From: Steve Peterson (peterson.steve@verizon.net)
Date: Tue Feb 10 2004 - 23:34:06 GMT
Hi Platt,
>> If Mozart were alive today, what kind of music do you think he'd be
>> making? I doubt he'd be composing in the classical style. There will
>> never be another Beethoven because Beethoven has been done.
>
> Disagree. Great art transcends societies. The only standard for great
> art
> is, "Does it reflect Spirit?," i.e., the ineffable beauty of the
> conceptually unknown.
That is an interesting view of art. This is a strong point of
departure for you and Ayn Rand since she denies Spirit in the sense you
mean. She thought art should depict what can and should be, and she
criticized the idea of the artist as mystic channelling some
non-material reality.
I agree with you that there is something to the idea of artist as
mystic and "Does it reflect Spirit?" is a good question.
Yet, in a way, it makes no sense to ask that question since I am sure
we agree that "The Buddha, the Godhead, resides quite as comfortably in
the circuits of a digital computer or the gears of a cycle transmission
as he does at the top of a mountain or in the petals of a flower. To
think otherwise is to demean the Buddha -which is to demean oneself."
In other words, how can anything not reflect Spirit? So it is also a
bad question. Does this art reflect Spirit? "Does a dog have Buddha
nature?"
Perhaps there is some important distinction to be made. Pirsig felt no
need to make one, calling motorcycle maintenance art and when he was
pressed on the subject he still found no need to add anything to the
definition of art as a high quality endeavor.
Platt said:
> "Style" is irrelevant.
Can you give me some examples of music that rises to your standards
that is not in the classical style?
>
>> (I don't think we are seeing anything new in Britney Spears, but we
>> did
>> in Madonna in the 80's though Madonna's influence was cultural rather
>> than
>> musical.)
>
> Madonna's influence was sexual and thus anti-social.
Because her influence had to do with sex does not necessarily make her
anti-social from an MOQ perspective (the Shakers had a sexual
influence, too). She could be viewed as helping to liberate women from
outdated taboos and thus improving society.
>> The importance of an understanding of context in modern music is a
>> part of
>> the postmodern movement which is a logical progression if you can see
>> how
>> static quality goes stale. I think you may be selling short the
>> dynamism
>> of modern music. Despite the beauty of the mathematical
>> sophistication of
>> Bach, that mode ran its course. It lost its dynamism.
>
> To you, perhaps. To others Bach remains forever dynamic in revealing
> ever
> deeper subtleties with each performance.
I think there is something important about this idea of great art being
rich enough that it seems to never be exhausted. It can be returned to
again and again and you always seem to find something new. But suppose
you listened to the same piece of music every single day over several
years--maybe even several times per day. Do you still contend that it
would never go stale for you? The MOQ suggests that eventually you
would stop finding something new. It would lose it's dynamic quality.
Pirsig gave this exact example to explain dynamic v static quality:
"Imagine you walk down a street past, say, a car where someone has the
radio on and it plays a tune you've never heard before but which is so
fantastically good it just stops you in your tracks. You listen until
it's done. Days later you remember exactly what the street looked like
when you heard the music, (snip) it all comes back so vividly you
wonder what song they were playing, so you wait until you hear it
again.
One day it comes on the radio again and you get the same feeling
and you catch the name and you rush to the store to buy it and home to
listen to it.
You get home. You play it. It's really good. It doesn't
quite transform the room into some thing different but it's really
good. You play it again. Really good. You play it again, it's still
good but your not sure if you want to listen to it again. But you play
it again and now your really sure you don't want to hear it again and
you put it away. You file it away and once and a while play it again
for a friend and maybe months or years later you pull it out and play
it with the memory of something you were crazy about."
>> It was followed by the innovations of the likes of Mozart. Mozart
>> can be
>> viewed in the context of the evolution of music that Bach
>> participated in,
>> and Mozart's music can be seen as "better" than Bach if you understand
>> Mozart as including Bach without necessarily rehashing Bach. There
>> was no
>> need for Mozart to rehash it since we still have Bach. Perhaps
>> Mozart even
>> helped people appreciate Bach in new ways.
>
> Disagree. You seem to believe there is "progress" in art. I do not.
> There
> has never been, nor possibly ever be, a more profound depiction of
> animals
> than on the caves of Lascaux. Beauty doesn't improve with time.
I don't mean there is progress as in individual pieces getting better
and better. Again, with the "does it reflect Spirit?" idea, this is
impossible. Nothing can ever be closer to or further from Spirit.
What I mean is that the art as a whole progresses as it expands and
depends and diversifies. If there is no progress in any sense in art as
you contend then there would be no reason for anyone to create new art.
>> Likewise, Radiohead (my favorite modern band) doesn't make rock music
>> that
>> sounds anything like Chuck Berry, but it is understood by those that
>> appreciate their music as coming out of a broader context that runs
>> from
>> Chuck Berry to the Rolling Stones, to the Velvet Underground, to Pink
>> Floyd. I think that the most innovative musicians today can't be
>> appreciated without a sense of that broader context since the old
>> forms
>> have lost their dynamic impact and cannot be continually quoted
>> without
>> boring us (which also applies to modern art and explains why I have
>> little
>> appreciation for it. I just don't know enough about it and it sure
>> doesn't
>> try to explain itself.) Modern (postmodern) artists must cut right
>> to the
>> chase and be as dynamic as possible while providing only the fewest
>> contextual clues (static quality) as possible to be understood while
>> presupposing most of the necessary contextual understanding.
>
> Disagree. Beauty transcends contexts. Art critic Clement Greenberg had
> it
> right when he wrote: "Esthetic enjoyments are immediate, intuitive,
> undeliberate and involuntary and leave no room for conscious
> application
> of standards, criteria, rules or precepts."
Modern (postmodern) popular art and music is particularly context
dependent these days as it makes so much use of irony. I think the
irony thing is running out of steam. It is for me anyway, I'm ready
for some more music (like Radiohead) that is good because it is good
rather than (like Beck) being good because it
sucks-but-then-again-is-kinda-cool and clever and self-conscious with
lots of interesting references.
> Finally, to suggest that Radiohead or any other rock band is
> creatively on
> a par with Beethoven or Mozart is to me ludicrous, like comparing jelly
> glasses to fine crystal stemware. Even a child can see the difference.
I can tell the difference but I don't see why the godhead can't reside
as comfortably in a rock song as it does in a classical song.
I'm going to think more about your claim: "The only standard for great
art is, "Does it reflect Spirit?," i.e., the ineffable beauty of the
conceptually unknown."
Thanks,
Steve
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