Some how ,in my mind , every thing that is considered good and
bad ,comes under
the umbrella of morality. and every thing that is ugly and beautiful
comes under the
umbrella of aesthetics. That line is always crossed at different
points by different
individuals and groups of individual. So,who is to judge where that
line should be line ?
If we are to evolve to that 'just' point, what will happen to the
individual.
mando
On Nov 2, 2008, at 9:15 AM, Michael Brady wrote:
On Oct 12, 2008, at 11:52 AM, William Conger wrote:
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.
I think you've trapped me with the equivalence of "moral" and
"aesthetic." Jean Annouilh has Henry II observe of Beckett, "I
think with him, it [morality] is a question of
aesthetics." [paraphrase] And I've said elsewhere that art
moralizes nature, that is, it organizes our sensory perceptions and
representations with rules and directives. Morality (and ethics) is
a social code that promotes certain behavior and discourages other.
I do not believe that the aesthetic force or aspect of art itself
leads to moral behavior, or the converse. Morality addresses
(describes, codifies) right behavior whereas aesthetics addresses
good form. (See Maritain on that for a long explanation of the
quality of the artwork made by an immoral maker.) In fact, I do not
believe that as a necessary condition, there is a didactic or
ennobling end for art, beyond its own high quality--although art
has often, even usually, been made with a social purpose in mind.
Most art that I've seen is of the "oh, look at this" kind, rather
than "this is how you should [should not] live."
Pornography is specifically sexual, about sexual arousal and
portrayals. The immorality of pornography, according to most
doctrinal and even therapeutic commentators, is that it exalts
selfish sexual gratification above the shared experience of sexual
embrace with another person. Not merely that it's fruitless
(masturbation), but that it is devoid of human love for a partner.
(This doesn't take into account the moral context of the actors and
producers of the porn films and pictures, just the watcher. Their
moral state is a separate issue about instrumentality, the proper
ends of a behavior, and the perverting of those ends.)
Visual perceptions have a strong power to bypass the scrutiny of
verbal intelligence and imprint a memory that is hard to reshape.
Moreover, some sights (visual perceptions) are profoundly strong
and attractive, as are smells, tastes, touches, and sounds. These
sensations are primordial and almost impossible to disempower. It
is a significant property of the "arts" that they are able to
deceive the senses by simulation. Pictures resemble their models to
one degree or other (ask the crow in the story of Zeuxis and
Parrhasius).
The fear of images that Puritans and other iconoclasts feared
images because the believed that art beguiles with its fine
appearances and leads innocents away from virtue. The response to
those outbreaks of iconoclasm was the counter-assertion that art
leads the illiterate and others to truth by way of depicting noble
and high moral scenes. Pope Gregory the Great makes just that
argument, as recorded in Bede. And the reason Plato wanted to
prohibit artists in the Republic was that art was a deceit;
Socrates was condemned for scandalizing the youth by promoting
wrong ways of thinking.
In the cultural history of the Christian West, the Counter-
Reformation art fought the Protestant spirit with grand works that
drew in the faithful with awe, imperiousness, and blandishments. It
was the beginning of propaganda (literally: the Catholic church
established the Congretatio de Propaganda Fide, the Congregation
for the Propagation of the Faith), although the practice of using
images, songs, constructions, sculptures, spectacle, to elevate the
leader before the public goes back into time immemorial.
Thus, art--aesthetics--can be (is) subservient to morality.
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Michael Brady
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
