(J) UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS PRESS
Environmental Aesthetics and the Dilemma of Aesthetic Education Author(s): Allen Carlson Reviewed work(s):
Source: Journal of Aesthetic Education, Vol. 10, No. 2 (Apr., 1976), pp. 69-82 Published by: University of Illinois Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3331917
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Environmental Aesthetics
and the Dilemma of Aesthetic Education
ALLEN CARLSON
In this paper I wish to consider a particular environmental movement and one specific argument which has been given in support of this movement. The movement in question is the "clean up the environment" movement and the argument is what I call the "eyesore argument."
The clean up the environment movement is, of course, that movement which urges us to clean up our natural environment in regard to the junk, litter, and debris which presently clutter it. It is clearly an important movement with far-reaching consequences. In recent years it has expressed itself in numerous ways in our society; for example, in extensive anti-litter campaigns in the media, in the call for recycling of common litter articles such as cans, bottles, and paper, and in social pressure and legislation concerning billboards, junk yards, and strip mines. However, perhaps the best publicized and most successful development of the general movement has been the call to "beautify" our roads and highways.1 For this reason in discussing this movement I utilize the campaign to clean up our roadways as my main example. It should be kept in mind that the issues under discussion are equally relevant to many of the other directions which this environmental movement has taken.
The eyesore argument is one of a number of different arguments which have been offered in support of the clear up the environment movement. It does not, as some other arguments, take note of contentions such as junk, litter, and debris having a negative ecological
Allen Carlson teaches in the department of philosophy at the University of Alberta, Edmonton.
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70      ALLEN CARLSON
effect or littering being wasteful. Rather it appears to be an argument which makes an explicit appeal to aesthetic considerations. In its popular form it is the contention that we should clean the natural environment of junk, litter, and debris because such materials are an "eyesore" (hence my label for the argument). I take it that the substance of this argument is simply that roadside clutter, for example, is unsightly, an eyesore; consequently, when scattered about the natural environment, it distracts from the aesthetically pleasing nature of that environment. Since an aesthetically pleasing environment is to be preferred to one which is not, we should clean up the environment. Understood in this way, the eyesore argument has two basic premises:
a) roadside clutter, for example, is not aesthetically pleasing and,
b) an aesthetically pleasing natural environment is to be preferred to one which is not. These two premises are the main concern of what follows, for the other aspects of the argument seem to be drawn from them.
The above argument is generally taken to be quite persuasive. Moreover, I believe it to be a strong argument. However, I think that the grounds of its strength have not been made explicit. In the remainder of this paper I hope to bring out the argument's full strength by discussing a line of attack against the argument and some alternatives for countering this attack.
The attack on the eyesore argument can be elaborated by considering what Monroe Beardsley has called the "dilemma of aesthetic education."2 As I understand this dilemma it can be developed in at least two different ways: Either by reference to the traditional aesthetic attitude theories or by reference to what has been called "camp sensibility." Beardsley relies on the latter mode of development and I follow him in this. The idea of camp sensibility has been popularized by art critic Susan Sontag. In her lecture entitled "Notes on 'Camp' " Sontag states that "camp is a certain mode of aestheticism.... It is one way of seeing the world as an aesthetic experience" which "has the power to transform experience."3 Moreover, this transformation of experience is often of our experiences of objects which, although not commonly experienced as aesthetically pleasing, can be so experienced with the aid of camp. In other words, objects which are typically seen as unsightly or as in bad taste or even as simply aesthetically uninteresting can by means of camp sensibility become objects of aesthetic enjoy-
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ENVIRONMENTAL AESTHETICS 71
ment. In "Notes on 'Camp' " Sontag gives a number of examples which she takes to be of this kind. They include such things as the "concoctions of Tin Pan Alley and Liverpool," "turn-of-the-century picture postcards," "old Flash Gordon comics," and "kitsch art" in general. It is the transformation of our experience of such objects which generates Beardsley's dilemma. The dilemma is that we are divided between two conflicting ways of dealing with something which we initially do not aesthetically enjoy: One is to educate people to change the world such that the object of aesthetic displeasure is eliminated; the other is to educate people to change their aesthetic sensibilities such that the object, although itself unchanged, can be experienced as aesthetically pleasing. Camp's transformation of experience of aesthetically displeasing objects yields an alternative to ridding the world of such objects.4
The dilemma of aesthetic education as generated by camp thus meets the eyesore argument head on. It recognizes the first basic premise, viz., roadside clutter, for example, is not aesthetically pleasing, by admitting that we initially find litter, junk yards, strip mines, and so forth unsightly. But it counters the argument by presenting an alternative to the conclusion which the environmentalist wishes to draw, i.e., we should clean up the environment. Instead of cleaning up the environment, it suggests, why not develop our camp sensibility such that roadside clutter and the like becomes aesthetically pleasing? Transforming our experience of the offending objects can solve the problem as effectively as removing the objects. The line of thought here is suggested by a cartoon which Beardsley describes as follows: It shows "the proprietor of a junk yard named 'Sam's Salvage' standing by a huge pile of junked cars, and saying to two other men: 'Whattya mean it's an ugly eyesore? If I'd paid Picasso to pile it up, you'd call it a work of art.' "5 Seeing something as a work of art can do the same job as camp sensibility.
