In order to continue your attack, you have to attack my defense quoted above. You have to show why my thesis is still contradictory, even in light of my defense. — ucarr

...your two claims are either empty, as they are the same claim... — AmadeusD

Even if they were the same, an identity is not empty, nor is it a contradiction. They are not the same claim; they are similar claims about two different parts of a unified whole.

...or literally contradict one another, I need do nothing else. — AmadeusD

Love and War are two sets, both of which contain marriage, home, family and community as members. The members are doubled by symmetry across two countries.

The two sets are not the same because one set partitions the symmetry and the other doesn't.

A set and its members is not an example of contradiction.

I can mentally separate art for art's sake and utilitarian-based art but to say that art lies beyond morality raises it to a Godly height. How is art lived beyond morality? — praxis

Life is lived beyond morality in that it is more inclusive. I base this claim on the assumption that we as humans, existentially speaking, are more than what we know ourselves to be. For this reason, new experiences and their eventual comprehension keeps history going forward without it being a repetitious loop.

Following from this, art, being more directly linked to and concerned with what human is instead of what human should, follows human-is more closely and non-judgmentally that does establishmentarian morality (the church).

Can human be understood, as opposed to being non-judgmentally observed, outside the context of morality? Maybe not. If not, the question illuminates something important about understanding: it's dependent upon models, that is, paradigms. We say something is right or wrong based upon conformity to a model or standard.

In contrast to this, being and doing, the theater of action of humans, cannot be constrained by a suffocating adherence to an established model; adaptation to an ever-changing world authorizes this transgression. From this truth we know that each newborn child is unique and thus congenitally at odds with moral standards. The eventual social acceptance of the newborn child depends upon his success in conforming to normative standards.

If the strong individual survives moral condemnation for being and acting differently, the chance increases that the gravitational force of this singular person will bend the establishmentarian moral standards to some degree of warpage to his willful state of being.

It is by the continuum of rebellion become revolution that revolutionary social movements push history forward.

The history of world-religion founders is the history of broken moral precedents.

For these reasons, I say that life, and art, lie beyond morality.

There is politics in the conservation/construction of any way of being, wherever there are priests and parishioners (politicians and the public) who are "relating to the citizens", promoting the rules and regulation of that way of being in dialectical good will. It's complicated for sure. — Nils Loc

:up:

If you mean art-in-itself or 'art for art's sake' and art weaponized, yes I've made that separation. — praxis

I'll venture to surmise from your statement above we agree that art lies beyond morality, the central theme of this conversation.

I'd like to move on to the weaponization of religion. Can religion be meaningful and propaganda simultaneously? — praxis

I think the weaponization of religion, unlike the weaponization of art (as propaganda), lies outside of the scope of this conversation.

I have a notion that religion and politics are either nearly or even exactly the same thing. There's a Gordian knot linking religion, politics and morality.

The founding fathers of the United States did a profoundly good thing when they configured a system of government that separates church and state. However, maintaining this separation in the practice of government requires navigation of considerable complexity of statecraft with a nuanced understanding.

If any of what I'm saying here is right, then this topic needs to become its own independent conversation. Do you want to start it? If you do, I'll join with these thoughts in mind.

I think love and war are two broad categories that encompass most of the important experiences humans have. — ucarr

Likewise, marriage, home, family and community are broadly inclusive of the important human experiences. — ucarr

This is directly contradictory. If the former, not hte latter. If the latter, not hte former. — AmadeusD

In the above quote you make a claim about my [two-part] statement. Can you show that my statement is a contradiction? — ucarr

It is self evident. See:

I think love and war are two broad categories that encompass most of the important experiences humans have
— ucarr

Is in contradiction to the very next phrase:

Likewise, marriage, home, family and community are broadly inclusive of the important human experiences.
— ucarr

You cannot have both stand in the same symbolic role. They are contradictory (though, admittedly, indirectly so). — AmadeusD

I've underlined the first sentence in your quote directly above. It's the gist of your argument for refuting my two quoted statements at the top. Your refutation is false because, apparently, you've forgotten something. What you seem to have forgotten is reposted directly below:

Art and morality within the context of this thread reduce to four elements:

Love | War

Love -- Marriage, home, family, community

War -- Power & Money in service to Partisan: Marriage, home, family, community
— ucarr

As you can see, by my definition of Love and War, marriage, home, family and community are directly linked to Love and War. Therefore, making the same claim about each statement, namely that they are broadly inclusive of the important human experiences is not a contradiction because the two claims, in actuality, are about the same thing, albeit, the thing in question here is a unit articulated into two parts: concentric circles. The outer circle houses the two big parts: Love | War; the inner circle houses the smaller parts that fill in the big parts with pertinent details: marriage, home, family, community.

