Do We Learn To Love Bad Art?


Selene

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You [Moralist] appear to be a very confused and ignorant yet pompous novice on the subject.

J

Question, J.

Why bother to argue with him? All you'll get is more smug non-answers in reply. What's in the exercise for you?

Ellen

I've always been fascinated by people's smug opinions of their own versus others' tastes, and probably always will be.

And the way that I look it at, Moralist doesn't have a reputation of publishing his opinions on the subject or of posing as an expert, and therefore I'm more likely to get some potentially interesting and substantive responses from him than I would from being critical of similar mindsets held by, say, Bissell (and his wife), Pigero, Dr. Comrade Sonia, PhD, Newberry, Hudgins, Peikoff, etc.

J

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Only the real world consequences you yourself set into motion by your own actions have the power demonstrate the objective truth of reality... and only to you and no one else. Truth is non transferrable. In contrast... lies flow like water from liars to those who love lies.

Wherever you find ugly art... There you will find ugly people.

When I used to teach mathematics and logic I transferred truth several times a week.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Those are just intellectual facts.

I'm referring to the truth that has the power to change a world view which can only come through the reality of personal consequences of ones own actions.

Now that's a real education. :wink:

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Those are just intellectual facts.

I'm referring to the truth that has the power to change a world view which can only come through the reality of personal consequences of ones own actions.

Now that's a real education. :wink:

I guess teaching math and logic is not real education. Right?

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Those are just intellectual facts.

I'm referring to the truth that has the power to change a world view which can only come through the reality of personal consequences of ones own actions.

Now that's a real education. :wink:

I guess teaching math and logic is not real education. Right?

Well, there's one kind of learning from sitting inert in school while being talked at... :sleep:

...and then there's a whole other kind of learning out in the real world with the just and deserved consequences of your own actions teaching you how to live. :smile:

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You [Moralist] appear to be a very confused and ignorant yet pompous novice on the subject.

J

Question, J.

Why bother to argue with him? All you'll get is more smug non-answers in reply. What's in the exercise for you?

EllenI've always been fascinated by people's smug opinions of their own versus others' tastes, and probably always will be.

And the way that I look it at, Moralist doesn't have a reputation of publishing his opinions on the subject or of posing as an expert

I am only an expert on my own life's experience because I'm the only one who is living it. And since I am, I found real value in being mindful of the consequences of my own actions... in being highly selective in the planted seeds of future events before they sprout. This is because those future events become the soil for other seeds.

What do you make of a person who thinks something is beautiful that you think is ugly?

Just that it is only possible for one of us to subjectively agree with objective reality.
Let me guess: your subjective opinions always "agree with objective reality." Is that right?

No.

Do you realize that in answering in the negative, you're admitting, based on your previous comments on "internal resonance," to sometimes having a mistaken affinity with that which is not beautiful, and therefore to possessing an inner ugliness which resonates with the ugliness that you observe and which you misidentify as beautiful?

J

How do you think I learned the value of the objective beauty of truth?

But it is not a "mistaken affinity". Inner ugliness will always choose a matching outer ugliness. Realizing this truth in itself is the resolution, because it puts an end to blaming (unjustly accusing) what is outside for what is inside.

It's a common mistake to confuse speaking of an objective principle as claiming to be that objective principle... when as subjective beings it is impossible for anyone to be that objective principle. We can only choose to agree or disagree with it... and even from this short exchange it is clear that both you and I have already chosen.

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How do you think I learned the value of the objective beauty of truth?

But it is not a "mistaken affinity". Inner ugliness will always choose a matching outer ugliness. Realizing this truth in itself is the resolution, because it puts an end to blaming (unjustly accusing) what is outside for what is inside.

It's a common mistake to confuse speaking of an objective principle as claiming to be that objective principle... when as subjective beings it is impossible for anyone to be that objective principle. We can only choose to agree or disagree with it... and even from this short exchange it is clear that both you and I have already chosen.

For the purposes of a point of reference, can you post a picture, or, other representation of:

1) "beauty"; and

2) "ugly."

At a minimum, it will give the discussion/argument/savage war a referential context to work from.

A...

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How do you think I learned the value of the objective beauty of truth?

But it is not a "mistaken affinity". Inner ugliness will always choose a matching outer ugliness. Realizing this truth in itself is the resolution, because it puts an end to blaming (unjustly accusing) what is outside for what is inside.

