Wednesday, November 07, 2007
Something to Live and Die For
Post contents to be reposted.
Comments
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Another masterpiece!
On the subject of “lovliness” I’ve personally struggled with the concept of beauty in art. I’ve concluded that 90% of “art” in any genre is crap, always has been, always will be. The reason the great art of the past survived (Mozart, Michelangelo, Shakespeare etc) is because it’s in that top 10%. For every David there’s nine scuptures fit to use as boat anchors, for every Sonnet there’s nine poems not fit to put in a cheap greeting card. When I listen to music I ask myself “Will this be around in 100 years?” and nine times out of ten I doubt it’ll be around next month.
Mark D | 11/7/2007 09:45 AM CDT -
we always come back around to “who decides”? A short time ago, we had some “discussion” about places to vacation, and Mrs. dT elaborated on why she enjoys cities so much (culture, etc). I find, on the other hand, the greatest beauty in nature, rather than in human endeavors.
As Mark commented, much of what others call art won’t survive. It’s only around today because “progressives” force us to support what THEY determine is art ... usually what I determine is crap (sometimes, apparently, lterally).
Not that I dislike art ... I have great admiration for those who have the skill and termperament to make paintings that can be mistaken for photographs (like my favorite - Robert Bateman).
Ugliness ... now there we likely have little disagreement ... that’s something our “progressive” establishments seem to embrace with glee. They seem to have adopted the “emporers new clothes” philosophy as their mantra.I think your idea is very worthwhile, but, how do we implement it? It appears that more than 90% of the higher education establishment (and damn near 100% of the government school monopoly) is firmly is the far, far left camp ... how do you go about turning that around?
Other than my favored method of summary execution for “progressives”?
pete in Midland | 11/7/2007 12:39 PM CDT -
Where modern society has gone all wrong is in glorifying the mundane. The belief that all opinions, beliefs, people, works of art, etc are of equal value. We no longer encourage people to succeed, to create beauty, to act and be beautiful, as it is more important for everyone to be commonly low than for any to be uncommonly high.
To settle for this is to treat our freedom with contempt.
My one goal in life, for the forseeable future, is to instill in my children a sense of where we as a culture have come from and where we are going, the ability to appreciate beauty in all it’s forms, and a constant effort toward excellence. If I succeed in this, my life will not have been in vain.
American Farmer | 11/7/2007 01:00 PM CDT -
There is no risk of Barbarians at the gates when we are nothing more than Barbarians ourselves. We must choose better and exercise a wholesome discretion in favor of beauty, in all things.
That, and only that, is something worth living and dying for.
I would die for my family and my soldiers. Thats it. If burning the Louve to the ground and pissing on the ashes would keep my son or one of my E-4’s alive I would do it in a heartbeat and sleep quite soundly on the ashes.
We no longer encourage people to succeed, to create beauty, to act and be beautiful, as it is more important for everyone to be commonly low than for any to be uncommonly high.
Have you spend any time at scientific meetings? sporting events? National Labs? A battlefield?
These are the places that success and only success matters. The week are ruthless removed.
Dbltap | 11/7/2007 04:26 PM CDT -
Have you spend any time at scientific meetings? sporting events? National Labs? A battlefield?
Heh. Yes, believe it or not, I have.
These are the places that success and only success matters. The week are ruthless removed.
It was this reason, among others, that made me choose to leave it. No sense of perspective, and no sense of humanity.
American Farmer | 11/7/2007 05:45 PM CDT -
Mark D, you’re right...but it doesn’t matter. It is the pursuit of loveliness, the pursuit of excellence in all its forms, that is the foundation of greatness.
Today, there is a distinct subculture that glories in ignorance and tawdriness. It cuts across both Left and Right, and I would argue that it is more prevalent on the Left than on the Right. Conservatives may have a utilitarian streak, but we are not the sort of people who plunge a crucifix into a jar of urine and call it “Art”. No, our tastes, however uneducated, at least can discriminate between true excellence and simple shock.
But I think that Madame duToit has reiterated a greater truth - that Duty must make a comeback. Duty is something that much of the modern world has lost. They are adrift in a sea of hedonism. Their lives may be powered by ambition, but without the compass of Duty, they sail in useless circles.
And perhaps that is how we can counter the Left. Raise the standard of Duty, and we offer direction to the rudderless - and can sail clear of the shoal waters in which we find ourselves.
Mike of the Duelling Pistols | 11/7/2007 06:01 PM CDT -
My husband and I were just talking about this the other day. About how there was so much demand for *things* right now that there wasn’t enough talent to create enough *stuff* to fill the demand. And therefore we get horrible mediocrity.
(I think it came up because we were listening to gorgeous music—paganini or bach or someone) and he kept talking about how beautiful it was. And I had to point out why. (Let’s see… the composer had talent. The musicians have talent. The singer had talent—most singers today don’t even know how to hit the notes! And so forth.)
I can hit the notes, yet I don’t think I’m a very good singer at all.... I’m amazed by people who think they are great singers without even the ability I have.
silvermine | 11/7/2007 06:49 PM CDT -
Loveliness itself is pretty subjective. What I find lovely, others find distracting or hopelessly tedious, or impossible to understand. Snobbery-as you call it- is, I think, just a tendency to gravitate toward what you like, with less and less tolerance for the inevitable crap.
og | 11/7/2007 08:55 PM CDT -
AF-
No disrespect intended in my question, sorry if came across as such.
