Arty Pants

A few days ago I bought The Critical Writings of James Joyce at a local bookstore.  I wanted it specifically for the short chapter on aesthetics and Joyce's comments on the philosophy of art.  While most of what he says is spot on and very thought provoking, I had one big question with his definition of art.

Joyce writes that "art is the human disposition of sensible or intelligible matter for an aesthetic end."  (Of course he makes a similar - if not exact - claim like this in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man).  This definition is very interesting and can take a while to dissect but I would like to hone in on the word "human" and what it means to the definition of art.

It makes only sense to say that "human" involvement in a creation is essential to the definition of what art is.  A tree in the woods is not art because it sprang up from the ground and was  formed due to its inhuman surroundings (air, sun, soil, nutrients, etc.).  It may be beautiful and sensible but it did not come about from "human disposition."   So it can not be considered art.  But that begs the question:  what about a tree planted in a garden?

A gardener who plants a tree in a garden has control over the spot it is planted in and therefore has a modest control over how much sun it receives;  the gardener has control over how much nutrients it gets due to the soil in which the tree is planted; the gardener can prune the tree or bind its branches to determine its general shape; the gardener can spray pesticides on it to help determine its lifespan, and many, many more things.  So is a tree in a garden a work of art if it has been raised by a human being for an aesthetic purpose?

I think Joyce would say, "no."  Joyce's implications for what he consider's "human" is strange and I think his definition of "human disposition" is somewhat vague.  Here is what I mean.  Joyce posed to himself the question, "Can photography be a work of art?"  He answered it saying, "A photograph is a disposition of sensible matter and may be so disposed for an aesthetic end but it is not a human disposition of sensible matter.  Therefore it is not a work of art."

I actually hear this same thing being talked about all the time, that photography or filmmaking is not a work of art.  Somehow these critics have it in their heads that because people use cameras they are taking too much of the human element out of their craft and therefore it is not art.  But there is no real difference between a camera and a paintbrush/paint.  Both have their limitations and both are instruments used by humans in their aesthetic endeavors - just as a gardener uses instruments to form a tree for aesthetic purposes.  So because of this argument, a photograph or a film or tree grown in a garden can be works of art.

But I don't think it is entirely that simple, nor do I think that Joyce was completely wrong when he stated that photography isn't an art form.  And this is where the really interesting question begins:  Are there different degrees of art (high or low) depending on certain elements employed in that art form - including just how involved humans are in the art's creation?  Certainly there is.

A painter has more control over his or her craft than a photographer and therefore a painting is a more "human disposition" than a photograph.  Let me show that this is true.  If  a photographer wanted to shoot a building he would be limited in many more ways than an painter would be in painting the building.  The painter could, in his painting, change the shape of the building, its color, texture, the shadows falling on it, what is surrounding the building and many other elements of the building.  The photographer is limited because he or she cannot do many of these things.  (You might be tempted to say something about Photoshop, but I want to work with the more traditional definition of photography that Joyce used).  Therefore, a painting is a higher form of art because of the greater control the artist has over his or her craft - or in other words it is more of a "human disposition." The same applies to the gardener.  Photography is a higher art form than gardening because the gardener has even less control over what the tree in his or her garden will become than a photographer has over his or her photographs.

But what would be the highest form of art?  That is simple, it would be the oral or written verse and prose.  There is no more human artistic endeavor than verse or prose for it is really only humans that can use language and understand language (especially in its written form).  Also humans have more control over this form because the instruments used in the creation of prose and verse (namely a pencil and paper or sound emanating from vocal cords) have the least amount of limitations.  In fact there almost is no limitation in the art form of verse and prose except for the inability for one to express oneself or a concept.  But that is not the limitation of the instrument but a limitation of the human.  And this itself is beautiful because it reveals human nature with all its flaws to its fullest degree.

As always, let me know what you think.

Conservatives, Gosh!

Being conservative in America means one of two things:

1.  You are a white, wealthy, male actively seeking out your own self-interest.

2.  You are not a white, wealthy, male actively going against your own self-interest.

It's incredible to think that the majority falls under the second definition.

I know many of you probably know this already.  It just feels good to type it out.

Thanks.

Game On 

I was thinking today of how maddening it is that nearly everything important we do – job, politics, religion, etc. - seems to be a part of some game and how wonderful it would be if we had a complete choice in what games we want to involved ourselves – board games, sports, video games etc.

