Alright, my dears. Blog has moved here:
https://terrestrialaffairs.blogspot.com/
Go THERE!
Calling kettles black since 2010.
Alright, my dears. Blog has moved here:
https://terrestrialaffairs.blogspot.com/
Go THERE!
The ceiling was that of a cellar, so heavy and low that people stooped when crossing the room, as if the weight of the vaulting rested on their shoulders. The circular booths of dark red leather were built into walls of stone that looked eaten by age and dampness. There were no windows, only patches of blue light shooting from dents in the masonry, the dead blue light proper for use in blackouts. The place was entered by way of narrow steps that led down, as if descending deep under the ground. This was the most expensive barroom in New York and it was built on the roof of a skyscraper.And being a refugee of the bar and restaurant scene, I kind of love Rand's barely hidden contempt for "let's fake a hole in the wall" asthetics, especially that "descent" when your bar is built on top of a goddamn skyscraper. I worked for a place that went all out Wild West, complete with an antique bar, smokey karosine lanterns--that gave every. single. fucking. waiter. heart attacks when we had people under them--and wooden panelling that took two weeks to install and another week--with three different chemicals--to stain. It was a pretty neat place--and that bar was a work of beauty and I'm glad it got another life--but the western theme was kind of ruined by the year-round Christmas lights draped on every ceiling beam and light fixture. Yeah, this is a thing, and it's not dead, and it's probably the only thing I'd love to help Rand roast alive.
“Disunity,” drawled James Taggart, “seems to be the basic cause of all social problems.Right. Because it can't be privilege, racism, sexism, unequal access to resources and the sheer bad luck of living in the wrong part of the country when the Natural Disaster Roulette Wheel happens to land on your number.
“That is an anti-social attitude,” drawled Taggart. “People who are afraid to sacrifice somebody have no business talking about a common purpose.”And holy shit James Taggart is a motherfucking Sociopath. Yeah, I get that this is Rand's arguement in a nutshel--that socialism is intrinsically anti-social--but in making that arguement she expects me to believe that anybody could listen to that phrase and think "Yeah, let's listen to this guy." Seriously, the entire book rests on the idea that people are dumb, that they are so lacking in intelligence and basic social instincts that they are incapable of recognizing a motherfucking sociopath advocating business cannibalism, and then, mind, then that the human spirit is great and wonderful and noble and worth saving.
“I can’t be expected to buck the trend of the whole world, can I?” Larkin seemed to plead, but the plea was not addressed to anyone. “Can I?”If there is one person gifted at creating iffy Strawmen, it's C.S. Lewis. He also creates some really good characters--Til We Have Faces is probably his best character work, because he is very, very careful to give everybody from the Pagan murder-priests to the athiestic Greek Fox a solidly realistic point of view--but when he takes off his writer hat and puts on his theologian one, oh my fucking God are the scarecrows everywhere. In the Great Divorce--something he wrote in response to the Marrige of Heaven and Hell--there is a long, long, long conversation between two priests about "going against the Mind of the Age" and I swear to fucking God you could take Larkin's line, lop out the middle bit, drop it in the Great Divorce and nobody could tell.
Folks, I live approximately three hours away from the Texas-Mexico border, in an area where Hispanics--the term on the census, and the term I hear used most frequently in the area--are 80% of the population. To say that Mexico needs to "become" industrialized is to say that--well, America needs to "become" industrialized. Meaning that if you say that, you have just exposed yourself as an ignorant moron (Who is probably really white). Mexico is not miles of rolling desert with cacti, drug lords, cantinas, folklorico dancers and bull-fighters every twenty miles. It's the country with the BIGGEST CITY IN THE WORLD that also happens to be BUILT IN THE MIDDLE OF A FUCKING LAKE. (And up until 2002, it had the last remaining Volkswagon Beetle factory, which has sadly closed its doors).
“The Mexicans, it seems to me, are a very diligent people, crushed by their primitive economy. How can they become industrialized if nobody lends them a hand?”
. Why, the copper traffic alone will pay for everything.”In other words, it's just another example of how James is wrong to think that way because he's a dirty socialist, whereas Dagny is right because she wants things. RIGHT!
