intellectualammo

Now, that's definately more along the lines of prostitution(the initial proposition), if the response is inviting, it definately is. YES!!!! Great!!! I disagree. No prostitution takes place on either side. I am absolutely pressed for time, have to go to work at the hospital, but anytime Leo or Andrei or even herself refer, or put a name to what she has done, that name wasn't "prostitute" or "prostitution". What was it...."whore". That was the word all three used. The only time prostitute was used was in reference to the ones on the street the night Leo and Kira met. In the novel there is a clear difference between a prostitute and a whore. No?

"Conquered"? She wasn't selling what you say shouldn't be sold. When I look back on a scene, she actually isn't even having sex for money. But for a different reason. I'll mention all that later in this reply. It actually confuses me as to why she lies to him. I am still looking back at the novel for answers to that. I'm having trouble finding specifics. Thank you for the links to the articles, I will look at them, but I'm pressed for time. I never said that at all. She didn't "screw" for money either. She lied to get money off of him. She also lied and said that she loves him and "screwed" him ONLY to keep him around, to prevent him from avoiding her. Here is what I have alluded to earlier in this reply. In a restaurant, Andrei sees how Kira eats, and it is obvious she is very very hungry, after he asks her about it, she says she hasn’t found work, and so forth. Then: “He opened his wallet and, emptying it, pressed a roll of bills into her hand. "Oh, Andrei! I can't!" "Well, maybe you can't—for yourself. But you can—for someone else. Isn't there someone at home who needs it—your family?" She thought of someone at home who needed it. She took the money.” (P.180) This is the first time she received money from him. Here’s another quote in regards to Leo not being to concerned about how Kira and Andrei would often see each other: “Kira saw Andrei frequently. She had asked Leo if he minded it. "Not at all," he had answered, "if he's your friend. Only—would you mind?—don't bring him here. I'm not sure I can be polite to... to one of them." <wtl_206>“ As the novel progresses, Leo goes to the doctor, finally, and they find out that he has tuberculosis. She tries many different ways of getting the money she needs for Leo. Then she goes and seeks out Andrei, her very last chance, who was avoiding her at the time, because, we find out later, he was in love with her. Now they never slept with each other until that night. He also gives her money then ONLY because she had “mentioned her starving family”. He did not pay for sex. In that very scene, the only way for Kira to be able to see Andrei, to have that very last chance of somehow getting money of off him for Leo‘s betterment, she had to give him what he wanted, so all of a sudden she says she loves him as well, and is able to give him the “something” he didn’t think she would ever be able to give him. He loved her and wanted her body. He knew that he wouldn’t get her body(only through the use of force), because she didn’t love him, so he stayed away. Here is the most significant part of that scene: “My life is twenty-eight years of that for which you feel contempt. And you—you're everything I've always expected to hate. But I want you. I'd give everything I have—everything I could ever have—Kira—for something you can't give me!" He saw her eyes open wide at a thought he could not guess. She breathed: "What did you say, Andrei?" "I said, everything I have for something you can't . . ." It was terror in her eyes, a terror of the thought she had seen for a second so very clearly. She whispered, trembling: "Andrei ... I'd better go .... I'd better go now." But he was looking at her fixedly, approaching her, asking in a voice suddenly very soft and low: "Or is it something you ... can ... Kira?" She was not thinking of him; she was not thinking of Leo; she was thinking of Maria Petrovna and of the red bubble on dying lips. She was pressed to the wall, cornered, her ten fingers spread apart on the white plaster. His voice, his hope were driving her on. Her body rose slowly against the wall, to her full height, higher, on tiptoe, her head thrown back, so that her throat was level with his mouth when she threw at him: "I can! I love you." She wondered how strange it was to feel a man's lips that were not Leo's. She was saying: "Yes... for a long time... but I didn't know that you, too..." and she felt his hands and his mouth, and she wondered whether this was joy or torture to him and how strong his arms were. She hoped it would be quick.”(p.222) So Kira deceives Andrei, by telling him she loves him, has sex with him, but he is not paying her for sex. No way. He gives her money for other reasons. She is now able to send Leo away.

