Art Lies Beyond Morality

ucarr

There’s an endless war between art and morality.

Morality is a filter for life. Certain elements of life are acceptable, other elements are not. Morality sets itself the task of filtering out the unacceptable from social life. Morality cannot filter out the unacceptable from life itself.

The artist has the job of presenting life. The presentation of life is not quite the same thing as life itself.

So, neither morality nor art are coincidental with life. Only life is life.

Morality too is a presentation of life, not life itself. Sanctioned social life, morally upright and proper, operates no less as play performance put on artificially than what we find within the theater as paying customers to the dramatic spectacle on stage.

The critical difference between morality and art is that the former prioritizes exclusion, whereas the latter prioritizes inclusion.

The job of the moralist i.e., the job of the minister of the gospel, resides in giving instruction to the masses regarding right thinking and proper behavior. Of course, all of this instruction traces back to the modeling of goodness provided by the savior. 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.

From this contradiction we see the paths plotted by morality and art in reference to life: a) morality has us suppressing our base impulses towards righteousness; b) art has us releasing our base impulses towards carnality.

We have the yin/yang of virtue and catharsis, as taught to us in Aristotle’s Poetics.

And the church profits along both paths: first it pushes us away from ourselves with morals, then it brings us back to ourselves with sins.

Pundits tell us the engine of art is conflict. Well, conflict is rooted in sin, so we know, then, that the engine of art is sin.

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.

All ideas and disciplines of the human mindscape are drawn from life. Life, therefore, is that source always poached but never exhausted.

It is the inexhaustibility of life that causes the oscillation of moral restrictions and artistic liberations that keep the blood pressure and heartbeat of humans going.

Each human individual faces the continuum question: saint or sinner? 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.)

How does the artist get away with revelation of intensely sinful deeds forbidden mention by moral authoritarians? S/he does it by being good, which means entertaining. Entertainment, that yin/yang that pulls us out of ourselves whilst simultaneously pushing us into ourselves, embodies the pause that redresses.

It is the dual motion of entertainment that sends us out of the theater dressed in a new suit of spiritual clothing. The clothing are the restraints of morality, but the new suit is party-colored hilarity kicking up its heals, and morality can reach for but not grasp that.

Wagner, who so alienated Nietzsche, composed sublime music the righteous cannot not listen to; Nietzsche, the Übermensch so politically volatile and dangerous, wrote artful narratives of anti-morality no votary cannot not read; Dickens, the despotic unfaithful husband, wrote novels no writer cannot not imitate. These are canonical names glorified within the pantheon of human deeds, yet grounded in blood and flesh mired in sin.

Tolstoy, the faithful, seems to have risen above the celestial gore, but no, while the faithful amen his commitment, they cannot not revel in the misdeeds of Anna Karenina and her Count Vronsky.

Should the righteous person eschew the artistry of the unrepentant sinner?

Well, does the art you contemplate reveal human truth, or conceal it? This is the choice between good and evil.

Aside from the above consideration, this question has an easy answer: no. No human individual lives above the oscillation linking moral restrictions and artistic liberations. Art makes us aware of those parts of our human nature that, for one reason or another, we are blind to, so the evil-mongering artist who speaks to your soul should not be foregone because s/he drives you home to yourself, and without your homecoming to yourself, you can make no authentic approach to virtue.

180 Proof

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.

(2021)
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/535255

AmadeusD

Morality is a filter for life. Certain elements of life are acceptable, other elements are not. Morality sets itself the task of filtering out the unacceptable from social life. Morality cannot filter out the unacceptable from life itself. — ucarr

Hoo-boy.

NMorality is a mental habit; social pressure is the filter and the elements of life considered moral pass through this filter and are thus categorised by the individual, culture or institution. Morality is not an aspect of the world outside of human minds.

I'm not sure what you could mean by 'the unacceptable of life itself'. Life simply is.

Nils Loc

(There is a proffered escape clause, but nowadays that business is too controversial, so I’m leaving it out.) — ucarr

Very interesting post but you should've left this out if you don't want us to ask what this controversial escape clause is. Is it obvious? You must be sinning here.

ucarr

↪AmadeusD

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.

ucarr

↪Nils Loc

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.

Tom Storm

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.

Pundits tell us the engine of art is conflict. Well, conflict is rooted in sin, so we know, then, that the engine of art is sin.

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?

The job of the moralist i.e., the job of the minister of the gospel, resides in giving instruction to the masses regarding right thinking and proper behavior. Of course, all of this instruction traces back to the modeling of goodness provided by the savior. 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

More anachronistic Christian derived ideas. I would say this is nonsense unless you are part of a particular subculture. Within Zoroastrian or Hindu traditions, say, we have very differnt frames.

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. That might make more sense.

AmadeusD

What is NMorality? — ucarr

A typo ;)

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.

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. — ucarr

Can't figure out what you're saying here. People cry out in pain. That's just a state of affairs. There's nothing moral in this observation. "Rage and despair" is usually not present.

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. — ucarr

Don't know what you could be tryign to say here, but it didn't move any kind of needle in any direction (the act of self-immolation). So this isn't giving me anything either...

praxis

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

Is this an anfractuous way to say that God is ugly?

ucarr

↪Tom Storm

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.

ucarr

↪praxis

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.

Tom Storm

↪ucarr

Wagner, who so alienated Nietzsche, composed sublime music the righteous cannot not listen to; Nietzsche, the Übermensch so politically volatile and dangerous, wrote artful narratives of anti-morality no votary cannot not read; Dickens, the despotic unfaithful husband, wrote novels no writer cannot not imitate. These are canonical names glorified within the pantheon of human deeds, yet grounded in blood and flesh mired in sin. — ucarr

This reads like uninspired journalism. It has a bit of a grandiose tone but doesn't really say a lot. In fact, I would argue the points made are moot. Is English your first language? I ask only because the sentences seem archaic in structure and the inflated style - 'the pantheon of human deeds, yet grounded in blood and flesh mired in sin' - reads like early 20th century pamphleteering.

