What is Art?

What is art? What is beauty?

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Nick_A
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Re: What is Art?

Post by Nick_A »

Greta wrote: No, it's not a new age notion, it's logic. Where do you draw the line between art and non-art? Everyone has their own idea of what is art and what isn't. Further we all have our own ideas of good art and bad art.
But that is the point. If Tolstoy is right and art as distinct from expression should be a direct communication of emotional intelligence, we lack respect for emotional intelligence. Conscience is only a matter of conditioning and has no objective basis. This is where we differ. I agree with Plato that conscience is soul knowledge. Real art is a means of awakening us to remember it and how it influences us as objective “value”
Where you make the mistake is conferring status to the label "artist". There is only status there for the egotistical and naive. Artist just says what a person does. It's up to others to determine the quality of her or his work.
It is the same with a doctor. Doctor just says what a person does. It is up to others to determine the quality of their work. You will of course say that there are intellectual standards to value what a doctor does. I will reply that no such standards exist for emotional intelligence. What is wrong with this picture? Does emotional intelligence exist or have we just collectively become incapable of it?
It's ignorant comments like yours that make me want to quit philosophy forums and just do a blog. I'm disappointed. I thought you were bigger than that.
Is it really ignorant to argue in favor of the right to privacy for the sexes? I know it isn’t politically correct but I believe it is essential for a functioning free society. If I were transgender it really wouldn’t bother me where I pissed. But there should always be places where men are free of women and women are free of men and these differences are not just respected but valued as well. A bathroom is one. As a transgender I could always fake it when necessary.

Mark Twain — 'Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to reform

He must have been an ignorant man. Who did he think he was to insult the politically correct majority?
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Harbal
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Re: What is Art?

Post by Harbal »

Greta wrote:
Nick_A wrote:I'm disappointed. I thought you were bigger than that.
I'm not disappointed, I figured out how big he was a while back.
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Greta
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Re: What is Art?

Post by Greta »

Nick_A wrote:If I were transgender it really wouldn’t bother me where I pissed. But there should always be places where men are free of women and women are free of men and these differences are not just respected but valued as well. A bathroom is one. As a transgender I could always fake it when necessary.
So shallow. Have you known transgenders? Have you heard their stories? You have NFI. I suggest you try doing some work in the human rights and learn people's stories before offering ignorant opinions.

A transsexual forced to go to male bathrooms is essentially sentenced to death. Either someone will kill them or they will kill themselves due to the constant harassment. Transsexuals change their sex - that's the point - which is why it's called a "sex change" as opposed to a "sex-stay-the-same". Therefore they are recognised as the new sex - both legally and socially - unless they are of the type who have major delusional issues and are destined to always be completely unconvincing.

We don't deal commune with people's DNA or skeletons - they are not part of our social interactions. We deal with their personalities and (sometimes) genitals.

By the same token, art is just art. It might be good, bad, crazy, popular, reviled. It doesn't matter. No doubt you consider noise music to not be music too - and would argue from a point of almost complete ignorance that you know better than the millions of educated musicians and musicologists what music is and is not.

I recommend paying attention to people who actually have experience and know what they are talking about rather than engaging in affectations of being the intellectual outlaw resisting The System.

I think I'm getting close to saying goodbye to forums. I used to be calm and relaxed but dealing with such obtuseness on a regular basis is infuriating.
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Greta
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Re: What is Art?

Post by Greta »

Harbal wrote:
Greta wrote:
Nick_A wrote:I'm disappointed. I thought you were bigger than that.
I'm not disappointed, I figured out how big he was a while back.
Alfie, I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt because I believe that each person has something worthwhile - a unique perspective - from which we all can learn. My problem is that I have a white hot visceral hatred of bigots - highly bigoted against bigots!

So I did learn something from Nick - that he is a self-serving asshole taking a cheap chance to bully vulnerable minorities. What an ugly and cowardly act! I helped bullied workers for a few interesting but gruelling years earlier this century. I see Nick as joining with the witch hunt crowd so as to harass and denigrate perhaps the most disempowered and vulnerable group in society and words cannot convey my disgust at this kind of cruelty.

How can such a person be even allowed in a philosophy forum??

