Objectivist Esthetics, R.I.P.

[anthony]

1 hour ago, Brant Gaede said:

 

No one can objectify any of this; I sure can't. And you are asking Jonathan to do what he said he can't do out of the context of his using language in a way to adequately have a conversation with you. You are either asking him to objectify or join your context without you even winning the argument qua argument. 

--Brant

 

I can and have asked of J, if implicitly, to briefly step outside of his context to view this topic from the Objectivists' p.o.v. Because I want to understand, I have equally looked into it from his, and have gained from doing so. This is not even about O'ism or Rand's words - the objective is to measure art, or any topic, against reality and reason, which here are in synch with emotions. Winning an argument doesn't register in my priorities, this gets in the way of truthful discoveries and honest engagements.

[Jonathan]

7 hours ago, anthony said:

Does art and all art forms have an identity? (Wherever one draws the precise boundary - at this stage - is NOT relevant, but it's inarguable that there ARE boundaries between art entities and non- art entities).

Does art, generally, have value to "man"? (And if one is willing to transpose the abstraction "man" - to the individual, it has value to each man according to his knowledge,purposes  and needs, what is important to him, and by the standard of value, man's life.

If "yes" to those, then by identity AND value, art is - inevitably and incontrovertibly - objective. And it follows that art can also be "subjective" - wishful and arbitrary - in identity and values, to one who's predominantly subjectivist.

By that reasoning, abstract art is objective. After all, it follows your methodolgy above: "Yes," it has an identity, "yes," it has value to "man," therefore it is objective.

One could play the same semantic game with the concept "subjective": "Yes," the concept "subjective" has identity, "yes," the concept has value to "man" (one value being that having the concept helps us to distinguish between different states of cognition), therefore it is objective.

Stupid game. Or worse, you don't see it as a ruse, but have actually confused yourself into believing that you're being brilliant..

7 hours ago, anthony said:

"Nothing has been objectively shown to qualify as art by Rand's definition and criteria".

I know - tough - it is difficult for you to find empirical proof, which is what (you have consistently indicated) you mean by "shown". But that goes to prove the inability and shortcomings and failure of empiricism (as contrasted to conceptualism) when applied to the Objective theory of art.

I'm not the one who has to find and present proof. The onus isn't on me to prove Rand's or your position.

Your dodge of switching to criticizing "empiricism" doesn't work. You seem to believe that any time that anyone mentions the idea of your having to prove something, they are "empiricists" and therefore anti-objectivity. Somewhere along the line you've kookily convinced yourself that objectivity doesn't deal with proof. That's false. According to Objectvism, objectivity is the volitional adherence to reality via logic and reason. An objective theory of art therefore must adhere to reality, and it must therefore be shown to adhere to reality. See, Tony, true objectivity isn't just the act of arbitrarily asserting something to be true while telling everyone that you love Rand and that you're objective and that all your ideas are too. Proof is still required. You don't get out of proving your assertions by using the silly tactic of calling those demanding proof yucky "empiricists."

[Jonathan]

7 hours ago, anthony said:

Your commercial break over, can you answer my question? I will remind you of your statement:

"...in abstract art forms, including in abstract paintings and sculptures, as well as in the abstract art forms of architecture, music and dance".

Question: is all art "abstract"?

No. All art is not abstract. We've been discussing the topic for years. Several times, I've explained the difference between the concepts "abstract" versus "representational" as they are used in the arts. Have you not once paid attention?

I've written many posts disabusing visual arts novices, like His Royal Published Highness, the Majestic Roger Bissell, of their rookie misunderstandings of the two concepts due to their lack of educational exposure to even rudimentary level art history.

You are one of such novices. Try to pay attention.

And here's an idea: Instead of just having feelings and introspecting and imaging what Rand might think, go to fucking Wikipedia and read what the terms actually mean. It's really damned easy. The concept are amazingly simple to grasp. But you have to want to grasp them. Go on! Go look them up. Focus on trying to understand rather than on trying to not understand.

