this booknotes interview with Brian Lamb from July, 1989, shortly after the publication of Judgment Day, Branden’s memoir of his association with Rand. (The memoir was later revised and re-published as My Years with Ayn Rand.) Branden was pretty much at the top of his game then. Unlike the youtube videos, this is vintage Branden--the same Branden I recall from the NBI years.
Branden was involved in a serious auto accident a few years ago, and had to undergo major back surgery. The surgery did not turn out well, and his health has not been good since then. I believe he may also take a lot of pain medication, which often affects memory as well as verbal communication skills. Most of the recent youtube videos reveal the enormous struggle he has been going through since that accident.
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So this story of Ayn Rand having a consensual affair is very disturbing to me. Probably more than it should be. But really. Like, it bothers me a LOT. Kind of jarring really. I'm not a fan of being shaken.
Your bewilderment is entirely understandable. As one who was there (meaning, a die-hard Objectivist) at that time, I can assure you it was totally bewildering to me.
The Nathaniel Branden Institute had just moved into its shiny new offices in the basement of the Empire State Building. The office was fantastic with a large lecture hall and listening rooms for hearing recorded lectures. The Empire State Building! Can you imagine how profitable NBI was to make a move of that kind? I had just flown to New York from Tennessee. As always, the first thing I did on arriving in New York was to visit NBI. There, on the reception desk, was a note that read: “An irreconcilable break has occurred between Ayn Rand and Nathaniel Branden.” The note made clear that NBI was suspending further activity for the indefinite future.
I couldn’t believe it. My life was never the same again.
Prior to the break, the suggestion of any parting of the ways between Rand and Branden was unthinkable. Objectivists (or ‘students of Objectivism,’ the disclaimer we were supposed to use at the time) saw Rand and Branden as inseparable as God and Jesus. Their break tore the Objectivist movement apart. I don’t think it has ever recovered.
It may never recover, especially because certain Objectivist leaders will carry a vendetta against Branden to their grave. I have no doubt that Peikoff will pass that torch to whomever his successor may be. The guardians of her estate seem incapable of even suggesting Ayn Rand was in any way at fault. (Branden acknowledged his own culpability long ago.) I’m not sure that the deaths of the various surviving witnesses will change anything. It is a wound that may never heal.
In retrospect, however, the ‘Great Schism’ may have had one major beneficial effect: it destroyed Objectivism as a cult (which it largely was to that point) and forced Objectivists to begin thinking for themselves.
The world may never profit from the genius of Ayn Rand as it might have. Branden was not only brilliant but intensely charismatic. The success of NBI was no fluke. There is no telling how much of an impact Objectivism would have had on the culture with him at the helm.
Unfortunately, however, it was a movement of True Believers. The fate of True Believers is often quite destructive. Ironically, the by-product of the schism—i.e., that very important lesson, the virtue of intellectual independence--may well have saved many lives, including my own.
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Bluecherry makes some valid points, but I would explain it this way.
Your personal value hierarchy should be defined in terms of concretes rather than broad abstractions, and your emotions have a key role to play in these value-choices. Your mind defines the abstract principles involved—career/purpose, romantic love, friendships, recreation, art, et. al.—but your personal emotions enable you to choose between the range of valid options available under each principle.
Too many Objectivists yield to the rationalist formula of keeping their values in the form of floating abstractions disconnected from reality. The role of your personal value hierarchy is to guide your daily choices, and broad abstractions are of minimal use here. Your actual value hierarchy would not consist of abstractions but the particular concretes you have chosen—your career (writing, medicine, etc.), your spouse or life partner, your friends, the sports, movies, books you enjoy, et. al.
To some extent, philosophy would help you with the actual ranking of value categories. Many options would apply here, however. In my own case, for instance, any and all relationships would always be secondary to football. (Actually, that was a joke.)
For more on this, see the chapter on ‘Emotions and Moral Judgment’ in Peikoff’s Understanding Objectivism.
