Date: Wed, 3 Jan 2001 10:41:00 -0700
From: "gary patrick norris" <ngary2-AT-qwest.net>
Subject: suffering sufferer suffers



lc or jen on filmmaking and religion respectively"

"Is it art or entertainment?"


This either/or logic must go.  Film is not either art or 
entertainment.  Art can be entertainment.  Entertainment can be art. 
I am sure we can all think of examples.



"I think necessary suffering is a
religious idea..."


I think there are some wonderful arguments for "necessary suffering"
being a secular ideal.  Adolescence.  Overtime.  Class Consciousness. 
Right to Work.  Teacher salaries.  (heh)




karena asks:

"What great art can come out of a prosperous and happy life?"


Ignorance is bliss.  Suffer that.



ken puts forth:

"I simply refuse to accept that domination and torture serve as the 
most fertile ground for beautiful aesthetics."



Ken, you know what this is all about.

1. People tend to confuse the sublime and the beautiful.  (Folks use 
the words interchangeably in everyday speech and this pattern becomes 
habit.)

2. The naive perspective of the sublime equates any sublime 
experience with suffering as a necessity.  (A failure to really think 
about Kant's ideas in the third critique.  Or some heavily edited 
reading of Longinus or Burke.)

3. Therefore, the beautiful is, at times, taken to cause suffering. 
(Nevermind whether we are talking about an object or an event:  say, 
a film about an execution or the execution itself.)

3a. Furthermore, since most confuse "the beautiful" with "the good," 
then folks think that suffering is good.  And since we live in a 
moral society, no matter what the cynics think, some consider 
suffering necessary, moral and just.

4. So, it makes sense to some that artists must suffer.  Even when 
the suffering happens to be an excuse for living the life of an 
artist.  You know, a mask.


Most folks don't know what an aesthetic is.  Popular culture teaches 
a vocabulary through habit.  It says: "Here are the words you use; if 
you can master the rhythm of the language, then you don't need to 
know the meaning of the words."  I mean, we know that most people act 
without thinking.

I sometimes find it depressing that people equate the romantic spirit 
with suffering.  Not even Bataille did that...


Maybe we should start by asking:  is it suffering if you chose to suffer?


et tu,

gary

-- 
Every visible power is threatened, especially when it
rests on a usurpation that alienates both its victims
and its accomplices.  Thus the detective's tactics are
those of the minister and the Chief of State.  Power will
be shady or will not be at all. . .
     --H de Balzac, Introduction to Une tenebreuse affaire


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