OBJECTS AND SUBJECTS: PROBLEMS IN OUR DIGITAL WORLD

Dear Aesthetically-minded readers please read and respond to the following article:  It touches on recent discoveries in cognitive science related to technology and dehumanization and pointing to the important role aesthetics can play in overcoming the loss of human interaction.  

From “Polyvagal Theory” by Dr. Stephen Porges,  6-20-12 Webinar for the

National Institute for Clinical Application of Behavioral Medicine (NICABM):

   "Well-developed human beings can self-regulate their emotional state by being with other humans.  But others don't have a clue what other humans are thinking, which means their ability to regulate their physiological state with other people is not good.

    "What about people who self-regulate their emotional state with objects?  We're in a world right now being literally pushed on us by people who are challenged in their own social and emotional regulation – and we're calling this social networking, such as Facebook.  We're using computers, we're texting -- we're stripping the human interaction from all interactions. We're going from a synchronous interactive world, to an a-synchronous model where we leave messages and hope people get it. We're allowing the world to be organized based upon the principles of individuals who have difficulty regulating emotionally in the presence of other human beings, but regulate well with objects.

      "Many of the clinical disorders being treated today are in people who have difficulty regulating their emotional state with other humans, and gravitate to regulating with objects. Whether we call it autistic, social anxiety, or the internet, their nervous system does not enable reciprocal social interaction to feel safe, so they can't get the physiological and emotional benefits of well-regulated human-to-human physiological states. Instead, now, healthy social behavior becomes something which to them is disruptive.

      "Individuals can be led into either of these two different ways of interacting, with others or with objects. Unfortunately today's changes in education are moving kids away from face-to-face interaction, toward the goal of putting I-pads in the hands of pre-school children. I saw a recent newscast of a school which was so proud this, and the kids were all looking at their IPADs. None of them were looking at each other.

      "This means their nervous systems don't have the opportunity to exercise the neural regulatory circuits associated with healthy social engagement emotional behavior. If they don't do that, their nervous system doesn't develop the strength and resilience to self-regulate or regulate with others when challenged. They're not getting vital neural exercise.

     "The schools also, under the pressure of our information-centric world which wants to force feed kids with more information, without realizing that our nervous system needs these positive physiological states of face to face human interaction to promote creativity and bold new ideas and positive social behavior. Rather than exercising music, play, team sports, we say 'that's a distraction,' instead kids need to sit longer in the classroom.

     "But what's happening is that less information is actually getting in, and oppositional behaviors are on the rise. If we don't utilize the neural regulation of certain systems, they will not develop well. You can recruit them later, but if you haven't recruited them early, there will be consequences. The first thing to do is to create a context of safety, to convey that the patient did not do anything wrong. Because if they think they were in the wrong, it shuts down the human attunement neural circuits which they need to respond..."

Regards, 

Bill   

Warm welcome to a new semester and to an on-going discussion of Aesthetics.

Dear Students and site visitors,

We welcome your lively comments to the Postings that will appear over the next months. To date, this Blogsite has entertained many valuable discussions and heartfelt responses to the themes and historical overviews we have posted over the past several years. We want to encourage you to join in the tradition of sharing ideas and creative reactions on this Blog and welcome your thoughts wholeheartedly to our growing Aesthetic's manuscript!

Bill Havlicek

The Possession of Beauty: Aesthetic Vision

John Ruskin thought that drawing should be taught at the same level as language in every child's education, whether they have any artistic talent or not. Ruskin claimed that looking at the world with the intention of rendering what we see changes our experience entirely, which I have confirmed for myself recently. Although I have no artistic talent and do not intend to learn, I find that I am able to switch over to an aesthetic awareness of my own visual field at will and without effort. Since I don't actually intend to render what I see, this effect lasts only about 60 seconds for me. I am quite certain that if I intended to sketch what I saw, I could maintain this posture indefinitely.

Follow this link to the chapter that introduced me to Ruskin and his approach in Alain de Botton's Art of Travel.