It's a common mistake to confuse speaking of an objective principle as claiming to be that objective principle... when as subjective beings it is impossible for anyone to be that objective principle. We can only choose to agree or disagree with it... and even from this short exchange it is clear that both you and I have already chosen.

For the purposes of a point of reference, can you post a picture, or, other representation of:

1) "beauty"; and

2) "ugly."

At a minimum, it will give the discussion/argument/savage war a referential context to work from.

A...

There's no war... only a description of divergent views having already been chosen.

Beauty.

6850926453_f238c4aae3_o.jpg

Ugly.

miley_16.jpg?itok=qkfi6kOC

...and each clearly manifested on the outside what they are on the inside.

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moralist, I am to assume that you are the true and sole judge of what is good art and what is bad art?

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Do you realize that in answering in the negative, you're admitting, based on your previous comments on "internal resonance," to sometimes having a mistaken affinity with that which is not beautiful, and therefore to possessing an inner ugliness which resonates with the ugliness that you observe and which you misidentify as beautiful?

J

How do you think I learned the value of the objective beauty of truth?

The discussion is not about the subcategory of "beauty of truth," but about the larger category of beauty in general, with an emphasis on visual beauty. You appear to be attempting to extrapolate your opinions about what is beautiful in that smaller subcategory of "beauty of truth" and impose them on the larger category of beauty in general, including on the subcategory of visual beauty. It's like if we were discussing the category of animals, and you were to say that you've found that birds can fly, and therefore you conclude that, since birds are animals, all animals can fly, including cattle. It doesn't logically follow.

But it is not a "mistaken affinity". Inner ugliness will always choose a matching outer ugliness. Realizing this truth in itself is the resolution, because it puts an end to blaming (unjustly accusing) what is outside for what is inside.

I'm interested in hearing examples of your inner ugliness choosing a matching outer ugliness in visual art. Please give us examples of when you thought that visually ugly things were beautiful, and explain the specific inner ugliness that you possessed which made you think that those visually ugly things were visually beautiful.

J

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How do you think I learned the value of the objective beauty of truth?

But it is not a "mistaken affinity". Inner ugliness will always choose a matching outer ugliness. Realizing this truth in itself is the resolution, because it puts an end to blaming (unjustly accusing) what is outside for what is inside.

It's a common mistake to confuse speaking of an objective principle as claiming to be that objective principle... when as subjective beings it is impossible for anyone to be that objective principle. We can only choose to agree or disagree with it... and even from this short exchange it is clear that both you and I have already chosen.

For the purposes of a point of reference, can you post a picture, or, other representation of:

1) "beauty"; and

2) "ugly."

At a minimum, it will give the discussion/argument/savage war a referential context to work from.

A...

There's no war... only a description of divergent views having already been chosen.

Beauty.

6850926453_f238c4aae3_o.jpg

Ugly.

miley_16.jpg?itok=qkfi6kOC

...and each clearly manifested on the outside what they are on the inside.

In the above, you're not judging the visuals aesthetically, but rather you're morally judging the actions and ideas of the people who have been photographed. The problem seems to come down to your confusing the metaphorical use of the word "beauty" when applied to the enjoyment of moral judgment as if it were literal.

J

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Ayn Rand was not visually beautiful. She wasn't ugly, but just kind of average or below average. So, the question now is, what inner averageness does Moralist have which matches his preference for outer averageness? Why does he misidentify averageness as beautiful?

Also, Miley Cyrus isn't ugly. Visually, she's beautiful. The pose that she is shown in in the above image isn't beautiful, but if Ayn Rand or anyone else with average looks were in the same pose, it would be a non-beautiful pose combined with average looks rather than with beauty. So we've isolated the pose as being what's not beautiful in the image. But why does Moralist focus on only the pose? Why does he choose to selectively ignore all of the elements which are beautiful in Cyrus' form and instead define the image only by its unattractive features? What horrible forms of inner ugliness drove him to do so?

J

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Ayn Rand was not visually beautiful. She wasn't ugly, but just kind of average or below average.

[....]

Also, Miley Cyrus isn't ugly. Visually, she's beautiful. [....]

You mean "beautiful" and "ugly" do inhere in the object?

Ellen

Only when accepting Moralist's theory for the sake of argument, taking it for a spin, and testing how he likes the ride.

