America and the dollar

[bwray]

That's right, Bwray; we are all of us just people.

munk

And people can learn to see the good in one another and find a way to get along despite less than full agreement. My second post came before I had seen your second, otherwise i would have been more circumspect. But we are on track now and that's what counts.

 

[munk]

The bottom line is people need convention and rules for support, but these are not absolutes and are always being redefined. I wouldn't have any use for a 'right wing' Christian artist who 'sneered' at a budhist artist, I don't have respect for those who sit and mock those who do and strive within convention.

ahh...too many words and mine aren't precise enough.
Today it was snowing so much we had to use Beater truck to get to school. I found a windsheild scraper in the diabled Dodge Ramcharger and managed to screech a base ball sized hole in the ice on the Ford's glass. Deep Aquarium green. The boys and I quickly fogged the truck window on the inside with our respiration. White white everywere, and as we lumbered down the hill we had to be careful not to sideswipe some of the Auto shop's parked cars, big lumps of snow just off the right fender. I started singing that Marine Cadance song,

The munk boys live on the hill,
when it snows they're up there still,
Munk Boys don't fear the snow
Beater Truck's jumping in High-Low
sound off:
one two three four one two three four


munk

 

[brokenhallelujah]

"It is the responsibility of every generation to look the naysayers, the intellectuals, and the artists in the eye and say; "There is still hope and good here."


munk

I read this as munk identifying three areas that must not be allowed to run to extremes, to be called back into the fold -- i.e., the naysayers AND the intellectuals AND the artists... Not that all three of these are attributes of one special group.

I will say this, munk -- artists tend to be more liberal for a reason, and that reason tends to be that they experience their existence on many different levels, in many different modes, at once. They must, in order to create. And when that is your perspective on the world, you tend to be less draconian, narrow-minded, or one-true-wayist, about anything.

That's why the Catholic church, Communist China, Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, Franco's Spanish dictatorship and the Taliban all hated and feared artists and art. Why? They certainly didn't all have the SAME oppressive agenda, yet they all hated and feared art and those who made it. Because art challenges people to see the world through different eyes. No totalitarian regime can co-exist with a population interested in getting outside of their own heads.

Art is revolutionary. Artists see; artists challenge. They must. They are, as you have said, the ones who change the status quo, who ask some of the harder questions. When others engage with that perspective, via the art itself, they change as well.

I think that artists, more often than not, are the ones looking the "naysayers and intellectuals" in the face and replying, "There is goodness here. There is beauty."

As for why the "arts" as a whole tend to be more liberal here in America... Well, our origins are, in many ways, stiflingly puritanical. That is the status quo. And resistance to that, well, usually badges itself in terms of opposites... Which explains the SAG's long standing love affair with the Democrats? I dunno.

 

[not2sharp]

Under Communism, the State owned the "heights of the economy." No citizen of the USSR thought that meant they owned anything. Only "intellectuals" of the left were confused on that issue.

Not sure of what that has to do with owning an interest in a private business.

It is not about "owning an interest", it is about control. Owning stock in a corporation that has failed to show a profit means a poor dividend yield; and, unless you are part of the exclusive club trading on insider info, you are nothing but a simple sucker (of the born every minute variety).

n2s

 

[munk]

That's why the Catholic church, Communist China, Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, Franco's Spanish dictatorship and the Taliban all hated and feared artists and art. Why? They certainly didn't all have the SAME oppressive agenda, yet they all hated and feared art and those who made it.>>>>

brokenhallelujah

The Taliban destroyed ancient statues of Budha shrines....all across Afganistan. A real wipe out.

No, people don't have the same oppressive agendas. Only the oppression is the same.

munk

 

[bwray]

I read this as munk identifying three areas that must not be allowed to run to extremes, to be called back into the fold -- i.e., the naysayers AND the intellectuals AND the artists... Not that all three of these are attributes of one special group.

I will say this, munk -- artists tend to be more liberal for a reason, and that reason tends to be that they experience their existence on many different levels, in many different modes, at once. They must, in order to create. And when that is your perspective on the world, you tend to be less draconian, narrow-minded, or one-true-wayist, about anything.

That's why the Catholic church, Communist China, Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, Franco's Spanish dictatorship and the Taliban all hated and feared artists and art. Why? They certainly didn't all have the SAME oppressive agenda, yet they all hated and feared art and those who made it. Because art challenges people to see the world through different eyes. No totalitarian regime can co-exist with a population interested in getting outside of their own heads.

Really nice post brokenhallelujah. You're right that I got off track about "naysayers" when I began focusing on "artists".:thumbup:

 

[Thomas Linton]

. . .
It is simply a fact that the Catholic Church, through the princes thereof, was one of the greatest partons of the arts in history. They had the $$ (Well, not really $$, buy you know.) Did they have a limited view of "art" or of some arts (e.g. literature)? Sometimes yes, sometimes no.

Lots of artists are anything by "naysayers." Indeed, I suggest that most artists clearly affirm life. (Some get depressed later and dwell on weary rivers etc.. )

(However, discuss the art and social views of Wagner in 50 words or less. )

 

[jmings]