What is the evolutionary purpose of ART?

[The Iron Boot]

The evolutionary advantage of art may actually be quite elementary.
Art, in the most basic sense, is that which gives pleasure to eyes and
ears. Art is created by man but distills the essence of what we find
beautiful or pleasurable in the physical or psychological realm. So,
what is the evolutionary advantage of appreciating beauty? In the most
basic sense, the ability to appreciate beauty makes complex organisms
(humans being the most complex)want to live; it turns us into junkies
of the pleasures of life. Before organisms pass down their genes
through procreation–a process in which beauty and pleasure play
essential roles(for higher animals anyway)–, they have to want to live
in the first place. More complex an organism is, the more conscious it
tends to be, therefore more self-conscious, therefore more vulnerable
to emotional downswings and self-loathing, therefore more dependent on
counter-forces to balance out the misery and uphold the rationale for
living.
Without powerful reasons to live, higher organisms experience or
encounter dissipation, thoughts of suicide, or reluctance to
procreate. Humans have a tremendous will to live and ability to
survive. The ability comes from our cognitive skills and physical
dexterity. But, an intelligent and emotionally complex mind questions
itself, the meaning of life, suffer from emotional turbulence, moral
confusion, self-loathing, and so on. Instead of serving as a tool for
survival and expansion, the human mind may cannibalize itself by
obsessing on the negative aspects of life or asking circular questions
about unfathomable matters. As higher organism is capable of greater
depression and self-doubt, these tendencies must be countered by
capacity for greater pleasure, meaning, and enjoyment of beauty.
Simpler organisms don’t have this problem because they either lack
consciousness or possess consciousness focusing mainly on survival.
As such, they do not fall into self-conscious suicidal traps.

Of course, too much of a self-serving will to live and enjoy pleasure
can undermine the survivalist or evolutionary process; if the
technology of virtual reality keeps progressing, people may lock
themselves in fun-filled virtual worlds of great aesthetic and sensual
pleasure and refuse to deal with real reality. Such is the dangers of
technology, often explored in sci-fi works.

Anyway, capacity for pleasure makes people want to live. Consider
anyone with suicidal thoughts. Why does he want to snuff out his life?
Because he sees more pain–physical or psychological–than pleasure,
more meaninglessness than meaning. But, why are people with suicidal
tendencies still afraid or reluctant to jump off a cliff or shoot
themselves? Other than the fear of physical pain, there is the fear of
missing out on the joys of life. Life forms are addicted to the
wonderment of life(and it could be argued that all appreciations of
beauty or pleasure is a form of art appreciation). Even if suicidal
people could die painlessly and be assured that their loved ones will
be well-taken care of, they would still feel panic and fear in some
part of their being.
Indeed, the very fact of being alive is filled with pleasure. It may
not be intense or electrifying most of the time, but there is a degree
of satisfaction and fascination in the very fact of being alive.
Simplest organisms have an elemental life force that keeps the engine
running. Consider insects whose life force within pushes them to
consume, run from danger, and survive. Lower organisms can also be
mindlessly ‘self-sacrificing’ for the perpetuation of the species as
when bees or salmon go through the
‘ritual’ process of mass deaths so that a new generation can arise
from it.

As organisms grow more complex, they gain consciousness and complex
emotions. No longer driven by what might be called an automatonic life
force, they need conscious reasons to thrive as organisms. A goldfish
may thrive in the wild or in an aquarium, but a dog will grow sick if
locked up in a small cage. A dog taken for a walk senses wonderment
through smell, sight, movement, and so forth. The dog is
aesthetically engaging with stimuli, and its life force is boosted by
these joys. A snake may be content mainly to eat and sleep, but this
isn’t true for organisms with higher and more complex–intelligence-
wise and emotionally–forms of consciousness. It’s not just the dog’s
hunting instincts on display but its ability(and necessity) to derive
pleasure from interaction with the environment. There is HAPPINESS on
the part of the dog. A dog gains greater life force through such
activity. A dog locked up in a small cage may grow sick from lack of
stimuli or attention. Of course, an animal has no concept of suicide
and cannot attempt such a thing. But, a dog without a stimulating
environment grows depressed, sick, and listless. We see the same
thing in a child. A child is more excited about or engaged with life
when he is given toys to play with or shown a cartoon. Toys and
cartoons provide pleasure to a child. Pleasure makes the child more
committed and more ‘addicted’ to life. In a way, art is toys for
adults. Even puritanical religions that suppress sensual pleasures
find roundabout ways to introduce music into prayer. Islam bans
pictorial representations of men and animals, but this is compensated
by a very flamboyant(one may even say ‘sensual’)use of Arabic on the
walls of mosques.