J

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It reveals that you have a nasty case of inner ugliness.

I suppose the next step is to explore your innards for specific forms of ugliness and to declare that they are externally manifesting themselves in your misidentification of Cyrus as beautiful/cute.

Let's see. Oh, yeah, I remember disagreeing with your views on gun control. That's definitely an example of your inner ugliness. Therefore that's why you resonate with Cyrus' ugliness and imagine that she's beautiful: your ugly opinions on gun control have affected your aesthetic judgment of one person's looks.

J

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moralist, I am to assume that you are the true and sole judge of what is good art and what is bad art?

Nope, Baal. Everyone's a judge.

I only know that when whatever is outside of us corresponds with what is inside of us we subjectively call beauty. And what we subjectively call beauty either agrees or disagrees with what is objectively beautiful.

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Miley C. has a beautiful body, but her face I would describe as "cute." What does this say about me?

It takes a certain blindness not to see the ugliness of her lack of character expressed in her face.

See how we each have already chosen? :wink:

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How do you think I learned the value of the objective beauty of truth?

But it is not a "mistaken affinity". Inner ugliness will always choose a matching outer ugliness. Realizing this truth in itself is the resolution, because it puts an end to blaming (unjustly accusing) what is outside for what is inside.

It's a common mistake to confuse speaking of an objective principle as claiming to be that objective principle... when as subjective beings it is impossible for anyone to be that objective principle. We can only choose to agree or disagree with it... and even from this short exchange it is clear that both you and I have already chosen.

For the purposes of a point of reference, can you post a picture, or, other representation of:

1) "beauty"; and

2) "ugly."

At a minimum, it will give the discussion/argument/savage war a referential context to work from.

A...

There's no war... only a description of divergent views having already been chosen.

Beauty.

6850926453_f238c4aae3_o.jpg

Ugly.

miley_16.jpg?itok=qkfi6kOC

...and each clearly manifested on the outside what they are on the inside.

In the above, you're not judging the visuals aesthetically, but rather you're morally judging the actions and ideas of the people who have been photographed.

All objective beauty is moral.

Everything else is various shades of fugly.

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I only know that when whatever is outside of us corresponds with what is inside of us we subjectively call beauty.

The question is, how do you imagine that you "know" this? How have you tested your theory and proven it? What conditions would falsify your hypothesis?

And what we subjectively call beauty either agrees or disagrees with what is objectively beautiful.

What do you mean by "objectively beautiful"? How do you imagine that you know of the existence of this alleged objective beauty if you, like the rest of us, are limited to subjectivity in the realm of beauty?

Do you understand what the terms "objective," "subjective," and "beauty" mean?

Objective means "of, relating to, or being an object, phenomenon, or condition in the realm of sensible experience independent of individual thought and perceptible by all observers; having reality independent of the mind..."

Subjective means "belonging to, proceeding from, or relating to the mind of the thinking subject and not the nature of the object being considered..."

Beauty is "a characteristic of a person, animal, place, object, or idea that provides a perceptual experience of pleasure or satisfaction."

So, your position appears to be that our experiences of pleasure when viewing an object cannot be objective, but, despite that fact, there is an objective experience of pleasure that exists out there (that is somehow experienced by a non-existent?), and that we (or actually I should say you) can somehow (magically?) know of the existence of this disembodied objective experience of pleasure, and that we (or, rather, only you?) can then compare our own experiences of pleasure with it, and the more at variance that each of us is with this magical non-entity's objective experiences of pleasure, the more inner ugliness we must have?

Since you say that you are limited to subjectivity when experiencing beauty, how are you detecting and identifying the existence of this "objective beauty" that you speak of?

Also, does the magical non-entity who has these objective experiences of beauty also experience pleasure in the realm of, say, tastes in food, and therefore is there an objective favorite flavor out there somewhere floating along side the disembodied experience of objective beauty? Do we humans only experience subjective preferences of flavors, and we reveal "inner ugliness" if we think that something tastes good when the magical non-entity's disembodied objectively favorite flavor differs from ours?

And I'd also appreciate it if you would answer my previous request from post 34:

"I'm interested in hearing examples of your inner ugliness choosing a matching outer ugliness in visual art. Please give us examples of when you thought that visually ugly things were beautiful, and explain the specific inner ugliness that you possessed which made you think that those visually ugly things were visually beautiful."

J

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