Hip Hop Is Not Art

Jon1:

I am gaining clarity as this thread goes on. I do not have any problem with your passionate dislike of hip-hop music. I do not think anybody has attacked your personal take on that music.

Nor does anybody defended the violence that is glamorized in the songs.

Nobody has argued in favor of rape or other forms of mysogyny.

You certainly have an absolute right to your opinion, thesis, beliefs and perspective. And, if I may speak for the entire thread, we all defend your right to express your opinions.

What angers me is your absolute designation of those who create the music of violence as "other". You may not have written that but it is a fundamental pre-condition for many of your consequent positions.

I simply ask that you recognize the humanity of those who write the songs, sing the songs, buy the cds and go to the concerts. Hate them if you so choose. Loathe them. Buy 100 cds and smash them in front of some popular hip-hop store. I really could care less about how you personally feel about the music or even about the people behind the music.

I simply ask that you recognize that, in the most fundamental of ways, they are human beings. They are human beings who, in many peoples minds, have made and continue to make great errors. In fact there are many who would say that they are supportive of criminal acts or even that their music ought be considered criminal.

Believe it or not I would not have a problem with any of those positions from a(reasonable people can have reasonable disagreements) perspective.

I insist, though, that you cease in your repeated language of negation of soul/spirit/self.

I say this from a rather pragmatic position, believe it or not.

I do not see how your idea could ever actually work. And I do hope that you are willing to step into the dirty, messy, angry, passionated, lonely,terrifying, joyous, bloody, beautiful, piss,coffee,lipstick,make love concrete day to day world that is out there right now. In that world I see now way, short of some fascistic governmental policy and action, that any music could be censored.

Have you actually stopped and reconsidered what you have written. Do you believe that it is even possible to censor hip-hop. I am not talking about the possiblity that it would come back even if censored. I mean how? Would you suggest some long list of words and phrases that could never be used? Would you suggest some list of images that could never be represented? And if you could come up with some list would you insist that it be applied to hip-hop music and only hip-hop? If so then that does leave one wondering if you are dedicated to ending violence or simply dedicated to ending hip-hop? And how would it be enforced? Would musicians go to jail if they violated the lists? Would audiences be committing a crime if they listened to someone sing a blacklisted song?

And if censorship is not the way then we are right back where we are now and it thus demands a different approach.

You continually talk about those who strive for greatness and I sense that, in your opinion, there are artists of many different genres who have achieved such heights.

Well, I can not think of one, not one, whose greatness was not at its core the capacity made manifest to touch deeply the human. Now some touches have been quite challenging and others are more gentle. King Lear is not a picnic nor are the many operas of loss, regret and betrayl. Yet, from the pictures of Diane Arbus to the landscapes of Monet these speak in ways sublime.

If you want such greatness to increase and if you want others to, at the very least, strive for such then do you believe your current position calling for censorship and brazenly refering to a music that has both huge faults and important virtues "smut"...do you think that will be of any lasting benefit? Or are you actually as far from the aspiration of "art" as those you so easily attack. And if you are then perhaps that needs to be given as much attention as the faults and errors of others. Because, in that sense of having erred, we are all far more alike then apart.

If truth be told, when I am able to step away from some of your heat I can not imagine someone calling for what you do being a person grounded in the world around us all. I will say that I certainly struggle each moment with confronting and accepting the real. In fact even the feeling of confrontation must come after a prior acceptance.

I am happy in this one simple way. I have learned that turning others into an 'other' harms me at least as much as it does those who I objectify. And so with the knowledge my life is harder, messy, emotional, and even full of feelings of alienation and my own day to day neurosis. But when I look at others I do not see 'other' I actually see me. And in that one way I am blessed and, if I can say, even a bit proud. It is what I have worked for from my childhood in Harlem and I have come along way.

may i commend you on your clarity of writing jgx? it has a nice flow and is very easy to read.

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This is a healthy discussion we are having. When all is said and done ending violence is the most important objective for humanity.

When you say that you can "only follow this philosphy of understanding to a point...when violence towards others is concerned" you actually illustrate the importance of working hard at building bridges between those who act violently and those who are the victims

The issue here is that most victims of violence would say what you have just said. The guy who got shot standing outside a corner store would say the same thing if another person wanted to figure out the deep reasons why someone shot him. I am a Jew and I know that on an emotional level I would not have too much patience for deep understanding of why the Nazis did what they did. And so women also fear that the effort to understand will turn into justification.

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I won't quote your post as a whole due to it's length, but I'm taking the rest of what you said into account in my respose. I see what you're saying about there being a cycle of violence at work here. When I said that I would only take a philosophy of understanding up to a point in regard to violence, I did not mean to say that violence was the point at which an attempt at understanding should stop cold, but that understanding, especially where violence is concerned, should stop at the point at which it turns into justification. I agree with you that part of stopping this sort of thing would be that victims need to find a way of finding forgiveness within themselves rather than lashing out at others from a sense of retribution. I do not think that forgiveness on the victim's part necessarily means that he/she needs to fully understand the person who did them wrong and certainly doesn't mean that they need to think it was right or justified, but it does mean coming to peace with it within themselves in some way (which may mean understanding the other person in some cases).

At the same time, as you have shared from your own experience (and thank you for sharing how you yourself have worked through these issues), I agree that a whole human being can not be dismissed as bad because of a few thoughtless acts and that we should be able to recognize that there is at least a spark of humanity in everyone. This does get more and more difficult, the more violent and pointless the act is. The person who commits a violent act is most certainly caring a lot more about him/herself and thinking not at all about the suffering of others, at least at the time, so I think there is a great burden on the part of the perpetrator to understand the pain they have inflicted upon others and to go through some sort of process of contrition and penance (which would of course vary greatly depending upon what sort of act we're talking about) in order to insure that they do not continue to disregard the suffering of others.

In short, we should be able to acknowledge everyone's status as a human being and try to see them clearly for what is best and worst in them, but never condone inhumane behavior in any person.

Boucher and Fragonard did paint pornography, it just is not at the same level of pornography that we acknowledge today. Their paintings were boudoir paintings intended to glorify the sexuality of a mistress or of woman with the thin verneer of occasional classical acceptability. Titian's Venus D'Urbino served the same purpose.

SLG- I suppose what we come down to here is a need to define "pornography". If "pornography" simply denotes any work (of art?) that arouses a sexual response, then I suppose just about anything might be defined as such. Certainly Van Gogh's paintings of his old shoes might arouse a someone with a hard-core foot fetish. If, we define "pornography" as any work having the intention of arousing a sexual reaction then things become more difficult. It is always a challenge to be certain of the artist's intention. For example, in the case of the Boucher painting of Mme. O'Murphy the first intention was to create a portrait of the likeness of the mistress of the King of France:
http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k2...urphysmall.jpg

Without a doubt it is rather unusual as a portrait... but then again... perhaps it was the young lady's... ummm... postierior that the King was most enamored with. Does the fact that this painting also has the intention of presenting Miss O'Muphy as sexually enticing immediately raise the work to the level of "pornography"? Then I might ask... in a like manner... does the fact that certain works with a religious intention also arouse erotic feelings immediately make them "pornographic"? What of this Saint Sebastian?

http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k2...bastian540.jpg

Does it matter that the artist was a notorious homosexual known as "Il Sodoma"? What then of Bernini's Ecstasy of Saint Theresa? Endless writers and critics have spoken of the erotic nature of this work... on the manner in which she recieves God's love (thrust into her by a handsome angel with the point of his arrow that at once made her burn in pain and yet filled her with exquisite pleasure)?

http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k2...esasmall-1.jpg

Or perhaps we might describe "pornography" as something lacking any artistic worth with the sole intention of sexually arousing the viewer. Personally, I lean toward this final definition. Even certain works of a quite graphic (X-rated) nature can be quite artful (I think of Aubrey Beardsley, certain Greek and Roman sculptures, paintings by Boucher, Watteau, and Fragonard that are rarely ever on view in public galleries and are certainly far more risque than the works discussed here, and many, many prints (would you like to come up and look at my etchings? wink, wink) by Raimondi (after Raphael), Rembrandt, Picasso, etc...

