Response to Samantha's Question on whether art is subjective or objective

I think art would have to be subjective because it is produced through a person's mind and not applicable to everyone whereas something objective is without human bias and therefore cannot include emotion. Since most people would determine that art must include emotion, then art must be subjective. I think that art itself has to be subjective but that does not mean that a definition cannot be objective. For example, Wikipedia defines emotion as associated with mood, temperament, personality, and disposition. Although beginning a definition with association seems to make it unnecessarily vague, the point stands that the definition itself is applicable to everyone and without emotion. There is a problem in ever having something be considered completely objective because people can only know what people have determined. This means that all knowledge is a creation of people and so can never completely exclude human bias. If everything is subjective, though, the question becomes irrelevant. It is easier to think of objectivity as something people strive to achieve and is always slightly out of reach. If art appeals to the same emotion in all people then it is maybe closer to be an objective example of that emotion. I do not believe that emotion can be understood as anything other than as belonging to an individual and that the goal of objectivity is to be without emotion or with equal representation of all emotions as newspaper articles aim to achieve. Art is not objective then because it is aiming to appeal to emotion and I return to the determination I started with.

We can never know exactly what emotion someone else feels, even when they call it the same thing because we are judging other people’s emotional states based on what we have felt in similar circumstances. I can never experience your feeling of happiness; I can only assume it is what I feel in certain situations. This does not mean that Tolstoy was wrong if we assume that approximations are enough. The artist was trying to communicate what they define as sad and I felt what I define as sad is probably close enough. If this is true than an artist may have more leeway because what I define as sad may be what you define as depressing. Then the communication is accurate but the language is not. If we have miscommunication of feeling in art it seems just as logical that we have miscommunication in language and we may not be aware that the other does not share our understanding.

Is art a more or less difficult to understand form of communication to traditional language? Does it depend on what is being communicated?

Art as communication using Freud's view

Is art simply a response to an unfulfilled need in society or does it have its own benefit? What I mean by this is it seems in Freud’s work that if people were able to talk to somebody about their desires that they would no longer need to make or view art. If I have repressed desires and I talk to say my psychologist about them then they are expressed. I would no longer need art as a way to do so. This seems to suggest that art is created because of people’s flaws. If people were open, expressive and happy than they would not create art. It does seem that people often feel a connection to works of art that makes them really like them even though they cannot express why. This inexpressible connection does fit Freud’s theory of art quite well. It also fits in a way with Tolstoy’s theory. Art is communicating the same repressed thoughts to different audiences when they enjoy it. The writer of a work of fiction is communicating our daydreams which we need but are unwilling to express, “the true enjoyment of literature proceeds from the release of tension in our minds. Perhaps much that brings about this result consists in the writer’s putting us into a position in which we can enjoy our own day-dreams without reproach or shame” (Freud 116). The repression then is the same among people and we utilize the language of art to communicate it.   

                Does this mean that artists are particularly unhappy people? Are there unfulfilled desires so strong that they have to express them in a way that non artists do not? If people are really good artists does that mean that they have repressed desires that are desperately trying to get out more than other peoples or does it mean that their repressed desires are so common that tons of people can relate to them?

Is Art the only way to express repressed desire?

If art is a way for people to express their hidden desires after they reach a certain age, it would follow that everyone would need to practice some form of art or they would need an alternate way to do so. Everyone choosing to live in a civilized society would have to repress some of their thoughts and actions. We certainly do not say everything we think to a boss or teacher. It would also follow that these thoughts we do not say stay with us until we are able to get them out. This would make art a vital system of release for people. We might think then that everyone would utilize some form of art, but I do not think that I personally do. (Some people have argued against me when I make this statement because I am in broadcasting, but I make news and documentary style work that involves little creativity and mostly interviewed people make up the content of the presentation. While this involves my choosing parts of interviews and content, it does not seem to have the necessary level of individuality for needed for Freud’s understanding of art). If people do not release their built up emotions and issues through art and Freud is correct about their need, then they must be releasing it somewhere else. It is possible that they could do so through misplaced emotional response. For example, someone might be angry at their boss and yelled at their child. This example seems to suggest that art is necessary for psychological health, though, and I do not think I want to make that assumption.

The same assumption is made if one finds that those who do not create art must utilize it as a cathartic way to release their own pent up emotions and desires. This would also assume that people have the same pent up emotions and desires and although they are closely linked there is probably some variety. Perhaps sports could be an alternative to art as a way to release emotions and desires. Certainly in the example of someone mad at their boss they could release their anger in the physicality of sports. The more difficult aspect of this is the hidden desire. It is possible that sports allow ones ego to be enhanced because they are being viewed by the crowd looking to see what they do next. There is also a connection to the lust Freud feels most people hide. Sports enhance a person’s physical fitness and this is sexually appealing to most people. This means that sports are enhancing one’s physical ability to draw in sexual partners. In some sports there is the more obvious example of cheerleaders acting as sexually appealing figures specifically showing interest in the members of the sports team. They in turn are considered sexually appealing by the sports team achieving their need to be the figures of lust.

What are other ways than art and sport for releasing repressed desires?    

Using Freud's Theory Art is Positive or Negative?

                Parents often consider their children to be the highest level of responsibility and devote a huge portion of their life to them and their care. These children grow up knowing that their parents love them, maybe more than anything else in their life. It would make sense that many of these children would grow up with an overinflated sense of importance that they would have to temper in every day society. It might seem like these children grow up and enter society where they learn that they are not the most important thing to most people, but what if they resent this? It would, of course, be inappropriate to ever say that one resents not being the most important individual, but this only makes it more likely to fit in with Freud’s ideas about repression. These grown up children want to be the most important again, so they create characters to represent themselves that are all important. These are the heroes of stories. They are people creating a world where they are the most important individual. The people who read them would then imagine themselves as the character presented. They would then relive the world that circles around them that they lost in childhood. Writers and readers are then individuals obsessed with rebuilding their self-importance, even if they can never voice that want. This presents a negative view of literature, where it is a way of encouraging an already high self-regard. On the other hand, the literature could be a way of releasing building resentments about not getting enough attention in society. Then, if the tension were not released, it could come out in angry words or other negative modes of expression. If this were the case, then reading and writing may be positive methods of release.

                If this theory is true, does that mean that reading and writing fantasies is not something that should be encouraged in society as it only encourages egoism or is it cathartic?