Category: Art and Aesthetics
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A Quasi-Kierkegaardian Poke at Paglia, Catholic Pagan
This Stack leader has her stuck at the aesthetic stage. I'm on a Kierkegaard jag again. I've been reading him all my philosophical life ever since my undergraduate teacher, Ronda Chervin, introduced him to me. For an easy introduction to the Danish Socrates, I recommend Clare Carlisle, Philosopher of the Heart: The Restless Life of…
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“Piss Christ” Revisited
'Pope' Francis has recently given a warm papal welcome to Andres Serrano. Remember him? What follows is an exchange from 16 May 2010 with a doctoral student in Canada who is responding to an earlier post of mine. My comments are in blue. The erudite Hector C. who is better versed than I am in…
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Kitsch
Kitsch is art's comfort food: familiar, reliable in its satisfactions, readily available, not particularly nourishing, but also not challenging to its consumers, remunerative for its producers.
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A Minor Correction Anent ‘Absurd’ with a Little Help from Mark Rothko
In a Substack entry I distinguished four senses of 'absurd,' the logico-mathematical, the semantic, the existential, and the ordinary. About the existential sense I had this to say: 3) Existential. The absurd as the existentially meaningless, the groundless, the brute-factual, the intrinsically unintelligible. The absurdity of existence in this sense of 'absurd' is what elicited Jean-Paul Sartre's…
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Is Art Political?
Some say that art is inherently political because man, by nature, is a political animal (Aristotle), and humans make art. By that reasoning, everything humans do is political. But if everything from mathematics to entomology to rabbit hunting is political because done by the political animal (zoon politikon), then it doesn't mean much of anything…
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‘Liberals,’ Graffiti, and Art
A 'liberal' is someone who has no problem with the defacing of public and private property with graffiti, which he considers 'art,' while holding that true art is 'racist.'
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Are You a Gray Man?
In contemporary Internet lingo, a gray man is typically a prepper who seeks to be unobtrusive and to blend in. He is 'gray' in that he tries not to call attention to himself, his beliefs, and his stock of guns, ammo, food, and other survival supplies that he hopes will see him and his family…
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Plague in an Ancient City
"Plague in an Ancient City" by Michiel Sweerts (1618-1664 AD) is believed to depict the Plague of Athens (430-427 BC). Oil on canvas. Painted c. 1652-1654 AD. 118.7 cm (46.7 in) x 170.8 cm (67.2 in). (Courtesy of Los Angeles County Museum of Art) Now read the outstanding essay by Victor Davis Hanson, The Scab…
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Is Art Political?
Some say that art is inherently political because man, by nature, is a political animal (Aristotle) and humans make art. By that reasoning, everything humans do is political. But if everything from mathematics to entomology to defecation is political because done by the political animal (zoon politkon), then it doesn't mean much of anything to…
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Islam and the (Destruction of the) Arts
Here: Which brings us back to the arts. Among the things that Islam finds offensive are paintings, statues, mosaics, music, and song. The destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas, and the razing of the Roman temples and arches in Palmyra are just the most recent in a long line of vandalism that stretches back to Muhammad.…
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Decadent Art, Buddhist Statuary, and the Taliban
Our Czech friend, Vlastimil Vohanka, writes: A question: Do you remember the title of your blog post in which you argued, if I recall correctly, that the Taliban damage to the Buddha statues would be evil — or ought not to take place — even if nobody ever got to know about it? I also…
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Maverick Tattoos
I tend to take a dim view of tattoos, seeing them as the graffiti of the human body, and as yet another, perhaps minor, ingredient in the Decline of the West. Christians believe that the body is the temple of the Holy Spirit; they ought to consider whether tattoos deface the temple. But I do…
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Advice for Hollywood Liberals
Robert M. Thornton, ed., Cogitations from Albert Jay Nock (Irvington-on-Hudson: The Nockian Society, 1970), p. 59: If realism means the representation of life as it is actually lived, I do not see why lives which are actually lived on a higher emotional plane are not so eligible for representation as those lived on a lower…
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Et in Arcadia Ego
Death says, "I too am in Arcadia." The contemplation of death, one's own in particular, cures one of the conceit that this life has a meaning absolute and self-contained. Only those who live naively in this world, hiding from themselves the fact of death, flirting with transhumanist arcadian and other utopian fantasies, can accord to this…
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Kitsch King Kinkade Dead
RIP. But if you put a gun to my head and force me to choose between Kinkade and Rothko, I'll go with Kinkade.