WHAT was actually learned? The difference between good and evil? Human nature? How to fake (not) your death so you can elope with your 13 year old girlfriend that you have known for 3 days? — ZhouBoTong

It’s convenient to pass off ‘Romeo and Juliet’ this way, it helps your argument. What could be taken from the play, if you bothered is: ideas about male honour, public order, the individual against power institutions, religion, public order, love, violence and death, and love and violence.

Good and evil are not inherent to any type of being. Notice it is not people vs robots. There are good and bad people and good and bad robots. There are good and bad Americans, and good and bad people from other countries. Sometimes good people do bad things, and some people are just jerks. Sounds like Shakespeare :roll: — ZhouBoTong

This sounds exactly like Transformer movies, but it doesn’t sound like ‘The Tempest’. If you think this sums up those movies then you’re probably right, but it’s a very basic portrait of the world and human nature.

Edit: Transformers is a toy based movie.

What would be true is that those folks feel that Shakespeare is great for the reasons they give.

It's not true that he IS great outside of that context, outside of persons feeling how they feel about him.

We can't give evidence that Bay is better than Shakespeare--or worse than Shakespeare--outside of someone liking one or the other more, because there are no facts about one being better than the other aside from that. — Terrapin Station

I think this is right. There’s no point approaching it from this position. But we could actually compare what Shakespeare does compared to Bay. For instance Michael Bay is not, officially anyway, the writer of ‘Island’. Nor is he the originator of the island, or the cinematographer or the editor. So from that point of view he’s nothing like Shakespeare or any other writer.

If Shakespeare directed his plays, I don’t know if he did, then he shares something with Bay directing film. Shakespeare may very well be impressed watching Bay at work.

Shakespeare is an originator, I don’t know if Bay could be called that. So are we going to compare them as artists and their work on this level, or purely on the content? And whatever you may think of Bay his films are a continuation of a tradition in storytelling. So you might even go back to Homer to find Bay’s origins. There’s nothing wrong with that, but has Bay treated that tradition in an over simplified way, in the end dumbing down the tradition? Has he contributed anything in a meaningful way?

Shared history, art, customs and, most importantly, languages. — I like sushi

I’m not trying to be smart here, but if you don’t have those, maybe you’re an immigrant and a citizen, does that mean you’re not part of that country?

I think it does mean more than just living there. You relate to the nature of the people and its culture. But I'm not sure what that's like if you are very different to those around you: a European in China, a Somali in Australia.

Never mind, you did well.

The country needs to defeat Trump in the next election - and show him and the world we have not completely lost our minds as a country. — Rank Amateur

But you have and we see it and it’s not Trump.

I think you just won.

The term elitist seems to be defined by those who don’t like them. I don’t really know who they are. I have some idea of who you think they are. So who are the people who are non elitist, is it people like yourself? If so then all you are doing is trying to claim the ground the elitists hold and say, ‘No, that’s not art, this is.’ You can do that because of the proliferation of art and artists, the growth of consumer power and the vast entertainment industry, which ironically enough you can see filtering through elite art as ‘the spectacle’. It’s like a war between the aristocracy and the peasants. So if you believe the elite should not define good art then why should you able to do it? Unless it’s because you simply don’t like them?

However, once convinced of their superiority, the elites are happy to force their tastes on the rest of us — ZhouBoTong

I think, looking back on history, the elites have always owned the art, whether it’s the Vatican or the rich. I imagine the individual, or individuals, who made the cave drawings of Lascaux weren’t your average tribe member and possessed something the others did not.

For some reason the elite are drawn to art for their own purposes. The fact that they pay attention to something then enhances the artefact. For a long time they were very traditional in their preferences, until Impressionism came along and upset things. But once again it was a new elite that picked it up and gave it cache. The movements that followed broke up that elite approach to art through the idea of ‘The Artist’, though I imagine this idea began a lot earlier. Their actual rebellion became the thing to have, so once again the elite took ownership. But it was no longer the establishment but money that became the new elite, and their actions defined art once again. Even if an artist refused to come out of his garret to take part it only added to the mystique of the artist.

So the elite have always owned art. Even street artists like Basquiat were eventually swallowed by the elite. Art today is a managed career, so we can no longer look on it as we have in the past. We might even ask, Is it still art?, have we gone past the point of what art is? There are more artists and art around than there have ever been, art is more affordable, so we get more consumer driven art.

Consumers often forget that they drive the market. The public get angry at the greed of businessmen then go and buy their products. So today, at a level below the elite, consumers feel confident enough to say what good and bad art is, or that there is no difference. Everyone has an opinion. Until we reach a point where someone believes that Michael Bay creates art.

