 We've got Robin Mayhew joining us and Robert is a real scholar who's devoted a lot of thought to Iron Man's aesthetics and in particular to Greek art. Robert's gonna start out by making a few comments about Greek art, I think, right? And then we'll go to the Q&A, so... It will take long, yeah. Yeah, I was hoping to fit a lot more into my talk tomorrow on aerosol in the Romantic Manifesto than I was able to do, so these are kind of outtakes and I think there's some interesting, you could say paradoxes in a way about Iron Man's comments on ancient Greek art. In two chapters early in the Romantic Manifesto, in Psycho-Pistemology of Art and the Art and Sense of Life, she has very positive things to say about ancient Greek, culture, ancient Greek art, and particularly sculpture. She's making contrast between the... Well, she's asking the reader to imagine the effect that the art that is around one in a culture has on one's view of the world and she says, imagine, you could compare the ancient Greek world where you have these sculptures, the beautiful sculptures of man as God and she says, and she points out that the artists who created these works, they're aware that there is deformity, disease, sickness, et cetera. But if they ignore that, then they present human beings as heroic and beautiful. Now contrast that, she says, with the medieval period where people are offered quite a different view of life and the point she's making, of course, is how art captures a philosophy, conceptualize or concretizes it. And so you get this idea that she has a very positive view of ancient Greek art or at least sculpture and she even mentioned, for example, that the Venus de Milo is her... She praises the sculpture elsewhere in a Q&A. She refers to it as her favorite sculpture. And that's early though in... There's some exceptions later on to the praise for ancient Greek art. However, later, her comments are a bit more negative and I have in mind the opening of the aesthetic vacuum of our age. Do I want to read that? Yeah, maybe I'll say a few words about it. Here's the opening. She says, quote, Prior to the 19th century literature presented man as a helpless being whose life and actions were determined by forces beyond his control, either by fate and the gods as in the Greek tragedies or by an ape, and then she goes on to talk about Shakespeare. Writers regarded man as metaphysically impotent. Their basic premise was determinism. On that premise, one could not project what might happen to men. One could only record what did happen, et cetera. And so it's quite a negative conception of art. And even in other... If discussions of Greek sculpture came up in the context of her comments on romanticism, she tended to have a less than completely positive view of sculpture. And I think what this difference reflects is the structure of the romantic manifesto. The first four chapters are her philosophy of art generally. She's laying the groundwork for it. But the rest of the work is devoted to her conception of romanticism. And I think this is where the subtitle of the work is important to keep in mind. It's a philosophy of literature. And that's the context in which she's talking about romanticism. So if sculpture comes up in that context, it's irrelevant, and she later says it's anachronistic to speak of Greek sculpture as romantic. And she has negative comments in that context. I think I'll leave it at that for... We can discuss that more. Sounds good. So I assume there are going to be some questions. Those of you who didn't get... So I think on Monday I kind of went through art forms and said a few things on many of them. I missed at least one that's been pointed out maybe more. So I didn't mean that list to be comprehensive, but I missed dance. I didn't say anything about dance. I have to admit I don't have that much to say about dance as an art form. I don't know much about it. But certainly I didn't not mention it because it's not an art form. It clearly is. Ballet is obviously beautiful and qualifies as a great art, but it wasn't on their list. And there might be others I haven't looked and make sure it's comprehensive. Skyla, you've been on every single day. Yes, it seems that way, right? Good afternoon, gentlemen. This is actually directed at you, Dr. Brooke. What don't you like about Prince and what do you like the most about Pink Floyd? We're discussing art. Exactly. We missed Robert's sense of humor. Good point. I just don't like Prince. I don't have a good explanation. I don't like his whole... I don't like the way he presents himself. I find it's under... It's the obliteration of masculine and feminine in the way he acts. I don't find it appealing. I don't find the music interesting or deep or particularly emotional for me. Again, as I said, I think on Monday, I think popular music is very much... You're very much attuned to what you grew up with, the particular memories, the particular associations. For me, Pink Floyd represents some of my teenage years. I still like it for... I think that some of their songs have amazing melodies. I can wish you were here, maybe my favorite. It's just got a beautiful guitar and it's got a beautiful melody and it has complexity. It's a little longer than the three-minute, repetitive, ordinary song. Most of Pink Floyd is pretty dark, but then teenage years sometimes are a little dark. It reminds me of what it was like to be back then. Again, it's my like. I don't present it as good aesthetically. I think it's very dangerous to do that with music, particularly popular music. Thank you very much. I don't know that dark is particularly an aesthetic evaluation or necessarily... You can't dismiss something at least because it's malevolent. Yes, in terms of the aesthetic quality. Absolutely. Or even in terms of the value you get out of it. If you were here for Lisa's reading of Hugo, that was pretty dark. But it was amazing. It was emotional and it was incredibly impactful. So often the malevolent, the dark is very powerful and very life enhancing, very life rewarding to have experienced it. I'd be interested to hear about some personal favorites. If it's not too personal to share in various art forms, painting, architecture, sculpture, literature, music. Well, I had a very different hierarchy of artistic