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Hugo was a non-practicing Catholic for much of his life and an outspoken critic of church policy. During his long exile in the Channel Islands (when Louis Napolean came to power) he took up spiritism, a religious cult which was popular in his day. He often took part in seances and obviously believed that the living could communicate with the spirit world.
Apparently his mysticism gave way to Deism in his later years and he became a self-professed freethinker, so I should give him credit for that.
Lindsey Luna is utterly wrong in her evaluation of Jean Valjean as a “filthy freeloader.” He was a desperate man who had just tasted freedom after losing 19 years of his life for stealing a loaf of bread to feed his starving sister’s family. Hugo makes clear that he is a fundamentally good man driven to theft in a moment of extreme emotional despair. It might be accurate to call the Bishop’s action altruistic, but I don’t think that’s necessarily the case. Given the context of the massive injustices witnessed by every member of society at the time, you could also conclude that he was simply throwing a drowning man a life preserver. His decision to help Valjean could be compared to the heroism of those who helped protect the Jews in Nazi Germny.
Such actions in the defense of the value of human life are anything but selfless, but you wouldn’t expect a knee-jerk Rand-basher to appreciate that sort of subtlety.
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"Gangs of people killing other gangs of people in order to protect what is ours" is a "perfect description of human life" under anarchy and authoritarian government.
The role of limited government is to prohibit gangs (including "criminals" and "terrorists" and statist politicians) from interfering with the rights of the smallest minority--the individual.
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Thanks for those links.
It certainly is no surprise that proponents of Occupy Wall Street would identify with the revolutionaries in Les Miserables. Victor Hugo himself was, of course, a socialist, and his great novel is a clarion call for revolution and social change. You wouldn’t expect a modern day liberal like Nathan Newman to appreciate the differences between Louis-Philippe's regime and a mixed economy ravaged by statist intervention.
Of course, in the case of Victor Hugo, his socialism was entirely understandable given the historical context. Socialism was pretty much synonymous with ethical idealism in Europe at that time. Given the case studies of global communism, today’s collectivist liberals don’t have that excuse.
Can you imagine a more floating abstraction than “national and global equity”? Makes you wonder how people with such a slapdash epistemology manage to dress themselves in the morning.
Doris Donnelly praises Hugo’s defiant sympathy for Catholicism, lending credibility to a clergy condemned as corrupt in his day for their seeming opposition to Hugo’s professed democratic ideals. Hugo embraces the Roman Catholic Church by giving a Bishop the pivotal role in Jean Valjean’s salvation. Philosophically, Hugo was clearly a mystic who totally lacked an appreciation of the role of reason in human life, despite the fact that his characters were singularly focused and conscious in their defiant, dedicated heroism.
Neither Newman nor Donnelly can see past their peculiar raison d’etre to appreciate the more fundamental theme of Hugo’s novel, and the source of its enduring greatness: Man’s loyalty to values.
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It won’t help to simply scold yourself for irrational thinking. Cognitive-behavioral therapy requires that you identify the specific irrational thoughts and challenge them directly. For example:
You read one of her texts and you think: She’s having doubts about whether I’m the right guy for her. She’s thinking of breaking up with me.
Albert Ellis or a Cog-B therapist would take that thought and re-process it this way:
What is the evidence for this? Is there another way of looking at what she said? What is the contrary evidence? If it did turn out to be true, would it really be catastrophic?
It’s also worthwhile to enhance your self-awareness of your own self-worth—why any woman would be foolish to break up with you.
Rather than berate yourself, sympathize with yourself for having fears of losing her: Of course you don’t want the pain that would accompany that. Nobody would. Try to accept your fears. Then reinforce your knowledge that you have the inner strength to survive that loss if it should happen.
- bluecherry, Hairnet and BlackInMind
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Thanks, Stephen. I’ll be interested to hear your reaction after you see it.
I honestly cannot remember when a movie so perfectly met the standards for romantic cinema. The second time I saw it, I noticed a lot of people still sitting in the theater after the credits were over and the lights came on. It’s as if they were as stunned as I was about what they had just seen. All I could think about was: Wow! This is what going to the movies would be like in a rational world!
