Mess or Masterpiece?

[Jonathan]

Apey want a cracker! Apey want a cracker! Apey want a cracker! Apey want a cracker! Apey want a cracker! Apey want a cracker! Apey want a cracker! Apey want a cracker! Apey want a cracker! Apey want a cracker! Apey want a cracker! Apey want a cracker! Apey want a cracker! Apey want a cracker! Apey want a cracker! Apey want a cracker! Apey want a cracker! Apey want a cracker! Apey want a cracker! Apey want a cracker! Apey want a cracker! Apey want a cracker! Apey want a cracker! Apey want a cracker! Apey want a cracker! Apey want a cracker! Apey want a cracker! Apey want a cracker! Apey want a cracker! Apey want a cracker! Apey want a cracker! Apey want a cracker! Apey want a cracker! Apey want a cracker! Apey want a cracker! Apey want a cracker! Apey want a cracker! Apey want a cracker! Apey want a cracker! Apey want a cracker! Apey want a cracker! Apey want a cracker! Apey want a cracker! Apey want a cracker! Apey want a cracker! Apey want a cracker! Apey want a cracker! Apey want a cracker! Apey want a cracker! Apey want a cracker! Apey want a cracker! Apey want a cracker! Apey want a cracker! Apey want a cracker! Apey want a cracker!

[william.scherk]

"Petty Picky Pants Ellen"?

I like Ellen's 'pickiness' and I like Jonathan's 'pickiness.' At one time I allied my own pickiness with theirs and had some intense mental fun discovering features and faults of James Valliant's timeless classic of crank literature. It was almost archaeologiical, no defect not screened out and thoroughly investigated by the laboratory.

There is a certain zany excess in these excursions into Tooheyology and Tooheyistics, though. I can imagine a non-versed reader stumbling over the last spat and having zero point of contact with the concept carrying the debate. Who the jesusfreak is Toohey? A demon-based life-form? A John Dewey-style corruptor of all things? The standard by which evul is measured? Are these people insane?

Since I am sort of versed in Objectivish Demonology I don't find this nearly as insane. And I don't find the lurch into forensic operetta nearly as entertaining as might that stranger unversed.

In other words, the name-calling and icy personal contempt exchanged is akin to Greg's unjust serial accusations of moral depravity. The simmering mutual disgust seems unrelated to the matter at hand.

I apologize for my own tone. I don't know how to be pleasant anymore. It's hard to shake the influence of ten years on Objectivish forums.

[Brant Gaede]

Apey want a cracker! Apey want a cracker! Apey want a cracker! Apey want a cracker! Apey want a cracker! Apey want a cracker! Apey want a cracker! Apey want a cracker! Apey want a cracker! Apey want a cracker! Apey want a cracker! Apey want a cracker! Apey want a cracker! Apey want a cracker! Apey want a cracker! Apey want a cracker! Apey want a cracker! Apey want a cracker! Apey want a cracker! Apey want a cracker! Apey want a cracker! Apey want a cracker! Apey want a cracker! Apey want a cracker! Apey want a cracker! Apey want a cracker! Apey want a cracker! Apey want a cracker! Apey want a cracker! Apey want a cracker! Apey want a cracker! Apey want a cracker! Apey want a cracker! Apey want a cracker! Apey want a cracker! Apey want a cracker! Apey want a cracker! Apey want a cracker! Apey want a cracker! Apey want a cracker! Apey want a cracker! Apey want a cracker! Apey want a cracker! Apey want a cracker! Apey want a cracker! Apey want a cracker! Apey want a cracker! Apey want a cracker! Apey want a cracker! Apey want a cracker! Apey want a cracker! Apey want a cracker! Apey want a cracker! Apey want a cracker! Apey want a cracker!

WTF? You let Greg get inside your head and then you complain about the result?

--Brant

[Jonathan]

WTF? You let Greg get inside your head and then you complain about the result?

--Brant

What are you talking about? I haven't let Apey the Parrot inside my head! I haven't revealed my artistic tastes to him, and I've given him no indication of my ethical beliefs or of the morality of my behavior. I've given him no grounds on which to judge either my tastes or my actions, yet he believes that he knows my moral status and my tastes in art.

