Thursday, June 16, 2011

Rand & Aesthetics 16

Rand's aesthetic judgments about music. We get the full sense of the subjective and arbitrary character of Rand's aesthetics when we glance at Rand's pronouncements about specific composers. These pronouncements are often so thin and baseless that it their basis in sheer egotistic prejudice should be obvious.

On Beethoven:
I'll tell you what I hear in [Beethoven's] music as [in his] philosophy of life. With regard to Beethoven, I am profoundly opposed to his music,, specifically from the sense-of-life aspect. Esthetically, I can hear that he is a great musician. I have to acknowledge the skill with which he is presenting what he is presenting. But his music has what I call a malevolent universe. It is in essence the view that man is doomed, that he has no chance, that he cannot achieve his goals, that he cannot triumph on earth -- but must struggle just the same.... It's the belief that man must struggle even though he has no chance of winning, and that he must perish heroically. That is a malevolent view of man and of the universe, and that is what I hear in practically everything Beethoven has written.
There's already been a discussion on this site about the absurdity of Rand's assertions concerning Beethoven's alleged malevolence, so there's no need to go into great detail here. In any case, since few if any admirers of Beethoven find him to be malevolent, that should be enough to settle the question. Rand is merely trying to justify her dislike of a composer that even she has to admit is a "great musician."

On Wagner:
I think Wagner, unfortunately, is enormously vulgar, so that a sense-of-life appraisal is almost irrelevent. There is a certain musical value in some of his compositions. I would not classify him as particularly great. His melodies, which are the element by which I principally judge a composer, are, are enormously lacking in originality or inventiveness. If you strip them of all their trimming, his melodies are, with rare exceptions, street-organ or circus music. What Wagner makes his reputation on is precisely the trimmings -- the technical, alleged virtuosity of his orchestrations, with a dozen leitmotifs all mixed together, amounting to nothing. It is not a profound view of life. It is the view of a manipulator, of somebody who is playing on the fringes, but does not really have much to say.

This passage proves, more than any other, that when it comes to serious music, Rand was in way over her head. Classical musicians (i.e., those who are in the best position to judge) generally regard Wagner as one of the greatest composers. They would look upon Rand's criticisms of Wagner as ignorant and deeply prejudiced. Rand's avowal that she principally judges composer by their melodies would inspire deep contempt (the most important element in serious music tends to be harmony, not melody). Her assertion that most of Wagner's melodies are "street-organ" and "circus" music would yield howls of derision. And what is this comment about Wagner's "alleged virtuousity of orchestration": since when is Rand an expert on orchestration?This is, to be entirely frank, very embarrassing stuff; and the fact that Rand seems entirely oblivious as to how foolish she is coming off only makes it that much more cringe worthy.

On Gilbert and Sullivan:
I can't stand them.... I am positively allergic to their operattas, both to the content and to the music, but particularly the music. The content is often very clever and witty, but the sense of life projected is so satirically anti-man, that there isn't a redeeming feature anywhere. It is as if Gilbert and Sullivan were laughing at everything about man. And therefore, the sound of their music makes me uncomfortable.
The odd thing here is that, even though the (alleged) "laughing at man" is entirely the product of Gilbert, that Rand objects "particularly" to Sullivan's music. If she knew nothing of Gilbert's librettos, would she still have objected to Sullivan's music?

Rand is also known to have referred to Mozart as "pre-music" and to have regarded an acquaintance who admired Richard Strauss as someone with whom she could never be "soul mates." One shudders to think what Rand would have thought of Debussy, Elgar, Mahler, and countless others of whom she was too ignorant to disparage.

17 comments:

Anonymous said...

Rand also hated popular music for the most part, with special venom reserved for rock. This is interesting if only because popular song is the music of capitalism: mass-produced, marketed, commodified, and ultimately, profitable. Yet she hated the sounds her preferred economic system produced.

This same contradiction really struck me in The Fountainhead too -- as if capitalism was all about pleasing yourself with your work, with attracting customers and turnng profits being irrelevant. Weird.

- Chris

stuart said...

Chris, this has struck me too. The impression I get from her pronouncements is that one should value and admire, even worship the producer - if the producer is a hero, then the product must of course be perfect.

Yet there were so few products she approved of.

caroljane

gregnyquist said...

Rand also hated popular music for the most part, with special venom reserved for rock.

What is perhaps most interesting about her hatred of rock (and counter-culture popular art in general) is how she seems to have blithely ignored some of the obvious sociological implications of all this. The counter-culture was hostile to capitalism; but that didn't prevent entrepreneurs from commoditizing the counter-culture and profiting from that which sought to undermine and destroy capitalism. The sociologist Daniel Bell, inspired by both Marx and Schumpeter, described this phenomenon as the "cultural contradictions of capitalism." Rand always seemed blind to such self-destructive tendencies in capitalism, as she was blind to the fragility of civilization itself, assuming, as she did, that it was merely an issue of presenting the right arguments against Kant.

Anonymous said...

Greg your comment has me confused more than normal. If capitalist profit from counter culture, this will leave the counter culture with less money. Counter culture will then have less opportunity to undermine society.
What self-destructive tendencies in capitalism are you referring to?

