Monday, March 02, 2009
Just a thought ...
... why try to explain art, music and literature in terms of what we have in common with other animals, when no other animal paints or sculpts, composes music, or writes literature? Since the making of art seems to distinguish us from other animals, should not the explanation of it derive from something peculiar to us, something we do not have in common with them?
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Thank you, Frank.
ReplyDeleteNo, because other species do compose music, and demonstrably so. Humpback whale songs change over time, as new compositions add to their repertoire, and as songs are passed from pod to pod. There have been several articles about this in various journals.
ReplyDeleteBower birds create sculptural nests that are unique and distinctive. It's not a simple matter of instinctive nest-building as innovations happen creatively.
Some species of birds appear to compose new songs each mating season. Again, all documented in the natural history literature.
So, unfortunately, the criterion has some exceptions, which makes it problematic as a definition of human difference.
I actually thought of the humpback whales, Art, and also of the elaborate nests and of the possibility at least that some birds compose new songs. But they didn't seem quite the same. The nests are elaborate, but so far as we can tell sport nothing that corresponds to, say, a frieze. But let's concede the point and say that we share this differentia with a few select species. It might be useful to see what those few have in common with each other that differentiates them from all the rest, but it would hardly do to look to all the rest to explain what those few have in common. So think the underlying logic of my question remains sound.
ReplyDeleteThis is somewhat outside my area of expertise, but anyhow..
ReplyDeleteIt would help if we had a better understanding of how the 'art' of, for instance, a bowerbird, is received by other bowerbirds. Clearly the nest structures are devised to attract mates, but as far as I understand we have yet to really comprehend the aesthetic criteria that lady bowerbirds employ when making their choice.
We might also ask: are we the only animals to go through a mating ritual with God?
Frank, I guess my feeling is that I think it's presumptuous, if habitual, to go looking for those things in which we are different from the other animals, or from the rest of nature. I think it's more interesting, and probably more survival-oriented, in looking at how we are similar. This is the Taoist as well the Native American viewpoint. I am always wary of humanity setting itself apart form nature, because that is the ideological road that led to "dominance over nature" which leads to exploitation, pollution, and a lot more. Contrast that with those human philosophies (and religious worldviews) in which humanity is viewed as part of nature, and can live alongside other beings in a sustainable an sustained husbandry environment.
ReplyDeleteI have listened to and studied (albeit not rigorously) humpback songs since I was a teenager, and first heard them. In them I heard a music not unlike what I was hearing in my own music. I felt a kinship, as though I was collaborating with another composer. I think of Messiaen and his study of and work with bird songs; culminating in one of the great pieces of late 20th C. music, his opera "St. Francis of Assisi." The worldview of all mystics has always been that we are all One, not that we are separate. There's more to it than that, of course, but that's a truth I see echoed again and again over time and space; so there is some core to it that keeps reappearing and being rediscovered.
I don't think it's unfair to acknowledge that some of our cousins on this planet are also capable of those abilities we claim for ourselves. Tool-making is known to be done by ravens, who also learn other things quickly. Why not creativity, then? Certainly at minimum in its problem-solving mode, in which a mind looks at a situation and must think outside the known parameters to come up with a new solution.
Well, as I've said here a number of times here, Art - and I suspect you agree - there is more to life than survival. We aim to survive in order to live. I hold no brief for the despoliation of nature, but I think we should acknowledge differences for the simple reason that there are differences and that such differences, as differences, cannot accounted for by looking to similarities. The mystery of being, in fact, goes well beyond differences between species to differences between individuals - that old haecceity again. The question of what makes human being specifically human simply isn't addressed by pointing to how much they have in common with other species.
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