Art, Philosophy and propaganda

[h_k_s]

Whenever I consider art and/or esthetics, I harken to the caves at Altamira in Spain. This is the earliest art that we know of in pre-history. Such art, in dark caves, suggest that it was done as part of a ritual. Probably a hunting ritual, and probably for young boys just starting to hunt with the adult hunters of the tribe. In this case, the art was religious.

Art as a part of religion is extensive in Europe and Asia. Statues of gods and prophets are a popular theme. First Zeus in Europe and Buddha in Asia, then on to Mary and Jesus in Europe as well. The great cathedrals are artistic in their design, as were the Greek and Roman and Egyptian temples anciently.

What does it all mean? It seems to denote reverence.

There are obviously all sorts of other types of art, some of which does not seem very artistic.

But for openers, I believe that art was created for the sake of reverence in religion.

This gives me pause as I consider Bertrand Russell's edict, to keep philosophy, religion, and science separate, at all times.

Nobody knows what rituals were performed in the caves at Altamira. I've been to Altamira, but the cave was closed to the public (carbon dioxide from people's breath harms the art). The cave art at nearby Tito Bustillo was still open then (several years ago, it's closed now, I think) and the art there was magnificent. You had to walk a half mile or so into the cave to reach it. Who knows what rites may have engendered the art, or what art may have engendered rites? (The art in Altamira is 35,000 years old, in Tito Bustillo 12,000.)

In preliterate societies the differentiation between religion and other facets of culture is generally indistinct. We differentiate between "myth" and "history", for example. Oral story tellers would often use one word for both. How could there be Gods without stories? Why would the stories be a product of religion, instead of the other way around?

The separation of science, art, religion and philosophy is a modern one. In Europe and Asia, religious art is probably the result of the importance of religion in the emotional life of artists, and the fact that the Church had the money to commission art, cathedrals, etc.

In cultural anthropology there is a "school" called the myth-ritual school which insists that rituals preceded myths, and myths developed to explain the rituals. This makes sense in that may animals that lack language practice rituals (mating rituals, etc.). Clearly, they don't tell stories (myths) about them. The modern preoccupation with myth (especially among American Protestants) obfuscates the importance of other aspects of religion

And … ?

Were you going to make a point from all this about your original question pertaining to the interplay of philosophy with propaganda etc.? I did not see a point.

Too bad about not being able to go into and see the caves. I had heard that they had been closed for some time now.

[Terrapin Station]

I would not describe art that way. To me, the sole point of art is to express emotion/feeling, and it does not need to be beauty -- it can actually be quite ugly. Whether it is music, dance, painting/drawing, architecture, writing, poetry, or even fashion, it all expresses some feeling or emotion. Art is how we communicate our feelings and emotions.

As someone who is primarily a formalist, the feelings/emotions I care about with art are aesthetic feelings/emotions, or feelings/emotions engendered by formal properties of the work in question, which aren't anything like general feelings and emotions.

[Ecurb]

Because art is an expression of emotion, art is very believable. Most people don't think about and study emotion, but I do, and one of the things that I have learned about it is that we believe our emotions. We trust our emotions, so if someone was jerking on our emotional heart strings while spouting their philosophy, it could be very effective.

Gee

This is close to Tolstoy's opinion expressed in "What is Art".

As far as the relationship between art, philosophy and religion is concerned, myth is a form of (oral) literature, so the relationship works both ways: art is often devotional and designed to stump for religious principles; and religion is (to an extent) an artistic creation. "Religion" departments at universities are among the Humanities. Philosophy is sometimes more logical than artistic, but someone like Nietzsche blurs the distinction. Were the cave paintings created as part of a religious ritual, or created due to some imitative or artistic impulse, and incorporated into ritual later? We can't know.

All art engenders emotions as the result of its "form". Music (without words) is almost purely formal (the notes are significant in relation to each other). Claude Levi-Strauss (the structuralist anthropologist) argued that music was thus the perfect art form, separated from the "meanings" which the addition of words adds. I suppose, though, that it's possible that some (wordless) music (religious, patriotic, etc.) could still be propagandizing, designed to engender emotions that promote a particular cause.

[Sculptor1]

Art for art's sake is a common mantra. The sole point of art is to create “beauty” (whatever that is).

Since "art" is not a conscious agent, and has no intrinsic purpose; art cannot have a "sake".
So the mantra, like so many other mantras is without meaning.

