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  •  Good/helpful posts (both of you!) (none / 1)

    I've been thinking about the components of bad art. Sentimentality really can't be beat. But why IS sentimentality so awful in art? Why, when we notice it, do we notice it with contempt sometimes combined with nausea? I mean, it seems to me those who notice it at all don't usually notice it with mere indifference. We react strongly. Why is that?

    Perhaps obviously, because sentimentality lies about pain. It tries to pull the wool over our eyes about it--it wants to deny reality in order to keep some generally weak-kneed sideliners comfortable. On the other hand if you're NOT completely comfortable with cooking the books--if you're still possessed of a shred of conscience (if you're still remotely human)--then victim or villian, it seems to me lies would always be more hurtful than truth, don't you suppose? If you wanted to induce mental suffering in a murderer, mightn't you tell him a sickeningly sweet, totally fraudulent, happy-ending story of his victim's life over and over again?

    Anyway, I realize I'm off topic (or approaching the topic obliquely) but let me lay another idea on you: Personal mortality is alleged to be the single most painful reckoning for humankind; particularly, some say, for those who haven't knowingly come within harm's way. Could it be that's why so many people who haven't experienced combat tend to sentimentalize about it so much? What then explains why a significant number of veterans get caught up in the lies we tell each other (to assuage guilt or whatever) about war? Is it really because the truth is too painful to bear? If that's the case (and it would seem so) it shoots my other theory (art and truth above) all to hell.

    I still say sentimentality can't be beat as enemy #1 of truth (and therefore art, as sophomoric as it sounds). One way to make sure sentimentality never gives you too much trouble is to stay as ignorant as possible--or to put it the other way, the more accurate information you have, the harder the koolaide goes down.

    (Sorry. Out of left field. Thanks for reading. :)

    God bless our tinfoil hearts.

    by aitchdee on Tue Jan 03, 2006 at 12:25:40 AM PDT

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    •  Ah! Deny reality... (none / 1)

      I found what you wrote all very interesting, and though not "political" perhaps uber-poliical.

      The way I look at it, is an awful lot of human behavior can be understood by 2 phenomena, which acount for much in art, politics, and human interaction:

      One, people need attention. It's been shown that infants that are given full attention through the first months tend to grow up healthier, bigger, smarter, and better able to keep their internal balance in later years, so attention is like a food for the soul in a hugely literal sense. (Same holds true for plants and animals.) Bad art is driven by the need to get attention and little else, whereas good art might have that component, but also adds the urge to uncover and/or share something about reality.

      Two, sentimentality is often a self-engineered distraction from the dictates of Conscience. You don't have to look at reality, which can be a painful thing especially when it comes to seeing our own infantile preoccupations.  When you are in the grips of emotion about one or another BIG theme (think Wagner), besides the fact that there's a payoff with sentimentality of that cloying sweet feeling you get, it's simply too much to review one's own behavior. It's a falsification of emotion, overlaid with a "logical" rationale.

      It isn't so much that the truth is too hard to bear, it's that people get unwilling to pay the price for the truth. Example from my life: a Christian friend, who is good to every person she meets, supports Bush and doesn't want to even contemplate his corruption, because the price is she'd have to feel afraid if he really isn't protecting her. So she goes all sentimental when his name is brought up.

      So I think you are onto something actually very important, and continued inquiry into the areas you are looking into will be fruitful for you. Just my 2 cents.

      Until we break the corporate virtual monopoly on what we hear and see, we keep losing, don't matter what we do.

      by Jim P on Tue Jan 03, 2006 at 06:55:04 AM PDT

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    •  Sentimentality is manipulative... (none / 1)

      and often fraudulent.  And most people, when they find that is lying to them in order to defraud them, react badly to it.  Thus the disdain we feel for bad art.

      For the military, there's a built-in reason for manipulation and fraud.  Military recruits sign away many of their rights -- including the right to preserve their lives.  Throughout history soldiers have stood in lines and gotten themselves slaughtered for little or no personal gain.  Sentimentality is extremely useful in that it convinces soldiers that they want to become cannon fodder.

      I'm not dating Edwards anymore, but I still call out his name when I vote.

      by sagra on Tue Jan 03, 2006 at 09:41:34 AM PDT

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