Three Days of the Condor: Spot the Objectivist
In "Three Days of the Condor", Joe Turner (Robert Redford), a reader for the CIA unwittingly discovers someone's real-life global politics plot.
Can you name the Objectivist character in the movie? (Identified as such by one small quote).
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073802/triv...
Can you name the Objectivist character in the movie? (Identified as such by one small quote).
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073802/triv...
SOURCE URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRn4A39QHKY
I hate this movie. The characters have their appeal, but I grow so weary of CIA villains - invariably stupid and brutish. Why wipe out a cadre of your own people - who have committed no treason - when you can simply bury their report.
It's almost as bad as the Bourne abominations.
What's the difference? Joubert was principled; he behaved virtuously according to Rand's definition of virtue.
The only down side is that he killed people.
Grosse Pointe Blanke
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJ7AXKWmW...
Higgins: You miss that kind of action, sir?
Mr. Wabash: No, I miss that kind of clarity.
We own this movie and enjoy watching it.
Condor: "What is there about a book published in Venezuela, a murder mystery in Dutch, a book from Saudi Arabia... Oil! It's about oil, isn't it? Higgins, do we have plans to invade the Middle East?"
Higgins: "What will happen when people who have never known hunger have to go without food, ... or oil, ... or plutonium?"
Condor: "Ask them.
Higgins: "They won't want us to ask them! They'll just want us to get it for them!"
Also, I like the indeterminate ending. Higgins and Condor confront each other. Condor has given the story to the New York Times. "You play games. I tell stories." Higgins asks how Condor can be sure that the NYT will print it... Meanwhile, the Salvation Army Band has been playing "God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen" but when it get to ".... tidings of..." it cuts out. Comfort and joy are not guaranteed here.
And that scene you cite, I find interesting in light of the Strike in AS.
And, you got it; the Objectivist is Jobert. I think I got the thumbs down because I associated an assassin *gasp* with Objectivism, but one has to take it in context of the era in which it was made, the Cold War.
" Joubert: Well, the fact is, what I do is not a bad occupation. Someone is always willing to pay.
Joe Turner: I would find it... tiring.
Joubert: Oh, no - it's quite restful. It's almost peaceful. No need to believe in either side, or any side. There is no cause. There's only yourself. The belief is in your own precision. "
The last lines are why I even thought about him as an Objectivist.
As I said, though, I take issue with your evaluation of Jobert. I guessed him as the right answer for you based on what I know about you. (I am really good at taking tests.)
In the movie - and you cite the correct quote - Jobert is completely amoral. That is not being an Objectivist. He does not care about the right and wrong of killing, the guilt or innocence of the victim. He just gets paid to do a job. That is not Objectivism.
In the complete movie, it is Joe Turner who is the hero, and properly so. As an innocent, he has a steep learning curve from the moment he walks back into the Literary Society after getting lunch. He draws on his skills - intelligent skills like hacking the phones - and deduction to puzzle his way through a maze of deceit. He does not know whom to trust.
Also, the movie has some good cuts and shots that show intelligent direction, providing the audience with clues as the hero tries to fit the puzzle. The first scene where he almost has a question, there's a gas station in the background.
I actually have the book, "Six Days of the Condor." The second book was not as good.
Guilt or innocence... by what standard? Right or wrong of killing... again, by what standard?
He could have had Turner dead at any time... had he been willing to kill innocents. Consider the other people sent to kill Turner; the mailman sprayed with a machine gun, indifferent to potential collateral damage.
Bear in mind, he doesn't choose sides... but he is always free to choose jobs. Such as the "technicality" that allowed him to not-kill Turner.
As I understand Objectivism, a pure Objectivist would *be* amoral.
----
A moral code is a system of teleological measurement which grades the choices and actions open to man, according to the degree to which they achieve or frustrate the code’s standard of value. The standard is the end, to which man’s actions are the means.
A moral code is a set of abstract principles; to practice it, an individual must translate it into the appropriate concretes—he must choose the particular goals and values which he is to pursue. This requires that he define his particular hierarchy of values, in the order of their importance, and that he act accordingly.
Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology
“Concepts of Consciousness,”
Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, 33
---
A sin without volition is a slap at morality and an insolent contradiction in terms: that which is outside the possibility of choice is outside the province of morality. If man is evil by birth, he has no will, no power to change it; if he has no will, he can be neither good nor evil; A ROBOT IS AMORAL. To hold, as man’s sin, a fact not open to his choice is a mockery of morality.
--- (caps mine for emphasis)
A pure Objectivist is a robot, as his only function is reason. Without emotion, there is no purpose to existence.
In that he is wedded to his own precision, his own performance, and feels ethically bound to carry out his contracts efficiently, he is very much like Hank Rearden. That he chooses assassination as his profession is evidence that either he lacks empathy for others, or has known too many people too well.
(hm. that gives me an idea...)
"A pure Objectivist is a robot, as his only function is reason. Without emotion, there is no purpose to existence."
"A sin without volition..."
I'm confused. You do realize, in your quote from Obj Epist, she is describing the opposition.
You know us at least that well, don't you?
I mean you read the book your quoting from, right?
Objectivism does NOT hold man as evil at birth. Nor that he has no will. Nor that he can be neither good nor evil. Most certainly not that he is an amoral robot.
(Sometimes when the verbiage gets dense it's best to read it a few times.)
Reason precludes emotion? Don't be silly. Spock is a bad fiction created by those opposed. Rational people feel love and rage and distrust and everything else. There is no contradiction - your emotions are BORN of reason. There is a REASON why you hate, a REASON you distrust, a REASON that you love.
(I'm sorry if I got kinda rude there. Truly, there is no excuse for that in civil discourse.
It's just that sometimes I get a little emotional!)
Reason, as you used it, means "cause", not "rational thought".
And emotion is not evil. It is a natural and essential part of good mental health.
But emotions are created automatically and often in the heat of the moment. They must be constantly monitored for wayward drift. The mind must rule the heart.
But you seem to have missed my main point.
No Objectivist would ever say that man is born evil, has no free will and is an amoral robot. Yet you attempted to ascribe those words to the Fountainhead herself.
Now you decline to respond to my rebuttal.
Intellectual growth requires the ability to be persuaded by rational argument.
Sometimes, when you don't quite know how to respond but you're still not ready to give the point, it's best to say something like "Good point, I'm not saying you're right, but I'll have to think about that."
Other times - when appropriate - it's best to say, "Huh, good point, I hadn't thought of that, I see what your saying. Hmm"
I do it all the time. It's very empowering. You get smarter every time you say it.
Otherwise, one who never listens or concedes becomes just another pseudo-intellectual poser parroting their side. It's a mindset best left to politicians and partisan hacks.
I'm not saying that's you. I mean to give no such offense, you seem to be a person of sound mind and good heart.
I'm just throwing out a cautionary flag.
But in this dialog, Kathy sounds more like one:
Kathy: You're not entitled to personal questions! That gun gives you the right to rough me up; it doesn't give you the right to ask me...
Joe Turner: Wh- wh- Rough you up? Have I roughed you up?
Kathy: Yes! What are you doing in my house?
Joe Turner: Have I? Have I?
Kathy: Going through all my stuff? Force...
Joe Turner: Have I raped you?
Kathy: The night is young.
The difference being... ?
And I don't see how Kathy is Objectivist, there.
Hank Rearden would have said, "I do not co-operate at the point of a gun." And meant it.
Joe Turner, like Phillipe de Mus in "LadyHawke", is my kinda hero. Except he's good looking enough to get Faye Dunaway into bed...
"There is no cause. There's only yourself. The belief is in your own precision. "
That's what made me feel he was Objectivist.
Compare him to the Operative in "Serenity":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxcTDoE_K...
Operative: "I believe in something greater than myself; a better world. A world without sin."
Mal: So me and mine gotta lay down and die so you can live in your better world?"
Operative: "I'm not going to live there; there's no place for me there, any more than there is for you. Malcolm, I'm a monster. What I do is evil. I have no illusions about it, but it must be done."
Joubert does what he does while avoiding ideology; the Operative does what he does while wallowing in altruism and ideology.