You can do it.

J

[Jonathan]

4 hours ago, anthony said:

I can and have asked of J, if implicitly, to briefly step outside of his context to view this topic from the Objectivists' p.o.v. Because I want to understand, I have equally looked into it from his, and have gained from doing so. This is not even about O'ism or Rand's words - the objective is to measure art, or any topic, against reality and reason, which here are in synch with emotions. Winning an argument doesn't register in my priorities, this gets in the way of truthful discoveries and honest engagements.

You haven't even grasped my perspective, let alone looked at anything from it. You've invented perspectives and claimed that they were mine while I was telling you that they weren't.

J

[anthony]

Happy Thanksgiving!

[Jonathan]

Just checking in.

 

Like Generalissimo Francisco Franco, the Objectivist Esthetics is still dead.

R.I.P.

J

 

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

12 hours ago, Jonathan said:

Like Generalissimo Francisco Franco, the Objectivist Esthetics is still dead.

R.I.P.

Jonathan,

Heh...

One day I will defend Objectivist Esthetics and we might tangle.  

But I agree with a lot of your criticism.

I almost see my views as aligned with yours, except I take the glass half full perspective and you lean towards the glass half empty.

For me, if we lessen the scope of Randian aesthetics from universal to a smaller area, things work a lot better. Sometimes art actually is fuel for the soul, sometime it reflects a sense of life (a concept that also needs to be scope-aligned), and so on. But I now see art from an evolutionary biology frame and Rand's attempted universals don't take into account a lot of patterns used in art that are constant throughout human history (even in her own works).

This is too long to go into right now, but I just want to dispel the notion that this topic has been killed dead, deceased and done for.

Michael

 

[Brant Gaede]

18 hours ago, Jonathan said:

 

Like Generalissimo Francisco Franco, the Objectivist Esthetics is still dead.

R.I.P.

Ah, calling Lasarus!?

It is what it is.

--Brant

wanted, dead or alive

I still say all art is abstract--primary category--but now with "abstract" and "representational" as sub-categories (just an opinion)

 

[anthony]

It's "abstract" indeed, because real things get abstracted through the artist's mind into his personal rendition of the real thing, which in turn can be seen/abstracted through the viewer's mind. Conversely, 'abstract art', so-called, is a contradiction in terms, of artists trying to cut out 'real things' and connect minds by another method. Isn't that what is called primacy of consciousness?

[Jonathan]

10 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Jonathan,

Heh...

One day I will defend Objectivist Esthetics and we might tangle.  

But I agree with a lot of your criticism.

I almost see my views as aligned with yours, except I take the glass half full perspective and you lean towards the glass half empty.

For me, if we lessen the scope of Randian aesthetics from universal to a smaller area, things work a lot better. Sometimes art actually is fuel for the soul, sometime it reflects a sense of life (a concept that also needs to be scope-aligned), and so on. But I now see art from an evolutionary biology frame and Rand's attempted universals don't take into account a lot of patterns used in art that are constant throughout human history (even in her own works).

This is too long to go into right now, but I just want to dispel the notion that this topic has been killed dead, deceased and done for.

Michael

 

I think that our views are similar enough that I doubt that we'd need to tangle. You're clearly not my target. You recognize flaws in the system, and don't get all uppity Randroidy when I point out contradictions and double standards.

I like the attitude of seeing the glass half-full, but, unfortunately, that's rare in O-circles. My experience has been that the overwhelming majority of fans of Rand and her aesthetic theories prefer the very aggressively snotty attitude of focusing almost all of their attention on declaring what is not art, and feeling all morally superior about doing so. And the big weapon that they always think that they have is that they believe that their superior tastes and responses are "objective." I've taken that weapon away from them.

Hopefully my having done so will have at least some effect in getting them to focus on something other than screeching "NOT ART" about everything.

