Maybe it could start a discussion.

" As I understand it what you’re saying is that supply of art is undermined by interference in the demand. This suggests the world of artists and production of art is being perverted by someone or something, and that the work produced is not the work people want. You also seem to suggest that the consumption of art should be at a higher level, that people would buy more art if they could relate to it."

Basically, when people have no value for the arts, there is inadequate demand for the arts. The problem is compounded by the wrongful movements in art scene itself.

"The number of great works of every era are very slim. The nature of the work itself means that the artist can only produce so much if it, and even then its quality varies from work to work."

Sure.

"So I can’t see how creating a demand for art necessarily leads to good art being produced. If you purposely work this out by demand then it’s a commercial transaction and we already have that. Nor can you create a demand for good work, because one of the qualities of good work is its originality, which can’t be anticipated."

I am not saying that demand for art would lead to good art being produced. That is up to the artist. Demand for art will however make it possible for more people to make their ends meet as artists. As for good art, that once again is up to the artist. We need to move away from avant garde and postmodernism and produce art that actually achieves things such as beauty and passion.

"Can you explain this for me?"

Treating artistic interest as psychopathology results in a hideous waste of resources in "treating" people capable of artistic output, as well as in a giant waste of potential when such can be utilized to create something like 1920s America or Renaissance Italy. The result is bad for everyone except people who profiteer from this arrangement.

Some good art is being produced today. Some of it is appreciated and some is not.

The problem with holding winners accountable is that they believe they have earned what they have and owe nothing to anyone else. They should be held accountable for matters affecting all of us, such as global warming. Of course losers are a part of the problem as well, as we see in Brazilian farmers burning down the rainforest. All in all, everyone should be accountable for what they do to the world.

"I think their art in terms of realism blossomed in literature more than anything else and became popular world wide. Is that what you’re referring to in terms of art?"

I am saying that there is nothing contradictory between prosperity and culture, and that in the best case scenario the two work together.

"Can you explain how this solution might work? Or why it would be a good thing if it did work."

It can work because it has worked in the past. It was called 1920s. It is desirable because we will see a vast legacy of beauty being created, and with it a golden age that people will cherish for ages to come.

"Western culture is highly materialistic/rationalistic. How do you increase aesthetic values in such a cultural environment?"

Look back to 1920s and the Italian Renaissance. In both situations there was economic boom and cultural blossoming.

"Politeness or violence is the choice we're faced with. I choose politeness. Violence achieves nothing worthwhile."

Rudeness and violence are not the same thing, nor are politeness and violence each other's opposites. There are many people who are polite who are complete sharks. I think that what you are looking for is action that is genuinely good. Genuine goodness is something that I can respect and that I believe I practice. It has nothing to do with being polite and everything to do with righteousness of action.

I am used to my behavior being judged, frequently very wrongly judged.

The point of the OP is that for rules to be binding they have to be made official. Making unofficial rules is a way of creating de facto tyranny. An unofficial rule is unelected, unaccountable, unbalanced and unchecked. That makes it an insidious form of dictatorship. At which point it falls up to us as people who hold liberty dear to confront these unofficial rules.

"Evil is knowingly acting immorally."

Not necessarily. In my example, the hackers were knowingly acting immorally, but they were not evil. That as opposed to the security professional, who very much was doing evil.

Evil is knowingly doing harm. Naughty is breaking the rules when it doesn't harm others. That is what my example about the hackers is for.

I agree completely.

I most certainly know that.

"You are doing exactly the thing you want others to stop doing namely - labelling some behaviour as bad purely on the grounds that you think it is harmful to society."

Is there anyone who does not do that?

I am saying that in order to be valid a rule has to be official. That means, subject to checks, balances and accountability. At no point am I controlling other people. I stand up to people who seek to control other people without checks, balances and accountability. I seek for people to be free of unofficial tyranny, and that means, of unofficial rules. If someone wants a rule to be valid, he needs to pass it into law. That way his inclinations are made official, and accountability, check and balance is exerted upon people.

Just posted it there.

It is relevant to political philosophy because here we have people doing a very wrong thing, and nobody is challenging them about it.

I do not see how it can be a theme for a poem; it is a theme for a post.

It is great when people come up to an agreement as to how to behave - except when in doing so they decide to put people in gas chambers.

