splitprimary
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Posts posted by splitprimary
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Dagny hadn't committed to any of them, so I don't think it's completely fair to say that she was not loyal. Francisco knew by what he was choosing to do that they would be separated and basically told her to move on with her life. Rearden she -might- have married, but he stayed with his wife during their relationship. It was also sort of suggested that she always knew neither of them were her final choice, and she knew when she met Galt that he was.
Rearden:
"I think I've always known that you would find him. I knew what you felt for me, I knew how much it was, but I knew that I was not your final choice.”
“somewhere within the past month, you have met the man you love, and if love means one's final, irreplaceable choice, then he is the only man you've ever loved."
Dagny:
She thought: To find a feeling that would hold, as their sum, as their final expression, the purpose of all the things she loved on earth . . . To find a consciousness like her own, who would be the meaning of her world, as she would be of his . . . No, not Francisco d'Anconia, not Hank Rearden, not any man she had ever met or admired . . . A man who existed only in her knowledge of her capacity for an emotion she had never felt, but would have given her life to experience.
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"How is it moral... to stop loving one man just because you have found another who is better?"
-As for #1, Dagny never stopped loving the men she was involved with. Rand makes that very clear.
Dagny/Rearden:“Will you understand it, if I say that I'll always love you?"
"...admiration. If you will accept it, it will always be yours. What you meant to me can never be changed. But the man I met—he is the love I had wanted to reach long before I knew that he existed..."
(Rearden:)
"What you'll give him is not taken away from me, it's what I've never had."
Dagny/Francisco:"Francisco, I did love you—" she said, and caught her breath, shocked, realizing that she had not intended to say it and, simultaneously, that this was not the tense she had wanted to use.
"But you do," he said calmly, smiling. "You still love me—even if there's one expression of it that you'll always feel and want, but will not give me any longer. I'm still what I was, and you'll always see it and you'll always grant me the same response, even if there's a greater one that you grant to another man. No matter what you feel for him, it will not change what you feel for me, and it won't be treason to either, because it comes from the same root, it's the same payment in answer to the same values. No matter what happens in the future, we'll always be what we were to each other, you and I, because you'll always love me.""Francisco," she whispered, "do you know that?"
"Of course. Don't you understand it now? Dagny, every form of happiness is one, every desire is driven by the same motor—by our love for a single value, for the highest potentiality of our own existence—and every achievement is an expression of it." -
Between this thread and another here that you commented on around the same time, you've got the key questions to investigate:
"Is it possible that you're doing the wrong things?" and"What would it mean to integrate [a particular goal] within the wider context of a goal directed life?"
I don't think this is primarily a self-esteem problem. I think this is a purpose problem. A lot of people are unhappy because of a lack of meaning, and they don't identify that that's where the problem is coming from. To me this sounds like Existentialism:
"I don't get much pleasure out of anything I do... I can't figure out how I can value anything."
"I can't identify rational reasons for why I like things and it makes me feel guilty and paralyses me."
Now I don't know you, so I could be way off, but it's probably worth checking if this is something you relate to: -
"Why do Ayn Rands views on coersive monopolies not apply to her ideal government?"
Rand's views of coercive monopolies don't apply to her ideal government because limited government is a non-coercive monopoly.
From VOS: "The nature of the laws proper to a free society and the source of its government’s authority are both to be derived from the nature and purpose of a proper government. The basic principle of both is indicated in The Declaration of Independence: 'to secure these [individual] rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed ...' The source of the government’s authority is 'the consent of the governed.' This means that the government is not the ruler, but the servant or agent of the citizens"
a legitimate government draws its only authority from the consent of the governed. it's existence is conditional and derivative, not primary. withdraw the consent, and it dies. so it's true that a government does have a territorial monopoly, but the monopoly is an always-true description, not a rigid first condition to be met or else.