J

[Jonathan]

3 hours ago, anthony said:

It's "abstract" indeed, because real things get abstracted through the artist's mind into his personal rendition of the real thing, which in turn can be seen/abstracted through the viewer's mind. Conversely, 'abstract art', so-called, is a contradiction in terms, of artists trying to cut out 'real things' and connect minds by another method. Isn't that what is called primacy of consciousness?

No, it's called music, dance and architecture. None of those forms deal with representations of "real things." Refusing to get that fact through your skull won't make it go away. Those art forms are abstract. Non-representational.

J

[Jonathan]

4 hours ago, Brant Gaede said:

Ah, calling Lasarus!?

Just dropping a reminder that my challenges still remain unanswered, here and elsewhere, including by those who think of themselves as serious and important scholars on the subject. I'm once again inviting them to come out of hiding and to have the courage to face the reality with which I've confronted them. That would be the Objectivist thing to do, rather than running scared and dodging, evading, and censoring.

J

[anthony]

4 hours ago, Jonathan said:

No, it's called music, dance and architecture. None of those forms deal with representations of "real things." Refusing to get that fact through your skull won't make it go away. Those art forms are abstract. Non-representational.

J

Treat each medium according to what it is, we are talking here about visual art and you repeatedly cross genres. Is a dancer and her body "abstract"? I won't get drawn into music or architecture, but I'd say dance is the physical manifestation - a body's motions (to music) - of a choreographer's mental abstractions. Physical, so visible, perceptible - see?

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

2 hours ago, Jonathan said:

My experience has been that the overwhelming majority of fans of Rand and her aesthetic theories prefer the very aggressively snotty attitude of focusing almost all of their attention on declaring what is not art, and feeling all morally superior about doing so.

Jonathan,

Probably the king of such snot in O-Land is Louis Torres in his various exchanges with Denis Dutton, the author of The Art Instinct: Beauty, Pleasure, and Human Evolution.

We discussed some of this on OL back in 2011 in the thread: The Art Instinct. I just skimmed over this thread and I didn't see any discussion of the sheer gratuitous nastiness and misrepresentation Torres verbally assaulted Dutton with.

I want to do an entire article on this later because I believe this form of hostility (which, unfortunately, was created and promoted by Ayn Rand herself) is one of the rhetorical devices that got Rand's ideas heard in a noisy culture of pretentiousness and its own form of nastiness, especially academic, but it also is one of the reasons Romantic Realism is not much of a thing in our culture. Not even in Rand's fiction. People read her works because they like them for storytelling values (like suspense, fascinating characters who desire intensely, surprises, reversals, reveals, and so on), the emotional roller coaster ride she provides and some very intriguing ideas to contemplate, not because they are searching for Romantic Realism and a portrayal of the perfect man.

But that's beyond the scope of this post.

The gist of the assault by Torres on Dutton, from what I have read and seen, is a total lack of Torres trying to understand Dutton's idea of universal low-level building blocks of art that later serve as the foundation of higher art. In other words, cultural differences get put on top of these foundations. And these universal building blocks evolved to aid in human survival and mating (the two essences of Darwin's theory of evolution).

Torres's case consists of a typical ortho-Objectivist kneejerk against the word "instinct," denigrating Dutton's observations as "cluster criteria" (and similar snark), and bashing some of Dutton's conclusions about modern works of art with reference to formal Objectivist values and definitions, but without reference to the universal evolutionary values Dutton uses as his premise (those being dismissed as "cluster" and so on).

And there's a deeper thing that bothers me on a visceral level, one that I have suffered with in O-Land. Dutton is a mild-mannered person who looked at life with his own eyes, found some fascinating things and came to some fascinating conclusions about them. Then he presented them in an attitude of, "Lookee here what I found." With a smiley stamped on it all. Torres response was to claim Dutton was perverse in his thinking, he didn't know what the hell he was talking about, that his words really mean (fill in the blank with dogma based on Rand), blah blah blah.

