Prizmik -
@Hian
I will quote myself : (I do not condone censorship of things just because "shocking material", that is not what I am saying).
I was only talking about the cases where games (or other art) is making non ironic and explicit statements
about the shared world, such as the false claims of Mein Kampf:
"ethnic group x must be exterminated", these have to be reacted to appropriately.
Good for you. Here we agree.
Prizmik -
In same way I am able to make claims about anything (be their true or false claims),
I can make art that does the same, regardless of the subjects consent.
Of course no one owes me their attention by default, the discussion is about respect,
respect is predicated upon care and concern rather than disconcern.
I disagree. Respect is predicated upon acts that compliment the wishes or desires of the person
you're interacting with. Some people could desire you to be disconcerned, in which case,
it would be "disrespectful" to concern yourself with that person.
Prizmik -
So it follows that are we to respect something, we aught to react to it.
As I reject your definition of "respect", no, this does not follow.
Reactions can also be disrespectful, and where a choice has to be made between a disrespectful
reaction, and a non-reaction for instance, by your own logic, the latter would be preferable.
I simply reject the notion that respect is even relevant in most cases, when we're talking about art.
Art is no more inherently deserving of respect, than are beliefs.
Prizmik -
This is no more an is aught fallacy than saying: "If you want to get out of the forest, don't walk in circles".
That would be true, if your initial statements were prephased with a conditional like the sentence
you now provide as an example - unfortunately for you, they weren't. That makes this analogy patently inapplicable.
If you can't keep track of what you, yourself, are saying, perhaps you shouldn't presume to be arguing with other
people on matters pertaining to philosophy. Just a suggestion.
Prizmik -
There is a reason I used art that pertains to politics as an example,
because these are the situations where censorship can come into focus.
Art has value and can be good or bad regardless of what people thing or whether they choose to react to it.
Nonsensical. If I killed of every single conscious being in the universe at this present moment, what value
would art have? If no conscious beings can agree on a uniform standard of value, how is this even a coherent concept?
Prizmik -
However it can be treated as if it was incapable of revealing anything true about the shared world.
It can make people believe the false notion of art as entertainment, that can have no loftier pretense.
How is this false, when a lot of art is made with the specific intent of being "just" entertainment, and how
are you not devaluing the notion of art as entertainment with this kind of rhetoric?
Your error here is not realizing that art existing as pure entertainment is not mutually exclusive to
art existing as something more, or art existing as something in between.
Art, as an expression, is not a dichotomy, it's a spectrum.
Prizmik -
Please consider how you say art that tries to participate and share in universals is non-art propaganda,
akin to a walking stick. But art when its for "individual comfort or efficiency" is not?
You fail to see the point of the analogy - which is not to say that individual art cannot
also be viewed as a tool - but that there is an inherent difference between what we regularly think
of as tools, and non-tools.
A knife is a tool, because that's what it is designed to be, and it will be perceived and used as such
by most people who come across it.
You might say that a personal expression of art as an extension of visceral appeals etc. is a person
tool, like an emotional crutch - but the major difference here is that one man/woman's emotional crutch
is something else entirely to somebody else.
A knife or walking stick on the other hand, is with the exception of out-of-the-box thinking, almost universally so.
The difference is apparent to anyone who has any incling of the diversity present in human psychology,
which you apparently do not.
What is comforting or appealing to me as an individual, is not necessarily congruent with what is socially
or politically "proper" on a macro-level.
When, and if, I make art for its own sake, and my own sake - I transgress on the rights or freedoms of nobody,
and any complaint made by third-parties who willingly went out of their way to engage with that art, is moot.
If I make walking-sticks for the disabled people of my tribe, the same can no longer be said.
Your perpestive seems to imply that all art should be judged by how well it serves as a walking stick
for society at large, which ironically means that all art is reduced to nothing more than walking sticks
regardless of creative intent.
My perpective is that all art should be judged on a case by case basis, where whether or not we judge
art as being good or bad "social/political walking sticks", so to speak, is a matter of whether or not the artist
in question actually set out to make that to begin with, not on whether or not you construe the art
in question as being political/social through mental gymnastics.
After all, all art is open-ended through interpretation.