It just makes you realize the power of art and the potential that is being wasted by all the sordid crap that finds its way onto the big screen today.
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Pleased to join the chorus.
I’m glad you enjoyed the film. I saw it for a second time two nights ago, and loved it even more than I did the first time. I thought all of the major players—including Jackman and Crowe—did an absolutely phenomenal job. I don’t have a word of criticism for any of them. In fact, I owe all of them—along with the director, Tom Hooper—a huge debt of gratitude for allowing me to live in Victor Hugo’s universe for nearly three hours. This film is unbelievably inspirational, an esthetic marvel that is all the more astonishing for its stark contrast with the dismal culture we see around us today.
For me, the only negative was Sasha Baron Cohen. Or, to be more exact, the character he portrayed. I realize that the film is based on the musical, so those purely frivolous scenes (e.g., “Master of the House”) had to be included, but I could have done without the “comic relief.”
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Kenneth Turan’s movie review (see my post #7 above) also caught the attention of Al Ramrus, a television/movie writer and producer who was a good friend of Ayn Rand in the 1950s and 1960s. You may remember him from the documentary, Ayn Rand: A Sense of Life.
Letter to the Los Angeles Times, Saturday, December 29, 2012
“Les Miz may not be for the literati”
What a shame that while praising Les Miserables as a musical—“delivers an emotional wallop” [“Glory in Misery,” 12-25-12]—Kenneth Turan also feels obligated to demonstrate his credentials as a modern intellectual and sophisticated cultural connoisseur by disparaging the story: “unashamed, operatic-sized sentiments,” “melodramatic plot gets increasingly wild and crazy,” “tailor-made for mockery,” etc.
In fact, the show does the almost impossible, capturing the essence of Victor Hugo’s classic 19th century novel, a romantic epic of heroism, idealism, loyalty and love. Brought to life with overwhelming emotion, these themes, in a gripping life-affirming story with such iconic characters as Jean Valjean and Inspector Javert, may not be fashionable these days with the literati who prefer smaller-than-life tales filled with despair, defeatism, and sexual perversity. But the common folk know better.
Al Ramrus, Pacific Palisades
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Another reason to be pulling for Anne Hathaway (Fantine in Les Miserables) on Oscar night: she’s a big fan of Ayn Rand.
Here is an excerpt from a September, 2011 interview with Chelsea Handler (who clearly shares Hathaway’s admiration for Rand) in Interview magazine:
CHANDLER: . . But I know you're an Ayn Rand fan, right?
HATHAWAY: Yeah, I am.
HANDLER: What's your favorite Ayn Rand book?
HATHAWAY: Atlas Shrugged.
HANDLER: Did you like that better than The Fountainhead?
HATHAWAY: I did. When I began Atlas Shrugged, I was really excited, because Ayn Rand said that The Fountainhead was the overture to Atlas Shrugged. I was like, "Ooh! What am I getting into?" Whether or not you agree with Ayn Rand-and I have certain issues with some of her beliefs-the woman can tell a story. I mean, the novel as an art form is just in full florid bloom in Atlas Shrugged. It's an unbelievable story. The characters are so compelling, and what she's saying is mind-expanding. I really enjoyed that book, and it was kind of prophetic. I read that book for the first time during the Bush Administration and I was like, "People are governing with their feelings as opposed to their intellect. This is happening." And she wrote this how many years ago?
HANDLER: Not only that, but I think a book like The Fountainhead or Atlas Shrugged is kind of a way to look at leading your life with your professionalism permeated by your value system and your moral rectitude. You're able to kind of see everything as one whole thing rather than kind of compartmentalizing different things in your life, and being morally bound to your personal life and not your professional life or vice-versa. When I read The Fountainhead, I was 17, and I thought, "I am never, ever going to have a book impact me this much." And I don't know that I've had one that did. That book definitely changed me for good, and I think the biggest compliment that you can say about any book is that it does that.
HATHAWAY: It's so true. If you're going to sum up both of those books, then I think what they say is don't be a hypocrite.
HANDLER: Exactly.
HATHAWAY: And whatever you are made of, be the best of that.
