The Communists of the 1930s and '40s decreed that "art is a weapon," bludgeoning any artist who dared utter the anathema "art for art's sake." An evil undergraduate from Yale University has taken the Communist slogan "art is a weapon" more literally than anyone thus far. From today's edition of the Yale Daily News: "Beginning next Tuesday, [art major Aliza] Shvarts will be displaying her senior art project, a documentation of a nine-month process during which she artificially inseminated herself 'as often as possible' while periodically taking abortifacient drugs to induce miscarriages. Her exhibition will feature video recordings of these forced miscarriages as well as preserved collections of the blood from the process." As Tom Piatak notes on TakiMag, "Although Ms. Shvarts' view of art would have puzzled such as Michelangelo and Raphael, her thoughts are in line with those who defended taxpayer funding of such stellar examples of contemporary 'art' as 'Piss Christ' and the photographs of Robert Mapplethorpe."

UPDATE: Yale says this story is a hoax. It may be, but I don't see why Yale, which has a vested interest here, declaring it a hoax makes it so. I would like the "artist," who apparently has been ducking media inquiries after initially soliciting them, to come out and say it is a hoax rather than a university, whose reputation and donations stand to suffer, declare it. In other words, when the Marlboro Man says cigarettes are healthier than apples skepticism is the right response. When Yale says its students don't have abortions for class credit, after one of its students claimed just that, it's appropriate to check with the student, too.

I'd like to say, "I hope she burns in Hell." But I shouldn't. So, I hope she repents and finds redemption.

Not that we need to be reminded, but there are some TRULY a lot of f'ed up people out there. And with our society's abuse of its freedoms, which seem to repress common sense and good taste, more of them are coming out of the woodwork.

What a remarkably evil young lady.

Hmmmm, artificially inseminated, does that mean theres no real men at this University? Or is she a homo? I say yes to both.

There is some suggestion on the blogosphere that this is a hoax. There doesn't seem to be an evidentiary rationale for this, with commentators merely pointing out that this seems too crazy to be true and questioning what professor would okay such a project. If actual evidence is forthcoming that this is a hoax, I will post it and welcome the good news.

Seriously sick, even to come up w/ it as a hoax if it is (hopefully) that.

In the hopes of starting a big FlynnFiles philosophical debate though, I would argue that the motto
"art for arts sake" is at least correlative, if not in fact foundational, to the Communist justification of art: "art is a weapon."

What you refer to as a motto fitting for a non-political conception of art is really a claim that art has no naturally given telos or end (essential purpose). It is the claim of modern art that art is justified *by itself* and not by considerations "outside" of the "art" itself.

Far from being a preferable reason or justificatiion for a work of art, "art for art's sake" is simply a way of disallowing objective judgments of what is and isn't art. This may seem to be a way to distinguish communist from "non-political" art, but really it doesn't make much of a distinction at all.

"Art is a weapon" meant that true art had to have some political effect, i.e., the party-line political effect. "Art for art's sake" meant that art should be judged on its esthetic rather than political value. Yes, good art needn't always serve as a prop for, or even address, your values. Like the Marxist-style Communists, Herbert Marcuse condemned "art for art's sake" as pseudo-art--a classic reversal. I think one has to look at this debate in its context, which led to such insanity as the New Masses condemning Lillian Hellman's anti-Nazi "Watch on the Rhine" in the theater as propaganda during the Nazi-Soviet Pact and then praising it as a flim when the Nazis and Soviets were again enemies.

It is also important to recognize that even if these terms are no longer used, many people, particularly in Hollywood, still fight this fight. Why do you think such a low-rent propaganda novel as Upton Sinclair's "Oil!" gets made into an Oscar-nominated film that included some of tinseltown's best talents? "There Will Be Blood," with its seething contempt for capitalism and Christianity, and caricature characters, is "art as a weapon."

I don't think one has to be a closet commie to disagree with me on this, as many conservatives I know confuse their artistic preferences with their political preferences. I think "art for art's sake" is saying that art is an end in itself. This is not to say that art can't be political, ideological, or religious. It's just to say it needn't be.

The music I listen to, the movies I watch, the novels I read generally aren't made by people who share my political views. Politics is politicized enough. Let's not politicize everything else too.