J

[Jonathan]

"Petty Picky Pants Ellen"?

I like Ellen's 'pickiness' and I like Jonathan's 'pickiness.'

I LOVE Ellen's "pickiness" when it's intelligent and relevant.

It's embarrassing when it's pointless and motivated by whatever it's currently motivated by.

Since I am sort of versed in Objectivish Demonology I don't find this nearly as insane. And I don't find the lurch into forensic operetta nearly as entertaining as might that stranger unversed.

Bill, why would you call it an "operetta"? Operettas have music, and there has been no music in this discussion!!! Didn't you notice that? Ha, the joke is on you!!!

The simmering mutual disgust seems unrelated to the matter at hand.

Indeed! What is so hard to understand or controversial about the idea that there are Objectivist guru-wannabes who share Toohey's bossy and controlling attitude when it comes to the field of aesthetics? What is driving the need to identify ways in which they were not like Toohey, especially since I have not claimed that they are like Toohey in every way, but if fact specified the limits of which way I thought they were like Toohey? What's the problem? What's driving the pointless electron-chasing?

Let's put it in the simplest terms: My position is that the people I've identified as Objectivist Tooheys are bossy and controlling in regard to the issue of art and aesthetics.

Does Ellen, or anyone else, wish to dispute that position? If so, dispute it. Arguing that those whom I've identified as Objectivist Tooheys don't work at a newspaper called "The Banner" would not be an argument against my position, nor would citing the fact that they don't wear the same style of suits that Toohey did, or that they don't freely and eagerly admit to their evil motivations via Villainous Monologuing as Toohey did.

J

[Brant Gaede]

WTF? You let Greg get inside your head and then you complain about the result?

--Brant

What are you talking about? I haven't let Apey the Parrot inside my head! I haven't revealed my artistic tastes to him, and I've given him no indication of my ethical beliefs or of the morality of my behavior. I've given him no grounds on which to judge either my tastes or my actions, yet he believes that he knows my moral status and my tastes in art.

J

True enough, but why all that typing? Just "Apey want a cracker!" once or twice or thrice would have done the job and done it better.

--Brant

my discussion esthetics revealing the moral nature of my being--the esthetics are subjective and the moral nature objective so use the objective to smash the subjective and all is right with the world (owe!)

[Jonathan]

WTF? You let Greg get inside your head and then you complain about the result?

--Brant

What are you talking about? I haven't let Apey the Parrot inside my head! I haven't revealed my artistic tastes to him, and I've given him no indication of my ethical beliefs or of the morality of my behavior. I've given him no grounds on which to judge either my tastes or my actions, yet he believes that he knows my moral status and my tastes in art.

J

True enough, but why all that typing? Just "Apey want a cracker!" once or twice or thrice would have done the job and done it better.

I did type it just once. And then I key-command copied and multi-pasted it. It took me less time than it took you to write the comment above.

J

[Jonathan]

WTF? You let Greg get inside your head and then you complain about the result?

--Brant

What are you talking about? I haven't let Apey the Parrot inside my head! I haven't revealed my artistic tastes to him, and I've given him no indication of my ethical beliefs or of the morality of my behavior. I've given him no grounds on which to judge either my tastes or my actions, yet he believes that he knows my moral status and my tastes in art.

J

True enough, but why all that typing? Just "Apey want a cracker!" once or twice or thrice would have done the job and done it better.

I did type it just once. And then I key-command copied and multi-pasted it. It took me less time than it took you to write the comment above.

J

The real question is why does Apey continue to type the same message over and over again?

J

[Brant Gaede]

Ha! I had no idea you had that power.

--Brant

"You don't know the power of the dark side."

Uh, that's all he has to say, but he's in love with it?

filler?

[moralist]

I haven't revealed my artistic tastes...

There's 78 pages of you talking about your artistic tastes.

... and they match your values.

Greg

[moralist]

WTF? You let Greg get inside your head and then you complain about the result?

That's ~really~ easy to do, Brant... because Jonathan does it to himself.

Thin skinned leftists are led by their emotions, so they need to get upset and to act out.

