Marshall McLuhan saw a certain affinity between Shakespeare's time and our own. Both times, argued McLuhan, represented periods of transition in the status of print media. Of course, Shakespeare and we stand on opposite ends of the spectrum. What for his time was a growing acquaintance with print must be for ours a mounting estrangement. Which transition will prove more bitter? And for whom?
For McLuhan, our alignment with print media meant a transition into linear thinking patterns. Patterns which favor logical order, cause and effect, and individual attention. It shifted the function of words, too. Literate culture shifted "from the notion of words as resonant, live, active natural forces to the notion of words as ‘meaning’ or ‘significance’ for minds” (McLuhan, from his book The Gutenberg Galaxy, excerpted in The Essential McLuhan, 1995, Eric McLuhan and Frank Zingrone, eds., p. 114). It was probably with this mental and cultural realignment that Shakespeare was actively participating. McLuhan sees many of his plays as direct interaction with the themes of a new lifestyle influenced by print. (See his brief discussion of King Lear on pp. 108-109).
McLuhan continues: “Aquinas considered that neither Socrates nor Our Lord committed there teaching to writing because the kind of interplay of minds that is in teaching is not possible by means of writing” (p. 119). It seems to be this resonant and active character of language and interaction that performance to this day attempts to recapture.
Performance is, by definition, ephemeral. A video recording of a theatrical production does not constitute a performance. It is only in the immediate and fleeting interaction of artist and audience that we experience performance. It is an art form which cannot be captured and retain its status as Art. The oral tradition, in which performance plays a key role, demands the acceptance of a passing beauty. The tradition of visual media, including print, makes no such concession. Indeed, it is partially its physical permanence, its capability to speak to our own time and the next, which qualifies visual art as Art.
What role does performance play in what McLuhan considers our postliterate society? Some people go to plays, still, I suppose. More likely, they go to rock shows. Rock shows are almost entirely nonliterate. I don't see written music as playing a large part in the creative process of most rock and roll bands. Even lyrics fail to gain any real status in print. They are entirely aural within the context of performance, and in CD distribution appear only occasionally in tiny print in the liner notes. In fact, the pervasiveness of the (authentic or faked) photo reprint of the "original" handwritten lyrics of rock artists suggests, often written on napkins, scraps of paper, the back of a receipt, suggest their negligible status as written material, even for the artists themselves. With the rise of online music distribution, written lyrics are available online in several places, but have lost almost entirely any official status.
Knowing the lyrics is a different story. And of course written lyrics help with that, on a mass scale. However, most people learn lyrics to songs by listening to them often, and rarely by studying the written lyrics. (Consider the humorous stereotype: a person finds that they have been singing the lyrics wrong all these years. They shout, "Oh, is that what they're saying?") Personally, I find that reading the lyrics, especially while listening to the music, detracts significantly from the beauty of the experience. It can make the lyrics more difficult to internalize. It feels false, like I'm trying to hard to gain information from something that has it's home in emotion.
I like to characterize Performance as an especially tactile artform. In a performance, there is a limit to our concept of mediation. That is, mediation seems limited, though it may not actually be. What mediates a modern performance of Hamlet? The sound system, which is perhaps the most technologically advanced medium of modern theater, projects the performers' voices and is a very literal and limited mechanical extension of their capacity to speak. Make up and electric lighting play a similar role for their capacity to be seen, which in itself is an interesting necessity that is absent from almost all other art. It might be said that in performance, makeup and light play the same role in mediation that for television and film requires an entire technological apparatus.
And architecture plays a key role in the mediation of Performance. Benjamin, in the Artwork Essay, considers our reception of architecture to be especially tactile. In Performance, it is largely architecture which provides the boundary line (such as there is one) between Artist and audience. David Byrne gives a TED Talk regarding live music's relationship to architecture. He discusses the ways in which changes in architecture, essentially changes in potential venues and the accompanying shifts in acoustics, influence the choices that musicians make about how to create. The same could be said for any performance, which must inevitably be fit to the space in which it will be experienced. Architecture also plays a part in the auditory reception of the audience. It can even help to determine their expectations of the performance. One does not expect the same sort of performance at The 40 Watt as one might expect at Hodgson Concert Hall. For the philharmonic and the rock band to arbitrarily switch venues would create quite a stir. We as audience interact with the architectural environment of the performance in very specific ways. The same can be said for the performers.
I feel like in the case of live performances even those things we see in front of us (that is, those things we experience primarily visually) must be considered differently in that they are stricken through with the tactile. Performers, with their wigs, their make up, their costumes, are all a jumble of texture; the sets are simply architectural elements; the electrical lighting only serves to heighten this effect. The voices we hear are real human voices (we recognize them as such, even when amplified electronically, because of their immediate relationship to the performer we see in front of us); when Claudius storms offstage, we can feel his footsteps reverberate into our seats. This might be the reason that the experience of 'watching' a performance and watching a video of a performance differ so drastically. The video has been stripped of the tactile.
What relationship exists between rock lyrics and playtexts?
Saturday, August 28, 2010
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Some Conceptions of the Sublime
Kant's description of the Sublime is given short shrift in his Critique of the Power of Judgment (at least so far as it is anthologized in my Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism). Mostly, his understanding of the Sublime has a great deal to do with size, and I do sort of like the idea of the disconnect between those large things that we can "imagine" and the vast numbers that we can "conceptualize," so to speak. This is the Mathematical Sublime, and Kant says, "Nature is thus sublime in those of its appearances the intuition of which brings with them the idea of its infinity" (435). So, I'd imagine that the contemplation of space or vast oceans might be occasion for an experience of the Sublime.
