Free Republic

Modernists like to manipulate words, often “spinning” them into meanings that appear simple but are relatively obscure. For example, consider the modern misuse of the terms like “accompaniment,” “social justice,” or even “woke.” Such is not the case with the architectural style known as “brutalism.” The Architecture of Despair Merriam-Webster defines brutal using the words cold, harsh, severe, unpleasant and lacking sensitivity. A bit further down the page, it refers to brutalism as “a style in art and especially architecture using exaggeration and distortion to create its effect (as of massiveness or power).” While many might not be familiar with...

This week, the Met Gala took place in New York City. The event has always been a showpiece for celebrities seeking to make a splash, from Rihanna in her Pope costume to Katy Perry dressed as a chandelier. This year’s event was designed in homage to Susan Sontag’s 1964 essay “Notes on Camp.” According to Sontag, “camp” is the “love of the unnatural: of artifice and exaggeration.” In reality, camp according to Sontag is something else: a deliberate attempt to tear down boundaries. “Camp taste,” Sontag wrote, “turns its back on the good-bad axis of ordinary aesthetic judgment.” “[H]igh culture,”...

Frankly, the parade is exquisite. The marchers wear clean, crisp uniforms. They hold their banners high. Enormous sculptures of horses and men loom over the procession. It’s footage from German Arts Day—in 1939. A march in celebration of the Nazi aesthetic. “The government—half of which consists of men who once aspired to serve the arts—is conscious of the artist’s role as an intermediary,” the narrator says, quoting famed Nazi literati Hans-Friedrich Blunck.

Symposium: Art, music and the Wagnerian dilemma Characters Socrates Richard Wagner, German Romantic composer Leni Riefenstahl, Hitler's filmmaker Wimsatt & Beardsley, The New Criticism School Ezra Pound, American expatriate poet Publius, Pupil of Socrates and conflicted lover of Wagner's music Socrates: We are gathered here today at my Symposium to discuss the venerated discipline of aesthetics and to seek to answer this question of the ages – Can immoral art be good? Or more pointedly, can an immoral person create good art? Wimsatt & Beardsley: Yes, Socrates, philosophers call this paradox the intentional fallacy, which developed in the New Criticism...

Von Hildebrand remarks further that it's vitally important for human beings to be aware of their ontological value -- their dignity as persons made in God's image and likeness. The pantheistic view that we're but drops in an immense universe is fake humility, a subtle lack of gratitude for the fact that God -- in His infinite bounty and generosity -- has metaphysically "knighted" us. Apart from ontological values that are more or less beautiful according to their ontological rank, von Hildebrand speaks about qualitative values, moral values, intellectual values, and aesthetical values, to mention the most important ones. These...

So, does everyone like the new format of FR? Looks great!

In 1966, the Supreme Court was once again trying to define obscenity. Among other decisions, they revised an earlier definition to include the requirement that the material be "patently offensive." As usual, Justice William O. Douglas dissented, claiming that: "There are as many different definitions of obscenity as there are human beings, and they are as unique to the individual as his dreams." It so happened that I some leisure that spring, and therefore (malgré Justice Douglas) took it upon myself to formulate a universal definition of obscenity-thanks to some help from playwright Bertolt Brecht, artist Ed Kienholz, and fabulist...

Snow Has Begun to Fall in Jerusalem 10:00 Feb 11, '05 / 2 Adar 5765 (IsraelNN.com) There are already reports that wet snow has begun to fall in areas of the capital. The temperatures are expected to continue dropping during the coming hours and the snow will begin accumulating in Jerusalem during the nighttime hours, forecasters report. The snow is expected to continue on the Sabbath until at least midday.

The following is a miniplay which emphasizes the central conflicts in today's aesthetics, and academia, focusing on the realm of music to carry its message: Characters: DR. PATRICK SILK, 51, professor and director of musical composition at Princeharvnell University. ATHENA MILTON, 19, student and amateur composer at Princeharvnell University. Setting: An early April evening in 2005, within the hundred-year-old office of PROFESSOR SILK, lined with wall panels and furniture of a finely carved but faded dark wood. An equally antique grand piano, having been turned into a condition of ideal sound, stands in the center of the room, alongside a...

Philosophy - What Is It? A long time ago, one of my very young sons was attempting to dissuade some of his friends from launching some stupid project bound to end in disaster. Try as he might, with his limited reasoning and persuasive power, he was unable to convince any of them of their folly. Finally, in exasperation, he threw up his hands and declared, "I'm surrounded by idiots!" I am convinced this is the true picture of the world, a world so absurd, if it is not populated by idiots, than it is populated by the insane. I...

WITH summer comes the annual ritual of the Hollywood blockbuster, aimed primarily at teenagers, and with the blockbuster comes the annual ritual of complaining about it. Critics usually focuses on the thin plots, the lame jokes, the lack of characterization and the bombast of special effects. As they see it, many films now use an aesthetic sleight-of-hand that substitutes volume, speed, size and other neurological overloads for the more traditional satisfactions of entertainment, allowing viewers to expend a minimal amount of emotional energy. These are faux movies, and are about the only kind most teenagers respond to. They are also...

Science continued its victorious march, with all of its attendant ramifications and side effects, throughout our own 20th century, and religious apathy and materialism have spread from the educated classes to all categories of people. This is especially true in Europe, where the percent of those who attend church has dropped into the single digits. It is true to a somewhat less spectacular degree in the United States, where the percentage attending church regularly has declined to below one half of the total population. Yet, despite the fact that the current has long run against traditional beliefs and traditional believers,...