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Roark the dynamiter

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intellectualammo

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Btw, I would suggest that certain people might find value in reflecting on the part in Atlas Shrugged where it is mentioned that Ragnar establishes precise accounts through which to return stolen wealth to its rightful individual owners. His doing so is an aesthetic representation of Rand's Objectivism in regard to the issue of the return of property that the government falsely claims to own. It is anything but "utterly absurd."

 

J

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Btw, I would suggest that certain people might find value in reflecting on the part in Atlas Shrugged where it is mentioned that Ragnar establishes precise accounts through which to return stolen wealth to its rightful individual owners. His doing so is an aesthetic representation of Rand's Objectivism in regard to the issue of the return of property that the government falsely claims to own.

Your hypocrisy would be comical if it wasn't so sad and deceitful.

First, I thought part of your whole argument throughout this thread was that it is improper to equate aesthetic representations with real life morality (or something to that effect). In which one cannot take moral lessons from fiction. Did you not argue that?

Secondly, from whom did Ragnar recover the stolen wealth? Was it only from those who took it? And whom did he give it to? Are you saying that the only people whose wealth was stolen were in Galt's gulch? According to you shouldn't he return it in exact proportion to those from whom it was stolen? This isn't my point of view but it is yours. You have defeated yourself once again.

I may at some point answer your other post but I really don't feel the need to since you have already been thoroughly defeated. Another sign of your intellectual dishonesty is that you are unable to admit when you are wrong so these long debates are useless.

And by the way you did make a positive claim about the Objectivist view on lying. You said that it was ONLY allowed when one is under threat of force. So contrary to your assertion that you can't prove a negative, I never asked you to. Provide a quote in which Ayn Rand said those were the ONLY conditions under which one could lie. Show me where she uses the word ONLY.

 

Furthermore, there is absolutely no honest way to interpret Miss Rand's article "The Question of Scholarships" the way you have. In it she mentions medical services, teachers and the like and even other government jobs that are not the proper function of government. You have misinterpreted it either intentionally or unintentionally. Either way, I've provided quotes to back-up my assertions, you haven't and I refuse to do your reading for you.

I'm surprised to see you return to this thread when you haven't answered all of my challenges. Just to mention one: you never addressed my conception of Rights in which I said it was improper to phrase or think of a Right as a Right NOT to do something. I gave a convincing and concise argument and you not only didn't address it, you continued to assert the opposite.

Edited by Marc K.
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I never claimed the book stated that this was his reason for doing it.

We should only be working with his reasons.

My statement about the taxation was to counter your assertion that "the government *never* initiated force against Roark".

Taxation is force. Roark was being taxed. The government was using force against him and you strongly asserted that it wasn't.

You'd have to show that he was taxed. And if you even could, it still was not at all relevant to his reasons for designing the building.

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Your hypocrisy would be comical if it wasn't so sad and deceitful.

 

No. You entered this discussion with an irrational, emotionally desired conclusion -- that I am dishonest, "scum" and hypocritical -- and you've been actively focused on inventing reasons to continue believing that conclusion, while avoiding the substance of my posts. You still haven't offered anything to support your claim that Rand believed that privacy lies in the absence of threats of the initiation of force are moral.

 

First, I thought part of your whole argument throughout this thread was that it is improper to equate aesthetic representations with real life morality (or something to that effect). In which one cannot take moral lessons from fiction. Did you not argue that?

No, I did not take that position. My position is that it is improper to attempt to derive an ethical system from one's assumption that a fictional character is intended to be a hero and the belief that all of his actions must therefore be morally acceptable. It is wrong to try to alter a philosopher's explicitily stated philosophy in order to make it fit the actions of a fictional character that she created.

In mentioning Ragnar's accurately tracking how much wealth his friends were owed, and refunding their wealth into specific accounts accordingly, I have not derived an ethical system based on the assumption that he is a fictional hero or concluded that all of his actions must be morally acceptable. Rather, I have only identifyied him as a fictional example of someone acting consistently with Rand's Objectivist ethics, where Howard Roark's actions of committing the fraud of dishonestly presenting his work as someone else's and then destroying others' property were not consistent with the Objectivist ethics. Understand? I'm judging Ragnar's actions based on the Objectivist ethics where others choose to rewrite the Objectivist ethics based on Roark's actions.

 

Are you saying that the only people whose wealth was stolen were in Galt's gulch?

No, I'm not saying that. How could you possibly have come to such an illogical misinterpretation of my position?

