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Culture War Roundup for the week of October 21, 2024

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I take the "A" view on AI art, and you take the "B" view.

In that discussion, "A" is something approximating "we are huddled around a small kernel of knowledge, surrounded by vast, dark unknowns, hoping to grow that kernel a little larger", and "B" is something approximating "We reside in a well-lit framework of knowledge that encompasses the small, fragmentary set of unknowns that remain to be eliminated", where these are referencing what we comprehend about the real world and our place in it.

But even before AI, art is our creation, is it not? Where within art are the vast unknowns that could loom over us?

We make images for our own pleasure. We find that some images please us more than others. We discover rules and techniques that optimize the pleasure generated by the images; these rules and techniques clearly derive from our own psychology and history and nature, but they seem both discoverable and explicable, and can and have been reduced to engineering. What part of this does not fit within the "B" perspective? What realities of art does it neglect, which could form an argument for "A"?

With regards to philosophy and epistemology, I would argue that "A" is better, because it better fits observable reality and the historical record, while "B" appears to me to consistently generate notable disasters; a straightforward argument from prudence. But commercial and popular art of the sort we are discussing here is inherently frivolous, so where would an argument from prudence even be grounded?

Again, I am an artist by trade and by temperament. I do not claim to have perfect insight into the nature of Art, but neither do I accept bald assertions of deeper mysteries wholly unknown and invisible to me. I have spent the better part of a lifetime observing how the sausage gets made; I can accept that there may be things of value that I do not understand or am not wired to appreciate, but I also can observe that much of what people claim to value as "art" is in fact pretention covering for laziness or naked greed. I have known too many artists to believe that the pursuit of or mere association with art confers any special virtues beyond those innate to discipline and skill, or indeed any significant insight into philosophy or truth. Beauty and Truth are not synonyms, at least for any common definition of those terms.

All that being said, what am I missing? What is the "A" view, with regards to art?

But even before AI, art is our creation, is it not? Where within art are the vast unknowns that could loom over us?

I could supply a list of concrete examples, drawing from works in the canons of painting and literature, and discuss certain persistent interpretive difficulties with those works. You might then be persuaded to agree "ah yes, there is something unknown about that work", or you might not. I could discuss the intimate relationship that art bears to subjective experience; how the mere fact of our subjectivity is itself quite awe-inspiring and miraculous, how we are very far from being transparent to ourselves, how we are very far from understanding why we do what we do or why we feel what we feel, or even what we feel when we feel. How many mysteries there are in what is ostensibly most intimate. But I think all that would be somewhat beside the point, because my intuition here is that the disagreement is one of fundamental attunement; it can't be resolved by any finite list of examples or arguments.

In an interview, Derrida (who was a Jew) was asked if it was time to eject Heidegger (who was a literal member of the Nazi party, and, depending on who you ask and which documents you place the most evidentiary weight on, a somewhat enthusiastic and unrepentant one) from the philosophical canon. After all, hadn't his politics discredited even the ostensibly "apolitical" portions of his philosophical work? Wasn't it time to simply leave him behind as an embarrassing accident in the dustbin of history? Derrida's response was, "No. Of course not. There is still so much that remains unread in Heidegger." (He, of course, could not have meant this literally - Heidegger was his greatest philosophical influence, and Derrida had read all of his works cover to cover multiple times, and lectured on them extensively.)

Does that mean anything to you? When you look at... anything - a person, a work, a system, a phenomenon - are you struck by the impression that there is so much that remains unread? Do you want to believe that there is so much that remains unread?

We make images for our own pleasure. We find that some images please us more than others. We discover rules and techniques that optimize the pleasure generated by the images; these rules and techniques clearly derive from our own psychology and history and nature, but they seem both discoverable and explicable, and can and have been reduced to engineering.

Simply wrong! Just, not even correct at all! And by that I mean, yes, what you have described here is indeed a process that can actually take place; the process is physically realizable. But the process thus described has little in common with what I think art could be, or should be. And if you think that this is all that art is good for, then it's unclear why you would go into art instead of the pharmaceutical industry.

What part of this does not fit within the "B" perspective? What realities of art does it neglect, which could form an argument for "A"?

Let me respond with some clarifying questions first.