Perhaps Hathaway will thank Ayn Rand in her acceptance speech.
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The referenced lecture series by Leonard Peikoff is Understanding Objectivism, which is now available in book form.
Before they speak another word arguing that their viewpoint is remotely consistent with Objectivism, the defenders of anarchism should read that book.
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Robert Tracinski has published a review of Les Miserables in The Tracinski Letter:
“Director Tom Hooper offers us a powerful new version of Les Miserables which is faithful in letter and spirit to the original musical and also to the novel. In fact, he frequently draws on elements from the original novel that couldn't be presented on stage, while at the same time really adapting the story to take advantage of the medium of film."
Tracinski characterizes Hooper’s treatment of Hugo’s story as in keeping with Ayn Rand’s literary school of Romantic Realism—i.e., showing how our actions, value-choices and ideals apply in the real world.
Referring to the musical, Tracinski says that “the final song… shows how deeply its creators understood the theme of Hugo’s work. [The song reprises a line used earlier: ‘Will you join our crusade?’] …The ‘crusade’ is every character’s fight for his values. It is the struggle for values as such.”
“…Tom Hooper’s achievement—and Hugh Jackman’s—is to bring that theme to life again with a realism that helps make its message fresh, immediate and unforgettable.”
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Why "AnarchObjectivism" is a classic oxymoron.
And why Roy Childs--an Objectivist-libertarian and one of the early supporters of Anarcho-Capitalism--would have agreed.
The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies
"The Childs-Peikoff Hypothesis," pp. 169-78
by Dennis C. Hardin
In his infamous "Open Letter to Ayn Rand," Roy Childs, a prominent libertarian advocate of anarcho-capitalism, argued that limited government is inconsistent with Rand's philosophy of Objectivism. In the early 1980s, Childs changed his mind and rejected anarcho-capitalism as a rational political system. Despite a brief, unfinished, posthumous essay, some say that the real reasons for Childs' change of heart will always remain a mystery. However, specific comments by Childs in that essay point directly to the influence of a series of lectures on Objectivism presented by Leonard Peikoff in 1983.
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Just saw this horrific film, the story of which, I knew almost nothing. The opening scene was powerful but I'd sum up this story as such: Justice in the service of the morality of sacrifice leads men of integrity to break their own backs.
Here is Ayn Rand's statement about the theme of Les Miserables:
The theme of Victor Hugo's Les Miserables is the injustice done to the lower classes of society. The plot-theme is: the struggle of an ex-convict to avoid the persecution of the police. This is the central narrative line, to which all the events are related. (from The Art of Fiction, p. 18)
Later in the same book, she says:
The justification for presenting tragic endings in literature is to show, as in We, The Living, that the human spirit can survive even the worst of circumstances--that the worst that the chance events of nature or the evil of other people can do will not defeat the proper human spirit. To quote from Galt's speech in Atlas Shrugged: "Suffering as such is not a value; only man's fight against suffering, is."
"Victor Hugo, who usually has unhappy endings, always presents his characters' suffering somewhat in the way that I do in We, The Living..."
The Art of Fiction, p. 174)
Tom Hooper, the director of the new film, did not rely on the musical as his only source material. He relied heavily on Hugo's novel:
For the director, the words in Victor Hugo's 1862 novel, on which the musical is based, were obsessively detailed and key to inspiring much of the background for his cast, so he insisted everyone read the book.
"The story endures because it is so universal. It's about a man who's lost in the world, and his soul has become lost, and it's about him making the most important discoveries he can make as a human being," says Hooper. "It's about the importance of dealing with your fellow man with compassion and grace, and about the transformative power of love."
Randee Dawn in The Los Angeles Times, 12-27-12 (The Envelope)
Ayn Rand would have loved this "horrific" film.
- FeatherFall and CptnChan
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Enjolras, was her favorite character? Javert was, according to tapes I had from the Ayn Rand BookStore, on the subject. I don't own them anymore and forget who did the speaking in the tape, it was a woman though.