you don't draw the territory first and force whoever is there into accepting that institution; the territory is made up of the property of whoever is currently choosing to subscribe to that particular government. at all times, as long as there is a government, it has a monopoly on the retaliatory use of physical force within an area. but the area can change. -
CriticalThinker is making an important distinction between force+production / government+business, that Rand also emphasized, in Virtue of Selfishness:
"A recent variant of anarchistic theory, which is befuddling some of the younger advocates of freedom, is a weird absurdity called “competing governments.” Accepting the basic premise of the modern statists—who see no difference between the functions of government and the functions of industry, between force and production, and who advocate government ownership of business—the proponents of “competing governments” take the other side of the same coin and declare that since competition is so beneficial to business, it should also be applied to government. Instead of a single, monopolistic government, they declare, there should be a number of different governments in the same geographical area, competing for the allegiance of individual citizens, with every citizen free to “shop” and to patronize whatever government he chooses." -
"I think it's better to take people for what they are, or not. And likewise, present yourself to other people as you are, offering them to take it or leave it. If this approach yields a long term friendship (not likely but still happily possible), it will have done so in the best of ways, with the personal independence of each party intact"
what you're describing wouldn't even be a relationship- two people not affecting each other in any way. that's almost impossible. and of what use would that be: a relationship that left you completely "intact", exactly the way that you were before it? every relationship you have should make you better. -
I agree! Besides Spinoza, check out Nietzsche, and a book I just found: The Faith of Reason by John W. Chadwick
“The most vital essence of religion is not involved in man’s relation to any theory of the universe, but in his relation to the universe itself. …
The essential virtue of religion is not in any theory or definition, but in man’s attitude of reverence and loyalty before this Everlasting Fact we call the Universe. …in the awe which falls upon his mind as he confronts the universal order, and in the voluntary energy of self-surrender to the order which this awe inspires. …
Therefore, because we must still somehow speak of him, we call by the most simple name of all, a name which is no definition, but a content for all the awe and reverence and adoration with which our hearts expand… -God.”
January 1879
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Hi Eponine!
try out the chat too sometime, we've actually been discussing romance and polyamory there pretty recently
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JASKN:
no one with that outlook should get married.
if you believe people “are always changing” in ways deep enough to disrupt their relationships, and this is “a simple inevitability”, it doesn’t make any sense to enter into that kind of contract. see post #43 about what kind of conviction marriage represents.
DonAthos explained:
“By committing to my wife in any fashion at all, I'm speaking to… this belief that I maintain, about the compatibility of our fundamental nature, that will continue to provide the basis for a loving and happy relationship… I do not expect for either me or my wife to be fundamentally different -- even twenty years from now -- again due to my beliefs about who we are and human nature more generally.”
“Marriage is a formal recognition of that”
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i’ll take up your revised example. (post #76)
there is still a moral failure there. this couple intended to stay together, willed it, declared it, and couldn’t follow through. if Jill cared about the marriage, and was actually trying to maintain it or “take the actions required for love” like you say, Jack should have been part of all those “little changes” that were going on. they would have been talking about her values as they shifted or at least the difference would have been known to both, and either Jack’s values would have changed in step with hers, or in the course of their interaction he could have provided the check she needed, if the original values they shared, which she was abandoning, were the better ones.
we’re talking about fundamental values. it's already been covered here that you don’t fall out of love because your taste in food has changed. if you make it trivial enough that it’s a difference in preferences without any moral significance, then it’s too trivial to make anyone fall out of love. if the issues are big enough to make someone fall out of love, then someone either significantly improved or severely corrupted their philosophy, and in a healthy relationship this would never happen to one person in isolation. if Jack had known about the value change all along and they still managed to end up in disagreement, he would also want to end the relationship and it would be a mutual decision. but if Jill’s values changed like that, especially over enough time for the new ideas to have already been automatized so that her preferences are different but she can’t trace why, and Jack is only finding out about any of this when she’s serving up divorce papers, then Jill was absolutely NOT “taking the actions to maintain love”.
Jill is breaking a contract she made with Jack, who hasn’t breached it, and it’s not a mutual decision. if she wants to end the marriage, she can force a divorce and it will be a “no-fault”, but the damages are on her and so is the moral blame. Jill failed / is choosing to fail to honor an agreement she made.
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right, i should have added *without consequece* or something there. the initiating party should be exclusively held responsible for liquidation damages.
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well, if we are going to treat it like other contracts, that's how it seems like it would work (unless you build something in for this case). with most contracts one party can't just renege at any time for any or no reason.
if divorce is going to be granted when only one party wants out and there has been no breach of contract, i would say that's fine if the one initiating the divorce is the only one who can end up paying any damages. if i'm initiating a divorce against my husband, for instance, and he has done nothing wrong, i definitely should not be able to receive alimony.
