arlo:
On Fri, Jul 11, 2014 at 11:54 AM, ARLO JAMES BENSINGER JR <[email protected]> wrote: > [John] > Maybe my problem with Pirsig's lack of intellectualizing about art is just > this: Art shouldn't be intellectualized. > > [Arlo] > I'm not sure what you meant to say above, but this is contradictory. If > "art shouldn't be intellectualized", why would Pirsig's "lack of > intellectualizing about art" be a problem? > Jc: What I mean is that I had a false problem - Art should not be intellectualized and the MOQ is an intellectual system, therefore my seeking a place for art in the MOQ was barking up a wrong tree. > > This would make sense (logically) if you removed "lack of" from the > statement, but then the only solution would be for Pirsig to have never > written either book (assuming by "intellectualizing" you mean talking about > it at all). Could Pirsig have written either ZMM or LILA without any > intellectual treatment of art? Or Zen? Or Dynamic Quality? Obviously, > trying to unite the S/O-duality of separating "classical" and "romantic" > thinking required Pirsig to address both. And of course Pirsig was, > himself, aware of the inherent degeneracy of a metaphysics with a central > undefined term. But, again, the solution would be...? Would you have > preferred he did not write the books? > > Jc: Don't be silly, Arlo. Thinking about things is a good thing. Even when I'm wrong its better to think and be corrected later than to not think at all. Arlo: > Nonetheless, I don't think Pirsig ever 'intellectualizes' art. What he > does is bring the artistic impulse, the high-quality endeavor, back into > the domain of everyday lived experience. He rescues 'art' from the museums > and the walled gardens of elitism by showing how 'art' is lived Quality. > Jc: I agree. Arlo: > > In his essay "What is art?", Tolstoy writes: "Art is a human activity > consisting in this, that one man consciously, by means of certain external > signs, hands on to others feelings he has lived through, and that other > people are infected by these feelings and also experience them." > > Broadly, for Tolstoy, "art" is (high-quality), deliberate, communicative > endeavor, but bear in mind that this endeavor is historical, becoming a > "relationship both with him who produced, or is producing, the art, and > with all those who, simultaneously, previously, or subsequently, receive > the same artistic impression." > > Notice that for Tolstoy (as with Pirsig), the appreciation (or recognition > of the 'art-act/object') is inherently personal, it is between the > 'interlocutors' in the art-dialogue, it is not a 'stamp' placed on an > object by a committee, nor is it restricted to certain domains of "external > signs". > Jc: But communication is more than personal. Who communicates with himself? If Art is communicative, then some other must be intended, no? Arlo: > > And I think there is a world of difference between (1) intellectualizing > art, (2) intellectualizing about art, (3) intellectualizing artfully (or > maybe 'artisizing intellect'). The first reduces 'art' to an intellectual > pattern. The second seeks to understand what we mean when we say 'art'. The > third results from an understanding that 'intellectualizing' can be as > artful as painting or dancing. In every case, though, its impossible to > even use the term 'art' if it isn't "intellectualized" to some degree, no? > If we use the word, we have to have at least a rudimentary shared > understanding as to what the word means, don't we? > Jc: Yes and I think this is where I got off track. By trying to figure out what it is, I tried to fit into an intellectual pigeonhole. I owe kudos to Dan for reminding me of an important point - the 4 levels are a mapping of experience; the 4 levels are not experience. I guess I forgot that because I've been arguing with Bodvar for so long and he sses that as SOM (subjective idea about external reality) but that's not it at all. Mapping is thee intellectual endeavor. It's unavoidable. The problem comes in when you think you either have a map that is the territory, or you think such a thing is possible. Pirsig didn't create the perfect map, he merely created the best one. Arlo: > > Last point about Tolstoy's essay, which I think is still relevant today > (and echoes, IMO, the central theme of ZMM): "Art, in our society, has been > so perverted that not only has bad art come to be considered good, but even > the very perception of what art really is has been lost. In order to be > able to speak about the art of our society, it is, therefore, first of all > necessary to distinguish art from counterfeit art." > > What art really is, cannot be defined, except badly. Art can't be defined. Art can only be experienced. Art IS Quality. Thanks Arlo, all I need is a bit of patience and I'll get there eventually. JohnC Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org/md/archives.html