Dutton went to his grave in perplexity about this gratuitous hostility. But Torres didn't waste a good death to try to appear reasonable (after all, what's the point of fighting a man who just died?) while claiming he won the war because Dutton caved in the end (see here). 

To be fully transparent, I haven't read Dutton's book yet. Back in 2015 when I bought his book and was going to start (along with another book I bought at the time called Strange Tools: Art and Human Nature by Alva Noë), as preparation I decided to read around, look at videos, see if anyone in O-Land had further comments other than the ones given in the OL thread, etc. I got so disgusted by the sheer irrationality and spite of Torres, I put that project aside. Who wants to read, write and discuss ideas in that swamp of negative emotions as ends in themselves? But, because of this discussion right now, I think I might take it out again.

Just so the reader can get an idea of what I am talking about in concrete terms so they can judge for themselves, and not just accept my evaluation, here is a TED talk by Dutton that pretty fairly represents his ideas (the ones I am familiar with from reading around and watching videos online, but ones I believe are in his book):

And here is Torres's first review of The Art Instinct.

What Makes Art Art? Does Denis Dutton Know?

You might notice that the review has very little to do with the ideas in the video. (To me, these ideas are well worth considering.) But it is full of the worst kind of aping of Rand's nastiness when she was on a roll and plenty of the dogmatic framing based on Rand you constantly bash.

If this were the only thing Torres did re Dutton, I would give it a pass. But he persisted and the whole affair got uglier and uglier. Torres comes off as if he imagines himself to be some kind of Randian Siegfried slaying the Dutton dragon, only to crow and exhibit false grace once the Dutton dragon croaked.

Disgusting... Totally disgusting...

Michael

[anthony]

Nobody ever answers this: Why must everything *be* art? Why does the definition of art have to be inclusive of *everything* made by a human? Why the insistence?

There are plenty of man made things which give pleasure, are beautiful, etc., etc. - so let's enjoy them for what they are: craft, skill, design, decoration, and so on, not for what they are not.

Michael, I read Torres and thought his review very good and deep, without any of the nastiness, irrationality and spite you mention. But I agree that Dutton's angle is worth pondering. He solely concentrates on beauty: and beauty alone, aesthetics, isn't completely a philosophical issue. Its study should be a combined effort including much of what Dutton covers - anthropology, psychology, brain science, etc.. Beauty, in subject and in artist's style, is an irreplaceable component in art, but not all that's beautiful *is* art, or should be. Similarly, feeling emotions is vital to our experience of art, but some artificial item or graceful human action evoking an emotion, isn't *the* single criterion for defining an artwork.

Content and substance above style. (And "stylization" is crucial to a picture, AR emphasizes). Among other aspects this I've considered one radical departure by Rand from traditional, old-fashioned theories on art.  

(In all I read that you linked to, I am puzzled at how "disgusting" you believed Torres to be - when clearly e.g. his account of his meeting and parting conversation with Dutton before he died showed graciousness by both parties and was poignantly sad at his loss, I thought. Right through his argument I saw no gloating over Dutton either, nor Objectivist dogmatism. This is a topic which I think cuts to the heart of Objectivism: identity, values and man's consciousness - and emotion - and not for the faint-hearted.  I dislike making such personal comparisons, but I remark in passing that I would generally consider myself "mild- mannered" also, and I have had to take verbal slights in this thread, which no one openly bothered about, offensive as some were. No prob, as long as I gain out of it, I can take it.  ;)) 

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

7 hours ago, anthony said:

Nobody ever answers this: Why must everything *be* art? Why does the definition of art have to be inclusive of *everything* made by a human? Why the insistence?

Tony,

Who is insisting?

I haven't read anyone say things like that except Picasso when he was drunk and being hyperbolic.  

