Can America be "great" without great culture?

[Eric the Green]

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.

[Bronsin]

He could pump Millions into it and it wouldn't make any difference. Our "culture" has devolved into a society of obese couch potatoes glued to snapface and instachat who don't know anything beyond what their handheld social media finds acceptable. And that's just the way the govt. wants it.

[pbrower2a]

Donald Trump does not need artists or scientists as supporters. He needs the police, the tax-collectors, and the military to support the  Master Class of which he is a part. The only intellectuals for whom he has any use are those who laud him as the most wonderful thing to have ever happened to America.

The irony is that the commercially-successful often have far better taste than Donald Trump.  Of course you did see my thread on 'dictatorial style'. Bad taste does not make a bad person; the semi-literate have always been vulnerable to Kitsch.  But the semi-literate are usually harmless. For someone like Donald Trump, nothing matters but material indulgence and his overweening ego.

So what can PBS do that he hates? Expose the corruption of Trump, expose his emptiness as a person, and suggest that climate change is real. It can offer an alternative to the stupefying bilge like reality television that so infests the American media. It can show us what needs preservation and rediscovery.

[Eric the Green]

(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 Prestley 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.

[pbrower2a]

We will find it necessary to put effort into enjoying life to its fullest: time management, research, planning, and budgeting, as we do in productive work-- if we are to find meaning in life. Few of us will have the dubious privilege of toiling eighty hours a week or so..

[pbrower2a]

(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.

Culture is itself cyclical. We go from the amoral brashness of a Degeneracy/Unraveling to the conformist trend of a Crisis Era as Civics supplant a Reactive generation in the Rising adult category; the mood peaks in conformity around the peak of the Crisis when all centers around a perception of collective danger. Young Adaptive adults might desire and introduce some whimsy while a few cultural pariahs suggest how to have some fun, as in the 1950s in the High or late in the Gilded Age. As the High becomes stale, kids who did not know the dangers of the Crisis Era introduce really-new forms, aesthetics, and concerns. See Art Deco and psychedelic art as examples. See also Hair. The Awakening badly neglects the real children who become a Reactive generation who have little in which to believe except material survival and quick delights -- and whose culture pretends to no high ideals. See the late-Boom fad of Disco being replaced with punk rock.

If one does not like the culture of one's time, then the technology that we now have (video includes great volumes of cinema and television, recorded popular and classical music), then one can wallow in the past. If you don't have Project Gutenberg on your reader or as a computer bookmark, then what is your excuse (other than not having a computer or tablet?) Do you hate pop music? Then try Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert...

Donald Trump exemplifies the elevation of the hollow materialism over all else. He is practically the illustration of vulgarity with the means for expressing vulgarity at its extreme -- and now the power to enforce it as a national culture (or so he thinks). There are plenty of ways to drown him out and reject his ethos. Almost anyone not having an evil personality (sociopathy, psychopathy, borderline, or malignant narcissism) can find or adopt some morality higher than his. He is political failure; he will be the James Buchanan or Herbert hoover of his time. After him the deluge? No. We still have time for demanding and getting a Lincoln, an FDR, or the Founding Fathers anew. Heck, a "new Obama" would solve plenty of problems.

[pbrower2a]

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.

[Bill the Piper]

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).

[Tim Randal Walker]

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.

[pbrower2a]

(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.

One way is to rediscover the rich lode of intellectual achievements of what might as well be antiquity because creative activities like theirs just are not being done anymore.






Need I remind people that with a reader (your computer can function as such) and Project Gutenberg that they can get access to all literary classics now in the public domain, which includes practically anything in final form from 1923 or earlier? Besides, we have a huge supply of good stuff on the remainder rack.

We have art museums, virtual as well as physical. What excuse do people have for being bored except that they are stranded in numbing work or have settled for awful entertainment. The old suggestion, "Go read a book -- a great book" -- is as valid now as it was in the 1920s.

We have plenty of smart people with time on their hands, and most people can do a little art of their own. I am something of a primitive-abstract fusion, neurotic as such may seem. Well, most artists have been neurotic. OK, Bach and Shakespeare seem very rational.

Have a reader and Wi-Fi, and maybe a good pair of headphones, and you have access to great riches of culture. Education is for learning how to find those and not resorting to the Idiot Screen for empty, insipid, titillating schlock, the intellectual equivalent of junk food.

[Tim Randal Walker]

It occurred to me that, using the technology described, "wallowing" in the past is one of the few things one could do once you age past the young-old years.

Do the elderly become very nostalgic?

[Eric the Green]

Can America be great without a great culture?

NO (I see I didn't remember I started this thread; I'm answering my own question again )

And we ought to be inspired by the great cultures of the past. In spite of inferior wealth and lifestyles for the common people, they virtually vastly excelled America in culture. Our culture it pitiful by comparison, and seems in decline (especially "pop" culture).

[Eric the Green]

(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).

