Replying to LO30605 --
"Ray Evans Harrell" <mcore@nyc.rr.com> writes:
> I'm not sure how to do this but I have a couple of attachments in JPG that
> chart the current situation. One is four of the possible ways that people
> look at the Arts and music in particular and the other charts the history and
> decline of the complex arts while in the US the commercial and religious
> segments of these arts have flourished.
I like the information and the way you've presented it.
ViewsOfMusicWorld.jpg seems to cover important dimensions, and it does it
largely descriptively, without value judgments. If anything, I wondered
if there should be a dimension about its comfort or if that was a
subdivision of the cultural or educational - empirical domains. That is,
I sense many people have more trouble relating to an Ives (Charles, not
Burle) or a Schönberg piece than to some of Stravinsky or Rachmaninoff or
Beethoven or Brahms, even though they all could be relatively complex and
"upper crust."
FRAGMENTATION_CHARTc.jpg contained important material, but I was less sure
I captured everything you put into it. I'm not familiar with the "1883
fragmentation" you mention, for example. Also, that its form was similar
to that of Views of the Music World.jpg led me to wonder if the four
quadrants matched, but culture spanned two quadrants in this image, and
there was a temporal dimension added.
I think you've started on something good. It helps me begin to think
about this material in new ways.
> The questions are still out on why the secular complex arts that bind all of
> the groups together in a society have died while the Arts for Entertainment
> (much lower competence and complexity) and the Religious arts which serve a
> "use" role whether worship or proscelytization has flourished. The same is
I'm not sure I'd agree that Religious arts in general have flourished.
>From my corner of the country, most religious music is not easily
distinguished from a subset of the various commercial forms except by
words. While I understand that the taking of popular music as a tool for
conversion has a history going back at least as far as Luther, I can't
help but contrast the music of Bach and others with the music I hear today
as instruments of worship and find them sadly inexpressive and unhelpful.
> true for the military bands and arts used to sell things. (not shown on
> graph) It is just the complex secular arts that develop the higher brain
> functions that are withering.
> Economist Richard Florida has been talking a lot about the need for
> creativity but when he uses an example of the arts it is always
> entertainment or work that is very low on the complexity scale.
> (Multiplication tables to advanced Algebra or Calculus.)
You raise an interesting point. Is what you're describing in the musical
arts unique, or does it have parallels in other parts of contemporary
society? Can we learn from those parallels, if they exist (or from their
absence, for that matter, if they don't)?
> works. The charts are a little complicated but so is the history. If
> there is a problem I will translate. On the other hand they are more
> holistic than a four page prose piece. Maybe we need both. We'll see.
I'm glad you sent them; I do think we need both.
> Thank you Bill and At for your comments. Its the right questions.
> Bill, I think you helped me focus on the fact that some will simply
> not have the hard wiring to care and that I should let that go.
> That's hard. As a teacher I sort of believe I can teach anyone if
> they are willing to try. But in producing this there will be people
> that it simply doesn't reach or isn't interesting to them. As for
As a teacher, you may be able to teach anyone. As a person seeking to be
effective, perhaps your time is best spent on the more receptive areas.
Geoffrey Moore's Crossing the Chasm may apply here: moving complex music
(back) into the mainstream may require finding and dominating a series of
niche markets until those who aren't terribly interested (the "laggards,"
in his words) see it everywhere and accept it simply because everyone else
is. I haven't done justice to the book; you might find it of interest.
> the systems model? Is a systems model possible for the third
> largest country on the planet and what would it look like?
Certainly. I've got work to do until late this evening, but we could talk
about that at another time. I've published simple models such as this for
Pegasus Communications (see http://www.pegasuscom.com/AAR/model.html) to
help people see what such models look like (none of those are focused on
the arts). For a quick textual introduction to the language of such
models, see Applying System Dynamics to Business: An Expense Management
Example at http://facilitatedsystems.com/expmgmnt.pdf.
To see more of the breadth of "systems thinking," take a look at Bob
William's draft paper on "Evaluation and Systems Thinking" at
http://users.actrix.co.nz/bobwill/; click on Free Resources and scroll way
down to "Evaluation and Systems Thinking." Bob, Glenda Eoyang, and I will
be doing a day-long workshop on some of this at the upcoming American
Evaluation Association conference November 5.
We'd have to define the problem carefully (you've made a very good start),
and we'd probably then want certain historical data to help validate that
model.
> womb. In that sense the "organization of perceptual learning" or
> aesthetics, is antecedent to all other learning that involves "taking
> in" the environment. Arts are the conscious expression of that
> organization in activities that develop growth, success, pleasure and
> memory in the perceptual environment. "The Play's the thing." It's
> in the active play and imagination or the "psycho-physical pursuit of
> values in a perceptual medium "i.e. sound, plastics, kinetics,
> etc. that defines art. It is a "pursuit". In the first "views"
> graph attachment, it shows four of the possible ways of looking at
> the arts on three different levels, or ten if you are dealing with
> complexity. Andrew I apologize for being over-simple but I have to
> be in my first halting steps at organization.
In your expression, "The Play's the thing," you sound a bit like Bernie
DeKoven of http://www.deepfun.com/, although you two are certainly far
apart (at least superficially) on the complexity dimension. In an
interesting way, you two seem to be trying for a similar goal: the
enhancement of life by changing society's focus from that of single-minded
economic success.
Thanks for bringing this up, Ray.
Bill
-- Bill Harris 3217 102nd Place SE Facilitated Systems Everett, WA 98208 USA http://facilitatedsystems.com/ phone: +1 425 337-5541Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <Richard@Karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>
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