Just because something is not x (pornography for example) as we recognize it today does not mean it is (what we call it today). The fact that their paintings were mostly made for pornographic purposes may or may not affect how you view them as art, and it may not dismiss them automatically as art, but everything must be looked at in its proper historical context in order to understand why it exists and what purpose it ultimately serves, in other words to get to the heart of the matter, and that means understanding why it was made. Boucher and Fragonard painted their greatest works to titilate their viewer, and such an action recieves the definition of pornography.

SLG- Again, I would question your assertion on several accounts. 1. I don't agree that the primary intention in most paintings by Boucher, Watteau, Fragonard, etc... was merely to titilate. Many of thes paintings were produced as part of decorative cycles to deck the rooms of the queen and mistresses such as Mme. Pompadour. 2. Even if the primary intention was to arouse a sexual response I do not see this as immediately qualifying such work as "pornography". certainly endless poems and poetic passages have the intention of singing the praises of someone's sexual attractiveness. Is Milton's description of Eve from Paradise Lost nothing but pornography? Eroticism, certainly... but "pornography"? 3. I question your suggestion that the definition of pornography has changed over time because of the fact that we, so you seem to suggest, are less likely to be aroused by the simple sight of naked flesh. I would suggest that in many ways the reverse were true. prior to the Industrial Revolution nearly 90% of humanity was involved in agriculture in some way or another... many living on the farms. Add to this the fact that the majority also lived crammed into small, one room dwellings. When you consider the lack of "privacy" and the continued exposure to the "facts of life" (in both human and animal form) you will find that many of our predecessors had a much more intimate understanding or relationship with the cycles of sex, birth and death. This doesn't even take into consideration the preliferation of state sanctioned or even state sponsered brothels intended to offset the "frustrations" of the younger male population which was unable to marry until they could support a wife... which usually meant well into one's 30s (if not later) when one inherited the farm or a master position opened up in one's field (carpentry, blacksmith, etc...). There are endless examples of "bawdy songs", filthy stories (prior even to the Marquise de Sade), and pornographic prints and grafitti that circulated. None of it, however, made the slightest pretentions toward "Art". Of course... in our time... when we no longer seem able to define ART at al, the boundaries between what is art and what is not have become increasingly blurred.

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Originally Posted by stlukesguild View Post
SLG- Again, I have no qualms with death, violence, sex etc... portrayed in art. Art should be able to address all aspects of the world. On the other hand... the "meaningless" or "emptiness" needs to be trascended through the art. Goya, for example, presents images of horror and ugliness that he certainly lived through during the dark days of the Napoleonic wars. However, he attempts to transcend these... to give them some "meaning" if you will by giving them the beauty an artist can lend. The bravado and sexism and racism and anti-social behavior presented in a great deal of rap music is not the expression of an invented character... it is rather the rather mindless ranting of an angry and simple minded "performer". It has about as much artistic worth as the rambling and self-centered agrandizing affected in most teenager's diaries, the "stories" of familial dysfuctionality explored on Jerry Springer or even the hate-filled racism and sexism spouted forth by the unemployed drunk in the local bar.

Art, as I said before, is too meaningless a word to argue about its meaning. If we used the Webster's definition of the word art, which is

"The quality, production, expression, or realm, according to aesthetic principals, of what is beautiful, appealing, or of more than ordinary significance"

Then rap is art. It is a production according to aesthetic principals (granted a dark aethetic, but aesthetic is not necesarily beautiful as commonly precieved), which has for some people more than ordinary significance.

If we are going to get into a metaphysical debate about art, then I supose that would depend on your definition. I've never met two people who had the same definition of art, strange as it may sound, which is why I stopped caring long ago about what is art and am more concerned about what is significant, because almost everything is, in fact, art in one way or another, depending on your perspective.

As for the empty violence and pointless sexism I agree. I'm not arguing about that.

SLG- Again, I don't believe I stated that Rap/Hip-Hop was not art. As you noted, and I concur, ART has become far too difficult to define for me to exclude the whole of any musical form. On the other hand, I have no problem with defining the majority of it as crap... crap art if you will. Much of it is demeaning, insulting, misogynistic, violent and juvenile without any serious aesthetic worth.

continued...

...continued from previous post...

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Originally Posted by stlukesguild View Post
SLG- Again, the gratuitous violence alone does not negate our taking a work seriously as art. Certainly, Cormac McCarthy's masterful novel, Blood Meridian is disturbing in the extreme... and it is easy to understand why many balk at Faulkner's As I Lay Dying, Nabokov's Lolita, or Gore Vidal's Myra Breckenridge. In all of these instances, however, there is an undoubtable artistic brilliance. There certainly may be many precedents in other forms of music and art for the violence inherent in Rap/Hip Hop. In most cases, however, these were not afforded the commercial support that establishes Rappers as role-models among society. As for the suggestion that there is no difference between violent hip-hop and violent close-minded calls to murder and torture a political solution and The Charge of the Light Brigade... I guess that such an analogy is only possible to one unable to discern the difference between Boucher's rather harmless (even... dare I say it?... cute) eroticism and pornography. The next step would seem to be to suggest that there is no actual difference between the real act of murder and Shakespeare's portrayal of such in his plays.
What is brilliance?

There is no functional difference between Boucher and pornography, the only difference is the value we currently assign to each. Boucher's paintings were intended to titilate in the boudoir, to illicit a sexual feeling, and pronography is intended to do the same. I'm not calling into question that value either, to tell you the truth I don't care much for Boucher or pornography, though I like Boucher more. We must look to what something is intended to accomplish before we can judge what it really is.


SLG- I'm sorry, but too much of this echoes 1990s "relativist" theories which put forth the notion that there is no good or bad in art... that Shakespeare and Milton and Dante and Michelangelo and Mozart have simply been acknowledged as "great art" by the power elite because they represent the values of a certain class and culture but the values of Joe-Sixpack who enjoys Arnold Schwarzenegger movies (or a good "snuff film"), headbanger music, and engaging in auto-erotic activites with a good porno mag should be taken just as seriously when defining what is or is not "significant" as art. Rap is art... its just that most of it is poor art. This fact on its own should not make us wish to censure or restrict it. On the other hand... the fact that it is blatantly violent, sexually explicit, hateful and misogynistic should most certainly give us the right to do so. I personally don't think that Lolita, Miss Lonleyhearts, Blood Meridian, nor certain films or works of art should be accessible to minors, let alone promoted as entertainment on public airwaves. While as an artist I am completely in support of the artist's right to express himself however he or she sees fit... I do not believe this supercede's the right of the public to deny support for works of art that do not meet the community's standards or to limit access to such works.

(ps. I don't go in much for rococo myself, although I quite admire the sensual and fluttering brushwork of Fragonard, especially.)

Quote:
Originally Posted by stlukesguild View Post
SLG- Certainly, I would not think to dismiss all such music out of hand... and certainly not upon grounds that it tackles themes which make me uncomfortable. On the other hand... I can dismiss a good deal of it as juvenile and rather uncreative... using violence merely for shock value... or because the "artist" himself is is simply a rather hateful person. As for the notion that the music represents what the audience wants... this has long been claimed by the music and etertainment industry. This may indeed say something about our culture. It may say more about the whoremongering industry that will provide whatever is desired for a price. Do we, however, allow for the lowest common denominator to direct our culture? Because there are many teenage boys who can think of nothing more to which to aspire to than becoming a pimp does that justify not merely providing images and soundtracks for this market, but the backing of a great commercial industry to publicize such work?

continued...
If the music were not what the audience wants wouldn't it stop selling? I realize there is a market that manufactures ideas and brands and markets 'cool,' but the fact of the matter is one way or the other people buy ever increasing volumes of this freely. What would you do about it?

SLG- Then we should simply give the public what it wants? Right now "the public" (or a certain portion of it) wants the mindless sex and violence of Jerry Springer, football, pro wrestling, a rap. There are many in the neighborhoods in which I teach that find dog fights to the death to be entertaining. The Romans loved their gladitorial bloodbaths. Do we reach a point where we are willing to suggest that simply because there is an audience for something does not mean we should be automatically filling this demand... all in the name of "freedom of expression"?

