Universals

First post: THE QUESTION

The question of universals comes at least from medieval European philosophy. It is both natural and strange, depending on your point of view: natural because it is natural to think about what we have in common; it is strange because if it is natural for us to have 'universal' in common, it is not clear why some question should be raised. 

Accepting that there are aesthetic universals, as Denis Dutton argues, and evolutionary aesthetes, for example, there are always questions to ask, and one of them is which. Dutton, in the book Art and Instinct already commented here, defines 12 - perhaps by analogy with the 12 apostles… 

It defines them as “characteristic traits found interculturally in the arts”, but from the list there are some that do not seem convincing to me for this purpose. One is novelty, indeed novelty-creativity. According to the author, "art is valued, and appreciated, for its novelty, creativity, originality and ability to surprise its audience." A Brazilian friend I haven't seen in decades would say: yes, but not much. At least it's not alone. Dutton forgets that, often in both the Euro-American and other semiospheres, the pleasure of art in this respect consists precisely in the opposite, in seeing once again a canon, a paradigm, in feeling the delight of the coincidence between expectation and suggestion. At this point one cultivates the excellence, one looks for the perfect execution, the absolute repetition of the work. The history of literature is indeed made of it, from phases in which such pleasure prevails, dominates; then it runs out of repetition of the model and so, yes, what you are looking for is novelty, creativity, originality, surprise. 

Another trait that seems to me to be doubtful is that of art criticism, in the very terms in which he speaks of it and especially as regards professional criticism. In many societies this does not exist, there are simply masters of art who comment with their disciples on their executions or creations in a restricted personal teaching circuit not shared with the rest of the community. There are communities that do not miss any of the critics, they think this is a matter of the masters' forum for their 'kids'. 

A third trait, whose universality raises my doubts, is what the author calls "special focus": "works of art and artistic performances tend to be detached from normal life." I think this is not always the case, especially in small rural communities, eventually joined by some fragile leadership who is not far from the subjects. Sculptures in many Angolan rural communities, for example, are almost always out of this (as required for novelty) and yet are nonetheless considered artistic by the inhabitants. It does not even require a special "apparatus" or "attention", a presentation ceremony that raises artistic sensibility as something specific, isolated and to be appreciated separately. 

Apart from this, the other traits seem relevant to me - although I believe that, for example, certain forms of poetry, certain forms of Sufi art, certain contemporary performances are not properly representative, they do not at least seek to be. However, I concede that they are scarce minorities and for equally scarce minorities. 

The mere reminder of these universals (whether they are twelve or less or more) underlies all the relativistic argument of recent years. Moreover, it is usually based on extensive bibliographies and subtleties so fine and so abstract that they remind me of a famous ironic portrait of Joan Brossa, one of the 'fathers' of visual poetry: he is sitting in his office, surrounded by papers (books, newspapers, possibly manuscripts, typewriters, etc.), to such an extent that we cannot even see the floor, wherever it moves it will step on paper and inadvertently make new visual poems. Relativistic 'truths' exist only right in the middle of all this paperwork. When we open the window and breathe the wind it makes them disappear. 

Second Post: UNIVERSALS AND ARTISTIC PATTERNS 

Continuing with the reflection begun with the previous message (post or placement), I began to wonder about something that is somewhat opposed to innovation, but which makes it social: artistic patterns, literary genres, cultural memory. And I kept on the horizon the experiments mentioned by Levitin and carried out by his team of researchers. 

In the second half of the last century and the beginning of this century, the humanities - and literary studies with particular intensity - were dominated by an absolute relativism that purposely ignored any scientific activity so as not to be questioned. 

Scholars and thinkers like Denis Dutton have taken apart the fallacies of contemporary relativism, for example in “Delusions of Postmodernism”. He relied heavily on data from anthropology and, above all, on results inspired by the theory of evolution. In one case he rightly observes that there is always a critical reception of art where there is art. For this, it uses anthropological data collected from the most diverse communities and which report to us an intense interaction between the reactions of the public and the performance of the storyteller. Primary? No doubt. However, we continue to be primary, because there are series and soap operas whose terminus are modified in the light of opinion and market research, and it seems that many writers, too, are conditioned there. Naturally. 

Dutton's conclusions coincide with those brought by other areas and theories. Drawing on Levitin's experiences with music, where he establishes varied relationships between listening to musical pieces and neurobiological processes, we can reach the same conclusions as to the universality of art and may need the mechanisms of cultural reception that generate interaction with original pieces. This seems to demonstrate the truth of Dutton's claims in favor of the universalism of Art and its recession. 

Reporting recent research, the neurosciencenews website details something that some critical tradition has always claimed: there are universal artistic patterns, followed by all human communities and related to 'genres', 'types' or 'species' of music defined according to the desired effects. . For example, music intended for dance only tends to be rhythmically sharp and fast, with short musical phrases played as if searching for frenzy. Of course, lullabies tend to be slow and soft all over the world. Also citing: 

In addition, all cultures showed tonality: building a small subset of notes from a base note, just like on the western diatonic scale. 

Music for therapy, which now floods social networks, tends to use few notes by dragging them. Love songs rise in variety, volume in certain passages, drag the length of the sound less, and use a wider range of notes than therapeutic or concentration songs, like almost all ritual songs. 

Some of the experiences reported by Daniel Levitin on CNN indicate that various brain zones retain and process structuring components of the songs as we continue to listen to them. These are structures that are not related to the processing of sound as such, but to the reception, we can say, aesthetically and intellectually through which we frame the pieces and transform our global knowledge of musical themes and techniques. As we continue to enjoy musical (aesthetic, undoubtedly) pleasure throughout the song, we are simultaneously preparing the feedback from which we add to the hearing the intellectual or intellectualized pleasure of the frameworks and analogical or structural relationships. 

Structures occur in regions of the brain related to movement, attention, planning and memory, not directly to music or sounds. It is not so much as if we were hearing a song for the first time, with virgin ears and a clear mind, but rather as if we were listening to a new piece and a musical reminiscence at the same time. 

This is the case with many different types of people in any part of the world. Experiences show us, therefore, that we enjoy art by articulating it with standardized reminiscences which, in the theory of literature, we sometimes try to crystallize under the designation of 'literary genres', I mean, under genological designation. 

What varies are, of course, our specific artistic, philosophical and musical memories, but not the patterns of reception. Not changing reception patterns, we resort to identical techniques to suggest, arouse and recall for example basic rhythms. Those who say basic rhythms may also refer to first or simple or basic or primitive concept images as we wish to call them and which, in traditions, are concentrated in proverbs and riddles. They correspond to structuring rhythms and relationships, whether of human or biological creativity, or of the functioning of nature in general, and are often, as the news from neurosciencenews points out, to the characteristics determined by biological evolution itself. Neither our capacity for suggestion, nor the articulations it brings (and will determine our relationship with artistic originality), nor are they relative, although they vary. The renewal of the novelty to the kept standards and the eventual alteration of the standards according to the novelty and the taste are universal. It may be assumed that there are also universal rules for determining the rejection or consecration of novelty in light of the retroactive suggestions it brings us and the way it relates to reminiscences. 

But that requires much more study and detail. This concludes on the universality and instability of genres, canons, paradigms that we are grouping under stable circuits for our guidance in the varied world of artistic creation.