Suppose that there were no God; even if you think this is absolutely inconceivable, try to grant it as a hypothetical. What would become of the "A" view then? Would it still make sense, in any context, or no? If there were no God, would reality shrink to the point that we actually could master it all in a rational, calculated way?

Are there certain attitudes - wonder, awe - which, when applied to mortals and their deeds, can easily be construed as a category error at best and blasphemy at worst?

Basically, I would like to determine the extent to which the light of the Almighty makes everything else seem dull in comparison.

With regards to philosophy and epistemology, I would argue that "A" is better, because it better fits observable reality and the historical record, while "B" appears to me to consistently generate notable disasters; a straightforward argument from prudence.

Another clarifying question. Would you say that you support the "A" view because:

  1. There are certain enigmas which deserve respect; one must learn not to exceed one's station; we are all strangers dwelling in a strange land, and like all guests we must be gracious to our hosts; or

  2. It is a contingent, empirical truth that there are a number of facts about reality which remain unknown, and therefore, on a rational cost-benefit analysis, we should refrain from hasty action. But in principle, if we could learn enough true facts, we may not need to be as prudent.

But commercial and popular art of the sort we are discussing here is inherently frivolous

I've been speaking about art as a totality - all of it, across time and space, not just one kind or type. And furthermore I disagree that commercial art is "frivolous". There is no single fact about a work's provenance, medium, or content that can identify it as "frivolous" - that is always a determination that must be made on an individual basis. End of Evangelion for example is an exemplary film, plainly a creative triumph of the first order, despite it being a thoroughly "commercial" work and having a mass theatrical release.

but I also can observe that much of what people claim to value as "art" is in fact pretention covering for laziness or naked greed.

If I tell you that I highly value Duchamp's The Large Glass, more than the large majority of representational works that would traditionally be considered "technically correct", would you believe that I'm being sincere? Or is this just pretension and laziness? I encourage you to be honest; I won't take it as a violation of charity if you say that I'm lying, or deluded.

I have known too many artists to believe that the pursuit of or mere association with art confers any special virtues beyond those innate to discipline and skill, or indeed any significant insight into philosophy or truth.

I never said it did.

Beauty and Truth are not synonyms

I never said they were.

Again, I am an artist by trade and by temperament.

No, I don't think you are. Trade yes, temperament no.

From what I've been able to glean from your posts on this forum, I don't think I've seen much that would indicate to me an "artist's temperament". You seem to have a good head on your shoulders: sturdy, even-tempered, concerned with practical matters, not prone to strong emotional disturbances in either direction. Concrete rather than idealistic. Perhaps your self-image is entirely different, but this is how you come off in your posts.

Of course there may be certain domains where you recognize that no finite method of analysis is up to the task any longer; where you have no choice but to abase yourself before something greater and "lose your head" for a moment. But this by itself does not make one an artist. The mystic is undoubtedly sincere in the feeling of oceanic vastness he experiences when he communes with the Divine, but the mystic is not an artist. In fact the two types are fundamentally opposed; the artist is this-worldly in a way that the mystic cannot be.

I don't want to give the impression that I know exactly what an artist must be, or that there's only one way to be an artist. Undoubtedly, multiple types of people can be artists. Artists can have substantial political and philosophical disagreements with each other, and neither of them is less of a "real artist" for it. But nonetheless, if the phrase "artist's temperament" is going to mean anything at all, then it must be something determinate, to the exclusion of what it is not; and I don't really see how it applies to you.

Does that mean anything to you? When you look at... anything - a person, a work, a system, a phenomenon - are you struck by the impression that there is so much that remains unread? Do you want to believe that there is so much that remains unread?

I have been, certainly. I do not think I am often "struck" by this now, as it has moved past initial revelation into basic knowledge. The list of unknowns is infinite. As the author says, "Our brains have one scale, and adjust our experiences to fit." "Human subcultures are nested fractally; there is no bottom.". Everything is like this. But I wonder if you would agree that I am capturing the essence of "so much remaining unread."

