While I'm not sure I agree 100%, I have long felt that there is an ever growing divide in this country between two very different cultures, just as the author of those articles does. I'd even go so far as to agree with where he draws many of the lines.
It's not exactly political either. I see good and bad liberals, good and bad conservatives, and yes even good and bad libertairans (libertarians versus libertines).
There's something that bugs me just a little about it that I can't quite put my finger on, though. I agree that there is on the one hand the works of Norman Rockwell and on the other the trash supported by the NIA. There's Gangsta Rap, and then there's John Williams (and people say nobody composes classical music anymore!). There's modern atonal dischordant classical music written today, then there's Howard Shore. A long time ago I noticed that what the great critics praised, I often despised, yet what I liked the found to be "junk for the masses", a designation I thought appropriate for stuff that I likewise hated but is considered "a part of the urban culture". I remember the junk I was supposed to read in college too, supposedly good works that bored me to tears.
Those three essays remind me of "The Romantic Manifesto" by Ayn Rand, where she in turn describes art under the two broad categories of "Naturalism" and "Romantic", where art either is a 'slice of life' or 'shows what life should be (and could be)'.
But still I think a point is being overlooked. If only I could put my finger on it.
I think I can put my finger on it, tough I'm not sure if this is what you meant.
Take his point about ethical relativism for instance:
Quote:
Perhaps the most important task of any civilization is to develop a single, coherent system of morality (and to transmit that system to its youth).
I say bullshit.
If there was a single system of morality (that was in addition transimitted unto the young), all we'd have would be stagnation.
I don't think I'd say anything revolutionary, if I said that everything around us changes, and our rules of interaction with other humans have to change accordingly.
Or try this:
Quote:
Despite these materialist assertions, mankind needs a "reverence for the sacred" to inspire him to loftier heights.
I so fucking hate when people say stuff like that.
This statement seems to lack any substance to me, as 'sacredness' and 'loftiness' are subjective terms.
Which brings me to a more general problem I have with this article: I can't help but feel threatened when I hear this stuff.
Threatened that he wants to impose his standard of sacredness or morality on me.
The best part is that it entirely possible that if I had a chat with this guy, I'd see eye to eye on almost every issue, but his general attitude just bugs the hell out of me.
kmisho Grand Poster
Joined: Dec 06, 2005
Posts: 1678
Location: Richmond, Virginia USA
Posted:
Wed Jan 23, 2008 1:57 pm
You mean the NEA?
This could be a great subject, but it's too nebulous.
Ivan and I can agree on something, too!: Lew's lofting style. In my opinion his flowery rhetoric is meant to hypnotize the reader into agreement. As a former poet (!) that is my impression.
But seriously, Jason, what do you know about art? The dichotomies you draw give me the impression that you think one is good and the other bad. I like 2pac and the soundtrack of Jaws, though I do like 2pac better.
I think economic philosophers should simply not talk about art. 2 main things have destroyed the quality of popular art. The first is indeed the spread of nihilism born after and in consequence of WW 1 and only magnified with WW 2 (I do not use the term post-modernism as I find the term completely opaque). The second is the commoditization of art, always in existence to some extent but truly a destructive force since the advent of TV.
If modern art, of whatever genre, seems bad, there is a reason, but it has nothing to do with a culture war coming out of Chicken Little's bullhorn. Art is in crisis and has been in crisis ever since DaDa when it was discovered, as Cole Porter put it, anything goes. The very nature of art since the advent of individualism (Van Gogh) has been personal expression, and since all people are different everyone's art should be different too, unique to the artist. This led to the misapprehension that uniqueness itself was a value. When it became true that anything goes in art (necessarily so when art is tied to personal expression; the bowl that contains all art is limitless) overnight uniqueness ceased to be a value. This meltdown in the theory of art occured around 1940 and continues to this day. The problem for artists ever since has been in trying to force uniqueness when the original formula of self expression combined with being a unique individual quarantees uniqueness, no effort required.
Some artists have figured this out. For example, a former teacher of mine,
Durwood Dommisse
, who was at one time a highly successful abstract artist but now is utterly obsessed with his painstaking technique of rendering landscapes.
This is a growing trend that could grow faster if so much of art was not suffocated by money. And I do mean Money: barter-stand-in cash-equivalence theory.
These three articles made me realize how much I absolutely hate and despise social conservatives!!!! They are so absolutely pathetic and smarmy that one does not know whether to engage in argument with them or just let them be and hope they don't do any damage.
So, where to begin?
Well, let's start with this idea here:
Quote:
Post-modernism is not, strictly speaking, a culture. It is an anti-culture; it is what people do in the absence of authentic culture.
What exactly is 'authentic culture'? It is like those fogies who try and remind us that text messaging is not 'authentic communication' and blogging is not 'authentic' literature.
I wonder what his definition would be for 'authentic culture'?
