splitprimary
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Posts posted by splitprimary
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seeing marriage as a contract doesn’t need to trivialize it. people will never give up religion if they think it’s the only way to have meaning and to take life seriously.
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if "romantic love is one of the essential values in life", then romantic love should be held as a long-term goal. whether "marriage" is the proper or ultimate end of romantic love, if and when that is found, is a separate argument.
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this is a continuation of her denunciation of the modern, mystical view of art. she's saying that is how they will experience the suggestion to analyze their response to art, and that this resistance is why art isn't progressing like the physical sciences are.
before that paragraph is:
"the humanities have been virtually abandoned to the primitive epistemology of mysticism... a phenomenon such as art has remained a dark mystery... today's epistemological savages take art for granted, as an irreducible primary not to be questioned or analyzed, as the exclusive domain of a special kind of unknowable demons: their emotions."
their philosophy (altruism) induces, “willingness to... repress the personal (non-social) needs" of the soul, which art deals with. so they are unaccustomed and uninclined to introspection, and this can feel like a personal attack because "art is of passionately intense importance and profoundly personal concern".she does not think that analysis should have this effect, or that art should not be analyzed. she's diagnosing why it hasn't been.
and she is moving into:
"so intense an emotion" cannot be "causeless, irreducible and unrelated to the source of emotions (and of values): to the needs of a living entity's survival." "To understand the nature and function of art, on must understand the nature and function of concepts." -running a connection back through the other branches of philosophy that aesthetics depends on, so that the response to art can be understood.
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no one has argued that the guy wasn't in the wrong, not even Robert. the question, which is independent of that, is whether the female in the story had and neglected a responsibility to look out for her own safety.
the man was an external factor from her perspective, and she made a whole series of bad judgments and decisions that night, without which that outcome would not have occurred.
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Boethius, what fighting are you referring to that is not philosophic disagreement? what is it in particular that’s happening that you’re criticizing? i haven’t been following more recent controversies closely, but haven’t all of them been about personal and political relationships?
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these are the main texts in the discussion, in order:
Feb 1989 – "On Sanctioning the Sanctioners" by Peter Schwartz, published in The Intellectual Activist
(finally found it pasted in SOLO post- http://www.solopassion.com/node/9122)
March 1989 – "A Question of Sanction," open letter by David Kelley
(http://www.objectivistliving.com/forums/index.php...)
May 1989 – "Fact and Value" by Leonard Peikoff, published in The Intellectual Activist(http://ari.aynrand.org/.../religion-and.../Fact-and-Value...)
and
"On Moral Sanctions" by Peter Schwartz, an addendum to "Fact and Value", also published in The Intellectual Activist
(http://ari.aynrand.org/.../religion.../On-Moral-Sanctions)
1990 – "Truth and Toleration" by David Kelley, published privately, expanding on "A Question of Sanction"
which became, in Sept 2000, "The Contested Legacy of Ayn Rand"
(http://web.archive.org/.../cth--1703-contlegacyonline.aspx) -
by the orthodox position, “infighting” can’t occur because any disagreement with the official orthodox position means you’re no longer an Objectivist. and by the way, if you believe people who share the same philosophical foundation should be “mutually supportive”, “exchanging ideas” and “building relationships”, and that “it cannot be done by one person, nor even just the ARI”, you are the opposite of orthodox. watch out because Objectivists might have to stop talking to you... and to other people who talk to you.
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i found this site doing a search for "Buffalo Objectivists" and landing here. so if anyone else ever wanders through, there is a Rochester Objectivist group that meets at RIT weekly (mostly non-students), and at least 2 or 3 of us live closer to Buffalo and would definitely be up for starting one here.
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keep in mind too that a lot of girls are fighting against themselves trying to become the type of person the culture expects them to be, when it isn’t who they really are. they may even be starting to realize on their own that it’s making them unhappy, or be trying to find the courage to give it up. pay close attention and you’ll see that much of the sluttiness, abrasiveness, and narcissism is forced. you can gauge this by comparing how someone reacts when they're caught off-guard to how they act most of the time socially.
if you have female friends that you want to point in the right direction, and can find a way to do so tactfully, i have found this blog, RulesRevisited, to be really helpful: http://www.therulesrevisited.com/2012/08/femininity-authenticity-and_5.html (it’s not Objectivist-approved or anything, it’s just good advice, written by a guy, for women.)
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i can certainly believe that you haven’t met a woman who is really worthwhile yet. and i don’t think the solution is to change your attitude on sex.
the key is realizing that you don’t need to find a perfect woman- you can create one. look for someone you’re attracted to physically and that you see some admirable qualities in (if it’s one of these girls who are already interested in you that’s even better), and work with that. a person can be introduced to Objectivism, they can be convinced by rational arguments, they can choose to focus, they can develop new interests, they can change their mind on important issues, they can completely alter their values, demeanor, and behavior. most people have bad philosophy because they just haven’t examined it. give them a real chance. if this is something you want, you can’t sit around and wait for it to fall into your lap- especially not in this culture- you may have to put some work in. expect the best in people, and help bring it out.
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this analogy is killer, at 4:00 : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRdq2zqGxgY
it's used in the context of birth control, but the same idea applies to sexual safety more generally. there is naturally greater risk involved in these situations for women than there is for men. feminists can take that up with Reality; it's not the result of culture. -
i agree about "coffee". coffee is usally intended to mean sex in that context. inviting someone to come up for coffee or agreeing to come up for coffee is a common way to indicate that you're open to the date progressing romantically. it isn't a guarantee or definite decision all by itself that sex will necessarily happen, but it's absolutely a green light for escalation.
if you know ahead of time that there is a limit to what you're comfortable with, the courteous thing to do is to state it openly at this point in order to counter assumptions, whether it's a stern look along with, "really, JUST coffee." or, "cool, but we're not having sex" or, "by the way, i'm super religious and my first kiss will be at my wedding".
the "coffee" issue isn't critical here because the location sends the same message even without it. if i went into a guy's house after a date any time early in the relationship and he didn't make any kind of move, i'd be shocked to the point of interpreting it as a rejection. but entering his room is definitely saying, "let's have sex", and a hotel room = sex, period. it's a much stronger signal than coffee subtext. (especially given everything else we know about the situation).
this story technically doesn't even contradict coffee-as-code-word. she was not surprised or outraged when he started making out with her and her use of neutral language, "we were soon lying on our sides", means she was probably pretty okay with that too. it was when he started taking her clothes off that she put on the brakes, and it was when she said "no" (if she did say no), that he had a moral obligation to stop, no matter how much it contradicted the direction in which he thought the night was going.
Should everyone wish to get married?
in Relationships, Love, Sex, Romance
Posted
any long-term romantic relationship usually involves the promise of exclusivity, even if only implicitly. i think Eioul's point is that getting married as a way to have extra assurance that your partner won’t leave you or cheat on you is unhealthy.
the problem is not so much that it’s controlling to obtain an official promise of fidelity, it’s that you should already be so confident that you don't have any anxiety about that in the first place. getting it in writing, backed by the state, does not improve the situation anyway. marriage does not shield you from "emotionally driven actions produced by love/hate/indifference", since divorce is always an option. your security against that is the value of the relationship and the character of the person you're with.