High and Low Art (from the archive

If high art is essentially the refined the affirmation of the sacred, and low art is the unrefined affirmation of the sacred, profane art would not affirm the sacred or could even actively deny the sacred. This is seen in traditional cultures.

Does this imply a “universal” art and a universal sacred? Not necessarily. Each culture, each people tend to have their own version of the sacred---which can however show universal similarities. This is another argument in favor of ethnopluralism which best allows separate ethnic cultures to affirm their own ideas of the sacred.

This also allows cultures to exist in harmony with our existing human nature, which remains ethnocentric and group-selecting. Some sort of cooperative yet competitive federalism can then protect the whole.

Reason, the Senses, and the Super-Id (From the archive

Unlike Burke I don't think that a man left to his passions will necessarily be a savage beast. Even Nietzsche made the same mistake in seeing the instincts more as a Dionysian beast, but unlike Burke, Nietzsche did not want to mediate the beast with reason (which to Burke seems to have been morality). Nietzsche claimed to like the beast, which had no goal other than power itself.

I define and present a Super-Id as the the Spirit-Will-To-Godhood, and define Godhood as the material or supermaterial sacred goal of the Super-Id, the instincts combined, and the evolutionary goal of life itself. Godhood is the evolutionary zenith of intelligence, beauty, truth, goodness etc, and of course, is not a savage beast.

Reason and morality too often overcompensate or repress the creative imagination that comes from our senses (Burke's moral imagination), and also can obfuscate the data from our senses, which can become a Great Spiritual Blockade. I see reason more like the rider of a valiant steed called the Super-Id/Spirit-Will-To-Godhood, which the rider/reason can help harmonize with, or even guide, but the rider is not the steed itself---and the rider would be arrogant in thinking that he alone sets the sacred goal.

Re-imagining moral imagination (from the archive

 In theological materialism Godhood is transformed from the non-material to the material/supermaterial, and then re-imagined culturally in moral art (perhaps another version of Burke's “moral imagination”). God is not rejected but conservatively transformed: the God or Father Within of traditional religion is understood in the Twofold Path as a symbolic experience of the real Godhood reached through material and supermaterial evolution.

There is teleological purpose in the activation of the evolution of life, and not “mere” utility or strength. Basic causality is seen in the Will-To-Godhood which activates and virtually defines life. The teleological equation becomes utility (survival success of Darwin) plus strength (power) leads toward upward evolution (theological materialism). Both religion and science are transformed, and saved. Godhood is seen as the zenith of beauty, truth, goodness, power, etc. attained in material/supermaterial evolution.

The purpose of art is tied to the biological origin of social behavior which developed the moral imagination (from the archive)

If we deepen the term “moral imagination” by Burke and Kirk we arrive at the biological origin of social behavior, which includes the moral imagination, and that is where art philosophy begins.

Looking through the history of art and literature most people agree that the greatest art is an affirmation of what the people and the society hold sacred. For example, structures of architecture could be thought of as very large sculptures which display in their form what the people and the society hold sacred. If the architect and the society reject traditional values and morals, as modern architecture tends to do, then the architecture reflects that, which many people think makes ugly architecture and ugly art.

Thinking of great art as an affirmation of what the people and the society hold sacred, we can also see that what the people and the society hold sacred also tends to affirm real human nature. That is, tradition usually relates closely to the sociobiological definition of human nature as being kin-centered, gender defined, age-graded, heterosexual marriage-making, hierarchical, ethnocentric, even xenophobic, and religious-making, among other things, with group-selection as the primary unit of selection.

The purpose of art in the deep sense is tied to the biological origin of social behavior which developed the “permanent things” and the “moral imagination” of Burke and Kirk. That is how great art can arrive at the affirmation of a specific people, ethnic groups, cultures, and societies, which we see in different religious art and national art.

But all great art shares the same affirmation of what the people and the society hold sacred, and what is sacred is related to real human nature, the biological origin of social behavior, and the survival and reproductive drives.