The proposal that we solve the problem of our unsightly environment simply by changing our sensibilities is likely to be condemned as too ridiculous to consider. However, some things can be said in its favor. First, in recent years camp has become a rather well respected form of sensibility in regard to certain art genres. Sontag, for example, points out that a full analysis of art nouveau cannot ignore that aspect of it which lends itself to camp. Moreover, it should be emphasized that, although Sontag does admit that "not everything can be seen as camp," camp sensibility seems particularly appropriate to many of
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those objects which constitute roadside clutter. This is suggested by the fact that camp has developed hand in hand with certain avant-garde art movements, some of which often imitate such things as billboards and tin cans, and others of which occasionally utilize junk and trash as a medium. Second, there are some practical points in favor of this proposal. For example, developing camp sensibility toward our environment might well be easier and would certainly be more economical than attempting to clean up the environment. Perhaps we as a society cannot afford to select the latter alternative? And given that there are some segments of our environment which virtually cannot be salvaged, adopting camp sensibility in regard to them is certainly more reasonable than forcing ourselves to live with what we experience as an eyesore. In short, the use of camp in regard to our so-called unsightly environment seems respectable, appropriate, practical, economical, and in some cases our only hope! With all this in favor of camp sensibility, the eyesore argument, by contrast, does not appear to give much support for cleaning up the natural environment.
Nonetheless, in spite of almost anything that can be said for the camp sensibility proposal, I think it is clear that many people and certainly most environmentalists would not find it a satisfactory answer to the environmental problems under discussion here. They simply would not see it as an acceptable response to the eyesore argument. We should not conclude from this that environmentalists and like-minded people are narrow-mindedly wanting to solve our environmental problems in their own way, without regard for somewhat creative new proposals. Rather we should attempt to take a more serious look at these issues and especially at the eyesore argument itself. This is what I hope to do.
As noted previously, the eyesore argument has two basic premises. The first —■ roadside clutter is not aesthetically pleasing — is the focus for the counter to the argument posed by the dilemma of aesthetic education. We must ultimately discuss this premise further, but first it will be helpful to consider the second basic premise, namely, an aesthetically pleasing natural environment is to be preferred to one which is not. I think we can avoid being led astray at this point if we consider this premise by means of a somewhat digressional investigation into the fact that it is the natural environment which is often at issue.
