Ah, yes, I can relate, I oscillate between many forms of wretchedness. The important thing, of course, is to be aware of it. There’s always an interesting psychology behind it. I wrote about that in fact, in my own case, but decided not to publish it, at least not in conjunction with this sad little discharge from the bottom. Revelations like that would make it all too easy, I think.
It might be too easy, but that’s all what we have and what we need to express after we become aware of it, I’m afraid. That is what art is supposed to be and do, I think: express how we see and feel the world we live in; Deep-diving into those feelings; dissecting them and describing the actions that consequent them. And then I’m talking ‘meta’ again like all the other bottom dwellers here.
What I really need to say is that my inferiority and insignificance makes me paralyzed. After each sentence I write the inevitable thought crops up making me deleting it. I need to remind myself (mostly thinking about Kant’s dignity principle) that I have every right to exist and express it the way I see it fit.
To make sense of this requires a lot of explaining, which I can't help, because that's who I am, and as we’re being authentic here, whatever comes out, must come out; yet this doesn’t mean I cannot apologize for being so tedious.
As for the beginning of your note, perhaps so, but I have to disagree with the notion that art or the artist himself should ever try to explain the motivations and pathologies (for that they often are) behind the will to create. I don’t think that is part of art. Everyone should make of art what they will. However, I don’t consider what I do to be art, so I’m exempt from that. My relationship with art was ruined by academia, or rather it was my own interests within academia that ruined it. As for revelations, I agree with you on this, but there is a part of me that doesn’t want all that I am, or what I may be called, to hang out in public; commit a public seppuku, as I called it. This goes against my understanding of action (an activity very different from art) and I’m often disappointed and angry with myself for being a coward in this respect.
Now, as for the rest… it’s interesting that you bring up Kant. I refer to him in my self-analysis (i.e. the psychology behind my writing) but in a somewhat different sense. But I see your dilemma, and indeed mine, more as a problem of action than of art (this is my academic self speaking, mind you, the ruiner of art; I blame Hannah Arendt, whom I also love to death).
Contrary to the more common understanding of art as self-expression, I learned to understand it more as a technique, an artifice, an artificial thing made up to express whatever the artist wishes to express. There’s always an element of dishonesty in art; it’s made up, after all. The artist is present in his art but only as a maker of things separate from himself; we never know exactly who or what we are engaging in art, nor is this knowledge relevant for the appreciation of art as an artefact distinct from the artist. In short, the work or art is never fully coincident with or equal to the artist himself.
Action, however, is always coincident with and equivalent to the actor; action considered as the expression of one’s unique feelings, experiences and understandings of the world to other human beings, a circumstance that is never singular (as in an artist crafting a story in solitude) but always plural. This disclosure of one’s uniqueness, which can feel insufficient in contexts such as Substack where everyone is supposedly an artist, crafting stories that do not reveal their inner selves (and that's fine insofar as we’re talking about art), is absolutely central to being human, as Arendt put it: “Without the disclosure of the agent in the act, action loses its specific character and becomes one form of achievement among others. It is then indeed no less a means to an end than making is a means to produce an object.”. What you’re doing right now with your words is incomparably more authentic than any art ever produced; we're indeed to be considered ends and not means. We’re engaged in action; action being equivalent to words expressing our unique experiences and opinions to others, who will interpret them as only they can, and through their interpretations, if there be such (i.e. if anyone ever reads this), form stories unique to you and me.
Contrariwise, an artist can always craft a story for or about himself, whether it is true or not is insignificant to art. An actor, in so far as the actor is an honest one (if he isn't, he’s not really an actor but a fraud, an ‘artist’, that is) is always dependent on his peers for the birth and development of his story. I cannot ‘tell’ you my story as an actor, you will tell it to yourself by interpreting and understanding these words (which I’m discharging without any concern of how they make me look, because ultimately they express who I am, for better or worse... and I take the blame if they seem incoherent).
