Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:00 So, uh, we have people that are already jumping on in, I'm going to, uh, be sharing this on my various social media platforms. I'd love to encourage those of you who are, uh, on a social platform. Please do the same. You can do that by tapping on the three buttons up at the top right-hand side of your screen, because, uh, this is going to be a fantastic conversation with our senior scholar, professor Jason Hill on iron Rand and sex. And, uh, Jason, I was, um, looking at the slate article, which is originally how you came across my radar. Um, and as I mentioned, every time I go back and read it, I get something new. I'm going to pin that, uh, to this chat as well. And, and you talk in there a bit about your own personal journey and your sexuality and what objectivism, uh, or what I Rand kind of gave to you in that regard. But I'm going to let you just take it from the top. Tell us about the topic. And, um, we're all very eager to listen and ask questions.
Speaker 1 00:01:19 Oh, great. Okay. So that part, I'm going to talk about, um, Iran's views on homosexuality in part two of the conversation, what I want to talk about today. Um, and I want to leave a lot of room for discussion. So I'm going to be as brief as I can is I've been rereading the Fountainhead because I hope to teach a course that I've taught many, many times called the philosophic novel. And of course I always include industrial ski, Rand, um, portions of Victor, Hugo, John nausea and no exit. So I'm rereading the Fountainhead and I'm also, um, rereading various parts of, for the new intellectual. And I'm reading the speech between fences for then Kanya and, um, Hank Reardon on the meaning of the meaning of sex. And it seemed to me that as I was thinking about Rand's view of sex, that it occurred to me.
Speaker 1 00:02:17 Does she have a, is there an objectivist philosophy of sex? Um, there seems to be a contradiction or some tension between Rand's depiction of sex and then her theoretical account, or that is the sort of normative account of sex that is offered in that net pithy speech, um, or monologue really that, uh, defense Cisco delivers to Hank career and has over sort of, I think they're, they're both in love with the same woman, but neither of them is aware of it. Um, and so I, I, I think I going to be a little bit critical here, because what I'm going to say is, as we go through the depictions of sex among the various characters in the fountain head, uh, particularly hard Roark and Dominic, Frank, and, um, no less than an Atlas shrugged. And we look at Rand's depiction of sex. And then we look at her theoretical account in that speech, that monologue that I think rant, uh, what I'm going to argue for is that rent equivocates implicitly on the themes of physical, sexual attraction choice of a mate, uh, and love.
Speaker 1 00:03:37 And she, she, in that very short speech, she conflates those, uh, three registers and use them almost interchangeably. And I would like to say that they're very, very different phenomena that is sexual attraction choice of made. And the emotion of love are, are parallel narratives are, are separate narratives that can stand on their own, but she sort of treats them, um, as indistinguishable. So what I want to say is that she commits a series of equivocations nonsequitors that his theory is contradictory against the backdrop of how her characters actually behave sexually. And, um, her notion that, uh, you know, what we find sexually attractive in a person, or tell me what we find, what a man finds sexually attractive in a person. And I can tell you something about his philosophy of life. Um, I want to say precedes knowledge of the other's values convictions principles, um, and even there, there, there, there, and have knowledge of their moral character.
Speaker 1 00:04:53 So where do I start? Well, I want to start with that speech because it seems like a highly rationalistic account of how we ought to behave sexually. But when we look at the sex scenes between Dominic and Howard Roark, that's not how actually her characters behave. So her character seem to contradict, um, in a blatant manner, the theoretical, um, and nor are normative, um, theory of her philosophy of sex. If we can claim that there is an objectivist philosophy of sex or the meaning of sex, rather. So, um, I will just read a couple passages that I find problematic and say why I find them problematic against the backdrop of Dominic and Howard Rourke's sexual encounter. Uh, she says that a man's sexual choice, this isn't a shrug is a result. And the sum of his fundamental convictions, she said, a man will always be attracted to the woman who reflects his deepest vision of himself, the woman who surrender, permits, and to experience, or to fake the sense of self esteem.
Speaker 1 00:06:08 Then she says, you know, um, that, uh, desire that is the void of love is as contemptible only the man who extols the purity of a love devoid of desire is capable of the depravity of a desire, devoid of love. So it seems as if we are going to be deprived creatures, if we have a desire for someone we're sexually attracted to someone, if it's devoid of love and love is a response. And she says to one's highest values that are expressed as her Arabs to tell you in the person of another. So I'm just not sure that desire works that way. I think that, um, we, we desire before we love that is we come upon a person, be it in a train station, on an airplane, in a movie theater in the grocery store. And we sort of feel as a sexual attraction to that person, we feel an erotic pull to that person.
Speaker 1 00:07:09 We don't know anything about that. Person's convictions. We don't anything about that. Person's, um, values a sense of life. Notion is very, very vague to psycho emotions are not tools of cognition. I would argue that a sense of life is a very vague way of appraising the moral worth of someone. I mean, there is a communist, a Christian or a mistake can exhibit a sense of life, exude a sense of life that is, uh, that is performative. And one can be mistaken in one's assessment of a sex sense of play. So it seems like we come upon people in the world, we desire them. We've we feel a sexual attraction to them, the person who sits beside us on an airplane, we feel a pull towards them. And there is no sense of love, of course. Um, so, uh, we desire before we love. And, and, and before we come upon an emotion such as love, which is a response to one's highest value.
