(04-03-2017, 06:37 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote:

(04-01-2017, 01:20 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: I watched Larry Summers on Charlie Rose; not that I agree with him on everything, but he made the good point that Trump's budget cuts for arts and science do the opposite of "make America great again." The greatness of a nation, what it's remembered for, is its culture, Summers reminded us. When I was growing up, I noticed that I live in a country that doesn't value the arts; that is focused on commerce and technology. For me, the psychedelics, the human potential movements, the new age spirituality of the Awakening period of the mid-sixties and seventies, represented the chance for the USA to develop sensitivity, to learn to appreciate beauty, to unleash creativity, for the USA culture to bloom. Now, as the people who lived through those years get older, I wonder if this breakthrough has borne fruit, or when it might happen again. This sensitivity, this new light, seemed to vanish through the 3T/Reagan-Bush era, and now our nation's priorities are consumed with either making money through unleashing commerce from government restraints again, or else the need to resist this and get political in our 4T. Good business skills and political decisions are not enough to "make America great." It must be our culture, and we remain the "nation of dollar trappers with no past or future," as Oswald Spengler once called us.

Eric: RE: "When I was growing up, I noticed that I live in a country that doesn't value the arts"

Seriously? You grew up when Cool Jazz was coming on scene and rock and roll was freaking everyone out. Plus much other very interesting music. Sure, the immediate post War and the 1950s were not the 1960s. But they were pretty exciting for music.

(04-03-2017, 06:56 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(04-03-2017, 06:37 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote:

(04-01-2017, 01:20 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: I watched Larry Summers on Charlie Rose; not that I agree with him on everything, but he made the good point that Trump's budget cuts for arts and science do the opposite of "make America great again." The greatness of a nation, what it's remembered for, is its culture, Summers reminded us. When I was growing up, I noticed that I live in a country that doesn't value the arts; that is focused on commerce and technology. For me, the psychedelics, the human potential movements, the new age spirituality of the Awakening period of the mid-sixties and seventies, represented the chance for the USA to develop sensitivity, to learn to appreciate beauty, to unleash creativity, for the USA culture to bloom. Now, as the people who lived through those years get older, I wonder if this breakthrough has borne fruit, or when it might happen again. This sensitivity, this new light, seemed to vanish through the 3T/Reagan-Bush era, and now our nation's priorities are consumed with either making money through unleashing commerce from government restraints again, or else the need to resist this and get political in our 4T. Good business skills and political decisions are not enough to "make America great." It must be our culture, and we remain the "nation of dollar trappers with no past or future," as Oswald Spengler once called us.

Eric: RE: "When I was growing up, I noticed that I live in a country that doesn't value the arts"

Seriously? You grew up when Cool Jazz was coming on scene and rock and roll was freaking everyone out. Plus much other very interesting music. Sure, the immediate post War and the 1950s were not the 1960s. But they were pretty exciting for music.

I also agreed with bronsin's comment. And it's true money doesn't help all that much.

I didn't care for fifties rock n roll at all; it was one of the reasons I thought as I did, for sure. Now, I do appreciate some of those 1T rock oldies, and added some of them to my "famous" top 400 list, at least if you get below #100, there are some here and there.
http://philosopherswheel.com/ericrock.html
And of course we covered the fifties on our best songs ever thread.

HOWEVER, I still think Elvis Presley is way over-rated by many folks, and early rock'n'roll scarcely created a sensitive culture. Most of the singers and the sounds were too harsh and macho. Cool Jazz? A few good things, but I remain mostly not-so-impressed. But, I didn't know about it then, anyway. The Jazz I heard did not impress me at all.

What I noticed was the general crassness of the culture, of lousy movies and lousy music, and the dedication of our nation to materialistic goals. It was just like Strauss and Howe describe it: spirit dead. But it's true, as in most times, there were some interesting cultural things going on, if you looked more closely. Sometimes you really have to search, and all I could do was read books. I read a lot of books in those days. Not Arthur Miller though. Just not in my perview. But the Perry Mason TV show was great, when we finally got a TV.

