8 votes

There are too many artists, most of them crap

16 comments

  1. EightRoundsRapid
    Link
    The author is a "controversialist" who used to work for one of Australia's more right wing/Libertarian™ politicians.

    The author is a "controversialist" who used to work for one of Australia's more right wing/Libertarian™ politicians.

    15 votes
  2. Flashynuff
    Link
    What a sad and depressing outlook on life. Is someone like this just completely unaware of the beauty of humanity? This is conflating cause and effect... companies are jumping on the 'diversity'...

    Most people are only ever going to be drones.

    What a sad and depressing outlook on life. Is someone like this just completely unaware of the beauty of humanity?

    That is why – in these modern ‘attention economy’ times – publishing houses insist on using identity politics to try to ‘move the merch’. And you read that right – intersectional feminism and mandated racial diversity are marketing and branding strategies, not politics.

    This is conflating cause and effect... companies are jumping on the 'diversity' bandwagon simply because diversity is becoming more widely accepted; diversity is not becoming more popular because companies are pushing it.

    11 votes
  3. [11]
    aethicglass
    Link
    I'm curious if the author was paid for this article. They seem to spend an inordinate amount of time bashing writers who work for little or nothing. Actually, they seem to know very little about...

    I'm curious if the author was paid for this article. They seem to spend an inordinate amount of time bashing writers who work for little or nothing. Actually, they seem to know very little about any other field. If they do, they don't mention it. But they keep using "artist", not just "writer". Or more specifically, "op-ed fluff writers" since that's what they seem to have a problem with and is also exactly the sort of piece this is.

    I tried going into this with an open mind. It's difficult to negate my bias on the subject because I consider myself an artist, and I have struggled financially for me entire life because of my decisions. But I'll be damned if anyone makes a claim that I'm a drain on society, or that the pursuit of art is a selfish waste of time.

    I'm getting more pissed off about it the more I think about it. Excuse me while I go be a drain on society.

    8 votes
    1. [10]
      EightRoundsRapid
      Link Parent
      Don't take her too seriously. She's a hoaxer. https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/books/the-darville-made-me-do-it-20050709-gdlnkg.html
      4 votes
      1. patience_limited
        Link Parent
        So, we have an insecure white person who confabulated an exotic identity in order to get a book published that relies on confabulated (fictional) material, hinting that it's not fiction. Moreover,...

        So, we have an insecure white person who confabulated an exotic identity in order to get a book published that relies on confabulated (fictional) material, hinting that it's not fiction. Moreover, it's just enough anti-Semitic apologia to ring alarm bells:

        Sadly, Darville hadn't been able to believe in this. "It was a mistake of inexperience," says Craig Munro, who was an editor and nonfiction publisher at UQP and came to know Darville after her book was published. "She was insecure enough about herself to think that she needed this other persona to get a publisher."

        Meanwhile, a storm grew around the book's anti-Semitic material. Critics such as Robert Manne and Gerard Henderson could not abide its intimate, and in some ways sympathetic, portrayal of perpetrators of the Holocaust. "The domestication of evil only made it more horrifying to them," says Marr. "Moral fiction has the ability to make evil alive, and those critics would have reacted in the same way had Shakespeare written it."

        Now Holt, nee' Darville, thinks it's cute to attack other writers because they possess "identity" and sometimes use it in work that she judges as undeserving. She make the claim:

        That is why – in these modern ‘attention economy’ times – publishing houses insist on using identity politics to try to ‘move the merch’. And you read that right – intersectional feminism and mandated racial diversity are marketing and branding strategies, not politics.

        That's exactly what she attempted to get away with, and there was a proper scandal about it.

        Now that Holt is comfortably ensconced in the monetary establishment, if not the literary firmament, she has the gall to imply that others trying to create are worthless parasites living in their parents' basements who only succeed because they have more interesting identities.

        There are parts of this that probably sounded better in the original German. http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/sub_document.cfm?document_id=1577

        7 votes
      2. [8]
        aethicglass
        Link Parent
        Sounds like quite the scandal. I'm unfamiliar with the book and the controversy surrounding it, but judging from the article, the wiki page about her, and the other articles by her the Spectator,...

        Sounds like quite the scandal. I'm unfamiliar with the book and the controversy surrounding it, but judging from the article, the wiki page about her, and the other articles by her the Spectator, I would probably struggle to find any common ground.

        Still, I was hoping for some sort of well-conceived argument on the subject. I run into this mentality, that the arts are a waste of time and energy, more often than I'd like. Frequently espoused, but rarely reasonable. So I struggle to understand how it persists in gaining traction. Usually, the argument is based around the idea that artists are largely failures in their pursuit of fame and fortune and are better off earning a living doing something worthwhile. It's a faulty premise in that most people who pursue arts and humanities aren't doing so for fame and fortune, and that creative endeavors are not limited to economic value as a sole function of overall value.

        I was hoping for something different. By all means, convince me to set aside childish things! Despite being compelled to spend my life in pursuit of something I find meaningful, I don't enjoy having exceptionally low living standards. All that's necessary is to be convinced that these pursuits are in fact childish. And this article falls astonishingly flat in that regard, as does the argument every time I've had to defend my choices to someone who thinks they could live my life better than I have.

        3 votes
        1. [2]
          EightRoundsRapid
          Link Parent
          The biggest disparagers of art/culture are, in my experience, the people with the least understanding or talent. I'm pretty sure it mostly comes from a place of envy.