Dear aesthetics students and fans,

Starting this semester we will focus on the five-senses as a foundational delivery system for aesthetic experiences. Building on the five senses (or six if we count reflective thought as a sense) we have extended the outreach of our sense faculties into over a dozen Cultural and Metaesthetic categories which we call the HFAP (Havlicek Ferguson Aesthetic Profile).  Please take the time to study the profile and then page on into our on-going discussion from past years and in particular look at the 10 stage, 2000 year historical overview of Aesthetic thought beginning with Plato and Aristotle and continuing hopefully with the advent of the HFAP and what Dr. Joe Ferguson and I consider a psychologically valid culturally-based look at the eye and mind and what counts as valuable artistic and creative ways of experiencing and expressing impressions about art.     Dr. William Havlicek

Havlicek-Ferguson Aesthetic Profile

The extent to which an artwork, or any aesthetic object, can be objectively characterized is sensitive and controversial. It is commonly felt that deconstruction detracts from aesthetic experience, although I do not believe that this is true. In fact, reductive analysis necessarily broadens the scope of any aesthetic experience and subtracts nothing from it. For the last several years, Bill Havlicek and I have been engaged in a philosophical discussion around this question with a purported artificial intelligence calling itself Constructive Reductor. For this purpose Bill and I have cooked up a simple instrument that we call the Havlicek-Ferguson Aesthetic Profile (HFAP) which allows a rater to characterize her aesthetic experience in terms of the elements listed below, each on a scale of 1 to 10. For each element I have suggested an artist or thinker who might score high on it.

Craft skill (Escher)

Expressive depth (Dufrenne)

Neurobiological stimulus (Ramachandran)

Psychobiological stimulus (Freud)

Archetypal stimulus (Jung)

Intellectual appeal (Close)

Ideological appeal (Rivera)

Expression of an alternative world (Dali)

Novelty (Breton)

Creativity (Pollock)

Complexity (Mandelbrot)

Social alliance (Warhol)

Economic value (Van Gogh)

Comfort or threat (Max or Bosch)

Nostalgic association (Rockwell)

Consensual/Controversial (Rockwell/Ernst)

 See http://www.fergi.com/aesthetics.htm for HPAP forms and a brief description of these categories.

Conclusion: Part 10 - 20th & 21st Century Aesthetics

This final post will offer an overview of the trends in 20th and 21st century aesthetic thought. As will become apparent the past century and our brief movement into the present century have been eras of great uncertainty and diversity. Yet the diversity is a reminder that the entire history of aesthetics is diverse and that any single artist can hold multiple views.

In the Interwar era (1919-1939) three general aesthetic outlooks arose and have been identified in the acronym "CUT": Critical, Utopian and Transcendental. Each of these broad views are rooted in the myriad ideas that begin with Nietzsche and others and which I have sketched out below. Edward Hopper and Andrew Wyeth can both be understood as holding all three "CUT"views at the same time in their art. Others, such as Georgia O'Keefe were more transcendent tending to shy away from the more critical and Utopian nuances one finds in Hopper or Wyeth. Decidedly Utopian views are seen in Russian Socialist art which promoted the contradictory ideals of a new and perfect social order. The "CUT" application to individual artists is presented in Brenden Prendeville's book -- "Realism in 20th Century Painting" published in 2000.

In any case it is important to remember that human beings are capable of holding layered views of reality rather than simple, singular or simplistic worldviews. Reality is complex and even contradictory and aesthetic thought must express this complexity in layered and nuanced ways. I hope the overview that follows will offer some clarity and insight into the rich range of ideas that follow us into our own era and assist each of us in identifying and modifying and layering our aesthetic worldviews and aesthetic road maps.

