Progressive Music as Objective Music

VanVanVan wrote: This thread really interests me. I've read the Fountainhead once and Atlas Shrugged twice, and while I think that some of Ayn Rand's ideas are absolutely batsh*t insane and that the woman herself was nothing short of ridiculous to the point of hilarity, I do agree with a lot of what she said.  That said, I can see where the OP is coming from with calling progressive rock objective music. The obvious connection is to [Atlas Shrugged character] Richard Halley, who (like many prog musicians) wrote his music not for any sort of acclaim but as an expression of himself; nothing more. He did not write it for anyone else, he wrote for himself. I certainly think that prog embodies this musical better than any other philosophy, but I don't know if that means you can call it purely objective music. Brilliant idea; though, I never would have thought of this.

That is precisely the idea!

Thanks! I actually got inspired while reading to Richard Halley's words in Atlas Shrugged

Nonetheless I do think that Rand's philosophy is for the most part correct... but I have to admit that she was a bit (well...more than a bit)crazy...

Edited by ProgressiveAttic - April 13 2010 at 22:01

ProgressiveAttic wrote: There are reasons to believe (and many economists think so) that the cause of the crisis was government intervention... but since I am not from the U.S. (and this isn't the political discussions thread) I won't go any further...

yyyeeaaahh I don't know about that, chicken & egg-- it's like saying your doctor made you sick.  Also it depends what intervention you speak of;  Before the crisis?  During?  After?  Do you mean imprudent real estate allowances and home loans?  Corporate regulation/deregulation?  What, man, what?

"at least here in the US"
-->Phew you must be an early riser. And immediately checking the forum. That's what I call prog dedication 
It's actually quite frightening what you say. I thought hardcore capitalism was given more critical thought in US as well.

I have a knack for joining threads after all life and interest have left them.
Here's my 2 cents anyway.

1.     Reality exists as an objective absolute—facts are facts, independent of man’s feelings, wishes, hopes or fears.
--> What a strange thesis.
As if feelings, wishes, hopes or fears aren't equally real as reality. Besides, we can only see reality through our subjective senses so objective reality remains unknown to all of us.

2.     Reason (the faculty which identifies and integrates the material provided by man’s senses) is man’s only means of perceiving reality, his only source of knowledge, his only guide to action, and his basic means of survival.
--> Dream on. I might prefer it if reason would guide our actions, but I'd say were probably even more driven by instinct and emotion.

3.     Man—every man—is an end in himself, not the means to the ends of others. He must exist for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself. The pursuit of his own rational self-interest and of his own happiness is the highest moral purpose of his life.
--> That's simply romantic individualistic overstatement. But it seems like Rand had at least a good feeling of where things would head with society in the 21st century (western society at least). I'd say an individual is nothing without recognition within a social group. We're social animals as much as predators. There's not much thought gone in this philosophy really...

4.     The ideal political-economic system is laissez-faire capitalism.
--> Yeah right, I think we've seen the last two years that this is complete nonsense. Even hard-core capitalist wouldn't believe that anymore.

I once read one book from her. I suck at titles but it was something about an architect. I managed to survive it for 3/4 of its length. It's a great defence of artistic integrity and unbound creativity. Which is great, but I can't relate it to all 4 points of her philosophy. I guess she was relevant at her time but like many philosophers she seems not to realize that our complex reality will never be described with just one theory.

PS. When it comes to music, I'd say point 1,2 and 3 are the credo of black metal rather then prog.


Edited by Bonnek - January 21 2010 at 06:02

I notice a Vytas Brenner cover album...are you venezuelan.

I hate it when I'm almost done with what I've written, and then I inadvertently erase it by hitting a button by mistake.  In light of this, here is a much shorter response to this thread.  The writer assumes that lovers of prog music are by definition more intelligent or rational than lovers of "pop" music.  This is simply unprovable.  He also assumes that rationality in music is necessarily a good thing.   It's not.  The root appeal of music is emotional. I love King Crimson's music.  I also like Rihanna's and Billy Joel's music, examples of so-called "pop" music.   

Did anyone ever see the Simpsons' take on the "Ayn Rand Day Care Center"?  Little Maggie and the rest of the babies were left to fend for themselves.

Progressive Rock has too much love to be involved with Ayn Rand.  That's why even Rush grew up and left her behind.

I have read a small fraction of the posts on this topic but I have to say that I was immediately struck by the initial argument.  I have read three of Rand's fiction books on objectivism (Fountainhead, Atlas Shrugged, and Anthem) and I have to say that I have a pretty good understanding of the philosophy.  Good enough to understand where the philosophy starts to contradict human nature as much as Collectivism does (that is a later topic for another day).  But my point is this, Progressive Rock, at least to me, has absolutely no representation of Objectivism (even though I see where all of you are coming from with the individualist aspect) because of one of the main points you originally asserted contradicts the nature of Progressive Rock.

Even though Objectivism is largely an individualist philosophy, it still asserts the idea that there is NO subjective reality.  meaning:  reality is completely concrete, unchangedable, and finite.  1. If you ask any quantum physics professor if they believed this they would probably start laughing, and 2. That in no way represents progressive rock.  Progressive Rock (even though its highly individualist) represents a constructed form of expression by whoever is playing or composing it.  It has no finite properties, it is probably the most infinite form of music.  Trying to call it objectivist is quite appalling coming from a writer and musician who composes a lot of progressive pieces.  If you wish to nail down Progressive Rock into a specific philosophy (which would also contradict its nature, because you are trying to shove it into another genre) then check out constructivism. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructivist_epistemology

The basic idea is that the true nature of external reality is completely separate from human cognition.  Meaning, what we see is an illusion of what is really there because of what our limited senses "construct" for us to see.  Any one could really see the world in anyway they like depending upon how they program their brain to perceive the world.  This is becoming a very large topic in the scientific community as they are becoming more and more aware of how limited human sensory perception is, and how infinite the universe is.

Excerpts form Rand's "ROMANTIC MANIFESTO": "Philosophically, Romanticism is a crusade to glorify man’s existence; psychologically, it is experienced simply as the desire to make life interesting." "What the Romanticists brought to art was the primacy of values, an element that had been missing in the stale, arid, third- and fourth-hand (and rate) repetitions of the Classicists’ formula-copying. Values (and value-judgments) are the source of emotions; a great deal of emotional intensity was projected in the work of the Romanticists and in the reactions of their audiences, as well as a great deal of color, imagination, originality, excitement and all the other consequences of a value-oriented view of life. This emotional element was the most easily perceivable characteristic of the new movement and it was taken as its defining characteristic, without deeper inquiry. Such issues as the fact that the primacy of values in human life is not an irreducible primary, that it rests on man’s faculty of volition, and, therefore, that the Romanticists, philosophically, were the champions of volition (which is the root of values) and not of emotions (which are merely the consequences)—were issues to be defined by philosophers, who defaulted in regard to esthetics as they did in regard to every other crucial aspect of the nineteenth century. The still deeper issue, the fact that the faculty of reason is the faculty of volition, was not known at the time, and the various theories of free will were for the most part of an anti-rational character, thus reinforcing the association of volition with mysticism."