From: David Buchanan (DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org)
Date: Sat Jul 19 2003 - 20:02:30 BST
Platt, Matt, Rick and all:
Rick wrote:
....... Sometimes art is better when it conforms to our expectations (ie.
"that dialogue sounded so real, that's just how I'd expect real people to
talk"). On the other hand, we usually walk away disappointed when an
artistic creation completely conforms to our expectations (ie. "that movie
was so predictable, there wasn't one twist I didn't expect". It's about a
balance of static and dynamic elements, a harmony of the expected and the
unexpected.
dmb says:
I'd take it even further. The "aesthetic pleasure", says our unknown author,
is "a major clue to the quality of the revelation". And I'm glad the writer
used the word "revelation" because I think what we're talking about here is,
for lack of a better word, spirituality. See, its not just that we are
pleasantly surprized by new twists on old formulas, it is that we
intuitively perceive the harmony between the rendered static form and the
cosmic order of things. Its true that all static forms are a product of this
same cosmic order, but as they grow stale and then obsolete that original
meaning is lost. The creative person's job, then, is to shatter the old
forms and render the the same "truth" in new forms, ones that refresh the
quality of the revelation. (That's why Pirsig refers to the contrarians as
agents of moral regeneration.) Not that every creative work is supposed to
be some great cosmological depiction, but only that it finds some small
corner to illuminate or otherwise corresponds to it. Religious people often
talk about "God's will" and if one looks past all the nonsense that goes
along with that, I think we can see that they are talking about this same
harmony or correspondence to the cosmic order. This is usually in reference
to personal behavior rather than artistic or intellectual creations, but
still...
Matt wrote:
Dynamic Quality is the unexpected burst of beauty, though according to
convention it shouldn't be there. And because it shouldn't be there
according to convention, we can't explain other than in retrospection, a
post hoc rationalization. This ad hoc explanation is tuned to the
particular instance of Dynamic Quality. What is a dead end is if we try to
go transcendental and try and set an explanation of what all breaks with
convention will look like. That's what I take the hypostatization of
History to be: an attempt to outflank DQ and call it all convention, static
patterns. That's why DQ is undefined. It only unfolds in history, leaving
behind it waves of static patterns.
dmb says:
Right. I'm mostly with you here and I agree with your criticism of Marx too.
And may I say how refreshing it is to see you discussing the MOQ. You didn't
even mention Rorty. Yahooo! But seriously,... I'd only extend what you've
said in the same way I took Rick's comments further, and then I'd agree even
more.
Thanks,
dmb
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