Art is Theft
John Jones
contemplation of stolen goods. Goods are wrenched, pilfered, taken,
whatever you will, in part or wholesale from foreign cultures, and
re-presented in a stolen 'art' context. We may include as examples
egyptian funereal art, the Lascaux cave paintings, the didgeridoo; or
else goods are torn from indigenous cultural forms, from our history,
from religious iconography or local social movements.
Art is the bastard, the clone, the stray without cultural identity, and
without cultural value - save from the pleasures that, with practice,
can be taken from the prostitution of stolen goods and their
counterfeits found winking at us in museums, art galleries and other
hold-ups. Art is controlled by thieves, a bullying cultural mafiosi
that humiliate the common man and wrench away his life-work, to place
it in the hands of the counterfeiter, the artist, who in the final
humiliation, re-presents it, regurgitated, emasculated, camped up and
still winking, to the common mans fawning gaze.
This is why there is little 'art' to be found in the honest house: art
is universal in the sense that all culture's steal at some point in
their history, but a culture is not so defined by theft. And if we are
to identify 'our' art, in our honest house, then we are hardly likely
to hang up on our walls our own stolen goods, or those bloodied
artifacts torn from lands and cultures abroad.
Tim
"John Jones" <jonesc...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:1148413895.3...@j33g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
What about clocks?
Sir Frederick
JJ's posts are art.
Wordsmith
I thought there were laws against the pilfering of artifacts.
W : )
alan jones
Art is theft?
It might be truer to say Art is dishonest.
When it is the slave of greed and worth, when looks to
curry favor with its patrons, when it says what other
look to hear and has nothing to say on truth, then it
lies.
Art which isn't free, mocks the idea of freedom. When
art doesn't stimulate, doesn't provoke us to question,
then it has no right to the title Art. When all it does
is bind us and fails to promote the next point of higher
ground, then it drags us down, hold us under.
Art which is not honest, is a crime.
mikeg...@xtra.co.nz
John Jones wrote:
> Art is theft.
Logic is an art and I am absolutely certain (got that Bob) that there
aint a human being alive who would mind if you stole even a smidgen of
that. Go on I dare you to. What a dickhead.
Michael Gordge
John Jones
artifact.
It is stolen in that the originary (primaeval if you like) activities
wherein we make our representations or presentations are severed from
those presentations. This severance is theft. Tolstoy was right about
art, but did not go far enough.
John Jones
owner.
mikeg...@xtra.co.nz
John Jones wrote:
> If logic is now art (!), then we need to return it to its rightful
> owner.
Yes, always has been, and it belongs to the human individual, its
actually like all forms of art, its a choice, go on try it.
Michael Gordge
mikeg...@xtra.co.nz
John Jones wrote:
> If logic is now art (!), then we need to return it to its rightful
> owner.
Here have your first crack at logic John
Who was the first artist and what did he she steal?
Michael Gordge
alan jones
Art is as much the act, as it is the object. Art is
the institution, the intent, the appreciation.
Yes, one could say art is derivative and in that sense
stolen, but to fixate on the object, is to not see the
true value of Art. Directly or indirectly, the real
value of art is in what it says of the moment, its
time, our times.
I sense your protests, but i would urge you to broaden
your definitions.
Robert Cohen
>Art is theft.
"Theft" in a rhetorical rather than a legalistic sense.
>Aesthetics are the pleasures to be had from safe
contemplation of stolen goods.
Well, that's slightly unfair to an obsessive collector whom maybe pays
$29 million USD for an original Picasso dove drawing. Maybe the dove
later dies from a fish-hook or salty-greasy french fry, while neither
Pablo Picasso nor the collector ever fishes nor eats fries or throws
'em on the boardwalk/beach.
>Goods are wrenched, pilfered, taken,
whatever you will, in part or wholesale from foreign cultures, and
re-presented in a stolen 'art' context.
True much of the time, while the copying/emulating is not immoral if
the subject material isn't copyrighted of course.
And what if the art collector has a bill of sale and lawfully has
cleared the stuff with the pertaining authorities?
I won't go on with this because de-constructing a JJ rant is for
kidding-stuff.
zinnic
Would that would include all art forms motivated and patronised by any
religion?
Area the composers of the great Requims, and the artists of Madonna and
Child etc. etc. lying?
> Art which isn't free, mocks the idea of freedom. When
> art doesn't stimulate, doesn't provoke us to question,
> then it has no right to the title Art. When all it does
> is bind us and fails to promote the next point of higher
> ground, then it drags us down, hold us under.
> Art which is not honest, is a crime.
Art is a triumvirate consisting of Conception (artist), Deception
(artifact), and Reception (audience,observer). Without the first, the
second cannot exist. Without the third, Art is meaningless. The
artist deceives the observer with his/her artifacts that magnify and
concentrate aspects of reality to the extent that they elicit a
heightened response from the observer. The greater the response, the
greater the Art . Art by definition IS deception and, hence, never
truthful.(QED).
Brian Fletcher
"alan jones" <o...@freeuk.com> wrote in message
news:PPKcg.495$Kr1...@newsfe6-win.ntli.net...
What may stimulate you may not stimulate me, although I agree that art, by
definition is a creation that 'brings out' the creativity in others.
The ultimate art work is the human body. What have you created 'of 'yours,
or are you dishonest (the ultimate dishonesty).
BOfL
zinnic
The first artist infringed the copyright of natural things. Primitive
human Art stole Nature's identity and things have been 'unnatural'
ever since. Let De-Consructionism reign. Let us pay unrestricted homage
to our antecedents-but not one red cent!.
Seriously, IMO your question is incisive and punctures the hot-air
balloon of those who, from their vantage as members of a privileged
society, extol the virtues of the 'noble' savage and primitive
societies whilst excoriating the historical 'injustices' that led to
their own privilege.
I am interested as to if and how the Jones's will respond to your
question.
Zinnic
Brian Fletcher
"zinnic" <zeen...@gate.net> wrote in message
news:1148427724.2...@38g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
This applies to everything yo are looking at, or listening to.The truth is
within, not 'outside'.This complies with your logic, if you take into
account that the earth is a work of art, but unlike the 'copy', is always
changing.
To say, without the observer , art is meaningless, doesnt take into account
the value of the creative process to the creator. The most significant
purpose.
BOfL
>
zinnic
I agree that for the "outside" truth is a non sequitor. The "outside"
is what it is. Truth is a "within" concept of what best reflects what
the outside is.
> To say, without the observer , art is meaningless, doesnt take into account
> the value of the creative process to the creator. The most significant
> purpose.
I concede that creation of any artifact has 'value' and 'meaning' to
its creator. For example, a serial killer that (not deserving of
who) specifically mutilates a victim obviously finds value in that
"creative process" . Does your definition of art include the creative
murder and mutilation of lifeforms? I thought better of you!. (But I do
recall a previous thread in which you made the Panglossian claim that
sexual abuse of a child was part of his/her 'karma'. Wanna deny it?
You are on record!)
Zinnic
mikeg...@xtra.co.nz
zinnic wrote:
>
> The first artist infringed the copyright of natural things.
Yes of course silly me.
> Seriously, IMO your question is incisive and punctures the hot-air
> balloon of those who, from their vantage as members of a privileged
> society, extol the virtues of the 'noble' savage and primitive
> societies whilst excoriating the historical 'injustices' that led to
> their own privilege.
If each and every single idea of man is not taken right back to a
sensory level of perception AND must NOT contain contradiction, if the
idea does NOT meet the preceeding criteria, then the idea is to be
treated as *of the mind fucking piffle* which you trust at your peril.
This idiot John Jones (yeah right) makes quite a few mistakes in that
regard, he deliberately or ignorantly or arrogantly (I suspect all
three) refuses to address the fundamental questions of art, WHAT is
art? WHY does art exist? and WHO does art have meaning for?
NOTE for you too zinnic you said
Art by definition IS deception and, hence, never truthful.(QED).
To be truthful means to recognise or to conform to reality, the
artist's role, if his work is to have any meaning in reality, then it
MUST conform or be at least an attempt recreate something in reality.
To save myself a little time and because it is said better than I could
possibly say it, I have posted from the following
http://www.importanceofphilosophy.com/Esthetics_NeedArt.html
http://www.importanceofphilosophy.com/Esthetics_Art.html
The word "art" is used so often and so loosely, it seems it can be
applied to anything at all. A word that can be used to describe
anything, though, is a word that has no meaning. To derive the meaning
of the word, we must first explore what human need it fulfills.
Man is a conceptual being. He thinks not only in specifics, but in
abstracts. To gain further knowledge of the world, he builds abstracts
on top of abstracts. Each step higher brings him a wider grasp of
reality.
Each step also takes him farther from the clarity that comes from
direct perception. This is not to say that his abstractions are false.
If his use of reason is vigorous enough, the abstractions will
correspond to reality. The difficulty is in then using the abstractions
for further reasoning.
Concepts are integrations of particulars. They can be formed through
integration of perceptions directly, or they can be formed through
abstractions of other concepts. The second route, while producing valid
concepts, does not require the perception of the particulars. They are
induced, but need not have been directly perceived.
This brings us to the crux of the problem. Many abstracts lack the
immediacy of those based on perception. The higher the level of
abstraction, the more difficult it is to fully grasp it. Art is the
tool that makes it possible to grasp complex abstractions.
Copyright © 2001 by Jeff Landauer and Joseph Rowlands
Art
Art satisfies an important need for men. It brings complex abstractions
closer to the perceptual level, enabling men to more fully grasp them.
Art accomplishes this through a process of embodying the abstraction in
the form of a concrete.
Art does not just concretize the abstraction by merely creating an
instance of it. Art attempts to embody the abstraction. It creates a
single instance, but the instance is based on the essential nature of
the concept. When we form a concept, we omit all of the non-essential
qualities. The abstraction that remains is based only on essential
characteristics. It is these characteristics that art tries to produce
in a single concrete form.
The result really is an embodiment of the abstraction. The product
retains only what the artist deems important. Since it consists of just
the essential aspects of the abstraction, and contains all of the
essentials, it allows the abstraction to be grasped directly as an
entity.
The importance of this tool of cognition is incalculable. By portraying
the abstraction in this way, it gains the immediacy of a perceivable
concrete. It magnifies the usefulness of the concept by allowing a more
thorough integration and understanding of it. Instead of trying to
understand things in term of an abstraction of many entities, the
single concrete embodiment serves as a perfect example of the
abstraction.
To bring the abstraction into clarity, it needs to be created in its
essential form. To be meaningful, it needs to be created in a
recognizable form. To this end, art is a selective re-creation of
reality.
Art is selective. The artist must pick not only the form in which he
intends to create the art, but he must pick a subject. This subject is
not random. It is picked by the artist for some significance it has for
him. The choice of the subject is based on the artist's philosophy.
Importance to the artist is based on his world-view. The subject is
that which the artist believes has a wide-reaching importance to
himself. The content is based on his sense of life. His emotional
evaluation of the aspects of reality he finds important.
Art is a re-creation. It is created in order to grasp clearly an aspect
of the artist's world view. If the concretization of the idea happened
naturally, one would not have a problem of bringing the abstraction to
a perceivable form. It would already be done. Art is an attempt to fill
a gap. It is an act of creation to bring into the world a clear
representation of an aspect of one's world-view.
Art is a re-creation of reality. Its purpose is to embody an idea,
showing that it can exist in reality. If the creation required non-real
qualities in order to be able to embody the idea, it could not be
convincing. If an artist, in trying to show that man should live a life
devoid of 'materialism', had to resort to describing an imaginary being
that required no food, protection from the elements, or any other human
need, it would rob the creation of the ability to concretize an
abstractions in order to achieve further understanding or efficacy.
An artist does need to create that which doesn't exist already, or in a
sufficiently consistent form. To this end, the artist isn't replicating
reality. Fiction is a form of art that doesn't mirror reality. But the
artist, in order to convey the message, must not only show what the
message is, but how it can exist in reality. If he fails in the second
half, it will undermine the first. To this end, the imaginary or
impossible can supplement the art, but cannot serve as its foundation.
This is why art needs to be a selective recreation of reality.
Copyright © 2001 by Jeff Landauer and Joseph Rowlands
> I am interested as to if and how the Jones's will respond to your
> question.
> Zinnic
He cant or wont rationally anyway, he will attack me instead.
Michael Gordge
John Jones
The 'first artist' is the name of an act. The act is one of theft.
Theft is found in all times and cultures. It waxes and wanes. At the
moment theft is peaking. The pleasures to be had from this theft are
termed aesthetic pleasures. Aesthetic pleasures are similar, if not
identical to the pleasures to be had from contemplating the head of
your enemy stuck on a spike in your living room, or hanging off the
wall.
Now I can answer your question. The "first artist" is a person who
takes, steals, severs, the physical presentation of a thing from its
cultural form. That is, the first artist falsely, and maliciously,
divides a cultural form into presentation and thing presented. This
severance enables the artist to make counterfeits, just as counterfeits
can be made from banknotes when their form is separated from their
legitimate use.
John Jones
The recognition of theft is inhibited when it occurs in certain
cultural formats such as gambling, or art productions and collections.
That is, a recognition of 'theft' informs the culture but may not
stimulate the culture into action against it. Such actions, where they
are implemented, include legal restrictions.
mikeg...@xtra.co.nz
John Jones wrote:
>
>
>
> The 'first artist' is the name of an act.
That doesn't make any sense, oh hang on are you a religious mystic?
> The act is one of theft.
Theft is the act of taking something without permission or knowledge of
the owner, so WHO put their hand up to say they were stollen from John
and WHO did they accuse?
Nonsensical piffle snipped.
Michael Gordge
alan jones
I think there's a distinction to be made between Art
and what some might call the service of beauty. Those
artifacts which survive to leave an impression of their
time, might justifiably be called art. That said, i am
also incline to see the 'artist' and his motivation in
his art forms.
>>Art which isn't free, mocks the idea of freedom. When
>>art doesn't stimulate, doesn't provoke us to question,
>>then it has no right to the title Art. When all it does
>>is bind us and fails to promote the next point of higher
>>ground, then it drags us down, hold us under.
>>Art which is not honest, is a crime.
