Put another way, modern liberalism is exactly like modern art: Ordinary people take one look and say, “Blech,” while its elite defenders say, “You don’t understand—this is better than it looks.”
Modern art is deeper than it looks because it’s meta-art.
Art is expression; and in classical art, the work itself is the mode of expression. In modern art the reaction the work elicits is the expression. The chorus of “blech"s you hear is what the artist wanted to convey, not necessarily the piece itself.
(Some artists take this one meta-level further, by exhibiting instructions on how to construct a work, rather than the actual constructed work itself.)
Make of all this what you will (I personally don’t make much of it; and believe da Vinci trumps Dadaism every time), but I think I understand it now.
Art is also in the eye of the beholder and when the majority behold it as crap, it most likely is crap, no matter how some want to spin it.
Additionally time will tell. I sincerely doubt that such currently lauded works as “Piss Christ” will find a home and a place with the great works like Michalangelo’s, DaVinci’s and Rembrandt’s.
Put another way, modern liberalism is exactly like modern art: Ordinary people take one look and say, “Blech,” while its elite defenders say, “You don’t understand—this is better than it looks.”
Modern art is deeper than it looks because it’s meta-art.
Art is expression; and in classical art, the work itself is the mode of expression. In modern art the reaction the work elicits is the expression. The chorus of “blech"s you hear is what the artist wanted to convey, not necessarily the piece itself.
(Some artists take this one meta-level further, by exhibiting instructions on how to construct a work, rather than the actual constructed work itself.)
Make of all this what you will (I personally don’t make much of it; and believe da Vinci trumps Dadaism every time), but I think I understand it now.
And there, ladies and gentlemen, is how bullshit becomes art… it requires a bullshit artist.
However, it still is, and always will be—liberalism that is—bullshit.
True. Our smarmy criticism of Garrison Keillor and public broadcasting is not borne out by the financial records. It’s supported by the fact that Keillor sucks. Sucks hard. Stings the taste buds like a sour lemon.
[...]
Then go read the Arbitron ratings, and go back a few years, and find some for-profit station that pulled the low numbers public radio does, year after year, without a format change.
Sorry you can’t seem to set aside your disagreement with his political and social views and appreciate his immense, award-winning talent along with me and the other 4 million listeners each week on nearly 600 public radio stations across the country.
Who’s the real victim here? The unqualified homebuyer who go into a home for nothing, lived there for however long and walked away to the financial detriment of the funding party? The existing homeowner who used inflated home values to borrow beyond the homes worth, and then use those funds however he saw fit. With no intention of ever paying the loan back. Yes, it is to be a victim to get service/cash without having to repay it when socialists stand to gain from it politically. The real victims are those fervant investors who did so without following instinct. A mistake? Yes, but I doubt you’ll see these rookie capitalists clamoring for the cameras unlike those who wanted thier cash and to keep it too. First time blogging. Hope I’ve followed protocal.
Holy cow! Are there any rules here? Nice post, though.
Sorry you can’t seem to set aside your disagreement with his political and social views and appreciate his immense, award-winning talent along with me and the other 4 million listeners each week on nearly 600 public radio stations across the country.
Even though I have nothing but contempt for Barbra Streisand’s political ideology, I appreciate her talent. I can’t say the same for Gary Keillor whom I regard as a disgrace to my Scots Irish ancestry.
True. Our smarmy criticism of Garrison Keillor and public broadcasting is not borne out by the financial records. It’s supported by the fact that Keillor sucks. Sucks hard. Stings the taste buds like a sour lemon.
[...]
Then go read the Arbitron ratings, and go back a few years, and find some for-profit station that pulled the low numbers public radio does, year after year, without a format change.
Sorry you can’t seem to set aside your disagreement with his political and social views and appreciate his immense, award-winning talent along with me and the other 4 million listeners each week on nearly 600 public radio stations across the country.
I think the real question of the day is, would his amazing talent exist without public funds? That leads to the obvious meta question of, since liberals dominate print and network news, why can’t they seem to make a radio station survive? Perhaps, if there was no NPR, Air America wouldn’t be the struggling entity we chuckle over today.
Funny thing, I sit in wonder at the story of Garrison Keillor, living the life of the rich and privileged - much of it provided by public broadcasting funds, which has as its source the taxes paid by the very Americans whose middle and lower class incomes he pretends to care about.
Unlike executives who work in the competitive economy and subject to the requirements for disclosure of their income, those who siphon from public coffers have many ways to hide and disguise the generosity of payments through public broadcasting. Surely, more dough than the plodders and pluggers like the rest of us could ever grasp.
I myself would never invest my time reading anything from a guy named Garrison. The very sound suggests Upper East Side snobbery. What kind of name is that, anyway? Elitists? Pompous? Self-absorbed? A man who goes by Garrison is likely to wear glasses on the bridge of his nose and Johnson Murphy loafers, smoke European cigarettes – albeit only in the company of those with equal or greater SAT scores – and has a fetish for disheveled hair. Nonetheless, an army of thoughtless automatons routinely laugh and applaud as he holds up for ridicule the heritage and religious practices of Lutherans and small town Americans everywhere – a template that would bring charges of insensitivity to racism were it focused on any other group in America.