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ENVIRONMENTAL AESTHETICS 73
It is quite clear that the naturalness of the environment plays some role in the problems under discussion here. This is suggested by how unsatisfactory we, and certainly environmentalists, must find proposals that certain roadways be "beautified" with durable, lifesize, plastic "trees" and "shrubs."6 It is claimed that such "trees" and "shrubs" are as aesthetically pleasing as the real thing, and in one sense, this may be correct, for if they are good replicas, they will look just like the real thing. Yet most people find such roadside decor quite unsatisfactory, and I suspect that this is at least in part because it is not natural. In light of this, perhaps the proponent of the eyesore argument may claim that even if we aesthetically enjoyed roadside clutter, it still must be cleaned up, for it is not natural. In making this claim he seems to be shifting the focus of the argument from the aesthetically displeasing nature of roadside clutter to its unnaturalness. However, this shift need not be too great, for perhaps the eyesore argument has a suppressed premise to the effect that roadside clutter is less aesthetically pleasing than the natural environment just because it is less natural. Such a premise might help to meet the claim that roadside clutter can become aesthetically pleasing with camp sensibility. But unfortunately it seems to commit the eyesore argument to the assumption that there is a positive correlation between an object's being natural and its being aesthetically pleasing. If the argument is committed to this assumption it is untenable, for the assumption is false. In both art and craft it is quite clear that artists and craftsmen make objects more aesthetically pleasing simply by making them less natural. Consider, for example, the cabinet maker polishing the natural wood of his furniture or the sculptor altering the natural shape of his stone. Moreover, even in regard to the natural environment, there is indication that people often find parts of that environment more aesthetically pleasing when these parts are deliberately made less natural; for example, there is evidence to the effect that people aesthetically enjoy artificially thinned forests more than ones which are in their natural state.7 This seems to indicate that the eyesore argument cannot receive much support from an appeal to naturalness.
Nonetheless, as suggested in the foregoing paragraph, naturalness is certainly important to environmental issues. However, if we shift the focus further toward naturalness, we have a new argument rather than the eyesore argument. This would be an argument to the effect that we must clean up the environment not because litter and the like is unsightly, but simply because it is not natural. I wish to make
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a few remarks about this argument because I believe it is what some people actually have in mind when they present what sounds like the eyesore argument. First, we can note that this new argument is not affected by the dilemma of aesthetic education. Unfortunately, however, it has other problems, many of which stem from the vagueness of the term "natural." For example, it is not obvious that trees and shrubs are the natural environment for the sides of roadways and the outskirts of cities; in some senses of "natural" perhaps junk yards, litter dumps, and billboards are much more natural. The point is that arguments which appeal to the natural in regard to environmental problems necessarily presume answers to questions such as "What kinds of things are natural?" and "What is man's natural environment?" These are important philosophical questions which must be considered before any argument from naturalness can be evaluated. However, to discuss them here would take us too far from our aesthetic-centered concerns. Consequently, I conclude this digression with one last point: To make an effective ecological argument based on naturalness, we must assume that the natural is preferable to that which is not. This, of course, is a highly questionable assumption regardless of what sense of "natural" we consider. Moreover, with some senses of the term the assumption is clearly untenable; for example, would any of us really prefer to live in a "state of nature?"
The digression of the preceding section shows that the eyesore argument cannot be easily salvaged by elaborating its second premise in regard to naturalness. This results in the argument's either becoming untenable or being replaced by a different argument — an argument which is at least as problematic. Consequently, we must return to the first premise — roadside clutter is not aesthetically pleasing — and examine a key concept of both this and the second premise: the concept of being aesthetically pleasing.
Up to this point we have relied on a rather pre-analytic, intuitive notion of being aesthetically pleasing; one which I suspect is quite similar to that used in the popular form of the eyesore argument. However, if we are to shed light on the problems posed by the dilemma of aesthetic education we need to refine this notion in certain ways. The tradition of philosophical aesthetics gives us a distinction and some accompanying concepts which I believe are helpful in this regard. The distinction is that between two senses of being aesthetically pleas-
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ENVIRONMENTAL AESTHETICS 75
ing. It has been drawn by a number of philosophers, but is perhaps best developed by D. W. Prall8 and, following him, John Hospers.9 Hospers describes it as a distinction between the "thin sense" and the "thick sense" of "aesthetic," labels which will serve well for our purposes. The thin sense is relevant when we aesthetically enjoy an object primarily in virtue of the physical appearance of the object, including not only its surface physical properties, but also its gestalt properties having to do with form and design. The thick sense, on the other hand, involves not merely the physical appearance of the object, but also certain qualities and values which the object expresses or conveys to the viewer. Prall calls this the "expressive beauty" of the object, while Hospers speaks of objects expressing "life values."