I suspect it was Shoshana Milgram. In a previous post, you said the following:
I just listened to Shoshana Milgram's Victor Hugo's Les Miserables: Valor in Defense of Values lecture and I thought it was interesting to note that her liking of Hugo had (I gather) more to do with his sense of life, and that Enjolras was the character that I think Ayn Rand liked the most in Les Miserables. Milgram compares him to some of the characters of Rand's fiction. I never really paid enough attention to that character, but after Milgram focused on him, and what Ayn Rand said about him, I can see why she thought this way. Milgram treats it extensively in the lecture, I only listened to it once, so in another listen or two when I have some time, I can go more into detail about it, if anyone would like me to.
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I saw the film last night (a special Christmas Eve showing) and it is nothing short of magnificent. It is so good, in fact, that it would take an hour or two to write a full report. Perhaps the best way to convey how wonderful the film is would be to offer a few telling quotes from Kenneth Turan’s favorable review in the Los Angeles Times:
“The people who put ‘Les Miserables’ on screen dreamed a mighty dream, they really did. They dreamed of filming one of the most popular of modern theatrical musicals …in a way that had not been done before, enhancing the emotion of what was already a hugely emotional piece. And, despite some built-in obstacles, they succeeded to a surprising extent…[if] unashamed operatic-sized musicals are not your style, this ‘Les Miz’ is not going to make you happy. [NOTE: It made me ecstatic—DH]
“From it’s opening scene,…this production is visual to the max, with an epic physical scale and grandeur the play couldn’t possibly have [Emphasis added—DH]….Because it is so shameless and so popular, ‘Les Miserables’ and its ‘to love another person is to see the face of God’ theme are tailor-made for mockery.”
That last comment is Turan's cleverly obscured escape clause. He seems to be going out of his way to apologize for having liked the film so much, which tells you how thankful we should be that it’s a British production. Hollywood would never have the courage to make a film like this. Turan also throws in pejoratives such as ‘melodramatic’ and ‘over-the-top’ to describe the production, then ends this way:
“But despite its pitfalls, this movie musical is a clutch player that delivers an emotional wallop when it counts. You can walk into the theater as an agnostic, but you may just leave singing with the choir.”
In other words, Turan liked the film in spite of himself and his instinctive Hollywood cynicism and hatred for human greatness.
The entire cast is superb, including Hugh Jackman as Jean Valjean and Russell Crowe as Javert. You will never see a scene in a movie more powerful than Anne Hathaway singing “I Dreamed A Dream.” If she does not win an Academy Award for that one scene, there is no justice in this world.
Assuming the movie follows the show it’s going to be just as condensed as the Liam Neeson movie. The only difference I can think of is the ending, the Neeson movie ended with Javert’s suicide, the show ends at Valjean’s death bed.
One key difference between Hugo’s story and the Liam Neeson film is that Marius is depicted as the leader of the insurrection, rather than Enjolras. Of course, the musical also makes some changes: Enjolras is executed rather than being shot at the barricades. But his heroism as the implacable leader is left intact and even underscored. Eponine also has a minimal role in the earlier film version. She is given a much more prominent role in the musical and in the new film, which again is more faithful to the book.
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I found the Liam Neeson version pretty boring. The film butchered Hugo’s original story, and it just didn’t touch me on an emotional level. I really hope this version is more faithful to Hugo, and that the music underscores the drama and romanticism of the epic story.
I was wrong about this being a Hollywood production. Universal is distributing the film, but it was produced by Working Title Films, which is a British firm. They also did Anna Karenina, which I have not seen. (Ayn Rand despised Tolstoy, as I recall.) Another encouraging note is that the director, Tom Hooper, also worked on HBO’s Emmy-award winning series, John Adams, which was terrific.