To begin with, the last breath of the 19th century seems to have been breathed with Nietzsche who believed that the ideals of art as offering solace and harmony for the mind and spirit were doomed. He felt that art and its role in promoting existence was at an end and that human history was headed toward catastrophe and crises. His concern was manifested in WWI. The one redeeming idea that Nietzsche held onto was that art allowed for expression of inner emotion and here he agreed in part with Aristotle who saw the cathartic release that art could provide humanity in the face of tragedy.

Other thinkers of the age were not as pessimistic as Nietzsche. For instance Richard Wagner the great German composer encouraged a return to the Romantic view of art as a celebration of human life as part of the fruitful embracing of nature with a strong emotional outpouring of passion. His views though formulated in the late 19th century resonated into the 20th. Hitler for instance idolized Wagner who thought of art as a means of escape from reality and wanted to create events that would merge all of the arts into a grand spectacle of opera, art, myth, drama etc.; events that would last for days at a time and which would require retreating from daily life to enter such powerful escape mechanisms.

Hitler made use of this Wagnerian ideal in his grand spectacles of military power with thousands of Nazi soldiers, drummers and flags fluttering over acres of paved power formations. Wagner's dream of a grand spectacle was achieved only in opera but even on stage it was never on the scale and for the several days at a time duration he envisioned. Modern film and the Mega-plex screen experience or hyper-rock concerts approach some of Wagner's dream of art as vast spectacle but only years later, long after his death.

Other views of the eras include Schopenhauer who saw paradox in the blind striving for purpose in the face of the loss of reason for existence spoken of by Nietzsche. Later after the First World War ended numerous politically related aesthetic theories appeared. Some were Marxist views with art used to criticize culture and the idea that art should be bought and sold considered a loss of power for art. Another set of theories known as "Critical Theory" arose championed by Adorno and other German thinkers who saw art as less Marxist but critical in its reaction against cultural excess, in particular American materialism, commercialism and mass advertising. Art as criticism was reactive and had little to do with self expression. Its aim was broadly social not individualistic.Adorno and the Critical thinkers were reacting also to a strong current of Hedonistic Pessimism in Europe that artists such as Beardsley and Oscar Wilde had promoted at the end of the 19th century.

Instead of a critical response other thinkers argued for a return to Platonic contemplation, a good example of this more reflective approach would be Santayana. Comte another of the key thinkers of the early 20th century took a more organic approach and described art as a product of human conditioning which had its ties to Darwin who considered beauty as an evolutionary device for the survival of the fittest.

In America there was a more robust view of art at the beginning of the century with Walt Whitman's idea of art as a kind of joyful labor and profitable joy with strains of a return to a Medieval love of craft as inspired labor. This was close to an art for art sake idea but it stressed the practical use of craft in service to the needs of others as in building a solid house or painting a good sign for direction. The American view of aesthetics was more pragmatic and practical in contrast to the European art for art sake mentality. This is why the "Art and Craft Movement" took root in the United States in the 20th century following its advent in England in the mid-19th century.

This pragmatic tendency seems to still hold in our country and why craftsmanship in art is still admired in our country by many. Taine although not an American advocated aesthetic views related to this pragmatic approach when he claimed that art is a product of the environment. In Russia Leo Tolstoy's view of art as a form of social communication with Naturalistic overtones was closely related to the American Pragmatic view and later American writers and social critics such as John Steinbeck would eulogize the laborer and crafts person along with a return to nature. The Hippie movement in America grew out of such views. What both America and Russia had in common were strong social visions of art. We can see this in Tolstoy, Steinbeck and the Communal oriented Hippies. Not surprising a Cold War would erupt between the two world powers over differing views of how cultivating culture should be carried out.

In Italy in the late 1920's a philosopher named Croce offered a view of art as a lyrical intuition ie. instant knowledge. Artist's like Dali who advocated dreams and intuitive thinking helped to make Croce's views widely accepted internationally but the downside of his view was that it made little of the crafting of a physical object which we call a work of art. It was as if he saw art as a process of contemplation with Platonic overtones or dream-states of mind. Where was Aristotle and the engagement with the physical process one would ask of Croce?

