It is recommended reading material for all those aestheticians who are interested in the cognitive and non-cognitive functionality of art works and in the possibility of any influence of art on societal change. I will now discuss the most crucial steps in Crowther's argument. Aesthetics can help with the analysis of these flexible constants, not by looking for the essences of art or aesthetic experience, but by supplementing our theoretical assessments with a critique of art. Critical aesthetics actualizes the critical awareness involved in our aesthetic experiences. Art, defined in terms of originality, roots in the body-hold of the artist, who moulds his medium to solve technical problems traditional art forms confront him with.
Postmodernism involves only two theses, really.
First, contemporary experience and sensibility are analyzed as imbued by the shocks generated by the rapid succession of mechanically reproduced events. This supposedly has alienated us from experiencing proximity to and reciprocity with objects. Although Crowther agrees with this analysis, his effort to heal alienation with critical aesthetics clearly involves a diversion from postmodern resignation. I will go into this shortly. Regarding art's relevance for the mending of alienation, then, Crowther observes that shock-effects are readily sought out in art appreciation even though in daily life one tries to render them harmless.