A a quick apology for the lateness of this post, I went on a minivacation
and then didn’t check the blog.
My colleague Stanek presents, as usual, an ultimately cheerful and uplifting
post for my humble self to consider! I will add at the outset that my personal religious beliefs will color this post; I believe in God, and I am a Christian, so I do believe that absolute evil exists in the world. Regarding Heaven and
Hell, they exist to, respectively, reward and punish those who believe in
God and follow His law, and those who do not. The idea is not necessarily that people who are Good go to Heaven, and people who are Bad go to Hell, but more that people whoare following God's law are doing the proper thing, and are rewarded for it. What makes Hell so awful is not only the whole lake-of-flame thing, but a permanent, irrevocable separation from God. If you will take it as true that a God does exist, then this would be pretty awful.
(For more on this, I direct you to Ted Chiang’s short story Hell Is The Absence Of God, which is pretty good considering I did not write it.) Many see the obvious loophole of the Deathbed Convert, but if God is infallible, I figure surely He would have seen that coming.
Stanek takes what sounds to me a Durkheimian view of morality. Religion arises as a result of society. If something benefits everybody, and everybody chips in doing it, it both benefits myself by proxy and involves
less personal work. As you already know, I disagree, and the reason is something that Stanek mentioned at the end of his post—inconsistency. I hate slippery-slope arguments, as they seem very fearmongery, and remind me of hysterical anti-drug
commercials. But in this case I think it applies. If you rationalize one thing,
you can rationalize anything if you really want to, and it’s much more likely
that you’ll rationalize something to help yourself, and explain away
possible collateral damage. Alright-- but does your ability to rationalize something necessarily make it okay? Does your ability to argue something is not evil under certain circumstances make it not evil? Does this mean that truthiness really does exist?! If, essentially, good and bad is what I can argue, what exactly keeps this web from collapsing against the whim of someone especially charismatic? It seems like the world eventually checks itself (albeit by sometimes overcompensating in the opposite direction). I always thought of it as a sort of infinite slide rule, where you have a great many amount of things that people disagree upon as bad or good, and then, heading towards one direction, you have things that more and more people agree are just bad. These things are fewer in number, however, and at the very, very far end of the spectrum you have something most all cultures have deemed bad, albeit with arguments on just how very bad it is. (See below.) You'll never get every single person to always say it is bad, full stop, but the overwhelming majority is such that you can probably round a bit. The worst thing ever is infinitely far out, and no person has reached it either. The same is true in the opposite direction. So I definitely think there are nuances, but on the other hand, some greys are so very dark that they look quite black, and some greys are so light they're close to white.
If one doesn’t subscribe to the idea that there’s a God that dictates
morality, there’s biological argument, that
something like altruism stems from the suspicion that the person drowning
over there might share genes with ourselves. This seems a bit funky to me,
because of the worldwide incest taboo which would, theoretically,
make dead sure your own personal genes survived. (If for some reason you
find yourself curious about the reasoning behind said incest taboo, feel
free to have a gander at that Wikipedia entry.) There are very few things
Anyway, I quote Stanek’s previous post:
The natural conclusion, I think, is that no one owns anything except
through force (or the threat of force supplied by their parent state), no one
has any inherent rights that can be violated, and thus no action can be
taken that is objectively "wrong" or "evil.
I agree with the first point, nobody really owns anything, although
for very different reasons (I believe that everything we have comes from
God, so there’s no point in being excessively greedy about hoarding
anything, it’s not actually YOURS). This second point, however, about
nobody having inherent rights, I dispute—I think that people have the right
to live. I don’t mean this in a Roe vs. Wade sense, but in the sense
of the death penalty, or even something as simple as a revenge killing. Even if the universe is a huge bunch of atoms meaninglessly careening
in space meaninglessly, the meaningless careening of atoms that
eventually led to life is outside of humanity’s, let alone society’s
jurisdiction. Is it possible to counter what the universe has set into motion? This is getting quite existential and excessively late-night-college-philosophy-session for me.
I end with another short story recommendation, Robert Charles
Wilson’s “The Cartesian Theater”*, that addresses the existence of evil
indirectly. If you’re not already familiar with the idea of the Cartesian Theater, I won’t tell the true subject of the story, as it’ll give things away a little. But I will say that it addresses Stanek’s ending point, that “One can't help but feel that "evil"-- soul-crushing, gut-wrenching awfulness that doesn't lend itself to mere
rational analysis--exists; no, not in an absolute sense but in some
nuanced way.” I would just say “It’s something more
powerful than you can possibly imagine", but that is, of course, not
an intellectually satisfying argument. My bad. It seems to me that if one
feels this way, and the explanation for why one feels this way isn’t
satisfactory, despite being a good explanation it isn’t complete…it’s a
tricky thing.
*You can read it in Futureshocks, ed. Lou
Anders, or Science Fiction: The Best Of
The Year 2007, ed. Rich Horton.
