1. Connor Rensimer
Adam Culver
Nietzsche in His Time and Ours
10 December 2014
Nietzsche Final
! First and foremost, art should affirm life. Art is neither a thing ‘in itself,’ nor is it
hence an end fashioned for the sake of itself. It is inextricably bound, regarding how it is
phenomenologically encountered and hermeneutically evaluated, to the means of its
production within its historical context. The invocation of “art for its own sake” and any
attempt to posit an objective criteria upon which to judge the aesthetic value of art
objects, is rooted in a metaphysical dogmatism just as prejudicial as any other mode of
human valuation; the such inevitably implies that there is a substratum for truth. Despite
the clash of two disjunctive interpretative poles vying for supremacy in art criticism, both
present the great democratic threat of normalization. Both poles of thought suffer from a
belief in a “proper” formal constitution of art, though their valuations emanate from
opposing moralities.
! A few articles by the affluent art critics Roger Kimball – entitled “The Rape of the
Masters: How Political Correctness Sabotages Art” – and Jerry Saltz – entitled “When
Did the Art World Get So Conservative?” – exemplify this moralistic tension and wrestle
with different forms of “political correctness” (a term whose definition is long overdue for
re-evaluation). Kimball on one hand contends with political correctness from the
standpoint of tyrannical white male Eurocentricity, self-assured in the edifices (truths) of
his power structure’s aesthetic values, while Saltz begs to differ with the dogmatism and

2. tempestuousness of his detractors whom bear the standards of “equality.” Each
respective response to political correctness on the part of these authors exposes the
way in which a platonic aestheticism, espoused by the conservative Kimball, and the
liberal herd’s normalized morality, addressed by Saltz, constrains the interpretive and
expressive possibilities of Art, ironically blurring the lines between these apparent
idealogical opponents.
! At the onset of “The Rape of the Masters” Kimball proffer’s one of many
reasonable, albeit vague and obvious, purposes for studying art history: “To learn about
art, yes, but also to learn about the cultural setting in which art unfolds...Possibly to
learn about the development of art, then, how artists “solved problems”—for example,
the problem of modeling three-dimensional space on an essentially two-dimensional
plane” (Kimball, TRM). Here he successfully acknowledges the formal (issues of
pictorial space) and cultural (sociopolitical and economic) forces at play in various
historical loci, inextricably involved in the production of art. Brilliant. But he soon forgets
the key ingredients of cultural forces which inform the outcome of an illusionistic image.
“...the dominant trend—the drift that receives the limelight, the prizes, the academic
adulation—is decidedly elsewhere. Today, the study of art history is more and more
about subordinating art—to “theory,” to politics, to just about anything that allows one to
dispense with the burden of experiencing art natively, on its own terms" (Kimball, TRM).
Again, there is nothing, art not withstanding, which bears meaning outside of its
historical situation. Without its relation to other things, art is nothing, just as “neither the
self nor the other (whether the other is another person or a ‘thing’) exists in essence
apart from this relation, that is, apart from ‘the effect it produces and that which it

3. resists’” (Diprose, 10-11). Although the concepts we develop do not simply fall from the
sky as a godsend, they arbitrarily correspond with the objects they signify. Nietzsche
would not say that things do not exist, but rather that we have deceived ourselves in
such a way that we take our measurements and opinions about things to be
representative of a mind-independent world. These linguistic relations are fluid and
subject to evolution, and the grammatical underpinnings and cultural conventions which
flow through us perceptually influence the experiential associations derived from an
image, consequently functioning as the pretext for visual outpourings. In the age of the
internet, for example, we inevitably discuss and produce paintings in ways
unprecedented from the standpoint of the last century, even when we alone consider
the advent of pixel painting.
! Considering the contingency of art as such, to suggest in an aesthetic judgement
an essential correspondence with a suprasensual realm beyond the apparent one, the
here and now, is merely to mummify a fleeting whim, to elevate an interpretation to the
pantheon of the good. Nietzsche identifies this tendency of canonization as an
instinctive precursor to a metaphysical need.
'Beauty in itself' is an empty phrase, not even a concept. In beauty, human
beings posit themselves as the measure of perfection; in select cases, they
worship themselves in it. In this way, a species cannot help but say yes to itself
and only itself. Its lowest instincts, those of self-preservation and self
propagation, shine through in sublimities like these. (TI, #19)
This could be no more apparent than when Kimball speaks of “the corruption of an
institution entrusted with transmitting essential aspects of our civilization” (RM). Surely,

4. he speaks of the preservation of his type, the white male institution, the Eurocentric
perspective, whose taste privileges specific symbols, qualities of craft, and authors
associated with this herd. Metaphysical contrivances of the such demonstrate "what at
first was appearance becomes in the end…the essence and is effective as such" (GS
58). To assess and establish truth solely in accord with our reasoning faculties is a
disavowment of the senses. In art and politics, in response with one another or merged
as one, this unnatural tyranny is still notable. Having divulged his moralistic prejudice, it
seems contradictory on his part to assert that “art is no more immune from perversion
than any other realm of human endeavor" (RM), as if his critical perspective is not itself
a perversion of precedents but rather derived from a realm of eternal forms. It is beyond
our means to seize pure knowledge of a permanent strain; the positing of such a notion
in the first place is a human compulsion toward self-propagation.
! Contrary to the idea that truth is out there to be discovered, we contrive meaning
as best suits our reflection, and seek to radiate these ripples as far as we can. "We
have arranged for ourselves a world in which we can live — by positing bodies, lines,
planes, cause and effect, motion and rest, form and content, without this article of faith
nobody now could endure life. But this does not prove them: life is no argument. The
condition of life might include error" (GS 121). I would ask Kimball: If the contents of this
anthropomorphizing activity, lacking an underwriter to be held responsible, are not
ideological, theoretical, or political in nature, what are they? If furnishing the world with
meaning for our own ends is none of the above, we are left with nihilism, hence a
meaningless existential mire. There is no meaning in the struggle except the struggle
itself. Just ask Sisyphus.