 

According to you shouldn't he return it in exact proportion to those from whom it was stolen? This isn't my point of view but it is yours.

He was returning the wealth in exact proportion to those from whom it was stolen. When a person is recovering stolen wealth for himself and/or his friends, it doesn't logically follow that he must recover and return everyone else's wealth as well. If he chooses, he can just leave everyone else's wealth alone, and let them recover it for themselves if they choose.

Were you assuming that Ragnar recovered all of the wealth that was stolen from everyone, but then only divided it up among his friends? If so, that's not what happened in the novel.

 

You have defeated yourself once again.

No, you've just falsely declared victory once again. You seem to think that declaring victory somehow magically makes you the victor. I really am surprised that you're so focused on making me into an enemy that you appear to be completely lacking in intellectual curiosity on the issue of Rand's position on privacy lies in the absence of threats of the initiation of force. You seem to have zero interest in invetigating the matter. It's such an odd mindset to run into in an Objectivist forum.

 

I may at some point answer your other post but I really don't feel the need to since you have already been thoroughly defeated.

Ah, I see. The reason that you're not answering the substance of my posts is because you've defeated me by not answering the substance of my posts!

 

Another sign of your intellectual dishonesty is that you are unable to admit when you are wrong so these long debates are useless.

I've admitted that I'm wrong on many occasions in online discussions. I usually do so quite quickly.

 

And by the way you did make a positive claim about the Objectivist view on lying. You said that it was ONLY allowed when one is under threat of force. So contrary to your assertion that you can't prove a negative, I never asked you to. Provide a quote in which Ayn Rand said those were the ONLY conditions under which one could lie. Show me where she uses the word ONLY.

That's a good point. And I therefore admit that I was wrong to overstate my case. So, let me correct that immediately: I withdraw my claim that Rand's closed-system of Objectivism accepted lying as moral only when a person is under the threat of the initiation of force. Instead of going that far, I should have said only that you have not provided any evidence or quotes from Rand which support your claim that closed-system Objectivism holds that it is moral to lie for the mere sake of protecting one's privacy when not being threatened with the initiation of force. Until you provide such evidence, your statement must be treated as an arbitrary assertion (as "a claim put forth in the absence of evidence of any sort," and "a sheer assertion with no attempt to validate it or connect it to reality").

There. Now the ball's back in your court. Will you be as quick to admit to error and withdraw your statement until the time that you can back it up with evidence?

 

Furthermore, there is absolutely no honest way to interpret Miss Rand's article "The Question of Scholarships" the way you have. In it she mentions medical services, teachers and the like and even other government jobs that are not the proper function of government.

I would suggest that you reread and grasp the full context of her statement on teachers and the like. The same context does not apply to Roark's circumstances. In The Fountainhead, the government has not taken over Roark's profession. His trouble up until the Cortlandt project had not been with government meddlers, but with private patrons of his art form.

 

I'm surprised to see you return to this thread when you haven't answered all of my challenges. Just to mention one: you never addressed my conception of Rights in which I said it was improper to phrase or think of a Right as a Right NOT to do something. I gave a convincing and concise argument and you not only didn't address it, you continued to assert the opposite.

Ayn Rand: "Whenever a man is made to act without his own free, personal, individual, voluntary consent—his right has been violated."

 

Therefore Objectivism holds that one has the right to NOT be compelled to act. One has the right to NOT be forced to hire someone against one's will. One has the right to NOT hire Howard Roark.

J

Edited by Jonathan13
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You'd have to show that he was taxed. And if you even could, it still was not at all relevant to his reasons for designing the building.

 

Exactly. The Objectivist position is that it is moral to lie to avoid someone's initiation of force. Both Roark's dishonest actions and his verbal lie to Wynand were not committed for the purpose of avoiding anyone's threat of initiating force against him. He wasn't lying for the purpose of getting out of paying his portion of the taxes that would fund the building project. He was lying solely for the purpose of denying the project's owners their right to not hire him.

J

Edited by Jonathan13
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I never claimed the book stated that this was his reason for doing it.

We should only be working with his reasons.

My statement about the taxation was to counter your assertion that "the government *never* initiated force against Roark".

Taxation is force. Roark was being taxed. The government was using force against him and you strongly asserted that it wasn't.

You'd have to show that he was taxed. And if you even could, it still was not at all relevant to his reasons for designing the building.

If you are openly operating a business (as he was) with all that entails and you are not in jail you're either in a government cabinet position or you've paid taxes.

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If you are openly operating a business (as he was) with all that entails and you are not in jail you're either in a government cabinet position or you've paid taxes.