My point was if you quest for the best you need to place yourself with those that can produce it.
Thanks to my several occupational hats I get to see, talk to and a times befriend those on the bleeding edge of cancer cure, not treatment but cure, they are the 1r;s of the world of science. To my mind those folks make every artist that ever lived, well, not that important.
I get the same feeling when I see and 18 year old kid hold his own in a battle not of his making on a foreign battle field. Where do we find these guys and how am I soooo damn lucky to know them and their stories?
The volunteer fire fighter who pulls himself out of bed at 0300 to go into a burning building leaving his wife and kids at home in bed has far more of my respect than every architect that ever lived.
They are the ones that allow beauty to exist.
dbltap | 11/7/2007 10:53 PM CDT -
We’ve danced around this subject before, and I do not want to get into the same discussions again, or talk past each other… however!
No, it is not being attracted to something YOU like. Loveliness has an objective standard.
It is the idea that greatness is in the eye of the beholder that got us to nonsense that morality is in the eye of the beholder, too. No, some things, such as the definition of good/evil are fixed. We don’t get to make them up or revise them as we go along.
Who would decide? Those who have a clue!
The problem is that far too many people who have no clue, who haven’t taken the time (or put forth ANY effort at all) think that because they like something or find it “pretty” that it is “good” by any reasonable objective standard.
The idea that art criticism is personal is crazy… as in bat shit crazy.
You may not want to have a particular painting hanging behind your sofa, but that doesn’t make it good or bad. THAT is where your preferences (likes and dislikes) comes into play.
“Like” and “art criticism” are not in the same ballpark.
Would you ask a 5 year old the brakes on your car needed to be replaced? Would you ask that same 5 year old to act as coroner and state a cause of death (or even declare if someone was dead or alive)?
But we do that sort of thing with art and don’t see it as nuts.
You have to STUDY art to understand and appreciate it, and before that study is begun you don’t have a say about what is good or bad.
It has nothing to do with what is popular or what is liked.
If you can spend days with the Mona Lisa and then explain why it is the greatest painting ever painted and can articulate why it is not in the same league as an Art Linkletter clown painting, THEN your opinion begins to have value. But not before then.
The problem is that we never even get to that point. We can’t get to first base. We’re too busy arguing about whether we should even care that there are paintings or art of any kind, rather than learning to understand and appreciate it.
Western Civilization is not about survival or protecting your own. That is Barbarism. We are beyond the first level of the Hierarchy of Needs. You aren’t a “civilization” if you’re still at the first level.
I’m describing the saving of CIVILIZATION and folks talk about saving their own.
Geesh.
OK, I realize that folks may not think they have a dog in this fight and don’t think it is important to salvage what we have left of civilization. Great. Fine. Have that opinion.
But would you mind terribly getting out of my way so I can do it?
Mrs. du Toit | 11/8/2007 12:17 AM CDT -
I’m describing the saving of CIVILIZATION and folks talk about saving their own.
I am guessing that that was directed partly at me, if not my apologies.
My OWN make up WS, if they die, it matters not one whit what else happens. Not an artist, nor composer who has ever lived is more important to me than my family or my soldiers. If that makes me a barbarian I wear the title with honor.
Please continue to revel in beauty, paintings and books others will try and ensure that you head remains uncovered and attached while your pursue that nobel goal.
Dbltap | 11/8/2007 02:10 AM CDT -
Whatever gave you the idea that those who appreciate civilization wouldn’t fight to protect it?
American Farmer | 11/8/2007 07:07 AM CDT -
It is interesting/ironic that the Louvre came up specifically.
When the Nazis were heading to Paris (before the great surrender), all of the art pieces in the Louvre disappeared.
When Paris was liberated they were returned.
People did risk their lives for what was contained therein. I would have done the same.
See Monument Men.
Mrs. du Toit | 11/8/2007 07:18 AM CDT -
Indeed.
What we have now as the late great Jeff Cooper explained in an essay is the Age of the Common Man. On its face, this sounds wonderful, but as Cooper suggested there are some drawbacks. One EVERYTHING is available to EVERYONE by government fiat, we lose a bit of that drive to be great.
The problem, IMHO, of this age, is that everything devolves to the lowest common denominator. That is how we went from Mozart, to Glenn Miller to the Rolling Stone and now to Britney Spears and her foul ilk that promulgate rap. Now I have no problem with pop music, just where we have finally wound up.
As society continues to cater to the lowest and most base elements, and is indeed mandated to do so by the force of law, its no wonder why or how it got course.
Achilles | 11/8/2007 08:13 AM CDT -
Great post Connie--(I got here from Kim’s site). It’s amazing what one can learn at 6:00 am with a cup of coffee in one hand and a mouse in the other.
Anyhow, this whole post reminds me of a great line from a decidedly upper-crust friend of mine, which was absolutely true.
“I’m not a snob. I really *am* better than most of these people.”
Hurricane Mikey | 11/8/2007 08:26 AM CDT -
I can’t argue that certain things have an objective beauty- but I can- and will- argue, and prove, if necesary, that some things that are lovely to one are not to another. Nobody with an active brain cell will question that the Mona Lisa is a painting of unparallelled beauty. A lot of people would make the case that the Picasso in Daley Plaza is a hideous pile of scrap iron.