(02-21-2019, 12:11 PM)Tim Randal Walker Wrote: As I recall, during 1T there are a few ways around the strictures of a bland, spirit dead society-poetry, painting, music.

Awakenings may see the culture blossom , but I expect only bit and pieces of quality during the other turnings.

(02-21-2019, 08:34 AM)Bill the Piper Wrote: Real culture needs real life to inspire it. Abandoning the space race, America doomed itself to lose global cultural leadership. Quite soon, possibly during the upcoming 1T China may take the lead. Chinese culture already IS inspiring. Read "Three body problem" trilogy by Liu Cixin. It offers a really novel perspective on the problem of interspecies warfare, comparable to "War of the Worlds" by HG Wells. Its conclusion made me so excited and scared at the same time that I couldn't sleep at night! So China produces a work like this while most contemporary American sci-fi simply tells the story of the American Revolution (Hunger Games) or WW2 (Star Wars) in a futuristic setting. Or it spends an entire movie moralizing about indigenous people's rights and global warming (Avatar).

(02-21-2019, 02:30 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Economic achievement usually leads to cultural achievement. A society capable of creating an economic surplus is able at the least to ornament what would otherwise be stark emptiness of the now-defunct Berlin Wall.

People will want to be entertained and inspired.

(02-22-2019, 05:36 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(02-21-2019, 02:30 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Economic achievement usually leads to cultural achievement. A society capable of creating an economic surplus is able at the least to ornament what would otherwise be stark emptiness of the now-defunct Berlin Wall.

People will want to be entertained and inspired.

A prosperous society can see cultural ferment, as opposed to one left in a semi-barbaric condition, but by today's standards, past societies that produced great art had nowhere near the material prosperity levels that we have, who don't.

Partly it's because modern societies are just different. Traditional societies had rich elites and poor masses, but the elites were cultured and they sponsored great art. There was also much greatness in the folk arts too. In India, a relatively poor society, the place is loaded with cultural riches everywhere you look that are not just the product of elites. Latin American folk are is also rich and high quality.

Our society has liberated the common man to a greater degree, although this has been backtracking in the neo-liberal era. But this new empowering of neo-liberal elites in a new unequal society does not lead to an aristocratic culture that sponsors great arts. Today's elites are as deaf and dumb culturally as the masses they rule over. And the masses and elites alike are programmed only to see material goals. 

And our veneration of technology impresses us too much, and therefore robs us of culture as well. Tech acts as a substitute culture, and its physical accomplishments get all the prestige and the rewards, while the arts are looked down upon and left in poverty, although the elites do drive up art prices at auctions.

(02-22-2019, 05:36 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(02-21-2019, 02:30 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Economic achievement usually leads to cultural achievement. A society capable of creating an economic surplus is able at the least to ornament what would otherwise be stark emptiness of the now-defunct Berlin Wall.

People will want to be entertained and inspired.

A prosperous society can see cultural ferment, as opposed to one left in a semi-barbaric condition, but by today's standards, past societies that produced great art had nowhere near the material prosperity levels that we have, who don't.

Partly it's because modern societies are just different. Traditional societies had rich elites and poor masses, but the elites were cultured and they sponsored great art. There was also much greatness in the folk arts too. In India, a relatively poor society, the place is loaded with cultural riches everywhere you look that are not just the product of elites. Latin American folk are is also rich and high quality.

Our society has liberated the common man to a greater degree, although this has been backtracking in the neo-liberal era. But this new empowering of neo-liberal elites in a new unequal society does not lead to an aristocratic culture that sponsors great arts. Today's elites are as deaf and dumb culturally as the masses they rule over. And the masses and elites alike are programmed only to see material goals. 

And our veneration of technology impresses us too much, and therefore robs us of culture as well. Tech acts as a substitute culture, and its physical accomplishments get all the prestige and the rewards, while the arts are looked down upon and left in poverty, although the elites do drive up art prices at auctions.

