itt: i post the actual worst thing that i have ever read in my entire life

Obā-san · 2017-02-05 01:27:14

Ask a musician if the music is a pleasure, the reply is likely to be–as in the American joke of the grimacing cellist under Toscanini–“I just hate music.” For him who has a genuine relation to art, in which he himself vanishes, art is not an object; deprivation of art would be unbearable for him, yet he does not consider individual works sources of joy. Incontestably, no one would devote himself to art without–as the bourgeois put it–getting something out of it; yet this is not true in the sense that a balance sheet could be drawn up: “heard the Ninth Symphony tonight, enjoyed myself so and so much” even though such feeble-mindedness has by now established itself as common sense. The bourgeois want art voluptuous and life ascetic; the reverse would be better. Reified consciousness provides an ersatz for the sensual immediacy of which it deprives people in a sphere that is not its abode. While the artwork’s sensual appeal seemingly brings it close to the consumer, it is alienated from him by being a commodity that he possesses and the loss of which he must constantly fear. The false relation to art is akin to anxiety over possession. The fetishistic idea of the artwork as property that can be possessed and destroyed by reflection has its exact correlative in the idea of exploitable property within the psychological economy of the self. If according to its own concept art has become what it is, this is no less the case with its classification as a source of pleasure; indeed, as components of ritual praxis the magical and animistic predecessors of art were not autonomous; yet precisely because they were sacred they were not objects of enjoyment. The spiritualization of art incited the rancor of the excluded and spawned consumer art as a genre, while conversely antipathy toward consumer art compelled artists to ever more reckless spiritualization. No naked Greek sculpture was a ‘pin-up’. The affinity of the modern for the distant past and the exotic is explicable on the same grounds: Artists were drawn by the abstraction from natural objects as desirable; incidentally, in the construction of “symbolic art” Hegel did not overlook the unsensuous element of the archaic. The element of pleasure in art, a protest against the universally mediated commodity character, is in its own fashion mediable: Whoever disappears into the artwork thereby gains dispensation from the impoverishment of a life that is always too little. This pleasure may amount to an ecstasy for which the meager concept of enjoyment is hardly adequate, other than to produce disgust for enjoying anything. It is striking, incidentally, that an aesthetic that constantly insists on subjective feeling as the basis of all beauty has never seriously analyzed this feeling. Almost without exception its descriptions were banausic, perhaps because from the beginning the subjective approach made it impossible to recognize that something compelling can be grasped of aesthetic experience only on the basis of a relation to the aesthetic object, not by recurring to the fun of the art lover. The concept of artistic enjoyment was a bad compromise between the social and the socially critical essence of the artwork.

Klinotaxis · 2017-02-05 01:28:20

can't. just slides right off my brain.

Calica · 2017-02-05 01:28:30

this requires at least three or four layers of knowledge to actually understand, doesn't it

lee4hmz · 2017-02-05 01:32:01

i read that twice and I still have no clue

Salix Babylonika · 2017-02-05 01:33:59

Wow I actually am going to just go get the brick that holds the shed closed and just beat myself with it until I pass out and hopefully I'll forget that this exists.

Obā-san · 2017-02-05 01:36:02

Jane said:
Wow I actually am going to just go get the brick that holds the shed closed and just beat myself with it until I pass out and hopefully I'll forget that this exists.

this was almost precisely my reaction

Salix Babylonika · 2017-02-05 01:36:10

Jane said:
Wow I actually am going to just go get the brick that holds the shed closed and just beat myself with it until I pass out and hopefully I'll forget that this exists.

this is a joke but that actually is horribly stupid

Imipolex G · 2017-02-05 01:37:07

the ninth symphony is p cool

Hexartes · 2017-02-05 01:39:26

The bit about hating everything you write is #relatable although I don't quite think it's a healthy mindset

Obā-san · 2017-02-05 01:49:18

im just astounded, astounded by how vile, how viscerally repulsive this is. i can't even form a coherent argument against it because any capacity for rational thought that i have just shrivels in the face of my burning anger.

Salix Babylonika · 2017-02-05 01:53:39

by the way, the use of the word "banausic" (an obscure synonym for "unrefined") is hilarious

Obā-san · 2017-02-05 01:56:58

Jane said:
by the way, the use of the word "banausic" (an obscure synonym for "unrefined") is hilarious

it is, but thats probably the fault of the translator, not the original author (Adorno)

Salix Babylonika · 2017-02-05 01:58:55

oh so the translator's also an insufferable douche is what you're saying

Klinotaxis · 2017-02-05 02:03:23

translator's note banausic means plan

Calica · 2017-02-05 02:06:47

Klinotaxis said:
translator's note banausic means plan

Yarrun XIX · 2017-02-05 02:06:51

I refuse to parse most of this, but I'd like to say that I'm almost certain that some Greek sculpture was essentially pin-up. At the very least, pin-ups masquerading as fine art were a thing by the Renaissance

lee4hmz · 2017-02-05 02:07:52

I didn't find it infuriating as much as I just found it confusing and stiff.

