Michelle Marder Kamhi's "Who Says That's Art?"

[Jonathan]

I think the real issue--the elephant in the room--isn't is it art or not but whether it is good, bad, or what-have-you art. This isn't being discussed because of the philosophical overlay/underlay which is considered more important. Now the most pissed off here is the only artist...

I think that I'm one of the least pissed off here. Most of the time during this discussion, I haven't been angry, but have been laughing at the double standards and the refusal of others to know. Read back through a few of the recent pages and look at all of the pertinent questions of mine which haven't been answered. I find the lack of interest in the topic of architecture particularly interesting. Are Kamhi's views on the subject representative of the limits of "man's mind"? Heh. Let's not talk about that.

Newberry being absent, who doesn't care to be told by moralists and philosophers he can be thrown out of the loop at their whim.

Newberry left in embarrassment. He got caught wrongly attacking Kant. His motive for doing so was that he was so unknowingly addicted to Kantian Sublimity that he needed to invent a villain of such destructive magnitude that it would stimulate the Sublimity of his will to resist.

I wonder if she thought felt her philosophy was a work of art and as such no one was allowed to fuck with it. If so, qua art, Jonathan is on her side.

Yeah, and I also mentioned earlier that Kamhi and Torres are practicing the new art form that they've invented, called "art criticism art."

J

[Jonathan]

I'm an artist, so I think it's only natural that I would have a "heavy personal investment" in my view of art.

A view of defending abstract art to the point of belligerence, and yet in which you claim to have no actual involvement. That's strange behavior, Jonathan. There is something missing from your story.

Greg

What's missing from your story, Greg? What's behind your attacking abstract art to the point of belligerence? Why were you so irrational as to throw tantrums about a little girl's painting? That's strange behavior. Very strange. What's up with all the anger, Greg? Why are you still here investing your time arguing about it? Why are you so upset about others tastes and responses to art? It almost seems as if you feel threatened by it. Very odd behavior.

J

[Jonathan]

I make lots of "abstract" visual art. Not with paint. With materials. And just for myself and friends. I get a great deal of pleasure in doing it, and I think the results are beautiful. But I'd laugh if anyone told me that any of it means moral dicta or evaluative generalizations.

Ellen

And many composers of traditional tonal music would laugh if they were told what their work was required to do in order to meet certain people's definitions and criteria of art, as would many architects, choreographers, realistic painters, photographers, poets, novelists and filmmakers.

J

[Jonathan]

So its not about me or you, it's about objective standards of man's nature and his relationship with existence. If you follow the above magnanimous position further, you may admit it would lead to relaxed definitions, on to relativism/subjectivity. By way of fine art/abstract art, first - then down the line into popular arts (film and music) so into the 'collective consciousness'.

So, who is practicing the virtue of adhering to objective standards of man's nature in regard to the issue of architecture's status? Is Kamhi right, and therefore Rand and her associates were guilty of opposing "man's mind" and pretending that a non-art form was a legitimate art form? Is Kamhi the universal representative of man's nature when it comes to categorizing architecture as either art or non-art, or might it be reasonable of us to ask if she might just not be sensitive to the effects of architecture, and therefore maybe her lack of depth of response to it shouldn't be arbitrarily accepted as what "mankind" is limited to?

The main question is, do you think art does have a moral influence?

I've answered that question before. Yes, art can have moral influence. But now you seem to be perhaps asking a different question, which appears to be "Can something's being classified as art which others don't want to be classified as art have moral influence?" If that's what you're asking, then my answer is no.

If it did have moral influence, then our safest bet would be to not classify anything as art, just to be sure. I mean, look at Kamhi's position on architecture. She thinks that classifying it as an art form has been destructive. It has had bad consequences, and we need to do things about it, for the children, now. If a brilliant woman like Rand could be so mistaken as to label and proudly promote a non-art form as an art form, then the rest of us don't have a chance. The odds are that the things which we are absolutely certain are art are probably not. So we should stop claiming that anything is art. We should maybe even shun people who talk about art.

J

[Ellen Stuttle]

I make lots of "abstract" visual art. Not with paint. With materials. And just for myself and friends. I get a great deal of pleasure in doing it, and I think the results are beautiful. But I'd laugh if anyone told me that any of it means moral dicta or evaluative generalizations.

Ellen

And many composers of traditional tonal music would laugh if they were told what their work was required to do in order to meet certain people's definitions and criteria of art, as would many architects, choreographers, realistic painters, photographers, poets, novelists and filmmakers.

