Tryptonique
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Posts posted by Tryptonique
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In Anthem:
The man who gets burnt at the stake
The Narrator (who later christians himself Ulleyseus)
The woman who the narrator falls in love with
In We The Living:
Kira Argunova
The man who Kira loves (forgot his name) - the revolutionary
The ex-red army soldier who falls in love with Kira is an objectivist, but he does not realize it till the end, and spends all his life doing things contrary to his values. This is why he commits suicide in the end.
Vasili Ivanovich (Kira's father)
In The Fountainhead (I think this one is obvious):
Howard Roark
Henry Cameron
Dominique Francon
The guy who edits a sleazy newspaper and marries Dominique - he holds the objectivist code of values but believes that whoever follows them can never survive in this world, so he spends his entire life fighting objectivists (like Roark)
In Atlas Shrugged (most obvious of all):
John Galt
Dagny Taggart
Hank Rearden
Franscisco D'Anconia
Ragnar Dagneskold
Hugh Askton
Richard Halley
Dan Conway
Ellis Wyatt
The Driver who refuses to drive the broken train into the tunnel
The man at the cigarette stand
Did I miss anyone out?
In WTL:
Leo Kovalensky is the man Kira loves.
Sasha is also an Objectivist.
The commie that loves Kira is Andrei Taganov.
In The Fountainhead:
You are forgetting Steven Mallory, Austen Heller, the hotel man for the Aquitania, Mike Donnigan, the boy on the bike, and I would argue that the brilliant kid who decides to inhabit the house that Roark builds when the rest of his family forsakes it is also an Objectivist.
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I am working with two friends (coaching) who are going to debate the following topic (on the negative)
RESOLVED: All young adults in every nation should be required to perform at least one full year of national service.
I'm trying to come up with examples where people have been required to do national service to the detriment of their own self interest.
One example that I have thought of is Communist Russia. In We The Living it mentions that people are required to go to communist rallies and basically be "re-educated."
What other empirical examples of harmful collectivist national service could we use to to totally debunk this resolution?
Any help would be more than appreciated.
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Indeed.
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You want to know how I envisoned it?
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There was a really big article in Time in the last 6-8 months about a new book featuring Reagen's diary entries, letters, etc.
In one of his entries that is in the article, he mentions Ayn Rand and that he is interested in her work.
He was pretty religious, so some of her ideas obviously didn't gel, but he was definitely interested in those ideas.
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Hessians :
Definition: German soldiers loyal to King George III who fought for Britain in the Revolutionary War. King George was from Hanover, an area in Germany, and called in a favor to his homeland, asking for soldiers willing to fight in the New World. The Hessians numbered almost 30,000, and they fought mostly in the Northern Campaign. They are most famous, however, for being surprised and defeated at Trenton by American forces under General George Washington, whose army had just crossed the Delaware River in the dead of night on Dec. 25, 1776.
The British purchased the services of 30,000 German Soldiers for $150,000, all of which went into the royal coffers of the German princes. These troops came from Hesse Cassel, Hesse Hanau, Brunswick, Anspach, Bayreuth, Anhalt Zerbst and Waldeck.
[another example of mercenaries in war]
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I was wondering if anyone has thought about designing some Objectivist themed AIM icons.
I know we have banners, links, and even T-shirts for this site....but has anyone thought about generic Objectivist (not necessarily OO.net related) AIM icons?
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I have to post again just so I can get "member status."
he he.
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Scott Weiland was/is the singer for Stone Temple Pilots which was an alternative group in the mid 90's.
Some of their songs include "Sex type thing" "wicked garden" and "Sour girl."
I'm kind of unsure about what genre to place Velvet Revolver in...but I guess hard rock/hair metal would work just fine.
I saw their music video the other day and it wasn't bad. Until then, I hadn't heard them, but I have read a lot about them.
Scott Weiland is in rehab until June. He is like the music equivalent of Robert Downey Jr.
Always in rehab.
My post didn't really have much of a point (I wasn't asserting anything but rather asking a simple question) except to find out what you thought about their music.
