Your U.N. at Work

[cumallday]

Are those who get to write the history books also the ones who get to decide what art is more sophisticated?

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f224/spitfiregriffin/caravaggio.jpg​

Evidence of greater sophistication in this picture:

- tells a complex story that is itself a sophisticated expression of the human experience (St. Paul on the road to Damascus)

- tells a story based on written texts that have “frozen” the story for more than 1,000 years, and which, among other things, have contributed to many other visual interpretations having been created over generations, creating rich sources for inspiration and cross fertilization

- is the product of complex interactions of many cultures over many centuries, the effects and influence of which are magnified by writing

- places multiple figures in complex arrangements, carefully composed to provide a harmonious balance that also adds to the drama

- uses light and shadow to accentuate the drama of the story in a theatrical manner

- uses mathematically precise perspective

- uses a medium that offers much greater scope for creative expression of subtle and complex themes in many styles than stone shaped with neolithic tools

- uses a medium that requires a certain level of technology (fine canvas, oil paints. In the case of Michelangelo, steel chisels)

- combines all the above in a work that conveys complex and nuanced psychological meanings and interpretations

- is just one work from a very large and rich outpouring that developed many mediums, styles and techniques over hundreds of years, many of which built on both artifacts and written sources from previous high points of creative expression and development (Greece and Rome)

This is a silly thing to argue about. The word "sophisticated" has a definition, and suggests various degrees. This is sophisticated to a higher degree than a stone carving from any early civilization. What is the argument, anyway?

Yes, a human is more "sophisticated" that a wolf. The range of actions that are open to a wolf are highly limited. In contrast, a human might do anything, and is capable of doing and creating remarkable things. When the sun explodes, wolves and their non-sentient kin will all die. Humans have the potential to have departed for friendlier climes. Humans change the environment they inhabit. We might change the universe itself someday. That is very sophisticated.

This is a silly thing to argue about also.

No one can say that a sophisticated Baroque painting is "better" than a Mayan bas relief, because that is a matter of taste and preference. To deny that it is more sophisticated in many dimensions is silly, though. It is essentially pretending that the word "sophisticated" has no meaning.


sophisticated: to make less natural, simple, or ingenuous

 

[Equinoxe]

Very polite, and I'm willing to be educated. I suspect that we might be into definitional differences, and my definitions are definitely ad-hoc....

I have no desire, as I said, to enter debate in this thread, so I shall hold myself thereto.

In any case, the topic should probably return to the efficacy, or not, of the United Nations vis-à-vis advancing human rights.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

I have no desire, as I said, to enter debate in this thread, so I shall hold myself thereto.

Aw c'mon - have at it!

In any case, the topic should probably return to the efficacy, or not, of the United Nations vis-à-vis advancing human rights.

Well, it's mostly "not," isn't it, and has been so for a long time. Perhaps the body should exist on some scale, but can anyone doubt that it is bloated beyond any reasonable measure of even the most optimistic vision of its potential to accompish worthwhile things? Or that this bloat inevitably results in corruptions and perversions that make bringing those worthwhile things to pass even less possible?

In the meantime, why not have a separate organization for states that meet some reasonable definition of democratic governance? The existance of such a thing might provide an incentive to want to move up from the thugs' club.

 

[gauchecritic]

I have no desire, as I said, to enter debate in this thread, so I shall hold myself thereto.

In any case, the topic should probably return to the efficacy, or not, of the United Nations vis-à-vis advancing human rights.

Naa. I like the art part of the thread.

The stars in the sky are the eyes of the gods is not as sophisticated as the stars are suns.

Hand planting potatoes (or just grubbing the potatoes found growing) is not as sophisticated as a seed drill.

Rendering the outline of a meat animal on the wall of a cave to indicate your superiority over that animal because you can give it a name is actually pretty sophisticated but doing it so that they will return next summer is not as sophisticated as knowing their whereabouts at all times and their migratory nature. and even that is not as sophisticated as herding them.

Leisure increases sophistication. Tools increase skill. Either without the other is a dead end.

A marginal culture, one at ease with its environment, enough food, enough time or weather to build shelter and a stable birth/death ratio is a culture doomed to stagnancy. Cultures grow or stagnate. They are dynamic or face entropy.

 

[3113]

This is a silly thing to argue about. The word "sophisticated" has a definition, and suggests various degrees. This is sophisticated to a higher degree than a stone carving from any early civilization. What is the argument, anyway?

It's not a silly argument if "sophisticated" is being used to imply "better"--which in many cases, it is.

It is not a silly argument, as well, if "sophisticated" is being used to say that the culture which produced the art is somehow better. Sophisticated artwork does not equal sophisticated government or humanity or even technology. Sophistication in Renaissance art did not mean that Renaissance doctors and engineers were as sophisticated as Egyptians (doctors doing brain surgery, engineers building pyramids and putting up obelisks).

And you can't always judge the "sophistication" of a society by it's art anyway. How, for example, is the mathematics of the Egyptians and their pyramids, of the mind of an Archimedies which may have been figuring out calculus, less sophisticated merely because the artists of the time did not use mathematics to create perspective in the art...which may well have been because that was not the accepted style? (They certainly had their mathematics down...they just didn't use it in their art)

Likewise, there are artists now who, sytlistically, paint pictures on rocks with natural dyes. This hardly means that their culture is unsophistocated or that THEY are unsophisticated. Merely that this is their artistic style.

