Paradigms and Purepose

I am sure most people are starting with their post by resuming up the question. It is true that in the chapter many points of view were presented. Some of which made a lot more sense than others. And for me, Aristotle spoke to me the most.


I believe that many of us use art to do what Aristotle proposed. And that is through art, in Aristotle's case the tragedies people are become educated because the art appeals to their emotions. Much like how we as humans can observe a piece of art for not only the material fact that it is something tangible but also the emotion that is behind it. Like looking at a boat lost at sea and feeling actual fear as if we were really there. It makes perfect sense that in a tragedy, if a good character and faces hardship it creates a sense of cleansing through fear or pity. When we observe art or a performance we can relate to the characters if they feel such basic emotions as fear or pity no mater how complicated the contained concept may be those using those emotions to further teach us about how to deal with life if something like what the character is facing were to happen to use.

The other part of Aristotle's argument that really speaks to me is that the tragic hero is not actually a bad person but Hamartia, or a tragic flaw causes that person to do bad things. This causes the character in the performance to further relate to us. We know that we are not perfect and it are those flaws that causes us to make poor choices in our lives. This further makes sense as Aristotle argued that art in general is an imitation of real life. Through both this concept and flaws and that that art imitates our lives we can see how Aristotle's point about art being education can make a lot of sense. If we look at art as a lesson we pose to learn a lot about not just the world around us but ourselves.

Is art evolutionary.

Over the years I have been asked by teachers and educators to swallow some very hard to take material. None of them compare to the Natural History of Art article. How could it be that our preference for art is genetic, an ingrained system determined by our DNA? Sure there can be some merit to the concept. The author makes the point that there are certain markings in nature that represent danger. But these aren't something that we just automatically know. Think about snakes. There are two snakes that have a very similar color scheme, on one yellow stripes are touching black, on the other red and black stripes are touching. The differnce is the first is relatively harmless and the later will kill you. But these color patterns aren't something we know through our genetics but are instead warned by others. Thus nurture over nature. And sure, bright colors can tip us off at somethings potential threat but even then show a child a bright object and a dull one and they will most likely go for the bright one, even if that is a Poisin Dart Frog unless they have been warned against its risk. Because of this logic, I simply can not understand how ones appreciation for art is determined by out genetic code. Over all the article makes broad generaltizations about humans with little to know solid facts or data to back up their theory. The Article is also littered with passive or weasle words like "maybe" "perhaps", which in a article based in the realm of science, simply makes me cringe. But other than that it is an interesting article.