Demonstrably, Gottleib Daimler’s guided fuel injector is an elegant, efficient, and lovely design, which is vital to the advance of civilization, and will continue to be so for many many years. I find it unspeakably beautiful, and I know many others do also. Likewise, the John Moses Browning design of the Remington 242 Speedmaster is, to me, and a lot of other people, a design which brings a lump to the throat. Yes, loveliness is subjective, because things I find lovely others do not, and if I’m a philistine because I don’t find some things lovely that are “supposed” to be lovely, then I will bare my hindquaters for the “Philistine” brand gladly. I’m always amused by the “artist” types who disdain machinery because it’s “Just Machinery. Leonardo understood: Art and engineering are irretrievably intertwined.
og | 11/8/2007 08:30 AM CDT -
Art and engineering are irretrievably intertwined
But they are not ALWAYS intertwined. Knowing then they are the same, and of equal value, to paraphrase… makes all the difference.
I shall attempt to explain in a new post the dilemma you describe.
Mrs. du Toit | 11/8/2007 08:45 AM CDT -
We’re still at the “who decides” stage ... exactly where is this loveliness standard and who created it? Where did they get their clue ... and I won’t buy gazing at a single painting (or a dozen) for 3 years and making that determination.
By the way, while I wouldn’t ask a 5 year old whether the brakes needed replcing, I could easily find you 3 master mechanics with 3 different opinions on the same set of brakes. Does that make any of them, or any two of them, wrong? Art critics have given us all sorts of stuff that I do not believe will stand the test of time ...
(hope I’m not trying your patience too much)Dbltap ... I work with a whole lot of scientists, mostly chemists and chemical engineers, and I can tell you that politics can easily count for as much as success. Many successes are uneconomic or meaningless and therefore trashcanned. Some success counts, and some politics counts more ... oftimes getting published is more important than getting it right. Even in science, human nature intrudes.
I’m currently 10 months into a 5 year project in which it is appearing, more and more, that the process is what counts ... not success ... and the process is slowly making sure success is not an option.
pete in Midland | 11/8/2007 08:49 AM CDT -
Dbltap,
If you ordered the burning of the Louvre, you should be tried before a Court Martial, and shot. If your chain of comand failed to do so, they should be tried for crimes against humanity, and hanged.
fast richard | 11/8/2007 09:00 AM CDT -
But they are not ALWAYS intertwined.
Correct, indeed. If they were, what a freakish world it would be.
And I don’t know that it’s a dilemma, just an observation. And it comes down to the differences between people: Some love to shoot, some don’t. Some love machines, some don’t. it doesn’t make you wrong, or less, it just makes you different.
You have mentioned in the past that you disdain museums. I’m right with you on most of them, but- for instance- the Henry Ford in Detroit. I LOVE that place, because it is the definitive museum of the American Industrial Revolution. It contains a visual, tangible synopsis of the engineering advances of the last two centuries, and I find it- and the machines- (and the fact that it’s a living museum and the machines actually RUN), incredibly fascinating.
og | 11/8/2007 09:09 AM CDT -
I don’t know how to begin to speak here, since I’ve been studying this very thing for most of my life. As an architect I am constantly fighting a losing battle for loveliness at the expense of (to borrow from AF, who borrowed from Nock) economism. My loss for explanation is what kept me from commenting earlier on both your and AF’s posts. I do know that unless we quit building our world big and cheap, we’re going to end up with a whole lot of valueless nothing. Then again, pop “culture” suggests that we are on the brink of this “achievement”. It seems we’ve forgotten the taste of the sublime in art, music, literature, humanities, and even engineering. I cannot recall the last new thing that gave me even a moment’s transcendent pause, including the vast majority of my own work. Maybe we’re all too risk-averse for this business.
I wish I could compress my thinking on this subject to make a more lucid or profound comment, but I’ve spent years trying to find balance between economism and loveliness, and I’m nowhere near being able to draw lines. Suffice to say, I mostly agree with you, though I stop short of placing meaning-of-life value on loveliness. I do think we ought to place more emphasis on it than we currently do, professional biases notwithstanding--yes, I would make more money under such an arrangement.
Dr. Feelgood | 11/8/2007 09:38 AM CDT -
So here’s a question - does anyone think that we’ve lowered our standards of “loveliness”? I can’t stand to go to art museums much, because a lot of what I see there I find boring or simply blank. Yet I enjoy the works of the great masters, and even some modern artists that aren’t hanging up in a Museum of Art. Modern music is a toss-up, but I haven’t bought a CD from a modern artist in years, mainly due to the fact that I find it cheap and ugly quite a bit. But I have scads of CDs of jazz, swing, big band and classical, as well as various disks from artists I consider to be exquisite (Allison Kraus, for example). Modern dance bores me to tears, but I can enjoy the Nutcracker Suite.
If beauty has a standard, are we in modern times well below it?
Raging_Dave | 11/8/2007 09:57 AM CDT -
Og and Mrs,
I suspect Og hit the crux of this matter, which is that he is QUALIFIED to state that a certain machine is lovely or not because he understands the machine, and understands what makes it lovely. He may not be qualified to judge the loveliness of other things which some other party is qualified to judge. Og is, in effect, an expert in certain areas (guns, cars, etc). Someone else is an expert on (say) poetry, or paintings, or music, or architecture.This expertise is what’s largely lost, we’re afraid to say that someone’s artistic attempt is trash, even if it is, for fear of appearing elitist. Some half-wit produces “music” that sounds like a cat being smacked between two empty garbage cans and we have to “respect” him because he’s an “artist” instead of saying “that’s awful” and moving on.