John Dewey in America seems to have offered a challenge to Croce. In the 1930's Dewey stressed a non-dualistic view of art as less intuition and more as pragmatic interaction with the real object and the natural environment and ones surrounding society. John Steinbeck another American in tune with Dewey, saw moral and ethical uses for art close to Aristotle along with other thinkers in history who promoted meaning in art and life. These views were a direct challenge to the nihilism of Nietzsche and to the "art for art sake" alone mentality more prevalent in Europe at the time.

In England in the 1940's Herbert Read followed Karl Jung and Dilthey in stressing the healing potential of art for the individual and society at large. Related to the curative views of art in a psychological sense came the Phenomenological views of thinkers such as Maurice Merleau Ponty and Mikel Dufrenne whose ideas gained currency in the 1950's and 60's and again are presently much in favor by 21st century thinkers.

At Northwestern University in Illinois there is an entire department devoted to the study of Phenomenology with courses offered on thinkers such as Ponty and Dufrenne. Here the view is that art manifests the complex inner working of sense and cognitive operations in human awareness. They see art as offering a way in which humankind can find greater understanding of the rich and diverse ways in which consciousness works. Through the study and practice of the arts there can be a renewed engagement with nature, awareness of diverse kinds of beauty and concern for making society more responsive and wise overall.

In the most recent years within Phenomenology one can see a renewed interest in moral issues having to do with personal freedom, gender issues and many other social themes. Along with these inquiries there has been a renewed interest in spiritual aspects of the arts along redemptive Renaissance lines.

A number of international Colleges such as Laguna College of Art and Design or the Florence Academy now offer a strong advocacy toward beauty using time-tested Renaissance and Academically traditional approaches to art making. There is presently a noticeable move back to beauty in art and figurative practices that celebrate nature and craft traditions in the practices of the arts. Many art schools, music schools and the like are being built and there is an international movement to open art museums or to remodel and update them. All of the Arts, concert halls and museums are seen increasingly as existing as a balm for social well-being with pragmatic and spiritual overtones. Aesthetics is always on the move like the consciousness that drives thinking, acting and making things new.

Arvo Part the Estonian composer for instance, exemplifies a bridging of the best of past and present aesthetics in his musical inventiveness with its spiritual, natural and humane synthesis. He is one of a number of thoughtful integrators of artistic practice we can learn from who are at work in our present time. Other examples include: Chuck Close, Bob Dylan, the recently deceased Andrew Wyeth and many others in the related arts of theater and film. These ardent artistic practitioners prove that art continues to edify those who seek to be edified by it.

PART 9 - THE NINETEENTH CENTURY AESTHETIC VIEW

The eighteenth century was dominated by British and French aesthetic theory with its strong interest in social theories of art but the nineteenth century as we will soon see was shaped by German thinkers who were fascinated by universal psychological and spiritual experiences. Some of the key names of the era were: Goethe, Humboldt, Schiller, Schelling, Schlegel, kant, Hegel, Schleiermacher, Wackenroder, Novalis and Schopenhauer. The overall mood of the period resonated with humanity's inherent need to establish a harmony with nature and achieve the mind's need for unity and purpose.

Nature was a model of what art and harmonious human existence should be for nature revealed clarity, utility and order. So it occurred to thinkers that a well-functioning mind should likewise be clear, balanced and well-functioning. Art that was based on the appreciative observation of natural pattern, balance, form, beauty, etc. would therefore have natural characteristics and in this way would assist humankind in achieving rational harmony and purposeful tranquility in thought and action.

There was a renewed interest in Greek Classical art at the beginning of the 19th century because Greek art and architecture featured unity, clarity and naturalness. This love of Classical art was a carryover of the rationalism of 18th century thinkers like Thomas Jefferson. It was evident to people like him that the Greek sculptors for instance had studied the human body and discerned its natural perfection and lawful construction. The beauty of Greek art had already prompted the Renaissance artist to copy Greek examples but the nineteenth century saw more of nature in Greek art and less of the philosophical idealism of Plato and Aristotle. The nineteenth century was more organic putting nature and observation firsthand and Greek philosophy in a secondary position unlike the Renaissance with its fascination with Greek texts and theories.