As for artists, I tend to think of them this way: they are not and should not be in the business of being themselves. I imagine that if I ever met some of the most celebrated artists of all time, I’d probably find that most of them were narcissistic assholes. It is their ‘artistry’ people appreciate, not their person. Their character as human beings is irrelevant in relation to art. The ancients knew all this instinctively, and that's why they also knew, in my opinion, what's important in life; it’s not what you can make outside yourself (art) that counts but what you are as yourself (in action), and being your true self is not a matter of measurement. The goodness and virtue of a person cannot be quantified. Obviously, the modern world works differently; Substack is a perfect example of this, insofar as it’s a game of numbers and artifice to attract readers and all the rest of that garbage I find demeaning. I’m such a desperate reactionary that I find most of such tricks and ruses despicable, even in the context of art.
Now, as may or may not be evident in the above rant, and all of my writings on this platform, I entertain little or no hope that what I just explained could ever be the way we are, as individuals, judged as part of this increasingly art-ifical world. It's probably no surprise that I’m torn between these two worlds. Hence the bitter irony and sarcasm. Yet I have to emphasize that while I have no faith in this world (and Substack in particular:), it doesn't mean I couldn’t feel for individual human beings; mine’s not misanthropy, it’s something more akin to postanthropy. It’s a losing battle, and not only in the context of Substack, and for me it's in part because we've all become or are forced to become makers of things rather than actors expressing what is unique, relevant and beautiful to us as individuals, irrespective of expectations.
Anyway, never mind the bottom feeders and the feelings that paralyze. It’s all because you’re on to something relevant and what's relevant in this day and age usually doesn’t make you feel good.
To start with, please don’t apologies for being tedious. That is a virtue as such (at least in my vocabulary). And when it is on art, than I can’t get enough of it.
And I need to thank you for time took and even more so for act of good willingness to respond to my little provocation. How so, you would ask? Well, I need to admit that my motives were not entirely pure: as I have read most of your published articles/posts/essays (how do we call this writings here anyway?!) and have noticed your (ahm) ambivalent relationship with art, I might have wanted - not only to hear you position on it (I sincerely do!) - but also pretty selfishly wanted to keep this exchange of thoughts ongoing with or without your explicit permission. For the later, please accept my apologies.
Since you took time to elaborate your views on what art is or is not, I’ll feel free to do the same. For this purpose only, I’ve even opened this bottom exhaustion as you call it on my PC, what I mustn’t do because I know no end (end as in limit but since you’ve been talking of means and ends I thought…ah well, you’ll understand.). I’m not going to dwell on pathologies behind this not because I a priori accept you argument that “an artist should [not] ever try to explain the motivations and pathologies the behind the will to create” but because it’s not functional for this story at this moment (that is, if this would be a proper story [which is not] written by a proper artist [alas]). I do think that there is always motive behind the story. And the quality of writing depends on that motive - money, subscribers, fame or just needing to tell it even if you don't know how.
We agree actually on almost all things, except on you committing virtual ritual (seppuku). Since there is no literature without characters acting and reacting based on their motives and/or pathologies and yes even committing a public seppuku, if necessary. I agree with when you say ‘The artist is present in his art but only as a maker of things separate from himself” but I need to rephrase it as follows: An ‘I’ in a fiction is not the same ‘I’ as me writing it, although the two can be mistaken for the same. I have an enormous problem with this dichotomy: but knowing it and feeling it are two separate things. And how could be easy to tell the apart, when I’m the one who is making it, writing it. Or you. Preferably you. :-) I mean writing, not seppuku, to be clear.
