Comments on: SPOILED FOR CHOICE

By: Ed

Ed — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 01:02:19 +0000

Ayn Rand may have SOUNDED intelligent, yet if you read my comment that was not the point.

By: Keith

Keith — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 13:19:27 +0000

The ironies of Rand with the modern GOP are rich. They adore Objectivism, but have no use for objective reality (deny science, deny history, deny social problems, fantasize about Obama's birth certificate, etc.). If today's conservatives truly valued reason, then empathy for their fellow citizens or concern about future generations wouldn't be so scary.

By: kiki

kiki — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 04:15:40 +0000

Rand's philosophy sounds strikingly similar to today's GOP mantra. Distilled to its simplest form, it says "It's all about me."

By: ladiesbane

ladiesbane — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 01:35:40 +0000

Don't you think the idea must defend itself? Don't look at the pitchman, look at the logic. To do otherwise is pro hominem, isn't it? Vital, serene, otherwise reasonable people have spoken confidently on topics about which they knew little, and were horribly wrong.

By: Desargues

Desargues — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 00:18:46 +0000

j is right. Too bad people don't take Nietzsche seriously any more. He knew that often, the key to assessing someone's ideas is not internal coherence or the strength of their evidence, but the kind of people they are — what motivations they may have, how comfortable in their skin they look, what frustrations or anxieties they seem to be prone to, how kindly fate and the gods have treated them — in short, how much Lebenskraft they have in themselves.

Now look at that woman and tell me she doesn't fail on all these counts.

(Don't anybody try to tell me Britney Spears would meet Nietzsche's criteria. He wasn't a moron.)

By: j

Tue, 14 Jul 2009 21:41:42 +0000

I've never seen a person as ugly in both mind and body as Ayn Rand.

By: ladiesbane

ladiesbane — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 21:17:55 +0000

We don't have Omnibus anymore, either, or even Playhouse 90. MTV used to play all kinds of music…and then came VH1, country / soul / rap / oldies / etc. channels…it's the same in fiction, fashion, and food. It's all about market specialization rather than breadth of knowledge or cultivation of broad interest.

There may be a Renaissance-guy revolt brewing, but I doubt it. I stopped seeing men reading Steinbeck in the break room shortly after Ben Affleck made Jersey Girl. Throwing in the towel was understandable at that point.

By: Michael

Michael — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 20:34:10 +0000

Mmmm. . . Dali . . . I use Dali pretty extensively in my Modern Europe class's lecture on the 1920s (starting by showing a clip from _Un Chien Andalou_ will get ANY student to sit upright and pay attention). The guy was freaking crazy, and the students LOVE him – also because they're familiar with a lot of his paintings, much more so than say Max Ernst or Otto Dix or Marcel Duchamp. They especially love some of his selections from _The Maniac Eyeball_ which is a bloody riot.

The point is not so much, I think, that there is "too much" choice, or too many options (though I would certainly agree that there is/are), and as you say, it's not about stupidity. Rather, it seems to be a combination of relevance and complexity. You mention the Lincoln/Douglas debates, recalling I'm sure that abolitionist meetings in the north featuring, say, Frederick Douglass et al, would run for hours too. But slavery was an IMMEDIATE, timely, relevant issue. But it could also be boiled down to relatively simple, totally comprehensible terms: slavery is either good (in one person's opinion), or bad (in another person's opinion). Look at the 2000 election – the large minority didn't want to hear about complex issues and intricate policies that Gore wanted to talk about. They wanted the redneck cowboy they could sit down and get drunk and do coke with.

I think if you look at the more "successful" talk shows now (folks have mentioned Moyers and Rose) – those shows are "successful" (as I imagine Wallace's was) because they investigated complexity more fully, and maybe didn't worry so much about the immediate relevancy. But they're not "popular" for that same reason – average people don't really care about a MacNamara retrospective or an appreciation of Francis Bacon (recent subjects on Rose). Now does this flattening of complexity also entail some type of journalistic abnegation of public responsibility? Maybe. One could argue perhaps either way.
Tom Brady is more "relevant" because he's on TV every Sunday kickin' ass like he learned at the great Big Blue. Tom Brady's appeal is superficial, it's simple – athletic, handsome, successful do-gooder. MacNamara – much more difficult to distill in simple terms.
(sorry for the super-post.)

By: Dustin

Dustin — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 18:31:20 +0000

This Wallace dude is boring as shit brah… I'd rather listen to tom brady any day dude.