Beyond Aesthetics and Politics : Philosophical and Axiological Studies on the Avant-Garde, Pragmatism, and Postmodernism

180 Pages·2013·2.58 MB·English

by  Skowronski

BEYOND AESTHETICS AND POLITICS
VIBS
Volume 264
Robert Ginsberg
Founding Editor
Leonidas Donskis
Executive Editor
Associate Editors
G. John M. Abbarno Steven V. Hicks
George Allan Richard T. Hull
Gerhold K. Becker Michael Krausz
Raymond Angelo Belliotti Olli Loukola
Kenneth A. Bryson Mark Letteri
C. Stephen Byrum Vincent L. Luizzi
Robert A. Delfino Hugh P. McDonald
Rem B. Edwards Adrianne McEvoy
Malcolm D. Evans J.D. Mininger
Roland Faber Peter A. Redpath
Andrew Fitz-Gibbon Arleen L. F. Salles
Francesc Forn i Argimon John R. Shook
Daniel B. Gallagher Eddy Souffrant
William C. Gay Tuija Takala
Dane R. Gordon Emil Višňovský
J. Everet Green Anne Waters
Heta Aleksandra Gylling James R. Watson
Matti Häyry John R. Welch
Brian G. Henning Thomas Woods
a volume in
Central European Value Studies
CEVS
Emil Višňovský, Editor
BEYOND AESTHETICS AND POLITICS
Philosophical and Axiological Studies on
the Avant-Garde, Pragmatism, and Postmodernism
Krzysztof Piotr Skowroński
Amsterdam - New York, NY 2013
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ISBN: 978-90-420-3685-7
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I must create a system or
be enslaved by another man’s
William Blake

Oh, I know no greater
cruelty than that of one
human being putting the
screws to the mug of
another
Witold Gombrowicz
Contents viii

CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xi
PREFACE xiii
ONE Santayana and the Avant-garde: Visual Arts in the Context of 1
Democracy, Norms, Liberty, and Social Progress
1. Santayana and the Avant-garde 2
2. Democratic, Although Not Liberal, Character of 5
Modern Artistic Institutions and the Avant-garde “Soviets”
3. Vital Liberty and the “Penitent” Arts 9
4. Completion and Perfection vs. Deformation 12
and Fragmentation (in Analytic Cubism)
5. Critique of Primitivism and Caricature 16
(in Cubism and Expressionism)
6. Criticism of Using Color as a Main Medium 18
of Artistic Expression (Fauvism)
7. Classic Harmony vs. Abstractionist Harmony 20
8. Imagination and Naturalism vs. Dreaming 21
and Fiction (Surrealism)
9. Penetrating the World Rather Than Experiencing it: 24
Problems with Expression (Expressionism)
10. Santayana as a “Self-indulgent Impressionist” 25
11. From the Standpoint of a Theory of Work of Art 28
12. From the Standpoint of the Language of a
30
Work of Art
13. Conclusion: Politicization of the “Foreground” 32
and the Idea of Social Progress
TWO Style as the Tool of Tyranny in Gombrowicz: 35
An Avant-gardist as a Forerunner of Postmodernism
1. “I practice a private literature”: Mixing up 37
Theory (Objectivity) with Practice (Subjectivity)
2. The Avant-gardists Mixing up Reality with Unreality 39
3. Reality and Unreality: Existentialism, 41
Post-structuralism, and Postmodernism in Gombrowicz
4. Disintegration, Deformation, and Decay as Somatic 47
Symptoms of the Individual’s Suffering from Unreality
5. Pathology of Inter-human Bonds: Dialogue as 50
a Duel, Conversation as a Confrontation
viii BEYOND AESTHETICS AND POLITICS

6. Seduction as Abuse: Erotic Intrigue as an Execution 53
of Power
7. Virginity as Unawareness of the Relations of Power 58
(“Virginity”)
8. Re-construction and the Re-combination of the World 61
of Objects and Figures in Gombrowicz: Between
Dadaism and Postmodernism
9. Auto-therapy or Becoming More Real by Means of 64
Literary and Philosophical Creation
10. The Political Formlessness and Impotence of the 66
Poles. The Need of Communal Therapy
11. Concluding Remarks: In What Way Did Gombrowicz 69
forerun a Postmodern Approach?

