Freedom and Meaning

I) Imagine you wake up in a white box outside of conventional space-time. A drip feed is keeping you alive by pumping nutrients directly into you, with absolutely no waste products. What would you do? How would you decide what to do? Nothing you do would have any context; there would be no means of discerning one choice from another. For eternity you would be trapped. Perhaps the only choice available to you is whether to tear off the drip-feed and wait to die, or hold out for the hope of escape (which is of course futile, as this is an evil analogy!)

A less evil analogy could be as follows. Imagine you have been invited into the control centre of the universe by an omnipotent being. Before you is a vast computer containing a million switches. There is no way of knowing what any of the switches do, and no way of seeing the aftermath of pressing them. Again, there are no meaningful choices to be made here, and you may as well leave.

A final (slightly more evil than the above but less evil than the first) analogy could be as follows. Imagine you are a sentient mind in a vast box the size of a star, with thousands of liquid-metal tentacles spiralling out from your core. The universe is now your oyster, but would you return to Earth? Would you seek out other creatures like you? What would you do? How would you decide?

II) Context is necessary for meaningful choice, and thus for freedom. We cannot choose without a context to act within. This context is not only our environment and space in the narrative of the world, but also our physical limitations. We understand the universe through our bodies. We are creatures which were generated out of the cosmos and this puts us in common with other creatures. We are human beings, and though we may take this obvious fact for granted, it is an essential part of how we choose and what we choose. Simply put, choice is not something “pure and detached”, but “messy and involved”.

The context common to all of humanity, for all of history, is that we are in relation to nature. The natural phenomena of Earth is a gift which exists before we do, and which we have played little part in generating. We have followed plants and animals through time, and they have intrigued us, given us something to fear, impressed us, or all of these things at once. We have always lived in a world with nature.

A world without nature would be disastrous in and of itself, but also for its effect on us. It would deny us the intuitive pleasure gained in just observing, say, a tree, with no conscious purpose as to why. We cannot articulate why it feels meaningful, but this does not deny its meaningfulness. It demonstrates the remaining mystery of our being, that we are not only the mind which perceives; there is more at work inside us. If we were to destroy nature in its entirety (a scenario which is possible as our technology and greed grows exponentially) we would be destroying the background of every human civilization in history.

III) We are forced into the world, naked and hungry. We are forced into the small personal narratives of our day-to-day lives and the meta-narratives of breathing empires, woven so tightly together that without intending it we can effect distant narratives. We are forced into a language, which creates for us a boundary, or foundation, of word-thoughts. We are forced into a morality, absorbing the values drummed into us whether we like them or not. We are forced into a world-view consisting of all the information we uncritically absorb in our pre-philosophy days. As children we make decisions despite our lack of understanding, and this is our original sin, not some spiritual fall, but our immature actions.

None of this means that our personality is decided for us, nor our choices. For if you accept that context is necessary for there to be meaningful choices, and thus some form of choosing will, the fact that we have circumstances is what grants us freedom.

The fact that we cannot decide entirely what our “fate” will be, that we cannot immediately overcome subconscious forces and bend the world around us is all a necessary part of our freedom. Our will to choose may be messy, it may contradict itself, it may be ponderous and take time to unfold, but it is there. Indeed, it is precisely the time that it takes our choices to manifest inside a context that makes our choices meaningful. Rapid choices which are instantly fulfilled run against our nature. Rapid choice, like rapid change, eventually exhausts all possibilities and leads to a stagnation from which nothing good might be salvaged.

IV) What happens in this nightmare scenario of too many choices, too many entrances, all of them leading nowhere? What happens when we have infinite expectation, no boundaries, no real communities? We are living it.

It is known as Consumerism, although this is a euphemism for materialistic nihilism. Obsession with commodities, rampant and endless desiring, with no meaning even within oneself. This mindless hedonism is divorced from any narratives, it is atomizing, separating, and fundamentally unrewarding. It is fleeting, empty, unattached, and nothing sticks inside the soul. It is the bad form of individualism, an unhealthy individualism where the individual is defined by what they can have and not what they are, a mark so staining that it makes all individualisms seem wretched. Taken to extremes it destroys all connection to the past and all concern for the future, all meaning divorced from its context. The worse it gets the more powerful it becomes; this goallessness is what keeps the wheels of consumerism turning; it thrives on the void inside us and spins an illusion of symbolic rewards to account for it. It is the destroyer of narratives, the generator of irreverence, whose war-cry is “I don't care about anything but my own little buzz”.