Must we, then, supervise only the poets and compel them to impress the image of the good disposition on their poems or not to make them among us? Or must we also supervise the other craftsmen and prevent them from impressing this bad disposition, a licentious, illiberal, and graceless one, either on images of animals or on houses or on anything else that their craft produces? And the incapable craftsman we mustn't permit to practice his craft among us, so that our guardians won't be reared on images of vice, as it were on bad grass, every day cropping and grazing on a great deal little by little from many places, and unawares put together some one big bad thing in their soul? Mustn't we, rather, look for those craftsmen whose good natural endowments make them able to track down the nature of what is fine and graceful, so that the young, dwelling as it were in a healthy place, will be benefited by everything; and from that place something of the fine works will strike their vision of their hearing, like a breeze bringing health from good places; and beginning in childhood, it will, without their awareness, with the fair speech lead them to likeness and friendship as well as accord?

Bruce: I think that we can say "art for art's sake" just as much as we can say "philosophy for philosophy's sake." That is, if art is (like philosophy) _essentially_ a way of manifesting truth about what is, then we can say it is for its own sake without denying that it has a telos. It is just an internal end (a being-at-work) rather than an external end (function). I don't think your complaint is ungrounded (much bas art is defended by denying its relation to the telos with the slogan "art for art's sake"), but the objection is, I think, properly directed to a misunderstanding of the expression, and not its essence.

(Plato's) Socrates: I don't like politicized art; I especially don't like immoralism parading as art; but I also don't think art is merely for the purpose of moralism.

I'm OK with "art for art's sake," but of course it's an "F" for Ms. Shvarts. (Will the grade she receives for such a well-publicized project be revealed? No--but wouldn't you like to know?)

On the hoax angle: is there an OB-GYN out there who can dispute the logistics of her "project"? A body has its limits, and seriously, her show seems quite easily a fraud, or at least unverifiable. But I guess that's beside her point, whether or not she's for real.

I think that we can say "art for art's sake" just as much as we can say "philosophy for philosophy's sake." That is, if art is (like philosophy) essentially a way of manifesting truth about what is, then we can say it is for its own sake without denying that it has a telos.

Except that art is 'production', and not 'contemplation'. The excellence of that part of man which is concerned with art requires participation in a community. Whereas, the excellence of that (different and better) part of man which is concerned with philosophy does not. Thus, art and philosophy are not comparable; the latter is an end in itself, the former is not.

Interesting take and update on this at World on the Web, here.

Ralph: making a work of art is production, but so is writing a philosophy book. The activity of putting the art to work is not production, but rather, I think, contemplative. And both, I think, are made easier with friends.

Xantippe,

You propose that "art is (like philosophy) _essentially_ a way of manifesting truth about what is, then we can say it is for its own sake without denying that it has a telos. It is just an internal end (a being-at-work) rather than an external end (function)."

First, I have to think about whether we can speak of the "essence" of a thing w/o involving ouselves in the telos of it as well. That is I understand that essence does not equal telos but I don't follow why you seem to be suggesting that their distinctness justifies the use of "art for arts sake" since this phrase is making a specific claim about art's telos that I am saying is incorrect. My claim is that art is either for man's sake or it is for God's sake, that is, it either edifies or awe-inspires, if it is "good" art, or really just if it qualifies to be called "art."

Second, I assume you think that art is the only thing other than philsophy that can make the claim to being "_essentially_ a way of manifesting truth about what is" (unless you might add theology in). But it seems to me that this claim could be made of many other human pursuits distinct from philosophy. We can say that about science, math, history-writing, surveying, and so forth. Basically, is it informative to talk about "essences" of distinct things as being the same? That makes me wonder if we have pinned down an essence or not here.

Dan,

You are definitely right about the political fights ovr art between communists and other modernists. My point is that the slogan "art for arts sake" is the slogan of modern rt and you describe it correctly as being a claim that art is judged by its own lights, or on aesthetic grounds, not an extra-artistic ground such as political utility.

But this historically is a fight w/in modernism and so is one that I reject to from both camps, the commies and the "aesthetes." It was the modernists in the mid to late 19th century who started the motto of art for arts sake as a means of defying artistic conventions of naturalism, realism, and expressing beauty. This cultural change (revolution actually) was imo a precursor and necessary one for the political revolutions of the 20th century (both from commies and fascists).

