Middlemarch and MELISANDE

(It's a little hard to tell because Ghost blurs the words before the paywall, but I recorded and posted a video of myself singing the "I Want" number for my new musical, and that's what's available to paid subscribers.)

First of all, I was slightly imprecise in one of yesterday's sentences. I did not intend to imply that Libertarians believe seatbelts should be illegal, and the correct phrasing should have been "that heroin should be legally available and seatbelts should not be legally required."

(I have edited the previous post accordingly.)

Second of all –

Middlemarch.

We are to understand that Dorothea is a fool, right? That she is integrating her life around not only a falsehood but also a fundamental rejection of the self, and that her decision-making process, such as it is, is based entirely on what her sister Celia describes as "notions," i.e. whims?

In the first few chapters there are three specific instances in which Dorothea denies her instinct to live and pursues her "exalted enthusiasm about the ends of life," as Eliot puts it:

1. The scene in which Dorothea puts on her mother's emeralds, considers how lovely it would be to look at them whenever she chose, and then rejects them entirely
2. The scene in which Dorothea renounces horseriding, which is described as her only secular pleasure, after Sir James offers her a chestnut horse
3. The scene in which Dorothea has to rewrite her letter accepting Casaubon's offer of marriage because her hand won't stop shaking

There is so much delightful cynicism in this book, and the opening chapters already seem to prove that the author is on the side of both reality and rationality. Eliot literally writes that doing leads to self-satisfaction, which is "the last doom of ignorance and folly," and that Dorothea, who has a scheme to improve the cottages (and by extension, the lives of the poor) on the various country estates, begins to distrust what she wants to do soon as she notices the connection to the self.

Which leads Celia to chastise Dorothea for her continual "notions" and "fads," and leads Dorothea to ask herself whether Celia is a nullifidan, i.e. a person who has no faith. Meanwhile, Celia is wondering why it is that she always says "just how things are, and nothing else," and yet her sister, who "always sees what nobody else sees," is considered the intelligent one.

And then we have this, which I'm just going to quote in full:

“Young ladies don’t understand political economy, you know,” said Mr. Brooke, smiling towards Mr. Casaubon. “I remember when we were all reading Adam Smith. There is a book, now. I took in all the new ideas at one time—human perfectibility, now. But some say, history moves in circles; and that may be very well argued; I have argued it myself. The fact is, human reason may carry you a little too far—over the hedge, in fact. It carried me a good way at one time; but I saw it would not do. I pulled up; I pulled up in time. But not too hard. I have always been in favor of a little theory: we must have Thought; else we shall be landed back in the dark ages. But talking of books, there is Southey’s ‘Peninsular War.’ I am reading that of a morning. You know Southey?”

“No,” said Mr. Casaubon, not keeping pace with Mr. Brooke’s impetuous reason, and thinking of the book only. “I have little leisure for such literature just now. I have been using up my eyesight on old characters lately; the fact is, I want a reader for my evenings; but I am fastidious in voices, and I cannot endure listening to an imperfect reader. It is a misfortune, in some senses: I feed too much on the inward sources; I live too much with the dead. My mind is something like the ghost of an ancient, wandering about the world and trying mentally to construct it as it used to be, in spite of ruin and confusing changes. But I find it necessary to use the utmost caution about my eyesight.”

So yes, if the principles of objectivism exist independent of any single mind or philosopher, they appear to exist in this 1871 novel that was written by a woman who "thought her way out of Christian belief," as The New Yorker put it.

(That said, I'm still ignoring the taxation-is-theft thing, which seems to be this unpicked booger hanging out of objectivism's nose, and am digging into Herbert Croly again to confirm whether his progressive philosophy [which both Roosevelts adopted, at least partially] is not only consistent within itself but also with the non-booger aspects of objectivism, and whether it is in fact a better long-term option for everyone, Dorotheas and Celias alike.)

Also, I promised you that I would record myself singing one of the numbers from MELISANDE, and the recording is made, but I'm putting it behind the paywall for obvious reasons.