However, Kant misses an opportunity (once again?) in his insistence that we take no interest in the actual purpose of the object we contemplate. He loves to use the flower as an example of beauty, of a true purposiveness that we can contemplate without reference to any actual purpose. However, it seems by allowing ourselves to follow that idea of purpose into the flower we might easily be exposed to some experiences of Mathematical Sublimity that, for Kant, are strictly off limits.
A closer examination of the function of a flower would expose to us the reproductive function that pollination holds for the plant. By way of the idea of pollination we might come to the complex interplay between flower and bee, and then between bee and beehive. (Say nothing of what connections we might encounter were we to pursue the idea of reproduction.) We'd encounter all of those bees working together in some way (there is some musical quality to it - vibrations and dances) to create something as fantastically complex and beautiful as a honeycomb. A consideration of the uses for the honey-comb might lead us to the bear (and thence no doubt to the storybook, to our childhood) or to the marketplace (and there find either the warmth of the kitchen table or the neon glow of the cereal aisle). Following either of these two lines of thought, in any of the many ways that they could be followed (not to mention the many ways in which they themselves interrelate), leads inevitably to a direct experience of the infinite, to our own interconnectedness in and with the natural world, and thus the Sublime, as represented in something as simple and "merely beautiful" as a flower.
As complex a web as this run at ultimate purpose may seem, it is one that our brains accomplish often and almost instantaneously. It is that sense of the interconnectedness of all things that is familiar to most of us in our moments of deepest clarity, and it seems that it comes, not from a refusal to invest interest in or account for the purpose of an object, but rather as a result of our total and instantaneous investment in the discovery of such a purpose. At its core it seems a Scientific endeavor, this deep inquiry into the nature of reality, but it nevertheless delivers us up to a true sense of the Sublime.
Burke is more willing to allow for the invasion of emotion into his conception of both the beautiful and the sublime, which he identifies as producing "the strongest emotion which the mind is capable of feeling" (459). He recognizes as the source of these experiences some level of individual investment, and he seems to set beauty and sublimity on an oppositional axis. Beauty is associated with the experience of pleasure which Burke associates with our relation to "society;" Sublimity he suggests springs from our private fears and pains which he locates in our drive toward "self-preservation" (458).
Burke's conviction that "the ideas of pain are much more powerful than those that enter on the part of pleasure" would be interesting to follow into works like Star Wars or The Lord of the Rings which seem to suggest as much in their entire characterization of "darkness" versus "light." And yet, with very few exceptions, it is the powers of light - associated as Burke's beauty with pleasure and the larger society - which prevail.
It is telling that Burke ends with a list of oppositional qualities that he attributes to the beautiful (small, smooth, light, delicate) and the sublime (vast, neglected, gloomy, solid) and then comments on just such an experience as I outlined above:
(An important [and relevant] note about my claims to the way that Burke "ends": I am, of course, still working out of my Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism, and what I have given as Burke's ending is in fact the ending he is given by Leitch and the other editors of the volume. I find this both troubling and entertaining. Troubling in the knowledge that, in order to speak expertly on the subject I ought to follow all trails before developing my conclusion. Entertained by the knowledge that any attempt to follow those trails would last until eternity and thus preclude my ever finally forming my opinion. Furthermore, I detect even in this minor dilemma an interaction between the social aspects of pleasure and the private concept of pain, a fact which helps me be confident in my reservations regarding Burke's dichotomy).
However, Kant misses an opportunity (once again?) in his insistence that we take no interest in the actual purpose of the object we contemplate. He loves to use the flower as an example of beauty, of a true purposiveness that we can contemplate without reference to any actual purpose. However, it seems by allowing ourselves to follow that idea of purpose into the flower we might easily be exposed to some experiences of Mathematical Sublimity that, for Kant, are strictly off limits.
A closer examination of the function of a flower would expose to us the reproductive function that pollination holds for the plant. By way of the idea of pollination we might come to the complex interplay between flower and bee, and then between bee and beehive. (Say nothing of what connections we might encounter were we to pursue the idea of reproduction.) We'd encounter all of those bees working together in some way (there is some musical quality to it - vibrations and dances) to create something as fantastically complex and beautiful as a honeycomb. A consideration of the uses for the honey-comb might lead us to the bear (and thence no doubt to the storybook, to our childhood) or to the marketplace (and there find either the warmth of the kitchen table or the neon glow of the cereal aisle). Following either of these two lines of thought, in any of the many ways that they could be followed (not to mention the many ways in which they themselves interrelate), leads inevitably to a direct experience of the infinite, to our own interconnectedness in and with the natural world, and thus the Sublime, as represented in something as simple and "merely beautiful" as a flower.
As complex a web as this run at ultimate purpose may seem, it is one that our brains accomplish often and almost instantaneously. It is that sense of the interconnectedness of all things that is familiar to most of us in our moments of deepest clarity, and it seems that it comes, not from a refusal to invest interest in or account for the purpose of an object, but rather as a result of our total and instantaneous investment in the discovery of such a purpose. At its core it seems a Scientific endeavor, this deep inquiry into the nature of reality, but it nevertheless delivers us up to a true sense of the Sublime.
