tailieunhanh - SUSAN SONTAG THE AESTHETICS OF SILENCE

Schneider defines his terms rather differently from how they are defined here. He defines ‘art’ as ‘man-made beauty’, but recognizes that what the Pokot themselves find beautiful should not be assumed by the analyst but has to be discovered. To do this, he analyses the meaning and use of the Pokot term pachigh, which his interpreter variously translated as ‘beautiful’, ‘pretty’, ‘pleasant to look at’, and ‘unusual’. Pachigh is distinguished from karam, which means ‘good’, and which Schneider glosses as ‘utilitarian’ | SUSAN SONTAG THE AESTHETICS OF SILENCE I Every era has to reinvent the project of spirituality for itself. Spirituality plans terminologies ideas of deportment aimed at the resolution of painful structural contradictions inherent in the human situation at the completion of human consciousness at transcendence. In the modern era one of the most active metaphors for the spiritual project is art. The activities of the painter the musician the poet the dancer et al once they were grouped together under that generic name a relatively recent move have proved to be a peculiarly adaptable site on which to stage the formal dramas besetting consciousness each individual work of art being a more or less astute paradigm for regulating or reconciling these contradictions. Of course the site needs continual refurbishing. Whatever goal is set for art eventually proves restrictive matched against the widest goals of consciousness. Art itself a form of mystification endures a succession of crises of demystification older artistic goals are assailed and ostensibly replaced outgrown maps of consciousness are redrawn. But what supplies all these crises with their energy an energy held in common so to speak is the very unification of numerous quite disparate activities into a single genus. At the moment at which art comes into being the modern period of art begins. From then forward any of the activities therein subsumed becomes a profoundly problematic activity each of whose procedures and ultimately whose very right to exist can be called into question. Following on the promotion of the arts into art comes the leading myth about art that of the absoluteness of the artist s activity. In its first more unreflective version this myth considered art as an expression of human consciousness consciousness seeking to know itself. The critical principles generated by this myth were fairly easily arrived at some expressions were more complete more ennobling more informative richer than others.