Art: Who Needs It?

[Barbara Branden]

Roger, I'm going to your essay, "Art as Microcosm" to comment. It's a fascinating essay, but I see a problem that may have stopped people from discussing it.

Barbara

[John Dailey]

Victor:

~ If one Googles "Aesthetics" or "Esthetics" only, there is a dearth of references to 'philosophy' in the 2-line descriptions; but, if one then clicks on 'search within results', you may find a fair-sized established listing of aesthetics considered as a part of philosophy by others than Rand.

~ Interestingly, if you Google "Esthetics" 1st, and then 'search...', one'll notice a slight but noticeable difference in the listings; I don't think because of the spelling.

~ Re why Rand excluded in her '1-foot' summary, and specifically included it later, there are already several guesses; each seems as good as the other.

LLAP

J:D

[Chris Grieb]

Reidy; Michael Paxton, the director of Ayn Rand: A Sense of Life, stated that Miss Rand had very good drawing skills and frequently drew cats on her correspondence.

[dan_edge]

Victor Pross, Art: Who Needs It?

"Some thirty to forty thousand years, human beings began making images in caves, as discovered in Southern France, and in other widely scattered areas of the world. The earliest confirmed musical instrument dates from this period as well, as does recently found stone sculptures. By this point our early ancestors were probably also telling stories as they clustered around fires against the Ice Age chill, stories of brave hunts and bitter winters, tales of gods and tribal heroes. It is not being said that Early man had the concept "art"--but rather that human beings engaged in these activities and that they served the same primary psychological function as they have ever since: that of integrating and objectifying experience in an emotionally meaningful way.

By the time the first civilizations emerged in Egypt, the Indus River, China, art was a well-established part of human life. Virtually every culture, at every period, has had some form of painting, sculpture, poetry, epic narrative, music, and dance. "

David Kelley, Art and Ideals

"Some thirty to forty thousand years ago, human beings began making images in caves like Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc in southern France and in other, widely scattered areas of the world. The earliest confirmed musical instrument dates from this period as well, as does a recently found stone sculpture. By this point our early ancestors were probably also telling stories as they huddled around fires against the Ice Age chill—stories of glorious hunts and hard winters, tales of gods and tribal heroes.

By the time the first civilizations emerged in Sumer, Egypt, the Indus River, China, and the Americas, art was a well-established part of human life. Virtually every culture, at every period, has had some form of painting, sculpture, poetry, epic narrative, music, and dance."

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Victor Pross, Art: Who Needs It?

"Why did human beings engage in these activities? Unlike tools for hunting, cooking, building, scraping animal skins, and the like, these artefacts have no clear survival value. Why did people, whose daily life was a dire struggle for substance and whose life expectancy was probably less than twenty years, spend time and energy making instruments to produce rhythmic, tonal sounds? Why did they invent stories? Why did they paint representational depictions on caves? What was the purpose of these activities? What needs did they satisfy? Did they serve life?

Some anthropologists argue that the appearance of art reflects a significant advance in human cognitive development---the emergence of a spiritual capacity in our species, the final stage in the evolution of the human mind. Of course, Rand agreed with this summation: Art does satisfy needs that arise from our unique capacity: the ability to think in abstractions. "

David Kelley, Art and Ideals

"Why did humans begin doing this sort of thing? Unlike tools for hunting, cooking, building, scraping animal skins, and the like, these artifacts have no clear survival value. Why did people whose daily life was a struggle for subsistence and whose life expectancy was probably less than twenty years spend time and energy making two-dimensional images in dark places? Why did they spend time and energy making instruments to produce rhythmic, tonal sounds? Why did they invent stories of things that never happened? What was the purpose of such activities? What needs did they satisfy? Why has art been such a pervasive feature of human life?

Some anthropologists argue that the appearance of art reflects a significant advance in human cognitive development—the emergence of a spiritual capacity in our species, the final stage in the evolution of the human mind. Although that is a speculative thesis, it is a plausible one, for art does satisfy needs that arise from our unique cognitive capacity: the ability to think in abstractions."

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Victor Pross, Art: Who Needs It?

"To keep our abstractions tied to the world, we need to re-embody them in concretes, to clothe them in specific forms that unite the universality of the abstraction with the specificity and immediacy—the reality---of the particulars."

David Kelley, Art and Ideals

"To keep our abstractions tied to the world, therefore, we need to re-embody them in concretes, to clothe them in specific forms that unite the universality of the abstraction with the specificity and immediacy—the reality—of the particular."

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Victor Pross, Art: Who Needs It?

"Human cultures have invented countless ways to embody abstractions. rituals, ceremonies, and holidays help us appreciate the meaning of important events in personal life and social life, such as birth, marriage, death, victories, and achievements."

David Kelley, Art and Ideals

"Human cultures have invented countless ways to embody abstractions. Rituals, ceremonies, and holidays help us appreciate the meaning of important events in personal and social life, such as birth, marriage, death, seasons, victories, and achievements."

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--Dan Edge

(Note from MSK: Thank you, Dan. Duly edited.)