>
>
> Art is a triumvirate consisting of Conception (artist), Deception
> (artifact), and Reception (audience,observer). Without the first, the
> second cannot exist. Without the third, Art is meaningless. The
> artist deceives the observer with his/her artifacts that magnify and
> concentrate aspects of reality to the extent that they elicit a
> heightened response from the observer. The greater the response, the
> greater the Art . Art by definition IS deception and, hence, never
> truthful.(QED).
>
As you say 'Art by definition IS deception and, hence,
never truthful.', yet would such a *definition* allow
for the artist or his intention?
Yes, any record, art or otherwise, might be taken
as _deception_ since it can never convey the full
experience of the moment. To follow your definition,
even our experience might be taken as deceptive, and
thus untruthful, since this too is limited in what
it can claim is accurately of the moment.
[At which point we might find ourselves on a detour
into the nature of truth.]
Is there a real connection to be made here. Deception
and truth, Art and deception? If so, why not go the
next stage and link Art to experience, or perception.
On the other hand you might look on art, not as an
attempt to comment on the whole, but to take and
explore a small facet of the whole. That is all it
can ever do.
Is it possible for Art to do this truthfully? Is the
intention of Art to deceive or reveal what the artist
is able to see in the whole?
alan jones
LOL!
And what say you of the mind? I can not speak for
the future, or what might remain as testament to
this mind. Here and now, its enough that I stimulate
others to think.
Immortalist
Art could be viewed as theft or honsesty, depending upon who is
creating or using it. Aesthetics are the pleasures to be had from safe
contemplation of goods, either stolen or honestly created/aquired.
Goods can be wrenched, pilfered, taken, whatever you will, in part or
wholesale from foreign cultures, and re-presented in a stolen 'art'
context or aquired in such ways from independent operators, but then
used to display in a helpful way the works of many cultures and
societies. We may include as examples egyptian funereal art, the
Lascaux cave paintings, the didgeridoo; or else goods are torn from
indigenous cultural forms, from our history, from religious iconography
or local social movements. Some of the people got these items for
personal gains or honest ends, but there they are and we can learn from
the mischief of graverobbers.
Art can be the bastard, the clone, the stray without cultural identity,
and without cultural value, except for the pleasures that, with
practice, can be taken from the prostitution of stolen goods and their
counterfeits found winking at us in museums, art galleries and other
hold-ups, in the edification and education of people that otherwise
might not have been subjected to these awesome works.
The view that art is controlled by thieves, a bullying cultural mafiosi
that humiliate the common man and wrench away his life-work, to place
it in the hands of the counterfeiter, the artist, who in the final
humiliation, re-presents it, regurgitated, emasculated, camped up and
still winking, to the common mans fawning gaze, is a viewpoing
seemingly biased by an unfavorable view of fre-enterprise and
competition. Likewise Marx might have viewed all labor as some sort of
prostitution.
This is why it might seem there is little 'art' to be found in the
honest house: art is universal in the sense that all culture's steal at
some point in their history, but a culture is not so defined by theft.
And if we are to identify 'our' art, in our honest house, then we are
hardly likely to hang up on our walls our own stolen goods, or those
bloodied artifacts torn from lands and cultures abroad. Nonetheless the
taint of much of art's origins, detracts little from the appreciation
that can be had, unless one were anally retentive of origins and
derilect of the meanings!
John Jones
Immortalist wrote:
It is important to note that 'art' never recalls or presents the source
from which it is taken, so art can never be educational or used
appreciatively. For example, the Lascaux cave paintings made particular
sense to the Lascaux people, but as 'art', that is, torn from their
cultural embeddedness, they are neither educational nor a spur to an
appreciation of the Lascaux peoples intentions, but rather, they become
a fancy, a trophy, to entertain a community of thieves and a
sycophantic populace who daily find themselves robbed in similar manner.
Nic
and what about music then? the conception (composer),deception
(musical score), and reception (audience) are we to say that
melody, accent and intonation are theft and counterfeit? that all
sound should be monotonous?
John Jones
Nic wrote:
> and what about music then? the conception (composer),deception
> (musical score), and reception (audience) are we to say that
> melody, accent and intonation are theft and counterfeit? that all
> sound should be monotonous?
The act of dishonesty called art is betrayed through its attempts to
impose an artificial order upon a form of culture. You have
demonstrated that artificial order. I shall call it the three A's -
artist, artifact, audience. Wherever we see these arbitrary divisions
we know that someone, the 'artist', or their henchmen, is up to no
good.
Dividing what is indivisible, what is a whole, within a culture is a
preparatory step to counterfeiting or theft. In other words,
"conception, deception and reception" are the tools an artist employs
in his trade of breaking and entering, and variations on these tools
are merely philosophical conceits.
mikeg...@xtra.co.nz
John Jones wrote:
> The act of dishonesty called art...
Stop right there sunshine, explain how George John Ringo and Paul were
being dishonest eg in the songs they wrote and in their desire to make
people (including especially themselves) happy?
Where was the fraud John? Prove it.
Who claims George John Ringo and Paul were being dishonest and what is
their evidence?
Art is an attempt to recreate reality, how the fuck can that be
dishonest especially when the intent of the work is known and
explained?
My Aunt was regarded by ALL of her students as one of NZ's best
original artists and the best art teacher they had had, she personally
painted landscapes, portraits and occasionally her mind wondered off,
to where only SHE knew where and she painted what some regarded as just
junk.
At no stage was any of her work dishonest and for John to claim
otherwise is just absolutely disgusting defamatory envy ridden
nonsense. Yes thats right, John is dishonest and clearly envious of
human beings who have the skills to recreate the reality of the world
around them.
What absolute and complete utter fucking nonsense, shame on you John,
this is one of the worst threads on blatant dishonesty I have ever seen
at alt.philosophy.
Michael Gordge
John Jones
I am no more controversial than Plato, Tolstoy, or Nietsche in my view
of art. As budding philosophers we should try to get out more...
The Beatles were skilled etc, as are all artists. However, until the
activity of art ceases and their museums, industries and exhibitions
close down, and until we become forgetful of their bad examples, then a
true public inspiration will never arise. As Tolstoy indicates, the
majority are sadly content with the skillful, or 'realistic'
counterfeits of the artist, while its own attempts lie in ashes.
Brian Fletcher
>
> Brian Fletcher wrote:
>> "zinnic" <zeen...@gate.net> wrote in message
>> news:1148427724.2...@38g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
>>
>> This applies to everything yo are looking at, or listening to.The truth
>> is
>> within, not 'outside'.This complies with your logic, if you take into
>> account that the earth is a work of art, but unlike the 'copy', is always
>> changing.
>
> I agree that for the "outside" truth is a non sequitor. The "outside"
> is what it is. Truth is a "within" concept of what best reflects what
> the outside is.
>
>> To say, without the observer , art is meaningless, doesnt take into
>> account
>> the value of the creative process to the creator. The most significant
>> purpose.
>
> I concede that creation of any artifact has 'value' and 'meaning' to
> its creator. For example, a serial killer that (not deserving of
> who) specifically mutilates a victim obviously finds value in that
> "creative process" .
> Does your definition of art include the creative
> murder and mutilation of lifeforms? I thought better of you!.
Refer to your own statement above. Creative murder obviously has an outer
reflection for you. You should think better of yourself.
>But I do
> recall a previous thread in which you made the Panglossian claim that
> sexual abuse of a child was part of his/her 'karma'. Wanna deny it?
> You are on record!)
Deny being naively optimistic? There is no need for optimism, when you see
reality.
If there was such a process of reincarnation and there was an "intelligence"
at work which incorporated absolute perfect justice, what would you see at
the perfect step for the perpetrator of such hideous behaviour ? What would
he/she have created for himself ?
There is a "limited" understanding of this process amongst older religions,
which advocate "eye for an eye". That's actually what happens, but if an
individual decides to judge what is to be done and dishes out the justice
himself, then he has a big karmic lesson to learn.
Notice I referred to the 'individual". The community process is a different
ballgame, that you will only understand when you get to grips with first
principles.
Its good that my comments have stuck in your head. Again, refer back to your
own comment above.
> Zinnic
>
Brian Fletcher
"alan jones" <o...@freeukFromSpam.com> wrote in message
news:OqYcg.10873$S.2...@newsfe3-win.ntli.net...
Ahaaa ;-)... I was using the word 'body' in a wholistic sense....
>
> And what say you of the mind? I can not speak for
> the future, or what might remain as testament to
> this mind. Here and now, its enough that I stimulate
> others to think.
Valid step. We think our way back to the present. The road to wisdom.
Thinking happens in the present, but always about events in the past or
future.
BOfL
kevirwin
I sent a reply to you and then I was gonna post it in the forum, but
after I selected the "first" post to you, I couldn't find the message
to stick it in the forum. Does this mean I did it in the "wrong order"?
Did you get a "private message" from me??
yea, still learnin'
Kev
mikeg...@xtra.co.nz
John Jones wrote:
> I am no more controversial than Plato, Tolstoy, or Nietsche in my view
> of art.
For christs sake WHO gives a flying FUCK about that?
Fancy blaming someone else for YOUR fucked up ideas.
I am holding YOU to account, I dont want your fucking excuses, I want
the proof of your cowardly accusations, present them, appologise or
fuck off.
You have accused all artists of being being crooks, theft is a crime, a
crime requires a victim, a HUMAN victim.
eg
The Prime Minister of New Zealand Helen Clark, a couple or more years
ago, signed her name on an art work that was NOT HERS, she did so
because she knew it would command a higher price and it did. THAT WAS A
CRIME it is called FRAUD. Note, Of course, as a Prime Minister she
wasn't charged and the dumb people of NZ keep on voting for the evil
fraudulent lying bitch, I digress.
Name one single victim of my Aunt's artistic work, you fucking sleaze
ball.
> As budding philosophers we should try to get out more...
Fuck, that really takes the cake that does, what and you reckon that
calling all artists crooks / thieves is what *getting out* is all about
and you call yourself a *budding philosopher*? FFS where do you get
your ideas from? !!!
> The Beatles were skilled etc, as are all artists.
It wasn't their skill I was referring to and YOU KNOW it, it was YOUR
fucking unfounded numskull accusation that they were all crooks for
being artists.
> However, until the
> activity of art ceases and their museums, industries and exhibitions
> close down, and until we become forgetful of their bad examples,
There you go again, christ what a despicable creep you are. Look you
clown, if you are going to make arbitrary statements like that and
refuse to substaniate them at all and at the same time expect your
views to be regarded as anything but the meaningless twaddle of a
seriously deranged mind, then you are much sillier than I give you
credit of being.
What a disgusting coward of a little creep you are John.
Michael Gordge
NOTE before you go hanging yourself John, it is YOUR ideas I am
attacking and not YOU personally. I have no reason to believe that in
your REAL life you are nothing like I portray you as being, its NOT YOU
I am attacking it is YOUR ideas.
I speak the way I do to defend what I know is right and I KNOW that it
is right to say that you are WRONG, seriously wrong, to suggest that
someone who tries to recreate reality through their skills, as an
artist, is a crook for that reason alone.
A crook, a thief in reality has victims, stealing requires a victim,
theft is the act of stealing, stealing is a crime.
A victim is a person who has force or fraud used or threatened against
them, against their will and or against their knowledge.
YES an artist can be a crook HOWEVER in no different a term as any
other person can be a crook, there HAS to be a victim or a clear and
present danger for ANY act of crime.
Again I demand you withdraw your cowardly and unsubstaniated accusation
against all artists, appologise or fuck off.
Nic
Now come along then Mr Jones!, you didn't answer my question,
I repeat,
and what about music then? the conception (composer),deception
(musical score), and reception (audience) are we to say that
melody, accent and intonation are theft and counterfeit? that all
sound should be monotonous?
extending this to languages, do we steal language from parents &
teachers others as we learn to talk from infancy?.
I think you might say that artists are inspired and influenced by
previous artists and a variety of cultural facets, but the individual
interpretation of what is percieved is private. What sways public
opinion into deciding what is and isnt 'art' can be influenced,
although when people genuinely arnt turned on by something,
they won't give it much thought or support it for long.
What sort of 'art' were you referring to anyways?, were you talking
about fine art or graphic art? the two have slightly different
histories.
John Jones
As budding philosophers we should try to get out more... I am no more
controversial than Plato, Tolstoy, or Nietsche in my view of art. If
you had read these authors you would expect to see outrageous
controversy in philosophy (or whatever you want to call it) rather than
concord. Tolstoy was a writer - yet he spoke of 'counterfeit art'.
Plato was a poet, yet he widely spoke of poets as mere imitators,
shallow and more often than not morally corrupt etc., and fit only to
be thrown out of town. Sit with the enemy more often so you can learn
their ways. For example, my style of writing here is a relentless
polemic. I will continue the polemic:
In our imagining of an ideal world let us not forget that the only
books that are worthy enough not to be thrown onto the bonfire that we
have joyously made from the paintings of 'art' (make haste in this task
for the flames are already dwindling), are those morally edifying in a
communal way, and technical manuals. The rest may be heaped on. And as
we cook our sausages upon their burning pages, we shall dwell upon our
new-gained freedoms of expression.
mikeg...@xtra.co.nz
John Jones wrote:
>
> As budding philosophers we should try to get out more... I am no more
> controversial than Plato, Tolstoy, or Nietsche in my view of art.
Christ, just as I thought he's been programmed to regurgitate the
mindless trash of others, the record's stuck you gutless meat-head.
> we cook our sausages upon their burning pages,
Your saugage was cooked well before it got anywhere near a flame you
goose.
Michael Gordge
John Jones
In order for my argument to work I make a crucial distinction between
the expressions of the solitary artist and similar expressions of the
community. The solitary artist has a priveliged position in being able
to produce his work and to be able to present it in the place of a
communal expression. For example, we are taught not so much 'how to
draw' in school, but what should count as a 'good drawing', and good
drawings are what get exhibited. The point about a good drawing (and it
is irrelevant here as to what we think 'good' is precisely) is that it
is made by an estranged, constrained individual and not by a community.
The drawings we make at that early stage in our lives are already,
then, counterfeits. They are counterfeits in that they imitate the
efforts of the solitary artist. The solitary artist can therfore be
said to have stolen communal art, or at least is an agent who is partly
responsible for its demise. It is, I would say, a 'bullying cultural
mafiosi', who's agents are the teachers and scholastics that is the
true agent of the demise of cultural expression.