Prizmik -
I don't know about you, but sometimes when I try to create something,
its more a collaborative than instrumental relation between me and art,
through the process of art, be it game making or anything,
it helps reveal and make things more understood than they were at the beginning and then I may share this to
contribute to the ongoing discussion that is art.
I literally have no idea what you're trying to say here. It's literally word-salad.
Prizmik -
Art is meaningful in itself regardless of how its treated
Again, no it doesn't. Meaning is a product of sentience, and is imbued upon things by sentient creatures,
and as such, it is subject to the indvidiual psychology of each sentient creature attributing meaning.
Prizmik -
but if it is treated as if it has no capacity to say something true and possibly dangerous or of benefit,
the meaning will not reach people that it could reach and that is censorship, its silencing in very principle.
Your inability to see outside of this forced dichotomy of either having capacity, or not having capacity at all
is completely bewildering to me.
Some art aspires to make political/social commentary - some does not. Your weird insistence that if we don't
somehow imbue all art with social and/or political meaning, then all art loses meaning, is still completely bonkers.
Also, you don't get to redefine censorship - especially with a marginal and inane definition like that.
If the "meaning" of art doesn't reach people because they're being told it doesn't have meaning, that is not
censorship, nor is it silencing.
By this retrograde and anti-intellectual definition, saying for instance, that someone's opinion is "stupid",
is censorship because it might devalue the meaning of the opinion in the eyes of others and thus influence
them to stop taking it seriously.
Here's the thing though - again, art/media/opinions/beliefs are not inherently deserving of neither respect
nor recognition. You're reserved the right to make statements, and people are reserved the right to react, or
not react to them, as they see fit.
Censorship is the act of culling statements, or restricting the flow of information.
Social sanctions of statements after they have been allowed to be made, is not censorship.
Prizmik -
But I agree, not all art is like the one I spoke of and it shouldn't all be seen as such,
sometimes its just about how happy childhood can be, or how the evening is a lovely time.
And that is absolutely fine, I was only talking about the cases where art is explicitly doing the political thing.
The loveliness of evenings and loveliness in general is a universal thing that all people can share in
and thoughts about it should share and they are not political, that is fine.
I do not disagree with you. I am sorry if I came off differently.
So what's your point? You do understand the concept of logical consequences right?
Your arguments throughout your post seems to directly contradict this sentiment.
If you do happen to think this way, I fail to see why you'd write out this extensive reply
basically trying to rebutt the very points of contention relating to a position that you supposedly don't hold.
Prizmik -
You can not know whether I thought about it or how much I did, please don't say that.
You're right. I can however take your logic to its natural conclusion, or make educated inferences,
and ask you (which I did) what you're thinking, so you can in turn clarify it.
Prizmik -
I disagree that the free market is best for art because we disagree on what art is.
I would argue that art is universal, and if it is good it is also true,
as in what it says about whatever it concerns itself with is true.
The problem is that you don't actually make that argument though.
You're also contradicting yourself at this point, because while you previously said that
you agree that art can exist in different forms, you now imply that the quality of
art is directly proportional to how "true" it is.
Prizmik -
What is true is such regardless of how many people think so.
That's true, but inconsequential, when you consider that what is true
if often unknown to us, that most people think they know what is true while being
factually incorrect, and finally, that when you deal with politics and social issues,
almost everything is filtered through personal values in either case, which completely
undermines the concept of art trying to comment on such things even being capable of being true
in any meaningful sense of the word.
The problen with this "truist" approach to art appreciation is that
it is arrogant and condecending because any art-analysis done with that paradigm as foundation
has to be based on a deep-seated belief that the person doing the analysis knows best whether or
not the political/social message of the art accurately reflects reality, and is founded on the right core values.
It also bogs the entire discussion of art down into the field of value and ethics, because seriously,
why should I take your art analysis seriously if it's founded on a set of value judgements that we've yet
to actually talk about and I don't know whether I agree with or not?
Prizmik -
The free market enables things based on what you said, is it comfortable or approachable,
and you would say that is how it should be for art, but it seems to me that is not
friendly to what art is since it has no deliberate way for checking quality in any other way than popularity.
My question would be - who gave you the idea that the market should be checking for
quality? And, who made you the arbitror of artistic quality to begin with?
