this is where i invoke Chesterton’s Fence i think
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Replying to @chaosprime @danlistensto
is this to say, at their root or within their full historical context, polka/dowry are beautiful for the same reasons that ~classical indian music~ is beautiful?
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Replying to @pieratt @chaosprime
ok, the dowry example is a good one because it's something we (21C internet nerds) find really ethically objectionable. that ethical objection taints it aesthetically as well. we find it "ugly" on a metaphysical level and want to find it ugly on an aesthetic level too.
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our values are dramatically different than the values of the cultures where dowry is accepted. this is me getting as PoMo as I'm willing to: from their own subjective POV the dowry was ethically beautiful because it solidified kin bonding in a tribal society.
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the aesthetics that could be developed around reinforced kin-bonding include both works of art, public rituals/ceremonies, and institutional structures that would be subject to aesthetic judgments.
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I can't judge these things beautiful by my own cultural standards. It's not my culture and I don't want my culture to adopt dowry. I can, I think, learn to understand the beauty those foreign cultures would have found in their own dowry aesthetics.
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Replying to @danlistensto @chaosprime
ok, so what we're saying is something like, (and I dont have the right language for this, but): Ethics and Aesthetics are universally bound, but locally variable. And perhaps, you have to understand both to understand either.
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Replying to @danlistensto @chaosprime
very interesting. I wonder what it means then that artists + spiritual leaders rarely overlap. Or is that not true...
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Replying to @pieratt @chaosprime
who counts as a spiritual leader? old guy with a big hat? nah, that's an archon, not a spiritual leader. Matsuo Basho is a spiritual leader.
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Michaelangelo. El Greco. Francisco de Goya. Spiritual leaders. You probably know about the works these people produced without having to look it up. Do you know who was Pope at the time without looking it up?
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Replying to @danlistensto @chaosprime
ok but counterexamples are plentiful yeah? ALTHOUGH, its interesting because i was recently talking to a smart friend about how folks with great taste are almost inevitably fully integrated personalities. Taste as expression of holistic intelligence. Which follows in this context
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/cc
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