So my polemic is against all individual artists and the scholasticism
and hidden interests that promote the artist. And now for my definition
of art. Art never existed except when this process of estrangement from
communal expression began. To regard the Lascaux cave painters as
'artists', and their work as 'art' is a mistake, an act of theft, if
their paintings were communaly inspired. For as communal inspirations
the community would not have have distinguished art and artist. Our
artist stands outside culture, so to call the Lascaux cave paintings
'art' is to promote an aesthetics of the 'safe contemplation of stolen
goods'.
To sum up, the act of artistic theft is one of stealing from
communities. We rob children in infancy in their attempts at
expression, and continually subvert a communal expression in order to
promote goods that are culturally estranged and valueless - valueless
because they do not properly 'belong' to the culture at all, but to the
roaming hermit, the artist, supported by the scholastics and others.
That is why it is so important that we never apply the term 'art' to
the varieties of expression of other cultures, for it is to place an
acquistive eye on them with a view to dismantling and breaking up their
communal expressions and forms.
With regard to your particular point regarding melody, accent and
intonation.. these divisions already make one suspicious that we have
embarked on the road to distinguishing art, artist, and audience. in
spite of that, I would say that no theft is involved in melody, accent,
and intonation, provided the expression is communal and not one of
estrangement. It is an estranged 'art' that individual artists create.
By 'individual artists' I mean how they are so presented by the current
art institutions.
alan jones
I appreciated that. Its just for a moment there, i thought
caught sight of the culture at large, goading us as products
to procreate. When you said the ultimate art work was the
body and then asked what i had created of mine, it was
enough to force a smile. ;-);
Immortalist
John Jones wrote:
> Immortalist wrote:
>
> >
>
> It is important to note that 'art' never recalls or presents the source
> from which it is taken, so art can never be educational or used
> appreciatively. For example, the Lascaux cave paintings made particular
> sense to the Lascaux people, but as 'art', that is, torn from their
> cultural embeddedness, they are neither educational nor a spur to an
> appreciation of the Lascaux peoples intentions, but rather, they become
> a fancy, a trophy, to entertain a community of thieves and a
> sycophantic populace who daily find themselves robbed in similar manner.
Funny, I was reading this book about cave painting for the upteenth
time and learned much from the pictures of the pictures and what the
"lifted" art meant to the primitives;
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
January 2, 1983
BECOMING SAPIENS
By PAUL ZWEIG; PAUL ZWEIG TEACHES COMPARATIVE LITERATURE AT QUEENS
COLLEGE. HE IS NOW COMPLETING AN INTERPRETIVE BIOGRAPHY OF WALT
WHITMAN.
THE CREATIVE EXPLOSION, An Inquiry into the Origins of Art and
Religion. By John E. Pfeiffer. Illustrated. 270 pp. New York: Harper &
Row. $29.95.
IN the past dozen years, archeologists have pushed the human species
far back in time. The East African desert has yielded a series of 3.6
million-year-old footprints and the remains of a chimpanzee-like female
(affectionately named Lucy) of the genus Australopithecus afarensis,
who made them. Scientists have also assembled fragments of tooth and
jaw into a possible hominid of a genus 15 million years old. Others,
analyzing the blood proteins of actual chimpanzees, are more
conservative, branching man off from the genetic tree around five
million years ago. The quantity of remains on which these conclusions
are based could probably be contained in a tiny room. The earth has
chewed the evidence up small, but it tells a story that plays upon the
imagination: a geological foreground filled with glimmers of
intelligence; pebble tools hardly removed from ordinary stones but
requiring a specifically human act - the creation of a mental picture,
however crude, and the forming of an object to match it.
As human time has been extended, we have had to imagine something else
too: the monotony of those millions of years when nothing changed.
There were, early on, a few inventions: a basic tool kit of stone
choppers, scrapers and hand axes that hominids everywhere seem to have
mastered and preserved unchanged for a million years at a time; later,
the domestication of fire. Man, with his developing frontal lobe, his
upright position and his rudimentary use of voice-signs, spread across
the earth as a tediously conservative species, resembling the lesser
animals whose generations repeat each other in a kind of eternity.
When the changes came, they were slight, but the preceding monotonous
eons make them ring out like bells. A 300,000-year-old site in Nice, on
the French Riviera, has yielded over 60 pieces of red, yellow, brown
and purple ocher, all brought there from other places. They mark the
first deliberate use of color by man. A piece of rib from an ox, about
as old, found in southwest France, reveals two carefully incised,
curved parallel lines - not a work of art by any means but a
deliberately decorative or symbolic act nonetheless. By then afarensis
had long since evolved into erectus, who was evolving into sapiens; the
process was leisurely and empty and minimally human.
But a fundamental change was coming, and that is John Pfeiffer's
subject in ''The Creative Explosion.'' Mr. Pfeiffer, a popular science
writer, has written several informative books about the origins of man,
and his new book is in the same vein. Archeologists have only recently
developed the painstaking methodology that alone enables new fragments
of prehistoric information to emerge. Compared to the work of earlier
scholars, such as the Abbe Henri Breuil, these recent discoveries have
not been synthetically important, but incremental - new sites; a more
complete analysis of tool kits; better dating, using carbon 14 and
other new techniques; a change of method, aimed more at unearthing
structures of use by the meticulous analysis of entire ''living
floors'' than at happy-go-lucky searching for unusual new artifacts. It
has become a discipline of technical monographs, not broad statements
about culture. The last important theoretical work, Andre
Leroi-Gourhan's magisterial study of the painted caves of France and
Spain, is almost 20 years old.
In ''The Creative Explosion,'' Mr. Pfeiffer has drawn on this new data
to create a picture of the Upper Paleolithic period when man - homo
sapiens sapiens - exploded onto the scene with all his gifts of art,
intelligence and technological cunning. The time is 30,000 to 10,000
years ago. The place, for reasons about which we can only speculate,
was southwest France and northern Spain. Waves of culture succeeded
each other, labeled with the place-names of important archeological
digs: Aurignacian, Perigordian, Solutrean, Magdalenian. The
million-year cycle of change had become frantic and short. The
Solutreans, identified by their remarkably delicate ''laurel leaf''
tools made of annealed flint, lasted only 3,000 years or so. The
masterworks of the hunting peoples of southwest France - the painted
caves -first appeared around 17,000 years ago, evolved visibly and then
disappeared scarcely 7,000 years later. Then, with the end of the ice
age, the whole Magdalenian hunting culture dissolved and, after a
hiatus of several thousand years, actual history began.
Yet even this irruption of the human had a foreground. Mr. Pfeiffer
does ample justice to the maligned Neanderthal whose reputation has
never fully recovered from the scorn of his 19th-century discoverers.
Mr. Pfeiffer asks us to imagine deep ice-age Europe; isolated
Neanderthal families that may have spent their entire lives without
seeing a ''stranger.'' Their bodies were adapted to extremes of
physical effort, as we know from the 350 individuals who have been
unearthed. They had large nasal cavities, massive muscles, a brain
slightly larger than ours, denser bones, a hand grip probably two or
three times stronger than ours and overall strength that enabled them
to lift as much as a ton. They were not shambling monsters; ''bathed,
shaved and dressed in modern clothes,'' they might pass unnoticed on
the street.
THE Neanderthals were the first human species to entomb their dead.
Skeletons have been found arranged into death-postures; pollen analysis
has shown that they were strewn with flowers. The Neanderthals made a
discovery more momentous than any hand ax, more momentous even than
fire. They discovered death and thereby, in all likelihood, discovered
religion. The upward arc of change suddenly quickened, and then, a mere
50,000 years later, it branched busily into the first flowering of
properly human culture, the Age of Reindeer - the age of Lascaux, and
Font de Gaume, and Niaux, and Pech-Merle and Altamira. These are the
names of caves in the limestone plateaus of France and Spain in which,
17,000 years ago, some of the greatest art in the history of man was
painted.
Mr. Pfeiffer has not only read the books and interviewed prehistorians;
he has trekked arduously through every one of the major caves and many
of the minor ones. He has crawled on his stomach to perilous niches
where, for reasons no one has been able to guess, a Magdalenian artist
painted an amazingly graceful stag or cow or wild goat. The caves are
the most spectacular evidence of the ''creative explosion,'' and Mr.
Pfeiffer's book centers on them.
On the uneven walls of the caves, the artists painted horses, bulls,
occasionally elephants, bears and other species. The paintings are
stylized, often larger than life; sometimes they are miniatures. Mixed
in among them are numerous abstract signs, hand prints and long looping
lines that prehistorians call ''spaghetti.'' If the paintings represent
a form of hunting magic, as the Abbe Breuil speculated, then why do so
few of them depict reindeer, the staple food, indeed the wealth, of the
Magdalenians? And there are other puzzles. Human figures are extremely
rare. When they appear, they are clumsy, almost abstract; they almost
always wear masks, as if the artist labored under some sort of taboo
against the representation of his own kind. Were the painted caves
''sanctuaries,'' as is usually assumed? How can one know?
IN a remote passage at Lascaux is a chasm called the well, which once
communicated with a network of unexplored lower galleries. On the walls
of the chasm is an extraordinary painting of a wounded bison and a
stick-figure man with a bird's head. At the bottom of the well
archeologists have found quantities of flat, hollowed stones with
traces of fire on them - crudely made lamps that may have been used
only once and then, perhaps in some sort of ceremony, thrown down into
the well. It is on the basis of such enigmatic and virtually
uninterpretable evidence that one supposes a ceremonial function for
the painted caves.
Mr. Pfeiffer asks another question too. In the million-year warfare of
natural selection, what contribution do the paintings make? Here Mr.
Pfeiffer's workmanlike and useful book becomes highly dubious. The
paintings, he argues on the basis of no evidence, were mnemonic acts,
supports of memory. For example, perhaps they were the focus of some
sort of initiatory trial in the terrifying and remote depths of the
underground world, during which children became men, possessed of the
cultural icons of the community.
Mr. Pfeiffer imagines the presumed initiate descending in utter
darkness. It is an environment of sensory deprivation; he is
frightened, expectant. Then he comes upon a painting flickering in
torch light; his descent into the cave has become an encounter with a
hypnotic image, which is ''imprinted'' and remembered with dreamlike
vividness. Well, maybe. But what purpose might such an encounter serve
in the cultural environment of the tribe, and how does Mr. Pfeiffer
know? A handful of children's footprints have been found in the dried
mud of several caves - so much for the evidence. Mr. Pfeiffer is not
any clearer in defining the ''mnemonic act'' itself. Is it simply an
act of culture? Then I suppose he is right, but the idea is hardly new.
If he means something more specific, he doesn't say so.
Mr. Pfeiffer offers no new reading of the paintings themselves; nothing
amounting to a theory or a believable cultural context that would add
to Leroi-Gourhan's remarkable analyses. Since ''The Creative
Explosion'' builds to the climax of the painted caves, this is a
serious lack, and I put down the book feeling disappointed.
Nonetheless, Mr. Pfeiffer has performed an important service in
gathering together the result of a decade's new archeology, and for
that alone his book makes useful reading.
Nabbed from the New York Time before they could tally me cokkee!!
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John Jones
Immortalist wrote:
> Funny, I was reading this book about cave painting for the upteenth
> time and learned much from the pictures of the pictures and what the
> "lifted" art meant to the primitives;
It is easy, I think, to switch from merely peaking at lifted 'art' (art
is lifted anyway) to then go on to presume that there is a real
connection between that art and its spiritual associations, or any
other associations. But there is no association to be made here. The
'art' is still the detached enjoyment of stolen property with its own
distinctive aesthetics, and the 'spiritual' associations are no more
than tacked on, or spoken of in the same breath. Further, any insight
as to the cultural/spiritual expressions of the Lascaux painters is to
arbitrarily assign our own sentiments to their own.
Nic
J, this is a fascinating subject and deserves more time than I have
(say in a fortnight?) it also covers literacy and aesthetics. Are you
looking at it from a political perspective? The development of 'art'
in the West is different from that in Far Eastern cultures and even
though there is/are parallel scientific developments and recognition of
philosophical issues common to both, pictorial representation as 'art'
and development of music have differed quite notably in their
evolutions.
The second point is that when you mention 'counterfeit' are you
actually referring to reprographics?, publishing and printing?
N.
zinnic
> >
> > Brian Fletcher wrote:
> >
> > I agree that for the "outside" truth is a non sequitor. The "outside"
> > is what it is. Truth is a "within" concept of what best reflects what
> > the outside is.
> >
> >
> > I concede that creation of any artifact has 'value' and 'meaning' to
> > its creator. For example, a serial killer that (not deserving of
> > who) specifically mutilates a victim obviously finds value in that
> > "creative process" .
> > Does your definition of art include the creative
> > murder and mutilation of lifeforms? I thought better of you!.
>
> Refer to your own statement above. Creative murder obviously has an outer
> reflection for you. You should think better of yourself.
I did as you asked, and referred to my "statement above". I see
nothing that remotely suggests that "Creative murdur obviously has an
outer reflection for" me.
You made the assertion, justify the 'obviousness' .
I know that you will not respond because you subscribe to WIBIT
(Whatever I Believe Is True) and not to JTB (Justified True Belief). I
will be delighted if you prove me wrong! .
It is obvious that you accept as reality the grotesque reflections
you see in the contorted mirror of your philosophy . My mirror is not
perfect but reflects an image that approximates to reality. Yours is
hilarious and would be a "smash hit' in a philosophical Disneyland. NB
This assertion is as credible as any of your assertions.
> > I recall a previous thread in which you made the Panglossian
claim that
> > sexual abuse of a child was part of his/her 'karma'. Wanna deny it?
> > You are on record!)
>
> Deny being naively optimistic? There is no need for optimism, when you see
> reality.
Are you naively optimistic? Or was that a Freudian slip? I do believe
that you are naive. Oops! Is that the sort of personal abuse that you
think is inappropriate for news groups?
My reading of your 'philosophy' is that you believe that optimism and
all other human 'irrelevencies' dissolve into triviality in the solvent
of your 'enlightenment'.