There are all sorts of ways to have wrongful agreements on things.

I am saying that in order to be valid rules need to be made official. Otherwise what we have is de facto tyranny in countries that are intended to be free.

I have the right to confront wrongful attempts at control, especially when people doing so are in violation of the law. If I wanted to exert wrongful control over people, then I would expect reaction against that.

Because I am not perpetrating any kind of tyranny. I would respect a real law, but I will not respect people perpetrating de facto tyranny without check or balance upon it.

No, I said that rules have to be made official before they can be valid. Anything else is an attempt at de facto tyranny.

I say that rules, in order to be valid, have to be made official. If they are not valid, they are an attempt at de facto tyranny. So rules need to be voted on by the Congress and the President before they become binding.

Social rules should be enforced if they are official.

If they are not official, then what we see is unofficial tyranny that is unelected, unbalanced and unchecked.

I do not seek to enforce tyranny against anyone. I seek to prevent tyranny from happening. And that is what is happening when we have unelected, unofficial, unchecked and unbalanced rules being put forth as the will of society.

Excellent observation. It is in fact cowardly. One of the points I made in the OP is that political correctness degrades people's character. They cannot tell their honest opinions, so they become insincere. And that does far more harm to American character than things such as sex and drugs. Doing drugs and having sex does not necessarily make someone a worse person. Being taught to be a scammer however very much does make someone a worse person, and that is bad for the country.

I am saying that rules, to be valid, must be official. Otherwise we have an attempt at de facto tyranny.

I actually had a fairly large audience. I seek to produce poetry that appeals to people and that reaches people. In this I go to Russian styles in the English language. The result is poetry that is readable and that people find worthy of reading. That as opposed to the avant-garde crap that poetry has gone to its harm.

Of course whenever we hear something like that, it is only a matter of time before someone starts asserting that it is the Jews doing it. I do not know if it is the 1%, what I do know is that my generation has been fooled.

The closest two times to golden ages that I can think of are Italian Renaissance and 1920s America. In both situations there was vast commercial prosperity as well as a great cultural blossoming. Some people see culture as being incompatible with wealth, but these two times show that that is completely wrong, and that the two can and should coexist side by side.

I am not comfortable with a whole bunch of people having been fooled.

Sorry if I ignored you. My philosophy is not objectivism, I call it integrationism. I look for ways to combine non-valued (reality-based) dualities in a way that makes the most of positive interaction. Thus, we approach nature and civilization with the eye toward creating a high-tech civilization that is non-obtrusive to the environment, or in matters such as man and female we support each side's capacity for doing right and confront their capacity for doing wrong. Ayn Rand had some valid points, however she was dead wrong about a number of things such as the environment. She affirmed the side of life that is civilization while denying the side of life that is the environment. The greens make the opposite error. In fact we need both nature and civilization, and both worlds must be in the best shape that they can be.

So basically you are saying that there has been social coercion toward having wealth as a status symbol. I completely agree.

I meant to say two fifths of the world.

Well Praxis, I myself am not into hoarding at all. I say that wealth is attractive, which you can observe from all sorts of people, including people in the former Communist blok who were raised to be against accumulation of wealth but took to wealth like fish to water.

I never said that. Money is a medium of exchange, and it is good to make money. It is not however good to force people to spend their lives pursuing money at the expense of everything else.

No hacking, no identity theft. Just worked with Oracle technology.

I worked in the computer industry.

Looks good Josh, I especially liked "When A Poet Fades."

I can give you a link to my poetry site:

Interesting. I suppose the etiquette that I would advocate is being honest. If someone expresses an offensive view, then the correct response is to refute it rather than try to censor it. Generally the gross stereotyping of which you speak is wrong and can be refuted. However artificial blindness is not the solution. Artificial blindness and bigotry feed into one another. A man notices a social phenomenon and proposes a typically false explanation; the academic says "this is a stereotype" or "this is a generalization," the man looks at it again and says that it is definitely going on, so he decides that the academic is full of crap and goes on with his bigoted explanation. The real way to deal with this is to realize that, if something exists at a rate greater than chance, then there must be a reason for it, although it is usually not the reason that you expect. So the generalizations and stereotypes should be used as grounds for further research to find an actual explanation.