Mark D | 11/8/2007 09:57 AM CDT -
Or am I just an old fuddy-duddy in a 30+ year old body?
(Sorry for the double post, I forgot to add this before I hit “submit")
Raging_Dave | 11/8/2007 09:58 AM CDT -
You have to STUDY art to understand and appreciate it, and before that study is begun you don’t have a say about what is good or bad.
I was certainly with you and keeping up till that line. Now I’m sort of lost.
Do you recall last year, or maybe the one before, when some well educated (I’m led to believe) of the top art critics decided that theeee number one greatest art work of the 20th century, was a urinal. And these were ppl who have studied ‘art.’ Now, perhaps technically it was a perfect painting tho I wouldn’t know. But it looked to me to be just another urinal. I make no judgement as to whether good or bad except to say it wasn’t to my taste. I couldn’t see what the judges saw but then, I didn’t attend art school.
Why would I have to study art to appreciate it? Can I not look at a painting for example, and be moved and enjoy it, without having to attend an art lecture?
Then too, what kind of looney tunes are teaching these days? What kind of folks can think that a cross in a jar of urine is anything other then exacty that and no more.
Please if I may an example and I’d bet you’ll have the same back home(USA).I wish I had a link to this, alas from a year ago. Anyway ... a young lady at art college here who had already sold some works and was beginning to make a name as I understand it, and who didn’t care for abstract paintings, was told by her teacher that what she needed to do to find her inner art self, was to stand up naked in the dark of her room and start to paint. ??
I guess it worked for him.
I know a number of artists here,who in my personal view are very good. I know my opinion may not count for much, but I do enjoy the exibits and very much appreciate and am in awe of folks who can create things that move me.
I can’t even draw a line straight using a ruler. Wish I could though.jd peiper | 11/8/2007 09:59 AM CDT -
Fasty-
If it saved my son you really think I would give a rats ass if I were to be tried? Actually made me laugh on that one, good on ya, with the strike you may be able to seek employment in Hollywood.
I have been to the Louvre, the British Museum, the British War museum, have season tickets to the ballet, go to the Symphony and the Chamber when time allows, see the Ring when it comes to town and have only missed three of the Ashland festivals in the past 10 years. Why? Because it makes my wife happy. Given my druthers I would rather be hunting, fishing, eating at a great restaurant or reading military history. I attended a school that did the “classical” or “old books” program before it became all the rage. I learned more of value in Ranger School and learning to weld.
I detect a certain undertone of both class envy, or rather lack or association, combined with an almost compulsive desire to bend history to a pre conceived notion in many of the comments here.
I live in a very wealthy area and associate, through my wife, with very wealthy people. I see more fine art at a dinner party than most see in the entire lives outside of museums. I have had private tours of both of the JPG ego halls, sooo what? The art is out there, the music is being preserved. If you choose to watch TV or movies and live in a small city or farm I can understand that you may think “all is lost” however those with the financial means are taking care of it just fine.
To imagine that the lower classes in any society at any time would not enjoy a good Britney crotch shot/melt down or the equivilant of Rap is really to silly to comment on.
I work with a whole lot of scientists, mostly chemists and chemical engineers, and I can tell you that politics can easily count for as much as success. Many successes are uneconomic or meaningless and therefore trashcanned. Some success counts, and some politics counts more ... oftimes getting published is more important than getting it right. Even in science, human nature intrudes.
Scientists are human? Damn need to send a memo this AM. At the peak of the any of the “Associations” you will find political animals, big surprise, excellence will be rewarded in science, IF it has value.
Dbltap | 11/8/2007 10:10 AM CDT -
Oh, how to I reply to this one without sounding either narcissitic or like a total @$$?
Here goes.
Beauty is intrinsic, but not always recognizable by all. To ME, a finely-crafted piece of software can be incredibly beautiful (which leaves out 99% of what comes out of Redmond WA, even though I use their stuff daily and will continue to do so, and that’s the name of THAT tune, period, end of conversation for THIS posting!).
A well-written story, such as Kim’s Vienna Days, is something that I actually wanted to cry over (Connie, please smack him twice for me - once by hand, the other, well, y’know; he deserves both for that tale!).
Paintings, photographs, movies and videos, music - both live and recorded, dance, sculpture; I could go on for hours, listing the different forms of artworks, visual, audible, printed and spoken words, even some scents (ever whiff a fresh-baked loaf of rye bread?).
Beauty is where YOU find it - and what YOU call beauty, I may or may not. And vice versa.
BEAUTY is EXTREMELY subjective; I’m sorry if that offends anyone here, but that’s the plain truth of the matter. NOT EVERY PERSON SEES BEAUTY IN THE SAME THINGS. Sandy (my OWN beauty - and raison d’etre) thinks some of my favorite things are so far beyond ugly they can’t see the corner - but I adore them - such as the one English bulldog in the Kibbles ‘n’ Bits commercial that used to run on TV. That dog was so ugly he was cute - Sandy almost runs from the room if the commercial comes on!
She thinks the A-10 attack bird is beautiful - well, from the standpoint of functionality, it certainly is, but as a former Zoomie, I will tell you it is BUTT UGLY to me!Just two examples.
Some people LOVE Picasso; NOT me.
Hey, Kim practically worships a Mauser 98; I love my M-16. What else can I say?