Burke is more willing to allow for the invasion of emotion into his conception of both the beautiful and the sublime, which he identifies as producing "the strongest emotion which the mind is capable of feeling" (459). He recognizes as the source of these experiences some level of individual investment, and he seems to set beauty and sublimity on an oppositional axis. Beauty is associated with the experience of pleasure which Burke associates with our relation to "society;" Sublimity he suggests springs from our private fears and pains which he locates in our drive toward "self-preservation" (458).
Burke's conviction that "the ideas of pain are much more powerful than those that enter on the part of pleasure" would be interesting to follow into works like Star Wars or The Lord of the Rings which seem to suggest as much in their entire characterization of "darkness" versus "light." And yet, with very few exceptions, it is the powers of light - associated as Burke's beauty with pleasure and the larger society - which prevail.
It is telling that Burke ends with a list of oppositional qualities that he attributes to the beautiful (small, smooth, light, delicate) and the sublime (vast, neglected, gloomy, solid) and then comments on just such an experience as I outlined above:
In the infinite variety of natural combinations we must expect to find the qualities of things the most remote imaginable from each other united in the same object. We must expect also to find combinations of the same kind in the works of art. But when we consider the power of an object upon our passions, we must know that when and thing is intended to affect the mind by the force of some predominant property, the affection produced is like like to be the more uniform and perfect, if all the other properties or qualities of the object be of the same nature... (460).Because Burke has positioned the two qualities of Beauty and the Sublime as fundamentally opposed to one another, he seems to want to downplay those incidences where we experience a combination. He skirts the issue with his appeal to "the infinite variety of natural combinations" as a source of what he seems to think of as an occasional mistake in the fabric of his dualism. Indeed, even for those occasions he insists, "does it prove, that they are any way allied, does it prove even that they are no opposite and contradictory?" By his lack of interest in pursuing the question, we are given his assumption that it has already been answered.
(An important [and relevant] note about my claims to the way that Burke "ends": I am, of course, still working out of my Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism, and what I have given as Burke's ending is in fact the ending he is given by Leitch and the other editors of the volume. I find this both troubling and entertaining. Troubling in the knowledge that, in order to speak expertly on the subject I ought to follow all trails before developing my conclusion. Entertained by the knowledge that any attempt to follow those trails would last until eternity and thus preclude my ever finally forming my opinion. Furthermore, I detect even in this minor dilemma an interaction between the social aspects of pleasure and the private concept of pain, a fact which helps me be confident in my reservations regarding Burke's dichotomy).
Kant's Beauty
This post concerns the selections by Kant in the 2nd edition of the Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. The selection is taken from Kant's Critique of the Power of Judgment, which I understand to be his '3rd Critique'. I should say from the gate that I know little or nothing of Kant other than what the editors of this massive compendium have either selected for me to read or mentioned in their introduction to the selection. That is, I suspect that Kant's first two critiques (those of Pure Reason and Practical Reason) must bear heavily on his third, but what of the former is not specifically referenced or explained in the latter must necessarily (for the purposes of this post) be assumed not to exist.
That said, I have the distinct impression of several limitations to the understanding of beauty in Kant's Critique.
The editors suggest that, for Kant and his contemporaries, the aesthetic quality of a natural phenomenon or a work of art "is seen as superior to all others" (406). In his aim to raise beauty to a level of human awareness that he sees as essential to our 'humanness,' it seems like Kant risks making his entire argument idealistic, and thus in no way related to what it means to be human.
It might be easier to begin by an exploration of what, for Kant, is explicitly not beauty. Kant insists in a strict division between what one considers 'beautiful' and what one might consider 'agreeable' or 'good.' The latter two experiences, as described by Kant, are a great deal more familiar to my own interactions with the world, both natural and artistic, and so are a bit easier to explain.
Things that are 'agreeable' are things that make us want more. That is to say, if I am hanging out at a park, while there I might think about how beautiful the park is and lament the loss of so much greenspace in today's society and wish that there were more places like this one. Likewise, and perhaps while at the same park, I might see a beautiful woman and imagine what it would be like to have a relationship with her. For Kant, I made a mistake in calling both the park and the woman beautiful. Because I invested some interest in the park (by wishing that there were more like it) and in the woman (by wishing that I could have more contact with her), I cannot judge the beauty of either thing. I am too involved, so to speak.
On a purely psychological level, it is as if to say, that what I find to be beautiful today, and to have that certain--je ne sais quai--is predicated entirely on my own, individual, previous experiences of beauty. So taste is developed by experiencing a great deal of beauty. Since Kant seems interested in the education of taste, it would seem a relevant question to ask, who points the way? Who takes on the education of taste to others? And what effect do the opinions of those teachers have on the opinions of their students? I suspect, a great deal.
Kant never ventures a guess, though. He leaves the implication sort of out there, suggesting maybe that the answer is spiritual or religious or, it seems most likely, guisedly political. To deal with the problem, Kant structures a sort of end all, which he calls "subjective universality" (419). Kant wants us to be able to see something that we enjoy, an experience that Kant recognizes is an entirely subjective experience, and to lay claim to that object in a way that can be universal. He does this by creating a space in our mind for "contemplation" which is free from interest.
