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Psychological Visibility

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As an extension of the mirror of self in others via art:

"Dagny, if some artist painted you as you are now, men would come to look at the painting to experience a moment that nothing could give them in their own lives. They would call it great art. They would not know the nature of what they felt, but the painting would show them everything—even that you're not some classical Venus, but the Vice-President of a railroad, because that's part of it—even what I am, because that's part of it, too. Dagny, they'd feel it and go away and sleep with the first barmaid in sight—and they'd never try to reach what they had felt.

Atlas Shrugged (1992, 35th anniversary edition, page 344)

Edited by dream_weaver
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  • 4 months later...

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“Because we are not accustomed to see any of the things within and do not know them, . . . [we] do not know it is that within which moves us: as if someone looking at his image and not knowing where it came from should pursue it. . . . It is truly a greater beauty . . . when you see moral sense in someone and delight in it, not looking at his face—which might be ugly—but putting aside all shape and pursuing his inner beauty. But if it does not move you yet, so that you call someone like this beautiful, you will not when you look inward at yourself be pleased with your beauty. . . . This is why discussions about these sorts of things are not for everybody; but if you have seen yourself beautiful, remember them.”

Plotinus, Enneads V.8.2 – A. H. Armstrong, translator

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