From: hooker@aristotle.ils.mwu.edu ( BOB HOOKER)
Newsgroups: alt.postmodern
Subject: Re: postmodern knowledge and beauty
Date: 27 Sep 92 16:59:40 GMT
Organization: ILS

In article <1992Sep27.142728.16956@panix.com>, gcf@panix.com (Gordon Fitch)
writes:
> 

> 
> As for "beauty", beauty originated in a reaction, a taste,
> which was in the eye of the beholder.  At least by the time
> of the Classical Greeks, philosophers and other servitors of
> the powerful were trying to capture the reaction in a net of
> words so they could use it -- to get it out of the eye of
> the beholder and into something controlled by the state so
> the beholder would have to pay for it.  This effort has
> come right down to the present day -- there are people who
> will lecture you on what is beautiful and what is not, as
> if you had nothing to do with it.  But, to some extent,
> postmodern authors have gone around the establishment of
> rules for beauty and attacked the political assumptions and
> motivations behind the rules.

You are projecting a Postmodern concept of beauty on the archaic greeks. 
Naive humanity lives in the world of objects,  he is an object with the
world of objects.  Naive humanity understands Moore's assertion that for
humanity object and self are both equaly supported by experience,  to
question the reality of one is to bring the other in doubt.  

It is now that political and cultureal changes have brought the world of
objects into doubt.  Baudrillard has said that "Everything began with
objects, yet there is no longer a system of objects."

The concept that there is no beauty but in the eye of the beholder is as
much the product of the political idealogies of our culture as it is any
liberation game.  

What do I mean when I say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder.  I am
asserting a number of things, all deeply rooted in the western liberal
tradition;

1.  That therte is  an individual, a unit, an independent entity.
2.  That as an independent entity it is in control of the world that I
create,  	an agent of beauty vested with the freedom to make my decision
and the reason 	needed to arrvie at one.
3. That since my choose is mine and not the choice of Nature,  that in a
greater sense all object posses a radical equality greater then my own
taste, and that I must respect this equality of all things even if I don't
feel it.

THe idea that beauty is a matter of taste alone and does not exist in the
objects depends on the notion of individualism, freedom and the ultimate
truth of equality.  

When I say "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" I  am not returning to
some primative, true way of seeing beauty,  I am asserting a premise about
the universe with in fact contradicts the fact that I see beautiful objects
and ugly objects,  and I (the behoder) often am surprised by the beuaty
that I find.  

How can I find a ruin of a past culture lost for thousand of years,
forgotten suddenly exposed on the cover of National Graphics as beautiful? 
How could I have made it beautiful,  when did I decide?

Or do you argue that I make the beauty in an area of my mind beyond my own
control, beyond my awareness?  Is the beauty of the ruins in a "unconsious
self",  a part of me that I do not experience directly nor control,  a part
of me that I can only know through theory,  at a distance.  But have you
not cast the beauty of the object from one object to another object?  Is
not the be auty still objective to me to my eyes?

But,  you assert that beauty must be in the eye of the beholder since you
see A as beautiful and I do not.  

You forget that objects are no independent entites but exist for us in
terms of their context.  This is why were arrange paintings on the walls to
look right.

We are also context to our objects,  that is our present health, our past
experience, our thoughts provide the objects of our experience a context as
much as the color of the sky, the lighting on the walls.  This is why I do
not go to art shows while deathly ill if I hope to enjoy the show. 

But I have my own history,  my own past,  my own education.  Ever object
will different to me just as the same object looks different in different
contexts.
But they are still objects outside of "me" though I provide context.  Just
as I as awaremenss am seperate from all these facts about myself that
provie a context.  

AN object is always on object in some context,  we can not talk about an
object independent of all context.  So when I see such and such painting
beautiful and you see it ugly,  it is because we are seeing different
objects.

If I tell you what I see in it maybe you will see it as beutiful,  or maybe
you will see it ugly.  I am not trying to make you like me, I am trying to
make you see the object I see, the beauty is there,  in the world of
objects I see.
Newsgroups: alt.postmodern