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I believe that you can hope to find innovation in the arts but I doubt that you'll find any progress. Joyce is not better than Shakespeare and Prince is not be

I believe that you can hope to find innovation in the arts but I doubt that you'll find any progress. Joyce is not better than Shakespeare and Prince is not better than Mozart. This is even truer for painting, would anybody say that we are doing better than the Altamira cave painters? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Altamira,_bison.jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Altamira,_bison.jpg)

jerf 17y ago
Dropping an undefined "better" into a post like that is a bit unfair, since it is basically tautological most ways you could mean that. I'm going to guess you would agree that there is no objective "better", in which case it's totally just defining yourself the win. I will say this; I have a clear preference for some modern stuff over the older stuff. The biggest one is modern TV vs. older TV; going back to 1960 or 1970 and trying to watch TV for me is simply infuriating; it's all so damned slow. Actually running it 30% faster (as in, watching it literally sped up 30%) helps quite a bit.
- LucaDuval 17y ago
  I didn't explained myself well then. My point is that, in my opinion, there is no progress in art exactly for the reason you have just given that there is no objective "better" to measure progress with. About TV..., if you are talking about TV shows I wouldn't consider them art at all.
  - Gimpson 17y ago
    I'd argue that there was more interesting video content being produced for TV in the last ten years than movies. (Maybe you don't consider movies art either...) I'll put The Wire up against any movie in the last ten years.
    - joshuakb 17y ago
      The wire is also the only show I know of that moves slowly enough to tell an interesting story. I would put the wire up against anything period.
  - jamesbritt 17y ago
    "if you are talking about TV shows I wouldn't consider them art at all." Ernie Kovacs. Also Playhouse 90.
  - jerf 17y ago
    "if you are talking about TV shows I wouldn't consider them art at all." Also tautological depending on your definition of "art". The definition I favor doesn't disqualify something for the medium it is in, but it certainly isn't the only relevant definition.
    - LucaDuval 17y ago
      Every time somebody express an opinion somebody else can call it a tautology if he decides that the speaker is willing to tweak the definition as he likes. To point it out is pleonastic. The following sentence is tautological. The previous sentence is tautological and pleonastic.
      - jerf 17y ago
        I am sensitized to it on the issue of art. The word is in the class of words that are content free and should never be used without at least some cursory stab at which of the virtually infinite definitions you actually mean. "TV isn't art" carries a lot of connotation, but no actual denotation. I object to just lobbing the connotation into a conversation and acting as if something has actually been established.

jerf 17y ago

Dropping an undefined "better" into a post like that is a bit unfair, since it is basically tautological most ways you could mean that. I'm going to guess you would agree that there is no objective "better", in which case it's totally just defining yourself the win. I will say this; I have a clear preference for some modern stuff over the older stuff. The biggest one is modern TV vs. older TV; going back to 1960 or 1970 and trying to watch TV for me is simply infuriating; it's all so damned slow. Actually running it 30% faster (as in, watching it literally sped up 30%) helps quite a bit.

LucaDuval 17y ago
I didn't explained myself well then. My point is that, in my opinion, there is no progress in art exactly for the reason you have just given that there is no objective "better" to measure progress with. About TV..., if you are talking about TV shows I wouldn't consider them art at all.
- Gimpson 17y ago
  I'd argue that there was more interesting video content being produced for TV in the last ten years than movies. (Maybe you don't consider movies art either...) I'll put The Wire up against any movie in the last ten years.
  - joshuakb 17y ago
    The wire is also the only show I know of that moves slowly enough to tell an interesting story. I would put the wire up against anything period.
- jamesbritt 17y ago
  "if you are talking about TV shows I wouldn't consider them art at all." Ernie Kovacs. Also Playhouse 90.
- jerf 17y ago
  "if you are talking about TV shows I wouldn't consider them art at all." Also tautological depending on your definition of "art". The definition I favor doesn't disqualify something for the medium it is in, but it certainly isn't the only relevant definition.
  - LucaDuval 17y ago
    Every time somebody express an opinion somebody else can call it a tautology if he decides that the speaker is willing to tweak the definition as he likes. To point it out is pleonastic. The following sentence is tautological. The previous sentence is tautological and pleonastic.
    - jerf 17y ago
      I am sensitized to it on the issue of art. The word is in the class of words that are content free and should never be used without at least some cursory stab at which of the virtually infinite definitions you actually mean. "TV isn't art" carries a lot of connotation, but no actual denotation. I object to just lobbing the connotation into a conversation and acting as if something has actually been established.