Jim
Mad Yank | 11/8/2007 10:27 AM CDT -
She thinks the A-10 attack bird is beautiful
You married well above your station!
dbltap | 11/8/2007 10:39 AM CDT -
Field Trip Time!!
Allow me to suggest that every go over to Quent Cordair Fine Art (http://www.cordair.com). Click on the Bryan Larsen page. Read the interview with Bryan Larsen. Reread it.
He makes a VERY strong case that part of the problem with modern art is the lack of discipline - and the refusal to treat most arts AS a discipline.
Most of the really great dancers will tell you to start with ballet. Not because ballet is or is not what you want to do, but because it teaches the fundamentals of dance. Likewise, a musician will practice playing basic notes and chords before essaying on new compositions. ALL fine arts demand patient, loving practice of the fundamentals.
This is where so much modern art has gone wrong - not according to me, but according to Larsen. Shock value and childish composition has replaced the old disciplines.
The other problem that I think has developed is one that LCOL Cooper pointed out. We have become FAR less discriminating in our tastes. And the saddest part is that modern technology has put Great Art within the reach of the common man. John Q Public may not be able to afford a Rembrandt, but he can buy a high-quality lithograph quite inexpensively. And while nothing matches a live Wagner opera, a CD played in a good sound system comes awfully close - without the price of a ticket to Bayreuth.
And Dbltap, good generals do not blow up major historical sites. They use them for headquarters...and ship the contents home. That’s how half the stuff in the Louvre got there. Napoleon and his marshals had quite an appreciation for fine art.
Mike of the Duelling Pistols | 11/8/2007 11:00 AM CDT -
I see the choir self-communicating, but the major uglinesses are the masses and their works, not those who communicate here.
How do we beautify the masses so that their works will be lovely? Well… we don’t, because they have to be placed upon a greased slope such as that which lubricated the enlightenment, and that greasy slope is their self-interest.
We can all study the enlightenment at our leisure to analyze how and because of which factors it all came about, but what made it possible at all was a sufficiently strong conviction by the masses that they did not have to accept their birth-given state in life, coupled with a state of being which does not pertain today - they had nothing much to lose except their lives, and they had already accepted from birth that their lives were worthless.
Today’s massed ugliness stems from the fact that the majority actually believe that they deserve their prosperity and their leftist (I refuse to grace it with the term “liberal") sense that they can do no wrong because they are free, rather than that it is because they are free and prosperous that they can live under the illusion that they can do no wrong.
Just as a precious few managed to set the pre-enlightenment paradigm a-shifting towards the enlightenment, so a precious few will have to heavy-lift the current paradigm so that it may too be shifted. I do not know how to do that, so I recuse myself from the ranks of the precious few, knowing that I have not been and never will be fit to serve therein.
But I know these things- that the self-interest that will lubricate today’s needed paradigm shift has nothing to do with more-ishness. Nothing to do with more education, more equality, more charity, more tolerance, more anything, nor with less-ishness, i.e. nothing to do with less government, less obesity, less poverty, less selfishness or less what-have-you.
So what then?
I think ONLY the realization, nay, the acceptance, that we might easily lose all that is material in our lives, without losing the ability to be happy.
I marvel, by the way, at how the founders must have known exactly what they were writing when they wrote “and the pursuit of happiness” after “life, liberty” and not before it.
Only a happy country can aspire to be beautiful, and the New World has long since joined the Old in placing station-in-life above happiness, not apparently ever noticing that their endless scrabbling after wealth/status simply creates the unhappy impossibility after which they strive - to ALL be kings, queens and aristocrats, and in Warhol’s words, to be famous for (even just) fifteen minutes.
Mrs dT has written eloquently about being happy despite experiencing tough times - should we then not consider that having it too easy actually breeds discontent in greater proportion than contentment, even though it self-evidently breeds the latter?
To return to my point, I do not see any such “precious few” as might be capable of shifting today’s paradigm, but perhaps things are really not bad enough yet. Change never seems to come until there is sufficient dissatisfaction with the status quo, and so far as that goes, I see only glimmers of dissatisfaction here and there.
RooiJan | 11/8/2007 11:16 AM CDT -
TO: Mike and others
FR: DBLTAP
RE: My burning of the LouvreI am well aquatinted with the rules of land-warfare and with the probable war specific ROE’s for a battle in Paris. As an aside, with the present demographic trends the ROE’s would probably be how to rescue the works in the Louvre from the same people that brought you the exploding Buddha’s.
My point was I DO take a rather tribal view of the world. White trash border Irish should not mix with Danes the tribalism skips a generation or two apparently. There is NOTHING on the planet that is worth the life of my son. When he is 18 he can make his own way and I will counsel him to come on with it or on it, then it’s his choice. Until then he is mine and I will protect him with every ounce of my power.
dbltap | 11/8/2007 11:25 AM CDT -
Until the “entitlement” crowd decides to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps and start making honest contributions to society, we will continue down this road to oblivion. I try my best everyday to burn into the cerebral cortexes of my children that we are entitled to only what we can earn on our own merits. Yes, a helping hand does go a long way sometimes, but it should never be expected or demanded.
Apeman | 11/8/2007 11:35 AM CDT -
I’m an old utilitarian engineer type. Hung out with the art student crowd in college. Ex-wife, nice lady, is/was an incredibly gifted artist in sculpture, painting and music.
My take on “art education” is that by studying under learned people about why the old masters are regarded as masters lets one understand what is seen and heard, today.
