Art vs. virtue??
Jan. 26th, 2008 11:36 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatNot sure what I think of this odd Chronicle of Higher Education article that my pal Wales sent me - she's into reading the Chronicle website for some reason.
http://chronicle.com/temp/reprint.php?id=vbvgqrpksftjtxspqshj02gblh6szmxt
Here's a sample:
Recently I've been teaching, in a couple of undergraduate seminars, Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Letter to d'Alembert on the Theatre (1758), the most provocative essay on the arts ever written. It is about the unintended effects of theater — which, for Rousseau, stands in for all of the arts — on an audience. The essay is an impassioned rebuttal to the 1757 entry on Geneva, written by Jean Le Rond d'Alembert, in the huge Enlightenment project, Encyclopédie, in which d'Alembert says that Geneva would be an even finer city if only it didn't have laws banning theater. Rousseau says that, au contraire, theater would actually be harmful to the citizens of Calvinist Geneva and tries to prove that the prohibition is a good thing.
To my students, Rousseau's astonishing position collides head-on with the TV-drenched, movie-dependent, iPodified, grind-dancing world in which many of them spend a good part of their lives. The idea that their world of stories and entertainment — even in its more respectable precincts such as Masterpiece Theatre and U2 benefit concerts — could possibly be harmful to them is the furthest thing from their minds. In studying Rousseau's essay, my students directly confront their stormy love affair with mass culture. They learn the extent to which their youthful values are already in deep conflict with one another. They experience — albeit in fitful spasms — a sense of urgency about their lives, realizing with a kind of awe that their college years mark one of the most significant life passages they will ever face.
[And]
...the pleasure that theater provides, Rousseau argues, is based on the display of unruly passions, and it's addictive: Almost everyone who encounters theater wants more and more of it. Worse, Rousseau says, theater "tends everywhere to promote and increase the inequality of fortunes" because it triggers a host of artificial desires. And even when theater is great, and its audience consists of decent people, Rousseau argues, whether or not we're made better by it depends on who we are to begin with. Many of us are made worse by theater precisely because we're introduced to bad ideas we'd never thought of before. The modern media echoes Rousseau's claim regularly, especially after tragedies like that at Virginia Tech: Villains "accustom the eyes of the people to horrors that they ought not even to know and to crimes they ought not to suppose possible."
According to the article - Rousseau argues that art and virtue cannot exist together in harmony. It's one or the other. That small towns are more better than big cities and people are happier in them. (This is not true by the way. I've lived in surburbia and was lonlier and more lost there than ever in NYC. And the people were nastier, more close-minded, and there was a higher crime rate. Same with small towns. I've felt safer in NYC than I did in the suburbs of Kansas City. But whatever.) The article is interesting, but it is chock-full of generalizations and assumptions based on those generalizations. It's also further proof that people have a tendency to be extremists. I found the article more annoying than informative. At least that's my initial response. But I'm not clear enough on it - to send it to Wales in the email. So, in short, may change my mind. Also I'm no philosopher and have not studied Rousseau, so am uncertain about his consclusions as well as the professor's.
http://chronicle.com/temp/reprint.php?id=vbvgqrpksftjtxspqshj02gblh6szmxt
Here's a sample:
Recently I've been teaching, in a couple of undergraduate seminars, Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Letter to d'Alembert on the Theatre (1758), the most provocative essay on the arts ever written. It is about the unintended effects of theater — which, for Rousseau, stands in for all of the arts — on an audience. The essay is an impassioned rebuttal to the 1757 entry on Geneva, written by Jean Le Rond d'Alembert, in the huge Enlightenment project, Encyclopédie, in which d'Alembert says that Geneva would be an even finer city if only it didn't have laws banning theater. Rousseau says that, au contraire, theater would actually be harmful to the citizens of Calvinist Geneva and tries to prove that the prohibition is a good thing.