The moderns started the fight against a rational understanding of art. That they would later get persecuted by those who decided to take that one step further isn't so shocking. Revolutionaries often cause a Thermidor.

Tippe,

Making a work of art is production, but so is writing a philosophy book.

I wonder whether there's some equivocation with 'making' here. Is, for example, 'making' of an argument also a production? Certainly, what a publisher of philosophical texts does is production. But the activity of writing a text a philosopher is not (it seems to me).

The activity of putting the art to work is not production, but rather, I think, contemplative.

By 'putting it to work,' are you talking about the effect that it has (or is supposed to have) on the person who views it? Is the effect 'theoretical'? Could it be theoretical? I don't think so, but I'm willing to be convinced otherwise.

And both, I think, are made easier with friends.

Agreed. But the activity of contemplation is self-sufficient. It can be done alone. Action and production (assuming art falls under one or both (?) of these) are necessarily communal.

BW: You make a pox upon both your houses claim way above, but when I read your later post closely you seem to be arguing for the "art is a weapon" position. It's just that you'd have artists wield it against different foes than the ugly originators of that ugly phrase. Am I misreading you? And if I am, what exactly is this "third" position that you support?

Dan,

I want to give a straight forward answer but don't know that I can. I am not completely confident in my understanding of art, that is, I believe it can be defined objectively but am not positive how to do it.

But I will illustrate my point by reference to an art exhibit I saw in Munich a number of years ago. It was entitled "Beauty Now" and featured just plain ugly exhibits. For example one of them was a string of plain light bulbs on a wire hung from the ceiling that went all the way to the floor and then wrapped in a small circle on the floor. Another was a plain 7 foot tall mannequin with a pyramidal pile of silk handkerchiefs of all descriptions piled up around it. The point of the exhibit as a whole was to say "there is no such thing as beauty." It was a very modernist (postmodernist?) exhibit.

Now, you might think that such an exhibit is not "political" b/c it seems to not serve any sort of recognizable political agenda. I differ however, I think that all art "argues" for something, in that I agree w/ Xantippe that it makes claims about the nature of reality. And claims that "beauty is in the eye of the beholder," or "beauty is subjective," or "there is no such thing as beauty" do imo serve agendas. They are modernist agendas basically aimed at a) inherited cultural norms, b) objective morality, and c) reason.

I know that isn't political the way a Marxist art is political, but it has real political consequences b/c it undermines culture.

This is why conservatives traditionally have cared so much about the arts, from Burke's reflections on the nature of the sublime, to Coleridge and Arnold in the 19th century, to Russell Kirk or Claes Ryn in more recent times. I know you don't want a "politicized" art even if "conservative." And I frankly agree with you. I just don't think that the modernist agenda for art is one that a conservative should adopt in order to defend art from politicization. We should seek a humane and rational conception of art directed towards its natural ends, which I am taking (but can definitely be convinced differently) to be either edification or glorification.

First, I have to think about whether we can speak of the "essence" of a thing w/o involving ourselves in the telos of it as well. That is I understand that essence does not equal telos....

I do not think we can speak of the essence of a thing independently of its telos. In fact, I would deny that a things essence and telos are formally different. A thing's telos just is its essence in a particular mode. Thus, to ask what art is is at the same time to ask what its for. Is the answer to the latter 'Itself.' I seriously doubt it.

Agreed Ralph.

I was thinking more about this grotesque "art" project and I actually am not sure how it can be interpreted as "political" anyway. Clearly artificial insemination is both legal and unregulated as is abortion. Therefore what political program was she advancing by doing this to herself? Surely she was "making a statement about the nature of reality" but if that IS what art essentially is then she did make an "art" project.

I think that if I want to condemn her rationally on *moral* grounds (as we all have here) that I can do so w/ no regard to the nature or telos of art. However, if I want to attack her on aesthetic grounds from w/in the discipline of art (and thus say she did not in fact make art) then I cannot do it under the modernist credo of "art for art's sake." To condemn her as failing to make art I have to make an argument for the natural end(s) of art to do so, right?

