TrueLife - Dr. David Salomon- The Perversion of Art in our Society

Episode Date: January 4, 2023

One on One Video Call W/George https://tidycal.com/georgepmonty/60-minute-meetingSupport the show:https://www.paypal.me/Truelifepodcast?locale.x=en_US🚨🚨Curious about the future of psychedelics? Imagine if Alan Watts started a secret society with Ram Dass and Hunter S. Thompson… now open the door. Use Promocode TRUELIFE for Get 25% off monthly or 30% off the annual plan For the first yearhttps://www.district216.com/http://www.davidasalomon.com/https://davidsalomonblog.wordpress.com/In todays episode we talk about the perversion of art in our society. An idea put forth by Rosenkranz that sums up said perversion is as follows:“ A corpse is a scandalous phenomenon because it still has a form, although it is in itself formless. Due to the still existing form, it retains the semblance of life, despite being dead. The negation of the beautiful form of an appearance through a non-form originating in physical or moral decay. “It seems to me, that todays works of art have been hijacked by the world of commerce. Take for example, Jeff Koons “Balloon Dog.” In my opinion this giant smooth,  reflective, sculpture acts as a mirror. A distorted reflection that allows, promotes, and rewards the individual to constantly look at and admire themselves in their possessions. It speaks volumes of our narcissistic nature. One on One Video call W/George https://tidycal.com/georgepmonty/60-minute-meetingSupport the show:https://www.paypal.me/Truelifepodcast?locale.x=en_USCheck out our YouTube:https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPzfOaFtA1hF8UhnuvOQnTgKcIYPI9Ni9&si=Jgg9ATGwzhzdmjkg

Darkness struck, a gut-punched theft, Sun ripped away, her health bereft. I roar at the void. This ain't just fate, a cosmic scam I spit my hate. The games rigged tight, shadows deal, blood on their hands, I'll never kneel. Yet in the rage, a crack ignites, occulted sparks cut through the nights. The scars my key, hermetic and stark. To see, to rise, I hunt in the dark, fumbling, fear. through ruins maze, lights my war cry, born from the blaze.

The poem is Angels with Rifles. The track, I Am Sorrow, I Am Lust by Codex Seraphini. Check out the entire song at the end of the cast. These and gentlemen, welcome back to 2023, the year of the rabbit. We have, for the first time this year, we got Dr. David Solomon on. It's going to be a great show for those of you. And I don't know how many of you there are that may not know who Dr. David Solomon is, but I would be so thankful, Dr. Solomon, if you'd be so kind as just to maybe refresh people's memories about what you've got going on, who you are, and what you've been up to.

Sure. So I have been a professor of medieval and Renaissance literature, religion, and culture for about 30 years. I'm currently the director of undergraduate research and creative activity at Christopher Newport University in Newport, Newport, New York. Native New Yorker, born and raised, and written a bunch of books. My most recent book is a book on The Seven Deadly Sins, which I'm really quite proud of that work. So I hope people will take a look. Yeah, it's a great book. And for those of you who are not familiar with Dr. David Solomon's books, they are very rewarding.

There are tons of footnotes and everything is well researched. And I think that those who have seen previous podcasts have an understanding for his experience. And if you haven't, then you are in for a treat in this particular episode. He also writes a blog that is very fun and informative to read, of which I wanted to start off this episode with a little segment from your blog. and I'm just going to go ahead and read it if that's okay. A little piece here. It starts off in the middle of the blog, and it's corresponding to the perversion of art.

And it says Tolstoy, what is art? Question mark. Supplanting of the ideal of what is right by the ideal of what is beautiful, i.e. of what is pleasant. That is the fourth consequence and a terrible one of the perversion of art in our society. It is fearful,

to think of what would befall humanity where such art to spread among the masses of the people and it already begins to spread. Blah! blew up my mind there a little bit. Can you just dive, just maybe kind of pan out a little bit and then bring us into what does that mean? And what do you think of when you wrote that? Yeah, so let's back up.

So we're talking about Leo Tolstoy, author most people know of War and Peace. I did not write what you just read. I wish I had. He did. Oh, I'm sorry. I have my notes messed up. In a book called What is Art? And he's talking about a book which had been published already,

a book published in 1896 called Might is Right. It was a book on survival of the fittest, basically. It was kind of reacting to Darwin. And what Tolstoy is talking about is he's addressing that question, what is art. And just let me read the quote again. So he's describing the book, Might is Right, this guy's book, as supplanting of the ideal of what is right by the ideal of what is beautiful. That is of what is pleasant. That is the fourth consequence and a terrible one of the perversion of art in our society. So he's talking about, you know, looking at instead,

Ed, this conflict has been going on since what, since Plato, right? About, you know, what is beauty? What is art? Is it just something that is pleasant and it makes me happy? Does it have some kind of intrinsic value? Does it, is there a difference between beauty and something that's beautiful and something that is entertaining? you know, we think today in terms of a lot of pop culture entertainment, right? I mean, the Marvel movies. They're very entertaining, right?

