Category: ideas

What do Bill Ivey, Midori, Robert L. Lynch, Glenn Lowry, Ben Cameron, Andrew Taylor, Joli Jensen, Jim Kelly, Adrian Ellis, Phil Kennicott and Russell Willis Taylor have in common? They’re taking part in a week-long blog debate on ArtsJournal about the value of the arts: “Let’s paint a picture of what we think a vibrant cultural system should look like, and then advocate on behalf of policies that take us there. In my experience, arts advocates tend to ask for “more,” rather than for a specific outcome. If we want a drawing teacher in every fourth grade classroom, let’s talk that way. I think policy leaders and funders like to know exactly what will happen if they support a program. The challenge, of course, is that once we get where we say we want to go, we have to be willing to stop, and not ask for more…That’s been hard for us to do.”

“Forget going to the doctor for bronchitis or poison ivy. Nowadays, patients are increasingly demanding drugs to help them perform better at the company conference, study harder for tests, or eliminate performance anxiety before a big date. It’s called “cosmetic neurology,” this use of new drugs that help people who aren’t sick psychologically perform better socially.”

Is the world of art becoming cowed by a culture that is increasingly hostile to anything that smacks of intellectualism? “Faced with pre-emptive, Internet-driven attacks on what they might do or say at any given moment — and self-fulfilling prophesizing as to whom they surely will offend — movie stars, comedians, even news anchors, increasingly spend their time in reactive mode. Good art — and lively entertainment — sets agendas. Defensive art typically is unwatchable.”

“But the stimulated sensation is usually colour vision. Synaesthesia, as the stimulation of one sensory perception by another is known, is not that unusual. ES is a professional musician who is able, literally, to taste what she hears. Almost every musical interval provokes a gustatory sensation in her. A major third sounds sweet. A minor third, salty. A fourth has the flavour of mown grass. Only an octave is tasteless.”

Why do some people have a reaction in one sense when another is stimulated? “Neuroscientists think the condition occurs because certain regions of the brain “cross-activate” at the same time. So the tone perception center, for example, may be linked with the taste perception center. And studying synesthetes is giving clues to the working of the brain, one of the most complex structures in the universe.”

“New York Times dance critic John Rockwell kicked up a minor tempest recently when he wrote, of ballet dancers, that ‘looks do count: for dramatic verisimilitude, for romantic illusion, for box-office excitement.’ That such self-evident assertions would register as controversial says something about where we are these days in our unsettled view of beauty. The dissonance in the culture runs deep. We tend to look at exquisite dancers, fashion models, gorgeous movie stars, even particularly lovely people in daily life as a slightly different species, part idols and part freaks who occupy an alternative plane… We see beauty as a trick in some ways, a genetic ruse paired with the money, privilege and private trainers to cultivate it.”

Some prominent scientists believe that modern physics is quite close to being able to announce a Grand Unified Theory of Everything – multiply the Big Bang Theory by a couple of million and you’ve got the general idea. However, a new book argues that, while science has made undeniably great strides in the understanding of our universe in recent decades, no one is even remotely close to having a complete understanding of the way in which all of reality is bound together. The book also argues that the popular “string theory” of quantum physics is completely wrongheaded, and seems to suggest that much of what is now assumed to be fact in quantum mechanics doesn’t quite jive with reality. Meanwhile, the universe continues to exist, against all logic and reason…

“In order to flourish, university life needs individual risk takers – people who are ahead of their time and prepared to search for the truth, wherever it may lead and whomever it may offend. Intellectual and scientific breakthroughs inevitably challenge the prevailing order, which is why those who make them frequently face repression and the attention of the censor. Sadly, contemporary academia takes academic freedom for granted, and treats it as no big deal. Some seem to view it as a redundant privilege, not worth making a fuss about”

It seems clear that one of the hallmarks of the 21st century American mind will be the increasingly popular devotion to blind faith over intellectual pursuit. Call it the Age of Unreason: “If Americans are flocking to religious faith, to revealed dogma, to creationism, to a place where no one pays any heed to a logic based on if x then y, it’s because reason gave us a world that hardly makes sense anymore… Face it: People want Truth and Beauty. They want to be touched. They want mystery, because without it, life would be dreary indeed.”

“Great cities throughout history have held an attraction for outsiders drawn by both the urges to make something of their lives and the freedom to lose themselves in the crowd, and it is from these restless, marginal groups that many of the social, economic and cultural breakthroughs that shape our life have emerged. But how much do cities themselves know and understand of this phenomenon?”