 

That's not true. We don't know which government entity built the Cortlandt project, how they raised the taxes to support it, or whether or not Roark lived or worked in that tax zone, or whether or not the taxes applied to him.

 

J

Edited by Jonathan13
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Jonathan, you are correct.

Roark even speaks of the taxes specifically and when he does he says "they". I have found nothing in the novel that indicates Roark having paid taxes on income, sale, or business. And more importantly, it was not his primary concern for designing Cortlandt regardless rendered it moot.

Are people trying to justify what he did, for reasons that he in fact did not even do it for?

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Are people trying to justify what he did, for reasons that he in fact did not even do it for?

 

Yes, that appears to be the case. Which is unfortunate because, as I've explained repeatedly in many different ways on this thread, there is no need to deny that Roark committed some immoral acts.

As I said in my first post on this thread, "The Fountainhead dramatically portrays the idea of an individual's creative independence and integrity, despite the fact that the hero of the novel behaves immorally by Objectivist standards. My view is that the novel is about the hero's artistic integrity, not his ethical lapses. He fits Rand's concept of bad boy heroes illustrating rebelliousness and independence: the idea isn't to focus on any aspects of their behavior that are immoral, but to focus on the sense of life that they portray, regardless of the unethical particulars. Rand's view was that the actions of a "noble crook" in a work of literature are not to be taken literally and as an endorsement of his vices."

And as I said in other posts:

"Romanticism, according to Rand, presents man as choosing his values and as pursuing them. Her view of Romanticism does not require a presentation of man as morally perfect in pursing his values. A heroic character can be overzealous in pursing his values, step over the line and commit immoral deeds, and yet the work of art which contains the character can still qualify as Romanticism. Romanticism is an aesthetic style, not a moral one, which presents a type of man or an attitude toward existence. It presents grand, heroic, larger-than-life events which portray man as strong and as capable of choosing and acting to achieve his goals. It doesn't specify what those goals must be, which morality must guide him, or that he must not deviate from his own or the reader's morals in pursuit of his goals. And therefore a story about a larger-than-life criminal or a heroic "noble crook" (as Rand called it) can qualify as Romanticism."

"[in The Fountainhead] the main thing is the creative independence and the artistic integrity, and that not all of the hero's actions are to be taken as a guide to moral living. The overall sense of life is the important thing to focus on, and not the particulars. As I quoted Rand as saying, the artistic portrayal of sense of life "is concerned with a basic frame of mind, not with rules of conduct." Roark's basic frame of mind isn't that of a dynamiter or other intiator of force, but of a strongly independent and productive creator."

"As Rand wrote (Journals of Ayn Rand, 22):

'I do not think, nor did I think when I wrote this play, that a swindler is a heroic character or that a respectable banker is a villain. But for the purpose of dramatizing the conflict of independence versus conformity, a criminal – a social outcast – can be an eloquent symbol. This, incidentally, is the reason of the profound appeal of the "noble crook" in fiction. He is the symbol of the rebel as such, regardless of the kind of society he rebels against, the symbol – for most people – of their vague, undefined, unrealized groping toward a concept, or a shadowy image, of man's self-esteem.

'That a career of crime is not, if fact, the way to implement one's self-esteem, is irrelevant in sense-of-life terms. A sense of life is concerned mainly with consciousness, not with existence – or rather: with the way a man's consciousness faces existence. It is concerned with a basic frame of mind, not with rules of conduct.'

"In other words, as an artist, Rand was focused on portraying an ideal "sense of life," and not necessarily on the ethical particulars presented in her art. Her goal was not to present morally perfect characters, or for them to become the basis of anyone's ethics."

-----

Some people have joined this discussion rather late, and are perhaps not aware of all that has been said. I get the impression, Intellectualammo, that some participants may not realize that you and I differ in our judgments of The Fountainhead, so hopefully my repeating a few highlights from my previous posts above might disabuse anyone of holding that mistaken opinion. I judge the novel to be fantastic. I judge Roark's immoral actions to be irrelevant to the overall "sense of life" portrayed in the novel.

J

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Libertarians also use Jonathan's confused conceptions above to say that we may not bomb foreign countries in time of war because we are not retaliating against those who initiated force. That we are only morally allowed to kill the leaders of an aggressive country. Ignoring what causes a country to become aggressive in the first place: the ideas the people hold; and whose responsibility it is to keep a country from becoming aggressive: the people; and who must suffer the consequences: the people.

