Inconceievable!
Nov. 27th, 2001 09:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jackofallgeeksTonight I got to talking with Nifer, and as much as I like the girl, I must say that she bewildered me.
It's not easy to explain, simply because I find it hard to follow. I guess I should just describe the conversation...
First we started talking about music, and she said that she liked Disturbed, the group. Now, I like there music, to a point, but I said that it turns me off when a group digresses into screaming obscenities in the middle of a song. She said she liked it because of the message and raw emotion it conveyed - that it was art. I said it wasn't art because art should have style, class - art should be something redeaming, not uhm, the opposite there of. She asked if art should always be positive and light. I almost said no, not always, but after thinking for a moment, yes, is should. Art should reflect truth and goodness. There should be some aspect of beauty in it. This brings up interesting questions about whether some of what we call art really is, but I think I would have to argue the point, and I think it's much more complicated than it at first seems. I can't understand, really, how to explain it.
Anyways, we went on to general philosophies on the nature of humans. I personally believe that people are basically good. She said she believed people are basically selfish, and that every human action is selfish. As a counter-point I brought up soup kitchens, and she said that the people who set those up have a desire to relieve sufering, and so doing so makes them feel better - ie, it's selfish.
But wouldn't the actual desire to HELP someone other than yourself, isn't that desire itself selfless? And wouldn't having that desire make one a selfless person?
By Nifer's definition, a man who jumped infront of a small child to sheild him from incoming gunfire would be a selfish man, due to the fact that he was fulfilling a desire to save the child. I don't know, but it just doesn't seem to fit right to me.
Anyways, I got to the point where I KNEW that somehow my belief was right - I KNOW it is, the world doesn't make sense anyways, life doesn't make sense otherwise - I just couldn't find HOW, in light of her argument.
Sometimes I fear for the girl...
It's not easy to explain, simply because I find it hard to follow. I guess I should just describe the conversation...
First we started talking about music, and she said that she liked Disturbed, the group. Now, I like there music, to a point, but I said that it turns me off when a group digresses into screaming obscenities in the middle of a song. She said she liked it because of the message and raw emotion it conveyed - that it was art. I said it wasn't art because art should have style, class - art should be something redeaming, not uhm, the opposite there of. She asked if art should always be positive and light. I almost said no, not always, but after thinking for a moment, yes, is should. Art should reflect truth and goodness. There should be some aspect of beauty in it. This brings up interesting questions about whether some of what we call art really is, but I think I would have to argue the point, and I think it's much more complicated than it at first seems. I can't understand, really, how to explain it.
Anyways, we went on to general philosophies on the nature of humans. I personally believe that people are basically good. She said she believed people are basically selfish, and that every human action is selfish. As a counter-point I brought up soup kitchens, and she said that the people who set those up have a desire to relieve sufering, and so doing so makes them feel better - ie, it's selfish.
But wouldn't the actual desire to HELP someone other than yourself, isn't that desire itself selfless? And wouldn't having that desire make one a selfless person?
By Nifer's definition, a man who jumped infront of a small child to sheild him from incoming gunfire would be a selfish man, due to the fact that he was fulfilling a desire to save the child. I don't know, but it just doesn't seem to fit right to me.
Anyways, I got to the point where I KNEW that somehow my belief was right - I KNOW it is, the world doesn't make sense anyways, life doesn't make sense otherwise - I just couldn't find HOW, in light of her argument.
Sometimes I fear for the girl...
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Just my opinion...I could be wrong
Date: 2001-11-27 07:37 pm (UTC)As for "art"...what do you define as "redeeming"? I don't know...my favorite band can be very dark and dirty, and somewhat offensive at times, yet I believe it's some of the most beautiful, artful work I have ever heard. Yet...some dark things do go too far...I don't know, there are so many sides to this arguement.
And as for "knowing" things...I will leave the end to Jhonen Vasquez, since I am already babbling on for far too long, and since what he says pretty much sums up my opinion: "How lovely it would be to KNOW something. Well, perhaps 'lovely' is the wrong word for indisputable knowledge, but the sensation would surely be an interesting one, to say the least. Human beings are described as 'creatures of reason' - this in no way means that the reasoning the mind allows itself to be sustained by, in order to function in the world, in order to keep from slipping off it, is indisputable. Information seems to function as the ultimate placebo (so long as we feel it is worth something, we allow ourselves to continue living our lives by it). To say one 'knows' something is deceptive, for, what they really seem to be doing is trusting in a concept, an ideal, all the while never truly knowing the object being referred to, but trusting in the explanations fed to them in association with that object. It's like never, honestly, seeing something, rather only using our eyes to see the colored light bouncing off of its surfaces...but, then again, what do I know?"
Sorry for this. I felt philosophical. ^_^ Do forgive me.
Point and Counterpoint
Date: 2001-11-28 06:56 am (UTC)However-
As for humans having a basic nature, it only seems to flow from reality. There is a basic nature to everything in creation. It's hard for me to pick out examples, but please don't take that as a flaw in my argument - I just had a calculus test, so my brain is fried.
Anyways, as I said, it simply follows that humans have a basic nature, and I believe that this nature is good - however, we do have free wills, and that concept alone, and the implications it has, are much too broad to even go into here - maybe in a later post.
As for art, it becomes one again evident that I have trouble exprssing myself when I say that I can't find another term to explain what I mean when I say art should be "redeeming". I will agree that many songs I listen to are dark, as are pictures and the like, and so at its very essence I lose grasp of what are SHOULD be. But I can assure you of what art shouldn't be. If you've heard the full version of "Down With The Sickness", and heard the interlude that I'm refering to, you'll understand. In essence, the artist goes into a one-sided argument, basically describing an abused child who then abuses his abuser. Realistic, maybe. But is that really something worthy of art? I would argue no because the message it sends is not one worth sending. As I told Nifer, he could get his point across another way - anyone can yell obscenities at the top of their lungs for 30 seconds, I believe an artist should be able to make a point without being so brutish.
The same can be said of movies - movies can be art. I say can be because, through this and other discussions, I've come to debate whether what passes as a movie now is many things, one of which is art (that is to say, there are other things, such as humor, which I question in movies now). Would a video which grafically depicts a violent rape be considered art? I should certainly hope not, though it may be realistic or convey some sense of emotion, I don't believe that's all one needs for art. But, as I said, I'm not really sure of what one DOES need.
Finally, while Jhonen (awsome guy) makes many valid points as far as human intellegence goes, I think he falls short of the human intellect, the difference being that I'll define the intellect as the ABILITY to know and the intellegence as the actual knowledge. As far as knowlege, yes, most people are very incomplete - it's only fitting. You can't know everything, simply because of the vast amounts of time you would have to devote to learning the basic truths of any given thing. However, I believe out intellects give witness to the fact that we CAN know - that is, I believe that the world is made up of concrete truths, truths which are so independent of anything else - objective truths if you will. This only makes sense because, if no one thing is ever COMPLETELY true at any given time, how could we function in the world? How can you play a game in which the rules are constantly changing? Therefore, since our reality does remain static and, for the most part, makes sense, there must be basic truths, and, these basic truths being objective and unchanging, it only logically follows that we should therefore have the ability to really KNOW things.
As for if any given person DOES really know anything - there I would agree with Mr. Vasquez in that it is unlikely, though not improbable.
After all, isn't the definition of "seeing" the recieving of lightwaves into our eyes and subsequent interpretation by our brains?