The buck stops with you, because art isn’t a competition. Maybe it is for the artists, but not from your end—it’s just what you enjoy.
I have a copy of a painting hanging in my living room that I won’t name here, but it’s very popular and famous (and therefore kind of stupid to have hanging in my living room, because it doesn’t really show off my taste as refined). But I get a lot out of it. I love looking at it.
If an art student came in and wanted to try to condescend to me about my taste in art, what could I do? I’d look at him and say, “This painting does for me what art is supposed to do for people. I don’t have the time or energy to devote to refining my taste. I admit your taste in art is more refined and you might get more out of a Picasso than I do, because I don’t get much.”
If he still wants to look down his nose at me, who gives a shit? Get out of my house, right? But I think the true art-lover will say, “I’m glad you experience something that’s so meaningful to me, even if your taste is blunter and cruder than mine.”
I think this is analogous to if the art student came to me and said, “I never realized how cool the Pythagorean theorem is before. It’s amazing.” Do I look at him and say, “Wow, you’re an idiot”? I would hope not; I would hope to think to myself, “Well, it’s a start,” and say, “Right?!”
ETA: I’d be calling him an idiot because he’s only getting it now, and not back when he learned it for the first time in high school and I realized how cool it was.
The buck stops with you, because art isn’t a competition. Maybe it is for the artists, but not from your end—it’s just what you enjoy. … If he still wants to look down his nose at me, who gives a shit? Get out of my house, right? But I think the true art-lover will say, “I’m glad you experience something that’s so meaningful to me, even if your taste is blunter and cruder than mine.”
I’m sorry, but that’s a very naive view of “how it works”. The elite art cadre certainly promotes the belief that there’s a lot more to art than what you or I personally like. They’re the ones that influence, by their status, what students will be indoctrinated in, and what artworks they will be expected to deem good, even as construction workers mistake the “good” stuff for trash. (This has happened before.) Even as the “art” in front of public buildings, under the full endorsement of the art elite, is a blight on the landscape.
If it were just a matter of “enjoy what you like”, I’d have the same view as you do. But there is significant money spent indoctrinating students in one view of art—which unlike science, lacks a stopping-buck. There is the pretense that you have to enjoy Shakespeare, or the latest splotches on a canvas, to “truly” appreciate art. And as long as they promote their priesthood that decides which art is blessed, and gets the huge grants for museums to “study” and promote it, even as they cant substantiate their opinions … well, then I have a problem.
Do I really need to explain why it’s bad for people to be wealthy and high status depsite never having produced anything of value, and spend all their time perpetuating what is essentially an information cascade?
It’s not just the fact that people have to be trained. After all, people must be trained in order to read or use a computer.
The problem is that there’s no clear standard for what counts as successful training. You can check for whether someone can read (at a given level) using tests that everyone will agree about for the results. How do you know when someone’s gotten the right “art appreciation training”? “Oh, well, you see, you have to join our club, and hand around only our people for years and years, and then we still get fooled by monkeys …”
The buck stops with you, because art isn’t a competition. Maybe it is for the artists, but not from your end—it’s just what you enjoy.
I have a copy of a painting hanging in my living room that I won’t name here, but it’s very popular and famous (and therefore kind of stupid to have hanging in my living room, because it doesn’t really show off my taste as refined). But I get a lot out of it. I love looking at it.
If an art student came in and wanted to try to condescend to me about my taste in art, what could I do? I’d look at him and say, “This painting does for me what art is supposed to do for people. I don’t have the time or energy to devote to refining my taste. I admit your taste in art is more refined and you might get more out of a Picasso than I do, because I don’t get much.”
If he still wants to look down his nose at me, who gives a shit? Get out of my house, right? But I think the true art-lover will say, “I’m glad you experience something that’s so meaningful to me, even if your taste is blunter and cruder than mine.”
I think this is analogous to if the art student came to me and said, “I never realized how cool the Pythagorean theorem is before. It’s amazing.” Do I look at him and say, “Wow, you’re an idiot”? I would hope not; I would hope to think to myself, “Well, it’s a start,” and say, “Right?!”
ETA: I’d be calling him an idiot because he’s only getting it now, and not back when he learned it for the first time in high school and I realized how cool it was.
I’m sorry, but that’s a very naive view of “how it works”. The elite art cadre certainly promotes the belief that there’s a lot more to art than what you or I personally like. They’re the ones that influence, by their status, what students will be indoctrinated in, and what artworks they will be expected to deem good, even as construction workers mistake the “good” stuff for trash. (This has happened before.) Even as the “art” in front of public buildings, under the full endorsement of the art elite, is a blight on the landscape.
If it were just a matter of “enjoy what you like”, I’d have the same view as you do. But there is significant money spent indoctrinating students in one view of art—which unlike science, lacks a stopping-buck. There is the pretense that you have to enjoy Shakespeare, or the latest splotches on a canvas, to “truly” appreciate art. And as long as they promote their priesthood that decides which art is blessed, and gets the huge grants for museums to “study” and promote it, even as they cant substantiate their opinions … well, then I have a problem.
But why do those things bother you, except in that you don’t like being told you’re low status unless you jump through certain hoops?
Do I really need to explain why it’s bad for people to be wealthy and high status depsite never having produced anything of value, and spend all their time perpetuating what is essentially an information cascade?
Quite a judgment there, “nothing of value”! Because people have to be trained to appreciate it, it’s of no value?
It’s not just the fact that people have to be trained. After all, people must be trained in order to read or use a computer.
The problem is that there’s no clear standard for what counts as successful training. You can check for whether someone can read (at a given level) using tests that everyone will agree about for the results. How do you know when someone’s gotten the right “art appreciation training”? “Oh, well, you see, you have to join our club, and hand around only our people for years and years, and then we still get fooled by monkeys …”
How do you know there’s no clear standard? You’re not an artist.
Falsifiability, basically. Or lack thereof.
Well, my first hint was when the work of a monkey was mistaken for that of an award-winning artist...
I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt on this one. Why shouldn’t I?
Arts funding with tax dollars is one particularly direct example.