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agreed, Devil's Advocate.
wanna talk about whether no-fault divorce undermines all that? because i think it does. it's defined like this on wikipedia:
"No-fault divorce is a divorce in which the dissolution of a marriage does not require a showing of wrongdoing by either party. Laws providing for no-fault divorce allow a family court to grant a divorce in response to a petition by either party of the marriage without requiring the petitioner to provide evidence that the defendant has committed a breach of the marital contract."
"Prior to the no-fault divorce revolution, a divorce was processed through the adversarial system as a civil action, meaning that a divorce could be obtained only through a showing of fault of one (and only one) of the parties in a marriage. This was something more than not loving one another; it meant that one spouse had to plead that the other had committed adultery, abandonment, felony, or other similarly culpable acts. ...
"The California Family Law Act of 1969... abolished California's action for divorce and replaced it with the proceeding for dissolution of marriage on the grounds of irreconcilable differences. The grounds of irreconcilable differences were accepted as true, based on the assertions of one of the parties to the marriage, and thus eliminated the showing-of-fault requirements to obtain a divorce"
"As of October 2010, no-fault divorce is allowed in all fifty states and the District of Columbia."
to go back to your trading partner comparison, you are only released from your contractual obligations there if the other person breaks the terms of the agreement. or, i assume, if both parties agree to end the partnership / cancel the contract.
that second case is what did not exist for marriage prior to no-fault and was what motivated the switch. there was no legal way to obtain a divorce when a couple had a mutual agreement to end the relationship.
i think the ideal solution would be that divorce is valid if either you both agree on it, or you are able to show breach of contract by one or both sides.
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"obligation to act consistently with regard to the love once professed"
-that's a great way to put it. i do agree with that.
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enduring simply means lasting, or long-term (as opposed to fleeting or casual). the word does not specify precise duration. maybe you meant to say “eternal” or “life-long”, but you didn’t. my relationship would already be considered a long-term relationship, and neither of us have any reason to believe we will stop wanting to be together.
DonAthos above stated it perfectly, better than i would have been able to. his view of marriage is mine as well.
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this conversation is specifically about the contract of marriage, not “agreements” in general. couples who are not married can, and usually do, make explicit agreements about their relationships.
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i think i have been more than reasonable. post #30 is a blatant misrepresentation of my position. i never said that i “know today that i will continue to be happily married 30 years from now”. the contract you have doesn't give you knowledge of the future either. and it doesn't have the power to magically prevent you from falling out of love.
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first of all, having been married for 30 years does not add weight to your position. that is a form of argument from authority. first-hand experience is not necessary to be able to understand these concepts. and longevity, by itself, says nothing about the value of a relationship or the participants anyway. one couple might stay together because they have remained each other's highest value through consistent self-improvement and shared philosophy, another might be miserable but stay together by default, because they're afraid of being independent, or out of a sense of duty to a mystical entity. there are all kinds of reasons a marriage might have lasted.
but what we're getting down to is what marriage actually does. either "marriage is the objective evidence" and public declaration of a relationship that already existed and could exist without the external symbols, or making it official somehow fundamentally changes the nature of the relationship itself. maybe you can explain how signing a legal contract in any way increases the likelihood of your staying satisfied with a romantic relationship in the future. the way i see it, the legal part only deals with what happens in the case of dissolution, it doesn't help the relationship along otherwise.
i have another question for you too. are you in favor of no-fault divorce? is it valid to divorce for no other reason than that you no longer want to be in the relationship?
you said earlier, "should either or both parties become unhappy with their relationship, there remains a legitimate means of escape, e.g., divorce." but seem to view negatively the "shift... to agreements to trade as long as one partner feels like it", and say that the marriage contract is a case where, "individuals freely promise to love one another forever" and "ought to be held accountable for having a change of heart later on." plus, " imagine the value of contracts if every one had an emotional escape clause such that one becomes exempt from contractual obligations because one no longer feels like providing them." isn't being unhappy with a relationship a case of "no longer feeling like" fulfilling your "promise to love one another forever"? does marriage impose a duty that you wouldn't otherwise have in a committed, long-term relationship? what is the extent of that obligation? what should you do when it conflicts with your self-interest? -
i didn’t mean to derail the conversation by personalizing. congratulation and condescension aside, you have not addressed the charge that you are mistaking cause for effect.