If I say a Swiss watch runs like a precision mechanism, and likewise, its sweep second hand runs like a precision mechanism, there's no contradiction because the two statements are talking about the attributes of two parts of one unit. — ucarr

I'm asking you to take the words in my statement and arrange them into a configuration that shows it is a contradiction. This would be an argument supporting your claim.
— ucarr

You cannot have both stand in the same symbolic role. They are contradictory (though, admittedly, indirectly so).
— AmadeusD

in your quote directly above, you make an approach to arranging my words into a configuration that shows it is a contradiction: "You cannot have both stand in the same symbolic role." But I counter-argue that statement by showing that two parts that combine to make a unified whole are not contradictory. Its the combination of the two parts that refutes your ascription of contradiction because contradictions cannot combine. — ucarr

What I've underlined immediately above is my defense of your attack:

Its the combination of the two parts that refutes your ascription of contradiction because contradictions cannot combine.[/quote]

Here's your latest reply:

It is not an argument. Your phrase contradicts itself. I've had to say nothing at all. Simply quote you. — AmadeusD

In your above quote I've underlined the gist of your latest attack; it's merely a repetition of your prior attack. Since your prior attack, I've defended my thesis. Now you have to attack my defense of my thesis. Merely repeating your attack gains you nothing.

Here's the gist of my defense of your attack based on contradiction:

Its the combination of the two parts that refutes your ascription of contradiction because contradictions cannot combine.[/quote]

In order to continue your attack, you have to attack my defense quoted above. You have to show why my thesis is still contradictory, even in light of my defense.

Can a song be musical art and propaganda simultaneously? — ucarr

Is there an aesthetics of human manipulation of context? — ucarr

Yes and yes. — praxis

Do your answers establish a separation between art-in-itself and art-in-itself weaponized?

Here's my argument; it invalidates your logic with an alternative interpretation establishing my example as a counter-example: — ucarr

So, love and war and the quartet (marriage, home, family, community) cannot be in a relationship of: If the former, not hte latter. If the latter, not hte former because they have much in common and thus there is no mutual exclusion. On the contrary, there is mutual inclusion because both sides have scarcely any important distinctions between them at all: American marriages_German marriages; American homes_German homes; American families_German families; American communities_German communities. The bone of contention creating the war consists in each side wanting to destroy the other side, and that too is something they have in common! — ucarr

By my definition, Love and War both include: marriage, home, family, community. If this is true, then they can't be contradictory when defined as I've defined them.

Can you show that, during WW2, it was not the case that there were married couples, homes, families and communities in both America and Germany? An example supporting your argument would have to show that in one country there were marriages, homes, families and communities whereas in the other country there were anti-marriages, anti-homes, anti-families and anti-communities.

I'm asking you to take the words in my statement and arrange them into a configuration that shows it is a contradiction. This would be an argument supporting your claim. — ucarr

You cannot have both stand in the same symbolic role. They are contradictory (though, admittedly, indirectly so). — AmadeusD

in your quote directly above, you make an approach to arranging my words into a configuration that shows it is a contradiction: "You cannot have both stand in the same symbolic role." But I counter-argue that statement by showing that two parts that combine to make a unified whole are not contradictory. Its the combination of the two parts that refutes your ascription of contradiction because contradictions cannot combine.

I think love and war are two broad categories that encompass most of the important experiences humans have — ucarr

Likewise, marriage, home, family and community are broadly inclusive of the important human experiences. — ucarr

You cannot have both stand in the same symbolic role. They are contradictory (though, admittedly, indirectly so). — AmadeusD

I've underlined the first sentence in your quote directly above. It's the gist of your argument for refuting my two quoted statements at the top. Your refutation is false because, apparently, you've forgotten something. What you seem to have forgotten is reposted directly below:

Art and morality within the context of this thread reduce to four elements:

Love | War

Love -- Marriage, home, family, community

War -- Power & Money in service to Partisan: Marriage, home, family, community — ucarr

As you can see, by my definition of Love and War, marriage, home, family and community are directly linked to Love and War. Therefore, making the same claim about each statement, namely that they are broadly inclusive of the important human experiences is not a contradiction because the two claims, in actuality, are about the same thing, albeit, the thing in question here is a unit articulated into two parts: concentric circles. The outer circle houses the two big parts: Love | War; the inner circle houses the smaller parts that fill in the big parts with pertinent details: marriage, home, family, community.

If I say a Swiss watch runs like a precision mechanism, and likewise, its sweep second hand runs like a precision mechanism, there's no contradiction because the two statements are talking about the attributes of two parts of one unit.

2. "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" (1861) – Julia Ward Howe
Context: Popular during the American Civil War, this song became associated with the Union Army.
Message: Its lyrics evoke a sense of divine justice and righteousness in war. It glorifies the idea of fighting for freedom, equating the Union's cause to the will of God. — Chatgpt

"With God on our side" mentality running high, battalions enter battlefields. Can a song be musical art and propaganda simultaneously?

