Well, I've long had the view that Tocqueville basically nailed it in his observations on Democracy in America. He was an aristocratic type and he was more interested in America as a case study for France and especially for avoiding the pitfalls of populist, direct democracy. If American government has clumsily skipped over the trap of direct democracy, that is not the case with the arts where populism reigns supreme despite the skimpy protective veil of the InstitutionalTheory. I don't know what a remedy might be for the utter dissolution of art as a concept in our era. I do think that most of what goes for art is now fully encapsulated and therefore defined by market thinking so that art is nothing more or less than home decor. If so why do we have so much discourse about it? Where's the discourse on chairs or dishes as if they were worthy of the deepest intellectual effort? Answer: Antique Roadshow. Or the new game show like The Next Great Artist and similar populist festivals. I want to be open and non-judgmental when it comes to the propositional nature of artmaking and discourse and that means I must consider the gravitas of Tocqueville's admiring but yet frightful insights. For example, what can be more perspicacious than his comment, "America is the land of religious insanity". wc
----- Original Message ---- From: joseph berg <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Sat, October 30, 2010 4:42:36 AM Subject: Re: REFINE SEARCH FUNCTIONALITY On Fri, Feb 26, 2010 at 5:41 AM, William Conger <[email protected]>wrote: > As you people work out the search functions, none of which I had heard of > before and didn't realize existed, I am wondering what past advice of mine > Miller is looking for. I'm full of good advice, naturally, even when it > isn't respectable. For instance, I am toying with the idea that the role of > art and aesthetics in our democratic culture is doomed to mediocracy and > vulgarity. Art and the ideas of beauty really belong to an aristocratic, if > not despotic, culture. The leveling forces of democracy drag down standards > of excellence, rarity, intellectual refinement to conform to the broad and > mostly utilitarian, pragmatic, and sensationalized tastes of a commercial, > expedient, sentimental mob. By and large the literature of a democracy will never exhibit the order, regularity, skill, and art characteristic of aristocratic literature; formal qualities will be neglected or actually despised. The style will often be strange, incorrect, overburdened, and loose, and almost always strong and bold. Writers will be more anxious to work quickly than to perfect details. Short works will be commoner than long books, wit than erudition, imagination than depth. There will be a rude and untutored vigor of thought with great variety and singular fecundity. Authors will strive to astonish more than to please, and to stir passions rather than to charm taste. Alexis de Tocqueville quotes<http://thinkexist.com/quotes/alexis_de_tocqueville/>
