“Ought”: The Kantian Illusion, the Wittgensteinian Release, and the Film Critic’s Bullying

Tabitha [the critic]

I'm going to destroy your play.

Riggan

But you haven't even seen [my work]. I don't understand... did I do something to offend you?

Tabitha

To be honest, yes. You occupy a space in the theater that could have been used for something worthwhile.

Riggan

But you don't even know that [my play]...

Tabitha

That's right. I haven't read a single word of it,... but after tomorrow's opening night, I will write the worst review anyone has ever read. And I'll close your play. You want to know why? Because I hate you and everyone like you.

Birdman, Alejandro G. Iñárritu

The notion that the film critic, in the position of aesthetic judgment, "understands" more than the director and can therefore impose "oughts" and "ought nots" upon the filmmaker is among the most entrenched fallacies of the art world. The common perception is that the critic's encyclopedic knowledge of cinema history and art ostensibly enables them to make absolute aesthetic value judgments; whereas a bit of philosophical-linguistic analysis reveals, in a sense, the nonsensical or arbitrary nature of such seemingly objective value judgments.

To demystify the authority of the critic's aesthetic value judgments, it suffices to pay attention to their use of the word "ought": "The film starts too late; you ought to have started the film earlier! (or, in more technical terms, you should have presented the inciting incident sooner)." Consider this hypothetical sentence that the critic directs at the filmmaker. Often in such situations, the director, while accepting the "logic" of the critic's review, tries to justify this "weakness" of their film in some way, and thus the director preemptively makes themselves a victim of the critic's subsequent reviews. What makes the director and the audience accept (or at least not object to) the said "review" in such circumstances is the pervasive presupposition that the critic's words arise from an objective (disinterested) analysis of the film's "shortcomings": everyone believes that the judgment issued by the critic is "ultimately" based on technical and aesthetic "principles."

But no such objective "principles" exist at all! All of the critic's reviews and statements, insofar as they contain absolute and vehement value judgments about a film being "good" or "bad," are merely a reflection of the highly personal beliefs, feelings, emotions, and desires of the critic themselves. There is no scientific principle, no robust philosophical argument, no definitive statistical study, and not even any ultimate intersubjective consensus behind their criticisms.¹

"The film starts too late; you ought to have started the film earlier!" I will argue in the following that the critic's use of the word "ought" (or "ought not") in such sentences (within the context of art criticism) is logically meaningless and merely indicates the bullying of the critic themselves.

"Ought," along with "I recommend" and "I request," are three directive speech acts by which we seek to change the behavior of our linguistic audience. In other words, for whatever reason, we are dissatisfied with the current state of our linguistic audience (we consider their current state to be somehow contrary to our desire) and by resorting to these three speech acts, we try to realize our desire to some degree within the audience. The difference between these three speech acts, however, lies in the degree of power and authority the speaker holds over the audience/listener: we only say "ought" ("command") to someone over whom we have superior power and authority; we only "recommend" to someone with whom we have equal power; we only "request" of someone over whom we have inferior power.

In everyday speech, the three speech acts of command, suggestion, and imploration are often all used under the word “ought” in such a way that their precise distinction from one another is only possible in the context of the conversation. When, for example, the father of a sick child says to the doctor, “Doctor! You ought to operate on my child yourself”—assuming the child’s father is not the head of the hospital or any other authority—we witness the use of “ought” in its implorative sense. In fact, the father’s sentence can be rewritten more explicitly and correctly as: “Doctor! I implore you to operate on my child yourself.” When a person says to their close friend, “You ought to take the exam for this course seriously,” we encounter an instance of the suggestive use of the word “ought,” meaning that the person in this context is merely presenting a behavioral option to their close friend, such that the close friend is under no obligation to accept this suggestion—if they like, they will act on the said suggestion. And finally, when the auteur director says to the actor, “In this scene, you ought to show the character’s anger more overtly—and not ‘under the skin’,” “ought” is employed as a command. This latter meaning of “ought” (in addition to indicating more power and authority than the other “oughts”) has another important difference from the other “oughts”: unlike the implorative and suggestive “ought,” the imperative “ought” is binding, such that failing to act in accordance with it will entail some form of punishment—in the case of the last example, if the actor persistently disobeys the director’s “oughts,” they will likely be removed from the film.

Now, considering these three different uses of “ought” in everyday speech, the important and subversive question is: which meaning of “ought” exactly does the critic intend in the sentence, “The film starts too late, you ought to have started the film earlier!”? With this sentence, is the critic commanding the director, suggesting to them, or imploring them?

It is obvious that by uttering this sentence, the critic is in no way seeking to implore the director because (as was shown earlier) the very act of imploring indicates the inferiority of the imploring person, and it is impossible for the critic to consider themselves (at least theoretically) “inferior” to the director—if the critic considered themselves inferior to the director, they would not engage in criticizing the director’s film; fundamentally, the very language-game of “criticizing” presupposes the theoretical authority of the critic.

On the other hand, it is not possible that the critic intended the suggestive meaning of “ought” because, although such a speech act implies the equal standing of the speaker and the listener, the suggestive “ought” entails no practical obligation: the director can easily ignore the critic’s “suggestions” without the slightest criticism being warranted against them. Furthermore, the suggestive “ought” (and likewise the implorative “ought”) can practically be uttered by anyone (whether a critic or not) who has a little familiarity with cinema. Anyone with any level of authority and knowledge can implore a film director (for example) not to conclude their films with an “open ending”; any viewer can suggest to a film director to (for example) use less “hand-held camera” in making their films.