I'm not sure anybody would describe them as beautiful in the sense that Plato would use that term. Whereas if you're watching a film like, oh, I don't know, I'm trying to think about one off the top of my head, and the only one that came to mind immediately was life is beautiful, the Holocaust film. right which i mean it it's yes it's entertaining but there has an intrinsic kind of beauty to it and to the story and i think what total story is talking about and he continues in that quote he says it's fearful to think of what would befall humanity where such art is spread among the masses of the people that it already begins to spread and so we're talking about the ways in which we view art and what we view as art in our world. And, you know, it's timely because I just took a trip before the,

for the holidays with my family, and we went up to New York City and up to Boston and also to Philadelphia. It was basically to look at museums and went from one museum to another. And, you know, we were everywhere from the Metropolitan Museum of Art to the, the, the, the muter museum of medical kind of oddities in Philadelphia. And it really begs that question about the connection between

entertainment and art, I think. And that's something that that people talk about a lot, especially when it comes to things like film, music, TV, right, even literature, right? Even, even publishing. We've always kind of separated

you know, pop-lit, the kind of stuff that we stereotypically used to say, you could buy at an airport bookstore from, you know, literature, whatever that means. You know, that kind of all got, got turned upside down many years ago when Tony Morrison became so popular and eventually won the Nobel Prize. Well, I mean, they were selling her books in the airport bookstore, you know. Does that mean that she's not literature, that it's just pop writing, pop fiction? there are some bookstores that you go into that still separate out literature from fiction. How do they make that distinction? What does that mean? It's a great question. It's one of those questions that brings up more questions about this idea of how we interpret what is art and what effect does it have?

Does popular culture, is that what is pushing art in a direction or is it art pushing? on popular culture. There seems to be an interesting relationship there. What do you think that some of the dynamics there are? Well, it's a relationship that I think has really shifted with technology and social media and the internet. You know, my students are always marvel at the fact that I tell them that, you know, Robert Frost was on the cover of Life magazine in the, very early 1960s. I mean, these guys were, these literature, I mean, T.S. Eliot was on the cover of Time magazine. These literary figures were also pop figures in some ways before we even refer to them that way. We don't necessarily see that today. We separate, I think, and I'm not saying this to sound

elitist, but philosophers talk about high art and low art, right? And high art being, you know, you're looking at a de Ga, and low art being, you know, some would say things like Banksy. Yeah. When it comes to art, right? I mean, I don't know, I don't necessarily agree with that. But I think that it's a valid discussion that, quite honestly, we've been having as human beings for centuries. So when Tolstoy sort of boldly names his little book,

What is Art? I don't think he comes up with a good response. I think he comes up with he doesn't come up with the response. He comes up with a response for his time and place. And I think that's all we can do. Because really what art is is in transience constantly.

It has to be. It has to be. I mean, when the Impressionist first came out, people thought that was garbage. I mean, the initial assessment of that work was, that's worthless. It's not art. And now it's hanging in museums around the world. You know, certainly some of that speaks to what we value.

We talked about work for the last time we talked. I mean, you know, unfortunately has to do with that. But I think it's more than that. It speaks to this question of what do we get out of it? And I think I've told you this story before, George, so forgive me. But when I was teaching in South Dakota, my first full-time teaching job after my Ph.D., I was teaching a seminar in aesthetics. So aesthetics, the philosophical study of beauty, basically. And my parents came out to visit.

My father had never seen me teach. And I should preface this by saying and repeating, I mean, I, I, I grew up in New York City. My father loved the impressionists. My father is high school educated. But we had a membership of the Metropolitan Bar every Sunday we would go down there. But basically, I mean, it was just the impressionist that he was interested in. He was very interested in them. He read about them and he just wanted to look at the impressionists. So, and Van Gogh and Gogne were two of his favorites. So when he came out to visit me and he was going to sit in on my class,

my seminar and aesthetics, I intentionally scheduled that day a critique session, which we had scheduled throughout the semester, where I would put up a piece on the screen and students would critique it from the perspective of the philosophers and the theorists that we have been studying. And so that day, I chose to put up a Van Gogh piece. I forget which one it was. My father was going to be in class, and I thought he would really appreciate that. So I put up this Van Gogh painting and the class critiqued it for about 45, 50 minutes. And after class, I said to my father, so, you know, what did you think? And he said, well, I don't really understand.

I say, well, what don't you understand? He says, why can't you just say, that's a pretty picture? And I said, you can. But when we're talking about aesthetics, it's a pretty picture because. you can't leave that off. But he's happy enough, was happy enough just to be able to say, it's a pretty picture, I like it, and not have to defend why. And I think that one of the differences that we sort of look at in our culture

between what I'll call high art and low art is, I mean, high art has more depth to it, is more umph, whereas low art, you can say it's a pretty picture. You can go to a Marvel movie and say, I liked it, it was enjoyable, had a lot of action. You're not going to do that if you go see a Bergman film, right? I mean, you're going to talk about it in a different context. And I think that there's a reason for that.

There's a reason for that. I think what Tolstoy was afraid of and warning is that, that what he calls the masses of the people, right? Eventually, what we now call pop culture, would overtake that art world. And as a result, the whole idea of what is high art would kind of go out the window

because it would all be what speaks to the lowest common denominator, if you will. I mean, again, not to belabor it, but that Marvel movies are incredibly popular. They make a lot of money, a lot of people go see them. Is that art? I don't know. You know, it's a type of art.

