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PaperclipPerfector  6mo ago (text post)   28402 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 30, 2025

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How do I survive in a world where the heuristics people hold holy on both sides end up being wrong so often?

Von Neumann said "you don't understand things in math, you just get used to them". It's similar in philosophy. You never actually solve philosophical problems, but you can outgrow them.

Most of the questions here are ones you'll eventually outgrow, assuming your development is not prematurely arrested.

Regarding the "Why Modern Art is so awful" essay: Luke’s explanation of “it’s a reaction to photography” is too simplistic. Any theory of "modern art" (bit of a vague term but we'll roll with it) has to account for the fact that there are people who really do like this stuff. Genuinely. It's not (always) a scam.

Nancy McWilliams described modern art as essentially being "by schizos, for schizos":

Sass (1992) has compellingly described how schizoid conditions are emblematic of modernity. The alienation of contemporary people from a communal sensibility, reflected in the deconstructive perspectives of 20th-century art, literature, anthropology, philosophy, and criticism, has eerie similarities to schizoid and schizophrenic experience. Sass notes in particular the attitudes of alienation, hyperreflexivity (elaborate self-consciousness), detachment, and rationality gone virtually mad that characterize modern and postmodern modes of thought and art, contrasting them with "the world of the natural attitude, the world of practical activity, shared communal meanings, and real physical presences" (p. 354). His exposition also calls effectively into question numerous facile and oversimplified accounts of schizophrenia and the schizoid experience.

If modern art is primarily produced and enjoyed by people who naturally feel at home in these modes of thought and experience, whereas the majority of the human population does not recognize themselves in this experience, then that could help explain some of the disconnect.

I once posted Klee's Angelus Novus here on TheMotte as an example of a first-rate painting, and was met with disapproval and incredulity. But you'll have to take my word for it that I really do find it to be quite lovely!

I think that's why I dislike it so much! Not because it's schizo posting, I've been a denizen of /b/ since duck rolling was used earnestly to troll. But because it's schizo posting that has way too much institutional support, which glows.

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