I'm inclined to agree. Except that it seems that many of our greatest literary artists are motivated philosophically. They seek to propagandize for their point of view, and often do so successfully.

Art cannot be said to have a "sole purpose" either. And that purpose would certainly not be the creation of beauty. So much art is anti-beauty. And the artist is often trying to shock, revolt, or even horrify. But just making you think, or react is not best achieved by creating something beautiful.

Included in the number of specifically propagandizing prose writers are: Leo Tolstoy, George Orwell, G.B. Shaw, Sinclair Lewis, John Steinbeck,
C.S. Lewis, Rudyard Kipling and many, many more.

I'm struggling through the blancmange of literature to find the duck of beauty within from this list.

Many of these writers wrote not only works of fiction, but also works of philosophy. In “War and Peace”, Tolstoy inserts chapters of pure philosophy, only tangentially related to the story.

So, honestly... You've read it through, yes?

He also wrote a long epilogue of pure philosophy. G.B. Shaw wrote long phiolsophical introductions to many of his plays. Even Oscar Wilde – famous for his art for art's sake position – wrote a philosophic introduction to “The Picture of Dorian Gray”.

No doubt about these two. Wilde could write for fun, better than Shaw, who always had a message.

Nor is poetry exempt. Dante, Milton, Chaucer, et. al. are famous for stumping for their world view.

Perhaps Tolstoy's antipathy for Shakespeare's plays derives from the fact that Shakespeare was the least propagandizing of great writers (although Hamlet and Lear do some philosophizing on their own).

In the case of “War and Peace”, Tolstoy's anti-great-man philosophy of history is supported so well by the (fictional) action of the novel that it is almost universally persuasive (although, after finishing the book we might have a more sober view of the philosophy). What do people here thing of the relationship between philosophy, fiction, and propaganda?

Philosophy is the port, fiction is the beer, and propaganda is the coca-cola.

[Ecurb]

So, honestly... You've read it through, yes?

At least twice (I've read parts of it more often). War and Peace is not a difficult novel (like Ulysses). It is long. Anyone who hasn't read it should (if he or she has any interest in literature). Maybe Anna Karenina is a more perfectly structured novel, but it isn't as much fun (especially if the reader is in love with Anna, as I was). The only negative about War and Peace is that it starts slowly (unlike Anna, which starts with a bang).

Obviously, art has no purpose. The artist has, however. If we say the purpose of this piece of propaganda is x, the idiom is generally understood.

Wilde often promoted messages through his literature. Look at is children's stories, like "The Selfish Giant" or "The Happy Prince". "The Ballad of Reading Gaol" could thought of as propagandizing, as well. Shaw's plays were all message oriented; I haven't read that much of his famous music criticism.

You can't find beauty in the works of the authors I listed? Huh? Kipling was a famous poet, who wrote any number of moving, beautiful poems ("If" not included), as just one example. Read "On the Road to Mandalay" or "Danny Deever".

[Terrapin Station]

So, honestly... You've read it through, yes?

At least twice (I've read parts of it more often). War and Peace is not a difficult novel (like Ulysses). It is long. Anyone who hasn't read it should (if he or she has any interest in literature). Maybe Anna Karenina is a more perfectly structured novel, but it isn't as much fun (especially if the reader is in love with Anna, as I was). The only negative about War and Peace is that it starts slowly (unlike Anna, which starts with a bang).

Obviously, art has no purpose. The artist has, however. If we say the purpose of this piece of propaganda is x, the idiom is generally understood.

Wilde often promoted messages through his literature. Look at is children's stories, like "The Selfish Giant" or "The Happy Prince". "The Ballad of Reading Gaol" could thought of as propagandizing, as well. Shaw's plays were all message oriented; I haven't read that much of his famous music criticism.

You can't find beauty in the works of the authors I listed? Huh? Kipling was a famous poet, who wrote any number of moving, beautiful poems ("If" not included), as just one example. Read "On the Road to Mandalay" or "Danny Deever".

Ulysses is difficult because it's horrible.

War and Peace would interest me if it were about werewolves or a serial killer or something like that.

[Ecurb]

Ulysses is difficult because it's horrible.

War and Peace would interest me if it were about werewolves or a serial killer or something like that.

Ulysses IS horrible: needlessly obscure, self indulgent, and pretentious. However, it is also delectable, fascinating and filled with wonders. You call yourself a "formalist"? Ulysses should be right up your alley. It's like a puzzle that has multiple answers, all of them correct, and all of them solvable only through labyrinthine wanderings.

