Greetings Platt,
Why is this concern, making art a cultural matter, of interest, when from ZMM:
"I think that if we are going to reform the world, and make it a
better place to live in, the way to do it is not with talk about
relationships of a political nature, which are inevitably dualistic,
full of subjects and objects and their relationship to one another;
or with programs full of things for other people to do. I think that
kind of approach starts it at the end and presumes the end is the
beginning. Programs of a political nature are important end products
of social quality that can be effective only if the underlying
structure of social values is right. The social values are right only
if the individual values are right. The place to improve the world is
first in one's own heart and head and hands, and then work outward
from there. Other people can talk about how to expand the destiny of
mankind. I just want to talk about how to fix a motorcycle. I think
that what I have to say has more lasting value."
(ZMM,Chapter 25)
Marsha
At 08:46 AM 6/25/2009, you wrote:
All:
In Chapter 22 of Lila, Pirsig laments the lack of quality in modern life:
"In the time that Phaedrus grew up, intellect was dominant over
society, but the results of the new social looseness weren't turning out as
predicted. Something was wrong. The world was no doubt in better
shape intellectually and technologically but despite that, somehow, the
"quality" of it was not good. There was no way you could say why this
quality was no good. You just felt it."
An essay by Roger Scruton entitled "Beauty and Desecration"
explains as well as anything I've read "why this quality was no good."
The following excerpt suggests where to look for the answer:
"But why is beauty a value? It is an ancient view that truth, goodness
and beauty cannot, in the end, conflict. Maybe the degeneration of
beauty into kitsch comes precisely from the postmodern loss of
truthfulness, and with it the loss of moral direction. That is the message
of such early modernists as Eliot, Barber and Stevens, and it is a
message we need to listen to."
Scruton traces the change in art from a goal of attaining beauty "as a
way in which lasting moral and spiritual values acquire sensuous form"
to art that aimed to "disturb, subvert, or transgress moral certainties."
Scruton concludes, "We should take a lesson from this kind of
(artistic) desecration: in attempting to show our human ideals are
worthless, it shows itself to be worthless. And when something shows
itself to be worthless, it is time to throw it way."
Seems to me that is also a message from the MOQ.
For Scruton's essay, please go to:
http://www.city-journal.org/2009/19_2_beauty.html
Regards,
Platt
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