But I don't think you can compare it with, you know, say the films of Felini or Bergman or, you know, the films of some of these filmmakers who are working just on a different kind of level. Yeah, I think it, I think it speaks volumes of the world we live in when we're surrounded by the type of things we call art. And it would be the things like the Marvel movies. And it's unfortunate to me that in today's world, some of the greatest artists are people that are in the advertisement industry. They're using their entire worldview to paint pictures to get people to consume rather than to contemplate. And I think that the difference between contemplation and consumption is something that art could be beautiful for. but it's been, the world of contemplation has been consumed by materialism in a weird sort of way. Like some of, I look at some of these ads, you know, and if you think of, like, in Hawaii,

we're really blessed because we don't have huge billboards. We don't have advertisements everywhere. But we do have on the buildings, like a lot of artists will paint these beautiful pictures on the side of buildings. And it's so inspiring and it's amazing. And it makes me think to myself the effect it has on me. Like, I'm not having this constant. reaching out or grabbing me or asking me to buy this or these constant bombardments thrown at me, whether I'm driving or walking,

but I do have these beautiful images of a sunset or some dolphins or a beautiful woman that's staring at you. And you know, there's a symbolism around them. And you're like, what does that mean? And, you know, you look at some of these billboards. I mean, there can be something that's really beautiful about some advertising, though. I mean, you know, you look at some older advertising, which I'm a fan of looking at old. print ads and things like that. I mean, the artistry

in them is just incredible. I mean, you know, and a lot of these, the greatest artists of the 20th century started out working in advertising, doing, you know, doing print ads and drawing things like that. And the design world is the same way. You know, if we look at the way things that are

designed, I'm trying to see, yes, it is over on my shelf. I'm going to excuse myself. Yeah, please. I would love to see it. So, years ago I found this somewhere someone was throwing it out

it was when I was teaching in South Dakota because that's the label it's on it and I grabbed it and it is an old it's the brand here ACER I've never even heard of them an ACER staple and I just thought this has such

interesting lines to it it's an interesting design right I mean, it has function, but the form of it is also kind of beautiful. I agree. And, you know, if you take that versus, you know, the stapler that's sitting on my desk, that's not very pretty. It's functional. But it isn't something that, you know, I don't think years from now I'm going to keep and put on my shelf.

Yeah. Right. So the shift that we've seen in that in that sort of melding together a form and function is interesting, right? Things have become so much more functional. And the form of them in many ways not that important, not as important. You know, as I say, I was just in New York City and a lot of people are crying a lot of the new buildings that are going up because they're just ugly. You know, the form of them is just not very attractive. They're very functional.

They will do what they need to do. But as buildings, when you compare them to say, you know, the Art Deco building, so the 20s and 30s, many of which are still standing in the city, you can't even compare them. You know, it was interesting. We were walking down 42nd Street towards the New York Public Library. And between 5th and 6th Avenue, in the sidewalk, they have put these. plaques that have quotes from writers on them. So as you're walking along to the library, you see this. Now, I don't know what year those were put into the sidewalks. I don't think it was that long ago, but, you know, a very interesting, interesting idea that adds a kind of form. I mean, you know,

this is a functional thing. You're walking on the sidewalk. You know, who cares what it looks like. And the fact of the matter is there were days when people did care what it looked like. I mean, you're talking about the murals on the sides of buildings. We saw some of those in Philadelphia, too. I was really struck by it on the sides of some buildings, some of these beautiful murals that have been painted. And these were new, not old. And I think, you know, there's an interesting thing.

You've got the function of the building, but it doesn't mean that there can't be something to it. Right. And I think in many ways we've gravitated away from that and think about just, well, is it functional? Is it functional? That's what's important. You know, I mean, as I look around here on my desk, you know, my desk things, they're all functional. There's nothing, I mean, there's nothing very attractive about any of it.

It just serves a function. And in our disposable society, when it finished its function, it'll be thrown away. You know, and I think that it speaks to the resurgence. recently and people interested in everything vintage. I put that word in quotation marks because, boy, it's taken up battering. If you go on eBay and type in vintage, you'll see what people are considering vintage. It's kind of funny. But if you, you know, look at some of these things that they're just, they're beautiful. I bought something this morning from a gentleman. I teach a museum studies course start next week and it's curating so my students will curate an exhibition

hopefully later in the semester when we're done we can have some of them on the show oh and love it and one of the things so this semester they're going to do two different sort of parts of the show one will be focused on on things that are related to ritual and the other thing will be focused on things that are related to play um and so i bought this morning a little children's desk from a gentleman that it's hard to describe, but it has a chalkboard on it that you open. And then inside were these pegs with a mallet that you pound the pegs into so you can learn how to do that. And I bought it from him and he said, I don't know how old it is.

He says, I would say 68 or 69 years old. He said, I'm 73. I guess I never used it. It was his. And it still had everything. intact. But it just it has an intrinsic

beauty to the design of the thing that I don't think you're going to find if you go to find something similar in Walmart today in the toy section. There was a craftsmanship. We talked about this month before. Yeah. Articanship and craftsmanship, which just seems to be

in many ways waning in the shadows of mass production and making everything as cheap as you can. You know, I mean, I've never looked. I'm sure if I go on eBay, I'll bet you the stapler's up there. And I can only imagine what someone is selling it for. I have no idea what year it's from because there's some tape and stuff on the bottom of it. But I think people are more and more interested in these vintage items.

they lasted and but more than that they had some some beauty to them yeah i agree is it heavy it looks like it's pretty solid you could kill them you could write a you could write a really good murder mystery where somebody's killed with this stapler oh it's hilarious working online yep and on on ebay sure enough there they are one after another you know not worth them much it seems People have them up for $15, $20. But they see that there is something about this that, you know, meant you wanted to keep it. I don't know what year it's from.