Art can be a weapon, an olive branch, a medicine, whatever, or merely aesthetic. — praxis

Is there an aesthetics of human manipulation of context?

If ucarr is transgressing the bounds of implicit/explicit virtue/etiquette as an artist contra the philosopher, maybe he is the evil artist.

He must run back to church to give what that unanimous crowd demands, in an alignment of the sensible wills of such a peer group: good, clear, hygienic, rigorous and rational sense in selfless service. — Nils Loc

If God consciousness is a sub-division of human psychology (the savior was fully human), then I can advance an argument claiming that what the divine looks like to humanity needs continual fine tuning and updating, and that this work is the work of the artist.

Now, I've declared art being at risk of blasphemy as a natural part of the territory enclosing the artistic raison d'etre.

Are the masses of people entertained? If so, perhaps their pleasure can defuse my condemnation by the state.

I think love and war are two broad categories that encompass most of the important experiences humans have. Likewise, marriage, home, family and community are broadly inclusive of the important human experiences. — ucarr

This is directly contradictory. If the former, not hte latter. If the latter, not hte former. — AmadeusD

In the above quote you make a claim about my statement. Can you show that my statement is a contradiction? I'm asking you to take the words in my statement and arrange them into a configuration that shows it is a contradiction. This would be an argument supporting your claim.

Backing up claims with supporting arguments is the proper way of doing things here at TPF:

Here's my claim:

I think love and war are two broad categories that encompass most of the important experiences humans have. Likewise, marriage, home, family and community are broadly inclusive of the important human experiences. — ucarr

Here's my example; it takes what's abstractly expressed in my claim and fleshes it out with practical things configured according to the abstract pattern :

Example: When America went to war with Germany in 1942, both countries were fighting for the best quality of life for its citizens, and both sets of citizens consisted of married couples, their homes, their families and their communities. Both sets of citizens did similar things in the four categories. However, unlike during peacetime, which in our context here can be likened to love, during wartime, the similar ways of life of the two countries were partitioned off from each other as each side tried to slaughter the other side. — ucarr

Here's my argument; it invalidates your logic with an alternative interpretation establishing my example as a counter-example:

So, love and war and the quartet (marriage, home, family, community) cannot be in a relationship of: If the former, not hte latter. If the latter, not hte former because they have much in common and thus there is no mutual exclusion. On the contrary, there is mutual inclusion because both sides have scarcely any important distinctions between them at all: American marriages_German marriages; American homes_German homes; American families_German families; American communities_German communities. The bone of contention creating the war consists in each side wanting to destroy the other side, and that too is something they have in common! — ucarr

I think love and war are two broad categories that encompass most of the important experiences humans have. Likewise, marriage, home, family and community are broadly inclusive of the important human experiences. — ucarr

This is directly contradictory. If the former, not hte latter. If the latter, not hte former. Can you choose one? Is it love and war, or the series of personal opinions on marriage, home , family and community? — AmadeusD

As I've already stated, love and war are both about marriage, home, family and community. They share a large region of common ground. They stand apart on the issue of their approach to fellowship; love does not partition fellowship; war partitions fellowship into good and evil, with both sides demonizing the other.

Example: When America went to war with Germany in 1942, both countries were fighting for the best quality of life for its citizens, and both sets of citizens consisted of married couples, their homes, their families and their communities. Both sets of citizens did similar things in the four categories. However, unlike during peacetime, which in our context here can be likened to love, during wartime, the similar ways of life of the two countries were partitioned off from each other as each side tried to slaughter the other side.

So, love and war and the quartet (marriage, home, family, community) cannot be in a relationship of: If the former, not hte latter. If the latter, not hte former because they have much in common and thus there is no mutual exclusion. On the contrary, there is mutual inclusion because both sides have scarcely any important distinctions between them at all: American marriages_German marriages; American homes_German homes; American families_German families; American communities_German communities. The bone of contention creating the war consists in each side wanting to destroy the other side, and that too is something they have in common!

Imagine you did none of these things. You can still experience immense adventure, or war... — AmadeusD

A singular person who enlists in the armed services during wartime finds home and family within his platoon; he finds marriage through his belief in his country for which he jeopardizes his life; he finds community within the fellowship of related armed services divisions, and he finds community within the localities he protects as a soldier.

Love in theory is moral guidance on paper. — ucarr

Moral guidance on paper is merely a fictional story designed to align the wills of those charmed by it. — praxis

Are you charmed and deceived by the ten commandments?

Don't be polite. Tell it to me straight why building marriage, home, family and community as the important experiences of your life is a claim obviously false. — ucarr

Imagine you did none of these things. You can still experience immense adventure, or war. They have no logical connection to one another. THe claim is both faulty (in that you're not being consistent in what you're claiming) and utterly absurd, in that you are claiming there are two motivations for all behaviour. Patently ridiculous. — AmadeusD

I think love and war are two broad categories that encompass most of the important experiences humans have. Likewise, marriage, home, family and community are broadly inclusive of the important human experiences.