Friday, September 19, 2008
Friday, September 12, 2008
Does “Evil” Do Nuance? -- Stanek
Not too long ago, the two major-party presidential candidates were invited to sit down and take the mandatory quadrennial religious test for office in violation of the Constitution at an event called the Saddleback Presidential Candidates Forum. Here's one of the hard-hitting softballs they were lobbed: “Does evil exist?” The answer the candidates gave—and that nearly every human being on the planet would give—was a resounding yes. But is there an absolute evil that we can all agree upon?
There's an old public administration maxim that goes by the name of Miles's law: “Where you stand depends on where you sit.” It applies as much to matters of moral certainty as it does to budgetary negotiations: perspective matters. I'm far from being an expert on theology but I've been under the impression that, for the significant chunk of the population that accepts the Judeo-Christian cosmology, Satan was as close to being the personification of evil as it gets. And yet Theistic Satanists worship Satan as a deity, a bringer of knowledge, purveyor of freedom, and proponent of equality. If some can question the evilness of a guy whose nickname is “evil” with a “d” tacked on in front, how can we hope to find points of agreement on the existence of absolute evil?
My own sense is that these archetypal dichotomies—black and white, good and evil, right and wrong—are socially useful but not principles of the universe itself. Where does it come from? Unless you believe in an anthropomorphic (cognitively, if not physically) god handing down tablets with laws engraved on them it's difficult to see where from moral laws could derive their authority. If there is no Heaven to reward good deeds and no Hell to punish misdeeds (and I don't believe there are) then we lose the ability to draw those stark, absolute lines. Yet I believe many atheists and agnostics are moral people who do subscribe to the notion that some things are right and some things are wrong.
Many times people with or without faith will justify a sort of morality using the Golden Rule: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you," or some variant. In practice, this often morphs into its cousin, the Silver rule: "don't do to others what you would not have them do to you." Maybe a good rule of thumb but hardly an absolute principle. Under that logic, the actions of people like the Columbine killers are morally excusable because they intended—indeed, wanted—to be killed themselves. We could call this the Anti-Hypocrisy formulation of morality because its only concern seems to be self-consistency. But since I tend to think everyone is inconsistent on some level, it's tough to see any truly moral human being under this rule. Furthermore, it assumes either an inherent "goodness" or a certain equality between human beings; if I can get away with doing things to others that they couldn't possibly do back to me, wherein lies the merit of the Golden or Silver rules? The principle loses any practical value in guiding one's actions and all we're left with are reasons of empathy to avoid doing “evil.” I've heard the suggestion that conscience dictates morality: I know killing is wrong because if I killed someone I would feel bad. Again, that might be a good personal reason not to kill but a moral system with this as its cornerstone is rather fragile. Indeed, it explicitly endorses the view that morality is little more than an individual-specific frame of mind.
The (likely uninformed) view I take on the matter is that morality arose and persists because it has great social value. Society needs rules—both implicit and codified—to grease the wheels and secure a degree of cohesion. A sort of selection principle operates: those who reject the norms accepted by the majority soon find their way out of society, be that through social and geographical marginalization, imprisonment, or execution. In particular, it's very useful to be able to invoke a Boundless Source for a set of rules rather than simply invoking the state. The state has limited power; it can't be everywhere and enforce every law (though, of course, it's interesting to ponder the ramifications of this statement becoming less and less true). But if the laws are absolute and ultimately enforced by the Almighty—well, then it's best not to violate them even if you can get away with it in the short term. Historically, there have been times when significant portions of the population came to see a gap between what was legal and what was moral. The abolitionist movement is probably the most famous example, though I imagine most social movements--and certainly any instances of civil disobedience--contain a large degree of this (even today, arguments for minimum wage increases, anti-poverty efforts, universal health care, etc are sometimes presented in moralistic terms). All this tells us is that many people do not accept the notion that what is “right” derives from man's laws. Indeed, some minor civil laws are, in part, made to be broken--the fines provide essential revenue streams for cities.
There was a paper a few years ago in the journal Faith and Philosophy called “God and Moral Order.” A scenario was presented in it that I found very interesting:
The author concludes that it would be morally wrong for this woman to steal the money. I cannot agree. Theft can be detrimental to society in any number of ways and, as such, society should not tolerate it. And it is in all of our interests, as members of society, to make sure others do not steal. But in our capacity as individuals against society—-in the absence of an absolute morality handed down from an Absolute—-there is no reason, other than the fear of legal punishment (which is absent in this example), not to do what we can get away with. I suppose we might call this one the Hypocritical formulation. Ms. Poore isn't doing anything objectively wrong in taking the money. It seems especially clear-cut in this case where the motives are presented as "pure"--in that society would approve of the way Ms. Poore intends to spend the money--and no one is significantly hurt by her actions. The "right" to one's wealth or property is conferred by the state and the entire concept is predicated upon the state being more powerful than individuals who might want to take it. However, if the state is ill-equipped to protect your property "rights" and you yourself are unable to do so, well, your "rights" aren't worth a dime. Indeed, history is replete with states depriving other states of property or resources by force (where did the American Southwest come from?).