We do not have to allow for 'the lowest common denominator' to govern society, I never said we did. I said that the status of music is determined by its popularity. I would ask you, if most of America listens to rap, or at least a significant percentage of the youth population, a plurality I would imagine, are they then the 'lowest common denominator'? I believe that we may find ourselves soon in the 'lowest common denominator' if rap keep growing the way it does, and then what will we have to say for ourselves? That what we value is superior to the many? That the majority of society is trash? Society has no values, only individuals have values and the values respected by society reflect the values held by the majority of its members, in a democracy at least. The important thing to do is to understand rap, study it, so that you can understand what the phenomenon is as opposed to dismissing it off the cuff because its importance is measured in the quantity of its adherents.

SLG- Again, as an artist, I have no problem with the idea of proclaiming myself an "elitist". This is one of the reasons that art and democracy have long had an uncomfortable relationship. Art has never been about pandering to the values of the masses, equality, or egalitarianism. The aesthetic values of the majority ARE almost always trash and I see no reason to concern myself with exploring why a certain art speaks to them. In the field of painting the giant among the masses is Thomas Kinkade:

http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k2...1792290926.gif

I see absolutely no reason to concern myself with why he is so admired. neither could I care less why Jackie Collins sold so many novels. She has nothing to do with quality literature just because she has a fanatic audience.
The aesthetic values of the masses are almost always temporal... a moment's infatuation with the latest novelty. Today it's Madonna, tomorrow it's Britney Spears, and then...? How many of this mass rap audience have developed their musical preferences after some serious exploration of a broad range of musical styles: medieval, classical, romantic, modernist, jazz, blues, etc... How many that acclaim the Harry Potter novels or The Lord of the Rings
as the single greatest literary work ever written have actually read (on their own and not forced through some school curriculum) Shakespeare, Dante, Milton, Cervantes, etc...? The notion that because something is admired by the masses it must be taken seriously as art is absurd because the opinions of the masses almost never matter in the long run. They change. They are disinterested. The works of art that survive are those that continue to speak to later generations of serious art lovers... those who invest the time and effort into the study and appreciation of art. James Joyce is almost certainly not so acclaimed because of his appeal with the masses. By that standard, he is completely irrelevent. However, he has been a major impact upon many later writers; his work continues to speak to critics, literary scholars, serious lovers of literature. Certainly, some artists were quite popular during their time and have continued to remain popular (Dickens, Hawthorne, Thomas Hardy, Verdi, Ellington, etc...) I would never immediately assume that popularity equates with a lack of aesthetic worth... with having "sold out"... howver, the notion that popularity is in any way a standard to measure importance is purely absurd to me.

quote: SheykAbdullah-
Popularity does not necesarily restrict itself to the mass population. Fame is dictated by the popularity not just of the public, but the popularity a certain work has with the intellectuals. If a work were not popular with them it would not be handed down as genius. It would become lost to time, rotting away on a shelf. Perhaps there are a hundred better (in either my oinion or yours) Shakespeares in such a state who were relegated to molder because the professors, academics, intellectuals, theologians and scientists of the time considered them to be terrible, base and uninteresting.

Again, what makes brilliant artistic form? Quantify that term. It is wishy-washy and easily bent into anything the speaker wants. Is brilliance allegory? Aethetics? Treatment? Color comprehension? Structuralism? Tonality? Pleasant manipulation of the scales? Intended disharmony?

SLG- Certainly, "popularity" applies within the field of intellectuals... and I would never suggest that within that group... or within those who have applied serious efforts to the study and appreciation of art that there is anything approaching a common mind. There are disagreements... but these are certainly based upon a good degree of experience. if I dismiss the paintings of Thomas Kinkade out of hand it is because of the experience I have with art that leads me to see nothing of any real artistic worth in the work. As such can I quantify what qualities are necessary to define "great art" or "artistic brilliance"? As much as I hate the aesthetic relativism that suggests that as there are no absolutes there is no way to truly assertain "good" or "bad", I will freely admit that ART always eludes any absolutes or objective standards. No matter what standards we establish we will find some work of art that subverts or avoids such will great result.

I don't know whether I would say popularity of the masses has never been the route to survival by great art. There are many art styles that have survived due to poularity despite having little real contribution to the history of art itself. I might point out styles such as Art Nouveau which continues to be popular, but gave us little in the way of new techniques or vision. The Pre-Raphaelites are another popular movement for their time that have little of great worth to communicate to use. Sometimes popular movements do die, and then sometimes they last. There is no explanation and no way to predict what lasts. It's just whatever catches people's fancy.

SLG- Certainly, it is rare. I might agree that the survival of The Three Musketeers or the works of Rachmininoff and Puccini owe more to the opinions of the public than to the scholars and critics. But then again... we're not exactly speaking of a mass public when we speak of opera or 1200 page novels from a century ago, are we? As for Art Nouveau and the Pre-Raphaelites... how popular were they in their time? How popular are they now? Certainly Gustav Klimpt, who employed a great deal borrowed from Art Nouveau has maintained a greater popularity with the art public (again a rather limited... dare I say, "elitist?... group) than many far more important artists thanks largely to his famous Kiss and the recent $135 Million sale of the Portrait of Adele Bloch Bauer:

http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k2...imt_kissss.jpg

http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k2...uerI1907sm.jpg

On the other hand... I would say that the PreRaphaelites are seriously underrated if anything. I suppose there is a certain camp which hold Victorian painting in high esteem (as the last bastian of "real art" before Modernism) but I don't see all that many running out to purchase the poetry of Dante Rossetti (a shame... he's quite good) or William Morris' book arts.

You fail to understand what I said, I did not mean that I dislike Shakespeare
because he is not simplistic, perhaps I mischose my words. I dislike Shakespeare because (and I don't really dislike Shakespeare, but I don't really like him, this is for argument's sake a bit of an exaggeration of my actual opinion) he is not a minimalist and I like minimalists. I like authors who are, in the words of Sabatini;

"...the modern realistic school, by which I mean a synthetic author, an uninspired university product, a chronicler of unimportant and mainly sordid trifles, whose unimaginative and uninventive art lies somewhere between the arts of photography and journalism, whilst expressing, with that presumption which is the chief asset of his class, his contempt of the modern historical romance"

Which is a little unfair because while I revere those he derides I don't hate historical romance. In any case, Shakespeare is not one of those uninspired university products that chronicle unimportant and sordid trifles. It is the glory and scale of Shakespeare I object to and for that reason I say that Greene's The Heart of the Matter is infinitely better for its simplicity of both expression and theme. In accordance I will freely admit I prefer Charlie Parker to Mozart and Edward Hopper to Leonardo.

SLG- Of course, as I freely admit, even those who have spent the time seriously exploring this or that art form have their own preferences which do not always agree with that of the cognicienti/intellectuals/scholars/art lovers (whatever you will) as a mass. Personally, I prefer Shakespeare to almost anyone... but then again... in spite of my own Modernist/Minimalist leanings as an artist... I am also greatly enamored of baroque grandure... sensuality... complexity. As such, I prefer Proust to Joyce... although I might like Kafka and Borges even more. I would probably take Bach over anyone... although I do love my jazz as well (although I lean more toward Miles, Monk, Ellington, and Lennie Tristano). I might even agree with you on Hopper. His work certainly inspired me to a greater degree than Leonardo... much as I acknowledge him as one of the 4 or 5 absolute Gods of visual art. Michealangelo, Titian, Vermeer, Velazquez, Rubens on the other hand... I'm afraid Hopper had nothing on them.

Art must be relative, else who are we to judge it? Who defines what 'art' is? How can that defnition be made when there are a thousand conflicting opinions even among the educated? If I were to make a definition of art, and I am educated on the subject, well-read, versed and spend a lot of time in the study of both literature and painting, I would say that almost every famous painter since and including Rothko with the exception of Botero, whom I do not like either, is the farthest thing from an artist and are instead mere opportunists, rogues, self-delluded or egoists striving for a piece of Modernism's greatness, but what would be the point in me saying something like that? Would it change how their art is percieved? Would it change what they did? I have studied Pollock, Rothko and Warhol despite the fact I find them no more interesting the the ingredients on the actual soup can one of them painted, but they need to be understood within their context and with their own unique ideas in the same way rap does.