Regarding the singular humans, such as priests, nuns, monks, old bachelors, spinsters, elderly shut-ins and even hermits, they oftentimes attach themselves to the four named categories: they attach to their parents, so that's their attachment to marriage, or, they're married to the higher power that frames the church; they attach to their nuclear family of parents and siblings, so that's their attachment to family; they attach to their extended family of cousins, uncles and aunts and also to friends and neighbors, so that's their attachment to community.

Some hermits attach to a spiritual higher power, so that's their attachment to marriage, to the family of believers, and to the world community.

The term 'adventure' here is nothing to do with what I've said, and I'm not sure what you mean by it. — AmadeusD

By "adventure" I mean taking action in the world towards a goal and gaining experience as a result.

What do you mean 'get away with'? How 'much' of what? What do you mean by 'much' even here? — AmadeusD

I mean how far can I go outside the established boundaries of acceptable behavior without incurring punishment from the state.

Love and war are the two big adventures. — ucarr

This seems to be so obviously false It's hard to respond to politely. Suffice to say: No, they aren't. — AmadeusD

I mean love is building marriage, home, family and community; I mean war is taking a partisan stance on behalf of one society of marriages, homes, families and communities in opposition to the same interests held by people in another society.

Don't be polite. Tell it to me straight why building marriage, home, family and community as the important experiences of your life is a claim obviously false.

Everyone who lives pushes against moral boundaries in their effort at living. — ucarr

No. Morality is within each person who lives. It isn't something that can be pushed up against. Your attitudes guide your behaviour. That's all that can be said. — AmadeusD

We've already agreed morality resides within the mind. So it's obvious I don't mean a literal pushing up against like pushing up against a stone blocking my path. Yes, my attitudes guide my behavior, and that's internal conflict that I, and you, sometimes push up against (speaking figuratively). We don't always want to do the right thing.

This attempt to lie, cheat, slip and slide our way out of moral boundaries in life, by my observation, is necessary, and that's what I'm trying to focus on here. — ucarr

...are nothing but our personal attitudes. There are no boundaries you could possibly point me toward that could fill that spot, for your utterances. Do feel free to try! — AmadeusD

Are you claiming never to have gone back on your commitment to do the right thing?

And thus the church shows its wisdom when it declares human nature corrupt from the git-go. — ucarr

No, it doesn't, in any way that could be conceived by a rational thinker. — AmadeusD

I mean to say that the moral guardians of the church are right in their expectation that humans will sometimes fail to faithfully carry out all of their moral commitments. Do you know any individuals who are perfectly faithful to their own moral commitments?

When the slithering demon comes on stage, that's when the interest begins. — ucarr

Nothing in this or hte previous part of your reply has any bearing on the concepts you're trying to discuss. — AmadeusD

Part of my effort in this conversation is defining "interest" as a kind of bias, or partiality towards one particular choice over another choice. So, when I say the slithering snake arouses interest, I'm talking about how the presumed evil of the snake is a type of bias away from the peace of equilibrium towards excitement and, unfortunately, murder.

Have you not found that a movie depicting a beautiful sun setting its glow over a vuluptuous woman with soul-stirring music on the soundtrack puts you to sleep after ten minutes if something doesn't go wrong, thus threatening the woman's — ucarr

I have to say, this sounds somewhat unhinged, in terms of trying to make any kind of point. — AmadeusD

I'm trying to say that either jeopardy or joy are necessary to interest because either state is far from the equilibrium - and dullness - of peace and stability too prolonged.

There is no 'sinful' in nature. — AmadeusD

Are you saying you believe crimes such as rape and murder have nothing to do with sinful perpetrators? What do you suppose motivates rape and murder if not being sinful?

If a man doesn't take delight in this rousing of the feminine will to survive, that man belongs in the vestry with the robes and the sashes. — ucarr

This fails, entirely, to answer the questions I put to you in clarifying what it is you're talking about. — AmadeusD

I'm herein trying to talk about the big experiences in life; they are the ones that promise great pain or great joy.

Still missing the point. — praxis

Art and morality within the context of this thread reduce to four elements:

Love | War

Love -- Marriage, home, family, community

War -- Power & Money in service to Partisan: Marriage, home, family, community
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
When we love we build: marriage, home, family, community.

When we war we partition marriage, home, family, community into segregated modules.

Love in practice is love on earth.

Love in theory is moral guidance on paper.

As we know, there is no perfect agreement between theory and practice.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Existential | The Social

The Existential -- Flesh & blood humans walking the earth

The Social -- Flesh & blood humans self-constrained to a social contract whose memorized contents are made existential by prescription.

When we act existentially, we are creatures of the natural world.

When we act socially, we are creatures of our own minds.

Pain (war) is another instrument of revelation. — ucarr

...I still don’t see war. — praxis

Some see life on earth as a time of tribulation before one's appointment with their final reckoning. Pain management, during the time of tribulation, holds center position in the determination of the final reckoning.