I have a feeling you don't understand the evolutionary view. The idea is that people who did certain things in our remote prehistoric past and survived and reproduced are our ancestors. Those who did not do those things did not become our ancestors and ended up as dinner, meaning they did not pass their genes down to us. So we have tendencies in our brains--especially the lower parts of our brains--that come from the survivor-reproducers of that prehistory.

btw - Did you see the video? Can you honestly say Torres dealt with those evolutionary ideas? Those ideas are the foundation of Dutton's conclusions and constitute his frame.

Here in O-Land, we don't like it when people yell that Rand collected Social Security and used Medicare and that proves she was a hypocrite about government programs. Why? Because they show no understanding of Rand's ideas, that she disapproved of these social programs, but since she did pay in by force, she was merely taking back her own money in the only manner permitted by those with the guns.

I say ditto with Torres re Dutton. He bashed Dutton without referring to evolution in any relevant manner. How is that serious?

Let me ask you a question. Do you consider ancient cave paintings art? If not, when do you think art started in human history? And if it started in ancient Greece (or any other Objectivism-approved place and time), why did the people before that time not need the "spiritual fuel" Rand claimed art was?

Did this crucial human need (which Rand claimed art was) just appear at random in human history?

And if you do think ancient cave paintings are art, what is the sense of life they display? Terror? Death premise? Triumph? Rational universe? I mean, it's so simple a caveman can understand it, right?  

Don't get me wrong on liking Rand's art. I love it.

The error, though, is epistemological--it's an elementary epistemological mistake to swap places between a category and a member of that category. For example, a Ford Mustang is a car. In fact ALL Ford Mustangs are cars. A car can be a Ford Mustang, but not all cars are Ford Mustangs. "Car" is the category and "Ford Mustang" is a member of that category.

I use the same thinking about Rand's view of art. Works that fall within Rand's aesthetic ideas are art. In fact, ALL works that that fall within Rand's aesthetic ideas are art. On the other hand, art can include works that fall within Rand's aesthetic ideas, but not all art is made up of works that that fall within Rand's aesthetic ideas. "Art" is the category and "works that that fall within Rand's aesthetic ideas" is a member of that category.

Rand's aesthetic ideas are are a subdivision of the wider concept "art."

This is the scope problem I keep talking about.

btw - Torres didn't gloat in his burying the hatchet article. I thought I made it clear he was being deceptive and phony-baloney (maybe even to himself) and claiming he won (softly, but claiming it). Sorry for the misunderstanding. But that doesn't mean I agree with you on this point. I say it's disgusting what Torres did with Dutton throughout the entire affair. Pure intellectual trash.

Michael

[regi]

1 hour ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Did this crucial human need (which Rand claimed art was) ...

Hi Michael,

I have never understood why art is considered a need. In my study of history I have not discovered one thing that has been improved by any form of "art," in the sense that Rand or you mean by art.

A great deal of evil has been promoted using art as the excuse, as it is today. While art certainly is a source of pleasure to many, especially music and literature, I cannot think of one composer or author the world could not have lived perfectly well without.

This is a serious question. What is art needed for?

1 hour ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Rand's aesthetic ideas are are a subdivision of the wider concept "art."

And exactly what is, "the wider concept 'art?'"

By the way, Merry Christmas!

Randy

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

4 hours ago, regi said:

And exactly what is, "the wider concept 'art?'"

Regi,

You might start with the video in my previous post to get the foundation of what I mean by that.

Note, also, that every event you live turns into a story when you verbalize it for remembering and communicating. Storytelling has been one of the primary means of formatting knowledge for memory and communication ever since language started developing, probably before. I would go so far as to say that language does not exist in practice without stories. In fact, concepts themselves are stories (or story models with some fixed parts and some volatile and changing).

Lists are the other main form of organizing knowledge for memory and communication, but lists are horrible to memorize and they don't morph into art like story does. They are good to establish arcs of coherence, though, to use a term of Pinker's.

If you use the evolutionary drives of survival of the individual and survival of the species (reproduction) as a standard, which is what I do, art evolved to provide knowledge of important aspects of reality for survival (including how our minds work), and it is the equivalent of mating plumage for reproduction--think about, for example, the theme of love, which is in 90% of pop songs.