The natural conclusion, I think, is that no one owns anything except through force (or the threat of force supplied by their parent state), no one has any inherent rights that can be violated, and thus no action can be taken that is objectively "wrong" or "evil." Certain things are frowned upon or even outright condemned by society--in many cases, I would think, the sentiment is drummed up by those who stand to gain the most from that attitude becoming prevalent--and we come to think of them as "bad." But they simply are what they are in an amoral universe. Thus, on a rational level, I take a sort of George Carlin-esque view of rights (he hits it at 8:33 in the video, though the whole clip is worth watching): in actuality, anything goes. You can do anything you please, though society intervenes to put the brakes on that. In an absolute sense, then, there aren't any rules and there can be no true "evil." There are only the rules we impose on each other (and perhaps attempt to skirt when no one is looking) to abate the scariness of the situation. This is where the intellect leads me.
But there's more to a human being than the intellect. One can't help but feel that "evil"--soul-crushing, gut-wrenching awfulness that doesn't lend itself to mere rational analysis--exists; no, not in an absolute sense* but in some nuanced way. At the very least, the sort of cold analysis that leads to a nihilistic and gray world view doesn't lend itself well to my efforts to conceptualize the Good Society. Like I said, everyone is inconsistent on some level.
*It should be clear by now that I don't believe in absolutes.
There's an old public administration maxim that goes by the name of Miles's law: “Where you stand depends on where you sit.” It applies as much to matters of moral certainty as it does to budgetary negotiations: perspective matters. I'm far from being an expert on theology but I've been under the impression that, for the significant chunk of the population that accepts the Judeo-Christian cosmology, Satan was as close to being the personification of evil as it gets. And yet Theistic Satanists worship Satan as a deity, a bringer of knowledge, purveyor of freedom, and proponent of equality. If some can question the evilness of a guy whose nickname is “evil” with a “d” tacked on in front, how can we hope to find points of agreement on the existence of absolute evil?
My own sense is that these archetypal dichotomies—black and white, good and evil, right and wrong—are socially useful but not principles of the universe itself. Where does it come from? Unless you believe in an anthropomorphic (cognitively, if not physically) god handing down tablets with laws engraved on them it's difficult to see where from moral laws could derive their authority. If there is no Heaven to reward good deeds and no Hell to punish misdeeds (and I don't believe there are) then we lose the ability to draw those stark, absolute lines. Yet I believe many atheists and agnostics are moral people who do subscribe to the notion that some things are right and some things are wrong.
Many times people with or without faith will justify a sort of morality using the Golden Rule: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you," or some variant. In practice, this often morphs into its cousin, the Silver rule: "don't do to others what you would not have them do to you." Maybe a good rule of thumb but hardly an absolute principle. Under that logic, the actions of people like the Columbine killers are morally excusable because they intended—indeed, wanted—to be killed themselves. We could call this the Anti-Hypocrisy formulation of morality because its only concern seems to be self-consistency. But since I tend to think everyone is inconsistent on some level, it's tough to see any truly moral human being under this rule. Furthermore, it assumes either an inherent "goodness" or a certain equality between human beings; if I can get away with doing things to others that they couldn't possibly do back to me, wherein lies the merit of the Golden or Silver rules? The principle loses any practical value in guiding one's actions and all we're left with are reasons of empathy to avoid doing “evil.” I've heard the suggestion that conscience dictates morality: I know killing is wrong because if I killed someone I would feel bad. Again, that might be a good personal reason not to kill but a moral system with this as its cornerstone is rather fragile. Indeed, it explicitly endorses the view that morality is little more than an individual-specific frame of mind.
The (likely uninformed) view I take on the matter is that morality arose and persists because it has great social value. Society needs rules—both implicit and codified—to grease the wheels and secure a degree of cohesion. A sort of selection principle operates: those who reject the norms accepted by the majority soon find their way out of society, be that through social and geographical marginalization, imprisonment, or execution. In particular, it's very useful to be able to invoke a Boundless Source for a set of rules rather than simply invoking the state. The state has limited power; it can't be everywhere and enforce every law (though, of course, it's interesting to ponder the ramifications of this statement becoming less and less true). But if the laws are absolute and ultimately enforced by the Almighty—well, then it's best not to violate them even if you can get away with it in the short term. Historically, there have been times when significant portions of the population came to see a gap between what was legal and what was moral. The abolitionist movement is probably the most famous example, though I imagine most social movements--and certainly any instances of civil disobedience--contain a large degree of this (even today, arguments for minimum wage increases, anti-poverty efforts, universal health care, etc are sometimes presented in moralistic terms). All this tells us is that many people do not accept the notion that what is “right” derives from man's laws. Indeed, some minor civil laws are, in part, made to be broken--the fines provide essential revenue streams for cities.