>> If there was such a process of reincarnation and there was an "intelligence"
> at work which incorporated absolute perfect justice, what would you see at
> the perfect step for the perpetrator of such hideous behaviour ? What would
> he/she have created for himself ?
If cows could fly, there would be a 'need' for many more car washers'
> There is a "limited" understanding of this process amongst older religions,
> which advocate "eye for an eye". That's actually what happens, but if an
> individual decides to judge what is to be done and dishes out the justice
> himself, then he has a big karmic lesson to learn.
Do all actions motivated by an individual's "judgement" and perceived
"justice'" result in a bad karma that requires reeducation of the
individual, or does it depend on the 'kamaric state' of the judge?.
I am here to learn. Will asking difficult questions effect my karma?
I have this horrible feeling that, if do not take steps to
significanntly elevate my karma, I am at great risk of being reborn
as a BOfL.
Oops! I or the computor made a mistake, (probably me)
To be continued
Zinnic
John Jones
Nic wrote:
> J, this is a fascinating subject and deserves more time than I have
> (say in a fortnight?) it also covers literacy and aesthetics. Are you
> looking at it from a political perspective? The development of 'art'
> in the West is different from that in Far Eastern cultures and even
> though there is/are parallel scientific developments and recognition of
> philosophical issues common to both, pictorial representation as 'art'
> and development of music have differed quite notably in their
> evolutions.
>
> The second point is that when you mention 'counterfeit' are you
> actually referring to reprographics?, publishing and printing?
>
> N.
To answer your two questions:
I wanted to say that 'art' as we understand it in the western
hemispheres is estranged from a communal expression. And it is on
account of that estrangement from a communal (or cultural) expression,
that we should not regard any of the creative communal efforts of
other, non-western, cultures as 'art', unless we wish to misconceive
and undermine the original creative intent of those communities.
By regarding the artifact as distinct from the cultural expression,
that is, by creating it according to our preferences and removing it
from the originary communal expression - whether by taking pictures or
by removing the artifact itself, we also create a new aesthetics. The
artifact, or its representations, is actually a new creation and bears
no relationship to the originary communal expression. Accordingly, the
new aesthetics of this artifact or its reproductions, which we call
'art', has no communal or cultural identity except to represent the
preferences of a culture concerning the sort of things it would like to
claim as its own that yet do not belong to it (steal).
Now I can explain the term 'counterfeit'. The term is a little similar
to the way that Tolstoy used it, but I have expanded its definition
greatly. A 'counterfeit', artifact, or 'art' whether as copies or in
its physical presence, is a set of preferences that a community maps
upon an originary communal expression and which stands in place of that
originary expression. It is counterfeit because the artifact makes a
claim to represent the originary communal expression, when quite
clearly it does not, even if in its physical presence. The counterfeit
or 'art', then, can be a physical item taken from the originating
culture; and/or it can also be its mechanical reproductions taken
whether the physical item is removed or not removed from the culture.
faute de mieux
John Jones wrote:
> Art is theft. Aesthetics are the pleasures to be had from safe
> contemplation of stolen goods. Goods are wrenched, pilfered, taken,
> whatever you will, in part or wholesale from foreign cultures, and
> re-presented in a stolen 'art' context. We may include as examples
> egyptian funereal art, the Lascaux cave paintings, the didgeridoo; or
> else goods are torn from indigenous cultural forms, from our history,
> from religious iconography or local social movements.
> Art is the bastard, the clone, the stray without cultural identity, and
> without cultural value - save from the pleasures that, with practice,
> can be taken from the prostitution of stolen goods and their
> counterfeits found winking at us in museums, art galleries and other
> hold-ups. Art is controlled by thieves, a bullying cultural mafiosi
> that humiliate the common man and wrench away his life-work, to place
> it in the hands of the counterfeiter, the artist, who in the final
> humiliation, re-presents it, regurgitated, emasculated, camped up and
> still winking, to the common mans fawning gaze.
> This is why there is little 'art' to be found in the honest house: art
> is universal in the sense that all culture's steal at some point in
> their history, but a culture is not so defined by theft. And if we are
> to identify 'our' art, in our honest house, then we are hardly likely
> to hang up on our walls our own stolen goods, or those bloodied
> artifacts torn from lands and cultures abroad.
Why should items of ancient Egyptian culture be given (not returned) to
an Islamic culture residing in the location of the former? It's akin to
discovering Native American artifacts in a German museum, and
remarking, "Let's "return" these to North America culture (contemporary
euro, hispanic, african, asian, and etc peoples). Or, if the original
tribe that produced the artifacts is extinct, even giving them to an
existing Native American tribe that might well have been one of the
extinct culture's ancestral enemies, as if they're all homogenous --one
indigenous tribe is just the same or as good as the next.
Immortalist
I was using the traditional idea that if a person or a people change,
alter or have a history with something they have that labor as an
argument for possesion, but I am still questioning this idea. Here it
is in the rough again;
Hobbes saith: Life for man is...
"nasty, brutish, and short."
In the Leviathan, Hobbes developed his political philosophy. He argued
from a mechanistic view that life is simply the motions of the organism
and that man is by nature a selfishly individualistic animal at
constant war with all other men. In a state of nature, men are equal in
their self-seeking and live out lives which are "nasty, brutish, and
short." Fear of violent death is the principal motive which causes
men to create a state by contracting to surrender their natural rights
and to submit to the absolute authority of a sovereign.
http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/people/A0823860.html
---------------------------------------
Men leave the state of nature and establish a civil society when they
voluntarily give their natural right to self defense to a common public
authority. They do this in order to acquire mutual protection of their
"lives, liberties, and estates" from those who in a state of nature
would be of danger to them, by means of placing the retaliatory use of
physical force in under "established, settled, known law," interpreted
by an "indifferent judge," with the "power to support the sentence when
right."
Thus underlying the laws of the government are the powers granted to
individuals in the state of nature by the law of nature, transferred by
their common consent to a government authority. "The obligations of the
law of Nature cease not in society, but only in many cases are drawn
closer, and have by human laws, known penalties annexed to them to
enforce their obligation." Locke maintains that the proper function of
law is to create, rather than restrict, personal freedom, that the law
of a government is not an instrument to restrain the freedom of a
rational being, but is a framework required to preserve and enlarge it.
For "where there is no law, there is no freedom. For liberty is to be
free from restraint and violence from others, which cannot be where
there is no law." In other words, law, in Locke's view, exists only to
stop the deeds of those who would transgress on another's freedom, for
the purpose of preserving that freedom. Such laws are not arbitrary,
since "nobody can transfer to another [i.e., the government] more power
than he has in himself."
Such a government is legitimate, because its powers derive from its
citizens, who give their consent to its formation. By "agreeing with
other men, to join and unite into a community for their comfortable,
safe, and peaceable living, one amongst another, in a secure enjoyment
of their properties, and a greater security against any that are not of
it," such men have given their "express consent" to the government of
such a community. In addition, any man who is born within a particular
government and accepts the protection provided by it, thereby gives a
"tacit consent" as to the legitimacy of that government
------------------------------------------
Locke is most renowned for his political theory. Contradicting Thomas
Hobbes, Locke believed that the original state of nature was happy and
characterized by reason and tolerance. In that state all people were
equal and independent, and none had a right to harm another's "life,
health, liberty, or possessions." The state was formed by social
contract because in the state of nature each was his own judge, and
there was no protection against those who lived outside the law of
nature. The state should be guided by natural law.
Rights of property are very important, because each person has a right
to the product of his or her labor. Locke forecast the labor theory of
value. The policy of governmental checks and balances, as delineated in
the Constitution of the United States, was set down by Locke, as was
the doctrine that revolution in some circumstances is not only a right
but an obligation. At Shaftesbury's behest, he contributed to the
Fundamental Constitutions for the Carolinas; the colony's proprietors,
however, never implemented the document.
http://www.infoplease.com/bio/8-29jlocke.html
--------------------------------------------
Every man has a property in his own person: this no body has any right
to but himself. The labour of his body, and the work of his hands, we
may say, are properly his.
---John Locke, "The Second Treatise On Civil Government"
Property rights are an extension to the right to life. In order to
support yourself through reason and stay alive, you must be able to own
and use the product of your labor. If the tools of your survival are
subject to random confiscation, then your life is subject to random
destruction.
http://www.importanceofphilosophy.com/Politics_Rights.html
-------------------------------------------
...This [labor theory of value] has political implications. In its
original context, it was used to support the new notion of
private-property. John Locke, in his Treatise on Government, asked by
what right an individual can claim to own one part of the world, when
according to the Bible God gave the world to all humanity. He answered
that a person owns ones own labor, and that when a person labored --
even the mere labour of picking an apple off a tree -- that labor
entered into the object, and so the object became property of that
person. From this Locke and others further argued that commodities have
value because of the labor invested in them.
http://en2.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_theory_of_value
--------------------------------------------
...[natural rights] - the idea that each person owns himself and
should have certain liberties that cannot be expropriated by the state
or anyone else. When someone labors for a productive end, the results
become that person's property, reasoned Locke. His conclusion that
labor contributes far more than nature to the value of goods was the
first step toward the labor theory of value, as articulated by David
Ricardo and Karl Marx.
http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/bios/Locke.html
---------------------------------------------
Adopting a general method similar to that of Hobbes, Locke imagined an
original state of nature in which individuals rely upon their own
strength, then described our escape from this primitive state by
entering into a social contract under which the state provides
protective services to its citizens. Unlike Hobbes, Locke regarded this
contract as revokable. Any civil government depends on the consent of
those who are governed, which may be withdrawn at any time...
>From the outset, Locke openly declared the remarkable theme of his
political theory: in order to preserve the public good, the central
function of government must be the protection of private property...
Consider how human social life begins, in a hypothetical state of
nature: Each individual is perfectly equal with every other, and all
have the absolute liberty to act as they will, without interference
from any other. (2nd Treatise §4) What prevents this natural state
from being a violent Hobbesian free-for-all, according to Locke, is
that each individual shares in the use of the faculty of reason, so
that the actions of every human agent-even in the unreconstructed
state of nature-are bound by the self-evident laws of nature...
Understood in this way, [the_(state)_of_nature] vests each reasonable
individual with an independent right and responsibility to enforce the
natural law by punishing those few who irrationally choose to violate
it. (2nd Treatise §§7-8) Because all are equal in the state of
nature, the proportional punishment of criminals is a task anyone may
undertake. Only in cases when the precipitate action of the offender
permits no time for appeal to the common sense, reason, and will of
others, Locke held, does this natural state degenerate into the state
of war of each against all. (2nd Treatise §19)
Everything changes with the gradual introduction of private property.
Originally, Locke supposed, the earth and everything on it belongs to
all of us in common; among perfectly equal inhabitants, all have the
same right to make use of whatever they find and can use. The only
exception to this rule is that each of us has an exclusive right to
her/his own body and its actions. But applying these actions to natural
objects by mixing our labor with them, Locke argued, provides a clear
means for appropriating them as an extension of our own personal
property. (2nd Treatise §27) Since our bodies and their movements are
our own, whenever we use our own effort to improve the natural
world-the resulting products belong to us as well.
The same principle of appropriation by the investment of labor can be
extended to control over the surface of the earth as well, on Locke's
view. Individuals who pour themselves into the land-improving its
productivity by spending their own time and effort on its
cultivation-acquire a property interest in the result. (2nd Treatise
§32) The plowed field is worth more than the virgin prairie precisely
because I have invested my labor in plowing it; so even if the prairie
was held in common by all, the plowed field is mine. This personal
appropriation of natural resources can continue indefinitely, Locke
held, so long as there is "enough, and as good" left for others with
the gumption to do the same. (2nd Treatise §33)
Within reasonable limits, then, individuals are free to pursue their
own "life, health, liberty, and possessions." Of course the story gets
more complicated with the introduction of a monetary system that makes
it possible to store up value in excess of what the individual can
responsibly enjoy. (2nd Treatise §37) The fundamental principle still
applies: labor is the ultimate source of all economic value. (2nd
Treatise §42) But the creation of a monetary system requires an
agreement among distinct individuals on the artificial "value" frozen
in what is, in itself, nothing more than a bit of "colored metal." This
need for agreement, in turn, gives rise to the social order.
http://www.philosophypages.com/hy/4n.htm
--------------------------------------
Many people use the expression "private property" and even the word
"mine" without being acquainted with John Locke's labor theory of
property. They will find that theory stated with maximum clarity in
Chapter V of his Second Treatise Concerning Civil Government.
Everyone, according to Locke, owns himself by right and the power
invested in his mind and his hands. This is the simplest declaration of
the fundamental injustice of chattel slavery, which is the ownership of
one human being by another.
After this first step, Locke proceeds by distinguishing between the
common and the proper. That which is not owned by anybody at all, yet
maybe used by all, are certain tracts of public land that the community
makes available to all members and can be used by them in common. The
famous Boston Common is an example of this distinction. Forgetting the
existence of Indian tribes in the New World of America, Locke refers to
a time when all the world was like America, given by God to all human
beings in common for their invasion and exploitation. What any human
being, invading this God-given common, appropriated to himself or
herself by his own labor became his or her private property.
When a man, for example, caught and tamed a wild horse, that became his
horse; when he fenced in a plot of land and cultivated it by using his
horse to pull tools that he himself made my his own labor, the
resulting produce and the land itself became his private properties.
Locke thinks that no one should appropriate more than he can store for
a future day. Nothing should be wasted. Enough should be left in the
common for others to appropriate.
In one passage Locke considers the possibility of the solitary farmer
employing another person to work for him. Let us consider this more
complicated situation.
http://www.thegreatideas.org/apd-prop.html
--------------------------------------
3.1 The Second Treatise of Government
Here is the subject matter of the various chapters of the Second
Treatise:
Chapter 1 Book I: the definition of Political power
Chapter II-VII: the bases of government, states of nature, war,
slavery, the nature of property
Chapters VIII-XIV: the nature of political power and legitimate civil
government
Chapter XV: recapitulates the fundamental distinctions between
paternal. political and despotic power.
Chapter XVI-XVIII: elaborates the nature of illegitimate civil
government. It specifies three forms of such illegitimacy: 1. an unjust
foreign conquest, 2. internal usurpation of political rule and 3.
tyrannical extension of power by those who were originally legitimately
in power.