forms that I discovered. I've known Ankara a long time and we're close, but it's opposite. Mine highest is literature, easily literature. Then theater and maybe you include film, then the visual arts. And then music is the least nurtured, I guess, of the art forms in my case. For literature, it's the usual suspects, I'm afraid. I love Victor Hugo. I mean, Ayn Rand, of course. I loved Victor Hugo. All his major novels I read often. I mean, at least once a decade or twice. So that'd be Notre Dame Les Miserables, The Man Who Laughs, Toilers of the Sea, 93. Yeah. And in fact, I recently read a book by, I think it's David Bellos. It's the novel of the century on Les Miserables. And he happened to mention that there are 365 chapters in Les Miserables. And I had an idea. I spent, in 2018, I read one chapter a day for the entire year. And it was a wonderful, I don't recommend that if you haven't read it more than once or twice. But it was marvelous. But yeah, those are my top choices in that, in the field of literature. I like, in theater, a lot of Shakespeare. I like Radegin. You don't see that too often. Ibsen. Theater can be wonderful if it's well done. I think I'll stop there to give. I mean, some came up in the discussion of the last two days in sculpture. I was, so I've recently, I mean, in the last few years went to Florence. And I had high expectations. And it's one of those rare times that it way exceeds your high expectations. So the sculpture of the Renaissance, I find overall incredibly impressive. But Michelangelo and the David, but some of the other works, it's just, they're unbelievably moving. So in sculpture, I think that would be my top. In music, I like a lot of the romanticists, but I'll give a plug for one who's not romantic. And I doubt you like Bach. I find, and Bach, certain interpreters of Bach. So, for instance, Glenn Gould in the keyboard of music. I just find, I think he's an unbelievable genius. And what he could convey at that time when you compare him to contemporaries of what they can convey with music and what he could convey. That's one of my top in music. And I find it interesting. So it's certainly not romantic, but most of the romanticists love Bach. And even someone like Chopin studied Bach. But it's true of Schumann. It's true of Mendelssohn. Many of them resurrected Bach was forgotten in the 19th century. So that's one of my top in music. And you can find performances where they romanticize the performances of Bach. So Pablo Casal's cello, where he does Bach, is much more romanticized interpretation of Bach. So I agree with Robert on the literature. I mean, all his recommendations are fantastic. Renaissance sculpture, I would add, I love Bernini. If you're ever in Rome, go to the Villa Borghese. One of the most stunning experiences you will ever have. Sculpture after sculpture after sculpture is magnificent and beautiful and emotional provoking. But I also love 19th century sculpture. Both French 19th century sculpture and Scandinavian I've discovered 19th century sculpture. Here I'd recommend going to the Moussé d'Orsay in Paris. Of course the Louvre. I mean, one of my favorite sculptures ever is Spartacus at the Louvre. If you go, there's a courtyard with sculpture. It's kind of an outside. It's covered, but it has some magnificent sculptures. Spartacus in particular is great. The dying slave of Michelangelo is at the Louvre. And then the d'Orsay has dozens of beautiful, beautiful, amazing sculptures. And I can't remember all the names of the sculptors, but pretty much everybody there is fantastic. I'd also recommend the Glyptotech. I think I'm pronouncing that right. In Copenhagen, which has a combination of both Scandinavian and French sculptors. Just stunning and beautiful against some of my favorite sculptures. Those of you who remember values when I used to sell photographs of sculpture. I know some of you might even have those photographs on your walls. Some of those sculptures are at the Glyptotech in Copenhagen. I'll also make a weird recommendation in terms of sculpture. But maybe one of the best places to see sculpture anywhere in the world is in cemeteries. And particularly cemeteries of rich cities from the 19th century, where when people died, they would celebrate their life or mourn their death with a sculpture on their tomb. And the best of all of those, as far as I can tell, is the cemetery in Milan, where both Verdi and Tuscany are buried. And you could spend a week there and not see all the sculptures. And they're so touching and beautiful and some of the magnificence. And it's just the best 19th century sculptors of Italy were sculpting for. That's how they made their money. They would sculpt for the cemetery. So I would strongly recommend that. And then one recommendation for US location for sculpture would be Brookings Gardens in South Carolina. Brookings Gardens, South Carolina, it's about a, I don't know, 20 minutes south of Myrtle Beach. Nobody knows about this place. But this is a place that has 400 sculptures set in a plantation setting with beautiful gardens and the sculptures and the lawns and the trees and everything are just, you know, just magnificent. So there's a lot of that quickly painting. You know, I love paintings from all from the Renaissance on. There's all the painters. I love Caravaggio. I mean, I love Raphael and kind of the classics from the Renaissance. But I love Caravaggio for his drama and his lighting. And then I love the kind of, what do you call it? The word is just escaped my mind. But the 19th century academics, the 19th century academics, both in France and in England. Frederick Layton would be an example in England. Jerome. Amatadama. And then the Pre-Rapha Lights. The Pre-Rapha Lights who kind of rebelled against academics a little bit. But a lot of the Pre-Rapha Light paintings in England are fantastic. That's one of the, you know, so those are, and they also sculpt. So the Pre-Rapha Lights' lateness also sculpted. So the kind of the academics in France and the academics in England, I think are some of the greatest painters. And you get that sharpness and that vividness of color that I think Rand talks about. That you see later in Capoletini and Dali, although Dali is even better at that sharpness and contrast. I like Dali, although