Modern and postmodern art reflects ugliness, decadence, and degeneration because it spends most of its time both rejecting the affirmation of the sacred and attacking real human nature.

Science and reason move back to a realistic form of being-for-others in the sociobiological affirmation of the biological origin of social behavior, seen in genetically-derived social or group affirmation. And religion moves back to real altruism and bonding when Godhood is understood as evolved to in the material world. That is how universalism loses its utopianism in universal ethnostates. Indeed When Godhood is defined as the supreme life we evolve to in nature, then nature and human beings, and future species, become a vital part of the sacred path to Godhood, and the subject of art---the beings evolving to Godhood in nature are nearly as sacred in art as the Godhood they are evolving to.

How art and creativity validate conservative philosophy (from the archive)

Is high art refined low art/folk art, or is low art simplified high art? High art seems to be a superstructure built over the structure of folk art.

What we appear to do is assimilate the new, the unfamiliar, with the old material of our experience, this seems to be where creativity comes from, new patterns formed between old material and new material.

We don't see something in the outer world and declare that new thing alone as a new thing, it has to first harmonize and adapt with our inner world.

Was there a time when high and low art were one art? When did they become unconnected? Natural hierarchies form and develop their own values. And also the homogenizing and globalization of human cultures had something to do with these changes.

Even the Church did this sort of thing when they built the pagan values of wisdom, courage, temperance and justice on to the Christian virtues of faith, hope, charity and love.

I suppose in ideal cultures both high and low art exist, with low art as a less refined version of high art, which makes for a more harmonizing, assimilating culture of various classes of people who generally affirm the same values.

This natural dynamic of assimilating the new, the unfamiliar, with the old material of our experience, validates the conservative philosophy in creativity.

Defending an always evolving aristocracy (from the archive)

 It is usually not said that aristocracy does not depend on wealth or civilized taste alone but also on genetic qualities. Good genetic qualities lead to intelligence etc. which in turn can lead to a financial aristocracy, but then education and civilization are required to make a real aristocracy.

Although I am more or less a populist on the right believing in localism, and the separation of powers, states, and people, I can't be against the inequality of wealth, the level of civilization, or genetic qualities, I am not a socialist or Marxist. But the genetic lag between people and cultures, which is one of the main causes of problems between people and cultures, can in fact be addressed with humane genetic and eugenic actions for all who desire it.

But the goal is not merely to develop a wealthy and civilized human evolving aristocracy, but to continue evolving on earth and out into the cosmos toward Godhood, which is defined as the highest material and supermaterial aristocracy, the highest beauty, truth, goodness, consciousness and intelligence. This evolution toward Godhood defines the sacred goal of life.

As to “heroes of the mind,” they need to be linked to the evolution of life, human life, and to the evolution of higher species on the path to Godhood. That is the first supposition of human history and the most worthy goal of religion, philosophy, art and politics. It all starts from this natural basis. Compare this goal to the consciousness, thoughts, and conceptions of modern intellectuals.

As I have suggested here before regarding high art, we drifted away from didactic and moral art as we became more literate, but as evolutionary psychologists have pointed out, story-telling had survival benefits in the Pleistocene, and it still does, when we relate beauty to real biological life, evolution, and religion. There is no need to use a hammer to didactically or morally inspire in art, past aristocracies have shown us that art is usually best when it is subtle. The idea of Godhood attained in future evolution has sacred artistic and religious value, but it also has survival and reproductive value. And great art has always affirmed the sacred.

Theological materialism defines human evolution toward Godhood as aesthetically evolving toward the beautiful, religiously the good, and philosophically and scientifically the true

The synthesis of theological materialism defines human evolution toward Godhood as aesthetically evolving toward the beautiful, religiously the good, and philosophically and scientifically the true.