According to Gary Gilson, of the Minnesota News Council who claims to have been a classmate of Keillor many years ago, the angry red writer was simply known by one and all as just another Gary. But that was then and this is now.
Perhaps it was necessary to invoke the pomposity of such a formal moniker in order to suggest a pedigree not otherwise obvious for a man born in Anoka, Minnesota. I’d love to have seen the looks on the faces of his high brow Central Park neighbors when they found out that quaint home town was but blocks north of Coon Rapids. Or, perhaps the perception of dignity thought to accrue from such a formal name as Garrison is intended to distract from the less than dignified habit of taking vows of faithfulness for better or for worse until death do us part – to more than just one women before any such parting takes place. For those simple folk from Lake Wobegon, it must be a real challenge keeping track of which woman is the current occupant.
It’s what makes people see the real-life man from the make believe town as a buffoon. He’s no more a buffoon than Al Franken, Bill Moyers, or Bob of Baghdad. He saw an opportunity to make lots of dough from taxpayer funded public broadcasting and its Democratic supporters in congress, sheltered from the accountability that comes from working in the competitive marketplace, and Lord only knows what promises made in the exchange. Now, as for decades, it’s the taxpayers left holding the bag.
Jim, you, sir, are a prince. Bravo! I’m crying here. hahahaha
Ah, the voice of the right wing in the culture wars. A Teutonic savage staring at a Roman statue, trying to figure out the best way to knock it down and shatter it.
The Taliban, hardly ‘Teutonics’, did a pretty good job on the Buddhas of Bamyan with some of Al Nobel’s recipes.
A thoroughgoing liberalism rules the Minneapolis Star Tribune from stem to stern with the exception of metro columnist Katherine Kersten—and one columnist who has asked us to protect his or her identity.
You guys really need to get over yourselves. This “persecuted conservative underground” schtick has been out of date since around 1980.
Of course, what would a thread on liberal idiocy be without an inanity from Vlad the Inhaler?
It doesn’t exactly take a rocket scientist to read the Strib and reach the conclusion that it leans very solidly to the left. But Vlad is unable to see this and instead of offering substance to back up his claim, he simply resorts to the “ignore the man behind the curtain” method.
Saying things which have no substantive point or any apparent logical connection to the information is something he feels he does well. You have to go with what your talent is.
Thanks, Scott. so when are going to stop taking the $6.5M in taxpayer funds they don’t need?
Soon as you organize a campaign to lobby Congress to end federal funding for the arts.
Anti-arts folks like you had a reasonable degree of success when Reagan was president, so maybe it’s time for another whack at it.
Hurry, though. If a Democrat wins the White House and the Democrats hold onto Congress, every nonprofit in the country will be issued a blank check signed by Congress. Right?
What the hell could this bug-eyed droning moron know about the economy or financial instruments like mortgages?!
His radio show has never even been funny, so he fails at that, too.
Well, I enjoyed the show till he became convinced that I deeply craved to hear his political opinions. I quit listening then. I don’t know why anyone would give a rip what a clever comedian thinks about public policy. He’s not accountable to anyone.
Really though, FScottF. The other day, you asserted that out of a whopping $65 million dollar budget, Minnesota Public Radio only dips into the public trough for 10%. I did the math for you, and pointed out that this mere 10% amounts to 6.5 million taxpayer dollars to support one Minnesota radio network. Your position is that this amount is not substantial? If so, then I presume that we could eliminate this 6.5 million dollars, and MPR would smoothly sail into the free market?
I’ll bet there are a few radio station general managers out there who would love to have that $6.5 million. But they don’t get it. If they can’t survive in the marketplace, they go out of business. Not so, MPR. They just go feed at the government trough.
And I noticed you had your figures all in a row when it came to the percentage of funds that come from taxpayers. Why the ambiguity when it comes to your citation of the “power†of Prairie Home Companion? How much is a “good chunk†of revenue? How many dollars? What percentage of MPR’s operating revenue?
Soaking the taxpayer for radio and TV broadcasting is an antiquated idea that does not serve the public interest. If the programming is good, it should be able to be innovative, light on its feet, flexible, and responsive to the market. Then it can survive without tax dollars.
If the programming is not good, why the hell should we take it for granted that our tax dollars are to be confiscated to support programming that has so little public interest, it cannot survive in the marketplace like every other broadcaster?
If the programming is not good, why the hell should we take it for granted that our tax dollars are to be confiscated to support programming that has so little public interest, it cannot survive in the marketplace like every other broadcaster?
That is not to say that the public are a bunch of morons, only that there is a lowest common denominator that translates into large sums of money. And in our mass market celebrity culture, what do you think is going to get emphasized?
The fact is that quality art has almost always been done on government subsidy, whether it’s the pope paying Michelangelo or the NEA underwriting “Live from Lincoln Center.”
Maybe “quality” art doesn’t belong on television then. I’m not saying it does or does not. But I am saying that if the public was clamouring to watch it, the demand would be there, and a vehicle would emerge for its provision.
Why should we assume that the government is the provider of that which the people do not seem to desire, and that the taxpayer who does not desire it should foot the bill?
