art is a waste of time; reducing suffering is all that matters

sorry, that's an excerpt from an interview with musician Anthony Braxton

lol the perfect counterargument from the world of artists

http://ddpaa.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Braxton_Work_Full.jpg

it's not much of an argument. I don't know what he's talking about. Apart from just separating market forces from the arts

square utilitarians incapable of computing utility of visionary braxtonian change movements, utile calcutrons fizzle, say 88888888 on lcd readouts

whether or not you're the philosophio-religio-pessimist, i think this whole project is misguided because of how little we know about what creates well-being, however you define it. empirical data is basically non-existent for this in every part of the world except the oecd, which has seen a slight decrease in self-reported happiness (and a more significant rise in depression, anxiety, and suicide) over the last 50 years. physical health is the supposed no-brainer, but the data for it is counter-intuitive: health is inversely correlated reported experiences of happiness. i for one would rather die younger if it means i'd be happier. so at this point i'm definitely going with "suffering is inevitable." if i were a committed effective altruist i would probably become a neuroscientist to try to figure out how to lobotomize people to make them the happiest they can be, or an engineer to automate the industrial processes that our lobotomized citizens will be too stupid to operate.

in my experience this is true

Ha, I was working on the assumption that none of us actually knew people who subscribe to this movement.

know

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Finally we will know!

This poll is really tough on ILX user "art"

We come to understand the multifarious dimensions of human experience on any array of topics through every form of art. Art that survives the generations is open to experience by people who aren't even alive yet. If we are to understand ourselves we must allow for the creation of art.

If I couldn't make art I would suffer more than I already do.

This premise is faulty, ergo stupid, ergo quit trying to make artists feel worse than they do for doing the irrational and personal. It's bad enough when ill meaning people belittle the creation of art, for well meaning people to do it too is just cruel.

surfing is all that matters

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

http://www.vulture.com/2014/12/why-do-we-like-having-sex-with-artists.html

So this pervasive “muse complex” isn’t the only reason why artists are attractive to us. Last winter, Bret Easton Ellis had Kanye West as a guest on his podcast, and part of their conversation centered around the reality of being someone who creates things. Kanye mentioned that he felt particularly self-aware of the artist’s tendency to oscillate between periods of inflated ego and periods of self-loathing. It’s an intense life — there’s the pain of creation, padded by periods of downtime where one feels compelled to escape reality. And stereotypically, sex and drugs have been sedatives for that intensity. But that oscillation can make for a charged romantic relationship. One minute the artist appears so amazing and confident that you can't help but open your legs, and the next minute they suddenly plummet and become vulnerable and insecure, and need you to open your arms to comfort them. In my experience, despite the fact that artists think they want to be with someone smart and critical, who challenges them — deep down most really just want to be babied. And this is why the artist is appealing not only to those seduced by rebellion and celebrity. It’s also attractive to the nurturing type. Some people love a fixer-upper.

Art, at its best, aims to be a transcendent experience. As does sex. And maybe this is naive to say, given that art is now largely a business, but I’ve always found it attractive to think that artists might be more in touch with generating transcendence than the average person, and therefore must be better in bed. (I might have to sleep with more artists in order to prove that theory.) There’s just something sexy and fascinating about someone whose daily routine deals with the sublime, and who aims to create something out of this world. It’s like wanting to fuck God, kinda. Also, objectively, artists are good with their hands, so ...

Now explain why we don't like having sex with effective altruists.

Jesus, I don't find those people attractive at all.

http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2016/11/still-poetry-will-rise/507266/

everything's coming up poetry!!!!!

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/11/magazine/a-time-for-refusal.html?smid=tw-share

teju cole

Evil settles into everyday life when people are unable or unwilling to recognize it. It makes its home among us when we are keen to minimize it or describe it as something else. This is not a process that began a week or month or year ago. It did not begin with drone assassinations, or with the war on Iraq. Evil has always been here. But now it has taken on a totalitarian tone.

