Month: April 2010

In my own terms, the proper purposes of art are to help foster the rejection of self pity, to sponsor and model persistence, and to cultivate perception, particularly the ever present possibility of joy and trascendance. The materials that interest me personally most are light, color, and movement, particularly the movement of water.

Many different visions came to me this morning. For example, you could have a clear walled building situated in an advantageous position relative to the sun, filled with glass tubes, through which water is running. What makes water interesting when it moves is not smooth motion, but interrupted motion. This creates all sorts of interesting patterns and shadows, which could be emphasized with the proper type of floor, and perhaps strategically placed walls. You could introduce, in an elaborate cascade of sequenced pipes, different colors. Suddenly the water could turn purple, in a wave; later, yellow; then 5 colors could be introduced in different parts of the room, perhaps coupled with lights at the bottom or tops of the tubes.

I like days when the weather is “moody”, when the clouds are on the move, and the sun is popping in and out. To this arrangement you could add, in addition to natural wind–I see this being open to the elements–bursts of artificial wind, perhaps filled with alternating, interesting odors, like vanilla. In the spirit of Harry Potter, perhaps every so often you could have an unpleasant smell, like cow manure, which would disappear soon enough. Learning to accept the occasional unpleasantness is an essential element in living well. After warning people, you could make the floor purposely uneven, so that some care must be paid to your footing.

I also saw a pyramid of bottles, with water being sprayed on them from above, in which various rainbows would appear often. Perhaps you could have hoses for attendees, so they could spray one another. You could have bright full spectrum lights shining from the floor, so they could create their own rainbows. People could purchase colored waters, and you could have smaller fountains, with narrow tops, on an angle, so they run downhill at say 45 degrees, with many interruptions, and you could pour the colored water on it, and watch it flow. You could make the fountain surface clear, with light underneath, to enhance the effect. Again, the water could have an odor. Every so often it could simply rain, so that everyone got soaked. You would of course warn them of this first.

Mild risk and mild invasions of “abnormality” into your space are cathartic. Consider the act of Gallagher, who would always smash a bunch of watermelons in his act, such that the first few rows got wet. Or the Blue Man group, which as I understand it, has the audience pull a fabric over their heads.

We see often in museums the self destructive rage of the “epater la bourgeoisie”–the desire to “shock the middle class”–that acts out of nothing more creative than self loathing, which leads to resentment of others who are content, anger at them, and ultimately hatred. This is counterproductive. This sort of thing is NOT generative of anything but decline, even if the decline often cloaks itself in the mantle of outwardly progressive rhetoric. The real intent of Communists, always, is to destroy what exists, in favor of something they cannot create. This makes it a nihilistic doctrine, from which no beauty can be expected.

Yet, I do see value in disrupting complacency. In fact, no complacent person can be fully Good, in my own terms. If they are not engaging creatively with life, then they are decaying. The value of art is in supporting this intelligently, and purposefully.

Bon (my view) mot: Morality imposed is morality denied.

It seems to me the principle purpose of morality is the definition of character, which is your identity. An identity is that part of you that persists in the face of storms, setbacks, inconveniences, and all sorts of troubles.

We can accept, with the Buddha, that life is suffering, by which he meant both pain and constant vague dissatisfaction. Meaning is the sense of transcending those things, and of fashioning from them joy and contentment. Morality is a tool in the service of the creation of meaning.

Extending this, all the Buddha really said was “look, you’re all vaguely unhappy, and you accept this because you don’t know any better. I have a better way that solves the problem.” That better way was his particular “technology”, but the whole project arises from the simple recognition of a problem–unnecessarily diminished quality of life–and the realization that solving this problem is possible.

The benefits of his technology–the 8 fold path, which in roughly the same form can be found in all religions–were realizable even for atheists. You did not need another life in an astral body to live better NOW using his ideas. This is the point of morality: it is the pathway to transmuting pain into pleasure. It is the reason we suffer voluntarily, and don’t complain about it.

One could perhaps even speak usefully of “Moral Hedonism”, which is the term one could use for the pleasure that follows living an honorable and ordered life. Even Buddhists readily admit the need for the desire to achieve Enlightenment.