SLG- As an artist I have certainly studied works of art that I did not like because I realized that those with educated opinions had deemed them "important"... "good"..."great". In some instances, my opinions changed. Certainly not because x, y, and z have deemed that such and such is great, but rather because I changed. You will never learn to love Rothko or Picasso merely because someone else has told you they were "great". There are artists who now rank among my favorites whom I was simply unprepared for upon first coming upon their work. There are others... Andy Warhol... whom I still find trifling, at best, in spite of... or perhaps because of all I have experienced as an artist and an art lover. As for the taste of the mass public dictating what I should need to understand. I will admit that I am amused by the publics obsessions with Britney Spears, Harry Potter, Thomas Kinkade, etc... however, I don't see that as any reason to spend time in serious exploration of such "art".

Plato also suggested we have a philospher king. Would you agree to such a tyranny?

SLG- I doubt it would be far worse than the idiot "king" we now have. Seriously, I don't half disagree with G.B. Shaw:

"Democracy substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few".

I'm not certain that I neccessarily find one system inherently better than another. Rather, it would seem to me that the system is only as good as the individuals involved. American democracy has certainly given us Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, the "Bill or Rights", Jackson Pollack, Walt Whitman, Aaron Copland, etc... but it also allowed for slavery, the slaughter of the Native Americans, and inequality of rights for women. Italy under the tyrants such as the DeMedicis, Sforzas, Barberini, Borgias, etc... produced years of endless external and internal feuds... but it also produced Michelangelo, Leonardo, Titian, Dante, Petrarch, etc... Ezra Pound argued that the only true measure of a culture was its support for the arts. In the lond run this may be true. Certainly Egypt, Greece and Rome survive in our imaginations because of what they achieved artistically. Carthage and Babylon are mere footnotes. Still I don't know that I completely agree with Pound. A better measure might be the standard of living of the polulation as a whole. In spite of the wealth of the US (as much as the next 7... is it 8?... nations combined) we never fare well here. How do we fare against many of the monarchies and constitutional monarchies in the world, including those of Scandanavia?

Would you agree to such a tyranny? I never would. Even a philosopher king of art. After all, didn't the entire scope of modern art evolve from the necesity of breaking the dictatorship of artistic elitism? What was the cry of the Salon des Refuses in 1863? Didn't Manet, Cezanne, Whistler and Pisarro decry the dictation of the elite, the Academy, in marking the quality and veracity of art in accepting any who would submit? What would art be today if no one stood up to challenge the authority of 'legitimate' taste? What did Modigliani's entire life stand for if not an empahtic statement of the unacceptability of the dictation of taste? His empty eyes, his long necks?

SLG- Don't confuse the Modernism with some sort of populist rebellion against the old, entrenched aristocracy. If anything, Modernism was even more elitist (certainly less populist). What we simply had was the rebellion of one elitist camp against another. Clement Greenberg, at the peak of Abstract Expressionism and dominance of Modernist thought made it clear just how entrenched and "elitist" Modernism had become.

We have never had an academy in this country, not for language, art or les belles lettres, and we do not need it because we are a country where the aesthetic is not dictated to us, and nor should it be, because such dication necesarily means certain important movements and ideas will be left in the cold and progress prohibited.

SLG- And so you believe the academies of art and the ministries of culture are such a bad thing... in comparison to American democracy? Might I suggest that what we are really discussing here is the success of such academies vs that of capitalism. The opera, the orchestra, the theater, the ballet, poetry, literature, painting, etc... survive because there are a wealthy educated elite who believe in their worth and invest in their survival. These same institutions survive in other countries because the very government has taken the point of view that such cultural institutions are of great worth to the nation as a whole. On the other hand... how good is capitalism at supporting the new works of art that may challenge the views held by the masses or may lack great public appeal. Or perhaps we should frame the question historically: how well do the opinions of the De Medicis, Sforzas, Barberini, Borgias, the Kings of France, Spain, England, etc... stack up against that of American presidents. Are not our museums all actually endowed with monies and art works collected by such elitists as Carnegie, Rockefeller, Guggenheim, Hirschhorn, Frick, Getty, etc...?

Art, as it exists as an idea, must necesarily be unfettered. Movements must be allowed to run their course without intervention...

SLG- Certainly, to the degree that an artist is not above the law and as such art must abide by the same laws as that which is not art, I concur. However, as a society we do not abdicate our rights to limit access of certain art forms from public display. We can ban any "art" that meets the society's standard as "obscene" (child pornography, for example), and we can decide that other works of art should not be freely accessible to any and all (including minors) on public airwaves, etc... This is not akin to banning the artist's "freedom of expression". How quickly, we might ask ourselves, would the recording industry and the rappers churning out profanity and sexist-laden tunes change were they to suddenly find they had no audience?

Ghideon- I would even suggest that when something becomes important to millions of people there must be depth going on.

I wouldn't.

Errr....folks. The thread here was entitled hip-hop. Now I recognize that there have been many many connected topics and issues that have been brought up in relation to the key subject.

However, at this point I would suggest that there be another thread with a subject such as: "what is art" or "what is pornography" or whatever...but do you get my general drift?

ghideon

Quote:

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Originally Posted by stlukesguild

Ghideon- I would even suggest that when something becomes important to millions of people there must be depth going on.

I wouldn't.

---

I wrote "there must be depth going on" now that is a rather abstract statement, yes?

I did not mean to imply that Britney Spears music is deep or that the Super Bowl is deep.

What I did mean is that if I were to throw a party next Sunday I don't suspect too many people would show up:(.

But a few Sundays from now millions or even close to a billion human beings will sit in front of a tv and watch two teams play with a small leather football.

From my perspective it would be only be fundamentally disrespecting those human beings to think that they are all chosing to stop and watch something for superficial reason. Propoganda, imho, is effective because of very significant dynamics involving all sorts of factors. Sporting events rake in billions and billions of dollars for important reasons (having do with everything from our need to watch violence to pervasive male conditioning towards competition).

I would say the same thing about any aspect of pop culture from bubble gum to hip-hop.

Humans are obviously very often misled, confused, told that they need things that they actually do not and then believe that...but none of these are unimportant nor evidence of shallow or unimportant phenomena.

How would you suggest we improve the shallow face of pop culture if we do not take its power seriously? Or do you think it lacks power? If it does lack power then please explain its incredible appeal?

And lets return to hip hop actually. Just because something looks, sounds superficial does not mean that the dynamics involved are also supeficial. If only that were true things would be so much easier to resolve. No?;)

I agree about the "depth" part.
I can also admit that there are some hip-hop songs that have at least some meaning, but as far as I'm concerned, most of them talk about women, money and sex. No offence, but to me hip-hop isn't art, its a way to earn money by those, who have no talent but have enough gall to go out there and show off.

Perhaps we can all agree that hip hop is perhaps too much of an umbrella term then one could expect and has a diverse range of content, just some of it covering very offensive topics and therefore being debatable to whether it can go up there with Shakespeare and Brecht?
boy, i can just feel the dirty look of my teacher after a run-on sentence like that :p

To begin, my compliments to St.LukesGuild for his depth and range of thought and evaluation expressed on this topic. people ought not be dissuaded from reading his rather long posts --- they're packed with "ideas."

abdullah: i want to read your posts again before responding fully. i know you noted questions, i'm not avoiding them. for now, you mentioned some confusion about the term "exploitation" as i used it to highlight that words have meaning when we want them too. a debate rages over the exploitation of foreign workers by no-good "American" companies, which set up affiliates overseas - e.g. bangladesh; others in mexico and latin america. relativist liberals argue that these workers are not paid a "living wage" but also that it creates the conditions for entire families to perform "sweatshop" labor, native parents forcing their children to work as well rather than allow them to go to the local school to be educated. multi-national corps have taken the brunt of criticism because they've created and in the process, arguably, furthered the conditions for illiteracy, subsistence wages, and fractured family life. some neo-con journals, like Foreign Policy and Foreign Affairs, have run articles defending MNCs on the basis that such workers are not "exploited" in the strict sense of the word -- in fact, without the added trade and work opportunities MNC's provide to these regions, the logic goes, workers would be far worse off. relativist liberals contend that 'exploitation is exploitation' - in that 'I know it when i see it'-justice stewart sense. and so then accuse MNCS and think tanks that the realities on the ground don't comport with MNCs suggestion that they are a galvanizing, region-developing force. i hope this clears up my point. and strike the "false analogy" claim you didn't make it - i had wanted to say i wasn't making one. sorry.

