Science presupposes an outer reality that is not totally random, and therefore worthy of empirical study and capable of manipulation to man’s advantage. Thus, science’s purpose is utilitarian, not the more philosophical pursuit of “abstract truth,” which are terms the true empiricist does not believe have any meaning because the only form of knowledge is the result of empirical investigation and even that is provisional; knowledge for the scientist is that which can be empirically verified through the scientific process.
Unfortunately, science is not simply the accumulation of empirical facts, but the construction of hypothetical models that are used to explain this outer reality until a more efficient model comes along; Newton was fine until we needed to consider larger objects and faster speeds. This is because the human brain is inadequate to the task of understanding the vast apparent complexity of this outer reality and must rely on models, which are necessarily reductions of reality. These models conflict frequently, but have utility nonetheless, and they are understood by scientists to be provisional until the better model arrives in any event.
It is by this scientific process that this outer reality is objectified. The problem comes, however, when man is the object of study. The tools of science then seek utilitarian results based on the idea of man as object, because science has no other way of thinking. The subjective experience of being human is not considered because it cannot be empirically measured and therefore is not knowable scientifically.
Art, or more broadly culture, in the old fashioned unscientific sense of the word, proceeds from the other direction; it is the output of man’s subjective experience. This point was driven home to me recently by two films: The Leopard and Dr. Zhivago. Both these movies are about the conflict between the spiritual and the material, more specifically the conflict between subjective human experience, the personal, and the march of the French Enlightenment, the material, or in strictly human terms, the political; make no mistake the modern sense of politics is purely material or utilitarian, to use the sugar-coated euphemism, and therefore is only concerned with power over people to advance toward some utilitarian utopia. In both movies the protagonist, one a literal prince and the other a figurative prince, must choose how to adapt to the political rip-tide that is modernity, the child of the French Enlightenment.
The Prince in The Leopard tries to rationally change so that things may remain the same. The Risorgimento is in full swing and the new political science based on the “common man” is sweeping Italy. The movie touchingly contrasts a truly elegant, educated and good man of the old nobility with new, up-and-coming men of the future: materialists to the core. It is shocking to see the coarseness of modernity when set side-by-side with a truly enlightened spirit and this is the point of the movie. The movie does not condemn this march, it only notes the inevitability of it and describes what is being lost; it is far too elegant to do otherwise.
The prince of a man, Dr. Zhivago, is similarly situated except that the march of modernity has gone on apace since the 1860s. Now, it has teeth and a blood lust. It wants to crush subjective human experience, personified by the poet-doctor Zhivago. The personal not only does not matter, it is antithetical to the march of material progress and must be exterminated wherever it is identified. Towards the end, Dr. Zhivago’s personal search kills him when he has a heart attack making one last effort to contact “Lara”, the personification of beauty. At the end, however, a flower blooms as Dr. Zhivago and Lara’s daughter is found and expresses the hope that the human spirit cannot be crushed.
Of course the Soviet Union fell, but there is little comfort to be found there. Contemporary art is still under the sway of French critical thought and the documentary stance is the course de jure in the photographic world. How far we have come is so little time.
No. 25: Man as object
Science presupposes an outer reality that is not totally random, and therefore worthy of empirical study and capable of manipulation to man’s advantage. Thus, science’s purpose is utilitarian, not the more philosophical pursuit of “abstract truth,” which are terms the true empiricist does not believe have any meaning because the only form of knowledge is the result of empirical investigation and even that is provisional; knowledge for the scientist is that which can be empirically verified through the scientific process.
Unfortunately, science is not simply the accumulation of empirical facts, but the construction of hypothetical models that are used to explain this outer reality until a more efficient model comes along; Newton was fine until we needed to consider larger objects and faster speeds. This is because the human brain is inadequate to the task of understanding the vast apparent complexity of this outer reality and must rely on models, which are necessarily reductions of reality. These models conflict frequently, but have utility nonetheless, and they are understood by scientists to be provisional until the better model arrives in any event.
It is by this scientific process that this outer reality is objectified. The problem comes, however, when man is the object of study. The tools of science then seek utilitarian results based on the idea of man as object, because science has no other way of thinking. The subjective experience of being human is not considered because it cannot be empirically measured and therefore is not knowable scientifically.
Art, or more broadly culture, in the old fashioned unscientific sense of the word, proceeds from the other direction; it is the output of man’s subjective experience. This point was driven home to me recently by two films: The Leopard and Dr. Zhivago. Both these movies are about the conflict between the spiritual and the material, more specifically the conflict between subjective human experience, the personal, and the march of the French Enlightenment, the material, or in strictly human terms, the political; make no mistake the modern sense of politics is purely material or utilitarian, to use the sugar-coated euphemism, and therefore is only concerned with power over people to advance toward some utilitarian utopia. In both movies the protagonist, one a literal prince and the other a figurative prince, must choose how to adapt to the political rip-tide that is modernity, the child of the French Enlightenment.
The Prince in The Leopard tries to rationally change so that things may remain the same. The Risorgimento is in full swing and the new political science based on the “common man” is sweeping Italy. The movie touchingly contrasts a truly elegant, educated and good man of the old nobility with new, up-and-coming men of the future: materialists to the core. It is shocking to see the coarseness of modernity when set side-by-side with a truly enlightened spirit and this is the point of the movie. The movie does not condemn this march, it only notes the inevitability of it and describes what is being lost; it is far too elegant to do otherwise.
The prince of a man, Dr. Zhivago, is similarly situated except that the march of modernity has gone on apace since the 1860s. Now, it has teeth and a blood lust. It wants to crush subjective human experience, personified by the poet-doctor Zhivago. The personal not only does not matter, it is antithetical to the march of material progress and must be exterminated wherever it is identified. Towards the end, Dr. Zhivago’s personal search kills him when he has a heart attack making one last effort to contact “Lara”, the personification of beauty. At the end, however, a flower blooms as Dr. Zhivago and Lara’s daughter is found and expresses the hope that the human spirit cannot be crushed.
Of course the Soviet Union fell, but there is little comfort to be found there. Contemporary art is still under the sway of French critical thought and the documentary stance is the course de jure in the photographic world. How far we have come is so little time.