The result is that the implorative and suggestive use of the word “ought” threatens the existence and lofty status of the critic, because one does not need to be a critic to implore or suggest. Thus, the non-binding nature, as well as the non-exclusivity to the critic, of the implorative and suggestive “ought” will forcibly push the critic toward using the imperative “ought.” Consequently, the sentence “The film starts too late, you ought to have started the film earlier!” is neither an imploration nor a suggestion, but a command.

این در حالیست که تحلیل گرامرِ «باید»، به تأسّی از روح فلسفه ی متأخّر ویتگنشتاین، نشان خواهد داد که استفاده ی منتقد از «باید» دستوری در راستای ارزش داوری زیباشناختی فیلم کاملا بی معناست. به دیگر سخن، منتقد تا بدانجا که ملتزم به تفکر و گفتار منطقی است—و اگر ملتزم به منطق نباشد! لازم نیست حتی وقعی به سخنانش نهیم—منطقا نباید از «باید» دستوری استفاده کند. تمامی آنچه که منتقد منطقاً می تواند در نقد فیلمی و یا هر اثر هنری دیگری بیان کند تنها این است که «من چنین می پسندم که فیلم را اینگونه بسازی!» و یا « نمی پسندم که فیلم را اینگونه ساخته ای!». البته که منتقد ابداً نیّات خود را در قالب چنین جملات ذوقی و نفسانی ای ابراز نخواهد کرد زیرا که نیک آگاه است چنین جملاتی هاله ی علمی و عینی ارزش داوری های او را زایل خواهد کرد. همچنین، در پاسخ به چنین جملات تحکّم آمیزی از سوی منتقد، کارگردان جسور نیز می تواند به راحتی اینگونه پاسخ دهد که « خوب نپسند، به جهنم!»و یا « اصلاً چرا پسند شخصیِ توِ منتقد را محترم تر از پسند شخصی خودم (و یا حتی پسند تماشاگرانم) بشمارم؟».

استفاده از «باید» دستوری در ارزش داوری های هنری بی معناست (nonsensical) زیرا که هر «باید»ی «اگر»ی را پیش فرض می گیرد و هر «اگر»ی نیز میلی (desire) از-پیش-موجود در مخاطب را فرض می گیرد. هنگامی که استاد دانشگاه خطاب به دانشجو دستور می دهد که « باید تا آخر این ترم مقاله ای بنویسی»، پیشاپیش نزد خود جمله واره ای شرطی را از جمله ی دستوری مذکور حذف به قرینه ی معنوی کرده است. در واقع، اصل جمله ی دستوری استاد این بوده است که «اگر [مثلاً] می خواهی این واحد درسی را با نمره ی کامل بگذرانی، باید تا آخر این ترم مقاله ای بنویسی». خود این جمله واره ی شرطی نیز مبتنی بر این پیش فرض است که پیشاپیش میلی برای گذراندن این واحد درسی در دانشجو وجود دارد--در صورتی که دانشجو اساساً میلی به گذراندن این واحد نداشته باشد و یا میلی در جهت عکس داشته باشد، دستور استاد جمله ای لغو خواهد بود. بنابرین:

هر «باید» (دستوری) ¬اگر ¬میل

بدین ترتیب، حتی متقن ترین و مطلق ترین «باید» های دستوری ای که ما انسان ها در رابطه با هم دیگر به کار می بریم «باید» هایی مشروط و مبتنی بر میل و خواست ما به پذیرش این شروط است. حتی «باید» های اخلاقی و یا قانونی از جمله اینکه « نباید بدون دلیل موجّه به حقوق دیگر شهروندان تجاوز کنی» نیز در واقع صورت محذوف این حکم کلی اند که « اگر نمی خواهی با تبعات ناگوار—مجازات حبس و تبعید از جامعه ی مدنی و ...—مواجه شوی، نباید بدون دلیل موجه به حقوق دیگر شهروندان تجاوز کنی». حال اگر روزی شهروندی بخواهد با «تبعات ناگوار» عمل اش مواجه شود، منطقاً نمی توان او را از اقدام به تجاوز بی دلیل به حقوق دیگران بازداشت اگر چه عملاً می توان با او مقابله کرد.

بنابرین، مشروعیت و بایستگی «باید» دستوری در هر بافتاری منطقاً مبتنی بر وجودگونه ای مجازات و یا به هر حال پیامد هایی نامطلوب است. ویتگنشتاین این نکته را به زیبایی و ایجاز تمام اینگونه بیان می کند که:

واژه ی «باید» یعنی چه؟ کودکان باید این کار را انجام بدهند یعنی: اگر این کار را انجام ندهند، چیز های ناخوشایندی پیش می آید. پاداش و کیفر. نکته ی اساسی اش این است: دیگری ترغیب می شود کاری را انجام بدهد. پس «باید» وقتی معنا دارد که در پشت اش چیزی باشد که آن را تائید کند و پیش ببرد—قدرتی که کیفر و پاداش بدهد. «باید» به خودی خود مهمل است (ویتگنشتاین، 1392: 41).

««باید» به خودی خود مهمل است»؛ ما انسان ها حداقل در بسیاری از وجوه زندگی مدنی تا بدانجا خود را مطلقاً ملتزم به برخی «بایدها» («باید« های اخلاقی، قانونی، عرفی، مصلحتی...) می دانیم که پیشاپیش نزد خود از نظام «کیفر و پاداش»ی آگاهیم. چنین رویکردی به «باید» های اخلاقی و قانونی البته مورد اجماع اکثریت شهروندان به-هنجار یک جامعه ی مدنی است. به دیگر سخن، باور به اینگونه «باید»ها به هیچ وجه «مهمل» نیست زیرا که اولاً مبتنی بر میل مشخّص شهرواندان برای بقای حیات اجتماعی هستند و ثانیاً در بردارنده ی «کیفر و پاداش» اند.