Kant's explanation of this distanced state relies heavily on what he calls "a free play" of cognition (421). This seems, for Kant, to end the argument. This idea of "cognition in general" is the most concrete a definition for the inner workings of our minds that Kant is interested in pursuing. For someone interested in Pure Reason, this seems like a shallow exploration, and I wonder if perhaps this is what Eagleton means when he calls the Kant's aesthetic an ideology.
To pursue the issue myself, then: I suspect, based on what I know of the current scientific understanding of brain functioning, that Kant's disinterested state of mind doesn't exist. It seems that on a physical and biological level our minds are in a constant interaction with the world around us. The act of seeing itself, something that is necessary even for Kant's "free play" to be set in motion, involves a hugely complex electrical interplay between external world and brain. (If, that is, one is even prepared to accept the dichotomy.) Moreover, the existence of the human subconscious as explained by Freud casts immediate doubt on man's ability to actually understand, or reason with, the functions of his own mind. When the way that reality is framed in your mind bears only a tentative relationship to the abstract "real," as Kant's seems to suggest previously in his discussion of "things-as-they-are", all Pure Reason seems resigned to the realm of the post hoc.
In the end, Kant is perhaps primarily concerned with preserving the idea of a universal beauty; that is, he believes deeply (one might say a priori) that a concept of beauty must exist that is not influenced by culture or background or context or emotional state. Kant himself asserts that to say that everyone has their own taste “would be as much as to say that there is no taste at all, i.e., no aesthetic judgment that could make a rightful claim to the assent of everyone” (419-420). Kant wants to preserve this idea of a "rightful claim," and he goes to great lengths to do so.
Kant even seems to recognize at times that his theory has severe limitations. These are most notable where Kant seems to allow himself a step outside his a priori assumptions in order to justify them in some way. While Kant insists upon the "universality" of an object's beauty, he admits that, when a claim to the beautiful is made:
The entire communicative value of beauty seems lost in this sentence. What good is a claim to aesthetic which must constantly be double-checked. Furthermore, what is suggested but notably left unsaid is the question of what happens when, having submitted what you call beautiful to my eye, I decide that it is, in fact, quite ugly? Which of us has poor taste, and what implications does this have if what you have shown me is an exemplar? If you were the one tasked with training me in Taste, you have either utterly failed (either because of the inadequacy of your system, or the inferiority of my mind) or you must demand that it is I who have poor taste. Either option seems to imply some degree of interest.
Despite his insistence on avoiding rules or standards for art, Kant (accidentally?) includes some clues as to his own conception of the beautiful. He includes examples of architecture (a home, a palace), animal and plant life (a flower, a Bird of Paradise, "certain sea animals"), visual art (the drawing) and even (in spite of his later insistence on the distinction between art and handicraft) certain textiles ("the garment"). To me, these few examples in themselves suggest a certain political understanding of what qualifies for beauty, perhaps more tellingly by what they leave out than by what they include. For example, what is it about a Bird of Paradise or a flower that makes them beautiful that would not also qualify the vulture and the thistle? what aura of "purposiveness" exists for the former but not for the latter? Likewise, the suggesting that "certain sea creatures" would be considered beautiful implies in its very phrasing the idea that other sea creatures exist, and are excluded from qualification. Even the choice of "home" and "garment" over other forms of architecture and textile-craft suggest a certain quality of what is comforting, what Kant might call "charm." This implication brings with it the entire realm of cultural determinants which Kant seems so eager to do away with.
By his insistence that beauty live up to his high expectations for the Pure human mind, Kant empties the concept of any definitive value whatsoever, leaving the concept of beauty to designate such cliche objects as flowers and palaces. If those things that are beautiful are simply those things which attain to some veiled trope of what might be called elegance of form, one might ask, who cares about beauty?
That said, I have the distinct impression of several limitations to the understanding of beauty in Kant's Critique.
The editors suggest that, for Kant and his contemporaries, the aesthetic quality of a natural phenomenon or a work of art "is seen as superior to all others" (406). In his aim to raise beauty to a level of human awareness that he sees as essential to our 'humanness,' it seems like Kant risks making his entire argument idealistic, and thus in no way related to what it means to be human.
It might be easier to begin by an exploration of what, for Kant, is explicitly not beauty. Kant insists in a strict division between what one considers 'beautiful' and what one might consider 'agreeable' or 'good.' The latter two experiences, as described by Kant, are a great deal more familiar to my own interactions with the world, both natural and artistic, and so are a bit easier to explain.
Things that are 'agreeable' are things that make us want more. That is to say, if I am hanging out at a park, while there I might think about how beautiful the park is and lament the loss of so much greenspace in today's society and wish that there were more places like this one. Likewise, and perhaps while at the same park, I might see a beautiful woman and imagine what it would be like to have a relationship with her. For Kant, I made a mistake in calling both the park and the woman beautiful. Because I invested some interest in the park (by wishing that there were more like it) and in the woman (by wishing that I could have more contact with her), I cannot judge the beauty of either thing. I am too involved, so to speak.
Those things that are 'good,' according to Kant, are things which I invest some moral or ethical interest in. I might see a documentary about missionary work in Africa, which I might take as a beautiful expression of social justice. Contrarily, I might be repelled by the images from the Holocaust or the symbolic imagery of the Nazi regime. Here again, by investing my (this time moral) interest in the scene before me, in both cases I have precluded myself from being eligible to determine their beauty.
