i do want to write a 2nd post on these ideas, in part to answer questions that have been raised. so maybe i’ll have more to say about your comment in that (not sure yet–the form of the essay has yet to appear in my mind!).

an initial thought though is that i did not intend to create a dichotomy in which we would be forced to choose. i chose the word “incompatible” not to suggest they were at each other’s throats, but more like reasons listed for a marriage gone bad. in that sense, i’m not sure we have to choose between one or the other, as if the existence of one will lead to the complete destruction of the other.

like i said, though, i’m still stewing on a response.

As for conditions of freedom, I endorse them entirely. Criticisms of democracy are often because democracy doesn’t go in directions that I want. Your reference to Jefferson is perfectly apt. An uninformed consensus is worthless, and that’s pretty much what we have today.

Ultimately, a genuine (and transparent) democracy would utilize the humanities, revise the humanities, and perhaps continue them indefinitely. But with current trends, where does it look like the humanities are going? Whether or not we force a dichotomy, what is happening to the humanities?

It’s like a Whitman vs. Pound death match.

I wonder if the roil of MLD, even sans humanities, isn’t a better intellectual environment, i.e., a place where thinking could emerge and flourish, than humanities without MLD, where even the liberal arts grow increasingly stullified, stratified, constricted, suffocated — formal.

Reminds me of Jefferson’s saying about newspapers without democracy vs. the other way around. It’s all about conditions of freedom.

I think I’m going with Whitman.

Firstly, my apologies for not editing my first two responses. I was reading through and got a little embarrassed by some of the more blatant mistakes. Rest assured I spotted them ex post facto.

Anyhow, I wanted to comment on Pigsnout’s reference to Kant and the long history of the Arts’ struggle to defend their usefulness since the Industrial Revolution: As your brief summation of this history shows each generation of Western artists and academics has had define its own use for the arts since Capitalism took hold. But this is always playing catchup, so I of course appreciate the comment questioning the usefulness of science and technology (as well as business).

But I think at this point maybe all of us as Micah’s readers could hazard our own definition instead of simply restating the obvious fact that we as a generation of artists and intellectuals can (and probably must) do so.

As for my contribution to THAT discussion, I think beginning with thinking outside the assumption that a Capitalistic Democracy is inherently best is a good starting. Moreover, while it wouldn’t have had purchase a decade ago in American society there are indications that the public might be willing to accept this idea with a little coaxing–after all, we question our prophets most when their prophecy fails to come true, and the “End of History” posited by triumphant Capitalist(ic) democracies has certainly failed to find purchase.

I believe, then, that we could define the “usefulness” in defense of the arts by simply broadening our view beyond the assumptions of Classical Liberalism. That is, the Liberal Arts and Art are useful to Democracy because they spur free and creative thought and act as a panacea against political control. This is a very utilitarian purpose; it is one, as I pointed out in my previous post, that will inevitably rub mainstream ideologues, apologists for Capitalism mostly, the wrong way. But it is far more intrinsically Western, and even American, to value free and creative thought.

Furthermore, Capitalism itself cannot thrive without innovation and creative thought as without it new markets are not created. What, for instance, would the 19th century have been without creative innovators inventing whole new genres of things to sell; an Alexander Bell or Louis Pasteur without any notion of creating something new and questioning assumptions would have simply spent his life double-checking the same proved theories over and over.

So, in short, I think we can see that the Liberal Arts are useful in every way to not only Democracy–where free thought is necessary to maintain open-minded citizen not swayed by propaganda–but it is also intrinsically useful to Capitalism or Socialism or any economic system that hopes to continue human technological progress (after all, the ridiculous notion that socialist states do not innovate is wholly undermined by the existence of Sputnik). What it is not useful to is Aristocracy, Plutocracy, Dictatorship and Monarchy, all of which can only thrive on the ignorance of their subjects. And so now my definition, I feel, brings up a point that we could collectively put forward to put the opponents of the Arts on the defensive: “What does your campaign against free and creative thought say about you? What do YOU really want?”