Withered Fields ...

I started this blog to talk about art ... philosophy of art, and aesthetics.
Except for some parallel arguments about humor, this just does not seem to happen often enough.

mia culpa

Withered Fields: means what it says
... the artworld as wasteland

Some years ago a good friend of mine, in speaking about "Saving Private Ryan", said that it made him feel impotent as an artist because there sat growing men, crying, at a pretty simple idea ... while he could not get any reaction from most people at all.
On implication of such a movie, that it can make conservative older men cry, is that more art should be like that.
I found myself initially thinking along this line, anyway.
But i eventually, within a few weeks, actually, came to have problems with the notion.

In a phrase ... Tone Painting.

Tone Painting, as a form of music, generates its force simply by mimicing the sound it wants to use to evoke sympathy ... the violin cries or the sound is calm and pastoral.
Movie soundtracks badly overuse this same technique ... to make a seen scary they simply dump loud dire music over it, rather than write a scene that is actually scary.

Movies makers now know exactly how to trigger the triggers in our brains. They produce a certain kind of realism. "Saving Private Ryan" is one of the best examples of this kind of work. But the emotional response invoked by the movie has nothing to do with art and everything to do with psychology and emotional triggers, and knowing how to set them off. If is advertising, but for tears rather than purchases.

This same friend has discussed with me how the introduction of the photograph made painters rethink art, rethink the role of images within art.
I call for the same re-evaluation in the light of cinema and modern sound systems. Much great art in the past has used psychological triggers, but art should not be reduced to such triggers. Great art has never been merely such triggering.

Shall we just burn the whole facade to the ground ... again?

New Kant post ....

Kant said something akin to "Hume awoke me from my dogmatic slumber"
... by dogmatic, Kant meant rationalist

By ratioanalist ... Kant meant ...
... a group that believed most all mathematical truths were analytic (true by the form of presentation) ... and that the core beliefs of humankind (Newtonian science) were likewise reducible to analytic truths.

But Kant argues that not only were the rationalists wrong about physical world truths ... they were wrong about mathematical truths. Most mathematical truths, at least the important ones, are NOT analytic to Kant.

The early parts of the Critique of Pure Reason are given to this topic.

Yet, still, Kant wants to validate reason.


He takes time, too, to attack the skeptic (of reason) in the Critique
... the skeptic believes that all reason is only polemic.
But free citizens seem to get together and agree on many things.

True ... where agreement is coerced, there we have force agreement. Such "truth" agreements are limited by geography and time.
Free citizen agreement is important for just this. It allows a notion of agreement outside coercion.

(Foucault, and ilk, in a nutshell, is the claim that there is no, never, "without coercion")


And, lastly, Kant will attack the relativist project in truth, about reason. Limited goals for truth gain us nothing. This lies somewhere between the rationalist and the skeptic.


Kant's positive project is this ... taking what materials and capacities we have, what can humans build. They cannot reach Rationalism in truths, but they are not reduce to Skepticism either. This is a main claim of the Critique.


At heart ... the Critique is saying ... there is a problem (hence the Rationalist is wrong), but the problem is not that reason can come up with no truths (and so Rationalism is wrong, in his day). The problem is this ... there does seem to be a "reason" that is the coming together of free men. But ... they can come up with many solutions, given our material input and our capacities.

This will come out many years later as the notion of "underdetermination". The problem is not so much that we can't agree on what is true as that we can agree on so many things (non cohesive) being true.


Today ... in the world of the Foucault skeptic, where all reason is reason by coercion ... we can say equally that it is one of the truths ... which has defeated other truths by coercion ... and both of these notions can hold at the same time.


The most basic truth of Kant, then, is the awakening from rationalism thus described. From there, it dependends on the skeptic or positivist-materialist in yourself (and in my case, i like to think, both). Underdetermination or non-reason.

Flexner quote ...

We must not overlook the role that extremists play. They are the gadflies that keep society from becoming too complacent. - Abraham Flexner


This i like about our American 2 party system. It keeps the extremists at the extremes. They perform their function and perform it well. They get airtime at the early Presidential primary debates. Sometimes they say things that catch hold ... and then they have done their job, and a more moderate candidate runs forward with that banner.

Kucinich handed the baton to Dean who handed it into the mainstream of the Democratic party.
Pat Robertson in 1988.
There is even a role for the David Dukes and Pat Robertsons of the world in the early stages.

