So, if we formulate Benjamin’s concept of the aura of a work as static, then does this mean that the relevance of a work of Art in our contemporary present is meaningless? If we have a “static model”, there seems to a certain implication that the artefact belongs to its own time, which it undoubtedly, does but does this ‘belonging’ exclude its having a contemporary significance? Another question here: How crucial is an artefact’s aura to our understanding? I can try, by study and research, to understand the meaning a work had at its moment of production, but I have the feeling that that’s impossible. However, even if this is impossible or even if I make no attempt to understand the work in its own time, does this necessarily mean it can have no meaning in my contemporary present? Is it possible to reformulate this problem by asking “Can a work’s aura change over time?”.

For some odd reason, I’ve found myself reading Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales over the past few weeks. For a start, the work has lost its original aura, in that I only have a vague idea of the conditions of its production, but there are, undeniably, connections to our contemporary present. “The Pardoner’s Tale” and “The Summoner’s Tale”, written as critiques of the hypocrisy of religion still have relevance to today, especially if we compare them to their modern counterpart, evangelical TV stations: both suggest that you can buy your way into heaven, “Therefore instead of weeping and of prayer, One should give silver for a poor Friar’s care.”

What’s interesting here too is Chaucer’s description of the pilgrims’ physical attributes: their dishonesty and ‘evil’ manifest on their bodies. The summoner:

…had carbuncles. His eyes were narrow,

…Children were afraid when he appeared

No quicksilver, lead ointment, tartar creams,

No brimstone, no boracic, so it seems

Could make a salve that had the power to bite,

Clean up, or cure his whelks of knobbly white

Or purge the pimples sitting on his cheeks.

While the pardoner “…had hair as yellow as wax, Hanging down smoothly like a hank of flax”, hair which falls in “driblets… like rat-tails”, and “he had bulging eye-balls, like a hare.”

These physical characteristics are familiar to us because we’ve seen them in a thousand films, known who the “bad guys” are simply from their appearance…before we even get to that psychological idea that we are more likely to believe those who are seen as ‘attractive’ in our society.

So, have Chaucer’s tales lost their aura(s) by being reproduced? No, but those auras have changed, been incorporated into our contemporary present – they can be said to have been harnessed to an ideological purpose, perpetuating the myth of appearance.

What we can also detect in Chaucer”s Wife of Bath (depressingly so) is discussion of the roles women must play in society, the stereotypes of patriarchal power. In this tale, we also find a treatment of female sexuality…and the radical idea that women too might actually enjoy sex. If we follow Benjamin’s ‘formula’ then these societal critiques apply only in the context of society in Chaucer’s day: the aura is linked to the historical moment of production. If this were actually the case, what would be the point in continuing to study Chaucer’s work? It is the work’s ability to transcend time that makes it of interest. The aura of the work alters (whilst simultaneously remaining the same?), in that we can see this tale as a commentary on contemporary issues. This is what makes it worth studying. The Wife of Bath raises issues that are still abroad in our society. We could say much the same of Chaplin’s film, Modern Times or of Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex. I think we can say precisely the same of paintings and of music too in that, initially, they offer a commentary on aspects of contemporary life. In the case of music, we may extrapolate from our specific personal situation. I wonder here what it would be like for a piece of music to have an unchanging aura, in that, say, Mendelssohn’s String Quartet op. 44, 1 could only be heard (experienced?) as an expression of its time…or any of Pollock’s or Rothko’s paintings. For example, when first I came across Rothko, his paintings struck me as expressing something “about my life”. Those solid blocks of colour connected to an emotional response within me. To establish the auras of his works, I would need to study the period, and his life, thus, constructing the aura as a historical document.

What strikes me here is the idea that the aura of a work in Benjamin’s sense seems to tie it the life of its makar, which has certain (very limiting) implications for criticism. As I said in a previous blog, from this perspective, criticism becomes a matter of seeing works as jigsaw pieces in a reconstruction of the artist’s life – which doesn’t strike me as being a very useful way of ‘doing’ criticism.

Art ‘survives’, is “passed down”, in our society because of its continuing ‘ability’ to dynamically interact with contemporary issues. Artefacts are seen as being valuable because they offer insights into our society and our personal ‘selves’, regardless of whether such insights are ‘good’ or ‘bad’.

Thus, we can argue that the aura must be flexible, something that changes over time, and in this change is its relevance.

Another question occurs to me here: Is it the case that artefacts deal in applied cases of abstract concepts? Put another way, do they operate as philosophical documents? Personally, I would argue that the answer to both of these questions is ‘Yes’. Artefacts offer us specific examples in particular contexts from which we then deduce abstracts. Return to the Wife of Bath, she gives us a series of “concrete situations” from which we deduce the concept of equal personhood, and all of the questions/comparisons this raises – both at the time of writing and in our contemporary present. We find this in the Wife of Bath, which asks the particular questions “What does it mean to be female at the time of writing?” And “What does it mean to be female now?” (now = whenever the reader lives), thus, inviting comparison. By default, it also asks “What does it mean to be a human person?”, “Is there a difference between male and female?”, and again both questions split into ‘then’ and ‘now’ before combining to form abstract responses to abstract questions.

This leads us into asking why artefacts ‘last’? That is, why do certain artefacts fall by the wayside, while other last for hundreds of years?