Now if every meaningful prescriptive “ought” logically entails the existence of a specific desire (in the addressee of the “ought”) and a system of “punishment and reward,” one can conclude that there is absolutely no prescriptive aesthetic “ought,” because on the one hand the artist’s desire or wish in their artistic creation is not specific (to the critic), and on the other hand, unlike the case of the moral and legal “ought,” there is no specific and uncontested system of “punishment and reward” in the artworld either. Therefore, one cannot command the artist in their capacity as an artistic creator. Every artist creates a work of art according to their own psychological exigencies and personal goals: one artist wants to depict their depressive states; another artist wants to draw people’s attention to air pollution with their “performance” in the street; yet another artist wants to attain an understanding of the divine essence by composing sacred music, and so on. Hence, one can also conclude that artistic creation, unlike other human activities, has no specific objective and consensual goal, because “goal,” by definition, is the conception of the realization of an individual’s desire (to bring about a change) in the future, and we have seen that artistic creation is receptive to any desire and consequently any goal. All other fields of human activity, including engineering, medicine, military affairs, sports, politics, social etiquette, cooking, philosophy, and so on, have a specific goal that is agreed upon by their practitioners: no engineer, for example, can claim that their goal in undertaking an engineering project is merely to attain “an understanding of the divine essence,” and if they were to make such a claim, they would face some form of rejection from the “engineering system.” This is while every artist can practically impose any personal goal and ideal upon their artistic creation and yet face no rejection from the artworld—and if they happen to face rejection from the artworld, especially from art critics, they should know that they have merely been intimidated by the bullying and the imposition of the critic’s tastes.

Babak Ahmadi expresses this liberating approach to art in the article “Art and Freedom” in the book Creation and Freedom as follows:

Considering the fact that in every task and activity, the functional aspect of production constitutes the main limitation, then by assuming the work of art is free from such a limitation, we can speak of a kind of relative freedom of the artist. That is, whenever we agree with semiologists that the work of art is not, in general, subject to social functions, or say, in the same language as Aristotle, that in art the important question is not “what is” but “what ought to be,” we conclude that the work of art is not as limited and constrained as other products of human technology. In other words, in art we experience freedom. …The world of the text, or the world of the work of art, is a world in which the artist freely gives form to what they desire, to their ideals, their wishes, and their future (Ahmadi, 1393: 159-160).

Since the work of art is fundamentally not supposed to exist subject to the objective laws of the external world, or in other words, the existence of the work of art is entirely dependent on the subjective “wishes” of the artist, the work of art, unlike the work of engineering, is the manifestation of human freedom. The pleasure that exists in artistic creation is the pleasure of the free or even unbridled exercise of the human “will to power” in the capacity of the artist. From this perspective, the artist is a human being who has grown weary of the constraint and determination of their actions by the rigid laws of the external world as well as social conventions, and consequently yearns for a sphere in which they are free from any constraint whatsoever.

“In art we experience freedom” and this is how the artist, in their capacity as an artistic creator, is fundamentally free from any “ought” except that which, according to their own wish, “ought to be.” But it is the critic who, in the course of their critiques and value judgments, seeks to present certain “oughts” as “in themselves” legitimate and binding. As has been shown, this project of the critic is, firstly, logically meaningless and erroneous because every prescriptive “ought” presupposes the existence of a specific and consensual desire/wish (and consequently goal), whereas in artistic creation, and only in artistic creation, no such desire/wish exists; for every artist, there is a completely personal, unique, and even unknown desire/wish.

اما این پروژه ی تحکّم منتقد به دلیل دومی هم خطاست: ویتگنشتاین استدلال می کند که یک «بایدِ» دستوری معنادار متضمّن چشم انداز «پاداش و کیفر» است به گونه ای که مخاطبِ «باید» می داندکه «اگر این کار را انجام ندهند، چیز های ناخوشایندی پیش می آید». حال، پرسش پیش روی منتقد این است که جمله ی «فیلم خیلی دیر شروع می شود، باید فیلم را زودتر شروع می کردی!» متضمّن چه «پاداش و کیفر»ی است؟ به دیگر سخن، اگر فیلمساز فیلمش را زودتر شروع می کرد، مستوجب چه پاداشی بود، و اگر ،از دیگر سو، فیلم را دیرتر از این شروع می کرد چه کیفری در انتظارش می بود؟  یک پاسخ رایج این است که اگر فیلمساز فیلم را زودتر شروع می کرد، فیلم اش مورد اقبال تماشاگران قرار می گرفت. اما چنین پاسخ هایی آشکارا خود با دو مشکل مواجه خواهند بود: اولاً که منتقد بنا به چه استدلالی «اقبال تماشاگران» را معیار تحکّم مطلق خود قرار می دهد؟ به تعبیری دیگر، چرا و بنا به چه استدلالی «اقبال تماشاگران» به مثابه ی «پاداش و کیفرِ» آفرینش گری هنری در نظر گرفته می شود؟ آیا همه ی «شاهکار» ها و آثار «فاخر» سینمایی الزاماً از «اقبال تماشاگران» برخوردار بوده اند؟آیا همین تماشاگران کنونی که «اقبالشان» معیار ارزش داوری زیباشناختی منتقد قرار می گیرد حاضرند در سالن سینما بنشینند و «شاهکار ها»ی سینمایی کلاسیکی چون اعتصاب آیزنشتاین، مصائب ژان دارک درِیر، مهر هفتم برگمان و یا  ایثار تارکوفسکی را از اول تا آخر تماشا کنند و احیاناً خسته نشوند؟ از دیگر سو، آیا «اقبال» فراگیر تماشاگران برای فیلم های «تجاری» ای همچون ترنسفومرز:آخرین شوالیه، سریع و خشن 8، بت من علیه سوپرمن:طلوع عدالت و...آنها را فیلم های خوبی می کند؟