Writing is a technique, sure. For some, and if you want to believe them, it is even a big part of it: structure, storylines, characters and their motives and pathologies (there we go again). But that technique is – in your words and words of your beloved Hannah Arendt - means to an end and not an end. In my words (and a little bit of Kant if you allow me): for me the-story- that-needs-to-be-told is equivalent of Kant’s definition good will (= ‘A good will is good not because of what it performs or effects, not by its aptness for the attainment of some proposed end, but simply by virtue of the volition; that is, it is good in itself, and considered by itself is to be esteemed much higher than all that can be brought about by it in favour of any inclination, nay even of the sum total of all inclinations.’). And the story, an end in itself must express ‘one’s unique feelings, experiences and understandings of the world to other human beings’. Technique, in this context can only be seen as ‘qualities which are of service to this good will itself and may facilitate its action, yet which have no intrinsic unconditional value, but always presuppose a good will, and this qualifies the esteem that we justly have for them and does not permit us to regard them as absolutely good.’
Or to put very bluntly technique must follow the story. And we need to tell each other those stories because indeed ‘a circumstance is never singular’. Circumstances changes and we all have to deal with them. It helps when you see that you are not the only one in agony finding you way around.
What are those circumstances? Raging capitalism based on not even half of utilitarian moral: maximizing happiness (for myself). Even that saving grace part ‘for the greatest number’ fell of the wagon and is long lost. Oh wait, somebody on this platform was very polite to inform me that is actually called libertarianism. And combine that with ever smaller governments who need to control the crises?! Fucking shit hell (pardon my French)!
I just realised that I'm in desperate need of (thinking of and feeling of) hiraeth. Not as a mean to an end, but as an end. Where to find it?
Well, this dialogue of ours is what platforms like Substack should be about, so I’m glad we continue to exchange thoughts. And your subtle provocations have pierced holes in my ironclad pessimism about this place. That’s no mean feat… let’s both refrain from apologizing from now on, ok?
As for good will, Substack and the stories that need to be told, yes, I agree and should have been more specific in my comment that there are indeed writers here (we can call them artists) who act in writing, i.e. they do their thing not instrumentally, but for the sake of doing it, because they feel it is important in itself regardless of how it performs.
However, the system in which this ‘good will’ exists is constantly trying to render such efforts meaningless, not on purpose, of course, but by the sheer logic of its operations. It is this cold and inhuman logic in which we all are makers, players and actors alike, that scares me. It’s like a force of nature, and there's nothing a singular human being can do to change that, except rebel and assume a position not unlike Camus’ Sisyphus, taking perverse pleasure in the absurdity of one’s condition.
You touched on something very important in relation to good will. I was mistaken, guilty of a totalizing view of art. I must agree that ‘technique’ can be understood as in your example, as knowledge and know-how that serves as an end in itself. My academic insistence on viewing all art as instrumentally inclined production for purposes beyond the object itself fails me here. It is, of course, important to separate fine art from mechanical art, the former having a dimension to it that cannot be fully reconciled with ancient definitions of art (or techne as they called it).
Hannah Arendt (my beloved, yes) points to this in reference to thinking (another activity about which modern humans are confused): “Thought, on the contrary, has neither an end nor an aim outside itself, and it does not even produce results; not only the utilitarian philosophy of homo faber but also the men of action and the lovers of results in the sciences have never tired of pointing out how entirely "useless" thought is—as useless, indeed, as the works of art it inspires.” This "uselessness" is what is matters in the end.
Hiraeth… I wish i knew. It usually grips me when I least expect it, sometimes even here on Substack.
It’s been my pleasure. If you agree we can continue commenting on each other’s thoughts. I really do enjoy it. Somehow, when I’m commenting on your posts, I’m faster in articulating and less stressed out about my own writing. Usually I’m slow like a snail. Twisting and turning and reformulating until I’m fed up but never actually satisfied. Somehow, it can always be more precise.
For now, first I’m going to set a proper date with you beloved Hannah. I had a late night audio date with her, on Human Condition but she is not that kind of woman, so to say. She demands all your attention and devotion.
I did read parts of her work long time ago when I was looking for answers and perhaps even consolation on how to live after all what you knew and who you were is dissolved. I didn’t found it then. Who knows I might be open for it now. I’ll certainly try.
>> The Borgian virtues of the Algorithm?
