[lbo-talk] Re: lbo-talk Digest, Vol 34, Issue 21

Michael Catolico mcatolico at mindspring.com
Tue Oct 3 17:40:09 PDT 2006


Boddi wrote:


>[...] I think the idea that some art is "better" than other art is a ruling-class idea. Certainly that's the history of it. Ruling classes have always used artists to create imagery to validate the "superiority" of one cultural esthetic (the
>one they controlled) over another.
>
that's part of my use of "objectivity." without a clear sense of true/untrue, good/bad, etc., ideological motives control the discourse on art and therefore blunt its power.


>[...] From Copernicus until today, Science has been trmendously threatening to the ruling class because it accesses a power they cannot control - the power of logic and Nature.
>
i'm not ignoring the history of social abuses/uses of science. for me any truth is threatening to the ruling class because any ruling class ultimately has no rational basis for its continued legitimacy. all i'm arguing is that art - in addition to science - reveals truth and this truth is "measurable" in the sense that critique of artworks is akin to the work of science. the truth art reveals is social. to relativize that revelation is to obscure it much the same way that scientific knowledge is suppressed under certain historical conditions/power relations.


>
>You talk about "truth content". I think this is just a little odd,
>given how little art is made about something actually true. Rather I
>would say that artists strive to create the feeling of authenticity
>about something that is not real.
>
this would be a very limited and limiting goal .


>As for the idea that good art follows an "evolution" and bad art does
>not - I mean, isn't that a little troubling also? What is this
>"evolution"? Something in Nature? I don't think so. Such an idea would
>tend to validate anything that follows a trend.
>
nothing to do with nature or trends. art evolves like all forms of knowledge, as technique and in the novel use of forms and content. there are certainly progressive and reactionary steps along this path.


>I know you're trying to get at something important here, but the terms
>you present are very confusing. Are there no examples you would cite?
>
the work of Max Raphael in the visual arts criticism and Adorno in musicology would be a useful place to start.



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