Yes, I as well. As a side note, I have been striving and struggling with reading comprehension, as in being able to communicate and understand fully what I have read. What I am going to do now, when I don't understand something completely or have only an *approximate* understanding, I want to do what I can to achieve full understanding. And that may involve me asking questions here, letting go of inhibitions somewhat to be able to do that. I never really learned properly reading comprehension methods/techniques, so that part isn't all my fault("comprachico's of the mind" ), but it will be if I don't do something about it when I can and know of the slight problems existence. Vague approximations, when I discover them, or find them, I am determined to eliminate them. You helped with a recent one. Thanks again. You can't be able to promote a philosophy, like Objectivism, properly if you have such vague approximations. It doesn't at all make for good conversation, good arguments, and so forth. The Ayn Rand bookstore looks like it could also help greatly in this area.

Yes!! You have definately succeeded in clarifying the confusion I had had in regards to that scene. VERY well said...that is actually being modest if you take into consideration the time of night you had written it, coupled with being so tired I greatly appreciate you taking the time to reply so intelligently, Evan.

Thanks for the reply, Evan. I'm glad to see someone else here who views Kira as an ideal woman, or the ideal woman of Ayn Rand's characters main female characters. Okay, so if you were to substitute Leo and Kira in the novel, and put you and your girlfriend in their place, and the context of the novel remaining the same, I definately differ from your statement quoted above here. It wouldn't bother me a bit what she did and I would glady enjoy whatever health benefits there are to gain from the purchasing power of her....actions. It actually would just demonstrate and reaffirm, existentially, just how much she really does love the man she's doing that for. Also can you even call what Kira did with Andrei, "prostitution" as you said? I'm not exactly sure if you can. I think he was more led on, and manipulated. I should probably look over their relationship more, before I can decide. Anyways, this quote below is taken from We The Living, when Kira is telling Andrei about the full reality of their relationship: "So you think I loved you? I thought of Leo when you held me in your arms! When I spoke of love—I was speaking to him. Every kiss you got, every word, every hour was given to him, for him. I've never loved him as I loved him in your bed!" (p.386) Now, how could that statement, "take away so much from our relationship"? I just don't see how it could, especially after reading the very last line of that. What's the "corruption" you speak of in WTL? I don't view what Kira did with Andrei as corrupting a romantic relationship at all, if that is what you are speaking of here. If it is, then how could you also think of her as an ideal woman, if she "corrupted" the romantic relationship she had with Leo?

I have some confusion understanding the scene in We The Living where Kira and Leo meet. It starts on p. 52-53. I have been reading it over and over and am not exactly sure why Leo was looking for a “street woman.” When the two of them met, Kira had gotten lost and ended up in part of the city where there were prostitutes. When she realizes this, she begins to leave, but notices Leo and she smiles. He saw her smiling and approaches her. Now, Kira doesn’t look like the other prostitutes there. They had red lipstick, short skirts, high shoes, and so forth. Leo had been walking all night, since he didn’t have a home to go to , or a house he could enter in the city, because of his counter-revolutionary action(s). Kira doesn’t know that he was there to find a tramp, but when she does, she plays along and pretends to be one. He never wanted to buy a woman until that very night, and he says that he “couldn’t make myself approach one of…of those woman” referring to the aforementioned prostitutes. He said that he liked her smile, when she smiled at him when she first saw him, making it inviting to approach her. I think that the way the two had spoken initially, made him think she was a prostitute (and considering the area of the city she was in alone), so when he asks what is her price, only then does she realize that he thinks she is a prostitute, and she just plays along. Later in the scene, he asks her why she had pretended or played along that said part and she said she wanted to get to know him, because she liked his face. What I am confused about is: Did he think that Kira was a prostitute before they had spoken? What was the reasoning behind him looking for a tramp? Can anyone help with those questions, or maybe clarify the scene more for me?

It's times like these that I want a television and cable for...plus the second time I checked The Fountainhead movie out of the library, the film was in horrible condition compared to the other one I had checked out previously. I watched it on a tv/vcr at the hospital I work at, on my breaks. In Dominique's first appearance, if I remember correctly, she is dropping a statue that she has fallen in love out of a window, when Wynand pays her a visit. I really do think that Patricia Neal played the part of Dominique very well. I do like the scene you had mentioned above, but my very favorite is when she first saw Roark working in the Francon quarry. I watched it over and over...fixated. I also liked the outfits she wore throughout.