There was a paper a few years ago in the journal Faith and Philosophy called “God and Moral Order.” A scenario was presented in it that I found very interesting:
Suppose Ms. Poore has lived many years in grinding poverty. She is not starving, but has only the bare necessities. She has tried very hard to get ahead by hard work, but nothing has come of her efforts. An opportunity to steal a large sum of money arises. If Ms. Poore steals the money and invests it wisely, she can obtain many desirable things her poverty has denied her: cure for a painful (but nonfatal) medical condition, a well-balanced diet, decent housing, adequate heat in the winter, health insurance, new career opportunities through education, etc. Moreover, if she steals the money, her chances of being caught are very low and she knows this. She is also aware that the person who owns the money is very wealthy and will not be greatly harmed by the theft. Let us add that Ms. Poore rationally believes that if she fails to steal the money, she will likely live in poverty for the remainder of her life. In short, Ms. Poore faces the choice of stealing the money or living in grinding poverty the rest of her life.
The author concludes that it would be morally wrong for this woman to steal the money. I cannot agree. Theft can be detrimental to society in any number of ways and, as such, society should not tolerate it. And it is in all of our interests, as members of society, to make sure others do not steal. But in our capacity as individuals against society—-in the absence of an absolute morality handed down from an Absolute—-there is no reason, other than the fear of legal punishment (which is absent in this example), not to do what we can get away with. I suppose we might call this one the Hypocritical formulation. Ms. Poore isn't doing anything objectively wrong in taking the money. It seems especially clear-cut in this case where the motives are presented as "pure"--in that society would approve of the way Ms. Poore intends to spend the money--and no one is significantly hurt by her actions. The "right" to one's wealth or property is conferred by the state and the entire concept is predicated upon the state being more powerful than individuals who might want to take it. However, if the state is ill-equipped to protect your property "rights" and you yourself are unable to do so, well, your "rights" aren't worth a dime. Indeed, history is replete with states depriving other states of property or resources by force (where did the American Southwest come from?).
The natural conclusion, I think, is that no one owns anything except through force (or the threat of force supplied by their parent state), no one has any inherent rights that can be violated, and thus no action can be taken that is objectively "wrong" or "evil." Certain things are frowned upon or even outright condemned by society--in many cases, I would think, the sentiment is drummed up by those who stand to gain the most from that attitude becoming prevalent--and we come to think of them as "bad." But they simply are what they are in an amoral universe. Thus, on a rational level, I take a sort of George Carlin-esque view of rights (he hits it at 8:33 in the video, though the whole clip is worth watching): in actuality, anything goes. You can do anything you please, though society intervenes to put the brakes on that. In an absolute sense, then, there aren't any rules and there can be no true "evil." There are only the rules we impose on each other (and perhaps attempt to skirt when no one is looking) to abate the scariness of the situation. This is where the intellect leads me.
But there's more to a human being than the intellect. One can't help but feel that "evil"--soul-crushing, gut-wrenching awfulness that doesn't lend itself to mere rational analysis--exists; no, not in an absolute sense* but in some nuanced way. At the very least, the sort of cold analysis that leads to a nihilistic and gray world view doesn't lend itself well to my efforts to conceptualize the Good Society. Like I said, everyone is inconsistent on some level.
*It should be clear by now that I don't believe in absolutes.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Can Great Art Be Created With A Great Budget? -- Stanek's Comment
Being something of a heretic, I’ll play Devil’s Advocate on this one. Since “art” can be a bit of a slippery concept, let me preface my comments by saying that I am not the quintessential pretentious snob: I don’t subscribe to the notion that if you’ve heard of it, it isn’t good. Quite the opposite, I’m a Philistine. I don’t know what makes a piece of music, or an oil painting, or a novel technically brilliant. Indeed, I doubt I could even describe objectively how to write a decent paper; I intuit mine (making me a terrible proofreader of other people’s). Thus, I experience art first and foremost on an emotional level.* I judge art in a singularly vulgar fashion: based primarily on how it makes me feel.
The world is a lonely place, never so much as when you’re immersed in a crowd of people. Begging your pardon, Mr. Donne, but every man is indeed an island. An island linked to others by a fragile network of ephemeral bridges but surrounded by black waters all the same. Art is one of the few exceptions to this. It affords us a comforting illusion, a pleasant semblance of commonality. When I read a novel or stand before a painting, I do so in isolation. The connection I make with the piece is unique and entirely mine. But it feels like I’ve tapped into something universal, some kind of Jungian collective unconscious that tells me I am indeed "a piece of the continent, a part of the main." Enjoying the fruits of another’s creativity is perhaps the only way to truly get inside the head of another person, if only because instead of telling you what someone else is experiencing it shows you by inspiring the same feeling in you (regardless of whether or not the artist himself ever actually felt anything remotely similar—your perception that he did is all that matters). With great art, the joys, the triumphs, the fears, the sadness, the hopes of another blend seamlessly with your own for a brief time, uniting you with not only the artist but with all those that came before who (you imagine) shared an experience of the same sort. And that's powerful.