The first ‘problem’ here seems quite trivial: What are we doing when we engage with an artefact, and what should we call this: Critique? Analysis? Interpretation? Commentary? Engagement? Evaluation? Judgement? Is there any discernible difference between these terms? Are some disqualified because they can be used in other contexts? Take ‘interpretation’ for example: we can exclude this term because we tend to use it more in relation to performance, in that we talk about, say, David Tenant’s intepretatrion of Richard II, referring to how he portrays Richard…or Glenn Gould’s interpretation of Bach, again a reference to how he performs Bach’s work (as opposed to someone else – so interpretation necessarily includes comparison?).

‘Commentary’ is a term we associate with sport – we listen to the commentary on a particular game. When talking about an artefact, commentary, to me, suggests more of a descriptive quality, even if some type of comparison is involved. ‘Engagement’ is much the same, although the emphasis here is on a personal reaction to the artefact under discussion. Could we just use the term ‘discussion’? This seems rather too unspecialised in terms of those speaking – in that a ‘discussion’ seems less ‘serious’ in its aims than say, a critique.

‘Evaluation’ seems rather more useful, in that it indicates what we’re trying to do: I can ‘evaluate’ an artefact in terms of: its contribution to knowledge; to a particular debate; to a movement; to society. However, it also seems to carry certain implications on the part of those doing the ‘evaluating’ – the term suggests a certain degree of knowledge on their part, that they occupy a particular position. It also is rather suggest what we can call a “use value”.

‘Analysis’ and ‘Critique’ seem, to me to be the most apposite terms. Firstly, they include, on some level or other, the other terms considered here. Confronted by an artefact, we engage with it, offering a particular interpretation of said artefact leading to an evaluation from a particular point of view (or several) which then guides our commentary. ‘Analysis’ tends to suggests a particular point of view, and it’s a bit too ‘sciency’ for me to be honest.

Which leaves us with ‘Critique’ as the front runner, a term that includes everything I’ve mentioned so far, implies it is ‘serious’ in its intent and will involve ‘judgement’. This latter point is interesting, as ‘judgement’ is something that, on the whole, people nowadays tend to shy away from. ‘Judgement’ is a term that isn’t used readily, but which informs all aspects of both our engagement with artefacts, and our ordinary day-to-day lives. Judgement is something that we try to avoid, yet it informs all of our activities. A trivial example: I am wearing a black t-shirt because I judge the day warm enough to do so. I also judge black to be a better colour (yep, I know it isn’t a colour, but for the purposes of this example…) than, say, blue or green. What I’m getting at here is that we enter into judgements from the moment we wake up each day: I judge it’s time to get up, I judge what to wear, I judge what kind of mood I’m in. We make all of these without thinking about them.

When it comes to an artefact though, our judgements are considered and chosen. My critique of artefact X is based on a series of judgements that refer to specific perceptions provoked by the artefact. My critique is not an opinion. My critique is based on my sincere attempt to be analytical, to construct structured arguments that take this artefact as their starting point. If my critique offends you, or does not “fit in” with yours – takes a contrary position – I am not going to apologise, not going to say “Well, everyone’s entitled to their opinion”. My critique is mine, it is an extension of me; the result of a series of judgements, experiences and analyses that I have worked to develop, that I have constructed guided by certain principles. This critique also includes comparisons with other artefacts and, necessarily, an interpretation of the artefacts I refer to – ‘interpretation’ in this sense meaning ‘understanding’ or “attempt to construct the meaning of”.

My critique, as opposed to a simple ‘opinion’, evaluates the artefact as part of the dynamic world: how does it ‘fit’ into contemporary society; in the case of a historical artefact, what relation does it bear to contemporary society, and what can it tell us about our contemporary present; what kind of interaction exists between this artefact and others; what are the politics to be deduced from it; what political interpretation has it been given, or had foisted upon it; what does this artefact ‘say’ about society, about the “human condition”; what do the application of various critical theories allow us to deduce from the artefact.

Thus, my critique is part of what Ron and I have referred to earlier as “the artistic process” – what one can argue here is that the act of criticism becomes part of the artefact itself. The critique embeds itself in the ever-expanding milieu of the artefact. Whether this is ‘desirable’ is another question.

We can also look at this from another perspective, in that by critiquing the artefact, it becomes part of who we are (put another, more open, way, it becomes part of our becoming), becomes part of our selves – part of the flow of ever-expanding experiences that constitute a human person: it becomes part of the experiences that we have had, but none of these experiences remain static. For example, if I read a novel, X, I initially formulate a critique of that novel. However, as I have further experiences, the critique of that novel changes, is reformulated in the light of those experiences which comes after it. What I’m suggesting here is that it is impossible to say “This is what X means”, rather we should say “Tis is what X means at the present time“, therefore, acknowledging the perpetual flow of the artistic process. My critique of X when I am twenty years old will be very different to my critique when I am forty (yes, there may be points of similarity). An artefact does not remain as it was when first it was created because to be an artefact it requires an audience or a spectator. The spectator is a central part of the being of the artefact (in much the same way that a god, any god, is reliant on believers to exist – co-dependency).

We seem to have returned to Benjamin’s concept of the aura which I suppose, again, I’m arguing against (I think). The aura, to Benjamin, is a static thing, yet this would seem to suggest that an artefact cannot transcend the time of its creation (production?) which to me would suggest a built-in obsolescence. To put it colloquially, as times change, the artefact remains the same, trapped in its own times. Thus, the artefact, in this mindset, becomes part of the nostalgia industry, facilitating those who bemoan the loss of ‘proper’ sculpture or ‘proper’ music – complaints that reveal a fear of the contemporary present, harking back to an idealised past that never existed.

Art, it seems to me, never looks back. Its movement is always forward, motivated by the desire to go beyond what exists, to create something other than what exists, to cause us to see what exists as temporary, as a staging-post on a ‘journey – albeit a journey without a beginning, middle or an end.

