Essay on aesthetics
‘Aesthetics has no real value to societies.’ Examine, with reference to the Aesthetics, how the concept of value applies to knowledge.
The concept of value is inherent in the workings of thought in that it forms the very basic catalyst to the process of decision-making or conclusion-reaching by the conscious mind, both of which is what the conscious mind is defined: and it is by these two processes that information is accepted and knowledge is made in this individual’s conception of his world.
The concept of value, standing alone, is intimately entwined in the formation of knowledge in that some system of prioritisation must take place in the processing of information. We are being bombarded second by second with overwhelmingly sensory stimulus and the information they carry, and this alone forces our limited minds to focus on some and ignore some, according to our needs. What we focus on is what we deem important – in other words, ‘valuable’ – and it is in these areas that knowledge is most gained. Without being able to rank input by whatever standard, be it logical structure or pure whim, no decisive opinion or action will be able to take place: the mind would be incoherent and completely randomised (for even in the case of pure whim some unconscious preference must be working). And in such a mind, knowledge is impossible. ‘Value’, being the criteria with which we gather or retain knowledge,
The role of the concept of value I knowledge is particularly apparent where the ‘value’ of a concept becomes fixed in accepted beliefs (‘Pluto is a planet.’ ‘The woman I call my mother gave birth to me.’ ‘Cauliflowers aren’t pink’) for the everyday purpose. Such ‘common knowledge’ the man on the street usually takes for granted and does not question, its value unimpeachable but for the strongest, most indisputable evidence which he may still find hard to accept – because of the difficulty of disassociating value with the mistaken belief. By acting as the most basic step to the formation of a conclusion from a series of input, recurring input resulting in the repeated affirmation of the conclusion increases its value in the individual consciousness – until it has evolved from hypothesis to ‘fact’. This ‘fact’, this knowledge, forms the basis of the bias and prejudices that individuals invariably carry all through their lives.
When one considers these two trains of thought integrating the concept of value with the concept of knowledge as it is achieved, one cannot disregard the value of Aesthetics – to the individual. ‘Aesthetics’, as goes in an article of the same name in wikipedia, ‘is a branch of value theory which studies sensory or sensori-emotional values, sometimes called judgments of sentiment or taste. What makes something beautiful, sublime, disgusting, fun, cute, silly, entertaining, pretentious, discordant, harmonious, boring, humorous, or tragic.’ Where there is judgement there is evaluation. By its very definition, aesthetics has identified itself as a branch of the concept of value.
On another level, aesthetics are important to the individual mainly because they function as the very definition of self. When someone is asked to describe himself in an everyday situation, he begins with what he believes are facts – most of which involve the bedrock beliefs described earlier, with their value accrued throughout his lifetime by repeated affirmation: ‘My mother was one Tamarind Tree.’ ‘I was born in Frankenstein hospital.’ Then he begins to elaborate upon his preferences – ‘I like the smell of margarine soap, I think it ranks way above rose detergent’ – which, when one thinks deeper on it, really all depends on the value the individual places on one object above another. If personal idiosyncrany relies solely on preferences, which are simply a result of the decision process and therefore the usage of value judgements, then identity is nothing more than an expression of such aesthetic statements by which the individual lives. Knowledge of the self, therefore, derives almost entirely from the interaction between himself the aesthetic.
And so it has been established that the Aesthetic is important to the individual – but is it of real value to society, or – as the statement puts it – societies? The simplest argument would be that as the individual is to society what a brick is to a wall, what concerns all the members of the society should rightly concern the society as well. Therefore aesthetics has a very real value to societies. But even without considering this factor, Aesthetics remains of paramount importance to a working society because it is aesthetics – preferences – that defines ethics and norms, which acts as a foundation for the cohesion that the most fundamental function of society is to maintain. If society is a wall and its component individuals are the bricks, then these ethics and norms – which are set, conserved and revised by the aesthetic – form the cement that glue the bricks into the wall. Knowledge of society and knowledge in a society are made, distributed and executed according to its aesthetic principles.
