Jerry wrote:
> _Criteria and Choice_
>
>JM: Well if I don't agree with your criteria and think that your criteria
>does harm to what is valuable in artistic creation -- then what can we do?
>You seem to think that there is an agreed upon criteria on how to decide
>good art is great art. As I said to Chris, the very aspects of the
>novelistic narrative art that he loves in Dostoevsky, I believe are anterior
>to the art of the novel, and actually mar it's construction. My criteria I
>think is good and strong and rational. It partially derives from my basic
>visceral experience of the art of narration.
>
it's not a matter of agreed upon criteria. it's a matter of truth. you seem to believe that the only valid form of knowledge that yields truth or certainty is positivist science. if so that is your ideological blinder. the truth content of art exists (or fails to exist) in works and can be revealed. it's still up to the critic to develop and "prove" the extent of truth content of works and to demonstrate how well the work organizes and manifests that truth content. once revealed, denying it is akin to denying truth revealed through scientific method. yes there is always a degree of uncertainty and room for dispute, but it's not nearly anywhere near an "agree to disagree" personal evaluation or isolated contest of individual beliefs. .
>
>Again you seem to want to establish a science-like criteria of knowledge
>about the judgment of art where there is simply is none that I can see.
>
no, you are the one who is writing pages on science. you valorize
positivist method and deny that any other form of knowledge can produce
certainty.
>
>
>
>_Truth-Value or Experiential Value_?
>JM: I don't see that works of art have any truth-value at all.
>
that would explain your inability to grasp what i'm writing (though the
problem may ultimately be by inability to communicate). if i understand
you clearly, your argument at times dogmatically insists that there
cannot be any agreed upon criteria for judging the merits of artworks
with any certainty. you say this for several reasons 1) only scientific
method permits valid assertions of truth claims or certainty, 2) art is
experienced by individuals and as such can never be examined outside of
personal experience of the works in question, thus 3) any measure of
artistic value is doomed to be an unprovable or unverifiable claim.
there are many marxist categories that address this type of reasoning.
reification and alienation come to mind.
>In fact if
>anything, in some works of art, it is the attempt that to have truth value
>that mars them. There is simply no truth value that I can see in the
>beautiful open symmetry of the Parthenon [...]
>
the truth value in this case would likely have something to do with how
greek forms express the impulse to freedom and democracy (regardless of
the reality of the greek polis) and the overcoming of savage nature
through human ingenuity.
>[...] Your use the word "objective" to mean something like
>"reality" or material reality and you also use it to mean "certainty." And
>you continually go back and forth between those uses.
>
is there some kind of problem with this? these two (plus several other)
meanings are always pregnant in language. if i stress one pole or the
other to try to achieve exactitude of meaning i'm being blind to the
dialectical and historical aspect of language. if i worked with that
goal in mind i would be dishonest at best and would have little hope of
ever understanding literature if not all forms of art. it is the very
tension between all the subtle contradictions inherent in words or lines
on a canvas that is the very stuff of art. and how works confront and
resolve those tensions are what yield truth content.
>[...]
>
>There are criteria (conditional and contingent) of certainty in science.
>There is no certainty of judgment in human experience in the same way.
>
why do you continue to valorize science as a special and presumably
superior form of knowledge?
>Again I think you are falling into the naturalistic fallacy, and confusing
>the is/ought distinction. Science can describe what is and so can some of
>our rational arguments about how we judge art. But judging art is always
>about what I think should feel great, what ought to be, good, beautiful,
>strong, compelling, etc.
>
it is you who are insisting on limiting art to individual judgment.
someone can say the mushroom cloud from a nuclear explosion is beautiful
to him. but what is the value of that judgment for exposing either the
political truth behind the detonation or for that matter the science
that makes the bomb possible. it's the same with discussions of art. we
have the tools to discuss artworks in a non-subjective manner. you can
choose to respond to artworks this way. that is your prerogative much
like my original metaphor that says someone can believe in astrology if
they so desire. but in neither case would such a belief yield much in
the way of revealing truth.
>JM: Oh great art can prop up the ruling class --- for example the Pantheon
>--- as well as undermine it. If this is part of your criteria then I not
>only think it is wrong but detrimental to artistic creation.
>
it's not part of my criteria. truth benefits an ascending ruling class and undermines an established/declining one. art, as a conveyor of truth functions in this way just as science can be used or abused at various historical junctures. i never meant to suggest otherwise or simplify the matter. it's part of the by-product of an off-the-cuff, non-rigorous internet discussion that might lead you to believe i wouldn't be aware of this.
>[...]I believe that
>spreading knowledge of physics and mathematics and biology to the masses,
>and showing how such thinking is creative and can be used to see life anew
>is a radical act and part of a revolutionary message. In this respect the
>great civil rights leader Bob Moses has convinced me that simply teaching
>mathematics to young children, teaching democratically and openly, can be
>part of a revolutionary consciousness.
>
then why would you bristle at the possibility that art can reveal truth. would not this be a valuable knowledge to be spread as well? it's a cheap shot to turn my words into a condemnation of science and access to learning. if you read me with any closeness or sympathy, you'd recognize that my issue is not with science per se but with 1) how science is used by the ruling class at this point in time and 2) how the valorization of positivism excludes and denigrates other forms of knowledge - obviously to meet an ideological agenda. these uses of science directly and indirectly trivialize the reception of and understanding of art. the fact that you've prolonged this argument shows how successful this agenda is.
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