John Berger’s ‘Ways of Seeing’ Exploded a Discipline | Hacker News Reader

John Berger’s ‘Ways of Seeing’ Exploded a Discipline

aeon.co

108 pointsprismatic18 comments

This is a really great (and relatively short) program.

Here’s a link to the first episode: https://youtu.be/0pDE4VX_9Kk

The rest of them are there as well. Go ahead and give it a watch!

And if you enjoy Ways of Seeing in all its retro-critical glory and need MOAR, check out Robert Hughes's The Shock of the New: https://youtu.be/J3ne7Udaetg

I loved the talk that Michael Bernstein gave at the Deconstruct Conference relating "Ways of Seeing" to "Ways of Selling", related to software specifically: https://www.deconstructconf.com/2017/michael-bernstein-ways-...

Yes, that was my favorite talk at the whole conference that year.

> self-armed semioticians and practiced deconstructors of political signification.

Rarely is it taken a step further - to question deconstruction itself, and not assume it is an unalloyed good, and question what is targeted for deconstruction, and what is left to stand.

Excellent point. I had a philosophy professor who let us know that it was neither his position nor purpose to indoctrinate us regarding the soundness of ideas. He very consistently stuck to his guns and gave every argument presented to the class the the best treatment he could, and no one ever figured out what position he took personally on any of them.

I asked if he did not consider the purely rational method he embodied a form of indoctrination itself. He smiled, and very considerately ceded the point that it might very well be the case and that if so, he was not aware of it.

All my other philosophy professors were folks who - for some reason - became angry when asked questions like that.

That's what University is supposed to be like. Unfortunately, it's a dying ethos...

Understanding the purpose of having a construction and the call into the human soul to demand a narratival and binding meaning is something that is simply inadequately done in this long afternoon of Modernity. Trite answers don't suffice, nor do pompous ones.

> Rarely is it taken a step further - to question deconstruction itself

That hasn't really been the case for a long time. Deconstruction was officially declared off-message in the aftermath of 9/11: http://www.bruno-latour.fr/sites/default/files/89-CRITICAL-I... . It's had something of a rehabilitation in the post-financial-crisis world of the new wokeness, though.

It really disturbed me how many people went through that "this changes everything" transformation at the time. Even if I disagreed more with their former position, it makes me seasick. It's like, there must be something profound missing from people who have such definite views and then a switch flips and they see the world completely differently. I mean, the WTC was attacked before! So how could a thinking person not allow for the possibility of a successful attack? How could it fundamentally be a surprise that upends your worldview? Yet that seemed to be the effect on an awful lot of people.

Maybe we're just supposed (in the sense of evolutionary/mimetic/entropic fitness) to be in conversation with all forms of structure; between order and disorder... like a devil's advocate or a high-confident grey [1] -- maybe we're supposed to stake the middle ground: build when it's rubble and tear it down when it's cathedral :)

[1]: https://www.ted.com/talks/mariano_sigman_and_dan_ariely_how_...

This series is very interesting; but let the viewer beware: as usual with such deconstructive media it contains many assertions that are not presented in-depth and may or may not be true at a deeper level. They sound profound but further reflection fails to provide what deep learning they project.

Take, for example, the very beginning of Episode 1, where Berger states "All the paintings of the tradition used to convention of perspective which is unique to European art." Then he moves on. Think about this important assertion for a moment, it is very interesting. Why is it true? Why didn't anybody else invent it, e.g. Arabs, with their advanced knowledge of optics? perhaps Islam's ban on painting human form hindered them. How about the Chinese? Here's one answer:

"...because, as Erwin Panofsky1 would point out, perspective is not only a direct transcription of the visual reality but a form of representation that originates within broader cultural needs." , i.e. for some reason their cultural needs were different. You see the enlightened view itself has Orientalist foundations.

A better discussion can be found here [3]

If you want to read a great fictional work that covers these topics I suggest Orhan Pamuk's My Name is Red, e.g.

"Such painting, says one modernist to the other, means that "if you depicted one of the trees in this forest, a man who looked upon that painting could come here and, if he so desired, correctly select that tree from among the others". A tree with Ottoman roots relates the conversation and objects: "I don't want to be a tree, I want to be its meaning."" [3]

I was fascinated by the extensive and excellent coverage on Persian/Turkic miniature art and its comparison to Western painting tradition in this book, so at a book signing when Pamuk was touring US after its publication I asked him about resources that he used (Note that Pamuk wanted to be a painter originally): he said there were scant resources and he made most of it up!

[1] http://www.essentialvermeer.com/technique/perspective/histor...

[2] https://confuciusmag.com/chinese-paintings-western-paintings

[3] https://www.theguardian.com/education/2001/sep/15/highereduc...

I'm glad to learn that the BBC also aired a response to "Civilisation".

That's one of the few TV programmes I've ever seen that I'd label as repulsive.

Why was it repulsive?

It's violence couched in aesthetics and academic language.

If you want something, take it. Don't spend 650 minutes insulting the universe by trying to weasel your way into having earned it.

I'm not an art historian, and when I watched either of the two shows I found them interesting and insightful so I really don't have a dog in this fight, but I'd like to understand the criticism of each.

I don't understand what you mean by "It's violence couched in aesthetics and academic language."

So he is the father of word salad.

If nothing else, I find John Berger's voice immensely soothing. Toss on.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com