At the end of “Rhinoceros,” Daisy finds the call of the herd irresistible. Her skin goes green, she develops a horn, she’s gone. Berenger, imperfect, all alone, is racked by doubts. He is determined to keep his humanity, but looking in the mirror, he suddenly finds himself quite strange. He feels like a monster for being so out of step with the consensus. He is afraid of what this independence will cost him. But he keeps his resolve, and refuses to accept the horrible new normalcy. He’ll put up a fight, he says. “I’m not capitulating!”

this is true

oppression has given birth to the best art

and people are forced out of the mainstream

they cope by creating art bigger than herself and her country

it's like on one hand you've got all these regrettable deportations, ostracizing of muslims, normalizing of hatred, rollback of the last chance we had to avoid the climate change tipping point, the theft of the supreme court

but on the other there's probably going to be some really FIERCE punk rock, so basically it's a tossup

i don't think of it that way at all

recent history has not shown the arts to be highly able to mobilize in that regard anyway

but i have been thinking a lot this week about art's capacity for negativity, for being a source of a sense of possibility that lets people set themselves against the world as it is or orient themselves within it without losing themselves

you're not gonna break through to mouth-breathing trumplets who are suddenly emboldened to act out their pathetic revenge fantasies, not with a profound portrait of differences and common humanity or whatever

they have no imaginations, their inner horizons are as constrained as their outer ones

and no one would think that art substitutes or compensates for necessary concrete political action and moral confrontation

but art nurtures our imaginations and we need our imaginations to survive

all of that supremely otm

oh j, i didn't mean to come off like that, sorry. i was just making a smartass comment in opposition to something totally different, spoken by people who have never heard of ILX. "but art nurtures our imaginations and we need our imaginations to survive" is completely otm.

well i wouldn't have held it against you if you did, i think it is a valid perception that has to be recognized, that art dwindles in the face of those things. people who value art as a source of possibility know this, though.

'art is a useless generosity. but let us not be too horrified by this.'

- sartre

"Great art comes from generosity," Pearl Jam guitarist Stone Gossard said last year, recalling the genesis of Temple of the Dog. Gossard and Pearl Jam bassist Jeff Ament, who played in Mother Love Bone, were devastated by Wood's death. Cornell wrote the songs for Temple of the Dog "from as pure a place as you can find," Gossard continued. "And then he reached out, letting us in."

https://thepointmag.com/2017/politics/aggressive-humanism-center-for-political-beauty

The most compelling political performance artists in Germany do not like to be called “artists.” Nor do they prefer the label of “activists”—a term they reserve for gradualists, clicktivists, and the letter-writers of Amnesty International. Founded in 2009 by the philosopher Philipp Ruch, the Center for Political Beauty makes its base of “operations” (Aktionen in German) in Berlin, with changing groups of volunteers and partners throughout Europe. Its members, who wear suits and charcoal war paint, are organized into “assault teams” aiming to establish “moral beauty, political poetry and human greatness [Großgesinntheit].” They call themselves “aggressive humanists.”

I make paintings to be able to think in a way I can't in any other form. In my way I feel like I am contributing to the continuum of painting and the extension of the painting language. Whether or not those things are valuable against the struggle to abate suffering, I can only say that painting in specific moves me in a way that music moves me. These aren't the only art forms obviously but they are the ones I can speak to the best. I think the capacity to be moved and the engagement with that capacity is a form of relief and human existence would be greatly diminished without it.

art and suffering are both a waste of time; subtweeting President of the United States Donald P Trump is all that matters

http://www.vulture.com/2017/12/jazz-icon-sonny-rollins-on-giving-up-playing-and-his-legacy.html

Even though you can’t play anymore, it must bring you some satisfaction to know that you gave people so much through your music.

Not really.

Why not?

I’m thrilled when somebody tells me that listening to my music gives them some solace or peace, but I played music for myself, too. I was getting something out of it. So I don’t consider my musical gifts as any kind of servitude. It wasn’t giving of myself, because I got too much out of it. I had to play music. I had to. It’s something I wanted to do when I was a child. That’s like a gift to me. It’s not me giving. Do you understand what I mean?

I think so. You’re saying that your playing music wasn’t an act of giving because it didn’t come from a purely altruistic place.

Yeah, that’s right.

rings true for me

Lots of ppl believe this nowadays I think.

Anyone who says they are a musician just to make other people happy is an asshole.