Does earthly life and its outcome boil down to each person's time management and pain management?

Did you find and attack the serious goals of your life in a timely fashion?

Did you make the world a better place by decreasing the pain of others when you were able?

The escape clause is either receiving a free ticket to The Louvre, or being granted a confession at the Vatican. — ucarr

Your option (b) is getting close.

Death is the human tragedy forestalled by the necessary oscillation between the two poles before finally succumbing. (There is a proffered escape clause, but nowadays that business is too controversial, so I’m leaving it out.)[/quote]

Above I've underlined a word that serves as a clue to the answer. When you realize what it is, the moment will be anti-climactic, as this escape clause is the most heralded news on earth.

Very simply, I think Morality practices 'nonreciprocal harm-prevention/reduction' whereas Art explores 'catharsis from existential limits/failures of morality' – they are complements (dialectical), not opposites (binary) – pace Nietzsche. — 180 Proof

This is excellent. Thank-you for making it available herein.

Yes, the existent makes adaptive choices for survival and otherwise and, of necessity, must sometimes compromise moral restrictions in conflict with doing so. The necessity resides within the fact blooming creation is too full of value to allow the sentient total passage through life without doing harm to the innocent.

So, the drama in life is no less about redressing wrongs than about avoiding them.

Now we come to the hard part: art is about seeking out the shrewd deformity that mysteriously and judiciously transforms the ordinary into the beautiful.

Singularity is the heart of aesthetics. As such, it produces a gravitational field around itself that bends, warps and distorts the conventionality of established morality. A viable singularity makes necessary an adjustment in the established morality. Morals must be modified and tailored to the new existential demands of the singularity.

The singularity has two aspects: positive/negative.

Just now we're witnessing singularity in its negative aspect: the ascension to power of a destroyer. The process is warping morality to an extent making the masses dizzy.

Two centuries ago, we witnessed singularity in its positive aspect: the ascension to power of a savior. The process warped morality to an extent making the masses dizzy.

The destroyer/savior switch is the lotus blossom in the center of the garden of the expression.*

The switch keeps us perplexed about the distinction between good and evil.

*The vital artist reaches beyond success to failure.

So existence without life is not interesting and besides, no human knows anything about it. — ucarr

Anything other than ideas in human minds carry nothing moral. — AmadeusD

This is a useless supposition because no human lives in a world without human minds. That being the case, the world outside of human minds is irrelevant to us — ucarr

Yet, it dismantles your premise. So, clearly, its relevant to us in demarcating what is moral...You seem to admit this, but deny its relevance? — AmadeusD

Why do you think setting the boundary of morality (within the mind) dismantles my premise (my quote at the top)? Of course what's interesting, or not, depends upon minds.

Here we have an opportunity to define "interest" in an interesting way: it is bias towards one thing or another. Bias presupposes a sentient individual with an enduring point of view accompanied by a set of needs and desires and goals. These things comprise interest and the interesting. I can artificially imagine a world without life. There's no interest and nothing interesting on such a world because there's no bias anywhere. When the wind blows the rocks hither and thither, there's no reaction, no goals achieved or thwarted. All events are a matter of indifference. In short, on a lifeless planet, there's no bias toward desires, no dramatic suspense awaiting outcomes, i.e., no interest, nothing interesting.

If anything, your demarcation of the scope of morality aides my premise by clarifying its theater of action: the mind. Thank-you.

Am looking forward to Robert Eggers Nosferatu, and the premise is related, pushed to the limit. A young bride is being possessed to the horror of everyone around her, by a really awful demon that wants to copulate with her and she with it (my assumption based on trailer). — Nils Loc

:up:

He [Girard] draws a line between unanimous expulsion of the scapegoat, to the sacrificial rites as what imbues archaic culture with its powers to keep order. — Nils Loc

Yes. The struggle is both external and internal. As for the external struggle, there's a monster out there lurking, on the hunt for victims (Frankenstein). Morality is correct behavior forestalling victimization.

As to the internal struggle, the monster dwells within and morality is stern repression of its emergence. (Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde).

When the existence of the monster is just being discovered, and it still evokes terror within the masses, it is the artist who ventures into the dark cave of destruction with open eyes, ready to escape after close observation, bringing back an account to the people (Oedipus).

There’s an endless war between art and morality. — ucarr

Instead of art and morality being juxtaposed, is it possible to look at morality as a subset (or genre) of art? Someone living a “moral life” (define this as you will) can be viewed like a type of “performance art” – alongside of dance, theater and opera. — Thales

You have an excellent idea going here. What's to be made of the lives of the saints when they are viewed through the lens of aesthetics? Poet Keats declared, "Beauty is truth, truth beauty, -- that is all." Was his "Ode on a Grecian Urn" also a tribute to lives dedicated to the eternal afterlife?

