Abstract art
Charles Dlhopolsky
I'm not an Objectivist but I consider myself to be a fairly 'reason'able
person. I like abstract art. I can't give you solid 'Objectively' grounded
reasons why I think abstract art is ok, except that it sometimes gives me
pleasure to look at it. (pleasure is a value I wish to attain, insert your
standard Objectivist derivation of the requirement of value to a human's life)
I don't ask you to like abstract art.
I certainly don't want you (or me) to be coerced to pay for it (taxes).
I have a print of a Jackson Pollock hanging in my apartment. I like
it. I don't care whether or not a child could do the same painting. It's
interesting and colorful and it goes with the rest of my room.
Saying that you can objectively define what art people should or should not
like is sort of like saying that you can objectively define what sport people
like to play.
Besides 'life' there are many, many other values out there, and its for each
person to choose what things they wish to value. So Brian, stop trying to
tell me what _MY_ LIFE should be about.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Charlie Dlhopolsky c...@bear.com
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Calvin Bruce Ostrum
c...@garden.bear.com (Charles Dlhopolsky) writes:
| I don't ask you to like abstract art.
| I certainly don't want you (or me) to be coerced to pay for it (taxes).
| I have a print of a Jackson Pollock hanging in my apartment. I like
| it. I don't care whether or not a child could do the same painting. It's
| interesting and colorful and it goes with the rest of my room.
Hmm. Wasn't Pollock funded by the WPA during the New Deal? I know at
least that Mark Rothko was.
By the way, Ronald Dworkin has some good thoughts on this matter
in his paper "Can a liberal state support art?", reprinted in his
book "A matter of principle".
| Saying that you can objectively define what art people should or should not
| like is sort of like saying that you can objectively define what sport people
| like to play.
But aren't some sports objectively more worthwhile than others? Think
of all the crazy collections of rules, each of which could constitute
the rules of some athletic contest designed to be played as a sport, most
of which are so silly no one would ever think of playing them. One
would hope the same thing is also true of art.
| Besides 'life' there are many, many other values out there, and its for each
| person to choose what things they wish to value. So Brian, stop trying to
| tell me what _MY_ LIFE should be about.
If *whatever* you choose to do is of value ("for you"), doesn't that make
the act of choosing rather a sham? If it becomes impossible to make
a bad or incorrect choice, then it is not clear how you could begin to
make a good one. Of course, part of what makes a choice a good one for
a person *will* be that it is freely chosen, but this can't be the
whole story. And in fact, it's not completely clear what "freely chosen"
means, since the agent that does the choosing is shaped substantially
by his culture to begin with. What kinds of shapings are good ones?
I will agree with the poster here that the coercive shaping attempted
by Objectivist browbeating is not strongly to be recommended.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Calvin Ostrum c...@cs.toronto.edu
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
It is a far, far better thing to have a firm anchor in nonsense than
to put out on the troubled seas of thought. -- John Kenneth Galbraith
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Charles Dlhopolsky
: Hmm. Wasn't Pollock funded by the WPA during the New Deal? I know at
: least that Mark Rothko was.
I agree with Objectivists that no art should be publicly funded...
(I thought I said that). Just because Pollock was (I don't have any idea if
he was or not) is not going to make me start to dislike his paintings.
: But aren't some sports objectively more worthwhile than others?
Yes but If I think that curling (a winter olympic event, where people try to
make a disk slide on ice as far as they can by brushing away the ice before
the disk with brooms.) is silly doesn't mean that some people could have a
fun time playing it.
When it comes to emotional value I'm afraid I have to side with the
non-objectivists (sometimes at least).
Its sort of like saying that there is objectivly definable 'good'
food. Sure some food is generally accepted as good (The stuff at the 4
star resteraunts) but there's also other stuff that one person might
like and another might not like.
I agree, there isn't much objective value in Pollocks work. There is a
subjective value, the value to ME.
Objectivists seem to discount other aspects of human nature than man's
productive ability. Yes, I like art that celebrates man's greatness,
But I also like art that just looks good, or is interesting or for
whatever silly reason I might like it.