I'm trying to see here. That's Acer Model 502. Oh, that's funny. So it's Acer was the name of the staple company. Now when you put an Acer to Google, you get Acer, the computer company. Yep. Yeah. Not interesting.

It is interesting. it blows me away too. I got sort of mesmerized by the idea of writers' quotes on the sidewalk. And it made me think about how we could be surrounded by all kinds of artwork and what that might do to our society. I'm wondering if there's a relationship between these bland buildings and these bland jobs and these bland ideas. Like it seems that even though these things, you know, if I went to a home. builder that's building commercial buildings and I had mentioned to them, why don't you think we should be incorporating art? They would probably want to do a cost basis or a cost effective analysis.

Yeah, yeah. But people don't tend to factor in the long term effects of artwork on someone's creative abilities later in life. I think they should, right? Well, and we're seeing that though. I mean, you know, I mean, you say, you know, about having it around us. I mean, for a while, there was a, I don't think the program is still going on, but there was a program. to get poetry into the subways. A friend of mine wrote a book that collected all the poetry that had been put in subways.

And out in California, I believe it was, it was maybe San Francisco. I'm not positive. There was a, I think it was even Starbucks, was starting to put quotes on cups, literary quotes. And a friend of a poet friend of my Marilyn Chin, she had a, one of her poems, a section of it was on a cup, and I remember she posted it on Facebook. But I just finished reading Susan Orleans book, The Library. This is Susan Orleans, the author of The Orchid Thief. People may know her from that.

And the library was not her most recent book, but the one before that. And it is about the public library in Los Angeles, which had a fire, terrible fire, in the 1980s and it was a really intriguing book, but she goes in in the book to talking about when the library was built and all of the art that was just a part of the library. The sculpture and the relief work that was done on the ceilings and the paintings and the murals, as you say, I mean, we don't, we don't really see that much anymore. I think that that has largely gone away as a result of just this focus on function. Yeah, I agree.

I don't have a formal background in art. I like to look at it and I like to read about it, but I know that you do have a lot more insight, you know, with the work that you do as a creative director, you are around different types of artistic abilities and stuff. And I wanted to read this quote to you to get your, maybe you can help me understand it better

or I could at least get your opinion on it. So it would be okay if I read this for a minute. Hegel, who empathetically held on to the arts being meaningful, therefore limited the sensual in the arts to the two theoretical senses of sight and hearing. They alone have access to meaning. While smell and taste are excluded from the enjoyment of art, the latter are only susceptible to the agreeable, which is not the beauty of art. For smell, taste, and touch have to do with matter as such and its immediately sensible qualities.

Smell and material volatility in air. Taste with the material liqueification of objects. Touch with warmth. Cold, smoothness, etc. The smooth only conveys an agreeable feeling which cannot be connected with any meaning or profound sense. It exhaust itself in a wow. But this idea that the theoretical senses of sense, sight and hearing and they

alone have access to meaning. That's a pretty deep thought. What do you think about that? Well, it's Hegel. The city is a Hegel, I said, oh, no. Because it's a level of philosophical thought that most of us don't engage in it. Which is thinking about things like

the senses and what they have access to. Although, you know, the Greeks were doing the same thing in some ways. I think there's some truth to that. I don't think it works on all levels because, I mean, I can sit down and have a really incredible meal and think, you know, that chef is a real artist, right?

You know, because that food just, I mean, the taste of it, the taste and the smell, which is what I'm engaging in, as well as the visual, has an artistic sensibility to it. But, you know, that being said, I mean, I'm a huge music fan and listen to music really as a tonic in many cases. And always am just really kind of just marveling at the beauty of music. And I'm talking about everything from, you know, Mozart to to Britney Spears, right? I mean, I'm listening to everything and just amazing.

It's so funny because I was listening to something this morning and you're going to laugh, but it was a song by the Captain and Teneal. And, you know, initially people think Captain and Teneal is bubblegum music, right? It was pop music, 1970s, means nothing. But the fact of the matter is that the captain, Darrell, I forget what his last name is, was actually an incredible sound engineer and producer. In fact, a lot of the greatest albums of the 1970s and 80s were recorded in his studio. So, I mean, he was an incredible producer.

But I was listening to this one song, and I was listening not to her singing. I mean, her singing was beautiful, but the production value of it, the music, the way that he recorded this and the way that it's layered. And it just had such an incredible beauty. And I listened to that song over and over again. And I'm like, wow. I mean, you know, I've heard that song for 50 years, and I've always just kind of tossed it aside as like, oh, yeah, that was a top 40 hit, you know.

But you listen to it a little bit more closely, and you hear the beauty of it. So I think, you know, the hearing and the seeing, certainly that's got something to do with it. But, I mean, I think the other senses are engaged as well. You know, I'm not going to argue with Hegel, because I couldn't. And second, because I would never want to.

But, you know, I mean, Galian would have a whole discussion about this that would be beyond me. And I wouldn't understand what they were talking about. I can barely understand what Hegel's talking about. Yeah, I'm with you. That's why I asked. I was like, you know, I don't thoroughly understand. I kind of can see what he's saying.

But, you know, sometimes the sense of smell and the sense of taste are derivatives of the sensual mood. You know, they seem sensual in a lot of ways to me. You know, if we look at the future for a minute and we talk about technology like we always do, there's some really interesting art programs right now from artificial intelligence where you can type in exactly what you want. And it will put it in the style of, you know, pick your artist. You could have the David Solomon blog painted in the style of, you know, whoever. What do you think is, what do you see happening there? Is that going to explode art in ways for people?

