Slamming the doors of perception (or the reverse-engineered cream.) This is a long article, something I refer to in my interior monologue as a “download”, so I’m going to suggest you take a moment to grab a caffeinated beverage before we start. The rules are the same as always: I’m going to string together a series of random/disconnected ideas and then wrap them with a bow at the end so it looks like a present. And Happy Holidays (because there is more than one, you know…)
Recently, a friend summarized my work as “conceptual art” and I remember being quite flattered at the remark. That he thought it rose to the level of art was beyond my estimation of it as theory and revealed, to myself, the high opinion I have of art. I do try to be thoughtful and maybe that defines art to my friend.
The reason I’m posting this on Erin Burnett’s Facebook blog is that it stems from her “Decent Proposal” concept she presented to Rand Paul and John Thune, who both resolutely ignored both the substance and the inference of the concept in favor of, really, doing nothing and remaining consistent to both their ideology and history. And that isn’t a compliment to the Senators. Watching her patiently explain it (over and over) actually became funny after a while and was what the Kardashians refer to as “fantastical” (which I interpret as an ironic comment on something that had the possibility of being fantastic but became a parody of the concept. Given, is the more simple explanation of a malapropism on the part of the Kardashian sisters but, I just prefer to think of them as ironic.
Maybe that’s just me.)
(Briefly, since we’re near the subject, don’t ever ask to “conversate” with me because you can’t and, more importantly, I WON’T LET YOU.)
Similar to other concepts she’s presented over the years, the “Decent Proposal” was pragmatic, both politically and realistically (interesting distinction, there) but was dismissed by Rand Paul with, “Maybe you should run for office…” (please don’t). I’m just saying, you presented a concept and life made it art in how it was received.
While we’re on the subject of Rands and Pauls, Ron Paul’s naming his son Rand is either a Freudian slip of epic proportions or just a redundant recitation of his political “philosophy” made into the tangible form of his child. The reason philosophy is in quotes is not because Ayn Rand’s books don’t present a philosophy but that Ron Paul only half embraces, or half expresses, her liaise-faire concepts. If you haven’t read her books (and I have, everyone of them, including the really obscure ones like “The Guide to Objectivist Epistemology”) you could get the impression that Ron Paul is attempting to reset the country toward a dystopian ideal when he’s actually presenting the final nail in the coffin for a permanent autocracy of the currently wealthy. The reason Rand’s books are so long is, when confronted with reality, liaise-faire doctrines take an extraordinarily long time to perpetuate and overcome the mess of reality, setting aside entirely the fascist nature of such endeavors. Having read them all, I understand why the Koch brothers, and their ilk, embrace these ideas: Rand believed that the cream always rose to the top and, since those people were born at the top, they are the cream, albeit reverse-engineered. If those people REALLY embrace those concepts let me make my own “Decent Proposal”: if you want to have a liaise-faire capitalist society, when you hit the reset button, gather all the money and redistribute it equally to each person so the playing field is leveled. It’ll help the cream rise more quickly, right? When the currently rich become the future rich, I would have no choice but to respect them for being the cream they insist, but cannot prove, they are.
That redistribution would never happen (it’s “Socialism!!!” and an irony too deep to explore here) and so this half-in, half-out fiction Ron Paul, the Tea Party and a fair-cross-section of Wall Street are peddling is just another “Greed is good” lie, dog-whistle class-warfare politics in the guise of equity.
Without the redistribution of wealth at the beginning of an attempt at a dystopia, we would have to endure the grinding evolution inherent in the confrontation of a theory with reality. To make a comparison to natural evolution, if we were to take the dinosaurs as a baseline, the evolutionary trend would be toward terrestrial beings growing wings and living in the sky. I don’t want to wait until I’m an angel to for a chance at equity.
