Re: When Elephants Dance

From: Mike Lorrey (mlorrey@datamann.com)
Date: Sat Mar 30 2002 - 19:25:48 MST


Mike Linksvayer wrote:
>
> On Sat, 2002-03-30 at 11:52, spike66 wrote:
> > Money has everything to do with it. Money allows the creative
> > segment of society the freedom to create. It provides an
> > incentive to feed, clothe and shelter the creative.
>
> Freedom abuse alert! Sounds just like those who claim freedom of speech
> doesn't exist unless someone pays to get your message out.

What is money? Its merely a symbol of action taken. No freedom exists if
the holder never acts on the freedom they allegedly posess, and the
amount they posess in actuality is directly a function of the effort
they put into exercising it. My right to keep and bear arms only exists
so far as I am willing to arm myself. My right to believe idiotic
superstitions exists only as far as I do so, and my right to free speech
only exists as far as I exert it. It all takes money, and the more of it
I have, the more freedom I can practice. Arguing anything otherwise is
futile barking at the moon.

You either have the choice of individuals producing their own value in a
market economy, or the state owning it all. Egalitarianism is a fiction.

>
> > Thought experiment: name some famous Russian classical
> > composers. Just the biggies, ones that you can think of
> > without looking at your CD collection:
> >
> > Rachmaninoff. Tchaikovsky. Shostakovich. Prokoviev.
> > Nikolai Rimski-Korsakov. Stravinski. Maiskovski.
> >
> > And there are plenty of other Russian classical monsters.
> > Now name some famous American classical composers.
> >
> > 1. Aaron Copland.
> >
> > and... ummmm... lets see, Copland annnnnd... dont tell me...
> > ummmmm... [five minutes later]
> >
> > OK Aaron Copland.
>
> John Adams, John Cage, Morton Feldman, Meredith Monk, George Crumb. Ok,
> they're all contemporary, but that's what I prefer. America was
> considered a cultural backwater until well into the twentieth century.

Depends on the field. Musically, yes. In writing, painting, and science,
America was producing its share of brilliance from the start. Note that
arts that are of value on a frontier or in a developing country produced
genius (or attracted it).

>
> The money faceless corporations pour into the "arts" gets us ...

Since when has the contemporary 'pop' culture ever been lauded by the
intelligentsia, no matter what era those elites lived in?

I will predict that in 20-30 years there will be some university
somewhere with a degree in Britney Studies.



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