POLITICAL THEORY - John Ruskin
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 25 ก.ค. 2024
- John Ruskin was an art critic who believed the immorality of 19th century capitalism could be highlighted by one thing above all others: the ugliness of the environment.
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The mayor of Chicago once made a rule saying "NO more ugly buildings" since then Chicago has seen many remarkable a beautiful new buildings.
A building is ugly by definition
Hmm. just In the eyes of the beholder.
@@mariettawilson9256 *builds literal garbage* "ALl iN tHe Eye oF thE BEhOldEr"
Chicago is a cesspool, architecturally and morally.
@@Subaruiz1 no, no its not
I've been watching all the videos and taking notes. I'm totally in love with this channel and I felt an immediate connection with John Ruskin. I live in the suburbs of Rio and I sometimes feel depressed with the appaling general appearance of the city as a whole and specially the suburbs and outskirts. I many times thought I was being too shallow for giving so much value to aesthetics. Now I have Ruskin to back me up. (Oh, and I was also awestruck with Venice as was he).
I agree with you completely.I too live in a suburb of Rio and it seems to me that the city as a whole is getting uglier and dirtier almost on a day to day basis, and the quality of life is going steadly downhill.Depending on where one lives, there's a great chance that it looks and smells more than Birmingham or Manchester in Ruskin's day than Venice, or even worse!
Looking at this comment now I feel like its author would probably want to go back 2 years and live the ugly life of Rio instead of getting robbed on a daily basis. Oh well.
I live in Porto Velho and i feel the same way about here, it gets me to the point of hating the city, but i think It should not be this way.
yes fellow Journeymn Publio, so true, almost a true and working utopia
He was ignorant of the real mechanisms that cause architectural ugliness. Government regulations cause ugliness just as the do with beauty within the architectural segment. He doest account for the people at 5he bottom paying for his “Centrally Planned” projects.
Both him and Morris were just looking for excuses for their subpar business performance. They refused to say it was their fault. It was the consumers fault. 🤦♂️
lol that trump tower rising in the background at 0:40
jacob massengale especially then hearing "make it uglier"
Weird thing is that this video is from April 2015, before Trump officially became political
A Jacob Massengale - There's the mandatory dig at Trump Tower but where are the looming satanic mills of social media giants?
Sad!
This channel really likes the push for external beauty for the massess...never thought much of it, didn't think it was possible to be a different way. I love this channel
4:59. 'There are too many shoddy things in the world', he uses my home city of Sheffield as the example the cheeky bastard hahaha.
😀 spoken like a true Sheffielder! 👍
Orwell said that Sheffield has to be the ugliest city IN THE WORLD. haha
Thank you very much for posting this video. Great work!
The analysis of John Ruskin was always in my mind, because
if we look closely at our environment here in germany, we can see that everything is aligned and designed to be efficient to business and not for beauty or for pleasure!
This also ties to part of Heidegger's philosophy of how technology distorts our view of nature and things.
!!!!!
Even the beautiful sights and buildings in Venice appeal to tourists bringing in money
Beautiful, thank you yet again!
I couldn't agree more with Ruskin. I live in gold coast Australia and I find it beautiful. I am faced with a problem that I probably need to move away to get a career but for me it's like I would rather be dead than live in a barren ugly place! The purpose of earning more money is to have a better life but it's not better!
That "barren ugly" place is a beautiful desert . There is nowhere else I would rather live than in the barren desert. What Ruskin forgets is that beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Many thanks.
This channel... ♥ Last semester I took political philosophy and this semester I'm taking aesthetics (among other things, philosophy and humanities are awesome majors) - So this video is kind of a match made in philosophical heaven.
Thanks for elaboratedexploitation’s
and images.
5:01 Lol, an amiga running Xp. Nice video though, I appreciate the attention to detail and all of the content on your channel
Beauty as a core dimension of life for rethinking a sustainable political economy...perhaps we're only JUST beginning to understand John Ruskin a couple of centuries later...