There can be no fair and just political system that allows the Kuciniches to flourish but not the Robertsons and Dukes ... not if one really believes in the free flow of ideas.
... but that is another post.

Selling Fear ...

Here is an interesting little article from Frank Furedi, sociologist at Kent.
There are certain sociological claims here-in i do not fully accept, and of course we all have at least one item he mentions that we probably believe we really should fear ... but ... even at that, the mode by which the activists for that fearful cause proceed, those should stop and give us pause.

But if everyone else is doing it, how else to get "on the stage"?


http://www.spiked-online.com/Articles/0000000CAD7B.htm

national identities study ...

The newest issue of Science is supposed to have a study on National Stereotypes. I have not yet seen/read that article, or the study itself (which one should ALWAYS do before posting on the subject ... but since i am aware of that rule, it's okay if i break it).

My understanding of it is .. that amongst its claims are these ...

A countries national stereotype of itself generally matches the stereotype attributed to it by other nations. (Presumably the strong negative characteristics are re-described, the US would call its intelligence practical, the French would call it something else.)

But then, and here i believe is the heart of the article ...
While the citizens of a nation in question believe the national stereotypes about their own nation, when asked to describe their family and friends and network, it vastly differs from that stereotype.
Most importantly ... this is across the board, everyone.
Or, roughly, all Americans know the Americans are like their national stereotype, in aggregate, but no American actually knows people like that stereotype (and the same for the Germans, Italians, etc).


This fits pretty well my general perceptions about people. They are all ready to take the lazy route and think of their neighbors (and the people of the world) in crude and stereotypical forms. At the same time, no one they know well fits those forms ... across the board. It's only the people you don't know that act stereotyipcally.
(In neuroscience terms, this falls out from how we "code" our perceptions ... it's related to why you see blue Toyota Camerys everywhere if you have just purchased a blue Toyota Camery. People we don't know ... all we have of them is this first-impression coding.)

I would hypothesize that the same truth holds true for images of large sub-populations (The Cubans in the US, Midwesterners, libertarians, librarians, etc) in a country as well.

This all said ...
Don't get me wrong. I believe about ability to geenralize over people as a whole is a very useful tool at time. You really cannot learn much about, say, Brazilian culture and history without making some such claims. We just don't want to make the mistake of thinking the claims are true. They are tools ... on par with speaking about, say, the reasons a tree turns its leaves toward the sun. No such event really occurs, the leaves turn toward the sun because of a complex set of interactions, not because the tree wills it. But imagine trying to build an evolutionary science devoid of all such misnomers. (Only a philosopher would try it.)
Tables aren't really flat either, but anyone who points that out is just ceasing to play the language game and are not really helpful (unless that happens to be their job, to point such things out).
The image of a "Brazialian" i have is far more crude, indestinct, and flat out wrong than these examples ... but again ... either i'm just filling a place in a sentence and the exact conotation is not required (like "flat" tables) or it is merely a term to fix a reference which i hope to keep refining.
In the former it is just a vague meaningless usage. In some cases, the use of stereotypes in humor is like this. The target changes over the years, the terrible joke about Jews becomes a terrible joke about lawyers.
In the latter, so long as i am more shocked to find that someone fits the stereotype, moreso than discovering that someone does not fit it, the usage remains ... okay.

Time 1958 book review

In 1958 Time magazine started off their Schlecta book review ...

"Friedrich Nietzsche was a pale, crabby hermit who sat in a cheap Swiss boarding house peering beyond good and evil and demanding, at the top of his apocalyptic voice, the rearing of a daemonically driven breed of superman. Just when the world began to get wind of his prophetic fulminations, he went mad. For the last tragic eleven years of his life, he was a myth - and so he has remained."


Here is what Jacques Barzun had to say about that, back in his day ...

"More dull error could not be compressed into so few words - ..."

" ... what we want to know first is the meaning of 'to sit in a cheap Swiss boarding house peering beyond good and evil.' All one is sure of is that the ridicule would persist regardless of the facts: if Nietzsche had lived in an expensive hotel, the knowledge would come out as 'peering at good and evil between the potted palms of a garish palace."


It is all related ...
What is doing the work here in the Time article's argument?
That is the question pointed out by Barzun.