The distinction is perhaps best elaborated in terms of examples. Consider an older house. We often find such houses aesthetically pleasing because of, for example, the design of the windows or the color of the woodwork, but this is only part of the matter. In many cases we also enjoy such houses aesthetically because they give the general impression of a less hectic, more genteel way of life or show more signs of care and craftsmanship than do many newer houses. In like manner, much music is aesthetically pleasing not only because of its intricate pattern of sounds, but also because of the melancholy or the sadness or the joy which it expresses; some sports cars are aesthetically pleasing not only in virtue of their lines and colors, but also in virtue of expressing speed and workmanship. Hospers gives us some similar examples from the natural environment: "When we contemplate a starry night or a mountain lake we see it not merely as an arrangement of pleasing colors, shapes, and volumes, but as expressive of many things in life, drenched with the fused association of many scenes and emotions from memory and experience."10
These comments and examples should, for our purposes, adequately clarify the distinction between the thin and the thick sense of "aesthetically pleasing." However, before applying this distinction to the issues at hand, some additional remarks about the nature of the thick sense are in order. In regard to this I follow Hospers and speak of objects expressing "life values" or having "expressive qualities." These terms are meant to refer to a fairly wide range of human values, emotions, and attitudes which are associated with objects such that it is appropriate to say that an object expresses these values, emotions, and attitudes. The relevant concept of "expression" is of the kind initially clarified by Santayana.11 Thus for an object to express a quality or life
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76      ALIEN CARLSON
value, the latter must not simply be suggested by it. Rather the quality must be associated with the object in such a way that it is felt or perceived to be a quality of the object itself; that is what Santayana meant by saying that the object must seem to "embody" that which it expresses. Clarified in this way, expression is not typically due to the unique associations resulting from an individual's own personal history. Rather what is involved are the more general and deep-seated associations which are characteristically held in common by a community of individuals and by and large derived from what is perceived within that community of individuals to be the nature and function of the expressive object. Thus, the life values which an object expresses are often the ones reflecting the values, emotions, and attitudes of the individuals who are responsible for its nature and function.
Given the distinction between the thin and the thick sense and accompanying concepts such as "expression" and "life values," we can now sort out the issue between the eyesore argument and camp sensibility, and perhaps reveal the full strength of the eyesore argument. If we take this argument in terms of the thin sense, the argument claims that the physical appearance and form of the natural environment is more aesthetically pleasing than the physical appearance and form of billboards, junk yards, roadside litter, and the like. This claim, of course, is initially plausible, and consequently the argument is usually not developed further. In short, the argument appears cogent when developed in terms of the thin sense and is therefore not developed in terms of the thick sense. However, a dilemma is posed by camp sensibility just because camp is claimed to make the physical appearance and form of roadside clutter as aesthetically pleasing as is the natural environment. And if the thin sense is all that is considered, this claim seems plausible. Thus we have no cogent argument for cleaning up the environment.
However, to consider this issue in terms of the thin sense alone is to do justice neither to the eyesore argument nor to camp sensibility. Whether the proponents of the eyesore argument realize it or not, roadside clutter is unsightly because of much more than its physical appearance. I think typical proponents of this argument, such as the environmentalists, tend to consider the argument in terms of the thin sense alone because they assume it is largely the physical appearance of the natural environment which makes it aesthetically pleasing. The life
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ENVIRONMENTAL AESTHETICS 77
values expressed by the natural environment are, when present, if at all, difficult to determine. Yet the life values expressed by roadside clutter are at least as important as, if not more important than, its physical appearance in making such clutter an eyesore. In fact, I suggest that it is unsightly primarily because of these expressive qualities. By and large, its expressive qualities are qualities such as waste, disregard, carelessness, and exploitation. As we shall see, it is taking note of this fact that the eyesore argument can be seen as a forceful argument.