So what is the definition, and the value, of the self in artistic terms?

First, and foremost, is that “the self” is defined by caring for others, by prioritising that care for others above care for oneself (freed from the neoliberal/anarcho-capitalist model, this is not problematic) which enables freedom in the widest sense of the term. One’s freedom and self is based on the freedom of, and care for, others. Thus, the language and concepts of neoliberalism become redundant: words such as ‘jealousy’, ‘envy’, ‘greed’ no longer have any foundation, they are meaningless. The insistence on ‘consistency’ is also rendered obsolete as the ideology that enshrines this is exposed as precisely that – ideology. The structures of separation, fragmentation and opposition collapse, again revealed for the control mechanisms that they are.

The self, therefore, becomes something unrecognisable to what we currently think of when we cite the term. Without the need for consistency, the self, based on freedom of, and caring for, others becomes, to put it dramatically, a “many splendored thing”. The Artistic Self is (an) aesthetic creations, that admits endless possibilities, continual flows (multidirectional), successions of (what we now call) others. We can reference Nietzsche’s “aesthetics of self creation”, which sees the self as a work of art that is under continual revision and addition. There’s also Heidegger’s contention that to talk of ‘being’ is to make a mistake; we should instead talk of ‘becoming’. Heidegger argues that we are in a perpetual state of becoming until our deaths, that our selves never reach a point where they become static.

In terms of values, the self values the freedom of, and care for, others, therefore, these values are those of the community. Art is ‘about’ understanding: its fascination is in the insights that we gain into other people, its ability to give us imaginative experience of situations that we never encounter, its representation of emotions, its ability to cause us to feel “as if” these people, situations, emotions were ‘real’. Coupled with understanding are the ways in which we learn from Art, the ways in which Art teaches us – although there’s a terminology problem here: how do we distinguish understanding, learning and teaching?

Art imbues us with the infinite possibilities that it illustrates. As such, we too become a part of these infinite possibilities. Through artistic imagination, the human person achieves their potentiality – becomes ‘really’ human if you like. The pleasure of Art is cognitive. Compare this to the neoliberal ‘formulation’ of art as an escape from reality, a rejection of the “real world” which is, apparently, a world of competition, conflict and continual struggle. Art in this world is literally an escape from the mundanity of existence, a way of living vicariously – entering environments and lives that will never, can never, be achieved. Art becomes an escape from the frustrations of everyday life.

The self in the neoliberal world is an entity constructed to keep the world at bay, to fend off aggression. Imagination is defined by (defined) images of ‘success’. Economic success allows self-expression, but your self-expression is linked to the suppression of others’ selves. To have or to have not – the simple binary opposition of neoliberalism. Care and caring is a weakness that will cause your downfall. Freedom is something for you to earn (literally) at the expense of the majority.

Can we make a distinction between ‘knowledge’ and “artistic knowledge”? Are they different kinds of things? Can we connect them to different kinds of truth, in that, is it the case that artistic truth is qualitatively different to truth in other fields? What would an artistic truth be like?…These aren’t rhetorical questions (no Aquinas here), I genuinely wonder…

So, I suppose the first thing to do is to try to establish some kind of definition of ‘knowledge’. Put another way, what can I/we know, and in what relation do I stand to what I (think I) know? This being said, do I need to stand in a relation to knowledge, for knowledge requires me as much as I require it (or do I?). We have two categories here: (i) knowledge and, (ii), not-knowledge. Each dependent on the other, yet each dependent on a framework, a structure of meaning/a structure that confers meaning. But why? If I can be said to possess knowledge, then knowledge possesses me – turns me into its subject, in ways few of us question…or even think about. Truth then becomes a function of the calculus of whatever structure we are caught in (better to call it a ‘web’?).

Earlier in this blog, I referred to what appear to be the two dominant types of knowledge: the rational and the emotional, which give rise to the two dominant types of truth – again, the rational and the emotional. One submits to the Age of Enlightenment, the other to Romanticism (we really don’t seem to have come any further). In the former, others choose for me, in the latter I choose for myself…or so I think.

So we still have the same binary conflict ranging over centuries. But is it a conflict? And is that idea that I choose for myself self-deception? Well, there is an argument to be made that, without Romanticism to oppose it, Enlightenment is meaningless. If self-justifying, rational thought existed alone, then it wouldn’t exist because we would not be aware of it’s existence. Obviously, for something to exist we must be aware of it, and to for us to be aware of it, there must be a contrasting idea, and opposite other – both in a relation of mutual reliance.

The second question, that problem of self-deception in regard to choice, ‘choice’ is a concept generated by the structure that prioritises the rational, rationality which is approved by society (how do we know this? We believe it is the consensus view). By assenting to this idea of “the rational”, we feel secure, we feel part of a bourgeois majority. Yet behind the mask of the bourgeoisie, lies a populist – one that subscribes to conspiracy theories and notions of belief without independent proof, but is intelligent enough not to admit this. In much the same way as, when questioned, a majority apparently despise neoliberalism but, in the privacy of the voting booth, return right-wing parties.

‘Choice’ is something of a double-edged sword. On the one hand we demand it, on the other we convince ourselves that we do not have it because it makes our self-interested actions easier to justify to ourselves. By this ‘reasoning’, we inhabit, and support, a “nodding democracy”: a political system that is not democratic, but one in which we feel constrained to class it as democratic even whilst we feel that we have no real choices. We simply nod to a definition with which we do not agree, and continue on our way – a way that is dictated by a neoliberal agenda that is fast becoming an anarcho-capitalist one.