Granted if we are discussing strictly main female Rand characters here, and not all, I would disagree with you that Dagny is the epitome of Rand's beliefs, or the final evolution of Rand. Hypothetically speaking, from what I gather from WTL, Kira would have gone on strike faster than Dagny did in AS, and she would never have acted as Dominique did in The Fountainhead. Dominique, out of the main female characters of Rand's, I liked the very least. Dominique has the consistency on the wrong side, like an Andrei, but also is in alignment with the "give up and join them" attitude of a Leo. Dagny had flaws as well, best said by Rand herself in the introduction to AS by Peikoff. But before I take it any further, I should have just asked this first: What I would like to know, Kantardjiev, is what do you hold as a flaw(s) in the character of Kira?

The last two chapters in We The Living are the saddest chapters I have read thus far. It makes me get a lump in my throat, tears in my eyes, each time I go back and read them, very emotional scenes indeed for me. Kira, just saying or typing that name, what that name means to me…ahhh…I've fallen for her character so hard. I often think of what I would have done in her place, or if I was Leo in the novel. This paragraph is one of the most important paragraphs in the entirety of the novel: Kira is my favorite female Rand character right now. I enjoy rereading specific scenes from the novel, like her conversation with Andrei, when she tells him of how she was proud of using him to pay for Leo's betterment. I have a very strong attachment to Kira. Her actions in the novel, like her consistency for one, I admire greatly. (Added quote block - sNerd)

Yes, let's have a drink on that, Thales, to the people whose living is based on cleaning, collecting/recognizing garbage and disposing of it for being such...garbage qua garbage......but that drink might not stay down after more from Tzara. This I found from the “Dada Manifesto” by Tristan Tzara. Tzara on Dadaism: http://www.english.upenn.edu/~jenglish/English104/tzara.html “Perhaps you will understand me better when I tell you that Dada is a virgin microbe that penetrates with the insistence of air into all the spaces that reason has not been able to fill with words or conventions.” I wanted the drink to stay down, so I just briefly looked at the link, looks like a lot could be pulled from it. The last particular sentence in that link, reminds me of an excellent well-written article from Greg Perkins titled, “The Last Gasps For The God Of The Gaps”, in Axiomatic’s first issue in Vol.1.….that God exists in the gaps of our knowledge…here with the above quote Tzara states that Dada is in “all the spaces that reason has not been able to fill with words or conventions.” I’ve often said that faith is like a mad lib for reason, where the blank spaces are, (regardless of how or why they are blank to begin with), they just fill it in with faith, feeling, force.....or Dada....labeled underneath the blanks. I also think that in Perkins article can use writing such as Tzara to further illustrate a point that he was making about morality ….“that Rand effectively closed off the last refuge of the God of the Gaps and cleared the way for a rational, scientific morality based in facts and causality”…or in regards to what Tzara wrote, Rand/Objectivist ethics and epistemology has effectively made the spaces impermeable or closed to the “virgin microbe” which is Dada….haha, tata, Dada!!!! Here's to Objectivist ethics and epistemology...*Steve raises his glass*

Here is an write-up about what others think of neo-Dada. They thought it literally was garbage, and threw it away!! This was actually very funny to me when I read it: http://badbadart.blogspot.com/2005/01/garb...t-in-trash.html Thirty dustmen were sent to modern art classes so they would be able to distinguish garbage from garbage, no? In the said article I read from the NYT(Jan 6, 2006) in my post, I also read that there where cleaners in an art museum who mistakenly threw away "half-full coffee cups", bottles, and a few other items thinking it was trash that needed to be discarded. But later on they found out that they threw away part of an artists display or installation...