Since you like GNR and Slash , I figured if you like Velvet Revolver..I might check in to them further since I don't pay much attention to hair metal/80's spin offs.
I figured that maybe you would pay attention, which was why I asked the question.
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Dinesh:
You have mentioned repeatedly that you like Slash from GNR.
What do you think of Velvet Revolver and their choice to have Scott Weiland be their frontman?
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if you are curious:
www.steriogram.com
If you have Flash on your compy...you should be able to hear the song come on automatically.
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Will do:)
I don't have The Romantic Manifesto, but I will read the section on art in OPAR tonight.
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This idea rocks!
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I agree 100%.we should be very clear that any moral condemnations of him say nothing about his artistic ability,Take a look at any of Gottfried Helnwein's art and you will see a perfect example of that.
He paints such a dark and gruesome world...but it is done brilliantly (in my opinion).
And we should remember that this is music we are talking about, and while some music seems obviously better than other music, there isn't really an objective standard for esthetic judgment in the field at this point and thus we shouldn't take this too seriously.I guess the standard I use in part is originality.
If you are the first to do something or innovate a particular technique, then I think that deserves greater recognition on the spectrum of value judgments.
In that light, I would come closer to giving props to Run DMC or Tupac instead of Eminem.
He innovated (I guess?) by being a mainstream white rapper, but his material isn't really something that hasn't been done before.
I think originality can be an objective standard, because it can be judged by simply understanding what musical techniques are used and how often they are used.
I do agree that it gets a lot harder to judge music the closer in quality two units get to each other.
I would have a tough time analyzing whether Notorious BIG or Tupac was better (just a rap example since we are on that topic).
The point of my criticism in the first place was not to morally label people as being bad or good based on their tastes...if there is something to have "tastes" over in the first place.I think moral condemnation of a fellow board member for liking music that you don't, even if you have very good reasons for not liking it, is uncalled for.If it is art we are talking about and I labeled someone who liked dark art as being morally bankrupt, then that would be ludicrous because that would require that I label Ayn Rand as "bad" for liking Doestevsky (and I find that silly).
I do think that there is an objective standard for what is art and what isn't, though...and that was part of the debate.
I don't consider Pollac to be art...nor do I consider Eminem to be music.
Betsy Speicher had a really good analysis of the ARI-TOC rift when she said:
If spaghetti sauce has less than 2% meat in it, they have to call it "meat flavored" sauce.TOC is Objectivism flavored philosophy.
If jewelry has a thin layer of gold over a base metal, they have to call it "gold plated."
TOC is Objectivism plated libertarianism.
That is how I see Eminem. Music plated trash.
I'm not saying anyone is "bad or good" for endorsing or liking what I personally find to be trash.
I think you guys are smart and can draw your own conclusions...just as you can draw conclusions from people who take The National Enquirer over The Wall Street Journal.
I think there are objective standards for what makes something worthy in art, writing, etc.
Otherwise, there doesn't seem to be a difference between the National Enquirer and The WSJ.
I think you can identify elements of good art/bad art/non-art and do some simple cost-benefit analysis and see what is worth your time and what should be below you.
Different people place different weight on different variables and THAT is where I think the confusion and differences come from, not from a lack of objective standards.
I think the closer your aesthetic standards come to being in line with the fully fleshed out philosophy of Objectivism, the less contradictions or differences you will find.
Maybe that is idealism? I don't know.
I have lots more living and intereracting with Objectivists to do before I can fully comment on that.
I guess I will leave it at that.
-E
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Atlanta!
I spent a week in Atlanta last summer.
I liked it.
The Underground is definitely a cool place.
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One of the things I'm proud of in the photos that I have taken of the sky (and your shot also has this too) is the sense of motion that is captured in the sky.
When you classify the shots I have done as "dramatic" I think that is why.
They aren't photos of a still and stagnant sky.
The clouds give the sky direction and movement.
I like that:)
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WOW. That is amazingly beautiful.
If I were to title that, I would call it "Phoenix" (not after the Capital of Arizona).