The Romanticism of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, stressed a break with the tradition of the Enlightenment. What we can also see is an age-delineated system; the young were patrons of the Romantic, that idea that idealism could be pitted against tradition. Yet, as with the emergence of Youth Culture in the 1950s and 60s, this classification of Romanticism as a ‘movement’ of youth, allows it to be contained, allows a condescension. The criticisms of the Enlightenment project, of tradition, are not really criticisms, they are simply the rebellion of youth – a desire to criticise for criticism’s sake. A hormonal side-effect of the phase one is going through. The general idea is that one will “grow out” of this phase, and come to realise the ‘truth’ of tradition. There will be those who do not do this, who continue to protest, but we can classify them as puerile, as resisting the imperative that one becomes “an adult” and sees the world as it “really is”. What hides this ideological move is the idea that rationality is a singular thing – whilst it appears to exist independently of the person, it is in fact an ideological construct that simply passes off the interests of the ruling class as the independent rationality applicable to all areas of life. Quite obviously, this is a lie – part of what Marx calls false class consciousness. All the more false because people do not realise that it’s class consciousness, they simply accept it as “just the way things are”.

This is why Art is so dangerous. This explains why Art (and artists) must be marginalised. Art continually exposes the inequality, the injustices of society because it deals in a different formulation of knowledge, therefore, a different formulation of truth. The basic foundation of Artistic epistemology is care (in all its forms: for others; for self; for nature; for the environment; for beauty etc.), thus, truth is that which provides for the greatest equality, for the greatest justice. The ‘demand’ is that we use of knowledge to further these ‘ends’. The imperative in creativity is, therefore, to expose injustice (as an overall term here, including inequality), to illustrate connections between disparate things in the web of life and “tease out” (in some cases; this is not a necessary part of creativity) solutions. It suggests that the purpose of living, of being a human person, is to care – to be consciously part of a community. In this, it can stand in direct opposition to what we think of the “free person” able to make “free choices”. In other words, it stands in direct opposition to the capitalist concept of “the individual”. My freedom is contingent on caring for others: on the effect it has on them and the ways in which they live. To live in any other way is not ‘free’. As Sartre says, we are either all free or no one is. If I live my life without thought for others, then my life is not free, but a continual string of selfish actions. It is, in fact, not a life but a blind existence.

In Waiting for Godot, when Vladimir and Estragon have the insult competition, the ultimate insult is…critic. Yes, it’s a joke, but at the same time it isn’t. There’s a long tradition of seeing the role of critic as…what?…Contemptible? As someone who is unable to create, so they take on the lesser role of critic, but are driven by a kind of hidden envy of the “real artist”. Obviously, that’s in relation to Art. What we also see is the same kind of thing happening in regard to society: those who criticise the way society functions are accused of being negative, of only illustrating the problems without suggesting solutions or, if they do suggest these, of being idealists, out of touch with ‘reality’.

I’ve never really understood this dislike of critics; they seem to have a far more difficult ‘job’ than makars, in that they need to informed ni regard to the whole area under discussion. When a critic offers an analysis, it is based in history, the evolution of the genre in question and the societal dynamic as it exists throughout time. For example, there’s very little point in writing a critique of X’s realist novel, without a knowledge of how the knowledge emerged, how it developed, the kinds of directions it’s taken.

One of the main problems here is the mistake of thinking an opinion is criticism. It’s part of that idea everyone is “entitled to their opinion” which somehow morphs into “everyone’s opinion is valid”. The answer to both of those is ‘No’, unless we give a qualified response. Of course, everyone does have an opinion, but the important question is “How valid is that opinion?” (Which runs both questions into one answer.) Having an opinion is simply being alive, in that judgement is a fundamental component of being human. Judgements are, I would argue, inescapable, from the trivial, “What should I wear today?”, to the crucial, “Which party shall I vote for?” (N.B. Not “Who shall I vote for?”). One can argue that judgement is part of thought, must be part of thought. When we make judgements, we are taking a political position – as we grow older, one might say “grow into our own consciousness”, we realise this, hence, we the change in our judgements over time. These changes are a result of thought and experience; what I mean by ‘experience’ here are the ways in which our knowledge of particular areas grows and develops, thus, informing our thought. Therefore, the more one knows about a specific area, for example, film, the more one should be able to argue coherently for a particular analysis – the more one should be able to construct valid arguments. This is all very Humean: in Of the Standard of Taste, Hume argues precisely this, that one must be immersed in an area, have knowledge of it, and them demonstrate that knowledge/experience in one’s critique. There’s also an unspoken idea here: that one must be sufficiently self-ware to realise when your knowledge is inadequate yet this, in our digital, immediate age, seems to have been forgotten. Look, for example, at the moral panic we see generated by the gaming industry (I’m phrasing this deliberately – moral panic is also good marketing). Every so often a game appears that causes outrage, articles are written about the destruction of civilisation by game X, Y or Z, because these games are brainwashing “young people”. The problem here is the (lack of) knowledge of those expounding these ‘sentiments’ (as Hume would call them). If we look at these articles, they lack historical context: Plato warns that writing will destroy society because no one will remember anything anymore (substitute ‘googling’ for writing); he also warns against Art because it represents things and human persons as they are not; we have the puritans banning plays for the same reason; when the novel first appears in English, dire predictions are made that readers will prefer the fictional existences they read about over material reality; film is seen, initially, as a grave threat to society…followed by television (t is still the case that certain sections of society bemoan the influence of television), followed by video games (Macron, very recently, blamed the riots in France on “young people” gaming). In each of these occurrences, the warnings are issued by those who favour ‘tradition’ or the ‘conventional’. On the whole, they are the same argument, mobilised by right-wing commentators, sharing a common denominator: fear of the power of Art. While we might not go so far as to suggest a direct connection between Art and societal change, what we can see is a correlation between Art and changing the tenor of society, creating a desire for change. Right-wing commentators recognise that Art causes thought, causes consideration of issues, that, in the long run, leads to change. Perhaps I’m wrong; perhaps those who create the moral panic around games recognise the historical links – a historical ‘sameness’. However, what we also need to recognise is the way in which right-wing commentators claim to be representing “common sense”, or “the natural”: that is, they deny that they are writing from an ideological position (that’s something only the left do apparently). They are ‘neutral’, ‘objective’ – sitting outside history. Yet there is no political neutrality in claiming to be outside history.