Calica · 2017-02-05 02:07:53

fine art is pin-ups plus time

glennmagusharvey · 2017-02-05 02:58:29

maybe i should comment on this because i have a classical music background (which this probably has like nearly nothing to do with aside from the first few lines), even though i have no background in walls of text

Tamlin said:
Ask a musician if the music is a pleasure, the reply is likely to be–as in the American joke of the grimacing cellist under Toscanini–“I just hate music.”

Is the author talking about music as pleasure vs. music as obligation?

Tamlin said:
For him who has a genuine relation to art, in which he himself vanishes, art is not an object; deprivation of art would be unbearable for him, yet he does not consider individual works sources of joy.

Yep. Called it. Do note that this is not necessarily the relationship of every artist to art.

Tamlin said:
Incontestably, no one would devote himself to art without–as the bourgeois put it–getting something out of it; yet this is not true in the sense that a balance sheet could be drawn up: “heard the Ninth Symphony tonight, enjoyed myself so and so much” even though such feeble-mindedness has by now established itself as common sense.

This just means your utility function and utility-measurement tools are inadequate to properly describe the value of artistic work and/or experience of it.

Tamlin said:
The bourgeois want art voluptuous and life ascetic; the reverse would be better.

Possibly relevant to modern times -- office dads and soccer moms want well-behaved, overachieving kids, while the kids are bored with the stability of their lives and turn to increasingly weird forms of entertainment, from drugs to videogames to shitposting.

Tamlin said:
Reified consciousness provides an ersatz for the sensual immediacy of which it deprives people in a sphere that is not its abode.

lolwut

Tamlin said:
While the artwork’s sensual appeal seemingly brings it close to the consumer, it is alienated from him by being a commodity that he possesses and the loss of which he must constantly fear.

I don't know about you, writer, but I'm usually too busy being immersed.

Tamlin said:
The false relation to art is akin to anxiety over possession.

This only applies if you let art become commoditized in the first place! That was your mistake!

Tamlin said:
The fetishistic idea of the artwork as property that can be possessed and destroyed by reflection has its exact correlative in the idea of exploitable property within the psychological economy of the self.

(So this is a repeat of an earlier meaning, okay.)

Tamlin said:
If according to its own concept art has become what it is, this is no less the case with its classification as a source of pleasure; indeed, as components of ritual praxis the magical and animistic predecessors of art were not autonomous; yet precisely because they were sacred they were not objects of enjoyment.

Not sure what this means. Something about religiously/spiritually meaningful ceremonies (which some people regard as art these days) being taken seriously and therefore not being art.

Tamlin said:
The spiritualization of art incited the rancor of the excluded and spawned consumer art as a genre, while conversely antipathy toward consumer art compelled artists to ever more reckless spiritualization.

This looks nearly like gibberish but I guess you could draw a parallel with how you have the rise of various pop art form and then subsequent attempts to turn those pop art forms into "high art". But this is basically just a cyclical happening, and it's not due to a desire for "spiritualization", but rather due to fans getting older and more mature.

I am tempted to draw a partial analogy with people opining about having more "strong female characters" in videogames and then a culture-war-style backlash in the form of gamergate but I don't think it fits at all.

Tamlin said:
No naked Greek sculpture was a ‘pin-up’.

I'll be honest, I'm not actually sure what a pin-up is. Lemme look it up.
Ah, I see. Basically mass-produced sex appeal. Essentially, fanservice, minus the fandom context.
Well, in the absence of being able to ask the Greeks about it, we'll never know. Though we do know that they were at times into homosexual pedophilia so lol

Tamlin said:
The affinity of the modern for the distant past and the exotic is explicable on the same grounds: Artists were drawn by the abstraction from natural objects as desirable; incidentally, in the construction of “symbolic art” Hegel did not overlook the unsensuous element of the archaic.

Wait, I thought "symbolic"/conceptual/"high"/etc. art WAS unsensuous and archaic?

Tamlin said:
The element of pleasure in art, a protest against the universally mediated commodity character, is in its own fashion mediable: Whoever disappears into the artwork thereby gains dispensation from the impoverishment of a life that is always too little.

But with pin-ups, "pleasure in art" IS the commodity.
What do you mean by "mediable"?
So I guess you're saying "whoever 'lets themselves go' in immersion in the artwork is rewarded with escapism"? I guess you could say that. Dunno how this follows from all the various other things you've said.

Tamlin said:
This pleasure may amount to an ecstasy for which the meager concept of enjoyment is hardly adequate, other than to produce disgust for enjoying anything.

Again, not sure how this follows, but this reminds me of my criticism of hardcore anime fans complaining that stuff is too "cliche" just because it doesn't do anything groundbreaking with its storytelling/cinematics/tropes/etc..

Tamlin said:
It is striking, incidentally, that an aesthetic that constantly insists on subjective feeling as the basis of all beauty has never seriously analyzed this feeling.