Such an extraordinary man
I love your video so much!
His collection in Sheffield is beautiful and worth a visit.
I always think about the beauty of a place it is the first thing I think of. I find it surprising that people are not bothered about it. Then again I am an art student.
can you make a video about Thomas Carlyle? I save some of your videos and watch it again, thanks for making videos like this.
I like it. We've made a number of trips lately to Europe and China and when I return to America I alway notice that we lack the numbers of statues, parks and other esthetic elements that are common elsewhere.
Fascinating. Would like to know more about him / his ideas. Any suggestions on where to begin? Like a book where he might have expressed these ideas, or someone else might have written about him?
Reading it, loving it!
Can you do a video on Frederick Douglass, or some black history greats? I love your videos. You do a great job. Thanks
Thank you sir
daniel harvey iv Just looked this guy up, thanks!
+Daniel harvey The chocolate kyle kulinski
You might be able to do a good job of it yourself . Give it a go.
Do one on Granville Woods, too.
And Fanon Frantz, he was a great philosophy.
Muana Muluba .
Cool perspective :)
4:36 So I guess Ruskin would be happy that most students later work in the service industry?
I've found my new Inspiration ❣️❣️❣️ THANK YOU!!👍🌎🙏🧔⚡🌴🐦😻🎉🎉
You can also add people like frantz Omer Fanon and Malcolm X and Edward Said bio too. And also people like Deluez , and present writers also
Ruskin reminds sort of Robert Owen the 19th century Social reformer.
Love these videos!! keep them coming please!!
Did Ruskin consider the fact that on average there are many more sunny days in Italy than there are in England each year. In general England has terrible grey weather. We can’t change the weather, so no matter how hard architects work on the city it will still stay grey and depressing in certain areas of the world.
Could you do a video on Henry George?
What would Ruskin say about gentrification, where often times places become more beautiful, but the poor are effectively kicked out of where they live?
***** I'm still concerned that the argument you propose in this video can be used to justify gentrification. Regardless, thank you for allowing me to think about where I live in a more profound way! Cheers
If anyone's interested I'm fairly certain that the centre sketch at 1:22 is San Marco Cathedral with the Doge's Palace behind - though I may be wrong since I'm only basing that on three wonderful days visiting Venice and three years playing Assassin's Creed. I'm assuming that that's one of his sketches, anyone know for sure?
The late author of "The Polity of Beasts" was a big Ruskin fan. It shows in that novel, as well as others of his.
This one is particularly outstanding, though I've enjoyed every single one of your videos. I often wonder what books you would recommend on each topic. Is there a Ruskin biography we might find compelling? A long documentary you'd recommend? I don't mean to put you all on the spot; I just want to know where to find more relevant information.
Search “John Ruskin Peter Fuller” on TH-cam. He’s an art critic and he did a documentary about him and William Morris
I love these guys and get so fed up that we are unable to change the world. Why is it that the group or herd mentality is slow to learn from individuals in the tribe?
Ruskin must be rich to take a yearly trip to Venice and take time drawing stuff that he likes about the town...
*****
Thank you for the added info. I also realized my question was redundant because you mentioned in the video that he inherited a lot of wealth when his father passed away.
I thought Ruskin was an art critic. I remember him from series about the pre-Raphaelites from a few years ago. :)
Beauty (which mustn't be mentioned now)
was then a living presence
or an aching absence
day and night...
George Santayana (as quoted by Arthur Danto)
I go to ruskin college in Oxford and it rocks! Check the Wiki..
I just read his book art and life, and I picked it up thinking it looked cool and that at 98 pages it would be an easy one day read but fuck me I was wrong thing took me nearly two weeks since I had to reread almost every page and could only get though ten to twenty pages a day before I start zoning in and out. But that book blew my mind in the terms of the artist and his art and I was hoping to find a video breaking down the book as a whole since it is a small just with big ideas. But this video help me a little bit..
is Alain de Botton the voice of this channel?