What's being argued here is a faulty assumption. It's the assumption that human kind's "sophistication" goes up a hill from the bottom--and usually in an unbroken ascension--and this can be seen via what they produced be it art, architecture or technology. And this ascension is dominated by white Euopeans, making any people of color automatically backwards, no matter what they produced.

This is why you're getting an argument. The truth is that different cultures have had different break throughs at different times--and all of them have gone up and down in their trudging up the hill of sophistication; that up-and-down goes for all aspects of the culture be it political, technological, or artistic. A culture with "unsophisticated" art might have a very sophisticated form of government.

Certain innovations in technology, obviously, can bring sophistication that never existed before--and more innovations and sophistications. Like machine made materials needed to, say, fly a plane or create microchips. That *can* include art...but it doesn't have to include art. Art is not a the best gauge of how sophisticated a culture or its people is--only how "sophisticated" (and that by the dictionary defintion) its art is.

 

[Equinoxe]

Aw c'mon - have at it!

I like to keep promises I make to myself, but perhaps it is the faint stench of political thread which renders a historical discussion unpalatable.

Well, it's mostly "not," isn't it, and has been so for a long time. Perhaps the body should exist on some scale, but can anyone doubt that it is bloated beyond any reasonable measure of even the most optimistic vision of its potential to accompish worthwhile things? Or that this bloat inevitably results in corruptions and perversions that make bringing those worthwhile things to pass even less possible?

In the meantime, why not have a separate organization for states that meet some reasonable definition of democratic governance? The existance of such a thing might provide an incentive to want to move up from the thugs' club.

It seems to me that if I respond too much to this I am no less entering a debate in this thread than if I respond to the other (and I'm not going to debate that either!); but I shall nonetheless give my opinion just as I did on the prior since I have not on this topic.

The United Nations concept is inherently dubious, because there is no means by which it can accomplish anything of worth that cannot be accomplished by other means without the flaws inherent in the system. People complain about the United Nations being corrupt or toothless as if it could be otherwise. It cannot. The structure of the international system is such that it works against the efficacy of the UN in achieving any goal, in that it relies on the honour system, or war. Replacing the UN with some decidedly pro-democratic body, even assuming that is what it would be, will accomplish nothing, either: you would have a bunch of delegates agreeing with each other about what is good in nation and doing nothing at all—or else playing Congress of Vienna with all the non-democratic non-members. There is no point in an organisation for world unity which doesn't include most of the world. Nor is there a point in a nuclear-armed, parliamentary No Homers club. The UN works the way it does because it is built atop a system of Westphalian states. So long as you have the basis of those states, any world body will fail to achieve its aims.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

It's not a silly argument if "sophisticated" is being used to imply "better"--which in many cases, it is. It is not a silly argument, as well, if "sophisticated" is being used to say that the culture which produced the art is somehow better . . .

Yes, I agree with that. The term is used in the way you suggest "in many cases." This is not one of them, however.

First though, I appreciate your civility and your effort to be analytical. With regard to the latter, there are two big problems with what you have written here. The first is, a culture is not a civilization. I'll set aside a discussion about cultural relativism for another thread, and only say here that there is much validity to the concept, and it only becomes problematic when it is pushed too hard. But that is not what we're talking about here. We're talking about the relative sophistication of different civilizations. Civilization is a complex term, and although the definition has fuzzy boundaries, they are not infinitely fuzzy. Wiki has a very good article that explores many of the issues.

And that leads to the second problem with your post. You are not responding to what I have said. Instead, you have imported your own connotations of the terms "sophistication" and "civilizaton," ascribed them to me, and then affected to disagree with what I had actually said.

Civilization and sophistication are not "normative" terms. They do not denote value. If you associate a normative or value-based connotation with them, that is your affair. I have not. I have stated personal tastes and preferences, which are not the same thing.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

The United Nations concept is inherently dubious, because there is no means by which it can accomplish anything of worth that cannot be accomplished by other means without the flaws inherent in the system. People complain about the United Nations being corrupt or toothless as if it could be otherwise. It cannot. The structure of the international system is such that it works against the efficacy of the UN in achieving any goal, in that it relies on the honour system, or war. Replacing the UN with some decidedly pro-democratic body, even assuming that is what it would be, will accomplish nothing, either: you would have a bunch of delegates agreeing with each other about what is good in nation and doing nothing at all—or else playing Congress of Vienna with all the non-democratic non-members. There is no point in an organisation for world unity which doesn't include most of the world. Nor is there a point in a nuclear-armed, parliamentary No Homers club. The UN works the way it does because it is built atop a system of Westphalian states. So long as you have the basis of those states, any world body will fail to achieve its aims.