I don't like his themes, usually. But everything Iron Man says about him in the romantic manifesto, I respond to that. And I, you know, when it comes to movies, it's hard. But I mentioned Lubitsch, Hitchcock. I've got a list here. It's got 237 movies. And this is one of the many lists that I've made over many, many years of favorite movies that I have. So if somebody wants specifically movies, I can read off 10, 15 of them at some point. Yeah, I would agree. If you're looking for movies and you haven't explored Hitchcock, well, most of you have heard him. He's one of my favorites. But Lubitsch is wonderful. His films are terrific. And you can still see a lot of them. This refers to the difference in slight definition of art between Aristotle and Ayn Rand. So what's, okay, say that again, because I didn't hear you. My question is about the definition of art by Aristotle and Ayn Rand. Aristotle said that art is a reality as it could be. And Ayn Rand, as you said, has said that art is reality as it might be and ought to be. That's half my talk tomorrow. I mean that virtually, literally. I'm going to talk about the might be and ought to be principle, as you call it, because there's a lot of confusion. She's been criticized for getting Aristotle wrong and I want to set the record straight. But I'd rather talk about that tomorrow. But it's a good question. I have a question about what Rand said about our responses to art. Is there a response to our, in part, it's a response to metaphysical views that we hold? I mean that's the case even for people who have never thought about metaphysics. And I'm trying to understand that better. So my question is this. Is there a sense in which someone who has never thought about metaphysics holds a metaphysics subconsciously? Because to me it seems, that seems implausible. It seems more likely that someone holds views on individual concrete things and those views on the little concrete things sort of are logically consistent with a metaphysical view. There's no part of them that thinks about metaphysics. There's no subconscious metaphysics. So I was wondering if you might be able to clear up my confusion on that. I think if, putting aside children, right, everyone has a view of reality if you're talking about metaphysics and implicit, if they don't have an explicit philosophy, they have an implicit sense or conception of what the world is like. And when Ayn Rand talks about this in art and sense of life and philosophy and sense of life, it's very much in very, very general terms. The world is intelligible. One can achieve one's values. You can have other examples of that sort of thing. And she said it's inescapable that you have it. Ultimately the only question is do you have an explicitly fully worked out or conscious set of convictions about the nature of the world or is it a collection kind of subconsciously formed? So I think that, yeah, I would say. I think in the question you're treating it too much as though what you have is conceptual conclusions that are lurking in your subconscious and it's how did they get there? So you have to take really seriously what she says. And as I said earlier in one of the earlier sessions, the first question to ask is do I think there is such a phenomenon? Yeah, but what she thinks the phenomenon is for a sense of life, quoting from Romantic Manifesto, a sense of life is a preconceptual, preconceptual equivalent of metaphysics, an emotional subconsciously integrated appraisal of man and of existence. And then she goes on from there. So it's preconceptual and it's the equivalent. So what she's saying is you make certain kinds of integrations and this is why she's stressing that it's emotional, not cognitive integrations that start to have a real standing in place in a person's mind and start to color the way he looks at the world. And they would, you can put those in conceptual terms, but they're not in the subconscious as conceptual conclusions. But this is much more widely her view of what it means to have an implicit philosophy. So there's a way that you can read and I think should read the Romantic Manifesto as it's a much deeper exploration of the issue raised in the lead essay of philosophy who needs it. And the issue raised there is people have an implicit philosophy. But what that means is not they thought about all these questions and somehow their subconscious answer them and they don't know what their subconscious is doing. It's not like another person lurking below the surface who's conceptual and doing all these things. So she has a definite view of how these integrations happen and what it means to call them preconceptual. And then one of the basic questions when thinking about this is do I think I have things like that in my subconscious and this kind of a more emotional perspective on the world. And my answer for myself and observing other people is yes, people have these kinds of things. And in philosophy who needs it, she's giving some of the evidence of why to think that people have this kind of perspective on the world. And one of the major pieces of evidence and she's just giving a sliver of it is the way people use catchphrases and that it sums up something that they can't really express and yet feel. And the feel is part of the issue of it that it's a sense of life phenomenon. And I think one of the one of the philosophers can correct me if this is wrong, but you don't have a choice about integrating. Your mind is an integrating machine in a sense. It's integrating in the background. So all those concrete you talked about that being integrated with and if you're not in control, they're being integrated without your conceptual control. And what they add up to is ultimately this kind of emotion, this kind of feel, this kind of sense. And that is what that's what underlying it's it's you don't have again, it's not not only integrations are conscious. Indeed, many of them are not. And that's why you have to take the reins. That's why you have to be in control of them. Yeah, I guess I guess I'm just wondering how do those. How is it that I guess I'm skeptical that things do integrate subconsciously. There's facts that seem to follow from that assumption that I observe, but I don't I don't I'm not I guess I'm not convinced. Yeah, and