Greg

[Jonathan]

I haven't revealed my artistic tastes...

There's 78 pages of you talking about your artistic tastes.

... and they match your values.

Greg

If that's true, Apey, then you should be able to name some of the artworks which are my favorites, and which I value more than all others. So, name them. Which works of art do think that I think are the greatest ever created?

What do you imagine are my values and vices? Be specific. Don't just repeat the same old vague crap again. Which moral crimes must I be guilty of?

J

[Ellen Stuttle]

The Pickled Shark Charade

(Apologies in advance for the length of this post, but it relates to many issues.)

Repeating the last section of my post #37:

The scene in which Toohey gives his confessional speech comprises Chapter 14 of The Fountainhead.

The complete scene - indeed, the full (English) text of The Fountainhead - is provided on a Russian site called "rulit.me."

Chapter 14 begins on page 200 (scroll down) and concludes on page 203.

I reread the whole thing. Also, I found a bunch of other sites - many of them not Objectivism-related sites - on which most of or parts of Toohey's speech is quoted.

One of those sites - a currently-449-member computer programmer's site - has a web-essay, "There Are No Sith Lords," by Alan G. Carter, dated February 3, 2004, which I find very interesting in regard to a number of issues, including aesthetics issues.

I found that site by Googling on "did something with bird cages and metronomes." A copy of the original piece (with a question mark added to the title) was posted on May 24, 2012, on a site called "Subrealism" - link. The layout of the reprint is spiffier and easier to read.

More in awhile.

Alan G. Carter's basic point in "There Are No Sith Lords" (the original title has no question mark) is "that we do not need to assume the existence of sith" as an explanation for circumstances "which at first look like sith might be involved."

In supporting this contention, Carter discusses two examples. The second is that of Adolf Hitler. The first is that of advertising executive Charles Saachi and his role in getting Damien Hirst's pickled butchered shark touted as an art masterpiece.

I only heard of the pickled shark via Kamhi's Who Says That's Art?, a book much decried - unjustly vilified, in my opinion - by Jonathan. I don't know how accurate Carter is about Saachi's role.

What I find particularly interesting is Carter's positing Toohey's method as a template for Saachi's.

Carter gives no indication of so much as knowing that Objectivism exists. He's conversant with Gurdjieff's teachings, via Ouspensky. (He cites chapter references from Ouspensky's The Fourth Way a number of times in the comments pertaining to the original posting.) He seems to be one of those people who got something of value to them from The Fountainhead but didn't develop a further interest in Rand's philosophy.

He also might be (I'm not sure if he is) one of the computer-orientated people who are expecting a new development in human evolution. Among the aspects of Kandinsky's views which I've been thinking about is the hopes for a new age. That hope was strong amongst adherents of theosophical and similar esoteric teachings. It continued, in intellectually diluted form, amongst "Age of Aquarius" enthusiasts. I think that most of the latter folk then drifted into "environmentalism." Meanwhile, hopes for a new age became a frequent theme amongst computer aficionados.

I'm expecting to write some stuff about new-age prognostications later.

For now, I note that Carter got Rand's message about Toohey's method loud and clear.

"Subrealism" reprint link (easier to read)

"Programmer's Stone" original article

[some paragraph breaks added]

[The opening paragraph has complicated historical anachronisms. My post being already long, I leave aside going into those. For background details about John Berger's "Pig Earth," Asil Nadir, and Charles Saachi, see the full article.]

Now in every land, in every era, there is always found hanging around real artists a group of elderly degenerates who call themselves "the art world". Although they are utterly talentless, they find they can conceal their natures more easily in the vicinity of people who behave in more varied ways than is usual in society. Colleges of art therefore end up serving two functions. Talented students attend to learn the technical skills they need to express their inspirations, talentless students attend because they wish to meet the "art world". They are the sort of people who are willing to do absolutely anything, for small material rewards, so long as it does not take effort on their part. As these students age, they turn into the next generation of elderly degenerates, and so the cycle of corruption continues. To maintain the fiction that they are artists, each of them must as Gurdjieff put it, "manifest themselves absurdly" at least once.