THREE Facial Images as a Way for the Articulation of Values in the Avant- 71
garde’s Aesthetics of Deformation. Another Prelude to Postmodernism
1. From Form to Formlessness 74
2. What is Aesthetics of Deformation? 78
3. Deformation of Facial Images as a Search for 81
New Values (Munch)
4. Deformation of Facial Images as an Attempt at 83
Re-formulation of the World of Values (Cubism)
5. Deformation of Facial Images as an Attempt to 84
Undermine the Established Values (Duchamp)
6. Deformation of Facial Images as a Search for 87
Freedom (Witkacy)
7. Deformation of Facial Images as Social Degradation 89
(Gombrowicz)
8. Deformation of Facial Images as though Searching 91
for a Community (Frankenstein)
9. A Concluding Remark: Aesthetics of Deformation 93
as a Prelude to Postmodernism
FOUR The Interrelation between Politics and Aesthetics in Classic 95
American Pragmatism: Democracy and Aesthetic Experience
in William James
1. The Idea of Liberal Democracy in Dewey’s Aesthetics 98
2. Active, Dynamic, and Constructive Character of 102
Aesthetic Experience in Mead
3. Democracy and Aesthetic Experience in James 105
4. Democratism as One of the Basic Assumptions 106
of James’s Aesthetic Reflection
Contents viii
5. Limited Pluralism in Aesthetic Experience 114
6. Varieties of Interpretations 117
7. Instead of a Conclusion: the Potentiality 119
of an Artwork
FIVE Aesthetic Persuasion and Political Compulsion: Literary 121
Philosophy in Light of Richard Rorty’s Ideas of Democratic
Liberalism and Cultural Politics
1. Cultural Policy and “the Great Books” 123
2. Literary Philosophy and its Persuasive Potentiality 127
3. Where Exactly is Political Compulsion Here? 130
4. Suffering and Self-Creation as Political Themes 134
in Literary Philosophy
5. Emerson and Mickiewicz as Great Poets involved 137
in Politics. The Public-Private Divide
6. What About Reader? 141
7. A Concluding Remark: Reading Literary 143
Philosophy as a Struggle of Narratives?
FINAL REMARKS 145
BIBLIOGRAPHY 147
ABOUT THE AUTHOR 153
INDEX 155
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I thank the co-organizers of some recent editions of annual conferences
American and European Values who shared with me the work of preparing
for these events: Jacquelyn Kegley (California State University at Bakersfield,
USA), James Campbell (University of Toledo, USA), John Stuhr (Emory
University, Atlanta, USA), Larry Hickman (Southern Illinois University,
Carbondale, USA), and Krystyna Wilkoszewska (Jagiellonian University,
Poland). A major part of my texts prepared for these occasions are published
in the fourth and fifth chapters of the present book. I also thank the organizers
of Poland’s cultural anthropology conferences in Pokrzywna: Katarzyna
Łeńska-Bąk (Opole University, Poland) and Magdalena Sztandara (Opole
University, Poland) for regularly inviting me to participate in these charming
meetings. I have used three of these materials, originally in the Polish
language, in the second and third chapters of the book. The material for the
first chapter of the book is based upon my speech given at the Santayana
Society Annual Meeting at the American Philosophical Association
conference, held in Boston, in December 2010, and I thank Angus Kerr-
Lawson (1932-2011), the former President of the Santayana Society, and
Glenn Tiller (A&M University, Corpus Christi, USA), the current President,
for the invitation and cooperation during the publication of my speech in
Santayana Bulletin. My sincere thanks to Emil Višňovský (Slovak Academy
of Sciences), for inviting me to participate in some interesting projects, one of
them being a publication, in Human Affairs, a version of a paper that refers to
the Boston event and another paper, used in chapter three. I thank Richard
Shusterman (Florida Atlantic University, USA), Leszek Koczanowicz (WSPS
Wrocław, Poland), and Leszek Małecki (Wrocław University, Poland) for
inviting me to give a speech at a conference “Rethinking Pragmatist
Aesthetics” in 2012; a part of the final chapter was read there. Last, but not
least, I thank the authorities of my university, including the Chair of the
Philosophy Department at Opole University, Adam Grobler, for facilitating
my research. My thanks go also to David Wallis (Cambridge, England) for
correcting my texts. My special thanks go to Jacquelyn Kegley, already
mentioned, for helping with the final correction of the text. I also thank Ela,
one more time, for understanding.
Some parts of the present book have already been published in the
following places:
“Santayana and the Avant-garde: Visual Arts in the Context of
Democracy, Norms, Liberty, and Social Progress” in: Overheard in Seville:
Bulletin of the Santayana Society, Number 29, 2011, pp. 14-20. “The Avant-
garde’s Visual Arts in Light of Santayana’s Idea of Vital Liberty” in: Human
Affairs. Postdisciplinary Humanities and Social Sciences Quarterly, 2012, Vol.
22, No. 2, pp. 142–60. “Democratic Values in the Aesthetics of Classic