What we might call “proper critics” state their political position. They do not posit themselves as an ‘everyperson’ figure. They also recognise the limits of their knowledge, and the factors that have a bearing on their analysis. For example, although I might critique games, I have to recognise that my knowledge is general and that my (old) age has a bearing on my thought. Interesting enough, Hume makes the claim that the young are less able to critique because they lack experience – this is in keeping with the assumed definition of rationality at the time. However, this no longer holds in our society where specific kinds of Art are marketed to specific audiences. These kinds of Art require critics drawn from what I suppose we have to call their “target market”, rather than those who will, almost automatically, find these forms wanting (which, one can argue, is a manifestation of fear). Look at the scorn poured on reality tv or soap operas; I’m not suggesting that we examine these forms in isolation but there appears to be a tendency to see these as inferior, to fall victim to nostalgia.

These forms can, however, be used to illustrate another point in regard to ‘opinion’. There appears to be a move towards the idea of ‘like’ and ‘dislike’ as ultimate critical terms. If I dislike something then I can dismiss it – I need give it no more thought. Yet what does liking or disliking establish? Nothing. What’s important is the ‘because’, otherwise we have nothing with which to debate. This is the fundamental point: likes and dislikes are irrelevant. Everything that goes to make up the “cultural web” of society is of critical interest. Likes and dislikes are pointless, meaningless oppositions, that fragment social life, that encourage the separation of subjects – economics from sociology from literature (itself a separation from Art) from philosophy – and the compartmentalisation of life itself. In this compartmentalised world, I can abhor child labour but fail to see the connection with my iphone, sympathise with strikers but moan about the effects on me. (N.B. Look at the way strikes are covered on tv news: the item leads with the effect, not the cause) The real critic sees that, as Derrida puts it, there is nothing beyond the text – and that ‘text’ is how we live as a human person with other human persons, the very thing that motivates Art.

This is why Art is being segregated and marginalised – confined to what is called ‘entertainment’ which we can define as “escapism which takes our minds off the detail of our everyday lives”. In the capitalist society that we inhabit, Art is fast becoming confined to the same kind of ‘exercise’ as weekend drinking sessions – a chance to obliterate consciousness, to forget the circumstances of our material existence.

In our contemporary present, the value of Art has become simple valuation. Whereas we once would value the contribution that Art makes to human society, a quality we might say that is ‘measured’ in the amount of thought it causes (which cannot be measured because…well, even thought I’ve typed the phrase “the amount of thought”, I have no idea what this might mean because how could we isolate and attribute this ‘amount’ from the web in which thought exists), nowadays there is a price, a metric of monetary value. There is also the value of Art as a societal token, indicating your social position (class position) to others. Art serves marketing purposes, the advertising industry – it beautifies products, is part of the ceaseless consumerism in which we live. Artefacts are “broken off” dragged out of context, and reattached to cars, credit cards, motor oil etc. etc. This, I think, tends to be the main way of valuing Art: how does it contribute to the sales of other goods.

The bizarre prices that certain paintings command merely indicates that they have become ‘chips’ in the “possession game”: the person who pays millions for a Van Gogh or a Warhol (see the Robert Hughes documentary, The Shock of the New and the conversation he has with a New York stockbroker who owns the largest number of Warhols) doesn’t do so because they are compelled by appreciation of the work. It could be any item that others consider valuable, allows them to indulge in conspicuous consumption and is “an investment”. For them, the work is of little, if any, importance. What we’re seeing is the disconnection between artistic value and monetary value. The former cannot be calculated in the latter’s terms. This also raises questions in regard to reproduction, but in a different way to Benjamin’s discussion of this in The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. In that, Benjamin argues that reproductions of the original erode the aura of work (before going on to posit that works are now created for reproduction). But isn’t the aura of a work a fleeting instant, vanishing with the final brush stroke or note? The work is then “in the world”, reproduced or not. What of plays, films, music? These have always been produced for reproduction; where is “the original” in these cases? The manuscript, the master reel? Their purpose is to engage the reader, to interact, to cause thought – whether that be with “the original” or with a copy is of no importance. To insist on the importance of the original is to turn that original into an object of supreme value, to value the object above and beyond its capacity to cause thought, reflection or meditation. The work may be exploited as, say, in the case of the Mona Lisa by the reproduction of the image on tea towels, cups, scarves etc. BUT in what sense is this a ‘bad’ thing? This exploitation might be for monetary game yet its effect is to bring the work into contact with those who feel that Art is “not for them” – in the same way, one might argue, as the use of classical music to sell cars. To some, it will be just another picture on a tea towel, or the backing track for a car. However, to others it might catch their imagination, draw them into a world from which they have previously felt excluded. And in that, Art is the ‘victor’.