Chapter XIX: gives the conditions under which legitimate revolution may
occur.
Figuring out what the proper or legitimate role of civil government is
would be a difficult task indeed if one were to examine the vast
complexity of existing civil governments. How should one proceed? One
strategy is to consider what life is like in the absence of civil
government. Presumably this is a simpler state, one which may be easier
to understand. Then one might see what role civil government ought to
play. This is the strategy which Locke pursues, following Hobbes and
others. So, in the first chapter of the Second Treatise Locke defines
political power.
Political power, then, I take to be a right of making laws with
penalties of death, and consequently all less penalties, for the
regulating and preserving of property, and of employing the force of
the community, in the execution of such laws, and in the defence of the
common-wealth from foreign injury; and all this only for the public
good
In the second chapter of The Second Treatise Locke describes the state
in which there is no government with real political power. This is the
state of nature. It is sometimes assumed that the state of nature is a
state in which there is no government at all. This is only partially
true. It is possible to have in the state of nature either no
government, illegitimate government, or legitimate government with less
than full political power.
If we consider the state of nature before there was government, it is a
state of political equality in which there is no natural superior or
inferior. From this equality flows the obligation to mutual love and
the duties that people owe one another, and the great maxims of justice
and charity. Was there ever such a state? There has been considerable
debate about this. Still, it is plain that both Hobbes and Locke would
answer this question affirmatively. Whenever people have not agreed to
establish a common political authority, they remain in the state of
nature. It's like saying that people are in the state of being
naturally single until they are married. Locke clearly thinks one can
find the state of nature in his time at least in the inland vacant
parts of America and in the relations between different peoples.
Perhaps the historical development of states also went though the
stages of a state of nature. An alternative possibility is that the
state of nature is not a real historical state, but rather a
theoretical construct, intended to help determine the proper function
of government. If one rejects the historicity of states of nature, one
may still find them a useful analytical device. For Locke, it is very
likely both.
3.2 Human Nature and God's Purposes
According to Locke, God created man and we are, in effect, God's
property. The chief end set us by our creator as a species and as
individuals is survival. A wise and omnipotent God, having made people
and sent them into this world:
...by his order and about his business, they are his property whose
workmanship they are, made to last during his, not one another's
pleasure: and being furnished with like faculties, sharing all in one
community of nature, there cannot be supposed any subordination among
us, that may authorize us to destroy one another, as if we were made
for one another's uses, as the inferior ranks of creatures are for
our's.
It follows immediately that "he has no liberty to destroy himself, or
so much as any creature in his possession, yet when some nobler use
than its bare possession calls for it." (II. ii. 5) So, murder and
suicide violate the divine purpose.
If one takes survival as the end, then we may ask what are the means
necessary to that end. On Locke's account, these turn out to be life,
liberty, health and property. Since the end is set by God, on Locke's
view we have a right to the means to that end. So we have rights to
life, liberty, health and property. These are natural rights, that is
they are rights that we have in a state of nature before the
introduction of civil government, and all people have these rights
equally.
If God's purpose for me on earth is my survival and that of my species,
and the means to that survival are my life, health, liberty and
property -- then clearly I don't want anyone to violate my rights to
these things. Equally, considering other people, who are my natural
equals, I should conclude that I should not violate their rights to
life, liberty, health and property. This is the law of nature. It is
the Golden Rule, interpreted in terms of natural rights. Thus Locke
writes: "The state of nature has a law of nature to govern it, which
obliges everyone: and reason which is that law, teaches all mankind who
will but consult it, that being all equal and independent, no one ought
to harm another in his life, health, liberty or possessions..." (II, 6)
Locke tells us that the law of nature is revealed by reason. Locke
makes the point about the law that it commands what is best for us. If
it did not, he says, the law would vanish for it would not be obeyed.
It is in this sense, I think, that Locke means that reason reveals the
law. If you reflect on what is best for yourself and others, given the
goal of survival and our natural equality, you will come to this
conclusion.
Locke does not intend his account of the state of nature as a sort of
utopia. Rather it serves as an analytical device that explains why it
becomes necessary to introduce civil government and what the legitimate
function of civil government is. Thus, as Locke conceives it, there are
problems with life in the state of nature. The law of nature, like
civil laws can be violated. There are no police, prosecutors or judges
in the state of nature as these are all representatives of a government
with full political power. The victims, then, must enforce the law of
nature in the state of nature. In addition to our other rights in the
state of nature, we have the rights to enforce the law and to judge on
our own behalf. We may, Locke tells us, help one another. We may
intervene in cases where our own interests are not directly under
threat to help enforce the law of nature. Still, the person who is most
likely to enforce the law under these circumstances is the person who
has been wronged. The basic principle of justice is that the punishment
should be proportionate to the crime. But when the victims are judging
the seriousness of the crime, they are more likely to judge it of
greater severity than might an impartial judge. As a result, there will
be regular miscarriages of justice. This is perhaps the most important
problem with the state of nature.
In Chapters 3 and 4, Locke defines the states of war and slavery. The
state of war is a state in which someone has a sedate and settled
intention of violating someone's right to life. Such a person puts
themselves into a state of war with the person whose life they intend
to take. In such a war the person who intends to violate someone's
right to life is an unjust aggressor. This is not the normal
relationship between people enjoined by the law of nature in the state
of nature. Locke is distancing himself from Hobbes who had made the
state of nature and the state of war equivalent terms. For Locke, the
state of nature is ordinarily one in which we follow the Golden Rule
interpreted in terms of natural rights, and thus love our fellow human
creatures. The state of war only comes about when someone proposes to
violate someone else's rights. Thus, on Locke's theory of war, there
will always be an innocent victim on on side and an unjust aggressor on
the other.
Slavery is the state of being in the absolute or arbitrary power of
another. On Locke's definition of slavery there is only one rather
remarkable way to become a legitimate slave. In order to do so one must
be an unjust aggressor defeated in war. The just victor then has the
option to either kill the aggressor or enslave them. Locke tells us
that the state of slavery is the continuation of the state of war
between a lawful conqueror and a captive, in which the conqueror delays
to take the life of the captive, and instead makes use of him. This is
a continued war because if conqueror and captive make some compact for
obedience on the one side and limited power on the other, the state of
slavery ceases. The reason that slavery ceases with the compact is that
"no man, can, by agreement pass over to another that which he hath not
in himself, a power over his own life." (II. 4, 24) Legitimate slavery
is an important concept in Locke's political philosophy largely because
it tells us what the legitimate extant of despotic power is and defines
and illuminates by contrast the nature of illegitimate slavery.
Illegitimate slavery is that state in which someone possesses absolute
or despotic power over someone else without just cause. Locke holds
that it is this illegitimate state of slavery which absolute monarchs
wish to impose upon their subjects. It is very likely for this reason
that legitimate slavery is so narrowly defined.
There have been a steady stream of articles over the last forty years
arguing that given Locke's involvement with trade and colonial
government, the theory of slavery in the Second Treatise was intended
to justify the institutions and practices of Afro-American slavery.
This seems quite unlikely. Had he intended to do so, Locke would have
done much better with a vastly more inclusive definition of legitimate
slavery than the one he gives. It is sometimes suggested that Locke's
account of "just war" is so vague that it could easily be twisted to
justify the institutions and practices of Afro-American slavery. This,
however, is also not the case. In the Chapter "Of Conquest" Locke
explicitly lists the limits of the legitimate power of conquerors.
These limits on who can become a legitimate slave and what the powers
of a just conqueror are ensure that this theory of conquest and slavery
would condemn the institutions and practices of Afro-American slavery
in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries.
"Of Property" is one of the most famous, influential and important
chapters in the Second Treatise of Government. Indeed, some of the most
controversial issues about the Second Treatise come from varying
interpretations of it. In this chapter Locke, in effect, describes the
evolution of the state of nature to the point where it becomes
expedient for those in it to found a civil government. So, it is not
only an account of the nature and origin of private property, but leads
up to the explanation of why civil government replaces the state of
nature.
In discussing the origin of private property Locke begins by noting
that God gave the earth to all men in common. Thus there is a question
about how private property comes to be. Locke finds it a serious
difficulty. He points out, however, that we are supposed to make use of
the earth "for the best advantage of life and convenience." (II. 5, 25)
What then is the means to appropriate property from the common store?
Locke argues that private property does not come about by universal
consent. If one had to go about and ask everyone if one could eat these
berries, one would starve to death before getting everyone's agreement.
Locke holds that we have a property in our own person. And the labor of
our body and the work of our hands properly belong to us. So, when one
picks up acorns or berries, they thereby belong to the person who
picked them up.
One might think that one could then acquire as much as one wished, but
this is not the case. Locke introduces at least two important
qualifications on how much property can be acquired. The first
qualification has to do with waste. Locke writes: "As much as anyone
can make use of to any advantage of life before it spoils, so much by
his labor he may fix a property in; whatever is beyond this, is more
than his share, and belongs to others." (II. v. 31) Since originally,
populations were small and resources great, living within the bounds
set by reason, there would be little quarrel or contention over
property, for a single man could make use of only a very small part of
what was available.
Note that Locke has, thus far, been talking about hunting and
gathering, and the kinds of limitations which reason imposes on the
kind of property that hunters and gatherers hold. In the next section
he turns to agriculture and the ownership of land and the kinds of
limitations there are on that kind of property. In effect, we see the
evolution of the state of nature from a hunter/gatherer kind of society
to that of a farming and agricultural society. Once again it is labor
which imposes limitations upon how much land can be enclosed. It is
only as much as one can work. But there is an additional qualification.
Locke says:
Nor was this appropriation of any parcel of land, by improving it, any
prejudice to any other man, since there was still enough, and as good
left; and more than the as yet unprovided could use. So that, in
effect, there was never the less for others because of his inclosure
for himself: for he that leaves as much as another can make use of,
does as good as take nothing at all. No body could consider himself
injured by the drinking of another man, though he took a good draught,
who had a whole river of the same water left to quench his thirst: and
the case of land and water, where there is enough, is perfectly the
same. (II. v. 33)
The next stage in the evolution of the state of nature involves the
introduction of money. Locke remarks that:
. ... before the desire of having more than one needed had altered the
intrinsic value of things, which depends only on their usefulness to
the life of man; or had agreed, that a little piece of yellow metal,
which would keep without wasting or decay, should be worth a great
piece of flesh, or a whole heap of corn; though men had a right to
appropriate by their labor, each one of himself, as much of the things
of nature, as he could use; yet this could not be much, nor to the
prejudice of others, where the same plenty was left to those who would
use the same industry. (II. 5. 37.)
So, before the introduction of money, there was a degree of economic
equality imposed on mankind both by reason and the barter system. And
men were largely confined to the satisfaction of their needs and
conveniences. Most of the necessities of life are relatively short
lived -- berries, plums, venison and so forth. One could reasonably
barter one's berries for nuts which would last not weeks but perhaps a
whole year. And says Locke:
...if he would give his nuts for a piece of metal, pleased with its
color, or exchange his sheep for shells, or wool for a sparkling pebble
or diamond, and keep those by him all his life, he invaded not the
right of others, he might heap up as much of these durable things as he
pleased; the exceeding of the bounds of his property not lying in the
largeness of his possessions, but the perishing of anything uselessly
in it. (II. 5. 146.)
The introduction of money is necessary for the differential increase in
property, with resulting economic inequality. Without money there would
be no point in going beyond the economic equality of the earlier stage.
In a money economy, different degrees of industry could give men vastly
different proportions. "This partage of things in an inequality of
private possessions, men have made practicable out of the bounds of
society, and without compact, only by putting a value on gold and
silver, and tacitly agreeing to the use of money: for in governments,
the laws regulate the rights of property, and the possession of land is
determined by positive constitutions." (II. 5. 50) The implication is
that it is the introduction of money, which causes inequality, which in
turn causes quarrels and contentions and increased numbers of
violations of the law of nature. This leads to the decision to create a
civil government. Before turning to the institution of civil
government, however, we should ask what happens to the qualifications
on the acquisition of property after the advent of money? One answer
proposed by C. B. Macpherson is that the qualifications are completely
set aside, and we now have a system for the unlimited acquisition of
private property. This does not seem to be correct. It seems plain,
rather, that at least the non-spoilage qualification is satisfied,
because money does not spoil.
The other qualifications may be rendered somewhat irrelevant by the
advent of the conventions about property adopted in civil society. This
leaves open the question of whether Locke approved of these changes.
Macpherson, who takes Locke to be a spokesman for a proto-capitalist
system, sees Locke as advocating the unlimited acquisition of wealth.
According to James Tully, on the other side, Locke sees the new
conditions, the change in values and the economic inequality which
arise as a result of the advent of money, as the fall of man. Tully
sees Locke as a persistent and powerful critic of self-interest. This
remarkable difference in interpretation has been a significant topic
for debates among scholars over the last forty years. Let us then, turn
to the institution of civil government.
The institution of civil government comes about because of the
difficulties in the state of nature. Rather clearly, on Locke's view,
these difficulties increase with the increase in population, the
decrease in available resources, and the advent of economic inequality
which results from the introduction of money. These conditions lead to
an increase in the number of violations of the natural law. Thus, the
inconvenience of having to redress such grievances on one's own behalf
become much more acute, since there are significantly more of them.
These lead to the introduction of civil government.
3.3 The Social Contract Theory
Just as natural rights and natural law theory had a florescence in the
17th and 18th century, so did the social contract theory. Why is Locke
a social contract theorist? Is it merely that this was one prevailing
way of thinking about government at the time which Locke blindly
adopted? I think the answer is that there is something about Locke's
project which pushes him strongly in the direction of the social
contract. One might hold that governments were originally instituted by
force, and that no agreement was involved. Were Locke to adopt this
view, he would be forced to go back on many of the things which are at
the heart of his project in the Second Treatise. Remember that The
Second Treatise provides Locke's positive theory of government, and
that he explicitly says that he must do this "lest men fall into the
dangerous belief that "all government in the world is merely the
product of force and violence." So, while Locke might admit that some
governments come about through force or violence, he would be
destroying the most central and vital distinction, that between
legitimate and illegitimate civil government, if he admitted that
legitimate civil government can come about in this way. So, for Locke,
legitimate civil government is instituted by the explicit consent of
those governed. Those who make this agreement transfer to the civil
government their right of executing the law of nature and judging their
own case. These are the powers which they give to the central
government, and this is what makes the justice system of civil
governments a legitimate function of such governments.
