Hi Keith and Ray:
Here's another example of my not knowing what culture is.
I always thought that culture was what we as a society value, and the
expression thereof, materially, spiritually and aesthetically. That would
include both inherited and aquired values.
Coming (oops) back to the self absorption, where is the "culture" when
there is no "we as a society"?
When the obsession with the self negates any remaining culture. We attend
an orchestra performance as an audience that has values in common, at least
with others who attend, as a social social function.
A major problem arises when the admission cannot be $ afforded by those who
would attend. It is akin to those who cannot afford the time to become
informed as to the issues in order to express their ballot and participate
in the democratic process. Democracy is just too expensive. Except for
those whose admission is spaid for by the public purse, and when the
performance subsidised, provided it conformes to the requirements of the
ruling elite.
Where then can we find the expression of the culture of which the masses
are the owners.
The culture of the poor is bread, that of the wealthy is circuses.
Amen?
Ed G
At 03:12 PM 13/04/2001 +0100, you wrote:
>Hi Ray,
>
>At 10:58 12/04/01 -0400, you wrote:
>>Gee Keith,
>>
>>I wrote a post about economics and business and you wrote one about
>>aesthetics.
>>That is alright but you didn't answer a single thing that I said. Why not?
>>Were you making a parallel? I even gave references in the economic
>>literature. You are giving me opinion.
>
>Wow! You charge me with changing the subject of your message of 12 April
>from economics to aesthetics and yet you did this yourself in your original
>first paragraph!
>
>Consider it again:
><<<<
>(REH)
>Welcome to the world of "neo-liberal" economics. Economist William
>Baumol first documented the productivity lag issue in 1966. It even has
>a name in economic circles. It is called Baumol's disease and it is much
>worse than mad cow or hoof and mouth. There is no cure and the whole
>culture dies.
>>>>>
>
>Yes, you mention an economist. But then you write "and the whole culture
>dies." So you're bringing aesthetics straight away by making an assumption
>as to what "culture" is!
>
>My definition is a democratic one (that is, culture is what the people
>want); yours is an elitist one (that is, culture is what the people ought
>to want).
>
>Culture is, of course, impossible to define, but whatever it is, Stephen
>Spengler was surely right when he wrote "[Culture] . . . suddenly hardens,
>it mortifies, its blood congeals, its force breaks down . . ." ("Decline of
>the West").
>
>Your "culture" is a congealed one; my "culture" is a living one -- that is,
>it's the culture that's all around us. I don't like it any more than you
>do and, in time, it too will congeal, but for the time being I don't feel
>that I should judge the masses by my own predilections.
>
>So let me move on and discuss one or two further points from your longer
>piece:
>
><<<<
>(REH)
>Unless there is an answer outside the private enterprise zone. For example
>we could return to Aristocracy where only the landed folks vote and they pay
>for the performances as in times past.
>>>>>
>
>But you haven't met my point that all "high" art arose exactly from the
>patronage of the rich.This can be traced right up until, say, a hundred
>years ago. It was only when the bourgeousie wanted to become the new
>aristocracy, or the artist wanted to be an entrepreneur, that whole process
>started clotting. There's been a conspiracy ever since when they've fooled
>everybody (everybody except the broad masses, of course).
>
>Francois Gilot (in "life with Picasso") let the cat out of the bag when she
>reported Picasso's pillow talk -- that he thought the whole of
>post-Impressionist art (including his own) to be a laugh at the expense of
>the stupid collectors.
>
>-----> cut to
>
><<<<
>(REH)
>Your observations certainly seems to bear out the Communist claim since the
>demise of the Soviets has removed any reason for serious arts funding by the
>intelligence community.
>>>>>
>
>Actually, the situation in Moscow currently favours your argument, not
>mine. My friends in Moscow tell me that since '92 there has been a
>flowering of the arts there -- over 250 theatres, for example, with music,
>poetry and art bursting out all over (an exhibition of skinned human body
>parts, for example). I happen to think this is a temporary phenomenon as
>they attempt to catch up with Western cultural norms (that is, the current
>madness of the intelligentsia), but no matter.
>
><<<<
>(REH)
> So military socialism defeated communist
>socialism in European Art but the free market is incapable of solving the
>Baumol disease dilemma. Baumol has also traced it into the other public
>sectors like health, education, religion etc. In other words, anything
>with an intellectual capital public goods side to it is trapped in
>Capitalism and dies a slow death as the public abandons it due to its costs.
>>>>>
>
>But, Ray, although the public have enjoyed the arts of the past, most of
>them have been too poor to pay for it. It's always been the rich. It so
>happens that the rich of today broadly patronise projects such as malaria
>research or education rather than the arts.
>
>>>>>
>(REH)
>Taylorist "science" made the "dumb worker" the ideal . . .