okay. Yeah, next person. So I've heard two ideas that on the surface appears to be contradictory. The first is art is something you experience as an end in itself. The second is art as a means to an end, for example, as few for the soul, or as an introspective tool to help you identify your implicit values. Could you help me reconcile these two items? A good question. The, so I'll say one aspect of it to say that it's ending itself is not to say that it doesn't satisfy some need. Indeed, the I think the perspective in objectivism is every end in itself satisfies some kind of need. And you can view life as an end in itself, but life and the process of living is satisfying the need to be alive and all the requirements. And if you think of it as an activity, rather than there's a means and you reach an end. If you think of it and life and this is the stress that she puts on thinking of life as the ultimate value as an end in itself. It's an activity for its own sake. It means life maintains life that maintains life that maintains life. And if you, if that process comes to a stop or you don't do it well, you die. So if you think of it as an activity, it's both an end in itself, but it's satisfying a crucial need that life for that process to be continuing. You have to satisfy and part of that need is not only but part of that need is for the need of fuel. So the means ends distinction in objectivism is a relative distinction. You do something to reach something that makes it possible for you to continue to act to reach goals to continue act to reach goals. And that's the life process. And if you think of it like that, then you don't think of it as to say that it's an end in itself means it has no purpose, no function, no goal. It doesn't, it doesn't satisfy any of the needs of the living thing that's engaged in this act activity. So that's one aspect of it. Yeah, I mean, I guess I don't see the contradiction that is it's an end in itself. And it's also fuel and everything else. But, you know, and the, and the related just as on cost said, right, the fuel is what. So when you when you experience an artwork and you have this immense emotion, in a sense that's enough. But that emotion is also the fuel that that provides you with the motivation to continue to be alive to continue to enjoy life. So it's doing this both at the same time. And one is an aspect of the other. Thank you. The pleasure you receive it that you experience in an artwork is an end in itself. Yes. Yeah. But it's also. Yeah, yeah, of course. But it's also fuel. Right. But even even if you don't identify it fuel, it's still just a pleasure is an end. And there's the same you get the same perspective on pleasure more widely in objectivism that you get for the experience of art. So if you read the psychology of pleasure and the virtue of selfishness, you get the same perspective. The experience of pleasure is an end in itself. It's something to be sought for its own sake. But it also has a crucial survival value that if you don't have this kind of experience and if you don't have it over a long period of time, it kills your ability to act because in part it kills your motivation and the motivation of it's important to reach values because this experience. Here you get this experience as a kind of perceptual experience of what it means to value and to reach values. So you have the same perspective more widely about pleasure in objectivism as you have for the distinctively distinctive aesthetic pleasure that you get from art. So I've been thinking a lot about that slide that was up the first day. And it basically showed that music was the only art form that had access to the emotions directly in that moment. And one thing I got to thinking was that made perfect sense to me when I read it the first time which was I think a couple years ago. And then I recently started working for a lighting company and we do like concert lighting, lighting production. And I started to realize I think that maybe lighting also could be considered something that hits your emotions directly at least when it's performance lighting. And you always see lighting and sound together in a concert, not necessarily but it's a rock concert or whatever, like the classical concert. Tonight, for instance, that kind of lighting is not appropriate but for certain types of concerts that sort of performance lighting adds a new dynamic to that experience. And I think that the colors and the way that the lights would flash poles or any kind of patterns might be considered another way to access the emotions directly. And I just wanted to hear what you guys thought. I mean, I think there's something unique about the performance of music or the performance of something as compared to just listening of it at home. And I think that the lighting adds to that but what makes it an aesthetic experience is the music. The lighting is adding to that. And again, if it's good then it's integrated in some way. You know, I've never thought about it. I mean, as you're saying it, it makes sense but I wouldn't say lighting is an art. I'd say lighting is a support to, like in film, lighting is part of the art that is film. It's part of that integrated product. And I think the performance is the integrated product. I'd rather not talk about music. I just know the subject. I rarely, well actually rarely is never. I never find that kind of lighting for musical performances. I always find it distracting. So I don't find that it adds anything, anything it takes away from the experience. Maybe it can be done in a way that is more integrated. But if you think of it as a performance and a visual, then yeah, I could see that there's an element in the visual arts that would for sure have that component to it. That's likely a minority view so I think your job is secure. I appreciate that. I have a lot of minority views. Our video games arts. And it can't help us get the video game by a shot, which I think Euron has mentioned on his podcast that some people haven't even come to objectivism because of that. I mean, I don't know, but I think it could be art. I'm not sure it is. I'm not sure it's risen to the level. But it might, it could evolve to be of that quality and that quality experience. I'm skeptical of what exists out there