Art Without Objective Value

The process in which our world is being deconstructed is the following. It is best made visible in art and culture, but through its anti philosophy it slowly permeates every walk of life, until one day we find ourselves plunged into the black hole of nihilism.

Narrative: "Morality is relative and depends on your point of view; the same is true of beauty and any other value; our values are middle class; values are evil, Western constructs; objective art (science, music (tones), drama, literature (language, letters) ballet (movement), culture, education, gender, family, religion, etc.) must be liberated from the constraints put upon it by evil, Western, objectivists; old culture must be attacked and destroyed."

This process of the hatred of the good for being good cannot go on forever without consequences.

City Journal: "Beauty and Desecration - We must rescue art from the modern intoxication with ugliness", by Roger Scruton

At any time between 1750 and 1930, if you had asked an educated person to describe the goal of poetry, art, or music, “beauty” would have been the answer. And if you had asked what the point of that was, you would have learned that beauty is a value, as important in its way as truth and goodness, and indeed hardly distinguishable from them. Philosophers of the Enlightenment saw beauty as a way in which lasting moral and spiritual values acquire sensuous form. And no Romantic painter, musician, or writer would have denied that beauty was the final purpose of his art.

At some time during the aftermath of modernism, beauty ceased to receive those tributes. Art increasingly aimed to disturb, subvert, or transgress moral certainties, and it was not beauty but originality—however achieved and at whatever moral cost—that won the prizes. Indeed, there arose a widespread suspicion of beauty as next in line to kitsch—something too sweet and inoffensive for the serious modern artist to pursue. In a seminal essay—“Avant-Garde and Kitsch,” published in Partisan Review in 1939—critic Clement Greenberg starkly contrasted the avant-garde of his day with the figurative painting that competed with it, dismissing the latter (not just Norman Rockwell, but greats like Edward Hopper) as derivative and without lasting significance. The avant-garde, for Greenberg, promoted the disturbing and the provocative over the soothing and the decorative, and that was why we should admire it. (...) >>>

Related:

- Stephen Hicks: "Why Art Became Ugly"

Pragmatist Olympics in the Terror Hive

Kathy Shaidle has published a damning article on Front Page Magazine, "Beijing: Munich or Berlin" on the state of affairs in communist China, host to the supposedly edifying event of the modern Olympic Games.

While isolating sports from the political context is one thing, and respecting the internal affairs of a sovereign nation another, the tacit acceptance of state terror and brutal oppression - let alone legitimizing it by appointing the perpetrator as an Olympic host - is far more serious. Experts assure us that the Chinese leaders interpret the selection of Beijing as the world's acknowledgement that it accepts the Communist Party (CCP) as the legitimate ruler of China.

It's what you get with the Pragmatist approach to evil ideologies. Pragmatism is one of the many offshoots of the Relativist branch of philosophy. Rejecting objective reality, it has dispensed with ethics, epistemology, as well as reason. Its other central tenet is that each and every idea, religion, or culture is equally valid from its own perspective (except the West's, which are uniquely evil - including this one?).

And so, Havana has become a respectable vacation destination for Europeans, while the press refer to the Castro brothers as misguided idealists - audacious rascals, on a par with the other murderous poster boy, Che.

The last few days, as the world mourned the death of Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the focus of Soviet crimes was on Stalin's atrocities rather than the evil of communist ideology itself. The Nobel Prize winner himself is derogatory referred to as a Nationalist - a direct insult in the Postmodern tranzy frame of reference.

- Caption: black satire by The People's Cube -

Ideas are untouchable, persons are fair game.
Denunciations of China's human rights record - while welcome - are directed at the symptoms (coercing individuals to comply to the will of the collective) instead of the evil system itself (communism).

In this 'morally neutral' atmosphere where the passing of judgment on any one's culture is anathema while pronouncing damnation on your own is mandatory, communist China enjoying the Olympic honours should come as no surprise. Such is the cynical state of the world.

The Epoch Times has published a series of nine columns, called the Nine Commentaries on the Chinese Communist Party, which represent the most detailed account yet of communist misrule in China, and what the consequences have been for the Chinese people and lovers of liberty throughout the world.

Skip the Bird's Nest opening ceremony on Friday and instead take note of the gruesome history on which the Chinese ideal of Rousseau's Agrarianism is built, a legacy legitimized by Western Postmodern Pragmatism.

Here's a excerpt from Kathy Shaidle's "Beijing: Munich or Berlin" from Front Page Magazine:


"Given the known facts about life in totalitarian Communist China, the choice of Beijing for the 2008 Games makes a mockery of the Olympic Charter, which claims to promote “a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of human dignity” and “respect for universal fundamental ethical principles.” This was immediately disproved when the Chinese, blatantly and arrogantly, celebrated their selection as host country with a fireworks display in Tiananmen Square, where thousands of young pro-democracy demonstrators were slaughtered in 1989. Dancers also performed below towering portraits of Mao Tse-tung, who murdered approximately 70 million Chinese in Communism’s name.

- Caption: Beijing 2008 Olympics bill board "One World, One Dream" - which one? -

“If we had known what was already taking place in Germany's camps in 1936 (...) the Olympics would not have taken place in Berlin.

”Ironically, given the number of pro-Tibet protests that marred this year’s Olympic torch relay, the IOC is now considering ending the 72-year-old tradition. But rather than extinguish this appealing custom, the IOC, and the rest of the world, should reevaluate, or at least stick to, its criteria for selecting host countries and be willing to learn from history.