Sign at Occupy Wall Street, NY

I am re-reading a book by David H. Jenson entitled Responsive Labor in light of our current economic conditions here in the U.S. (and throughout the world). It helps give perspective the economic proposals by the Republicans as well as protests like Occupy Wall Street. It seems that while not all the Occupy Wall Street crowd has valid claims, we shouldn’t summarily dismiss them all as lazy brats, jealous of the rich. There is a road that America has traveled bringing us to this point. We are drunk with the myth that consumption will cure all woes. Jenson says it this way:

The problem with current reigning measurements of growth, then, is that they are fixed too firmly to consumption, the using up of resources and gifts. As a result, work and gifts that cannot be consumed fall by the wayside—the unpaid work that sustains health, friendship, the pursuit of knowledge, family, and the daily tasks of homemaking. A society that cared about abundance and growth would draw this immeasurable work into its account of economic life (110).

John Cobb has dubbed this paradigm of growth “economism”—“the belief that society should be organized for the sake of economic growth. Those who hold this belief assume that economic growth is good for human beings
” Economism has the ring of a truism: of course, growth is good! But has economic growth led to the flourishing of human community? Glancing at the last thirty years of American life, it is not evident at growth has been only the bearer of good news. The phenomenal expansion of the U.S. economy the end of World War II, especially in the past few decades, has not resulted in increased prosperity for all; in fact, it seems to have accelerated rates of poverty. Growth, moreover, has not led to an increase in meaningful work. Cobb and Daly point to the surges in part-time work and rates of unemployment that have accompanied the rise in national GDP (111).

Those who believe that the politicians are going to fix our problems economically have misplaced their trust. Our success is not anchored in more jobs, taxes (or reduction) all which suggest a restoration of consumption, ergo restoration of our economy. We find ourselves here because of what we sacrificed for the “American dream.” Our true economic woes began when the U.S. capitalism jettisoned its Judea-Christian ethic that would, as Jenson suggests, value non-consumable gifts such as pursuit of knowledge and one wage income families. Companies are now unfettered to focus on Wall St. success measurements, gone are decreased earnings in favor of enhanced community (i.e. family, education, healthcare, etc). The frustration of the Occupy Wall Street crowd is, in many ways, society screaming for what Jenson claims as important, although in a muffled and less succinct manner: The right to earn a wage without consuming all of your time and the ability to earn an education without it costing all of your parent’s savings or putting the student in debt for half of their adult life. With the departure of the Judea-Christian ethic, financial, government, and educational institutions can do what is best for them and not the community, manufacturers can up production, while sharing less profits with workers and requiring more hours. Before you expect to hear my voice mail recording changed to “Gone to join the occupy protest,” we all should be reminded that consumerism begins with the individual choices. Our greatest protest power is found in the very thing that got us to this point of economic messianic expectations of our politicians and pervasive protests: the choice of our spending power and the choice of what we are going to value most. The question is will we trim our consumption on principle, choosing not to purchase from those who exploit, and those who value consumption over community?

Basilica dei Frari, Venice Italy

Scientific Cognitive Environmental Aesthetics is the first of three approaches to environmental aesthetics. It will be helpful to understand the strategies, then apply it to our subject.

Scientific Cognitive Environmental Aesthetics

Scientific cognitive environmental aesthetics claims that appreciation of a human or natural environment requires knowledge of what it is, what it is like, and why it is as it is. Therefore to appreciate the aesthetic qualities of a natural environment, one must have an understanding of topics such as geology, and botany as well as other related fields. In a human environment, one would need to acquire information about history, function, and role of the particular environment to apprehend the aesthetic quality of the setting.

Elements of Scientific Cognitive Environmental Aesthetics Approach

Allen Carlson represents the best of the adherents to the cognitive approach.[1] Carlson emphasizes that, “appreciation of any object, from the noblest to the most mundane, requires information about it and, by the same token, that the appropriate aesthetic appreciation of nature requires knowledge of the natural world.”[2] Therefore, for the cognitive approach, “information about the object’s nature, about its genesis, type, and properties, is necessary for appropriate aesthetic consideration.”[3]