در مواجهه با چنین دشواری هایی، منتقد ممکن است این گونه پاسخ دهد که تنها نظر و اقبال منتقدین (و نه «تماشگر عام») است که باید به منزله ی معیار ارزشداوری و «کیفرو پاداش» کنش هنری به حساب آید. از این منظر، «کیفر»ی که «بایدِ» منتقد را معنادار می کند این است که جامعه ی منتقدین فیلم کارگردان را «بد» خواهند دانست (همین نکته در مورد «خوب» دانستن فیلم به منزله ی «پاداش» هم صادق است). این بدین معناست که سخن منتقد آنجا که می گوید «فیلم خیلی دیر شروع می شود، باید فیلم را زودتر شروع می کردی!» در واقع صورت محذوف و خلاصه تر این سخن است که «توی کارگردان می دانی که ما منتقدین از اینکه فیلمی دیر شروع شود بیزاریم. پس باید فیلم را زودتر شروع می کردی. حال که این چنین نیست، «کیفرِ»  تو این است که ما فیلم ات را «بد» ارزیابی کنیم و یا اصلاً توطئه ی سکوت درپیش می گیریم و یا اصلاً...». اما این پاسخ نیز منطقاً راه به جایی نخواهد برد. یک دلیل این است که این رویکرد رایج موسوم به «تحسین منتقدین» (critical acclaim) که اساساً «خوب» یا «بد» بودن فیلم (و یا هر اثر هنری دیگری) را به پسند و «اقبال» منتقدین منوط می کند مستلزم یک استدلال دوری یا دور باطل است، به طوری که در نهایت  مشخّص نمی شودکه چرا  یک فیلم «خوب» یا «بد» است: «فیلم  دلیجان جان فورد فیلم خوبی است. چرا؟ چون راجر ایبرت این فیلم را در لیست فیلم ها ی بزرگ (Great Movies) خود آورده است. چرا راجر ایبرت این فیلم را در لیست خود جا داده؟ چون اساساً دلیجان فیلم محشری است. چرا؟ چون راجر ایبرت این فیلم را...».

Another reason this approach is mistaken is that "critical acclaim" is not a coherent and unchanging entity. The community of art critics, like the community of artists, consists of individuals with diverse and sometimes conflicting desires, goals, and personal projects; each critic interprets and critiques a film based on such presuppositions. Moreover, a critic's review is always, in a sense, influenced by the theoretical paradigms and "interpretive strategies" of the era: a film that critics of one decade disparagingly called "commercial" (and indeed, in their own minds, considered it "commercial") is now, in the light of various Marxist-Lacanian-Žižekian interpretations and analyses, transformed into a "profound" film, one that, despite its "box-office" appearance, reveals valuable truths about the neuroses of the capitalist system. Thus, the arena of art criticism, again like art itself, is in fact the battleground of the critic's personal "will to power"; like the artist themselves, each critic merely advances their own personal project, and it is for this reason that complete theoretical convergence among critics is a rare thing—unlike the community of (for example) engineers, where theoretical and methodological convergence is a consensual principle.

A prime example of such fluctuations in aesthetic value judgments in cinema is the critical reaction to 2001: A Space Odyssey. Andrew Sarris (1928-2012), one of the most prominent American film critics who played a significant role in introducing the "auteur" director theory in America, wrote the following in The Village Voice magazine the very year of Kubrick's film's release (1968):

2001: A Space Odyssey is a thoroughly unpleasant failure and an eloquent testimony to Kubrick's inability to tell a coherent story with a coherent point of view. His film is not a film at all, but a pretext for pictorial [columns of] advertising in Life magazine. Kubrick, like Lelouch, is undoubtedly a capable photographer, but photographers rarely become great directors. 2001 has little to say in terms of writing and acting, and [the film as a whole] contains no particular meaning. The film's first part, "The Dawn of Man," begins where Planet of the Apes ends. Kubrick and science-fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke use a bunch of ape masks and costumes to present a controversial theory about human evolution in the context of force and greed... The ending [of the film] is a mishmash of psychedelic and hallucinatory excesses for special effects technicians and an exercise in [displaying] confusing abstract fantasies in [the presence of] the open temple of high art (Sarris).

Compare this writing by Sarris² with the entirely laudatory review by Roger Ebert, published on his personal website in 1997—Ebert gives the film four stars (out of four) and places it among his Great Movies:

[Kubrick's] genius is not in the large amount [of work], but in the small amount [of work] he does in 2001: A Space Odyssey. This [film] is the work of an artist so sublimely confident that he doesn't include a single shot simply to hold our attention. He reduces each scene to its essence, and leaves it on screen long enough for us to contemplate it, to dwell in our imagination within [that scene]. 2001, a film unparalleled among other science-fiction films, engages us not [merely] by exciting us, but by inspiring a sense of awe (Ebert).

Later, referring to the private screening of 2001 in Los Angeles (in 1968, which Ebert himself attended), during which many attendees (critics, actors, and representatives of film distribution companies) walked out of the theater in protest of the film's complexity!, he writes:

To describe the initial screening of [2001] as a disaster would not be accurate, for many of those who stayed until the end of the film [in the theater] realized they had watched one of the best films ever made... Hollywood's initial judgment was that Kubrick had gone off track and, due to an obsession with special effects and set pieces, had failed to make a film.

...[but] what he had actually accomplished through the use of images was a philosophical statement on the place of man in the cosmos, something his predecessors had done using words, music, or prayer (Ebert).