Ralph and Bruce: It seems to me that writing a philosophy book/paper, etc., really is a mode of production. My point is about the nature of artifacts -- they have their being at work not really in themselves but in us who use them. Now some artifacts have a use in activities that are not good in themselves, while some artifacts have their use in activities that are good in themselves. And I think that contemplation is one such good. Is contemplation by way of an artifact (e.g., a work of art, a philosophy book) inherently inferior to the type of contemplation we can do when he sit alone (with a bronze model of the globe in our hands over a bucket of water so that we don't fall asleep . . . ) better than the type we do with the help of artifacts and with others -- sure, I think so. But that doesn't mean that the activity is not still good in itself.

Form and telos are distinct, but not altogether(potency:act). Can formally different things have the same telos? Sure, stated generally, we contemplate differently in philosophy than we do with art. Different mode, that's all, I think.

Xantippe,

So you want to claim that art is the creation of artifacts whose use is in contemplation, right? That is the heart of your contention I believe, b/c it is that claim that makes art similar to philosophy and able to justify itself (art for art's sake).

I can't yet see how this can be the case. First, art as activity isn't contemplative, is it? Maybe like fishing is? Just kidding. It seems to me that the one doing the contemplation would be the observer of the work of art. But that doesn't make the artist equivalent to the philosopher writing his book.

Bruce: I think it does. The philosopher writing his book and the artist creating his artwork are both involved in production, trying to find a way to express and thus disclose truth about the what is. In both case, the book and the artwork, they are completed not merely when they are put down by their creators, but when they are used, put to work by readers or veiwers (listeners, etc). In both cases, the type of work that they are put to is most properly contemplative.

I guess my reluctance to accept art (either in its making or in its use) as comparable to philosophy stems from how I want to understand philosophy or contemplation. It seems to me that 'disclosing truth about the what is' is too amorphous to be very helpful as a definition. Contemplation is a logical activity. It is a movement from (universal) statements to other (universal) statements which follow deductively from these. By contrast, a piece of art is not an argument. I cannot be brought to know something by looking at it as I am brought to know something by a discursive process of reasoning (What, for example, would the Metaphysics look like on canvass? Isn't this nonsense?). To swith from the Aristotelian to the Platonic, it seems to me that (good) art is an image of something good. Thus, statues of noble looking heroes plant the image of nobility of character in the soul of the person who sees them. A soul nurtured on such images then welcomes the noble itself when he encounters it in thought. This is a bit rambling, but you get the idea.

X,

I understand your ana-logy but it dioesn't seem the most accurate way to represent either the philosopher or art. I wouldn't think of "producing a book" as the primary activity of the philosopher and it isn't the same as contemplation. This is very distinct from the artist who is primarliy engaged in production and not contemplation. In fact, an artist must produce something to be what he is whereas the philosopher can be what he is w/o producing a book (like Socrates).

If you want to shift focus then to the claim that the object in both cases is a "claim about the real" and as such is a prompt to contemplation then I agree w/ Ralph in that we are staying to general to be able to ever pass judgments on "good" and "bad" art or philosophy.

But if ultimately we all want to be able to make such judgments of good and bad (this whole issue was spurred on by a sick art project) then I don't think we have progressed very far.

First, does this sicko's art project need to speak for itself in terms of making a "claim about reality"? Or can artists definitively speak on behalf of their productions? I for one think that an artist does not speak for their production the way a philosopher speaks for their book.

Second, if we must accept art so broadly defined and allow for it to justify itself w/o superior principles/telein (if any exist) being brought to bear upon art to judge it then can we condemn this girl's project?

Ralph: contemplation is not discursive ("logical"). It has to do with seeing and resting with the truth, rather than with figuring it out. Philosophy obviously includes both modes of reason, though which is superior is clear as day, to one with eyes to see. I think art can (just as much as a philosophy book, but in its own way) help someone open those eyes.

Bruce: You are absolutely right that one can be a philosophy without writing something, but one cannot be an artist without producing something. However, I still think the ana1ogy works well enough. I am operating with a rather classical (although slightly revamped) idea of the beautiful as the shining (disclosive truth) of the good. Both art and philosophy culminate in the beautiful, therefore. That art does this essentially through images is a relevant difference between it and philosophy. Philosophy also has its own way of getting people into the right position for the beauty of the cosmos and its God/s, and that is dialectic/discursive--but this is, it seems to me, quite ana1ogous to images (words are not entirely unlike images).