Do I want to believe that there is so much that remains unread? There seems to be an implicit optimism in this question that I do not think I can muster. I would like to believe that there is deep value contained in Trout Mask Replica or The Large Glass or The Birth of the World, to the extent that I have made some minimal effort to sift them or to try to get leads from others. I can recognize some level of significant value in Klee's Angelus Novus because I greatly value some of those his work inspired, and I can work backward to see how his work influenced theirs, and I can imagine that there is more in that piece that I lack the context to recognize.

But on the other hand, the unknowns remain infinite, and life is fleeting. I do not think that there is enough there there in any of those pieces, for me, to be worth the time digging for it would take. And so my time and effort goes to what seem to me to be more fruitful artistic pursuits.

Suppose that there were no God; even if you think this is absolutely inconceivable, try to grant it as a hypothetical.

There being no God is entirely conceivable to me. I used to be an atheist; not being an atheist now is a choice I make freely each day. The other side of that choice does not seem mysterious or inexplicable to me.

What would become of the "A" view then? Would it still make sense, in any context, or no? If there were no God, would reality shrink to the point that we actually could master it all in a rational, calculated way?

I would say no. God's existence or non-existence doesn't seem to me to have any significant impact on the correctness of the "A" view.

Are there certain attitudes - wonder, awe - which, when applied to mortals and their deeds, can easily be construed as a category error at best and blasphemy at worst?

I think so, but wouldn't mind some elaboration.

There's that quote above: "our brains have one scale, and adjust our experiences to fit." I think that's a pretty insightful description of how the human mind works: we can focus down on some emotion or some aspect until it fills our entire perception. We can work it into our past and our hopes for the future, wind ourself around it till we grow to its shape, obsess over it, bend every other aspect of our life back to it, until it seems to be all that matters, elemental, primordial, a terminal value, the hub of our universe. And we can, I think, do this with anything. The subjective perception of value has no necessary correlation to actual value. Feelings of goodness have no necessary correlation to goodness. And some forms of twisting our minds in this way appear to me to be deeply misguided or actively evil.

I spent a considerable portion of my life chasing Eros, and I went far enough for long enough down that rabbit hole to get philosophical about it, to begin trying to search for transcendence in it, to consider shaping significant portions of my life around it. In retrospect, that seems to have been, as you say, at best a category error, and at worst blasphemy.

Wrath is far sweeter. "The blood sings" is an evocative phrase, but the experience itself is a pleasure beyond easy description. The world narrows, simplifies, clarifies. The hands shake, the teeth grind, the mouth twists into a rictus of sheer pleasure and ravenous anticipation. And that is only the hot, momentary rush; nurtured, over time, a cold fury builds secret and implacable within the mind and the heart, like an avalanche of iron poised to sweep down on the adversary. Down in the chthonic depths of the inmost self, the primordial drives of cooperation, competition, and predation come alive. And high above in the heavens of the rational mind, the sunlike certainty shines clear that one's wrath is Just, that They Deserve It All And More, that this is how it should be, that this is how it must be. Then there comes the flowering of Pride; I am better than them, I will be their downfall, I will lay the snare, I will triumph... There is grandeur there, and ample room for awe and wonder. The pull is strong, easily strong enough to shape a life, to define one's entire existence. Brief though that existence might be, would it be so terrible to be a meteor, to burn so bright as to illuminate the world, even for an instant?

And yet: "Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us." Merciful, smothering calm. Stillness. A sense of hollowness, brittle, like an empty shell. Sanity returns, and with it shame. Here too, "Blasphemy" seems an appropriate term.

Basically, I would like to determine the extent to which the light of the Almighty makes everything else seem dull in comparison.

I formed most of my opinions about art back when I was an atheist, and returning to Christianity has not materially changed them. Atheist or Christian, I have always been skeptical of emotion; I do not "trust my feelings", and I do not think that others should either. They have swept me up before, and I have experienced what seemed to me a full measure of their extremities, but they eventually pass, and life resumes.

It is a contingent, empirical truth that there are a number of facts about reality which remain unknown, and therefore, on a rational cost-benefit analysis, we should refrain from hasty action. But in principle, if we could learn enough true facts, we may not need to be as prudent.

The latter. If scientists can actually demonstrate mind reading and mind control, what would be the point in arguing that they can't do so? Reality is reality. "A" is a caution against a specific lie that we have previously and are currently telling ourselves; it has no bearing on counterfactual scenarios, and can be entirely invalidated by subsequent events should scientists actually succeed in their Abolition of Man.