Being locked up in prison is dreary not only for its limited space and
lack of freedom but for its sheer lack of aesthetic stimulation. It’s
all steel bars and concrete walls. Prison offers the basic necessities
for survival, but prisoners serving long life sentences don’t really
get a kick out of life. Of course, most inmates still don’t welcome
the death because the very fact of being alive still has its
pleasures. Meals are pleasurable. Social interaction is pleasurable.
Using the prison library has its pleasures. Looking up at the sky and
clouds during exercise period also has its pleasures. And, closing
one’s eyes and recalling good times is also pleasurable. And, even if
one is not surrounded by beauty and pleasure, one can think of
beautiful things. One can construct an art gallery in one’s own mind.
One can dream of beautiful natural scenery or naked ladies; one can
compose music in one’s head or replay favorite songs in one’s mind.
These may not be artistic activity in the technical or professional
sense, but art is linked with all such emotions, desires, and mental
habits.

One of the great pleasures of life is food. Hunger drives us to eat
by causing pain and discomfort, but we also like to eat because it is
pleasurable. The pleasure that comes from eating makes us look forward
to the next yummy meal; that makes us value life and want to live. No
matter how depressed you are, the prospect for another yummy dish or
good sex makes you cling to life. Gourmet food is art for the taste
buds, and sex is a kind of aesthetic/pleasurable experience for one’s
eyes, ears, hands, and private organs. Not for nothing did Pauline
Kael see cinema as a kind of sex. It was an art form that sensually
engaged the most organs all at once. Cinema wrapped and connected with
us in like the arms, legs, and private organs of a sex partner. In
the film “Purple Rose of Cairo”, we have a very unhappy woman with a
nasty hubby and nothing happening in her life. If she were a lower
organism with no or simple consciousness, it would be enough for her
to eat and sleep. But, she’s an higher organism, and as such, filled
with doubt, depression, misery, and so on. Yet, what keeps her wanting
to live, what makes her cling to life? The ‘art’ of cinema. No matter
how stupid or lowly a film may be, it may have some magical life-
nourishing purpose for some. Of course, like I said, too much of a
good thing can be a bad thing. If one becomes addicted to the movies,
one may prefer life-at-the-movies over life-in-reality. And, that is
also the problem with the woman in “Purple Rose of Cairo”. The movies
keep her alive, but they also cut her off from what we consider
meaningful living. Same is true of food. Yummy food makes us want to
live to eat more yummy stuff. But, addiction to this yumminess may
make us fat and unhealthy, in which case, too much of a good thing
will turn us into fat slobs who die of heart attack at a young age.

The art of cooking is kind of like art. Chefs distill the flavors that
are most appealing to us and cook up dishes that maximize our
pleasure. Some would even argue that fine cooking is indeed Art.
What we generally consider as art–music, literature, painting,
sculpture, etc–is consumed through our eyes and ears; food is consumed
through our mouths. In both cases, we are seeking and finding pleasure
through our senses.
Of course, this can’t be said of much of modern art whose purpose is
to provoke, incite, experiment, or even offend. Such may be more of an
acquired taste and may not serve the interests of the life force or
the will to live. But, some higher intellects or pompous asses may
require just that sort of thing to get their jollies in life, in which
case even such arts may have their evolutionary purpose.
In addition, such works of art may serve the same kind of function as
genetic mutations. Most mutations are useless or harmful, but once in
a long while one comes along that may actually present new
possibilities and advance the species. Similarly, avant-garde-ism,
though generally stupid or useless, may occasionally break through the
sound barrier of culture and establish a new template for something
very exciting and useful. .

