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Logic, art, society, and me misunderstanding stuff...


Nephil Thief

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First, take a look at this:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dada

 

Okay, Wikipedia article, yes. But I found it interesting. Anyway:

 

Dada, in addition to being anti-war, had political affinities with the radical left and was also anti-bourgeois.[3]

...

Many Dadaists believed that the 'reason' and 'logic' of bourgeoisie capitalist society had led people into war. They expressed their rejection of that ideology in artistic expression that appeared to reject logic and embrace chaos and irrationality. For example, George Grosz later recalled that his Dadaist art was intended as a protest "against this world of mutual destruction."[8]

 

I've seen similar threads in current social commentary. And I don't think it's entirely wrong. OTOH I find it rather a depressing concept, because... well, logic and reason without ethics get you war. But logic and reason also get you things like indoor plumbing and public sewer systems.

 

If we're going for definitions: I guess I would, in this context, define reason as linear, causal thought. I do not see how humans can survive, in the long term or just day-to-day, without this. So yeah, I always get a bit uneasy reading such sentiments, be they from the radical-left Dadaists or from conservatives like G.K. Chesterton.

 

I mean... An orange may remain edible one day to the next. A block of wood will not. That is logic. Likewise applying paint to canvas to produce a painting, with the assumption that the paint will stick this time, as it did last time. So what does it actually constitute, to take a political stand against "logic and reason"? A stand against overuse of that mode of thinking, or use in the wrong context?

 

Or is this something completely different? As far as art, I've always considered art primarily emotional and intuitive, not conscious/logical/linear/whatever. Art can use logic, but it speaks to people's emotions. Was "art" just defined in an utterly different way, back before the days of the Dadaists?

 

I'm confused. Probably should have taken that Art Criticism course back at Amherst. Ah well.

 

...

 

I should note though, "rationality" is another matter as far as I'm concerned. Kind of personal, too, and I've been bitten by it a few times. IMO the concept of "rational" is less about logic, and more about espousing one arbitrary group of delusions while hypocritically condemning others.

 

(But whatever, what do I know. Last time I posted something "philosophical" I confused Locke with Hobbes.)

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You're going to have trouble discussing much of philosophy or human nature if you arbitrarily reassign meaning to terms. "Rational" has an understood meaning. People like to claim they're "just being rational" while doing all kinds of terrible things, but that's not the fault of rationality, especially since often those most loudly claiming that their horrendous conclusions are eminently rational are guilty of some rather broken logic.

 

Do reason and logic inevitably lead to war? Not by any obvious path. Dadaism had more of a claim that capitalism lived by reason and led to war. The former isn't true; bourgeois society isn't especially dedicated to impeccable, ironclad reasoning. The second also isn't cut and dried. Capitalism has had its major conflicts, but it's not like non-capitalist societies in history haven't. Dadaism, to the extent that it had a point (a very anti-Dada notion!), didn't have a very finely pointed one.

 

 

 

Dada was a product of its time and its left. The Cold War made capitalism an agenda, not just an economic idea. That gave us the threat of nuclear war. It also gave us Vietnam, which still exercises a powerful influence on the American conception of war. But I'd also argue that since WW2 Europe and the US have enjoyed remarkable peace. The wars that have been fought have been fought elsewhere. Still no great thing, capitalism is part of the reason disputes among wealthy countries are settled by saber-rattling and politics, not bombs.

 

—Alorael, who also sees Dada as a deliberate, gleeful thumbing of the nose at reason. Previous (and subsequent) movements in art deliberately evoked emotion, but Dada didn't go for emotion so much as confusion.

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The analogy that springs to my mind is music. There are many genres of music that are rejections of the mainstream melodies of the time, or perhaps meant to make you think about what music or melody really is. Free jazz, punk, John Cage's experimentations, what have you. But that's different from saying that melody cannot exist.

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Far from being an expert of Dadaist art, but rejecting "the 'reason' and 'logic' of bourgeoisie capitalist society" specifically surely doesn't have to mean rejecting reason and logic altogether.

 

Thumbing your nose at someone's ideas of reason and logic is often a way of saying that they don't have a monopoly on it, that what they claim is logic and reason might not be the only way of looking at it.

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This essay is technically about Wikipedia and hacktivism, but it includes a long diversion and discussion of Dada. It certainly provides a lot more context and depth of analysis than the Wikipedia article itself. Check it out.

 

Now, that said, here's my two cents about this thread: reason and logic are specifically developed historical ideas. Logic was espoused by the Ancient Greeks as a mode of thought and philosophy, and revived in Western Europe with the Renaissance and Enlightenment. Reason also came out of the Enlightenment - the Age of Reason. These ideas, which I'm just going to lump under the term of reason or rationality, were used in specific ways in Western history to justify large movements and action. Republicanism, human rights, and scientific inquiry, but also the development of capitalism (which hinges on people operating under their own rational self-interest), the devaluation of emotion as something counter to reason (and the subsequent ascription of emotionality as feminine), and imperialism (countries acting in their own rational self-interest over irrational/non-progressive subjects). This legacy, inherited from the Enlightenment, has brought a lot of good and a lot of bad. Dadaism fits in with the radical Left because of a decision that the Enlightenment was more bad than good and thus we should burn the whole system down and start over.