Now, given these two completely contradictory reviews, the question facing the proponent of the "critical acclaim" approach is: which review is correct, after all? By what reasoning can one make a rational choice between these two opposing views? Is such a rational choice even logically possible? How can one reconcile the view of a distinguished critic who considers 2001 "one of the greatest films" in cinema history with the view of another distinguished critic who believes 2001 is "not a film at all"?

The upshot is that "critical acclaim" cannot effectively serve as the "reward and punishment" for the critic's dictates and commands, because critics' praise and censure are never convergent and vary greatly depending on temporal and spatial circumstances as well as the psychology of the critics. A film, no matter how unconventional and "avant-garde," will eventually attract the attention and praise of some avant-garde critic in some corner of the world.

And finally, the third and more important reason that challenges "critical acclaim" is the legitimate defiance of the artist. An artist who is aware of their philosophical rights always has the option to respond devastatingly to the critic's statement, "If you had started your film earlier, you would have been praised more by critics or audiences," by saying, "Fundamentally, it was never that important to me from the outset whether my film was welcomed by audiences and critics. What mattered to me was, like my master Woody Allen, to give artistic form to my own intellectual concerns, and I did just that." Indeed, what fault could one then find with such an artist?

The erudite critic, however, will not engage in such weak and controversial strategies; such a critic, with a disquieting awareness of the artist's boundless freedom, will often invoke a set of aesthetic "rules and principles" in cinema, "rules" that are objectively true, independent of the favor or disfavor of audiences and critics, unquestionable "rules" that "ought" to be observed in the making of any "good" film, "rules" that are taught in all the prestigious film schools of the world, "rules" that cannot be disregarded! Thus, the critic's imperative sentence will ultimately take this form: "You ought to have started the film earlier, because starting the film earlier is a rule of cinematic storytelling." Through this sentence, the critic seeks to posit what might be called a "transcendental ought," an "ought" that is meaningful and binding "in itself," an "ought" that must be acted upon without considering any conditions or presuppositions (without any "if"). But even this last and most secure weapon of the critic for imposing their "will to power" upon the filmmaker is logically flawed and will lead nowhere.

نخستین بار امانوئل کانت بود که در کتاب بنیاد متافیزیک اخلاق (1785م.) به طرز نظام مندی از وجود و وجوب چنین «باید استعلایی»ای دفاع کرد. کانت بر این باور بود که هر «موجود عقلانی» ای با تأمل صرف در مفاهیم عقلی خود در نهایت درخواهد یافت که «قانون»ی یگانه و کلی در پس ارزش داوری های اخلاقی ما نهفته است، «قانون»ی که مستقل از «ترس ها و تمایلاتِ» کنش گر و همچنین مستقل از «پیامدهای زیان آور» کنش به طرز «پیشینی» صادق و واجب است و آن «قانون» اینکه «چنان رفتار کن که گویی اصل [یا آموزه ی] کنش تو [قرار است]، بواسطه ی اراده ی خودت، یک قانون جهان شمول طبیعت باشد»(Kant, 2005: 38). در سرتاسر بنیاد متافیزیک اخلاق، کانت بر آن است تا این «اصل اخلاق» را هم طراز و حتی اینهمان با «قانون طبیعت» جلوه دهد، و بدین طریق بر الزام آور و چون-و-چرا-ناپذیر بودن این «اصل» صحّه بگذارد. هم از این روست که کانت این «اصل» را یک «دستور مطلق» (categorical imperative) می نامد، «دستوری» که «فی نفسه و بدون ارجاع به هدف دیگری، به دیگر سخن به طرزی عینی، ضروری است»(Kant, 2005: 31)، در تضاد با دیگر «دستور های مشروط» (hypothetical imperative) که تنها  نُمایانگر «ضروت عملیِ کنشی ممکن به مثابه ی وسیله ای برای [نیل] به چیزی دیگر که اراده می شود» هستند (Kant,2005: 31). بدین ترتیب، برای کانت فرامین ذهنی اخلاق (نزد «موجودی عقلانی») همان استحکام و تخطّی ناپذیری «قوانین» عینی طبیعت را دارند، فرامینی که در واقع «قوانینی هستند که باید از آنها اطاعت کرد، یعنی باید به آنها سر سپرد حتی در صورتی که در تضاد با تمایلات [انسانی] قرار بگیرند» (Kant, 2005: 33).

علیه چنین «باید استعلایی» / «دستور مطلق»ی است که ویتگنشتاین(در پاره ی که از او نقل شد) احتجاج می کند. ویتگنشتاین یادآور می شود که هیچ «دستور مطلقی» در اخلاق نمی تواند وجود داشته باشد زیرا که، بر خلاف مورد «قوانین طبیعت»، به راحتی می توان تصوّر کرد که کسی نخواهد  از این «دستور» اطاعت کند. ویتگنشتاین پیش تر در رساله ی منطقی-فلسفی  خود این نکته را چنین بیان می کند که « هنگامی که قانون اخلاقی ای از نوعِ ، « تو نباید...»، مطرح می شود، نخستین فکر[ی که به ذهن آدمی خطور می کند] این است که، «و اگر انجامش ندهم چه؟»»(Wittgenstein, 86,: 2001).  این بدین معناست که تا زمانی که در پسِ «باید»، حتی «باید استعلایی» کانتی،  چیزی نباشد «که آن را تائید کند و پیش ببرد—قدرتی که کیفر و پاداش بدهد»، مخاطب فرمان اخلاقی همواره این امکان را دارد که ،حتی ضمن پذیرش «عقلانی» بودن «باید» مذکور، از سرسپردن به آن خودداری کند.