It will be fascinating to see how the film handles the character of Enjolras, the leader of the insurrection. Broadway actor Aaron Tveit plays the role. Here’s what Barbara Branden wrote about Enjolras in Who Is Ayn Rand?:
“Among Hugo’s characters, {Ayn Rand] found her favorite in Les Miserables. It was not Jean Valjean, the leading character, nor Marius, the younger hero. It was Enjolras, the young leader of the insurrectionists, who dies fighting on the barricades in one of the most exalted and dramatically powerful scenes in all of Hugo’s novels. She regarded Marius as a weak, sentimental young man. But in Enjolras, the austere, implacable rebel—whom Hugo describes as ‘the marble lover of liberty,’ who ‘had but one passion, the right; but one thought, to remove all obstacles’—she saw the dedicated purposefulness and the intransigent love of rectitude that was the essence of her concept of human greatness.”
(WIAR, hardback version, p. 159)
As a teenager suffering through the aftermath of the communist revolution in 1920’s Russia, it was, at least in part, the vision of Enjolras that inspired Ayn Rand to fight for a better life and eventually to leave Russia behind and come to America. That is the power of romantic art.
The Childs-Peikoff Hypothesis
in Productivity
Posted
To monopolize is to dominate by excluding others from choice. Force necessarily involves excluding others from choice: it is one party imposing its will on another. This is true any time one party exercises coercion. The barring of competition is simply one instance of force. So there is no equivocation here.
Let’s examine the difference between what you call “legitimate” coercion and “illegitimate” coercion by concretizing both (since my case against anarchy in “The Childs-Peikoff Hypothesis” is that it is based on rationalism).
“Legitimate” force would presumably include things like police intervention to stop theft or assault or to penalize someone for those crimes. In either instance, the thief or assailant may well refuse to sanction or consent to the use of force against them, but you would say no ‘consent’ is necessary.
“Illegitimate” force (in your view) would be arresting someone for pulling a gun on a “suspect” (thief or assailant) without the authority to do so—by a private individual or ‘defense agency.’ Or arresting someone for pulling a gun on a neighbor for trespassing. In the last instance, the person is being arrested because the law does not allow you to threaten someone’s life for trespassing. In all these instances, the people arrested are acting outside the province of the law, which makes them ‘aggressors’ (in the eyes of the law). Here again, the parties being arrested would deny sanction or consent to the arrest, claiming they were simply acting in self-defense.
In the first instance, you claim the lack of consent doesn’t matter. In the second, you seem to say that it does matter.
But then later you say this:
With that comment, you have acknowledged that a lack of consent is just as much of an issue with anarchy as with limited government.
The entire case for anarcho-capitalism rests on the consent issue. When anarchists argue that the government has no right to stop a private defense agency from using retaliatory force, they are basing the agency’s right to act on someone’s choice (consent) to use their services instead of the government’s services. That is the whole “moral” raison d’etre for this curious phenomenon called anarcho-capitalism.
Since you have conceded that the lack of consent is just as much of a problem for the anarcho-capitalist as for the minarchist, no further discussion is really needed.
The main case for anarcho-capitalism is based on a moral argument: that individuals should be able to make their own private choice as to how they enforce their right of self-defense. If that’s true, then this should extend to a further question: Not just to whom they delegate their right of self-defense, but whether they choose to delegate that right in the first place. Perhaps no such agency meets their “objective” criteria for administering force.
And there is no stone tablet that says individuals must “consent” to abide by some established “objective code” of retaliatory force. If the withholding of consent is the issue, the question of restricting the right of self-defense to an established “objective code” is also necessarily thrown into the mix as well. Anyone could argue that his “objective code” is superior to any others being offered on the “market.”
Repeating what I said in a prior post:
If there is something inherent in the nature of force that requires that one agency have a monopoly on the legitimate use of force—if, in reality, that is a precondition of freedom--then limited government is not at all inconsistent with Objectivism. The ‘consent of the governed’ means: the members of a society recognize the reality that society can only exist if individuals relinquish the use of private, nonobjective force—and that those who do not recognize this threaten the liberty of everyone else.
The practicality of limited government and whether this is the best way to establish objective law is not the issue. (Obviously it is. No sane person disputes that.) No one would have “cooked up” the wacky notion of anarcho-capitalism but for the alleged “moral” arguments. So I’m not about to waste my time trying to “prove” that limited government is a more practical solution. Give me a freakin’ break. I have better things to do.