Fallow said:
Some might consider the cultural and social value as the single measurement of how "good" art is.
Fair play to them, though I've never met anyone who's
actually that myopic.
Art is ill-defined and means a lot of different things to a lot of different people - It's use in arguments is therefor limited.
I hugely disagree, but I'll address that next:
To you maybe. Some consider it to be old pictures of horses, and they are just as correct.
---which was in reply to me saying
Art reflects who and what we are; the past, the present, and the possible futures - it is a conduit for all these things. .
Yes, they are as subjectively correct as I am subjectively correct about preferring Joanna Newsom to [insert musical artist I don't like]. Pure taste and perception. But the totality of art throughout history? That is something else entirely. Why does 'art' exist? What does it achieve? Is it all just white noise? Does it have no broader relevance to existentialism through the ages?
The creation reflects the creator, and ostensibly a creator creates to express, to understand themselves more, and to seek to understand the world and their place within it better. Even if there is no conscious intent in something, it reflects the creator and the era in which it was created. What can be
discerned from that varies wildly, of course, but that's why art historians and critics exist (one could define art as a grand experiment in collective self-reflexivity).
To get no further than 'art means different things to different people' is to surely be blind to all the connective elements that stretch back through the ages, that reveal art has served specific functions from then to now. Culture and era refashions it, but there is a
universality of human experience that allows you or I to intimately and profoundly connect to a poem, a play, a painting, or a building from another culture and another time. Art functions as a means to explore the human condition.
(btw, I use the term art to include high, low, middle, the whole lot. the new Star Wars film connects to the human experience just as a Terrence Malick film might - they simply approach universal themes and/or stories from wildly different angles, and escapism is clearly the greater bias of mainstream pop-culture. both are relative to each other, and their merit is 'equal' in the grand scheme of things as they service different needs)
Art can never be logical, and 'essential' is very subjective. Some will care a great deal, others will not care at all.
I'll try to clarify my usage: Google-flavoured synonyms are
crucial, necessary, key, vital, indispensable, all-important, critical, etc. Art is not consciously necessary or vital to an individual - but it clearly is 'essential', as in of-the-essence, in human experience across thousands of years of history and culture. It is, quite demonstrably, a part of our species.
If art is expression, it can indeed be harmful. Why do you think repressive regimes go to so much trouble to prohibit free expression?
That's a fine point, but this veers into chicken-and-egg territory. I was specifically talking about progressive or liberal values. Yes, they
can be a threat - to institutions averse to evolution and change. However, what came first as a thorn in a control-happy repressive regimes side? The pesky progressive
art? Or the pesky progressive yearning in the downtrodden/controlled?
Is art reflective of natural shifts in a society or culture? That's a bigger, broader topic that's more or less impossible to determine.
So, I'll concede that point; art may be feared, as it can reflect a (not
the) will of a people - but only the most hostile and suspiciously inclined regimes should ever fear its own flock (governements and institutions are supposed to serve the people, not the other way around). To other cultures more inclined to adaptation, art is simply natural expression (a conduit for social paradigms, a vent for frustration/doubt, etc) and so a creative response will generally reflect that.
I'd argue a liberal and progressive culture should be able to absorb relative 'threats' to it, e.g. overtly nationalist or religious dogma (be it expressed creatively or politically). In this respect, the West is a fair ways off being an exemplar of that ideal, as it is still decidedly insecure about its own hoped-for/perceived moral highground (denying platforms for certain expressions of opinions isn't an adaptive, progressive solution or response).
If art cannot be a threat to anything, how can it be 'destructively' myopic?
In that context I meant destructive to the self (anger, hate, and prejudice can unconsciously define a creators work, f'instance). As for cultural threats, I conceded that point above.
Art is subjective but you have now defined what it represents 'broadly speaking' for the entire world?
Which was in response to me saying---
it exists out of a desire and willingness for diverse, inclusive expression and connection. Yes, and I reasonably and logically stand by the statement; a creator of art or culture that validates and justifies, say, persecution or some horrific social model is seeking to connect to like-minded souls in the world. That is
their inclusive expression and connection. Birds of a feather flock together, would be a fairly blunt simplification of the idea. Very few creators create in or
for a vacuum.
Do some? Yes, but art has always been as social as it is individually existential - music or a creative sentiment which no one else experiences has no effect on anyone but the creator. It is thus devoid of context, devoid of being assimilated and transformed. Artists always create for themselves to some extent (to explore their own perspective, styles, techniques, as a private outlet or experimentation, and so on), but they almost always share their work with the rest of the world as well.[footnote]The English folk maverick/genius, Nick Drake, struggled to connect to his modest audiences in his lifetime, and never found recognition or a place in the musical/cultural landscape in his lifetime. Yet despite his almost isolationist nature he still persevered - sometimes in the dead of night, ostensibly by himself - to record his work in studios.
What drove him to endure his anxieties and leave a [literal] record of his thoughts and feelings?[/footnote]
You might do this, but you don't speak for every human being on the planet (or 80% since we are talking about humans). Far from everyone places importance in whatever this "art" is you're talking about, and far from everyone needs continuous re-affirmation from "empathizing" people.
It doesn't matter if someone doesn't consciously create what might be defined as 'art' - all human beings seek to understand their place in the universe in their own way, as well as connect to other - usually like-minded - people. Art is just a more overt expression of that component of what it means to be a self-aware human.