Looking on the flip side, I confess to struggling with the idealism of the painterly lovers on the urn with their forever unruffled hair. I take too much repose in the mess of real life to feel completely comfortable inside museums wherein look but don't touch is the rule of law.

Is she a good girl if she let's you muss her hair? I say, "yes."

You think it sinful to see beauty in ugliness? — praxis

On the contrary, I see virtue in the mind's transformation of ugliness into beauty. This process is essential to human perception encountering the radically new: Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, polytonal and violently complex, aurally speaking, sent its virgin audience into fits of violence, their introduction to the transformation process.

Is there a parallel in science with Bohr's Copenhagen Interpretation vís-a-vís Einstein's Denounciation?

...we see the spirit of the age wavering between perversity and brutality, between unnaturalness and mere nature, between superstition and moral unbelief; and it is only through an equilibrium of evils that it is still sometimes kept within bounds. (NA XX, 320–21/E 97)

To the extent that it [The Play Drive] deprives feelings and passions of their dynamic power, it will bring them into harmony with the ideas of reason; and to the extent that it deprives the laws of reason of their moral compulsion, it will reconcile them with the interests of the senses. (NA XX, 352/E 127) — Schiller

:up:

Thank-you for bringing my attention to Schiller's pertinent ideas.

It is the equilibrium of evils, vitality/constraint, that compound into beauty, the peak of inspiration. The motive force of highest inspiration becomes an evil when it lacks the proper context for its expression.

Yes, beauty becomes itself when it partakes of, in part, deformity. It's the element of deformation making beauty singular that distinguishes it from the merely symmetrical and pleasingly pretty.

No we see that beauty is closely allied with freedom. Anna Karenina and Count Vronsky, both beautiful individuals, together made a bid for freedom from the moral precepts of matrimony, an honorable institution. Ultimately, they were not strong enough in their own time to achieve escape velocity, but look at the assertive promiscuity of continental society today.

So far it seems that the only thing you have to be grateful for is the direction to fear. I for one would not be grateful for that. Perhaps you’ve received more than the advice to fear a higher power? — praxis

It's true I'm a very fearful person, however, I've received deliverance to a quality of life beyond my own merits, and for that I'm grateful. It took me a long time to realize how much is being done on my behalf by the people in my life, and I'm grateful for my awakening to this truth.

I'm struck by how next to nothing I am outside of society. I think I understand correctly that short time in a deprivation tank and I'd even forget my own name. The human brain can be mighty, but it never stops being frail.

Pain (war) is another instrument of revelation. It forces us to see our real limitations. The depiction of pain is central to art because it is such a powerful driver of human behavior, both towards and away from goodness. Tragedy, that sharpens the focus on the tragic flaw of the noble person, and the self destruction it causes, functions as one of humanity's greatest art forms.

Pleasure (love) is the counterpart to pain and it too highlights our catastrophic limitations: Othello murders his beloved, Desdemona.

I repeat, morality is a derivative of dynamic and forceful lives, and thus it is the handmaid of vitality, not its judge.

Would you choose moral restraints upon the dynamic leader of the people over unrestrained vitality as their motive force?

Oh, what direction has a higher power given you? — praxis

Firstly, I've received the direction that I should fear the higher-power. Without my fear, my arrogance would have me at the bottom of the oubliette before sundown.

God is pretty much whatever someone needs to dream up, I think. — praxis

That's a tempting thing to say, but if you've ever been delivered from your limitations into a situation you could never earn you way into, it's more fitting to feel gratitude towards a higher power.

We see beauty in ugliness through aesthetic experience (art). — praxis

Yes.

Life on earth is interesting, and art and morality, in turn, are also interesting to the extent they remain connected to life. — ucarr

This seems to be just your opinion. I think distilling this, though, we can say that existence is. Life can be. When they coincide in time, interest arises. — AmadeusD

Well said. We're agreeing interest arises when human life within an existing world passes time with adventures. To this I add further interest by seeing how much humans can get away with in their behavior.

Love and war are the two big adventures. Can I kiss the girl? Can I shoot the enemy? Everyone who lives pushes against moral boundaries in their effort at living. As you've said, "Life simply is."

Well, the naked fact of being in life as a human individual has no boundaries so absolute we cannot attempt to lie our way out of them. This attempt to lie, cheat, slip and slide our way out of moral boundaries in life, by my observation, is necessary, and that's what I'm trying to focus on here.

Anyone not frequently tempted to lie, cheat and steal their way through life is probably a low-vitality person who is not interesting.

And thus the church shows its wisdom when it declares human nature corrupt from the git-go.

Even the rare, authentically righteous person has to fend off fiercely their temptations toward pride of person regarding their rectitude. For us humans, Eden without the snake is unthinkable.

When the slithering demon comes on stage, that's when the interest begins.

