If we can't take seriously that morality is byproduct of process of societal formation - its evolution, than we can't take anything seriously what follows mechanisms of adaptation.
Boris Shoshensky To: [email protected] Subject: Re: "Is today's [art?] irrelevant?" Date: Mon, 27 Dec 2010 13:04:19 -0800 (PST) Your comment is OK but it can't be taken seriously as a philosophical position that withstands analysis. For instance, there are many cases where a moral act would fulfills your aim "to preserve human society" but is considered harmful by others, or even does harm others while helping one or a few. In addition, what distinguishes the abstract term society from the individual? We know society refers to a collective group or culture that has some traits or values in common but what of the concrete reality of an individual person who may honestly, thoughtfully, be at odds with those societal values? Clearly, we have an abundance of examples at hand that hang on the dilemma of "preserving human society" according to some abstract values and preserving the "individual" benefits, or moral good. Commonly, serving one, ill suits the other. As for art preserving the human society by means of offering delight I am of course in agreement to the extent that some easily agreed to cases are evident. But what of those other agreed upon examples of great art that neither don't seem to preserve human society though symbols nor offer any delight? Does a morbid crucifixion scene offer delight? How does a battle scene with all its gruesome detail preserve human life? I suppose there are better examples than these to be found everywhere, not to mention those examples where destruction of an enemy's life is glorified as art. This vexing issue that puts the pleasure of the senses on one side and the implied content of the subject on the other side -- sometimes in agreement but often not -- has been at the center of aesthetics debate for a long time. The art for art's sake concept, the formalist view -- tried to settle the issue by claiming that the properties of form, like line, color, etc., can delight the mind, and ought to in great art even if the subject and content is repulsive or immoral in nature. But then the same advocates of the art for art's sake concept like to claim a difficult and mysterious embodiment of content in form because if there is no necessary relationship of the two in the artwork, then why try to put them together? Why not just center on delighting the senses or, separately, saying something that repulses the moral mind? Finally, you want to join the abstraction of "society" with the equally abstract notions of "preserving humans" and "delight" and implications that these abstractions constitute some form of content and morality. It can be very vague once we go past the everyday use of the terms and subject them to scrutiny. And then, to cap it all off with a completely odd expression, you say "to me" asserting your individual authority as the trump card, so to speak, contradicting your claim that "preserving society" is the goal. How can that be a goal if its validity depends on an individual's opinion? What if "society" disagrees? Troubling, troubling. Everyday -- folk philosophy -- expressions of belief and received opinions get us through casual conversations, I suppose, but they rarely (I except Montaigne and Mark Twain) survive the first seriously analytical critique. wc ----- Original Message ---- From: Boris Shoshensky <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Mon, December 27, 2010 10:47:04 AM Subject: Re: "Is today's [art?] irrelevant?" Moral, for me, is any human action that helps to preserve human society. I think art plays this role by giving us mental and physiological state of delight. Boris Shoshensky To: [email protected] Subject: Re: "Is today's [art?] irrelevant?" Date: Fri, 24 Dec 2010 17:05:09 -0800 (PST) I don't know what spiritual means. It's a word that can't stand alone but requires a developed theory and whatever theory is proposed also lacks a theory. I think Kant meant moral as a substitute for spiritual and he excludes the moral from the category of the aesthetic. wc ----- Original Message ---- From: "[email protected]" <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Fri, December 24, 2010 2:28:35 PM Subject: Re: "Is today's [art?] irrelevant?" No specific spiritual purpose? Wouldn't a specific spiritual purpose what Kant did not want? And a hazy blurry spiritual purpose also be what he did not want? How would he define spiritual purpose if he used any variant of that concept? Kate Sullivan -----Original Message----- From: Boris Shoshensky <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Fri, Dec 24, 2010 1:26 am Subject: Re: "Is today's [art?] irrelevant?" It sounds like masturbatory process. Is enabling people to create contexts not enough for purpose? I read Kant differently. He meant absence of utilitarian purpose of applied art in fine art, but spiritual. Boris Shoshensky To: [email protected] Subject: Re: "Is today's [art?] irrelevant?" Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2010 14:55:00 -0800 (PST) Not at all. We give purpose to our lives. Art inspires purpose but doesn't have it. Art attracts meaning but doesn't have it. The less it has, intrinsically, the better. Since it has no purpose or relevance in itself, it enables people to create contexts. wc ----- Original Message ---- From: Boris Shoshensky <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Thu, December 23, 2010 10:51:26 AM Subject: Re: "Is today's [art?] irrelevant?" It is sad to know that our careers have no purpose or value. Waisted professional lives?! Boris Shoshensky To: [email protected] Subject: Re: "Is today's [art?] irrelevant?" Date: Wed, 22 Dec 2010 21:07:54 -0800 (PST) If it's art it's irrelevant. Art, as the aesthetic, has no purpose and value. WC ----- Original Message ---- From: joseph berg <[email protected]> To: aesthetics-l <[email protected]> Sent: Wed, December 22, 2010 7:25:01 PM Subject: "Is today's [art?] irrelevant?" Has art become like fiction" a poor relation of its ground-breaking modernist forebears?: http://www.csmonitor.com/Books/chapter-and-verse/2010/0730/Is-today-s-fiction -irrelevant