Speaker 1 00:08:11 And I, I would say also that she says that there's no conflict between the standards of a man's mind and the desires of his body. That's clearly not the way that Dominic Franklin behaves in the Fountainhead, which I'll get to in a moment. But, um, so there's no conflict between the standards of one's mind and the desires of one's body. Now, I think that this is a little bit off psychological in a sense that we seem to desire people before we have, again, any knowledge of their convictions, of their fundamental principles of their values. Now, whether we choose to act on that desire and whether we choose to form a long-term relationship, those are completely different issues. The mayor desiring of another person's body, I would argue stands independently of any knowledge of their values of their convictions, that it just, that, that desire, precedes love and desire, proceeds knowledge, epistemic, knowledge of a person's convictions or values.
Speaker 1 00:09:18 Um, but ran seems to in the fountain in Atlas, shrugged seems to want to have a sort of linear connection between desires and a concomitant response that follows from a proceeding set of convictions that we somehow must know about the person for that desire to have any kind of moral worth or it's word depraved. That is if we desire someone, uh, just mindlessly or without knowing anything about their convictions, then, um, to use her own words, um, a desire that is devoid of love is a depravity. So I'm not sure, I think there's some kind of platonic Platonism plus let's say some platonic dimension entering here. That is, it is through very often through sex with another person that we come to love that person. I mean, sex is part of one of many components that factor in to how we fall in love with a person that is just mere knowledge of a person's desires, I'm sorry of their convictions or their values.
Speaker 1 00:10:30 I would argue it might be a necessary, but it's certainly not a sufficient condition for falling law. If that were the case, every the objectivist would be in love, uh, with every other Objectivists in sale, hold the same fundamental value sense of life convictions and principles. And that's currently not the case that there must be something else work aside from a response to values. And it seems to me that, um, sex cut-off from one's code of values, she argues, or she states she doesn't give an argument. She states is fraudulent, right? Sex cut off from one's core values, but the way her characters, and I'm going to read some passages, one passage from the fountain head, um, that seems to contradict everything that she says, inactive shrug, um, unless we are going to, I don't know how we can be attracted to someone.
Speaker 1 00:11:27 Uh, it seems like she wants to have it both ways we have to, the attraction has to stem from a fundamental knowledge of that person's convictions and that person's values, but I'm not sure that anyone of us who are adults who have been involved in sexual relationships would agree that when we come upon people whom we find sexually attractive, that we know anything about their values, about their convictions, we feel a neurotic pole again. And then later on, if we choose to act on it, we can sort of discover what that person's values are. But the initial attraction, um, that she talks about telling me what a man finds sexually attractive. And I will tell you his entire philosophy of life sounds a little bit preposterous and both physically untenable and psychologically, uh, undesirable. Um, so the idea somehow that convictions translate intersexuality, um, is very, very problematic because I would think that in the empirical world, people, as we find them, um, exist on the order of what charges us erotically, uh, very often lies outside the realm of pure values, convictions and purpose and principles.
Speaker 1 00:12:49 There are some themes, there's some carnal primal physicality. And we see that in Dominic's appraisal of Rourke. When Dominic first comes upon Roark, she notices his hands. He notices the hardness of his body, his muscles, and it seems like pure unadulterated lust. She doesn't know all sh all she knows is that he's a red headed hoodlum that when she laid around says I've been raped, which I'm going to read. I've been raped by a redheaded hoodlum who works in a quarry up to that point. Uh, Dominic knows nothing about how it Rourke's values the boat, his principles, and ran is certainly not an intuition in Intuitionist. And she's not an intrinsicist. So there's no way that just by, you know, a lack of red hair over his eye and the Stephen ness of his body and his arrogance that she could deduce from that any of his values or any of his principles or any of his convictions.
Speaker 1 00:13:49 So I'm gonna read up, I'm going to read a one or two passages from, um, as I'm rereading the Fountainhead from, uh, Dominic's assessment of her situation. After the, after the sexual act occurs, Dominic says, um, I've been raped. I've been raped by some headed hoodlum from a stone quarry. I Dominic Franken through the fierce sense of humiliation, the words gave her the same kind of pleasure. She had felt in his arms during the sex act. Um, he threw her on the bed just on page two 20. He had thrown her down on the bed and she felt the blood beating in her throat, in her eyes, the hatred, the helpless tear in her body. She felt, um, his hands moving over her body at the hands that broke ground nights. She fought in the last convulsion. Then the sudden pain shot up through her body to her throat.
Speaker 1 00:14:47 And she screamed. Then she laid still. It wasn't, it was an act that could be in tenderness as a seat of love, or in contempt as a symbol of humiliation conquest. It could be the act of a lover or the act of a soldier violating an enemy woman. He did it as an act of scorn, not as love, but as defilement. And this made her line submit one gesture of tenderness from him. And she would have remained cold untouched by the thing done to her body. But the act of a mass to taking shameful, contentious possession of her was a kind of a wrap to had wanted. Um, so it seems that Iran is very, very correct in describing precisely how sex functions among and between individuals. That is what Dominic feels when the first missions spots in the quarry, they don't exchange any words.