You got me there... 😅
I’m oscillating between:
- the unlovable, insufferable flounders, gnashing our blunted teeth at your flavorless refuse and
- Gullible bottom feeders within reach of the superficial trawl of their idols
Not sure which one is more pathetic.
Ah, yes, I can relate, I oscillate between many forms of wretchedness. The important thing, of course, is to be aware of it. There’s always an interesting psychology behind it. I wrote about that in fact, in my own case, but decided not to publish it, at least not in conjunction with this sad little discharge from the bottom. Revelations like that would make it all too easy, I think.
It might be too easy, but that’s all what we have and what we need to express after we become aware of it, I’m afraid. That is what art is supposed to be and do, I think: express how we see and feel the world we live in; Deep-diving into those feelings; dissecting them and describing the actions that consequent them. And then I’m talking ‘meta’ again like all the other bottom dwellers here.
What I really need to say is that my inferiority and insignificance makes me paralyzed. After each sentence I write the inevitable thought crops up making me deleting it. I need to remind myself (mostly thinking about Kant’s dignity principle) that I have every right to exist and express it the way I see it fit.
To make sense of this requires a lot of explaining, which I can't help, because that's who I am, and as we’re being authentic here, whatever comes out, must come out; yet this doesn’t mean I cannot apologize for being so tedious.
As for the beginning of your note, perhaps so, but I have to disagree with the notion that art or the artist himself should ever try to explain the motivations and pathologies (for that they often are) behind the will to create. I don’t think that is part of art. Everyone should make of art what they will. However, I don’t consider what I do to be art, so I’m exempt from that. My relationship with art was ruined by academia, or rather it was my own interests within academia that ruined it. As for revelations, I agree with you on this, but there is a part of me that doesn’t want all that I am, or what I may be called, to hang out in public; commit a public seppuku, as I called it. This goes against my understanding of action (an activity very different from art) and I’m often disappointed and angry with myself for being a coward in this respect.
Now, as for the rest… it’s interesting that you bring up Kant. I refer to him in my self-analysis (i.e. the psychology behind my writing) but in a somewhat different sense. But I see your dilemma, and indeed mine, more as a problem of action than of art (this is my academic self speaking, mind you, the ruiner of art; I blame Hannah Arendt, whom I also love to death).
Contrary to the more common understanding of art as self-expression, I learned to understand it more as a technique, an artifice, an artificial thing made up to express whatever the artist wishes to express. There’s always an element of dishonesty in art; it’s made up, after all. The artist is present in his art but only as a maker of things separate from himself; we never know exactly who or what we are engaging in art, nor is this knowledge relevant for the appreciation of art as an artefact distinct from the artist. In short, the work or art is never fully coincident with or equal to the artist himself.
Action, however, is always coincident with and equivalent to the actor; action considered as the expression of one’s unique feelings, experiences and understandings of the world to other human beings, a circumstance that is never singular (as in an artist crafting a story in solitude) but always plural. This disclosure of one’s uniqueness, which can feel insufficient in contexts such as Substack where everyone is supposedly an artist, crafting stories that do not reveal their inner selves (and that's fine insofar as we’re talking about art), is absolutely central to being human, as Arendt put it: “Without the disclosure of the agent in the act, action loses its specific character and becomes one form of achievement among others. It is then indeed no less a means to an end than making is a means to produce an object.”. What you’re doing right now with your words is incomparably more authentic than any art ever produced; we're indeed to be considered ends and not means. We’re engaged in action; action being equivalent to words expressing our unique experiences and opinions to others, who will interpret them as only they can, and through their interpretations, if there be such (i.e. if anyone ever reads this), form stories unique to you and me.
Contrariwise, an artist can always craft a story for or about himself, whether it is true or not is insignificant to art. An actor, in so far as the actor is an honest one (if he isn't, he’s not really an actor but a fraud, an ‘artist’, that is) is always dependent on his peers for the birth and development of his story. I cannot ‘tell’ you my story as an actor, you will tell it to yourself by interpreting and understanding these words (which I’m discharging without any concern of how they make me look, because ultimately they express who I am, for better or worse... and I take the blame if they seem incoherent).