You say we humans aren't sinful by our natures and that our art likewise -- though sourced from us -- is not sinful. Have you not found that a movie depicting a beautiful sun setting its glow over a vuluptuous woman with soul-stirring music on the soundtrack puts you to sleep after ten minutes if something doesn't go wrong, thus threatening the woman's happiness?

...the fight between a more inclusive narrative of human reality and the edited version that's morality-friendly... — ucarr

This is one of my best forward passes with the lance of my wit. It is another one of my central points of focus: the artist wants to threaten the beautiful woman with something of interest menacing her composure. If a man doesn't take delight in this rousing of the feminine will to survive, that man belongs in the vestry with the robes and the sashes.

I've underlined all of my central points of focus.

Wagner, who so alienated Nietzsche, composed sublime music...canonical names glorified within the pantheon of human deeds, yet grounded in blood and flesh mired in sin. — ucarr

This reads like uninspired journalism. — Tom Storm

I plead guilty.

I would argue the points made are moot. — Tom Storm

I acknowledge that they are. I posted here because I need to have my points examined critically.

...the sentences seem archaic in structure and the inflated style - reads like early 20th century pamphleteering. — Tom Storm

I plead guilty.

In the end you seem to be making the commonplace observations that good art can be made by flawed people. — Tom Storm

Yes, I am repeating the commonplace observations. Here's how my statement tries to diverge: my claim goes on to imply good art softens moral condemnation by arousing sympathy for the human condition in a dramatic situation with circumstances pushing the individual beyond his limits: Hamlet, bedeviled by the demands of the ghost, the assignations of his mother, the vulnerabilities of his girlfriend and the protests of his adversary, murders Polonius.

You didn't answer any of my points. How about one at random? — Tom Storm

The artist walks a mile in the shoes of humanity-observed non-judgmentally. — ucarr

Shakespeare, in writing Hamlet, lives Hamlet's life non-judgmentally. He walks through his many trials and, in the end, gives Hamlet a soliloquy about choosing suicide over and above the terror of the unknown and even worse, the unearned ruin of Job's lengthy suffering.

It's non-judgment in the rendering of a life that extends art beyond the scope of morals. As AmadeusD says, "Life simply is."

However, some things in life bump against the filter with more force than other things. — ucarr

Yes, but that changes from person to person, culture to culture, institution to institution. Says nothing moral, of itself. — AmadeusD

On a planet with no life, nothing interesting happens.

Life on earth is interesting, and art and morality, in turn, are also interesting to the extent they remain connected to life. So existence without life is not interesting and besides, no human knows anything about it.

Morality is not an aspect of the world outside of human minds. — AmadeusD

This is a useless supposition because no human lives in a world without human minds. That being the case, the world outside of human minds is irrelevant to us.

Since we can't escape morality, reference to a world without it yields us nothing.

What I claim to be interesting is the proposition life is bigger than moral life, its derivative. Now, if art is sinful by nature because humans are likewise sinful by nature, and if art, following the lead of human nature, enacts the audacity to be more inclusive than moral life, then the fight between a more inclusive narrative of human reality and the edited version that's morality-friendly amounts to being a fight between true representation and reductive, idealized representation.

Art looks past the ideal towards telling a more complete truth about who we are.

Is this an anfractuous way of saying that God is ugly? — praxis

While the human individual lives s/he struggles with what is best to do going forward. Having a higher power to take direction from provides comfort. Is God a sub-division of human psychology? Well, the savior was fully human, so I'm on solid ground answering "yes."

Ugliness is quite rare and instructive -- it makes us rethink what constitutes good (The Elephant Man) -- so a deformed higher-power might possess ugliness as one of its infrequent aspects that only the stalwart person can bear to witness.

There’s an endless war between art and morality. — ucarr

I don't think so. Culture wars are frequent - certain groups/people will utilize moral arguments against art they don't understand or like. The most infamous of course being the Ziegler's Degenerate Art exhibition in 1937. — Tom Storm

As humanity survives across the march of time, human nature continues to open new chapters of revelation. The artist works to present substantial details of the revelation. The artist walks a mile in the shoes of humanity-observed non-judgmentally. The more substantial the revelation, the more likely conflict between what is revealed and the local culture's commitments to what human behavior should be. This is the conflict and the war.

Perhaps there is now no new human behavior under the sun, and thus the revelations are repetitions of prior revelations. In that case, art enables us to remember what we've forgotten, and perhaps what we wish to remain forgotten.

If human history continues to be unique going forward, with human nature in new situations revealing heretofore unseen facets of itself, then we can surmise human nature is bigger than local codes governing behavior.

Perhaps the Nazi holocaust shows us nothing new about the murderous impulses of aspiring men, but their hoarding up of the art pieces denounced publicly and treasured privately alerts us to something interesting about the connection between hatred and envy. This peculiar relationship is today still being examined in documentary movies.

