Howdy friends.
I have read with much glee the posts at both the Film Watching Robot and the Teenage Fashion show. I would provide links to these sites but, who am I kidding? All of my readers (3 people) either write for these sites or are tragically aware of their location on the info-net. This here entry is an argument regarding a possible preference (mine) for another area of interest external to art criticism and possibly rhetoric (lets skip the art/rhetoric as everything, everything as art type tautology...I think we all know the distinction I am trying to make...art and rhetoric /not art and rhetoric). I have read very little of the philosophy of aesthetics and know jack shit about it. So I am going to write from what I know...a bit of Zionist philosophy.
But first some background (not to be pretentious but most of Zionist thought is ignored).
Much of Zionist thought can be viewed as a response to Nietzsche. The idea of creating a new culture, and a new mythology was seen by Zionists not as a justification for the great artist and the humankind he emerges from, but as a national need brought about by the destruction of the old faith through the enlightenment. We can take Nietzsche's presentation of Nihilism as the starting point of this discourse. Faced with a total skepticism, a lack of faith in all old myths and moralities, and no admittance to the new modern myth of European nation states and equality, how is man (as he appears to the Jew) to find meaning in life? Nietzsche places heavy emphasis on the Dionysian (chaotic and raw creativity that defies boundaries and definitions). It is in Dionysian art and the embrace of this eternal all dominating power of being that we can find meaning. For Nietzsche life has meaning and justification on account of the great artists and men it produces. We find meaning in our art, in the culture we create. This is Nietzsche solution to Nihilism. The shaping of the self in one's artistic image.
Contrast this with A.D. Gordon's vision for modern (not the rare over-)man. As a Jew and not a German, Gordon taps into different myths than enlightenment Europe and is not a philosopher, so bear with his lack of philosophical purity. Gordon's use of "Life" is strikingly similar to Nietzsche's Dionysian conception of being. The following is his Zionist appropriation and response to Nietzsche:
"The Essence of the personality of the "madman of the spirit," as we have seen him in his various forms from ancient times till today, is his inability to reconcile himself to the present, to ignore it, or to deceive himself about it. He can find no escape either in poetry or in song, not in culture or in literature, not in art or in embellishing his own refined, shining, but really limited ego. Even religion is no escape. He seeks life--not an end to thinking about it--human life, human life of cosmic dimensions, life in the image of God, life eternal. Therefore in olden days, when the "madman of the spirit" was still whole in spirit, and a son of nature, he made demands in a masterful voice, in the name of God; his words were full of power, of the abundance of life, and they blazed with sparks of fire. He based all things on the will of man: Did but man will it, he and his life would become worthy.
This was the way of Jews when they lived in their own land. [Sorry but this is so much like Nietzsche's view of the Greeks when they created tragedy...see Nietzsche's view of the Old testament as great art] They were a living people, at peace with god and with man, with life and with the world. It is different since we were torn from our land, since we became an uprooted and a withered people with an empty life and a petty spirit. Our condition has changed strikingly in recent times [1921], since the crumbling of the ghetto. The limited amount of independent life that still survived inside its walls has been destroyed while we, together with all mankind, have increased in knowledge, but at the expense of the spirit and of real life.
Today the"madman of the spirit" is no longer strong in his spirit and unshakable in his conviction, full of the zest and flaming with fire, like his ancestors. What he sees---the course of his own life--fills him with rancor and pain. He is full of doubts as to whether that peculiar, chaotic world called human life and that strange creature called man can be improved. More important, he doubts whether man has, or ever will have, the desire for improvement.
In one respect, however, he resembles his ancestors--he cannot make peace with the present or stop thinking about life. He finds no escape form life in poetry, or in song, in literature, or in art, or in the private improvement of his limited ego. What are aesthetics, poetry, belles-lettres, literature, art, to me? For me the beauty or nobility of spirit and the exaltation of my soul is Life! Life--full complete, great, lofty, eternal Life! Life itself must be a song! [lifted straight from Thus Spake Zarathustra] Man must be a vital creature! One must not stop thing about life, even for a single moment. But what is literature, art, and the rest, if not a substitute for thinking about life, a way to flee from life to a world of beauty, thought, song, and artistic creation? Man is forbidden to run away--or to withdraw from life. The alternatives are life or death--there is no third choice.
This is the tragic lot of the "madman of the spirit" of today: The earth is no longer firm under his feet; he lacks the absolute faith both life and man need to be, can be, and must be lofty. He lacks the confidence that his ancestors had, but his spirit makes demands that are as urgent and compelling as were theirs. Perhaps, indeed, out of his constant wrestling and struggling with doubts, with contradictions, with indifference, out his standing against the easy adaptability of the great majority--these demands become more acute; the become a sort of idee fixe. Deep within him, too, there lives the absolute certainty, beyond any shadow of doubt, that everything depends on the will of man. But he looks at the majority of mankind and begins to doubt whether the majority of men are capable of an act of will--whether, in general, most men have any great tendency towards wanting what they should want. The entire structure of the contemporary "madman of the spirit" rests on doubt: Perhaps man can improve; perhaps the creation of man has not yet been completed; perhaps he must yet struggle on in a more exalted direction. The "madman" of today has no other foundation than this "perhaps"; hence he holds on to it as though it were an anchor and for this "perhaps" he gives his life."
Sort of preachy. But anyway, this lays out what I would say is my problem with the nearly exclusive focus we often place upon our role as interpreters of pop culture. I don't think I am satisfied with taking an observer's role in regard to "the shitty now". Rather than merely analyze, and in the process deny myself any power to shape the politics and culture that affect my life, I want to be involved in shaping my environment. Rather than delude myself of powers I don't possess (a symptom of hippies and protesters) I am interested in directing my energies towards living a life that actually reflects my values. I don't need to dissect what sucks about the things that suck (as fun as it is to do and hear others do this). I can ignore shitty music (except Simple Plan...holy fuck they eat ass) and avoid television. I really have no interest in what the kids these days are doing. Fashion and celebrities can suck a nut. And yet I find it unsatisfying to hide from the world. It is not fulfilling to just refrain from buying offensive products while being a part of system and culture you dislike. Vegetarianism and bumming car rides from people doesn't feel like living according to any ideals. I want to avoid the impotence associated with being a powerless outsider in a culture chock full of offensively shitty t.v., offensively stupid churches, and a surface culture that has no appeal to me beyond pornography. For me I guess, even successfully attacking and destroying what I hate would be unsatisfying. I want to experience something better in my active life, and not just shut up Dr. Phil or convince others that he sucks. In the end I guess, this is why I can't get all that excited about discussions of art beyond analysis regarding the quality of the power and content of a particular piece. I like poems. I like songs. I like films. I like paintings. I like books. I want to know what works are thought good by people whose judgments are likely to mirror mine. I don't have an opinion about "the novel", "the tragic", or " sequential art". My interest lies elsewhere. Where? In desert communes. Perhaps I would think differently if I wanted to create art. But I don't. I want to impact and shape the place where I eat, play, live and work. I am interested in determining and living in a system that offers me the greatest chance of fulfilling this ideal. I don't feel the best focus for what interests me lies in deconstructing the forms of art, I want to get to off of my ass and milk some goddamn cows.
