 Okay, hi there. Welcome back to Great Texts. We're talking about John Dewey's art as experience and this week we're on chapter 14 art and civilization and that's the last chapter of the book So we'll also have a little wrap-up discussion today Now in so many ways this chapter brings the book full circle, right? It powerfully restates the main claims of the book reinforces some of the deep connections drawn between art and human experience obviously the main sort of agenda the book between human experience, human aesthetic experience, and human nature, right? And you know reminds us of both the biological and social cultural elements of human nature This chapter also returns to the problem raised in the beginning of the book of the isolation of art and much of the rest of our everyday lives the sort of isolation of art that the museum conception of art brings with it Now the role of art in civilization could not be more significant for Dewey I mean it's really significant, really major It's here in this discussion that we see the full value of Dewey's account of the role of art as communication, right? When we think about the role of art in civilization For Dewey the continuity of culture The very notion of cultural memory are provided by art more than by anything else, right? For Dewey art is the universal language by which the past Speaks to and is carried on in the future and the present and the future As well as the way that one culture speaks to another For Dewey art is a powerful medium of cultural exchange allowing us to expand our horizons Our own individual horizons, right? As well as the horizons of our society and our culture As Dewey says Works of art are means by which we enter through imagination and the emotions they evoke into other forms of relationship and participation than our own I think this passage here captures it nicely as well He's considering the relationship of art and civilization through the meaning of the word civilization and civilize And he says the verb to civilize is defined as to instruct in the arts of life and thus to raise in the scale of civilization And he says and Dewey says instruction in the arts of life is a matter of communication and participation in values of life by means of the imagination And works of art are the most intimate and energetic means of aiding individuals to share in the art of living But there's a significant problem in this process as concerns our contemporary society Dewey tells us and this is connected to problems he's raised before And that's the isolation of art from other aspects of our life, right? So again, this is a major problem from the very beginning of the book Dewey says the isolation of art that now exists is one manifestation of the incoherence of our civilization produced by new forces So new that the attitudes belonging to them and the consequences issuing from them have not been incorporated and digested into integral elements of experience And just what are these new forces? The new forces in question are natural science on the one hand and The machine industry and mass production that science sort of creates on the other hand So we'll talk about each of these each of these problems in turn, right? These are the forces which are not integrated with art In some way or other, right? A physical science natural science presents us with a world that is As Dewey says stripped of its familiar qualities replaced with quantities right and relations and abstractions And uh, you know, you know often in a way that that is um Really sort of destructive to our own conception of how things work, right? So when the physicist tells you You know what you think of as a solid table is actually just uh mostly empty space and a few atoms here and there electrons and protons Um, what is an electron and proton? Well, he gives you a complicated mathematical explanation um that You know really is is very different from the way you ordinarily think of things But what's uh, even further, right? Science conceives of a physical world that is in many ways opposed to the moral The moral spiritual and ideal elements of our civilization, right? So there's no world. There's no there's no place in this picture that the of the natural world that science gives us for for the moral or the spiritual, right? And that creates a sense of alienation, right? But one of the major benefits of science according to Dewey for art Is that it shows that humanity is a part of nature, right? It's not really separate from it and that actually improves our ability to understand art Um, uh, and as well as our as our relation to our experience um What's more, Dewey reminds us that tension, right? And friction are key aspects of art, right? So the fact that there's a sense of disintegration opposition between ideas old and new Right resistance to sort of adopting scientific methods in other parts of our life um and seeming tensions between the physical and moral images of the world um, this is not something that sort of Should be taken as as hostile to art as reasons for thinking that there are two separate cultures The artistic and the and the scientific or the humane and the scientific It's just material for art, right? This is the kind of material that ought to lead to drive um, art forward if there weren't a sense of resistance to um to sort of our Everyday impulsions There'd be no art in the first place The other major force causing a problem for the integration of art in society is Uh that creates that sense of tension with art is Um is industry, right machine industry, which obviously is a product in some sense of the progress of science Um, but Dewey, you know, Dewey says mass production um In our society intensive it didn't create it, but it intensified the separation between fine and useful arts fine art and useful arts The production of goods uh in our society increasingly mechanical Perhaps even more so today than in Dewey's time um, and I think Dewey speaks here to not only how machine industry works, right? But also what can be produced under the conditions of of machine industry The requirements of mechanical production often interfere with the aesthetic um now You know, it's easy to read Dewey here is is totally hostile to um sort of industrial conditions modern mechanical production practices, but I think that's not ultimately the issue for Dewey Um, and he I think he tells us quite quite directly that there's no inherent disconnect between machine production Um anesthetics right between industrial conditions anesthetics and indeed in in certain moments