I may like or dislike a painting or a melody, but I’m not able to articulate “why”. Similarly, there may be artistic works with merit which are not to my taste--but it’s nice to know why that is, and it’s nice to know why they’re seen as having merit.
The education means a shift from the emotional-feelings limitation into an understanding of that enending question, “Why?”
‘Rat
Desertrat | 11/8/2007 12:17 PM CDT -
What I hate more than ‘bad’ art (and I DO hate bad art...which is why I refuse to attend plays at our local playhouse...which more often than not is quite happy to show ‘alternative’ interpretations of classics such as Othello rather than work on presenting such plays as likely intended) is sheer pompousness.
For example...while I have read neither of Pat Conroy’s well known books, quotes such as this:
(source) insure I never will. Forget the baning ‘controversy’ for a minute and concentrate on the unmitigated pretensiousness of that attitude. He may be right, but I don’t care.Because the two books were temporarily banned “every kid in that county will read them, every single one of them. Because book banners are invariably idiots,” Conroy wrote in the letter published Oct. 24 in The Charleston Gazette. “They don’t know how the world works — but writers and English teachers do.”
The problem with what is often defined as art (and a good novel is certainly art) isn’t always the art itself...it’s the artist.
The messengers kill the message.
Kurt | 11/8/2007 12:20 PM CDT -
Dbltap,
I really wasn’t trying to go down the tangent issue about when loyalty to one’s family trumps loyalty to ones professional or civilizational duty. I can’t imagine a circumstance where burning down the Louvre might save my daughter’s life, but in that theoretical case, I would act the same as you, and accept the consequences as you would.
The Louvre represents a class of the achievements of civilization which are worth defending, even at the cost lives. My comment was also about the necessity of discipline amid the essential barbarism of war.
fast richard | 11/8/2007 12:28 PM CDT -
F. Richard
No blood no foul. Was making the point that there are a lot of things that I would willingly risk, or give, my life for. Beauty is on the list, but not really too high, last time I checked it was below my dog but well above the neighbor that won’t give my chain-saw back.
Dbltap | 11/8/2007 02:15 PM CDT -
So since you (literally) have no dog in this fight, would you mind excusing yourself from this particular discussion, Dbltap?
In case it isn’t clear, this is a subject of critical importance to ME… in a nutshell, all I hold dear and what I have devoted my life to.
I don’t expect everyone to agree with me on that, but you are not going to talk me out of it with little quips about people smarter than you, etc.
Mrs. du Toit | 11/8/2007 02:21 PM CDT -
Wonderful post, Mrs. DuToit. It’s like hearing the clear ping of fine crystal. I look forward to reading further essays on this topic from you.
Jen | 11/8/2007 02:29 PM CDT -
Philippians 4:8…
“Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.”
Sarah | 11/8/2007 03:01 PM CDT -
Perhaps we are on the path that d’Toucqueville foresaw...the so-called “Tyranny of the Masses.” Still, everything moves in cycles and I believe that society inevitably evolves upward...albeit with a few bends and dips along the way.
To bolster my agreement with your point, I admit that it does seem that todays tastes lean to the lowest common denominator.
skb12172 | 11/8/2007 03:13 PM CDT -
I have a few items to add:
1. There certainly are societies where beauty is not so celebrated. Many in ancient Rome believed that beauty and wisdom were antithetical. Many sculptures of Roman nobility are very accurate, and include evey wart and nosehair for the very reason that it could then be assumed that, not being beautiful, they were wise. This may not apply to US society, but it does mean that the importance of beauty cannot be applied as a general rule of civilization.
2. If you want me to fight for something, beauty is not enough—it must be true. Historically, art represented truth. The iconography in the Eastern Orthodox Church speaks powerfully about a truth that lies beyond our view. Music of the romantic period aimed to speak truths about the human condition. Stone age cave paintings were so connected with truth that the artists believed that, by painting it, it would become true! The artists of the Dada movement mounted upside-down urinals in an effort to expand the idea of art. Note that this expansion is on the idea of art, rather than art itself—the focus is away from any sort of a priori truth towards the manipulation of public perception. Thus, art became divorced from truth, which is a path that it has since followed.
3. Beauty is pretty hard to discern for a people who can’t discern truth. I could make snobbish remarks about the relationship between a lack of truth discernment and fascinations with various music styles, or sarcastic remarks like “That’s why we leave discernment of beauty to those paragons of truth seeking like NEA officials and the academy”, but I have to admit—Maplethorpe and Co. have convinced me that the perception of beauty can be conditioned, so much so that their garbage is considered beautiful by the sub-culture over which they have the most influence. That pretty much makes beauty a socially-constructed idea, and not really worth fighting for.
Respectfully submitted
officeronin | 11/8/2007 03:42 PM CDT -
While I agree that without those I love live would be devoid of meaning for me, I also agree with Mrs. DuToit, there are ideals, literature, art, and music that are the best fruit of Western Civilization, and they are worth protecting, nurturing, and defending.
At http://americandigest.org/mt-archives/006553.php
there is a list of things the author thought noteworthy about America at it’s peak.At http://www.ejectejecteject.com/ Bill Whittle has written essays on honor, relationships, war, responsibility, etc. that are so soaring, so lovely, that I cannot read aloud without choking up.
These are things worth saving. Things worth our lives, because without them we are diminished, and eventually, we become so diminished that we will tear it all down ourselves without any help from the outside.