today. Just because, you know, mainly because of the, but I don't see, I can't think of a reason why it cannot become one. If it's risen to that level. My immediate reaction is I would classify it as a game and that some of them can be done really beautifully or really artistically, but that that wouldn't make it a work of art. If you're talking about some kind of. I can imagine something that where you're really immersed in a universe that is being created and you're really experiencing an aesthetic experience within that universe. I mean, a game can still drive somebody to read Iron Man. It doesn't have to be art. So I don't know if by a shot. Some music too. If you think of what Greg was talking about in his talk, what was it a day or two ago that you can think of it as having some of these things that are that you can think of as having some aesthetic values. You can think of it as a video game is having some of that. I mean, one of Greg's examples that he brought up is dancing but not dancing from the point of view of that you're an audience member contemplating a performance but actually engaging in dance. And part of what the video game is you're playing the game and this is why you're stressing it's a game and that is different than art as contemplation. But it might have some artistic elements into it and you might in some sense feel like you're entering a realm and so on, but it's not contemplation. And I think that that makes a difference when you're thinking about these things. And it you could say that about a chessboard. You could imagine a chessboard that's beautifully constructed and each one of the, you know, the rook and the knight and all that are beautifully carved and all that. And there would be almost something like an aesthetic experience. But that's not it. That doesn't make it in our work per se. Thank you. It was really clear. I didn't know that Bach wasn't a romantic. So what makes Bach not romantic and what makes music romantic? Who knows? Not me. But it's but this is a common classification that Bach is part of the Baroque period and then you get a classical, not it's the classical music, but a classical. So someone like Haydn would be put in the classical period and then you get the romantices in the 19th century with Beethoven often put as a transitional figure. Though I think of him as essentially romantic and in music the way I think of it is it's what she stresses about romanticism in literature. I think it's this element that people are responding to in music as well. It's the projection of an individual soul and I think Beethoven's the first music and this is not true of Bach. Though you get elements, art is a sense of life projection. So there's always a sense of life projected in it if you're talking about great art. But thinking of it as the goal is to project my sense of life and my, my, the stressing my view of the world. I think you get that and what people are getting that there's something really different about Beethoven's music is that it's unmistakably Beethoven as a unique personality. And then when you get to people like Chopin and Schumann and Liszt and Dvorak and Tchaikovsky you really feel like it's individual self expression in a way that you do not have that experience to say with Haydn. And some of it has to do with the fact that free the romantics, there were certain rules that they followed, there were certain conventions, there were certain traditions that you had to fit your music in. And that starts being shattered by Beethoven and certainly later on the kind of the rigidity of kind of what they call the classical forms starts allowing for that personal expression. You're expressing yourselves. You're not limited by these forms in expressing yourselves. You're using whatever form is necessary in order to express what you want and need to express. And I should add that I mean romanticism as an aesthetic movement began in the late 18th century, but mostly it's 19th century phenomenon. So anything before that it would be anachronistic to call it romantic. And in each one of the major art forms there were people who called themselves romantic. An important part of what they were doing was rejecting the classicism that came before it. And they were describing themselves as, I don't know if they put it as projecting an individual value, but they were individualists rejecting what came before them. And what became before them were these classicist rules. So they often saw themselves as we're independent, we're pro-emotion, not like that rigid reason. And so what Ayn Rand is doing in the Romantic Manifesto, once she gets to describing her philosophy of literature, is wading into this conceptual chaos where there's no really well-formed identification of what precisely romanticism is. And she's trying to clarify that and come up with the answer to the question, what is romanticism? And she's only doing it for literature. And she says that explicitly in a Q&A. And what she comes up with, it's the kind of literature that regards man as a volitional being. And there's all sorts of other things she says about romantic literature. And she was once asked in a question period, do the terms, your conception of romanticism, does that apply to the other art forms? And in a nutshell what she says is, it probably does, but someone needs to do that work. Someone needs to go into all those areas and do what she did for literature. And that's going to, it takes a lot of work. So I'd be very carefully throwing around the term romanticism with respect to, I mean, if you're an expert and you have an idea, fine. But you have to be very careful in how you apply that term to the other forms of art. Well, unless you're talking about it historically, because it is an historic movement. I think, I mean, people who know what they're talking about know what romantic music is. And I think there's nothing, there's certainly nothing wrong with that. I mean, Ayn Rand's conception of romanticism, beware of how you apply that to other art forms. Because it's not clear how it applies, if it applies. The work hasn't been done. The intellectual work to apply it to painting and sculpture and certainly the music hasn't been done. But emotion seems to play a heavy role in the other art forms. The emotion that is