Progressive Music as Objective 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 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.   

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

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

"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.

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?

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