Even so, most people understand art as a thing of beauty, and art
appreciation for the masses, even in today’s post-modern culture, is
about finding pleasure from works of beauty, humor, and other things
that make people feel good. Even art that seems ugly at first sight
may be appreciated for its truth–moral beauty–or its wit(a kind of
intellectual beauty or elegance). Woody Allen is ugly and his comedies
range from gross to absurd, but we can all appreciate the impressive
acrobatics of his intelligence.
Art gives us pleasure and fills with a sense of wonderment. We want to
return for more. This makes us want to live. Take Franz Kafka who was
one severely depressed dude. Yet, what kept him going until he died of
sickness? He found meaning through art. And, I’ll bet people who read
his books but contemplated jumping off a cliff thought, ‘but I drop
dead, I won’t be able to read any more Kafka.’ That may sound like
silly, but it’s probably not. But, it doesn’t have to be what we call
Great Art. Even taking a stroll and feeling the breeze and looking up
at the stars is an aesthetic experience. Art is merely an extension of
this pleasure/wonderment principle which is so integral to the higher
organism’s will to live. And, cherishing our memories is also a kind
of aesthetic experience. The mind does to events and happenstance what
time does to grape juice. It turns them into mental wine. It become
transformed, mythologized, aestheticized, etc. It becomes precious.
The past becomes like a museum. It becomes sacred, and the sense of
sacred is linked with the idea of art. Art is the sacralization of
pleasures that gain special meaning for us. It is distilled and
bottled pleasure with the vintage tag.

Aesthetics is integral to just about everything we do. People look for
beautiful men or women for sexual partners. People with money seek
houses not only for their functionality but for the aesthetic
pleasures the houses provide. Architects don’t just build huts where
people eat or sleep but houses which people can show off as their
private palaces. One of the great advantages capitalism had over
communism was that communism stressed the basic necessities of life
and not much else. Other than the lack of personal freedom and
liberty, there was an overwhelming sense of dreariness, drabness,
greyness, khaki-ness, and humdrumness in communist nations. Sure,
there was the occasional colorful rallies, splashy slogans, and loud
songs, but it was mostly dull, dull, and dull. Capitalism was more
colorful. There was fancy clothes for women, even poor women. There
was lipstick and hair salons for gals. Capitalist movies promised more
fun and pleasure. Remember the movie “Moscow on the Hudson”? What is
the first thing commies do in America? They run to Macy’s and try to
buy all the ‘narcissistic’ goods as possible to take back home.
Commies were not only starved for better food but more color in their
lives. Even Western leftists almost never defected to commie nations;
indeed, look at most leftists and they are just as vain with makeup
and fashion as everyone else. Radical feminism tried to be anti-
sensual and anti-aesthetic, but the whole edifice fell apart when
Madonna came and shook her ass. (Again, too much of a good thing can
be a bad thing. This is where the Judeo-Christian religion has played
an important balancing role in Western civilization. The pagan love
of art & appreciation of nature is vital, life-affirming, and all
that, but too much of it can lead to the kind of thing we see in the
movie Ten Commandments when the people take it too far and worship the
Golden Calf and have orgies. And, we need only look at our own ugly
girls-gone-wild skankass culture and the problems in the black
community to understand what happens when pleasure becomes the ONLY
principle of life. This is why capitalism needs to be balanced by
moral restraint, righteousness, and sobriety). And, this may have
been the reason why Italian Fascism and German National Socialism were
more popular among their folks. Though both promoted a limited or
narrow aesthetic philosophy, neither waged a war on beauty and
colorfulness. Both were ideologies centered around the cult of
beauty. However, the problem of both, but especially National
Socialism, was that it tried to ideologize beauty in national or
racial terms; as such they tended to be blind to the beauties of other
cultures and traditions. And, let’s face it. The reason why Che
Guevara has become a great icon among the Left is because he was a
beautiful man. Never mind his politics; he was the Latin Lover of the
Revolution. If Che had been 4' 11 and looked like Elephant Boy or Baba
Booey(on Howard Stern Show), no way he would have gained such an
iconic status.


As social creatures, we also want to share the object or source of our
pleasure with other folks. This makes for communal interaction. Every
artist is also begging for attention and respect/higher status in the
community. Even politics is a kind of art. And, it also leads to
people having children in order to pass down and share the things of
beauty and sacredness that they enjoyed and cherished to the next
generation. I repeat, too much of a good thing can be a bad thing. A
person so immersed in his or her own pleasures may see having children
as a hindrance or obstacle to one’s self-centered pleasure-seeking
freedom. That may explain why so many young people hooked to fun
videogames, movies, internet, and so forth do not wish to ‘settle
down’ and ‘grow up’ and put away pleasurable but childish things and
get married and have kids.