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Modest Mouse is pretty cool.
I saw a funny group from New Zealand in concert a while ago. They are called Steriogram.
Have you heard of them, Ranil?
They are like a mix of The Beastie Boys and Sum 41. I wouldn't really recommend them, but I thought it was interesting that a NZ band is making it in the US.
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Naw...I wasn't suggesting that you justify yourself using Ash (or anyone else's) perspective or that you define yourself against that perspective.
It just seemed to me like you were throwing away everyone's rational objections to Eminem for the sake of I don't know what.
As for MTV, I don't consider them an authority on music. I consider them an authority on crap rap and cheesball punk (like Good Charlotte).
Thus, since MTV and Eminem go hand in hand, I think that says volumes..and I think MTV is qualified in this case to label and evaluate on of their own.
Kind of like when a religious conservative talks about other religious conservatives.
I don't see religious conservatives as authorities on doodley squat, but they can speak (with authority) about their wacked out beliefs.
As for D12, It doesn't suprise me that they came out with another sucky song.
"Purple Pills" is really really bad lyrically and it was their breakout single.
but yeah....I think this issue has been beaten to death.
Unless Ramare wants to actually say something of substance, I'm don't really feel like continuing a one sided debate.
lol.
nice talking to you, though.
Ciao,
-E
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Awesome.
I go to school at The University of Idaho.
Every time I fly out anywhere, I have to do so in Spokane.
Those pics were taken before I went to New York City. The reason why I took the pictures was because I found the skies to be very dramatic and naturally beautiful. I wanted to keep a photo to remind myself of the natural beauty around me.
I'm glad that you appreciate the nature of what I was trying to capture with that picture (drama).
I haven't ever really had a chance to explore Seattle as a city. I fly in to Seattle all the time (as it is always layover on the way to my hometown, Reno) when I go home for the holidays, but I have never been in Seattle outside of SEA-TAC.
I have an aerial photo of Mt. Ranier that I snapped on the way to Seattle (another layover flight...he he). It is kind of grainy and faint (because Rainer was so far away) which doesn't make it a good photo, but I still think that the mountain looks really cool from the air.
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I see dating as testing the waters for potential relatioships.
That is where a lot of chemistry and value will be manifested at first.
If a guy is interested enough to choose a girl and declare his interest for her...that says OODLES (as we all know from Frisco's speech on the nature of sex/sexual attraction). Dating is a great way to weed out the great from the good.
People can manifest a lot of subtle contradictions in dating scenarios, and these often make the difference between the life or death of a relationship.
Dating is supposed to be fun, playful, and enjoyable. It is where both sexes display their values to a very high degree and they can both lightly push (metaphorically) the other person for the purpose of evaluating their character and their values. Everything that is said and done in dates seems to be scrutinized under a fine tooth comb. That is because people women need to be able to trust their man if they are going to give themselves to a man(see Betsy Speicher's Femininity essays for some great material on this subject). Men also want to make sure that their judgment was indeed correct and the woman was who they thought she was and not just masking a hand grenade under a pretty face (also metaphorically speaking).
The people that have the power to hurt you the most are the people that are closest to you.
Dating and relationships ARE serious business.
Here are some really good quotes on Romance:
-No man is worth your tears and the only one who is will never make you cry.
-To the world you may be one person, but to one person you may be the world.
(reminds me of We The Living)
Yes, dating is great. It's fun, exciting, and sweet. Although with my own experience, it's been hard for me to find a man that I'm compatible with because most people aren't intrested in intellectual ideas. I don't mean to put a damper on such a positive topic. But I'm sure most of you would agree! I agree that to know oneself and to have self-esteem is one of the key factors in having a healthy, long term relationship. When it's based on proper values and principles, wow.... it's the most beautiful thing in world...I agree 1000%.
I found an Objectivist girl on a debate forum and I was interested. We started flirting and I asked her out. I feel so lucky that I happened upon such a wonderful person. It is mind blowing having another person by your side who loves what you do and sees what you see. It doesn't make the world any more beautiful by itself...but being able to share the world's beauty with someone who can value really defies description. It makes me want to grin, jump around happily, or sing a song.