این توهّم کانت بود که می پنداشت صرف «عقلانی» و یا «جهان شمول» (universal)  بودن «دستور مطلق» منجر به پذیرش و عمل به آن خواهد شد؛  این در حالیست که ویتگنشتاین نشان می دهد که در نبود میلی/خواستی در مخاطب، «دستور مطلق» هیچ قدرت و الزامی ندارد—تا مخاطب میل به اطاعت از فرمان اخلاقی نداشته باشد، هیچ اطاعتی رخ نخواهد داد. ویتگنشتاین همین نتیجه گیری در باب اخلاق را به زیباشناسی هم تسرّی می دهد، و یا به عبارت دقیق تر، اخلاق را گونه ای از زیباشناسی می داند: «اخلاق و زیباشناسی اینهمان هستند»(Wittgenstein, 86:2001)—بدین معنی که نه در اخلاق و نه در هنر «دستور مطلق»ی در کار نیست.

Kant himself was, of course, aware of this obvious flaw in his moral metaphysics; in a footnote in the first chapter of the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant acknowledges that the binding force of the "categorical imperative" is ultimately based on the motivation of a kind of "respect" for the "law," "but although respect is a [kind of] feeling, it is [at the same time] not a feeling received through [external] influences, but rather [a feeling] self-wrought by a rational concept, and therefore specifically distinct from all other kinds of prior feelings, [feelings] that are referred either to fear or to inclination. Whatever I immediately recognize as a law for myself, I recognize with respect" (Kant, 2005: 17). And thus it is that Kant, in Nietzsche's words, takes refuge in his "transcendental hideaway"; his "categorical imperative" is not so "categorical" and unconditional after all but is, in the final analysis, an "imperative" "conditioned" upon the motivation of a feeling—which is strangely "distinct" from other human feelings!—in the addressee.³ What if, in the face of the "categorical imperative," no "respect" is aroused in me? What if I simply do not wish to "respect" the "categorical imperative"?

The expert critic falls prey to such a Kantian illusion when he speaks of artistic "laws" and, by appealing to these "laws," attempts to impose a "categorical imperative" or an unquestionable "ought" upon the director. The fundamental flaw of such criticism is the confusion of the concept of "law" with a similar concept, namely "convention," a common confusion rooted in the scientism of artistic discourse and the critics' community.

The concept of "law" is essentially meaningfully applicable only within the context of the empirical, mathematical, and logical sciences, and to some extent the social sciences. In this sense, the concept of "law" expresses the unshakeable certainty of reason or human intuition regarding a principle, and the absolute impossibility of accepting the contrary of that principle. Therefore, when we speak of "Newton's third law," we are in fact describing the behavioral pattern of objective objects—that if one mass exerts a force on another mass, the second mass will exert an equal force but in the opposite direction to the force of the first mass—in such a way that we acknowledge it is impossible to observe anything contrary to this behavioral pattern of objects—and if we were ever to observe such a violation of "Newton's third law," we would be compelled either to falsify or at least modify and limit the said "law," or to discover a newer and more comprehensive "law." It is this very inconceivability of objects violating a behavioral pattern that is called a "law." This latter characteristic of "law" also makes the behavior of objects predictable, and from this one can understand that the concept of "law" does not apply to human behavioral patterns in the same way, because there is always the possibility that a human being, unlike objects, will deviate from their consistent behavioral pattern.

Another and more important characteristic of "law" is that in the event of its violation or neglect, the human being will face unwanted and unpleasant consequences from the external world; if someone, for example, declares that they do not accept "Newton's third law" and then punches a wall hard, they cannot escape the "punishment" of the wall.

The concept of “convention,” however, is fundamentally different; a “convention” in no way represents the behavioral pattern of objective objects and phenomena. Unlike the case of a “law,” which has a mind-independent existence—whether we humans exist or not, whether we want it or not, “Newton’s third law” holds in the universe—the existence of a “convention” is entirely dependent on the awareness, will, and decision of a group of interested human beings. Hence, a “convention” is the product of an intersubjective consensus regarding the behavior of a group of humans according to the desire/will of the parties to the “convention.” It is also for this reason that one can easily imagine behavior completely contrary to what has been agreed upon by several humans in a “convention.” In this sense, the institution of monogamy (and marriage itself) is not a “law of nature” but a human “convention,” because one can simply imagine the institution of polygamy or even celibacy (and likewise actually observe it in reality). In the same vein, precisely contrary to a “law,” in the event of violating a “convention,” a person will face unpleasant consequences not from the external world, but from the other humans party to the “convention.” If a person today, without any justifiable reason, abandons their monogamous family and takes the path of celibacy or polygamy, they will face no reaction, no “punishment or reward,” from the external world, yet at the same time, it is entirely probable and conceivable that other humans will praise or condemn this decision.

Therefore, while we are compelled to obey “laws,” by definition, we enter into or exit a “convention” with our own free will and desire.

Now, with these explanations, do “laws” govern the world of art, or are “conventions” in place? Are “starting the film early,” “being story-driven,” “the final resolution,” “using a handheld camera,” “the three-act screenplay structure,” “Hollywood continuity editing,” and so on… objective and inviolable “laws,” or merely a set of “semiotic conventions” among certain directors and audiences (and critics)? It is clear that all of these instances are examples of “conventions”; not only can one easily imagine violating them, but one can also see numerous examples of violating these “conventions” in the history of cinema (and art in general). Furthermore, it is not the case that by violating these “conventions,” the director faces rejection or “punishment” from the external world—if a director makes a non-story-driven film, will they (for instance) develop cancer?! What such a deconstructive director will face, in the worst-case scenario, are the scowls and frowns of critics (and this is all a critic is capable of), low audience reception, or not winning a certain directing award; “punishments” that a bold and autonomous director can disregard.