To this, I would contrast “Physical Hedonism”, which rejects all non-physical forms of pleasure, and thereby rejects the possibility of moral transcendence, or the necessity of discomfort in this life. Since this is manifestly a counter-factual position, it leads necessarily to INCREASED suffering and discomfort. That our rates of depression and anxiety disorders have been steadily increasing in the last 100 years can be attributed directly to our general cultural embrace of Physical Hedonism, which of course is the dominant theme in what I term Sybaritic Leftism, or soft Socialism.

When you give your all, and find more, then you have grown.

This is what Niezsche was trying to say with his “What doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger”, but of course I like my version better. N. was someone, in my understanding, who hid from the world while constantly proclaiming his superiority to it.

A proposition which cannot be negated is to logic what a hypothesis which cannot be falsified is to science: a failure of the method.

A complaint we often see from the left is that “real wages” are not rising; that by exporting jobs to China and elsewhere we are causing people’s incomes here not to go up. The reality–well detailed by Henry Hazlitt in his indispensable “Economics in one lesson”–is that we ARE getting wealthier. What is happening is that at the same wage, you can BUY MORE. The average American household today has many things that were undreamt of 30 years ago. Microwaves used to be luxuries, and computers unheard of.

Now, at those same wages (if we even accept this analysis, which I am willing to do in principle since it doesn’t matter) we have MUCH more. We have more furniture, TV’s, stereos, iPods, cars, etc. We take these things for granted, but anyone over 40 remembers three TV stations, and one TV.

The way Capitalism works best is if you let people create. When one industry moves away, new ones are created. When leftist talk about wages, what they are mainly talking about are UNION wages, since they are the ones who help get them elected, and their complaint is that they are not making MORE money for the SAME amount of work. Why would such a thing be possible?

Leftists fear the loss of power of unions, since that is a big part of the money machine that funds them. This entire health insurance take-over cannot be understood without reference to the benefits it provides the UNIONS.

As Hazlitt says, you can always help one group at the expense of another, and always help everyone in the short run, at the expense of the long run. In this particular case, for every person helped by this bill 4 or more will be hurt; and whatever good it does in its first few years will be devastatingly counterbalanced by the debt it will cause, and by the massive disruptions in a system which until now has been the world’s best.

John Stuart Mill’s essay “On Liberty” is an essential text in the Liberal tradition. In it, he defends the necessity of personal autonomy, and the value of individualism. One quote (which I stole from the internet, but which I believe to be in that work, although I cannot quickly find it) that I like is this:

“Eccentricity has always abounded when and where strength of character has abounded; and the amount of eccentricity in a society has generally been proportional to the amount of genius, courage, and mental vigor it has contained.”

One sees efforts by Leftists to paint conservatives as the enemies of originality. In my own town, we have a campaign to “Keep Louisville Weird”, by which they mean we should buy from locally owned, ideosyncratic businesses, rather than patronizing national chains which lack the eccentricity that local control and local relationships makes possible.

Flower children reveled in their “free spirited” rejection of conventional society, as do punk rockers, goths, and others today.

As what I consider to be a genuine Liberal, I find nothing distasteful in diversity. I like it. I like it when people do things differently, and express themselves in their own voices.

What I find distressing is what I perceive to the general LACK of originality of thought that characterizes most of these people. Their non-conformity is external only, and the actual content of their thought is distressingly uniform. They reject traditional moral forms, notions of patriotism, and generally Capitalism generally, conflating it–as they do–with Consumerism.

On this reading, Socialism is a romantic escape from the drudgery of pedestrian conformity. Yet, nothing can be more drearily conformist than a State which tolerates only one set of ideas, which is economically incompetent, and which punishes ideological deviations. Cuba is a nation which should be happy, but which lives in constant fear of running afoul of the secret police and army of informers that are everywhere.

In my piece on Sybaritic Leftism, I did admit that the Scandinavian nations offer an attractive set of ideas, but the problem with them is that in their pursuit of simple hedonism, they leave no room for the persistence of principled difference, and in practice one sees them giving in to whatever group screams the loudest.

The true eccentric is a man or woman of sturdy principles, who hews to them even in the face of adversity. If no one is opposing you, it can hardly be an act of courage to be different. Rather, that type of non-conformity is little better than stylistic narcissism.