Nature can be defined as divine, not demonic, without the fiction of spirituality when we can see that nature only looks like an endless war of all against all for success in survival and reproduction and nothing more, until we affirm that we are also aided in evolution by an inward, purely physical activation to materially evolve toward ascending levels of life all the way to Godhood, which works along with the shaping of outside evolution and selection. “Evolution moves inevitably in a pattern, even though it has its random elements, and the pattern has a discernible direction, in spite of instances of stagnation and retreat, toward higher and higher more effective living forms.” (Cattell)

Materially evolving toward ascending levels of Godhood is how we can define nature as divine not demonic and how we can see beyond the idea of morality in nature having no other demonstrable ultimate function than, as Edward O. Wilson put it, being a circuitous technique by which human genetic material has been and will be kept intact. We are materially evolving toward Gods and we should help it along the way. Qualities such as intelligence, emotional stability, conscience (altruism), good health, good sensory organs, longevity, these are some of the aims of eugenics, and these things reach their highest quality, or their zenith, as evolution moves toward Godhood, which is aesthetically the beautiful, religiously the good, and philosophically and scientifically the true.

The dangerous mistake libertarians make regarding individualism and altruism and accepting the old in the new (from the archive

 I had been thinking about how conservatism needs to be added to poetry, art and music when we speak of “making things new” over time, the old included with the new, when I watched an interview with Glenn Greenwald, the gay reporter and promoter of the NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden. It occurred to me that there is a connection here with the philosophical (and now scientific) mistake libertarians make regarding individualism and altruism.

E. O. Wilson the great innovator in sociobiology, has recently affirmed group-selection as the primary unit of selection. This does not mean that kin-selection and individual selection are not important, but our basic survival affirms group-selection first, which is embedded in human nature.

What is missing or deemphasized by individualism is the biological foundation of altruism at the base of social behavior and at the foundation of morality itself. Some libertarians even admit the natural pull of group morality but then tend to see this as something innovative people need to fight against. They are in good company, even Nietzsche made this mistake.

That way of thinking is too easily applied to anti-social hedonism, which easily walks through the open door of individualism, where anti-social deviations and even criminal behavior justify themselves by alluding to the sacredness of individualism.

But conservatism also needs to find better ways of making things new. I am not talking about progressivism, I'm talking about having a way within the system for innovators and whistle-blowers to make the old new. Otherwise we lose creativity and we stagnate, and stagnation is not conservative. But innovators and whistle-blowers also need to acknowledge the vital importance of altruism and group morality, even above individual morality.

Personally, I empathize with the problems of innovators, I have been developing a new religious philosophy, which includes the old in the new, and I am an outsider. But I am a patriotic and conservative outsider refusing to affirm anti-social or radical revolution. I think it is vital to be able to tell the difference between social and antisocial innovations, which is of course not always easy. Social psychology, psychometrics, has been developing ways, tests, etc. (see Cattell) to help us do this.

Thoughts on the natural instinct toward religion and art ­(from the archive)

If the “classical” can be seen as not only ideal but scientific, relating to evolving material objects, and if the “romantic” can be seen as aesthetic and holistic, then theological materialism leans in the direction of the classical world, but it soars toward the romantic beauty of life evolving toward Godhood.

Romanticism was, among other things, a revolt against the constraining rationalism of the scientific Enlightenment, but then romanticism constrained rationalism too much, which was understandable because science tends to think something does not exist until it is proven to exist.

But we seem to need it all, intuition, religion, reason, science, art, because the truth and reality are found somewhere in the mix of these fields. We seem to have an instinct or a need to know what goodness, truth and beauty are, but more than to know, we need to experience these things, somehow physically.

With this instinct we create worldviews that affirm goodness, truth and beauty, and we want them to be real, we believe they are real. Why do we do this? Why do we need this? We seem to sense instinctively that the goal of our life goes beyond what we are. It is then that we begin to see the goal of our instincts as leading to Godhood, which also defines for us the zenith of goodness, truth and beauty, which we seem to both mentally and physically desire---this is seen in our preferences for beautiful people, places and things. We bring this romantic vision back to classical physical reality, back to nature, when Godhood is understood also as supreme success in natural survival.

