Nature of consciousness

[pbrower2a]

(11-16-2018, 12:31 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(11-16-2018, 10:03 AM)Bill the Piper Wrote:

(11-15-2018, 01:38 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: The contrary point to that is that in earlier times than today, most people were poor. Today, whatever inequalities may exist, most people are richer than most people were hundreds of years ago. And yet the art produced by earlier civilizations was vastly superior to the trash that passes for art today. Economic growth seems to have, if anything, a negative effect on art. What counts is whether society values the arts or not. Our society values tech and money over art.

The art of the past eras was enjoyed only by the aristocrats who were absurdly rich and did not have to work.

That is true. And now the common people can enjoy that art. Too bad our own people don't make art anywhere near as good.

I see us in an age of great creative activity. The contemporary cinema can be very good, and I can easily see it falling just short of the apex of American cinema around 1939. I used to disparage cinema that relied heavily upon special effects until I saw such movies as Doctor Strange and Black Panther. If the script and acting are both good, I have no right to complain about lavish special effects. Then there is the largely-successful series of animated flicks by Pixar Studios.

So the contemporary composers cannot match Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, and Chopin. We still have them as part of our creative universe, and more people have access to them than ever. Just because those fellows all died 150 or more years ago does not make them irrelevant. One of the glories of modernity is that we have more access to antiquity -- and if it was good then, it is probably good today. I am tempted to believe that in literature, the Harry Potter series will be seen as classics after J. K. Rowling is gone. Add to this, anyone with a computer and web access has a huge array of literature available on Project Gutenberg. With a computer (or tablet) and internet access one who has Internet access has no cause for boredom unless blind.

I may live in a dreary hick town, but I am  within a day trip of excellent art museums in Chicago, Detroit, and Toledo. I can leave early in the morning and return late at night -- tired but enriched.

It is hard to see who can surpass Shakespeare or Brahms. Maybe nobody can. But in a way they are still alive and accessible for their creative abilities. 

Quote:And the common people in many cultures were also artists and craftspeople, and they made and enjoyed their own art, even though they were poor. People in many poor cultures make beautiful folk and religious art and architecture. Europe, South Asia and the Orient is full of it, everywhere you go. The descendants of the Mayans and Incas still make it. Even in the Dark Ages in Europe, they did. And many great artists and craftsmen were supported and employed by the barbarian chiefs, kings, priests and aristocrats. The common people experienced it in their churches and temples, and learned from it. Plays, music and later literature were made available to them. We today do not think art is important; only money and tech. We have iphones, and about the only thing created today we can get on it is rap and pop. We have TVs and netflex, and all we get are lousy shows. There is good contemporary arts around, but you have to search the fringes to find it; it is not valued by our society. So, we are missing a source of truth and connection to life.

We have never had so many active artists. People may have  lamented the paucity of art in the 1870s just as the Impressionists were creating paintings that people generally consider the second-greatest flourishing of visual art (after only the High Renaissance). I have visited art fairs, all showing contemporary art, and I have always found interesting stuff.

TV programming? Most of it is rushed, and that shows. Anyone who relies on series TV for entertainment will get pablum because the objective is to give an audience to advertisers. Remember that the target audience for most TV shows is the range of people who are in the market to participate in the consumer market with no need for sophistication in appeal. What sophistication does it take to want a laxative, detergent, seven-year-old used car, schlock furniture, or mass-market beer? Or to vote for Donald Trump? Do you remember the bad vocational schools that the Obama Administration shut down because their graduates could not get jobs to pay off the student loans? Those were advertised on bad daytime TV shows -- the ones on which some proud 'stud' finds out "You are the father!" or on which chairs might start flying on stage. (Those shows are on TV for the entertainment of unemployed people or for people who work night jobs that they hate).

OK, I have seen plenty of Kitsch -- like a Western scene with the disembodied head of John Wayne floating as if a cloud or a depiction of Jesus Christ in a contemporary setting.  

Quote:We could do great things in the arts as well as in science and tech today, if we wanted to. We have the means to do it; more than that of any other times. So why isn't there a renaissance today? Maybe because the young generations today didn't pick up the ball and run with the inspiration of the Awakening and further develop it, but threw it over instead. It's a common problem among generations today and the gaps between them. And the general commercial and tech orientation of our society works against real arts and connection to life. We are interested in means to the end, not the ends. We want more "bread" even though we almost all of us have enough.

Modern society is better than ancient and medieval in many ways, but don't be deceived that it is better in all ways. Humans tend to forget as much as they learn, and that's very true of the USA.

People need to recognize that even good art is precious, worth displaying in a home -- and worth paying for -- as an expression of a personality. We can't all be artists, but spending a couple thousand dollars for a fine painting by some unknown contemporary artist is something that people need to recognize is worth it. I fault our schools for not pushing appreciation of the arts that would make consumers of potential buyers.