He glanced at her and did not answer. Then he said, “I like cigarettes, Miss Taggart. I like to think of fire held in a man’s hand. Fire, a dangerous force, tamed at his fingertips. I often wonder about the hours when a man sits alone, watching the smoke of a cigarette, thinking. I wonder what great things have come from such hours. When a man thinks, there is a spot of fire alive in his mind— and it is proper that he should have the burning point of a cigarette as his one expression.”And I think it's appropriete that this book is comparing ideas to cigarettes, because too much of this one is probably going to give me cancer!
After leaving the flat that morning Jane also had gone down to Edgestow and bought a hat.
She had before now expressed some contempt for the kind of woman who buys hats, as a man buys drinks, for a stimulant and a consolation. It did not occur to her that she was doing so herself on this occasion.
“You’d better take a good look at it then,” said Dr. Dimble.
“What do you mean?” asked Jane.
“Haven’t you told her?” said Dr. Dimble to his wife.
“I haven’t screwed myself up to it yet,” said Mrs. Dimble. “Besides, poor dear, her husband is one of the villains of the piece. Anyway, I expect she knows.”Yes. See, along with the sale of Bragdon Wood, which we covered last time, goes a lot of other properties the college owns. The wood was the important bit to the college because it has History and gives the college character...but all those other properties that weren't even important enough to bring up at the meeting were other people's houses. The Dimbles and, it seems, about half of Edgestow, are about to be thrown out so the NICE can build their facility.
When the hat was being put away again Mrs. Dimble suddenly said, “There’s nothing wrong, is there?”I really like this, because in the preceeding paragraphs Lewis--through Jane--spends a lot of time poking at the attitude that feminine women are all babies and clothes and and fluff and have nothing of substance. I don't really get what he intends to do with it now that he's jammed a stick at it--the veneer of disapproval suggests he's trying to lampoon the concept--but he's certainly doing--
“Wrong?” said Jane. “Why? What should there be?”
“You’re not looking yourself.”
“Oh, I’m all right,” said Jane aloud. Mentally she added, “She’s dying to know whether I’m going to have a baby. That sort of woman always is.”
And where would Merlin be?” “Yes. . . . He’s the really interesting figure. ...Has it ever struck you what an odd creation Merlin is? He’s not evil; yet he’s a magician. He is obviously a druid; yet he knows all about the Grail. He’s ‘the devil’s son’; but then Layamon goes out of his way to tell you that the kind of being who fathered Merlin needn’t have been bad after all...“I often wonder,” said Dr. Dimble, “whether Merlin doesn’t represent the last trace of something the later tradition has quite forgotten about— something that became impossible when the only people in touch with the supernatural were either white or black, either priests or sorcerers.”
“Extraordinary thing . . . most extraordinary,” he kept muttering. “Two heads. And one of them Alcasan’s. Now is that a false scent . . . ?”However, one of his current students needs him, so he tells Jane that 1. She's sane and 2. if she absolutely, positively has to tell somebody about her dreams, please go talk to a friend of theirs before she goes to anybody else. The chapter ends with Jane going home.
It began with a few lights. As a train of the Taggart line rolled toward Philadelphia, a few brilliant, scattered lights appeared in the darkness; they seemed purposeless in the empty plain, yet too powerful to have no purpose. The passengers watched them idly, without interest.
Fountains of sparks shot in beating spasms, as from broken arteries. The air seemed torn to rags, reflecting a raging flame that was not there, red blotches whirling and running through space, as if not to be contained within a man-made structure, as if about to consume the columns, the girders, the bridges of cranes overhead...A flow of stars hung above the stream, leaping out of its placid smoothness, looking delicate as lace and innocent as children’s sparklers.Hank himself gets only a paragraph, and compared to his steel it's downright spartan. This is the very first time his special metal has been poured. Ever. Which means that Dagny not only ordered something untested, she ordered something that didn't even exist. Like, maybe there were test batches or something, but the wording really, really implies that this metal was just a formula on paper until Rearden started throwing shit into a crucible. This is like booking a year long voyage on the Apollo 1 rocket. You know. The one that exploded during a test with all hands on board. WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS.
Hank Rearden, in other words, has the empathy of a brick and is kind of a shitheel. What I find incredibly interesting, though, is that Rand appears to be using Joy much the same way that Lewis does. Not as a magnification of happiness, but as a transcendant moment that surpasses happiness. Having said that, if Rand is using Joy that way she's missed the entire point. The factors that create Joy in one individual are different from the factors that create it in another. Not everybody is going to be delighted that a steel factory is making steel. And this highlights a major, major problem in Objectivism. It discounts entirely the differences between individuals and expects them all to be identical in both their needs and their abilities.