 

The idea of reason (from the Enlightenment) is pretty thoroughly debunked. People are inherently subjective, based on their upbringing, location, bodily experiences, etc. Psychologists have shown that certain fallacies and cognitive biases seem to be hardwired into our brains, not to mention the fact that logic and emotion are in no way separable or antagonistic. Capitalism has shown repeatedly that often times individuals don't act in their best interest (prioritizing immediate consumption over future consumption, being risk averse, etc.), and even when they do we still get bad things (e.g. monopolies). The idea that certain people are less rational, and therefore deserve what's coming to them, is widely recognized as pretty messed up. Nevertheless, reason still has a lot of staying power.

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This essay is technically about Wikipedia and hacktivism, but it includes a long diversion and discussion of Dada. It certainly provides a lot more context and depth of analysis than the Wikipedia article itself. Check it out.

 

Thanks. No, really. I should stop relying on Wikipedia even for vague ideas of stuff.

 

I'm a little bit bothered by the author's accusations re: scientific rationalism; more on the basis that "acknowledging the connection" between said mindset and the horrors of the 20th and 21st centuries shouldn't necessarily involve throwing the whole thing out. I know I sound super pompous saying this, but IMO the dose really does make the poison.

 

Likewise the emphasis on subjectivity. That can cut both ways.

 

(Like with GamerGate. "How dare you tell me not to harrass people online! I was bullied incessantly as a child!" etc. etc.)

 

[Edit: bookmarked nonetheless though. That is a really cool blog.]

 

Now, that said, here's my two cents about this thread: reason and logic are specifically developed historical ideas. Logic was espoused by the Ancient Greeks as a mode of thought and philosophy, and revived in Western Europe with the Renaissance and Enlightenment. Reason also came out of the Enlightenment - the Age of Reason. These ideas, which I'm just going to lump under the term of reason or rationality, were used in specific ways in Western history to justify large movements and action. Republicanism, human rights, and scientific inquiry, but also the development of capitalism (which hinges on people operating under their own rational self-interest), the devaluation of emotion as something counter to reason (and the subsequent ascription of emotionality as feminine), and imperialism (countries acting in their own rational self-interest over irrational/non-progressive subjects). This legacy, inherited from the Enlightenment, has brought a lot of good and a lot of bad. Dadaism fits in with the radical Left because of a decision that the Enlightenment was more bad than good and thus we should burn the whole system down and start over.

 

Whether I agree with that latter depends heavily on how one defines "burn down the whole system." I can definitely see it re: Wikipedia at least. Some well-placed, persistent, and particularly comical vandalism, might have encouraged me to find better sources above for instance...

 

Re the former, I guess I'm viewing it less through the historic perspective, and more through the perspective of a would-be physics major re: causality and time's arrow. Some things in observable reality are invariant, in terms of how we interact with them. The block of wood I mentioned earlier will always be hard and inedible. Sure, there's no way to ascertain what the "real" nature of the block of wood is. But if I don't assume some level of invariance somewhere, then I could end up... well... trying to eat a block of wood.

 

I could talk all day about how the block of wood is just my perceptions. But at the end of the day, I would not eat it.

 

The idea of reason (from the Enlightenment) is pretty thoroughly debunked. People are inherently subjective, based on their upbringing, location, bodily experiences, etc. Psychologists have shown that certain fallacies and cognitive biases seem to be hardwired into our brains, not to mention the fact that logic and emotion are in no way separable or antagonistic. Capitalism has shown repeatedly that often times individuals don't act in their best interest (prioritizing immediate consumption over future consumption, being risk averse, etc.), and even when they do we still get bad things (e.g. monopolies). The idea that certain people are less rational, and therefore deserve what's coming to them, is widely recognized as pretty messed up. Nevertheless, reason still has a lot of staying power.

 

Agreed on that much; though I'd point out that the cognitive studies showing this themselves owe something to the Enlightenment, and I'm honestly not sure what (if anything) that implies.

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The fact that humans are not wholly rational actors, and in fact really can't be, doesn't mean that rationality is pointless. It does mean that we have to be very careful when we're trying to act based on conclusions drawn from data because each step is something we're not inherently good at. We need robust systems for gathering accurate data, a careful way of drawing plausible conclusions from that data, and checks on whether the actions we decide to take actually do match the conclusions.

 

The scientific method helps with all of these, but it's not perfect. The political process is really lousy at it, and we suffer the consequences. That's a reflection on bad thinking, though, not the fact that thinking itself is bad.

 

—Alorael, who has not found emotions falsifiable. He knows what Popper would say to that: emotions aren't real! That's definitely how the doctrine of falsifiability goes.

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The idea that people are capable of thinking and acting at various levels of rationality isn't "debunked". I'm not even sure what you could mean by that. A clearer picture of the obstacles and common failures to behaving rationally is not a debunking of the concept of rational thought.

 

Again, I'm not talking about some vague, dehistoricized idea of rationality. I'm talking about the specific thesis of rationality (perhaps Rationality, to distinguish it) developed and forwarded by the Enlightenment, around the 1600's. Quite simply, they didn't know as much about the human brain as we do now, and so they developed some ideas that weren't quite accurate as a result.

 

There are, of course, people who want to get rid of even the most broad concepts of rationality, logic, ideas about causality, science. That's, I think, pretty different from Dada, and really different from most people's world views as a whole.

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Again, I'm not talking about some vague, dehistoricized idea of rationality. I'm talking about the specific thesis of rationality (perhaps Rationality, to distinguish it) developed and forwarded by the Enlightenment, around the 1600's. Quite simply, they didn't know as much about the human brain as we do now, and so they developed some ideas that weren't quite accurate as a result.

 

Ugh. My apologies then, I wasn't understanding you at all.

 

Edit: also sorry for the 'splaining above. I need to work on that.

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