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Art is a subset of our culture, reacting to new technological innovations, ideas, and politico-historical moments.
To decide to protect art from technology, (such as AI or NFT) is not in the spirit of art, nor the function of art: property (and protection of) is the realm of copyright and commerce.
Arguably, art can never be commerce. Art should react, not sequester.
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There exists within you an "economy of selves." However, let’s call it a community or a troupe, where each personality (or partition) with its concomitant desires proclaims its importance to running the whole self.
In such a case, to remain entire the whole must sacrifice to save the fragment.
Some parts of you must do things harmful to other parts, essentially triaging desires. The whole will always be sick (divided against itself) because of this.
The difficulty of a singular self (or universality) to emerge, or to transcend to an ideal state, is the need to either rid or harmonize discord. Optimizing the self is radically tyrannical to the self.
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Arguing over the best way to do something is the best way not to do anything.
And since you do nothing, no one is to blame. It would be easy to say that with no winners, there are no losers, but instead, we all lose.
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If desire produces more desire, then our desire is to chase desire itself. It’s all about the pursuit, with the goal itself being sort of made up along the way.
If we speak of an economy modeled on how desire works, we chase money for money.
Economic value is not in the commodity (object) we pursue but in the pursuit of more. The pursuit of excess.
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Our universe functions on a super-abundance of energy: the sun freely shares massive amounts of energy, yet we are concerned with scarcity and hoarding.
Our worry is survival. However, we have developed an economy around desire fulfillment, which is never sated and easily converts "want" to "need": amidst excess, we experience lack.
(source: Bataille)
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Positive freedom (unrestricted fulfillment) sounds great until the economy, state, book club, or marriage fail.
Policies, politeness, and social norms regulate chaos, provide stability, and act as guide rails as we achieve goals together.
When the guide rails are weakened or dismantled, we witness a disintegration of the community as communication breaks down and uncertainty prevails.
We’re thinking about where we’re going and which guide rails are necessary to maintain.
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Karl Marx was a revolutionary in his time and is still such today. However, he was regressive (conservative) morally.
His values, the values of communism, held to an early tribal or even Catholic disposition: cost should not disrupt/corrupt the importance of humanity or the value of souls.
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Happiness is not finding something or adding something. If it were, rich people would be happy.
To discover happiness you must clear away the excess. We bury our happiness, suffocating it under our wants and ambitions, our fears and failures.
Once cleared away, we find happiness is not something we seek, but something we have always had.
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Bataille discusses the excessiveness of the general (solar) economy in nature, yet we often apply a scarcity mindset: "I only have so much love to give."
Instead of rationing out your life as a precious commodity, slowly squeezing yourself dry, realize life is infinite and wasteful.
Paradoxically, you have more energy through excessive spending.