Then Nick - again without having a clue - wants to claim that he can be the arbiter of what art is and what is not. With a typical theist's arrogance, he assumes that experts don't know what they are talking about - that he knows better.
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Harbal
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Re: What is Art?

Post by Harbal »

Greta wrote: Alfie, I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt
Well I don't think your post will have left him in any doubt that his benefit has now been withdrawn. :)
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Greta
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Re: What is Art?

Post by Greta »

Harbal wrote:
Greta wrote: Alfie, I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt
Well I don't think your post will have left him in any doubt that his benefit has now been withdrawn. :)
I've been dealing with religious bigots and apologists on the other forum and I'm not sure I can take much more! :lol:

All I want are nice, logical, rational chats about life, the universe and everything - nature and reality - not cultural sludge.
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Harbal
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Re: What is Art?

Post by Harbal »

Greta wrote: All I want are nice, logical, rational chats about life, the universe and everything - nature and reality - not cultural sludge.
Well if you get really desperate there's always me.
Nick_A
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Re: What is Art?

Post by Nick_A »

Ah, what's it all about Alfie? Who the hell know anymore.

Greta, obviously you don’t respect or feel the value of gender privacy. Nor do you appreciate what it takes to establish the normal balance between voluntary obligations and human rights rights essential for a free society. You seem to follow the King George III philosophy which states: “I wish nothing but good; therefore, everyone who does not agree with me is a traitor and a scoundrel.” It is a popular philosophical disorder especially in progressive circles. Thank goodness some still question it.

I’m sorry but you underestimate art. Again you are in the majority. Did you know that there are those in the East who hear music in quarter tones? Around here we are lucky for those who even hear semitones. You can say who cares, it is all art.

You won’t appreciate this excerpt from the Tolstoy article linked in the OP. He actually thinks and respects ideas more than three inches in front of his nose. Feel free to growl. But since those with your attitude are in the majority in American Politics and education, the country is doomed to descend into statist slavery. They will demand their rights without any awareness of the value of the ideal of voluntary obligations. They will prove the legitimacy of the old expression: “only fools fight in a burning house”
“Art is not, as the metaphysicians say, the manifestation of some mysterious idea of beauty or God; it is not, as the aesthetical physiologists say, a game in which man lets off his excess of stored-up energy; it is not the expression of man’s emotions by external signs; it is not the production of pleasing objects; and, above all, it is not pleasure; but it is a means of union among men, joining them together in the same feelings, and indispensable for the life and progress toward well-being of individuals and of humanity.”
Walker
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Re: What is Art?

Post by Walker »

Greta wrote:
Nick_A wrote:If I were transgender it really wouldn’t bother me where I pissed. But there should always be places where men are free of women and women are free of men and these differences are not just respected but valued as well. A bathroom is one. As a transgender I could always fake it when necessary.
So shallow. Have you known transgenders? Have you heard their stories? You have NFI. I suggest you try doing some work in the human rights and learn people's stories before offering ignorant opinions.

A transsexual forced to go to male bathrooms is essentially sentenced to death. Either someone will kill them or they will kill themselves due to the constant harassment. Transsexuals change their sex - that's the point - which is why it's called a "sex change" as opposed to a "sex-stay-the-same". Therefore they are recognised as the new sex - both legally and socially - unless they are of the type who have major delusional issues and are destined to always be completely unconvincing.

We don't deal commune with people's DNA or skeletons - they are not part of our social interactions. We deal with their personalities and (sometimes) genitals.

By the same token, art is just art. It might be good, bad, crazy, popular, reviled. It doesn't matter. No doubt you consider noise music to not be music too - and would argue from a point of almost complete ignorance that you know better than the millions of educated musicians and musicologists what music is and is not.

I recommend paying attention to people who actually have experience and know what they are talking about rather than engaging in affectations of being the intellectual outlaw resisting The System.

I think I'm getting close to saying goodbye to forums. I used to be calm and relaxed but dealing with such obtuseness on a regular basis is infuriating.
Does harm caused by anyone-allowed-in public restrooms outweigh harm caused by gender specific restrooms?
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Greta
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Re: What is Art?

Post by Greta »

Walker wrote:Does harm caused by anyone-allowed-in public restrooms outweigh harm caused by gender specific restrooms?
"Anyone-allowed-in" restrooms? Transsexuals are some ridiculously small percentage of the population, and with many you wouldn't be able to tell anyway.

