[ExI] John C. Wright Interview

[Natasha Vita-More]

At 04:54 PM 1/26/2008, Damien wrote:
>At 02:35 PM 1/26/2008 -0800, PJ replied to Lee:
>
> > > The same cannot be said for literature.  It's redeeming virtue
> > > is instead beauty.  And if a lot of people don't happen to like
> > > something, then that's all, ultimately, that there is to it.
> >
> ><sigh>
> >
> >Not true.  Great art is considered great because at some fundamental
> >level, it reveals perceived truth.
>
>I'm chary of the word "truth" even with that cautious "perceived" in
>front of it--

Yes, I agree.

>perhaps we might say that art stimulates or occasions
>insight?

Certainly, of course.  But the key work must be "experience".  Art 
gives/provides/lends, through the senses and emotions, to the viewer, 
audience, etc. an experience.  Whether or not that experience is 
insight is secondary.  The experience can be frightening, pleasing, 
inviting, rewarding, disturbing, etc.

>If that insight includes an uncomfortable awareness of one's
>own current limitations under confrontation with the aesthetic (and
>sometimes ideological) challenge, so much the better.

Yes.

Natasha

<http://www.natasha.cc/>Natasha<http://www.natasha.cc/> Vita-More
PhD Candidate,  Planetary Collegium - CAiiA, situated in the Faculty 
of Technology,
School of Computing, Communications and Electronics,
University of Plymouth, UK
<http://www.transhumanist.biz/>Transhumanist Arts & Culture
<http://extropy.org/>Thinking About the <http://extropy.org/>Future

If you draw a circle in the sand and study only what's inside the 
circle, then that is a closed-system perspective. If you study what 
is inside the circle and everything outside the circle, then that is 
an open system perspective. - Buckminster Fuller


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