I just got my left hand done, a few hours ago, the way it looks like in the above reply. I also had my other hand done all over again, with some improvements to the “A’s”. They were all done in black ink. I love the way they look. The permanence, commitment, seriousness, somewhat acting as conversational pieces, and most importantly a form of reverence are what tattoos are to me. I live on the South Side of Pittsburgh, and I notice quite a few pragmatists who are waist deep in nihilism here, expressing their implicit/explicit philosophy with clothing, tattoos and so forth. I always expressed my chosen philosophy, with shirts and such, thought about getting more tattoos previously, but now I have become a bit radical living here and combined with what I dealt with in college and in recent relationships. Yes, radical, but not irrational. It all depends on “why” you are getting a tattoo and “what” you are getting done. Definition of “radical” from Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary: “3 a : marked by a considerable departure from the usual or traditional : EXTREME b : tending or disposed to make extreme changes in existing views, habits, conditions, or institutions c : of, relating to, or constituting a political group associated with views, practices, and policies of extreme change d : advocating extreme measures to retain or restore a political state of affairs <the radical right>“ Ayn Rand said in the Introduction to CUI “We are radicals for capitalism”. Peikoff writes this in OPAR: “Objectivists are not "conservatives." We do not seek to preserve the present system, but to change it at the root. In the literal sense of the word, we are radicals—radicals for freedom, radicals for man's rights, radicals for capitalism. We have no choice in the matter. We have no choice because, in philosophy, we are radicals for reason.” In AS, John Galt said to Dagny: "Do you know that the United States is the only country in history that has ever used its own monogram as a symbol of depravity? Ask yourself why. Ask yourself how long a country that did that could hope to exist, and whose moral standards have destroyed it. It was the only country in history where wealth was not acquired by looting, but by production, not by force, but by trade, the only country whose money was the symbol of man's right to his own mind, to his work, to his life, to his happiness, to himself. If this is evil, by the present standards of the world, if this is the reason for damning us, then we—we, the dollar chasers and makers—accept it and choose to be damned by that world. We choose to wear the sign of the dollar on our foreheads, proudly, as our badge of nobility—the badge we are willing to live for and, if need be, to die." A symbol on our foreheads...figuratively though. That partially gave me the idea/attitude for what I did, to grow from. I thought why not be a radical for logic and write an equation across my hand? A radical for reason(like Peikoff stated above) and display the name of one of it’s best defenders and fighter, Ayn Rand, and write in across my other hand? Have it written using rapidly moving needles dipped in ink, written with a vibration and a little sting? ----------------------------------------------------- “The author has a proudly selfish stake in promoting capitalism. As an American -though a teacher- he is rich, as are all Americans by both historic and current non-capitalist standards of wealth and poverty. Since capitalism is the only system capable of creating universal prosperity, he recognizes that his ongoing wealth depends on its continued existence. All readers who seek to preserve their own wealth- or more urgently, to earn wealth and economically rise- should recognize a similar selfish stake in understanding and promoting the content of this book.” The Capitalist Manifesto, Andrew Bernstein, p.24-5.