He felt that he could forgive anything to anyone, because happiness was the greatest agent of purification. He felt certain that every living being wished him well tonight. He wanted to meet someone, to face the first stranger, to stand disarmed and open, and to say, “Look at me.” People, he thought, were as hungry for a sight of joy as he had always been— for a moment’s relief from that gray load of suffering which seemed so inexplicable and unnecessary. He had never been able to understand why men should be unhappy.
“Why, darling,” she said in a bright tone of amusement, “isn’t it too early to come home? Wasn’t there some slag to sweep or tuyères to polish?”
Why that chronic air of suspicion, as if they were waiting to be hurt?...they seemed wounded by anything he said, it was not a matter of his words or actions, it was almost . . . almost as if they were wounded by the mere fact of his being.
“Damned if I see why. Can you tell me that? What’s wrong with the world?”
Larkin shrugged sadly. “Why ask useless questions? How deep is the ocean? How high is the sky? Who is John Galt?”
Yeah, having a family member who is a continual deadbeat is a hard situation, and enabling problematic behavior is an issue. But the issue is not Hank supporting Phillip altruistically--it is that Philip is taking advantage of Hank and abusing the privelage of getting to live relatively expense free.
There was something wrong, by Rearden’s standards, with a man who did not seek any gainful employment, but he would not impose his standards on Philip; he could afford to support his brother and never notice the expense.
And then Rearden thought suddenly that he could break through Philip’s chronic wretchedness for once, give him a shock of pleasure, the unexpected gratification of a hopeless desire. He thought: What do I care about the nature of his desire?— it’s his, just as Rearden Metal was mine— it must mean to him what that meant to me— let’s see him happy just once, it might teach him something— didn’t I say that happiness is the agent of purification?— I’m celebrating tonight, so let him share in it— it will be so much for him, and so little for me.
“But you’re wrong, Paul, you’re so wrong! What would happen to Henry’s vanity if he didn’t have us to throw alms to? What would become of his strength if he didn’t have weaker people to dominate? What would he do with himself if he didn’t keep us around as dependents? It’s quite all right, really, I’m not criticizing him, it’s just a law of human nature.”I begin to think that nothing good, kind, or generous ever happened to Rand. It also shows me that she believes altriusm is a zero-sum game--that in giving to one, another loses something of value. Generosity diminishes the great without magnifying the weaker.
“A chain,” she said. “Appropriate, isn’t it? It’s the chain by which he holds us all in bondage.”
You would never have guessed from the tone of Studdock’s reply what intense pleasure he derived from Curry’s use of the pronoun “we.” So very recently he had been an outsider, watching the proceedings of what he then called “Curry and his gang” with awe and with little understanding, and making at College meetings short, nervous speeches which never influenced the course of events. Now he was inside and “Curry and his gang” had become “we” or “the Progressive Element in College.” It had all happened quite suddenly and was still sweet in the mouth.
Three years ago, if Mark Studdock had come to a College Meeting at which such a question was to be decided, he would have expected to hear the claims of sentiment against progress and beauty against utility openly debated. Today, as he took his seat in the Soler, the long upper room on the south of Lady Alice, he expected no such matter. He knew now that that was not the way things are done..
It was not till six o’clock that all the converging lines of thought and feeling aroused by the earlier business came together upon the question of selling Bragdon Wood. It was not called, “the sale of Bragdon Wood.” The Bursar called it the “sale of the area colored pink on the plan which, with the Warden’s permission, I will now pass round the table.”...The advantages of the sale discovered themselves one by one like ripe fruit dropping into the hand. It solved the problem of the wall; it solved the problem of protecting ancient monuments; it solved the financial problem; it looked like solving the problem of the junior Fellows’ stipends.There are a few hold-outs, most notably a man named Jewel, and another man with the moniker "Bill the Blizzard" attempt to protest. Unfortunately for them, the vote goes through and the Wood is sold to the NICE.