One of the least talented - but loudly self-advertising - students at the Royal College of Art in 1985 was one Damien Hirst. When it was time for him to manifest himself absurdly, he was completely stuck for ideas. Fortunately, there were plenty of copies of "Pig Earth" around, and he set out to re-create Berger's page one prose image, without the content of the book, in a literal, physical fashion. At least he had the grace to change the animal. The result was a shark, cut in half with a chainsaw and pickled. (When Marcel Duchamps did this kind of thing it was novel and challenging. Now it is purely formulaic.) Needless to say, this blatant act of empty plagerism caused considerable mirth amongst everyone who was even slightly aware of real contemporary arts at the time.

And there it would have ended, were it not for Saatchi, who very publicly handed Hirst a huge amount of Nadir's dirty money, and loudly announced, "He is a genius!" Of course, the ignorant, the gullible, the greedy and the easily led became hypnotised by the sight of the money, wished to follow fashion, and repeated the cry, "He is a genius!"

In this way the talentless er... friend... of the "art world" Damien Hirst became the centrepiece of a group of similar creatures, entirely created by Saatchi, called BritArt. It was an evil scheme. A subtle tactic which removed all the value of real arts by replacing it with rubbish, and so impoverishing the population - although to be fair, the British working class never fell for it. Just the people with more money than sense, whom Saatchi wished to impoverish on behalf of his master, Nadir. Indeed, it was sufficiently subtle that people who didn't appreciate the importance of the cultural context doubted that Saatchi had done anything malign at all when it was pointed out to them. It is this that makes Saatchi a candidate for the honourific "Darth".

Except he is not so entitled! He's even less original than Hirst, and no special knowledge was required. The entire strategy, and the thinking behind it, was laid out in detail by Ayn Rand, in the 1943 novel, "The Fountainhead", which loudly proclaims on the cover of the 1983 printing I have before me, that 5,000,000 copies have been sold. I quote:

"Kill man's sense of values. Kill his capacity to recognize greatness or to achieve it. Great men can't be ruled. We don't want any great men. Don't deny the conception of greatness. Destroy it from within. The great is the rare, the difficult, the exceptional. Set up standards of achievement open to all, to the least, to the most inept - and you stop the impetus to effort in all men, great or small. You stop all incentive to improvement, to excellence, to perfection. Laugh at Roark and hold Peter Keating as a great architect. You've destroyed architecture. Build up Lois Cook and you've destroyed literature. Hail Ike and you've destroyed the theatre. Glorify Lancelot Clokey and you've destroyed the press. Don't set out to raze all shrines - you'll frighten men. Enshrine mediocrity - and the shrines are razed.

Then there's another way. Kill by laughter. Laughter is an instrument of human joy. Learn to use it as a weapon of destruction. Turn it into a sneer. It's simple. Tell them to laugh at everything. Tell them that a sense of humour is an unlimited virtue. Don't let anything remain sacred in a man's soul - and his soul won't be sacred to him. Kill reverence and you've killed the hero in man. One doesn't reverence with a giggle. He'll obey and he'll set no limits to his obedience - anything goes - nothing is too serious.... Nature allows no vacuum. Empty man's soul and the space is yours to fill."

BritArt is to the Council of American Artists in Rand's novel, as Hirst's pickled animal parts are to the cow in Berger's novel. And in case there's any doubt, the final artistic wonder in Hirst's repititions of his plagerism, each heralded as a greater work of genius than the last, was indeed a cow cut in half. Here's Rand's 1943 description of Saatchi's wretched, sneering, 1980s assembly:

"The Council of American Artists had as chairman a cadaverous youth who painted what he saw in his nightly dreams. There was a boy who used no canvas, but did something with bird-cages and metronomes, and another who discovered a new technique of painting: he blackened a sheet of paper and then painted with a rubber eraser. There was a stout middle-aged lady who drew sub-consciously, claiming that she never looked at her hand and had no idea of what the hand was doing; her hand, she said, was guided by the spirit of the departed lover whom she had never met on earth. Here they did not talk so much about the proletariat, but merely rebelled against the tyranny of reality and of the objective."