"Their purpose, the Dadaists said in 1916, is to cultivate the senseless by unleashing on the public every imaginable version of the unintelligible, the contradictory, the absurd. "Dadaism,'' said its advocates, "is against everything, even Dada." It is against every form of civilization and every form of art. "Art," they said "is shit"—a dictum faithfully implemented by pictures of the Mona Lisa wearing a mustache, or by collages pieced together from the leavings in somebody's gutter, or by exhibits such as Max Ernst's in Germany in 1920. One entered the exhibit through a public urinal, in order to contemplate, among other items, a block of wood with a notice asking visitors to chop at it, an aquarium containing sundry objects immersed in a blood-colored fluid, and a young girl in a communion dress loudly reciting obscene poetry.(16) Dadaism is a consistent extreme of the cultural trend of <ompar_173> the period. It is the voice of unreason in art gleefully taking on the forms of madness. This is the movement which a prominent American philosopher, some years ago, hailed as "one of the valid eruptions of the irrational in this century,"(17) and which the German avant-garde at the time praised as daring, witty, and anti-middle class." From Ominous Parallels, LP (That Objectivism CD-ROM really is great) Try reading Dadaist POETRY!!!...it actually reminds me of Lois Cook' s writing from the Fountainhead...I bet Keating could understand it like he could Cook!! http://www.bergen.org/AAST/Projects/Dadaism/poems.html These were written by Tristan Tzara (1896-1963) who partly founded Dada in 1916. It was started in France and Germany. Dadaism now is sometimes called Conceptual Art, I think, not fully sure, though. So there is an artist I was reading about in the NYT’s newspaper Jan. 6th. In the article a "neo-Dadaist" named Pierre Pinoncelli took a small hammer to Marcel Duchamp's "Fountain," the factory-made urinal that is considered the cornerstone of Conceptual Art. He also I think is a dadist. Here have a look at this fine piece of art work: http://www.beatmuseum.org/duchamp/fountain.html Not only did he take a hammer to it, he also urinated in it!!! And this is what he had to say about doing it, which I got from a different article(I think he might have be jailed for it and/or fined like almost $40,000.00) "Pinoncelli, a performance artist pissed in the fountain and then hit it with a hammer. He claimed that the pissing was "to restore to it its real value" and the hammer blow was to protest "the art market going to the dogs." But that's not all...I found this about Pononcelli as well: "At an arts festival in the Colombian town of Cali, Pinoncelli lopped off his little finger. The action was a show of solidarity with the kidnapped Colombian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt. Pinoncelli then wielded his damaged hand like a paint brush splattering blood across a poster with the letters FARC (The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia who kidnapped Betancourt - an outspoken critic of the group)." I have also seen, read, art and performance art from Rev. Steven Leyba, from the Church of Satan (which I actually still have my red card and was a member of it years ago) who at one performance had someone cut a baphemet into his back, and then proceed to urinate on it!! I don't know too much about what he would categorize himself as though, maybe it's on the site in case you wanted to see... http://www.stevenleyba.com/ Disgusting, huh? That's not even the word for it, huh? His statement, or quote on the site "Son, you can do anything you want in life, just don't get caught"....hmmm...it reminds me of a character named Philip from Somerset Maugham's Of Human Bondage (which really isn't worth reading, but nice in how he lives his life throughout the book by different principles, values, etc. and what the consequences of each are in his life): "Follow your inclinations with due regard to the policeman round the corner." Aleister Crowley's statement,(which Satanists also quote often).."Do What Thou Wilt, Shall Be The Whole of The Law" also comes to mind. All these quotes are all maxims that they live their lives according to. It is the moral code or their code of values...I shrug all of it, and carry an objective theory of values in it‘s place. So now I open it up for anyone who knows anything about Dada, about installation art, Conceptual Art, or all the other tangents I went on, and so forth. Comments are welcome.

I just borrowed Cirque Du Soleil's Varekai DVD from a library and I must say I am very captivated by what I have seen in this DVD. Some of the scenes and performances in it I have to watch over and over again. I can't stop watching the scene (Ch. 18) titled "Handbalancing on Canes" which is my favorite, and also (Ch. 3) titled "Flight of Icarus". I really don't have too much knowledge about Cirque Du Soleil or any of the other productions they have out. But what I have seen in this particular one, has left me curious about what the others are like. I really can't tell HOW the artists do some of the performances they have done, even when I see it from the multi-angle view in the DVD. The Russian female, Olgi Pikhienko, who plays the part of the catepillar, falls in love with Icarus after his fall. He fell because he flew to close to the sun(as the Greek mythology goes?) and falls to where she is at. Throughout the performance, different creatures try to keep them apart, she is even kidnapped and put into a cacoon. I am not sure if I want to say too much more about what happens, so as not to ruin it for those that might be interested in it. The scenes that I particularily like are the ones that involve the two of them together, the way they show their emotion for each other through the movements of their bodies, expressions, and special performances they do when the two are with each other. Olgi is absolutely breathtaking, her balancing on the canes, her every movement is very well planned to express as much emotion to us as possible. She says in her interview on the DVD. "Anything I do, I try to make it as expressive as possible." "I get free of my skin" "You control yourself. This is the way I feel in life. This is the way I express it on stage." To paraphrase her...What she feels she puts into movements. The artists that audition, the ones that make it to Cirque Du Soliel, are some of the best at what they do...if not the best. The Cirque standards for the most part, in various contexts, are very high indeed. At least that is what I gather from what little I do know so far about it. What I have seen in Varekai , in those said performances in part, I have found an extremely fitting quote written by Ayn Rand: “The keynote of the stylization achieved in ballet is: weightlessness. Paradoxically, ballet presents man as almost disembodied: it does not distort man's body, it selects the kinds of movements that are normally possible to man (such as walking on tiptoe) and exaggerates them, stressing their beauty—and defying the law of gravitation. A gracefully effortless floating, flowing and flying are the essentials of the ballet's image of man. It projects a fragile kind of strength and a certain inflexible precision, but it is man with a fine steel skeleton and without flesh, man the spirit, not controlling, but transcending this earth… Within each system, specific emotions may be projected or faintly suggested, but only as the basic style permits. Strong passions or negative emotions cannot be projected in ballet, regardless of its librettos; it cannot express tragedy or fear—or sexuality; it is a perfect medium for the expression of spiritual love.” “Art and Cognition,” RM, pb 68. Here is another quote that I found : “…a performance may be entertaining, in such fields as vaudeville or the circus, but it has nothing to do with art. The performance of an aerialist, for instance, demands an enormous physical skill—greater, perhaps, and harder to acquire than the skill demanded of a ballet dancer—but what it offers is merely an exhibition of that skill, with no further meaning, i.e., a concrete, not a concretization of anything.” Ibid.,70 Well I think that Cirque Du Soleil at least in Verakai, I can’t speak for the rest, does in fact present various performances of skills, like contortionists, aerialists, trapeze, ballet…with meaning, with a plot, and characters that are specifically using, directing, explicitly stating, consistently adapting and integrating their particular talents and skills TO concretize..... This is Cirque Du Soleil qua Cirque Du Soleil. This is what makes them so original in what they do. These are just premature comments I am making. I don’t have an extensive knowledge about this field or about Cirque. So I'm going to open this up to everyone: Has anyone else seen this, or any of their various performances and shows? Any comments about them, about Cirque Du Soleil, about performance art in general, or if I'm mistaken or incorrect in what I have said, they are all welcome.