Part of the "cluster criteria" Torres snarked about with Dutton involved looking at the animal kingdom, observing their patterns for mating that did not involve individual survival (think peacock's tail) and seeing similarities with human behavior, and recurring patterns involving survival (like landscapes with fields, trees, animals, water and a course a human can go on, or the teardrop shape that emerged from stone hand axes, and so on).

These are the foundational low-level impulses behind art because they are found in all cultures throughout all history. After the growth of knowledge and cultures in societies, art adds cultural markers to this mix where a group identity is signaled. However, I'm not so interested in that stage right now because I am interested in getting the universal foundation nailed first. (Especially with story.) And, there are other parts I have not thought through enough to speak of them with my habitual brilliance.  For example, how emotions are elicited by art and what situation is necessary for this to happen. I do have many thoughts on this, though.

Here's one as an example. There's a concept called the story triangle and I hold it applies to all art. The lower left of the triangle is the storyteller, the right lower end is the audience, and the upper point is the story itself. If you use the lines connecting these points to indicate relationships, you will see that there is not just one relationship in storytelling, there are six. There's the relationship of the storyteller to the story and the one of the story to the storyteller, the relationship of the storyteller to the audience and the audience to the storyteller, and the relationship of the audience to the story and the story to the audience. Each of these relationships have a specific nature and they all influence how successful and intense the storytelling experience will be. If I tell a knitting club of old ladies a story about weight lifters on motorcycles boozing it up, for example, several of these six relationships are out of whack (especially relevance-wise) and I don't imagine there will be much resonance. It will be a poor aesthetic experience, even though the story might be great or entertaining and funny. 

As to Rand, her view of art is on the higher group identity level I mentioned, although I believe she would have been horrified by that characterization. However, she certainly used art to indicate who belonged to her in-group and out-group when she claimed (on several reported occasions) that so-and-so exhibited too different a sense of life because of the art he likes to ever become close to her.

This is too long a subject to get it all right at my stage of knowledge. I'm working on it, though...

Michael

[regi]

12 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

think about, for example, the theme of love, which is in 90% of pop songs.

It used to be, but I'm afraid, as in everything else, sex has replaced love, and romantic love has been completely swamped in this age of, "all sex all the time."

Thanks for your explanation. I have an impression from it that you include just anything and everything ever drawn (cave drawings), painted (landscaptes), written (stories), or performed (pop music) as art. I don't think that is true since you were careful earlier to say art is a particular category. I know it is common to refer to popular singers and musicians as, "artists," but if what they are producing is art, then art is certainly not a positive influence on human values or principles.

Randy

[anthony]

Michael, I most definitely accept cave paintings to be art. We don't need special insight to deduce the elements which are visually there in the patient care, raw techniques and skilled accuracy and perception needed to re-create an aspect of reality onto a rock wall: i.e. the value-importance, he placed in animal life, the hunt, the weapons, the men, the story of a people - and life, in general. In the paintings is often the reverence for a species of animal which supported his life, and represented in some instances of a painted human figure, perhaps the life, courage or mourned death of an individual hunter who's now immortalized. This means something to ME; this exists as I exist - the cave artist proclaims to future mankind.

It is a mental stretch to envisage those early artists "abstracting" from all their experience and consideration about life and nature, a "metaphysical value-judgment" - "concretized" into one image, (etc.) but the paintings they left tell us it was so, and the artist could think, judge and feel as a perceptual, conceptual human, as could his fellows viewing the paintings.

Rand alluded to ancient art here:

"Yet art is of passionately intense importance and profoundly personal concern to most men--and it has existed in every known civilization, accompanying man's steps from the early hours of his prehistoric dawn, earlier than the birth of written language". (15, TRM)

[Jonathan]

20 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Jonathan,

Probably the king of such snot in O-Land is Louis Torres in his various exchanges with Denis Dutton, the author of The Art Instinct: Beauty, Pleasure, and Human Evolution.

