The problem of contemporary art is not the subjectivity of artistic values. It is the submission of the public to opinion-producing mechanisms with extra-artistic interests. If everything is art, you have no criteria. If you have no criteria you have to accept what "experts" say is valuable art. And who are the experts? Those who control the channels of reproduction and exhibition of art.

The classic paradox: supposed freedom leads to control.

First of all, I'm sorry I'm late. I didn't read your 500 comments carefully for lack of time.I hope I'm not repeating other comments.

The difficulty in defining art is so great that dictionaries return us to undefined terms such as "beauty" or list the branches of art. I think this definition is either not possible or so vague that almost everything could be art: noises, things or stains without any deliberate form.

Total abstraction has taken over the art scene. A new definition of art would be "Art is anything that enters art museums, is sold at art auctions or exhibited at art exhibitions.

I think the situation is catastrophic for art because of some causes that I would like to discuss here:

-There are no objectifiable aesthetic values but totally subjective tastes.

-Absolute elitism. Art does not have to respond to a more or less numerous public, but is accepted or rejected by a minority of critics who choose according to their tastes or particular interests and are not accountable to anyone.

-Commercialization. The only objective value is the market price. Art has become a commodity.

The result is that what you see or hear in an art space is just money in disguise.

There is an urgent need for a new definition of art that can distinguish between art and banknotes.

Every human being can imagine a better world. It seems that God cannot.

are we capable of manipulating or surpassing its terms? — The Abyss

It depends on what you mean by "human nature". In a classic sense, nature is what makes a thing that thing. Assuming this definition, man cannot go beyond the limits of human nature without becoming something else. This is Nietzsche's doctrine of the superman, for example.
If you are asking whether this overcoming is possible, it also depends on what you understand by "concept", especially that of human nature. I think concepts are conventional. They are more or less rigid ways of ordering the world, but never absolute. Moreover, the limits of concepts are not always precise. So the question to be asked is "What is man?"

Science fiction has explored vagueness by creating many interesting paradoxes. Stanislaw Lem's Solaris, for example, is decidedly philosophical.

In my opinion, overcoming human nature is possible because human nature in the strong sense doesn't exist. I prefer "human condition". It is more flexible.

I believe that the only way to overcome solipsism or extreme subjectivism is by starting from Husserl's intentionality. That is, consciousness is always to be aware of the world. There is no pure self. Now, let's talk about what the world is.

That is, I would say that the whole premise that you have any sense of certainty of knowledge or existence within one’s own mind cannot happen without knowledge of one’s embodiment within some external context — Sir Philo Sophia

The solipsist does not deny that the idea of the "I" is constructed in opposition from the idea of the world. What he claims is that I have evidence that I exist, but that the idea that the world exists is not evident. Usually the hard solipsist is supposed to go one step further and deny that the world exists.

As Schopenhauer said, the solipsist is like the one who locks himself in his castle and covers all the windows and knocks down the moat bridges. No one can attack him. But he can't get out. As soon as he takes a step he betrays himself. And he takes it from the moment he tries to defend his solipsism outside himself.

So we have a logical problem with no practical consequences. It's not the only one.

Descartes did not presuppose the existence of "I". He experienced his thought and that gave rise to the inescapable, irrefutable truth, that he exists; — god must be atheist

In reality, Descartes did not think that the cogito was a truth of experience in the usual sense of the term. It was a rational intuition that I think and that if I think it is rationally impossible for me not to exist. The negation of the cogito ergo sum would be a blatant contradiction.

Of course, the existence of the ego says nothing about what I am. Therefore, Descartes began his questionable way to the existence of the world with an unjustified deduction: If I am thinking, I am a thinking substance. This is not as evident in itself as the cogito.

A state will do what is in its power to stop terrorism or threat to its population. — schopenhauer1

The end does not justify the means. Terrorism is not about ends but means. Terrorism is the use of terrible force against non-combatants to force them to accept some end. This is independent of the goodness or evil of the ends. In fact all terrorists claim ends that are respectable: The Palestinian terrorist argues resistance against a brutal occupation and Israeli state terrorism is justified for the protection of the civilian population.

Apart from the fact that violence against the civilian population is repugnant in itself, the use of terrorism degrades the good cause that is used as justification. The moral degradation of people and the preeminence of fanatical leaders are the normal consequences of a society that normalizes terrorism. At the end of the process the real ends are no longer those that are preached. We are seeing this in the respective sides of the Palestinian conflict.