The most obvious example here is, I suppose, films of books. How many people have been brought to Jane Austen by Clueless, or by the apparently ‘straight’ adaptations? Look at the fuss surrounding the film of All Quiet on the Western Front: how many were intrigued enough by this to read the novel? Then, from these initial points, how many started journeys to other works? Art may seem to be being exploited, but how often does this crude exploitation open new vistas to their readers?

As I’ve said, can we say that there is something intrinsically ‘wrong’ with the work of art produced for reproduction? On a very simple level, even works not produced for reproduction when they are reproduced give us access and, in both cases, surely this is the point? An artefact is created to be engaged with, to cause thought, with as wide an audience as possible. Mechanicial reproduction – or, in our day, technological reproduction – is an asset, an opportunity to bring the artefact to the widest possible audience and, thus, to have the widest possible influence. The question of ‘originals’ and ‘reproductions’ arise only when the artefact is inserted into “the markets”, with its attendant considerations of copyright, ownership, publishers etc.. To think of Art in this way is to begin in defeat, by unconsciously accepting the rules of “the markets”. We saw this during the early days of the internet and the idea of self-publishing, then with musical groups who released their albums directly online. Not that either of these came to anything: the markets adapted very quickly, and the existent rules proved to embedded to be overthrown.

There is another, interesting aspect to the monetarisation of Art. Some years ago, The Museum of Modern Art in Edinburgh paid €20,000 for a work that consisted on a canvas that had been slashed by a carpet knife. This caused outrage; the usual “money for nothing” and “my four year old could have done that” hysteria was deployed…and, possibly, in monetary terms there was some point. However, in terms of artistic value, this hysteria missed the point. I could spend paragraphs here discussing the artistic value, but suffice to say, the work itself was a commentary on divergent values. How many, once their intial outrage had dissipated, began to consider what the artefact was ‘saying’? How many recognised the validity of its commentary on the irrelevance of monetary value in Art – that slash leading us behind the canvas, leading us to the dark space of hanging in a gallery and, thus, into the question of how a work of art becomes a work of art by its placement in an environment where it will be perceived in a specific way that is dictated by that environment. What of the canvas itself? That space usually filled with colour and representation? Here the commentary seems to revolve around the importance of the reader in making meaning and thought, and the ways in which we project, through our imaginative powers, in environments that invite us to do so. Can we apply a metric of monetary worth here? No. Is it artistically valuable? Yes.

What this work also raises is the question of artistic intention. What did the makar intend? Do we need to know? Is their intention important? The answer to all of these is “Who cares?” Once a work is, in some sense or other, complete (better word than ‘finished’) and enters the world, it is open to interpretations. The makar’s intention only matters if we accept that they retain control of meaning, that they own the work and that the work is about them; we are, in other words, back to the idea of the individual as being the basic unit of society, that this work goes to reveal something about their psychological make-up, what I’d call “critique as psychological jigsaw puzzle” – the point of such criticism is to see each work as allowing us to reassemble a portrait of the artist, the more intense our research is – where did they live, what was happening to them when they produced X – the more accurate our reconstruction will be. This is as pointless as I hope I’ve made it sound. If a work is only ‘about’ the artist then it’s of no interest to us. It offers us no thought, no reflection on the life of human persons. It is limited by its attachment to a specific individual.

This still leaves the “my four year old could have done that” question. Unarguably they could have, and here there’s a contradiction with my previous paragraph. If a four year old produced the work, as opposed to, say, someone of thirty, then we can argue that the intentionality is different. For the sake of argument, our thirty year old has been to Art College, has lived in a garret (which, interestingly enough, comes from the French for “watch tower” or “sentry box”), and endured poverty. Our four year old has done none of these things. However, if we move away from the individual to the work itself, do the experiences and circumstances of the individual alter the meaning of the artefact? The temptation is to say yes. The thirty year old’s work possesses an intentionality that examines Art and the Art world. The four year old was amusing themselves on a wet afternoon. Now take another step: we do not know the ages of the artists, in fact, we know nothing about them other than their names. The focus is now on the works themselves and the critics interpreting these works. When further information is revealed, the critic may feel rather foolish, but their analysis has been produced as a result of concentrating on the work itself, without any of the attached ‘noise’. Does this new information make the analysis invalid?

In one sense, a ‘definition’ of the concept of value has now begun to emerge, on the whole by suggesting what value is not. I’ve also begun to suggest the kind of grounds we need to establish value. I want to limit this though, in regard to the specific case (I’ll come back to the abstract concept later) of Art.

As I suggested in the previous entry, to approach the idea of value, we need to engage in comparison. Art enables us to do this, whether it is comparison with our contemporary present, or with previous historical ‘formulations’ (?) of society. When we examine a painting, watch a film, see a play, listen to music, read a novel, each of these conjures a picture of the society that produced them for us – both in terms of “What was it like?” and “What could it have been like?”. This is partly because Art is ‘motivated’ by discontent, by conflict, with what exists, and partly because Art is progressive – this is to say, it is not suggesting ways in which society can be perfect (although in some cases this might be the case), but suggests ways in which society can ‘improve’; by ‘improve’ here, I mean move towards a fairer, more just, state. Art does this in a variety of ways but, on the whole, by examining the human person, their relation to their community, and their relation to themselves. In these relations, the spectator/reader is invited to compare themselves, to ask questions of themselves, to empathise and, ultimately, to judge. The emotional reactions that these fictional constructs invoke in us are, despite the fictional scenario, real emotions. We are moved by these scenarios – made sad, angry, melancholy, happy – in identical ways to those we would experience in our lives. This is hardly surprising: what we find in Art are representations of experienced emotion and/or meditations on how one might experience certain emotions in particular situations. There is also, of course, an instructional element too: in situation X, then the ‘proper’ emotion is Y; this is how you should control emotion Z. What runs in the background of all of these instructional elements is “within your community”. From this idea comes cultural difference or, as some would argue (but not me), emotions characteristic of a particular ‘nation’. What we also find in regard to these two notions is the idea of change – that emotions are not ‘fixed’, they may, over time, alter. Art lets us see these changes, lets us compare past and contemporary reactions, even anticipate those of the future. In this latter ‘ability’, we can also see another ‘benefit’ of Art: hope.