But that is exactly the opposite of what you just said. You are handing out awards because "the heart was in the right place". And yes, it is damaging when you positively acknowledge something bad simply because it agrees with your own personal ideals. That's called bias.
Er, no? I explicitly didn't say
'derp, give official-actual industry awards for progressive values regardless of any other criteria!!'.
Me sentimentally feeling a work has its heart in the right place is very different from me trying to objectively critique a given work. Life Is Strange is progressive as fuck... but I feel it's also quite poorly written and bizarrely staged (why are 18-year-old's behaving and thinking like 11-year-olds?). Granted, I've still not got passed the first episode yet (I have the season pass, though), but even with that first episode I 'praise' LiS for its depiction of female leads and of what it is
not (i.e. yet another inertly bland and regressive straight male narrative), whilst wanting to smack all the writers over the head with a rolled up newspaper. See also: crappy engine, and iffy mechanics.
I bought it to ostensibly support it, culturally, because I want more diversity of narrative and representation. I'm still not likely to put it in a single 'top 10' list of gaming, unless that's a Top 10 Games With Annoyingly Hipstery, Noodly Music...
The beauty of seeing beyond the "Is this in accordance with my ideology or should I hate it" perspective is that I can appreciate a good story even if it does not resonate with my views personally. I don't measure a movie's diversity, and so I am instead free to judge and appreciate the contribution of that diversity (assuming it's good). Looking beyond the core components you might say. I don't like the box ticking awards and I find them insulting.
Which is exactly what I do, so snap.
For example, I'm an agnostic who adores some explicitly and not-so-explicitly religious art, for precisely the same reasons as I've outlined relative to the functionality of art through the ages (i.e. universality of human experience), be it the contemporary Terrence Malick, or the 19th century German romantic-landscape painter, Caspar David Friedrich.
Various kinds of older rap and hip-hop projects some pretty nasty values or ideas, yet the music and verve of creativity results in some absolute classics.
I even enjoy Bay's Transformers (all need a good editing, but the original's one of the best action films of the noughties, and 3's an at times incredible spectacle) for their almost cartoonish representation of masculine fantasies, where machines and women are almost equally objectified. I wouldn't try to suggest writers or filmmakers copy Bay's ticks... or promote his seemingly 'Murica/'Murican military'n'sexism flavoured values, but I can admire and enjoy just how well he [sometimes] puts the pieces together.
Btw, I'm talking about stories, the OP was talking about stories, but you are here claiming I'm talking about "a form of expression", and you keep going on about 'art'. If these thing are exactly the same, why not use story? If these things aren't exactly the same then you are making unsubstantiated claims regarding what I've said and misrepresenting my arguments.
They were discussing representation of values and how we respond to it in a work of art, so I'm pretty sure I'm on very safe ground, topically speaking.
A story to me is a flow of events or objects, not necessarily in any logical order.
Well then we seem to be on the same page for that. When I was referring to art without 'story' or character, I was mostly thinking of non-linear or structurally oblique films. Malick's Tree Of Life features two principle actors whose character names are never mentioned, and who barely exhibit behaviour beyond two kinds of archetypes - which was Malick's point, given they are symbols and exemplars of concepts (Grace, and Nature) as opposed to conventional characters in stories with believable likes, dislikes, motivations, arcs, and so on. More abstract art doesn't need conventions to be 'great'.
Re dem pesky SJW's:
- representation is important - doesn't matter if it makes sense or not; an individual is always representing the entire group in the whole world and you should attach all the stigmas of that group to the individual; it's 2016 dammit.
- substance doesn't matter - we don't get the context, we don't need to; Death of the Author; it's 2016 dammit! Schindler's List? Add some muslims, they have it far worse than Jews. World War 2 memorial day? Scrap it, not inclusive enough.
- individual freedom of expression is bad - Why are people on the wrong side of history allowed to express things? Let's stop them! Why can people just write their own stories and get published without first checking if their book triggers anyone? Let's burn them! Why let people create their own 'art' when it's clearly not progressive enough? It's 2016 dammit.
...so, er, the acronym just refers to parody and unhelpful hyperbole? That's pretty much what I've always felt.
Also, a person looking critically at culture can be disagreed with and proven to be on shaky ground with absolutely no need for meaningless, destructively divisive terminology.
SJW = battle lines in a self-created/defined culture war, so it's really not helpful. Anyone who does somehow manage to actually fit those three criteria is surely effortless to ignore. If you want to get into horrid specifics of the insecure BS that's plagued gaming over the past couple of years, PM me, as I won't step foot in the 'other' board on this site.
/edit
Silvanus said:
Art reflecting culture and societal forces in flux and conflict can certainly be said to be essential if we're to approach those topics healthily. It serves to provide people with outside perspectives, gives context and illustration. It's perfectly reasonable to say art is essential to a healthy culture in that respect.
Absolutely, and in a sense it can almost be called a side-effect of human nature - and I'd say there's an element of universality to it as well.
A busy commuter in 2016 can precisely and intimately relate to Marcus Aurelius' writing almost two thousand years later. Societies and civilisations change and evolve, but human nature has arguably remained the same force it's been for ages, at least in terms of the big questions about existence and purpose/meaning. Art could be said to be brazen testimony to that.