We create a religious/philosophical narrative as a system of images and ideas useful in our instinctive transformation toward Godhood, that is, the sacred narrative of our material/supermaterial evolution to Godhood. It is a transformation away from the nihilism and hedonism of the secular age, but this time it is a naturalistic sacred narrative, related to the successful survival of life and beauty, not merely as an opiate of the people. It is real.

This religious narrative, or instinct, satisfies our natural instinct toward religion and art, and what seems to be an inborn, and sacred, desire to know and experience, goodness, truth, beauty and Godhood.

Pretentiousness, sublimation, and higher civilization (from the archive)

I have never liked sliding away from the truth in mannerisms, speech and gestures, pretentiousness, phoniness, it always seems somehow weaker... And yet, and yet, I understand that we must sublimate aggression and even the sex drive if we want higher civilization--- those people who cannot sublimate, often remain primitive, violent, and live short lives. We need to evolve far beyond the beast and this often seems to require more than the straight talk and the real behavior that we prefer.

It seems to me that unpretentious people are stronger than pretentious people, just in face to face connections, but it also seems to be true that often unpretentious people are less successful than pretentious people. Pretentious people perhaps have a larger variety of behaviors, roles that they can play, in a complicated society, they sublimate the aggressive instincts. Some just may be inauthentic or bad actors, and pretentiousness seems to be stronger with the striving middle class and less so in the more aristocratic classes. But the skilled worker on weekends with his dogs and his gun acts not unlike the lord of the estate with his dogs and his gun. Also there is no doubt that genetic connections are involved in the ability to sublimate the instincts (see Raymond Cattell's "Beyondism".)

If we let mammalian drives, instincts (ergs), go as they go without sublimation we may end up not moving beyond the primitive level of communication, which may be okay for some roles but not for most roles in higher civilization. We don't want to create opposition between the instincts and intelligence, nevertheless some instincts need to be checked and sublimated, not blocked---sex and aggression are certainly sublimated in the higher religious and aesthetic pursuits...This all adds up to the natural often conflicted behavior of human beings.

That being said, we don't want to move too far away from basic real human nature, and we may not even be able to do so successfully, which includes such good things as kin selection, marriage-making, religious-making, among other things, with group-selection, even ethnocentrism, as the primary unit of selection. I consider the material spirit or will, which activates within material life like a Super-Id, as the zenith of all these instincts, it is leading us to evolve in the material world toward Godhood, shaped by the outside forces of evolution and selection. That is one instinct that is already sublime in its unpretentious primitive state.

The celebration of garbage with no good guys allowed (from the archive)

The morals and values of our Western culture did not depend solely on Christian values, before religion was even created or consulted real human nature related well to traditional religion in being kin-centered, gender defined, age-grading, heterosexual marriage-making, hierarchical, ethnocentric, even xenophobic, among other things, with group-selection as the primary unit of selection.

Not that long ago characters in the entertainment media could be bad, but we wanted well drawn believable bad characters to show us how well drawn good characters were superior. Not any more. Now it's strait decadence and decay for the sake of decadence and decay. Reviewer's now actually criticize characters for being “hemmed in” by invisible moral boundaries, amoral protagonists are celebrated for boldly breaking all the ethical rules.

Some of this celebration of garbage has to do with the lack of courage of nerdy writers to go against fashionable trends, and some may come from a direct desire to destroy traditional morals, but most of it comes for the cultural Marxism (political correctness) taught throughout our college and university systems which allows no moral judgments, other than being against those who make any moral judgments.

The entertainment media is far more powerful and influential in a negative way than many of us thought it could be. Whether this means breaking up the media monopolies or building up our own media along side their monstrous media, remains to be seen. Meanwhile we sink further into the garbage, and no good guys are allowed. How can we change things! I am an American patriot and I don't advocate fascism, but it is becoming easier to understand how the fascists of the last century could scream in frustration over the destructive media in their societies.

Modern art as attack more than art (from the archive)

Art and Sexual Selection

Art seems to have grown out of sexual selection, if so, then women should be better at discerning art, because they have needed to be acute in judging the authenticity of men, since they pay a heavier price with the long-term care of babies if they judge wrong. But the desire of men to impress women might help explain, at least unconsciously, why their are more top men artists and male art critics than women. Homosexuals in the arts, at least in these times, might also explain some of the disparities in the sexual selection-discernment hypothesis.