Money can do plenty of things in this world but it can’t make you feel ("You’re a bastard in a basket!"). Bumping up a budget doesn’t make a work any more meaningful or important to its creator. Does anyone doubt that the Star Wars prequel—for all of its expensive CGI—lacks much of the heart the older trilogy had? Indeed, funding levels that make an artist too comfortable risk removing some of the great tensions that give a work its emotional import. Can an artist on whom status and wealth is lavished credibly emote on issues like the great social, political, and economic disparities that weigh on our society? I don’t know. Perhaps some can. There will undoubtedly be exceptions, as Teshale notes. But, in general, excess money—like any stimulus applied for too long—dulls the senses and clouds the mind. A class of overly well-fed artists may lose its ability to feign connections with the great mass of people, in which case the bell tolls for them and only them.
*I should also make it clear that I recognize that not all entertainment is art and not all art is great. But, in the words of porn-addict Justice Potter Stewart, I know it when I see it. Except that in actuality I probably do not.
The world is a lonely place, never so much as when you’re immersed in a crowd of people. Begging your pardon, Mr. Donne, but every man is indeed an island. An island linked to others by a fragile network of ephemeral bridges but surrounded by black waters all the same. Art is one of the few exceptions to this. It affords us a comforting illusion, a pleasant semblance of commonality. When I read a novel or stand before a painting, I do so in isolation. The connection I make with the piece is unique and entirely mine. But it feels like I’ve tapped into something universal, some kind of Jungian collective unconscious that tells me I am indeed "a piece of the continent, a part of the main." Enjoying the fruits of another’s creativity is perhaps the only way to truly get inside the head of another person, if only because instead of telling you what someone else is experiencing it shows you by inspiring the same feeling in you (regardless of whether or not the artist himself ever actually felt anything remotely similar—your perception that he did is all that matters). With great art, the joys, the triumphs, the fears, the sadness, the hopes of another blend seamlessly with your own for a brief time, uniting you with not only the artist but with all those that came before who (you imagine) shared an experience of the same sort. And that's powerful.
Money can do plenty of things in this world but it can’t make you feel ("You’re a bastard in a basket!"). Bumping up a budget doesn’t make a work any more meaningful or important to its creator. Does anyone doubt that the Star Wars prequel—for all of its expensive CGI—lacks much of the heart the older trilogy had? Indeed, funding levels that make an artist too comfortable risk removing some of the great tensions that give a work its emotional import. Can an artist on whom status and wealth is lavished credibly emote on issues like the great social, political, and economic disparities that weigh on our society? I don’t know. Perhaps some can. There will undoubtedly be exceptions, as Teshale notes. But, in general, excess money—like any stimulus applied for too long—dulls the senses and clouds the mind. A class of overly well-fed artists may lose its ability to feign connections with the great mass of people, in which case the bell tolls for them and only them.
*I should also make it clear that I recognize that not all entertainment is art and not all art is great. But, in the words of porn-addict Justice Potter Stewart, I know it when I see it. Except that in actuality I probably do not.
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Can Great Art Be Created With A Great Budget? Teshale
For a vast amount of history, fantastic art was in fact created on a great budget. In these times, of course, it was through a system of patronization, and great art was not the concern so much as great art honoring a certain person, but nonetheless, a very, very striking amount of money went into funding artists like Rembrandt and Da Vinci. In modern times, however, the relationship between the budget of a film (or novel) (or album) and its quality seems, after a certain level of funds, to become inverse. Important work is being made by people like Zana Briski, who won an Academy Award in 2005 for her film on the children of prostitutes, Born into Brothels-- but note, also, the many fellowships she has been awarded. I find myself wondering how much work she's received as a result of her Oscar win. Ultimately I suspect not very much-- it's all very nice that people admire your life's work, but a statue means little when you can't afford to do the work that got you it in the first place.
The other day, I happened upon an old article from the Guardian, discussing the (argued) uselessness, according to Charlie Kaufmann, of film schools and screenwriting seminars. One point Mr. Patterson makes is a good one-- that great art comes from a hunger, a desire, and more often than not that hunger can't be taught in schools. It's clear that great art comes from a desire to make something amazing, and by constantly practicing at doing so; that desire isn't instilled in you by being poor, however, and you can be wealthy and still write or paint or film something very, very good. Paul Thomas Anderson, who is mentioned in the Guardian article, surely had a fair-sized budget for There Will Be Blood (rental of oil rig: $2000/day; salary of Daniel Day-Lewis: $2 million; catering: $375,000; etc.) and it's both some of his best and most successful work.
It's interesting, and no doubt a coincidence, that the article is paired with a review of Christopher Columbus' bloated, safe, by-the-books rendering of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (based, of course, on my 1998 novel Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone).