as far as the claim that i contradicted myself regarding my perspective of history, i meant that to be human is to breath value into the very "reading" i.e. understanding, the process by which we take in and assemble - historical fact. i'm tempted to go further on this point but there's already a wonderful thread on historical interpretation.


ghideon: your note about my bringing up class next to my remark about music: i used that term as a contrast to hip hop, not in the elitist you make me out to be. we're all self-righteous in some way, remember that.

ghideon
You bet there is, actually tendency is not putting it strongly enough, to distrust government...

ghideon
The "cursing in class" bit is close to sci-fi. My God have you even been in a HS class these days? Cursing? Folks are worried about bullets.

abdullah
You "think" he had it right but do you "know"?

abdullah
Society becomes a stagnant morass until someone stands up and fights it, and that person is ultimately labeled an unconventional, seditious, dangerous traitor by his contemporaries and a noble, moral, just man by the people of the next generation who want to impose the same restricting standard that he fought against.

abdullah
What is the 'public'?


perhaps my thinking is to many here anachronistic - offensive to others, both to free wheeling relativist liberals, but history will absolve me when the whole s***house goes up in flames, the day it's recognized that rap/hip hop is (was) a contributing factor in this nation's slow and inevitable decline. you can see it in pockets all over. in education, at all levels. i have a friend who has been teaching at a major university, a renowned (white) scholar in her field, and even she admited to me that if she didn't dumb down her course lectures and requirements, she'd lose 70% of the class and the administration would go bonkers. she also told of students who "earned" C's who after filed petitions and screamed, one who even spit at her. she's had to reprimand students with ipods in class (listening to hiphop??!)- an apparently widespread problem - and students who play on the internet in class. she's showed me incoherently written "research papers" and essays from students with an eigth grade writing level. another person - an adult who decided to go back to school and finish up her college degree, was shocked that one of her teachers had to actually ask students repeatedly not to talk during class. colleges are set up as a business and accept just about anyone with a pulse.

hip hop contributes to the increasing lethargy, banality, sloth, and ambivalence in the United States.

waving the banner of unfettered first amendment speech and thereby turning a blind eye with your shoulder-shrug acknowledgments of its misogyny is sad.

the public IS democracy and the latter can't survive without a sense there's a common denominator. forms of totalitarianism already exist in America and yet you blow your trumpets of freedom, as if free press and free speech are real. i have not yet discussed that dimension of my argument. please do not in any way suppose that i suggest that censorship should be enforced under the present conditions---that is, this democracy. the public is too far gone for censorship to have any positive effect. America is slouching towards gomorrah. global warming, world hunger (yet US pays farmers NOT to produce), poverty, epidemics, terrorism, nuclear arms, weapons, guns, war, indiscriminate killing, etc. etc. are all sullen examples. i'll stop there.

I think it was William Penn who once said, "Let the people think they govern and they shall be governed."

and that's the illusion - the spell you relativist liberal-free speech folks are under. i will not be cajoled into your cave, nor you mine. twas always thus, and always thus will be. :)

"perhaps my thinking is to many here anachronistic - offensive to others, both to free wheeling relativist liberals, but history will absolve me when the whole s***house goes up in flames, the day it's recognized that rap/hip hop is a contributing factor in this nations slow and inevitable decline. you can see it in pockets all over. in education, all levels. i have a friend who has been teaching at a major university, a renowned (white) scholar in her field, and even she admited to me that if she didn't dumb down her course lectures and requirements, she'd lose 70% of the class and the administration would go bonkers. she also told of students who "earned" C's who after filed petitions and screamed, one who even spit at her. she's had to reprimand students with ipods in class (listening to hiphop??!)- an apparently widespread problem - and students who play on the internet in class. she's showed me incoherently written "research papers" and essays from students with an eigth grade writing level. colleges are set up as a business and accept just about anyone with a pulse.

hip hop contributes to the increasing lethargy, banality, sloth, and ambivalence in the United States.

waving the banner of unfettered first amendment speech and thereby turning a blind eye with your shoulder-shrug acknowledgments of its misogyny is sad.

the public IS democracy and the latter can't survive without a sense there's a common denominator. forms of totalitarianism already exist in America and yet you blow your trumpets of freedom, as if free press and free speech are real. i have not yet discussed that dimension of my argument. please do not in any way suppose that i suggest that censorship should be enforced under the present conditions---that is, this democracy. the public is too far gone for it to have any positive effect --- America is slouching towards gomorrah and teetering on the horizon.

I think it was William Penn who once said, "Let the people think they govern and they shall be governed."

and that's the illusion - the spell you relativist liberal free speech folks are under. i will not be cajoled into your cave."

Ill have to agree with many of your points here Jon. As a highschool student i experience first hand the effects of popular culture on my peers, and it isnt pretty. Issues like rape, racism, and mysogany are taken lightly and are often brought up in a joke or insult in almost every class or personal discussion. Girls dress and throw themselves at guys jsut like the objectified women sung about and shown on music videos. Art is meant to inspire, to provide beauty and comfort in a world already filled with too much pain and hate, not exacerbate it. I for one think we should be progressing from such blunt crudity and sexism, but instead we seem to be regressing and were probably better off as Neanderthals.

Also, some people seem to be defending hip hop in saying the artist cant help what they are expressing because it is just their context. But large scale musicians dont simply jot down what comes to mind and perform it for millions. Teams of editors, songwriters, and publicists review the song many times over before it is performed and sold. They are aware of and even try to appeal to young people as their target audeince. Tis a dangerous and boling solution created by the media made of both shockingly crude content AND a direct appeal to the most vulnerable and gullible audience, youth.That is marketing and corruption, not art.

This is a response to Stlukeguild's post. I am not going to quote it except where required to save on length.

Pornography is something whose primary intention is to titilate and arouse feelings in a sexual manner. Most of the works of Roccoco were intended as decorative cycles in boudoirs in order to titilate the viewer in a sexual way. That makes it pornography. Does that make it not art? No. You claim to think I've said that, but I never did.

As far as Il Sodoma there is no sexual intent there, as far as St Teresa in Ecstasy, while there is an element of sexual gratification in the piece that is not the purpose for which it is sculpted. That is the difference between it and most Boucher's work.


1. Whether you believe me or not, titilation was the point of most of Boucher's Fragonard's styles, which is why they were hung in the rooms of the king's mistresses. 2. Well, I do view a work that is intended to titilate as pornography. Is that a negative thing? No. 3. The definition of pornography has not changed over time, but the threshold of what is pornography has changed and that is undoubtable. For example, Madam X by Sargent, the so oft mentioned by me Dejeuner sur l'Herbe, Olympia, and many others were considered pronographic due to the direct representation of the female nude outside of the established Academic conventions, which Boucher and Fragonard also violated.

Call it crap art, call it whatever you want. I've said I accept all definitions of art whatever they may be. Art doesn't exist independantly of man so it can be whatever we want it to be.

I will admit an absolute definition of art if you can show unequivicobly what qualifies you to have one and why. I fail to see how art is NOT a relativistic term. I would also remind you that my defintion of art is not '1990's' relativism, but is related directly the Warhol's idea of art and the idea of art that pushed forward the Pop movement.

Sure, the piblic gets what it wants just so long as no one gets hurt as a direct result of their entertainment. No one goes out and kills someone JUST BECAUSE they heard a rap song. There are other influences. Maybe the music plays a marginal role in the mentality, but there are other factors involved in the ultimate decision. Now, I would ask you since you have labelled a bunch of things you consider inferior in value, for whatever reason, would you outlaw them as well? If you redefine the things people want by education, etc, then there is no need for the less agreeable aspects of rap. That is what I have been saying all along. The music exists to fill a need people feel they have for whatever reason.

Well, in that case, since you are so comfortable with elitism, let's set up an academy to dictate artistic tastes. If you are an artist and you don't meet the criteria you'll starve, never gaining noteriety, until a group of angry artists set up across the street and destroy your institution. You can not legislate taste like you legislate law. The establishment will only hold back the artistic surge. Inevitably freedom will produce forgetable, immaterial pieces, sometimes it produces greatness. You'll never know, but what is wrong with people thinking Harry Potter was the best book ever written? Or the Lord of the Rings, which I consider a fine piece of literature. Do people HAVE to listen to a broad range of musical styles if they have no interest in it? I don't like eating and am fine eating the same thing for weeks at a time, am I ignorant because I don't explore the greatness of various cuisines through out the world? I don't like dancing, so am I ignorant for not having explored the nuances of the jeter? As for Joyce, I'm sure he's great, but I really wouldn't know. never read him, not interested in it either. Does that make me a philistine? What is the problem with someone who thinks Harry Potter is the best thing ever written?