Kant insists:
The ability to make this distinction of beauty is called "taste," and Kant insists that there is such a thing as good taste and poor taste, and that taste can even be taught. He doesn't, however, give any indication of what a curriculum for 'taste-education' might look like, except to suggest that we must learn beauty through "exemplars." It occurs to me that in the idea of exemplars there is a sort of recursive loop of causality. A begging the question, perhaps,which forever puts the onus of the Decision on a previous generation. It suggests, I guess, that our current understanding of beauty is determinate solely on some previous historical or personal understanding.
"If the question is whether something is beautiful, one does not want to know whether there is anything that is or that could be at stake, for us or for someone else, in the existence of the thing, but rather how we judge it in mere contemplation" (415).
The ability to make this distinction of beauty is called "taste," and Kant insists that there is such a thing as good taste and poor taste, and that taste can even be taught. He doesn't, however, give any indication of what a curriculum for 'taste-education' might look like, except to suggest that we must learn beauty through "exemplars." It occurs to me that in the idea of exemplars there is a sort of recursive loop of causality. A begging the question, perhaps,which forever puts the onus of the Decision on a previous generation. It suggests, I guess, that our current understanding of beauty is determinate solely on some previous historical or personal understanding.
On a purely psychological level, it is as if to say, that what I find to be beautiful today, and to have that certain--je ne sais quai--is predicated entirely on my own, individual, previous experiences of beauty. So taste is developed by experiencing a great deal of beauty. Since Kant seems interested in the education of taste, it would seem a relevant question to ask, who points the way? Who takes on the education of taste to others? And what effect do the opinions of those teachers have on the opinions of their students? I suspect, a great deal.
Kant never ventures a guess, though. He leaves the implication sort of out there, suggesting maybe that the answer is spiritual or religious or, it seems most likely, guisedly political. To deal with the problem, Kant structures a sort of end all, which he calls "subjective universality" (419). Kant wants us to be able to see something that we enjoy, an experience that Kant recognizes is an entirely subjective experience, and to lay claim to that object in a way that can be universal. He does this by creating a space in our mind for "contemplation" which is free from interest.
"Since...the person making the judgment feels himself completely free with regard to the satisfaction that he devotes to the object, he cannot discover as grounds of the satisfaction any private conditions, pertaining to his subject alone, and must therefore regard it as grounded in those that he can also presuppose in everyone else; consequently he must believe himself to have grounds for expecting a similar pleasure for everyone" (418-419).
Kant's explanation of this distanced state relies heavily on what he calls "a free play" of cognition (421). This seems, for Kant, to end the argument. This idea of "cognition in general" is the most concrete a definition for the inner workings of our minds that Kant is interested in pursuing. For someone interested in Pure Reason, this seems like a shallow exploration, and I wonder if perhaps this is what Eagleton means when he calls the Kant's aesthetic an ideology.
To pursue the issue myself, then: I suspect, based on what I know of the current scientific understanding of brain functioning, that Kant's disinterested state of mind doesn't exist. It seems that on a physical and biological level our minds are in a constant interaction with the world around us. The act of seeing itself, something that is necessary even for Kant's "free play" to be set in motion, involves a hugely complex electrical interplay between external world and brain. (If, that is, one is even prepared to accept the dichotomy.) Moreover, the existence of the human subconscious as explained by Freud casts immediate doubt on man's ability to actually understand, or reason with, the functions of his own mind. When the way that reality is framed in your mind bears only a tentative relationship to the abstract "real," as Kant's seems to suggest previously in his discussion of "things-as-they-are", all Pure Reason seems resigned to the realm of the post hoc.
In the end, Kant is perhaps primarily concerned with preserving the idea of a universal beauty; that is, he believes deeply (one might say a priori) that a concept of beauty must exist that is not influenced by culture or background or context or emotional state. Kant himself asserts that to say that everyone has their own taste “would be as much as to say that there is no taste at all, i.e., no aesthetic judgment that could make a rightful claim to the assent of everyone” (419-420). Kant wants to preserve this idea of a "rightful claim," and he goes to great lengths to do so.
Kant even seems to recognize at times that his theory has severe limitations. These are most notable where Kant seems to allow himself a step outside his a priori assumptions in order to justify them in some way. While Kant insists upon the "universality" of an object's beauty, he admits that, when a claim to the beautiful is made:
"One wants to submit the object to his own eyes, just as if his satisfaction depended on sensation; and yet, if one then calls the object beautiful, one believes oneself to have a universal voice, and lays claim to the consent of everyone" (420).
The entire communicative value of beauty seems lost in this sentence. What good is a claim to aesthetic which must constantly be double-checked. Furthermore, what is suggested but notably left unsaid is the question of what happens when, having submitted what you call beautiful to my eye, I decide that it is, in fact, quite ugly? Which of us has poor taste, and what implications does this have if what you have shown me is an exemplar? If you were the one tasked with training me in Taste, you have either utterly failed (either because of the inadequacy of your system, or the inferiority of my mind) or you must demand that it is I who have poor taste. Either option seems to imply some degree of interest.