(02-23-2019, 02:40 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(02-22-2019, 05:36 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(02-21-2019, 02:30 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Economic achievement usually leads to cultural achievement. A society capable of creating an economic surplus is able at the least to ornament what would otherwise be stark emptiness of the now-defunct Berlin Wall.

People will want to be entertained and inspired.

A prosperous society can see cultural ferment, as opposed to one left in a semi-barbaric condition, but by today's standards, past societies that produced great art had nowhere near the material prosperity levels that we have, who don't.

Partly it's because modern societies are just different. Traditional societies had rich elites and poor masses, but the elites were cultured and they sponsored great art. There was also much greatness in the folk arts too. In India, a relatively poor society, the place is loaded with cultural riches everywhere you look that are not just the product of elites. Latin American folk are is also rich and high quality.

Our society has liberated the common man to a greater degree, although this has been backtracking in the neo-liberal era. But this new empowering of neo-liberal elites in a new unequal society does not lead to an aristocratic culture that sponsors great arts. Today's elites are as deaf and dumb culturally as the masses they rule over. And the masses and elites alike are programmed only to see material goals. 

And our veneration of technology impresses us too much, and therefore robs us of culture as well. Tech acts as a substitute culture, and its physical accomplishments get all the prestige and the rewards, while the arts are looked down upon and left in poverty, although the elites do drive up art prices at auctions.

But high technology creates new media that artists can exploit. Artists do that when they get the chance. Just remember that when artists learned the rules of perspective, the art of the Renaissance made the medieval aesthetic.  I see the contrast between medieval and Renaissance; medieval art generally looks amateurish in contrast to Michelangelo, Leonardo, et al. Perspective also made analytic geometry and good calculus possible.

Quote:So when does art fail? Typically when it becomes pure propaganda, dumbed-down for the dullards, restricted to a didactic purpose, and perhaps having a questionable cause imposed upon it. Even advertising, with its limitations, can use artistic merit to draw attention to itself and the object or service that it promotes.

Quote:The grand gesture, the attempt to transform the client into something awesome, is usually a failure. Surely you saw my thread on the preferred styles of tyrants that I tried to extend to dope traffickers (people on a similar level of ethics and aesthetics).

(02-23-2019, 08:38 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(02-23-2019, 02:40 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: [quote pid='41754' dateline='1550875007']
A prosperous society can see cultural ferment, as opposed to one left in a semi-barbaric condition, but by today's standards, past societies that produced great art had nowhere near the material prosperity levels that we have, who don't.

Partly it's because modern societies are just different. Traditional societies had rich elites and poor masses, but the elites were cultured and they sponsored great art. There was also much greatness in the folk arts too. In India, a relatively poor society, the place is loaded with cultural riches everywhere you look that are not just the product of elites. Latin American folk are is also rich and high quality.

Our society has liberated the common man to a greater degree, although this has been backtracking in the neo-liberal era. But this new empowering of neo-liberal elites in a new unequal society does not lead to an aristocratic culture that sponsors great arts. Today's elites are as deaf and dumb culturally as the masses they rule over. And the masses and elites alike are programmed only to see material goals. 

And our veneration of technology impresses us too much, and therefore robs us of culture as well. Tech acts as a substitute culture, and its physical accomplishments get all the prestige and the rewards, while the arts are looked down upon and left in poverty, although the elites do drive up art prices at auctions.

But high technology creates new media that artists can exploit. Artists do that when they get the chance. Just remember that when artists learned the rules of perspective, the art of the Renaissance made the medieval aesthetic.  I see the contrast between medieval and Renaissance; medieval art generally looks amateurish in contrast to Michelangelo, Leonardo, et al. Perspective also made analytic geometry and good calculus possible.

(02-24-2019, 06:04 PM)Tim Randal Walker Wrote: l never really expected greatness in modern culture/arts.  Maybe because I grew up watching television, which has been primarily a medium for advertising.  

In general, I have hoped for material that reaches  the level of good quality-but never greatness.  Actually, over the years even good quality seemed to get harder and harder to find.