So while Charles Saatchi did something malevolent and destructive, we might almost say clever, a Sith Lord he is not. He simply implemented an exploit documented in Rand's 1943 advisory. The only thing that was not in Rand's book was the smell. Rand never mentioned personal hygene problems amongst the members of the Council of American Artists. Thus was Berger's artistic cry for values stolen and perverted by Saatchi into destruction of values.

Afterword: Nadir himself had part of his ill-gotten gains squirreled away in a huge collection of exquisite watercolours. I know this because the curator he engaged was an artist and restorer of considerable talent and technical ability. He was fascinated by the concept of computer networking, and filled his house with CP/M machines connected by twisted pairs. As a young hacker I helped set up some of his curious network.

Ellen

[moralist]

I haven't revealed my artistic tastes...

There's 78 pages of you talking about your artistic tastes.

... and they match your values.

Greg

If that's true, Apey, then you should be able to name some of the artworks which are my favorites, and which I value more than all others.

Sure can, Jonathan. It's easy.

You think leftist crap is "art"... and that this idiot was an "artist".

Jonathan wrote:

Tony -- heh -- are you really so unaware and unobservant that you can't see the differences in style and color selectivity in little Karen's painting versus Pollock's? Wow!!!

[Jonathan]

I haven't revealed my artistic tastes...

There's 78 pages of you talking about your artistic tastes.

... and they match your values.

Greg

If that's true, Apey, then you should be able to name some of the artworks which are my favorites, and which I value more than all others.

Sure can, Jonathan. It's easy.

You think leftist crap is "art"... and that this idiot was an "artist".

Okay, now, use your brain as best you can, Apey. Try really hard to think about this logically. Does it logically follow that if I think that a piece qualifies as a work of "art," it therefore must be one of my favorites, and which I value more than all others?

J

[Ellen Stuttle]

And, indeed, they are not like Toohey in those other ways, which is why I never said that they were.

[emphasis added]

Indeed, it is a damning charge. In the realm of aesthetics, Objectivism's Tooheys have the same motivation as Toohey. They want power. They want to be authorities. They want obedience to their allegedly superior tastes. They wish to destroy others' self-worth and their independent aesthetic judgments.

Jonathan, on 08 Jun 2015 - 6:52 PM, said:

The issue at hand is that of Objectivist guru-wannabes posing as having superior aesthetic interpretations and tastes, and as judging others as inferior, not for supporting immoral ideas contained in art, but simply for interpreting and judging works of art differently than the Objectivist Tooheys do. That is original to Objectivism and its followers.

J

Oh, the hell it is "original to Objectivism and its followers." It's at least as old (in Western culture) as the Roman Empire. And you engage in quite a bit of it yourself.

Well, huffity puffity piffity poop!!! Snippity sniffity snit!!!

Back up your claim with examples from as far back as the Roman Empire.

Not going to bother. I'm sure you've read enough history to know of examples.

Give examples of when I have asserted that others do not experience in works of art what they say they do, or that their tastes are inherently inferior to mine. I've actually given quite a few examples of my not getting much of anything out of certain works of art which others rave about, and about which I've said, "Good for them," or "More power to 'em," etc.

J

You have occasionally said the latter. Much more frequently you've lambasted people for reactions and tastes they've expressed, and you've played a "superior receivership" theme many times. As to people's "experienc[ing] in works of art what they say they do," that wasn't part of the statement to which I replied. Sometimes people's saying they experience X can be known not to be true because the art work doesn't have the symbolic capacity to express X - an issue which arose on the Kamhi thread. Typically it's "abstract" art enthusiasts who make those kinds of statements. I think you have, however, doubted the genuineness of Objectivists gushing over "approved" art.

Ellen

[Brant Gaede]

I haven't revealed my artistic tastes...

There's 78 pages of you talking about your artistic tastes.

... and they match your values.

Greg

If that's true, Apey, then you should be able to name some of the artworks which are my favorites, and which I value more than all others.

Sure can, Jonathan. It's easy.

You think leftist crap is "art"... and that this idiot was an "artist".

