Good and evil would be some other essay. We were talking about art
and involvement and attribution of appreciation. I was attempting to
provide a counter-argument that we simply did not know on the face of it
whether some fictional commandant indeed had such and such an
appreciation, so one could therefore call into question the assertion
about art appreciation and moral fiber. No intent here to make blanket
assertions about commandants in general.
On 10/15/10 9:10 AM, Steve Smith wrote:
Carl Tollander wrote:
Pamela, I doubt that the commandants you describe were experiencing
this complexity (most of us are grateful to make a glimpse).
Perhaps more cargo-cult banal -- 'He consoles himself that he is
cultured because he can summon the works of Bach and Goethe from the
vasty deep'. So can I, and so can any one (given inclination and
time), but does the commandant show up for them? Big whup, he's got
a Gramophone (or its 21st century equivalent). How do you define
appreciation? Does one converse with a specific work or an art form
to cultivate ones self into manifesting a better person or because
the form or the artifact is a Linji challenge and you just have to?
I'm not sure I can agree to dismiss the implied paradox this easily.
While I believe that many people *do* engage in what superficially
looks like deep appreciation of cultural experiences (Art being one of
them) in a "cargo-cult banal" manner, I am not sure this is required.
And I am not sure those we recognize as "evil" are less capable of
such than those (ourselves most notably) who we identify as "good" are
moreso.
In the deeper questions of "good vs evil" it is quite common (because
it is easy?) to align ourselves and our own highest aspirations,
deepest desires and motivations with "good" and assume/assert that
anyone whose nature or activities we define as "evil" not be capable
of experiencing the same aspirations/desires/feelings.
I strongly suspect that the commandants in question enjoyed Bach *much
more* than I do (or could)... partly because despite my Teutonic
blood, I have little Teutonic culture which they would have been
steeped in. I also suspect that those same commandants could very
well be capable of loving their spouses and children every bit as much
as any of us here. It is *very* hard for me to think about how
someone could have those feelings while being as callous (or downright
disrespectful of) to the dignity and the lives of the victims of such
a sweeping genocide (any genocide would do).
I do not think that Beauty or Grace or ... alone is an antidote/ward
for "evil" or a proof of "good"... I think it is much more subtle and
complex than that. And I think that for all the non-fiction (harping
on that topic again) such as the sum of Freud and Jung's work on the
topic of Good&Evil that works of Fiction such as that of Dostoevsky
and Tolstoy and Dickens and (most if not all of the Fiction authors
listed in our last spate of recommendations) have significant amounts
of insight to offer about the nature of Good&Evil. The fictional
nature of the details of the specific characters, settings and events
is irrelevant to whether they help to frame the fundamental questions
of character vs circumstance, of choice, of will, of human kindness.
It is *scary* to consider activities and behaviors which we identify
as *evil* in association with other activities, behaviors and
attitudes which we identify as *good*. At best there might be partial
correlations. Perhaps, the beauty of good music or painting or dance
might in some circumstances help a twisted soul transcend their own
damage and arise like a phoenix from their own ashes to shine in the
glorious sunlight of goodness! But I don't think it really works that
way, except in rhetorical arguments about the objective and
transcendent value of "Art" (worked into NEA Grant proposals?).
- Steve
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============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