projected on the canvas or in the sculpture. There's a certain rigidity to the period just before what is called the romantics, where they, again, they're going by formula. They're copying Greek poses and Greek proportions and Greek. And then there's a breakup of that, which seems to include some individual features, right? There's a certain style to them. And you can, you can tell the painters, but those are evoking. You can tell that they're being more, they're evoking individual emotion in the painting or the sculpture. Dr. Gatte, you said something on Sunday that I found absolutely fascinating. And I've been thinking about it for the past few days. And I'm very curious as to what all of you think about the implications. So if I'm remembering correctly, and I'm mumbling the words a little bit here. It's, you mentioned that Einran wrote a romantic manifesto to be from the perspective or to be useful for the perspective of the artist rather than the consumer of the art. And so I'm curious about the implications of that. And so what might be different or added to a manifesto and romanticism if it were written with the consumer of the artwork and mind rather than the creator? I mean, I think there would be many things that would be different. There would be much more of an emphasis on you as a consumer, what you need to do, why there are obstacles now. I mean, if you were at Lisa's talk, she was talking, just before this talk actually. She was talking about some of what makes it difficult to approach poetry and things you need to do. That's all from not to, if you want to be a poet, you need to know these things. It's all if you want to enjoy poetry of the 19th century and earlier. This is some of what you need to do in order to approach it and to get more familiar with it and to be able to respond to it more. And that's a real phenomenon. And I think in almost all the arts, I think it's true in music, we talked about that a little bit. You need to give yourself time to be able to integrate into process. And if that were the emphasis of it, there would be much more discussion of those kinds of things. And I don't think, I can't remember what I said exactly, but I don't think the romantic manifesto is written exclusively from the perspective of the producer. But it's a manifesto. And it's a manifesto for artists. And a school of art is primarily for the producers of art of how they should be thinking of what they're doing. And so it has that element as a crucial element in it. And when you look at its precursor and the elections on the fiction writing, those, I think, again, are primarily not exclusively, but primarily from the point of view. If you want to be a fiction writer, this is how you need to think about your craft and the principles in it. So it's an essential element of the romantic manifesto, but not the only element of it. About the great plays listed in Leonard Teacup's book. I have my favorites for two of them, which are the Comédie Française versions of Cournay and Lausanne. But I don't have favorites of the other six. You mentioned what versions of the play you like. I've not really given that much thought. I mean, I love Antigone and I teach Antigone, but I've never seen a performance of it. I saw Othello about 10 years ago in London at the Royal Shakespeare Company and it was fantastic. I really do good work for the most part, but it's not this one performance that I have in mind. I like the Derrick Jacoby. I saw that one live in the 80s. The performance of Cyrano, which was marvelous. But I also like the film with Jose Farrar that had a certain grandeur to it, I think. But I haven't seen the enemy of the people and I've not seen Monovana, of course. You would have to have seen each one of these plays many times at the theatre and have a favorite among those. I can't, I don't have that experience. I would just encourage you all to see it. Even a mediocre performance of those plays is a phenomenal experience. I saw Othello in London in a small little theatre and it wasn't the Royal Shakespeare Theatre and it was fantastic. It was so compelling. I would just encourage you to go experience these performances in the theatre. My favorite of them, now I had read Cyrano before and it wasn't part of the, as someone said, it was seven great plays and then Cyrano got added. My favorite of them was Don Carlos and I like Schiller a lot and I find there's a real commonality in the aspects of his sense of life. In the cleanness of the universe which he depicts and I've seen Don Carlos perform in Toronto, it's unbelievable. So this is a follow-up involving the implicit premises. So you said last time that integrations get formed subconsciously. So can you give me evidence that integrations get formed subconsciously or an example? The kind of standard example which I think is a real example is when you're working on some issue, a personal problem, a problem at work and you're struggling with it so you're thinking about it but much of your thinking that is going into your subconscious and you wake up or you're taking a walk and it suddenly comes to you what the answer is. That is in part a subconscious integration. So the kind of picture of it as you've got two people in you, your conscious mind and your subconscious and who the hell knows how it's screwing you. That's not the issue. So it's not a Freudian perspective of an unconscious lurk who's in the background plotting your demise. But there is something that happens at the below the level of consciousness that is crucially connected to the consciousness and what you're doing with your conceptual mind which is why I think she terms it the subconscious and not just brain activity and something like that. It's below the level of conscious awareness but it's still a phenomenon of awareness. And there is such a thing as there's awareness that you're not fully conscious of even at the perceptual level when you're talking about none the periphery of your vision and things like that. So that's part of what she's bringing up and she gives it if you read the art of fiction part of what she talks about from the point of view of becoming a writer is how many premises that you need to consciously think about and work on as this developing your perspective on reality from the point