Hart's argument in The Beauty of the Infinite is that Christianity is jolly well the most attractive thing around, if you think about it. And other ways of thinking are, well, dog-ugly...
So he writes about Nietzche:
The most potent reply a Christian can make to Nietzche's critique is to accuse him of a defect of sensibility - of bad taste. And this, in fact, is the last observation that shuld be made at this point: Nietzche has atrocious taste. (p. 125)
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I always thought that this ought to the Christian strategy to counter the rise of queer culture: camp is not just bad morality: it is bad art.
10 comments:
camp is not just bad morality: it is bad art.
I must confess to a liking for certain camp jokes, on occasion. Of course this is not the same as saying I ever feel the urge to sit through a Will and Grace marathon.
Come to think of it, I don't think Nietzche would have had much time for W&G either ...
Um. No. Good point!
I think you get tied up mental in knots policitising taste... great art can have bad morality, good morality can result in bad art: the rain falls on the wheat and on the weeds. Camp (as in so oer the top tasteless they are splendid, not exclusively gay) things I love include: batman the TV series, serge gainsbourg (je t'amie... breathe, breathe...), starship troupers, rupert wainright, jeff koons (puppy!): oh too many to name. How dull our world would be without camp!
hear hear!
there are many aspects of camp culture I enjoy, and much "high art" that is shot through with "bad morality". For example, all that renaissance art of the ancient greek and roman myths. So much bestiality, debauchery, murder...
I always thought that this ought to the Christian strategy to counter the rise of queer culture
Two questions.
1. What is queer culture?
2. For what reason or reasons should I feel obliged to counter it?
3. Oh yeah, and 3., why is your strategy a good strategy?
Because our tendency has been in the Christian world to separate beauty goodness and truth. Actually, the truth is really good, and what's more, it's beautiful too. Calling queer culture on its aesthetic sense cuts it off at the knees: and shows that it can't be good or true either. Ugly goes all the way down.
Re Queer culture: in latter times, gentle camp with its ambiguities and double entrendres has been replaced with an overt celebration of sexual deviance as an aesthetic and hedonistic style of life. Mapplethorpe, for example.
It isn't just that it is morally wrong, or deceptive; it is BORING.
Of course, this strategy (fighting opponents by calling them on their lack of aesthetic taste) is itself Nietzschean. His primary 'argument' against Chistianity was that it smelt bad: "fresh air, fresh air!"
If its boring, why does it sell?
Lack of imagination - one of the GREATEST SINS.
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