Let me break it down a little.

I just put out a post/rant about capitalism but let me continue the discussion in the context of it being a game.  Capitalism is an elaborate game where the people with the proper skill-set get to win – namely the skill-set of ambition.  If I set up an economy where a person’s monetary value was based on looks then the gorgeous people of that society would be the wealthy.  You might say to me:  “Well, Dedalus, being ambitious is not the same as being gorgeous because a person is born with looks, it is a genetic attribute, while ambition is something that one has to acquire.”  I would completely disagree.  I believe that it is just as difficult for me to become ambitious for money – because I am not at all - as it is for someone hideous looking to become beautiful.  Ambition seems to be just as much a genetic and cultural part of someone as looks are.  But I’m going off track. 

What I wanted to point out is that capitalism is a game and that nearly anyone born in the West is thrown into the game with really no other options but to play it or starve.  If I don’t like its rules I can’t change it.  If I don’t like how the “winners” are playing it, too bad, I can’t do much of anything about that either.

But let’s move on to something else:  academics.

Largely, academics are a game.  I am  a career student because I enjoy going to school and learning new things.  However, every one of my close and extended family members, my neighbors and friends ask me when I will be finished with school (earn another degree) instead of asking me what I learned in school.  Honestly, I could care less about the degree I have because I only really go to learn more.  When I graduated I still felt the same amount of intelligent than just before graduating.  But we have largely turned university into a game with the goal of, not acquiring knowledge, but a degree.

Also, schooling, especially testing and writing papers, is very much a game.  I’ve written many “A” papers about books or subjects that I never read or knew very little about.  Getting an “A” on a paper or a test is more about understanding your professors, their quirks and expectations and then writing to those, rather than researching and using critical thinking.

Religion and the idea of a God and an afterlife is a huge game.  Anyone who is familiar with religion knows that appearing to be a good person is so much more important than actually being.  (I believe Plato wrote a little bit about this – the better a person actually is the more ostracized that person will be in his social group).  Religion is a game because you have to pretend to be something you are not, or care about things that you don’t really care about.  Being successful in religion means being good with rhetoric and appearance than following the doctrine of that religion.

Now many of you might say:  “Dedalus, you are wrong again.  God will know what is really in your heart.  He will judge you by your actions and thoughts and so it is, in an eternal perspective, better for your soul to be a good person rather than to just appear to be good.”  I would agree, but only to add that God is actually the biggest game-maker of all.  The earth is his board and we are his pawns.  The rules were set out by him and so were the obstacles.  He controls who is good at the game and who is not.  He sets the times that we are allowed to play and the number of years we can play - sometimes only days or hours.  And he can be as unfair as he wants.  God controls every aspect of the game, and some people would say that he is the game himself. 

I guess my point is that every important aspect of our lives seems to be a large game, which, for the most part, seems to be governed by some pretty arbitrary rules.  Wouldn’t it be nice to be a part of something that doesn’t make you feel like you are just a pawn bowing down to the pressure of game-makers like God, professors, politicians and religious leaders?  Wouldn’t it be a much better existence to live and enjoy life for living and enjoying life’s sake?

I think we can come up with a better way of living.

A Cool Million

I've just finished reading Nathanael West's novella, A Cool Million. The book is a mixture of Voltaire's Candide, in which the main character for which the title is named is systematically brutalized throughout his journeys, and a satire of any number of Horatio Alger novels depicting characters successfully living out the American dream of achieving wealth and power by the means of their industry.  I've read Candide but never any of Alger's novels but I doubt that it matters since most of us, from even the earliest of our schooling, know the basic tenets of achieving the American dream:  work really hard, be somewhat inventive and after some patience you will earn your fortune. As A Cool Million's hyper-capitalist character, Shagpoke Whipple puts it to the young, poor but aspiring capitalist Lemuel Pitkin, "the world is an oyster that but waits for hands to open it."

What I was most impressed with in this book is West's understanding of just how people acquire great deals of money in a capitalist society.  Surely, because this is a satire, West doesn't agree that the world is an oyster and that anyone can make a fortune just by trying hard enough.  This is a boring myth that most of us can dismiss just by looking around ourselves.  We all know people who hold down two or three jobs hoping to make a lot of money; we know people who talk about how they will make it big with their creativity or by being noticed by their superiors for their superb work ethic; we know people who have started their own businesses hoping to catch a lucky break or people who spend thousand going to school, convincing themselves that they will stand out from the pack.  Some of these people make the money they hoped for and some of them don't.  But hard work is just not enough to become rich.  I work hard - going to school, raising a child, married, job, writing, etc. - and you probably work hard.  In fact, I would guess most of us work very hard.  But most of us are not rich.