My issue is focus on bullying the vulnerable when there are huge problems facing the world. Like the legend of Nero fiddling while Rome burned ...

Let's get back to art and leave the vulnerable alone.
Walker
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Re: What is Art?

Post by Walker »

Greta wrote:
Walker wrote:Does harm caused by anyone-allowed-in public restrooms outweigh harm caused by gender specific restrooms?
"Anyone-allowed-in" restrooms? Transsexuals are some ridiculously small percentage of the population, and with many you wouldn't be able to tell anyway.

My issue is focus on bullying the vulnerable when there are huge problems facing the world. Like the legend of Nero fiddling while Rome burned ...

Let's get back to art and leave the vulnerable alone.
I understand your position Greta, and also I don't mean to divert the thread. You write with much compassion and reason, and emotion which is not to criticize. The question I posed is an ethics question dealing with public funds, unfunded mandates from centralized authority, and so on. Even more applicable now in public discourse as it is has changed from theory to reality, with implications for society. Good starter topic elsewhere, though not by me.

The phrasing was not meant to be disrespectful but rather concise without preference to any particular premise such as what defines one's sexual identity.
Greta wrote:I think I'm getting close to saying goodbye to forums. I used to be calm and relaxed but dealing with such obtuseness on a regular basis is infuriating.
That day to be done with philosophy forums comes for everyone sooner or later. Good luck for when you move on.
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Greta
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Re: What is Art?

Post by Greta »

Walker, I don't know. It's not a problem I experience and I'm not qualified to speak for others. I personally find the current witch hunt against transpeople reminiscent of the anti-gay rhetoric before the US 2004 elections. A terrible distraction that costs the country dearly.

Americans - and the rest of us, for that matter - need to be on our guard against these distraction tactics, where trivial rubbish that presses emotional buttons is presented as important to the public to distract them from whatever the big boys are concocting. A variant on beer and circuses.

Wake up, sheeple! lol

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Walker
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Re: What is Art?

Post by Walker »

Greta wrote:Walker, I don't know. It's not a problem I experience and I'm not qualified to speak for others. I personally find the current witch hunt against transpeople reminiscent of the anti-gay rhetoric before the US 2004 elections. A terrible distraction that costs the country dearly.

Americans - and the rest of us, for that matter - need to be on our guard against these distraction tactics, where trivial rubbish that presses emotional buttons is presented as important to the public to distract them from whatever the big boys are concocting. A variant on beer and circuses.

Wake up, sheeple! lol

Image
Greta wrote:I personally find…
That’s the key, as you well know. Personally.

To bully another for their personal findings is thuggish.

There are causes for that in society, and a big one is desensitization via entertainment.

Encountering the new, causes a release of chemicals and associated feelings. The ante to find the new gets upped. Folks gets desensitized. Burn-out is literal, at the synapses. Thugs are created.

(Folks think in fragments but exist in whole, so the thug influence bleeds into the world and influences perception, causing projection and perpetuation, conceptual themes certainly expandable for consideration in an appropriate thread).

Remember how rap-music started out like cute word play? Then came the calculation to up the ante by appealing to the been-there-done-that T-shirt affectation crowd that has money to burn.

What’s that? An ink-blot?
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Greta
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Re: What is Art?

Post by Greta »

Walker wrote:What’s that? An ink-blot?
A painting done by an elephant. Art? It's toddler-level art, the kind of art that Mum might put on a fridge for a week or so.

Or for a mere $500 you can purchase an original painting by chimps, Arthur and Chaka, although I suspect there was a little cheating with the backwash :) https://salsa4.salsalabs.com/o/50957/t/ ... llorg=True
Walker
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Re: What is Art?

Post by Walker »

Greta wrote:
Walker wrote:What’s that? An ink-blot?
A painting done by an elephant. Art? It's toddler-level art, the kind of art that Mum might put on a fridge for a week or so.

Or for a mere $500 you can purchase an original painting by chimps, Arthur and Chaka, although I suspect there was a little cheating with the backwash :) https://salsa4.salsalabs.com/o/50957/t/ ... llorg=True
Maybe it's The Creator's way to get the elephant into the room. (OMG did he say that? Is he one of us?)

:lol:
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