Proportionally...there are a lot more guys than gals in Objectivist communities (from what I have witnessed) which kind of makes it even more rare that I would nab one in a non-Objectivist forum, though the forum itself was intellectual in nature.
If you are still looking for a romantic partner, I can't think of a better place than Objectivist communities. There are lots of great people here and there are tons of guys who are interested in meeting a rational Objectivist babe.
Betsy Speicher offers a service called Social Net when you sign up for her newsletter and it is sort of a "post a profile if you are interested in meeting people."
You dont' have to be looking for someone romantically to post a profile. I posted a profile as well as other people that are married/romantically involved. The Social Net just has people who are looking to make friends (and sometimes more).
You might honestly consider it if you are single and looking.
I don't want to sound like Betsy's shill or anything like that (I looked back at this post and I mentioned her work/name like 8 bajillion times) , but I was impressed that she had set the Social Net up and I didn't see it highly advertised as part of the CyberNet service. Thus, I was pleasantly suprised to see it when I signed up recently.
If you are interested in the CyberNet or SocialNet...check it out at this link:
L8,
-E
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Yeah. I got the same impression about the new JA album just from the lead single "Just because."
It was not really comperable to even their other singles.
Does anyone hear like any STP (Stone temple Pilots?)?
I really like "Sour girl" as a song.
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I don't really think that. Just in answering my posts, you are granting me quite a bit of respect. Your other posts indicate a sense of life as well.Now when it comes to my tastes in music, you seeing it from your perspective could say that there's a huge problem with my sense of life.My problem (the majority of it anyways) lies not with you, but with your defender who threw out bogus crap trying to justify Amittyville, Bonnie and Clyde, and that kind of trash.
You admit that Eminem is capable of writing trash.
That alone says volumes about your sense of life.
I have my own motives for everything I do, I'm introspective, and everything I do is with a reason attached to it.
If anyone wants a debate, they can step up.
I like Ayn's "Judge and prepare to be judged" philosophy. I'm prepared to be judged if anyone wants to do it.
The only thing is, I'm not willing to give people sanction to judge me unless I have a reason to care or feel that they are in a position where they could even begin to critique my actions. I don't have enough time to constantly play defense to would be inquisitors, so the only one's I will grant my time are those that actually have some rational reason for taking offense/time to question my actions.
I keep to myself unless I'm comfortable with who I am around, and as a result, people aren't going to know whether or not I like violent sex or Eminem unless they violate my privacy (I don't like either..just for the sake of edification).
I don't believe that makes me evasive or hiding...but I don't feel the need to spend all of my life enlightening people as to my personal character. Some people just aren't worth it...and there is always a time and a place.
Do I loathe some of Eminem's songs? Of course, some of the crap he does and says is really repulsive. But I honestly don't know how I'd ever come to think of Lose Yourself (or 8 Mile Road) as repulsive. Even if someday, as you cite, that I'd come to listening to only Rachmaninoff, I couldn't say I'd find those two songs of his repulsive. Thats an honest statement. If you think for that i'm irrational or any of that sort, you are welcome to your opinion, but you speak only for yourself.I don't think "loose yourself" and "8 Mile" are generally bad songs if you are willing to isolate them from the artist and nearly all realistic context (like the fact that they come from a semi-autobiographical movie about a guy who grows up to peddle a lot of garbage to TRL hungry kids).
As tunes go, they aren't bad.
They aren't wonderful and I certainly wouldn't call them highly artistic.
If I was coming from an "Objectivist planet" in outer space (and could read english) and I read the lyrics to 8 Mile and Loose Yourself....I would say they are consistent with Objectivist principles (work ethic, drive, self value, etc).
When I started reading other lyrics and about the character of the artist, I would several contradiction that would then require me to check my premises and re-assess my intitial judgement of the material.
Does that make 8 mile and Loose yourself bad songs? Of course not. I never said that they were repulsive.