Ruth Grant has persuasively argued that the establishment of civil
government is in effect a two step process. Universal consent is
necessary to form a political community. Consent to join a community
once given is binding and cannot be withdrawn. This makes political
communities stable. Grant writes: "Having established that the
membership in a community entails the obligation to abide by the will
of the community, the question remains: Who rules?" (Grant, 1987 p.
115) The answer to this question is determined by majority rule. The
point is that universal consent is necessary to establish a political
community, majority consent to answer the question who is to rule such
a community. Universal consent and majority consent are thus different
in kind, not just in degree. Grant writes:
Locke's argument for the right of the majority is the theoretical
ground for the distinction between duty to society and duty to
government, the distinction that permits an argument for resistance
without anarchy. When the designated government dissolves, men remain
obligated to society acting through majority rule.
It is entirely possible for the majority to confer the rule of the
community on a king and his heirs, or a group of oligarchs or on a
democratic assembly. Thus, the social contract is not inextricably
linked to democracy. Still, a government of any kind must perform the
legitimate function of a civil government.
3.4 The Function Of Civil Government
Locke is now in a position to explain the function of a legitimate
civil government and distinguish it from illegitimate civil government.
The aim of such a legitimate civil government is to preserve, so far as
possible, the rights to life, liberty, health and property of its
citizens, and to prosecute and punish those of its citizens who violate
the rights of others others and to pursue the public good even where
this may conflict with the rights of individuals. In doing this it
provides something unavailable in the state of nature, an impartial
judge to determine the severity of the crime, and to set a punishment
proportionate to the crime. This is one of the main reasons why civil
society is an improvement on the state of nature. An illegitimate civil
government will fail to protect the rights to life, liberty, health and
property of its subjects, and in the worst cases, such an illegitimate
government will claim to be able to violate the rights of its subjects,
that is it will claim to have despotic power over its subjects. Since
Locke is arguing against the position of Sir Robert Filmer who held
that patriarchal power and political power are the same, and that in
effect these amount to despotic power, Locke is at pains to distinguish
these three forms of power, and to show that they are not equivalent.
Thus at the beginning of Chapter XV Of Paternal, Political and Despotic
power considered together he writes: "THOUGH I have had occasion to
speak of these before, yet the great mistakes of late about government,
having as I suppose arisen from confounding these distinct powers one
with another, it may not be amiss, to consider them together." Chapters
VI and VII give Locke's account of paternal and political power
respectively. Paternal power is limited. It lasts only through the
minority of children, and has other limitations. Political power,
derived as it is from the transfer of the power of individuals to
enforce the law of nature, has with it the right to kill in the
interest of preserving the rights of the citizens or otherwise
supporting the public good. Despotic power, by contrast, implies the
right to take the life, liberty, health and at least some of the
property of any person subject to such a power.
3.5 Rebellion and Regicide
At the end of the Second Treatise we learn about the nature of
illegitimate civil governments and the conditions under which rebellion
and regicide are legitimate and appropriate. As noted above, scholars
now hold that the book was written during the Exclusion crisis, and may
have been written to justify a general insurrection and the
assassination of the king of England and his brother. The argument for
legitimate revolution follows from making the distinction between
legitimate and illegitimate civil government. A legitimate civil
government seeks to preserve the life, health, liberty and property of
its subjects, insofar as this is compatible with the public good.
Because it does this it deserves obedience. An illegitimate civil
government seeks to systematically violate the natural rights of its
subjects. It seeks to make them illegitimate slaves. Because an
illegitimate civil government does this, it puts itself in a state of
nature and a state of war with its subjects. The magistrate or king of
such a state violates the law of nature and so makes himself into a
dangerous beast of prey who operates on the principle that might makes
right, or that the strongest carries it. In such circumstances,
rebellion is legitimate as is the killing of such a dangerous beast of
prey. Thus Locke justifies rebellion and regicide (regarded by many
during this period as the most heinous of crimes) under certain
circumstances. Presumably this was the justification that was going to
be offered for the killing of the King of England and his brother had
the Rye House Plot succeeded.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/locke/
----------------------------------------
OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT: THE SECOND TREATISE
Author: John Locke (1632-1704)
Type of work: Political philosophy
First published: 1690
PRINCIPAL IDEAS ADVANCED
In the state of nature all men are free and equal; no man is by nature
sovereign over other men.
The law of nature governs the state of nature; reason reveals the law
of nature, which is derived from God.
In a state of nature no one might to harm another in his life, health,
liberty, or possessions-and if anyone does harm another, the one he
harms has the right to punish him.
By his labor a man acquires as his property the products of his labor.
In order to remedy the inconveniences resulting from a state of nature
in which every man is judge of his own acts, men enter into a contract,
thereby creating a civil society empowered to judge men and to defend
the natural rights of men.
If a government violates the social contract by endangering the
security and rights of the citizens, it rebels against the people, and
the people have the right to dissolve the government.
---------------------------------
The "glorious revolution" of 1688 saw the expulsion of James II from
the throne of England and the triumph of Whig principles of government.
James had been accused of abandoning the throne and thus violating the
original contract between himself and his people. Two years later,
Locke's Of Civil Government: The Second Treatise came out and was
looked upon by many as a tract which justified in philosophical terms
those historical events. The first Treatise had been an argument
against the view that kings derive their right to rule from divine
command, a view held by the Stuarts, especially James I, and defended
with no little skill by Sir Robert Filmer in his Patriarcha (1680).
>From a philosophical point of view it is of little consequence whether
Locke intended his defense of the revolution to apply only to the
events in the England of his day or to all men at any time; certainly
we can study his principles for what they are and make up our own minds
as to the generality of their scope.
After rejecting Filmer's thesis, Locke looked for a new basis of
government and a new source of political power. He recognized that the
state must have the power to regulate and preserve property; that to do
so it must also have the right to punish, from the death penalty to all
lesser ones. In order to carry out the laws passed, the force of the
community must be available to the government, and it must also be
ready to serve in the community's defense from foreign injury.
Political power by which the government performs these functions ought
to be used only for the public good and not for private gain or
advantage. Locke then set out to establish a basis for this power, a
basis which he considered moral and just.
He turned to a concept used by political theorists since the time of
the Stoics in ancient Greece: natural law with its concomitants, the
state of nature and the state of war. The state of nature has been
objected to as a concept by many because history does not indicate to
us such a state existed. In this treatise Locke tries to answer this
sort of objection by pointing to "primitive" societies known in his
day, the nations of Indians living in the New World. But this is not a
strong argument and was not really needed by Locke. The concept of the
state of nature can be used as a device to set off and point up the
difference between a civil state in which laws are enacted by the
government and a contrasting state in which either these laws are
absent in principle or another set of laws prevails. In this way the
basis of civil enactments and the position of the individual within
society may be better understood. This applies also to the other
concepts mentioned, the state of war and natural law. At any rate,
Locke holds that in the state of nature each man may order his own life
as he sees fit, free from any restrictions that other men might impose;
in this sense he and all others are equal. They are equal in a more
profound sense from which, as it were, their right to act as
independent agents comes; that is, as children of God. By use of his
reason, man can discover God's commands by which he should order his
life in the state of nature. These commands we call the "laws of
nature." Thus, although one is free to act as he pleases in the state
of nature, he is still obligated to act according to God's commands.
This insures that his actions, although free, will not be licentious.
The basic restriction that God's laws place upon an individual is that
he treat others as he himself would like to be treated. Since men are
equal and independent, they should not harm one another regarding their
"life, health, liberty, or possessions. . . ."
Man's glory as well as his downfall has been free will, whereby he may
choose to do or not to do what he ought to do. To preserve himself from
those who choose to harm him, one has the right to punish transgressors
of the law. Reparation and restraint are the two reasons that justify
punishment when an individual by his acts has shown that he has agreed
to live by a law other than that which common reason and equity
dictate; that is, he has chosen to violate God's orders. The right to
punish is thus a natural right by which men in the state of nature may
preserve themselves and mankind from the transgressions of the lawless.
This right is the basis for the right of governments to punish
lawbreakers within the state; thus Locke provides a ground for one
aspect of political power which he had noted earlier.
When an individual indicates through a series of acts which are
apparently premeditated that he has designs on another's life or
property, then he places himself in a state of war, a state of enmity
and destruction, toward his intended victim. In the state of nature men
ought to live according to reason and, hence, according to God's
commands. Each man must be the judge of his own actions for on earth he
has no common superior with authority to judge between him and another
when a question of aggression arises, and when relief is sought. His
conscience must be his guide as to whether he and another are in a
state of war.
In The Declaration of Independence, the American colonists proclaimed
that men had natural rights granted them by their Creator, that
governments were instituted by men with their consent to protect these
rights. Locke, as pointed out, held these rights to be life, liberty,
and property, whereas the Declaration proclaims them to be life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It is interesting that Jefferson
pondered whether to use "property" or "pursuit of happiness" and in an
early draft actually had the former set down. Much of Locke's
discussion in this treatise influenced the statesmen and leaders of the
Colonies during the period of the American Revolution.
Locke seems to use various senses of "property" in his discussions.
Speaking quite generally, one might say that whatever was properly
one's own (this might mean whatever God had endowed an individual with
or whatever the legislature of the commonwealth had declared as legal
possession) no one else had a claim to. In spelling out this idea,
Locke starts first with one's own body, which is God-given and which no
one has a claim upon; a man has a right to be secure in his person.
Included in this idea, of course, is the fact that life itself is a
gift to which no one else has a claim, as well as the freedom to move
about without restriction. There is next the more common use of
"property," which is often rendered "estate" and which refers to the
proper possessions which one gains in working the earth that God has
given man to use for the advantage of his life and its convenience.
Since working for one's own advantage and convenience involves the
pursuit of happiness, it can be seen in what way the terms "property"
and "pursuit of happiness" are interchangeable. This more common use of
"property" is, nonetheless, related to the first use in Locke's theory.
What is properly a man's own may be extended when, with regard to the
common property that God has blessed men with for their use, a man
mixes his labor with it and makes it his own. Divine command
prescribes, however, that he take no more than he needs, for to take
more than one's share may lead to the waste of God's gift and result in
want for others. Locke believed that there was more than enough land in
the world for men but that it should be used judiciously; he does
complicate matters, however, by stating that disproportionate and
unequal possessions may be acquired within a government through the
consent of the governed. Locke's embryonic economic theory may be
looked upon as an early statement of the classical or labor theory of
value. This is especially so if we remember that aside from the
"natural" or God-given articles of value that man has, he creates
objects of value by means of his own labor; more succinctly, labor
creates value. This view was held by such influential thinkers in
economic history as Adam Smith, David Ricardo, and Karl Marx. Before we
leave this aspect of Locke's theory we should note that he has again
provided a ground for the use of political power to regulate, preserve,
and protect property in all its aspects by establishing its place in
the state of nature prior to the institution of the commonwealth.
Locke has shown that although men ought to live according to divine
commands, some do not and thus they turn the state of nature into one
of war. Since there is no common superior on earth to whom one can turn
for restitution, men are often left helpless. It is obvious that not
every injury imagined is a wrong, that two individuals in conscience
may disagree, that those instances of obvious wrongs are not always
rectifiable when men have only their own judgments and strength to
depend upon. A disinterested judge supported by more power than a
single person has alone may provide people with a remedy for the
insecurity that exists in the state of nature. In the most general
sense of "property," a commonwealth may provide the solution to its
preservation and security by making public the laws by which men ought
to live, by establishing a government by which differences may be
settled through the office of known and impartial judges who are
authorized to do so, and by instituting a police force to execute the
law, a protection absent in the state of nature. Men give up their
rights to judge for themselves and to execute the laws of nature to the
commonwealth, which in turn is obligated to use the power which it has
gained for the ends which led to the transference of these rights. In
giving up their rights, men consent to form a body politic under one
government and, in so doing, obligate themselves to every member of
that society to submit to the determinations of the majority. Note that
everyone who enters into the society from the state of nature must
consent to do so; hence, consent is unanimous and anyone who does not
consent is not a member of the body politic. On the other hand, once
the body politic is formed, its members are thenceforth subject to the
vote of the majority.
In discussing consent and the general question, "Who has consented and
what are its significant signs?" Locke uses the traditional distinction
between tacit and express consent. Although he is somewhat ambiguous at
times, his position is apparently as follows. There are two great
classes or categories of individuals within society, those who are
members and those who are residents but not members. (A convenient and
similar distinction would be those who are citizens anci those who are
aliens.) Both these two groups receive benefits from the government and
hence are obligated to obey it. By their presence they enjov the peace
and security that goes with a government of law and order, and it is
morally and politically justifiable that that government expect of them
that they obey its laws. Those who are merely residents may quit the
body politic when they please; their tacit consent lasts only as long
as their presence in the state. Members, however, by their express
consent create and perpetuate the society. They are not free to be or
not be members at their whim, else the body politic would be no
different from the state of nature or war from which its members
emerged, and anarchy would prevail. Citizens usually have the
protection of their government at home and abroad, and often, at least
in the government Locke preferred, a voice in the affairs of their
nation. Locke points out, however, that the people who form the
commonwealth by their unanimous consent may also delegate their power
to a few or to one (oligarchy or monarchy); but in any case it is their
government.
There are certain aspects of government which Locke believed must be
maintained to insure that it functions for the public good. (1) The
legislative, which is the supreme governmental power, must not use its
power arbitrarily over the lives and fortunes of the people. The law of
nature still prevails in the governments of men. (2) Nor should power
be exercised without deliberation. Extempore acts would place the
people in as great jeopardy as they were in the state of nature. (3)
The supreme power cannot take from a man his property without his
consent. This applies also to taxation. (4) The legislative power
cannot be transferred to any one else, but must remain in the hands of
that group to which it was delegated by the people. In so acting, the
legislature insures the people that political power will be used for
the public good.