Very good. I won't quibble with your specifics, which are all legit, although I disagree with certain details. I'll merely add this addendum: The system of "Westphalian" states are themselves built on an older foundation of real ethnic, linguistic and cultural differences. Many of the states that have been constructed since, in particular many of those created in 1919 and 1945, are decidedly artificial, often with tragic consequences (Yugoslavia, Iraq, Rwanda - heck, most of Africa for that matter.) But even if you swept away those "Westphalian" and 20th C artificial constructs, the underlying ethnic, linguistic and cultural groupings would remain. I only state this obvious point to preempt any conclusion along the lines of, "If we eliminated those nasty nation-states there would be a brotherhood of man." Not.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

Blurt: If anyone wants to say something nice about my analysis of the Caravaggio painting to illustrate and explain what is meant by "sophistication" in a discussion of art and civilization, he or she would have my gratitude: I done that all by myself with no outside sources, and it's pretty durned good, if I do say so myself.

 

[SesameStreet]

That the UN is a useless piece of crap which the US supports. I say the US withdraws its funding and tears down that monstrosity of a building. If the UN wants to stay together then maybe the French would love to give them the funds and land and building.

I could not have said it better. The UN is as impotent as a 90 year old man who has lost his prescription for Viagra.

 

[3113]

The first is, a culture is not a civilization.

Culture: the customs, arts, social institutions, and achievements of a particular nation, people, or other social group

Civilization: the society, culture, and way of life of a particular area

This is how I was defining culture/civilization. Your definitions may vary.

Civilization and sophistication are not "normative" terms. They do not denote value. If you associate a normative or value-based connotation with them, that is your affair.

Not my affair at all. Words carry connotations. And when you use them in certain ways, you may imply, willingly or no, that connotation. "Sophistication" for civilizations that are white vs. those that are non-white has been used for so long to connote superiority and validate ethinic cleansing that YOU are taking the risk by making such an argument.

By merely presenting such an argument you step out into a mine field. I'm sorry if no one warned you of this. And even if we do erase all connotations, I don't see how it invalidates my argument. The sopistication of a civilzation STILL can't be judged by it's art.

http://www.nga.gov/feature/pollock/lavendermist.jpg​

This painting:
- Does not express a human experience. It certainly doesn't tell any kind of age old story form "rich sources" of inspiration and cross fertilization.

- is not the product of many cultures over many centuries--at the time painted, it was completely new and uninfluenced by anything else. Pollack dribbled paint on the canvass and it was all systems go from there.

- Has no figures in complex arrangements, is NOT carefully composed to provide any kind of balance to enhance it's drama.

- uses no light or shadow

- uses no mathematically precise perspective

- uses a medium that could have been done on a stone floor with stone tools.

- uses a medium that requires no level of technology outside of making "paints"

- Whether it conveys complex and nuanced psychological meanings and interpretations is up to you

According to you, this makes the painting "unsophisticated." And you can argue that if you like, but even if you could convince me that it was unsophisticated, you could hardly argue that it reflects an unsophisticated civilzation.

Putting it another way--you *define* yourself to victory. You insist your use of the word "sophisticated" is without connotations and is normative...yet this is not true, and you are using "Art" (hardly someting normative) to prove your point. Your list of what makes the art sophisticated defines you to victory. I could take a Mayan sculpture and define myself to victory in much the same way.

If you want to argue that one civilization was more sophisticated than another at a particular time period, WITHOUT getting into connotations, it would be better to use technology. Art hardly does the job, especially if you're going to talk about things like "age old stories" which all civilizations have, the product of many cultures (again, most civilizations have that), mathematics (most civilizations have that), complex arrangements and psychological meanings. Art from even "primative" civilizations may have all that. And technologically, much art was done the same way with the same tools or thousands of years. A hammer and chisel is a hammer and chisel.

 

[cloudy]

Culture: the customs, arts, social institutions, and achievements of a particular nation, people, or other social group

Civilization: the society, culture, and way of life of a particular area

This is how I was defining culture/civilization. Your definitions may vary.

<snip>

Putting it another way--you *define* yourself to victory. You insist your use of the word "sophisticated" is without connotations and is normative...yet this is not true, and you are using "Art" (hardly someting normative) to prove your point. Your list of what makes the art sophisticated defines you to victory. I could take a Mayan sculpture and define myself to victory in much the same way.

*applause*

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

Culture: the customs, arts, social institutions, and achievements of a particular nation, people, or other social group

Civilization: the society, culture, and way of life of a particular area

This is how I was defining culture/civilization. Your definitions may vary . . .

http://www.nga.gov/feature/pollock/lavendermist.jpg​

Oh, a challenge! (Sit back down, Cloudy, the debate has only just begun. )

Well, there are those who say that non-representational art is not really art but is merely decoration, and so is not sophisticated. I am not one of those, but they have a legitimate position whether you agree with it or not.

I am not very knowledgeable about modern, non-representational art, and hopefully someone who agrees with my essential point and is will chime in here, but I can say that to the extent this work is sophisticated it's because its meaning comes from implicit references to a huge complex of sophisticated artistic antecedents and meanings. The following explains, as I cannot:

excerpts from "Why Art Became Ugly" by Stephen Hicks, http://www.objectivistcenter.org/ct-958-Why_Art_Became_Ugly.aspx


. . . Despite occasional invocations of "Art for art's sake" and attempts to withdraw from life, art has always been significant, probing the same issues about the human condition that all forms of cultural life probe. Artists are thinking and feeling human beings, and they think and feel intensely about the same important things that all intelligent and passionate humans do. Even when some artists claim that their work has no significance or reference or meaning, those claims are always significant, referential, and meaningful claims. What counts as a significant cultural claim, however, depends on what is going on in the broader intellectual and cultural framework. The world of art is not hermetically sealed—its themes can have an internal developmental logic, but those themes are almost never generated from within the world of art.

