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PaperclipPerfector  9mo ago (text post)   31371 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 24, 2023

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So earlier this week I tried to have a discussion about the common complaint here that modern, western culture is deficient and should be overthrown because it is extremely bad at creating beauty. I tried to argue that this particular judgement depends on aesthetic preferences that aren't as universal as its makers seem to think and gave a particular example of one of my own preferences (that is shared by many I know IRL) that actually judges it as exceptionally good.

The response was pretty shocking. There are some topics here that I know will provoke a lot of heat---immigration, racial identity, trans issues, etc. I never suspected this to also be one of them. The sheer amount of anger in the replies and the subsequent to emotional arguments and strawmanning was crazy--I really did not know it was this controversial. On second thought however, this aesthetic judgement really is the core objection a lot of the far right has towards the modern world and a lot of their policy suggestions to fix it that otherwise seem bizarre to me make a lot more sense when viewed as based on their particular aesthetic preferences. Therefore, questioning these preferences is really questioning the foundation of their political identity, much more than talking about immigration might be.

I'm therefore interested in polling this forum on the issue. I think it helps with the strawmanning to be very precise and try to clarify it into a dilemma. Pretend god offered you a trade: all future advances in science and math that aren't directly useful for technological advancement will stop. In exchange, the supposed squalor of the modern, western physical environment will be fixed---think replacing all of suburbia with stuff that looks as nice as your favorite ones of these. Would you take the trade? [Edit: maybe a better option would be changing all brutalist buildings to things that are as nice as cathedrals?] Now I know that "directly useful for technological advancement" is a very fuzzy, but please try to answer the question in its spirit---we're trading away only the aesthetic value of these advances, not their material and practical effects.

I would also be very interested in the correlation between the answer to this question and people's political views. I personally would be strongly against the trade (the same as most people I know IRL) and I'm a pretty standard American liberal.

(EDIT: on second thought this was a very unclear post missing too much context. See here for clarification---hopefully this helps to anyone still looking at this).

I don't understand the trade you are offering. There's no necessary link between the two.

A town in my country renovated a lot of their downtown to carry on a traditional 'old downtown' vibe with modern construction technology. It didn't take the abolition of non-directly-useful science and math. It was just a matter of people being sick to death of vulgar displays of glass, steel and concrete that had started to dominate other towns. Instead the townsfolk got colorful and traditionally framed houses.

It wasn't a matter of some meta-physical revival of the "far right" and their "bizarre" policy suggestions. It's just people with power not being inside their own assholes(and the town was close to going bankrupt afaik). It didn't take a fancy foreign architect educated in Boston to design the thing. A local design office did the job just fine. That might have been a big blow to the ego of some people involved, who could otherwise have made themselves feel very important and high status by rubbing their shoulders with big names and grand ideas. But no. Not needed. It looks great and fits the town.

Sure, math can be beautiful. Sure, architectural design in and of itself can be beautiful. But most people aren't good at math and most people don't know the history to appreciate the full extent of a clever architectural design that incorporates this and that style in a novel way.

I don't think it's a matter of some deep issue or a 'core' of anything. Public displays need to appeal to the public. Not the vanity of whatever person is in charge. You are not special for liking the things you like. A 9 year old who likes a statue of a soldier is no less worthy of experiencing public displays of beauty than someone who is highly cultured, sophisticated and articulate.

The only relevant thing left is to decide what things that the public does like should be displayed to them.

There's no necessary link between the two.

I agree that in my original post there was no clear link between the two and apologize for the bad writing. I hope the edit I made clarifies things more.

I don't disagree that public architecture is a top down thing. I disagree with its end product. I don't care how erudite the designers are when describing whatever it is they put on paper. I care what I feel when I stand next to it.

An unpainted concrete box that has rust leaking from the windows makes me think that the thing is unsightly. A similar concrete box that is properly painted and maintained, by comparison, looks nice. In so far as I know something about craftmanship and skill, I would at least like to imagine that some of it was required to put the thing together. That there are some details meant to look pretty. If that can't be conveyed then I as a living human being standing in the flesh have a very narrow positive basis to judge the thing on. If all you have is a clever idea or a lofty political message then it matters very little unless you actually write it on the side of the building. Because I can't say I feel the 'democratic' spirit radiating off those ugly greenhouses.

I agree there is a sort of political truth underpinning everything. It's much easier to appreciate the art of your ingroup and empathize with the noble cause behind it. But how we get from political cause X to an endless sea of glass, steel and concrete laid bare is beyond me. It feels like we are going 'the Nazis liked simple beauty that appeals to the common man, we hate Nazis so lets do something ugly that appeals to those who can truly appreciate the beauty of the Emperors New Clothes.'

The amount of derision I see towards what is called 'modern architecture' goes far beyond just "far right" wingnuts. To that end I don't think perceptions of beauty are as much a product of conditioning as you do.

Specifically when they say "democratic", one should of course not interpret that to mean "what the people want". Whether something is democratic needs to be judged by the properly educated few. "Democratic" here refers to the post-WWII first world system as opposed to fascism and Nazism. "Without nostalgia" means rejection of national romanticism which is seen to have led to Nazism and fascism.

How do you know that?

While I don't disagree that there are people who have in the past (and likely in the present) see it as their duty to override democratic consensus in the cultural sphere, I don't think their use of the word "democratic" is a reflection of that. I think they are more referring to the idea that architecture is a diverse field, so "everyone" is getting a vote.

I think this reserved unremarkable architecture is supposed to be a sort of repentance, a civilizational fasting on beauty. That humanity doesn't deserve that sort of stuff, since it emboldens them too much in their pride. Flaming those grandiose passions is seen as too dangerous, again since it has correlated with the Nazi and fascist regimes. Too much focus on what's beautiful seems like a slippery slope towards then also trying to decide which humans are worthy/beautiful enough to allow to exist, and to eugenics and so on.

They do not hate beauty, they want to force people to be awake. To jar the senses and force people out of a perceived dream. That dream is national pride and everything associated with it.

The Lacaton and Vassal building gallery looks alien to me. The proportions and thin elements remind me of insects and segmented crawling things. The corrugated sheet metal reminds me of refugee camps, and the window shades seem wrong and uncanny somehow. If their goal was to avoid nostalgia, they have succeeded in spades.

The triumph of modernism was giant impressive geometric shapes, which, stretching into the skies, were modern-day Towers of Babel, exemplars of the rightful pride of Man. But there is no pride here. These are crouching things, huddled close to the ground, making everything feel grimy and kludged-together. These cry out to me, “Do crimes here! No one will care.”

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