We do not now control nature in the sense that I perceive "B" advocates to be claiming. But it seems to me that art is much closer to "B" than it is to "A". Its scope seems clearly limited. We have not "solved" it, nor reduced it to pure engineering, but neither does it run rampant, dismaying our intentions and trampling our works. There are artistic misfortunes, but there has never been an artistic disaster, nor, I think, will there be.

I've been speaking about art as a totality - all of it, across time and space, not just one kind or type. And furthermore I disagree that commercial art is "frivolous".

I'm given to understand that one of the generally accepted defining characteristics of art is that it is, strictly speaking, unnecessary, optional, chosen rather than compelled, a luxury rather than a necessity. Further, it seems obvious to me that commercial art, made as a job to earn money, is generally considered to hold the least artistic merit, relative to works made out of sheer passion. Would you disagree?

End of Evangelion for example is an exemplary film, plainly a creative triumph of the first order, despite it being a thoroughly "commercial" work and having a mass theatrical release.

If a person lives and dies without seeing it, do you think their life was necessarily made lesser thereby? I don't particularly disagree that End of Evangelion is a "creative triumph". For that matter, I think the Madoka fanfic Fargo is a creative triumph. And I think the same of Hellboy, BLAME, and the H&K MP5K submachinegun. I think my disagreement is more about the significance of "creative triumphs" in general. I maintain that these are games we play together. Games are a good and proper part of life, and it is well that we should enjoy them. But they are not of terminal or even of very great value. Many things should outweigh them in a healthy worldview, because their scope is in fact too limited to support a central role in our existence.

If I tell you that I highly value Duchamp's The Large Glass, more than the large majority of representational works that would traditionally be considered "technically correct", would you believe that I'm being sincere? Or is this just pretension and laziness? I encourage you to be honest; I won't take it as a violation of charity if you say that I'm lying, or deluded.

I'd say I'm cautiously skeptical. I observe that people claim great value in many things. I'm confident that some of these things hold little to no value, and I'm confident that some of those claiming otherwise are either lying or deluded. For this piece in particular, I'll say that I see little to no value, am fairly confident that the value you draw would be sufficiently esoteric as to be inaccessible to me even if I were to actively pursue the context. having not yet pursued the context, I think it less likely but still possible that it holds no real value at all, and you are deluded.

It seems obvious to me that:

  • humans can generate endless rabbit holes out of anything or even nothing, for a variety of reasons.
  • These rabbit holes appear to me to vary widely in perceived value, and that my perception of value appears to correlates with the perception of others, and the features that indicate the presence or absence of value likewise correlate. In other words, value doesn't seem wholly, solipsisticly subjective.
  • Some of them seem straightforwardly explicable even from the outside, meaning that their depth appears to be illusory.
  • Some of them seem to be straightforwardly harmful to those caught in them, even if those caught in them disagree.

Given the above, discrimination is necessary, is it not? Life is fleeting. We pays our money and we takes our chances. And given the above, arguing for or against the value of a thing is useful; whoever is wrong could benefit greatly from correction.

All this is to say, I entirely recognize that value might exist even if I cannot see it. I am at this moment actively hunting for more value down a variety of rabbit holes, some of which might be completely bizarre and inexplicable to you, so it is easy for me to imagine that you likewise are mining gold down a hole that seems bizarre and inexplicable to me.

But do you recognize that value is sometimes, perhaps even often claimed falsely? And further, that sometimes those claiming to perceive the value are themselves misled? You asked if I wonder whether there might be more. I ask if you wonder if there might be less?

If a person lives and dies without seeing it, do you think their life was necessarily made lesser thereby?

I think I would have to say so, yeah! At least a little bit. It's a pretty damn good movie.

I'm given to understand that one of the generally accepted defining characteristics of art is that it is, strictly speaking, unnecessary, optional, chosen rather than compelled, a luxury rather than a necessity.

Yes, but that's not the same thing as "frivolous". Frivolous means unnecessary is a bad way. Art is unnecessary in a good way. Art is, to use Kant's phrase, purposive without purpose.