The films a Michael Bay makes are nothing like the work of a novelist. A film is a commercial venture. The length of the film is chosen according to how long someone will sit through it, not how long is needed to tell the story in depth like the novel. There are so many compromises I’m not even sure if it can be called his film. It’s not uncommon for producers to take a novel, film it then change the ending. Some writers don’t even recognise their story in the film.

Sorry, this is long. I’ll stop and continue later.

You're slippery but transparent.

It is in the public domain to be consumed because there is a demand for it. If there weren't we'd have nothing to discuss here. — Isaac

Actually, whether there was a demand for it or not by consumers art would still exist and the discussion would still be alive.

But we're not discussing why artists make art, — Isaac

Well we are if you think it was made because you wanted it, that you asked for it.

We're the one who asked for it in the first place. — Isaac

I’m saying you didn’t get it because you asked for it. You found it.

We (the mass public) are the consumers of art, not just the artists, not just the art critics. Or else you have an extremely narrow definition of art. — Isaac

I’m happy to exclude art critics, but if you are going to give the consumer the same understanding of art as the artist then you yourself don’t know anything about art.

Your analogy of the bridge doesn’t work because in art the purpose of the bridge was not set by the consumer.

We're the one who asked for it in the first place. — Isaac

You didn’t ask for it, it was given to you. I keep telling you, the artist doesn’t care about you.

Absurdity is exactly what you’re talking about. People seem to be afraid to even mention the word these days, as if it might lead to some sort of mass suicide. From my experience the older you get the more absurd life looks.

However, contrary to modern fears of who we are, absurdity doesn’t make life meaningless. As a life form, like all life, we fight vigorously against death, never giving in until the end. So despite the knowledge of absurdity we want to stay here, and we have to live that life day by day.

The idea of absurdity actually helps you focus on what’s really important, it strips away the nonsense. If you begin researching the idea of absurdity you’ll find a very long list of interesting people: novelists, playwrights, philosophers, artists, poets, that produce work as a result of their exploration of absurdity.

Again, exactly.

At its most intense, art seems like religious iconography, with subjective content substituted for supernatural content. And perhaps the supernatural was a language for subjective experience all along, at least for some or partially. — old

Very interesting.

Exactly.

quote="ZhouBoTong;d5398"]However, once convinced of their superiority, the elites are happy to force their tastes on the rest of us[/


I find it amusing how, after all this discussion, it’s only now ( I might be mistaken) that the idea of the elite actually having this power is questioned. You’re right, I don’t think they do have this power. Shakespeare might be performed in London by The Royal Shakespeare Company and attended by the elite. What of it? That’s what they like and pay for it. Even if some students are asked to study one of Shakespeare’s play it’s hardly forcing it down their throats, it’s just an aspect of English studies. The fact that there is so much art and so much different art, high and low, suggests that the elites play very little part in art. Sotheby’s might sell painting for millions of dollars, but that has nothing to do with art, elite or not, it’s commerce. Of course there’s nothing to stop the very rich thinking they’re elite, let them, they pay a lot for it and they only influence each other in the end.

On a personal level, I think we all have our preferences. — old

I think that still comes down to defining good art as ‘ I know what I like’, which doesn’t really help in deciding whether elitists are defining art and therefore owning it and forcing it on us.

A while ago on a recent post unrelated to this I used an analogy to help me explain my point. The immediate response was criticism for using something that did not add clarity. Analogies are obviously cultural so I take their point. But the difference in use of language was very clear. I don’t think the poster failed to understand the anaology, they just didn’t accept its use in a discussion. For me it presented a situation in one short sentence. If you think like that then you’re not likely to view art as being very valuable in talking about human nature, which is largely what art is about.

Some people just don’t ‘see’ art.
Some people aren’t very tuned in to what’s going on around them.
Some people don’t respond to abstract idea.
Some people never use metaphors or similes.
Some people have no idea of why they do things or think things.

These people are never going to ‘get’ art. They don’t understand what others are talking about. But asked for their opinion on art and they will give you one. Most likely it will lean towards pedantic realism. These same people exist in elitist circles as well. When asked about art they’ll also have an opinion, the received opinions of the group they embed themselves in.

People who respond to art on a genuine level, that is they enjoy life through the prisms of life mentioned above, to mention only a few, recognise immediately those who cannot respond to life this way. If you are one of those people then it’s most likely you’ll regard those art lovers as elitists. It’s an open door you can never go through. So instead they try to deny that such a thing as good art exists, that no one can define good art, that it’s elitist and fatuous. Like I said, the artist doesn’t care.