of view of being a writer and that that then gets stored and integrated in your subconscious and it becomes automatic. But the whole phenomenon of things becoming automatic. Another place you can read is in it we where this is stressed that there's many things you first have to do very consciously when you're learning mathematics how to tie your shoe how to speak that then becomes automatized. But the process of automatization is subconscious and you make new connections or your mind makes new connections. And you can only get at this evidence through introspection. So if you need to do that for those who would respect no explanation is necessary. I was curious about the romantic manifestos which focuses on literature as you say. Would it be more accurate to say that it focuses on the novel because poetry short stories and I'm always curious like how do you apply value orientation plot to the cast of a Montiato or the Hawthorne short stories or anything like that. And especially poetry which is just pure style how can you apply Rand's particular view of value conflicts and things like that. Well as far as poetry goes she gives that as an example. She says once she talks about the highest tier of romantic literature she says there are some romantics who recognize remember she believes that the essence of romantic literature is a respect for human volition or that human beings are volitional beings. And she says there are some romantics who they recognize volition in the realm of consciousness but not of action. And that is that it's up to their choice what kind of convictions they hold what's important to them. But in the realm of action they are not in control and I believe it's in that context where she says these tend to be writers they have no plots the poets are the ones that fall under the byronic poets I think she mentions. So I think that's how perhaps she would she would evaluate some of the romantic poets that seems to fit some of them but I'm not really an expert on poetry. She does make some comments about it that so poetry has theme and style but you can't think of it as having a plot or even a story even if some epic poems do it but that's not the essence of what it is. She talks in the art of fiction she talks about short stories and how it's different from what's possible and what therefore you should try to do in the medium of a novel has a distinct form of literature and I mean she has comments on the playwright and what he does. So there's the focus I think is and she says it's on the novel because she's a novelist and she thinks it's the most developed what not developed it's the form of literature that the most is possible for the artist to portray and project and because she's a novelist although she plays two in some short stories but the focus is that that's the focus but you can find some of the how she thinks it applies to other of the literary other forms of literature and some of the distinctive nature of those as well though the focus is on the novel. I want to compare the love triangle in Cyrano and the scene in Atlas Shrug between Dagny, Francisco and Galt. In the later one Galt is a model of integrity. When Dagny our Francisco asks sir will you come to my house. Dagny passes the buck to Galt and Galt is the guy who finally says no in that case I won't let you go but in the case of Cyrano he has loved Roxanne throughout his life but he has never expressed and he actually encouraged his friend to he gives him the lines and all that and so he is not a model of integrity so why did she hail Cyrano as the greatest play was it before she wrote Atlas Shrug or later or did she reconcile her difference afterwards because Cyrano is a model of rationality integrity as the saying goes. Well Cyrano is this magnificent hero. It has a tragic ending but then most of the all of the Hugo novels have tragic ending and that's not what she's looking for she's not looking for philosophical agreement I mean Cyrano has real issues philosophically you could you could say and what's fascinating I find about the I've compared those two as well I think it's an interesting constructive comparison. She goes on to describe what would have happened had Galt let had Galt left the choice you know let let I'm starting to mumble now had had Galt made Cyrano's choice in effect let her go to San Francisco and it's a very depressing tragic description of what the life would have been for all three of them and in a way that's what if it hadn't been for the death of Christian it would have been but I'm not fully answering your question I think you want it. I mean I would just say I don't think you can you can judge and this is the point about sense of life you can't judge these works of art by the standard of the perfect man by the standard of John Galt. Cyrano is this magnificent human being this larger than life character that you fall in love with and yes he's not John Galt but you respond to him at a deep sense of life level I mean some of us do anyway at a deep sense of life level because of all his virtues that he is projecting and yeah it's a tragedy but you can get so much out of it that you know that you can learn from the tragedy I mean you you experience that tragedy emotionally in an incredibly satisfying way. I want to really emphasize that Cyrano is a man of integrity and that you might not agree from a philosophical perspective with his whole value perspective and what he's after and what he thinks is possible in the world is not the same as thinking that he is not loyal to his conception of life and what is possible in life so he doesn't think he can win Roxanne and he really thinks that and he has respect for Christian and she's in love with him and that he's going to do something to make it possible for that and for her to reach her love that is a real dedication to his values and he's loyal through the play to his view of what his values are and what is possible and towards the end I mean part of what is tragic about it it's he's ready though scared at the end to tell her that he's the one who's been writing the letters and then Christian dies and the line where it's where she says it was your tears on these letters yeah but it was his blood and that conveys a lot about his conception of what is valuable in