I am sorry, but I seem to get the feeling you seem to think that I have no experience with art or anything artistic, and I assure you that would be a faulty assumption on your part. I may not paint, but I know art, and I say there are no absolute standards, and that if standards are impossible to define that indicates a need for a relativistic perspective.

There were thousands of 'the people' that read the Three Musketeers and the Count of Monte Cristo because when it was originally published it was NOT 1200 pages. It was serialized a chapter at a time, in popular magazines. In such a case we ARE talking about a mass public. It's not like the literacy rate in France a century ago was 12%. Art Nouveau was very popular, though more so in architecture than painting. The Pre-Raphaelites can be found in many museums and the movement is more popular than other ninteenth century movements such as Orientalism, which I think are superior. In any case I feel they aren't nearly as under-rated as they deserve, but I guess it's a good thing my opinions aren't absolute. Maybe they'll even be called uninformed.

And again, I would disagree with everyone you listed but Vermeer and Velazquez. I don't like Renaissance art and I don't like Rubenisme, so again, I guess it's good that art is relativistic. I have my reasons to like Hopper more than Michelangelo, you have yours for liking Michelangelo more than Hopper, just like some people like rap more than anything else.

I suppose the reason we all study art is different. Some people see art as expressing individual, personal genius, others often see art as an expression of the society from which they came. Again, it's a good thing that no one view dominates. Otherwise there would be nothing to learn because everything would be the same, which is what has happened everytime art has been organized into cpncrete definitions.

I don't want to respond to the political comments in your post because it can go no where but off course and result in nothing but mud-slinging. Suffice to say I disagree strongly. I think it is best left at that.

My point in citing those artists was that a dictatorship of taste does not promote change or improvement of an art form, and it is true. The fact that the impressionists were or were not elitists doesn't matter for the point I made, though I might point out that they accepted Henri Rousseau, le Douanier, or the tax-collector, who had no formal training and was an unabashed primitivist in his painting, and given their lives I find it hard to claim that they were elitists in refusing to accept the outside or the public. The important point I made was that the Academy tried to establish a standard for legislating taste, such as is being suggested, but it failed miserably and that for art to advance its restrictions had to be thrown aside.

As individuals we do not abdicate our right to freedom of speech, only our right to directly harmful forms of speech. I would direct you to my earlier comments that outlawing rap WILL NOT remove its audience. Rap is outlawed in Iran, but I personally have several songs that are rap produced in the country (I have them more as a novelty than anything else). Again, rap is a music form that wants to be viewed as illicit, if you actually make it illicit it will only grow in popularity.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by jon1jt

i want to read your posts again before responding fully. i know you noted questions, i'm not avoiding them. for now, you mentioned some confusion about the term "exploitation" as i used it to highlight that words have meaning when we want them too. a debate rages over the exploitation of foreign workers by no-good "American" companies, which set up affiliates overseas - e.g. bangladesh; others in mexico and latin america. relativist liberals argue that these workers are not paid a "living wage" but also that it creates the conditions for entire families to perform "sweatshop" labor, native parents forcing their children to work as well rather than allow them to go to the local school to be educated. multi-national corps have taken the brunt of criticism because they've created and in the process, arguably, furthered the conditions for illiteracy, subsistence wages, and fractured family life. some neo-con journals, like Foreign Policy and Foreign Affairs, have run articles defending MNCs on the basis that such workers are not "exploited" in the strict sense of the word -- in fact, without the added trade and work opportunities MNC's provide to these regions, the logic goes, workers would be far worse off. relativist liberals contend that 'exploitation is exploitation' - in that 'I know it when i see it'-justice stewart sense. and so then accuse MNCS and think tanks that the realities on the ground don't comport with MNCs suggestion that they are a galvanizing, region-developing force. i hope this clears up my point. and strike the "false analogy" claim you didn't make it - i had wanted to say i wasn't making one. sorry.

---

All right. I understand what you mean, and the point you raise is an interesting one now that I understand it better. I still disagree with the relationship being drawn. In one situation, art, there is almost nothing physical that defines it. Meaning, that unless you accept the primacy of convention adn tradition you do not have a measuring stick to use to ensure the rightness of a piece of art, but in exploitation there is a firm measure, there is a standard of living. You can compare the standard of living, the comparative wages and the conditions worked in with that of other countries and come up with nearly mathematical relationship and base your defintion of exploitation on those facts. Since I am unwilling to admit the primacy of any form of art over any other form there is no similiar measure for me to apply to art.

In any case, I don't see how that makes my definition of art defunct.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by jon1jt

as far as the claim that i contradicted myself regarding my perspective of history, i meant that to be human is to breath value into the very "reading" i.e. understanding, the process by which we take in and assemble - historical fact. i'm tempted to go further on this point but there's already a wonderful thread on historical interpretation.

---

So you see history as having a 'value'? I assume that value in this sense means some kind of moral struggle, or maybe a struggle for justice? For you history is a dialectic of good vs evil or some such thing?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by jon1jt

perhaps my thinking is to many here anachronistic - offensive to others, both to free wheeling relativist liberals, but history will absolve me when the whole s***house goes up in flames, the day it's recognized that rap/hip hop is (was) a contributing factor in this nation's slow and inevitable decline. you can see it in pockets all over. in education, at all levels. i have a friend who has been teaching at a major university, a renowned (white) scholar in her field, and even she admited to me that if she didn't dumb down her course lectures and requirements, she'd lose 70% of the class and the administration would go bonkers. she also told of students who "earned" C's who after filed petitions and screamed, one who even spit at her. she's had to reprimand students with ipods in class (listening to hiphop??!)- an apparently widespread problem - and students who play on the internet in class. she's showed me incoherently written "research papers" and essays from students with an eigth grade writing level. another person - an adult who decided to go back to school and finish up her college degree, was shocked that one of her teachers had to actually ask students repeatedly not to talk during class. colleges are set up as a business and accept just about anyone with a pulse.

---

I will save the first part of the paragraph for the end of this response. I would prefer to address the college argument, because I agree with you. Education is terrible, and there are a number of reasons why.

The first is regarding college. It is inevitable, in my opinion, that a college education will begin to mean less as universities are democratized to accept nearly everyone, which is true. Anyone, regardless of how ill-prepared can go to college now somewhere if they can pay. I do not necesarily agree with this idea, and I think it is unfortunate.

The second thing is about lower levels of education, and much of the blame for ill-prepared college students rests here. Education in the US, and I would say the world in general, is terrible, not because of the quality of education but because of the skills emphasized. Students, on average, are not stressed to come up with their own answers to problems. Emphasis in the past twenty years in education has been placed on multiple-choice tests, which is mostly a test of data-retention and not critical analysis, which is the skill that needs to be stressed to create more intelligent individuals, and that critical thinking and analysis is engendered mostly by questioning the veracity of previously held assumptions, such as what is 'socially acceptable' and 'what is art' and 'what did Hitler REALLY think when he invaded Austria.' Those questions can only be answered in a free environment.

The knowledge base that evolved from a strategy of multiple choice testing and pre-formed essay response (many essays now a days in school are the bland five-paragraph approach which are nearly sppon-fed to students) is one where rhetorical skills are lost and one that tends to engender a natural respect for intellectual authority, which as I am sure you can gather, I disagree with.

Descartes never said anything better than 'question everything.' To me knowledge is a revolutionary prcoess and learning is a rebellion inside the individual against society and against what he used to be. In the end things may stand much like before, but stronger, with more integrity, or they may be toppled and changed, but it is almost always for the betterment of the person, provided the discovery is unguided and unhampered by outside requirements and demands. Guidance is not a problem, but rules are. Science, society and art never advanced because people followed 'the rules.' Advancement only comes when the conventional rules are either broken or bent.

A note here, I am not railing against teachers. They are as much victims of the system as the students themselves are.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by jon1jt

hip hop contributes to the increasing lethargy, banality, sloth, and ambivalence in the United States.

waving the banner of unfettered first amendment speech and thereby turning a blind eye with your shoulder-shrug acknowledgments of its misogyny is sad.