Speaker 1 00:15:40 She feels his erotic pull to him, has a primal carnal attraction between the both of them that precedes any knowledge of moral character values to say nothing of love or response to one's values that in the Fountainhead specifically in that scene between Atlas shrub, between, um, Dominic and, and, and Rourke that that's helped people psychologically can, I don't say should, but often do relate to each other. There's a lot of state of masochistic, rough sex going on. Dominic obviously has a pinch off a rough sex. There's a lot of biting and drawing of blood. Um, roared has worked, has very psychopathic tendencies. I think afterwards, he just gets up and he leaves her and walks away. Um, he doesn't come back to visit her when he goes to the end, right, for the Enright project. Uh, she's just a mere afterthought in some sense. Um, I think retrospectively ran sort of had to clean up the messiness of sex that I think is psychologically depicted in a realistic manner in the fountain head by giving us this very highly rationalistic, but implausible, um, notion of how sex ought to function in human beings, um, which, uh, again, I find, uh, psychologically, uh, empirical untenable physically on tenable and psychologically on desirable his body in Atlas shrugged in the speech between then calling you and Hank Rearden.
Speaker 1 00:17:19 She says his body will always follow the ultimate logic of his deepest convictions. Right. Um, I don't think that sexual desire simplicity has anything to do with convictions. Um, so here, I think rent is again, trying to create an interlocking comprehensive system where epistemology metaphysics ethics are neatly tied up together in a human psyche. And that there is an inexorability that follows the logic of her theory of sexuality. That from the, if you bind the first premise that from that, that is from sexual attraction is dependent on, um, a response to, um, a person's fundamental convictions then deductively. The whole thing makes sense. I think what I would like to do is reject the first premise that sexual attraction has nothing to do with convictions with values. That is what we find when we come up on someone that we find sexually attracted, attracted. We know nothing about them.
Speaker 1 00:18:27 We just feel this erotic charge. We've we, we, we don't know anything about their, their values, their convictions. Um, it is true that the attraction could heighten and intensify as a result of getting to know their values, but the initial attraction, the initial chemistry to use contemporary language that people feel between themselves seem to be devoid of any kind of, uh, knowledge of one's convictions or one's values. And the other thing I wanted to, and I'll stop here because I want to, um, I've been going out for 20 minutes. I wanted to stop at 20 exactly 20 minutes. Uh, the other thing that I want the question is, um, it's not only that we desire before we love, and that is, you know, and that and that, but I questioned the idea of whether love is a response to one's highest values. I mean, I've, I've also been reading, I'm a big fan of S the perils mating in captivity, and some of our other works.
Speaker 1 00:19:33 And I don't necessarily agree with everything she says, but she's very insightful in pointing out that it is through sex. Again, that we come to love other people. It is through sex, that we learn the body language, the emotional language and the sex language of the others. So the idea somehow that sex that love is a response to is, seems a little strange to me because it is through sex. That sex has epistemic value. I want to say that it is through sex, that we come to understand and know the layeredness of another person, the multifacetedness of another person. It is not just access to their values and their convictions, as we find happening between Dagny and John Galt, that concomitantly, once we find out these things that we share common values, we share a sense of life. Then we fall in love. I think people quite often seem to be drawn to the extremes in others that they themselves lack.
Speaker 1 00:20:41 Um, so there's more of the folks in head that I could have read. Um, but I, I really think that the depiction in the fountain head, um, between the sex scene between Dominic and Howard Roark represents psychologically how we function as sexual beings, rather than this kind of convoluted, um, speech that has a lot of, there's a lot of equivocation going on, or a lot of non-sequitur tears, the conflation between, or among, I should say, sexual attraction, um, a choice of a mate and love rent treats all of these as if they're interchangeable and they most certainly are not. And again, the idea that there's no conflict between the standards of one's mind and the desires of one's body seems to me very, very fallacious, no conflict between the standards of your mind and the desires of your body. Well, the desires of your body precede, any knowledge of what you know about the person to whom you're attracted.
Speaker 1 00:21:49 I think there are very, very few people who walk up to someone at a bar and says, tell me your premises, tell me your fundamental principles. What is your, what do you think of man? What do you think of capitalism and that on hearing this, they fall in love? No, we, we, we, we see people and we're, inexpert, for some reason we're drawn to them for a multiplicity of reasons. We're drawn to them sexually. And, um, we find that knowledge of their values or their principles can either enhance, um, our attraction or in some sense, it can bore us to death because we might be looking for not values that are inimical to our own, but some sense of tension between what another, the values of another person and the values that we hold, uh, a reasonable tension that can spark and ignite eroticism. So I just think psychologically this notion of values and convictions being tied to eroticism is a rationalist, a construct that has really no bearing on how people functions, psychological erotically. I have so much more to say, but I'm sure that what I have to say will probably come out in a question and answer session that I hope will follow. Thank you. Thanks Jennifer.