Due to technological progress, we're rapidly approaching a point where reality itself will be as "optional" and "unnecessary" as art is. There is a small but non-zero chance that some of us will live to see the advent of the experience machine - i.e. The Matrix, a perfect VR recreation of reality, but tailored to your desires, and with all suffering eliminated (the computer could make sure you have enough excitement and danger to not get bored, of course - but only as much as is necessary. Everyone could be guaranteed a charmed life that is free of major tragedy). And even if we don't live to see it, we can plausibly conjecture that some future generation will, if progress in AI and neuroscience continue.

Now why, exactly, should one not plug themselves into the experience machine? What is the argument for resisting it? This is one of my overriding concerns, and much of what I write here - about art, about suffering, and so forth - should be read in this context.

I simply take it for granted that there is no "rational" argument for rejecting the experience machine, within the bounds of what is currently taken to be rationality. Everyone who is "prudent", who weighs the pros and cons without bias or illusion, who refuses to let themselves be seduced by sentimentality, will inevitably be lead to the conclusion that it's better to simply plug themselves in and let the machines generate wondrous experiences for them until the heat death of the universe.

I think, if you want to avoid this fate, then you have to make a fundamental choice to be oriented towards authenticity qua authenticity for its own sake, the individual subject exercising his capacity for freedom for its own sake, and, ultimately, the horror of reality for its own sake (because why expose yourself to the risk of suffering when you could simply... not?). And art is the physical manifestation of this uncanny excess, the refusal to capitulate to prudence or necessity, man's assertion of his will to continue living against all reason. You are correct that art is unnecessary - but so is existence itself, ultimately. (I believe I should point out that art is not the only practice that can fill this role - in some ways mathematics is even better, and even more sublimely purposeless than art is, because the pleasure that one derives from mathematics is more rarefied, and the potential audience who can appreciate it is so limited.)

I am at this moment actively hunting for more value down a variety of rabbit holes, some of which might be completely bizarre and inexplicable to you

I doubt that. It is rare that I am totally at a loss for an explanation as to why people think as they think or do as they do. I am highly empathetic and it's easy for me to make myself feel what others feel, love what they love, hate what they hate. It is the duty of a philosopher to be a brief abstract of humanity.

You're free to provide examples of these rabbit holes if you want to discuss further.

But do you recognize that value is sometimes, perhaps even often claimed falsely?

Yes, but I wouldn't phrase it quite like that.

Suppose we have a man who becomes infatuated with an inanimate mannequin, because he thinks it's of supreme value. He neglects his wife and kids, he withdraws from everything else in life, his world becomes centered around spending time with the mannequin to a comical degree. And he dies happy, never recanting or regretting his actions. Was he "wrong" about the value of the mannequin? There was something wrong about his actions, certainly, but I wouldn't say that he was wrong about the value of the mannequin itself. I think that value is, partially, relational (which is not the same thing as arbitrary or solipsistic) - it's a relation that exists between you and someone or something else, it's not something that inheres solely in the object. The relationship that he instantiated with the mannequin is proof of its own validity. But there were other, higher values that rightly had certain claims on him, and his fault was in ignoring those higher values that he should not have ignored.

I ask if you wonder if there might be less?

That would be disrespectful.

But nonetheless, if the phrase "artist's temperament" is going to mean anything at all, then it must be something determinate, to the exclusion of what it is not; and I don't really see how it applies to you.

I love the act of creation, of weaving new things out of my imagination and building them up into something approximating reality, drawing connections between them, rolling them up into a big katamari-ball of associations and idea-connections and emotional inductions. This act brings me great joy and delight, and has all my life since I achieved self-awareness.

I love sharing these creations with others, and seeing joy and delight spark in their eyes, hearing their laughter and excitement, seeing them experience the induced triumph or sorrow or conviction as what I've made sweeps them up and carries them along, even if only for a moment or two. I love the communion with others innate to this act, the joyful seduction of drawing them out of the material and mundane into the immaterial and fantastical.

I am vain enough to desire that it is my creations that should strike a fire in their minds, that some part of me should take root in those around me, to see some part of myself reproduced in the mind of others. I want to make a mark on those around me.

