[MD] Defining Art (was Churning Point)

[Arlo Bensinger]

[Platt]
Once again you defer to "our culture." You have no opinion you can call 
your own?

[Arlo]
Can you tell me an opinion you have that is not one developed through 
culture? Of course, you rely on your standby dichotomy that "culture" and 
"individual" are antithetical existents. They are dynamically interwoven, 
inseparable and co-constructive.

The point I made, that you ignore, is that for "art" to function, you (as a 
viewer/participant/creator) must recognize the cultural cues of the "art". 
"Tune", for example, has proven to be a significant cultural "cue" in 
western culture that can be used in the creation of the art in such a way 
as to prompt viewers within that culture. If the viewer does not recognize 
the prompts, the art is ineffective. This is really the reason you don't 
respond to digiderooing. And the reason why other cultures may not respond 
to Mozart. This is precisely what Leif has said, "But without the 
supporting stable social (and biological I would recon) patterns supporting 
it, it will not be percieved as art."

Thus, the individual and the culture are not separate, but intertwined. 
What I perceive as "art" I do so because of the cultural mythos I have 
appropriated, from distant historical ancestral cultures, to the culture of 
Central Pennsylvania.

[Platt]
There are cultures that practice cannibalism to shatter static patterns. 
You consider this a "viable device?" How about getting high on cocaine?

[Arlo]
I don't recall any cultures off-hand that ate people in order to shatter 
static patterns. I know there was the belief of assimilating the power of 
the eaten, and the idea that "others different than me" don't count as 
"people". As for cocaine, and peyote, its shattering effects on static 
patterns have been documented on this site repeatedly. To me, the potential 
dangers and ill-effects outweigh the potential benefits of the shattering 
effect, and I so don't use them. I do believe, that within the context of 
the peyote ceremony, as Pirsig himself experienced, the benefits of the 
shattering can be quite profound. In this way I'd say the Indian Peyote 
Ceremony Pirsig attended elevated the use of peyote to an "art". Indeed, 
quite profound art, as we are discussing the outcomes of it every day.

[Arlo previously]
We learn cultural metaphors in ever-decreasing circles, from those that 
continue to exist in the mythos from ancient cultures from which we 
descend, to very local-immediate circles of our town, valley or hollow. In 
a less specific way, you could say culture orients the individual towards 
valuable metaphors learned over historical time within that culture.

[Platt]
And I say while cultures influence their inhabitants, it is the contrarian 
individual who ignores such influences...

[Arlo]
As Pirsig said, "To feel that one is not so united, that one can accept or 
discard this mythos as one pleases, is not to understand what the mythos is."

[Platt continuing]
... who is the catalyst for evolutionary progress, e.g. the brujo, Galileo, 
Vermeer, Edison, Ford, Rockefeller, Einstein, and other of history's movers 
and shakers.

[Arlo]
And again, "The mythos-over-logos argument points to the fact that each 
child is born as ignorant as any caveman. What keeps the world from 
reverting to the Neanderthal with each generation is the continuing, 
ongoing mythos, transformed into logos but still mythos, the huge body of 
common knowledge that unites our minds as cells are united in the body of 
man." Without the mythos, Einstein would have had nothing to say. 
Einstein's voice contained the countless echoes appropriated when the 
biological entity (that would come to be known as Einstein) became part of 
the mythos, through language, culture and thought.

[Platt]
I say art is indefinable and thus subject to whatever anyone wants to say 
it is. I say noise is not art. If you say it is, so be it. But, I don't 
blame me if I say you lack artistic taste.

[Arlo]
And I say you lack artistic taste. So there.

[Platt]
I agree. You are saying the definition of art is whatever an individual 
thinks it is. But, somehow, I don't see what making coffee has to do with 
shattering patterns.

[Arlo]
SA has already responded to that point very nicely.

[Platt]
I don't claim any superior discriminatory ability. I know what I like, just 
as you do and an aborigine does. However, I believe that there are experts, 
critics and connoisseurs of art who I can learn good taste from, or else 
what's a university for?

[Arlo]
In the university (think of Pirsig's composition classes) one learns 
effectual ways to manipulate cultural pointers to produce "art". Tune, 
beat, tempo, timbre, etc. are all "tools" or "tricks" the composer has at 
her/his disposal, just as color, dimension, placement and perspective are 
"tools" of the visual artist. The university exists to teach possibilities 
for using these tools to achieve a desired outcome, but not to say "this 
HAS to have THIS".

 From ZMM, "Now, at last, the standard rhetoric texts came into their own. 
The principles expounded in them were no longer rules to rebel against, not 
ultimates in themselves, but just techniques, gimmicks, for producing what 
really counted and stood independently of the techniques...Quality. What 
had started out as a heresy from traditional rhetoric turned into a 
beautiful introduction to it. ... He singled out aspects of Quality such as 
unity, vividness, authority, economy, sensitivity, clarity, emphasis, flow, 
suspense, brilliance, precision, proportion, depth and so on; kept each of 
these as poorly defined as Quality itself, but demonstrated them by the 
same class reading techniques. He showed how the aspect of Quality called 
unity, the hanging-togetherness of a story, could be improved with a 
technique called an outline. The authority of an argument could be jacked 
up with a technique called footnotes, which gives authoritative reference. 
Outlines and footnotes are standard things taught in all freshman 
composition classes, but now as devices for improving Quality they had a 
purpose."

As for your "not claiming superior discriminatory ability", didn't you just 
say I lacked artistic taste? And then consider the following...

[Arlo previously]
Also, for the aboriginals (and many westerners as Khaled, I think, pointed 
out) who consider digiderooing "art", do you think they are 
indiscriminatory? Primative? Uneducated? What?

[Platt]
Primitive and uneducated.

[Arlo]
Wow. Well. If that isn't placing ol' Platt up on a Pedestal of 
Discriminatory Superiority, I don't know what is. Talk about a Rigel Complex.

Arlo