I like Werewolves, but the subtle touch of realism can be exciting, too, in its own quiet way. “Poldy” Bloom is as fallible a man as ever lived, a lascivious daydreamer, but he is good at the heart. While crossing one of Dublin's bridges, he crumples up a piece of paper and throws it over, wondering if the seagulls will think it's bread. Of course they don’t, but a few moments later Poldy feels sorry for those birds, feels ashamed to have tried to deceive them, and buying a couple of cakes from a nearby stall, returns to the bridge and feeds the gulls for real.

You can't do that and NOT be a good man. Here's to you, Poldy! Erin go Braugh! (I love that ind of stuff!)

To each his own, though. I certainly wouldn't suggest anyone read novels if he doesn't enjoy them. Some worthwhile tastes cannot be acquired without some effort, though. It's just a question of whether one wants to expend one's efforts in that particular direction. War and Peace (for any interested readers) is NOT difficult (well, it's emotionally difficult at times, and it is long).

[Sculptor1]

So, honestly... You've read it through, yes?

At least twice (I've read parts of it more often). War and Peace is not a difficult novel (like Ulysses). It is long. Anyone who hasn't read it should (if he or she has any interest in literature). Maybe Anna Karenina is a more perfectly structured novel, but it isn't as much fun (especially if the reader is in love with Anna, as I was). The only negative about War and Peace is that it starts slowly (unlike Anna, which starts with a bang).

I've done my share of Dostoevsky, but I found "War and Peace" a bit to pedestrian, and the endless barrage of characters with multiple Russia names of characters, I found no cause with, a bit too dull to make me hold that tome. I should have bought a cheap copy and torn it into three sections to more easily read the lump.
But life is too short. I've seen two excellent BBC productions of it and doubt that any reading of the book is going to add to that.

Obviously, art has no purpose. The artist has, however. If we say the purpose of this piece of propaganda is x, the idiom is generally understood.

Wilde often promoted messages through his literature. Look at is children's stories, like "The Selfish Giant" or "The Happy Prince". "The Ballad of Reading Gaol" could thought of as propagandizing, as well. Shaw's plays were all message oriented; I haven't read that much of his famous music criticism.

Tell me what great message is in The Importance of Being Ernest?

You can't find beauty in the works of the authors I listed? Huh?

I did not say that.
I do wish people on this Forum would actually read what is written.
Let me repeat "Art cannot be said to have a "sole purpose" either. And that purpose would certainly not be the creation of beauty. So much art is anti-beauty."
I might as well ask you -" HUH? DID YOU NOT FIND ANYTHING UGLY?". You are committed the sin of hyperbole and exaggeration. Nothing as great as "art" can be said to have a sole purpose.

Kipling was a famous poet, who wrote any number of moving, beautiful poems ("If" not included), as just one example. Read "On the Road to Mandalay" or "Danny Deever".

The Road to Mandalay has great ugliness in it.
Comparing a dusky Mandalayan prostitute to London's 'ousemaids whores.
You find that beautiful?

[Terrapin Station]

Ulysses IS horrible: needlessly obscure, self indulgent, and pretentious. However, it is also delectable, fascinating and filled with wonders. You call yourself a "formalist"? Ulysses should be right up your alley.

But formally it sucks in my opinion. Formalism doesn't imply that aesthetic judgments aren't subjective. It says that one makes aesthetic judgments based on formal properties. Again, in my case, I'm primarily a formalist, but I also have subject matter preferences when it comes to fictions (novels, films, etc.) and visual art.

Formally, Ulysses sucks in my opinion, and I'm not at all interested in its subject matter--it's not at all my preferences on either end.

If you like something about it, that's great. I'm a hardcore subjectivist/noncognitivist on this. Our aesthetic judgments aren't something we can be correct or incorrect about. They're simply how we feel towards the work in question. Different people feel different ways.

I like Werewolves, but the subtle touch of realism can be exciting, too, in its own quiet way.

I wouldn't say there are no realist works I like, but I'm not a fan of realism in general, exacerbated by the fact that there are so many people who are that they often influence artists to kowtow to them. That's frustrating to those of us who like the fantastical and imaginative for the fantastical and imaginative's sake.