As for artists, I tend to think of them this way: they are not and should not be in the business of being themselves. I imagine that if I ever met some of the most celebrated artists of all time, I’d probably find that most of them were narcissistic assholes. It is their ‘artistry’ people appreciate, not their person. Their character as human beings is irrelevant in relation to art. The ancients knew all this instinctively, and that's why they also knew, in my opinion, what's important in life; it’s not what you can make outside yourself (art) that counts but what you are as yourself (in action), and being your true self is not a matter of measurement. The goodness and virtue of a person cannot be quantified. Obviously, the modern world works differently; Substack is a perfect example of this, insofar as it’s a game of numbers and artifice to attract readers and all the rest of that garbage I find demeaning. I’m such a desperate reactionary that I find most of such tricks and ruses despicable, even in the context of art.
Now, as may or may not be evident in the above rant, and all of my writings on this platform, I entertain little or no hope that what I just explained could ever be the way we are, as individuals, judged as part of this increasingly art-ifical world. It's probably no surprise that I’m torn between these two worlds. Hence the bitter irony and sarcasm. Yet I have to emphasize that while I have no faith in this world (and Substack in particular:), it doesn't mean I couldn’t feel for individual human beings; mine’s not misanthropy, it’s something more akin to postanthropy. It’s a losing battle, and not only in the context of Substack, and for me it's in part because we've all become or are forced to become makers of things rather than actors expressing what is unique, relevant and beautiful to us as individuals, irrespective of expectations.
Anyway, never mind the bottom feeders and the feelings that paralyze. It’s all because you’re on to something relevant and what's relevant in this day and age usually doesn’t make you feel good.
To start with, please don’t apologies for being tedious. That is a virtue as such (at least in my vocabulary). And when it is on art, than I can’t get enough of it.
And I need to thank you for time took and even more so for act of good willingness to respond to my little provocation. How so, you would ask? Well, I need to admit that my motives were not entirely pure: as I have read most of your published articles/posts/essays (how do we call this writings here anyway?!) and have noticed your (ahm) ambivalent relationship with art, I might have wanted - not only to hear you position on it (I sincerely do!) - but also pretty selfishly wanted to keep this exchange of thoughts ongoing with or without your explicit permission. For the later, please accept my apologies.
Since you took time to elaborate your views on what art is or is not, I’ll feel free to do the same. For this purpose only, I’ve even opened this bottom exhaustion as you call it on my PC, what I mustn’t do because I know no end (end as in limit but since you’ve been talking of means and ends I thought…ah well, you’ll understand.). I’m not going to dwell on pathologies behind this not because I a priori accept you argument that “an artist should [not] ever try to explain the motivations and pathologies the behind the will to create” but because it’s not functional for this story at this moment (that is, if this would be a proper story [which is not] written by a proper artist [alas]). I do think that there is always motive behind the story. And the quality of writing depends on that motive - money, subscribers, fame or just needing to tell it even if you don't know how.
We agree actually on almost all things, except on you committing virtual ritual (seppuku). Since there is no literature without characters acting and reacting based on their motives and/or pathologies and yes even committing a public seppuku, if necessary. I agree with when you say ‘The artist is present in his art but only as a maker of things separate from himself” but I need to rephrase it as follows: An ‘I’ in a fiction is not the same ‘I’ as me writing it, although the two can be mistaken for the same. I have an enormous problem with this dichotomy: but knowing it and feeling it are two separate things. And how could be easy to tell the apart, when I’m the one who is making it, writing it. Or you. Preferably you. :-) I mean writing, not seppuku, to be clear.
