The Self Alone?
Posted on 11/21/2001 12:49:58 PM PST by Askel5
That's a whole 'nother thread, by the way.
It's "Art for Art's Sake" season down here. I do love my artist friends but feel I offended one of them the other day with repeated heavy sighs as he extolled the Moments his little coterie had during their little readings together that morning.
While there's some truth to beauty's being in the eye of the beholder, I think that truth speaks more to Mind over Matter. The Golden Ratio (and a stretch of 6% on the average model's frame where possible) still is going to rule the day and we all know it. I mean, look how nicely the gay male and buff female flat-bellied aesthetics are taking hold of the collective consciousness. You see it all the time here on the forum, even.
Rather, I think the point of modern art was to destroy the math: no golden ratios. Destroy the natural relationships: no harmonic hues, even. And, above all, instill the idea that truth is relative and the days of extolling (by copying) the order and beauty of creation onto the page were LONG GONE ... along with signing "All for the greater honor and glory of God" instead of one's own name.
One more in the hopper for you to digest at your leisure tomorrow. A little primer on the roots of Soviet terror and Official Overreaction.
(The latter's the part Uncle Sam evidently overlooked in the history books ... must have mistakenly relied on the Revisionist Marilyn Monroe as American icon edition.)
Rather, I think the point of modern art was to destroy the math: no golden ratios.
Take a gander, one of many analyses of mathematics in modern art. If you don't know about fractals, they are closely related to Fibonacci series and the golden section.
You're right, though, that nonrepresentation is stated by artists and theorists as a desirable characteristic of much modern art. But are they really painting what Tommy (without the sense of smell) would paint?
I will throw you this other bone; the vanishing point perspective (representing far away objects by making them smaller and blurrier) was not used in Western art until the Renaissance. I'm guessing you didn't take basic calculus (perhaps calculus took you), but it is primarily the measure (reducing to a number or equation) of space (integral calculus) and how fast that space is changing (differential calculus). So both math and art developed an atomistic view of space at about the same time. Is this atomistic view natural? Try looking at a lamp, and moving back two paces. How do you know, (visually, not intellectually), that the lamp is farther away? It's not because the lamp is smaller, although it is, a little. It's because you have a greater sense of space between yourself and the lamp. Consider which perspective would be more valuable to a hunter, trying to "cut off the ring" on a faster animal.
Reading this post is probably the equivalent of a weekend barbershop quartet festival, so I will close with this hypothesis: it's not the communists, or anyone else with a face (as we say at PETA), that's changing the world. They may be at the front of the wave, but the wave is the important thing.
I'll follow up on the fractals. Wouldn't surprise me a bit that the better modern artists can't help but have something of the golden ratio bleeding through the canvas. Even divas of self-expression and anarchy still appreciate Good Design.
Calculus did indeed take me ... on the rolling-D ride of my life. Naturally, I'll be following that tangent in earnest once it takes root in the subconscious. You should know better though, monkey, than to think I'd use words in their proper context in some post-it note to self ... =)
More later.
I meant, present a small piece of something I've been thinking about a lot. Poor choice of words. I certainly don't think of you as a dog.
Velociraptor, maybe.
The Self Alone?
I think this is problematic. Supremacy of the individual leaves no room for majoritarian decisions, typical in a democracy, since individual rights are not subject to legislation. On the other hand,the supremacy of the collective -- for example, a welfare state, a national project of the kind Germany was so keen on, or a social experiment of Marxism-Leninism require constant attention and adjustment by the state.
I guess I read this and was still thinking how that's not how it works in practice. It's precisely the "supremacy of the individual" which has resulted in a mandated Lowest Common Denominator.
Again, I'll use human life. The "supremacy of the individual"'s own morality or Personal Values results in the minority's view (particularly small militant faction) to not only become the law of the land but metastacize throughout the culture to polarize, obfuscate and further dehumanize the weakest lives of all at every end of the spectrum, not just the unborn.
It's inevitable that "The People's Will" sorts end up a tyranny of a minority's opinion ... for it's a given that, if the Individual has supreme sovereignty in all matters then all is relative. (All matters, that is, that don't affect another's person or property. This bit, too, hearkens to the rabid individualism that is defending actions because one is an Island. We're human beings, for Pete's sake. Nothing's further from the truth.)
So ... the reality of any given situation IS determined by majority rule -- of committee or Supreme Court, even. (Executive Orders don't count.)
So-called Self-Evident truths (a mother "with child") are forcibly evolved ... primarily via the Mandated interpretation or end-run catch word: the "Living" Constitution ... so they meet with the satisfaction of every possible Individual take and support without distinction his own Personal Values.
=== If the individual is not supreme, there is no crime against life.
I don't understand.
Askel5,What soul did you you help today and yesterday,fatima.
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