Emotive Virtuism
What Emotive Virtuism is all about is the aesthetics of human virtue, how
virtuous deeds produce in us the same experience as great works of art.
Witnessing or creating a virtuous act produces the aesthetic experience -- a
discovery in aesthetics that must be understood to proceed in true aesthetic
understanding. Emotive Virtuism has other philosophical implications and is
also about trying to understand the artist's role in society, and how artists
can both positively or negatively affect culture.
What this treatise explores is that the unverse acts in a way that is
essentially "virtuous" towards us, in the long run, if we make an effort to act
virtuous in it. I started calling this philosophy Emotive Virtuism a few years
ago because the idea of the emotional impact of human virtue played into
philosophical questions very strongly. I wanted to distance myself from the
appearance of creating a simplistic philosophy because of the post-modernist
critiques of narratives. But I think philosophical and aesthetic strains, even
psychoanalytic ones have gotten so far away from historical ideas of virtue
that I don't mind shortening the title again to Virtuism. Whether I refer to
this philosophy as "Virtuism" or as "Emotive Virtuism" it will mean the same
thing. Emotive Virtuism has always been Virtuism.
Virtuism started out as aesthetic theory and then moved into reflections about
other areas of philosophy. I did not purposefully intend to create an "ism" and
I have a somewhat post-modernist idea about being wary of new narratives. But
since people are starting to use the word "virtuism" (found out by my doing a
search on Google) with no connection to my writings (much like the perversion
of the word "Surrealism"), I figured I had better formalize it the way I
originally intended. because I have a certain idea about the philosophy of
Virtuism. It is the philosophy that stands against the various philosophies
today that state there is no such thing as good or evil, or no meaning in the
world. I don't look at this from a polyanna perspective of the religionist:
every sophisticated thinker in the last hundred years held a similar view as I
do (just look at the work of Sorokin). It is only the half-intellectuals that
come up with these wrong ideas. Often these ideas "trickle down" from very
greedy and destructive corporate elites, many desire to imitate the attitudes
that brought so much wealth, so people, even philosophers and aesthetic
theorists, design philosophies to comfort themselves. The philosophies and
aesthetic theories they design are ones that intrisically disempower any idea
of virtue because virtue is the force that has caused the evolution of society
and even political theory. If society and political theory is not evolving, the
result is that the democratizing force that has been growing for the last five
hundred years will slow down. So, elites have a vested interest, conscious or
unconscious, in meaningless and even negative art, and this plays out in the
film industry as much as any other industry.
However, the misguided desire to cleanse the world of evil is the worse evil
that we face on the planet today. As one sees this new morality of "fighting
the fighters of evil" put into place, one sees clearly the probem has two
sides. Ideas of virtue are the ideas that cause us to be wary of those are
striving for some kind of "purity" in the world outside of their own hearts.
So, how do you define virtue? I have defined it as having an objective basis in
the meaning of life, in that, virtue is given authenticity by it often coming
with an aesthetic experience. Virtue is beautiful, evil is always ugly. This is
not a beauty like the physical beauty of human beings, but it is a beauty of
the aesthetic experience, that is, it is something that we feel inside of
ourselves. This is an epistomological proof of the value of this ontology
having an objective truth in it. I realize these are big claims to make and yet
I have lived with this philosophy for twenty years and I do sense its truth, so
I will continue to write along this line. I am forced to keep this "ism" going.
It is simple minded to fear creating an "ism," as long as it comes about as a
natural course of evolution. I think going about to start an "ism" is also
acceptable, but I didn't go about to start one, only to formalize some
aesthetic theory, which then turned into broader philosophical writings and
during this process the "ism" aspect was coined. Virtuism started in 1984 when
I started to write art manifestoes because I saw very negative trends in some
avant-garde modern art, that at that time I predicted would become more and
more popular. People should realize that art has an impact on society. Negative
and nihilist pop music that is popular today had its start in this artistic
lineage (the so-called Industrial movement) that I was aware of in the early
1980's. I believe other thanatos-influenced "entertainment" did as well, such
as negative television shows.
I believe that the modern artist is a vitally important voice in society even
if they are impoverished and barely known, and so the connection is direct.
Many strong factions of society look up to the avant-garde artist. It's a
strange fact. The avant-garde has always had an influence on society, sometimes
good, sometimes bad. One might say that the philosopher also influences society
in the same way. (I use the term "avant-garde" because I don't believe such
expressions fall out of use just because some people believe it's not
"fashionable" to use them. I question their motives in making such assertions).
I look at there being two lines of thinking for most serious artists today, an
Old Testament (Rimbaud-influenced) and a New Testament, if you will,
(post-Rimbaud) that comes after seeing the fallacy or imcompleteness of the old
way. The New Testament actually has always existed side-by-side with the Old,
there have always been successful and progressive artists who did not destroy
themselves in the process of creating radically new art. The truth is, a very
large amount of those who consider themselves modern artists today have been
emotionally beaten down in the process to become an original thinker and do
resort to daily use of drugs. They really do feel closed-off from most people
in a negative way. I know this because this is largely part of a scene I know
socially, it is not something I view from the outside. I know there are many
there, like myself, who don't need to daily anaesthetize themselves and do have
spiritual viewpoints and yet are active in international avant-garde scenes.
The Old Testament of the avant-garde was the idea of the artist as hedonist --
the artist who destroyed their own life to protest non-creativity and the often
cruel nature of the world. The artist as misanthrope -- who was told they could
not measure up and so denounced all of life and in some ways, even all of love.
It sounds like a projection perhaps because it is not, because ultimately
addiction is the very sad lack of the ability of using the force of love to
heal oneself.
--
Robert Pearson
http://www.rspearson.com/
ParaMind Brainstorming Software http://www.paramind.net
R.S. Pearson Music Page http://www.rspearson.com/rsmusic.html
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