J

My comment had nothing to do with definitions but instead with impossible attributions of meanings.

Ellen

[Jonathan]

I make lots of "abstract" visual art. Not with paint. With materials. And just for myself and friends. I get a great deal of pleasure in doing it, and I think the results are beautiful. But I'd laugh if anyone told me that any of it means moral dicta or evaluative generalizations.

Ellen

And many composers of traditional tonal music would laugh if they were told what their work was required to do in order to meet certain people's definitions and criteria of art, as would many architects, choreographers, realistic painters, photographers, poets, novelists and filmmakers.

J

My comment had nothing to do with definitions but instead with impossible attributions of meanings.

Ellen

Yeah, I know. I just didn't think that we had to go over it one more time. But, if we have to, we have to.

The Argument from Personal Incredulity. The fact that you don't intend to put any moral meaning into abstract visual art doesn't mean that no one else does. The fact that you don't get any such meaning out of works of art doesn't mean that no one else does. The fact that you can't imagine any work of art communicating via non-discursive means doesn't make it impossible. Your personal incredulity doesn't add up to anything.

J

[Ellen Stuttle]

In the source material of the quotes Jonathan listed (#401), the usage is various and often ambiguous.

No, they're not ambiguous. Rather, you're electron-chasing and hoping to find ambiguity, and therefore you're imagining/believing that you're finding it. They all mean that music is non-representational/non-mimetic/doesn't-directly-imitate-or-"re-create"-likenesses-of-things-in-reality.

J

I doubt that you read the sources.

Ellen

[Jonathan]

I'm an artist, so I think it's only natural that I would have a "heavy personal investment" in my view of art.

A view of defending abstract art to the point of belligerence, and yet in which you claim to have no actual involvement. That's strange behavior, Jonathan. There is something missing from your story.

Greg

What's missing from your story, Greg? What's behind your attacking abstract art to the point of belligerence? Why were you so irrational as to throw tantrums about a little girl's painting? That's strange behavior. Very strange. What's up with all the anger, Greg? Why are you still here investing your time arguing about it? Why are you so upset about others tastes and responses to art? It almost seems as if you feel threatened by it. Very odd behavior.

J

Btw, Greg, the painting that you liked by Robert Florczak here is not art by Kamhi's criteria. It fails to meet her criteria on several points. Your calling it art when it's not is epistemologically destructive.

Still like her criteria?

J

[Jonathan]

In the source material of the quotes Jonathan listed (#401), the usage is various and often ambiguous.

No, they're not ambiguous. Rather, you're electron-chasing and hoping to find ambiguity, and therefore you're imagining/believing that you're finding it. They all mean that music is non-representational/non-mimetic/doesn't-directly-imitate-or-"re-create"-likenesses-of-things-in-reality.

J

I doubt that you read the sources.

Ellen

I read them. They talk about music being about pattern and composition and proportion, all of which are abstract qualities rather than directly mimetic/representational ones. That's what "abstract" means in the arts.

J

[Ellen Stuttle]

I make lots of "abstract" visual art. Not with paint. With materials. And just for myself and friends. I get a great deal of pleasure in doing it, and I think the results are beautiful. But I'd laugh if anyone told me that any of it means moral dicta or evaluative generalizations.

Ellen

And many composers of traditional tonal music would laugh if they were told what their work was required to do in order to meet certain people's definitions and criteria of art, as would many architects, choreographers, realistic painters, photographers, poets, novelists and filmmakers.

J

My comment had nothing to do with definitions but instead with impossible attributions of meanings.

Ellen

Yeah, I know. I just didn't think that we had to go over it one more time. But, if we have to, we have to.

The Argument from Personal Incredulity. The fact that you don't intend to put any moral meaning into abstract visual art doesn't mean that no one else does. The fact that you don't get any such meaning out of works of art doesn't mean that no one else does. The fact that you can't imagine any work of art communicating via non-discursive means doesn't make it impossible. Your personal incredulity doesn't add up to anything.

J

You miss the point again. The point is the code-translation requirements for the expression of conceptual generalizations such as you attributed to those two paintings. The paintings don't meet the requirements, unless they include some kind of sign-language glyphs.