If one contests that ‘aesthetics’ may be of no further value to society, the purpose of ‘society’ first has to be defined – and has not been, yet. If the role of society is merely for survival – as a large group of beings might in foraging for food or dissuading predators, aesthetics may play little part in it. But if the purpose of a ‘society’, once the basic needs for food, shelter and safety are to be met, is to not merely survive but survive in a clash between societies – with the continuous annexation and absorbtion of one by the other at any place or time – aesthetics it becomes what enables a culture to outlast another. In the current state of affairs, in the rush of increased globalisation and the creation of a Western-based ‘world’ society that is unable to hold even more than a few of the individual characteristics that illustrate the thousands of cultures scattered across the earth, the aesthetics of a culture become both its sacred ground and its selling point. The ‘japanese aesthetic’, for example, has become known around the world for its distinctive symbolism or use of lacquer; the terracotta army of Qin Shihuang’s mausoleum became for a while the face of China’s tourist industry. The delinations of characteristic Aesthetic is what keeps native culture from extinction and acts as a root for societies, which retain individual identity as a collective.
In addition, some believe that the society exists for the individual – instead the other way round. The benefits of a society in coordinated action and a set of common ethics is enjoyed by the individual, who is provided an incentive to continue his support the society. Part of the ‘perks’ of belonging to a society, as it were, is the sense of collective identity – which is what cultural aesthetics sustain. And it is this collective identity that holds the community together – not just in terms of artistic sensibility, but also in moral preferences, norms and standards of acceptable behaviour. It is because of aesthetics that the society, as both an institution and as a repository of communal knowledge, is able to function. So it is, again, the value of society to the individual, as well as the value of aesthetics to the individual, that results in the value of aesthetics to a society.
As a result, one might be able to discern that the concept of value in reference to aesthetics applies to the most fundamental knowledge in an individual, and through him, society: the assertion that aesthetics has no real value to societies is proven to be simply not true.
The concept of value is inherent in the workings of thought in that it forms the very basic catalyst to the process of decision-making or conclusion-reaching by the conscious mind, both of which is what the conscious mind is defined: and it is by these two processes that information is accepted and knowledge is made in this individual’s conception of his world.
The concept of value, standing alone, is intimately entwined in the formation of knowledge in that some system of prioritisation must take place in the processing of information. We are being bombarded second by second with overwhelmingly sensory stimulus and the information they carry, and this alone forces our limited minds to focus on some and ignore some, according to our needs. What we focus on is what we deem important – in other words, ‘valuable’ – and it is in these areas that knowledge is most gained. Without being able to rank input by whatever standard, be it logical structure or pure whim, no decisive opinion or action will be able to take place: the mind would be incoherent and completely randomised (for even in the case of pure whim some unconscious preference must be working). And in such a mind, knowledge is impossible. ‘Value’, being the criteria with which we gather or retain knowledge,
The role of the concept of value I knowledge is particularly apparent where the ‘value’ of a concept becomes fixed in accepted beliefs (‘Pluto is a planet.’ ‘The woman I call my mother gave birth to me.’ ‘Cauliflowers aren’t pink’) for the everyday purpose. Such ‘common knowledge’ the man on the street usually takes for granted and does not question, its value unimpeachable but for the strongest, most indisputable evidence which he may still find hard to accept – because of the difficulty of disassociating value with the mistaken belief. By acting as the most basic step to the formation of a conclusion from a series of input, recurring input resulting in the repeated affirmation of the conclusion increases its value in the individual consciousness – until it has evolved from hypothesis to ‘fact’. This ‘fact’, this knowledge, forms the basis of the bias and prejudices that individuals invariably carry all through their lives.