I am not concerned with quality control of art to begin with. This again, reeks of the pressupposition that art
inherently carries some sort of consumer responsibility above and beyond ordinary legal concerns,
despite the fact that art is not a surivial necessity,
and is something people are free to engage with or disengage with as they see fit.
Prizmik -
Endless amounts of artists never got exposure or even were ever enabled to make anything good,
simply because they were trying to make something popular that they could sell.
Too bad. Making a living of art is not a god damn human right, and artists are not entitled to have their
art become popular and accepted.
Prizmik -
All these artists I see every day on the street trying to sell landscape paintings,
that they reveal they hate when I talk to them,
but make them anyway because general people wont buy anything else and being a professional artist
who has more ability to do art is for the extremely few like the ones in academia,
because academia bypasses being a hostage to the free market.
Maybe they aren't cut out to be full-time artists then? If they really cared about their art,
and their artistic integrity, they'd get an ordinary job to feed themselves, and make art on the side
like every other struggling artist who isn't a complete entitled narcisssist.
That last sentence makes no sense.
Value is normative, otherwise it is nothing and there can be no talk of it,
since anything and everything is a value then.
No, value is subjective, and normative is not a term used to desribe nouns,
but a term used to describe the grammatical nature of a sentence/claim.
Value being subjective does not mean one cannot talk of it - in fact, we do so all the time, and it can be done so
even in a objective manner when qualified with a conditional, such as "if".
Also, even if it were the case that we would not talk of it, that statement of yours is not an argument.
It's the equivalent of saying "if unicorns aren't real, then we can't talk about them" - to which my reply would be
"Yeah, I know. So what?"
As I just said in my last post - I think normative statements are inane. I think they're philosophical garbage -
left-overs from classical philosophy that entered the discourse long before we had philosophy of science,
and by extension, the natural sciences, and as such more refined methodologies informing our speech on matter
pertaining the nature of reality.
The belong in the historical trash-can along with Platonic idealism, and "objective morality".
Nihilism is an unlivable stance, you talking to me now is performatively contrary to nihilism,
unless you are an animal that acts on reflex without thinking, but I can not believe that.
If you think that, you aren't half as well-read as you ought to be in order to make any kind
of commentary on nihilsm what so ever. I made a point out of not specifying what kind of nihilism
to see exactly how you would take it, and your response is as trite as it was expected.
It's even more amusing how it's actually just an assertion, not an argument, further illustrating the
point that you have generally no idea what you're on about.
The is aught gap and its sister the naturalistic error are bridgeable as soon as you ask the socratic question
"how is a good life lived".
No, they're not. This just further complicates the issue by raising the question "what is the good life supposed
to even mean?", and "how do you know how to recognize it, once you've established a definition for it?".
Finally, you can be put back in your place by the simple question "why did you choose that specific defintion
as opposed to something else?".
Considering that the is aught gap is only relevant in certain naturalistic
frameworks that eliminate metaphysics and thereby make the good be synonymous with things in the world of sensory experience.
Well, as a nihilist, as a naturalist, and as an evidentialist, you'll be happy to know that a naturalistic framework
is the only one I'm willing to work with. I reject "meta-physics", except as how the pertain to the most basic
of philosophy of science, in developing functioning research-methodology, as being quasi-intellectual, meaningless babble
construed by ignorant people long ago, who didn't have knowledge necessary to make sound models of reality and inquiry
into reality.
The statement determines the measure of normative value.
It on its face is not circular, but it can not be established by its own measure,
but rather rational discourse that employs logic. Its subject independent, but subject accessible.
Value is normative, so even if there are no subjects,
normative statements are still as sound as they were prior and soundness is not whim dependent.
Mostly word-salad. Again though, value is not normative - indeed the statement "value is normative" is
grammatically nonsensical. Value is either subjective or objective, personal or universal - normative is an expression
applied to statements, meaning whether a statement is meant to be taken as merely descriptive, or
as an appeal/command/reflection of value.
You're using the term wrong.
Normative statements are never "sound", as all normative statements are flawed by the is-ought fallacy, and
since value doesn't exist without people to make a judgement of value, your statement is flawed. Period.
You're not making an argument. You're making babble, and assertions as a side-dish.