From this perspective, being avant-garde in art can be defined as the artist’s audacity in violating (or exiting) such “conventions,” and this means that the very existence of a phenomenon called the avant-garde in the art world proves that there is absolutely no “law” in the world of art, because if such a “law” existed, the avant-garde artist would not be celebrated as a pioneer in opening new horizons of artistic experience, but would instead be expelled from the art world as a lawbreaker. This is while everything we now call a “law” in the world of art and cinema is the result of avant-garde artists violating the accepted “conventions” of previous artistic periods—fundamentally, the history of art is the history of the avant-garde’s violation of artistic “conventions.” Therefore, the existence of the avant-garde in art negates the existence of “law” in art.

It can now be clearly seen that the critic, through their “categorical” prescriptive “oughts” and “ought nots,” is in fact trying to present what is merely a violable “convention” as an inviolable “law.” The critic, like Kant, demands that the artist behave “as if” “starting the film earlier,” “being story-driven,” and so on… “were a universal law of nature.”

To demonstrate the absurdity of this Kantian critical approach, it suffices to consider an independent filmmaker who violates one of the oldest and most firmly established “laws” of dramatic writing. Imagine this filmmaker has made a film that initially appears to observe all the “conventions” of Hollywood narrative cinema, a film called Sudden Revenge that tells the story of two disillusioned and rebellious people whose purpose and meaning in life is to take revenge on a corrupt bank manager—during the first act, the characters and their motivations, as well as the obstacles in their path, are presented, and the “inciting incident” determines the trajectory of the main characters for the next two acts, and so on. The film proceeds in this manner until near the climax of the second act (the confrontation of one of the two main characters with the bank manager), but just as this character is approaching the bank, a piece of iron falls from the half-constructed building adjacent to the bank onto his head, killing him instantly; the moment the character dies suddenly, the image on the screen cuts out: everything plunges into darkness, and there is not even a sign of the closing credits. Thus, a narrative, Hollywood-style film that was supposed to entertain audiences for two hours ends at the fiftieth minute. After a pause and some bewilderment, the audience leaves the theater.

In reaction to such an unconventional film, the critic believes that despite the innovations and subtleties in its cinematography and acting, the film has violated the “law” of the three-act plot, an Aristotelian “law” stipulating that a plot (which, according to Aristotle, is the “soul of tragedy”) must have a “beginning, middle, and end.” The critic argues that the film Sudden Revenge has no “end” and that the film practically stops in the “middle”; the fate of the second character (after the sudden death of the first) is not addressed, and thus all that description of the second character’s traits and the foreshadowing of his future actions in the first act come to nothing. Further, the critic, quoting Jean-Luc Godard’s famous remark that “a story should have a beginning, a middle, and an end, but not necessarily in that order,” notes that even in avant-garde and “New Wave” films, this Aristotelian “law” is observed in some way. Ultimately, the critic concludes that Sudden Revenge “is not a film at all” and that there is no logic behind the film’s stopping in the “middle” of the plot: the film begins with the claims and visual and narrative “conventions” of a Hollywood film, but then everything falls apart; Sudden Revenge is merely a pretentious pseudo-avant-garde trick that is not even coherent in its pseudo-avant-gardism!

در مقابل چنین تحکّم مغالطه آمیزی، کارگردانی آگاه به فلسفه ی آفرینش گری خود همواره می تواند این سیر استدلالی را پیش کشد که «آغاز، میانه و پایان» داشتن، «داستانگو بودن» (به آن معنایی که شما در نظر دارید)و... یک «قرارداد» است و نه یک «قانون». بنا به تعریف، هر فردی با میل/خواست خود وارد «قرارداد»ی می شود و یا از آن خارج می شود. من این «قرارداد نشانه شناختی» ای که شما بدان اشاره می کنید را نمی پسندم؛ بر خلاف «قرارداد»هایی در دیگر عرصه های فعالیت بشری همچون قانون، اخلاق، مهندسی، سیاست و ...، چنین نیست که در صورت تخطّی از«قرارداد» های هنری پروانه ی فعالیت من ،در مقام یک هنرمند، باطل شود! حتی ممکن است دقیقاً به دلیل همین تخطّی ام مورد توجه قرار بگیرم . در بدترین حالت با اخم و تخم ها و ریویوهای منفی شما مواجه خواهم بود، که در آن صورت همچون قهرمان محبوبم در فیلم Birdman، ریگن تامسون، که در سکانس کافه رو به منتقدش می گوید «اینا همش برچسبه...تو فقط به همه چی برچسب می زنی»، «نقد» شما را به چیزی نخواهم گرفت. اما در باره ی نبودِ «منطقی در پسِ توقف فیلم در میانه» باید بگویم که اساساً هدف من از این کار به پرسش کشیدن ساختار ناواقعی فیلم نامه ی داستانگوی هالیوودی بود. من بر این باورم که نفسِ فُرمِ «آغاز، میانه و پایان» با تجربه ی زیسته ی ما انسانها هیچ قرابتی ندارد؛ زندگی بسیاری از ما انسان ها درست در«میانه» و در اوج به ناگهان به دست مرگ متوقف می شود. مفهوم «پایان» صرفاً در جهانی «دراماتیک» آن هم برای شخصیت ها یی که در پی «نقطه ی عطف» دوم در انتظار «گره گشایی» پیچیدگی ها و پرسش های دو پرده ی پیشین هستند معنادار است. «پایان» یعنی هدف حاصل شده و پرسش ها پاسخ داده شده است؛ بدین معنا زندگی ما انسان ها «پایان» ندارد؛ هر مرگی «توقف» فرآیند رسیدن به «پایان»ی است. ناگهان انتقام روایت انتقام ناگهانی رویدادی به نام مرگ از خوشبینی انسان به زندگی است. در ناگهان انتقام محتوا از فرم انتقام می گیرد. من چنین پسندیدم و پسند دیگران، از جمله پسند شما، برایم ابداً مهم نیست و نباید هم مهم باشد زیرا هنر یعنی انجام کاری و یا ساختن چیزی آنطور که دلت می خواهد، فارغ از «قوانین» جهان، فارغ از «قرارداد» های دیگران.