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happiness (and love) are the results and rewards of good choices. you don’t just choose to be happy or choose to be in love. that is why you can enter into a contract stating actions you will and will not take, but you don’t contract how you will feel in the future.
i’m currently engaged, i believe in marriage. but no part of my reason for getting married is to make the relationship more emotionally secure, to give assurance or to get assurance that the love is genuine or enduring. i already know that it is. if i didn’t already know that, i would not be getting married. that is a precondition for marriage, not a result of it.
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i recently bought an iron, art deco folding mirror, with this design:
http://www.pinterest.com/pin/262405115763507078/
that might be simple enough and vertical enough to use. haven't considered color, but maybe something like this:
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i don't think you'll be able to get it to read as art deco through color choices alone. i would try to incorporate pattern.
http://mystyledecor.net/2014/04/29/art-deco-wallpaper/
you will have to simplify from most of the examples you'll find, since you don't want an exterior to be overwhelming.
(is there a way to upload images here?) -
if all you mean to say is that, knowing you have legal recourse to secure material compensation in the event of something like infidelity, provides some peace of mind, then i could agree. but you keep trying to smuggle in the idea that the contract is also, “individuals freely promis[ing] to love one another forever”. that’s the "emotional" part we’re trying to isolate. if your argument has “nothing to do with contracting for love”, then what is that?
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the point is put very well by an Objectivist psychologist here: http://drhurd.com/if-you-dont-feel-loved-maybe-this-is-why/
“There’s an old saying about marital relationships being a ‘ball and chain.’ Today we use the terminology of prisons and involuntary psychiatric hospital stays to describe relationships: ‘commitment.’ Yikes! By what horrific turn of events or concepts does something as beautiful, spontaneous and nonobligatory as romantic love turn into imprisonment or enslavement? What does it say about the way many people approach romantic love—and human association more generally—that it so often comes to this?”
“From a rational perspective, you don’t want someone to love you unless they freely and willingly choose and allow themselves to do so. What else can reside beneath a connection of love or friendship other than willingness, spontaneity and authenticity? If your spouse or friend doesn’t love you because of sincere, personally held motivation—then what is to be the motive? Duty? Obligation? ‘You loved me five years ago, so you’ve got to love me now. You must love me now.’ ... What’s even in it for you—selfishly—to have someone love you merely out of habit, obligation or duty? Don’t you want it to be real, most of all?If John Galt’s oath is true—and I maintain that it is—then it’s likewise true that nobody is obliged to love you or care about you, just because you want it or need it. You must earn that love—not only in your own conclusions and practice, but also in the other person’s eyes. This is true not only on the first date, or in the first year, but for all the years of your romantic association (or any other kind of association) together."
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Marriage as a contract absolutely provides *material security*. i am not arguing against that and neither is anyone else here. Eioul said: “Contractual promises are good… it is fine to take contracts to assure you what happens with the distribution of property or money in the event anything bad happens.” —“But we're not talking about the legal or monetary consolidation… we're talking here about emotional security… fears … uncertainty of trust.”
what marriage should not have the function of providing in a relationship is emotional stability. having that contract in your hand does not increase love or trust, it does not make the romance itself more intense or more enduring. marriage should not be used as “a means to improve relationships” by putting you “further from rejection”, as a way to calm your fear and mistrust. that would be similar to trying to get pregnant in order to make a failing relationship last.
Romantic Love and Promiscuity
in Questions about Objectivism
Posted
The same idea (-about not falling out of love) is in The Fountainhead.
Roark:
“What you feel in the presence of a thing you admire is just one word--'Yes.' The affirmation, the acceptance, the sign of admittance. And that 'Yes' is more than an answer to one thing, it's a kind of 'Amen' to life, to the earth that holds this thing, to the thought that created it, to yourself for being able to see it. …In this sense, everything to which you grant your love is yours."
Wynand asked:
"Howard, that 'Yes'--once granted, can it be withdrawn?"
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"Never," Roark answered, looking at Wynand.
"There's so much nonsense about human inconstancy and the transience of all emotions," said Wynand. "I've always thought that a feeling which changes never existed in the first place. There are books I liked at the age of sixteen. I still like them."