It is a negative form of nihilism, where all paths lead nowhere, and there is not even a personal notion of truth. If we say that free will needs to be utterly free to be called free, then we are paradoxically left with the destroyer of freedom.

V) True freedom, therefore, requires a narrative, individual self-discipline, patient cultivation, a rock to push against, harmony with nature, a community to belong to, a great but not infinite variety, a little wildness, a cause to fight for, a truth to seek, a foundation to stand upon, and, of course, a lot of philosophical thinking.

Selim 'Selim' Talat

The goodness of bad art - By Selim 'Selim' Talat

The goodness of bad art

    We might say that for art to be good, it requires time and effort on the behalf of the artist. We might also say that the artist must have succeeded at expressing an intended emotion, or an attitude, or a reaction, in order for us to call her a successful artist.

   I would argue that nothing could be further from the truth! The success of an art can be down to the skill of the artist, but let us also give random chance its due.

    Generally speaking, I should think that most people know what they are getting into when they visit a certain art gallery, or movie theatre, or watch a video on the internet. The observer of an art has an intentionality; they want to experience a certain feeling and that is why they choose to observe an art. This intentionality is understandable; when you are feeling down you will want to experience something that uplifts you, or something that allows you to wallow in self-pity; the end goal of your intentionality may vary, but ultimately you are seeking out 'X' art to feel 'Y' emotion.

    With this intentionality in mind, we risk being disappointed: You have had a terrible day at work and you go to watch 'Action Battle hero XVIII: Slaughter of the Two Dimensional Badguys - Reloaded'. The purpose of watching Action Battle Hero XVIII is to relieve yourself of stress and to put yourself in the shoes of Jack Skullblaster, the insanely masculine, gun-toting hero. There is now a risk of being disappointed by the flat dialogue, the appalling acting and the ludicrous survivability of Mr.Skullblaster. In effect, the art is bad, it has failed to fulfil its intended function, and you the observer are grossly let down by it.

   Yet this is a negative attitude to take. To only be satisfied by the intended function of an art is to miss out on a whole different world; the realm of failed art. We would live in a hellish world indeed if every piece of art crafted by our creatives fell short of the mark, but fortunately this will never be the case; there will always be good art. When we do encounter bad art, rather than be disappointed, we should learn to appreciate it for reasons different to its intended function. If we do this, Action Battle Hero XVIII becomes an out-and-out comedy rather than an action film.

   The intention of the artists creativity can easily be missed by the varying nature of human tastes: you may have created a painting to express your sadness, but someone observing it can bring their own intention to the piece; they may not be of a mood to appreciate your work. We appreciate (or fail to appreciate) art only as much as we have adjusted our own lenses to do so – if we widen our focus, we can learn to appreciate everything, regardless of what the artist intended (although sometimes, we will want to submit to the artists intentions, especially if she is a capable craftswoman.)

    

    Finally, bad art has another advantage; lack of polish. Terrible poetry is often more truthful than a well constructed poem, if only because the true meaning of it isn't contained in the actual poem, but in the fact that the weak writer was trying to create a work of art (bless them!). The real message of a bad piece of art is the pathos, the sheer tragedy of the artists failure, which resounds as strong as the emotions exhibited by the best art. Again, the outcome of the art is not what the artist intended, but that does not mean we cannot appreciate badness on a level that suits us evil-types who find the terrible terribly amusing. And perhaps the creator of bad art should embrace the fact that they have failed to meet their intention on this occasion and develop themselves beyond where they presently are.

  The goodness of bad art lies in its ability to accidentally amuse, entertain or inform, with its raw lack of polish. It is for this reason that we should avoid saying that art requires the observer appreciating the artists actual intentions in order to contain some 'goodness'.

By Selim 'Selim' Talat