به راستی، در مواجهه با چنین هنرمند خودآیین و دگراندیشی، دیگر چه «نقدی» می توان پیش کشید؟

*

An analysis of the “grammar” of the use of the word “ought,” following the later philosophy of Wittgenstein, shows that the art critic’s use of the imperative “ought” (command) speech act for absolute and objective aesthetic commands, prohibitions, and value judgments about a film (or any other work of art) is logically nonsensical. The analysis of the grammatical use of the word “ought” shows that this speech act has at least three presuppositions: every “ought” presupposes in advance 1) a specific desire/wish in the addressee to accept the content of the “ought,” 2) the existence of a system of “punishment and reward,” and 3) the superior power and authority of the commander over the addressee of the “ought.” It was shown that none of these presuppositions holds true for the imperative “ought” that the art critic uses when addressing the artist, because, firstly, the artist’s desire/wish (and consequently, goal) is not always specific (to the critic), and sometimes the artist’s wish or goal in artistic creation is vague or even unknown to the artist themselves. Secondly, it is by no means clear in what sense a system of “punishment and reward” exists within the institution of art; it is not the case that all films deemed “good” necessarily receive a “reward,” nor that all films deemed “bad” suffer a “punitive” consequence. Furthermore, the artist (unlike the engineer, philosopher, historian, cook, physician, athlete, etc.) can easily refuse to accept “punishment and reward” or be indifferent to them and at the same time still remain an artist—and perhaps, precisely because of this indifference and defiance, become an avant-garde artist. And thirdly, it is by no means clear in what sense the critic has power and authority superior to the director: is it their theoretical studies that grant them a commanding authority? In that case, if a director (such as Asghar Farhadi) themselves has a cinematic education and “theoretical studies,” will the critic accept that they have authority equal to the director?—The critic will never accept such a thing because (as was shown earlier) accepting this parity of power and authority would transform all of the critic’s imperative “oughts” into advisory “oughts,” and thus the critic’s exclusive existence would be endangered. On the other hand, is the critic a representative of a guild whose members have unanimously formulated and ratified certain “principles”? If this is the case, if all critics adhere to “principles” and, more importantly, a single methodology, why is there no convergence among critics (of the kind that exists, for example, in the scientific community)? Why does the dispute between a critic who, say, considers Béla Tarr’s cinema the supreme example of cinematic expression and another critic who fundamentally considers Béla Tarr’s cinema a kind of degeneration in the language of cinema never come to an end? And finally, has the critic, through their theoretical studies, discoveries, and intuitions, arrived at inviolable aesthetic “laws” in art, and is it by resorting to these that they have power and authority superior to the artist? (As was shown) there are absolutely no “laws” in art; all that exists are “semiotic conventions” among a group of interested human beings, “conventions” that, by definition, the artist can violate according to their entirely personal wishes, goals, and ideals—it is the potential possibility of such a violation that makes them an artist.

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Endnotes

1_ For a more specialized discussion of the art critic’s fallacious value judgments regarding a film being “good” or “bad,” see the article “The Film Critic’s ‘Good’ and ‘Bad’ in the Abyss of Philosophy” by the same author, published on Sedanet.

2_ More interestingly, Sarris himself, in another review written two years after the initial release of 2001 (in 1970), completely changes his hostile view. Sarris, by his own account, watches 2001 this time after consuming a “strong” psychedelic substance! And then writes that “(for me) it was a great surprise to witness the reversal [retraction] of my initial opinion. 2001 is truly a great work by a great artist. Whatever it is—and I am still not entirely spellbound by what [2001] is—2001 is beautifully orchestrated and controlled in expressing the director’s vision of the future world from the perspective of past global sensibilities. Even the boring acting and the expressionless [faces of the actors] are perfectly in tune with an atmosphere in which human emotions are ruptured by inhuman distances” (Sarris).

3_ Kant, at the end of the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, acknowledges that how the mere knowledge of such a “categorical imperative” as the sole universal principle of morality can, without arousing any desire or interest in the human being (without presupposing any “if”), lead to moral action, or, to put it more simply, understanding and explaining how “pure reason can be practical… is beyond the power of human reason” (Kant, 82: 2005)!

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Persian Sources

Ahmadi, Babak (1393 [2014]), Creation and Freedom, Tehran: Nashr-e Markaz.

Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1392 [2013]), On Ethics and Religion, compiled and translated by Malek Hosseini and Babak Abbasi, Tehran: Hermes.

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English Sources

Ebert, Roger, 2001: A Space Odyssey (review), https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-2001-a-space-odyssey-1968

Kant, Immanuel (2005), Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals, tr. Thomas Kingsmill Abbot, Dover Publications, INC. New York.

Sarris, Andrew, 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) - Reviews by Andrew Sarris, http://scrapsfromtheloft.com/2017/12/04/2001-a-space-odyssey-1968-reviews-by-andrew-sarris/

Wittgenstein, Ludwig (2001), Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, tr. D. F. Pears and B. F. McGuinness, Routledge. London.