---

I've said several times that I don't agree with the misogyny, that I think it should be fought. I have said several times that the way to fight it is NOT censoring it, but rather exploring the PHENOMENA that create the violence and then figuring out how to CHANGE that. Hip-hop is not our problem, it is a symptom.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by jon1jt

the public IS democracy and the latter can't survive without a sense there's a common denominator. forms of totalitarianism already exist in America and yet you blow your trumpets of freedom, as if free press and free speech are real. i have not yet discussed that dimension of my argument. please do not in any way suppose that i suggest that censorship should be enforced under the present conditions---that is, this democracy. the public is too far gone for censorship to have any positive effect. America is slouching towards gomorrah. global warming, world hunger (yet US pays farmers NOT to produce), poverty, epidemics, terrorism, nuclear arms, weapons, guns, war, indiscriminate killing, etc. etc. are all sullen examples. i'll stop there.

I think it was William Penn who once said, "Let the people think they govern and they shall be governed."

and that's the illusion - the spell you relativist liberal-free speech folks are under. i will not be cajoled into your cave, nor you mine. twas always thus, and always thus will be. :)

---

Allright, to begin with you seem to think I don't believe that anything is wrong, and that is not true. As I have said before I am not completely a relativist, I know there are things that are right or wrong and I believe in a moral truth, but I do NOT believe that things such as art can be defined, because I do not believe that they can be VALUED (in a superior/inferior, important/unimportant, etc) sense. I believe in an absolute morality, namely that you must repsect the liberty of someone else so that they respect the liberty of you. People do not always live up to this standard and laws are required, but they must walk the thin line between enabling the individual and disabling him so that he is not restricted from too much. Banning hip-hop would be too much.

You believe you should ban hip-hop and certain undesirable aspects of history, just not in a democracy? It was ok under Socialism? I don't understand the logic of your argument.

The government is not some great caring parent that spreads its wings protectively over a civilization. You can't name a single government in the history of the world that operated that way without being a tyranny.

I normally hate this kind of thing but your argument just called for it. There was another country once, not too long ago, that was fighting rampant inflation, crushing social divisions and many feared that society had degenerated so badly that it could never recover, drastic measures would be required to purify the social hygenie, and, of course, ensure the future of business against the Communists. Because of the fear that the once glorious country would descend into the terrible reaches of leftist anarchy and the mass killing that would inevitably follow, along with the destruction of business, the gov't reached out to a person who promised to fix all the problems, clean out the scourge of political dissent that was affecting the youth, and ensure a great, glorious, continuous society. He would empower business, strike fear in the hearts of the evil-doers spreading propoganda in his society, and the people that appointed him thought he was a funny man they could countrol, whom they would ensure would only restrict things just enough, because, after all, he was better than a Communist. I will assume you know to what and whom I am referring. The man the government apointed to fix its social problems was the author of the book you want to ban. He saved not just Germany, but even Greater Germany from becoming a gemorrah. I should also add that if one reads his mannifesto he learns that one of the future-leader's biggest gripes was that a particular ethnic group controlled everything, including the art world, and was therefore stealing, by virtue of their aesthetic, the right of young German artists to create. Of course, the future leader also enforced his own standards for art just like Mao and Stalin.

You have ended this post with another quote, but why don't you explain yourself instead of only referencing great men. You say that the moral hygene of our country is bankrupt, but you do not say why YOU are qualified to judge it. you don't say what it's bankrupt against, Christianity, Islam, Capitalism?

Are you qualified to arbitrate because of what you've read? What is it that qualifies YOU as the person that has the asnwer to our society's ills? What makes YOU the man who can fix us, the one with the knife that can right the senate's wrong if you'll just be given a chance and a legion? You have said a lot of things, but you have not said, a single time, why you are right, how rap is destroying our country, and what makes me wrong. You have referenced a few SC cases, but for the rest you just respond that 'rap is full of misogyny,' 'your relativism is the end of our country,' and 'you need to read more before talking.' These are not arguments, they are declaritive statements from which arguments spring. The only one you've managed to prove is that rap is indeed full of misogyny, a point we all agree with.

To my community:

Does anybody have a problem with the statement: we are not moving forward here.

Arguments are made. Then the same arguments are made again and again. Examples are used to prove a point. Then other examples to negate them.

And this would be fine if there was some degree of evolution from one premise to another.

But I do not see that occuring.

I think it is time to end this hip-hop thread and, if folks desire, create some other thread that is broader, eg "Does art have a specific duty to society?" "Can art be judged as to its value/worth in absolute terms?" "Are there times when art should be censored?"

Those topics are acutally the ones being discussed now. Why not simply admit that and create a better context to discuss those specific questions?

ghideon
aka
jgx

I think JGX has a point.

"They are aware of and even try to appeal to young people as their target audeince. Tis a dangerous and boling solution created by the media made of both shockingly crude content AND a direct appeal to the most vulnerable and gullible audience, youth.That is marketing and corruption, not art" - thumbs up to dramasnot6!!!

:) Thanks yelena!

quoted: SheykAbdullah- Pornography is something whose primary intention is to titilate and arouse feelings in a sexual manner. Most of the works of Roccoco were intended as decorative cycles in boudoirs in order to titilate the viewer in a sexual way. That makes it pornography. Does that make it not art?


SLG- We merely dispute the terminology. What you call "pornography" I call eroticism. I certainly do not deny the erotic intent of such art.

As far as Il Sodoma there is no sexual intent there, as far as St Teresa in Ecstasy, while there is an element of sexual gratification in the piece that is not the purpose for which it is sculpted. That is the difference between it and most Boucher's work.

SLG- Personally, I find a good deal of eroticism and sado-masochistic eroticism within many of the numerous painted crucifixions and martyrdoms... something that the Japanese writer, Mishima tapped into:

http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k2...Mishima2SS.jpg

Certainly, I have no doubt that religious images were seen by artists as just as much of a pretext to explore the subject which truly interested them... be it the human body, dramatic action, violence, etc...

The definition of pornography has not changed over time, but the threshold of what is pornography has changed and that is undoubtable. For example, Madam X by Sargent, the so oft mentioned by me Dejeuner sur l'Herbe, Olympia, and many others were considered pronographic due to the direct representation of the female nude outside of the established Academic conventions...

SLG- Perhaps we might suggest that what changed was not pornography... but the openess of fine art to appropriating imagery and themes that were once seen as taboo or simply beneath consideration. Sargent's Mme X
(Madame Pierre Gautreau) shocked largely due to the context. The Gautreau was a young American beauty who had married into wealth and was now seen as flaunting it in Paris. She had the audacity to be involved in a rather steamy and quite public affair with the womanizing Dr. Pozzi, also portrayed by Sargent at the same time in a devlish fiery red guise:

http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k2..._Homesmall.jpg

The Parisian public became scandalized by what they saw as the brazeness of this American upstart... especially when taken with the rather sensual nature of Sargent's painting of Gatreau:

http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k2...nt_MadameX.jpg

L'Dejeuner sur l'herb and Olympia were similar transgressions. It was not so much the nudity as the contect. In the case of L'Dejeuner... Manet had thought to simply reimagine Titian's famous Fete Champetre (in the Louvre). Titian's painting essentially presented what, at the time, were two young men in contemporary dress accompanied by two nude women sitting outside. The act of updating it to contemporary Paris with the two men in the dress of modern Parisians sitting in a Paris park with their two naked female consorts shocked because it seemingly stripped away the perfume of history which made Titian's painting acceptable. Olympia shocked in a like manner as Manet recast Titian's Venus D'Urbino... a portrait of a Venetian courtesan and her maid as a modern Parisian whore who like Titian's Venus had the audacity to stare at the male viewer and not turn her eyes away to allow for the male voyeuristic gaze without confrontation. Context can certainly make a painting shocking or not. Most recently I think of a nude portrait done by Lucian Freud. This painting, like most of Freud's work, might be disturbing in the degree of unattractive realism with which he scruitinizes his models. When we discover that the model was his adult daughter, however, calling the work "Freudian"... Oedipal... takes on a whole new level.

I would also remind you that my defintion of art is not '1990's' relativism, but is related directly the Warhol's idea of art and the idea of art that pushed forward the Pop movement.

