Beautiful weaponry - is it possible?

[Blackie]

Ha ha ha ha.............on your left........your left..........your left right left...........hey first sgt...........jump out your window.........splatter your brains all over the place....................

 

C 130 rollin down tha strip............forgot that one....................maybe thas good..........

[Jantha]

I always loved the MIG 15...

 

[Jantha]

... and the P-47 (non razorback model please)

 

[Cruznolfart]

Ha ha ha ha.............on your left........your left..........your left right left...........hey first sgt...........jump out your window.........splatter your brains all over the place....................

 

C 130 rollin down tha strip............forgot that one....................maybe thas good..........

 

Medevac. Sweet angels with big brass ones. Home, James, and don't spare the horses!

[flyingarmadillo]

Surprised nobody has put one of these up yet:

 

 

The B-29 has to be one of the prettiest bombers around.

[NeoConMan]

Absolutely.

Been inside Fifi a few times, saw her pulled apart in Midland, TX in 1999.

 

Studied that plane inside out as a child in the 70's.

What an amazing leap in technology that plane was.

There's a really nice one at the Pima museum in Tucson.

[ledzep59]

Milo, Neo, and Fenn,

 

I ended up leaving yesterday after the thread got shut down so I wouldn't get sucked into the "afterthread/post-thread". I just had a lot of stuff to do and wanted to get some sleep.

 

First let me say that I did look into the categorization of my gun and I guess it would just be a semi-auto rifle since it doesn't have the selective fire option. I was definitely not trying to slang tired rhetoric loaded with political meaning, I was just trying to say that they are dangerous. Thanks for the help.

 

Regarding this new thread- I would say yes. When my philosophy class goes into the unit on aesthetics, I have a day where I bring in several examples of various things and ask if they could be considered as beautiful/art. The examples run from commercials, to crumby music, to scars, to a landscape, and etc. I usually play devil's advocate and argue that ALL of the examples could be considered beautiful/art in one or many ways. The weapon example is good because their intent is obviously to maim or kill. Nevertheless, the planes that people showed are beautiful in several ways (intrinsically, scientifically, through experience, historically, popularity, etc), as are guns, swords, tanks, and one could even argue for the atomic bomb being beautiful. Intention of the designer is obviously not the only way to interpret the meaning of something: I could sit on a garbage can or use a fork as a back-scratch. And of course, who is to say which intention has greater value?

 

So here are some summaries of the arguments stated above:

 

Intrinsic beauty (you either see it or you don't)- the weapons are beautiful in and of themselves. Each plane or gun could be regarded as a work of art.

 

Beauty through innovation/science (see a scientist/engineer)- these are marvels of creation. They have been fine-tuned to save friendly soldier's lives. These breakthroughs in engineering are perfect examples of man's prowess as a creator.

 

Beauty through experience (see John Dewey)- Art is merely an experience where subject and object become lost and intertwined within experience. There is no subject/object divide so the "work of art" is merely the union of two different things through experience. So art is the way I put on my shirt, or the moment when I fire my gun, or fly a plane.

 

Historically/Contextually (see relativism)- Well if we have an old longbow, spear, or Civil War cannonball- these are collectible and could be considered art in the same way as an old vase. It's original intention/meaning is no longer needed now and it is regarded as art. So if we take the weapon out of context or approach it like a relativist, we can see that its meaning depends on the framework under which it is viewed.

 

Popularity (see Leo Tolstoy)- the sheer fact that many of us even know what some of these weapons are or can identify them has to mean something, right? We could apply what Tolstoy calls "infectiousness" of a work, or the fact that something has infected so many people proves its merit. I'm sure many of us know what napalm is...

 

So based on several arguments I think that we can say that weapons can be beautiful .

[NeoConMan]

Tell that to Corrosion of Conformity.

 

 

(See post number 40.)

[Blackie]

Medevac. Sweet angels with big brass ones. Home' date=' James, and don't spare the horses!

[/quote']

 

Dust off .........Huey or blackhawk Pilots are the most fearless dudes you will ever encounter !

[ledzep59]

Tell that to Corrosion of Conformity.

 

 

(See post number 40.)

 

Well I hope he looks at my post and accepts at least one of those arguments. If not, he is entitled to his own position. Personally, I love a lot of stuff and can find beauty almost anywhere.

[Blackie]

man ......................beutiful human bodies, things that fly, machines that krank out mirac-u=lu=s notes from large speaker stacks in black,

guitars and guns and missiles and lights and tracers and willy peter explosions of horrible feeback noise mangled burned bodies and death.