The cliche of the starving artist is an old one, but I think an inaccurate one. The reason a starving artist is starving is rarely because people don't understand his genius (there are, of course, exceptions), but because people simply don't understand what he's trying to do. Since I believe one purpose of art is to help people understand the world better, or to think of it in a new way, failing to do so should be seen as, perhaps, as something to think about, not a sign of legitimacy. I'm not, however, saying that an artist should dumb down his or her art-- that's not true at all. What makes any type of art great is innovation, not incomprehensibility. (Becoming successful, without trying to be, doesn't cheapen artwork-- it just means that it's reached more people.) Usually this innovation comes about through necessity-- having to distinguish yourself from the hordes of others who also think they have something to say, or not having enough money to do your original ideas. In this sense, money limits artistic expression in a certain way, because if you know you're going to get paid either way, there is little outside reason to challenge yourself. In addition, there is the risk of indulgence-- the more successful someone is, the less likely they will be challenged, as there is a sense they've already "proved" themselves with their earlier work.
But the presence of money or yes-men doesn't necessarily mean that artistic talent is compromised. The quality of art depends on the passion of the artist, and how deeply they love what they do. The type of people who make great art make it regardless of how much money or freedom they have (or don't have), because they love doing what they do so much that they'll find ways to do it, because they can't not do it. Making money from art is so unutterably difficult that it weeds out those who are serious from those who think, say, it'd be fun to be a director or a rock star. Thus, great art can be made on a great budget-- because the quality of the art depends on the person's talent and dedication to their craft, which is apparent no matter what the situation.
The other day, I happened upon an old article from the Guardian, discussing the (argued) uselessness, according to Charlie Kaufmann, of film schools and screenwriting seminars. One point Mr. Patterson makes is a good one-- that great art comes from a hunger, a desire, and more often than not that hunger can't be taught in schools. It's clear that great art comes from a desire to make something amazing, and by constantly practicing at doing so; that desire isn't instilled in you by being poor, however, and you can be wealthy and still write or paint or film something very, very good. Paul Thomas Anderson, who is mentioned in the Guardian article, surely had a fair-sized budget for There Will Be Blood (rental of oil rig: $2000/day; salary of Daniel Day-Lewis: $2 million; catering: $375,000; etc.) and it's both some of his best and most successful work.
It's interesting, and no doubt a coincidence, that the article is paired with a review of Christopher Columbus' bloated, safe, by-the-books rendering of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (based, of course, on my 1998 novel Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone).
The cliche of the starving artist is an old one, but I think an inaccurate one. The reason a starving artist is starving is rarely because people don't understand his genius (there are, of course, exceptions), but because people simply don't understand what he's trying to do. Since I believe one purpose of art is to help people understand the world better, or to think of it in a new way, failing to do so should be seen as, perhaps, as something to think about, not a sign of legitimacy. I'm not, however, saying that an artist should dumb down his or her art-- that's not true at all. What makes any type of art great is innovation, not incomprehensibility. (Becoming successful, without trying to be, doesn't cheapen artwork-- it just means that it's reached more people.) Usually this innovation comes about through necessity-- having to distinguish yourself from the hordes of others who also think they have something to say, or not having enough money to do your original ideas. In this sense, money limits artistic expression in a certain way, because if you know you're going to get paid either way, there is little outside reason to challenge yourself. In addition, there is the risk of indulgence-- the more successful someone is, the less likely they will be challenged, as there is a sense they've already "proved" themselves with their earlier work.
But the presence of money or yes-men doesn't necessarily mean that artistic talent is compromised. The quality of art depends on the passion of the artist, and how deeply they love what they do. The type of people who make great art make it regardless of how much money or freedom they have (or don't have), because they love doing what they do so much that they'll find ways to do it, because they can't not do it. Making money from art is so unutterably difficult that it weeds out those who are serious from those who think, say, it'd be fun to be a director or a rock star. Thus, great art can be made on a great budget-- because the quality of the art depends on the person's talent and dedication to their craft, which is apparent no matter what the situation.
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
What Is The Relationship Between Science and Religion? Teshale's Comment
I must say, I am in agreement with Stanek this time round, and so apologize for the short length of this response.
As Aristotle said: Everything in moderation. Science and religion, I believe, can exist together, because science usually asks "how" where religion asks "why?" Religion in some form will always exist, though science changes-- religion initially answered all "why" type of questions (Why does the sun come up? What's wrong with my cows? Why does my head hurt so bad?). The fact that it still holds such power, for so many people, and provides an answer where science struggles (why is there evil in the world? Where did everything come from? Why does pretty much everyone in the world believe that a select few things are Wrong?) suggests that it's not leaving anytime soon. Ultimately, as has been suggested before, science is in a way a form of religion; both attempt to explain why things are the way they are. That being said, an issue with argument is that religion informs everyone's thinking in some way or another and so it's difficult to distance oneself from it in making arguments. Religion in an abstract sense doesn't just have an influence on science, it influences whole cultures, and it influences thinking.
I don't mean to get into the point of whether or not morals are inherent in all humans or socially constructed, but my point is that some form of belief system-- whether it be science, Buddhism, feeling that we're all one and life goes on-- will always be carried home with you, so to speak. But Science and Religion-- organized religion-- struggle with each other. The main issue always seems to be the more "mundane" aspects, if you can call them mundane-- the sheer breadth of different subsections of Christianity, for instance, illustrates that. In my experience, what most people object to most is being told what they believe is wrong-- whether an atheist is being told he's going to hell, or a Christian being told he is a fool and an idiot.