here and he he references the Things like like train cars um and architecture Um, Dewey seems actually to show a preference for sort of modernist design principles over more Sort of ornamental, uh design um So what so what so what's the problem then? Well, Dewey seems to really focus in on is is the alienation of the worker who produces goods from the production process and the final product, right? So ultimately it's not the the role of machines in that process so much as um the underlying economic system that Dewey objects to Um, and what is it particularly about that system? Well, it's that alienation, right? It's the presupposition of a kind of labor leisure dualism, right where working conditions on the on the one hand are You know unpleasant Alienating Exhausting meaningless to the individual engaged in them And enjoyment is something that happens Somewhere else, right reserved for leisure time, right? So we you know, we sort of give away our life In one place to earn leisure in another place this whole sort of set of relationships to Dewey is is hostile to the very aesthetic dimension of life And uh, you know look at this quote by Dewey here What is true is that art itself is not secure under modern conditions until the massive men and women who do the work of the world have the opportunity to be free in conducting the processes of production And are richly endowed in capacity for enjoying the fruits of collective work In other words, I think for Dewey worker participation in production where where the worker has the freedom Uh over themselves and the and a certain amount of control over the product Leads to personal interest Um by the worker in their work, right? Which leads to the possibility of aesthetic satisfaction In the in the product, right? So this is typically not the case under current economic conditions, right? But Dewey sees this as the sort of the future for Reintegration of art into into society Now um Dewey concludes the book with a discussion of the relation between art and morality um Dewey, I think is opposed to both um The marxist view, right that art is just propaganda, right? So although some of his Some of his analysis of the problems that we face Have a kind of marxist sound to them. He's uh, he's opposed to the marxist analysis of art And he's also opposed to the kind of moralist view of art as direct instrument of moral education, right? The content of art has to somehow Directly communicate On the moral level rather for Dewey art creates an imaginative vision of how reality could be, right? It trades in possibility And it's realized in actual material, right? And it's and it's that Sort of function of art, right? That sort of imaginative projection Um That Is is essential to the moral function of art. So so as such art is only moral or political indirectly Right in that it encourages these elements that are important Um, it encourages imagination, right in particular Which is needed both for empathy and for the creation of ideals, right? Um, it is emotionally engaged also in a way that's important for both of those things And thus art's a sort of essential for the creation of shared Values, right and and future and future progress, right? So that's sort of the moral function of art For Dewey and that's where he ends the book So um to sort of wrap up the discussion of art as experience I want to talk a little bit about the sort of overall theory of the book Dewey answers not only the question of what is art, but also Several other questions when is art where is art how is art? And why is art? In consideration of the question of of what is art Dewey tells us again reminding of reminding us At the beginning of the final chapter of his basic Uh of his basic idea That art is a quality that permeates experience permeates and experience, right? It is not saved by figure of speech the experience itself. It's an important caveat Art is adjectival in nature. He tells us earlier in the book So art is a characteristic of a certain kind of experience Or it's a pretty better to say it's a it's a quality That permeates certain experiences that have a certain structure Which brings us to the second question of of when is art? And in a sense this really gets to the key definition for Dewey of art So he asks when is art and he tells us When the structure of the object is such that its force interacts with the energies that issue from the experience itself When their mutual affinities and antagonisms work together to bring about a substance that develops cumulatively Toward a fulfilling of impulsions intentions Then there is a work of art, right? Um So remember that the experience That is aesthetic in nature has to have that kind of cumulative Um Integrating quality to it Um So uh in addition to what and when Dewey talks about The where of art and in particular his answer here is negative art is not Something that should be isolated in museums. It's it's not to be found only in special contact contexts If it's to be vital, right? It has to be a part of life everywhere, right? Um He gives thorough descriptions of the creative process how art is produced, right? And the nature of aesthetic perception and appreciation how art is or at least ought to be consumed um And um the final chapter I think deals especially with the question of the the why of art, right? What is the purpose or function or goal of art? I won't rehearse everything. We've just said about the social Um cultural and moral roles of art But maybe the best way to wrap up the discussion is to consider this quote that Dewey That Dewey gives us from Shelley, right? In which Shelley says the great secret of morals is love Or a going out of our nature and the identification of ourselves with the beautiful Which exists in thought action or person not our own A man to be greatly good must imagine intensely and comprehensively right And I think that captures nicely the uh the significance to Dewey of um of imagination and artfulness Um in in morality in a way Um the creation of a moral life for Dewey is a is a is a large scale work of art So I just want to you know It's worth a moment with that with that quote um All right. Well, that's that's chapter 14 and some sort of final thoughts about the book Thanks so much for um Tuning in and uh, I look forward to further discussion with you In the various places where those take place. So I will see you in class many of you Or I hope to hear from you in the discussion board or the comments Take care and uh, thank you for joining us as we've discussed John Dewey's art as experience Bye