Awritingreader’s Weblog

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I ended my last post discussing value and while I find the absence of a distinction or clarification of value a whole in Smith’s argument and her essay in its entirety as excellent and renewing, I think that somehow the larger issues of value, usefulness, and a rather general utilitarian theory are ultimately unsettling for this reader. After all my previous praise I still feel displeased as a whole with the argument, largely because although I would say that I advocate for a basic level of usefulness in art, building its value entirely on its uses is an extreme that seems to demote art and therefore writing, to a lowly place and I believe the product of creation to be more than this.

There is a fine fine line between human desire to have our art as “Holy” or somehow sacred, a medium that perhaps grazes the divine, and our desire to have it accessible, ready for us and our evaluation. I become evermore convinced that the reason I struggle nearly irreconcilably with art as a mere object, simply what it is on its own, is because I hold an underlying belief that art just may be the best instrument for a perfect harmony, a sort of cohesive point of contact for the divine and the worldly. My own critical philosophy is shaping up to be one that believes in a godly presence within art. (I would pause here to clarify that I believe that art/works (of writing) are nearly interchangeable words for my purposes, but that a poem or novel is perhaps differently inspired and connected than say, Smith’s critical essay. There is an element of Art and craft that must be innate within the works I am considering here). I guess this is beginning to sound a bit Emersonian, but the further we come in this class and grapple with these questions and implications, the more convinced I seem to be that the only reasonable and responsible answer between the struggle of humanity, divinity and autonomy in art must necessarily be a fusion of the three.