Carlson employs the word “appreciation” to illustrate the importance of cognitive information to apprehension of beauty because it avoids the “difficult, technical, and theoretically-encrusted notion of the aesthetic.”[4]  He suggests that appreciation focuses “on a concept that is much more naturally and vitally connected with one’s everyday experiences of art and nature.”[5] Using appreciation, Carlson can make his case for a cognitive approach to beauty. For him, several benefits arise from employing appreciation. First, appreciation has a cognitive component illustrated by the fact that academic courses are taught specifically on how to appreciate categories such as art and music. Second, the term “appreciate” allows for instruction on how to respond to an object. Here Carlson points out that the “point of a course in music appreciation…is not simply to provide such information as is necessary to cognitively ‘size up’ [make category judgments] the music, but also to prepare the appreciator to appropriately respond to the music.”[6] Knowledge stemming from scientific knowledge and common sense yields boundaries of appreciation, a particular perspective of aesthetic significance, and a relevant view acts from viewing the objects.[7]

Scientific knowledge is not derived just from the natural sciences. The scientific knowledge can be ideas or images originating from culture or histories of the environments. These cultural landscapes are assessed for their aesthetic value in the same way human made or natural landscapes are assessed. However the scientific data for these cultural landscapes will be extracted from form, common knowledge, history, or contemporary use.[8] All of these constitute scientific data in that they supply information about the environment in an objective manner. For example, to assess a shopping center’s aesthetic beauty, one would necessarily need to know a history of the local culture and the nature of shopping itself.[9] Similarly to assess aesthetics in an Australian Aboriginal culture, one would need to understand the role of dreams and their role in understanding landscape in that culture.[10]

In appreciating human built environments, the cognitive approach utilized concepts developed in the discipline of landscape architecture. Landscape architects suggest that for something to qualify as a landscape of man, it must be deliberately shaped and maintain a global view on the designed landscape.[11] These concepts align what Carlson calls “the designer landscape approach,” with the aesthetics of art.[12] He explains that, “since human environments are conceived of and deliberately designed, they are seen as importantly akin to works of art, and all the theories, concepts, and assumptions of aesthetics of art are brought into question of how to aesthetically appreciate such environments.”[13] The works of artists such as Frank Lloyd Wright or Frederick Law Olmsted are usually considered in discussions of the landscape approach. However the comparison of traditional art aesthetics to landscape aesthetics limits the scope of what and how objects in the latter can be considered.[14]

Nassauer’s Landscape ecology provides a functional companion to the concepts lacking in a strict landscape architecture to formal art analogy. Nassauer suggests that, “From its beginnings in Europe, landscape ecology was conceived as an approach to understanding landscapes that drew upon both cultural and ecological knowledge.”[15]  Landscape ecology draws upon both culture and ecology to appreciate human environments. However, the obstacle remains that “while nature has an inherent necessity revealed by natural sciences, and especially by ecology, culture seemingly has no cultural necessity.”[16] Nassauer suggests that, the answer is in attaching “ecological health to these lawlike aesthetic conventions” while recognizing that human existence and perceptions “will ultimately affect how every landscape is used or protected” which provides possibilities “to find ways to use the ready-made cultural necessities.”[17]

Successful appreciation and preservation of human environment will involve what Nassauer calls “intelligent” and “vivid care.”[18] Intelligent care requires one to recognize what is ecologically healthy and display environmental humility in one’s limited knowledge and what a person can know when she changes the environment.[19] The use of intelligent care will provide for careful thought about the priority of the environment and cautious investigation of how proposed changes will effect the environment as a whole. Vivid care attends to the “human presence in healthy landscapes in order to sustain ecological health over time.”[20] Vivid care suggests that the more closely humans are involved in ecological care of a particular landscape, the “stronger the social claim to its ecological quality.”[21] Intelligent and vivid care provides a cultural sustainability that provides ecologically sound landscapes and evokes enjoyment and approval that humans will enjoy and sustain over time.[22] Carlson notes the significance of this concept as he suggests, “If we are to appropriately aesthetically appreciate human environments, we cannot only look to culture, as the designer landscape and traditional aesthetics of architecture have done.”[23] The significance of this approach is that it would “stress ecological factors as a basis for appreciating human environments not as analogous works of art, but as integral human ecosystems comparable to the ecosystems that make up natural environments.”[24]