Working hard does not mean becoming rich.

No, no, there are really only two ways to make a "cool million" in a capitalist society and West's novella deals with both.  First is through luck - being born into money, winning the lottery, striking rich off a trend, hitting it right on the stock market, etc.  Secondly, is by desiring money so completely that one would use nearly any means necessary to obtain it.

People don't seem to be impressed with the first way - through luck.  There doesn't have to be any hard work when luck is involved.  It's more by accident than anything.  West shows this in Million but in the opposite way by first informing Lemuel Pitkin  that he can obtain a great fortune by traveling to New York - of course, what other city? - and by working hard.  However, through very unlucky circumstance Pitkin runs out of hope of ever obtaining his fortune.  The message is:  some of us are lucky and some aren't.

Doesn't that sound exactly like real life?

The second way of obtaining money is the "respectable" way of doing it:  wanting it.  But why is this supposed to be respectable.  "The love of money" is supposed to be "the root of all evil."  This is one of the most quoted phrases that Christians have.  Does no one actually believe this?  No, nearly every Christian I know has huge amounts of respect for people with a lot of money.  But what they don't realize is that people who don't get lucky, earn their money through the dubious way of stomping on the rest of humanity in order to obtain their fortune. West shows this as well through the character of Shagpoke Whipple.  Whipple spends the entire novella promising to help young Pitkin only to take advantage of his friendship by rising to power and fortune largely through Pitkin's martyrdom.

This is how "respectable" people make money:  off the backs of those "beneath" them.

Let's stop giving respect to the rich.  They were either lucky or selfish assholes that don't mind exploiting everyone else.

Truth With a Dash of Pessimism

I am not a philosopher by any stretch of the imagination.  However, I have an idea I would like to put out there.

First of all, what makes something objective?  It exists from outside our minds.  In short, it seems to me that objectivity is what best describes the actuality of reality.  One of the characteristics of objectivity that I would like to point out is that their seems to be a timeless sort of quality about it.  I'm sure that philosophers could argue about this one, but let me just have this for a minute.

So, we could say that 2+2=4 is an objective truth because it seems that this logic would follow in any part of the universe and at any time (of course, besides the arbitrary symbols we use for numbers and the functions of mathematics).  If I take two hydrogen atoms and bring them together with two other hydrogen atoms, I will have four of hydrogen atoms.  Mathematics seems to have a very real objective quality to it, and a lot of it has to do with it being timeless.  (Think of prime numbers in that scene from the movie Contact)

I will change the subject now.

Being an atheist and often wondering to myself about the purpose of life I am often forced to accept that there probably is no purpose.  I don't mean to be a drag, but if I think about it, if there is no actual purpose of living, I should ditch the dull responsibilities of my life - ie. being a parent, being a husband, holding a job, etc. - (not that I actually think that any of these are dull, but they can be frustrating and challenging) and live life as hedonistic a life as possible.  In short, it seem like the most rational thing I could do, when confronted with the meaninglessness of life, is to try and maximize my pleasure and happiness and anything that tries to challenge me or increase my responsibility should be pushed to the wayside.

Here is the next problem I am confronted with as an atheist:  the slow and eternal death of the universe.  Scientist believe that the universe will end with a whimper, spreading out farther and farther and becoming colder and colder until everything is dead and at near absolute zero degrees in temperature.  So, if I decide to return someones wallet that I have found loaded with cash, it will not effect the the fact that the universe will eventually die.  If I forgive someone who has done me a serious injustice, there will ultimately be no effect on the final destination of my existence a trillion years from now because I'll be dead along with everyone else.  On the other hand, if I decide to steal the money from the wallet or kill that someone who has done me injustice it also won't effect death of the universe and all humanity either. The most rational thing I could do would be to steal the money and kill the person (assuming that I am very confident I won't get caught).

This is where I think it gets interesting - combining these two subjects.

