On Jan 15, 2013, at 11:57 AM, [email protected] wrote: > But I might say, "In this conversation I will use the word 'art' to label > all and only those works that give me what I think of as an aesthetic > experience."
What about the works or objects that provoke in you an uninspiring or uncomplimentary reaction, i.e., works that you don't think well of, that you don't like? Isn't that negative reaction an AE? Would you call those works "art," and thus would you call Waiting for Godot a WoA because it engendered a negative AE? If you limit the use of "art" or "artistic quality" to designate memorable and uplifting or pleasant experiences--the Mozart piece or parts of Hamlet--then you are using "art" exclusively as an honorific, which restricts its edifying capacity. > The use of the word 'art' has metastisized so wildly, so uncontrolledly, > because though the human mind was clever enough to devise language, it has not > been nearly clever enough to make its use foolproof. For some purposes, > language is still in a primitive stage comparable to riflery soon after its > invention, when the projectiles were spherical metal balls Please, Tom, that's a ludicrous bit of hyperbole. Language is one of the oldest human accomplishments, perhaps the very oldest communal accomplishment--how could societies have arisen without communication. Language isn't *primitive*, either chronologically or notionally: it's geometrically more complex than almost every other human production. Everything humans have made or invented have, typically, has only a few capabilities. Language is infinitely malleable, as the first sentence of this excerpt acknowledges. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Michael Brady
