Cheerskep:
Saul, suppose you and I look at a painting. You say, "Now, that's a
work of
art." And I say, "No, that's a work of foopgoom."
You say to me, "What the hell is 'foopgoom'?"
I say to you, "What the hell is 'art'?"
How would either of us go about showing the other was "wrong"?
You know, this stuff wasn't invented yesterday. "Art," or pictures, or
foopgoom, or whatever it [redacted verb], has been around for a long
time, much longer than any of us has been looking at and discussing
"it."
By now, we have a pretty good idea of what it [redacted verb] we're
talking about.
The squabbling doesn't arise over the term itself, but over how it's
applied and where its coverage ends. If Saul says. "Now, that's a work
of art," I doubt you *completely misunderstand* him. I suspect either
you disagree--e.g., if it seems he's using the term honorifically to
denote exceptional quality of one kind or other that you don't
perceive--or you dispute some aspect of how the term fits the object.
Frankly, the test isn't whether either of you can "go about showing
the other was 'wrong'," but of explaining you own point.
Even more interesting, how would you go about proving to me
(assuming this
would be your position) that there is no such thing as "foopgoom",
it's just
muddled notion in my mind?
I suspect after initially being very vexed by your foopgoom gambit,
Saul would say, "Hell, what you call 'foopgoom' is the same thing I
call 'art.' Now we can at least get past this inane distraction and
talk about the serious stuff."
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
Michael Brady
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