When one considers these two trains of thought integrating the concept of value with the concept of knowledge as it is achieved, one cannot disregard the value of Aesthetics – to the individual. ‘Aesthetics’, as goes in an article of the same name in wikipedia, ‘is a branch of value theory which studies sensory or sensori-emotional values, sometimes called judgments of sentiment or taste. What makes something beautiful, sublime, disgusting, fun, cute, silly, entertaining, pretentious, discordant, harmonious, boring, humorous, or tragic.’ Where there is judgement there is evaluation. By its very definition, aesthetics has identified itself as a branch of the concept of value.
On another level, aesthetics are important to the individual mainly because they function as the very definition of self. When someone is asked to describe himself in an everyday situation, he begins with what he believes are facts – most of which involve the bedrock beliefs described earlier, with their value accrued throughout his lifetime by repeated affirmation: ‘My mother was one Tamarind Tree.’ ‘I was born in Frankenstein hospital.’ Then he begins to elaborate upon his preferences – ‘I like the smell of margarine soap, I think it ranks way above rose detergent’ – which, when one thinks deeper on it, really all depends on the value the individual places on one object above another. If personal idiosyncrany relies solely on preferences, which are simply a result of the decision process and therefore the usage of value judgements, then identity is nothing more than an expression of such aesthetic statements by which the individual lives. Knowledge of the self, therefore, derives almost entirely from the interaction between himself the aesthetic.
And so it has been established that the Aesthetic is important to the individual – but is it of real value to society, or – as the statement puts it – societies? The simplest argument would be that as the individual is to society what a brick is to a wall, what concerns all the members of the society should rightly concern the society as well. Therefore aesthetics has a very real value to societies. But even without considering this factor, Aesthetics remains of paramount importance to a working society because it is aesthetics – preferences – that defines ethics and norms, which acts as a foundation for the cohesion that the most fundamental function of society is to maintain. If society is a wall and its component individuals are the bricks, then these ethics and norms – which are set, conserved and revised by the aesthetic – form the cement that glue the bricks into the wall. Knowledge of society and knowledge in a society are made, distributed and executed according to its aesthetic principles.
If one contests that ‘aesthetics’ may be of no further value to society, the purpose of ‘society’ first has to be defined – and has not been, yet. If the role of society is merely for survival – as a large group of beings might in foraging for food or dissuading predators, aesthetics may play little part in it. But if the purpose of a ‘society’, once the basic needs for food, shelter and safety are to be met, is to not merely survive but survive in a clash between societies – with the continuous annexation and absorbtion of one by the other at any place or time – aesthetics it becomes what enables a culture to outlast another. In the current state of affairs, in the rush of increased globalisation and the creation of a Western-based ‘world’ society that is unable to hold even more than a few of the individual characteristics that illustrate the thousands of cultures scattered across the earth, the aesthetics of a culture become both its sacred ground and its selling point. The ‘japanese aesthetic’, for example, has become known around the world for its distinctive symbolism or use of lacquer; the terracotta army of Qin Shihuang’s mausoleum became for a while the face of China’s tourist industry. The delinations of characteristic Aesthetic is what keeps native culture from extinction and acts as a root for societies, which retain individual identity as a collective.
In addition, some believe that the society exists for the individual – instead the other way round. The benefits of a society in coordinated action and a set of common ethics is enjoyed by the individual, who is provided an incentive to continue his support the society. Part of the ‘perks’ of belonging to a society, as it were, is the sense of collective identity – which is what cultural aesthetics sustain. And it is this collective identity that holds the community together – not just in terms of artistic sensibility, but also in moral preferences, norms and standards of acceptable behaviour. It is because of aesthetics that the society, as both an institution and as a repository of communal knowledge, is able to function. So it is, again, the value of society to the individual, as well as the value of aesthetics to the individual, that results in the value of aesthetics to a society.
As a result, one might be able to discern that the concept of value in reference to aesthetics applies to the most fundamental knowledge in an individual, and through him, society: the assertion that aesthetics has no real value to societies is proven to be simply not true.
posted by the zen thing at 5:20 AM
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