This gets confusing when we consider the stereotypical common man who says he hasn't a clue as to what color goes with what, especially since men are trying to impress women in sexual selection and should therefore care about the way they look. Perhaps women give central importance to the money or position a man has, at least beyond the teen years, and they just kind of overlook his lack of color harmonizing.

In any case, this connection with sexual selection is probably the way to study art origins (see Dutton's “The Art Instinct) ), which gets us away from the absurd and phony abstractions that define postmodern art. High art (low art too) can then be seen sociobiologically as an affirmation of what the group holds sacred, since the group is the main unit of selection over the long term. 

Modern art as attack more than art

Atonal music actively attacked tonal music, otherwise tones would have now and then occurred, Schoenberg had to consciously avoid tones, as Dutton pointed out. But modern art in general does this too, actively attacking realism, meaning and order, as if to destroy it. Why? Why the anger? Why the desire to destroy? And they were triumphant! They conquered the art world!

People have not, by and large, to this day accepted contratonal music or modern/postmodern art, in spite of its strong promotion, and in spite of the taunts that people are just too lazy to appreciate it. The human mind is not infinitely malleable, not a blank slate. People prefer meaning, order, which are evolutionary traits developed in the minds of our Paleolithic ancestors, mainly because this strengthened social health and helped us survive. Individual artists also used art in the game of sexual selection. Real art throughout human history grew out of these dynamics and out of this human nature.

This says to me that atonal music and modern art were not really a legitimate development in art history but were mainly an attack on the order and meaning of Western culture, more like an abortion, as someone once called it. Who did the attacking, and why? This needs to be brought out more. Was there a pattern?  Names, groups, need to be named. I know years ago Tom Wolfe did a great job in “The Painted Word” exposing the sham of modern art, but more needs to be done, as we try to exhume the meaning of real art from the old battlefield.

Biological signaling and art theory (from the archive)

Theories on art from evolutionary psychology tend to take the arrogance and humbug out of philosophies of art. For example, art is seen as an extension of sexual selection, which itself is an extension of the more practical and efficient natural selection. Denis Dutton has done excellent work in examining, with very clear writing, the origin of art. These studies got me thinking about how to distinguish individual-selection and group-selection in art, which has not been much written about.

Individualistic art can be seen as the personal ornament of the individual artist, which supposedly displays the intelligence, skill, and great leisure and richness of the artist, as a signal of the fitness of the artist, especially (and originally) in the mating game (think of Picasso). Whereas art created for the group can signal the fitness and power of the group (think of elaborate religious art), which can then reward the individual artists for their great affirmations of the group, and more importantly enhance the group in competition with other groups.

We might then say that since group-selection is the central unit of selection in humans, as E. O. Wilson has recently affirmed, group-selection would define and create the higher art. History seems to show this as true with the greatest art usually defined as art that affirms what the group holds most sacred. 

This kind of explanation brings art theory back to biology, back to life, and forward to the extension and evolution of life---we can then better see the wild abstractions of art philosophy through the ages for what they were, often empty signaling on the part of individual philosophers or artists.  We are looking for truth and reality regarding art, which is perhaps is our form of signaling.

Evolutionary Realism and the Godhood Goal (from the archive)

A mixing of realism and idealism defines the classical arts, according to Gail Leggio. I think evolutionary realism best describes the arts involved in our sacred evolution toward Godhood. Evolutionary realism brings art philosophy back to the living object, the natural world, but also extends it out into the future toward our evolution to ascending levels of Godhood.

What we consider “beautiful” tends to have evolved in the Pleistocene through natural selection and sexual selection, and we retain it today. We can build on this, on what we are, since it doesn’t work well to reject human nature. We can build on instinctive feelings and empirical ideas of what is true, beautiful and good, with the goal of evolving to the zenith of these things, which is Godhood.