Americans in general have less of a commitment to one another than we might if we were in a tribe, but we have most of that sense. Most of us are willing to give our lives for this nation, which is to say for one another.

We have developed a generous attitude towards the world and one another. We need to remember how rare this is in human history, that a major power would be so tolerant, and so reluctant to use for our own immediate benefit the immense power we wield.

This is the direct result of the Enlightenment inspired enterprise that animated our Founding Fathers, which rested firmly on Christian charity.

Broadly speaking, our political arena offers us two options: doing what we’ve always done, respecting the Constitution, and free markets, and privileging religious commitment and our heritage; and implementing Socialism.

Now, we have been programmed since birth to believe in Progress, but you can’t progress if you keep doing what you have always done. Progress, as a theme, involves change. Logically, this is a powerful tool, then, in the arsenal of the Socialists, since they are the only ones saying they want to do something different.

Yet, regression is also change, and it seems to me that Socialism is actually a reversion to the aristocratic feudalism of the Middle Ages, without the palliative effect of the Church. Prices were fixed then, “just” wages were paid then, and the Kings would make sure everyone was fed, if they could.

We need a third way. Clearly, adherence to religious sentiment is declining, due particularly to the advent of Science as the preeminent and dominant source of Truth. Yet, regardless of what Leftist attacks on religion may claim, the reality is that our nation has always relied on religion to provide the moral compass that enabled us to be actually tolerant of diversity, and to do the right thing, even when it was hard and involved sacrifice. Self evidently, religion played a large role in Abolitionism, and in the Civil Rights movement, among other areas of social evolution.

The third way, in my view is a Liberalism denuded of a NECESSARY religious component. This is the political role that I foresee for the concept of Goodness. I have nowhere defined in detail what exactly it is we MUST do. Everything is up for discussion. My only absolutes are that self pity must be rejected; that we must persist in our efforts to improve the world; and that we must make strenuous efforts to be wise, to foresee the effects of our ideas, and to understand that sometimes NOTHING need be done. There is no pain that cannot be transmuted into understanding, and there is no point in creating a world in which pain is banished.

Our only choice is in how we choose to suffer. This sounds maudlin, but in reality for those who accept it, suffering isn’t. If you want to feel alive, take a risk. If you want to become tranquil in mind and spirit, voluntarily undertake a difficult task, and give it everything you have.

Socialists are willing to suffer for their Socialism, are they not? Are full time revolutionaries not passionately commited to their cause? Do we not see romantic evocations of the trials and travails of Reds everywhere, for example in the movie Reds?

Socialism serves this role–that of providing meaning–for revolutionaries. The problem is that this sense of purpose is not transferable. When they succeed, they have nothing left. The people on whose behalf they presume to speak, do not attain–in whatever material repose is enabled by their economic incompetence–a feeling of being alive. On the contrary, unless they themselves become revolutionaries, they find it oppressive and empty, because it is. It is a fire that burns, and if it ever engulfs our planet, it will consume to the last drop every hope of transcendance we might have had. At least, that will be its goal.

In that uses the method of stoking resentment, of rejecting traditional moral norms, and cultural forms, and in that it demands dogmatic conformity to ideas generated far, far away, Socialism is the antithesis of Goodness as I have defined it.

It is evil, in my view, and no quantity of lies can erase this fact.

Most men, it seems to me, occasionally covet other women, no matter how loving their wives or girlfriends might be. We are presented–in movies, particularly–with bright shining images of beautiful, emotionally engaged women who seem to possess something that we lack. Or we are presented, in pornography, with sexually available women who will do anything we want.

Everywhere there is this bright shining lie–if I may borrow a term from a liar–that over the hill, happiness awaits. In contrast, what we have comes to seem dull and dreary. This is the myth that leads many middle-aged men into what can become the crisis of infidelity.

It seems to me, though, that all of these images subtract from the particularity of the women. They have needs, they have desires, they have bad days, they get grouchy. And at an increasingly early point in their lives, many women become cynics. Subjected to objectification from a very early age, it seems to me most women fall in love once in their teens, and a second time, if they are lucky, some time in their twenties. After that, they are spent. They have risked, and lost, to men who had been conditioned by a relentless media advocacy campaign to view sex as an object, not a type of emotionally involved relationship.

