🚀 go-pugleaf

Have we beaten this to death yet?

curtis@cs.berkeley.edu (Curtis Yarvin) writes:
>rmr@sgi.com (Robert M. Reimann) writes:
>
>>And as I've already said, plenty of other countries
>>figured this [subsidizing art] out years ago.
>
>I hate to burn the butane on this newsgroup; but you say this as

If you're going to burn butane, a precious fossil
fuel, you might consider using it on a cogent
argument.  Yes, Europe, like any other set of
nation-states you care to examine, has its
dark side.  Big hairy deal.  Shall we therefore
do away with the Nobel Prize, the Ford Foundation
(Ford and GM both supplied machine parts to
Nazi Germany during the entirety of WWII), etc?

The answer is no.  If the best argument you can
come up with is that Europeans are bloodthirsty,
and therefore aren't somehow justified in supporting
their artists, you should stop while you're ahead.

>And when you're studying history, it's pretty easy to fall in
>love with old art.  

I wasn't talking about old art.  Old art was commissioned
by the Church and the aristocracy, as I've already
pointed out.  I acknowledge that some of these projects
were at the expense of oppressed people (indirectly).
But that was then, this is now.  You want to throw out
the baby with the bath water, apparently.

>One starts to think, bingo, culture equals
>civilization.  And such an idea being culture in itself, it
>makes its way into the seventh-grade social-studies books; and
>once planted there it is hard to uproot.
>
>I used to believe it, myself.

That's nice, but what's the point?  Culture is
culture.  Are you prepared to argue that art doesn't
affect civilization and vice-versa?  Art communicates
values and ideas.  Free exchange of ideas is the
cornerstone of *our* society, and "free" does not 
imply that you have to be wealthy or popular to
have your ideas heard.

>The measure of a civilization is not the art it produces.  The
>measure of a civilization is the happiness of its citizens.

Okay.  What's your point?  Western Europe includes
nations with some of the highest standards of 
living in the world, and the ones that aren't are not
in the state they are from spending too much attention
to the arts. (Say that ten times fast!)

>If the Sistine ceiling were painted in human blood, would you
>still pay a thousand lira to see it?

Uh, probably not.  Then again, you know me. :^)


			Robert.