life what is right his view of Christian and his respect for Christian like the play if you see the play performed and Christian is portrayed as sort of just a mindless guy who's pretty that destroys the play it's important that he's a person of some stature and you have from beginning to end with Cyrano a real dedication to values you might think something's wrong about the way he thinks fully about values but that's a different issue and so it's a portrayal of a man of integrity it's probably the greatest portrayal in literature of a man of integrity and I would add there's a collection of interviews of Ayn Rand is it objectively speaking and there's an entire interview where Ayn Rand talks about Cyrano Diversiak and it's a little answer some of your questions I'm sure is there such a thing as objectivist art and if not why not I would say that aside from the novels of Ayn Rand there isn't and she even said once that her husband's paintings are in sense of life terms the equivalent of her novels but she would not call them objectivist painting why not entertain I don't think you classify any art in philosophical terms like that and arts represented this is platonic art this is Aristotelian art or this is objectivist art it's a projection of a sense of life and you might think that that sense of life can be shaped by philosophical ideas and she'll talk as I think we said of the 19th century as having an Aristotelian sense of life but that's different than saying this is it's Aristotelian art and you have to think of what the actual sense of life being projected in the work of art is and that's what you're trying to identify and you can think of some as being shaped by objectivism but if you really take it as this is highly particular and individualized it's not like every objectivist if they understand the principles and living the principles have the same sense of life and if they're artists that's what they're going to project in their art so the whole classification I think is just it's the wrong way of looking at things I can think you can think of Ayn Rand's novels as objectivist art because they're so highly philosophical and consciously philosophical and I think that's part of what she says about painting painting doesn't contain ideas in that kind of way and so that she says it's a similar sense of life but she wouldn't call her husband's paintings objectivist there's something very very distinctive about Ayn Rand's novels because they're so highly philosophical but that's atypical way atypical about art so that they're explicitly so and unfortunately I think there are a lot of objectivists who in a somewhat second-handed kind of way try to replicate try to replicate Ayn Rand or try to take these ideas in a kind of a rationalistic way and portray them without making them theirs in an individualistic way and it becomes not their projection of their sense of life but it becomes their projection of kind of some kind of bromide about objectivism and that's not just not objectivist art it's often not art at all and it's tricky if you're an objectivist and you're committed now to the cause and you want to do great art you have to make sure that they the motivation is right that you're not doing propaganda you're doing art and so we'll take one question after this and that you're actually expressing your own integrated sense of life and not you know just you're not projecting philosophy that's not the role of art it's not to project a philosophy I mean Rand doesn't say she wrote her novels to teach us about objectivism Years ago I told the late great Charles Serres that I was writing an objectivist novel and he looked aghast and I said it's opening line is the initiation of forces evil he said gazing at the capilletti on the wall rock-monet off in the background and he liked it we were kind of joking but that's how I've read some stories and things that I think attempt to do something like that not so object but that's how it often feels or comes across as this artificial sort of thing I didn't finish the novel Thank God Okay, last question Two-part question When you look at a piece of art you feel that you can identify the artists metaphysical value judgments and if so could you give us an example of that a work of art and what you think those judgments are So did you ask do I? Yes Sometimes not always Not always is it worth it? Not always is it important? Not always do you have the time? Sometimes you're just experiencing the work of art and that's it and that's good enough But yes, I mean, if you metaphysical, yeah, I mean the clarity of a of a mirror, the light I mean, I'm sorry I'm using an example, I find maybe I should use an example We talked about the struggle in Michelangelo or Beethoven and if you put it in terms of important it's important to fight for your values doesn't mean you're going to win it might mean most of the time you're going to lose but you can think of that as a metaphysical it's important to fight and that but I wouldn't put it as I'm not trying to identify the sense of life of the artist of the artwork is what is it projecting and what is it saying to me Yeah, I didn't think of it that David's a good example I mean you stand before the David you know what strikes you is the metaphysical value judgment reality is knowable, you look at that gaze that he has you know and you can fight for your values and here's and particularly if you know the story but even if you don't know anything about David, you just see the sculpture here's the young man obviously challenged facing an immense challenge, he's standing proud he's standing firm, he's ready every muscle in his body is ready and he's got this concentrated focus look in his eyes and what does that tell you about the artwork it tells you the artwork is projecting that kind of confidence in the world and our ability to know it and our ability to stand up for our values and that's what it inspires in me you know if he can stand up to Goliath right this little this kid of 16 what an inspiration that is to all of us to stand up for our values and to challenge and to stand up for those who would attack our values right so it provides you with that fuel but it's projecting that sense of life that those metaphysical value judgments thank you everybody