So, according to you, anyone who lives in a country America wants to go to war with, is automatically a supporter of that country's regime and can be slaughtered morally. This claim bears an uncomfortable resemblance to (former) Prof. Ward Churchill's claim that the office workers in the World Trade Center were “little Eichmanns” who had it coming because of their participation in, or lack of opposition to, modern corporatism.

 

I used to buy into these claims about, well they all must support the regime they live in, and that makes them aggressors with no rights, so we can kill them, even intentionally target them, but can these claims be foundationally justified?

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So, according to you, anyone who lives in a country America wants to go to war with, is automatically a supporter of that country's regime and can be slaughtered morally. This claim bears an uncomfortable resemblance to (former) Prof. Ward Churchill's claim that the office workers in the World Trade Center were “little Eichmanns” who had it coming because of their participation in, or lack of opposition to, modern corporatism.

 

I used to buy into these claims about, well they all must support the regime they live in, and that makes them aggressors with no rights, so we can kill them, even intentionally target them, but can these claims be foundationally justified?

You are context dropping on the Churchill comparison. The claim that killing civilians in an enemy country is just only applies in emergencies, such as when the other country poses an existential threat. Neither the US government, nor the employees of the WTC posed a legitimate threat to Islamic extremists.

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Jonathan wrote: My view is that the novel is about the hero's artistic integrity, not his ethical lapses

You wouldn't say that he betrayed it by working on Cortlandt? And by committing fraud in order to? He does say later he should not have done it.

 

No. In working on Cortlandt, committing fraud, being dishonest, and destroying others' property, he betrayed his ethical integrity, not his artistic integrity.

 

The novel is a powerful example of the Sublime (in my opinion, it and Atlas Shrugged are the two most powerful examples of Sublimity in art). It very successfully stimulates in me the will to resist destructive forces of immense power and magnitude.

 

J

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Have you ever seen the films The Sting, The Usual Suspects and Pulp Fiction? Did you get anything positive out of them despite the fact that the characters commit immoral acts?

 

J

I saw Pulp Fiction. I did not get anything positive out of the characters immoral actions.

I get nothing positive from Roarks immoral actions he took such as - dynamiting, lying, and the fraud he committed. But yeah, I do get some positive things from the book, despite that.

Edited by intellectualammo
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I saw Pulp Fiction. I did not get anything positive out of the characters immoral actions.

I get nothing positive from Roarks immoral actions he took such as - dynamiting, lying, and the fraud he committed. But yeah, I do get some positive things from the book, despite that.

C'mon in Roark's case, not even an iota of 'yeah, there ya go, stickin it to the man' kinda thing on any level?

Any 'take that one for Henry' ?

Edited by tadmjones
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C'mon in Roark's case, not even an iota of 'yeah, there ya go, stickin it to the man' kinda thing on any level?

Nope.

To me, if he wanted to stick it to the man, he could have made it public that he was able to design Cortlandt, as no other architect was able to, but refuses to have it built on public funds by the government. Then Toohey could work the masses with that one and Roark could have done some kind of speech about it in print or something like that.

Edited by intellectualammo
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To me, if he wanted to stick it to the man, he could have made it public that he was able to design Cortlandt, as no other architect was able to, but refuses to have it built on public funds by the government. Then Toohey could work the masses with that one and Roark could have done some kind of speech about it in print or something like that.

That would have been moral and logical, but I think that it also would have had a very negative effect on the aesthetic impact and power of the novel. Rand was an artist first and foremost, and she knew what she was doing. She put her artistry ahead of notions like morally perfect heroic characters. If she hadn't, this forum wouldn't exist, and we wouldn't be discussing her work.

J

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Nope.

To me, if he wanted to stick it to the man, he could have made it public that he was able to design Cortlandt, as no other architect was able to, but refuses to have it built on public funds by the government. Then Toohey could work the masses with that one and Roark could have done some kind of speech about it in print or something like that.

Did you stop reading the novel at that point? After you determined that Roark was immoral did you cease to have anything about you associated with the character in the novel? Or did you keep reading to find out if he had to pay for his transgressions? Edited by tadmjones
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That would have been moral and logical, but I think that it also would have had a very negative effect on the aesthetic impact and power of the novel.

Not to me. It actually loses much of its power with me now, after having looked more closely at Roarks actions. Edited by intellectualammo
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Did you stop reading the novel at that point?

No. It's only after I read the novel a second time recently, that I began to question his actions because of a comment Johnathan made elsewhere which got me thinking and I created this topic in order to discuss some things. Edited by intellectualammo
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