We are aided in this direction by the inward, purely physical, activation of the Will-To-Godhood, or Tirips, which seeks Godhood by materially activating life to evolve toward Godhood, working along with the shaping of outside evolution and selection. But even without acknowledging this inward purpose, evolution has been moving toward more efficient forms, more complexity, with occasional stops and side-turnings along the way.

Morality does not have to be a counter-movement opposing nature's endeavors to arrive at a higher type, which was Nietzsche's view. But devolution can and does take place with various negative or down-going kinds of morality, the kind of morality that says this material world is not good. Godhood is not only the zenith of truth, beauty and goodness, it is the zenith of successful survival and reproduction. Science and religion can meet here.

The problem is in how the beast is civilized (from the archive)

Nietzsche didn't want to “tame” man with morality, but rejecting morality is a form of taming man, and this is Nietzsche's form of “improvement” which he otherwise condemns in priests. Nietzsche's preferred “immorality” mostly applies to individuals, especial genius individuals, it overlooks natural group selection, which is the prime unit of selection, and group selection requires group morality and the natural “taming” of man.

The problem is in how the beast is civilized. Rousseau and Thomas Paine saw primitive and natural man as a wild, free, and innocent, individual, as if group morality were not just as primitive and naturally evolved over the tens of thousands of years when man became man. Edmund Burke had a better grasp of the naturalness of group behavior (before sociobiology) and the civilization that naturally grows up around it.

Our instincts, passions and reason can be enlisted in service to our higher evolution, and higher evolution does not merely “tame” us, it makes us healthier as we move toward the zenith of truth, goodness and beauty, or Godhood. As with artists, geniuses in various fields can be as free as they need to be during the creation of their work, (they probably actually need to be free during the creation process), but then it is most natural for their work to be judged by the cultural needs of the group or by group morality, which is more impotant than individual morality.

 
What happened when the Nietzschean geniuses of modern art (or philosophy for that matter) had no group or social concerns? By any sane standards we received mostly garbage. For example, with psychometrics today we can almost easily distinguish the social geniuses from the anti-social criminal geniuses, and our grants and work awards to individuals would follow after this lead---but always leaving room for those few who fall between the psychometric cracks.

The simple art values of future evolution (from the archive)

High intelligence can better deal with the world and its possibilities and give us better ways of responding to life and evolution. But high intelligence needs good character as well, we need to have that intersection between the emotional parts of the brain and the abstract parts, non-feeling geniuses are not what we need. Courage is also needed so that intelligence can venture out toward new solutions, in new or old territories. And good health helps define beauty, which completes the combo. We should not be seduced into putting all our evolutionary hopes into intelligent machines (singularity) which can be a sly way of avoiding human evolution and its problems.

And we can't forget the importance of artists who can be geniuses at working with emotional responses to life in their art. But antisocial art needs to be distinguished from socially redeeming art, as Cattell pointed out, which seems like common sense but is not much considered in the suicidal modern art world. I'm not talking about a Platonic total control of art, socially redeeming art need not stunt creativity, on the contrary, it provides order to the total freedom of art creation.  For example, emotions connected to art can underline and interpret the emotions implicit in our evolution toward Godhood.

The arguments against choosing these evolutionary values seem increasingly selfish and short-sighted. These are simple conservative values---although perhaps not so simply attained---within an Ordered Evolution toward the zenith of intelligence, noble character, courage, and beauty, which helps define ascending levels of real Godhood.

How art can imitate and expand life (from the archive)

 Is “existence suspended,” in the experience of beauty, and do we become “detached” from immediate desires, is “disinterestedness” the central idea, all of which Kant suggests regarding art?

There is adaptive value to beauty which can be see n in both art and religion. One of the primary attributes of Godhood in theological materialism is to attain the zenith of beauty, along with the zenith of intelligence and the zenith of noble character. These higher values are here understood as evolved to in material and supermaterial evolution, which is where their adaptive value resides.