Despite his insistence on avoiding rules or standards for art, Kant (accidentally?) includes some clues as to his own conception of the beautiful. He includes examples of architecture (a home, a palace), animal and plant life (a flower, a Bird of Paradise, "certain sea animals"), visual art (the drawing) and even (in spite of his later insistence on the distinction between art and handicraft) certain textiles ("the garment"). To me, these few examples in themselves suggest a certain political understanding of what qualifies for beauty, perhaps more tellingly by what they leave out than by what they include. For example, what is it about a Bird of Paradise or a flower that makes them beautiful that would not also qualify the vulture and the thistle? what aura of "purposiveness" exists for the former but not for the latter? Likewise, the suggesting that "certain sea creatures" would be considered beautiful implies in its very phrasing the idea that other sea creatures exist, and are excluded from qualification. Even the choice of "home" and "garment" over other forms of architecture and textile-craft suggest a certain quality of what is comforting, what Kant might call "charm." This implication brings with it the entire realm of cultural determinants which Kant seems so eager to do away with.
By his insistence that beauty live up to his high expectations for the Pure human mind, Kant empties the concept of any definitive value whatsoever, leaving the concept of beauty to designate such cliche objects as flowers and palaces. If those things that are beautiful are simply those things which attain to some veiled trope of what might be called elegance of form, one might ask, who cares about beauty?
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Tracking Students DOES Pay Off
Here is a study by the Tom Loveless of The Brookings Institute that suggests tracking students (at least in Math) increases their performance.
Loveless calls School Choice and differentiated instruction the "New Tracking":
Which schools track and which do not? The evidence reported here indicates that urban schools serving mostly poor children are more likely to have diminished or abolished tracking while suburban schools serving children from more prosperous backgrounds are more apt to have retained it, despite pressure from “experts” and ideologues to do away with it.
This is a point worth pausing over. Schools that eliminated or reduced curricular tracking thought they were doing this to benefit needy and minority kids. They succumbed to the accusation that they and their evil old tracking policies had been complicit in harming such youngsters.
Loveless calls School Choice and differentiated instruction the "New Tracking":
Ask teachers if differentiation is a worthwhile use of students’ time and most will enthusiastically agree, even though they have little time themselves to craft such lessons and not all of them can pull it
off. Still, differentiation is one of today’s politically-acceptable alternatives to tracking
Thursday, May 6, 2010
A New Word - Diegesis
I came across this word when reading up on Julien Donkey-Boy, a film which adheres to the Danish Dogme 95 rules for film-making. The second of the Dogme 95 rules, according to Wikipedia, states,
The word's opposite, mimesis, seems more familiar. Mimes, after all "act out" their stories.
Say it like this: die-uh-djee-siss
The sound must never be produced apart from the images or vice versa. Music must not be used unless it occurs within the scene being filmed, i.e., diegetic.And here's how Wikipedia explains diegesis:
Diegesis (Greek `to narrate') and mimesis (Greek `imitation' or `to copy') have been contrasted since Plato's and Aristotle's times. Mimesis shows rather than tells, by means of action that is enacted. Diegesis, however, is the telling of the story by a narrator. The narrator may speak as a particular character or may be the invisible narrator or even the all-knowing narrator who speaks from above in the form of commenting on the action or the characters.Diegesis can also refer to the fictional world of the story, the "space" which characters inhabit both within and outside of the action of the story. This makes me wonder, is there any world, in fiction, that is not diegetic?
The word's opposite, mimesis, seems more familiar. Mimes, after all "act out" their stories.
Say it like this: die-uh-djee-siss
This Film Is Not Yet Rated
I just finished watching Kirby Dick's 2006 documentary, This Film Is Not Yet Rated, which is available for streaming through Netflix. I recommend it wholeheartedly.
It has become apparent to me that my assessment of social documentaries rests at least partially in their ability to really tick me off about something. Dick's movie is truly successful in that right. His target: the Motion Picture Association of America, and indirectly, the "big six" film studios in Hollywood, and of course their parent conglomerates (many of which I already hated, for other reasons).
For those who don't knows, the MPAA is the organization responsible for the rating system in place for movies. If a movie is rated, either G, PG, PG-13, R, or NC-17, it has been viewed and assessed by the MPAA. And it's basically a cabal.
First of all, the MPAA does not release the names of the members of the ratings board. This is, ostensibly, in an attempt to prevent the members from undue political and economic pressures. However, the senior members of this ratings board meet regularly with the heads of the major motion picture companies. So really the MPAA doesn't want their members feeling any pressure except the pressure of the people who write the checks. And regardless of the perceived risk
This becomes all too clear when Matt Stone discusses the differences in his experiences making Orgasmo, which he and Trey Parker funded entirely independently, and the South Park movie, which was produced by Paramount Pictures. Both films initially received an NC-17 rating (this is the kiss of death for a film which hopes to be seen in a major theater). When asked how the films could be fixed to receive an R-rating, the MPAA provided zero guidance for Orgasmo, but gave specific notes for the Studio-backed film.
Furthermore, there is no set of standards which the MPAA follows in making their decisions, and this leads clearly to personal biases. Dick clearly demonstrates the Association's tolerance for violence over sexuality and for heterosexuality over homosexuality.
A major part of the film involves Dick's hiring of a private investigator to discover the names of the members of the MPAA. It turns out that what information the MPAA does release about its ratings board (that it is a crossection of America, that it comprised of sensible but disinterested parents of young children) are false.