To my students, Rousseau's astonishing position collides head-on with the TV-drenched, movie-dependent, iPodified, grind-dancing world in which many of them spend a good part of their lives. The idea that their world of stories and entertainment — even in its more respectable precincts such as Masterpiece Theatre and U2 benefit concerts — could possibly be harmful to them is the furthest thing from their minds. In studying Rousseau's essay, my students directly confront their stormy love affair with mass culture. They learn the extent to which their youthful values are already in deep conflict with one another. They experience — albeit in fitful spasms — a sense of urgency about their lives, realizing with a kind of awe that their college years mark one of the most significant life passages they will ever face.
[And]
...the pleasure that theater provides, Rousseau argues, is based on the display of unruly passions, and it's addictive: Almost everyone who encounters theater wants more and more of it. Worse, Rousseau says, theater "tends everywhere to promote and increase the inequality of fortunes" because it triggers a host of artificial desires. And even when theater is great, and its audience consists of decent people, Rousseau argues, whether or not we're made better by it depends on who we are to begin with. Many of us are made worse by theater precisely because we're introduced to bad ideas we'd never thought of before. The modern media echoes Rousseau's claim regularly, especially after tragedies like that at Virginia Tech: Villains "accustom the eyes of the people to horrors that they ought not even to know and to crimes they ought not to suppose possible."
According to the article - Rousseau argues that art and virtue cannot exist together in harmony. It's one or the other. That small towns are more better than big cities and people are happier in them. (This is not true by the way. I've lived in surburbia and was lonlier and more lost there than ever in NYC. And the people were nastier, more close-minded, and there was a higher crime rate. Same with small towns. I've felt safer in NYC than I did in the suburbs of Kansas City. But whatever.) The article is interesting, but it is chock-full of generalizations and assumptions based on those generalizations. It's also further proof that people have a tendency to be extremists. I found the article more annoying than informative. At least that's my initial response. But I'm not clear enough on it - to send it to Wales in the email. So, in short, may change my mind. Also I'm no philosopher and have not studied Rousseau, so am uncertain about his consclusions as well as the professor's.
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no subject
Date: 2008-01-26 05:53 pm (UTC)In real small towns, where you live and work all in one two-five mile radius, where you run into people you know every time you go to shop, it does have a very relaxed safe feel to it. But it is also where everyone knows your business, you can't do anything without everyone you know hearing about it. So a certain amount of virtue is forced by never getting away with anything. Oh now days you can have books delivered and get DVDs by mail, but then you still get people dropping by uninvited who notice EVERYTHING.
In a city you are more anonymous and even your closest neighbors don't know your name or your business. You are surrounded by culture (most small towns don't even have a bookstore, you have to drive 'into the city' for anything like that) and creativity. People can let loose their desires in the city, but I would still rather live in one!
no subject
Date: 2008-01-26 09:56 pm (UTC)I don't think I'd do well in a small town. Not enough diversity of people. And I have such a low tolerance for boredom. I work with a lot of people who oddly do live in the equivalent of small towns. It's one of the funniest things about NYC - in some ways it feels more small townish than one might think. During the huge black-out in NYC that I experienced in 2003 - people took all the meat out of the fridge and held cook-outs in front of their brownstones, stores gave away food and they basically held one huge block party. Radios were lent to folks along with batteries. It was not at all what we see on tv.
We make generalizations about cities. When I first moved here from KC, people in KC told me NYorkers were mean and it was unsafe. But the people I've met here aren't that different than out there. Same deal with that small town - they aren't that different. People still gossip about each other. We have block parties. Kids play on the sidewalks.
Today for example - I chatted with a few people on my block about a bunch of people dressed up and rolling grocery carts about the neighborhood. We also chatted about Heath Ledger who used to live about ten blocks up from me.
The weirdest thing is I feel like I talk to more people here and am less anynomous to the store owners and folks around me - than I was in smaller towns and suburbs in the midwest.