In a somewhat similar manner, it is equally incorrect to consider camp sensibility only in terms of the thin sense. It is true that as it has brought us to aesthetically enjoy the physical appearance, form, and design in art nouveau, camp can also bring us to enjoy aesthetically these same aspects in billboards, beer cans, and junked cars. This is because, as Sontag says, camp emphasizes "texture, sensuous surface, and style at the expense of content." Yet this is still only part of the matter. Camp sensibility is also relevant to the thick sense of an object's being aesthetically pleasing, in that camp, through its detachment and emphasis on style, often makes it possible for us to become more aware of those expressive qualities of objects which constitute the thick sense. In doing this, however, camp does not change these expressive qualities. Sontag rightly points out the "objects, being objects, don't change when they are singled out by the Camp vision." What camp does is make us aware of the expressive qualities which are present and invites us to enjoy them, if we can. "Camp taste is, above all, a mode of enjoyment, of appreciation, not judgment."
I said earlier that the life values expressed by roadside clutter such as junk yards, strip mines, and discarded litter seem to me to be qualities such as waste, disregard, carelessness, and exploitation. If this is the case, camp sensibility cannot alter this fact; it can only make us more aware of it and ask us to enjoy aesthetically the expression of such qualities. Perhaps with camp we can find aesthetically pleasing the expression of such qualities and consequently aesthetically enjoy roadside clutter. In fact, however, I rather doubt if many of us can do this. A strip mine which is expressive of exploitation or roadside litter which is expressive of carelessness and disregard is at least as difficult to find aesthetically pleasing as is a sports car which is expressive of shoddy workmanship or a popular novel which is expressive of the desire for the fast buck. And it is often due to the fact that certain objects such as cars and houses, novels and musical compositions are expressive of such life values that we do not and cannot
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aesthetically enjoy them in the thick sense. If the case is similar in regard to roadside clutter, and I see no reason why it should not be, then camp cannot succeed in making it aesthetically pleasing in the thick sense of that concept. The result is that in regard to the thick sense the dilemma of aesthetic education cannot here arise. This point is important for it not only reinstates the eyesore argument as a strong and effective argument, it also indicates the full extent to which roadside and other environment clutter is truly an "eyesore" (or perhaps better, truly ugly!).
The preceding brings out the difficulty of aesthetically enjoying in the thick sense objects which express certain life values. That we often are not able to enjoy aesthetically in the thick sense such objects is a fairly uncontroversial empirical claim. However, there is a second and perhaps more controversial empirical claim which, if accepted, makes the above line of thought even stronger. This is the claim that when we are actually unable to find an object aesthetically pleasing in the thick sense because of the (negative) nature of its expressive qualities, this often makes aesthetic enjoyment of this object in the thin sense psychologically difficult, if not impossible. If this claim is true, then in some instances any aesthetic enjoyment of an object will be impossible because of the nature of that object's expressive qualities. In light of this, the fact that camp sensibility often makes us more aware of an object's expressive qualities becomes quite significant. It means that the utilization of camp in regard to certain objects will, in virtue of making us more aware of their expressive qualities, make any aesthetic enjoyment of these objects impossible. Moreover, since camp, by definition, is a mode of aesthetic enjoyment, the successful and sustained adoption of camp sensibility toward such objects becomes impossible. Thus, some objects, because of their expressive qualities, cannot be aesthetically enjoyed by adopting camp sensibility. To attempt to do so is self-refuting. Consequently, if we grant the truth of the above-mentioned empirical claim in regard to certain objects, the conclusion is not only that camp cannot generate the dilemma of aesthetic education in either the thin or the thick sense in regard to such objects, but also that these objects are among those which Sontag admits cannot be "seen as camp." This conclusion gives a strong version of the eyesore argument in the thin as well as the thick sense by means of showing that, in the final analysis, we need not take seriously the challenge of camp sensibility.
I believe the foregoing line of thought yields a strengthened and
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ENVIRONMENTAL AESTHETICS 79
yet essentially aesthetic version of the eyesore argument. However, in doing so, it depends on two claims which I take to be empirical. Since I do not wish to leave the issue to turn completely on either of these empirical claims, I will conclude this section by mentioning a second, perhaps in the long run more promising, direction for the eyesore argument to take. As working out this direction in detail is beyond the scope of this paper, I only sketch it briefly here.