Locke believed that the interests of the people would be protected more
fully in a government in which the three basic powers, legislative,
executive, and federative, were separate and distinct in their
functions. The legislature need meet only periodically, but the
executive should be in session, as it were, continually, whereas the
management of the security of the commonwealth from foreign injury
would reside in the body politic as a whole. Strictly speaking, the
federative power-treaty-making and so forth-need not be distinguished
from the legislative. It is interesting that the three branches of
government in the United States include the judiciary rather than the
federative, which is shared by the executive and legislative branches
of government. This shows that Montesquieu as well as Locke influenced
the Philadelphia convention.
Government, which is made up of these three basic powers, of which the
legislative is supreme, must not usurp the end for which it was
established. The community, even after it has delegated its power, does
not give up its right of self-preservation, and in this sense it
retains forever the ultimate power of sovereignty. This power cannot be
used by the community which is under obligation to obey the acts of the
government unless that government is dissolved. It must be pointed out
that the community is for Locke an important political concept. The
exercise of its power after the dissolution of government is as a
public body and does not involve a general return to the state of
nature or war by its members. But in what way is a government
dissolved?
When a government exercises power beyond right, when public power is
used for private gain, then tyranny prevails. Such acts set the stage
for the dissolution of government. It should be pointed out that in
forming a community and in delegating power to a government, the
people, especially in the latter case, enter into an agreement or,
analogously, into a social contract with their government to provide
them with security, preservation, and those conveniences that they
desire, in exchange for the transference of their rights and the honor,
respect, and obligation which they render to the government. The
violation of their part of the contract leads government to declare
them (as individuals) outlaws, to use its police force to subdue them,
and its courts to set punishment for them.
In discussing dissolution in general, Locke points out that it can
apply to societies and communities as well as to governments. It is
seldom that a community is dissolved. If it does happen, it is usually
the result of a foreign invasion which is followed by the utter
destruction of the society. Governments, on the other hand, are
dissolved from within. Either the executive abandons his office (as was
done by James II) and the laws cannot be carried out, or the
legislative power is affected in various ways which indicate a
violation of trust. If, for example, the property of the subjects is
invaded, or if power is used arbitrarily, then government is dissolved.
Obviously, it falls upon the community to judge when this power is
being abused. Generally, Locke holds, the people are slow to act; it
takes not merely one or two but a long series of abuses to lead them to
revolution. In fact, he points out that the term "rebellion" indicates
a return to a state of war and a denial of the principles of civil
society. But when this happens in the dissolution of government, it is
the government that has rebelled and not the community; it is the
community that stands for law and order and puts down the rebellion.
Thus Locke rather cleverly concludes his treatise, not with a
justification of the right of rebellion but, rather, with the right of
the people to put down unlawful government, unlawful in that it
violates the trust and the law of nature leading to tyranny, rebellion,
and dissolution.
Masterpieces of World Philosophy
by Frank N. Magill (Author)
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0062700510/
John Jones
faute de mieux wrote:
> Why should items of ancient Egyptian culture be given (not returned) to
> an Islamic culture residing in the location of the former? It's akin to
> discovering Native American artifacts in a German museum, and
> remarking, "Let's "return" these to North America culture (contemporary
> euro, hispanic, african, asian, and etc peoples). Or, if the original
> tribe that produced the artifacts is extinct, even giving them to an
> existing Native American tribe that might well have been one of the
> extinct culture's ancestral enemies, as if they're all homogenous --one
> indigenous tribe is just the same or as good as the next.
>
There is no reason why items of ancient Egyptian culture be given (not
returned) or not given to an Islamic culture residing in the location
of the former.
My point here is that we could not return or give 'their' work of art
anyway. For 'their art' that is in our possession was never a part of
their communal creative expression. When we take a work of art we
actually create one, and take it out of what we regard as the creative
expression of another community. We then mistakenly claim that what we
have taken is an artifact representing the 'art' of the community we
have taken it from. 'Their art' in our possession is always, therefore,
counterfeit.
John Jones
Immortalist wrote:
> I was using the traditional idea that if a person or a people change,
> alter or have a history with something they have that labor as an
> argument for possesion, but I am still questioning this idea. Here it
> is in the rough again;
It is not clear how a personal possession is ultimately distinct from
its representation or occurence in the community.
The community presents the individual with communaly 'holistic' forms,
if you like. For example, a communal creative expression is a holistic
form. If another culture (or even an enclave within the same culture,
such as art scholastics) constructs a stealable object (art) out of
that expression and then steals it, either directly or through making
copies, then this threatens the individual because it threatens the
identity of the culture that supports the individual. Art is
holistically destructive and never merely individually destructive.
Immortalist
This would be like saying that the community brings forth or presents
the meanings of words and then you saying that the re-presentation
should always be accurate. But then we know haw language changes to
suit the times and interactions of technologies and peoples.
How could you support such a standard that you propose in which people
cannot change even if the identity of artifacts is altered in a way
that their usage is different.
The question is how you would justify this standard of definition which
applies to the use of cultural artifacts, before we try and converse
about the standards validity;
The Problem of the Criterion
A general argument against the invocation of any standard for knowledge
has come to be known as "the problem of the criterion." There have been
disputes about standards of knowledge. Some are about particular kinds
of arguments that provide evidence for knowledge claims, while others
are about the degree of evidential support or reliability required for
knowledge.
Suppose there is a dispute about a standard of knowledge. If the
dispute is to be settled rationally, there must be some means for
settling it. It would do no good of each side simply to assert its
position without argument. So how would a standard of knowledge (or
"criterion of truth," in the language of the Stoics) be defended? It
could only be defended by reference to some standard or other. If the
standard under dispute is invoked, then the question has been begged.
If another standard is appealed to, the question arises again, to be
answered either by circular reasoning or by appeal to yet another
standard. So either the process of invoking standards does not
terminate, or it ends in circular reasoning, and in neither case would
the dispute be settled rationally.
Meta-Justification and Explanation
When we construct a complete justification, a special issue arises when
we ask whether the theory itself is justified. Can we use the theory to
explain why we are justified in accepting the theory of justification.
It would be a defect in a theory of justification if it did not explain
why one is justified in accepting the theory itself. This is because we
cannot appeal to a different theory to explain it, on pain of
generating a potentially infinite regress. So the choice is between
explaining why the theory is correct and not explaining it.
If we seek to maximize explanation, we must just put up with the fact
that the only resources we have available are drawn from the very
theory whose justification we are trying to explain. This is what makes
the [explanatory loop] here a virtuous one. The loop in the theory of
justification is a virtuous one for the purpose of explaining as much
as we can and leaving as little unexplained as we must.
This detour into explanation, does not, as mentioned above, give us an
answer to the question whether the theory of justification actually is
justified. So the issue remains whether it is legitimate to use a
theory of justification to justify our acceptance of its own truth.
http://comm.ucdavis.edu/phi102/tkch9.htm
http://comm.ucdavis.edu/phi102/lecmenu.htm
John Jones
Immortalist wrote:
> This would be like saying that the community brings forth or presents
> the meanings of words and then you saying that the re-presentation
> should always be accurate. But then we know haw language changes to
> suit the times and interactions of technologies and peoples.
>
> How could you support such a standard that you propose in which people
> cannot change even if the identity of artifacts is altered in a way
> that their usage is different.
>
> The question is how you would justify this standard of definition which
> applies to the use of cultural artifacts, before we try and converse
> about the standards validity;
>
Any presentation of a communal expression through 'art' will have the
aesthetics of the counterfeit (the stolen image or idea), whether or
not it has been accurately executed. The accuracy of the presentation
or re-presentation does not address that which it claims to address.
This means that the problem of setting a standard, or measure of
accuracy of presentation through whatever means at hand, will not arise
in the case of 'art'.
Nic
John Jones wrote:
> Nic wrote:
>
> > J, this is a fascinating subject and deserves more time than I have
> > (say in a fortnight?) it also covers literacy and aesthetics. Are you
> > looking at it from a political perspective? The development of 'art'
> > in the West is different from that in Far Eastern cultures and even
> > though there is/are parallel scientific developments and recognition of
> > philosophical issues common to both, pictorial representation as 'art'
> > and development of music have differed quite notably in their
> > evolutions.
> >
> > The second point is that when you mention 'counterfeit' are you
> > actually referring to reprographics?, publishing and printing?
> >
> > N.
>
>
> To answer your two questions:
> I wanted to say that 'art' as we understand it in the western
> hemispheres is estranged from a communal expression. And it is on
> account of that estrangement from a communal (or cultural) expression,
> that we should not regard any of the creative communal efforts of
> other, non-western, cultures as 'art', unless we wish to misconceive
> and undermine the original creative intent of those communities.
>
perhaps the free availabilty of 'art' from outside the local
environment
sees like an infiltration, a seepage from other environmental
dimensions. Well theres always the graphitti I suppose!, but even
that has been influenced by other cultures. The good news is that
even the ancient Egyptians wrote graphitti, the lower Nile taking
the piss out of the Upper - all in heiroglyphics! The points were
similar - so&so's a slag, so&so's a poofter, so it goes. Hey the
writings always been on the wall, in all cultures in all languages.
> By regarding the artifact as distinct from the cultural expression,
> that is, by creating it according to our preferences and removing it
> from the originary communal expression -
try and define for me what you mean by 'regarding' - - and regarded
by whom. "By creating it according to our preferences" suggests
that we are the ones who created the art, but by saying "as distinct
from cultural expression" you're saying that you as the artist is in
no way influenced by local culture or environment. To you then,
preferences have nothing to do with cultural influences, and all
efforts undermine the "original creative intent" .
Hmm, then how is it that a 'local' community can be original,
without a comparison between what it produces and that
produced by an external community, surely there would be nothing
unique at all without making that comparison!
> whether by taking pictures or
> by removing the artifact itself, we also create a new aesthetics.
If we are fortunate to have the freedom to openly express what we feel
sure.
> The
> artifact, or its representations, is actually a new creation and bears
> no relationship to the originary communal expression. Accordingly, the
> new aesthetics of this artifact or its reproductions, which we call
> 'art', has no communal or cultural identity except to represent the
> preferences of a culture concerning the sort of things it would like to
> claim as its own that yet do not belong to it (steal).
What you appear to be saying is that
A. there is the primary perception and expression
B. secondary (a priori) perception and moderated expression
and reprographic reproduction (same tier system I guess)
C. tertiary examination, out of time, out of context, assumption
resting on others a priori (history etc)
> Now I can explain the term 'counterfeit'. The term is a little similar
> to the way that Tolstoy used it, but I have expanded its definition
> greatly. A 'counterfeit', artifact,
Is money is counterfeit?, what is its value? what is its aesthetic
counterpart? Please decide if you are talking about fine-art or
reprographics, cos if you're talking in general its personal, and
you have to defend your preferences. (I like so& so because, etc)
> or 'art' whether as copies or in
> its physical presence, is a set of preferences that a community maps
> upon an originary communal expression and which stands in place of that
> originary expression. It is counterfeit because the artifact makes a
> claim to represent the originary communal expression,
It won't make a claim to anything, unless someone told you to
think or feel that way about it (which is what I think the objection
is)
> when quite
> clearly it does not, even if in its physical presence. The counterfeit
> or 'art', then, can be a physical item taken from the originating
> culture; and/or it can also be its mechanical reproductions taken
> whether the physical item is removed or not removed from the culture.
Are we adversely influenced by other cultures by what is freely
available to us?, its like asking if we have too much freedom to
pick up a book or daily newspaper and read it ... You have
to decide for yourself.
Best, N.
Immortalist
You contradict yourself by presenting this standard of accuracy and
claiming a standard of no needed standard. Not allowed. Try again.
If we can find re-representational structures in the brain that are
shaped like things in the world doesn't mean that our internal
presntation of the world is counterfiet, its just hardwired.
John Jones
Immortalist wrote:
> You contradict yourself by presenting this standard of accuracy and
> claiming a standard of no needed standard. Not allowed. Try again.
>
> If we can find re-representational structures in the brain that are
> shaped like things in the world doesn't mean that our internal
> presntation of the world is counterfiet, its just hardwired.
In order for a standard of accuracy to be implemented, the standard
must refer to that which it is applied against. Art does not refer to
that which it claims to refer to. We can also conclude that art does
not represent or imitate anything, not because of a failure of
accuracy, but because of a failure of referencing or relationship; and
it is relationship that underpins accuracy, standards, representation
and imitation.
Art and brain structure can be treated as similar cases here. Both
demand that a relationship between objects has been set up, when in
fact all we have are mappings.
Immortalist
But the reference is your ethical standard and you are presenting it,
and other participants must agree to it before we can proceed. You are
proposing this or that about art and I merely request that you present
it as a simple principle.
In logic, begging the question is the term for a type of fallacy
occurring in deductive reasoning in which the proposition to be proved
is assumed implicitly or explicitly in one of the premises. For an
example of this, consider the following argument: "Only an
untrustworthy person would run for office. The fact that politicians
are untrustworthy is proof of this." Such an argument is fallacious,
because it relies upon its own proposition-in this case, "politicians
are untrustworthy"-in order to support its central premise.
Essentially, the argument assumes that its central point is already
proven, and uses this in support of itself.
John Jones
Immortalist wrote:
>
> But the reference is your ethical standard and you are presenting it,
> and other participants must agree to it before we can proceed. You are
> proposing this or that about art and I merely request that you present
> it as a simple principle.
Is it any coincidence that some of the gains from gambling (the
national lottery) are used to support 'art'? For both are forms of
acceptable theft.
Perhaps art is not theft. Perhaps art takes from other cultures, or
makes representations from the creative pursuits of other cultures,
with their permission. But in that case art would be defined by the
culture that allows such representation. Art would be a received gift.
Now where does the aesthetics of 'the gift' lie? In the object itself?
or in the manner of its giving?
We still need to deal with the fact that an art artifact, whether gift
or stolen, cannot represent the original cultural form from which it
was constructed and taken. The term 'counterfeit' might still apply, if
we are comfortable with Tolstoy's use of the word in an 'art' context.
