The things one prefers and the things that one doesn't are fundamental to all our actions. We prefer or we don't. All is a matter of opinion as Marcus Aurleius said. But what underlies our preferences? That's where the purity of the idea becomes muddied. There are folkways and theories and habits and desires in that muddy ground. We have a hard time separating what we think are our own beliefs and hard won opinions stemming from insight and reasoning but in fact we absorb almost all of our opinions, unexamined except superficially or unrecognized at all. Miller's preferences for art are really very commonplace, more inherited than examined, more an expression of a desire for belonging than an expression of independence, more watered down by popular naive-realism (a philosophical term) than nourished by close criticality. And yet, beyond all for that he is one who seeks some universal access to a longed-for attribute of art as art. That's our age of science at work, the quest for the Law, the Truth, the indisputable Fact. Man is a symbol-making animal, perhaps not the only one close at hand. We make things that stand for ideas, beliefs, feelings, desires. We objectify. And we keep redoing it because we don't have anything else to do and because it helps us to survive. If you don't symbolize, objectify, pretend, make believe, believe, you can't exist.
WC --- On Thu, 9/11/08, Chris Miller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > From: Chris Miller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Subject: Re: "What IS xxx?" "IS xxx a yyy?" > To: [email protected] > Date: Thursday, September 11, 2008, 2:16 PM > Of all the categories that get mentioned in aesthetics (all > those xxx's and > yyy's) --- the only two that are important are: > > 1. the things one prefers > 2. the things one doesn't > > That's what makes aesthetics different from all those > areas of human concern > where personal preferences are marginal or irrelevant. > > Aesthetics is about the probity of individual judgment > rather than the > correctness of one theory or another. > > > The contents of these categories may change -- but at any > one moment, a > snapshot of them is quite real and has important > consequences (buying a ticket > to this play instead of that one) > > All the other categories that get used ("art", > "illustration", etc) are just > attempts at explanation/validation/promotion. > > Maybe some of us believe such categories have a kind of > eternal existence - > but I don't - I'm not convinced that Maurice Sendak > does - > and even our resident professor emeritus of art and art > theory doesn't seem to > take them all that seriously. > > > > > ____________________________________________________________ > Lower your debt by up to 50%. Click here to find out how. > http://thirdpartyoffers.netzero.net/TGL2231/fc/Ioyw6ijmNX0MTNtMrEVDiyhar6Un3T > nEhmiC0zNMBS4jeBXAeQAJ3u/
