Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2001 06:49:07 -0500
Subject: Re: Ethics of Aesthetics?


Glen Fuller wrote:

I agree that life is justified only as an aesthetic experience, but not
all aesthetic experiences are justified by life.
Everyone not only has the right to live, but also to feel alive,
otherwise what is the point?
Maybe the authority of history could be disregarded, but not all of the
lessons of the past...

Glen -

But who is the tribunal to make this justification? For Plato, it was
the Overlords. All other classes in his Republic would live as slaves,
functioning only according the dictates of reason. That is why the poets
were banned.

Instead of a society composed of philosopher kings, perhaps a society of
no kings, only poets.  "This is the age when everyone creates."

And as far as those aesthetic experiences not justified by life are
concerned, I say, echoing Rimbaud - "Changer la vie!"

the beginning of an ethics, perhaps...

or as Kant put it, Beauty as a symbol of morality...

To insist upon our right to live, to feel alive and to kill those who
would stand in our way...

the first duty of a moral conscience.