Imago's comments below say better what I tried to say in my remarks that Derek is attacking a dead horse issue, offer a red herring, set up an elementary example of naive aesthetics, in his insistence that informed people ignore Malraux's outlook that "all art is one an equal footing" or that there is an hierarchical order or progess in art. The issue demands a nuanced examination: It can easily be shown that western art has engaged in periods of hierarchical rankings and that it has reflected periods of progress (the development of recognized formal problems) but this does not mean that it is aesthetically or expressively or symbolically superior (or inferior) to any other "art" of any time or place. I think this distinction is widely recognized and thoroughly explicated in modern (western) art history (as art history is a recent western concept).
WC --- imago Asthetik <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: I simply don't > understand the importance > of the issue being discussed. Why did you write > such a paper? (I suppose > for professional reasons; academics must be > 'academic') Moreover, the > errors you spend so much time trying to uncover are > elementary ones, which > anyone who has taken a critical thinking class could > have identified. If > they are central problems of 'analytic' aesthetics, > so much the worse for > this approach. > > Simply tell me what the problem is, and we can begin > from there.