A better topic than Sci fi and warfare. I liked Avatar.

[Eric the Green]

(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.

[pbrower2a]

(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.

Art can prosper in communities under distress (surprise -- Rubens did great paintings in a depressed climate, and the great flowering of the French impressionists occurred in a country that had just been shamed in the Franco-Prussian War. Troubled Weimar Germany had an excellent artistic scene. Need I remind you that the noble House of Eszterhazy was able to keep Josef Haydn, arguably the most important of all composers of classical music, fully employed as a retainer -- and one of the most prolific composers who ever lived?)

It is simple enough to say that artists do art because they could not imagine  anything else as a way of asserting their personalities. So they have to make a living as a bartender or a bank teller -- neither job is their real selves. Art is the definitive expression of some selves (and I extend that to literature, cinema, and music, of course). Art can be decoration and a substitute for clutter.

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.

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). Artists can express themselves and get away with it. Artists are rarely competent enough to express someone else's bloated-but-deficient ego.



Satan Hussein, including a scene in which he emerges through a gateway suggesting a predatory bird. 

...and guess who?



This goes beyond normal decoration.

[pbrower2a]

(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.

Art can prosper in communities under distress (surprise -- Rubens did great paintings in a depressed climate, and the great flowering of the French impressionists occurred in a country that had just been shamed in the Franco-Prussian War. Troubled Weimar Germany had an excellent artistic scene. Need I remind you that the noble House of Eszterhazy was able to keep Josef Haydn, arguably the most important of all composers of classical music, fully employed as a retainer -- and one of the most prolific composers who ever lived?)

It is simple enough to say that artists do art because they could not imagine  anything else as a way of asserting their personalities. So they have to make a living as a bartender or a bank teller -- neither job is their real selves. Art is the definitive expression of some selves (and I extend that to literature, cinema,  and music, of course). Art can be decoration and a substitute for clutter.

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.

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). Artists can express themselves and get away with it. Artists are rarely competent enough to express someone else's bloated-but-deficient ego.



Satan Hussein, including a scene in which he emerges through a gateway suggesting a predatory bird. 

...and guess who?



This goes beyond normal decoration.

[Eric the Green]

(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.

Indeed. For the most part, it's not happening, not nearly as well as in poorer societies of the past, because technology itself is considered more valuable today. But there has never been a time when artists COULD be more innovative and creative than today. But without prestige or support, in our commercial and un-awakened society, it's really not happening. It takes a different dominant philosophy than the one that predominates today, in order for art to be great. From the balance of humanism with religion in the classic/renaissance eras, to the soaring religiosity and spirituality of the Middle Ages and Archaic Ages, great art came. Modern art, even if more wildly expressive, started out as promising, from Post-Impressionism to Surrealism. If the spiritualist New Age dawns, art will recover. Now though, our society is sterile when it comes to this aspect of society and culture. And American can't be "great" without it no matter what Drumpface says.

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.

Yes.

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).

Ah, I remember it well

[pbrower2a]

(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.

Indeed. For the most part, it's not happening, not nearly as well as in poorer societies of the past, because technology itself is considered more valuable today. But there has never been a time when artists COULD be more innovative and creative than today. But without prestige or support, in our commercial and un-awakened society, it's really not happening. It takes a different dominant philosophy than the one that predominates today, in order for art to be great. From the balance of humanism with religion in the classic/renaissance eras, to the soaring religiosity and spirituality of the Middle Ages and Archaic Ages, great art came. Modern art, even if more wildly expressive, started out as promising, from Post-Impressionism to Surrealism. If the spiritualist New Age dawns, art will recover. Now though, our society is sterile when it comes to this aspect of society and culture. And American can't be "great" without it no matter what Drumpface says.

[/quote]


Information technology is creating more prosperity just as railroads, canning, petroleum, and automobiles did. Rich people have the means of buying expensive art -- and commissioning it. The middle class can at the least be patrons of art, in a way, by buying recorded video and music or by buying relatively-inexpensive items at art shows in which unknown artists offer their wares. People can spend money at live theater instead of blowing it on cigarettes, booze, and questionable dining.

So if you have Casablanca, Citizen Kane, and Singin' in the Rain in your video collection you have art. If you have collection of Haydn and Shostakovich string quartets you have art. One must be selective enough to avoid Kitsch, but even people with unlimited means can fall for that Schund. Think of The Donald, whose expressions of his pitiable self are little more than the expression of a bloated ego.

It is easy enough for me to say that a disembodied face of John Wayne looming over a western scene, velvet Elvis paintings, and The Sound of Music are Kitsch. Great art, like great literature and even music, suggests some philosophical reality inexpressible in a didactic manner. But even mediocre art can express such. (Great music is strongly connected to mathematics).

[Tim Randal Walker]

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.

[David Horn]

(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.

Agreed.  Quality is around, but it finds only a limited audience.  Mediocre is much more successful.