          The biggest disparagers of art/culture are, in my experience, the people with the least understanding or talent. I'm pretty sure it mostly comes from a place of envy.

          3 votes
          1. aethicglass
            Link Parent
            I wanted to respond to both you and @patience_limited, so I flipped a coin.

            I wanted to respond to both you and @patience_limited, so I flipped a coin.

            2 votes
        2. [5]
          patience_limited
          Link Parent
          My private hypothesis is that many wealthy and successful people, outside the arts, know or secretly suspect that what they are doing is not worthwhile, in any humane or esthetic sense. They're...

          My private hypothesis is that many wealthy and successful people, outside the arts, know or secretly suspect that what they are doing is not worthwhile, in any humane or esthetic sense.

          They're disgusted with their lives, and excuse clinging to their comforts by applying judgments of "worth" against the creative things they'd rather be doing (and now I'm the one projecting a bit).

          3 votes
          1. [4]
            aethicglass
            Link Parent
            It's not even limited to people who are wealthy and successful, although it does seem to be more prevalent. Bit of an anecdote... Someone brought a friend of theirs over to buy them a birthday...

            It's not even limited to people who are wealthy and successful, although it does seem to be more prevalent.

            Bit of an anecdote...

            Someone brought a friend of theirs over to buy them a birthday piece, basically saying, "pick something out, whatever you like." The birthdayee seemed impressed with my work, excited, and gushed about what an amazing form glass is! I was feeling a bit disillusioned at the time, having worked 60+ hour weeks for the past year and a half to the tune of poverty. I grumbled a little about how people always haggle about the value, and said how much I appreciated hearing something positive for a change. They wholeheartedly agreed and picked out a marble, one of my favorites.
            My friend asked me how much. "$35 is fine, thanks!"
            The recipient immediately recoiled, "$35 for just a marble?!"
            I honestly couldn't believe the response. Not just in the context of the conversation we were just having, but at the level astonishment in response to a price that was far below the actual value (which should have been more around $100) for a piece that took thousands of hours of overall experience, hundreds of hours to hone that specific technique, and four hours to specifically make plus the overhead of materials and shop cost. I couldn't find a picture of that specific piece, but it was similar to this one. Then there is also the fact that the piece inspired emotional response, a degree of awe and wonder, fascination, engagement, yet upon hearing the price tag it suddenly became "just a marble".

            I ran into this all the time and is a huge part of why I don't bother trying to actively sell my work anymore. I still want to do the work, not because of money or fame but because I love it, and I love how others react to it. And I think that must be a difficult concept for people to grasp. Maybe it's an overplayed sentiment with diminished meaning. But the idea that there is something more worthwhile than the pursuit of money and power is a challenge to many people's lifestyle, and accepting its validity is seen as a challenge to the validity of that lifestyle. I don't personally think it's a zero sum game. Either or both could be valid without invalidating the other. But folks really like to favor arguments that are based on winning and losing.

            Edit: fixed link, typos

            3 votes
            1. [2]
              EightRoundsRapid
              Link Parent
              Well, you got an Instagram follow from me, so it's not all doom and gloom.

              Well, you got an Instagram follow from me, so it's not all doom and gloom.

              2 votes
              1. aethicglass
                Link Parent
                Haha thanks! I've really been meaning to start posting on there again soon. I haven't made much in the last year so I stopped posting. But I've been working on a treasure hunt thing lately and I...

                Haha thanks! I've really been meaning to start posting on there again soon. I haven't made much in the last year so I stopped posting. But I've been working on a treasure hunt thing lately and I gotta get back into the habit of putting stuff on there regularly.

                2 votes
            2. patience_limited
              Link Parent
              It isn't just denigrating the value of the professional artist's work, but the intrinsic toxicity of making money for work that's of minimal or negative worth to human happiness. I've been...

              It isn't just denigrating the value of the professional artist's work, but the intrinsic toxicity of making money for work that's of minimal or negative worth to human happiness. I've been acquainted with a few burned-out corporate lawyers; I had my own stint of chucking an exhausting and pointless IT job to go be a pastry cook for a while... you can either hate yourself and everyone around you, or go create.

              I believe artistic creation is an intrinsic human need, whether as a livelihood or fulfillment. It's not just a luxury lurking in the upper tiers of Maslow's hierarchy. Cutting arts programs, failure to nurture artistic endeavor (not just "talent"), are part of what's crushing the human spirit in much of the modern world. F*ck Holt for promoting the mindset that most artists aren't "makers", only "takers".

              1 vote
  4. 39hp
    Link
    Is the author writing satire? The other ‘unpopular opinions’ in the unpopular opinions club aside, is ‘defund the arts’ even an unpopular opinion? Is the closing salvo of ‘artists should get a...

    Is the author writing satire? The other ‘unpopular opinions’ in the unpopular opinions club aside, is ‘defund the arts’ even an unpopular opinion? Is the closing salvo of ‘artists should get a real job’ actually unpopular?

    Maybe it’s different in the UK, but in the US support for any public funding of the arts is about 50/50. Only 1/3 of people would support a candidate who would increase funding for art. The whole quasi-religion built around STEM is founded on the idea that things like art and other humanities are less deserving of support.

    Actual unpopular opinion in response to the author: We should eliminate ‘bad’ art by helping artists make ‘good’ art.

    6 votes
  5. [2]
    rodya
    Link
    I love when right-wing types end up writing pieces that are basically criticisms of capitalism when you unpack them.

    I love when right-wing types end up writing pieces that are basically criticisms of capitalism when you unpack them.

    6 votes