It is my understanding that aesthetics exists between the ugliest of
the ugly and the
sublime of beauty, but to the degree of each individuals subjectiveness.
I would submit that pornography is best left inside the mind and
zippered up.
mando
On Oct 12, 2008, at 8:52 AM, William Conger wrote:
You didn't address the issue directly. It's not good enough to say
"yes" and then qualify it and then suffuse it with broad
generalities about nakedness and the "sexual dimension". Why stop
at nakedness? Any figure at all has a sexual dimension, clothed or
not, alive or not, imitated in imagery or not.
My interest is related to morality and whether or not it has an
intrinsic connection to the aesthetic. If so, one needs to
recognize the salient signals of the the moral and then approach
the aesthetic from them. If pornography is aesthetic in the broad
way you mention then I want to know if it's also moral.
Downgrading it to the purient and then to the more civil tone of
erotica doesn't help unless you can tell me where (and evidenced by
what terms "notions") the line is crossed from ammoral to moral;
that is, from unaesthetic to aesthetic.
Again, is pornography both aesthetic and moral, or are moral and
aesthetic separate concepts, not intrinsically connected?
WC
--- On Sun, 10/12/08, Michael Brady <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
From: Michael Brady <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Expertise and aesthetic experience
To: [email protected]
Date: Sunday, October 12, 2008, 8:59 AM
On Oct 11, 2008, at 4:41 PM, William Conger wrote:
So does porn qualify re aesthetic experience?
Yes, but it's overwhelmed by a kind of didactic or
sensationalizing
effect, namely, the prurient. For the most part, only a
very small
fraction of pornography is particularly noteworthy as
"literature,"
and when that happens, it's called erotica! <g>
It's really hard not to view a naked figure without the
erotic or
sexual dimension intruding itself.
Why do some religions prohibit human
representations--iconoclasm?
Because of the power of the image to draw interest to
itself and its
represented subject with its intriguing, excitatory,
prurient power.
Pornography just takes the wraps off and makes no excuses
for the
unavoidable way the portrayal of a human figure can
"be read."
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Michael Brady
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