We discussed some of this on OL back in 2011 in the thread: The Art Instinct. I just skimmed over this thread and I didn't see any discussion of the sheer gratuitous nastiness and misrepresentation Torres verbally assaulted Dutton with.

I want to do an entire article on this later because I believe this form of hostility (which, unfortunately, was created and promoted by Ayn Rand herself) is one of the rhetorical devices that got Rand's ideas heard in a noisy culture of pretentiousness and its own form of nastiness, especially academic, but it also is one of the reasons Romantic Realism is not much of a thing in our culture. Not even in Rand's fiction. People read her works because they like them for storytelling values (like suspense, fascinating characters who desire intensely, surprises, reversals, reveals, and so on), the emotional roller coaster ride she provides and some very intriguing ideas to contemplate, not because they are searching for Romantic Realism and a portrayal of the perfect man.

But that's beyond the scope of this post.

The gist of the assault by Torres on Dutton, from what I have read and seen, is a total lack of Torres trying to understand Dutton's idea of universal low-level building blocks of art that later serve as the foundation of higher art. In other words, cultural differences get put on top of these foundations. And these universal building blocks evolved to aid in human survival and mating (the two essences of Darwin's theory of evolution).

Torres's case consists of a typical ortho-Objectivist kneejerk against the word "instinct," denigrating Dutton's observations as "cluster criteria" (and similar snark), and bashing some of Dutton's conclusions about modern works of art with reference to formal Objectivist values and definitions, but without reference to the universal evolutionary values Dutton uses as his premise (those being dismissed as "cluster" and so on).

And there's a deeper thing that bothers me on a visceral level, one that I have suffered with in O-Land. Dutton is a mild-mannered person who looked at life with his own eyes, found some fascinating things and came to some fascinating conclusions about them. Then he presented them in an attitude of, "Lookee here what I found." With a smiley stamped on it all. Torres response was to claim Dutton was perverse in his thinking, he didn't know what the hell he was talking about, that his words really mean (fill in the blank with dogma based on Rand), blah blah blah.

Dutton went to his grave in perplexity about this gratuitous hostility. But Torres didn't waste a good death to try to appear reasonable (after all, what's the point of fighting a man who just died?) while claiming he won the war because Dutton caved in the end (see here). 

To be fully transparent, I haven't read Dutton's book yet. Back in 2015 when I bought his book and was going to start (along with another book I bought at the time called Strange Tools: Art and Human Nature by Alva Noë), as preparation I decided to read around, look at videos, see if anyone in O-Land had further comments other than the ones given in the OL thread, etc. I got so disgusted by the sheer irrationality and spite of Torres, I put that project aside. Who wants to read, write and discuss ideas in that swamp of negative emotions as ends in themselves? But, because of this discussion right now, I think I might take it out again.

Just so the reader can get an idea of what I am talking about in concrete terms so they can judge for themselves, and not just accept my evaluation, here is a TED talk by Dutton that pretty fairly represents his ideas (the ones I am familiar with from reading around and watching videos online, but ones I believe are in his book):

And here is Torres's first review of The Art Instinct.

What Makes Art Art? Does Denis Dutton Know?

You might notice that the review has very little to do with the ideas in the video. (To me, these ideas are well worth considering.) But it is full of the worst kind of aping of Rand's nastiness when she was on a roll and plenty of the dogmatic framing based on Rand you constantly bash.

If this were the only thing Torres did re Dutton, I would give it a pass. But he persisted and the whole affair got uglier and uglier. Torres comes off as if he imagines himself to be some kind of Randian Siegfried slaying the Dutton dragon, only to crow and exhibit false grace once the Dutton dragon croaked.

Disgusting... Totally disgusting...