That, not to mention the general hypocrisy that affects other countries. Because the conflict in Palestine is not - and never has been - a mere local conflict.

don't know what you really meant by counterfactual history. What I meant was that a major part of history is analyzing the decisions that were made and how that negatively or positively affected a later outcome — schopenhauer1

A counterfactual explanation is one that makes hypotheses about the consequences of an event that did not really happen. In history it's a fallacy. You can predict in exceptional cases what it would have happened in the short term if some exceptional event (not) had taken place. It is history fiction to predict what Europe would look like today if Napoleon had won at Waterloo or if Mark Antony and Cleopatra had defeated Octavian. Frivolities.

(I continue).

Two main obstacles to peace are often considered to be terrorism and occupation. In the Western media, Palestinian terrorism would justify Israel's state terrorism, but not vice versa. This is a (non-)curious bias.
In any case, it is clear that occupation is a cause of Palestinian terrorism.

Some Palestinian efforts have been made to prevent terrorism in collaboration with the Israeli authorities. They can be considered insufficient. But Israel has made no attempt to reduce state terrorism. Neither sufficient nor insufficient.

The occupation is the (main) cause of Palestinian terrorism. Successive Israeli governments continue to increase the occupation without interruption.

Who is to blame for the persistence of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict? How do we share the responsibility?

As for the attitude of successive Israeli governments, one more thing could be said: it is fully consistent with the Zionist project, as it was devised by its main actors before the creation of the State of Israel. That the Palestinian resistance surprised them and forced Zionism to act in an unforeseen way in the long term is another matter. They probably foresaw a calmer situation in the manner of the "pacification" of the Native Americans. Reality has overtaken them in some sense.

When did Jews in Europe ever have a chance to "negotiate" with Hitler? — schopenhauer1

When did Palestinians ever have a chance to "negotiate" with Israelis?

Your narrative is a summary of Israeli-American mythology about the negotiations. I'll discuss it when I have time. For now, I will make my own summary: the so-called negotiations have been an attempt to forcing the Palestinians to swallow the conditions that made a Palestinian state nonviable and that implied the recognition of Israel not as a state - that Arafat did - but as a Jewish ethnic state. The history of these "negotiations" was one of successive Palestinian concessions that produced subsequent hardening of the Israeli position. I suggest you read what one of the few Israelis with a willingness to make peace wrote: Uri Avnery. Unfortunately there are no longer any like him.

As you have correctly noted, the Israeli/Palestinian situation is not unique. While each situation has it's own unique history (and range of solutions) there is still the underlying question - how to resolve disputes over land ownership. — EricH

Apply the Kantian categorical imperative: What would happen in the world if Israeli policy became the universal norm? Total instability of international borders. The law of the strongest without restrictions. The Hobbesian state of nature. Or universal war.

You can say that some of that we have now. True, but with a certain modesty and limitations. If it were to become the norm it would be chaos.

I am also pessimistic about the solution of the Palestinian problem.

Yet, that is exactly how history can be analyzed. — schopenhauer1

Not the story they taught me.
The best-seller books of history maybe.

I don't see anything you said as countering the fact that this is about an issue of the inability to negotiate. — schopenhauer1

Do you blame the Jews for not knowing how to negotiate with Hitler?

But I know the counter argument that two wrongs don't make a right. I agree. But, let's look at the facts on the ground. The West Bank and Gaza did not want to form into a state between 1948-1967. Or at least, Jordan and Egypt didn't want to encourage this. They wanted the whole thing or nothing at all. Israel got the West Bank and Gaza, and the Sinai, after being threatened from imminent attack in 1967 and again in 1973.

Then came an intractable problem — schopenhauer1

Let's not start with counterfactual scenarios. Neither you nor anyone else knows what would have happened if the Palestinians had formed their own state or integrated into an Arab state. The first thing that should have been done at the time is to ask their opinion. This is a necessary condition for any process of decolonization.

But it was not done, and they were delivered in hands of an anti-Arab political movement that foresaw at least their expulsion if not worse. We are discussing a real fact. Not political fiction. Politics fiction cannot justify massacres and ethnic cleansing.

In any case, if Jews were to lose power then the Arabs would take control and Jews would once again be second class citizens as they are in other Arab countries and open themselves up to the possibility of massacres as they have faced in the past. — BitconnectCarlos

You cannot justify a current injustice on the basis of a hypothetical injustice. In any case, the solution to that injustice cannot be to kill the future offender. Are we at Minority Report? Do we play politics fiction?

