Only when it was too late did I come to understand that the processes of life overflow the vessels of reason, that the most meaningful elements in human experience, sensitivity to beauty, devotion to one’s kind, are not matters to be determined by syllogisms.
—Elisha ben Abuyah, from As a Driven Leaf
Note that Elisha uses his reason to conclude that reason alone was not enough for a human being to lead a good life; human nature had to be considered. More error has been propounded by unwise leaders who fail to recognize this fact than any other.
Oddly, contemporary art is simultaneously hyper-rational and anti-reason in that it questions the validity of reason itself; a form of skepticism on steroids. It denigrates any sensitivity to beauty or devotion to one’s kind as an echo of a paternalistic white-male Western past. In short, it denies our human nature. This “New Soviet Man” attitude toward people, the logical outgrowth of the Enlightenment’s faith in reason, is not only wrong-headed, being anti-human, it is evil; think of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein as discussed in a previous blog.
Art properly resides at the crossroads of reason and nature, but it too can be led astray. Notice how the progress of reason has moved art from the Romantic to the Modern to the Postmodern to the Contemporary, each new step expanding the role of reason while narrowing the reference period of time from over half a century to decades to now, the moment. At this point we have left human experience altogether and focused on human reason and its shortcomings. Going from moment to moment is not communication with our fellow artists of the past; it is soliloquy and a symptom of the arrogance of our radical individualism; they felt and thought; we simply think abstractly without a firm grounding in our humanity.
My intolerance towards contemporary “art” (see my last blog among others) is a rebellion against this attitude. Art should be loving; a sharing of experience for the edification and enjoyment of all, not simply a work to establish the greater glory of the artist and her perspicuity. Of course the artist has something to express and that is important, but it’s importance should not just be for the artist who feels compelled to express himself; it should be to the audience as well. It should also be more than documentation of what we anticipate is there “in reality,” but should communicate what is their imaginatively. It is our imagination that fails us with contemporary art. As Claudio Magris noted in his wonderful book, Danube:
For Hölderlin there were still gods on the riverbanks, hidden, and misunderstood by the men of the night of exile and the alienation of modern times, but nonetheless living and present. Deep in the slumber of Germany, dulled by the prose of reality but destined to reawaken in some Utopian future, slept the poetry of the heart, of freedom, of reconciliation.
Blog No. 62, Life Overflows the Vessels of Reason
Only when it was too late did I come to understand that the processes of life overflow the vessels of reason, that the most meaningful elements in human experience, sensitivity to beauty, devotion to one’s kind, are not matters to be determined by syllogisms.
—Elisha ben Abuyah, from As a Driven Leaf
Note that Elisha uses his reason to conclude that reason alone was not enough for a human being to lead a good life; human nature had to be considered. More error has been propounded by unwise leaders who fail to recognize this fact than any other.
Oddly, contemporary art is simultaneously hyper-rational and anti-reason in that it questions the validity of reason itself; a form of skepticism on steroids. It denigrates any sensitivity to beauty or devotion to one’s kind as an echo of a paternalistic white-male Western past. In short, it denies our human nature. This “New Soviet Man” attitude toward people, the logical outgrowth of the Enlightenment’s faith in reason, is not only wrong-headed, being anti-human, it is evil; think of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein as discussed in a previous blog.
Art properly resides at the crossroads of reason and nature, but it too can be led astray. Notice how the progress of reason has moved art from the Romantic to the Modern to the Postmodern to the Contemporary, each new step expanding the role of reason while narrowing the reference period of time from over half a century to decades to now, the moment. At this point we have left human experience altogether and focused on human reason and its shortcomings. Going from moment to moment is not communication with our fellow artists of the past; it is soliloquy and a symptom of the arrogance of our radical individualism; they felt and thought; we simply think abstractly without a firm grounding in our humanity.
My intolerance towards contemporary “art” (see my last blog among others) is a rebellion against this attitude. Art should be loving; a sharing of experience for the edification and enjoyment of all, not simply a work to establish the greater glory of the artist and her perspicuity. Of course the artist has something to express and that is important, but it’s importance should not just be for the artist who feels compelled to express himself; it should be to the audience as well. It should also be more than documentation of what we anticipate is there “in reality,” but should communicate what is their imaginatively. It is our imagination that fails us with contemporary art. As Claudio Magris noted in his wonderful book, Danube:
For Hölderlin there were still gods on the riverbanks, hidden, and misunderstood by the men of the night of exile and the alienation of modern times, but nonetheless living and present. Deep in the slumber of Germany, dulled by the prose of reality but destined to reawaken in some Utopian future, slept the poetry of the heart, of freedom, of reconciliation.