”The portrayal of Howard Roark or John Galt or Hank Rearden or Fransisco d’Anconia is as an end in himself, not as means to any further end”
Ayn Rand, Romantic Manifesto.

Ayn Rand claims that moral values define if something is an art-object (Kitsch) or not. Since her philosophical system: Objectivism, finds itself in the Aristotelian tradition, she declares the world as it could and should be, and that aesthetics’ has the ethical task to give , joy and seize the human being by saying: existence exist.

When we talk about knowledge, how to get knowledge about the reality we live in, we talk in philosophical terms: epistemology. Do you want to trust your own senses, or do you want other judgments done by others judge for you?

Ayn Rand is ethically and morally concerned about selfishness and unselfishness, rational egoist and altruist, individual identity and collective identity, individualism and collectivism. Being unselfish is metaphysically when you claim that your self- identity, existence and objects around you don’t have its own nature and independent identity, and epistemologically when you replace and acknowledge others judgments and considerations a priori than your own.

Ethically and morally, you are unselfish when you draw your moral code from populist and preferable opinions, rather than objective personal accomplishments. Being unselfish – altruist and collectivist has been the dominating ideas, values and ideals in great parts of the world, and it is this ‘view of life’ that has been the moral code for two (and almost three) world wars, when the goal was the will to power, regardless the means.

A free society, is a society which respects the individual rights to life, freedom and property. In Kitsch Forums context, the kitsch producer will have the rights in a free society where she or (he) has the opportunity to create and produce in free harmony with others.

Human beings tend too often to accept any mean achieving any goal.

In Kitsch Forums context this is: means the Art- world reproduces in keeping their dominating positions (the goal). In the field of cultural production the curatoriate (Art world) do any thing in keeping their hegemonic rules of play regardless means, just like what dictators have done in familiar cases.

Don’t think in abstractions and believe in one collective identity with authority.

Exist, think in terms of your independent faculty of judgment and take responsibility for your actions.

The dominating ideas from Plato, Kant and Hegel are a way of mentality that neglects central elements in Aristotelian and Objectivist philosophy which is: You can with your own reason and rationality understand reality, and it is reality that gives you the code on how things should and could be.

“With altruism as the criterion of value and virtue, it is impossible to create an image of man at his best – ‘as he could and should be’. The highest function is the projection of moral values” (Romantic Mnaifesto1975: 100).

Ayn Rand showed us with the characters in her best selling and world wide known novels: ‘The Fountainhead’ and ‘Atlas Shrugged’ how she after eternal battles takes them to places where they could and should be. Just like the kitsch producer(Broch, Hermann; Kitsch and Art 1930: 80)

In the novel ‘ The Fountainhead’ Ayn Rand says through the character Gail Wynand talking about the architect Peter Keating: “ And isn’t that the root of every despicable action? Not selfishness, but precisely the absence of a self. Look at them. The man who cheats and lies, but preserve a respectable front. He knows himself to be dishonest, but others think he’s honest and he derives his self-respect from that- second hand …When you suspend your faculty of independent judgments you suspend consciousness. To stop consciousness is to stop life. Second handers have no sense of reality. Their reality is not within them, but somewhere in that space which divides one human body from another. Not an entity , but a relation – anchored to nothing “.

Ayn Rand’s moral is in this Kitsch Forum’s context: The kitsch – producer seizes the object (in the external objective world), and visualizes and reflects its beauty with a high technical ability : a timeless craft. This is why Kitsch defends itself – anchored to the acknowledgement of existence.

Kitsch is how life could and should be – the dignified human being.

The hypothesis in this article is from Hanna Cecilie Skurdal’s articles published in the Norwegian Philosophical review AerA, nr 1 and 4 2002.

Skurdal is currently working on a scientific masterpiece with Odd Nerdrum (2005), exploring these thesis in theory and practice.