Ahhh! Warhol. Then nothing more need be said.:D

To me, nude doesn't always mean erotic or pornographic. People in the Roman Impire created a cult out of a naked, good looking and healthy body. I imagine that everyone has seen those statues of gods and just ordinary people, with no clothes on. Is that erotic or pornographic?

...since you are so comfortable with elitism, let's set up an academy to dictate artistic tastes. If you are an artist and you don't meet the criteria you'll starve, never gaining noteriety, until a group of angry artists set up across the street and destroy your institution.

Certainly such an institution will never guarantee the quality of the art produced and certainly some artists will either starve... give up... or conform. But how is that different from the current system of capitalism? I have the same possibilities. I can conform to the demands of the market... or I can give up or starve. What is the difference if I starve for the lack of the support of a single rich patron, the support of the academy, or the recognition of the masses?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Yelena

To me, nude doesn't always mean erotic or pornographic. People in the Roman Impire created a cult out of a naked, good looking and healthy body. I imagine that everyone has seen those statues of gods and just ordinary people, with no clothes on. Is that erotic or pornographic?

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Nudity is known to everyone, when portrayed artistically i do not consider it pornography. Nudity can have connotations and contexts of many kinds, perhaps it is considered more pornographic with a more sexually graphic context. There are some hip hop songs with a very graphic sexual description that i would consider a form of pornography and not art for that reason.

It is inevitable, in my opinion, that a college education will begin to mean less as universities are democratized to accept nearly everyone, which is true. Anyone, regardless of how ill-prepared can go to college now somewhere if they can pay. I do not necesarily agree with this idea, and I think it is unfortunate.

The second thing is about lower levels of education, and much of the blame for ill-prepared college students rests here.

Actually, many education scholars believe the reverse is true. Because colleges, which unlike the public elementary and secondary schools, are a business and in business to make money (one needs only research the percentage of college deans and prseidents who have no education credentials), they have loosened their standards in order to bolster the student registration. This increased dramatically when colleges were faced with fewer students to choose from toward the end of the "baby boomer" generation. Once students have been accepted, grades are often relaxed or inflated as a means of maintaining (and not discouraging) students. If the standards at colleges remained challenging and large numbers of students began to be rejected the parents and the country as a whole would undoubtedly find the resolve to fix many of the problems with public education.

Speaking as something of an insider in public education I will tell you that there are several major problems with the public schools and teaching "critical thinking skills" has nothing to do with any of them.

1. Lack of proper funding. When one compares the budget for public education vs that of the military we immediately see where the priorities lie. Certainly not all schools are underfunded, but the funding is largely inequitable and maintains the cycles of poverty in poorer districts. As school funding is based upon property taxes, the wealthier suburbs fare far better. The teachers are better paid; the schools are properly supplied with needed materials, books, etc... In poorer rural and urban districts, the reality is 100 year old buildings that are collapsing, libraries with history books that speak of how "one day we will walk on the moon", classrooms overcrowded or held in broom closets and windowless basement storage rooms. Even those urban districts that recieve more dollars per student than the average are greatly struggling due to the fact that they must often deal with a far larger percentage of "special needs" children (due to alchohol fetal syndrome, malnutrition, and other effects of poverty), extreme discipline problems, major transportation issues, and students who lack the support of educated parents and who come to school lacking the skills of many of their more well-off peers.

2. Waste. Many large urban boards of education are populated by business figures with political aspirations. Such positions offer publicity at little expense for someone with aspirations to city council, mayor, state senate, governor, etc... In many cases, however, such administrators lack any concept of the realities of managing such institutions. There is rampant graft and nepotism. In my own school system hundreds of thousands of dollars (per school) were spent upon new windows which were never installed (they sit in storage) for buildings slated for demolition in one or two years. Nearly every other year millions are spent upon training teachers to impliment the latest curriculum and the latest teaching strategies passed down from college education researchers. Any one of these systems might have the chance of suceeding... but they are never stayed with long enough before the next educational novelty hits. Teachers are themselves often expected (forced by their circumstances) to spend hundreds if not thousands of their own dollars to purchase the supplies that are needed to teach which should be provided by the school boards. They are also expected to continually spend money on CEUs (continuing education units)... classes taught by first year Phds. who have no concept of reality in the schools. These classes are required by most states thanks to active lobbying by... you guessed it... the colleges for which these classes are great money-makers. They have almost no costs: a single classroom, un underpaid first year Phd. employed part-time without benefits, and a few xeroxes. A great way to subsidize the sports programs.

I could go on with any number of other problems: parents, lack of respect and discipline, violence, the adversarial position of teachers and administrators, the ridiculous unfunded No Child Left Behind mandate, the attempts to privitize education, etc... Teachers would love to be able to teach "critical thinking skills" and such "higher order thinking" as analysis, synthesis, comparison, etc... but these are dependent upon the students having learned and mastered certain basic "facts" ... which certain educational gurus starting in the 1960s have decided are irrelevant. How does a student analyze why Hitler invaded Austria when he or she doesn't know who Hitler was, what WWII was, where the city they live in is to be found on a world globe let alone where Austria is, or even what the word "invade" means?

My... haven't we gotten quite off the main topic?
And so I will gladly move further discussion in this area to another thread.

I JUST CREATED A NEW THREAD LOCATED IN GENERAL CHAT TITLED,

"THE CLASH OF CULTURES AND WHAT SHOULD BE DONE ABOUT IT?"

and i listed a bunch of thought-provoking questions that attempt to encapsulate some of the major themes here. i may have failed, but i tried! enjoy! :)

Again I will respond in chunks, corresponding with the original posts.

Our definitions of pornography are indeed different. Like I said, I view anything created with the main purpose of titilation to be pornography. What you call erotic I call pornography. Now that doesn't mean I object to Boucher etc on a moral ground, I just call it pornography. One might say there is good or at least acceptable pornography and that pornography which shouldn't be tolerated (but not banned) by polite society.

We differ on our view of the sado-masochistic tendencies of certain religious tableaus, but that is our right. Often times in art, as I am sure you know, two different views simply can not be reconciled unless there is some example of proof aside form the painting to indicate the artists intent.

The change in the acceptability of pornography and eroticisms is what I have been saying all along. Things change with time and society rediefines certain aspects of its own culture.

I don't like Warhol either, but the artistic elite generally accepts his vision as remarkable and revolutionary, changing what we view as art and allowing the emergence of post-modern definitions in art best defined in conceptualism, which I also don't like.

Capitalism creates its own academy, that's true, but it is still looser than an academy of scholars dictating taste, and only theirs. In our market there is a chance a fringe movement will catch on with one collector and then be spread to others, but in an rigid academic setting vagrancies in art are squashed in the beginning.

I just want to reply to this in its original context, if for convenience of reference if nothing else. I will move my replies to a different thread. I agree with you comments on education one hundred percent. School boards like the easy way out and it is much simpler to plug in numbers to indicate successes vs failures. It's a shame.

throughout this thread and others during the time i advocated a position stating that censorship was a solution given the often vile content of rap music toward women and its glorification of drugs. most disagreed with my position.

i'm interested in what people have to say now, especially those who posted in here who made emphatic defenses against censorship, how they feel abot Don Imus being fired for making a couple distasteful (i.e. racist?) remarks given his intent.

Does the big network that fired Imus have the same responsibility to remove that sort of content from it's airwaves when it's made by rap music?

Imus' firing to me appears to be quite selective and grossly unfair if the same network not impose that standard universally---which is one of "content" not intention.

your thoughts, please.

I think this column by Jason Whitlock, in the Kansas City Star, on the subject makes for great reading on the subject

Quote:

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"I don’t listen or watch Imus’ show regularly. Has he at any point glorified selling crack cocaine to black women? Has he celebrated black men shooting each other randomly? Has he suggested in any way that it’s cool to be a baby-daddy rather than a husband and a parent? Does he tell his listeners that they’re suckers for pursuing education and that they’re selling out their race if they do?

When Imus does any of that, call me and I’ll get upset. Until then, he is what he is — a washed-up shock jock who is very easy to ignore when you’re not looking to be made a victim."

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by kilted exile

I think this column by Jason Whitlock, in the Kansas City Star, on the subject makes for great reading on the subject

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that's a fantastic quote kilted!!! i thought i was the only person who felt that way for a second! thanks:thumbs_up
:thumbs_up