From all of this we know that the artist is the town crier who tries to get away with shouting as much carnal truth about the human nature of sin as possible. — ucarr

I think most people will find this anachronistic thinking. Art as sin might fit into some old Christian worldviews. Perhaps you had a fundamentalist childhood? — Tom Storm

The human individual will do things to adapt to immediate circumstances and therefore, killing -- even murder -- are not off the table. This is what art reveals when the story features a murderer up against society's disapproval for taking the life of a pawnbroker. He wants the victim's money to finance his greatness of character and its attendant, albeit as yet unrealized, greatness of achievement.

Herein we see a curious contradiction: our job as proper human individuals is to hew closely to the modeling of the savior, and yet we mustn’t get too close to the ways of the savior lest we become full of ourselves and thereby deify ourselves. — ucarr

I would say this is nonsense... — Tom Storm

Sometimes moral correctness allows only a narrow tolerance between ice and open flame. Of course we're all sinners in the game of steering a course midway between love and hate.

Why don't you simply start with the premise that you are a conservative thinker with some traditional ideas about Christianity which you are projecting upon the world of art within a Western context. — Tom Storm

The scriptures are a narrative and the higher power is a character within it. Not even the higher power escapes violation of its own prescriptions for right behavior: the older stories include transgressing individuals struck down for what today we count as infractions.

Very interesting post but you should've left this out if you don't want us to ask what this controversial escape clause is. — Nils Loc

You have caught me in the act of writing pretentiously.

NMorality is a mental habit — AmadeusD

What is NMorality?

Morality is not an aspect of the world outside of human minds. — AmadeusD

This is true. However, some things in life bump against the filter with more force than other things.

Pain. It may not be moral in of itself, but let a human individual experience it beyond a certain level of intensity and s/he becomes hard-pressed not to scream out in rage and despair against that heartless neutrality.

Thich Quang Duc set himself on fire and burned up in protest against political oppression. Although a superb demonstration of life's indifference, it was used as an alarm awakening the minds of the complacent public who are, after all, simply life, albeit life aware of itself.

...philosophy considers very subtle questions, that are beyond the scope of science not because they're incredibly complicated, but because they're generally very simple questions with a lot of depth. — Wayfarer

ideology | ˌidēˈäləjē, ˌīdēˈäləjē |
noun (plural ideologies)
2 archaic the science of ideas; the study of their origin and nature.
The Apple Dictionary

I'm wondering if the archaic definition of ideology most especially applies to the philosophical project: the examination of the origin, nature and truth content of ideas.

Buttressing my supposition is my perspective on a simple question with a lot of depth: if the simple question addresses something fundamental, then it's no surprise if the complexity of the question's answer is large.

From your post I see a triad of three things: substance - a raw material with the potential to take on form (I note that a raw material has an innate inclination towards taking on a form that expresses its nature: this is Aritsotle’s recognition of chemistry: the innate form of gold differs from the innate form of lead); a form that expresses an organizing principle imparting a specificity of shape and function to a substance (an iron hammer); content - an implicit narrative about the natural world received by a comprehending mind (the Madonna with child statue conveys the role of women as nurturers and protectors of children).

Form and content are distinct from substance because they are closer in proximity to mind.

You ask about the back and forth of human conversation, a phenomenon that argues for itself as being the highest creation of the universe to date.

Consider a handful of sand gathered on the beach. The silica within the sand supports the making of glass.

Consider a crystal chandelier and a handful of sand.

Consider the moon’s orbit around the Earth and a conversation between two humans.

The crystal chandelier is to the sand what the conversation is to the moon’s orbit around the earth.

The chandelier and the conversation respectively, are each a work up or deluxe version of the two basic things i.e., the sand and moon’s orbit around the earth.

A human conversation at bottom is the same thing as the moon orbiting around the earth.

Consciousness is rooted within the interaction of two gravitational fields.

As the moon’s gravitational field raises earth’s tides, and the earth stabilizes the moon’s location, so two conversants enrich and de-localize each other.

Where are two conversants engaged in conversation? We might see where their bodies are located in space, but we don’t really know where they are until we hear what they’re saying to each other, and that might place them anywhere within the universe.

Of what stuff are dreams made?

Just as there is gastronomic digestion of the stomach, there is cognitive digestion of the brain.

Food in the digestive tract will break down in a certain way and, likewise, cognition will break down in a certain way.

Sometimes a dream is a coherent piece of a larger cognition breaking down. Other times a dream is a motley stew of small pieces jumbled together incoherently.

The power of dreams stems from them being bits of awareness and thus a stew of not completely localized experience.

Where you, the sentient are, is a good measure of who you are. Well, cognition opens wide the reality of where you are. Thus it opens wide the questions of who you are.

If you want to know someone’s location in identity, it becomes important to know what they’re thinking.

Now what might a person be thinking? The answer to that question might encompass the whole world , or even the whole universe!

This possibility points up the power and the depth of meaning to identity and location of a person of imaginative thinking.

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