Tag: Art

Amid the Absurdity of Clownworld: How Should We Then Live?

By Doug “Uncola” Lynn via TheBurningPlatform.com

 

I believe people are as they think. The choice we make in the next decade will mold irrevocably the direction of our culture… and the lives of our children.

– Author and theologian Francis A. Schaeffer in 1976

 

The picture at the top of this article shows one of America’s founding fathers according to Google’s Gemini image generation tool.  Pursuant to complaints about the blatant inaccuracy and the ensuing maelstrom of negative press coverage, Google claimed it was “actively working on a fix”. Nonetheless, there remain claims that Google is “not telling the truth” and the company will never give up on its “desire to reshape the world in a specific way”.

Indeed.  It appears artificial intelligence, woke relativism, and Orwell’s “two plus two equaling five” are here to stay. And the “memory hole” first conjured by Orwell has increasingly manifested in The Borg’s nearly completed Simulacrum – as misinformation, false flags, and propaganda daily populate our collective screens.

With that in mind, amid the absurdity of Western culture in the twenty-first century, I will often seek credible information and insights where they are more surely found: in the printed past, and by the words of authors and researchers mostly forgotten.

Having written previously on the prescient prognostications of twentieth-century thinkers like C.S. Lewis and Augusto Del Noce, another book was recommended by a commenter in the thread of my last article.  The book was said to have predicted the decline of empirical science, the rise of technological science, and a frightening future.

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Modern Art As Proof Of The Decline Of Western Civilization

See this piece of shit “art” below? It sold recently for almost FIFTY MILLION DOLLARS.  Look at it, and then ponder about what it tells us about society.

Theologian Francis Schaefer wrote an incredibly illuminating book regarding how art reflects the health of society titled; — “How Shall We Then Live”.   From wiki …

“According to Schaeffer, How Should We Then Live traces Western history from Ancient Rome until the time of writing (1976) along three lines: the philosophic, scientific, and religious. He also makes extensive references to art and architecture as a means of showing how these movements reflected changing patterns of thought through time. “

The book came out in 1976. You know what makes it (or, anything) great? When it passes the test of time. Per the bolded quote below, what Mr. Schaefer wrote back then, may be even MORE applicable today!

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We Love You, Morons

Ever wonder how people get away with claiming they have the best interests at heart of people they despise? Read on.

Submitted by Robert Gore at Straight Line Logic

Are most people too stupid, ignorant, and benighted to comprehend truth in the sciences, appreciate beauty in the arts, and embrace wisdom in politics? That question captures the bedrock assumption guiding a sliver of the populace, a self-anointed elite who cover their disdain for everyone else with altruistic professions of humanitarian concern. They’re curiously contradictory posture: we despise common tastes, choices, and beliefs, but we stand four square for the common “folk” (one of President Obama’s favorite words). After over a century of such sententiousness, the “common folk” are beyond irritated. Before the charade blows up completely, however, this claim to intellectual, aesthetic, and moral superiority, its widespread acceptance and its devastating effects, must be dissected, analyzed, and understood.

Walk into any museum of modern art and you’ll soon come upon a work that, if you’re honest with yourself, you have no idea how or why it’s called art. Maybe its a few squiggly lines, or a geometric representation indistinguishable from the floor tiles in a restroom you once visited, or three blank, white canvases (these examples came from a simple Google search: modern art, images), but no matter what “masterpiece” first evokes it, the feeling grows that a fraud is being perpetrated. Visual art is chosen here because it’s the most obvious, but listening to the music from today’s supposed heirs to Beethoven, Chopin, and Rachmaninoff, or reading the precious gems that win contemporary literary prizes and awards will also produce that sinking sensation of intellectual and aesthetic victimization. You have, in fact, been had, and it’s vitally important to unravel this con game and what it accomplishes.

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A Treatise on the Nonexistence of Art: Pretty Nearly, Anyway

Guest Post by

Art is mostly fraud perpetrated by narcissistic academic quacks on a public easily gulled. They should be prosecuted. This is as true of literature as of painting and sculpture. If modern sculpture were placed in a junkyard, art critics couldn’t find it. Most of what we are told are great works are great works only because we are told that they are.

Consider the Mona Lisa, for mysterious reasons regarded an epochal detonation of artistry. Why? She is an excessively round woman who looks as if she is about to spit. We have to be told that she was an astonishment and marvel. Otherwise we would rate her a a pretty fair effort for an art student somewhere in Nebraska.

Yet put her at action with Christie’s and some witless digital arriviste would buy her for the price of an aircraft carrier.

Art has nothing to do with what the thing looks like, and certainly nothing to do with beauty. If it did, an indistinguishable copy would serve as well as the original. But no. The point is not to look at the thing, but to feel superior for owning it, and how can you do that when every mutt in Boise can get an equally good one for $37?

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Ms. Freud Gets a Touching Letter From A Mom With a Downs Syndome Child

A while back I went to a Downs Syndrome Conference held at Princeton University where Ms. Freud sponsored a booth.

It was a truly wonderful event which touched my soul. Not all, but most DS children are so very loving and without guile. I got so many hugs I thought I was at a Hugs Convention. More than once those children left a tear in my eye.

So, yesterday, we received a hand-written letter from one of the moms we met at that conference. I am copying it here, exactly as it is written, word for word, without editing (except for the underlined part at the end).

She is asking us to help her child. We will. I am not asking any of you to do the same …. although I think a few of you might want to. We have generous folks here at TBP.

My main reason for sharing this is to encourage folks … especially to those who may find themselves in a difficult situation right now. Because if a person with Downs Syndrome can find a way to “make it” …. then, surely, you can also!

“See that you do not look down on one of these little ones. For I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in heaven.” —— Matthew 18:10

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Dear Dr. xxxxxxx,

We met you at a Down syndrome conference. You also signed Michael’s guest book.

March 21, 2015 is World Down Syndrome Day. An organization on Long Island is hosting an art exhibit at an art gallery at a vineyard. Michael did paintings for posters and bookmarks.

NADS used to print bookmarks for their members to distribute in October in their communities for DS Awareness Month. When NADS stopped printing them, Michael picked up the slack.

DS organizations print them and give them out at Buddy Walks and pit them in New Parent Packs. Parents print them for their children to take to school. Public libraries and bookstores give them away for free.

This is Michael’s newest project. He wants to send a bookmark master sheet and samples to every DS organization in the USA. There are several hundred!

He wants to get them mailed in January. He needs Forever Stamps or a Visa Gift Card to use at the Post Office. If you can help, Michael will send you a limited edition poster with the artwork. The posters are large, suitable for framing. They advertise the art exhibit on Long Island, in March and April. The posters are being sent to Barnes & Noble, local art museums and Manhattan art galleries that show Outsider Art.

Last year a customer purchased a Visa Gift Card online with her credit card to pay for an illustration job. Gift Card Mall sent Michael an email first [email protected] Then Gift Card Mall snail-mailed the Visa Gift Card to him. Michael Johnson, 823 Elmwood Ave #2, Evanston IL 6202-4353. It worked well! It was safe and convenient.

Michael is 42. He supports himself with his art. He doesn’t receive SSI or Medicaid. He paints every day and he loves it. He is still learning new things

Happy New Year.

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The mom included four bookmarks and a postcard featuring Michael’s art.

He has a website;  http://www.artistmichaeljohnson.com/

He is also featured here; http://www.loveandlearning.com/michaelpage.shtml

Here is some of his artwork;