None of this is meant to be a criticism of Ayn Rand, rather, how her work is presented and manipulated. As writers go, she’s as intricate and logical as any, but, because of those qualities in her work, cannot be referenced out of context and casually. She’s a great place to start, but a tragic place to end, as far as capitalist economic philosophy. Greed COULD be good, greed COULD be honest, greed COULD work but the same can be said of many other things. To make an informed decision, you have to know what those things are. In order for liaise-faire capitalism not to be as fascist as communism, everyone would have to agree on the rule change, which butts you up against the Hegel’s ideals conundrum. Might be a good place to start…
Do that for me and we’ll have some things to converse about.
Since Erin’s confrontation with Rand Paul and John Thune, I’ve pondered why that seemed so funny to me other than just the pure black comedy of it all. I’ve settled on this concept-though I admit it’s nebulous and curious:
I’m a joint-custody father to two little girls. Inherent in that arrangement is my girls have two sets of rules for behavior in my ex’s and my separate homes, so I endeavor to keep it simple for my girls. One of the rules I’m most proud of, for it’s flexibility, simplicity and usefulness (not to mention its oddity), is “No fighting with doors” (an important variant of the general, and generally ignored, “No fighting” rule). The genius is, if the two parties can’t slam a door between them, they are forced to deal with each other and end up fighting less because they know they cannot escape the other. So consistent and ingrained is this rule, that, when it happens, I only have to go into the hallway with my hands up and the behavior stops with a sullen “Sorry” from my girls.
Here’s the thing, Erin: when Congress can’t agree they turn to the press like kids turn to a grown-up and when you try to mediate between fighting children all you end up with is two children mad at you. I don’t want you to stop trying but you have to recognize this truth. The fact that they slam the doors on each other, and anyone who would attempt to help, refusing to honestly deal with the issues, should tell you they lack the maturity for an adult conversation. I think CNN gets that because, if I was to characterize them as the other adult in the room, that adult would have a vein throbbing in the middle of its forehead and, if you treated the Congress as they deserve, they just could have a stroke. And if the public really perceived how the government seeks ways to close the doors between politics and reality, we really could have that Ron Paul moment, God help us.
So, again, Happy Holidays! Congress is on vacation.
Oh, Erin: don’t let your fingers get pinched. They’re so wrapped up in their fighting they don’t even know you’re there.
Recently, a friend summarized my work as “conceptual art” and I remember being quite flattered at the remark. That he thought it rose to the level of art was beyond my estimation of it as theory and revealed, to myself, the high opinion I have of art. I do try to be thoughtful and maybe that defines art to my friend.
The reason I’m posting this on Erin Burnett’s Facebook blog is that it stems from her “Decent Proposal” concept she presented to Rand Paul and John Thune, who both resolutely ignored both the substance and the inference of the concept in favor of, really, doing nothing and remaining consistent to both their ideology and history. And that isn’t a compliment to the Senators. Watching her patiently explain it (over and over) actually became funny after a while and was what the Kardashians refer to as “fantastical” (which I interpret as an ironic comment on something that had the possibility of being fantastic but became a parody of the concept. Given, is the more simple explanation of a malapropism on the part of the Kardashian sisters but, I just prefer to think of them as ironic.
Maybe that’s just me.)
(Briefly, since we’re near the subject, don’t ever ask to “conversate” with me because you can’t and, more importantly, I WON’T LET YOU.)
Similar to other concepts she’s presented over the years, the “Decent Proposal” was pragmatic, both politically and realistically (interesting distinction, there) but was dismissed by Rand Paul with, “Maybe you should run for office…” (please don’t). I’m just saying, you presented a concept and life made it art in how it was received.