Speaker 0 00:23:02 Thanks Jason. Well, I was not expecting that, but, but I love it. Um, this is the Atlas society. So everyone here is welcome to, uh, we're not going to be serving up just a dogmatic regurgitation of, um, iron Rand's ideas. Uh, we, we do occasionally question and debate them, uh, but we also have the founder of that organization, uh, professor David Kelly, and, uh, David, I know you've thought about this subject. I don't know if you have any reactions to, uh, to Jason's observations. You'd have to
Speaker 2 00:23:40 Thank you, Jennifer. And, uh, and Jason, you know, I have so much to, or it is Jason's presentation launched somebody's thoughts that I don't know, almost don't know where to start, but I'll, I'll keep it limited. Um, first of all, I think I, I will say as a philosopher that I, that the sexual ethics, um, of objectivism or on ran sexual ethics are the weakest part of the philosophy. And, um, and for some of the reasons that Jason mentioned, I think there is, uh, an equivocation or at least we should avoid an easy equivocation between physical attraction relationships and made and, and love. There are, um, I mean, my experience in experience and most of the people I know, um, there are different factors that go into all those things. And, um, so it, it, and there's a huge body of research on this by Helen Fisher.
Speaker 2 00:24:43 Who's, um, many of us know from her, um, uh, contacts with her and, um, many other psychologists. So I, you know, I don't, I think, um, this is one area where philosophy intersects with psychology and Iran's dumb, psychological PCs, uh, are definitely need to be questioned and not considered the essence of the, uh, of the philosophy in vain. Your relationship has to do with practicing honesty, um, self-esteem and the basic values, but how you apply those in a romantic relationship is, and also a lot of psychology and personal variation. But one thing I want to say about the Fountainhead too, is that, um, about Rourke can dominate that scene. Um, uh, their first sexual encounter, the rape scene so-called is, um, that is, you know, fascinating for the reasons to Jason mentioned one thing, though, I would add to that it's not, um, Dominic didn't know anything about Rourke's character values.
Speaker 2 00:25:57 You didn't really think about her values or character. Well, I, in the sense, I think they did at least on Rand's conception because she had this idea that you could see a lot of a person in their face. There's a scene later at a party where Dominic is talking with Ellsworth Toohey. And, um, he says, you know, you don't think you can tell a lot by face, uh, what you can and Rand overestimated what we can tell. I think what she intended here was that work could see that Dominic was attracted to him, but resisted it. And he somehow intuited her basic issue of being afraid of valuing anything. And so that's why he acted as he did. Now. You could question that assumption on rank, but I think there's more, there, there is a little bit more to it than simply, you know, she, she was hard for him and he was hard for her, so I'll leave it there. Um, and, uh,
Speaker 0 00:27:05 Yes, we won't, we won't add any spoilers, um, though I'm tempted to, in terms of the Fountainhead, because, uh, the, the relationship changes over the course of the novel and in that scene, Dagny, uh, not tagged Dominic, is that kind of the beginning of her character arc and she changes, uh, quite, quite a bit. That's part of it, the drama of the novel. Um, all right, Scott,
Speaker 3 00:27:37 Thank you. Uh, I hope I'm not skipping Eric. Um, but I, uh, great topic. We actually talked about this a little bit, uh, professor Hills. So, uh, I'm generally in agreement. Um, I think that, you know, as a writer, she was writing about the stylized ideals and that, to some extent, that's what that scene in Atlas shrugged was that, that there is a biological aspect. I was just going to share two quick anecdotes that show that, you know, she may not have even had that attitude in real life because one, um, I heard a story of her not wanting to get her, uh, cats, uh, neutered to, uh, deny him that pleasure. And then, uh, the other one was Brandon, um, telling a story of Pete Coff, coming to Rand and talking about a new girl. And she asked him something like, you know, is this, uh, something of a long-term relationship? Is it, you know, uh, something casual or is it just like a one night stand somethings, you know, three choices. And he said that, you know, Leonard's draw a jaw dropped to the floor because, you know, he didn't even realize those others were possibilities that it couldn't be anything, but, you know, a highest reflection of your values. So I think it's possible that maybe, you know, she didn't even mean for it to be that, uh, you know, that except when it benefited her, maybe thank you,
Speaker 0 00:29:17 Jason.
Speaker 1 00:29:19 Well, I mean, again, I, we, we, these are anecdotal stories and, you know, we have to take the written part of what's in the Atlas shrugged as definitive as definitive statements of Rand. So, um, I want to respond to David's, uh, assertion, that brand thought that you could learn a lot by the reading of the face. I would reject that explicitly if emotions are not tools of cognition and facial reading, certainly can't be a tool of ignition, especially among people who are really, really good actors and frauds and posers. And, um, if one spends a lot of time, as I certainly have our own professional actors, uh, you know, that you can be caught in thrills of their chicanery and their, in their, in their narcissism. So the idea that if I don't, if emotions are not tools of ignition, I really fail to see how reading something in a face is an epistemological guide to a person's values or principles or convictions.