Yes!
Wow. U guys actually reply to comments.
Why are the languages for the subtitles on these videos randomized? :s It appears that the default for this video is Portuguese.
If everything and everywhere is beautiful, than beauty ceases to exist. It becomes normal, no longer special. Without the ugly or the monotonous, beauty is no longer special, no longer appreciable. Does that mean the ugly needs to be so bad as to be disparaging and soul crushing? No! But not everything should be "beautiful," so we don't diminish how special beauty truly is
At 4:43, why is it "the duty of creative privileged people..."? And does connect with your other film about the rich are not seeking more money, but rather recognition?
Loving these! Please do Kierkegaard :)
***** Thanks :)
Animation is hilarious. Especially at 1:40. A 1970’s Terry Gilliam would be proud of that one
That not so subtle diss at Oscar Wilde at 4:10
I can't wait until this channel hits the one million subscriber milestone.
Please make a video on the philosophy of Gandhi
The Trump Tower rising at 0:44 is the cherry on the cake.
Mark Corrigan loves this guy
Mike Lee did him dirty in Mr Turner!
If they show one more painting of a guy in a coat standing on a rock imma pop off
James Fox? yeah, I recognize his voice.
I believe appropriation of land is a great way to develop a sense of belonging to your environment. Whilst farmers enjoy such a wonderful opportunity, many in densely populated suburbia are presented with little to no pathways of enjoying the therapeutic benefits of working with soil. For example: The suburban life of Mumbai.
I remember my days toiling under the sun, gardening, landscaping, brick laying, concreting, working with a dingo (i.e forklift),.....but that was in Australia.
I keep spotting more and more subtle references to the Trump menace in your videos, years before many started taking him seriously.
This channel is fantastic, thank you.
Well scripted and well narrated.
And just the right length - to consume with one's lunch.
Fascinating.
Numbing mass media is still a big problem
AUTHORS:
This is an exceptionally good series because you bring into focus the shared challenge throughout each generation: their ongoing attempt to solve the problem of modernity: morality at our new industrial scale, (just as the great transformation in the 5th century bc was created by the scale of our cities and the markets they created between them.
Most of these men are demonized by one politically evangelical side or the other despite their various attempts to solve the same problem. It's especially helpful that you touch on the ... exaggerated focus of each of these thinkers, as 'the one way' to solve the problem. "If we just got everyone to believe this..." is a pretty obvious attempt to replace christianity with a new value system equally homogenous.
What isn't obvious is that each proposes (like monotheistic religion before them) a MONOPOLY solution to the problem rather than tailoring the social order to the abilities of each class - given that the challenge of modernity is the increasing value provided by our ability to learn, rather than our ability to labor or escape labor.
I think this is the question that we beg but are collectively afraid to answer because it will eliminate the necessary democratic illusion of equality, that replaced the necessary monopoly illusion of monotheism.
The one persona I feel you are missing is perhaps Thorstein Veblen. Your addition of Ruskin's aesthetics is ... delightful - I wouldn't have thought to add him. You've elegantly illustrated that these are all collectively moral men attempting to preserve monotheistic cultural homogeneity in new institutional form.
But now that you illustrated the similarities in ambition, it might be just as informative and helpful to illustrate the dissimilarities advocated by the outliers: Marx/Keynes/Rawls(lower/left classes) on one end, Locke/Smith/Hayek(middle/libertarian class) in the center, and Nietzche/Darwin/Spencer on the other(upper/right classes).
It might be interesting to compare the moral approach you've taken, with the three competing class propositions that would illustrate the conflict between classes more clearly.
My position is that we are always just choosing between dysgenic, compromise, and eugenic reproduction. And that the rest of our pontification regardless of position is all justification of those priors.
Anyway. I'm just offering thoughts as a way of appreciating your work.