Here is my thesis:  the only way to make life meaningful - in the absence of any god or afterlife - is found in the attempt and success of extending humanity (or what evolves from humanity) into the eternities.  In essence, by making humanity timeless we have created - or more correctly, discovered - the objective truth of how to best live our lives as humans.  In short what I am saying is that there might be a best way of living that would directly result in an "eternal humanity."  Barring this eternal humanity though, life as we know it really is pointless in an eternal perspective.

You're probably asking the questions now:  Is this even possible?  And doesn't this sound like science fiction?  And what does it mean "eternal humanity?"  My answer would be that I have no idea about how possible it would be to extend humanity into the eternal but if it were possible it wouldn't be science fiction.  It would be reality.  The last question is also pretty simple to answer because "eternal humanity" could mean only one of two things:  First, that eventually we find a way to eradicate death and every individual gets to live forever.  Second, death isn't eradicated because it can't be, but we, as a collective of humans, find a way to escape the death of the universe and continue to propagate into eternity.  (I see the second option as much more probable).

I could go on and on about this but I don't want to make this too long.  There are a few problems with this thought that I will address in later posts.  But for now let me say a few more things.

If humanity, right now accepted what I just said as truth, (oh, how it would be to be dictator of the world) then it would drastically change the way everyone lived.  Our focus would shift almost entirely.  Instead of raising generation after generation of scientifically ignorant children, the main focus of schooling would be science and the scientific method.  Instead, of wasting our planet's natural resources on shit we'll throw away soon after we purchase it, we would be much more selective in the things that we actually need.  And many many more things would change.

All in all, I think I've come up with a pretty good moral system.  Actions that would be detrimental to humanity existing forever would be considered evil.  Actions that contributed to humanity existing forever would be considered good.  And actions that have no ultimate consequence (probably the majority of our actions) would be considered morally neutral.

Well that's it for now.  I will be coming back to this subject.  Maybe even in my next post.  Let me know what you think.

Please to Meet You, Hope You Guess my Name.

I want this first post to be an introduction.  For reasons that I might later share I would like to remain fairly anonymous so I will be going by the moniker, Dedalus, named from a character from my favorite book, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, by James Joyce.  In the book Stephen Dedalus, the young protagonist, searches for truth and honesty in religion, art and government.  The book and Dedalus' journey (and consequently Joyce's boyhood) so mimic my own that I instantly latched onto it and have gained a lot of wisdom and comfort from Joyce's words.

But enough about Joyce.  And now on to some harsher stuff.

I find much of what most people say and write to be complete shit.  (I am not sorry for the language.  But I will try to restrain my swearing to only the times when I want to make my point direct and honest).  Most of what we say, myself somewhat included, is full of thoughtless pleasantries, shallow gossip and opinions handed to us by our traditions, societal upbringing and parents.  All in all, conversation is mostly meaningless and for self-gratification.

Some of you, by now - if you have cared to read this far -are probably saying to yourself, "well, I have meaningful conversations with my friends and family."  That is great if you do.  I hope you do.  However, I live in a very conservative state, surrounded by very close-minded individuals and, despite my efforts, have very few meaningful conversations.  I want this blog to be an expression of my thoughts and opinions that I more often than not keep tucked away inside the confines of my skull.

But enough self pity.  What is this all about.

I came from a very religious upbringing and as of two years ago was heavily invested in my religion.  If I'm honest with myself, I can say that my former religion did me a lot of damage but it also fueled me with a curiosity and a different way of thinking from most.  My religion gave me a quest for truth. (Many of you might be able to guess my religion from view that I will shortly share that reflect my previous beliefs).

I am an atheist now.  But I feel that I am not a normal atheist.  While I don't believe in anything supernatural, superstitious or any of that like, I do believe that there is a best way of living and that we can achieve that and that this best way of living could possible be called an objective truth - a truth that lies independently from ourselves.  (I know crazy, huh?)

That's what this blog is about.  It's about finding truth.  Truth in art, politics, family, religion (here's a hint: there is very few truths in religion) and living.  The questions I want to ask and try to answer are question like:  "What makes some art good and some bad?" and "What is the best way to run an economy" (It is definitely not capitalism) and "How good of a moral teacher was Jesus Christ?"  and "What can I do here and now to make a difference for a definite good in the lives of people around me?"  (I'll be using the word "definite" a lot).  This a just a few of hundreds of important questions.

Please leave comments or email me if you find any mistakes or if you disagree.  Although many people might not like it and might find it hypocritical or confusing, I have been known to change my mind on many things.  And I hope to change my mind on many things with your helpful comments and through this blog.