Speaker 1 00:30:27 Um, a person can convey strength and a person can convey confidence, but these are all would be guilty of context dropping and ransom terms because strength in and of itself, um, and confidence, um, betrays the question of well to what area is that strength being applied to it is a strength in terms of exercising, dominion over other people. Um, what is one confident about, you know, um, is one confident about the fact that one is, uh, uh, a Don Juan. Um, so we have to take the heat, the context and, and in question, so I'm not, I'm not really buying into Rand's notion that Dominic read into Rourke's was able to read if this is what she was implying that Dominic was able to read in the workspace, the entire repertoire of his value system, his convictions, and, um, his principles and that, and that she had sort of, and ran it's not intuition.
Speaker 1 00:31:28 Intuition is so, I mean, she doesn't believe that she's rejected the theory of intuition ism. So how could she Intuit if she shoots this and then she loves him. That's certainly not the language that we find in, in, uh, the fountain. What we find is raw primal, naked, brutal attraction, and sadomasochistic, rough sex between two characters. And there's nothing wrong with that. Of course. So that's why I think that rans depiction of how Dominick and Howard Roark behave initially is more psychologically plausible and accurate descriptor of how people actually are attracted to each other without knowing anything about the other's convictions and values and need not be condemned to depravity as she certainly condemned such individuals to depravity, uh, in Atlas shrugged, but this notion of face facial reading, and being able to tell a lot about a person by looking at their face. I, I, I, if, if she rejects emotions as tools of cognition, I I'm failing to see, I want to see a theory of, um, gaining epistemic access to a person's values and convictions and principles through facial reading. I mean, she hasn't produced that work and she never produced that work. And I'm just, I'm actually not convinced
Speaker 2 00:32:52 Jason package is required very briefly. I, I don't disagree with you. Um, I was saying Rand it to interpret the fountain head. You have to appreciate Rand's view about what you've been reading your person, um, or what her heroes can read in other people. But I think she was, um, exaggerating that at best. And, um, maybe it, it, it certainly, you know, it was not a general principle and whatever extended, it might hold some people, it just not explained. So I, I, I don't differ from me on that. I would just say, we want to interpret the Fountainhead and what's going on there, you know, giving brand the benefit of the doubt as an artist, not a philosopher. Um, we should interpret it accordingly, but again, philosophically, I agree with you.
Speaker 0 00:33:46 All right. Um, and thank you, Scott. I haven't seen Eric, uh, there is that the birthday boy, Eric, you want to unmute yourself.
Speaker 4 00:33:57 It certainly is. I have been listening into this amazing conversation. Happy
Speaker 0 00:34:03 Birthday, Eric.
Speaker 4 00:34:05 Thank you so much.
Speaker 0 00:34:07 So Eric is, is, uh, new to objectivism. Um, it's actually my spin class instructor, but I, uh, without then slicing without necessarily just looking at his face, but certainly listening to the kinds of, um, words he would use to choose, to try to inspire people in his class and seeing his bearing. I, I did get a sense, um, hopefully not too much intuition because I thought this was a guy who might get these ideas and here he is. So Eric, did you have a question for professor hill?
Speaker 4 00:34:44 I really don't have a question off the top of my head. I'm just eager to continue listening and to continue my journey with objectivism.
Speaker 0 00:34:57 Uh, well, and I know that Jason, we're going to be getting to the second part of this, which is iron Rand and, um, uh, her views on homosexuality and whether or not there's, um, any kind of distinction between, uh, the ideas that you're laying out and how they might apply to same-sex relationships. But I, I am eager to hear whether there are, there are differences because I do think that in talking about sexuality, Iran, uh, had a view about, um, love about women and men being very different about, um, male worship hero worship, but specifically male worship. Uh, so a lot, a lot more rich stuff to, to dive into there, but, uh, love to get to our big foot in the room. I always love when Roger joins our conversations and brings his massive fan base. So, Roger,
Speaker 3 00:35:58 Uh, thanks, Jennifer. Uh, this is an interesting topic and it's something that I haven't dove too deep into Rand's thoughts around. Um, but promiscuity, my guess is, is that she would find it to be a givest, uh, rational self-interest. And if I'm correct on that, Jason, if you could just explain, uh, I'd love to have a great non-biblical argument, uh, prepared, uh, for the conversation of why, uh, promiscuity is not in our, uh, self-interest
Speaker 1 00:36:37 Right. Well, I think Randy has it out quick, clearly where she talks about, um, that a man wants a proper rational man would want a woman who reflects his deepest vision of himself and the woman who surrender permits, and to experience a sense of self esteem. And from a brainless slut, she says would never be able to give him or reflect back to him. His deepest vision of himself at the prey of human being is not one who would reflect or naked ego in its singularity. That stands in terms of being proud of it's itself is consist of its values and its principles. Um, so she held that sex was too good. Not that it was evil, but it, that was too good to be promiscuous. So they allocated among indiscriminate bodies. Um, so, you know, she, she, in, in the, in the den Kanya speech, she says there is a man who she calls practical, the man who despises principles, abstractions, art philosophy in his own mind.
