"defense of wilderness" (wasRe: lexicon)

In a message dated 2003:06:02 10:49:29 AM, Sally Caves quotes me &  writes:

>> In a message dated 2003:06:01 11:27:16 AM, the esteemed Sally Caves
>>writes:
>
>> > [ . . . ] Now there is elegant and vulgar art--degrees of
>> >discipline not easily mastered by the amateur
>
>>     It is not so black and white of course.
>
>I didn't intend it to be black and white.  Of course I know about the shades
>of gray in between.
 [ . . . ]  At least print the whole paragraph I wrote instead of excerpting
a clause out >of it.

    I was agreeing with you and filling in the gaps just in case others may
not know (or just adding my 2 stolen Euros ;)

>> (hey there's some really fantastic Jackson-Pollock-like paintings done
>>by - IIRC - one of the San Diego Zoo chimpanzees that are waaaaay cheaper
>than any Pollock and more colourful in a cheery way).
>
>Read Michael Poxon's remark about animal art, posted yesterday.
    I did read it.
    I think "creative play" is not separate from "art." Creative play is
valueable in the learning process; the learning process can possibly lead to "art."
    Creative play is something all Higher Primates (& quite a few other
animals) share in common.

>> > I won't deny that--but on almost every level, our lives are enriched
>>>by some form of art... our defense against "wilderness."
>
>>     "Our"? Who is "we" in this case?
>
>The whole human race.  Who else?  Unless  you think that by "art" I mean,
>incredibly and stupidly, only American art.  Or "The Mona Lisa."
    I think we are misreading each other. When I read "defense against
wilderness" I have stream-of-consciousness linking it to the whole old European
preoccupation with "[White]Man Versus Nature" and its cultural baggage of
expansionism, colonialism, imperialism, American Manifest Destiny, etc. ad infinitum...
    In fact, IIRC the phrase "defense against wilderness" has these very
_exact_ connotations (Pagin' John Cowan, pagin' Padraic Brown, pagin' Herman
Miller, pagin' Dirk E....  'elp!) .

>> Perhaps "defense against wilderness" is
>> one of Western Civilisation's many chthonic preoccupations.
    Hmm, perhaps the pre-historic, pre-HomoSappie cave art _was_ a talismanic
"defense against wilderness" afterall.


In a message dated 2003:06:02 01:47:19 PM, Andreas writes:

>What are we meaning by "wilderness" here?
    I mean Nature :) And we being animals too, we are part of Nature tho'
many still think we are somehow separate (& above) like those who have in the
recent historical past.

> Chinese, Feng Shui-y, gardening seems to me like a perfect example of art
as >"defense against wilderness"; nature itself reordered to boot out disorder
and >maligncy.

    No no... Chinese Feng Shui and Asian gardening (Chinese, Japanese, Thai,
etc.) is about balance and integrity with Nature... and a little disorder and
asymmetry is actually aesthetically heightened and highly appreciated!

> I'll happily admit that I'm unfamiliar with Chinese thinking/philosophy,
but the >outer form here strikes me as fitting perfectly in Sally's box.

    Surface appearances are incredibly deceptive ;)
    Ferinstanz you may think that a French Baroque-period _jardin_ is no
different than a Zen stone-garden.
    On closer examination, these two different gardens express highly
differing worldviews: one of highly deliberated, artificial forms, rigid lines and
precise geometric orderings ("Mankind Separate from Nature and imposing his will
on Nature") . . . and the other a near total antithesis of the first
("humankind part of Nature and attempting to be part of Nature and natural processes").
    The purest expressions of this particular Asian mindset IMHO is Taoist.
Buddhist thinking comes in a good strong second place (many Buddhists - East
and West - are active in ecology, animal and human rights).

>You apparently think differently - care to elaborate?
    Ouch... I am too tired and hot to elaborate how _I_ think differently ;)
::scampers away laughin'::

---
Hanuman Zhang, _Gomi no sensei_ [Master of junk]
& Gatherer of Extremely Enlightening Knowledge (or GEEK, for short ;)

    "To live is to scrounge, taking what you can in order to survive. So,
since living is scrounging, the result of our efforts is to amass a pile of
rubbish."
                            - Chuang Tzu/Zhuangzi, China, 4th Century BCE

    "The most beautiful order is a heap of sweepings piled up at random."
                            - Heraclitus, Greece, 5th Century BCE

    Ars imitatur Naturam in sua operatione.
    [Latin > "Art is the imitation of Nature in her manner of operation."]

    " jinsei to iu mono wa, kichou na geijyutsu to ieru deshou "
    [Japanese > "one can probably say that 'life' is a precious artform"]
    in more radical, paracultural terms: "the (R)Evolution of the Everyday"

"There is no total revolution, there is only _perpetual_ Revolution,
real life, like love, dazzling at every moment." - Paul Eluard

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