Or is it going to make the base shrink a little bit? Do you have any thoughts on it? I've been discussing this with some artist friends of mine in the last couple of weeks, especially as this new AI bot has come out, which seems to be really sort of rocking everybody's world. And there was an editorial in The Times, I think it was on Sunday, Sunday or Monday, by an illustrator. And she put at the bottom of it,

a comic strip that she had drawn, and then she put in what the AI bot had given her when she put the same, you know, the information in. And it was, and she admitted, I mean, it was kind of close, you know. I don't know. You know, I, I've always kind of had myself a personal dislike of what's always been referred to as digital art. I didn't really understand what was going on there because for me, art was a tactile thing. And I didn't really get how you could do that. And then a friend of mine, an old high school friend of mine, who has become a quite a successful painter. She lives in Europe at the moment.

And she's quite amazing. And she still does paint traditionally on a canvas, but she also does a lot. of painting quote unquote on her iPad and when she told me this and showed me what she's able to do it was kind of amazing because that you know initially i thought as so much so many people think when they see abstract art they're like well i could do that you know and so i said to you know well you know and i i try to draw on paint i'm i'm no good but i dabble in it as a as a as a really amateur I don't know. You need to like amateur to the 10th power. I'm so far away from being any of them that's any good. But I said to her, you know, well, what program? You know, she told me the program she was using.

It was just a program that you downloaded. It wasn't even who costs anything. And so I downloaded the program and I started fooling it. It was like, oh, my God. There is something to this. You just, you know, not everybody could do it. And, but, and here's the big but because the traditionalist me comes out. Right. If I'm at the museum looking at a painting, you know, and I want to walk up to the painting and I'm looking at the brushstrokes. I'm looking at the paint. I'm thinking about the artist having stood in that same spot and applying the paint to the canvas and what he or she went through. Or when I'm looking at, for example, de Gaas sculpture of the dancer of the ballet dancer, you know, I'm looking at the work that goes into the, that and the very subtlety of the legs. I'm not sure that the digital can reproduce that. And let me correct myself, it can reproduce it. I'm not sure it can create it. Right? It can clearly reproduce it. Can it create it? That's a different question, right? And that's when it comes

with the artificial intelligence, the whole issue of the Turing test and the sentience of AI. I mean, can it create and not just mimic? I don't know. I mean, it's funny that you bring this up because I was just reading this morning, this article that was an interview with this woman. She's a computer scientist who won a prestigious MacArthur, Genius Grant, and she does work in the AI world. Her name is Ye Jin Choi. and the interviewer asked her whether or not trying to find out where it is here

she's point like asked her whether or not she thought whether or not artificial intelligence was going to be able to to make moral decisions in the future and her answer to that so the question was how could you possibly teach AI to make moral decisions when almost every rule or truth has exceptions. And her answer is, AI should learn exactly that. There are cases that are more clean cut, and then there are cases that are more discretionary.

An example that she gave later on was in understanding just the little nuances of things that computers don't seem to be able to yet do that require human interaction in a to understand that. She refers to it as the dark matter of intelligence. Wow. I thought it was really interesting. And she uses birds as an example. She says, we don't talk about it, but everyone knows it. We don't know the exact fraction of knowledge that you and I have that we didn't talk about. But my speculation is that a lot. You and I know birds can fly. And we know penguins generally cannot. So AI researchers thought we can code this up. Birds usually fly except for penguins.

But in fact, exceptions are the challenge for common sense rules. Newborn baby birds cannot fly. Birds covered in oil cannot fly. Birds who are injured cannot fly. Birds in a cage cannot fly. The point being exceptions are not exceptional. And you and I can think of them even though nobody told us. It's a fascinating capability.

It's not so easy for AI. Man, so that makes me think that maybe, you know, the perversion. You're meeting over my shelf this morning, my shoulder this morning. I think we're on the same wavelength. Yeah, you know. Synchronicity. Yeah, it's, it's, I think it's probably on a lot of people's minds. How can it not be?

It's right in front of us. And it makes me come to this idea. Once you read that, and I looked at the title of our podcast today, is the perversion of art in our society, maybe what's happening, and maybe this is the perversion is that we are not so much, we are not so much teaching AI about what art can be as much as AI is telling us what art cannot

be. And that seems to be a perversion of art. That seems to be scary to me like because oh, we can't code that in. Well, how much longer before that's, that's not even in our algorithm. And by algorithm I mean our behavior. Like maybe it's the AI that is coding us, you know, in a weird sort of way. That would be a The danger, right? If we become slaves to it, okay. Yes.

If we become slaves to it, then the AI will tell us what art is. Right? And that's the danger rather than us understanding what art is. And then, you know, well, can AI do that? Can it not do that? But if we shift the field here and say, well, you know, AI is telling us that's not art. You know, that's just crazy. I mean, I think we mentioned once before, you know,

I just find it funny that we are so obsessed with artificial intelligence when we still haven't figured out human intelligence. Yeah, I know. I know. I think we still need a lot of work on human intelligence before we can do the AI. But there you go. That gives me hope for it as a tool. Like some of the beauty that I see coming from this AI, world of art, is the ability for people, you know, the same way that we saw people come back from the Middle East and got these new limbs. and they were able to walk again.

I think that the AI may be almost a prosthetic for people who can't really draw, but are very imaginative. And it may open up this new field. It may open up new collaborations for people who are very imaginative, but can't quite translate that vision into reality. Maybe now they could work with an artist, and it could be a bridge that people walk across and help each other. So maybe there's something there.