Speaker 1 00:37:46 And he regards to acquisition of material objects as the only goal of existence. And he expects them to give him pleasure and he won his way. He gets nothing from them. And she says, he's a man who spends his time chasing women. So it seems like it's tied to Ron's idea that values and principles are natural correlaries or they're one could say they're concomitance of desire that there's a one-to-one correspondence between the desires that you have. And this is what I was questioning and their relationship to the values and the principles that those desires are responding to in the body of another person. Now, one reason that premise security on her reasoning imagined would be impermissible would be that you'd be just spreading yourself thin among a bunch of secondhand. There's a bunch of mediocre people, and that you're behaving more like a farm animal or a jungle beast that is you'd behaving.
Speaker 1 00:38:50 You'd be, you'd be taking a biological, um, a biological act and divesting it of its value, um, orientation that is a fixed to it. Uh, and that there's something that is demeaning and degrading about that because sex is too good. Why is, why is sex too good? Because sex is supposed to be a response to, um, is, is, is again inextricably tied to physical attraction, to love the choice of mate. All of which are reducible to something like not just a sense of life, but a response to once another person's values or convictions. So you'd be betraying the logic of your own body, which is supposed to follow inexorably from the logic of your convictions. So there'll be massive betrayal, I think, going on Roger, because if you are promiscuous and you're just spreading yourself thin among a bunch of brainless slots to use our words, there's a way in which you're betraying the convictions that ought to be driving your sexual desire.
Speaker 1 00:39:56 If you're a person of great self-esteem, there's nothing that a brainless slot or a set of as sluts can give to you on the order of offering you your deepest vision of yourself that you would want in her words to be attracted to a heroine. That's another thing I find very, very problematic about her theory of sex. I don't know too many people in the world who, and I don't know that it's psychologically desirable to go around aspiring one is going to be condemned to a life of loneliness. I don't know too many people go around the world saying, unless they're pretentious 22 year old, Objectivists who go around the world thinking I will never be satisfied with anything less than a hero or a heroine. That just seems like one is guilty of grandiosity. Um, one can be attracted to someone who's decent. Who's kind, who's benevolent, who's rational, who's guided by reason, um, and have all the attributes that are affiliated with objectivism without being some grand heroine or hero. So the way that ran, I think has set it up is that sexual exaltation is dependent on a set of corresponding values that you find in yourself, a set of values that you find yourself at corresponded in another person. And you're just not likely to find that if you spread yourself thin among a hundred women, or if you're a Gail a hundred thousand or a hundred men, so you'd be the base in yourself. Basically.
Speaker 5 00:41:33 Thank you for that, Jason, appreciate it.
Speaker 0 00:41:37 Thank you. Uh, and we had a few more people join us in the room. I want to, uh, reiterate my request for a favor that I mentioned up at the top of the hour. If, um, if you're enjoying this conversation, we are building our community here on, um, clubhouse. So, uh, please do me a favor, share this conversation, tap the three dots up at the top right-hand side of your screen. Let people know that you are enjoying it and invite them to join it.
Speaker 1 00:42:10 Peter
Speaker 0 00:42:14 Replays will be available. And, uh, we make all of our, um, clubhouse conversations along with our weekly webinars available on our podcast platforms. So Peter, Peter, you want to unmute yourself or maybe we will return to you, JP.
Speaker 6 00:42:39 Hi, thank you. So I would like to go, um, to the other, uh, Tori sex saga in Atlas shrugged between Hank and Gagne. Um, to me it, uh, that, that those parts of the book were not very enjoyable in the sense that I, I couldn't fathom in my head how such intelligent people could have such kinks. Um, and, uh, in, in time, Ron makes him make sense of it. And in time you learn that this was, um, their own contradictions, um, being, um, exposed. Um, but is there, is there a more, what, what, what do we make of Hank and Dagney?
Speaker 1 00:43:41 Well, I think the same thing that would make of Dominic and Franklin look there's just without, without being crass, rants characters. Um, I have sex in a very cold, there's not a lot of tenderness. And we, there was a section that I read and the fountain had that had Howard Roark responded to Dagny with tenderness in the initial sexual encounter. Her body would have gone cold was a lot of violence. There's a lot of it that the characters relate to each other, uh, sexually in very abstract, cold, um, rent talks about aesthetic passion. That seems to be a misplaced metaphor. I don't know that asceticism, that Rourke had the sort of aesthetic passion that asceticism and passion go can, can go together. Uh, I, I, this is what I, I said that Randy's depiction of sex among her characters, um, are plausible, they're realistic. They like hot sex.
Speaker 1 00:44:39 They like rough sex. They have kinks, uh, there's nothing wrong with that. And had she left those depictions, uh, as freestanding sexual actions among her characters? Uh, that would have been fine. I think the whole thing gets spoiled when she starts to, uh, you know, uh, maybe armchair quarterbacking or retrospective of trying to tidy up the messiness of the sexual activities of her characters by giving this meaning of sex. That's I read as quite normative. This is how people ought to behave sexually because I had never met anyone who behaves sexually that way. Um, the way Francisco describes, um, sex to, uh, Hank Rearden, uh, I've never met someone who, whose desires are dictated by their moral convictions. I mean, I would like somebody to a sense of, they point out how you can desire someone sexually and that desire be based on your convictions about their knowledge of their convictions and knowledge of their values.
