December 20, 2000
Re: Roger, Marco and Platt, Where does Art fit in the MOQ?
Thanks to all three for your interesting posts, which I read thoroughly and
took some days to digest. I summarize your positions below and hope I
understood correctly and this makes a contribution.
In asking “Where does Art fit?” Roger and Marco give different answers to
the question: Should we assign Art to a level by its intention/method, or
by its effect?
Roger says: by its method. Art is not Intellectual because it doesn’t use
logic, rationality, etc.
Marco says: by its effect. Art is Intellectual because it can give a person
insights into reality that rationality cannot.
Discussion:
There are four definitions of art. Platt provided the dictionary
definitions, which are substantially the same as the ones I wrote. “Art” in
common language can mean a) the fine arts, b) craft/skill, c) the attempt
by a person to create “art”, and d) the successful (beautiful) creation of
art. Marco is referring only to sense (d), which is successful art. He is
saying that good art can give a person insights into reality that
rationality cannot. Good art enriches perception, allows a person to think
about new things, etc.
This is true and critically important for an understanding of Intellect.
But… is unsuccessful art Intellectual? It is not Intellectual because it
has no effect. And what about craft/skill, where DQ comes in accidentally,
or is a secondary reason for creation of the object? These objects can be
“art” but they have no effect on Intellect.
If you say, next, “Well, I want to judge art by its intention/method” then
you agree with Roger, that intention/method is the way to categorize art.
I put intention and method together. Why? The intention of art, as I see
it, is to either a) shake people up (bring DQ) or b) show the DQ in an
existing situation. The method is to focus on the production of beauty
without utility. But what is beauty? Beauty is a result of our perception
of a high-quality experience. We can perceive beauty at any of the four
levels. (From this fact I assume that Art can occur at any of the four levels.)
So the intention of art is to bring or show DQ, and the method is a focus
on the production of high-quality experience. It seems to me that intention
and method are both essential to the definition of art and that therefore I
agree with Roger, that Art should be separate from Intellect.
Then, should Art be a higher level, or something that exists along all the
dimensions? Or, as I proposed, a level above the Social that is separate
but equal to Intellect?
But first, where to fit the other definitions of art: the fine arts and
art=craft/skill? The fine arts are a topic or field that includes all the
attempts by artists; “the fine arts” are an artifact of language that isn’t
important to this discussion. What about art=craft/skill? Art here is
secondary to some other work. I would argue that Einstein, in this sense,
is an artist. Beauty/harmony are produced but that was not the person’s
primary intention.
Art=craft/skill is a problem if we want to create an Art level above the
Intellectual level. Because an Art level above the Intellectual level would
imply that the Intellectual level created Art for its own purposes, but Art
broke away and started organizing reality for its own purposes.
Historically, that is not true. The fine artsart with no functional
purposeare new. The fine arts began to exist around the time the
Intellectual level came into existence, and beauty was no longer were tied
to religion. The fine arts are a product of secularization, and also of
surplus wealth. Most of what we recognize as art throughout history has
been craft art: textiles, religious statues, jewelry, manuscript
illustrations, etc.
So I don’t see how Art can be above Intellect.
But what about Art as a parallel development to Intellect, both above the
Social level?
Let’s look at the relationship of Art to Intellect. We know:
The experience of art can have an effect on a person’s Intellectual
patterns. And Intellectual patterns can affect an artist’s decisions
throughout the process of making art. Both of these relationships are
“apples and oranges”; I feel that Intellect and Art are two completely
different kinds of patterns (even with Marco’s good point in mind). They
seem more different from each other than an ecosystem seems from a tree
(both are Biological, but the ecosystem is much more advancedanother post
someday). Neither Art nor Intellect can dominate each other.
So Art and Intellect are different, but Art can’t be above Intellect.
Art can’t be below Intellect.
So Art is either on the dimensions, or parallel to Intellect.
If Art is a way of understanding the world, and communicating DQ, and is
unique to humans, and has the same kind of social effects as Intellect, it
seems to me that it should equivalent to Intellect. Therefore I see Art and
Intellect as twin developments from the Social level.
Can a pattern be both Artistic and Intellectual? Not exactly. We could say:
There is symmetry for bad but not for good. All bad Art is not Intellectual
and all bad Intellectual patterns are not Artistic. But--all good
Intellectual patterns (product of craft) have Artistic merit, but not all
good Art has an influence on Intellect.
Thus, we suspect that in fact Art might be ABOVE Intellect, because all
good Intellectual patterns are Artistic but not vice versa.
How to solve this paradox? What is the relationship of the twins?
Here is my answer:
Artas a byproduct of craft/skill--developed early in human history. It was
the first way of showing DQ in order to control it (cave paintings), and,
perhaps, to worship it. The four levels for most of human history were
Inorganic Biological Social Art. The Intellectual level did not exist
until the end of the bicameral mind (see Julian Jaynes’s great book “The
Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind”.). Once the
Intellectual level was created, it tried to take over and rationalize all
the social arrangements based on religion and custom. To do so, it had to
understand the world, and science (as a study) was born, and the
methodology of rational thought. The Intellect does not want to admit how
much it is influenced by emotion, Art, social considerations, etc. because
it is jealous for its methodology.
Art, the older twin, continues to work at all four levels (including
Intellect) through craft/skill. But her feet were cut out from under her by
the fall from bicameralism, and the fine arts are the result. They are
optional. They do not matter to us in the same way that Art does to people
for whom it is inseparable from “the way we live.”
(Warning: Personification ahead. What I mean is, the person who is acting
in the particular mode at the time)
Art cannot shut down Intellect. But Art sees that Intellect cannot do what
Art does, and also that Intellect has limits that it usually refuses to
recognize. On the other hand, Intellect looks at Art suspiciously because
Art plays by different rules. Intellect moves ahead at systematizing Social
patterns, while Art still works on a smaller scale at changing Social
patterns, but not systematically, and with less influence. They agree to
let each other coexistthere’s nothing else they can do.
Is DQ directly above both Art and Intellect, or do they each generate
different levels that are below DQ? I can imagine a day when all
Intellectual patterns are controlled by a super-Intellectual ideology that
does not allow Intellect any power. (Like the rulers of Brave New World,
who control Intellectual DQ). For Art, no. Right now they are both directly
under DQ.
Danila
----------------
Postscript
Marco wrote:
ART is the skill of cRreaTing sq from DQ. But also, it's the skill to
perfect and preserve sq, by means of RiTual activities.
Danila:
You make a good point, that when DQ becomes sq it is because sq is “good.”
But this happens spontaneously all the time without Art. Art is different
from a tree that grows a new branch because it lost the old branch in a
storm (sq in response to DQ).
We can call this “good” that organisms perceive “RT”. Maybe it is the
origin of “arete”! But Art is a human activity and I think it should be
considered separately from RT. (Though Art can generate RT).
Again you are focusing on the effect--perfecting and preserving sq rather
than on the method, which is “revealing DQ.” The two approaches are
compatible, but I think the approach using its method/intention to define
Art is more productive, because it allows for bad results and
unintentionally good results as well as good results.
Danila
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