Pragmatic Aesthetics I: Goal-Based Art

I threatened a while back to start articulating the aesthetic theories that I'm working with, that I spent the last of my college days refining.

The motivating force behind this development was when, in my freshman year, Karen Finley stood in front of all of us and declared that because there was no right or wrong in art, there was no need to study form, and that we were all wasting our time studying art. This was after an enraging performance of The Passion of Terry Schaivo that raised every hackle in my artistic soul.

The Experimental Theater Wing was definitely born out of that post-modernist moment of "What is art?" and constantly asking the question of where we draw the line. I knew that I, personally, had some impressions of what art should and shouldn't be, a critical frame, but I had no way to articulate it that was non-arbitrary.

My first strong sense about this aesthetic realm is that just because the rules are not absolute does not mean that they are arbitrary. The core assumption, so far as I could suss, of a lot of post-modernists is that since truth is relative, we therefore create it in each moment. But I don't believe that the first part leads to the second part necessarily.

So I went in search of some philosophical language that addressed how to talk about something which is relative but not arbitrary, and I fell on William James' Pragmatism like manna in the desert. His prime assumption, which is that "philosophy is rules for action" was a needed bearing. Why do we criticize and theorize? Not simply so that we can diss artists we hate and prop up artists we like. It's so that we can make better art. In other words, aesthetics help us make choices that make our artwork better.

What's better, then? I spent four years in search of what "better" means in the realm of art. This "better" is where the relativity lives.

I thought about it for a while, and I slowly came to the conclusion that there's two separate issues; there's the goal that the artist has in mind for the created work (which is a truly individual and moral choice), and how well the work accomplishes that goal. Based on the goal that the artist wants to fulfill, there are some clear rules for which choices will be more or less effective. They are relative -- relative to the artist's context, relative to the artist's goal -- but they are not arbitrary.

Because of the goal, the efficacy becomes measurable. Any rule stated about a created work should be able to predict success within a certain context; success and its context is defined by the goal.

Now, each created work accomplishes its own individual work. But if it is a work of culture, there is one common function it performs, whether it be an advertisement, a twitter feed, a play, or a blog post. The function of culture is to form a bridge between the creator(s) and the audience member(s) to convey some piece of knowledge or experience. This is how we gain knowledge and experiences without being there firsthand.

Now, what knowledge or experiences will we, the audience, want of the creator? This is where we return to Pragmatism as James put it: we will value the knowledge or experiences that help us live our lives in the way we want to live it. To put another way, we will value the knowledge or experiences that help us make effective choices in our own lives. These are knowledge or experiences that help us make accurate predictions about the world around us, so that our choices will be more effective.

So, to recap:

1. The point of an aesthetic is to provide a means for making effective choices.
2. Each work should have a goal with measurable success conditions.
3. The aesthetic choice within the work is valuable to the degree that it helps achieve the goal.
4. The function of culture is to transmit knowledge or experiences between creator(s) and audience member(s).
5. The knowledge or experiences that the audience will value are those that help make accurate predictions about the world they live in.

Alright, that's the nut basics of pragmatic aesthetics, my attempt to use pragmatic philosophy to create a critical language for the arts. I'm hoping to lengthen my thesis into a book on the subject, which goes into more depth about the principles above and goes into more.

Anyways, the whole point of this was I have some posts I'm going to be working on that are critical responses to other works, and this is the groundwork I'm working in.

Conversation IV: Excuses

99 Seats creates Holtham's Law (dubbed such by Isaac Butler):

If, in any discussion, particularly of diversity or style, you bring up Shakespeare, you lose the argument. Boom, that's it, you're done. Thank you for playing. We have some lovely parting gifts for you. You can shut the hell up now.

Isaac adds the Butler Corollary (my naming, not his):

Anytime you are defending a script (or a moment/theatrical gesture in a script) and use Shakespeare or Beckett as reasons why it works, you lose.

I would add that Butler's Corollary is actually a special case of a larger rule, which is:

Any time you defend your own actions or work based on its similarity to the actions or work of other people, you are talking out of your ass.

I've seen this in a number of contexts. There are, for instance, any number of post-modernists who hold that because Jackson Pollack threw paint against a canvas, anyone who throws paint against a canvas is an artist. This is not true; Pollack had a very specific style that happens to be very beautiful, and was revolutionary in a certain context. John Cage's 4'33" was perfect in the moment; if you go out and do it now, we all know you're just doing a bad cover version of the master.

Another context is the one in terms of Israel. Every time I try and bring up Israel's abuses of the Palestinians, I often get the retort of Guantanamo Bay, or Palestinian attacks against Israel -- both are variations on the theme of either "nobody is perfect so I don't have to be" or "why do we have to be the first ones to change?" Morality is relative, but it's not relative to other people's actions. There isn't a certain amount of morality you show based on the world average of morality -- morality isn't racing away from the proverbial bear, where you only have to be slightly more moral than the least moral person in the world.

So if someone says "I don't like the fact that nothing happens," you can't just say, "Beckett did it." You have to argue about why nothing happening works in your play, in your context.

Same goes for Pinter or Karen Finley or Thomas Friedman or whomever you want to blame your own shit actions on.

I wish I had something as punchy as "CRICKET BAT TO THE FACE" to end this post with.