Jonathan wrote:

Tony -- heh -- are you really so unaware and unobservant that you can't see the differences in style and color selectivity in little Karen's painting versus Pollock's? Wow!!!

I'd call it art and the "idiot" an artist if I owned it until I sold it.

--Brant

win - win

[Jonathan]

"Subrealism" reprint link (easier to read)

"Programmer's Stone" original article

[some paragraph breaks added]

[The opening paragraph has complicated historical anachronisms. My post being already long, I leave aside going into those. For background details about John Berger's "Pig Earth," Asil Nadir, and Charles Saachi, see the full article.]

Now in every land, in every era, there is always found hanging around real artists a group of elderly degenerates who call themselves "the art world". Although they are utterly talentless...

There are indeed people like that in "the art world," and there always have been.

They also inhabit "the Objectivist movement." The Objectivist Tooheys, just like the art world's "elderly degenerates," are also "utterly talentless" but attempt to attach themselves to Rand and her name, talent, success and reputation. And they train the next generation of authority/guru-wannabes. They don't really produce much of anything but art-consumer opinions. They don't quite ever "manifest themselves absurdly," as Carter puts it -- they create nothing original. The closest they come is to repeat Rand in their own words, and to merely add their own personal anger. But yet they're cheered by their fellow Objectivist true believers, and no one else, just as the "elderly degenerates" are cheered by no one but their own tiny circles of followers.

BritArt is to the Council of American Artists in Rand's novel, as Hirst's pickled animal parts are to the cow in Berger's novel. And in case there's any doubt, the final artistic wonder in Hirst's repititions of his plagerism, each heralded as a greater work of genius than the last, was indeed a cow cut in half. Here's Rand's 1943 description of Saatchi's wretched, sneering, 1980s assembly's:

"...and another who discovered a new technique of painting: he blackened a sheet of paper and then painted with a rubber eraser..."

So, this Alan G. Carter fellow is among those who have never heard of the traditional technique of removing pigment from a surface as a means of creating an image? Heh. And he's upset about how wretched, sneering and "Sith-like" such techniques are? Or perhaps he didn't actually read, comprehend and critically consider any of the details of what he was mocking and opposing before emoting about it?

His opinions, emotings, conspiracy theories and psychologizings are interesting though, even in spite of their lacking any evidence to back them up.

J

[Jonathan]

Not going to bother.

I figured as much.

Give examples of when I have asserted that others do not experience in works of art what they say they do, or that their tastes are inherently inferior to mine. I've actually given quite a few examples of my not getting much of anything out of certain works of art which others rave about, and about which I've said, "Good for them," or "More power to 'em," etc.

J

You have occasionally said the latter.

I've quite often said the latter. But now I wonder how often I have to say it in order for it to count as being a legitimate sentiment? Apparently I don't get credit for saying it if Ellen's nose is out of joint and she decides to arbitrarily ignore it or regard it as something that she doesn't want to believe that I believe?

Much more frequently you've lambasted people for reactions and tastes they've expressed...

No, I've lambasted them for their claim that only their reactions and tastes are the correct, proper, moral and objective ones, and for telling me that a work of art does not contain what they can't see (a great example would be the Objectivist student artist whom I've mentioned several times who insisted that I was just making things up when pointing out a painting's perspective errors which she lacked the ability to see or measure).

...and you've played a "superior receivership" theme many times...

My "superior receivership" theme always includes, at some point in the discussion, statements about the fact that I may be either a superior, average or inferior receiver in regard to certain works of art or even entire genres, just as anyone else may be. Perhaps you've skipped over, downplayed or ignored those statements because they don't fit with the conclusion that you want to come to?

On the art-as-tranmitter/viewer-as-receiver issue, generally I haven't made judgments or conclusions about anyone's abilities, including my own, but have only rejected Objectivists' arbitrary, automatic assumptions of their superior ability, and questioned them on how they would propose that we actually objectively test and measure such assumptions. The receiver theme has always been about asking unanswered questions and challenging unwarranted assumptions rather than about making conclusions. The idea really being that Objectivism is supposed to be concerned with objectivity and proof, rather than with anyone and/or everyone who calls him or herself an Objectivist arbitrarily and baselessly promoting themselves to the position of universal representative of the cognitive and aesthetic limits of all of mankind.