Some of the greatest moments come late in the film, when Dick sends an early version of the film to the MPAA for a ratings assessment. Of course, the film receives a rating of NC-17. The opening credits to This Film is Not Yet Rated comprises a montage of many of the scenes that the interviewed filmmakers (including Darren Aronofsky, Kevin Smith, and John Waters) had to cut to earn their movies a "distributable" rating. Dick appeals the rating, and gives us a description (filming is not allowed) of the appeals process, which is even more heavily cloaked in secrecy than the original process.
Those members of the MPAA appeals board that Dick succeeds in identifying are all board members for either motion picture companies or large theater chains.
This is just disgraceful. I am sympathetic to the necessity for some form of rating system. This is important with regards to children, and even adults should have a means of filtering their exposure to 'questionable' material. (My wife would be mighty upset if she went to see a light comedy that ended up being a horror film.) However, the MPAA rating system is nigh-on useless. An 'R' rating tells you almost nothing about the film itself. Is it 'R' like The Hangover, or is it 'R' like Saw?
Furthermore, I find it extremely troubling that their are laws in place restricting entry to these movies based on a system that is entirely undemocratic, to say nothing of it being a capitalistic monopoly. I might be reluctant to take my son to an independent film that is rated NC-17, but the fact that I am prohibited from doing so smacks of censorship. State sanctioned, corporate controlled.
It has become apparent to me that my assessment of social documentaries rests at least partially in their ability to really tick me off about something. Dick's movie is truly successful in that right. His target: the Motion Picture Association of America, and indirectly, the "big six" film studios in Hollywood, and of course their parent conglomerates (many of which I already hated, for other reasons).
For those who don't knows, the MPAA is the organization responsible for the rating system in place for movies. If a movie is rated, either G, PG, PG-13, R, or NC-17, it has been viewed and assessed by the MPAA. And it's basically a cabal.
First of all, the MPAA does not release the names of the members of the ratings board. This is, ostensibly, in an attempt to prevent the members from undue political and economic pressures. However, the senior members of this ratings board meet regularly with the heads of the major motion picture companies. So really the MPAA doesn't want their members feeling any pressure except the pressure of the people who write the checks. And regardless of the perceived risk
This becomes all too clear when Matt Stone discusses the differences in his experiences making Orgasmo, which he and Trey Parker funded entirely independently, and the South Park movie, which was produced by Paramount Pictures. Both films initially received an NC-17 rating (this is the kiss of death for a film which hopes to be seen in a major theater). When asked how the films could be fixed to receive an R-rating, the MPAA provided zero guidance for Orgasmo, but gave specific notes for the Studio-backed film.
Furthermore, there is no set of standards which the MPAA follows in making their decisions, and this leads clearly to personal biases. Dick clearly demonstrates the Association's tolerance for violence over sexuality and for heterosexuality over homosexuality.
A major part of the film involves Dick's hiring of a private investigator to discover the names of the members of the MPAA. It turns out that what information the MPAA does release about its ratings board (that it is a crossection of America, that it comprised of sensible but disinterested parents of young children) are false.
Some of the greatest moments come late in the film, when Dick sends an early version of the film to the MPAA for a ratings assessment. Of course, the film receives a rating of NC-17. The opening credits to This Film is Not Yet Rated comprises a montage of many of the scenes that the interviewed filmmakers (including Darren Aronofsky, Kevin Smith, and John Waters) had to cut to earn their movies a "distributable" rating. Dick appeals the rating, and gives us a description (filming is not allowed) of the appeals process, which is even more heavily cloaked in secrecy than the original process.
Those members of the MPAA appeals board that Dick succeeds in identifying are all board members for either motion picture companies or large theater chains.
This is just disgraceful. I am sympathetic to the necessity for some form of rating system. This is important with regards to children, and even adults should have a means of filtering their exposure to 'questionable' material. (My wife would be mighty upset if she went to see a light comedy that ended up being a horror film.) However, the MPAA rating system is nigh-on useless. An 'R' rating tells you almost nothing about the film itself. Is it 'R' like The Hangover, or is it 'R' like Saw?
Furthermore, I find it extremely troubling that their are laws in place restricting entry to these movies based on a system that is entirely undemocratic, to say nothing of it being a capitalistic monopoly. I might be reluctant to take my son to an independent film that is rated NC-17, but the fact that I am prohibited from doing so smacks of censorship. State sanctioned, corporate controlled.
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
It Won't Happen To Me
Yesterday, the high school hosted its annual pre-prom Don't Drink and Drive program for the student body. Last year's program was a refreshing change of pace: the usual scared-straight videos and parent-style lecture was replaced by a heartfelt discussion by a young man who had been paralyzed by a drunk driver, aided (because he could not, in fact, speak) by his loving mother.This year, no such luck. Bill Richardson, a former Gwinnett County police officer, came to give his presentation about, purportedly, teens and alcohol and driving. The presentation is part of Mr. Richardson's It Won't Happen To Me campaign to reduce the number of teen deaths resulting from car accidents. (Reported accurately by Bill as "the leading cause of death among teens today".) The program was mostly what you might expect: Bill spent a long time lecturing the kids things they should already know. A lot of dontdothises and dontdothats intermingled with graphic video clips of some real car accident tragedies and even more reenacted car accident tragedies.
The worst of these videos can be seen below. It should be noted that the students had seen before during an entirely separate "don't text and drive" program delivered as part of our school-wide Advisement program.
A couple of things stand out to me about this program, and this video in particular.