Speaker 1 00:45:44 When you're standing in a supermarket line, you know, they don't know a damn thing about them, right? So, um, this is why I think there's a more plausible and realistic account of the sexual actions among her characters. They all, they all do share something in common. There was a common late motif that runs through Rand sexual characters. They love a lot of hard, brutal, rough, violent sex. There's a lot of blood being drawn as a biting there's, there's, there's a lot of humiliation and degradation and mixing with hatred. And, and, and, um, and, and there are people in the world who, who engage in that kind of sexual activity. I don't think it attracts morally at all from, uh, the moral statute of her characters. This is, these are sexual acts among and between consenting adults. And, um, although Rourke's rape of Dominic, you know, is, is, is a little, I think, questionable, but, um, these are still consent consent.
Speaker 1 00:46:47 She didn't press charges against him. So there's still consensual acts among people. So I don't know that I would say that such intelligent people can have such Kings again, this is, this is, uh, uh, we run the risk of running into this sort of hyper rationalistic idea that if you're rational and if your sexual desires proceed inexorably from your sexual convictions and your values and your principles and knowledge of the other person's values and principles, uh, an endeavor, I don't know how would be possible. Um, then I, I think though this part of the learner of, of the, to these, the sexualized or these characters is because Ron does capture something in the state of masochistic, erotic dimension that exists among people that people can actually relate to in the privacy of their own lives. They can recognize themselves as, yeah, I like that kind of sexual activity.
Speaker 1 00:47:46 I liked that kind of absence of tenderness. I do like it a little on the brutal side. And, um, so that, that, that I have no problems with the problems I have, um, are, have to do with, again, the, the, the hyper rational mystic attempt to fix the messiness and to rationalize it. I think, you know, when David talks about to the fair to ran, that one could read a lot in one's face. That seems to be rationalization of something that ran herself, just couldn't sit well with that. Look, you can't make these attributions to rant herself. Cause I have no idea what her sex life was like or what she liked, but if she's projecting any of that onto her, her characters, uh, it seems very, very on-prem, um, problematic to me that people would conduct themselves in that sexual way. If they're, it's not appealing to me in all respects, but you know, I'm just a reader.
Speaker 1 00:48:48 Um, but that people would enjoy these kinds of sexual acts among themselves, even though they claim to love each other. Um, and again, again, I'm glad you raised this point because it points to the messiness of sex and it points to the messiness of eroticism. And the idea that somehow sex follows an inexorable logic of convictions and values speaks to a paucity of, uh, knowledge about human sexuality from a deep psychological perspective that I think, um, ran didn't suffer from because she depicted it sexually, but she tried to overlay it with this, this, this hyper theoretical construct in the sh in the short speech and that's, um, and that's where I think, um, for it, for her, the sexual depictions of sex, to be consistent with her epistemology, with her ethics, it has to follow this inexhaustible logic to make it an interlocking comprehensive non contradictory system.
Speaker 6 00:49:57 So in a way it's, um, it's, it's a self it's a self-validation that was that she deemed necessary to, to, um, to illustrate her philosophy in, in a way.
Speaker 1 00:50:15 Well, I think she just wouldn't be, I think she just would not be satisfied with looking at the pure carnality primal lost of that her characters have for each other, especially like that first sex scene with Dominic and Roy from the minute she lays, she lays eyes on him. It's pure infatuation. It's not love, I don't think because she has no access to his values. So given Rand's definition, it can't be love because it's not a response to values it's lost. It's a primal carnal, visceral draw to a hyper-masculine man to whom she wants to submit and be dominated by and feel some sense of degradation and humiliation. And this all makes psychological sense. Sexually people go through these fantasies. So, but I think that later on in Atlas shrugged, um, for some reason, random, I don't know why she couldn't be dissatisfied with the depiction of sex, why we had to have this overlay of the speech, which is supposed to sort of tidy up the messiness of sex as she quite artfully illustrated it in both Atlas shrugged between the character come, the characters and in the Fountainhead.
Speaker 0 00:51:38 All right. Well, we are coming up at about time. Um, so if I could just get a very quick question from you, Chrissy, and then I'll get to Lawrence and, um, and then we will be closing it out.
Speaker 8 00:51:54 Yes. Thank you. Sorry. Um, so I guess really quick question then is I have a lot, um, so Jason, do you still actively teach in Chicago?
Speaker 1 00:52:07 Oh yeah. I'm a professor at DePaul university. I've been there for 22 years. Yeah.
Speaker 8 00:52:12 Oh, I'll soon be moving there. That was my main question. Thanks, Jennifer.
Speaker 0 00:52:17 Thanks Chrissy Lawrence.
Speaker 7 00:52:20 Yes. Uh, thank you. Can you hear me? You're a little soft. Um, hopefully I'm coming through the ladder. Uh, now, um, Jason, my question to you is because this is something that I'm totally new to me and something I really wasn't familiar with. So it's been really interesting to kind of just listen and absorb all this information. Um, so we're mainly pulling from her literary work. And as David said, this seems to be something that is one of her weaker areas of what I and rant wrote about. Did it, was there any other sources in terms of her non-fiction work that she actually hasn't mentioned this as well, or I'm just curious, like what can we do for further exploration kind of in this topic?