Thoughts while reading Thomas Hardy

Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife,
Their sober wishes never learn'd to stray;
Along the cool sequester'd vale of life
They kept the noiseless tenor of their way.

... from Thomas Gray's "Elegy written in a Country Churchyard"


Thomas Friedman believes there are no more such places ... or ... at least ... they are getting fewer all the time.
Is such a day possible?

completely different ...

There are times when i can barely stomach the visits to other blogs. I can't help but feel moral repulsion.
I was with my brother at an Octoberfest event last night, umpa band and all there. Thinking about the stereotypes of the German ... i always have to shake my head about the evil that arose there in the 20th century ... and how did it?
First ... of course ... real people are not stereotypical. Those images are just photo ops.
More importantly, though, it is because i believe that hatred and evil are cunning, and the subtle forms bother me more than sometimes even the overt.
I am talking about the forms of hatred that are mockery and other diminutative attacks that engage not issues. Political cartoons are often overt examples, but most political art.
It disturbs me that all someone has to do is make a painting of Bush (or Clinton before him) as a monkey type characature and 1/3rd of the population will think that's "just so funny".
A third is all you need. The brownshirts came to the fore with far less than that, and to power with not much more than that. They did not have to defeat the arguments of their political enemies because they had already ridiculed them into the corner ... like the elementary students ridicule and mock the smart kid. The herd animals that surround these events are shamed into not even considering the opinions of others.

All humans beings reserve respect. Everyone knows this. We have, for the most part, and thank goodness, reached a state where mockery of race, religion and sex are monitored closely and called out when they occur. (We live in a nation of free speech ... anyone can say what they want as far as i'm concerned ... but in so doing they marginalize themselves. That is the kind of monitoring in place.)
But there is still much mockery and ridicule that gets you invited to seats of power rather than religated to the margin. Evil always finds another form. These political thirds may shread the country. Listen to what they say ... that they don't even need to debate their political enemies because their enemies are bufoons and monkeys. Evil is insiduous.
If you are not showing respect to the goals and beliefs of your opponents, you are probably partaking in anti-intellectual persecution.
Its a simple rule. Most everyone agrees. Humans deserve respect. (Animals too, in their way, but that is a different topic.)

Good honest debate is needful.
Some of these debates will get heated, and ugly. That's fine, that's not what i am attacking here. It is that propensity here today that if you draw an picture of Clinton and Lewinsky in most any characature form, 1/3 rd of the population will think "that's just hilarious" ... and if you don't agree they will ridicule you.

If this went on only amongst the fringe of the unwashed, like the KKK these days, i would not fear it so much. But no, if you are sitting at a table with a group of people you are supposed to agree that the current President is an idiot ... and people look at you like you have a third eye if you ask for a little respect for the man. You can bring up facts, it does not matter. He released military records with a battery of different test scores and grades ... enough to run a statistical analysis against. His IQ is likely in the 120-125 range. Not Oxford, certainly, but around the top quartile at least.
But like the "football players are dumb" stereotype, and others ... you can point at all you want that NFL offensive linemen routinely outscore attorneys and chemists on the Wunderlich tests ... it does not matter to those that already "know".
Again ... if this was a problem amongst those of average or lesser intelligence i would find it less inciduous. But it seems like the more intelligent one is, the more likely they are to think that either Clinton or Bush is evil or stupid or both. (They don't say "stupid" about Rhodes Scholars, of course, they lack common sense, or have certain glaring gaps in education [moneterist economics, say], something like that.)

"Whenever I thought of you I couldn't help thinking of a particular incident which seemed to me very important. You & I were walking along the river towards the railway bridge & we had a heated discussion in which you made a remark about 'national character' that shocked me by its primitiveness. I then thought: what is the use of studying philosophy if all that it does for you is enable you to talk with some plausibility about some abstruse questions of logic, etc. & if it does not improve your thinking about important questions of everyday life, if it does not make you more conscientious ... You see, I know that it's difficult to think well about 'certainty,' 'probability,' 'perception,' etc. But it is, if possible, still more difficult to think, or try to think, really honestly about your life & other people's lives. And the trouble is that thinking about these things is not thrilling, but often downright nasty. And when it's nasty then it's most important". - Ludwig Wittgenstein (letter to Norman Malcom, 1939)