But it is understandable that it's an emotional issue for some people, and that they take it as a personal attack and refuse to consider its philosophical merit as a question. When someone's Toohey pose and reputation in his little circle of admirers is based on the untested, irrational assumption of the impossibility that he might be aesthetically lacking, ignorant, or less sensitive than others in any way, it's got to be a very inconvenient and uncomfortable question.

Having said that, I have commented on others' obvious ineptitude when they've objectively demonstrated their inability to see things. But in such cases, it wasn't an issue of assumptions or biases on my part, or of my arbitrarily assuming myself to be the universal standard and limit, as they do, but of actually objectively observing their inabilities, and even their resistance to seeing while being taught to see what they hadn't.

I think you have, however, doubted the genuineness of Objectivists gushing over "approved" art.

I don't doubt their "genuineness." I think that they truly value and maybe even love what Rand told them to. They genuinely feel what they've been told to feel. And I think that they could genuinely make themselves stop feeling it if they discovered that they had been mistaken in believing that Rand told them to love it. They're not pretending. They're genuinely surrendering to Rand and obeying her tastes and theories. They're true believers, and they feel their beliefs very deeply and sincerely.

J

[moralist]

Does it logically follow that if I think that a piece qualifies as a work of "art," it therefore must be one of my favorites, and which I value more than all others?

That you would value leftist crap slinging as art at all reveals your values.

Greg

[Brant Gaede]

Does it logically follow that if I think that a piece qualifies as a work of "art," it therefore must be one of my favorites, and which I value more than all others?

That you would value leftist crap slinging as art at all reveals your values.

Greg

Just because its crappy art doesn't mean it's not art. For you if it's not "good" art it's not art.

What you need from Jonathan--it may already be posted--is something he said was great art and you think is "leftist crap." Without that you aren't engaging him.

I think you'd consider "Guernica" by Picasso as "leftist crap." I'm not crazy about Picasso, to say the least, but I think that one is great art. The "leftist crap" for me is my knowledge that it is a commentary on the Spanish Civil War. Take out that particular war and the "crap" goes with it. For me. For you? What do you think of it?

--Brant

[moralist]

Just because its crappy art doesn't mean it's not art. For you if it's not "good" art it's not art.

Exactly.

There is an inherent morality to art... just as there are inherent ethics to Capitalism.

Leftist are free to call their crap slinging "art" just as they can call swindling "Capitalism"...

...but that does not make it so.

Greg

[Brant Gaede]

The true "inherent morality in art" is its human manufacture. Humans are and must be moral and moral agents. It's a way of potential reaching out and contact.

What you are talking about is the next level up in moral consideration. The basic level is passive. The next level active. The basic level is "art." The next is good or bad art.

Jonathan and I are talking off the basic level while you are romping around upstairs. Thus you are really not engaging us. If you were you'd give us your evaluation of "Guernica" and we could have a real conversation, albeit probably a short one.

--Brant

[moralist]

The true "inherent morality in art" is its human manufacture. Humans are and must be moral and moral agents. It's a way of potential reaching out and contact.

...and that implies the choice to also be immoral agents.

What you are talking about is the next level up in moral consideration. The basic level is passive. The next level active. The basic level is "art." The next is good or bad art.

From where I see it, "bad art" isn't art at all. just like there is no such thing as "bad surgery". There's just surgery and butchery.

Jonathan and I are talking off the basic level while you are romping around upstairs. Thus you are really not engaging us.

There's a reason for that, Brant. Jonathan is addicted to contention. Just as it's not good for him to get what he needs, it's not good for me to give it. And from her measured responses to Jonathan, I believe that Ellen is also aware of this fact.

Greg

[Jonathan]

From where I see it, "bad art" isn't art at all. just like there is no such thing as "bad surgery". There's just surgery and butchery.

So, then, what term would you use for "bad butchery" if there's no such thing as bad butchery?

What's the term for "bad electrician" if there is no such thing a bad electrician?

J

P.S. We already know the term for "bad thinker," which is "Greg."