Sure. The error, I'd say, that makes this outlook seem negative is the misguided desire for intrinsic meaning. It doesn't make sense for something to simply mea

Sure. The error, I'd say, that makes this outlook seem negative is the misguided desire for intrinsic meaning. It doesn't make sense for something to simply mean something - that word takes an object. Something can only mean something to someone. I think this (the idea that there's some inscrutable higher level of meaning) is either a) a natural human intuition that can be broken down and discarded or b) an outgrowth of growing up in a society where there's a continuity of more-meaningful and less-scrutable things that we receive wrapped in packages that say: "this is important", namely, high arts, and the guilt that you feel when they don't move you (unless you happen to have previously received the necessary context). This reception - it's probably a twisted class thing - is what's wrong. The good art should be obviously good. This cultural reception isn't limited to art, there's all sorts of disastrous cultural apparatus that causes a youth to end up thinking they're missing something or the world isn't supposed to make sense to your innate intuition. Ex high school literature, weird jazz, 20th century music in the formal tradition, "modern art", but also lawns, the weird way the king james bible is written, math education, band class, gerrymandering...