Art provides hope in a specific way: the hope that Art generates is ‘structured’ in such a way that it indicates how change may take place. It is not, as hope so often is, of the “one day, this might change” variety but, in its conscious (or unconscious) analysis of society, highlights the injustices of X and the pathways to changing X – moreover, even if you don’t agree with the pathway to change, the onus is on the spectator/reader to devise an alternative.

This illustrates another (tempting say the other) quality of Art: it generates thought, it causes thinking. One cannot stand before/watch/read a work of Art without its causing thought, engaging with the issues and/or human relations raised. Some works deliberately set out to do this, others – which tend to be classified as “low culture” (TV programmes; comics; games; marvel films) -generate thought by their assumptions and by the arrangement of their worlds, in terms of social and political organisations and structures (class stratification; aristocracy; totalitarianism; cults of personality). In what might be scribed as a “covert manner”, many popular forms of ‘entertainment’, surreptitiously employ the Brechtian formula, inviting the spectator to compare the fictional world with their own – thus, to take a step back and compare the two worlds. In this way, the screen, page, music transcends its own frame, venturing out into the ‘real’ world, causing us to critique that world – sometimes in ways we’re unaware of.

In this we might say, the world of business and profit contains the seeds of its own destruction. Take, for example, the franchise cinema industry – Marvel, DC etc.. These films are made for profit yet, at one and the same time, cause their “target audiences” to compare and contrast these fictional world with their own. In many cases, the organisations and tyrants that rule these fictional universes invite direct comparison with the lives that their viewers live outwith the filmic world. Admittedly, all the usual Aristotelian formulaic elements are there: identification with a central character to guide the spectator through the film, thus, obscuring the partiality of the perspective; the high character brought low; repeated moments of catharsis. Yet, ‘behind’ these elements we can see that the plot lines are grappling with contemporary issues and desires: notions of patriotism; the meaning of nationalism; honour; responsibility and obligation; protection of the vulnerable; exploitation; concepts of good and evil. What we can also see in these films is the desire for an invincible hero, one who can defeat all comers.

This is merely a simple example to illustrate the levels on which popular culture operates; even instantly forgettable pop music (bearing in mind that what I’m calling “instantly forgettable” isn’t aimed at me) serves a purpose, in that, we can see in it a desire to escape from the realities of everyday life. We must also acknowledge that a great deal of the attraction of popular culture involves vicarious living: living through these characters and the situations represented is, to an extent “wish fulfilment” – I’d include the adoration of ‘celebrities’ in this, as well as the fascination with social media (although here the situation can be reversed – as in “I’m glad that isn’t happening to me”, “A cheap holiday in other people’s misery” as Johnny Rotten put it), the worship of sports people and so forth.

Yet all of these connections that people have with popular culture involve thought; they involve the spectator being active, making decisions, drawing on past knowledge (of events and themselves) and speculating on future events. This elitist notion of ‘high’ culture and ‘low’ culture is simply that (elitist), usually cited by those who have little knowledge of the artefact(s) which they are dismissing. These two broad categories are designed to exclude (mainly on the basis of class) the majority of the population, hence the term “mass culture”, with its implication of simple consumption and, to put it bluntly, the suggestion that most people are stupid. As Nietzsche says, “The Lordly class take possession of a thing by naming it”…We even see, in the 1930s, left wing critics, such as Benjamin and Adorno, trying to control the kinds Art that should be made available to “the masses”; they can’t be trusted, therefore, must be nudged in the ‘right’ direction. So here we have a kind of double elitism.

Our insistence on the reader (in future, I’ll use this term to refer to anyone who stands in a particular relation to an artefact of nay kind – play, poem, painting, film, novel etc.) possessing a certain degree of articulacy also acts to exclude people. I’m guilty of this: I demand that someone who claims to ‘like’ something can then explain why they like it, why they prefer this to that and to do this in the received language (the discourse) of criticism – with its inbuilt values and its aspiration to the middle class.By learning this discourse though, we can disrupt it – introduce Art that, at first sight, does not ‘belong’. The more often we do this, the less rigid the discourse is, the more fractured it becomes, because unlike discourses that apparently have clearly defined parameters, the discourse of Art must, due to its own ‘guiding’ concepts, be fluid, be able to change and flow in different directions simultaneously.

What the discourse of Art does is to hold up for examination the values of all other discourses; Art causes us to identify and examine what these values are, how they work and, ultimately, how they relate to the good for human persons. A definition of “the good”? A quality in which everyone is cared for, is treated as an equal subject whose needs, desires and wants are recognised (and striven towards). This, it seems to me, is how we measure our being-in-the-world. It is, one can argue, unachievable but nonetheless should be the single, motivating factor of human existence. This is what we encounter in Art and, to be considered Art, this is what the object/artefact/thing should do – cause reflection on the self and the facets that go to make up that self which, in turn, spread into the world of material reality.