. . . The break with that tradition came when the first modernists of the late 1800s set themselves systematically to the project of isolating all the elements of art and eliminating them or flying in the face of them.

The causes of the break were many . . .

. . . The new theme was: Art must be a quest for truth, however brutal, and not a quest for beauty. So the question became: What is the truth of art?

The first major claim of modernism is a content claim: a demand for a recognition of the truth that the world is not beautiful. The world is fractured, decaying, horrifying, depressing, empty, and ultimately unintelligible.

That claim by itself is not uniquely modernist, though . . . The innovation of the early modernists was to assert that form must match content. Art should not use the traditional realistic forms of perspective and color because those forms presuppose an orderly, integrated, and knowable reality.

. . . The second and parallel development within modernism is Reductionism. If we are uncomfortable with the idea that art or any discipline can tell us the truth about external, objective reality, then we will retreat from any sort of content and focus solely on art's uniqueness.

. . . Since we are eliminating, in the following iconic pieces from the twentieth century world of art, it is often not what is on the canvas that counts - it is what is not there. What is significant is what has been eliminated and is now absent. Art comes to be about absence.

. . . So we eliminate from art a cognitive connection to an external reality. What else can be eliminated? If traditionally, skill in painting is a matter of representing a three-dimensional world on a two-dimensional surface, then to be true to painting we must eliminate the pretense of a third dimension.

. . . So far in our quest for the truth of painting, we have tried only playing with the gap between three-dimensional and two-dimensional. What about composition and color differentiation? Can we eliminate those?

. . . The driving purpose of modernism is not to do art but to find out what art is. We have eliminated X —is it still art? Now we have eliminated Y —is it still art? The point of the objects was not aesthetic experience; rather the works are symbols representing a stage in the evolution of a philosophical experiment. In most cases, the discussions about the works are much more interesting than the works themselves. That means that we keep the works in museums and archives and we look at them not for their own sake, but for the same reason scientists keep lab notes—as a record of their thinking at various stages. Or, to use a different analogy, the purpose of art objects is like that road signs along the highway—not as objects of contemplation in their own right but as markers to tell us how far we have traveled down a given road.

Sounds pretty darned sophisticated to me! Do you see how the Pollock and others in the genre only have meaning in that it has reference to the tradition represented by the picture I posted?

Finally, words denote things, and this is their definition. They also connote things, but this varies by individual. It is an error to confuse connotation and denotation. It can lead to confusion if one fails to acknowledge and address common connotations, as I did, and as happened. But it is not erroneous in itself.

Oh, one more thing. I never said that "the sophistication of a civilization can be determined by its art," although I'm sure that in many cases it can. What I have said is that sophisticated art is the product of a sophisticated civilization, which is not quite the same thing.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

I'll deconstruct 3113's attempted deconstruction of my interpretation of what constitutes sophisticated art in a different way:

http://www.nga.gov/feature/pollock/lavendermist.jpg​

This painting:
- Self conciously Does not express a human experience. It certainly doesn't tell any kind of age old story form "rich sources" of inspiration and cross fertilization. It derives its meaning from understanding these things, and deliberately not using them.

- Is indeed the the product of many cultures over many centuries--at the time painted, it was completely new and was profoundly influenced by everything else because it derives its meaning from implicit references to what came before

- Self conciously has no figures in complex arrangements, Self conciously is NOT carefully composed to provide any kind of balance to enhance it's drama. It derives its meaning from understanding these things, and deliberately choosing not to use them.


- Self conciously uses no light or shadow It derives its meaning from understanding these things, and deliberately choosing not to use them.


- Self conciously uses no mathematically precise perspective. It derives its meaning from understanding these things, and deliberately choosing not to use them.


- Self conciously chooses to use a medium that could have been done on a stone floor with stone tools. It derives its meaning from understanding this choice, and deliberately choosing not to use those things when it could have.


- Self conciously chooses to use a medium that requires no level of technology outside of making "paints" It derives its meaning from understanding this choice, and deliberately choosing not to use those things when it could have.


- Whether it conveys complex and nuanced psychological meanings and interpretations is up to you. But any meaning it conveys is derived through implicit references to a vast complex of sophisticated art of the past, and to sophisticated philosophical ideas of the present.

In the absense of such implicit references, then this work becomes mere decoration, and Pollock was indeed no more sophisticated than a four year old with finger paints, and far less sophisticated than a fine artist from an early civilization using relatively primitive neolithic tools. I don't believe that was the case.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

Culture: the customs, arts, social institutions, and achievements of a particular nation, people, or other social group

Civilization: the society, culture, and way of life of a particular area

This is how I was defining culture/civilization. Your definitions may vary.

They do indeed vary! Indeed, you have illustrated why it is best to always establish definitions before launching into a discussion like this.