The real fact is that the only justification for Israel's crimes is the fear of Palestinian rebellion.
First of all: there would be no rebellion without a previous occupation.
Second: the fear of rebellion by the natives leads the settlers to live in a state of permanent war. This state of war is incompatible with any kind of true democracy. Justice cannot exist when a dominant fears and hates the dominated. We have recently seen that in the slave states of the United States and in apartheid South Africa. I know that some of the early Zionists have a (naive) feeling of benevolence towards the Palestinians. After decades of fear and hatred, these good settlers have vanished and only Netanyahu, Lieberman and the armed settlers remain.

The problem was the occupation. The solution will be difficult. Especially since the neo-colonial powers are not interested in it.

This clearly excludes Arabs and Muslims. 20% of Israel's population. Self-determination is a fundamental human right. — Tzeentch

All ethnic states are established to the detriment of minorities. In the case of Israel there are specific laws and practices against native Palestinians: citizenship, land ownership, right of return, mixed marriages, etc. Amnesty International regularly reports on massive violations of basic rights. That is why Nobel Prize winner Desmond Tutu called Israel a new form of apartheid. He knew well what he was talking about.

Firstly - and this is a minor point - these are not legends. There is a clear historical record that there was an autonomous Jewish nation prior to being taken over by Rome. — EricH

You are wrong. The unified Jewish kingdom only existed in the mythical period of Saul, David and Solomon. After that, the Jewish people were divided among several countries mostly under foreign occupation. When Rome occupied Palestine, the two main kingdoms were Judah and Israel.

But this does not answer my question - how do we resolve situations where multiple groups of people lay claim to the same physical land? — EricH

Many times it is not an easy question. Other times it is clear, at least in a negative way. Not by means of war. Not appealing to mythical claims. Not because of some alleged 2,000-year-old right. If these perverse foundations of law became widespread, there would be oppression, chaos and universal violence. As in fact already happens in Palestine.

What gives any nation authority or legitimacy? — schopenhauer1

Respect to the human rights or justice. Call it as you like.

A similar thing could be said about every healthy democracy. — Tzeentch

In a democracy, the people decide. When the richest people decide it is called plutocracy. When the strongest, it is called tyranny. You have to call a spade a spade.

But if there are no guidelines/rules/laws at all, then there will be no way to resolve these issues. — EricH

What seems obvious is that claiming rights from two thousand years ago based on legends would turn the international map into a chaos of claims and struggles. That is the main idea.

n your comparison you are equating the Sioux with the Israelis, i.e. the Sioux are not allowed to reclaim their historic homeland. My point was that we should be equating the Sioux with the Palestinians - they are the aggrieved party. Apologies if I was not clear on that. — EricH

I agree with your comparison. Maybe I expressed myself badly.

Just think WHY did Israel start the Peace process in the first place? — ssu

Israel proposed peace on one or two occasions when it thought the other party would not accept it and when it was in its interest to consolidate its power in the 75 per cent of Palestinian territory it had appropriated. When the Palestinians realized that the armed road was leading nowhere and began to propose peace, Israel retreated again and again to make it impossible.

Hence the rules are decided by peers called sovereign states. — ssu

The activity of the UN is decided in the Security Council. The rest, words.

Of course, the UN does not have an army and relies on other nations to provide troops. That makes the exercise of authority difficult in certain cases, but it does have that authority. — Tzeentch

An authority that depends on the authorization of a council of the great powers does not seem to me to be independent. Although the legislation it promotes is beautiful.

Ukraine? — ssu

Australia, Bélgica, Bielorrusia, Bolivia, Brasil, Canadá, Checoslovaquia, Costa Rica, Dinamarca, República Dominicana, Ecuador, Estados Unidos, Filipinas, Francia, Guatemala, Haití, Holanda, Islandia, Liberia, Luxemburgo, Nueva Zelandia, Nicaragua, Noruega, Panamá, Paraguay, Perú, Polonia, Suecia, Sudáfrica, la Unión Soviética, Ucrania, Uruguay y Venezuela. — Embajada de Israel en la República Dominicana.

The list was published by the Israeli Embassy in the Dominican Republic. It didn't take me more than five minutes to find it. I didn't have time to translate it. I assume you have no problem identifying Ukraine and the other states.
You'll notice the obvious absence of African and Asian countries. This was before colonial emancipation. A significant fact.

The Cartesian cogito only establishes as evidence (without possible contradiction) the existence of the "I" as "something" (a substance) that thinks. From there Descartes is forced to find some evidence -as evident as the previous one- that the external world and other minds exist. And he fails.