Conceptually landscape ecology uses the idea of “functional fit” which results in prospects “looking as they should.” Carlson explains that, “the concept of functional fit is meant to roughly capture the way in which natural environments are composed of many-layered, interlocking ecosystems.”[25] This suggests that each ecosystem has an important role in its own survival and in the survival of the environment as a whole. This idea is helpful in two ways and refutes the claims of object art and landscape art aesthetics. First it reminds the observer that objects cannot be fully appreciated in isolation; they must be considered in light of their proximity to other objects.[26] Second, the environment cannot be appreciated as a series of static scenes or landscape views.[27] In regard to functional fit, Carlson concludes that, “When so perceived, human environments can display the kind of organic unity[28] that we aesthetically appreciate in both nature and art.”[29]

The concept of “functional fit” facilitates the idea of things “looking as they should.” Carlson proposes that, “This notion is the means by which the ecological approach together with the idea of the functional fit help to give a kind of parallel necessity to culture and nature: the necessity we find in things looking as they should look.”[30] In typical works of art, objects are experienced through the designer’s intentions and are products of deliberate design; the viewer’s expectations about how something should look are marginalized. However when experiencing environments that are not a product of deliberate design, anticipations of how things should look focus on an aesthetic perspective for every day life. Carlson summarizes that, “this opens the door for looking at human environments and indeed the whole of everyday life in terms of functional fit, which brings to the fore and reinforces certain of our normal expectations and thereby facilitates things looking as they should.”[31]

Carlson, in considering agricultural landscapes, offered an illustration of his theory.[32] He suggests that when one views the modern changing agricultural landscape they have a choice to mourn the disappearing rural farms and towns that supported them, or appreciate the new landscape constructed by the larger, more technically advanced farms. If one takes the time to appreciate aesthetically the new farms, they will need to understand several changes through the culture history of the new farms. First, the new farm building architecture that mirrors Frank Lloyd Wright’s “prairie farm” style houses in place of the traditional two-story farmhouse. Second, the farm implements reflect more of an artistic flavor with their contours than the previous farm implements that were about function only. Third, many of the towns that functioned as support for the farming communities have become weekend travel locations for antiques of the previous era, which helps hold the current landscape in relief to the previous one. These three concepts illustrate that one must understand the function of houses, implements, and town in the new agricultural landscape to appreciate their form.

A summary of the scientific cognitive environmental aesthetics approach might be helpful here. The cognitive environmental aesthetics relies solely on cognitive information based on natural science or cultural traditions to make aesthetic judgments about environments. Art based aesthetics models are insufficient to address the complexities of environmental aesthetics because of the ever-changing life of the environment, which results in the absence of a designer or artist. Therefore judgments are informed by an ecological assumption as well as a conceptual order assumption. The ecological assumption that informs the aesthetic valuation should be driven by vivid and intelligent care. This care takes place through assessing scientific knowledge about the environment, which develops appreciation and positive aesthetic valuation. Judgments are also made on conceptual order comprised functional fit and things looking as they should. Recognizing the organic nature of environments, each object has a role in the aesthetic quality and the environment. The absence of a designer in the interconnected and evolving landscape provides the view and opportunity to assess the aesthetic of the environment to value things that look as they should.

The scientific cognitive environmental aesthetic approach should be commended for several reasons. First, it can accommodate both the landscape model as well as the positive aesthetics model, but in particular the positive landscape model as it provides theoretical sustenance for positive aesthetics.[33] Second, appealing to natural sciences can avoid the criticism found in most other approaches to being anthropocentric. Third, rejecting artistic and other related models, and relying on common sense scientific knowledge, provides a blueprint for aesthetic appreciation in general. Fourth, by initiating a more universal and object oriented environmental aesthetics, the natural environmental model aids in alignment of aesthetics with other areas of philosophy, such as ethics, epistemology, and philosophy of mind.[34]

Critique of the Cognitive Approach

As one might expect, each of the competing approaches in the non-cognitive models insist that Carlson’s scientific cognitive approach fails to accommodate their particular perspective.[35] However, Budd focuses on two macro issues with Carlson’s proposal. He suggests that, “Although focused on the appreciation of the natural environment, it [the cognitive approach] appears to be offered as the correct model, not just for the appreciation of the natural environment, but for aesthetic appreciation of nature tout court.”[36] The over-emphasis on the scientific information about the environment results in an inability for the cognitive to account for the fact that environments are always in motion with animals changing migration patterns and plants growing where they are not indigenous. The second objection against the cognitive approach is the scope of knowledge necessary to be successful. If common-sense/natural-scientific knowledge of nature is essential, Budd inquires, “How much knowledge about a natural item is relevant? If not all, what makes a piece of knowledge relevant or de rigueur for the item’s aesthetic appreciation?”[37] The cognitive approach provides no criteria for determining which information is pertinent for making environment aesthetic valuations. In the next installment we will attempt to apply this strategy to the sacred worship space in our church.