Clearly, the biological imperatives of men differ from those of women, but we both need love. This doesn’t change. And one of the principle arguments against the sexual revolution in the 60’s was that it would lower women to the standards of men, which seems to have happened.

So quite often what we have is objects interacting with objects. This is what you have when there is no genuine affection. This is the logic of oral sex, for men at least, in that you have a power relationship, and are freed from the need to look in anyone’s eyes with affection.

Women, it seems to me, come into their relationships with men in their teens with very glowing hopes. They feel love, and think that love is being given back to them, and so readily surrender their bodies. And most of the time, they are betrayed.

What is lacking in this whole process is creation. In order to love, you must exist as a person first. You must understand that you must be able to resist your own most primal impulses, so that you can connect on higher levels with other people. A lover is just a friend with whom you have consummated the deepest level–not of physical–but emotional intimacy. Women think they can get love with sex, but in general they don’t. They get used, then abandoned when they become “clingy”. This drives some women crazy. You see them in middle age, in constant pain, unable to understand why no one wants them, and becoming steadily less attractive as this frustration eats them. This is the “crazy bitch” that men can’t comprehend. What they are seeing is 20 years of emotional abandonment, and emotional silence, tempered only by the companionship of their female friends.

Creation, here, is adding energy to the system. It is deciding to give first, then receive later. Women do this easily when young, and very poorly after getting stung repeatedly. Men, in our society, do this very poorly.

I do not think I am misstating the facts when I say that there was a time in the not too distant past when men would court women. When they would offer up effort to win them, and offer unconditional loyalty, having done so. When they would serenade them, figuratively or literally. When poetry evoked deep sentiment, and when women were considered special, and their tenderness and sensitivity valued.

So often, now, women are seen simply as sexual objects, and on this view there is no major difference between heterosexuality and homosexuality. One orifice, by and large, is as good as another. The emotional quality is the same: that of two animals in heat, bound only by desire, and who for that reason only stay together until that particular passion is spent.

And when emotions do enter into it, when people “fall in love”, what is happening is that one person is asking another to “complete” them, as in Jerry McGuire. If you don’t know who you are, and find someone who can tell you, that is the person you love. But this, too, is compulsive. If you need that other person, in order that you can exist as a person, then you can never see them as they are. You never complete them.

Many women will settle for being needed, but this is far short of love, and will lead to chronic levels of emotional malnourishment. This has been the lot of countless women over the ages.

By and large, though, what I see on our cultural scene as it exists today is everyone searching for someone to complete them, and never quite finding it. They search and search. Momentarily they may find someone, but wind up rejecting them as not enough.

People want someone to tell them who they are. No one is creating. There is leveling process where no one is creating anything. Practically, this gets expressed as women want money, men want good sex with attractive women. Marriage becomes a de facto business proposition, particularly after the “starter marriage” in their twenties.

Yet, there is nowhere to run when no one is adding anything. Everybody is looking for soemething and not finding it. Dissatisfaction is everywhere.

You can’t find yourself if you don’t exist, and you won’t exist until you create yourself, by determining what you stand for, and what you are willing to suffer for; what your unique brand of Goodness will be.

Expressed poltically, this is the problem of socialism: it reallocates wealth, it doesn’t create it. This is the point Ayn Rand wanted to make. Everything, in the end, depends on people who put out more energy than they consume, who take nothing and make something.

The outcome of a lack of individuation is a lack of love, which leads to alienation, which leads to frustration, which leads to anger and violence. Any loveless sex for a women is a type of cruelty. Men need love as much as women, perhaps more. Everyone is losing.

These musings are not yet as tight as I would like them to be, but will have to do for now. More on this later. When I understand something, I can be concise. I’m not there yet.

Fashion is really a type of art. It’s a way of interacting with your environment in a creative and engaged way. Obviously, most people don’t create their own clothes, but there are so many options to choose from, you have the ability to assemble something that is uniquely you and yours.

The use of your personal space in this way is an external reflection of inner realities. To echo a similar point Theodore Dalrymple made in one of his essays, the extent of your congruence with social conventions is reflected in how you present yourself.

Everyone wants to be an individual, but no one wants to be alone, and when you see people flouting social conventions–as in the ironic use of military clothing by rumpled hippies–you generally see them doing it in groups.