Speaker 1 00:53:14 Well, David can help me out with this. So I know that in, on living on the, the Fort hall forum talk on living death, she spoke explicitly about sex, sex being too good. And, and, and, and this very sort of exalted way. Um, and one of the question and answer periods too, um, and the Fort hall forum, I don't, I need to check with, I have it written down, which, which actual talk it was. I don't remember if it was the moratorium on brains or a nation's unity, but, but she was asked a question about homosexuality and she defended that she thought there should be no sodomy laws and that among consenting adults, you know, the state had no business intervening, but she personally thought it was just to use her words. She said, I find it disgusting. Um, and there are at least going by the biographies.
Speaker 1 00:54:06 I don't know if we can tell whether we can trust this, but of the brand and especially Barbara brand. And that ran thought that homosexuality was a result of mixed premises and ill formed premises, um, that with the right psycho epistemology, um, you know, a heterosexual man for example, could, could certainly become, could become straight. Um, let her pick off talked about this, but in her David, maybe you can answer this cause, but I mean, I think I've read everything that rants written that's except the stuff in the archives. But, um, do you know that if in her non-fiction work, I mean, I've read the objectivist letter, the objectivist magazine, then I ran letter. I mean, every everything that she's written, I published I've written I've read, but can't recall coming across anything.
Speaker 2 00:54:54 I suggest the romantic manifesto because when she talks about sense of life, though, that's the most, uh, developed discussion. She has a sense of life and she applies it both to art and to romance. Uh, and, um, in that, to me is the, the most developed, um, presentation of what I was early referring to is what you can tell about a person. Um, and it's not just the face, but it's getting a sense of life. Whether you can Intuit it immediately on a per site or whether it develops, but the individuality and your replaceability of the set, the value, finding one person's sense of life, uh, like chorus months, yours is I think that's the best thing to read Lawrence. Thank you.
Speaker 1 00:55:54 We got three minutes, Jennifer.
Speaker 0 00:56:01 All right. Well, I think with that then, um, Liberty, did you have a very quick question? Uh, at least maybe if you can state it and we'll try to get to it in the, in the second session, if it's going to require more, uh, elaboration.
Speaker 9 00:56:14 Well, thank you. Thank you so much, Jennifer. Um, actually, no, this one could actually be answered as a yes or no. Um, without too much. Um, Jason, I'm wondering if you believe that that her writing would be different done in today's world, as opposed to the morals and the whole social construct of, of her time. Then
Speaker 0 00:56:43 Greg,
Speaker 1 00:56:44 It's hard to, it's hard to say. I mean, when you read that scene between Ray Rourke and Dominique Rand was pretty radical. I mean, she was really out there. I mean, um, I, I, I can't put thoughts into a dead woman's mind, but I felt it very seriously ran was such a and originally so many ways. And so he just syncratic and the good sense in other ways that I think if she were alive today, given the assault on masculinity, given the way that men are being feminized in our culture, and of course, given the move towards ending gender, I think she would probably, and this is just a conjecture, right? I think she would probably be even more emphatic about asserting rigid gender roles and be more emphatic in her defense of men worship, you know, not just worship of, um, the individual, but the man, the male, the literal, literally, but she got what she talked about, men worship. Um, so I think that given the way in mature culture is going, uh, the attacks on masculinity, the feminization of young boys that rent probably would have been twice as radical. And what would we call it today? Reactionary, um, in these areas, but that's just a conjecture. Um, so thanks for the question. What do you teach?
Speaker 1 00:58:09 I teach philosophy philosophy. I teach ethics and political philosophy. And I also teach sometimes in the comparative literature department, I teach the philosophic of course called the philosophic novel, but most of the politics, I wasn't sure where when I got to Chicago, but I was just asking.
Speaker 0 00:58:30 Thank you Chrissy. Thanks everybody. Uh, thank you, Jason. This was a really spectacular conversation. I can't wait for part two. Uh, I want to thank everybody for joining. Thanks for sharing, uh, the room as well. And, uh, we've still not done today here at the Atlas society and a half an hour. Uh, our, one of our other senior scholars professor Stephen Hicks is going to be teaching. Um, I think part three in his course on capitalism, you can check that out at the Atlas society events page, uh, and then next week we also have, uh, quite a full schedule. Uh, Rob Sinski is going to be back on clubhouse on Tuesday on the problem of expertise. Uh, Wednesday, I'm going to be interviewing Peter Diamandis is going to be talking about technology and abundance. Of course, he was the recipient of the Atlas. Society's 20, 20 lifetime achievement award at our gala. And then on Thursday, uh, Richard Salzman fester at duke, um, senior scholar at the Atlas society is going to be back on clubhouse on distinguishing for types of equality. I hope I'm not missing anything. Um, so fantastic. Thanks everyone. And, uh, I don't see you in a half an hour. I'll see you next week.
Speaker 0 01:00:02 Thanks Jennifer. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you.