First of all, don't we all know by now that Scared Straight doesn't work? Taking young toughs to the jailhouse in the hopes of frightening them away from crime forever only ends up teaching them new and more troublesome ways to look and act tough. Likewise, when the students see tragedy in a movie, they are inclined to think of it as just that: a movie. It is clear from the first moments of the above film that it is a reenactment -- a fiction. We are conditioned to percieve this distinction, even when it does not exist: on the big screen, even true events seem "unreal." It seems like creating this sort of separation between viewer and event makes more, not less, likely an attitude of indifference or insusceptibility.
That it doesn't work, to me, seems a good thing, and we should immediately turn to different methods. This sort of pathetic appeal (pun intended) is precisely the argumentative style we should be teaching kids to recognize and reject. If we learn anything from the current state of world politics, it must be that fleeting, gut-reaction emotional response should be -- indeed, must be -- no basis for the formation of opinions and plans of action. In fact, it seems like this sort of emotional conditioning might very well lead to an increase in poor decision making. If I base my negative reaction to drunk driving on my gut reaction while viewing a disturbing video, I may just as likely base my positive reaction to drunk driving on my gut reaction while totally wasted and trying to impress a girl or seem tough or save face.
Furthermore, if your intention is to persuade kids not to drink and drive, it is advisable to stay on message. Pick your battles. This program is given 3 days before prom for a reason. Mr. Richardson lost sight of the immediate goal, and a lot of his time (and mine -- this was during my planning period) could have been saved if someone had simply told him that the texting thing had been done. That what we are really worried about is drinking. Prom is right around the corner, after all.
But Bill didn't stop there. And this is what really gets me. At some point he made the leap to eating and driving, as well. He implored the students not to eat their chicken biscuits behind the wheel.
This all reminds me of the numerous Don't Do Drugs programs that I experienced as a child. Aside from the failed reasoning behind a "just say no" philosophy (an issue I explore in some depth in an earlier post), drug use prevention programs always take one too many steps. As a child, I am with you for don't do heroin, don't do cocaine, don't do marijuana -- especially if you show me some scary pictures or bring in a convict to prove the dangers. Adding cigarettes and alcohol to the mix, though, starts to muddy the waters. After all, my dad drinks alcohol. My grandfather smokes. What gives?
The program they gave my fifth grade year also went further: caffeine is a drug.
This sort of divergence from a central theme seems to risk a complete loss of effectiveness. After all, once a Georgia-born, Coca-Cola-raised raised fifth grader hears you say that he shouldn't drink caffeine, you are finished. He no longer hears a word you say, and there is a good chance that whatever you said before has also been tossed out. You have become an unreliable source. Your credibility is shot.
Ever thus to Bill and his chicken biscuits.
The real reason for this post, though, is less a polemic than a curiosity.
You see, Bill Richardson started his program by saying, "we all have said 'It won't happen to me' before, and it's important to remember that it can happen to you." Which got me thinking: nobody ever says "It won't happen to me." In fact, the very idea of anyone saying such strikes me immediately as ridiculous.
A discussion which uses "It Won't Happen To Me" as its jumping-off point surrounds nearly every great social ill of the last 20 years. Alcohol and drug addiction, domestic violence, AIDS, even diabetes: all seem at least in part to be caused by some uninformed person saying "It Won't Happen To Me" just before partaking in some ill-advised risk behavior which leads to their inevitable ruin. The following hypothetical conversations illustrate the point:
TODD (Slamming his 14th brewski): Well, I'm bored of this party. I'm leaving. Anybody need a ride?
SUE (Concerned): Todd, you're drunk! Don't you know that driving under the influence is the leading cause of death in teens?
TODD (Climbing into his hatchback): Yeah, but it won't happen to me.
TODD (Flexing his biceps): Well, it's Friday. I am going out to have anonymous unprotected sex with multiple partners.
STU: (Stepping from the kitchen): Todd, be careful. AIDS can affect anyone. If you are going to choose to have sex out of wedlock, you should really wear a condom.
TODD (Checking his high-top fade in the mirror): Nah. It won't happen to me.
Now, I understand what these activists are aiming at when they use "It Won't Happen To Me" to start their spiel. They are not referring to an actual spoken phrase, but are rather making reference to an assumed mindset that we share before we make decisions which are statistically inadvisable. They hope that by facing the mindset beforehand we can avoid it when faced with a real situation. As I said with regards to D.A.R.E., context-free, all-or-nothing social practice is at least pointless and ineffective, at worst damaging in itself. We cannot hope -- nor should we -- that something as complex and nuanced as peer group sociology and adolescent psychology can be reduced to a set of predesignated rules and regulations. To do so is at once irresponsible and unimaginative.
"It Won't Happen To Me" is a false construct. It doesn't actually exist, in our minds or elsewhere, when we are in the midst of making a crucial decision. Or, if it does exist, it is a spontaneous generation of our psyche which likely gets much more positive reinforcement than negative. When we get in the car, even entirely sober, and face the chance of being hit by another driver. When we place our money in the bank, despite the fact that banks can collapse. When we get our hair died, knowing that many dye-jobs turn out just horribly. When we squeeze again into our skinny jeans and confront the risk of an embarrassing rip. In each of these situations, undoubtedly, we must also say to ourselves, "It Won't Happen To Me." And inevitably, more often than not, we are right.
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