Empiricists used this failure to discredit rationalism. Indeed, the latter was forced to admit solipsism or to accept another criterion of evidence. The first is not to anyone's liking. The second leads to an empiricist criterion of truth. But it is not so clear that empiricism nullifies solipsism. As Berkeley shows.

This is just an epistemological battle. No blood. Only wit.

So superficially you seem to be answering my question - 125 years is the time limit. — EricH

Superficially.
You cannot make casuistry with this problem. You have to analyze different contexts. I was just pointing out a blatant similarity.

And just what institution would have the authority to say so? — ssu

Unfortunately, universal authority is practically non-existent in international politics. The State of Israel was created with the permission of an aberrant pact between Stalin and the colonial powers. Only the votes of some "independent" countries like Ukraine allowed it.

However, this is a forum of philosophy and we can judge things under the premises of justice and morality. As for cynicism, we already have the masters of the world and their footmen.

Every conflict is rooted in force. — ssu

The nation is a concept that summarizes a certain cultural unity of a group of individuals. It is relatively useful for defending the common rights of its components. However, if the Nation becomes a substantial subject, an abstract entity with autonomous existence, it is being given rights over real subjects' rights. This is the source of fascism, not the defense of individuals. Every abuse is justified on behalf of Nation, as it is the case with Israel.

All conflict implies relations of force (direct or indirect). But any use of force has limits that colonialism violates, as it is the case with Israel.

In short: one cannot defend oneself by attacking innocent people. Nor can nations.

Pain is a subjective experience.

We don't feel other people's pain in a literal sense. We observe some linguistic and bodily behaviours. These behaviors provoke an immediate response in our feelings and behaviour. This response is not deliberate and conscious. Therefore, we can say that we feel the pain of others. But this is not literally true. The only pain we feel is our own.

Can the descendants of ABC fight and kill the descendants of DEF?

If yes, then for how long? — EricH

First of all, nations do not have rights over individuals. Putting the nation above the people is the typical ideology of fascism.

Even if the Jews lived in Palestine 2000 years ago, their right to occupy Palestine does not exist. No more than the rights of the Great Sioux Nation to occupy Dakota or the Italians to occupy Marseille.
And even less to appropriate land through war. Force is the opposite of justice.

If Jews wanted to be safe from antisemitism in Europe they had to find other means than going to Palestine to kill Palestinians. In doing so, they lost any reason they might have had.

No. The Palestinian-Israeli conflict is not rooted in ancestral rights, but in ultra-nationalism, imperialism and force.

Under these conditions, the right to resistance is recognized in the preamble of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and in the moral sense of people. It will last as long as the occupation lasts and a clear link can be established between those who suffered and those who are suffering.

As far as controlling the use of force and its consequences is concerned, I believe that moral sense and international law must provide the answer.

EDIT: Oh, and the Israelis as well the US (the Palestinians won't directly deal with the Israelis) have offered self-determination the Palestinians many times among...I believe the past 3 administrations: Clinton, Bush, and Obama. The Palestinians have zero interest. — BitconnectCarlos

Rigorously false. In every negotiation, the Israeli spokesman (i.e., the United States government) offered conditions that were obviously unacceptable to the Palestinians. The alleged autonomy was of the Bantustan type. They make a truly autonomous state with precise boundaries, control of own resources, etc., unfeasible. The latest fallacy is the demand for recognition of Israel's "Jewish nature". A farce and an insult to the human rights of the Arab Israelis.

How do you define a nation? — EricH

The problem does not lie in abstract concepts. It is mainly specific: the rights of specific people living in a place who are stolen, expelled and massacred when they resist. In the name of a mythical narrative that comes from two millennia ago.

it's just about jewish self determination and in turn preventing these types of massacres. — BitconnectCarlos

Typical colonialist excuse: I steal, expel and massacre the natives to avoid the massacres against the settlers.
No. Colonization is the problem.

My point is that war is terrible, but war is basically the status quo in human history. People are and always have been awful. — Noah Te Stroete

I think humans do horrible things and good things. You seem to recognize that the occupation of Palestine is one of the first. I agree. You mention Nazism among them. That's an exaggeration. Even if some Jews had made this comparison:

Aharon Zisling, responsible for agriculture ( Council of Ministers on 17 November 1948): "What is happening hurts my soul, my family's and all of us... Now Jews are behaving like Nazis too, and my whole being is shocked".

I think this is a sincere expression about the massacres perpetrated by the Jewish armed forces more than a strict comparison. It cannot be take verbatim.