This development of the argument turns on what seems to me a conceptual point: that our aesthetic enjoyment of an object counts toward our wishing to experience that object and thus against our wishing to eliminate it. Consequently, if we find roadside clutter aesthetically pleasing, our desire to experience it is somewhat heightened and our desire to eliminate it somewhat lessened. Now suppose for a moment that with the help of camp sensibility or whatever, we do find roadside clutter aesthetically pleasing in the thick sense. This would mean that we aesthetically enjoy the expression of certain life values. Moreover, given the concept of expression discussed above, many of these life values are expressed by roadside clutter in virtue of certain human values and attitudes which are in part responsible for roadside clutter. However, in light of the above mentioned conceptual point, our aesthetic enjoyment of the expression of these life values involves at least tacitly condoning these human values and attitudes in virtue of which roadside clutter expresses these life values. In general, our not wishing to eliminate and in fact wishing to experience an effect requires at least condoning, if not actually approving, the cause. But the problem is that many of these human values and attitudes are of a kind which we find morally unacceptable, and condoning or approving the morally unacceptable is itself morally unacceptable. Thus when we find it possible to enjoy roadside clutter aesthetically, we may not find it morally acceptable to do so. We may in the last analysis be forced by our moral values to clean up the environment. I believe that this suggests a fruitful way in which the eyesore argument may be developed. Construed in this way, it is not simply an aesthetic argument, but a moral-aesthetic argument which relies on a certain combination of our moral values and our aesthetic sensibilities. I might also add that in construing it in this manner we may be coming closer to the popular form of the argument, for the dialogue between the environmentalist and his opponent is often marked by what appears to be moral indignation and outrage, even when the issues seem to be argued purely in aesthetic terms.
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In the preceding section I have outlined some ways in which the eyesore argument may be seen to have the force we initially think it has. In doing so I have relied on the assumption that roadside clutter expresses certain objectionable life values, such as waste, disregard, carelessness, and exploitation. I wish to conclude this paper with some further discussion relevant to this assumption in the hope of supporting its plausibility. Let us begin by reference to some related examples. Consider the lifesize, plastic "trees" previously mentioned. I admitted that in one sense such "trees" may be as aesthetically pleasing as the real thing. This is in the thin sense. If these "trees" are good replicas, they will have a physical appearance and form very similar to real trees and consequently in the thin sense be equally aesthetically pleasing. In this case as in the roadside clutter case, however, it is expressive qualities that are important. I think that we find plastic "trees" aesthetically unacceptable mainly because of the life values they express. And although it is difficult to describe exactly what they express, I suggest it is something like a combination of resignation and ingenuity. This expressive quality is not as objectionable as those of roadside clutter, but it is still rather disconcerting, disconcerting enough to make such "trees" difficult to enjoy aesthetically (and yet perhaps not disconcerting enough to prevent them from being paradigm objects for camp sensibility) ,12
A similarly revealing example is that of junk art. This is art which is constructed from at least some of the typical contents of roadside clutter. Examples are sculptures such as Picasso's Bull's Head (1943), a "bull's head" constructed of bicycle parts, and John Chamberlain's Essex (1960), made with automobile parts and scrap metal. Whether or not such art is aesthetically pleasing depends to a great extent on its expressive qualities and on the expressive qualities of the materials from which it is constructed. On the one hand, when we find such art distasteful, this is often because the materials have kept their original expressive qualities. The artist has not reworked the materials adequately to prevent the art work from expressing rather objectionable life values. The obvious examples of this kind of case are, I expect, some of what is called "found art," for example, Duchamp's Fountain — a urinal turned end-for-end and placed in an art show. On the other hand, we often find junk art aesthetically pleasing (and morally satisfying). Such is the case, I believe, with Bull's Head. This is, I suggest, because here the artist has in effect "recycled" the materials he has utilized and in doing so changed their expressive qualities.
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ENVIRONMENTAL AESTHETICS 81
Discarded objects which would otherwise express waste and disregard are reworked such that they now, as a work of art, express utilization, concern, and sensitivity. With this in mind, I think we can shed light on the cartoon the description of which I quoted from Beardsley previously. It is, as is much humor, philosophically revealing. The point is that had the pile of junked cars been piled by Picasso, it may well have expressed different life values; it may have expressed the qualities of junk "recycled" as art, rather than the life values typically expressed by objects which have been used, abused, and discarded by a waste-oriented society.
