Objectivism 101

1. 14th Annual Summer Seminar of The Objectivist Center Diana Mertz Hsieh Lecture Six: Art as Spiritual Fuel Friday, July 4, 2003 Objectivism 101

2. Objectivism 101 Schedule • Sunday Ayn Rand and Philosophy • Monday Reality and Reason • Tuesday Life and Happiness • Wednesday The Virtues • Thursday Individual Rights and Capitalism • Friday Art as Spiritual Fuel

3. Aesthetics • Aesthetics studies the nature and purpose of art in human life • Three fundamental questions: • What is art? • Why do we need art? • How should we evaluate art?

4. Why Bother? • Aesthetics studies the nature and purpose of art • Three reasons to care about aesthetics: • Art serves a similar function as philosophy • The integration of metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics • Making sense of the mystery of our emotional responses to art

5. What is Art? • “Art is a selective re-creation of reality according to an artist’s metaphysical value-judgments” (Ayn Rand) (Aristides) (Axton) (Bouguereau)

6. Abstract and Concrete • We need to be able to connect our abstract knowledge of the world with our perceptual experience of it “Art is a concretization of metaphysics. Art brings man's concepts to the perceptual level of his consciousness and allows him to grasp them directly, as it they were percepts…. “The basic purpose of art is… to show—to hold up to man a concretized image of his nature and his place in the universe.” – Ayn Rand, The Romantic Manifesto

7. Art as Necessary “An exhaustive philosophical treatise defining moral values, with a long list of virtues to be practiced, will not [define moral principles and project what man ought to be]; it will not convey what an ideal man ought to be like and how he would act: no mind can deal with so immense a sum of abstractions… Art is the indispensable medium for the communication of a moral ideal” – Ayn Rand, The Romantic Manifesto

8. A Vision of Life “Regardless of the nature or content of an artist’s metaphysical views, what an art work expresses, fundamentally, under all of its lesser aspects is ‘This is life as I see it.’ The essential meaning of a viewer’s or reader’s response, under all of its lesser elements, is: ‘This is (or is not) life as I see it.’” – Ayn Rand, The Romantic Manifesto

9. What is Good Art? • Metaphysical evaluations concern the philosophical ideals represented in the work • Aesthetic evaluations concern the skill by which those ideals have been represented • Emotional response versus rational judgment

10. Aesthetics • Aesthetics is the study of the nature and purpose of art • What is art? • Why do we need art? • How can we judge art?

11. Three Cultures • Pre-Enlightenment Culture • Enlightenment Culture • Anti-Enlightenment Culture • Recommended Listening: Alan Kors’ The Birth of the Modern Mind (via The Teaching Company)

12. Enlightenment Culture • Reason • Happiness • Human achievement and progress • Individualism • Freedom and trade Examples: Voltaire, Thomas Paine, John Locke, T.J Rodgers, Alan Kors, Ayn Rand

13. Pre-Enlightenment Culture • Faith • Duty and sacrifice • Hard work • Family values • Authority and tradition • Paternalistic and pragmatic capitalism

14. Anti-Enlightenment Culture • Skepticism, nihilism, mysticism • Communal self-expression • Anti-technology, anti-progress • Egalitarianism • Anti-capitalism

15. Bushland versus Goreland • Bush counties in red / Gore counties in blue

16. Cultural Demographics Percentage of United States: • Pre-Enlightenment “Heartlanders”: 29% • Anti-Enlightenment “Cultural Creatives”: 24% • Enlightenment “Moderns”: 47% (Source: "The Emerging Culture" by Paul H. Ray in American Demographics, Feb 1997.)

17. Enlightenment Culture • Reason • Happiness • Human achievement and progress • Individualism • Freedom and trade

18. Objectivism as a System • Metaphysics: reality • Epistemology: reason • Ethics: rational self-interest • Politics: individual rights • Aesthetics: spiritual fuel

19. Today’s Topics • Aesthetics • The nature of art • The purpose of art • Evaluating art • Three cultures