Does this mean that to be a good artefact the artefact must be good? In Kant and Hume, we see the claim being made that to be good Art, the Art must be morally good. However, does this follow? If a work revolts us, then we know why it revolts us – it causes a revulsion in us. What it also causes us to do is to examine the ‘revulsion’ itself, to ask if this reaction is justified. It establishes a conflict between what we have been told to feel (by our upbringing, our peer group, the media) and how we, ourselves, feel. Sometimes, we maintain our revulsion because of fear or the desire to belong, yet we have still come to the realisation that this is the case – so we have learnt something meaningful about ourselves and our society.

These kinds of ‘revelations’ (call them that for the moment) niggle away at us, cast doubt upon our own authenticity, our own ability to live as we’d like, true to our selves. Our acts here are conscious, deliberate: your reaction to a work is yours and yours alone. We may choose not to share it, to lie about it, but it is still there.

Must any discussion of value necessarily be moral? What I mean by that is can we discuss value without introducing ideas of good and bad, “better than”, “worse in comparison to…” OR should we go with the postmodern notion of simply saying “X is different to Y”?

In regard to the latter though, is simply claiming that “X is different to Y” just another way of expressing judgement in a different way. For example, having made the initial statement, how does one proceed? When I begin to explain how X is “different to Y”, don’t I have to use pre-postmodern terminology? Or would my doing so simply be a ‘hangover’ from traditional language use? However, what am I doing when I explain difference? Describing a range of technical aspects coupled to spaciotemporal co-ordinates? For example, Bruckner’s 7th symphony was written at time t, in space s. It has the following features, a, b and c. Now, whilst we can do this, and the result will be ‘informative’, is this kind of analysis too ‘dry’, lacking an emotional ‘edge’? A symphony is different to a pop song, but merely describing the two different forms is precisely that – a description. I’d hesitate to call it analysis. To qualify as analysis we mobilise our abilities to compare, to judge- a socio-philosophical account. We also need to include our reasons for listening to the symphony or pop song – how it affects us, what it tells us, how it communicates, the insights into the time of its production or into “the human condition”. We are, for want of a more apt term, constructing an argument – what is more, we are constructing what we hope is a persuasive argument. By so doing, whether we realise it or nor, we are aiming to produce a sense of unity, an idea that you too might enjoy this, might see these elements for yourself and recognise these as binding.

By prioritising postmodern ‘difference’, we are moved towards the concept of the individual:” the force of the artefact is lost, its value (if, in this ‘scheme’ it can be said to have value) lies in what it means to me, and only me. It is shorn of its power to unify and to comment on its ‘surroundings’.. There is no metanarrative of which it is part. Another problem here: in talking only of difference, it seems to follow that everything is as valuable as everything else…from which it follows that everything is valueless. When I make the claim that, say, X is more valuable than Y, I cannot leave the conversation there, I must continue, I must explain why. On the other hand, if I say that X is different to Y, I can abandon the conversation and move onto the next item. The idea of a conversation with others, that “runs in the background”, has disappeared.

I think we can also see a connection here with the two different ‘truths’ that have emerged over the past number of years, (a) Rational Truth (RT) and, (b), Emotional Truth (ET). When I cite RT, I’m referring to a truth that exists independently of me, a communal truth that is assessed and discussed in reference to shared ‘standards’ – of comparison, of judgement. When I cite ET, I am referring to truths that I desire to be true, that I can hold as true on the grounds of that desire and nothing else. I suppose we could also call this “individual truth” – for example, if I desire that X = A + B then it does. This kind of thinking (if, indeed, we can call it ‘thinking’) means that I can construct a world that refers only to my desires. If undesirable truths attempt to intrude on this world, I can reject these as ‘false’, even when faced with evidence to the contrary.

To give a contemporary example, if I desire to claim that everyone has equal opportunity in the world we inhabit, then I can. In fact, I can assert that your view of the world and mine are simply ‘different’ because I reject the idea of metanarrative. You might think that there is (a metanarrative) but I don’t – it’s a simple difference of opinion, and all opinions are equal.

It seems to me that, in such a (postmodern) world, any concept of ‘progress’ grinds to a halt – history stops. We have a world that consists of individuals (and the notion of self-interest that goes with this) who believe what they like…

However (and there had to be one), this non-metanarrative world is organised by, and camouflages, the metanarrative of business and profit. Put bluntly, postmodernity is an attempt by capitalism to write itself out of history while, at one and the same time, controlling it.

The end of metanarrative, and of value, then becomes the (supposed) triumph of a meta-metanarrative and a single value – the latter is no longer recognised as one value among many because, in this model, it is the only value and, therefore, becomes something else…something like “just the way things are”, ‘natural’.

In terms of ‘traditional’ political thinking, democracy becomes redundant; the state, which exists to provide services that benefit the community, ceases to exist. Rights cease to exist. We are returned to what Hobbes and Rousseau call “the state of nature” – individuals battling with one another in an unending cycle of “the survival of the fittest”.

What we see here, in political terms, is populism revealed for what it really is: fascism. There is, however, one significant difference from the fascism of the 1930s. Modern fascism does not require camps, fear and secret policemen to achieve its ends. It is replacing the repressive state apparatus by taking over the educational apparatus – hard repression is replaced by soft repression as business methods and profit are represented as universal and natural. As education becomes ‘training’, the means of protest, the ability to consider and compare, is eradicated. The multiplicity of discourses becomes one and only one.