It's looking at it from a collaborative perspective. Yes. And thinking more of what can we do that to make this a hybrid, right? It can hybridize what we mean by art. And I think about people like Lori Anderson, the performance artist, too. I mean, she's amazing and she's done incredible things throughout her career with technology, just incredible things with technology. But she still also paints.

And she's a really fine painter. And she, in her work, oftentimes integrates both of them together. right the technology and the traditional arts the way that we think about it and i think that's where where you can get to some really interesting things um you know several years ago she was the the first and she says the only um guest artist uh for for NASA um they they they brought her on board as a as a get i forget what the term they used for the title was guest artist something like that And she argues that the whole thing was such a disaster. They're never going to have another one because they had different expectations of what she was going to do from what she did.

But she did some really interesting things when she was working with them. And if you check Lori Anderson's website online, you can see some of this stuff. Yeah. She's had a retrospective of her work has been going on at the Smithsonian. I think it's still up, but probably closing soon. It's really quite a fine show in D.C. Yeah, it's, I'm going to have to look at that. It makes me curious to see, to see those two things working together.

It's fascinating me to think also how, you know, it seems, and maybe for good reason, but it seems the wall to get into the world of art is sometimes a high wall to climb. And maybe this AI kind of brings that wall down or lowers, I don't know if you want to lower the barrier to entry because you want to have great artists there, but maybe it allows a different entrance or something to that effect where there's probably a lot of brilliant, brilliant artists out there that have just never had the opportunity to be surrounded. Well, I mean, it's the whole question of democratization, right? You're saying it will democratize art, right? The same way that, for example, self-publishing is democratized writing.

Right. That's a good point. And yeah, maybe that's true. I mean, we've always had as part of the culture, what we've referred to as sort of folk artists, right? I mean, these sort of local artists that just, you know, they make these things or they paint these things. And it exists and it sort of operates on a particular level that doesn't again reach the level of, say, something that's going to go on the met. Right. But more and more people are becoming interested in that kind of art, you know, outsider art and things like that, and more ethnically derived art, right?

Looking at things like that, it's very interesting. It has an intrinsic value in and of itself. And again, it's, we're not going to compare it because it's comparing apples and orange, right? I'm not going to put a piece of this outsider art up next to, you know, you know, Da Vinci's Salvatore Mundi. I mean, that would be crazy. They're not the same thing. The same way that I'm not going to have

a kid playing T-ball go in and pinch hit for the Yankees. It's just that would be crazy. And so you know, too often I think that we just have this static sort of idea of what the thing is. It's like, well, it doesn't reach that

so it's not that. And so get it out of here because it doesn't cut the muster. probably not a good way to go. I mean, you know, I mean, look at how democratized the airways have got. Yeah. 25 years ago, I mean, you and I could have never done something like this. That's right.

But the Internet allowed it to happen. Yeah, it is. It brought that democratization. I like that. Yeah, it's curious, and I'm curious to get your thoughts on this as, you know, when we look at the world of museums and you're around it so much, and you get to influence it and you've been around, you've traveled around.

Well, like, what, are there some trends that you see? Like, when you look at the world of art and you've traveled and you've seen some great pieces, and now you're getting to see great pieces and the students that are looking to curate pieces. Like, do you see some, do you see some changes in there? Or can you almost look in your crystal ball and see, like, I see these new kids coming up that have this factor and this factor. And like, what are some of the things that are the same and what are some things that you think are different about the new people coming up through the world of art? There's an interesting blend because, I mean, the students that I see who are engaged in the studio arts and even the students who are interested in our history are interested in a very, very fine blending of the traditional with the avant-garde and the cutting edge. And I think that's kind of cool.

Yeah. You know, they're just as interested in looking at, you know, the Dutch masters and really understanding what they're all about as they are looking at contemporary artists who are really on the cutting edge today, many of whom, I mean, you know, we wouldn't have heard of yet unless we traveled in those circles. I think that that's a really great thing. I think that's important. I think it's important in just about any field, but in the art world especially. And in that world, I'm including music and literature and not just visual art, performing art for that matter as well. But thinking about, you know, you can't know where you're going to you know where you've been. Right. So, you know, I always think it's interesting when you get students who are majoring in English literature. Like, I don't want to take a course in Shakespeare.

What do I need that for? Well, because he's foundational in English literature. You know, you may not like them. I don't like Jane Austen, right? But I still do. I understand that she has a place in the history of English literature that's important. And my fear is that we are dismissing a lot of what we've always thought of as seminal artists, seminal figures. And most often they're being pushed to the same.

side of the name of diversity and saying well you know they're all dead white guys right yeah um but they set the they set the stage um for today and you know i think we can look at them you know we can run the danger of looking at them through that that presentist bias which is you know oh well you know i don't if you look at Freud. I mean, you know, he was just a he was a pervert. I mean, you know, come on. What, what's going on there? And he took drugs. Yeah, from 2022, valid assessment. Right. Right. But we still have to appreciate and understand him for what he did and what he said, because without it, it's that house of cards, right? I mean, he's got the bottom level. You take that out,

the whole thing's going to collapse. My daughter is majoring in anthropology. And we've been talking about, you know, the problem of Margaret Mead. I mean, foundational anthropologist, incredibly important, but also very difficult given today's world because of a lot of what she said and did and wrote. It's troubling in the looking at it through the lens of 2022. That doesn't mean we should dismiss it. it means we have to understand it in its context. Yeah, it's like the founding fathers, give me liberty or give me death, except for these slaves over here.