The definition of civilization is not a bright-line one. Though the boundaries may be fuzzy, they are not infinitely so. That applies also to defining degrees of sophistication - Gauche posted a good illustration of this aspect in his last post here. Pasted below is a section from the wiki article on civilization that is useful:

-Intensive agricultural techniques, such as the use of human power, crop rotation, and irrigation. This has enabled farmers to produce a surplus of food that is not necessary for their own subsistence.
-A significant portion of the population that does not devote most of its time to producing food. This permits a division of labour. Those who do not occupy their time in producing food may instead focus their efforts in other fields, such as industry, war, science or religion. This is possible because of the food surplus described above.
-The gathering of some of these non-food producers into permanent settlements, called cities.
A form of social organization. This can be a chiefdom, in which the chieftain of one noble family or clan rules the people; or a state society, in which the ruling class is supported by a government or bureaucracy.
-Political power is concentrated in the cities.
-The institutionalized control of food by the ruling class, government or bureaucracy.
-The establishment of complex, formal social institutions such as organized religion and education, as opposed to the less formal traditions of other societies.
-Development of complex forms of economic exchange. This includes the expansion of trade and may lead to the creation of money and markets.
-The accumulation of more material possessions than in simpler societies.
-Development of new technologies by people who are not busy producing food. In many early civilizations, metallurgy was an important advancement.
-Advanced development of the arts, especially writing.
-Epidemics among both humans and animals are also characteristics of civilization.

By this definition, some societies, like Greece, are clearly civilizations, whereas others like the Bushmen or the early nomadic Native Americans clearly are not. However, the distinction is not always clear. In the Pacific Northwest of the US, for example, an abundant supply of fish guaranteed that the people had a surplus of food without any agriculture. The people established permanent settlements, a social hierarchy, material wealth, and advanced artwork (most famously totem poles), all without the development of intensive agriculture. Meanwhile, the Pueblo culture of southwestern North America developed advanced agriculture, irrigation, and permanent, communal settlements such as Taos. However, the Pueblo never developed any of the complex institutions associated with civilizations.

 

[cumallday]

Is a person less sophisticated if they prefer the Pollock over the Caravaggio? Not that I prefer one over the other, mostly because I'm aware that comparing the two is like comparing apples to oranges (each made in a specific time and place). I'm just curious because I wonder which human quality - intuition, reason, memory, ethics, common sense, imagination, etc. is championed in order to determine levels of sophistication.

 

[Pure]

sophisticated.

it is a problem in much moral philsophy and in objectivist circles that they think you can go from descriptions to prescriptions; from saying 'how things are,' to 'how they should be,' or 'which things are better.'

it's pretty clear that Roxanne has a lot of baggage with 'sophisticated', since ultimately it's going to be linked with what's better (even if not now.) whereas now she will say hand picking cotton is 'less sophisticated' than a cotton picking machine, it's pretty clear that the machine use is, for her, 'better,' in terms of human values.

from saying a pistol is more sophisticated than a bow and arrow, we expect to hear that the pistol is a better weapon.

for hearing that american banking is more sophisticated than barter among American Native People, we expect to hear of the superiority of the former.

if these norms are down played in this tread (aside from attacking the UN) it's mere tactics (evidence: numerous other threads where the 'objective' evaluations are given, including a present one in which she apparently endorses [another writer's assertions about] the inferiority of Islam, compared to Xtianity. No doubt Islam is 'less sophisticated.')


in the area of art, roxannes opinions are rather at sea, since there's no definition proposed, of 'sophistication.' at times she simply seems to be talking of 'complexity.' sometimes number of links to wider contexts.

ON COMPLEXITY: the first group is instructive for i'd ask her to compare the sophistication of these paintings with her caravaggio:

0. picasso, la reve

http://search.live.com/images/resul...p://i14.ebayimg.com/04/i/000/85/0e/85b4_1.JPG

1. mondrian, number 9

http://www.hno.harvard.edu/gazette/2001/05.03/photos/01-mondrian1-300.jpg

2. matisse goldfish
http://www.normandy-tapestry.com/images/matisse-henri-goldfish-2802945.jpg
===
ON LINKS TO WIDER CONTEXTS, cultural resonances.

i'd like an opinion on the sophistication of these two gardens:

daitokuji rock garden
http://www.sacred-destinations.com/japan/images/kyoto/daitokuji/rock-garden2-cc-noshadows.jpg
-----

prize winning garden, state fair, south carolina

http://blogs.newsobserver.com/media/IMG_0595.jpg
===
on cultural links, she is rather lost; on the Caravaggio, she can tell all about St. Paul's story since she learned it at school, church, or wherever. about Olmec history she knows nothing, so not suprisingly the Caravaggio is richly linked to Western events and cultures, whereas she hasn't anything to say about an Olmec head, which, to her, just sits there as a crudely carved enornous stone.
the same would apply to artistic productions of North American natives.

these are culture relative judgements, and simply reflect her knowledge; we expect her to say Eliot's Prufrock is more sophisticated than Homer, since its contextual links seem (to her) to be richer (not surprisingly).

i think my points with the art examples will be pretty clear: while there are objective measures of complexity, (as in a swiss watch is more complex than a single stone sun dial) this doesn't really suffice to establish 'sophistication.' i suspect she will find that none of my examples have the sophistication of her Caravaggio. she cannot fit 'simplicity' into her scheme.

equally roxanne is at sea in biology, where she maintains the wolf is non sentient, and less 'sophisticated' than the human. in a word --normative-- the human is a higher creature; an animal perhaps, but so far superior as is a rocket to a firecracker. the task by which she judges this is buiding a space ship. hmmm. a little biased; how about the task of removing flesh from a dead animal without tools? chasing down deer without jeeps and hunting rifles?
======
Roxanne: RA This is a silly thing to argue about. The word "sophisticated" has a definition, and suggests various degrees. This is sophisticated to a higher degree than a stone carving from any early civilization. What is the argument, anyway?

