3.4.11 An aspect of the response to art

As Ayn Rand has said, art has the power to either confirm or deny the validity of one’s view of reality, and that the intensity of personal response to art has to do with the fact that there is no more fundamental way to say, ‘You are right, totally,’ or ‘You are wrong, fundamentally, all the way down,’ to a person.

Reading Atlas Shrugged, for example, I think Joe Random reader thinks on a non-verbal level, something like: ‘Eh, no one could hold out against that kind of pressure. John Galt should just give in. No one would hold it against him. That’s just how it goes.’ When Galt doesn’t give in, Joe gets angry because what could be a more thorough indictment of his attitudes, of his very soul than what Galt decides to do, and that he is successful at it?—so his anger is defensive. On the other hand, Mary thinks "Don’t give in Galt, you can do it. What matters is that you just stick to your guns. If you do, then things might just still work out. There’s always hope." Galt does hold out, and how does Mary feel about it? She feels right—in the most profound possible way; she is made to feel right fundamentally, right all the way down, as a human being living in the universe; right, so to speak, metaphysically.

Based on an email to Steve Clarian 2005.9