 

Hold on lunch time.......................and repeat

[ledzep59]

man ......................beutiful human bodies' date=' things that fly, machines that krank out mirac-u=lu=s notes from large speaker stacks in black,

guitars and guns and missiles and lights and tracers and willy peter explosions of horrible feeback noise mangled burned bodies and death.

 

Hold on lunch time.......................and repeat[/quote']

 

exactly. beautiful.

[duane v]

Every tool is a weapon if you use it right - Ani DiFranco

 

I like swords. Not saying they are as effective as an A bomb or a gun' date=' but they're purdy ^^V

My mom had an ivory handled smith and wesson with which she shot my dad once...well, she shot at him and missed his head. That was a gorgeous revolver. As a child I was in charge of cleaning it

 

Hi Izz

 

Missed you around the insane asylum lately[biggrin]

[milod]

I really shouldn't say this, but I may be saying it for some others, too.

 

I've seen more than my fair share of mangled, burned bodies and death. I find little beautiful in it when, for example, a couple dozen people who have been picking up body parts and looping human gut like a lariat are "ordered" to counseling. Except perhaps for older folk who are known to have been there before and learned to be themselves the "instruments" of recovery, or photos of record, rather than the person wielding such tools.

 

I'll never forget a WWI vet who was shocked to receive a French government medal for courage and service to France in the war. He never got overseas, but had stacked frozen bodies like a woodpile due to death in the influenza epidemic. There was little glory by any stretch of poetry or politics. But I agree, he served well and with great honor in his war.

 

This isn't a matter of politics, nor of glorifying war although I personally have something of a tendency to glorify the warrior on either side who tames the internal beasts both of fear and rage. It's a matter of stark, ugly reality.

 

It's not "beautiful" in the sense of the definitions Ledzep mentioned, nor like a Picasso or a finely machined bit of steel purpose-made as a tool of one sort or another. Nor even the awesome beauty of an atomic blast or the equal ferocity of a tornado cloud or lightning at 35,000 feet.

 

Dying, as many other human activities, may be seen in many ways, even at times perhaps with a certain poetic beauty or at least a dignified final breath. But mangled, burned bodies are not, in my opinion, beautiful by any criterion.

 

m

[Blackie]

uM yeah my beautiful references were not to the burned up mangled part of our modern weapons results on people.

I just throw it it in as reality check ............................

[Izzy]

Izzy...

 

In cqb' date=' I'll tend to consider a properly sized sword or two as equal to, or superior to a firearm in the hands of the average person. An expert vs an amateur "contest" might go either way one on one. One against a group, take the swords.

 

The proper size for circumsances is one reason that the later Samurai carry was of a longer and shorter sword. The old European "sword and dagger" sorts of techniques ditto.

 

The problem with firearms and even swords is how so many people see them as some sort of miracle objects with magical qualities handled easily by anyone.

 

Nope. Nothing magic. Nope, not really that easy.

 

Different swords have very different sorts of specific techniques for use depending on the design. The Gladius Iberius or Gladius Hispaniensis, depending on who you talk to, is actually quite a good all-around piece when one is on foot.

 

The "kill bill" swords ... rather obviously aluminum or some other very light weight material. It's a movie. <grin>

 

In the heyday of the earlier Samurai, btw, the Naginata came to be seen as a ladies' weapon. It's still taught mostly to school girls in Japan and Naginata is excellent exercise as kinda a "feminine" version of Kendo. In a sense it's not entirely dissimilar to the European varieties of a lighter halberd. I'm not so sure the degree to which current training is all that transferable to use of a real piece in a likely modern defense scenario. It was considered very important in some samurai circles as part of the samurai woman's responsibility to defend the family "castle." The advantage to the naginata for the ladies was that of distance - which lessened the value of brute strength over technique.

 

m [/quote']

 

 

o.o I was just...hehe, milod you're so informative!

of course its a fake. i posted it mostly for daryl hana. many weapons become pretty when a pretty girl holds them xD

I have a bokuto and a shinai (spelling might be way off). If I had some bogu it would be on, considering my bf has his own as well. Great way to work out if you know what you're doing. Throw off your dang shoulder if you don't >.>

 

gotta know what you're doing with any instrument or you could hurt yourself or someone else. couldn't agree more with ya there ^^V

[Izzy]

Hi Izz

 

Missed you around the insane asylum lately[biggrin]

 

HI!

Love the pic of your other girls.

Been busy with work' date=' but I pop in.

Miss yous guys