[Terrapin Station]

I'm also a bit of a formalist when it comes to philosophy, by the way. A big part of the reason that I tend to hate continentalism, postmodernism, poststructuralism, etc. is due to the formal properties of the writing of continental, postmodernist, poststructuralist authors. Formally, in my opinion, philosophy should be written as clearly and concisely as possible. The further that philosophical writing moves away from that, the more of a problem I have with it, regardless of whether I agree with the view being expressed. Philosophy is done via literature. Style of expression is important. Hence why there have been literal "bad academic writing" awards given out in the past (unfortunately the annual "accolade" seems to be inactive at the moment).

[Ecurb]

But life is too short. I've seen two excellent BBC productions of it and doubt that any reading of the book is going to add to that.

You're not alone, Sculptor. Billions of your fellow humans prefer watching TV to reading.

Tell me what great message is in The Importance of Being Ernest?

Is that a trick question? The audience, like Jack Worthing, learns the importance of being Earnest.

The Road to Mandalay has great ugliness in it.
Comparing a dusky Mandalayan prostitute to London's 'ousemaids whores.
You find that beautiful?

Yes, I do, although there's no indication in the poem that the 'ousemaids are whores, or even that the Burmese girl is a prostitute (although that might be a more reasonable assumption). Is it impossible for prostitutes to be beautiful? How about flying fishes, or the dawn coming up like thunder ? Or is it just that you can't imagine any white man finding a "dusky" girl attractive? (Are Burmese girls "dusky", or is that simply a racist descriptor for all "wogs"?)

[Sculptor1]

But life is too short. I've seen two excellent BBC productions of it and doubt that any reading of the book is going to add to that.

You're not alone, Sculptor. Billions of your fellow humans prefer watching TV to reading.

Just because I did not finish W&P does not mean I prefer TV.
Have you seen W&P on TV? The 1972 version starred the young Anthony Hopkins as Bezukhov, before he was famous. He demonstrated his exquisite skill in performance.
Acting is an art in itself. Don't knock it.

Tell me what great message is in The Importance of Being Ernest?

Is that a trick question? The audience, like Jack Worthing, learns the importance of being Earnest.

Um... Exactly!

The Road to Mandalay has great ugliness in it.
Comparing a dusky Mandalayan prostitute to London's 'ousemaids whores.
You find that beautiful?

Yes, I do, although there's no indication in the poem that the 'ousemaids are whores, or even that the Burmese girl is a prostitute (although that might be a more reasonable assumption). Is it impossible for prostitutes to be beautiful? How about flying fishes, or the dawn coming up like thunder ? Or is it just that you can't imagine any white man finding a "dusky" girl attractive? (Are Burmese girls "dusky", or is that simply a racist descriptor for all "wogs"?)

If you think this poem is about free love, then you are naive and stupid.

[Ecurb]

If you think this poem is about free love, then you are naive and stupid.

Actually, I think the poem is about the romance of memory, and of strangeness, and of the call of the East. Whatever Supi-yaw-lat's profession, the soldier remembers her as " neater, sweeter maiden in a cleaner, greener land!"

And he would probably punch you if he heard you call her a "dusky Mandalayan prostitute".

[harrisonriley72]

These 3 things are certainly intertwined. Fiction and art have long been used as tools of authors and artists to make a point. On the other hand, I certainly believe art for art's sake exists. Additionally, we shouldn't view propagandist art as completely separate from art for art's sake because maybe there's an element of beauty in philosophy. Maybe the artist is representing some fundamental nature of humanity by including their own opinion within their art. Overall, I think art, philosophy, and fiction are kind of messily entangled, with several odd overlaps.

Moreover, I think you could even view art for art's sake as a form of propaganda, though not really philosophical propaganda. You can just think of it as the artist attempting to indoctrinate his audience with his idea of what beauty is. Like you said, nobody really "knows" what beauty is, so art for art's sake is an attempt to explore what beauty is. When an artist releases a work, he's arguing that it falls under the classification of "beautiful."

[Sculptor1]

If you think this poem is about free love, then you are naive and stupid.

Actually, I think the poem is about the romance of memory, and of strangeness, and of the call of the East. Whatever Supi-yaw-lat's profession, the soldier remembers her as " neater, sweeter maiden in a cleaner, greener land!"

And he would probably punch you if he heard you call her a "dusky Mandalayan prostitute".

Yet prostitute she surely was. Your problem is that you are reading it from your rosy eyed view. You have no idea what the poem is about.
DO you really think that the girls of Mandalay had the freedom to date a soldier of the British Empire?? What a joke!
Respectable girls had the protection of their families. Courting was formal.