What I said was that classifying them as "art" was repulsive in the fact that it is a slap in the face to people who do real art.
When analyzing music, I agree with the other people who have commented already on this thread.
You have to look at the actual music (instrumental) first and then you scrutinze the lyrics under a literary/poetic standard.
Em doesn't have much in the realm of actual musical ability. When it comes to his literary/poetic standard....he can rhyme and make puns, yes.
Does he really demonstrate a sense of life or even a negative sense of life (like Doestevsky?) not really.
He is washed out....a diamond in the rough. His art is unperfected and not refined due to his own internal contradictions that hold down his personal life.
He writes a LOT about his personal life...so it isn't a wonder that his lyrics are also equally contradictory and never really allow you to pin down who exactly Marshall Mathers IS.
He is like Dr. Stadler in the fact that he has never (probably due to his horrible home life/raising) seen a need for a governing philosophy when it comes to life.
Unfortunately, he doesn't have Stadlers scientific precision or education...or else he might actually have a chance at showing the world what real art could be (even in a negative value sort of sense).
This is the difference between someone like Eminem and Marilyn Manson.
Both are social agitators and controversial. Both have highly questionable characters. Both have fairly simplistic music (Even though some of the members of Marilyn's band are quite brilliant like the keyboardist who turned down a job at Nasa to learn keyboards or Jon 5 the guitarist who was in Guitar World's 100 Best Guitarists of all Time article).
Marilyn reflects a negative/malevolent view of the universe in nearly all of his music. He does it clearly though....like a photography of a murder that is recreated in lyrics/music in perfect detail.
Like a gunshot wound that is painted in extreme detail.
Negative art has its place.
There is a difference between Marilyn and Eminem. One is an artist and one is not.
Same thing goes for someone like Jackson Pollack
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/a...llock_auction_1
and a horribly negative artist like Gottfried Helnwein = http://www.helnwein.com/werke/werke/home.html
THAT is my problem with you classifying Eminem as art.
Hope that makes it clear.
That is all that you can do.The reason I use this forum is that I do value the opinion of some of them, like as you said ash, speichers, eran and GC. But that does not mean that I have to stop thinking for myself, I value their opinion and I use it as far as I think it's right.You value Ash's opinion....and he is certainly not an Eminem supporter. So what justification do you use when you reject that opinion in favor of listening to mediocre stuff that isn't even really original (like I said...look at Eminem's producers) musically and certainly not ladden with rational values. Instances where values ARE displayed (like Loose yourself and 8 mile) are immediately contradicted 2 more minutes in to his songs.
I believe Concerto put it quite well when he said:
The thing with Eminem is that he is a person full of contradictions. He'll write a song about achieving your ambitions and then it may be placed next to a song about raping his mother. The question is whether or not you can divide his music into 'good' and 'bad' and then take value out of what you consider to be good and ignore the bad. I see how a person COULD find a song like 'Lose Yourself' to be inspirational. Personally, I can never like his music because him producing music that is so contradictory, makes me think that he is an extremely dishonest person.
I frankly...don't see that dishonesty as a good thing. How are you to evaluate a work of art when the artist is lying to you all of the time about what he appears to profess in the form of aesthetic values? By what standard?
What annoyed me was Ramare going to bat for the "underdog" just for the sake of doing it...to the exclusion of reason.
When Ramare starts supporting crap like Amittyville (and can't even muster up a warrant to do so) just for the sake of defending an artist that is being scrutinized, I think THAT says loads about in the sense of life area.
I would question (probably not explicitly in print but rather in my head) your character if you were advocating Eminem as across the board.
A couple of songs he does aren't bad, but past that..you aren't advocating that he is any sort of Richard Halley.
As such...I think you are misguided and mistaken in your support of Em, but I don't think it is because of a negative sense of life or because of an error or morality. I see it as more of an error of judgement.