You can seriously analyze it and still acknowledge that it is subjective, y'know. People's enjoyment of things usually follows some sort of pattern.

Tamlin said:
Almost without exception its descriptions were banausic, perhaps because from the beginning the subjective approach made it impossible to recognize that something compelling can be grasped of aesthetic experience only on the basis of a relation to the aesthetic object, not by recurring to the fun of the art lover.

Huh? What's the difference here?

The only way this sentence makes sense is if I think of "relation to the aesthetic object" as some sort of strange way of saying "immersion" and "fun" as a strange way of saying "external observation", or vice versa. Though maybe that's just me.

Tamlin said:
The concept of artistic enjoyment was a bad compromise between the social and the socially critical essence of the artwork.

So that's your conclusion statement I guess?

3/10 what the deuces are you even saying? it makes no sense. stop using so much flowery language and get to your point so I can make sense of you more effectively. also use linebreaks already

Viani · 2017-02-05 07:09:46

Ask a musician if the music is a pleasure, the reply is likely to be–as in the American joke of the grimacing cellist under Toscanini–“I just hate music.” For him who [one who] has a genuine relation to art, in which he himself vanishes, art is not an object; deprivation of art would be unbearable for him[.] [Y]et he does not consider individual works sources of joy. Incontestably, [N]o one would devote himself to art without, as the bourgeois put it, [the intent of] getting something out of it. Yet, this is not true in the sense that a balance sheet could be drawn up: “heard the Ninth Symphony tonight, enjoyed myself so and so much” even though such feeble-mindedness has by now established itself as common sense. The bourgeois want art voluptuous and life ascetic [ascetic from life]; [I believe] the reverse would be better. Reified [wtf?] consciousness provides an ersatz (inferior opposite) for the sensual immediacy[,] of which it deprives people in a sphere that is not its abode. While the artwork’s sensual appeal seemingly brings it close to the consumer, it is alienated from him by being a commodity that he possesses, and the loss of which he must constantly fear. The false relation to art is akin to anxiety over possession.

The fetishistic idea of the artwork as property that can be possessed and destroyed, by reflection, has its exact correlative CORRELATION in TO the idea of exploitable property within the psychological economy of the self.

If[,] according to its own concept[,] art has become what it is, this is no less the case with its classification as a source of pleasure[.] [I]ndeed, as components of ritual praxis[,] the magical and animistic predecessors of art were not autonomous; yet precisely [BUT] because they were sacred[,] they were not objects of enjoyment. The spiritualization of art incited the rancor of the excluded[,] and spawned consumer art as a genre[.] While conversely, antipathy toward consumer art compelled artists to[wards] ever more reckless spiritualization. No naked Greek sculpture was a ‘pin-up’. The affinity of the modern for the distant past and the exotic is explicable on the same grounds: Artists were drawn by the abstraction from natural objects as desirable; incidentally, in the construction of “symbolic art” Hegel did not overlook the un-sensuous element of the archaic. The element of pleasure in art, a protest against the universally mediated commodity character, is in its own fashion mediable (s: Whoever disappears into the artwork thereby gains dispensation from the impoverishment of a life that is always too little. This pleasure may amount to an ecstasy for which the meager concept of enjoyment is hardly adequate, other than to produce disgust for enjoying anything. It is striking, incidentally, that an aesthetic that constantly insists on subjective feeling as the basis of all beauty has never seriously analyzed this feeling. Almost without exception its descriptions were banausic, perhaps because from the beginning the subjective approach made it impossible to recognize that something compelling can be grasped of aesthetic experience only on the basis of a relation to the aesthetic object, not by recurring to the fun of the art lover. The concept of artistic enjoyment was a bad compromise between the social and the socially critical essence of the artwork.

OKay I'm fucking done trying to make this readable

Imipolex G · 2017-02-05 07:11:27

oh hey, it's House of Leaves

Viani · 2017-02-05 07:12:29

House of Wat

Crystal · 2017-02-05 07:18:34

oh hey, it's House of Leaves

Viani · 2017-02-05 07:28:39

Is the OP from House of Leaves?

Crystal · 2017-02-05 07:29:51

Is book.

glennmagusharvey · 2017-02-05 07:34:42

Crystal said:
Is book.

is not jook

Viani · 2017-02-05 07:36:21

I did google search and found the book

Aesthetic Theory

Apparently the OP has a ton of important words just carved out of it which makes the last sentences completely unreadable.

Almost without exception its descriptions were banausic, perhaps because from the beginning the subjective approach made it impossible to recognize that something compelling can be grasped of aesthetic experience only on the basis of a relation to the aesthetic object, not by recurring to the fun of the art lover. The concept of artistic enjoyment was a bad compromise between the social and the socially critical essence of the artwork.

vs.

Almost without excep- tion its descriptions were banausic, perhaps because from the beginning the sub- jective approach made it impossible to recognize that something compelling can be grasped ofaesthetic experience only on the basis of a relation to the aesthetic object, not by recurring to the funof the art lover.