Their job was to inspire people to be something the authors thought was worthy of aspiring to. — Isaac

Well that’s quite interesting because it resembles a little what I wrote in a post on ‘Art and Morality’. So I’m inclined to agree with you there.

who decides what these responsibilities serve and what social change should be addressed?
— Brett

The artists and the people consuming the art. — Isaac

I think art has has duty which it's current obsession with 'ideas' is neglecting. Art may reflect life, but life also reflects art in that it influences the way we think. So if art makes even a tiny error in its reflection, that error will be copied, magnified, copied again and so on. — Isaac

How do the artists decide what to produce without creating that error? How do they know what it is?

Just wondering if you might agree that Dickens did actually carry out his ‘duty’ with his books.

I didn't say it should, I said I think it has. A different proposition. — Isaac

The Artful Dodger.

You need to do some reading on Charles Dickens.

It has the potential to cause social change and social change (the direction of it) is important to me. — Isaac

I think you’re probably talking about a kind of censorship here, that because of its potential art has a responsibility. But who decides what these responsibilities serve and what social change should be addressed? In the USSR artwork that didn’t serve Communist ideology was regarded as ‘decadent’ and crushed. Any art produced under these conditions is no longer art.

One strong memory I have from school is one time in English when we "did" Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist, and the teacher gave this long spiel about how it gives us a really good insight into the conditions of the poor in the era. We'd just come from our history class (doing the Reform Acts) where the teacher had spent the last half of the lesson warning us of the dangers of uncorroborated accounts. — Isaac

Why do you regard Dickens account as uncorrobated? He was there and wrote about what he saw.

I think art has has duty which it's current obsession with 'ideas' is neglecting. — Isaac

Why should art have a duty?

I personally think the subjectivity of art is to do with each persons emotional disposition. — I like sushi

Just to be sure, I do understand what you mean by this. And if the subjectivity is to do with emotions then I don’t think that’s enough to say whether a work is good or bad, in fact if anything it’s a very bad way to judge art. And maybe that’s the problem.

No, I’m not suggesting you did. You just asked me to make a point about my statement that art may not be about emotions.

I’m not sure, though I lean towards being sure, that artists are producing work targeted at your emotions. If it was the case that they were, then they would only be able to target a very small audience, being the ones who respond to that particular emotion. People might respond emotionally to a piece of art, but that may not have been the artists intent. That emotional response; sudden tears, is more to do with the observers emotional state at the time. It’s hard to imagine any artist preparing work with the intention of causing an emotional response. The artist’s only concern is their relationship with the work, which is gone when it’s finished. Your life is of no interest to them.

I personally think the subjectivity of art is to do with each persons emotional disposition. Depending on your character and experiences your more likely to find artwork X more engaging than artwork Y because either X taps into emotions ou wish to explore — I like sushi

It might be a mistake to think that ‘emotions’ is what art is about.

Personally I think Seinfeld is more important than Plato for students now. — old

Except your students will most likely fail their philosophy exams.

Art is for entertainment. — ZhouBoTong

Not to the artist. Entertainment is for entertainers.

I do feel comfortable enough in my knowledge of education or the arts to justify any insults - for example: Shakespeare is OK at best (brilliant use of language but garbage stories). — ZhouBoTong

This doesn’t suggest a knowledge of art. If anything it suggests very little understanding of art. If you had a better understanding of art but didn’t like a piece then I’m pretty sure you’d express it differently.

Does one have to know anything about art to say "I like that one, the other one, not so much"? — ZhouBoTong

No, you can say that. But that’s where it ends because you don’t know enough about art to take it any further, otherwise you would say more than just, ‘ I like that one’.

My opinion, however, is that they are great only for what they have done for us as a society, — OpinionsMatter

These people you refer to as ‘they’, presumably meaning the great artists (and time must surely sort the good from the mediocre), have not done anything for society, nor was that their intent. They do it for art, and in a strange kind of way, they have no interest in what you think.

In terms of writing, if you are studying it, the difference between good and bad writing is very clear. Just look at this forum as an example. The difference between accepted styles and modern approaches is a different story. James Joyce’s ‘Ulysses’ was greeted with scorn and derision from the conservative school of writing, but it has survived as a great work. I’m sure someone will now come along and say they don’t like, but that means nothing. Modern works of art always faces that opposition. But that’s not the same as comparing good and bad writing,