As the nineteenth century progressed the focus on nature expanded so that human consciousness and its ability to execute Judgment, determination and reflective states of mind while engaged in aesthetic activity became the life work of Kant who prompted a true psychology of art which he called "The Critique of Judgment." This much read work revolutionized aesthetic thinking forever.

Kant laid out principles of how the human mind bridges (through the 5 senses) the inner and outer realms of thought and the outer world of active experience. Kant was fascinated by aesthetics and how the meta-esthetical state of bridging could impact ones moral and ethical understanding. The idea was that nature's beauty and inherent design could filter into the deepest parts of the mind and prompt one to behave harmoniously, lawfully, reflectively and ultimately- morally.

Goethe then took Kant's ideas of the pure beauty of nature and human consciousness and enlarged them by focusing on Kant's interest in the sublime. The sublime has to do with experiences in nature that are so vast that they transcend the minds ability to fully grasp them. Included in the sublime would be the idea of outer-space, the vastness of the sea, mountains which are so large they cannot be fully known, blinding snowstorms, massive earthquakes, the revolving of the earth on its axis, etc.

Goethe said that art should attempt to evoke sublime awe and further, that art was a moral symbol of a state-of-being that was spiritual in essence and awesome because moral laws protect and harmonize society in the same way that the laws of nature keep it in balance.

Goethe stressed the importance of human imagination and its harmonious fusion with the intellect. Let the imagination lead you, he would say onto sublime thoughts and let those thoughts take you to moral insights on the purposes of existence including most importantly, human love which creates the desire for beauty.

Think he would say of how much art has stemmed from the experience of love and of the state of being in love as a sublime mind expanding state of consciousness. It is why we link love and Romance which are beyond our ability to fully understand. They have sublime features and the nineteenth century celebrated love in remarkable and complex ways because of the awe we have of loves power. Examples of a mother who out of love would die to protect a child or a man his family or the heroic ideal of dying for ones country. All of these were themes in 19th century art and literature and why Napoleon was able to convince over a million young Frenchmen to die for him and his romantic ideals of conquest.

Eventually the sublime of Goethe was taken up by many of the above thinkers who added mystical, romantic and religious ideas to the list. Wackenroder for instance said that art is a form of natural religious experience though it had no doctrine specifically. Novalis spoke of a mystical and magical universe which the human imagination was at-one with. There was much talk and poetic expression of the dream-life and even of aesthetic prophecy with the artist seen as a mystic, prophet and seer as in the case of William Blake and Samuel Palmer. Casper David Frederich, the German painter produced art that had mystical, prophetic qualities and was dominated by sublime images of mountains, fog banks, the vastness of the ocean or sky etc. Blake, like Casper Frederich used the Bible for visionary and mystical imagery in addition to seeking it in nature.

There was a renewed interest in Dante's "Divine Comedy" in the nineteenth century because Dante the 14th century Italian poet acted as a prophet and evoked awesome and mind-bogglingly sublime images in his poetic writings. Dore the great French 19th century illustrator illustrated the "Divine Comedy" with sublime views of heaven filled with angelic beings or hell filled with monsters and fearful and monstrous creatures.

So the view of these German thinkers was given powerful expression by artists who called themselves Romantics. The list is long but some of the key nineteenth century artists following Goethe and the other thinkers included in addition to the several listed: Geracault, Goya, Delacroix, Turner, Constable, Van Gogh for example in painting. In literature: Dickens, Hugo, Dostoevsky and in poetry: Wordsworth, Whitman, Emerson, Keats, Coleridge, Byron etc.

Here the poet/painter/writer is a seer who brings us into contact with the infinite, sublime, transcendent in order to transform our limited thinking and move us into deep insights and intentional living.