Thank you.
Curt Doolittle
The Propertarian Institute
De Aristocratia I'd love to have an option to save ur comment so that i could come back later. Too lazy to screenshot erthing. On phone it'd take a while.
Lords article Artistic Vendetta Mudeo Starting collective ax Paris reservation on The pVT Commonwealth Marathon
Listening to this voice is like being ensconced in velvet. Yes, that's right: I said "ensconced".........What of it!!!
Thank you, sir. I live in Ruskin 😊
Ok, so he basically read the Renaissance patronage/meritocratic milieu of the Italian city-states through 19th century English aesthetic pragmatism. That'll get you at least a couple of cultural centres named after you for sure!
I really dont thing that helping rich men decorating the society in order to look more appeal to the eye is the real solution.
The workers and citizens need to take power.
Ruskin had the most profound influence on Gandhi. He read Unto this last on a train journey and resolved to model his life around it's message. He even translated it into his mother tongue Gujarati as Sarvodaya.
Oh, thank you! I never knew that
I like this guy...
Not everyone has luxury to work towards these thoughts.
Hello,
I deeply and sincerely admire your work although I have just discover it. However I am quite keen to find the full text of videos. How can I find the full texts of videos ?
I wonder how ugly our built environment has to get before another Ruskin appears?
TalesOfTheLyke Hi there! I think Alain and the people who work in TSOL have a lot in common with Ruskin, in terms of being fully engaged in trying to change the world into a more beautiful place. Check this:
alaindebotton.com/living-architecture/
Well yes, some of those buildings look a bit strange:-) But I often think that it is my eyes that grew numb to certain type of beauty, because I am not that
familiar with it. We can always learn to enjoy and appreciate though, if we are open and curious enough.
***** Interesting buildings. I like the variety of designs. Layman that I am, I think architecture may be like music in that something new may initially startle us but later on can become a favourite.
Town planners didn't listen to him then
John Ruskin had some good ideas that he later developed into the actual projects. I admire his way of thinking about beauty and that is quite disappointing to see some parts of the world, being unkempt, and I agree that we still should follow his philosophy. He wanted the change in the world; I believe that we should follow this philosophy, because we can make the world a better place, because the world ain't perfect.
+Marcin Iwankiewicz
I wonder what John Ruskin he would think of contemporary Singapore.
+SinerAthin I actually dont know much about current situation in Singapore. Can you explain further your point? :)
Marcin Iwankiewicz
Singapore has been widely described as one of the cleanest cities on the planet, and in terms of architecture may look like a modern version of Venice.
There are plenty of images available on Google of the city, and they're pretty impressive.
Granted, Singapore is very strict and autocratic. Their strict rules might explain how they managed to keep their city clean :P
SinerAthin Thank you for reply. And I shall check some pictures of Singapore. In meantime, I have question: do you think strict government is good in order to ensure cleanness of a city, as in case of Singapore? I'm just curious? :p
Marcin Iwankiewicz
It's definitely a factor, but the most important thing is that you have a strict government who provides *incentives* to people.
You need to introduce obligations for the citizens in your city to keep their property clean. Like fining people who allow their property to fall into decay and ruin the city landscape. The fines in turn can be used to maintain & improve the city landscape.
Giving the government the final say in regards to city architecture is also critical for the possibility of large scale projects.
If you let people do whatever they wish with their property, people will usually build rather haphazardly without any grand vision in their mind.
That is why you need to centralize city planning among a small group tasked with a certain vision, like sectioning the city, building grand roads to solve infrastructure problems.
You also have the issue of the few vs the many.
Take India and China.
If you in China wants to build a giant hydro dam that will benefit the vast majority but lead to the displacement of a few families, the government has the power to undergo such a project.
It's quite different in India, which suffers from a weak government and strong family ties, making it difficult for the government to undergo massive infrastructure projects for the benefit of the country as they get bogged down in legal, family and religious disputes.