{P: a definition has not been proposed}


RAYes, a human is more "sophisticated" than a wolf. The range of actions that are open to a wolf are highly limited. In contrast, a human might do anything, and is capable of doing and creating remarkable things. When the sun explodes, wolves and their non-sentient kin will all die. Humans have the potential to have departed for friendlier climes. Humans change the environment they inhabit. We might change the universe itself someday. That is very sophisticated

{P: humans might destroy themselves; that is not very 'sophisticated'-- in my book, at least; if using neutron bombs is the standard, then yes man's exit is quite 'sophisticated.'}

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

. . .on cultural links, she is rather lost; on the Caravaggio, she can tell all about St. Paul's story since she learned it at school, church, or wherever. about Olmec history she knows nothing, so not suprisingly the Caravaggio is richly linked to Western events and cultures, whereas she hasn't anything to say about an Olmec head, which, to her, just sits there as a crudely carved enornous stone.
the same would apply to artistic productions of North American natives.

these are culture relative judgements, and simply reflect her knowledge;

Yawn - a typical content-light, ad-hominem-heavy post from Pure. I have excerpted the one specific challenge from the post, cast as a sneer though it is. The rest of that long post is mostly empty of anything but snarling nastyness.

On the cultural referants of the Olmec head, you know what they say about the word "assume," Pure. Any art object from any culture is packed with cultural referants and meanings, that almost goes without saying, but there's nothing wrong with saying it. In my analysis of the Caravaggio, I was careful to specify that the referrants were themselves the products of hundreds and thousands of years of cross-cultural cross fertilization, the effects of which are magnified by writing. In addition, that it was but one work in a very complex, cross-generational "conversation" involving thousands of artists, thologians, philosophers, and more, again magnified by writing, and by the existance of a vast array of other artistic works created over many centuries. The amount of all these interactions was orders of magnitude greater than what was available to a stone carver in a relatively isolated and new civilization. The Paul story itself and certainly this evocation of it is very sophisticated, in that it involves nuanced and complex psychological and moral issues that are not characteristic of, say, the epic stories or pantheistic narratives of pre-literate societies, or early civilizatons.

Pure has no similarly glib (and erroneous) response to most of the rest of my analysis, so he 'disappears' it in his critique. Instead, with a sneer he reverses what I have said repeatedly here, that "sophsticated" is not a normative or value-laden term in the context of art, saying, "Roxanne has a lot of baggage with 'sophisticated', since ultimately it's going to be linked with what's better."

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Blah, blah, blah. Turn around something your opponent says, and then criticize them for - what? The thing that you think they really think? I'm on to your tricks, Pure, and I hope others are paying attention to them also. I also hope it's noticed that you rarely assert your own position or view, instead you just attack those you disagree with, using shifty, dishonest techniques like this, bracketed by insults and sneers. Do you really find that fun? Do you get pleasure from that? I don't get pleasure from having to respond to it - I would much rather have civil discussions with individuals I disagree with but can respect and like, which decribes most of those here.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

Is a person less sophisticated if they prefer the Pollock over the Caravaggio? Not that I prefer one over the other, mostly because I'm aware that comparing the two is like comparing apples to oranges (each made in a specific time and place). I'm just curious because I wonder which human quality - intuition, reason, memory, ethics, common sense, imagination, etc. is championed in order to determine levels of sophistication.

I think the answer is all them, Cum, but reason first, given the definition of "sophisticated," which is really rather simple (on the surface): to make less natural, simple, or ingenuous.

If you think about that for a minute you get a sense of how potentially multilayered it can be. Also, it's interesting to note the affect of that "less natural." "Natural" is such a marketing buzzword, it takes a second to realize that "not natural" is not a bad thing, in many contexts. For example, a shampoo/conditioner that has "natural" written all over the bottle is actually a very sophisticated chemical soup designed to make hair look anything but natural.

That raises an issue that should be noted, which is that while I have been careful to say that "sophisticated" is not a normative term in the context of art, it is normative in many other contexts. Shampoo is a trivial example. Agriculture is not - I want my food supply to come from a sophisticated system that provides plenty of it very reliably, rather than a more "natural" one that provides scant amounts with frequent interruptions (Gauche's "digging stick," for example.)