Out here, it's hard to find people who wish to speak honestly and who are rational in their thoughts, so the few friends that i do have and the few here are like a lifeline thrown, there's no way i'm letting go of it.Well...are your friends rational? If so...why would anyone be asking you to let go of them? I don't see the conflict unless you are feeling guilty about having irrational friends just for the sake of not being alone.
Do your friends listen to Eminem? Is that where this is going?
I'm not making assumptions, I'm asking questions..just to be clear.
I go to the U of Idaho...and there are crazy amounts of religious conservatives on campus, so I understand what you mean about rational people being few and far between.
I'm very glad that we have an Objectivist club on campus for that reason
No. I equated you to being indifferent to myself and MTV...which I thought was irrational.You equated my indifference to most people, as being an indifference to anyone and everyone, thats not true.I do not see myself as being irrational in my critique. I have consistently cited my exact problems with Eminem...and NO ONE has even raised a peep except Ramare...and that peep was a totally warrantless assertion.
I also explained my reasons for using MTV as a valid window in to Eminem's character and "art."
That also went unquestioned.
What did I get in response?
It doesn't matter. I don't care what MTV (lol !!!!) or Trypto thinks of Eminem or GNR or any goddamned band.
You expressed indifference to me saying that you don't care. The very fact that you are addressing me and using expletitives indicates that you care.
It was mildly amusing to me that you seemed to be ignoring your own reality when posting.
If you honestly don't care what I think...then you have to view me as an irrational agent.
If you express that you think I'm wrong in my assesment of Eminem and you believe in rational discourse...that is when you engage in a discussion.
Discussion is impossible with irrational people...and since you opted out of addressing the substantive issue, what was I to expect that you were implying?
The fact that you were taking the time to address me and the issue seemed to indicates a couple of things to me.
You do care and this is an issue.
I do not grant my love without reason, norto any chance passer-by who may wish to
claim it. I honor men with my love.
But honor is a thing to be earned.
That is such a great quote:)
I love Rand's views on romance and love.
I can relate to that.I have always been very eclectic about my choice in music and it's always the case that I pick the few things I like from most bands. It's usually like 1-2 songs that I like from a whole album, but for me thats just great, I listen to those two songs and forget about the rest.I have 1-2 songs of some artists that I listen to. That is totally fine of course.
I will even grant you that it is possible for a band that I don't really like as a whole to have a brilliant moment and produce ONE song that I really love.
That song might be a work of art.
My real beef is on the specific substantive issues of the Eminem art debate.
Is "loose yourself" real art? I don't evaluate his lyrics and find them particularly brilliant.
Shit...even Tupac sang about getting out of the hood...right alonside singing about gunning down people, doing drugs, etc.
Kind of like Eminem when he works with another group he signed, D12 on their breakout song "Purple Pills."
So are the lyrics brilliant and worthy of artistic praise? Not in my book.
How about the music itself? Canned and produced in the studio...and not replicatable live.
My conclusion? Not art, sorry.
Thats an absurd generalization.That wasn't really directed at you...but rather Ramare who seems to speak up "for the sake of justice" but does so without actually making any points with substance in them.
To be that is trying to be different just for the sake of being different.
That is what I meant by rebelliousness.
Your dialog with Ramare (without addressing me or my critique) seemed to be playing in to that sort of mentality, which is why I hinted at it.
You didn't seem willing to take in a rational perspective (mine or MTV's for that matter) on what kind of person Eminem is or what kind of music he is producing.
You were agreeing with a poster who made a bunch of unwarranted claims (that there is something ironic in the song '97 Bonnie and Clyde) and vagueries which made me question your motives.
I don't think that is absurd or a generalization.
-E
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Take care.
What is your name?
[you probably already told me...but I have a short memory span]
Hit me up on Aol Instant Messenger sometime: Tryptonique
or MSN : Tryptonique (the email I used to sign up was [email protected]).
Same goes for anyone who wants to say "Hi."
Bush And Faith
in Political Philosophy
Posted
Bush and the religious right (and how it affects his presidency/stance on issues)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A...anguage=printer
http://www.issues2000.org/2004/George_W__Bush_Abortion.htm