ASM826 | 11/8/2007 10:16 PM CDT -
Dear, you speak of beauty as being something worth defending, and having values that are beyond utility, and while I do agree, why is it that I get the feeling that you would send me to my death to protect what you consider to be ‘art’? Use my money to pay for your ‘art’?
If you value you something, please feel free to defend it. Give your money to the people who care for what you consider beautiful.
And, as an oh-by-the-way, I think American cities are Beautiful. And I would passionately defend their beauty as you would defend those European cities.
Tomre Utsu Zo | 11/9/2007 03:08 AM CDT -
Tomre Utsu Zo,
Are you high? I said any of that where? Oh, yeah… in your imagination.
Geesh.
Please stick to the topic.
Mrs. du Toit | 11/9/2007 08:10 AM CDT -
Just chiming in with my countervailing opinion. As a practitioner of several arts, I find the idea that a critic knows more about the value of beauty and the disciplines of creation than I do to be risible. My work may not stand the test of time, or compare favorably with Michelangelo or Rembrandt, but please don’t try to tell me that someone who does not—cannot—create is my superior. Homey don’t play that.
The problem with an educated taste is that it is just as capable of being mistaken—at warp speed—as your garden variety quotidian bohunk. More-so, since it presumes to influence those less well-exposed to the prejudices of the times.
And the deterioration of modern culture has less, I think, to do with the “misuse” of liberty than with the deliberate destruction of it (culture—although liberty would seem to also be at risk at their hands) by those who have arrogated to themselves the authority of gatekeepers of aesthetism.
I realize, Connie, that you probably have a similar contempt to mine for the arts and croissants crowd. But, like it or not, they do define capital-A Art for our age. And if you have a bone to pick, it is with them, not with the great unwashed or with contemporary creatives, struggling for a crust of bread.
M
Mark Alger | 11/9/2007 09:08 AM CDT -
But they, Mark, are not my audience and are (more importantly) uneducable.
We can influence our side to do better.
Mrs. du Toit | 11/9/2007 09:17 AM CDT -
No argument there.
M
Mark Alger | 11/9/2007 09:56 AM CDT -
I realize, Connie, that you probably have a similar contempt to mine for the arts and croissants crowd. But, like it or not, they do define capital-A Art for our age. And if you have a bone to pick, it is with them, not with the great unwashed or with contemporary creatives, struggling for a crust of bread.
Maybe so when regarding the arts and croissants crowd. But the great unwashed are hardly a proper target for approbation when it comes to their attitudes to beauty. In the western cultures of today there are hardly enough of them to matter, but even if there were, their struggling for a crust would severely distract from whatever little they might detract from beauty, or at least, excuse whatever they contribute to the general ugliness. Not so for the actual masses of our populations, in other words our burgeoning middle classes, who are recognizable simultaneously by their general affluence compared to the truly great unwashed of the second and third worlds, and by their complacency acceptance of, even contribution to modern ugliness.
To quote Connie:
What The Founders never intended was to elevate the lower classes to the ideal. Their ideal, demonstrated through their life’s work and study (and their risk of fortunes) was to allow the common man to demonstrate his ability to rise to a new level… that all men were created equal and needed only a society that would allow him to demonstrate his equality.
It is in his respect that the middle classes in general have failed, having risen to material well-being without aspiring to a greater appreciation for quality in all that they do, let alone demanding it of themselves.
I too have not much time for critics, but connoisseurs are another matter. Anyone can be a critic, but to be a connoisseur requires dedication to the acquisition of knowledge and skill for the purpose of achieving excellence. They can hardly succeed as connoisseurs without both appreciating and creating beauty.
If any “class” of being can be looked to to improve our societies they can.
RooiJan | 11/9/2007 10:33 AM CDT -
RooiJan;
Please allow me to bastardize the Bard and thunder out Connie’s manifesto in shorter form—Be copy now to men of grosser blood and teach them how to...
Well—to appreciate the finer things of life. ::grin::
The problem is: there is no example. The arts and croissants crowd lionize the new Phillistines of the desert Left coast (and an arid land it is). They put themselves forth as the arbiters of culture, then decry the crap their arbitrations foist on the unwary.
But despite them, human genius will out. Brilliant and dilligent individuals ply their trades and deliver honest goods of fair quality. The honest craftsmen, the skilled and disciplined draughtsmen, the real creative geniusses labor in the image factories and sweatshops of the self-designated elites while said elites fawn over the glib, fast-talking Emperor’s tailors, whose “creations” are literal crap.
The talent hasn’t died; it’s gone underground. It’s gone into hiding from “patrons” whose hands are bent to death and the destruction of all that is good and bright about our civilization.
And Sturgeon’s Law applies always. 90% of anything is crap. Barring unhappy accident, the best of our times—created by those whom the Dark Ones’ hands never touched—will survive. The rest is—to recall someone else’s allusion—dust in the wind.
The middle class does not have the power to alter that. What we perceive as noise and crap is the normal churn of human affairs, seen close enough to read the dots. The big picture is rather calmer.
Americans (we have no lower class by virtue of Emancipation and no upper because of our lack of a hereditary aristocracy—we are all middle class, a bourgeois nation) have “lost” the appreciation for the fine because it has first been taken from them and second is denied them. And these things are not happenstance. They are a matter of design on the part of soi-disant “Progressives.” That doesn’t mean we can’t recognize quality. Sure rap music is popular. Sure bad TV dramas and reality shows waste time better spent elsewhere. But it was always that way. Do you think Shakespeare was the only playwright working at the turn of the 16th Century? Of course not. But how many of his contemporaries’ works survive?