It seems as if people's inherent nature is to lean one way or the other, and so I don't know if the two can do so on a broader scale. There will always be a Richard Dawkins and there will always be a Pat Robertson, and they will always get more attention than those who are in the middle. And if someone's in the middle, they please neither side, really. I think the middling nature of a more general spiritual belief is such that it struggles against the inflexibility, and subsequent strength, of any type of organized belief system on a broad scale.
Hey, I have a lot of answers, but I don't have all of them.
As Aristotle said: Everything in moderation. Science and religion, I believe, can exist together, because science usually asks "how" where religion asks "why?" Religion in some form will always exist, though science changes-- religion initially answered all "why" type of questions (Why does the sun come up? What's wrong with my cows? Why does my head hurt so bad?). The fact that it still holds such power, for so many people, and provides an answer where science struggles (why is there evil in the world? Where did everything come from? Why does pretty much everyone in the world believe that a select few things are Wrong?) suggests that it's not leaving anytime soon. Ultimately, as has been suggested before, science is in a way a form of religion; both attempt to explain why things are the way they are. That being said, an issue with argument is that religion informs everyone's thinking in some way or another and so it's difficult to distance oneself from it in making arguments. Religion in an abstract sense doesn't just have an influence on science, it influences whole cultures, and it influences thinking.
I don't mean to get into the point of whether or not morals are inherent in all humans or socially constructed, but my point is that some form of belief system-- whether it be science, Buddhism, feeling that we're all one and life goes on-- will always be carried home with you, so to speak. But Science and Religion-- organized religion-- struggle with each other. The main issue always seems to be the more "mundane" aspects, if you can call them mundane-- the sheer breadth of different subsections of Christianity, for instance, illustrates that. In my experience, what most people object to most is being told what they believe is wrong-- whether an atheist is being told he's going to hell, or a Christian being told he is a fool and an idiot.
It seems as if people's inherent nature is to lean one way or the other, and so I don't know if the two can do so on a broader scale. There will always be a Richard Dawkins and there will always be a Pat Robertson, and they will always get more attention than those who are in the middle. And if someone's in the middle, they please neither side, really. I think the middling nature of a more general spiritual belief is such that it struggles against the inflexibility, and subsequent strength, of any type of organized belief system on a broad scale.
Hey, I have a lot of answers, but I don't have all of them.
Monday, September 1, 2008
What is the Relationship Between Science and Religion? -- Stanek
In my meanderings the other day I happened upon a list of Muslim scientists, which--at first glance--might seem a bit odd. I say "odd" because there is a certain conditioning that sometimes leads us to believe not only that scientists wear the same hat in the lab 9-5 that they do after clocking out for the night, but that they should do so. In short, the argument goes, the mode of thinking required by scientific inquiry should intrude on all aspects of a scientist's thinking. And thus being a [insert any religion] scientist would seem like some sort of contradiction. But it's a five o'clock world and scientists are allowed to realize that there are indeed unscientific things in this world (like fashion or the appeal of reality TV).
The people in that wiki list might be Muslim and scientists or they may well be Muslim scientists. To be done well, in the least biased way possible, natural science has to rely only on what we can observe--no miracles, nothing outside that which we can very-nearly-but-not-quite-literally hold in our hands. A deus ex machina won't get you even partial credit for a physics question you're unable to answer (or, as Laplace succinctly stated the philosophy when asked where God fit into his model of planetary orbits, "I had no need of that hypothesis.") But it doesn't follow that just because this is the way we have to do science, that this is the way we have to view the universe. A scientific perspective of the universe does not necessarily imply an atheistic view. Science says we can only deal with the tangible; it doesn't say the tangible is all that is or all that can ever be. That's not to say that this sort of world view (sometimes called metaphysical naturalism) isn't popular among some scientific types--including, for a long time, myself--but only that it doesn't follow logically from scientific thinking.
Though some are loath to admit it--lest the romantic picture of a struggle between science and religion for the intellectual soul of humanity be shattered--science owes a tremendous debt to religion. Priests, monks, and otherwise religiously-minded participants are responsible for some of the great advances of science; many people don't realize that the big bang theory of cosmology was invented by a Catholic priest in the 1920s, while a trio of atheist astronomers developed and pushed the competing steady state theory until long after the idea had worn out its welcome. But the debt I speak of reaches much further than mere personalities, men and women who happened to embrace both religion and science. It is a creed shared by both the most atheistic of scientists and the most starry-eyed of religious believers. It is the simple belief that the universe has a mind and we can read it.