On the left is the grand marble monument to Niccolo Tron, Doge of Venice 1471-73. In the center is Titian's celebrated masterpiece Assumption of the Virgin (1516-18).

Visitors to Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari can easily gain a sense of majestic awe from the environmental aesthetics of this mid-fourteenth century Franciscan church. From its classic Latin cross layout to the three prominent altars and sculptures scattered throughout, the environment clearly points to the Christian faith. How do we assess the aesthetics of such a space? I would suggest that there are at least three strategies we could use to assess the aesthetic environmental qualities of of religious worship spaces such as found in Venice’s religious jewel. However, first questions might be how did we get from the aesthetic appreciation of nature to the aesthetic appreciation of built environments?

Early in the development of aesthetic appreciation of nature, practitioners sought to identify the discipline too closely with the aesthetics of art. The first art-based model, the object model, seeks to be appreciated as an object of nature with little consideration for the surrounding environment. This happens when one takes either takes an object completely out of its natural environment to appraise its beauty or ignores that surrounding environment of an object to appraise its beauty. In attempting to appreciate nature in this way, the aesthete apprehends beauty of an object apart from its natural environment.[1] However the objects exist in a surrounding and that surrounding must inform the aesthetic evaluation. Considering an object apart from its surroundings suggests that the object’s aesthetic qualities in no way rely upon the environment in which it exists, therefore the object could be removed and placed in a different environment and retain its beauty.

The second art-based model is called the landscape model. In this model, the observer of nature distances herself from the scene much like looking at a landscape picture. In this model one distances herself to the extent that they fail to relate to the object’s potential for reality. Collingwood describes the picturesque and the role of the observer: “the beauty of the picturesque is a beauty created by a contrast between the spectator and his object…. Hence, we must, in order to sustain that pleasure, we must sustain in ourselves a feeling of separation from our object.”[2] Criticisms of this view tend to suggest the distancing from the environment forces the observer to see nature in scenes that are artistically composed and have little to do with the holistic environment.[3] In doing so, the observer is cut off from making authentic aesthetic valuations because of his managed perspective and framing of the scene.[4]

Some disagree with a notion altogether that appreciation of nature is a category of aesthetics appreciation. The Human Chauvinistic Model proposed by Mannison maintains that, “only human artifacts can be objects of aesthetic appreciation” because “artistry is an essential component of an aesthetic judgment”[5] He further explains that, “The conceptual structure of an aesthetic judgment…includes a reference to a creator, i.e. an artist.[6] Elliot provides reasons for the authorship concerns as he explains, “an apparently integral part of aesthetic evaluation depends on viewing the aesthetic object as an intentional object, as an artifact, as something that is shaped by the purposes of its author.”[7]

Because of the criticisms against uncorrupted assignment of art-based aesthetics, many philosophers have opted for strategies relating the type of information needed to apprehend aesthetic beauty. Three strategies exist along this trajectory for examining environmental aesthetics. First, the cognitive approach suggests the idea that the aesthete must utilize external material to apprehend beauty of an object. Therefore, for cognitive aesthetics, the assessment of beauty begins when one understands information about it. Next, the non-cognitive approach, as the name suggests, supposes that the aesthete can apprehend beauty through engagement with the object. Therefore as one has an experience with the object, she can make aesthetic value judgments. Finally, the shared environmental aesthetics view seeks to employ elements from both of the previous views. They suggest that apprehension of beauty is not solely related to gaining information about an object, but at the same time, apprehension of beauty is also not only about an experiential dimension with an object. Therefore, this view seeks to value information while recognizing also that one must at some level experience the object to make an informed aesthetic assessment. So we will describe the three aforementioned views further and then seek to explain them in light of our subject, Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari.