There is probably also a danger in too much thinking. Intellect
allowed mankind to come up with better reasons and tools for building
and expanding civilizations and empires, but at some point, intellect
turns on itself and begins to obsess with thoughts like, ‘maybe life
is meaningless’, ‘maybe it’s all an illusion’, ‘maybe power is evil’,
‘it’s all in vain’, and so on. Just look at your average Ingmar
Bergman film and you get my drift. High civilization elevates our
sense of ourselves; it turns us into super idealists and into proud
folks. But at some point, we realize that our reality don’t live up to
our ideals. We either lose heart or we seek radical ways to create
heaven on earth. Either way, we fail. We also realize that we are
part of the animal world, that human processes are essentially
biological and animal processes despite our sense of highfalutin
exceptionalism. We hit an intellectual roadblock but can’t regain our
lost innocence again. Too much of anything leads to infertility and
inertia. Just look at what happened to Jean-Luc Godard ever since he
crawled into a cave to ‘think’ about cinema.

Even so, the pleasures of life, of which art is an important element,
fill even the most depressed person with the life force. The will to
life for higher organisms is largely based on the pleasure of living.
The very fact of being alive is pleasurable and wondrous. Just being
alive makes one feel special or blessed. Even when one’s bored as
hell, it’s infinitely more interesting than being dead, which is to be
a zero. Just being alive and feeling the buzz of life is, in an
elemental way, a form of artistic appreciation. After all, our senses
are always stimulated by something. We always react aesthetically to
things around us. Even when we are surrounded by ugliness, we think
artistically. We wish for things to be beautiful than ugly,
pleasurable than painful(unless one is crazy enough to enjoy Chantal
Akerman films). That is an artistic spirit within each of us–even if
most of us don’t become professional artists. Even if we’re not
professional artists, the way we arrange things in our homes, the way
we dress, the way we react to other people’s looks, the way we respond
to sounds, and so forth all involve an aesthetic or artistic process
or appreciation. Even falling in love is a form of artistic process. A
beautiful person is like a natural work of art. We love flowers for
their natural beauty. Strictly speaking, art is artificial or man-
made, but much of our art is a replica of what we find beautiful in
the real world. Consider paintings of sunsets, flowers, beautiful
women, etc. We preserve beautiful artworks because our pride and
enjoyment of them serves to legitimize and validate our entire
civilizations. Modern Greeks say, ‘our ancestors built the Parthenon,
so our culture and tradition have a right to survive’. All political
leaders lay claim to a certain cultural achievement which cannot be
distinguished from art and creativity. The reason why blacks are so
eager to lay claim to Ancient Egypt is because Egyptians were not only
politically powerful at one time but because they built some of the
most beautiful and astounding objects and structures known to man.
Germans have been justly proud of their musical tradition. It’s as
though most of us feel–if only subconsciously–that people that
produced greater art and cultures have more right to exist than
others. So, with both individuals and societies as a whole, art has a
way of reinforcing the will to live and survive. Indeed, we would
consider it a bigger tragedy if all of German culture were to vanish
than all of East Timorese culture. All cultures are valuable, but loss
of German culture would mean the loss of Goethe, Beethoven, Fritz
Lang, etc. Loss of East Timorese culture would mean loss of wood
carvings and necklaces made of coke bottle caps. (Just kidding if you
happen to be East Timorese).

Art is merely the highest form of seeking and enjoying pleasure. It
elevates pleasure by distilling or stylizing the essence of beauty we
find in the world or in the structures of our mind. High art is an
object of pleasure that has attained sublime proportions. As such, we
sanctify it as something of eternal value, something worthy of
universal and timeless appreciation. Societies does this with art,
but we do with our memories as well. There are certain experiences
that we cherish over all others. In the psycho-temple of our minds,
those experiences are given special place. They are remembered as the
sacred moments of our lives. Without such memories, our lives would
have much less meaning. In “Blade Runner”, replicants seek memories,
even filching them from others, in order to find a greater meaning for
living. And, we watch movies to filch memories from others as well. In
time, movie memories become our memories. We are all replicants hungry
for images and memories of others. Such memories add meaning to our
lives.

All life forms follow certain patterns. Without order, human society
is not possible and that may explain our intrinsic attraction to
symmetrical and geometric forms. Dada-ism notwithstanding, art cannot
simply be arbitrary. Even the most cluttered or chaotic works of art
follow certain rules; even violating all previous rules is a form of
rule, and the work has to be measured a success or failure according
to the rule it lives by. In that sense too, art is very integral to
what we are as complex organisms. We don’t merely live in our
surroundings but seek meaning and beauty through it. We don’t just use
rocks but find ways to extract minerals we need from rocks to make
better tools. A metal tool is better than a stone tool. Similarly, we
don’t just appreciate beauty around us but try to extract the essence
of beauty of nature and express them through art.