Gee I hope you like that stupid, stupid sentence. You know how about three, four years ago, Drake did that song "Motto"? You Only Live Once? YOLO? And how EVERY SINGLE FUCKING PERSON ON PLANET EARTH was doing "YOLO" for the longest time? And how every single rapper in existence tried to cash in on this by coming up with their own YOLO? Only it worked exactly the way bricks fly and most of the rappers just sounded really, really stupid? Yeah. That's what this phrase is. It's Rand's attempt to come up with a meme. And really, it's cool that she put a meme into her novel way back in 57, when memes were not a thing. It is. She was kinda ahead of her time there.
“Who is John Galt?”
“Why does it bother you?” he asked.
“It doesn’t,” snapped Eddie Willers.It doesn't bother Eddie SO MUCH that Eddie gasp GIVES THE BUM MONEY. Because this is a big, sacrificial gesture, apparently. Then Eddie walks off and starts thinking about how much he...doesn't feel anything about his life and is really apathetic, and how very much this bothers him.
It’s the twilight, he thought; I hate the twilight.So do I, Eds. So do I.
It was the calendar that the mayor of New York had erected last year on the top of a building, so that citizens might tell the day of the month as they told the hours of the day, by glancing up at a public tower. A white rectangle hung over the city, imparting the date to the men in the streets below. In the rusty light of this evening’s sunset, the rectangle said: September 2.WOW WHAT A TECHNOLOGICAL MARVEL.
He had a small, petulant mouth, and thin hair clinging to a bald forehead. His posture had a limp, decentralized sloppiness, as if in defiance of his tall, slender body, a body with an elegance of line intended for the confident poise of an aristocrat, but transformed into the gawkiness of a lout. The flesh of his face was pale and soft. His eyes were pale and veiled, with a glance that moved slowly, never quite stopping, gliding off and past things in eternal resentment of their existence.
“Don’t bother me, don’t bother me, don’t bother me,” said James Taggart.
“You’re a pessimist, Eddie. You lack faith. That’s what undermines the morale of an organization.”
Her leg, sculptured by the tight sheen of the stocking, its long line running straight, over an arched instep, to the tip of a foot in a high-heeled pump, had a feminine elegance that seemed out of place in the dusty train car and oddly incongruous with the rest of her.
She thought dimly that there had been premonitory echoes of this theme in all of Richard Halley’s work, through all the years of his long struggle, to the day, in his middle-age, when fame struck him suddenly and knocked him out.Fame is a random bus, my lovelies. Be advised.
And they put this guy in charge of an entire company. Somebody who has all the brains and charisma of a sack of oatmeal.
“That we always give all our business to Rearden. It seems to me we should give somebody else a chance, too. Rearden doesn’t need us; he’s plenty big enough. We ought to help the smaller fellows to develop. Otherwise, we’re just encouraging a monopoly.”
“Well, whose opinion did you take?”
“I don’t ask for opinions.”
“What do you go by?”
“Judgment.”
“Well, whose judgment did you take?”
“Mine.”
“But whom did you consult about it?”
“Nobody.”
“Then what on earth do you know about Rearden Metal?”
“That it’s the greatest thing ever put on the market.”
” “But who says so?”
“Jim, I studied engineering in college. When I see things, I see them.”
“What did you see?"
“Rearden’s formula and the tests he showed me.”Okay. There is a lot to be said for basing decisions on your own judgement. But unless Dagny has a Ph.D. in metallurgy and did the tests herself, this is not one of them. Also, sometimes you see things wrong. Sometimes you get bad information. Sometimes your attempts at P-then-Q logic breaks down. Sometimes people lie. That's why basing your judgement on the facts, tests, and opinions of an uninterested third party is important.
“Matrimony was ordained, thirdly,” said Jane Studdock to herself, “for the mutual society, help, and comfort that the one ought to have of the other.” She had not been to church since her schooldays until she went there six months ago to be married, and the words of the service had stuck in her mind.Okay. This is going to be a train wreck. It's a 1940s bachelor Oxford Don starting his novel about Spiritual Science Nazis with a commentary on marriage. Congratulations, we've set up one of our major themes in the first handful of seconds, and it's gonna stick to Jane's character like glue.
“Mutual society, help, and comfort,” said Jane bitterly. In reality marriage had proved to be the door out of a world of work and comradeship and laughter and innumerable things to do, into something like solitary confinement.
Because that show totally supported the dominant paradigm in every possible way, right? |
Pictured: Unicorn rainbows for all. Not pictured: Bullshit. |