But in much the same way, I love partaking in the creations of others, being swept away or inspired in turn, and I love taking pieces of what they have made and kitbashing them together into something "new" of my own. I love finding the Buddha-nature in something, finding which parts of it hook and pull, which motivate, where the payload lies and through which channels the current flows, and I love how this knowledge, once gained, strengthens and invigorates my own creations. It's a push and pull, give and take, cooperation and competition, like all of the best things in life. This, to me, is the essence of the "artist's temperament", the center around which any dividing line should be drawn.

Do you disagree? And if so, how would you define the center of the "artist's temperament"? The distinction that stands out from what you've written appears to be the idea of the mysterious, the numinous, the "losing of one's head", the encounter of something incomprehensibly vast or primordial. You are correct that I see art from a "B" perspective, or close enough for purposes of discussion. What I don't get is where you're getting the makings of an "A" perspective from with regards to art, other than sheer assertion. I can imagine that there's some sense I lack, some frequency I'm deaf and blind to, but I can also imagine an invisible dragon in my garage. How to proceed?

More on this soon, hopefully.

how would you define the center of the "artist's temperament"?

I would define it in terms of two central interrelated traits. I will try to be clear and direct, with specific examples:

  1. The artist is someone who regularly experiences complex and exotic states of the soul. Not all emotions are created equal; some are more refined and subtle than others. Suppose we compare "sadness" with "melancholy". A child can be sad, there's nothing special about it; the child sees a baby duck fall down and hurt itself, he feels bad for it, he is sad. It's a simple stimulus-response relationship. With something like melancholy on the other hand, as compared with simple sadness, the list of initial requirements is longer. It requires one to have a certain amount of temporal history, as well as a certain self-reflexivity. Reflecting on lost opportunities, thinking about what could have been, gazing wistfully into the distance - it is sad, yes, but the inflection is different. It can start to mix with positive overtones as well - the sheer pleasure of reflecting on one's own life narrative and taking a bird's eye view of it. The artist ascends the scale of refinement to increasingly unusual and uncommon experiences, experiences and emotions that may be so rare they don't even have a name yet.

  2. The artist is someone who perceives (in the widest possible sense of "perceives") features of people, objects, events, and phenomena that are ignored or unnoticed by non-artists. There is nothing artistic (in the sense of, exemplifying the artist's temperament) about appreciating the beauty in a sunset, because everyone already knows that sunsets are beautiful. It's well-trodden territory. The artist sees beauty in things that other people don't (yet) recognize as beautiful; or he sees ugliness where other people don't (yet), or he perceives entirely new properties that have yet to be named. Ideally we would like his observations to be veridical in some sense, and not just the idiosyncratic hallucinations of a madman; the ultimate test for this is whether his works are persuasive. The greatest mark of success of a work of art is if it makes people say "yes, I had never noticed that before; I had never noticed that such and such was so beautiful, or so ugly - but now I do". And, finally, the observations that the artist first pressed into physical form eventually pass over into common sense - everyone simply knows that such and such is beautiful, or ugly, or whatever, it's just always been obvious.

To be clear, this is a description of a temperament, a set of psychological traits. You can have a person who makes art but doesn't possess this temperament, and you can have a person who possesses this temperament but doesn't make art. The two are independent.

I do think that these traits are correlated with what one might call the stereotype of the "tortured Romantic soul" - a certain moodiness, a certain angst, a certain emotional volatility. But it's not a one-to-one causal relationship. There can be people who instantiate the traits I described but don't fit the stereotype.

What I don't get is where you're getting the makings of an "A" perspective from with regards to art, other than sheer assertion.

I don't think I can really go further on this until you answer the clarifying questions I posed with regards to your views on the "A" view itself and how it stands with God. Crucially, I need to understand: are the thoughts I have expressed here just entirely foreign to you, or are they thoughts that are familiar to you, and it's just that you don't understand how anyone could have these thoughts about art in particular?

I believe you have described yourself as a non-utilitarian in the past. Where does utilitarianism end for you? Where do you draw the line and say "no, this right here, this is beyond the reach of any rational cost-benefit analysis, and I won't hear another word about it"? Because that's how I feel about art. You presumably have something similar in your own experience, so you can use that as an analogy for understanding my experience. Does that make sense?