Does Art Serve Any Purpose?

[G L Wilson]

Nearly all of your examples of ancient beliefs and practices no longer relevant to our conceptual world are in fact still in common practice, you are just too literalistic to see it. Probably half of the world's population, including millions of born-agains in your country, do believe that natural phenomena are caused by gods—and if you consider existence a natural phenomenon, the percentage is much higher. Blood feuds?: Read any news from Mexico lately? Laying lives down for kings?: Is the quest for WMDs where they don't exist any more absurd a mission than recapturing some noble's tart? Heard of the Viet Nam War maybe? And people still write poetry and songs in pursuit of love. Did you actually put any thought at all into these examples?

This quotation proves you incapable of anything approaching critical thought:

"Why pretend like one book - or one set of books - has application to all human societies? How is this any different than how a jihadist views his own text and its applicabiltiy to the world?"

Uh, it's different because we aren't advocating death for those who don't appreciate Shakespeare; we aren't offering any particular book as a guide to specific ritualistic behavior, etc., etc. — once again, no though has gone into your statement.

"If literature isn't something that can be lived and applied to our everday social interactions as a cultural dialogue than its a dead letter"

You seem to be the only one in this discussion incapable of applying it to our everyday lives, as your ill-chosen examples all too amply illustrate.

"You'd find yourself having real difficulties in our world if you started attributing sickness to malicious deamons, saying that trees have personalities, or saying the earth is flat."

How is thinking the earth's current species once took a boat-ride with a 956 year old man or that blowing one's self up in a murderous act to improve one's sex life substantially different than saying the earth is flat? And, of course, trees do have personalities.

In conclusion, you are either a troll or someone without the critical skills to carry on an intelligent conversation on these matters. In either case you aren't worth any more of my time.

He is not a troll. I can see his point but I cannot agree with it. What he seems to be saying is: why is classicism more substantial than modernism? And of course it isn't. He has invented a straw man which he likes to pound to relieve his stress. It is not doing him a lot of good but he is trying to find his way home after we sent him into a butcher's to fetch a pound of flesh. I don't think that prickly_ pete is an unthinking man, I think that he has been tortured beyond my and your imagination, and he deserves a break.

[stlukesguild]

If I see a popular movie with a funny line I can apply that to any number of situations. I can play popular music in the car and we can all sing along to it. I see the clothing in a music video and if I think it complements my physique I can try and emulate it. This, this is what art is about and the only way it can truly be lived.

Sorry, Leroy, but that's not what art is about: Hallmark Card platitudes that you can use on Mother's Day or clever lines that you might attempt to use as pick up lines. The fact that you are too blind or ignorant to see beyond your own notions of practicality is irrelevant to others who clearly value art passionately. Again, regardless of G.L. Wilson's cheer-leading, the reality is that this entire post IS nothing but a bit of mental Onanism conducted by a troll. You have gotten endless answers as to the value of art and the reasons as to why it is taught. If you were legitimately putting forth a question that would have been enough... but it is not. You simply counter every legitimate and sincere answer with another twist or turn. The entire dialog is all too familiar. I've sat through such repeatedly led by clever, clever boys who think themselves oh so bright after having taken a couple semesters of college classes. At least these disputes in college had the added advantage of being accompanied by beer. Here it becomes far more meaningless than you presume art to be.

Seriously, what is YOUR purpose? I would suggest that YOU might just be far more meaningless and irrelevant than ART.

[G L Wilson]

If I see a popular movie with a funny line I can apply that to any number of situations. I can play popular music in the car and we can all sing along to it. I see the clothing in a music video and if I think it complements my physique I can try and emulate it. This, this is what art is about and the only way it can truly be lived.

Sorry, Leroy, but that's not what art is about: Hallmark Card platitudes that you can use on Mother's Day or clever lines that you might attempt to use as pick up lines. The fact that you are too blind or ignorant to see beyond your own notions of practicality is irrelevant to others who clearly value art passionately. Again, regardless of G.L. Wilson's cheer-leading, the reality is that this entire post IS nothing but a bit of mental Onanism conducted by a troll. You have gotten endless answers as to the value of art and the reasons as to why it is taught. If you were legitimately putting forth a question that would have been enough... but it is not. You simply counter every legitimate and sincere answer with another twist or turn. The entire dialog is all too familiar. I've sat through such repeatedly led by clever, clever boys who think themselves oh so bright after having taken a couple semesters of college classes. At least these disputes in college had the added advantage of being accompanied by beer. Here it becomes far more meaningless than you presume art to be.

Seriously, what is YOUR purpose? I would suggest that YOU might just be far more meaningless and irrelevant than ART.

Oh, what a sensitive human being art has made you!

[mortalterror]

Oh, what a sensitive human being art has made you!

Ahahahahahahaha. Alright Wilson, high five!

[stlukesguild]

From what I recall Hitler was an "art lover" as were quite a few of the most rapacious rulers of the Italian Renaissance. The notion that art can replace religion and ethics in turning us into spiritual, high-minded, noble beings died out by the late 19th century. Undoubtedly, you heard of "art pour l'art"? As for my closing questions as to the purpose of our provocateur... I am simply restating what I suggested earlier. We might not be able to assign a practical purpose to art any more than we might assign a practical purpose to life itself.