Michael

Yes, Torres tries very had to be a bully. Kamhi does as well. I enjoy standing up to bullies, and, frankly, bloodying the hell out of them, metaphorically speaking. Both Torres and Kamhi have shown a strong tendency to love picking fights woth people who are at the disadvantage of not having studied the Objectivist Esthetics. Those opponents therefore don't quite know what is bluff and bluster, so they often can't counter T&K's claims and criticism effectively.

I like having the advantage of knowing the O Esthetics inside and out, knowing its holes, contradictions and double standards, and also of being a talented professional artist who has expert knowledge and hands-on experience in several art fields. T&K act differently toward me. They're not their usual feisty, fights selves. They dodge, evade, avoid and censor. They don't answer questions and challenges. They sometimes even get a bit pouty.

its fun watching bullies make that transformation.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

4 hours ago, regi said:

I have an impression from it that you include just anything and everything ever drawn (cave drawings), painted (landscaptes), written (stories), or performed (pop music) as art. I don't think that is true since you were careful earlier to say art is a particular category.

Regi,

My perspective is evolutionary. Pre-humans did not create these things and they lived in trees. However, the perspective from living in trees for millions of years did not disappear when the cortex started evolving. In fact, this is where dragons come from. A dragon is a mixture of typical predators of our pre-human past (snakes, predatory birds, predatory large cats, etc.) and dragons are found in cultures all over the world throughout history.

Our pre-human individuals did not think about dragons. Once the cortex grew and they started to draw, make up stories, etc., the dragon emerged--and it emerged in vastly different groups that had no way of communicating with each other the world over. That is an example of the root of art.

In simple terms, humans do art. Apes do not.

So you can see your definition of art is not the one I am using. Yours is way narrower than mine. And that's OK. Open any dictionary and you will see multiple definitions for almost all of the words in it.

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

2 hours ago, anthony said:

Michael, I most definitely accept cave paintings to be art. We don't need special insight to deduce the elements which are visually there in the patient care, raw techniques and skilled accuracy and perception needed to re-create an aspect of reality onto a rock wall: i.e. the value-importance, he placed in animal life, the hunt, the weapons, the men, the story of a people - and life, in general. In the paintings is often the reverence for a species of animal which supported his life, and represented in some instances of a painted human figure, perhaps the life, courage or mourned death of an individual hunter who's now immortalized. This means something to ME; this exists as I exist - the cave artist proclaims to future mankind.

Tony,

How about this. It is art in the same molds to you? (btw - These examples come from a Wikipedia article: Cave painting.)

This is (quoting from Wikipedia): "Cueva de las Manos located Perito Moreno, Argentina. The art in the cave dates between 13,000-9,000 BP." (Basically, that means about 11,000-7,000 BC.)

Or this? Is it art to you?

That is from Santa Barbara in California from about 6,000-7,500 years ago.

Care to infer and make up a Randian story about these?

Or how about going the easy way and proclaim they are not art?

Michael

[regi]

35 minutes ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

So you can see your definition of art is not the one I am using. Yours is way narrower than mine. And that's OK. Open any dictionary and you will see multiple definitions for almost all of the words in it.

Actually, I do not have a definition of art. I accept whatever definition anyone chooses. Your definition is as good as any and pretty much confirms my view that, as a category of human creation, it is a mixed bag that is pretty much useless as a concept.

I love classical music, but I do not call it art, because so many other forms of "music" are called art, that to call classical music art lumps it together with some of the most tasteless and contemptable of human creations. I think the phrase, "fine arts," can be clearer. I certainly don't mind if individuals want to create and listen to anything, as long as I'm not forced to listen to it, but if just everything is going to be called art, the word identifies nothing.

That's just my view. I know almost no one else will agree with it.

Randy

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

38 minutes ago, regi said:

I love classical music, but I do not call it art, because so many other forms of "music" are called art, that to call classical music art lumps it together with some of the most tasteless and contemptable of human creations.

Regi,

I call this sui generis epistemology.

I suppose you do not call yourself a human being because that would lump you with some of the most tasteless and contemptible people.

btw - The concept of art is not useless to those who use it.  

Michael