My disagreement with Connie—if it is a disagreement—is on the insistence on objective standards. That implies to me a central authority—a progressive notion if there ever was one. Wise and educated elites will decide for you; you are incapable of deciding for yourself. The first teacher who tried to assert that to me got the same reply then I give you now: I am smarter than any elite, my talent is greater than any critic’s, my vision unique and mine alone, and I am sole fit arbiter of the quality of my execution of it. For my audience, I have infinite love and patience. For critics and self-designated arbiters of taste and standards, the back of my hand.
Now, I don’t think Connie is pimping for that kind of standard, but rather those facts of aesthetics, of human emotion, of the power of symbolism, of the quality of workmanship which can be objectively observed from without any particular school of critical thought.
But those things are eternal. And I submit that few have ever appreciated them—and not many among self-designated critics. These times are no exception.
Now. Where was I?
Oh. The Founders’ not meaning everybody. Stipulated. But the dream, if you will, was that—given the liberty and opportunity—far more would haul themselves up by their bootstraps and elevate themselves than feudal societies allowed, and that the aggregate whole would rise higher than otherwise. THAT, I think, has proven out.
M
Mark Alger | 11/9/2007 03:01 PM CDT -
Been busy so allowed this to get a little off track… It’s OK (for the most part) except the few who say the craziest, totally unrelated things.
Let me give ONE example which might illustrate the objective standard: Rules of Debate.
Debate is a formal subject. Are children taught the proper rules and etiquette of debate? NO? Why not? Are we, as converatives, supplementing their curriculum to include it? If not, why not?
Here, for example, is a very brief list on fallacies. Here is a link to the Rules of Debate. Here’s a link to Amazon for a book on the Rules of Argument.
Those are objective standards. Some people might disagree with those selections, but we could start with those. There may be different lists or better sources, but those are listed to illustrate the point.
When it comes to literary criticism, the primer is How to Read a Book Book by Mortimer J. Alder. For parents or adults who have never been exposed to this type of material: Socratic Discussion.
Then there is The Cambridge Series of Literary Criticism or Bloom’s Modern Critical Views.
As for finding literature: Harold Bloom, The Western Canon.
For a BRIEF primer on Art History: The Informed Eye, by Bruce Cole.
Mrs. du Toit | 11/9/2007 03:51 PM CDT -
If anyone wants to contribute specifics to The Library, feel free: http://www.mrsdutoit.com/index.php/library/.
General in this category would be best (probably) in “Philosophically Speaking” in The Salon: http://www.mrsdutoit.com/index.php/salon/
Mrs. du Toit | 11/9/2007 05:03 PM CDT -
“...sweet land of Liberty, of thee I sing.”
It is not freedom to make or one’s rights that create liberty, it is knowing liberty that lets one understand those things and appreciate them. Without the ability to exercise liberty, you will not have freedom, and it is the understanding that such liberty is given the widest scope that allows us to be free and decide our paths, each to their own, on how to create a better life and be held accountable for that living. Liberty does not come cheaply - it is a duty to yourself and society to uphold it and create something that sustains yourself and society.
When we, as a People, speak for this Nation the very first thing we swear to do is ‘make a more perfect Union’ and that is incumbent on each member of the People. Being mortal and frail we cannot achieve absolute perfection, that is beyond us, but to create something more perfect? Yes, that is a task we take up when we speak as a People. With all of our love of freedom, we forget that the rights that eminate from it are the last and least thing we have, and are used, first and foremost to ‘establish Justice’ in our lives and for those around us. We speak with that voice to declare that as a People to create that more perfect Union, it must be Just in its ways and we will abide by that Justice to create that Union that will never be perfect.
In that doing we shall not endanger the domestic Tranquility of our fellow man, nor give into our wanton desires and endanger Justice and erode our striving for more perfect Union. That is no easy task we take up as a People, and yet we set out to do so, a high aspiration above mere freedom.
And we swear as a People to provide defense for Tranquility, in a Just manner so that we may create more Perfection in that doing. We do not give that to just those who don uniform, it is something we each take up as duty to what we set out to do as a Nation.
With that we set out to increase the general Welfare of our society in upholding it with our commitment and our lives. That Welfare is diminshed when not retained by the People and held so as to bring Tranquility to our fellow man by our own actions. Such Welfare is sustained by Just outlook for it, and in the creation of a more perfect Union by the People and not given out to any other to do for us.
These things we do are to secure the Blessings of Liberty and pass them on undiminished to our Posterity so that they may always have Liberty to cherish and build with. When we erode Liberty and hand it to others, we diminish it and our Posterity by making less of ourselves in handing it away. The Welfare of society is kept and defended by each of us as the People, none other may take that responsibility from us to do it for us. Protecting Liberty must be done to keep the Tranquility of our Nation by Just means for the end of handing it undiminished to our Posterity so that they, too, will have the burden of forming a more perfect Union with us and pass the gift of Liberty forward for us.
We ordain government to do some of these things, but in all cases the final responsibility and duty to carry them out rests with the People. No right may be used to endanger any of this and no government may remove these responsibilities from us: they are ours to have and hold and keep safe to build with.
We each have the freedom to pursue happiness… heaven help you if you *catch it*.
ajacksonian | 11/14/2007 07:31 PM CDT