In the end you seem to be making the commonplace observations that good art can be made by flawed people. (Let's not use archaic and imprecise words like 'sinner') And you ask is it ok to appreciate such work. This was an essay quesion I dealt with many years ago in early high school. I believe Picasso was the artist in quesion. Bit of a cliché.

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. — ucarr

You didn't answer any of my points. Another torrent of rococo and imprecise language. Your claims need some form of demonstration.

How about one at random? You write the following.

The artist works to present substantial details of the revelation. The artist walks a mile in the shoes of humanity-observed non-judgmentally.

Please demonstrate this with examples.

ucarr

↪AmadeusD

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.

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. — ucarr

Oh, what direction has a higher power given you?

Is God a sub-division of human psychology? — ucarr

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

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. — ucarr

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

AmadeusD

I will ask you, with respect, at the end of this reply, to do something very specific with your response to me... Please try to do as I ask, because if not, I have no idea what you're talking abotu and can't engage further...

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. — 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. That said, not all life carries interests in the way you're using it here. So, as with my conclusion here, it's hard to see 'about what' you want to speak... But, i take your point, excepting that we often care about hte interests of non-humans. Even non-living things.

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. Anything other than ideas in human minds carry nothing moral. You seem to admit this, but deny its relevance? How could you do such a thing! :P (i am joking, this is fun!)

Since we can't escape morality — ucarr

We can, though (in a roundabout way) By realising it's not something to be escaped, or anything actionable. It is, simply put, your attitude towards any given thing. Yes, we can't escape this. But that doesn't butter your bread. I would need to know that Morality is something aside from my attitudes to care.

What I claim to be interesting is the proposition life is bigger than moral life, its derivative — ucarr

Hmm. Well, this is trivially obvious. I'm not sure why it's interesting. Obviously, life exists outside of moral proclamations. What do you find interesting? Genuine question - can't quite grasp what you want to be talking about, in this area.

Now, if art is sinful by nature — ucarr

...it isn't...

humans are likewise sinful by nature — ucarr

We aren't...

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

I don't know what you're talking about. This seems to refer to things not present in the conversation. what is "the edited version" and, of what? What is a "more inclusive narrative of human reality"???

Can you please, not lecture, but clarify these for me? I want to say more about your previous statements, but without knowing what these are, I have no idea where you're deriving them, and that might be why they seem nonsensical.

Once you've done so, feel free to then reply to all i've said, in whatever way you please :)

ucarr

↪Tom Storm

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."

ucarr

↪AmadeusD

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.

Tom Storm

I plead guilty. — ucarr

Fair enough.

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. — ucarr

The famous soliloquy (at the play's half way point) isn't necessarily about suicide. Hamlet is a case of analysis paralysis. The boy simply can't get his act together. If anything his ponderousness is also a warning about speculation over action and the risk that comes with making choices. He is more of an early existentialist... and he is also a confused melancholic.

But I prefer Deadwood to Hamlet.

ucarr

↪praxis

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.

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. — ucarr

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?

Yes. — ucarr

You think it sinful to see beauty in ugliness?

I like sushi

↪ucarr

Are you familiar with Schiller? This link might interest you. I have not read it myself but I have read the full work, so assume they pick out the main focus of his work.

If not, there are is some similarity in what he conveys with the ideas of material-impulse (concrete, physical world) and formal-impulse (abstract, rational world) being somewhat bridged by the playful-impulse (aesthetic world).

Nils Loc

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. — ucarr

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).

But that demon represents what is in us, both men and women, turned up to a degree which threatens an entire community. It is the Id overgrown into a deity, our shadow grown titanic (before which we awe and tremble), the frightful nightmare of human desire gone awry. The transgressions which threaten the status quo in concentric circles from family to nation is a vision of the monster. What is monsterous (akin to all that is deified) is the breakdown of the boundaries of the sacred order, as all kinds of terrible fusions/transgressions occur (like in the transitions of H. Bosch's paintings).

The whole drama is just a meditation on those sinful desires, which can serve a moral function, in so far as we can become aware that they represent the forces within us.

Your thesis sounds in someway evocative or at least relevant to Rene Girard's work (a very weird but interesting kind of Christian). He draws a line between unanimous expulsion of the scapegoat, to the sacrificial rites as what imbues archaic culture with its powers to keep order. It's all very mysterious, archetypal and mythic but it resonates with me.

We are within the ring of the cult/community which may expel us at any time. It just a never ending set of taboos that forms the thresholds of our social structure.

Art makes us aware of those parts of our human nature that, for one reason or another, we are blind to, so the evil-mongering artist who speaks to your soul should not be foregone because s/he drives you home to yourself, and without your homecoming to yourself, you can make no authentic approach to virtue. — ucarr

I think you are right. Artists are another kind of God's priests. They form the other pole of the oscillation you speak of that keeps us on the middle path between two kinds of hell.

Moralizers often carry a lot of filth in their own shadows. The evil-mongering artist can do a lot with that.

Thales

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.

ucarr

↪praxis

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?

ucarr

↪I like sushi

...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.

ucarr

↪praxis

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?

ucarr

↪Thales

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."

ucarr

↪Nils Loc

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).

180 Proof

@ucarr

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/937529

ucarr

↪AmadeusD

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.

ucarr

↪180 Proof

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.

Art Lies Beyond Morality

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