Otm

humans spend a lot of time on this planet doing bullshit, creating art seems pretty low on the entropy scale. as for reducing suffering, hey go for it, Batman.

seems like if you are a musician or an artist, thats what you do because that's just what comes natural. it's something you enjoy doing and you would probably do it even if there was no material reward because you enjoy the process of the work itself. in fact you enjoy it more than the final product. i think this is where a lot of self-hatred and self-criticism comes in. maybe the thrill of creation is far more interesting than the finished piece. i know that many, many times, once i'm done with a painting or song or whatever, it's dead to me. i look at it and i just see the imperfections, i just see the stuff i should be fixing. my mind instantly snaps into wanting to do the creative process itself.

i don't think anybody sings a song or draws a picture and thinks "wow, this is really impressive, i need to show this to the world because of how impressive it is". that seems like a convenient myth to sell the suffering artist, and it's a bullshit myth that still has plenty of currency. this expectation that you are "doing it for the fans" and to just make art or music because you like isn't really enough, you have to fit into this pre-defined role. your role as artist is to create the product and these roles are part of that product. the act of creation itself must be justified by its marketability. it is not enough to find joy in the creation, you have to provide product, you have to do it for the right reasons. whenever any musician is asked about live performing, they must declare over and over again how it is done for the fans, how thrilling it is to receive adulation, etc. validating the consumer role, etc. it's culture-wide and so annoying (and probably a result of the critical class being often untrained and inexperienced in the art processes they are describing).

imo if you find real joy in the creation of art then chances are that a genuine joy will be reciprocated in its appreciation, which could very well lead to suffering reduced.

suffering is a waste of time. producing art (including skillful medical outcomes, products that make everyone's lives easier, and other helpful shit) is all that matters

Otfm!

I knew how important it was to show your art to other people when I realized how many doors other artists work have opened for me.

Are you David Gilmour’s nephew y/n

No.

People should have fewer opinions.

quit being part of the problem

controversial opinion: making art that celebrates suffering is definitely a waste of time

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/dec/20/uzbekistan-islam-karimov-to-be-memorialised-by-british-sculptor-paul-day

People should have fewer opinions.

― brimstead, Sunday, 17 December 2017 22:00

quit being part of the problem

― bob lefse (rushomancy), Sunday, 17 December 2017 22:14

That might be one of Brimstead's few opinions.

so we are born with no consent as to what body we are born into, what biology we will have to contend with for our time on this planet, what physiology and mental issues will weigh on our daily decision making and sensory experiences, sexual makeup, pigmentation, hair, geographic location, socio-economic status, demographic status, inherited credit card debt, inherited tax debt, etc. on and on and on. we should do our best to respect this non-consent and not blame people for things factually and materially beyond their control.

as for opinions, people also have no choice as to where they are born, what education system they will go to, how all the above factors will play into their education, thus we cannot consider that language is a 1:1 translation for every person who uses it. because understand and performative factors can be at play, what a person is thinking can be different from what a person is speaking. for that matter what the receiver is hearing can be influenced by all manner of factors (perhaps temporal such as it being a rainy day & them being in a bad mood) in addition to their own birth lotto experience of reality.

as such their interpretation is a temporal first attempt at interpreting what was said, into attempting to know the truth of what the other person was thinking. humans are imperfect beings, they cannot 100% everything digitally like a computer, so mistakes are made and you could argue the entire concept of discussion is a tug of war battle against meaninglessness. since time is not a static thing but certainly experienced linearly we can imagine these opinions on a line stretching infinitely long. the more opinions you add the less they are in control of defining a narrative. by this logic the more time you spend attacking someone's opinion or ego the more you are watering down your own. each opinion defines a truth and people will be more open to perhaps adopt parts of yours if you aren't being aggressively possessive of it. imo the best way to encourage discussion is with positive and creative opinions.

crows are too smart for their own good. they get bored and do things like play games of 'chicken' with approaching autos as they languidly pick at road kill carcasses in the street.

^ was meant for the controversial opinions thread

http://johnlutheradams.net/global-warming-and-art-essay/

https://atomikaztex.wordpress.com/2015/07/10/how-is-the-artist-or-writer-to-function-survive-and-produce-in-the-community-outside-of-institutions/

https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2018/03/22/the-time-for-art-is-now/