Immortalist
Shall we use Tolstoy's #14 #16 & #16 as a criteron or standard in this
conversation and how shall we say in in one sentence? "All human life
is filled with works of art of every kind - from cradlesong, jest,
mimicry, the ornamentation of houses, dress, and utensils, up to church
services, buildings, monuments, and triumphal processions. It is all
artistic activity." --Tolsty
#14. If people lacked this capacity to receive the thoughts conceived
by the men who preceded them and to pass on to others their own
thoughts, men would be like wild beasts, or like Kaspar Houser.
#16. And therefore the activity of art is a most important one, as
important as the activity of speech itself and as generally diffused.
#17. We are accustomed to understand art to be only what we hear and
see in theaters, concerts, and exhibitions, together with buildings,
statues, poems, novels. . . . But all this is but the smallest part of
the art by which we communicate with each other in life. All human life
is filled with works of art of every kind - from cradlesong, jest,
mimicry, the ornamentation of houses, dress, and utensils, up to church
services, buildings, monuments, and triumphal processions. It is all
artistic activity. So that by art, in the limited sense of the word, we
do not mean all human activity transmitting feelings, but only that
part which we for some reason select from it and to which we attach
special importance.
John Jones
Immortalist wrote:
> Shall we use Tolstoy's #14 #16 & #16 as a criteron or standard in this
> conversation and how shall we say in in one sentence? "All human life
> is filled with works of art of every kind - from cradlesong, jest,
> mimicry, the ornamentation of houses, dress, and utensils, up to church
> services, buildings, monuments, and triumphal processions. It is all
> artistic activity." --Tolsty
>
> #14. If people lacked this capacity to receive the thoughts conceived
> by the men who preceded them and to pass on to others their own
> thoughts, men would be like wild beasts, or like Kaspar Houser.
>
> #16. And therefore the activity of art is a most important one, as
> important as the activity of speech itself and as generally diffused.
>
> #17. We are accustomed to understand art to be only what we hear and
> see in theaters, concerts, and exhibitions, together with buildings,
> statues, poems, novels. . . . But all this is but the smallest part of
> the art by which we communicate with each other in life. All human life
> is filled with works of art of every kind - from cradlesong, jest,
> mimicry, the ornamentation of houses, dress, and utensils, up to church
> services, buildings, monuments, and triumphal processions. It is all
> artistic activity. So that by art, in the limited sense of the word, we
> do not mean all human activity transmitting feelings, but only that
> part which we for some reason select from it and to which we attach
> special importance.
>
> http://www.csulb.edu/~jvancamp/361r14.html
Tolstoy distinguished good art from bad, or non-art. An example of bad
art was Wagners Ring. An example of good art was a spontaneous village
song. Bad art divided mankind while good art encouraged universal
brotherhood (with a christian emphasis). For Tolstoy art was rooted in
the activities that promoted brotherhood and christian fellowship.
Where I differ from Tolstoy, who is roundly and unfairly critized, is
that I say that the art form or artifact is not a part of those
activities, but is a unique construction, a stencil, that is imposed
upon those activities and taken out of those activities.
This means that if the art that is taken out of those activities is
also claimed to represent those activities, then it is a counterfeit,
i.e. its claimed value is not its actual value in the context from
which it was taken.
Tolstoy re-defined art and presented it in a social, communal context,
a move with which I concur. I think he unfortunately kept the term
'art' to refer to bad art, BUT also held on to the idea that art could
still be distinguished from the activities in which 'art' occured.
There is some conflict in his position.
roastfr...@yahoo.com
these ideas.
What if the artifact is traded or given to another as an act of love?
If I as a painter give my art or perform it for others am I
participating in theft, a kind of willing victim?
Is it only theft in the cases you mention?
In other words, while theft or stealing may be a component of the
experience and acts of the participants, does this rule out genuine
simultaneous experiences and acts that we traditionally associate with
art and the experience of it?
Does you interpretation exclude those postive aspects of strangers
viewing art?
If I am moved to tears and in some way change my life after hearing a
certain piece of music, was this only my hallucinations tacked on to my
rhetorically criminal act? Or did something actually get (I would
rather not use the word communicated)?
John Jones skrev:
John Jones
roastfr...@yahoo.com wrote:
> Why limit this to objects? Wouldn't ideas also be theft? Perhaps even
> these ideas.
> What if the artifact is traded or given to another as an act of love?
> If I as a painter give my art or perform it for others am I
> participating in theft, a kind of willing victim?
> Is it only theft in the cases you mention?
> In other words, while theft or stealing may be a component of the
> experience and acts of the participants, does this rule out genuine
> simultaneous experiences and acts that we traditionally associate with
> art and the experience of it?
> Does you interpretation exclude those postive aspects of strangers
> viewing art?
> If I am moved to tears and in some way change my life after hearing a
> certain piece of music, was this only my hallucinations tacked on to my
> rhetorically criminal act? Or did something actually get (I would
> rather not use the word communicated)?
Your points one by one. In particular your last point (point 6),
unearths a fatal objection, I think, to the accepted idea of art as
presenting autonomously aesthetic artifacts and productions.
1) 'Why limit this to objects? Wouldn't ideas also be theft?'
Yes, I indicated that ideas and artifacts are stolen, subject to the
qualification that the stolen article, idea, or artifact does not
represent what was stolen.
2) 'What if the artifact is traded or given to another as an act of
love?'
Whether the artifact is traded, stolen, or given as a gift, the
originating communal expression will be compromised. However, in the
case of an artifact being a gift this compromise will be of the nature
of a willing sacrifice. It is a sacrifice because although the artifact
cannot represent a 'part' of the original creative communal expression,
its creation within, and removal from, that original expression
necessarily sacrifices that original expression in some way, such as
changing the original expression. This change may serve the purposes of
a gesture, a communication. Therefore, art that is a gift demands a
return of some sort, or exchange between parties, or the sacrifice will
be needless.
3) 'If I as a painter give my art or perform it for others am I
participating in theft, a kind of willing victim?'
I would say it depends whether the performance is stolen in the first
place. It might not be. If the latter, then I would say that it would
not be 'art', as it is ordinarily conceived as an aesthetically
autonomous, aesthetic production, but would be an uninhibited creative
communal expression, arising communally. I drew attention elsewhere to
the fact that public expressions and creations can be, and invariably
are, inhibited and passed over in favour of creations of individual
artists. In this case, if artists claim their work to be 'public' then
they are promoting counterfeits. The 'theft' in this case will be
creative, communal expression. Such intrusions and manoevures arise
very early on in the genesis of communal expressions. Because of this,
the aesthetics of theft (or sacrifice) undercuts all 'art' as it is
created in the Western hemispheres. As children we are taught what is
'good art', and from that point the aesthetics of the stolen artifact
and counterfeit is promoted.
4) 'Is it only theft in the cases you mention? In other words, while
theft or stealing may be a component of the experience and acts of the
participants, does this rule out genuine
simultaneous experiences and acts that we traditionally associate with
art and the experience of it?'
See answer to point 6.
5) 'Does your interpretation exclude those postive aspects of strangers
viewing art?'
See answer to point 6.
6) 'If I am moved to tears and in some way change my life after hearing
a certain piece of music, was this only my hallucinations tacked on to
my rhetorically criminal act? Or did something actually get (I would
rather not use the word communicated)?
Thus far, it appears that I am saying that western art artifacts have
no aesthetic values, but have the values of theft, trophyism or
sacrificial totems. And I am in fact claiming that. Hence I would argue
that if art moves one to tears then it is not because of any inherent
artistic aesthetic value, for I dispense completely with that notion,
but because the artist or spectator installs the work within a communal
expression, consciously or unconsciously. Where this communal
expression is actually absent, but merely present in the imagination or
eye of the artist or spectator then where being moved to tears is not
for the sake of that communal expression but for the artifact itself,
then we might be guilty of hypocrisy. It would be hypocritical such as
one might be moved by the art of a resident slave community. For
example, I bought a didgeridoo. It was not one made by the aboriginees
but it bore the ethnic style of painting. This I marvelled at. But what
eventually, and suddenly moved me to tears was the plight of the
aboriginees, and the paintings quickly became mere counterfeits in my
estimation. Even if it was an original didgeridoo it would have been a
counterfeit. With anger, I unceremoniously threw it into a back-room.
A flaw in modern aesthetics is this: That if, perchance, an 'art'
artifact or production one stumbles across moves one to tears, then
this is no more than being moved to tears by an accident of nature,
such as a piece of driftwood or a pattern in the sky. It cannot be
claimed that the 'art' has a peculiarly human aesthetic or resonance
that distinguishes it from the accident of nature, for a solitary
artifact never represents an original creative communal expression. So
either art dissolves into the aesthetics of the natural world, or art
is theft, trophyism or sacrifice - and further, the distinctive
aesthetics of these will never be found in the artifact itself. Ta.
This work is part of a thesis, so if you use it authoritatively etc,
you will have to quote this source.
RyanT
"used up" like material goods might. There is nothing lost when
someone takes an idea from another person, just another idea dislocated
into another space.
John Jones
RyanT wrote:
> While much of you say is true, the difference is that ideas do not get
> "used up" like material goods might. There is nothing lost when
> someone takes an idea from another person, just another idea dislocated
> into another space.
That's true enough. I can be inspired by the patterns that a culture
uses in its creative expressions, and I can use those patterns in my
own expressions. Of course, I would not want to claim that my creations
must thereby represent the original creative expression of a culture.
Such a claim would be 'advancing the counterfeit'. But my argument is
that if ideas, like language, are 'expressed' communally, then we must
regard the manner of implementation of the creative expression. If my
creations are implemented over and above a public expression then in
effect I am collaborating with the theft of public expression. If the
public want individual artists and not their own expressions, free from
censure and ridicule, then the public itself is collaborating in the
theft of public expression.
I must also add that it is all the same whether the art artifact itself
is taken from the original communal expression or gestalt, or copies of
it. A copy is as good as the artifact itself. This is because the
artifact of art never refers back to, or represents, the original
communal expression anyway.
RyanT
probably have trouble getting people to buy into the "theft" idea,
especially since nothing is inherently "stolen" in a traditional sense.
Either another term will have to be used, or the definition will have
to be properly defined in the beginning of the article -- otherwise I'd
imagine you'll get a lot of confused looks.
My conceptualization above only makes sense because of the existence of
the digital economy where replication and distribution have become of
the same thing. Strangely enough I'm currently writing a thesis called
"Economics of Ideas" using some notions from the book "Artificial
Intelligence: The Very Idea" by John Haughland. You might find it
useful because it makes a conceptual distinction between "digital" an
"analog" which doesn't exist in most dictionaries or encyclopedias.
Basically, he defines "digital" as something which can exist apart from
its physical counterpart, like a game of chess that can be transferred
onto various different mediums (marble chess set, travelling magnetic
chess set, software) without any loss of fidelity. Sports games, on
the other hand, are entirely reliant on the physicalities of its units,
so it is analog. Text and text symbols are digital because it can be
"transferred", so the English text we are reading right now and what is
printed on a book are of the same medium, whereas a painting OF a text
is analog, because it is dependent on the medium, such as the paint and
brush strokes and whatnot.
Ideas are inherently "digital" because they do not degrade over time,
and they are duplicatable pretty much endlessly...maybe you might find
a use for this conceptualization, who knows.
John Jones
This example should clarify the idea of 'the theft and counterfeit of
art'.
If someone takes a family keepsake by threats, ridicule, mis-advice,
fraud, trick or theft, then even if the community replaces it with a
copy, or with goods equal in value, or even replaces the original
keepsake, then the charge would rightly be one of theft if we can
regard loss of goods by some kind of mis-direction as being goods that
have been stolen. If the family from whom the keepsake was taken were
praised and applauded for their keepsake, then it would be on the basis
of a counterfeit, for a keepsake abroad does not mirror a keepsake at
home.
If 'digital' defines ideas, and fidelity or constancy; and if
'analogue' defines the physical world and the potential for the loss of
fidelity, I am confused as to how the written word, as a set of empty
marks, can be regarded as ideas and so keep their fidelity, and yet the
picture not be regarded as an idea, but as 'analogue', and with the
potential for loss of fidelity.
Surely text is digital as each mark is visibly distinct and can be
summated or counted, whereas counting the parts of a picture depends on
what ideas we employ in breaking the picture up, which illustrates its
analogue nature.
There is a theory in aesthetics which goes something like this: there
are no necessary connections between the structural attributes of a
painting (its digital structure) and its aesthetics (the idea presented
by the picture). You seem to be saying that there is a necessary
connection between structure and aesthetics when you say that ideas are
more accurately reproduced when the structure (in a digital format) is
accurately reproduced. However, there is a known argument in aesthetics
that suggests that it sometimes makes a difference whether an artifact
is an exact copy or the original.
The theory you are advancing seems to be this: that the format that can
more easily and accurately reproduce an idea is itself more like an
idea. This leads to an unfortunate consequence if the ease of
reproduction of an artifact is not known. In that case we cannot
perceive the idea it portrays.
RyanT
FYI these are Haughland's definitions, not mine. I just thought they
were fairly useful. My assertions for my paper aren't completely done
yet...maybe for later.
You've hit on the grey area between what it means for something to be
"digital" and "analog"...in reality, nearly all things contain both
attributes in one way or another. While the audio contained within a
CD may be considered digital, it still needs a physical medium (in this
case, the CD and the CD player) for the idea to be realized in such a
way that might be coherent. But you can say that it's mostly digital;
the type of CD it's on -- color, size, printed text -- largely are
irrelevent because the information exists independent of its medium and
the sounds produced remains the same. The sounds produced on an
instrument, on the other hand, are subject to its physical changes, so
it is closer to being analog.
It's important to make a distinction between the language of written
text and that of spoken words, because the written language is
something that approaches pure digital, whereas spoken words contain
elements of both digital and analog. The written word can exist purely
as abstraction, and the information does not change even when the
presentation of it is changed. Font changes on the computer are
largely arbitrary, as long as it is ledgible.
Spoken words, on the other hand, can subvert or highlight certain
meanings of the text through the person's tone of voice and mannerisms.
Here the medium, Performance art largely rests on the ability of the
performer to be sensitive to these subtilities in order to generate an
enjoyable performance, but the general idea of going back and forth can
be applied to almost any artform. Art is interesting partially because
of its ability to ride in between both mediums, which is what gives it
its subliminal qualities.