[Hong Wu]

I've been working lately on a theory of the metaphysics of traditional objective art, as opposed to modern day subjective art. Most people today probably can't conceive of how art could ever be objective. The field of art today is almost universally (and, I suspect, correctly) described as a purely subjective field. This was not always in the case in the past.

In the western context, everything in life was at one time considered to have a metaphysical element, cause or purpose related to it. Artistic expression would be geared towards certain aspects or experiences of life, such as love, but the metaphysical presumptions about love that educated people generally held (and which uneducated people often, in some form, assumed) would influence their work. I've chosen love as an example here because most people have heard about the Shakespearean love sonnets; a sonnet is a type of structured poem, not a free verse poem and sonnets were generally expected to be about love.

So why did a sonnet follow a specific structure and why was it supposed to be on the subject of love? This is because the love sonnet was itself considered an act of love and therefore it was a part of the real and tangible metaphysics of love. In this sense then, to write a love sonnet was not a purely subjective act but also an objective one because of the structuring, possibility for comparison to existing standards, the context, perhaps the nature of inspiration in those times and finally also the fact that the author was working towards a defined end goal, not merely obeying his muse.

If there is one thing that I've learned in my attempts to be an artist, it's that the muse is described as female for good reason. To structure a work with any kind of requirements, even a deadline but more so when aspiring towards an objectively-oriented artistic expression, is symbolic of the metaphysical man's domination of the metaphysical woman. Just like in a real relationship, it is not enough to materially dominate the woman (the muse), you must make her happy to be dominated or else you will have failed to achieve total fulfillment through the relationship. Yet if you refuse to dominate the muse (the woman) at all, she will walk all over you, make your life hell and by the time you get anything, it's too late.

I would even go so far as to see a correlation between the modern ascension of women over men in society generally and the complete untethering of art from any objective standards that once existed.

[Victoribus Spolia]

I would even go so far as to see a correlation between the modern ascension of women over men in society generally and the complete untethering of art from any objective standards that once existed.

I would entirely agree with this statement, namely because it seems unreasonable to assume that switching an expressive field's dominant contributors from those who are generally analytical in their manner of thought with those that are empathetic would have no effect on the resultant expressions. It is monumentally naive.

When it comes to physical art; Jonathan Edwards once theorized that what makes something beautiful is that which is proportional, symmetrical, and harmonious. (Just food for thought); which, by analogy, many artists know from their training, and my wife (who went to video-game design school at one point in her life), once told me that when someone is commonly considered to be unattractive, it is because they lack facial symmetry.

Worldview-wise, the rebellion against objective standards in beauty flows from the rebellion against objective standards in everything else. The feminization of higher culture is just symptomatic of this. If God is dead, Nietzsche theorized, mankind will have to invent a new morality and ought to fully break with the relics of that faith. Postmodernism is the post-Christian critical attempt at defining this cleavage between the breast of the past and the breast of the future when it comes to standards. We have left the first titty and can't get to the second (sounds like a fun trip though, i know).

If there is no God, there is no definite standard of morality (its up to us), if there is no God, there is no definite standard for beauty (its up to us)....now we see this with gender, etc, etc.

When everything is up to us, man is lost in nihilist chaos and will return to authority out of social necessity.

In this sense, every shitty poem you read that was written post 1920, should be a reminder of greater things to come: we are on our way to the second titty, and it will be just a glorious as the first.