"The reduction of being to having" quite an enormous universe in this tiny phrase. Why might it be rejected?
Let us cut to the quick of it. What can a person have? They can own physical objects. Their house, their furniture, their car, their own body, the bodies of other people. They can own these by being, exclusively, the person who is responsible for what happens to them...The ideals which might in someway legitimize ownership, which might justify it, these change with respect to time and place and are certainly not immediately obvious. Reality, heedless of this, continuously confronts us with situations of ownership. Certain people have exclusive control over certain things. Very little is as obvious.
In subtlety different ways, a person can perhaps be thought of as owning...having... ideas...as owning techniques and procedures, but I want to avoid, for a short time, at least, this rather more complicated and abstract situation, consider instead: ownership of the "object"
Vivimos el fin del tiempo lineal, el tiempo de la sucesion: historia, progresso, modernidad. En la esfera del arte la forma más virulenta de la crisis de la modernidad ha sido la critica del objecto; iniciada por Dadá, hoy culmina en la destruccion (o autodestruccionj) de la "cosa artistica", cuadro o escultura, en aras del acto, la ceremonia, el acontecimiento, el gesto. La crisis del objecto es apenas una manifestacion (negativa) del fin del tiempo, nuestra idea del tiempo. La idea de "arte moderno" es una consecuencia de la idea de "historia del arte"; ambas fueron invenciones de la modernidad y ambas mueren con ella. La sobrevaloración de la novedad se inscribe dentro de una concepción historicista: el arte es una historia, una expresion más immediata de lo nuevo es el arte instantaneo pero asimismo su refutación: en el instante se conjugan todos los tiempos sólo para aniquilarse y desaparecer. Otro arte alborea? En algunas partes, especialmente en los Estados Unidos asistimos a distintas tentativas de resurección de la Fiesta. Esta tentativas, expresan una nostalgia por un pasado irrecuperable o son la prefiguación de los ritos futuros de una sociedad apenas en gestación y que, si no más feliz, quizá será, al menos, mas libre que la nuestra? No lo sé. En todo caso, reconozco en ellas al antiguo sueño romantico, recogido y transmitido por los surrealistas a la juventud actual: borrar las fronteras entre la vida y la poesía. Arte de encarnacion de las imágenes que podria satisfacer la necesidad de ritos colectivos de nuestro mundo."
(((Al mismo tiempo, cómo no imaginar otro arte, en el polo opuesto, destinado a satisfacer una necesidad no menos imperiosa: la meditacion y la contemplacion solitarias? Ese arte no seria una recaida en la idolatrai de la "cosa artistica" de los ultimos doscientos anos; tampoco sería un arte de la destruccion del objecto siono que veria en el cuadro, la escultura o el poema, un punto de partida. Hacia donde? Hacia la presencia, hacia la ausencia, hacia allá...No la restauración del objecto sino la instauraction del poema o el cuadro como un siglo inaugural que abre un camino.)))
(p.46)
We are living at the end of linear time, the time of succession: history, progress, modernity. In the sphere of art, the most virulent form of the crisis of modernity has been the criticism of the object; initiated by Dada, now culminating in the destruction, (or auto destruction) of the artistic thing, painting or sculpture in: the ceremony, the acknowledgment, the gesture. The crisis of the object is perhaps a (negative) manifestation of the end of time, our idea of time. The idea of “modern art” is a consequence of the idea of “art history” both were inventions of modernity and both will die with them. The overestimation of novelty inscribes itself within a historical conception: art is a history, the most immediate expression of what is novel is the art of the moment, but it is at the same time, its refutation; in the moment, all times conjoin only to annihilate one another and disappear. Will another art arise? In some places, especially in the United States, we have seen different attempts towards the resurrection of the festival. These attempts express a nostalgia for an unrecoverable past...or are the presentiment of future rites of a society scarcely in gestation. One that which, if not happier than our own, will, perhaps, at least be more free. In any case, I recognize in these efforts the ancient romantic dream, recognized and transmitted by the surrealists to the youth of today: the erasure of the frontiers between life and poetry. An art of the incarnation of images that perhaps could perhaps satisfy the need for collective rites in the world of today.
(((At the same time, how might one imagine another art, at the opposite pole. Destined to satisfy a need no less urgent: meditation and solitary contemplation? This art would not be a relapse into the idolatry of the artistic thing of the last two hundred years, nether will it be the destruction of the object of the painting, sculpture, poem. It will be a point of departure. Towards where? Towards presence. Towards absence. Towards the beyond…not the restoration of the object rather the installation of the poem or the painting as an inaugural sign that opens a pathway)))
To summarize, the end of conceiving time as a linear progression of events has led to the end of a concept of art as a production of objects. Time was a favorite theme for Paz, the subject of his Nobel lecture, and his concern, coarsely stated, amounts to challenging the predominate intention behind the use of the word "progress" - to replace the world's variety of cultures and ideals with ones that imitate those found in the economically prosperous West. "The end of linear time" is difficult to conceive of: scientific, mathematical, technical knowledge continues to progress from a body of earlier discoveries towards newer ones. And there are the common sense things, no? The kind of uncertainty that is specific to the future...and the kinds of impossibilities: a shattered window or mirror not suddenly running backwards in time: piecing itself back together. Proclaiming that linear time is dead is perhaps, rather to suggest that there are certain things that it is not applicable to, to urge a perspective in which civilizations distinct in time are seen in parallel with one another, differing responses to problems and pleasures which are the same for all human societies. The second paragraph alludes to this. We are supposed to be reconciled with the creation of objects because they offer us points of departure, doorways to other perspectives.
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