The last point I mention can be put as an objection to my suggestion that strip mines, junk yards, discarded beer cans, and the like express qualities such as waste, disregard, carelessness, exploitation. An objector might contend that such objects do not express these life values, but actually others which are aesthetically acceptable (and morally appealing). He might hold that they express, for example, hard work, determination, vision. And that if this is the case, we can aesthetically enjoy these objects in regard to both the thin and the thick sense of that concept, moreover, the moral-aesthetic version of the eyesore argument does not apply. In reply to this I have only two short comments. First, there is no inconsistency in these objects expressing very different, seemingly opposed life values. Perhaps many express both disregard and determination. But if this is the case, the objection has no force, for the expression of acceptable life values does not cancel out the expression of objectionable ones. Second, I am not sure who can say with certainty what life values these objects express. Although I suspect that the art critic and the social critic can help, in the last analysis it is, I expect, up to us as a community of individuals. For example, it seems to me that while farms along the road may express determination, discarded car bodies do not, and while the skyline of a city may express vision, a strip mine does not; but these may be eccentric opinions. Thus perhaps the first step is for each of us to keep the issue in mind and take a careful look at our environment.
Notes
1. There have even been some interesting attempts to approach in a quasi-scientific manner the goals of this movement as they apply to roads and highways. See, for example, H. Burke, G. Lewis, and H. Orr, "A Method for Classifying Scenery from a Roadway," Park Practice Guideline (March 1968).
2. Beardsley introduces this "dilemma" in "The Aesthetic Point of View,"
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Metaphilosophy, Vol. 1, No. 1 (January 1970). As he does not suggest a resolution to it, I do not know if the manner in which I attempt to resolve it later in this paper would be acceptable to him.
3. Susan Sontag, "Notes on 'Camp,'" Against Interpretation (New York: Dell Publications, 1969). In what follows all quotes from Sontag are from "Notes on 'Camp.'"
4. I remarked earlier that the dilemma can be developed by reference to the traditional aesthetic attitude theories. Now we can see how this is so. Most attitude theorists hold that, as it is put by one such theorist, Jerome Stolnitz, "the aesthetic attitude can be adopted toward 'any object of awareness whatsoever.'" See Jerome Stolnitz, Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art Criticism (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1960), pp. 40-42. If this is accepted, the aesthetic attitude will generate the dilemma. However, I prefer to develop the dilemma without reference to the aesthetic attitude, since such an attitude is, in my mind, philosophically questionable. Furthermore, we do not need anything quite as strong as the aesthetic attitude to produce the dilemma. Camp easily does the job, and, as I indicate below, seems particularly appropriate in regard to those objects toward which the clean up the environment movement is directed.
5. Beardsley, "The Aesthetic Point of View," p. 55. The cartoon is by David Gerard.
6. I understand that Jefferson Boulevard in Los Angeles has (or had) plastic trees. This is mentioned by Martin H. Krieger in "What's Wrong with Plastic Trees?" Science, Vol. 179, No. 4072 (February 2, 1973).
7. See, for example, W. Rutherford and E. L. Shafer, "Selection Cuts Increase Natural Beauty in Two Adirondack Forest Stands," Journal of Forestry (June 1969).
8. D. W. Prall, Aesthetic Judgment (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1929), pp. 178-227.
9. John Hospers, Meaning and Truth in the Arts (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1946), pp. 11-15.
10. Ibid., pp. 12-13.
11. George Santayana, The Sense of Beauty (New York: Collier Books, 1961), pp. 137ff. I utilize an analysis of "expression" similar to that of Santayana for I take it that such an analysis is, on the one hand, quite accessible, and on the other, adequate for the present purposes. However, a more technical analysis which would be equally, if not more, adequate is that presented by N. Goodman in Chapter 2 of Languages of Art (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1968). Goodman's concept of "metaphorical exemplification" plays a role similar to that of Santayana's "embodiment" and has, I believe, somewhat more explanatory power.
12. I think the life values expressed by such things as plastic trees are significantly different from those expressed by roadside clutter for a number of reasons. One which may be particularly important, however, is that while the latter is simply another dimension of our problem, the former is a response to that problem, albeit a somewhat feeble and misguided response.
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