I’m reminded that both the Nazis and the Soviets under Stalin were able to produce some amazingly effective and aesthetically striking propaganda: the films of Leni Riefenstahl, the pagentry of the Nuremburg rallies, described by the British ambassador as “both solemn and beautiful… like being in a cathedral of ice”; the Internationale and later the Hymn of the Soviet Union. And of course, theposters.
I agree! It’s frustrating because the bad guys thought of it (or at least executed it) first, and so a brilliant new effect had its debut in the service of a monstrous evil philosophy.
But sometimes evil people are great artists. George Orwell argued this point in his essay Benefit of Clergy. The title refers to an old English legal rule that clergymen, by virtue of their status, could be excused of punishment for crimes that would have an ordinary layman hanged.* Orwell suggested that some people in the modern day (circa 1944) were inclined to forgive the manifest moral failings of any obviously exceptional artist, and another group was inclined to say that no artist who had deep moral failings could possibly be skilled, let alone exceptional.
Orwell rejected both these views. He compared the aesthetic skill of an artist to the effectiveness of a wall in standing up:
The first thing that we demand of a wall is that it shall stand up. If it stands up, it is a good wall, and the question of what purpose it serves is separable from that. And yet even the best wall in the world deserves to be pulled down if it surrounds a concentration camp. In the same way it should be possible to say, ‘This is a good book or a good picture, and it ought to be burned by the public hangman.’ Unless one can say that, at least in imagination, one is shirking the implications of the fact that an artist is also a citizen and a human being.
Lots more could be said about this essay, but suffice it now to say that skillful wall building matters, and skillful art matters in the marketplace of ideas.
This particular sequence in the top level post hits home with me personally. When I was a young boy, the first thing that made me question the church in which I had been raised was the relentlessly crappy church music. It sucked, and sucked so hard, at least in my opinion which has not changed in several decades. My child self asked: if church was as important as all these adults claimed, in their slightly bored way, why were the songs worse than the theme songs from cartoons on television, and even worse than the jingles played on commercials on kids’ TV?
I’m reminded of Eliezer’s comment about an artist at a singularity summit, in which she was effectively told: we don’t really want your participation. To a point. Someone whose life has been entirely devoted to creating images or music or any other kind of art is not necessarily equipped to engineer a game of computer tic-tac-toe, let alone a friendly artificial intelligence.
But if you want to win the hearts and minds of the unconverted, irrational masses, you’re going to have to use resources other than logical argument. Logical and correct arguments only change the minds of people who already value logic. This is not the way to win new converts to rationality. Art and poetry, not merely argument, are necessary to communicate the glory and beauty of ideals like the conquest of death and the apotheosis of humanity in a properly anticipated singularity.
Gradually, this legal principle turned into a legal fiction for the purpose of showing leniency to almost all first-time offenders. There was an interim period in which criminals could establish “clergy” status by ‘reading’ Psalm 51. When this rule was in effect, illiterate criminals responded to incentives and memorized the words of this particular verse.
Why? Most of the art and even much of the science you probably find awesome was produced by cultures, individuals and organizations with whom you probably have profound moral and ethical disagreements.
If you can’t enjoy The Cathedral of Lights, how can you enjoy a real cathedral built in say the 16th century? How can you find something like the Colosseum grand for example without being similarly conflicted? Or are you?
Because I like to talk about my design process when I make things, and if I ever did something inspired by the Cathedral of Light, I’d have to be really careful about how described the idea. Most people compartmentalize well enough to see the Coliseum as a relic of its time. Most people do not compartmentalize well enough to see the Nazis and everything about them as anything other than the greatest symbol of evil that humanity has produced.
I’m reminded that both the Nazis and the Soviets under Stalin were able to produce some amazingly effective and aesthetically striking propaganda: the films of Leni Riefenstahl, the pagentry of the Nuremburg rallies, described by the British ambassador as “both solemn and beautiful… like being in a cathedral of ice”; the Internationale and later the Hymn of the Soviet Union. And of course, the posters.
Huh. The Cathedral of Light actually looks friggin’ awesome, which is really frustrating.
I agree! It’s frustrating because the bad guys thought of it (or at least executed it) first, and so a brilliant new effect had its debut in the service of a monstrous evil philosophy.
But sometimes evil people are great artists. George Orwell argued this point in his essay Benefit of Clergy. The title refers to an old English legal rule that clergymen, by virtue of their status, could be excused of punishment for crimes that would have an ordinary layman hanged.* Orwell suggested that some people in the modern day (circa 1944) were inclined to forgive the manifest moral failings of any obviously exceptional artist, and another group was inclined to say that no artist who had deep moral failings could possibly be skilled, let alone exceptional.
Orwell rejected both these views. He compared the aesthetic skill of an artist to the effectiveness of a wall in standing up:
Lots more could be said about this essay, but suffice it now to say that skillful wall building matters, and skillful art matters in the marketplace of ideas.
This particular sequence in the top level post hits home with me personally. When I was a young boy, the first thing that made me question the church in which I had been raised was the relentlessly crappy church music. It sucked, and sucked so hard, at least in my opinion which has not changed in several decades. My child self asked: if church was as important as all these adults claimed, in their slightly bored way, why were the songs worse than the theme songs from cartoons on television, and even worse than the jingles played on commercials on kids’ TV?
I’m reminded of Eliezer’s comment about an artist at a singularity summit, in which she was effectively told: we don’t really want your participation. To a point. Someone whose life has been entirely devoted to creating images or music or any other kind of art is not necessarily equipped to engineer a game of computer tic-tac-toe, let alone a friendly artificial intelligence.
But if you want to win the hearts and minds of the unconverted, irrational masses, you’re going to have to use resources other than logical argument. Logical and correct arguments only change the minds of people who already value logic. This is not the way to win new converts to rationality. Art and poetry, not merely argument, are necessary to communicate the glory and beauty of ideals like the conquest of death and the apotheosis of humanity in a properly anticipated singularity.
As somebody has said in an ironically different context, the devil should not have all the best tunes.
Gradually, this legal principle turned into a legal fiction for the purpose of showing leniency to almost all first-time offenders. There was an interim period in which criminals could establish “clergy” status by ‘reading’ Psalm 51. When this rule was in effect, illiterate criminals responded to incentives and memorized the words of this particular verse.
Upvoted for lots of useful links, among other things.
Why? Most of the art and even much of the science you probably find awesome was produced by cultures, individuals and organizations with whom you probably have profound moral and ethical disagreements.
If you can’t enjoy The Cathedral of Lights, how can you enjoy a real cathedral built in say the 16th century? How can you find something like the Colosseum grand for example without being similarly conflicted? Or are you?
Because I like to talk about my design process when I make things, and if I ever did something inspired by the Cathedral of Light, I’d have to be really careful about how described the idea. Most people compartmentalize well enough to see the Coliseum as a relic of its time. Most people do not compartmentalize well enough to see the Nazis and everything about them as anything other than the greatest symbol of evil that humanity has produced.