You know, it's, it's a, but to deny that would be to deny our progress, to deny what happened there and look on it and apply the 20, 23 standards to that is you can't get lost in that. Like you said,

you can't get lost in, in applying today's standard to that. Like, that's a pivotal. And there's good and bad about it. And that's the beauty of it. It's like, look, yes, and yes, look at that. Don't not look at it.

Like, embrace it and hold it. You know, I'm curious. There are things that you see in art, you know, looking at visual art that you go back to look at that you say, oh, my God, you know, that's really pretty racist. You know? Sure. And you're like, yeah, it is.

You know, did the artist? know it when he was painting it? No. You know, it was a different world in a different context. I'm not excusing it. I'm not saying it's okay. I'm acknowledging it for what it is and understanding that looking at it with today's

eye, it's troubling. But it doesn't mean we get rid of it. You know, it has a place somewhere. And, you know, so, you know, some listeners will say, well, you know, now I've raised a problem.

because, well, what about things like the Confederate monuments, right? Which, you know, I mean, I live in Virginia. It's a real thing here, right? You know, I mean, my view of the whole thing is they shouldn't be in public. Do they have a place somewhere, probably, in a museum, in somebody's private collection? They need to be taken off of public display because they're inappropriate for what they are. that doesn't mean that we should get rid of them. We should destroy them.

You know, wouldn't it be nice to have all those beetle records that were destroyed after John Lennon said that they were bigger than God, you know? Yeah, I often wonder, too, like, you know, when you get rid of a monument or you get rid of a statue, in some ways you are paving the way for it,

to happen again. Like it can be, it can be a reminder of a lot of things. You can be a reminder of this is horrible or it can be a reminder of let's keep this here so it never happens again. Let's teach people this. It gets into the discussion. We have this discussion in the museum studies world. The difference between a memorial and a monument. Oh, that's good. Right. There are two different things, right? A memorial is, let's always remember this. A monument is, wasn't this a wonderful, great thing we're going to put up a monument to it. Two different things. Now, a lot of these Confederate monuments are monument. And just recently, within the last couple of weeks, they announced that in Roanoke, Virginia,

they are actually taking down the statue that they have of Robert E. Lee, and it's being replaced with a statue of Henri Adelax. Henry Adelax is the woman whose gene... Cured cancer. Yeah, cancer cells were used. Yeah. And a really wonderful book made, written about it. And Roanoke is where she's from. And her family still lives there. So they're taking down the Robert Lee statue and putting up the statue of Henrietta Lacks. Like, well, there's a big change. Yeah, it is. And it's interesting to see society change in a way. Maybe her family should be getting a residual income from the pharmaceutical companies instead of a monument. And there's been a lot of court cases and controversy about that. In fact, a couple of years ago, I tried to get the author of the book, The Immortal Life of Hedianelax, to come to campus to speak. And her agent said that she will only come, if you will also pay for members of the family to come with her to tell the story, which I thought was really interesting.

That is. You know, that makes it, I want to shift gears from a moment. I know we're coming up on close to our time, but, you know, I had read a little bit about Ivy League schools. And in particular, my friend and I were talking about Harvard and their business side of Harvard. And there's all these businesses that kind of spin out of there. You know, and it seems like an interesting model. And I'm wondering if that's maybe something that could be applied to more schools, even grade schools, or even, you know, Christopher Newport. If you guys do anything like this, where, you know, wouldn't it be beautiful if the students could come in and they could be almost nurtured in a way where they come up with a piece of art or even in a public school, kids today, like, let's take it, let's take it to a whole other level.

Like, why couldn't schools today, like a fifth grader or a third grader, why couldn't they be creating arts, works of art and be pairing with museums or be pairing with something and they could get a residual income out of it? The school could get some and they could get some. Is that is that a way that schools could be changing? And some have started to do that. There's a museum that a former student of mine runs in Wisconsin. And she has a section of the museum actually set aside for kids to come in and they make art and then they put it up. It's kind of a rotating exhibit. Right.

You know, I'm not sure if there's any monetary. residual from any of that. But it encourages kids to engage in the arts. It's probably not a good thing to make it connected to finance because it would just reinforce the idea of art as commerce. Right, right. That's a good point. But, you know, a lot more of that kind of thing is happening. I mean, I have students here who go into the elementary. schools in Newport News and work with kids on art projects, especially as, of course, art teachers are being eliminated.

Art and music, especially as being hard hit. And so the kids do need that kind of outlet. It's important for them to be able to do that. So, you know, I think it would be interesting to collaborate with museums, and I think more and more of them are doing that with kids. We were, I was in some, it was in so many museums when we went on our trip. I can't even remember some of them at this point, but I was in one of them. And they did have a section set aside where it was, it was kids, kids art again, that they posted.

And I think that's a really, you know, important part of what we do in nurturing the creativity of kids. something that we have gotten really lax on but something that sadly in most people gets matured out of them right I mean as you get older it's just you know

finger painting is something you did when you were a child yeah it's it's sad to see that this world that is open to them at a very early age all of a sudden the walls come shutting down on them by the age of fourth grade and fifth grade. And there's either no budget for it or there's no, there's no creative director or an art teacher that can actually spend time

with the kids and develop those skills. But it also shows and the value that we place on it as a culture, right? Again, you know, this kind of a form and function thing, you know, looking at a fourth grader making art, it's like, well, that's not going to get you anywhere. Learn this math. Because this is what you're going to need. And so, you know, we've shifted so much in our country from education as as really formative, a formative process to looking at it as job training, which is just horrific.

