Art, Eroticism... and Decay?

[monster666]

As I understand their meanings, yes, they are very different. While they do have some like meaning, they are not identical, nor are they simply noun/verb versions of the same word.

Coincide: To occupy the same time or space with two or more separate events, which may or may not be related by causal (note: not casual) relationship.

Coincidence: Two or more separate events that although seem related, are not. An accident.

Note that conditions described by each may correspond in some way exactly, but exact correspondance does not require further correlation.

For example, two events may start and finish at the exact same moment (such as an internet download in Poland and the brewing of a cup of coffee in New York) but they are otherwise unrelated. The fact that they began and finished at the same time was pure coincidence. Yes, the elapsed time coincides, but it was accidental and there is no further cause/effect correlation. However, a clock starting a cd player playing a track of music and at the same time starting a countdown of the elapsed time of the same track will cause both events to start and finish simlutaneously. The two events also coincide, but are not coincidence. They are not accidental, and have a further causal relationship.

That's a long ways to go to say that yes, the fall of culture and the rise of art/erotica may coincide. But I don't think the rise of art and erotica would necessarily be a sign of the impending fall of a civilization, and that more likely other events maturing in a society would be cause for such an event.

A coincidence? Well, I'll let the theoretical chaos junkies beat that one to death. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't.

Oh, monster -- I forgot to add: I see "coincide" and "coincidence" as the verb and noun forms, respectively, of the same word with the same denotation. I mean "coincidence" in the way that you define "coincide." Do you have a different definition for "coincidence?"

 

[RisiaSkye]

Re: Re: The Context of the Quote--long post warning

Risia,

omg, what a mind you have. I cut out nearly all your post because, well, there was nothing I wanted to single out. Clear purpose, clear thought, clear structure, informative and beautifully woven. You can mind-fuck me anyday!

Oh, and I agree!

Thanks, monster. You made my day.

Nemo: I understand the frustration your post about your own artistic expression gives voice to, but I disagree that we've entered into a profoundly different dynamic of group work. While we do use the "research lab," it would be wrong to think that such a thing didn't happen before the current moment. While we lionize the Madame Curies, Pablo Picassos, and Thomas Edisons of the world as inventors and thinkers, they didn't work in a vacuum and they didn't do it alone. Curie worked with a team of more than a dozen fellow researchers, Edison's inventions were group projects--and often ones that he actively stole credit for (see some of the work on Edison and Tesla's connections, for example).

Part of the mythology of the striving individual is the building and selling of the "American Dream;" it convinces people that they too, no matter their origins and opportunities, can become rich & famous. While that may be true, its impact on art & science is not an unqualifiedly positive one. And people do still discover things or create things in relative autonomy--just like people in the past often discovered things in relative collaboration. What's changed is perhaps less our work model than our priorities in understanding how ingenuity & imagination work when put to labor for art & science.

What may be different is that where we once more actively celebrated the individual, we have a greater understanding of the influence of others on the work of the individual artist, thinker, or inventor. Picasso wasn't the first or only cubist, Munch not the only abstract expressionist. In things like the Impressionist "school" of painters like Manet & Monet, we're for some reason comfortable with the idea of an artists' community; why is that same notion threatening to the "individual" artist today? Do we just expect those kooky French to be more Communistic? Don't get caught up in what is basically a semantic game: much like my writing is influenced by everything I've read, your music is structured by what you studied, what's played around you, the musicians you consciously and unconsciously emulate, and the types of music favored in your particular cultural niche. Nobody works alone.

On the other end, the repressive bent of the cultural norm is also not a new thing. Look at the original text you cite: the Victorians were all for the stifling tendencies of the status quo and its preservation. Artists and other "free thinkers" do not fight any battles now that weren't already being fought in earlier eras--the censorship and obscenity battles fought by Oscar Wilde, for instance; the push for church-state separation during the Scopes monkey trial; the religious and personal freedom hard won and much suffered for by Galileo, Copernicus, and even Einstein, each in their moments. Hence the common connection in the popular imagination between genius and insanity--the new or innovative is often taken for crazy, because it destabilized the currently popular norm. Such things are not new, nor unique to our time, our sexuality and our work.

Though, I admit, it sometimes feels that way.

 

[NemoAlia]

...still thinking. This is one of the subjects that always remains on one burner or the other of my mental stove. Maybe I'll even eventually think of something worth adding to this thread.

In the meantime, a notice:

I'll be gone (mostly gone, anyway) for the next five weeks. Headin' up north for a music festival and a visit to my family. I look forward to reading all the new, neat thoughts when I get back. Take care, everyone!

 

[NemoAlia]

Well, I'm back from the summer! Sorry it has taken me so long to exhume this buried thread. I haven't thought of much to add recently, but I wonder whether anyone else has...

 

[rosco rathbone]

I'm re-reading H.G. Wells' "The Time Machine."
I guess this isn't strictly BDSM, but I'd be interested to hear what this community thinks of such things.

Funny, I JUST re-read that.

I have always had a character named "Schuyler Morlock". I find the Morlock/Elohim relationship to be subtly psychosexual. NO time to go into this now.

rosco

 

[Guest]

Bumped to add some intelligent topics to the board.

 

[NemoAlia]

Thanks for the compliment, Unreg. It seems that I've exhausted my thinking capabilities on this one, though. I wonder if someone else has something to say?