Anonymous said...

This short play/skit is the funniest slam against Rand an Austrian could ever view. I laugh every time!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=KIk5C2qsRH8

Anonymous said...

Oops, I forgot to include the title.

Mozart was a red.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIk5C2qsRH8

Xtra Laj said...

Greg your comment has me confused more than normal. If capitalist profit from counter culture, this will leave the counter culture with less money. Counter culture will then have less opportunity to undermine society.
What self-destructive tendencies in capitalism are you referring to?


Greg will answer, but making money of a counterculture does not mean that you are impoverishing the counterculture. In many cases, you are turning the counterculture into a larger business than the culture could be without your investments. Of course, it is partly because you can see that if you don't invest, someone else might and might make more money that you could if you invested.

Think of Hollywood movies with left-leaning messages, or rap music. If a capitalist sees money to be made, a capitalist will invest. It doesn't necessarily mean that the artists will be poorer or richer, though it is definitely likely that the capitalist's investments will make them more popular.


I think it would help if *anonymous* did something to distinguish himself from other anonymous posters so we could at least build an identity - hard to talk to nameless people.

Hawker40 said...

I find it interesting that Ms. Rand disliked Gilbert and Sullivan. Since G. and S. generally targeted the nonsense of the British government, and Ms. Rand was anti-government...

Lloyd Flack said...

Hawker40,
I think it is because they target pretension and someone who is put up on a pedestal becomes one of their targets. She probably saw it as mockery of the heroic.

gregnyquist said...

If capitalist profit from counter culture, this will leave the counter culture with less money.

It doesn't work that way. Most counter-culture performers/artists were poor businessmen (which partially explains their animus toward capitalism). They didn't have the capital or the initiative or the business savvy to mass market their counter-culture products. Hence many of these counter-culture icons leagued up with the big media corporations, which had the capital to produce and market their recordings. This partnership between counter-culture and big business created a great deal more money for everyone involved.

What self-destructive tendencies in capitalism are you referring to?

Big business has never been particularly good at defending it's own interests. Whether it's funding center-left think tanks or producing anti-corporate films or supporting the Democratic Party and Barack Obama (68% of Wall Street's political donations in 2008 went to Democrats), corporations in America are hardly uniformly pro free enterprise.

Anonymous said...

Big business has never been particularly good at defending it's own interests.

I've heard two schools of thought on this. One agrees with Greg, that if a capitalist can make a profit from selling you the rope to hang him with, he'll do it. (A metaphor for the self-destructive tendency in cap'sm).

The other is that capitalism has remained dominant b/c it absorbs, neutralizes and incorporates resistance to it. For example, rebellion is commidified in a variety of ways and sold as a lifestyle choice. After mass production threatened to make society and culture into something homogeneous, routine, conformist, etc., producers and marketers figured out how to take the critique of this -- that cap'sm robs people of their individuality -- and make it a strategy. Now we're sold numerous variations of a single product so we can "express our unique selves." Individuality is achieved through choices made during shopping.

- Chris

Anonymous said...

Xtra Laj,

From here on out, I will always sign my anonymous comments CATO.

Greg,

Well we passed the first hurdle; you clearly and concisely articulated the real beauty of capitalism.
“This partnership between counter-culture and big business created a great deal more money for everyone involved.”

Essentially, all involved parties prosper from free trade. Capitalism and trade is the wealth creator,not government.

CATO

Anonymous said...

Does anybody here understand and appreciate the humor of the play, Mozart Was a Red?

Helps if you have spent time with convinced Randians and if you understand the superior intellect of Murray Rothbard.

CATO

Xtra Laj said...

Chris,

I plan at some point to discuss your very insightful point because it feeds into the cynical view of corporate social responsibility. Of course, I think there can be many motives for any act so I like reviewing the possibilities.

Daniel Barnes said...

HI Cato

Yes, we're well familiar with and have enjoyed Mozart was a Red, we've posted on it some years back as well as The Sociology of the Ayn Rand Cult plus also this great snippet from Joey Rothbard.

Anonymous said...

Yes I followed all those links and realized you folks are familiar with this great play. How a Randian can still be so serious after watching is beyond me.
The link to Jo Rothbard does not work. I even found the link at LRC and it still does not work. Run time error.

Cato

Ken said...

@gregnyquist: Big business has never been particularly good at defending it's own interests.

@Chris: I've heard two schools of thought on this.

Want a third school? Despite the conventions of the common law, a business or corporation is not really a person, and cannot do anything; all its decisions and actions are carried out by humans, either the owners or the employees. If the interests of those humans are not aligned with those of the corporation, the business will not "defend its own interests."

If as an owner I can maximize my personal benefit by selling the company assets and driving it into bankruptcy, is that not what I should do? You will recognize this as the basis of many leveraged buyouts and hostile takeovers.

If as an employee I can maximize my personal benefit by engaging in highly-risky behavior that might destroy the company, is that not what I should do? A number of traders at some of the financial firms did exactly that, a few years ago; they could maximize their pay and bonuses by making highly-risky trades, so they did so. When their positions went sour, the companies crashed, but the traders kept the money they already had.