Ellen

[Jonathan]

I make lots of "abstract" visual art. Not with paint. With materials. And just for myself and friends. I get a great deal of pleasure in doing it, and I think the results are beautiful. But I'd laugh if anyone told me that any of it means moral dicta or evaluative generalizations.

Ellen

And many composers of traditional tonal music would laugh if they were told what their work was required to do in order to meet certain people's definitions and criteria of art, as would many architects, choreographers, realistic painters, photographers, poets, novelists and filmmakers.

J

My comment had nothing to do with definitions but instead with impossible attributions of meanings.

Ellen

Yeah, I know. I just didn't think that we had to go over it one more time. But, if we have to, we have to.

The Argument from Personal Incredulity. The fact that you don't intend to put any moral meaning into abstract visual art doesn't mean that no one else does. The fact that you don't get any such meaning out of works of art doesn't mean that no one else does. The fact that you can't imagine any work of art communicating via non-discursive means doesn't make it impossible. Your personal incredulity doesn't add up to anything.

J

You miss the point again. The point is the code-translation requirements for the expression of conceptual generalizations such as you attributed to those two paintings. The paintings don't meet the requirements, unless they include some kind of sign-language glyphs.

Ellen

They don't meet the requirements of communication TO YOU. They do meet the requirements to others. They successfully communicate artists' intended meanings to some people. Your personal inability to experience or translate the effects of the compositions into verbal terms in not the universal inability of all of mankind.

J

[Ellen Stuttle]

In the source material of the quotes Jonathan listed (#401), the usage is various and often ambiguous.

No, they're not ambiguous. Rather, you're electron-chasing and hoping to find ambiguity, and therefore you're imagining/believing that you're finding it. They all mean that music is non-representational/non-mimetic/doesn't-directly-imitate-or-"re-create"-likenesses-of-things-in-reality.

J

I doubt that you read the sources.

Ellen

I read them. They talk about music being about pattern and composition and proportion, all of which are abstract qualities rather than directly mimetic/representational ones. That's what "abstract" means in the arts.

J

You missed a lot in them - except maybe in two of them which I haven't read carefully yet myself.

Another day...

Ellen

[Ellen Stuttle]

They don't meet the requirements of communication TO YOU. They do meet the requirements to others. They successfully communicate artists' intended meanings to some people.

It has nothing to do with MY requirements. One needs a system of coded reference to express high-order conceptual abstractions. You might as well argue that because some people say they get deep meaning from bird calls, bird calls are a language. That's a comparable error.

Ellen

[Jonathan]

You missed a lot in them - except maybe in two of them which I haven't read carefully yet myself.

Another day...

I 'd rather discuss something of substance and of relevance on that "another day," like, what, if anything, you have to back up your disagreement with my identification of the reality that Kamhi's position is nothing but her arbitrarily inserting her own personal lack of aesthetic response as the universal standard for judging what is not art. Let's hear what substance you have to oppose my view that Kamhi's book is nothing but the fallacy of the "argument from personal incredulity," and the attempt to act as if combining the personal incredulity of likeminded people somehow adds up to something other than a mound of personal incredulity -- that somehow their aggregated fallacies magically become non-fallacious when they reach a critical mass.

J

[Ellen Stuttle]

Jonathan,

I have no interest whatsoever in discussing the issues you call substantive and relevant.

Ellen

[Jonathan]

It has nothing to do with MY requirements. One needs a system of coded reference to express high-order conceptual abstractions.

Prove that one needs a system of coded references to express high-order abstractions. Prove that things like "body-language," facial expressions, and other forms of non-verbal communication cannot communicate high-order conceptual abstractions.

You are arguing that non-verbal communication does not exist.

And you still haven't answered my questions about a realistic painting of a mother and child. Why are you avoiding it, despite my having asked several times now?

You might as well argue that because some people say they get deep meaning from bird calls, bird calls are a language. That's a comparable error.

Some bird calls might be a means of complex communication that certain people have studied and translated. They might be able to identify exactly what a bird -- or a dolphin, or elephant, or chimp -- is communicating.

J

[Jonathan]

Jonathan,

I have no interest whatsoever in discussing the issues you call substantive and relevant.

Ellen

I knew that already. If you had something to back up your gripes about my main criticism of Kamhi's book, you would have posted it long ago. There's nothing there but bluff and bluster.

J

[Ellen Stuttle]

It has nothing to do with MY requirements. One needs a system of coded reference to express high-order conceptual abstractions.