[Dragonfly]

ROTFL. I'd always suspected this, but now it has been confirmed. This is really pathological. Is there a psychiatrist in the room?

[Brant Gaede]

ROTFL. I'd always suspected this, but now it has been confirmed. This is really pathological. Is there a psychiatrist in the room?

I have to admit I don't understand this. Even Peter Keating didn't go this far. Roark corrected his work, except for the housing project, he didn't create it. And Keating had a conscience which eventually ate him up. And Toohey wrote his own stuff, too. Does Victor have someone tied up in the basement doing his caricatures?

--Brant

[Laure]

ROTFL. I'd always suspected this, but now it has been confirmed. This is really pathological. Is there a psychiatrist in the room?

I have to admit I don't understand this. Even Peter Keating didn't go this far. Roark corrected his work, except for the housing project, he didn't create it. And Keating had a conscience which eventually ate him up. And Toohey wrote his own stuff, too. Does Victor have someone tied up in the basement doing his caricatures?

--Brant

It's really bewildering. Awhile back, Victor made a few posts that I thought were good, so I Googled some phrases from them to check if he lifted them from someplace! I didn't find them anywhere, but at this point, it seems a good bet to assume plagiarism.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Dan,

My sincere thanks for detecting and identifying the plagiaries. I am in full agreement with you notifying the author. I request you provide him with a link. (In this case, please let me know if you do not wish to and I will.)

EDIT: One more thanks for your Post 34 below.

Michael

[dan_edge]

It seems Pross's plagiary extends beyond articles, to posts in response. Michael, please notify Joe Kellard and CapMag of the plagiary, also.

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Victor Pross, Post #25 of this thread

"And as if Pollack hadn't already plumbed the depths of modern "art," along came those who dipped worms into colored paint and had them wriggle on a canvas to produce a "painting"; or simply covered a canvas in black paint alone1; or dotted a painting with blobs of elephant dung.2 The former two "paintings" won thousand dollar prizes at art shows; the latter won the Turner Prize, Britain's top art award."

Joe Kellard, The Modernists Embrace Normality, 1999

"And as if Pollack hadn't already plumbed the depths of modern "art," along came those who dipped worms into colored paint and had them wriggle on a canvas to produce a "painting"; or simply covered a canvas in black paint alone1; or dotted a painting with blobs of elephant dung.2 The former two "paintings" won thousand dollar prizes at art shows; the latter won the Turner Prize, Britain's top art award."

Victor Pross, Post #25 of this thread

"The campaigners of such "art" used language that is equally impenetrable to describe it. A critic once said that a canvas messed with smears of paint had "plastic disintegration of rhythmic essence." A painting that had the technical skill of a child was praised as "having a phenomenal degree of micro-cosmic synthesis of three-dimensional entity.""

Joe Kellard, The Modernists Embrace Normality, 1999

"The praisers of such "art" used language that is equally incomprehensible to describe it. A critic once said that a canvas messed with smears of paint had "plastic disintegration of rhythmic essence." A painting that had the technical skill of a child was praised as "having a phenomenal degree of micro-cosmic synthesis of three-dimensional entity.""

Victor Pross, Post #25 of this thread

Although the practitioners of modern "art" have posed as individualists, the nonconformity they embody is as socially-oriented as any slavish conformist. Just as the conformist accepts the standards of others as his own--without validating them rationally against reality's facts--so does the modernist operate by the standards of others -- the opposite of anything others uphold.

Joe Kellard, The Modernists Embrace Normality, 1999

"Although the practitioners and praisers of modern "art" have posed as individualists, the nonconformity they embody is as socially-oriented as any conformist. Just as the conformist accepts the standards of others as his own without validating them rationally against reality's facts, so does the modernist operate by the standards of others -- the opposite of anything others uphold..."

Victor Pross, Post #25 of this thread

"Because they opposed objectivity in art, the modernists could preach that there are to be no objective standards in art, such as comprehensible representations or clarity. By opposing definitions and standards as "restrictive," they could preach that the artists must be "free" to "create" anything he desires. [Pross's speaks with his own voice for this enlightening passage] They complain that reality is boring. I hear this shit in art circles all the time. [End Pross, continue plagiary] These falsehoods remain their primary means of destroying art and it thereby makes their deliberately nonrepresentational, incomprehensible "art" anti-art."

Joe Kellard, The Modernists Embrace Normality, 1999

"Because they opposed objectivity, the modernists could preach that there are to be no objective standards in art, such as comprehensible representations or clarity. By opposing definitions and standards as "restrictive," they could preach that the artists must be "free" to "create" anything he desires. These falsehoods remain their primary means of destroying art, and thereby makes their deliberately nonrepresentational, incomprehensible "art" anti-art."

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--Dan Edge

(Note from MSK: Thank you, Dan. Duly edited.)

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

It seems Pross's plagiary extends beyond articles, to posts in response. Michael, please notify Joe Kellard and CapMag of the plagiary, also.

Dan,

For the record, I will be notifying all authors plagiarized with links and apologies. Thank you for the email research.

Michael