Comics and Soaps
More on the hand-waving subject. (It’s funny – I had an opportunity to engage my colleague in debate on this very issue only this morning [this afternoon UK time] but I didn’t take it. We talked on the phone about the publisher’s suggested emendations to the Dictionary, and the word ‘aesthetics’ came up almost immediately. I did think of interrupting and diverting the conversation in order to discuss the more foundational aspects, to query the very notion of ‘aesthetic reasons’ – but I didn’t. Largely because, I suppose, I was far more concerned to protect our brilliant ideas than I was to debate foundational anythings. Still, it is a coincidence, you must admit.)
Jonathan Dresner posted at Cliopatria yesterday on a subject that’s very relevant to this one – and I wrote a comment on his post without even realizing or noticing the relevance. That was stupid. The subject is Doonesbury, and Jonathan’s reaction to a war injury to one of the characters, and his reaction to his reaction.
It’s not funny: it’s very sad. Sure, it’s a little silly to be so affected, as I am, by this fiction. But that’s what great fiction does: it makes things real. B.D. is a representative of many very real people.
I actually don’t think it is silly, and I said so in my comment. I think it’s entirely understandable. I’ve been a fan of Doonesbury’s from the very beginning; it’s about my g-g-generation; we share a history. And besides that, it’s just a brilliant strip. It’s a graphic novel rather than just a throwaway bit of fluff. Yes throwaway bits of fluff are fine things! But so are keepable bits of non-fluff – and this is where we came in. Only I didn’t notice it was where we came in, as I said, until I read Jonathan’s sly answer to my comment.
I agree. I’ve been thinking about this a lot since this morning, and I’ve come to the conclusion that there is a (objectively meaningless waving of hands alert!) difference between being attached to a piece of literature with critical and satirical and moral/ethical elements like Doonesbury (one of the longest graphic novels ever written) and a purely sentimental story like a soap opera.
That’s my colleague’s cue to deliver a vigorous defense of sentimental soap operas, which he will be sure to do. Unless I point out that he doesn’t need to because Jonathan simply said there is a difference between the two – not that there is a difference of quality. And in any case Jonathan acknowledged the hand-waving aspect. So be it here acknowledged – there are plenty of people who can and do make a case that soap operas can be good in their own way too. But – if I had to advise someone who was about to be walled up in a prison for five years and had to choose now, this instant, between a DVD player and a set of [insert favourite soap here] or a complete set of Doonesbury books – I would advise the latter. If that’s not conclusive I don’t know what is.
There is a difference, but it doesn’t have any implications for the assignment of relative aesthetic merit to these two art forms.
Does too!
Not really. I know it doesn’t. That’s what I said – just difference, not difference in quality. Not necessarily. Mind you – but no, I’ll leave it at that for the moment.
I will grant that there’s not necessarily an inherently greater aesthetic merit to Doonesbury (or Babylon 5, or whatever): I can easily imagine a soap opera being done with more style, more… whatever.
But I would assert (I don’t have time to argue it here) that there is a difference in value, both to me and to society, in engaging with narratives and images that have ethical and social relevance as PART OF their aesthetic, where the work has more dimensions of meaning.
“But I would assert (I don’t have time to argue it here) that there is a difference in value, both to me and to society, in engaging with narratives and images that have ethical and social relevance as PART OF their aesthetic,”
And I could argue that this very fact, if it were true (and I’m not convinced it is), was indicative of an aesthetic failing on the part of the art in question, since it would undermine its value as an object of pure, unthinking contemplation.
Of course, I’m just being awkward, but people do argue this kind of thing. Try going along to some of the meetings of the School of Economic Science.
“Art for art’s sake makes no more sense than gin for gin’s sake.” — Somerset Maugham
I’m a philistine, obviously, but it’s impossible for a physical work of art to be “an object of pure, unthinking contemplation” because at some level it is real, even if it isn’t representational. That is increasingly true for narrative or poetic art, because it is impossible to present something without invoking language, which isn’t pure or thought-free. Not to mention the impossibility of achieving the state of “pure contemplation” without passing into enlightenment and beyond the need for aesthetic abstractions.
In other words, I don’t buy it (I can’t afford it, for one thing). Art may be conceptual, but it cannot be pure abstraction.
“Art for art’s sake makes no more sense than gin for gin’s sake.” — Somerset Maugham
I’m a philistine, obviously, but it’s impossible for a physical work of art to be “an object of pure, unthinking contemplation” because at some level it is real, even if it isn’t representational. That is increasingly true for narrative or poetic art, because it is impossible to present something without invoking language, which isn’t pure or thought-free. Not to mention the impossibility of achieving the state of “pure contemplation” without passing into enlightenment and beyond the need for aesthetic abstractions.
In other words, I don’t buy it (I can’t afford it, for one thing). Art may be conceptual, but it cannot be pure abstraction.
“I don’t buy it”
I don’t buy it either, but that doesn’t stop people arguing it! And I’m not sure there’s actually a contradiction here. The pure, unthinking contemplation is not a property of the art object, it’s the state which one gets into when viewing the art object. It doesn’t seem wholly counter-intuitive to argue that certain kinds of art are more likely to provoke this state, or more likely to provoke states which get near to this state, than other kinds of art.
Obviously, which art objects have this potential, etc., would be matter of considerable debate! :-)
But the point stands – there doesn’t seem to be any convincing reason why somebody cannot take the fact that an art form provokes lack of thought as being indicative of the quality of the art form. (There are analogs here, I think, in the attraction of dance music, for example.)
Nobody’s arguing that art does many different things, including the portrayal of social and ethical situations. But we were talking about aesthetics weren’t we? Read Clive Bell on Frith’s ‘Paddington Station’ for a better analysis than I could ever give of the different issues in play here.