>>>>>
>
>He certainly didn't! The workers he studied could have been dumb, or could
>have been intelligent -- who knows? -- but what Taylorism studied was
>efficiency. At the end of the day, Taylorism led to automation and a vast
>decrease in the number of "dumb workers" required.
>
>>>>>
>(REH)
>. . . while small ensembles
>playing basic harmonies over and over with complicated texts that are cheap
>to hire and that technology makes it run for the simple cost of the
>electricity are the ideal productivity for commercial music. These are
>the issues as I have said ad infinitum on this list and others. That it
>costs as much today to pay an orchestra as it did in 1900. Everyone
>else's wages have gone down and the product has limited seating and the
>orchestra still costs 4 to 8 dollars a second. A rock band is five
>musicians and kills your ears so you don't care. The loudest noise in 19th
>century Europe was distant cannons. There is some hope in that the
>electronic media's cost, like TV and the movies, has gone up faster then the
>live music recently but that is probably a fluke. I would suggest that
>you take another look at state support for public goods industries that have
>values outside of simple profit and loss. Read Justin Lewis Art Culture &
>Enterprise (in the UK) Routledge. The day of big government and big
>private enterprise will return and the little guy will not be tied to
>private enterprise. Democratic government supported by an informed
>population is the only answer.
>>>>>
>
>The public goods industry that I am most acquainted with at present is the
>National Health Service in the UK. It took five months to establish that I
>had prostate cancer because I had to attend a series of tests which the
>hospital could only arrange at five or six week intervals. They could all
>have been done in one day quite easily. I had a flow test last week. It
>took a minute. Then I had to drink a gallon of lime cordial in the waiting
>room and an hour later took another one. There was another chap there also
>doing flow tests. But he had to wait while I finished. So a highly-paid
>specialist nurse sat around in her own office all morning doing, at the
>most, 5 minutes' work. I'm not blaming her -- that's the system. That's
>what happens when you have publicly-funded organisations. Protective
>practices of all sorts have a field day. The typical budget for an opera at
>the publicly-funded Royal Opera House costs tens of millions of pounds,
>when it could be done for a tenth of the cost.
>
><<<<<
>(REH)
>The process of art is
>Perception>Virtuosity>Intuition = Art. Its complexity is relative to the
>sophistication of the composer and his audience. So just like IBM, Art
>must have consumers with a willingness to learn its abstractions. People
>who participate in the artistic process carry that "built" intuitive process
>creatively into other professions. That is why the best Doctor is called
>an "artist" at healing and often plays a musical instrument.
>
>How long did the followers of Ptolemy tinker before they just gave up the
>system? They did eventually give it up not because it failed but because
>it took too much to make it work and then it didn't make common sense.
>Modern neo-liberal economics has eliminated so many of the reasons that we
>consider life to have meaning that it is amazing that it is still here.
>People like Friedman and Weber are praised for their genius but the world
>they inhabit is barren. Why would a genius want to live in such a world?
>Either he's emotionally ill or he is not a genius, just clever like a
>savant.
>
>And welcome to the world that Harry Pollard and I have been arguing about
>for several years except he is wrong. Like the internet music freaks,
>he thinks its just choice. The only way it gets out to the public is if
>the musicians are amateur or have another job and pay for it themselves.
>We call that Vanity Press in the real world. So where is the Future of
>Work folks? What are those 40% with no jobs going to be doing? Lying
>around at home, making babies and demanding "their fair share." How about
>paying them to grow and make art? Develop the quality of life for the
>WHOLE society.
>>>>>
>
>I agree with the sentiment in broad outline. But what is the "art" that
>they are supposed to make. I suspect it is the "art" that you define, not
>what they define.
>
>You ask: "What are those 40% with no jobs going to be doing?" But surely,
>ever since this FW list has been in existence, and despite this constant
>refrain from thos who believe in the "lump of labour" theory, new jobs have
>been created as fast as old jobs have been destroyed. It's true that all
>sorts of imbalances have been created in the process, but this is because
>the schools and universities are, in the main, many years behind in
>supplying the appropriate skills. (This is why there has been a massive
>growth in company universities -- over 5,000 of them in the USA alone, I
>believe.)
>
>Yes, indeed,"Develop the quality of life for the WHOLE society." I couldn't
>agree more. And that means decent schools and appropriate training of
>skills for everyone. Then they can more easily get a job in changing times
>(and get paid a decent going rate). Then they've got some money in their
>pockets and some care-free spare time. Then they'll (voluntarily) decided
>on what culture they want. But it won't necessarily be what you might think
>is best for them.
>
>Keith Hudson
>
>
>___________________________________________________________________
>
>Keith Hudson, General Editor, Calus <http://www.calus.org>
>6 Upper Camden Place, Bath BA1 5HX, England
>Tel: +44 1225 312622; Fax: +44 1225 447727;
>mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>________________________________________________________________________
>
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