Postmodern Trendoid III wrote on Nov 14^th, 2011 at 10:00pm:

Good luck with that one... Though Robert Pirsig at one time made himself a household name taking it on... Maybe he didn't (or did) get it right, but he sure was read...

It's all about.... Quality... (apparently).

Grey wrote on Nov 14^th, 2011 at 11:39pm:



Art in the pre-modern era can't be understood without the feeling or intuition of transcendence. Yes, Michelangelo was trying to create something timeless, eternal, some archetypal piece that transcends the mundane, but how this becomes, in your words, "unsophisticated" and "peurile," today actually explains better the disposition of the modern artist and not the pre-modern art itself. Modern art cannot be understood without the rise of the lower classes. Art was always in the hands of aristocrats, yet, when the lower classes started to assert their taste upon things, well, the end result is when something like Pisschrist is taken seriously. Modern art is ugly because modern artists are ugly. The point of departure for most modern art is primarily to shock or rebel, this reflects perfectly the soul of the artist. His soul has no taste for higher things, doesn't want to present anything eternal, substantial, or even arouse contemplation; its purpose is to rage against authority. Not because it's noble or because he has something profound to say, but because he's an ugly man with an ugly soul who just wants to see the world burn.
See, I know every nook and cranny of the modern anarchist, the modern socialist rebel; at bottom these people are fundamentally disgruntled, fundamentally disappointed. The primary instinct to compensate for this self-pity, this self-hate, is to rebel against the world. What better place for artists to externalize their ugly soul by creating ugly art. Yet they claim their art and their soul isn't ugly, they think their art is virtuous and noble, and that their Pisschrists represent something profound.
Modern day man knows little of the noble feeling of reverence the aristocrats of yesteryear felt toward themselves and the world. Anarchists and socialists have done so much in trying to eradicate this feeling; no man should be proud they say, no man should feel good about himself and the world. The anarchist and socialist say to themselves , "if I am canaille, so should everyone else."

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How is this different from beauty?

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That is a fundamentally modern plebeian reinterpretation of the past.
The idea of emancipation is only relatively new, something arisen only about 150 odd years ago. It carries with it a fundamental error in that it reinterprets all the past as oppressive; that everyone since the beginning of time ought to have been free of masters. As I stated before, modern man does not understand the feeling of reverence that past people had for their leaders/kings/queens. This is why I will not sit around and tolerate anarchists, socialists, and feminists who reinterpret the past as something purely evil and oppressive.

Postmodern Trendoid III wrote on Nov 15^th, 2011 at 4:59pm:


You see Annie, in Bolshies peculiar brand of temporal moral relativism, a past redolent with the hypocrisy and brutality of the aristo-classes is not only exempt from criticism, but indeed is worthy of revisiting. Our Lord Ugg would no doubt like to woo you with his cudgel before twining your tresses around his fingers and dragging you off to the back of his cave.  

http://www.historyofwomen.org/timeline.html

I wonder if he's the incumbent Earl Elgin, chief of the clan Bruce. they have a fondness for marble, looting and the divine right of aristos. The 7th Earl Elgin reknowned for his looting of Greek marble on his way home from India was succeeded by the overseer of the opium war against China, culminating in the sacking of the summer palace. Not very bright the Elgins. The biggest treaure in the summer palace was overlooked, being hidden in full view. The two enormous brass lions guarding the entrance being not brass at all

The high cost of 'authority' may well be borne by the future. The opium wars of no more than 160 years ago resulted in the slaughter of 40-50 million Chinese and the addiction of most of those left. Only the totalitarian communists managed to cure that ill by their own draconian methods. The Chinese have long memories.

Of course the languid contemplation of 'beauty' by the aristos had to be paid for somehow.

Annie Anthrax wrote on Nov 15^th, 2011 at 6:36pm:


Yes, it took a while for the Scots to civilise the English. They  vastly improved their literacy with the Elementary Education Act in 1870, and quickly reached parity with the high literacy rates in Scotland and Wales that had been prevalent for the previous 300 years.

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Continue exposing the untenability of their positions.

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You're being vague. I would speculate this is because you truly don't know the differences between beauty, exciting, and ugly.

The idea of elite in the context of art is no longer about birth, if it ever was. After all, very few of the greatest artists were themselves of high birth.

Elite - or excellence or greatness - in art, literature, music means the dedication and effort that has been put into learning how to make it but also the dedication and effort and schooling and cultivation that is required for 'accessing' it, understanding it. The sun shines on us all equally, the night sky is equally starry for all of us,  yet only very few can claim to be astronomers.

Uncultured, uncultivated, unschooled humanity will carry one only so far in the comprehension of art, music and literature, even if one is by nature sensitive.

Popular art, music, literature are called popular precisely because they are accessible without any effort, by anyone. It is for people who self-select not to put in the effort and the self-cultivation because they most probably do not see the point of it. Only a few - the elite - do and they are the ones who keep high, elite culture going. It has always been so. But birth has nothing to do with it, not even social class.

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The timeline for crimes committed by women against men would be all but nonexistent. That is the fact your denial of feminism rails against.

It is authority that is the illusion. What is 'authority'? It is respect demanded, paid for, and coerced from.  A feeble thing compared to that respect which is freely given to those deserving of it. I know authority. I've lived with it all my life, but what do you know about Anarchism? Nothing! Let me tell you a few things. Anarchism stands against the faux rightness of authority. We do not accept 'good leaders' because there's never been a good leader in all human history. There's been those who've been right sometimes, those who've been lucky most of the time and those who've been unmitigated disasters all of the time. Anarchists accept good ideas and if in our consensus we accept a bad idea because 'it seemed like a good idea at the time' we don't have ownership of it and can change direction instantly. 

The best of human knowledge is structured along anarchic lines. Scientific method is Anarchic method. Nobody used penicillin because Fleming thought it was a good idea and he was the leader. We respect, good dictionaries, No dictionaries have any intrinsic authority to control language, but we are happy to refer and defer to the opinion of work that has by and large been compiled by consensus.

Anarchism is a belief in chaos theory. Leadership is a belief in the foretelling of the eventual patterns of coloured water while you are still pissing in the bowl and pressing flush.