It really is. We've seen it in higher ed as well, right? I mean, people come to college to get a degree, to get a credential so they can get a, job and it's not about getting an education. It's, you know, it's, it's, I used to have a sign on my door. I don't think it's still there for many years. It said, you know, don't just get a degree, get an education. True.

You know, that's a, that's a tough sell low, especially in this day and age when the cost of education is just so damn high. Yeah. You know, and, and I'll defend myself by saying it's not going into salaries. it is not. It is not. I mean, on most college campuses and even public school systems, the highest outlay in the budget is fiscal plant and keeping up fiscal plan. That's what the money is being spent on.

Yeah. And it's going to be falling apart. Yeah. It seems to me that there's so much we can do as people. as creative directors or fathers or truck drivers or, you know, I want to share a quick story. I came from this, I used to live in Southern California and I was born in North San Diego. And there is this little town that where it was called Cardiff. And in Cardiff, they had commissioned this world renowned artist to, it's a big surf town.

And they had commissioned this artist to do a sculpture of a guy surfing. You know, and everyone was so excited, it was going to be so cool. And it was kept kind of under wraps. And this guy was, he was a brilliant artist. I forgot his name. And the sculpture that he made, like the, they called it a, it was like learned to surf. And it was a picture of this guy surfing. And the sculpture was beautiful.

It was like, the face was immaculate and the hair and the detail. The problem was the guy looked like a total kook. And he was standing on the board all weird. And he, you know, they dubbed him the Cardiff kook. and everyone was so, they were so upset. They were like, that's not us, man. It's a beautiful sculpture, but the guy looks like a kook, man. And so one night, about a week or three weeks in,

some local artists went down there and they made this giant paper mache shark and they put it over the Carlsbad Cooke. And the city got so upset, you know, and everyone woke up and they went down and they were laughing. But it turned into this thing where, okay, once a month, a new artist would come down. and they wouldn't wreck the statue, but they would accent it. And it became this whole world of artists that would come down and be like,

I'm going to do this and everyone would outdo the other one. Yeah. Yeah. And I just thought to myself, like, what a great way to teach rebellion. What a great way to teach art. And what a great way to amplify the message. And you had all these artists coming down. I can't believe you would deface it.

I didn't deface it. I made it better. And, you know, it just became this beautiful, group of artists that would go and have this conversation and have this artwork. And it was a beautiful way. And I think that's just an example of a way communities can teach kids art. And they can teach you how to get a message across, how to say, I don't like this without defacing something, and how to start a conversation and how to use art to amplify other art. And I think that that's something that could be done in all communities around, you don't have to deface anything or you don't have to send a

message is a better way and you could get together and communicate and collaborate and well to have a discussion of as you say but it's not enough to say I don't like it I don't like it because yes yes what's wrong yeah how could how could it be improved what does that mean about art what does it mean about what this piece is but you know to have that discussion whereas if you just say I don't like it it just shuts down the conversation yeah yeah I mean there was kids sitting Indian style eating popcorn listening to people talk about things, you know, and it was like, that is how it's done right there. And it was a beautiful sculpture, but just not the way people wanted to be remembered and stuff. So I think that there's,

for everybody listening out there, if you're a fan of art and you're a fan of sculpture, there's so many ways you can improve the community and get your kids to be part of it and get your neighbors to be part of it. And the business is around you to be part of it. And, you know, I often think like when you're driving on the freeway and there's all this just concrete everywhere, Like, wouldn't it be great if we could get kids from schools to come and paint their ideas of what's happening in the world? And it would be like driving down this interstate of beautiful artwork, you know, and I don't know. I think there's a lot of ways we can make the world better. No, I think it's a good point.

So, but before we, as we're landing the plane here, Dr. Salmon is, what do you got coming up? Where can people find you? And what are you excited about? Yeah. Well, my website is David A. Solomon. It's s-al-o-m-O-M-O-N.com. and links to my books and the blog and media appearances and my consulting, everything's up on there. Coming up, excited, we begin classes on Monday here, so I'm excited about a new semester,

and this class I'm curating, which I think is going to be a lot of fun, a busy semester coming up for me with work, and working on some more writing and trying to get some things done, which isn't always easy, but working on it. And just excited about the fact that it's a new year. And, you know, I don't know about where you are, George. But here I am in Southern Coastal Virginia today. And I think it's 74 degrees at the moment, which is insane. Oh, it's crazy, though.

It's crazy. I'm just looking to see here. It's 68 degrees at the moment. It should be about 50. So it's very interesting weather that we're having. It is. Can you give us a hint on what the new blog is going to be? about? No, because I'm working on some ideas. Actually, I was reading a lot about artificial

intelligence this morning, which is why that gave up. And it may deal with that. Okay. I'll be looking for it. And it's such a pleasure to talk to you. I'm really thankful you can take time to come and hang out with me in the audience. It's fun. I appreciate being on. Yeah. Well, ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much. Go check out the blog. Check out Dr. David Solomon. Definitely get the book Seven Deadly. sins. It's well worth your time and you'll be a better person because you read it. So I, I love it. Thank you so much for spending time with this. Ladies and gentlemen, have a great afternoon and we'll be back next week. Thank you for your time. Aloha.