It seems like there ought to be a connection between the topics covered in this thread and the idea of nilla sex being recreation for the masses, whereas stylized (be it BDSM, fetish, or otherwise unusual) sex is for the elite. (Read "elite" as "informed," I guess. Although historically eliteness seems to have gone hand in hand with economic advantage, today's Information Age has give the opportunity for elitism to anyone who has the time and will to pursue it.) However, I'm not currently alert enough either to make that connection or to disprove it. Thoughts?

 

[rosco rathbone]

There must be proles who feel bdsm emotions. They just don't have the sophistication to get all sophisticated about it.

 

[A Desert Rose]

But why should the weakness that results from too much security manifest itself necessarily in art and eroticism? Is it because when people are focused on sheer survival, they don't have the time to consider these 'finer things?' I think that's often the typical answer to questions like these. However, if that's true, why is there art on the walls of ancient caves? How have we had so many new generations of humans, even during times of extreme insecurity?
B]

Does this not bring to mind the decadence of Rome before the fall?

Rose

 

[NemoAlia]

Yeah, I think that probably had something to do with H.G. Wells' train of thought. It's one of the most common examples that our culture has of decadence before a fall. But do you think that it's exaggerated? I mean, maybe the decadence had nothing to do with the fall, and only the monks who preserved Rome's old memories in their monasteries are responsible for creating the causal link.

 

[A Desert Rose]

Yeah, I think that probably had something to do with H.G. Wells' train of thought. It's one of the most common examples that our culture has of decadence before a fall. But do you think that it's exaggerated? I mean, maybe the decadence had nothing to do with the fall, and only the monks who preserved Rome's old memories in their monasteries are responsible for creating the causal link.

And right you are, there were other causes for that fall; i.e. the vastness of the empire and the inability to control it due to the size, among other things.

Don't you hear the old song being trotted out by the "righteous", though? "We are no longer a moral people and it will cause the fall of our civilization?" I,personally raise my eyebrow to that.

Yes, I do find it exaggerated. I do agree with you.

Rose

 

[A Desert Rose]

in the eye of the beholder.....

Don't you also find, Nemo, that all social upheavals, whether good or bad, give birth to a reknewed interest in the arts?

I am thinking of the Rennaisance (DaVinci, et al), the Age of Enlightenment (Mozart, Bach, et al), the Great Depression (Edward Hopper et al), the social upheavals of the 60's (Jackson Pollack, and great music).

This is a bit off your topic, I understand, but your thread has let my head lose in many directions.

Rose

 

[artful]

An opinion

Having thought of the rise and fall of civilizations, often throughtout the years. I think it happens for various reasons. I don't see ONE reason, as standing above the others, but I do see, as with ANY illness, SYMPTOMS that can be identified AFTER the fact.

(JMHO),...but it's mine,...and I own it.

 

[~Dream~]

the Rise of Art...

and if Anybody knows about THAT ,I do
But in all seriousness,I feel that eroticism ,and Art are on the rise through the
3 main mediums of Television which uses Art and sex as subliminal seduction to "entrap viwers to buy certain things ,be it food,cars,clothes,music,etc..Books which have erotic pictures all over them and throughout their pages,magazines(playboy,penthouse,hustler,etc..all focusing on the "human body and it's "erotic beauty"..
and then there's the internet ,the 'Medium of today"..look how many porn sites there are for example,not to mention just the speed and wealth of knowledge available by your computer...I think there are signs everywhere that the "natives are growing restless:" and want MORE Art & More Eroticism ,they are craving it like hungry animals ,the rockers in their videos even..
If our schools would 'encourage more creativity and classes more like ART ,and music were given a higher place of importance on the curriculum,then perhaps not so many kids would be as frustrated as they are only having the basics of readin ,writin and "rithmitic forced down their throats,children even at early ages ned to be "allowed to express themselves through Art,look how young Mozart& Beethoven were for example!!

I think ,JMHO if a civilization indeed breaks down its usually from some "cancer within....usually immorality is the cause.. Jmho and it's mine!!

 

[A Desert Rose]

Re: the Rise of Art...

3 main mediums of Television which uses Art and sex as subliminal seduction to "entrap viwers to buy certain things ,be it food,cars,clothes,music,etc..

I agree dream, SEX SELLS. Always has, always will.

Immorality is a relative term, really. I'd venture to say that my parents would likely think that BDSM is kind of immoral, but I do not. In many states, what some of us do in the privacy of our homes or dungeons, is illegal.

There are many who think that homosexuality is immoral, I do not.

Lack of civility is immoral. I think that is the root cause for many of the "cancers" in our (American) culture.

Rose

 

[~Dream~]

Re: Re: the Rise of Art...

I agree dream, SEX SELLS. Always has, always will.

Immorality is a relative term, really. I'd venture to say that my parents would likely think that BDSM is kind of immoral, but I do not. In many states, what some of us do in the privacy of our homes or dungeons, is illegal.

There are many who think that homosexuality is immoral, I do not.

Lack of civility is immoral. I think that is the root cause for many of the "cancers" in our (American) culture.

Rose

_________________________________

thats EXACTLY what I meant Sis thanks...
I dare say that if my father for example would find out that His "little girl"(lol i am 45 now) was a submissive sex slave that He would think that was very "MORAL " indeed` ,lol
However I Do Believe that While I do NOT consider BDSM immoral either,it's too natural to me to be,I do think that lack of civilty is VERY immoral and the cause of many breakdowns of civilizations (and dare I say?)Foums at Lit as well..JMHO and I own it..