Einstein is famously quoted as saying "The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is at all comprehensible." To the religious-minded, the universe makes such perfect, coherent sense and possesses an underlying order because an intelligence lies behind it all. Indeed, some religious adherents have pointed to the mere fact that science can exist at all as evidence of a higher power . To the atheistic scientist, the fact that science can exist--that an underlying simplicity and order hold sway and we can lay down with mathematical precision a series of rules that seem to govern the entire universe--is both exhilarating and deeply puzzling. Physical science implicitly embraces a "God-as-lawgiver" conception of the universe, regardless of whether it explicitly endorses the "God" bit (though I think it would be a grave mistake to limit ourselves to considering only the Judeo-Christian conception of a deity in thinking through this).
A decade ago, Stephen Jay Gould advanced the notion that science and religion are non-overlapping magisteria, meaning they cover entirely different domains of inquiry and thus do not--cannot--conflict. The empirical and spiritual are not competing for the same scraps. Regardless of whether that's true--and it has been debated--science and religion do overlap in at least one fundamental way: they're both driven by the same forces. Furthermore, both are after a deeper understanding of reality and, I dare say, they want to glean some bona fide meaning from whatever picture of reality emerges (every equation invites interpretation). Physics pursues that understanding by seeking a single unifying law from which all else follows, religion goes a step further by looking for the source from which such a principle would arise. So it is indeed possible to have Muslim scientists or Christian scientists or scientists who pursue a spiritual fulfillment far from the organized religions*. The same human factors--confusion, uncertainty, terror--push people toward science and religion but neither discipline by itself can assuage our anxieties. As long as human beings retain the essentials of their humanity, neither science nor religion is going away.
*I tend to think of "religion" in terms of an abstract mode of thought rather than a concrete social institution like an organized religion. So, while grievances could be lodged against specific organized religions, "religion" as I've tried to use the word in this post is a bit apart from that.
The people in that wiki list might be Muslim and scientists or they may well be Muslim scientists. To be done well, in the least biased way possible, natural science has to rely only on what we can observe--no miracles, nothing outside that which we can very-nearly-but-not-quite-literally hold in our hands. A deus ex machina won't get you even partial credit for a physics question you're unable to answer (or, as Laplace succinctly stated the philosophy when asked where God fit into his model of planetary orbits, "I had no need of that hypothesis.") But it doesn't follow that just because this is the way we have to do science, that this is the way we have to view the universe. A scientific perspective of the universe does not necessarily imply an atheistic view. Science says we can only deal with the tangible; it doesn't say the tangible is all that is or all that can ever be. That's not to say that this sort of world view (sometimes called metaphysical naturalism) isn't popular among some scientific types--including, for a long time, myself--but only that it doesn't follow logically from scientific thinking.
Though some are loath to admit it--lest the romantic picture of a struggle between science and religion for the intellectual soul of humanity be shattered--science owes a tremendous debt to religion. Priests, monks, and otherwise religiously-minded participants are responsible for some of the great advances of science; many people don't realize that the big bang theory of cosmology was invented by a Catholic priest in the 1920s, while a trio of atheist astronomers developed and pushed the competing steady state theory until long after the idea had worn out its welcome. But the debt I speak of reaches much further than mere personalities, men and women who happened to embrace both religion and science. It is a creed shared by both the most atheistic of scientists and the most starry-eyed of religious believers. It is the simple belief that the universe has a mind and we can read it.
Einstein is famously quoted as saying "The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is at all comprehensible." To the religious-minded, the universe makes such perfect, coherent sense and possesses an underlying order because an intelligence lies behind it all. Indeed, some religious adherents have pointed to the mere fact that science can exist at all as evidence of a higher power . To the atheistic scientist, the fact that science can exist--that an underlying simplicity and order hold sway and we can lay down with mathematical precision a series of rules that seem to govern the entire universe--is both exhilarating and deeply puzzling. Physical science implicitly embraces a "God-as-lawgiver" conception of the universe, regardless of whether it explicitly endorses the "God" bit (though I think it would be a grave mistake to limit ourselves to considering only the Judeo-Christian conception of a deity in thinking through this).
A decade ago, Stephen Jay Gould advanced the notion that science and religion are non-overlapping magisteria, meaning they cover entirely different domains of inquiry and thus do not--cannot--conflict. The empirical and spiritual are not competing for the same scraps. Regardless of whether that's true--and it has been debated--science and religion do overlap in at least one fundamental way: they're both driven by the same forces. Furthermore, both are after a deeper understanding of reality and, I dare say, they want to glean some bona fide meaning from whatever picture of reality emerges (every equation invites interpretation). Physics pursues that understanding by seeking a single unifying law from which all else follows, religion goes a step further by looking for the source from which such a principle would arise. So it is indeed possible to have Muslim scientists or Christian scientists or scientists who pursue a spiritual fulfillment far from the organized religions*. The same human factors--confusion, uncertainty, terror--push people toward science and religion but neither discipline by itself can assuage our anxieties. As long as human beings retain the essentials of their humanity, neither science nor religion is going away.
*I tend to think of "religion" in terms of an abstract mode of thought rather than a concrete social institution like an organized religion. So, while grievances could be lodged against specific organized religions, "religion" as I've tried to use the word in this post is a bit apart from that.
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