While we’re on the subject of Rands and Pauls, Ron Paul’s naming his son Rand is either a Freudian slip of epic proportions or just a redundant recitation of his political “philosophy” made into the tangible form of his child. The reason philosophy is in quotes is not because Ayn Rand’s books don’t present a philosophy but that Ron Paul only half embraces, or half expresses, her liaise-faire concepts. If you haven’t read her books (and I have, everyone of them, including the really obscure ones like “The Guide to Objectivist Epistemology”) you could get the impression that Ron Paul is attempting to reset the country toward a dystopian ideal when he’s actually presenting the final nail in the coffin for a permanent autocracy of the currently wealthy. The reason Rand’s books are so long is, when confronted with reality, liaise-faire doctrines take an extraordinarily long time to perpetuate and overcome the mess of reality, setting aside entirely the fascist nature of such endeavors. Having read them all, I understand why the Koch brothers, and their ilk, embrace these ideas: Rand believed that the cream always rose to the top and, since those people were born at the top, they are the cream, albeit reverse-engineered. If those people REALLY embrace those concepts let me make my own “Decent Proposal”: if you want to have a liaise-faire capitalist society, when you hit the reset button, gather all the money and redistribute it equally to each person so the playing field is leveled. It’ll help the cream rise more quickly, right? When the currently rich become the future rich, I would have no choice but to respect them for being the cream they insist, but cannot prove, they are.
That redistribution would never happen (it’s “Socialism!!!” and an irony too deep to explore here) and so this half-in, half-out fiction Ron Paul, the Tea Party and a fair-cross-section of Wall Street are peddling is just another “Greed is good” lie, dog-whistle class-warfare politics in the guise of equity.
Without the redistribution of wealth at the beginning of an attempt at a dystopia, we would have to endure the grinding evolution inherent in the confrontation of a theory with reality. To make a comparison to natural evolution, if we were to take the dinosaurs as a baseline, the evolutionary trend would be toward terrestrial beings growing wings and living in the sky. I don’t want to wait until I’m an angel to for a chance at equity.
None of this is meant to be a criticism of Ayn Rand, rather, how her work is presented and manipulated. As writers go, she’s as intricate and logical as any, but, because of those qualities in her work, cannot be referenced out of context and casually. She’s a great place to start, but a tragic place to end, as far as capitalist economic philosophy. Greed COULD be good, greed COULD be honest, greed COULD work but the same can be said of many other things. To make an informed decision, you have to know what those things are. In order for liaise-faire capitalism not to be as fascist as communism, everyone would have to agree on the rule change, which butts you up against the Hegel’s ideals conundrum. Might be a good place to start…
Do that for me and we’ll have some things to converse about.
Since Erin’s confrontation with Rand Paul and John Thune, I’ve pondered why that seemed so funny to me other than just the pure black comedy of it all. I’ve settled on this concept-though I admit it’s nebulous and curious:
I’m a joint-custody father to two little girls. Inherent in that arrangement is my girls have two sets of rules for behavior in my ex’s and my separate homes, so I endeavor to keep it simple for my girls. One of the rules I’m most proud of, for it’s flexibility, simplicity and usefulness (not to mention its oddity), is “No fighting with doors” (an important variant of the general, and generally ignored, “No fighting” rule). The genius is, if the two parties can’t slam a door between them, they are forced to deal with each other and end up fighting less because they know they cannot escape the other. So consistent and ingrained is this rule, that, when it happens, I only have to go into the hallway with my hands up and the behavior stops with a sullen “Sorry” from my girls.
Here’s the thing, Erin: when Congress can’t agree they turn to the press like kids turn to a grown-up and when you try to mediate between fighting children all you end up with is two children mad at you. I don’t want you to stop trying but you have to recognize this truth. The fact that they slam the doors on each other, and anyone who would attempt to help, refusing to honestly deal with the issues, should tell you they lack the maturity for an adult conversation. I think CNN gets that because, if I was to characterize them as the other adult in the room, that adult would have a vein throbbing in the middle of its forehead and, if you treated the Congress as they deserve, they just could have a stroke. And if the public really perceived how the government seeks ways to close the doors between politics and reality, we really could have that Ron Paul moment, God help us.
So, again, Happy Holidays! Congress is on vacation.
Oh, Erin: don’t let your fingers get pinched. They’re so wrapped up in their fighting they don’t even know you’re there.
