Re: The Psycho-epistemolgy of MMP

Wow.  I was going to George and his Donkey stew in their own juices for
a while, but then the Donkey reposted this.
George Dance certainly has been busy in my absence.  LOL.
Unfortunately, the link to the original article says that it's been
removed, so I can't read it in context (assuming that anyone, other than
the Donkey, responded to it), or see why George was writing about me in
alt.arts.poe -- a group which I'm unfamiliar with.
As to the psychobabbled Ayn Rand analogy... just wow.
Of course this all goes back to my having called the Donkey a
"second-hander" (like Peter Keating in Rand's "The Fountainhead").  As
if to prove my statement, Will turned around and seconded it back to me.
In similar fashion, my having compared George to Ellsworth Toohey on
several occasions, is being second-handed back to me as well.  But then
George is the one who claims that "tit for tat" is his personal "system
of ethics."  It's also his justification for his stock in trade rebuttal
of "IKYABWAI."
Now... if I were an Ayn Rand character, which one would I be?
Not Keating or Toohey, of course (I'm nothing like the Donkey or
George).  Nor Gail Wynand -- I'm a poet, not a newspaper man or a social
engineer.
Nor am I a Howard Roark.  While I share several of his "egoistic"
beliefs ("egotistic" in the novel, but Rand later wrote that she would
change it), I would never rape anyone or blow up a building.
I identify more with John Galt from "Atlas Shrugged" -- as I'm more of
the passive resistance martyr type.  But even that isn't a very good
match.
If we must pseudo-psychoanalyze me by comparing me to a literary
character, I identify most with the following: Goldmund (from Hesse's
"Goldmund & Narcissus"), Wolf Larsen (from Jack London's "The Sea
Wolf"), Manfred (in Byron's dramatic poem of the same name).  I would
expand that list to include the cinematic character Arthur Parker from
"Pennies from Heaven" as well.
For the benefit of illiterates like George and his Donkey, allow me to
briefly describe the relevant characteristics of each of the literary
and cinematic characters listed above.  Goldmund is an artist during the
late Middle Ages who abandons the monastic life, pursues his art at the
expense of financial security, and achieves, the Jungian process of
"actualization" through a series of romantic encounters.  Wolf Larsen is
a Darwinic Atheist who identifies with the Rebel-Hero, "Lucifer," from
Milton's "Paradise Lost," whose dying words (actually, word) dismiss
religion and morality as "Bosh."  Manfred is the ultimate Byronic hero,
who refuses to accept Divine judgment at the end of his life, declaring
that his deeds were his own.  And Arthur Parker was a Depression Era
sheet music salesman who defiantly clung to his belief that life must be
like it is in the songs -- even when facing the gallows for a crime he
didn't commit.
In short, I'm an Epicurean-Pantheist-Luciferic-Byronic Romantic who
always seeks to find the ideal in a less than perfect world.
As to my alleged "lying."
This is another example of George's "IKYABWAI" ethical system at work.
"Why do you lie so much, Dunce?" is a catchphrase question that PJR
would often put to George.  Why I revived it in PJR's absence, George
immediately began tit-for-tatting it back to me.
I don't lie in Usenet groups (well, maybe a little one now and then for
humor's sake -- told with a wink to those perceptive enough to pick up
on it) -- it's too easy to get caught.  Conversations here are archived,
and anything one says can and will be used against them at a future
date.
I also find George's description of how abused children are prone to
becoming lying adults telling -- as George also had an abusive parent
(actually both of George's parents were abusive).  It seems that George
has finally answered PJR's ongoing question of "Why do you lie so much,
Dunce."
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