Bill Maher: The Democrats have sucked “the fun out of everything. . . . Once upon a time, the [Republicans] were the ones offended by everything. They were the party of speech codes and blacklists and moral panics and demanding some TV show had to go.”
There has always been a Puritanical streak on the Left, the proponents of which judge everything on its utility in terms of the human enterprise. If it’s not useful, it’s frivolous, or worse. That includes humor, fun, and Beauty in our public spaces.
What is interesting to me is that Jesus addressed this in the story of the woman who anointed his feet with expensive oil. She was criticized for wasting money on the balm, money which “could have been spent on the poor.” Jesus argued back, saying that she had done “a beautiful thing.” Those who would deny us pleasures and freedoms of various sorts for the sake of moralistic social do-gooding have been with us for a long time.
Agreed, Ruth. And I agree that those moralizing prudes come in all political stripes. Interesting that you describe beauty as an essential part of your discussion of morality. I’ve long been intrigued by this combination. In fact, I don’t believe anyone can meaningfully discuss morality without discussing aesthetics. This rarely discussed combination has roots going back at least as far as John Dewey. What kind of life should one live? It’s impossible for me to answer that without thinking of the options in aesthetic terms, without evaluating potential social orders that are beautiful or ugly. I’m currently reading a book by philosopher Mark Johnson that explores these aesthetic roots of meaning and morality: The Aesthetics of Meaning and Thought (2018).
Thanks for this reply. I will look up Mark Johnson; I had not heard of him before this.
My understanding of the link between morality and aesthetics is philosophically unschooled and based only on feeling and intuition. Thus I could stand to learn more about it. I have been skeptical of AI approximating human intelligence because it cannot “do” beauty or humor. I’d like to see what Mark Johnson might say about that.
Ruth: Here’s a lecture Johnson gave in 2018, it will give you a good idea of how he develops his theory:
Thank you so much.