I believe Fitch’s post will resonate well with many of his readers. However, I find difficulty not with his assessment as much as with his solution. We certainly find ourselves as Christians in a new era of U.S. history with regard to how our unbelieving neighbors view the beliefs we hold so dear. The general population is unaware of the basic tenets of the Christian faith outside of what is available to them in popular media or from those who appose faith in any supernatural (i.e. new-atheists such as Dawkins, Hitchens, etc.). Acknowledging this regression does not convince me that we should abandon church planting altogether for an alternative solution. The current post-Christian U.S. cultural landscape, over saturation of churches in particular areas, and start-up costs should not solely determine whether denominations should abandon church planting to missionaries for several reasons.

First, the cultural landscape is not an appropriate reason to abandon church planting. The church has been tasked from its beginning to take the gospel to unreached people groups some of which were hostile to its message. I don’t believe Fitch would disagree with this, but his solution reflects this as he suggests that people gather in a community and influence them individually for Christ through gospel living. But what is the next step? Fitch does not explain, but wouldn’t it involve integration into a body of believers, the church? If there is already one locally, then the question is not about church planting, but how to equip the church member to navigate a post-Christian world bringing his/her neighbor to Christ and into a body of believers. Church planting may or may not be appropriate in a particular area, but cultural contexts should not be a factor.

Second, the over saturation of churches has deemed church planting a relic. I would certainly agree that the fragmentation of the church in the twentieth century has been unhealthy to say the least. Churches have been started (planted) on the backs of church members who have been convinced that a particular church down the road is wrong when in fact they are just different. To warrant such expansion, leadership sometimes use terms such as “liberal” outside of their intended theological context and in ways cast a particular church plant as unique from another existing church down the road. Many times both churches are in fact orthodox, both embracing the tenets of the gospel, but now separated by leadership egos and meaningless interpretations of Christian liberties. However there are areas of the U.S. that are not replete with churches that affirm the orthodox Christian teaching, embracing the gospel message. These areas should be explored, cultivated, and planted.

Third, the cost of planting is too high. Is the cost too high or do higher priorities exist in the church that allow for this to be an excuse? What is the overhead of the average church for things that only serve itself such as extravagant buildings with high mortgages or programs that are inward focused instead of outward focused? The church Christian school movement provides one such example. Churches started these schools beginning in the 1970′s through the present and spend tens of thousands of dollars to offset their costs. Such money could provide for church plants across town. Still others build facilities for their membership to exercise or play sports which results in a church existing apart from community instead of thriving in it. Church planting is not a matter of cost, it is a matter of priority with regard to our money. Shouldn’t the church sacrifice for others rather than collect for themselves?

The solution is not to abandon church planting, but to integrate it with the missionary mindset. A church plant is hard work, I know as I have been involved with several over the years most recently as last year. One church plant near me has employed the missionary tent maker approach. They have four seminary trained planters with local jobs, living in community. They have not surrendered church planting; instead adapting the traditional model integrating it with the tent-maker concepts.

The solution is not to abandon church planting, but to educate our churches on gospel centered priorities. Would not gospel centered priorities include expansion of the church and necessarily include church planting in some cases? The U.S. church has been infiltrated by the smorgasbord mindset that only serves itself. A gospel orientation mindset in a church will serve others at their own expense. This translates into less money spent on those in the church membership than the money spent for outreach into the community.

Abandon church planting? Never. We are called to proclaim the gospel which results in the expansion of the kingdom. Church planting was a necessary part of it in Paul’s day as it is in our day.

Many observations could be made here on Crouch’s treatment. I would suggest a couple starting points when thinking about culture. First, we should recognize that God’s creative activity is very earthy. He created gardens from materials available to us. Therefore, we should not think of culture as something different than us– something out there, something to fear. Second, maybe one way to assess the rightness or wrongness of culture creation is to ask whether it is reflecting dependency on the Creator or self-sufficiency of the created. Third, we should recognize that God’s creative activity is ongoing. Paul reminds us, “anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun! And all of this is a gift from God, who brought us back to himself through Christ. And God has given us this task of reconciling people to him” (2 Cor. 5:17-18). The new person is a creative act of God through Christ. We now have a mission to bring others to know this creative act of God. God’s on-going creativity should remind us that no period of creativity is more sacred to God than another. Good wholesome culture happened in the garden as well as bad culture. Good culture happens today as well as bad culture. The question that remains is whether we are going to display self-sufficiency by refusing to engage today’s culture– refusing to assess its rightness or wrongness, running from it and creating our own fig leaves.