Writing is a technique, sure. For some, and if you want to believe them, it is even a big part of it: structure, storylines, characters and their motives and pathologies (there we go again). But that technique is – in your words and words of your beloved Hannah Arendt - means to an end and not an end. In my words (and a little bit of Kant if you allow me): for me the-story- that-needs-to-be-told is equivalent of Kant’s definition good will (= ‘A good will is good not because of what it performs or effects, not by its aptness for the attainment of some proposed end, but simply by virtue of the volition; that is, it is good in itself, and considered by itself is to be esteemed much higher than all that can be brought about by it in favour of any inclination, nay even of the sum total of all inclinations.’). And the story, an end in itself must express ‘one’s unique feelings, experiences and understandings of the world to other human beings’. Technique, in this context can only be seen as ‘qualities which are of service to this good will itself and may facilitate its action, yet which have no intrinsic unconditional value, but always presuppose a good will, and this qualifies the esteem that we justly have for them and does not permit us to regard them as absolutely good.’
Or to put very bluntly technique must follow the story. And we need to tell each other those stories because indeed ‘a circumstance is never singular’. Circumstances changes and we all have to deal with them. It helps when you see that you are not the only one in agony finding you way around.
What are those circumstances? Raging capitalism based on not even half of utilitarian moral: maximizing happiness (for myself). Even that saving grace part ‘for the greatest number’ fell of the wagon and is long lost. Oh wait, somebody on this platform was very polite to inform me that is actually called libertarianism. And combine that with ever smaller governments who need to control the crises?! Fucking shit hell (pardon my French)!
I just realised that I'm in desperate need of (thinking of and feeling of) hiraeth. Not as a mean to an end, but as an end. Where to find it?
Well, this dialogue of ours is what platforms like Substack should be about, so I’m glad we continue to exchange thoughts. And your subtle provocations have pierced holes in my ironclad pessimism about this place. That’s no mean feat… let’s both refrain from apologizing from now on, ok?
As for good will, Substack and the stories that need to be told, yes, I agree and should have been more specific in my comment that there are indeed writers here (we can call them artists) who act in writing, i.e. they do their thing not instrumentally, but for the sake of doing it, because they feel it is important in itself regardless of how it performs.
However, the system in which this ‘good will’ exists is constantly trying to render such efforts meaningless, not on purpose, of course, but by the sheer logic of its operations. It is this cold and inhuman logic in which we all are makers, players and actors alike, that scares me. It’s like a force of nature, and there's nothing a singular human being can do to change that, except rebel and assume a position not unlike Camus’ Sisyphus, taking perverse pleasure in the absurdity of one’s condition.
You touched on something very important in relation to good will. I was mistaken, guilty of a totalizing view of art. I must agree that ‘technique’ can be understood as in your example, as knowledge and know-how that serves as an end in itself. My academic insistence on viewing all art as instrumentally inclined production for purposes beyond the object itself fails me here. It is, of course, important to separate fine art from mechanical art, the former having a dimension to it that cannot be fully reconciled with ancient definitions of art (or techne as they called it).
Hannah Arendt (my beloved, yes) points to this in reference to thinking (another activity about which modern humans are confused): “Thought, on the contrary, has neither an end nor an aim outside itself, and it does not even produce results; not only the utilitarian philosophy of homo faber but also the men of action and the lovers of results in the sciences have never tired of pointing out how entirely "useless" thought is—as useless, indeed, as the works of art it inspires.” This "uselessness" is what is matters in the end.
Hiraeth… I wish i knew. It usually grips me when I least expect it, sometimes even here on Substack.
It’s been my pleasure. If you agree we can continue commenting on each other’s thoughts. I really do enjoy it. Somehow, when I’m commenting on your posts, I’m faster in articulating and less stressed out about my own writing. Usually I’m slow like a snail. Twisting and turning and reformulating until I’m fed up but never actually satisfied. Somehow, it can always be more precise.
For now, first I’m going to set a proper date with you beloved Hannah. I had a late night audio date with her, on Human Condition but she is not that kind of woman, so to say. She demands all your attention and devotion.
I did read parts of her work long time ago when I was looking for answers and perhaps even consolation on how to live after all what you knew and who you were is dissolved. I didn’t found it then. Who knows I might be open for it now. I’ll certainly try.