The purpose of making politics into art is to harness the power of art for your politics. If you forget the art then you’ve lost that purpose.
I think you’re misusing the sense of “lost purpose”. A ‘lost purpose’ describes when you lose the actual purpose (in this case ‘politics’) and replace it with a mere tool that was supposed to work for that purpose (in this case, the art).
In this case the problem is the other way around -- not admiring the sword for its beauty and forgetting to cut, but rather forgetting that the sword needs to be sharp in order to cut..
My phrasing “lost that purpose” was bad. My point was simply that there is no contradiction to the nameless virtue, since the art needs to be good to sell the politics. You said it better than I: “The sword needs to be sharp in order to cut.”
You’re trying to harness the power of art for your politics. If you forget politics, you’ve lost your purpose. If you forget art, you’ve lost your purpose.
In the sentence “You’re trying to harness the power of art for your politics.” the purpose is defined in the clause ‘for your politics’. The subgoal, subservient to the actual goal, is ‘harness the power of art’.
You lose your purpose if you think that your purpose is to “harness the power of art for your politics” instead of
actually furthering said politics.
If you forget art, you’ve lost your purpose.
Only if your purpose was artistic instead of political, in which case the phrase “harness the power of art for your politics” was a misrepresentation of the motivations in question.
What Raemon’s trying to say is that if your art sucks, it’s not going to further your politics, presumably because nobody will want to go near it unless they’re already sold.
Upon further reflection, I think I was approaching it from a different angle, which resulted in unspoken assumptions. As an artist, I care about each project I do for its own sake in addition to whatever purpose it serves, and the goals are simultaneously intertwined, and of parallel, equal importance to me.
This is me speaking as an artist. If I’m a producer/propagandist who wants to hire an artist, then yes, the politics is the true purpose and the art “merely” needs to be able to cut.
But from inside the visual-art-algorithm, the “art” is so central to the utility function that speaking in terms of “the art is merely there for the purpose of politics” means you’re probably going to fail.
This is me speaking as an artist. If I’m a producer/propagandist who wants to hire an artist, then yes, the politics is the true purpose and the art “merely” needs to be able to cut.
But from inside the visual-art-algorithm, the “art” is so central to the utility function that speaking in terms of “the art is merely there for the purpose of politics” means you’re probably going to fail.
That’s more-or-less the point I was getting at. Namely: focusing all your effort on maximizing your utility function, causes you to fail to maximize your utility function.
I think Aris actually essentially covered this in the first post with the “forgetting that the sword needs to be sharp” thing, but I didn’t quite parse it the way e intended.
I think you’re misusing the sense of “lost purpose”. A ‘lost purpose’ describes when you lose the actual purpose (in this case ‘politics’) and replace it with a mere tool that was supposed to work for that purpose (in this case, the art).
In this case the problem is the other way around -- not admiring the sword for its beauty and forgetting to cut, but rather forgetting that the sword needs to be sharp in order to cut..
My phrasing “lost that purpose” was bad. My point was simply that there is no contradiction to the nameless virtue, since the art needs to be good to sell the politics. You said it better than I: “The sword needs to be sharp in order to cut.”
You’re trying to harness the power of art for your politics. If you forget politics, you’ve lost your purpose. If you forget art, you’ve lost your purpose.
No!
In the sentence “You’re trying to harness the power of art for your politics.” the purpose is defined in the clause ‘for your politics’. The subgoal, subservient to the actual goal, is ‘harness the power of art’.
You lose your purpose if you think that your purpose is to “harness the power of art for your politics” instead of actually furthering said politics.
Only if your purpose was artistic instead of political, in which case the phrase “harness the power of art for your politics” was a misrepresentation of the motivations in question.
What Raemon’s trying to say is that if your art sucks, it’s not going to further your politics, presumably because nobody will want to go near it unless they’re already sold.
Upon further reflection, I think I was approaching it from a different angle, which resulted in unspoken assumptions. As an artist, I care about each project I do for its own sake in addition to whatever purpose it serves, and the goals are simultaneously intertwined, and of parallel, equal importance to me.
This is me speaking as an artist. If I’m a producer/propagandist who wants to hire an artist, then yes, the politics is the true purpose and the art “merely” needs to be able to cut.
But from inside the visual-art-algorithm, the “art” is so central to the utility function that speaking in terms of “the art is merely there for the purpose of politics” means you’re probably going to fail.
IMO, anyway.
That’s more-or-less the point I was getting at. Namely: focusing all your effort on maximizing your utility function, causes you to fail to maximize your utility function.
I think Aris actually essentially covered this in the first post with the “forgetting that the sword needs to be sharp” thing, but I didn’t quite parse it the way e intended.