Contrary to Kant the “imaginative experience” of art is not detached from real biological life, it intensities, enhances, and expands life. Works of art do happen in the mind but they are not removed from biological drives and instincts. The fiction-drive relates to the beauty-instinct in the biological ways of desire. Beauty in human beings is related to good health and good health has survival and reproductive value.

Only when we trans-value and remove the definition of God from material and supermaterial life do we define beauty in art as suspended from life, after which art can only be seen in disinterestedness, which it is to many gurus. When Godhood is seen as a non-material, spiritual-only construction in the mind or soul, that is when art and religion depart from the real world.

We drifted away from didactic and moral art as we became more literate, but as evolutionary psychologists point out, story-telling had survival benefits in the Pleistocene. It still does, when we relate beauty to real biological life, evolution, and religion. There is no need to use a hammer to didactically or morally inspire us, art is usually best when it is subtle. Imagining Godhood attained in future material and supermaterial evolution has religious and artistic value, but it also has survival and reproductive value.

Art and Identity (from the archive)

Art may not always be created to affirm the identity of the culture the artist lives within, but in art history the best art did this. It's true that Shakespeare was interested in theatrical entertainment, but he was also affirming Elizabethan culture. Great art affirms the sacred elements within the culture, and low art does this too in a less sophisticated way, or art used to do this, before globalism and internationalism made people and cultures less isolated.

It is mainly that old cultural Marxism behind the modern Western denial of differences in people and the rejection of any biological or ethnic connection with the creation of cultures, even as it demands no comparison with “evil' Western culture in the art of non-Western people, which contradicts the idea of there being no differences between people. This leads to a jumble of art, at least in the West, with no discernible cultural identity and it certainly does not reflect what is sacred in the culture---modern art reflects the chaos of the relativity of modern culture, and that is not even art.

Modern art philosophers want to leave biology out of art philosophy (and everything else) and say that culture alone creates the differences in identities. Art is a universal instinct and contains many of the same elements in all cultures, even so, the genetic traits of the artist, and his ethnic group, affect the kind of art the artist creates.

Every person and every culture at least unconsciously seems to want to claim what works for them to be good for everyone---this is the natural will to power working.  The way to deal with it is not to deny it, or call it evil ethnocentrism, but to allow the natural separations of people and cultures, where each people can affirm their own people, culture, and art.  This is what developed the best art overall in human history.

Why Evolutionary Realism in Art (from the archive)

Art is an imitation of some sort, as Aristotle thought, but more importantly art values the thing represented, the content of the thing represented. For example, great art is often an affirmation of the sacred as defined by the culture. In traditional or classical art, low art it usually a less sophisticated version of high art. In modern times most art is minor or low art which usually negates or denies the sacred.

Realism remains the best way to affirm the sacred, but then Evolutionary Realism takes into account change within the Ordered Evolution of life, which is the authentic conservative perspective. Unrealistic art can of course affirm the sacred but it is less suited to reaching the people and the culture with its message.

Hume thought the principles of taste are generally uniform in human nature but human nature is capable of corruption, systematic mistakes, and ethnic differences (for more on this see the excellent "The Art Instinct" by David Dutton). Without real human nature judgments on art would collapse into personal preferences---interesting that postmodernism has rejected human nature and rejected essences and therefore promotes a complete relativity in taste.

Life never ceases to evolve toward ascending levels of Godhood, with stops and starts along the way, and Evolutionary Realism seems best suited to affirm this sacred mission in art and culture.

Giving new life to pursuing the higher goals of great philosophy and literature

 What if the pursuit of an understanding of the spirit as the higher task of philosophy and literature finds that there is no non-material spirit but there is a sacred material activation to evolve to ascending levels of Godhood in the material and supermaterial world? What does that do to conservative philosophy and literature? It keeps philosophy and literature ultimately centered on the higher goals which great philosophy and literature should examine but life is freed from the great spiritual blockade and allowed to get on with the vital business of evolving to ascending levels Godhood in the material and supermaterial world---this time with the help of synthesizing with the material sciences. That is what the philosophy of theological materialism offers.