 

[Pure]

note re roxanne

please note that in her last upset post with the usual signs of upset; statements that i'm sneering, etc. she has not answered a couple straightforward questions (no doubt because they're too 'sneaky')

1)is the caravaggio more sophisticated than Picasso's "La Reve," Mondrians "No. 9" or Matisse's "Goldfish"

2)is the datakujii rock garden more or less or equally sophisticated than the prize winning one i cited, in S. Carolina.

her main drift, since no definition was offered, was that sophistication is linked to complexity. in a limited way, in certain contexts--unfortunately for her, not art-- common usage does uphold such a connection, at a descriptive level. a single stone sundial is less "complex" than a Swiss watch. a wolf's brain may be less complex than a human's or a dolphin's.

i believe 3113, above (yesterday, 3:58 pm #37), covered the same issues and similarly was not answered: in a word, for 'sophisticated' to do the work Rox wants it to, including supporting the value judgments she believes to be "objectively" based on it, a lot more explanation and argument would have to be presented.

as it is, roxanne's clear value judgments about 'sophistication,' or 'cultural depth' or richness [not sure if that's her term] of culture have only a purely subjective basis. unless she can present reasons for some of her judgements, including the value ones, it will be increasingly obvious to everyone that, being without evidence and rationale, her claims lack objectivity.

that would explain her recourse to ad hominem arguments and insistence that her critics present full scale philosophical treatises--as opposed to simple questions--, if her dogmas are to be rejected.

there are, of course, such treatises in anthropology, theory of art, metaethics and so on, but ms. roxanne shows no signs of having read them. perhaps if the dogmatic assertions fail to convince anyone, at some point she will reflect a bit more on her philosophy and science (and philosophy of science) and familiarize herself with anthropology, biology (theory, e.g. evolution), complexity theory, philosophy (including ethics, metaethics, philosophy of art, and aesthetics) topics about which she appears to know very little.
---

ADDED: a couple minor points.

1)roxanne's attempt to define 'sophisticated,' for our purposes as opposite from or distant from 'natural' (nature) is particularly ill conceived, as related to art. she needs to read further in a larger dictionary. the 'sophistication' of a Paris models evening dress as compared to a bearskin worn by a 'savage' is not really what's at issue. although if the model appears in just a bearskin (lacking the toothed necklace of the 'savage', she will have some explaining to do.

2) her statement re Caravaggio and the Olmec Heads (great name for a band!)

In my analysis of the Caravaggio, I was careful to specify that the referrants were themselves the products of hundreds and thousands of years of cross-cultural cross fertilization, the effects of which are magnified by writing. In addition, that it was but one work in a very complex, cross-generational "conversation" involving thousands of artists, thologians, philosophers, and more, again magnified by writing, and by the existance of a vast array of other artistic works created over many centuries. The amount of all these interactions was orders of magnitude greater than what was available to a stone carver in a relatively isolated and new civilization.

The last statement is false, on its face. It amounts, as I pointed out earlier, to arguing from her own ignorance; to attributing 'sophistication' or complexity where Roxanne is aware of few of the links of the item under discussion. For example, having read about the Xtian God, and not the God of Islam, she can say/imply/suggest that the latter is less sophisticated; since she knows a little about Xtian moral thinking and nothing about Muslim, she can assert the sophistication (and superiority) of the former (see her other thread).

we have a kind of paradox: an 'objective' value system whose basis is the objective fact of her ignorance.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

please note that in her last upset post with the usual signs of upset; statements that i'm sneering, etc. she has not answered a couple straightforward questions (no doubt because they're too 'sneaky')

1)is the caravaggio more sophisticated than Picasso's "La Reve," Mondrians "No. 9" or Matisse's "Goldfish"

2)is the datakujii rock garden more or less or equally sophisticated than the prize winning one i cited, in S. Carolina.

Blah blah blah. Read my posts. In addition to the detailed analysis of the Caravaggio, I offered two substantive responses to 3113's citation of the Pollock that engage every point you have raised.

It really is not possible to have reasoned discourse with someone who either does not appear to read one's posts, or turns them around by essentially saying, "that may be what you said, but here's what you were really thinking." And does it with as much nastiness as he can possibly summon.

It's too bad. In spite of his pattern of seeking only attack and destroy rather than build his own positions and put them out there for discussion, Pure obviously has a keen intellect and many scholarly resources. This could be fun and productive, instead of mean and unenlightening.

 

[Pure]

note on pollock

pollock, with his cans of paint thrown on canvas, is a favorite target of the "that's not real art" folks, the "why isn't norman rockwell in MOMA" crowd.

my more complex examples of Picasso, Mondrian, and Matisse are apparently out of reach of Art 101 analysis as presented so far, for Caravaggio.

as regards Roxannes statement about Pollock:

RABut any meaning it conveys is derived through implicit references to a vast complex of sophisticated art of the past, and to sophisticated philosophical ideas of the present.

In the absense of such implicit references, then this work becomes mere decoration, and Pollock was indeed no more sophisticated than a four year old with finger paints, and far less sophisticated than a fine artist from an early civilization using relatively primitive neolithic tools. I don't believe that was the case.

P: i'm not sure if this is roxanne or her critic talking, but note it's the same argument from ignorance as i mentioned above. Caravaggio's links to Western culture and religion have been written about, and are known to Roxanne (or the critic). the references "implicit" in Pollock appear not to be known. hence Roxanne's or the critic's judgement, 'no more sophisticated than a four year old with finger paints.'

again, note the harping on trite anti modernist examples instead of the ones which arguably have great sophistication (Picasso, Matisse, Mondrian).