To keep a city clean, especially a large one, it requires incentives for the citizens owning property, large-scale architectural organization and city planning, and a strong government with a utilitarian vision willing to coerce a few for the betterment of the many.
Ruskin was alive before and after the entire life of Johann Strauss II
Interesting how an aesthetic appeal can be relevant to politics
Read a comparative analysis of Marcel Proust and John Ruskin: www.theantonymmag.com/comparative-analysis-of-marcel-proust-and-john-ruskin-by-james-storbakken/
Tl;dr: Quit whining about stuff on Facebook and actually do something. :P
+MLG _PwN Ts;dw --- too slow, didn't watch, seems more appropiate
He also wrote he was a proper Tory who believed in inequality
i love this man
Did he ever speak against Racism or address Gender issues?
Ruskin and Morris were so right!
can someone (else) please comment on the fact that most...if not all of the videos i have seen from The School of Life contain people who were from wealthy families? Not complaining at all. I was just wondering if someone had a comment on this.
CHAPO 13 omg i noticed this as well!! i have no idea why
...
Although incredibly trivial, I must say that Ruskin's stone & crystal collection is sooo lovely, I'm very envious of it haha...I love Ruskin's ideology...who doesn't want to live in a beautiful well crafted world? I certainly deem it rather important and what is more beautiful and perfect than mother nature herself? Humans are creating ugliness by default in the pursuit of practicality however much of the early craftsmanship is being lost for the pursuit of mass production, it's a very sad affair indeed since much that is produced today is absolutely tat and often tacky.
-No polotics to exerce in the future.
Definitely an introvert.
he was terrible as a person but highly intellectual.
Most Ruskin's Seven lamps or seven laws really have no place in any serious contemporary conversation about architecture. Even at the time, they were a regress into the safety of the quaint because of Ruskin's inability or ineptitude to deal with the galloping modernity as, for example, Otto Wagner did. We find ourselves more than ever in similar and even more strenuous circumstances, so a recoil form the present and peddling nostalgia is understandable, if not exactly palatable.
Sacrifice, obedience, God, even "beauty" (what/whose beauty? the 19th century cows-in-the-meadow beauty?), all terms pivotal to his approach to architecture, pose an insurmountable obstacle towards any meaningful conversation or applicable theory because of their utter ambiguity. Only a layman would delude himself that those have any real power and meaning in practicing architecture today. Ruskin's relevance is, at best, as an socialist offshoot into art theory, which is perfectly ok, but let's call a spade by it's true name.
gavranarh "Only a layman would delude himself that [beauty has] any real power and meaning in practicing architecture today."
Probably true. (to the eternal shame of the last half-century's architects!...)
gavranarh not sure i fully understand what you said, but if i did then here's my answer:
his beliefs at least from the video dont seem like ambiguity, they speak to the nature of the human mind( symmetry, faces,nature water etc..)
things a machine care not for, but a fragile human needs and draws for comfort and inspiration.
our houses have windows for the purpose of hanging laundry and examine the weather, but also balconies to step outside our cement prison.
a more practical approach would remove the balcony for more inner space, but most will still rather have the balconies for their beauty. then receive more room for storage.
cows-in the meadow are beautiful, as they show our control over our sustenance but also our equilibrium with nature.
to take that equilibrium and throw it aside for more sustenance is survival over flourishing!
gavranarh You could also ask the average non-elite person on the street what they prefer - architecture being built for people - a utilitarian aesthetic made of concrete and glass, or a building made with real craftsmanship where the smallest ornament mirrors the overall structure of the building and vice versa. Here's to second guessing what they would choose!
Then again modern 'architecture' is made for utility first not people or communities.
The 'layman' - and one might assume the environmentalist - would choose Ruskin over Modernism. A Cathedral over a McDonalds drive thru.