I also find this one pretty bad:
Quote:
In essence, their lives are more akin to that of animals than to anything that could be called genuinely human. They live lives dominated by impulses and sensations rather than by the intellect or the spirit, lives of indulgence rather than of purpose. They reside in the "eternal present," without regard for the future and without reverence for the past. Even more disturbingly, their lifestyle has a spooky passivity to it, a sense of slavery to their vices. If someone takes them to a swanky Thai restaurant, they’ll eat. If someone hands them a martini, they’ll drink. If a handsome guy appears, they’ll copulate
So, I guess the 'authentic society" is one where people are all intellectuals and we all live for a higher purpose, and refrain from enjoying anything?
That is quite typical of an intellectual to say, eh?
He calls the women on the tv shows (who, I might add, are all quite successful career women) 'animals' because they like to have sex and drink martinis?
God forbid! Really, the 'authentic culture' version of "Sex in the City" would be the one where the women didn't drink (and if they did, it would only be an occasional glass of the finest Chateaunauf d'Pape), and sex had one purpose - children, and lots of them. (Of course, in the second article our cute little social conservative reminds us that women's place in 'authentic culture' is to raise babies and be married, where a man's place is to take his well-harnessed agression and put it towards some grand purpose.) The women in this new show would do all of this while leaving their evenings free to discuss Rousseau and Hume by the fire with their friends in the evening (After all, the author reminds us in the above quote that these women should be living by "intellect and spirit.")
Wouldn't that be lovely?!
Really, I find it absolutely laughable that this man fancies himself a proponent of liberty of some sort. He is a fan of liberty who talks about:
-- The 'authentic culture' where everyone lives with a sense of purpose (presumably towards everyone else)
-- The idea that a 'real man' has his agression 'channeled' into a 'socially desirable end'
-- The idea that we should save women from themselves, lest they be taken advantage of by men (poor weaklings that they are)
-- The idea that pursuing a life where pleasure is a priority is a bad thing (three cheers for the death of self-interest)
-- The idea that any society worth a salt will have one common - count 'em: one - set of values.
I am not precisely sure how this counts him as a lover of liberty when his whole argument consists of saying that if he doesn't like your lifestyle, then you are living wrongly.
And it DOES remind me of Ayn Rand in that sense. Rand, if we recall, despised libertarianism even though she professed to love liberty (sound familiiar?). And the reason she despised libertarianism, she repeatedly wrote, was that it does not champion a life based on 'reason' and her hierarcical philosophy. (Self interest, in other words, is not REALLY self interest if it doesn't follow her dictate. Sound familiar?)
This guy reminds me of what is wrong with too many old people.
And, yes, Jason Harvestdancer: I agree with you that there is some merit to the idea that much of the current state of affairs is a bit wrong.
As a high school teacher in Baltimore County (right below Baltimore City), I can attest that much of our youth has been blindsided by the entertainment business's obsession with sex, gangstas, and money. I am a libertarian and certainly do not support censorship, but there is something wrong with both the students AND the parents in a case like this (not to mention the messages they are learning via osmosis).
But I will not, like our social conservative knucklehead, suggest that I be the one to tell people how to live. I will not be the one to advoate a return to many 'traditional' ideas like "men be men" and "women be mothers, for that is your duty."
And the funny thing of it is that by all accounts, I am a cultured man. My favorite music is jazz (listening to the Oscar Peterson Quartet right now). I love documentaries, admire the hell out of Mozart's music, and am quite educated in science, history, politics, the humanities, and letters.
But as it happens, I am also a moral relativist (and even, sometimes, considered a relativist on the idea of truth). I am also, morally, an Epicurean who believes that sensual pleasure can be very good as long as it is in moderation so that it does not interfere with regular life.
And I am also one who does not give a hoot about cultural traditions simply because they are traditions. I am, quite frankly, looking forward to the day that traditional books disappear and give way to electronic books. I do not miss the 'traditional family' so long as there is something that can take its place (gay couples can raise kids as well as straight couples can, and so can couples who are not married.)
But in our poor social conservativ's eyes, that would make me a part of the postmodernist 'anti-culture.' Even though - I will bet you a bit of money - that I am smarter than our social cosnervative, and can probably beat the hell out of him on any quiz show to do with 'high culture' any day.
(It is generally those who shout loudest who have the most to hide by way of ignorance.)
I tend to see trade-offs as the society changes. We have moved to a superficial consumer society but at the same time have expanded opportunities for minorities,women, gays ,etc. which I applaud. Homogeneous communities in the past could more readily promote a common ethos-it used to be fairly typical for adults to enforce standards of decency on other people's children.Those same communities were not so ideal if you were a minority,gay.etc.
There is no going back and that may not be such a bad thing. But diversity has been compared to cholesterol, it comes in good and bad types. Ethnic,racial diversity-sure. But how much moral diversity does one truly wish to encounter? I do not want much; I also do not know how this can be remedied.
Liberal values of openness are helpful but I do sense rootlessness, anomie, and lack of community to a greater degree than in the past.
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