 

[colddiesel]

Very polite, and I'm willing to be educated. I suspect that we might be into definitional differences, and my definitions are definitely ad-hoc. I just looked up Palenque on Wiki, and some of the bas reliefs are indeed most sophisticated and marvelous. I'm inclined to think that Notre Dame was a much more sophisticated engineering acheivement, but in some respects (representational art) it was perhaps inferior. It was build in a low point in that regard, however - 1,500 years previously the Greeks had mastered the art.

Looking for a Eurasion analogy, I just wiki'd Egypt, and came up with the timeline pasted below. It's really not my intention to get into a "which was better" debate, because the answer is clearly neither, but it does seem clear that the neolithic civilizations of the Americas just hadn't been around long enough to develop all that much civilizational depth. They were new kids on the block, and never got the chance to develop. Look at where Egypt was around 6000 BC. That seems about analogous.

I'm not all that excited by ancient Egyptian artifacts either, in an artistic sense rather than an antiquarian one. I'm sorry, but I just don't think any of the artistic accomplishments of these early civilizations can compare to the much more sophisticated products of much more developed civiliazations in India, China and the West. I'm trying hard to not make any normative statements here, and don't think that is one.

ca. 8000 BC: Migration of peoples to the Nile, developing a more centralized society and settled agricultural economy
Shipping and Agriculture, from 8th millennium BC
ca. 7500 BC: Importing animals from Asia to Sahara
ca. 7000 BC: Agriculture -- animal and cereal -- in East Sahara
ca. 7000 BC: in Nabta Playa deep year-round water wells dug, and large organized settlements designed in pre-planned arrangements
ca. 6000 BC: Rudimentary ships (rowed, single-sailed) depicted in Egyptian rock art
Copper Age and large-scale Stone Construction, from 6th millennium BC
ca. 6th millennium BC: Metal replacing stone -- farming/hunting equipment, jewelry; tanning animal skins; intricate basket-weaving
ca. 6th millennium BC: possible early Alchemy as evidenced by common knowledge of animal-skin tanning [2]
ca. 5500 BC: Stone-roofed subterranean chambers and other subterranean complexes in Nabta Playa containing buried sacrificed cattle prelude Hathor belief in Ancient Egypt
ca. 5000 BC: Archaeoastronomical stone megalith in Nabta Playa, world's earliest known astronomy [3]
ca. 5000 BC: Badarian contacts with Syria; furniture, tableware, models of rectangular houses, pots, dishes, cups, bowls, vases, figurines, combs
ca. 4500 BC: Geometric spatial designs adorning Naqada pottery [4]
ca. 4400 BC: finely woven linen fragment [5]
ca. 4300 BC: Beaker culture pottery, world's earliest known [6]
Inventing prevalent, from 4th millennium BC
By 4000 BC, the world's earliest known:
Alchemy (see Alchemy in Ancient Egypt)
Cosmetics (antimony)
Donkey domestication
Harps
Iron works (see Iron Age)
Mortar (masonry)
Pottery hieroglyph writing in Girza [7]
ca. 4000 BC:
Flutes
early medicine [8]
4th millennium BC: Gerzean tomb-building, including underground rooms and burial of furniture/amulets, preludes Osiris belief in Ancient Egypt
4th millennium BC: Cedar imported from Lebanon [9]
ca. 3500 BC: Lapis lazuli imported from Badakshan and/or Mesopotamia (see Silk Road)
ca. 3500 BC: possible Silk Road expansion (see Silk Road)
ca. 3500 BC: Double clarinets, Lyres (see Music of Egypt)
ca. 3500 BC: Senet, world's oldest (confirmed) board game
ca. 3500 BC: Faience, world's earliest known glazed ceramic beads

Roxanne. Will you ever understand the meaning of "brevity"? The correct answer for you was "Sorry Equinoxe is right and Cloudy gave me the kick in the backside I deserved"

Try it on for size.

 

[Kev H]

I am no art scholar (which is probably a good thing), so I'll just respond with my gut feeling.

While pure's delivery is ill done, his point is valid. This discussion should have had lots of "in my opinions" and "insufficient datas" instead of being a blanket value judgment while comparing a highly studied piece of art to one whose history has been mostly lost. We know little about much of the early art, so we work on assumptions (which never fly in a comparative discussion).

Personally, I love the early art because it seems to often be a spiritual celebration of life that I rarely experience from the more cerebral works--I submit that those early artists from cultures like those in N. and S. America could have developed "better" tools or techniques, if they had wanted to. Assuming them incapable is probably what got cloudy pissed (though, I am not saying that was your assumption, only your implication, Rox).

The pursuit of art is a magnificent human endeavor, and comparing completely different routes together, to label one as "more sophisticated" than another is unfair. To say: "I like this one better and here is my personal reasons" is far more fair to those who do not share your opinions. IMO.


PS--pure, it's obvious that Rox won't respond to your other links (and the challenge for comparative analysis), because she is (usually) too smart/cautious to be badgered. -I- get your point; I daresay that most who take the time to read it get the point--you really ought to leave it at that.


PS#2--as for the UN...oofa! (ie, not even worth discussing)