Progressive Music as Objective Music

Who, exactly, would you call "classicists"? And what makes you think they neglected so-called "values"?

Mind you, I adore mystics (Blake, Hafiz, St. John of the Cross) just as much as the next person, but I don't trust mere LABELS.

And no, I haven't talked to the Winds of Time either.

I think Ms. Ayn Rand is referring to what's today called Academic Art, which was basically visual arts before Romanticism which to my knowledge was the first self-conscious artistic movement and displaced the academics to the extent that they've almost been forgotten with a few exceptions. So today when people think of the art from the early 19th century they inevitably think of the Romantics. Does she come with any specific examples, i. e. naming particular artists and works?

The funny thing is that Romanticism quickly became the next establishment and had by the mid-19th century stagnated with the exception of the more "out-there" fringes, which provoked a movement away from idealized representation and towards extremely realistic painting led by Gustave Courbet. Ironically, Courbet was a huge source of inspiration for the Impressionists who got the entire Modern Art ball rolling...


Edited by Toaster Mantis - November 22 2009 at 10:49

Since I'm French and have spent many years at school, high school and college, I'm nearly shocked by the definition of 'Classicism' given by Ayn Rand!
Her definition makes me think that she has a poor knowledge and understanding of what Classicism was: she seems not to know that Classicism was not a "school", but a name given to the generation of artists before the Romantics by the same Romantics...
Plus, the Classicism was above all a rather loose theory created in reaction to the so-called excesses of the Baroque age.
Once again, it seems to me that Ayn Rand could talk about any subject, but with the same thematic: the exaltation of the Individual in any field of the human activities, would it be politics, philosophy, arts... No matter the subject, it's always the same goal: to glorify the individual action against the rules of the common social life.

Excellent point, Toaster M, I wonder which is now more common: naive sentimentalism or "cool" cynicism?

I just rad an artcle recently in the New Yorker.  Anyone know that Rand used Benzedrine to write her novels?

That initial post may be one of the most stupid things I've read all year. Congratulations. Sixteenth Chapel is an absolute classic, though.

Rand's books are to philosophy as the Harry Potter books are to magic; you might as well write about how Prog relates to Quidditch.


Edited by Teaflax - November 25 2009 at 04:31

Slartibartfast wrote: I just rad an artcle recently in the New Yorker.  Anyone know that Rand used Benzedrine to write her novels?

Tis a pity a bottle of same was not included with each of her books for the reader

I've read all of Ayn Rand's major works of fiction and will read them again...highly recommended and entertaining...sort of like reading old school science fiction with its explicit philosophical content (go Asimov!).

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."

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.