Moose had typed: "I was thinking of having it in a sort of Objectivist-style theme, like a stylized "A is A" or something like that." Well, a few weeks ago, I had "A is A" tattooed across the fingers on my right hand. I am also going to get "Rand" tattooed across the fingers of my left hand, and "Ayn" would be tattooed just above it, between the knuckles. So, if I were to make fists, for example, it would look something like this: ..................................................a y n.............................................. across the right....A i s A..and..R A N D across the left It cost $70.00 to have "A is A" done. The "A"'s are around 3/4 of an inch and the "i" and the "s" are around half an inch in length. They are all done in black ink and a bit stylized(Black Castle lettering with some changes). I am very surprised that most of the ink held as well as it did. I will definately need to have it touched up soon, but it just healed a week ago, and I am not sure how early you can have it done again. Maybe I'll get it touched up when I get my other fingers on my other hand done.

There is a composer that I enjoy listening to, who is also a well known German philosopher, of which most of the board may already be well aquainted with his literary works, but not yet his musical compositions. This particular composer that I am speaking of is Friedrich Nietzsche. I came across his mature years compositions (Vol. 2) and am very anxious to hear his earlier compositions (Vol. 1). My favorite composition in Vol. 2 is Eine Slyvesternacht, which is also one of my favorites in my entire collection of music. I have read that when Nietzsche later lost his sanity, he would listen to these compositions. I have not seen anyone mention my favorite violinist, Anne-sophie Mutter. I have seen Diana Krall noted by some of the posters here. I have been watching her Live In Paris DVD quite often on my laptop while I read "Of Human Bondage", by Someset Maugham. ~Steve~ "He felt like a man who has leaned on a stick, and finds himself forced suddenly to walk without assistance." "From old habit, he unconciously thanked God that he no longer believed in him." both from "Of Human Bondage", by Somerset Maugham

That was a wonderfully put together essay, Diana. Toleration and also the wrongful advocation of Objectivism as being an open philosophic system needs to be meet with opposition every step of the way. From what I understand Branden and Kelley are both supporters of these. This is from "How Does One Lead a Rational Life in an Irrational Society?" (VOS82): "I will confine my answer to a single, fundamental aspect of this question. I will name only one principle, the opposite of the idea which is so prevalent today and which is responsible for the spread of evil in the world. that principle is: On must never fail to pronounce moral judgment. "Nothing can corrupt and disintegrate a culture or a man's character as thoroughly as does the precept of moral agnosticism, the idea that one must never pass moral judgment on others, that one must be morally tolerant of anything, that the good consists of never distinguishing good from evil." Toleration(with a few exceptions like the young) speads evil in the world by not giving it the full amount of opposition it deserves. By not pronouncing any judgment at all when the context indicates it, is also responsible for the spread of that evil, by allowing it to exist through your sanctioning of it. Oppose it, or it spreads by your sanction. Zero tolerance, zero compromise between good and evil.