Prove that one needs a system of coded references to express high-order abstractions. Prove that things like "body-language," facial expressions, and other forms of non-verbal communication cannot communicate high-order conceptual abstractions.

You are arguing that non-verbal communication does not exist.

And you still haven't answered my questions about a realistic painting of a mother and child. Why are you avoiding it, despite my having asked several times now?

I'm not going to attempt to give you a course on the difference between directly perceptually linked and high-order conceptual levels. You make me wonder if you've ever even read Rand on epistemology.

And, no, I am not arguing that non-verbal communication doesn't exist. It exists in abundance, but there are reaches of abstraction to which it isn't adequate.

Please give a direct link to your mother and child question. I'm not avoiding it. I haven't seen it, wherever it is. There are many more posts on this thread than I've managed to read.

You might as well argue that because some people say they get deep meaning from bird calls, bird calls are a language. That's a comparable error.

Some bird calls might be a means of complex communication that certain people have studied and translated. They might be able to identify exactly what a bird -- or a dolphin, or elephant, or chimp -- is communicating.

J

Some animals might communicate fairly complexly, but the claims of true language in non-human animals don't stand up, I think. In any case, if someone reasoned as I indicated, the reasoning would be faulty.

Ellen

[Ellen Stuttle]

Jonathan,

I have no interest whatsoever in discussing the issues you call substantive and relevant.

Ellen

I knew that already. If you had something to back up your gripes about my main criticism of Kamhi's book, you would have posted it long ago. There's nothing there but bluff and bluster.

J

Incorrect presumption.

Ellen

[moralist]

The main question is, do you think art does have a moral influence?

Since Jonathan is free to answer that for himself, I'll do the same.

Morality definitely influences art.

The more art becomes associated with the feminized secular political religion of leftism, the more ugly, perverted, and scatological it becomes.

Greg

[anthony]

Though Ive never been to a seance, I'll give it a try.

The Medium.

Quiet, now, please! Something is coming through from the other side. Yes, yes -- a woman! Quite pretty, not too old, I'm hearing her name, Joan - no Jill, no, Jacky - um, Suzy? Yes! She says you have to eat more, you need exercise and to go out more, and she misses you...wait, she is growing fainter - oh, I have lost her. That will be $20 please.

(Sort of reminds me of abstract art).

[moralist]

What's missing from your story, Greg?

Asking the same question you were asked is not an answer, Jonathan. Why are you engaged in such an emotional defense of something in which you claim not to participate? That's what's missing from your story.

I've already stated my opinion, as well as to exactly why I hold it so there's nothing missing here. You, however, have yet to explain your highly emotional defense of something you claim you don't even do. I'm just curious why there's such a big hole in your story. It doesn't help your credibility to evade explaining yourself. I've never hesitated to clarify my view as to why I live by it regardless of the reactions of others, because I'm the one living my life and no one else.

Greg

[Jonathan]

The main question is, do you think art does have a moral influence?

Since Jonathan is free to answer that for himself, I'll do the same.

Morality definitely influences art.

The more art becomes associated with the feminized secular political religion of leftism, the more ugly, perverted, and scatological it becomes.

Yeah, art was never ugly or perverted or scatological prior to "feminized secular political religion of leftism."

J

[Jonathan]

Asking the same question you were asked is not an answer, Jonathan. Why are you engaged in such an emotional defense of something in which you claim not to participate? That's what's missing from your story.

I've already stated my opinion, as well as to exactly why I hold it so there's nothing missing here. You, however, have yet to explain your highly emotional defense of something you claim you don't even do. I'm just curious why there's such a big hole in your story. It doesn't help your credibility to evade explaining yourself. I've never hesitated to clarify my view as to why I live by it regardless of the reactions of others, because I'm the one living my life and no one else.

Greg

Greg, why are you still engaged in such emotional attacks on others' tastes in art? Why is so important and upsetting to you? Why do you so badly want to control other people and tell them what to do and what to like? Why are you such a bossy feminized leftist when it comes to art? Why do you need to believe that there's a big mysterious "hole in my story" if I just have different tastes and responses to art than you do?

J

[moralist]

Btw, Greg, the painting that you liked by Robert Florczak here is not art by Kamhi's criteria.

(shrug...) So?

It's merely my subjective opinion. I happen to like it because it's noble and uplifting and bespeaks the beauty of morality in a relationship. Other people like ugliness and spastic baby scribbles... and that's their subjective opinion.

Greg