Some notes on "modernism: The lure of Heresy" by Peter Gay
Two major components of modernism: the commitment to confronting conventional sensibilities (Gay labels this, "the lure of heresy) and a principled self scrutiny (p. 3-4).
Heresy--opinion profoundly at odds with convention
Modernism required certain preconditions:
a rise in economic prosperity
a rise in the status of the artist to the "equal" or "better than" the bourgeois
science began to challenge the dogma of traditional religions
In 1859 Baudelaire was positing the combination of subjective and objective necessary for art--the piece of art is sublime only in its viewing (what was happening in Physics in 1859? Seems to be directly related to Pauli. . .)
Simultaneously was the cry, "Art for Art's Sake" which seems to contradict B's subjective/objective combination. Art for Art's Sake seems to suggest that something objective could be created that exists on its own, outside of culture (the subjective). This may not have been the intent of the saying, which seemed to be more of a "our art does not have to have an intention beyond beauty" but such a belief depends on the notion that art can exist outside of the viewer, which is impossible. Perhaps what was more important about this saying was how it freed the artist from the burden of somehow creating art intended to ensure a moral universe and allowed him/her to create for "some other reason", whatever that reason would be or even if that reason were unknown.
What was once found to be profound and true was, in fact, superficial and false (to paraphrase Oscar Wilde). Seems like a very accurate statement of much of modernism's intent: to expose these conventional sensibilities as the trite, narrow, false and unsatisfying travesties that they were.
It's fascinating how important the understanding of subjectivity and objectivity are, apparently, in almost all disciplines. I wouldn't have guessed that about physics (is it the same in theoretical math?). The novel, of course, takes as its focus (in most cases) subjectivity: how we see ourselves and other, what we see when and if we see, if we see, how the reader "sees", who is seen. Our difficulty, as humans, in attempting to separate ourselves from that which we "see" is really the object of much study and thought, a central human question.
Can subjective experience be simply reduced to neurons firing as Rosenberg says in the Atheist's guide to reality? How does it make sense to "analyze" subjectivity within the neurological framework? Are we asking why/how my subjectivity is different from yours? Are we sharing neurological experiences when we share our subjective experience of something? Ironically, it may be that our subjectivity cannot be shared, not with others and not with ourselves. In the very process of sharing, the subject changes.
Woolf's thoughts on modernism in Mrs Bennet and Mr. Brown
Heresy--opinion profoundly at odds with convention
Modernism required certain preconditions:
a rise in economic prosperity
a rise in the status of the artist to the "equal" or "better than" the bourgeois
science began to challenge the dogma of traditional religions
In 1859 Baudelaire was positing the combination of subjective and objective necessary for art--the piece of art is sublime only in its viewing (what was happening in Physics in 1859? Seems to be directly related to Pauli. . .)
Simultaneously was the cry, "Art for Art's Sake" which seems to contradict B's subjective/objective combination. Art for Art's Sake seems to suggest that something objective could be created that exists on its own, outside of culture (the subjective). This may not have been the intent of the saying, which seemed to be more of a "our art does not have to have an intention beyond beauty" but such a belief depends on the notion that art can exist outside of the viewer, which is impossible. Perhaps what was more important about this saying was how it freed the artist from the burden of somehow creating art intended to ensure a moral universe and allowed him/her to create for "some other reason", whatever that reason would be or even if that reason were unknown.
What was once found to be profound and true was, in fact, superficial and false (to paraphrase Oscar Wilde). Seems like a very accurate statement of much of modernism's intent: to expose these conventional sensibilities as the trite, narrow, false and unsatisfying travesties that they were.
It's fascinating how important the understanding of subjectivity and objectivity are, apparently, in almost all disciplines. I wouldn't have guessed that about physics (is it the same in theoretical math?). The novel, of course, takes as its focus (in most cases) subjectivity: how we see ourselves and other, what we see when and if we see, if we see, how the reader "sees", who is seen. Our difficulty, as humans, in attempting to separate ourselves from that which we "see" is really the object of much study and thought, a central human question.
Can subjective experience be simply reduced to neurons firing as Rosenberg says in the Atheist's guide to reality? How does it make sense to "analyze" subjectivity within the neurological framework? Are we asking why/how my subjectivity is different from yours? Are we sharing neurological experiences when we share our subjective experience of something? Ironically, it may be that our subjectivity cannot be shared, not with others and not with ourselves. In the very process of sharing, the subject changes.
Woolf's thoughts on modernism in Mrs Bennet and Mr. Brown
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