Independence Day

Have a great 4th everyone. I'll be traveling from today through the 8th, visiting family and friends, and will probably have no computer access. My mother requested that I bring her fresh roasted coffee, so I'll be roasting some just before leaving town. What a great son I am! Or at least that's what she tells me . . .

So for now, I leave you with this: Close your eyes, imagine yourself living back on July 4, 1776. You are an American Colonist and have been actively engaged in rebellion against the British Crown for over a year. You have been greatly anticipating the writing and signing the Declaration of Independence, declaring a new country built upon democratic ideals - declaring that government is not divinely created, but created by and receives its power from the People, and that any rights granted by God, so much as they exist, are granted to Men alone, and that the government can never take those rights away.

When you pick up the morning paper, you are filled with joy to read this.

Have a great 4th!

Art Appreciation (or: Why I don't trust artists)

I went on an Artwalk a couple weeks ago and, when looking looking at what seemed to be aesthetically pleasing pottery, paintings and sculpture, I realized just how utterly ill-equipped I was to appreciate it. I stood in a small circumscribed area for an unnaturally long time, staring at the work of a local artist, work that impressed me for the skill it must have taken, but simultaneously made no impression on me as . . . . well, as ART.

I think it is because I have never taken the time to satisfactorily define in my own mind - what exactly is art? Should it mean something? Portray something? And if so, have I, somewhere in the past, taken a position on what art should be, what it should have as its goal, from which well should spring its inspiration? As I stood and looked at the artwork, the rudimentary umbrella question that I kept asking was: What exactly am I supposed to be seeing here?

I think my root fear (yes, fear is the right word) was that, once churning and turning the machinery of cognition toward any particular art piece, the artist would be wittingly taking advantage of me and my naivety, turning my brain to the artists own ends, ends which go no further than the artist's inner self and speak to nothing bigger than him or her, speak to nothing bigger than me - to nothing bigger than sophistry or bigger than today's fleeting post-modern thought that will find itself in tomorrow's deconstructionist trash bin (which apparently doesn't exist in the first place).

Yes, my fear was that the artist really didn't have anything to say at all. At least not beyond, the banal: "I don't have anything to say." And for that matter, if the artist did have something to say, but was too lazy to express it clearly, why should the burden of articulating that expression fall on me?

I was getting a little ticked and starting to feel used.

From thence forth - my Artwalk experience was ruined!

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So I came home and asked the question: "What is art?" to the greatest knower in history, the greatest seer of all time, to that which has a breadth and depth of knowledge heretofore unmatched, and to which all good Americans now pledge their allegiance ~~> Google

I asked; Google answered. Isn't that art?

Google was so loquacious and generous in responding that I was further encouraged to query "art appreciation" and "philosophy of art." The latter I found particular interesting.

I found this web page that provided an introduction to an apparently now defunct Internet study course on philosophy of art, containing part of an article by Arthur C. Danto, an author of numerous books on the philosophy of art.

Mr. Danto clearly identified with my angst. "[I]t cannot be forgotten," he notes, "that when philosophy first noticed art it was in connection with the possibility of deception." Bingo! Deception! I knew it! I was being taken by these artists and I didn't have the tools to fight it. Mr. Danto was going offer these to me!

He first told me what art isn't:

However this identity is to be articulated, it is clear that it cannot be based upon anything works of art have in common with their counterparts. One prominent theorist, for example, regards paintings as very complex perceptual objects. So they are, but since objects can be imagined perfectly congruent with those which are not art works, these must have equivalent complexity at the level of perception. After all, the problem arose in the first place because no perceptual difference could be imagined finally relevant. But neither can possession of so-called "aesthetic qualities' serve, since it would be strange if a work of art were beautiful but something exactly like it though not a work of art were not.

Where are the components for a theory of art to be found? I think a first step may be made in recognizing that works of art are representations, not necessarily in the old sense of resembling their subjects, but in the more extended sense that it is always legitimate to ask what they are about. Warhol's boxes were clearly about something, had a content and a meaning, made a statement, even were metaphors of a sort. In a curious way they made some kind of statement about art, and incorporated into their identity the question of what that identity is.

The Pledge and our Culture

I had a bit of time this weekend to continue reading some coverage of the Pledge case. All I can say is that I lament any story that shifts focus from what the 9th Circuit declared in its ruling and simply talks of the Pledge, as a whole, being declared unconstitutional. As a result, we see stories like this on CNN - stating that the courts are sending "conflicting messages about how sharp the dividing line should be between government and religious institutions." And those are the words from CNN's legal analyst, Jeffrey Toobin.

If you look at my previous post, you'll see that I don't think that the rulings are in conflict, but harmonious. The Pledge ruling was obvious. The 1954 Act is unconstitutional. I won't say with certainty that it will be upheld on appeal (as ostensibly most law makers and legal experts disagree with me), but it certainly should be upheld. The legislative history of the 1954 Act demonstrates unflinchingly that it had a religious purpose. I would argue, in fact, that it was enacted specifically to insert and establish the Christian God. Vouchers are neutral toward religion.

I should point out that there have been some good editorials, such as this history lesson by David Greenberg in Slate, and this civics lesson by Charles Haynes in the Christian Science Monitor.

However, I can understand the attractiveness to a reporter or paper to report the story as the Pledge itself as having been torpedoed, if indeed that reporter or paper disagrees with the decision. But to do so is, I think, poor and slanted reporting and leads the lay reader to believe that there is, indeed, a contradiction between the two rulings. In fact, I think that such reporting simply feeds into the reasons that we are outraged in the first place. It is simply too easy to see this case as "political correctness run amok," as noted by Scott in The Indepundit.

But more important than any of that is the following question - what if the 9th Circuit is reversed? On what basis will it be done?

I've read rumblings that the Lemon test has reached the end of its usefulness and that the United States Supreme Court (if this case does, indeed, make it there) could possibly modify or even adopt a new analysis to determine the existence of government establishment. However, what seems most insidious to me is the argument that the Pledge, with the words "under God," has now been around so long that it has simply become part of our culture and heritage.

It is on this point that I think John Rosenberg, one of two great writers on the blog Discriminations, shares what I think is a fundamentally important perspective in the continuing debate regarding the constitutionality of the 1954 Act. John links to this editorial in the Washington Post and to this editorial in the New York Times, both editorials citing specious reasoning for believing the 1954 Act constitutional, reasons which I think undermine the establishment protections in our Constitution. Of the Washington Post editorial, John notes the following:

In "One Nation Under Blank," its editorial on the issue, the Washington Post quoted with approval a comment of Justice Brennan (from Lynch v. Donnelly, 465 U.S. 664 [1984]): "I would suggest that such practices as the designation of 'In God We Trust' as our national motto, or the references to God contained in the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag can best be understood . . . as a form a 'ceremonial deism' protected from Establishment Clause scrutiny chiefly because they have lost through rote repetition any significant religious content."

That's a bit lame. It says, in effect, that the Congressional action adding "under God" to the Pledge might well have been unconstitutional when it was done in 1954, and perhaps for a year or two (or three? or four?) afterwards, but now that we're used to it it's O.K. Actually, it's worse than lame. We were also used to racial segregation, after all, as critics of Brown v. Board of Education (also 1954) have long pointed out. Have the WP and the NYT developed a new appreciation for those critics?