5. ! Our moral constitution is defined by that which we position ourselves against, by
an affected distancing between the self and other. One might assume that when Kimball
asserts that his “politically correct” opposition “operates not by inflating the trivial, the
mediocre, the perverse, but by attacking greatness” (RM), a master and slave morality
is at play. However, who you might typically define as master or slave runs contrary in
this critical case. Again, what he deems greatness is simply the power structure he
wishes to preserve and propagate, and what is base is anything which falls short of his
formal criteria, that is, any sexually liberal or violent subject matter; at some point he
expresses an aversion to Robert Mapplethorpe’s photographs of the sado-masochistic
demimonde. The subject matter itself, affirmative of life (natural passions), is held in
contempt by Kimball, a certain expression of religious ressentiment. Feminist, Freudian,
or Racial interpretations do not subordinate the art object to their agendas, but rather
illuminate the cultural and psychological import of symbols imbedded in any particular
painting, such as Winslow Homer’s The Gulf Stream (1899). Who is not to say that it
“reveals [Homer’s] understanding of the relationship of economics to the plight of blacks
and their survival” (Boime, Blacks in Shark-Infested Waters), when it is well established
that what is illustrated in the painting signifies the prevalence of racial oppression in
Homer’s time and beyond. Well, Kimball probably would, thereby objecting to the
existence of racism. Whether or not Homer (the doer) understood these forces outside
of the painting (the deed), is of no consequence outside of willfully manifesting them in a
pictorial space through observational and inventive means. Alas, you would be mistaken
to distinguish the platonic classicist’s valuations as anything less than that of last man,
one steeped in petty ressentiment.

6. ! The moral ressentiment exhibited so fervently in The Rape of the Masters rears
its ugly head in the form of ‘preachers of equality’ in Jerry Saltz’s article, When Did the
Art World Get So Conservative? Conservatism ironically comes in the form of half-blind
sentries marching against perceived race and gender oppressing forces, rather than a
Roger Kimball. Conservatism is not merely a politico-economic stance, but also
descriptive of the moral normalization which democratization entails. Saltz cynically
asserts, “the art world is a place that says it wants people to be free. This extraordinary
openness is what gives art its ever-changing adaptable agency. Or gave” (WDAWGSC),
such is the jadedness we are left with when faced with the tartuffery of “tempests in a
privilege pot,” that is, the fragmented and partial individuals who must rely on a larger
system of prescribed ethics whilst lambasting the artists and critics of visually generous
works. These decency police shepherd from the distant spheres of social networks,
decrying any explicit subject matter which provokes their deep seated, inherited moral
values. As a consequence, the world’s various art tribes (there exists not a centered art
world) are inspected and sprayed over with haughty disdain, sterilizing the social
atmosphere within which art flourishes, leading to an abnegation of formal possibilities
and the decline in visual diversity.
! When Saltz shared on Facebook a graphic image of a woman's thrashed behind,
which happened to be a proudly-posted self-portrait of one of his Twitter friends, he
received a backlash of horror and disgust, despite having posted dozens of similarly or
more intensely graphic images across his social media platforms – some of which
included illuminated manuscripts depicting men being tortured, castrated, or set upon by
demons. It is understandable that these would feed some sadistic strain in select few

7. feminists, but for the sake of true gender equality, we must embrace suffering in all of its
manifestations and contexts in order to will forward and create. The hypocrisy of these
responses and prejudice toward specific mediums is understood with reference to when
a detail shot of Bernini’s marble sculpture, The Rape of Proserpina, posted by Saltz,
garnered adulation. This suggests that a more abstracted semblance of life – or in the
case of Bernini’s sculpture, myth – in the form of paint or marble, as opposed to a more
realistic reportage in the form, such as photography, is less likely to fan moralistic
flames. Understandably, because the Bernini was produced in the more misogynistic
17th century, it would draw less fire, but with regard to the context of the “woman with a
thrashed behind” (one of consent intended by the artist in it being a self-portrait), the
sculpture, and Saltz for sharing it, logically ought to receive the same scrutiny.
! Either we must negate all or affirm all, there is no in between in art. Nietzsche
instructs that “the Child is innocence and forgetting, a new beginning, a game, a self-
propelled wheel, a first movement, a sacred “Yes.” For the game of creation, my
brothers, a sacred “Yes” is needed” (Z, “On the Three Metamorphoses”). It is not that
the marginalization of all which is other in relation to the white male should not be
addressed and worked upon, but it is precisely one of the artist’s jobs as an interlocutor
to represent these issues in their ugliest colors. Art as the mediator should serve as a
social catalyst, but the seething criticism it provokes should be channeled at what is
represented, not the representation itself.
! In conclusion, it is evident that despite which mode of moral valuation is in
question, there is a tendency on the part of individuals toward provincial, tempestuous
dogmatism, rooted in the metaphysical need for absolute truth, a grounding principle

8. upon which to base one’s conceptions of knowledge, being, modes of subjectivation,
ethical substance, and forms of elaboration. Although art serves as a representation of
social issues at large, and is not something “in-itself,” due to the nature of the
contingency of all forces in flux, as outlined by Nietzsche, it draws hypocritical, resentful
fire from the “politically correct” left and right. These valuations express the instincts of
self-preservation and propagation, which usually bears utility for the weak and strong
alike, but is directed toward art, rather apparent world’s problems which they simply
represent.
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