If my responses to Prickly-Pear seem less than sensitive, it is because I sense that he has been simply pulling our chain for far too long. Seriously, I even doubt his whole Afghanistan veteran schpiel which seems all too well constructed to garner empathy. He is far too well versed in the use of language and debate for the common foot-soldier... or the typical Joe-sixpack ignorantly railing at the Arts and those effete elitists. Considering also that this thread constitutes the vast majority of his posts to the site, I see little reason to doubt that he is but a clever student desiring a little entertainment by baiting members at a literature site with his pseudo-iconoclastic arguments.

[G L Wilson]

Perhaps he is, perhaps he isn't; either way, is it not your duty to dispute him? Instead you wish to demean him, to pluck his liver out and show it to the vultures. Are you a man or a mouse?

[stlukesguild]

No... it has become my "duty" to ignore him.

[mortalterror]

From what I recall Hitler was an "art lover" as were quite a few of the most rapacious rulers of the Italian Renaissance.

Did he just compare himself to Hitler?

[G L Wilson]

Did he just compare himself to Hitler?

I think he did, anyhow no matter: art for art's sake? It sounds like a load of cobblers to me. What price art? High above life or low like a dog? Somewhere inbetween, Goldilocks, methinks. It is as she said, Just right.

[G L Wilson]

The term of art is not its lifetime. It endures on through other artists and other lives. It is the answer and the question.

[prickly_pete]

Laying lives down for kings?: Is the quest for WMDs where they don't exist any more absurd a mission than recapturing some noble's tart? Heard of the Viet Nam War maybe?

Exactly my point. Even when you read Homer you still interpret it on your own cultural terms. You see the divinely inspired wars of a primitive aristocratic tribe as akin to an advanced industrial society fighting an insurgency in modern-day Iraq - a completely ridiculous comparison to be sure but nevertheless the only way you can make sense of it. THIS is my point exactly - the only way to make sense out of this stuff is to interpret it on our own terms (which in and of itself requires that we ignore a very large part of the text that offends us or that we can't even begin to understand - exchanging women as gifts, etc.) which really brings one to ask, if all we're doing is bringing our own cultural baggage to our readings of these works then what's the point really? We're reducing Homer to a modern narrative from Iraq anyways so why not just read something writen last year like, say, a modern narrative from Iraq since - innescapably - this is what any war story is going to be compared with and ultimately reduced to.

[prickly_pete]

Seriously, I even doubt his whole Afghanistan veteran schpiel which seems all too well constructed to garner empathy. He is far too well versed in the use of language and debate for the common foot-soldier

That's pretty ignorant. There's actually alot of smart people in the Army and quite a few with degrees even.

[Drkshadow03]

Exactly my point. Even when you read Homer you still interpret it on your own cultural terms. You see the divinely inspired wars of a primitive aristocratic tribe as akin to an advanced industrial society fighting an insurgency in modern-day Iraq - a completely ridiculous comparison to be sure but nevertheless the only way you can make sense of it. THIS is my point exactly - the only way to make sense out of this stuff is to interpret it on our own terms (which in and of itself requires that we ignore a very large part of the text that offends us or that we can't even begin to understand - exchanging women as gifts, etc.) which really brings one to ask, if all we're doing is bringing our own cultural baggage to our readings of these works then what's the point really? We're reducing Homer to a modern narrative from Iraq anyways so why not just read something writen last year like, say, a modern narrative from Iraq since - innescapably - this is what any war story is going to be compared with and ultimately reduced to.

You're confusing meaning with significance. Meaning is the abstract themes, problems, and ideas inherent in the text and its situations. Significance is how it relates to your society today and to us as individuals. Beowulf as a text shows the need for heroism in fighting monsters (meaning). The need to highlight heroism is more important than ever after 9/11. We still need heroes to stand up to the monsters of the world (significance). This also calls attention to the difference between applicability versus allegory, by the way.

However, you're assuming in these argument by misreading our points that the only function of a literary text is to be reduced back into modern terms and generalizations. Most of us have also pointed out the difference in cultures is what makes literary texts interesting too. In other words, it's both the difference and alienness of these cultures AND what values, emotions, experiences, and situations span across cultures to our own.

The value of Homer is seeing how the situation of his soldiers and the emotions of his characters is applicable to contemporary society and all societies in between, while also recognizing this is a vastly different culture than our own with very different customs and traditions and delighting in learning about that alien culture through the text. It's both, not either/or.

Your previous comments about the 19th century nobleman enjoying Shakespeare, and we'll extend this to Homer as well, undermine your own argument. Certainly you're not implying that the life of a 19th century nobleman is anything like the world of Homer or even Shakespeare's, yet according to your example he can somehow relate to those older texts in one way or another, despite major changes in society since the times of those texts. I'm failing to see why it would be so hard for us to relate to these texts as well simply because now we have atomic bombs, computers, and IPADs.

My example earlier of the Hobart Shakespeareans in fact demonstrates students from different cultural backgrounds (mostly Asian and hispanic) and disadvantaged economically are capable of enjoying and understanding Shakespeare once trained to read it (without years of training either). Amazingly, Shakespeare continues to be enjoyed and performed not only in the USA, but in China, Japan, and hundreds of other countries in which it didn't originate.

[prickly_pete]

You're confusing meaning with significance.

Meaning with application, yes. Guilty as charged.

But wouldn't you agree with our good friend Wittgenstein that meaning is application and that there isn't some ideal (I guess Platonic) meaning in our minds or the sky or wherever? That language is a fundamentally social act?

[prickly_pete]

I would agree though, Wilson is absolutely killing it. That is a wise individual right there.