When the Viet Nam War raged, I was a kid. But later on I tried to deal with those atrocities that you think are natural. I see them as the consequence of a stage of humanity and systems of domination and exploitation in the face of which one cannot remain passive. This is what my morality demands.

but to blame it on zionism is absurd victim blaming and immigration levels were at a relatively low level during that time (1929). — BitconnectCarlos

In the mid-nineteenth century, the inhabitants of Palestine were about 300,000, and just over 500,000 in 1914. Of these, the Jewish community was a small minority of about 10,000 before the first waves of Zionist colonialism. In the beginning of the next century the community had only increased to 50,000 or 60,000 members.

Jewish population increased tenfold between 1919 and 1947 mainly due to immigration. Jews grow from 10 to 30 percent of the inhabitants of Palestine in a short time.

In the 1920s and 1930s, the pressure of Zionist immigration became the most visible element of this dynamic.

Zionist funds had to be diverted from investments in productive capital works in order to provide for the welfare and social services demanded by a Jewish population which increased from 70,000 in 1920 to 140,000 in 1927.
(League of Nations (31 December 1927) “Report by His Britannic Majesty's Government to the Council of the League of Nations on the Administration of Palestine and Trans-Jordan for the Year 1927”.) — League of Nations

It is clear that for a small place like Palestine the figures for Jewish immigration were not small. And above all, what they meant for the Palestinian economy and Arab nationalists.

NOTE: if you want us to become academic I have no problem quoting my sources, as long as you do the same. In an appropriate manner, as I have done in the above quotation. As you like.

David, most of those arabs were killed by the british, not by any sort of significant jewish security apparatus. — BitconnectCarlos

The intervention of Jewish armed groups led by Zeev Jabotinsky and the British army against the Palestinians are two elements that you will not find in any pogrom.

The third element, which in my opinion is a determining factor in the deterioration of relations between the two communities - Jews and Palestinians - is the Zionist project to occupy Palestine and the support of the British authorities through Balfour declaration. Under these conditions, the fact that the British army acted against the Palestinians to defend the Jews led the former to believe that expulsion from their land was agreed. As it turned out to be true later on.

You'll forgive me if I don't go any further, but I am tired too of arguing with the Zionists about the same obvious things.

That legitimizes Zionism. — Tzeentch

Indeed, every colonial power justifies its policy of occupation by the fact that the settlers are attacked by the local population. This was the usual strategy against the Native Americans, for example. And this was the strategy of colonization in Palestine.

Violent anti-Jewish riots were directly provoked by the growing colonization movement, from the Balfour declaration onwards. Of course, racist prejudices played their part, but these prejudices had been dormant before the British Mandate and the initial pro-Jewish policy of the colonial power. Moreover, the riots were executed by displaced farm workers. The Zionist policy of "Jewish workers only" had something to do with this situation of displaced Palestinians. Although it was not the only cause, it was the most visible and was used by the Palestinian elites against the Jews.

Another thing is that the unrest covered the entire Palestinian population. This is not true. I will leave this for another time.

if it's not a pogram or a massacre then would you mind enlightening me as to what it actually was when hundreds of arabs murdered jews in their living spaces with household tools? — BitconnectCarlos

I have not denied that a massacre took place in Hebron. But to speak of a pogrom, one must assume that it is a massacre of a defenseless Jewish population, like were usual in Czarist Russia. If the figures given by Wikipedia and the response of the British authorities are correct, there was a conflict between two communities and the Jewish community seemed to have good offensive capacity, as the small difference in casualties shows -only about twenty. In these conditions it seems more correct to speak of a conflict between communities in which there was a terrible massacre in Hebron. This does not diminish the responsibility of the Palestinian authorities, the sinister mufti of Jerusalem specially, any more than it diminishes the responsibility of the Jewish authorities for the massacres and ethnic cleansing that took place later. Whether or not you want to call them "sinister" is a matter of personal taste. The facts were similar.

The victims of the 1929 Hebron massacre would like a word with you. — BitconnectCarlos

You are right. I should have included the period of the British mandate when the Zionist "national home" begins to be substantiated.

Incidentally, your description of the massacre gives a partial picture of the 1929 conflict in which 133 Jews and 110 Arabs died (source: Wikipedia.es). The main leaders on both sides were condemned by the British authorities. The Arabs for incitement to hatred and the Jews for possession of arms. It is more complicated than a pogrom. None of this prevents us from condemn the Hebron massacre of 1929.