Quinlan Terry has a list of the sustainability of using traditional materials vs modern on his firms website. In terms of energy, durability and sustainability its all a win, win. So whose really being contemporary, relevant and modern here?
The discourse of Modern architecture and industry is causing global warming, John Ruskin and William Morris NEVER did.
***** As long as you wern't married to him ;-)
Your opinion of what is Architecture seems too stringent. You are standing a gatekeeper and worse belittling views different from your own subjective (although widely accepted) view as that of "laymen". Large abstract frameworks allow for varied interpretation. Who's beauty? Your beauty.
What if we took a survey and asked people whether there were too many advertising billboards? We could charge a fee to those who erect the billboards, if surveys show that most people want to see less of that form of visual blight. Raise the fee incrementally until most people polled say it is not a problem.
"Some people believe that the prevalence of outdoor advertising signs and billboards is too high to allow for an aesthetically pleasing visual landscape. Is the prevalence of outdoor lighting so great that our ability to see the stars has become too severely diminished? We may want to adopt a few "lights out" nights, to remind ourselves that there are stars out there. If enough people want this to happen, then this vision will be borne out in reality. "
- from: Minimum Wage vs. Minimum Income:
gaiabrain.blogspot.com/2012/09/equal-ownership-of-natural-resource.html
This presentation ignores his extreme British chauvinism. His 'prettification' of the world based on his experience of Venice deals only with the superficial since Venice, as everywhere else in civilization, has its own poorly-paid cleanup crews and lowly occupations, often outside the Venetian island itself i.e. that Venice itself is an island of privilege and Ruskin wished this illusion for Britain too - ignoring those who actually do the work for miserable pay. And their pay will be all the more miserable the more the employers follow the principles of Ruskin's 'Unto This Last'.
trustifarian who has never worked a day in his life has all the answers. Heard this one before. If we wish to have a discussion on beauty, Socrates (Plato) did it with far more insight and depth.
He worked at his guild of st George
If Ruskin would have traveled more of Italy, he most likely would have found some Italian slums and places that are poor and run down. Also, compare England to Italy at that time. England richer country, and more Industrial. And more populated. Also, I think he should have toured some amazing castles and churches and art museums, etc. Guy was born rich and never worked a day in his life. He's just another rich idealist......And then he became an industrialist, philanthropist Good for him........Was beginning to believe he was a Marxist...
My real name is ruskin....
He was a paedophile freemason occultist. In a letter to his physician John Simon on 15 May 1886, Ruskin writes that “I like my girls from ten to sixteen I’ve got some darlings of 8-12-14-just now.
Link for proof?
HAHAHA ! The merchant republic of Venice was built on an early form of capitalism ! It was prosperous and beautiful precisely because it was capitalistic and allowed competent commonmen to thrive thanks to their work !
You've missed the point.
So was the U.S., but I don't see much architectural brilliance at all being born out of there.
Ruskin, revolutionized Gandhi!!
The old rich guy socialist it never gets old they want to attack capitalism even though capitalism was the very reason they were born rich
Ultimately though nothing wrong with wanting things to look nicer and be more aesthetically pleasing
Well the beauty of Venice is a direct result of the excesses of the upper class. Not their morals. But at least now I know where phrase "bearded fruit juice drinker", to describe liberals in Orwell's day, now comes from 😂
I know that TSoL reads the comments and I appreciate that you do, so I have a question, it is rather socially acceptable nowadays to cover either great capitalists or great 'left wingers.'
However will school of life ever consider covering those that are nowadays considered very taboo* , namely Benito Mussolini(Fascism), Adolf Hitler(Nazism) and other theorists of this type.
The reason I ask is that the economic ideas of these systems are very fascinating and were buried under the crimes against the humanity committed by the two leaders.
*I disagree with them too but isn't it the role of philosophers to ask questions and explore possibilities, regardless if such ideas are not supported by the society.
***** How about Chomsky ,Bakunin or Jacque Fresco then?