It is meta because I did not make a normative claim,
but rather said that if you respect someone that is making a normative claim mutually exclusive to what you believe,
you would talk to them, simply because the definition of respect implies concern.
It is meta because it is about how we make claims, arguments and react to them given that we respect someone.
Sure respect is already introduced, but I am not even arguing if we should respect someone or anything,
but what happens if we do.
- Except that you've been making a normative claim all along by arguing how we ought to view or think about art.
Your failure to realize this shows that you're either not keeping track of what you are saying, or that you're
not even in control of what you're saying at this point. I'd suggest you take a break from this.
- You're working with an original defintion of respect I do not hold to.
- You're working with an original deftinion of the term "meta", that does not correspond with common usage in philosophy.
- No, you've been arguing how we ought to think of art, and analyze it. You've implied a few consequences granted certain
perspectives, but you've done a thoroughly poor job of it.
You can disagree with respect implying concern and that's okay, but this is how the word is used.
I mean, people concern them selves with the words and advice of people they respect, its a part of how its commonly used.
No, it is not. Concern is concern, respect is respect. Common usage is "holding something/someone in high regard", or
to hold in esteem or honor, to show regard or consideration for, and/or to refrain from intruding upon or interfering with.
As, as patently obvious at this point - your original point about how not showing concern for art is disrespectful
is patently abusrd when you consider that many artists would consider concern over their art to be intruding upon
or interfering with their artistc expression.
1) Never said that, me talking about political art was just because that is what I was talking about since art can be political.
2) I argue that arts merit is not measured by its popularity, and that is the only way that the free market would be right for art.
3) I did not say that, I said that establishing a measure, can not be done by the same measure.
You said non of those things, yet manage to argue for them consistently, even thrughout the post were you deny
making any of those points. Good job.
1.) If art can be a-political as well as political, then why are you making your points, and writing out these
lengthy replies? If your point is specifically and only in regards to explicitly political art, then we have nothing
more to discuss here.
2.) I don't argue that arts merit is judged by popularity either - I am making the argument that popularity
is what decides whether or not art has monitary value, and whether or not an artist can live off of his or her art.
Personal preference and personal freedom of choice is the fundamental buildingblocks of what would be fair
trade of art between individuals, and therefore the free market is the only viable alternative.
As, I've already pointed out - there really are no functional alternatives, and since you don't even attempt to
provide any, I'm pretty sure you can't think of any either.
3.) This is a direct denial of what you said though - which was that the sentiment that value is the product of man
(or rather conscious creatures) is a circular argument, when it isn't.
1) "Not everyone can sleep with fire" -Merab Mamardashvili
2) This is not necessarily the case, we can accept that things are what they are,
yet people can be precluded from participating in them.
3) You can not know what I am concerned with or not, asking could help.
First things first - these were not addressed to you, so don't reply to them as if they were.
1.) Just because some people are to inept to do certain activities without messing up does not justify
the sentiment that we should prevent everyone from enaging in them.
By that logic we should ban microwave ovens because some woman out there thought it was a smart idea to
attemot to dry her baby in one.
2.) Of course it isn't necessarily the case - I never said it was. My point is simply that it is
oddly conspicous and seemingly weak to censor an expression if you're supposedly comfortable in
the knowledge that the expression is wrong, and obviously so to most people.
Typically, people with strength of conviction, do not need to censor ideological opponents.
3.) I do not know for certain what you're concerned with - but that's irrelevant,
since this part of my post though was not pertaining to you in either case.
Also, if you had your reading glasses on, you'd recognize that these three points where framed as hypotheticals
based on logical inference, not as statements of absolute fact.
My argument is that a person who is pro-censorship probably hasn't considered the possible rammifications of
censorship adequately, or else, they wouldn't be pro censorship to begin with.
You don't have to agree with that. I however, don't need to know what you think or know in order to make that statement.
Also the concept of concrete "rights" is incompatible with your value theory which is utilitarian.
The concept of "concrete" rights on and of itself is nonsensical. However, we live in a world where we have deviced
the concept of rights, and they exist in-so-far that they are practised by law.
Being a utilitarianist does not preclude a person from having a discussion on rights.
Now go back to philosophy 101, and stop butchering the subject.
