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From: mfs@mhuxr.UUCP (SIMON)
Newsgroups: net.music,net.music.classical
Subject: Re: Progress, the Arts, Razor Blades and Bull
Message-ID: <267@mhuxr.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 9-Mar-85 18:32:12 EST
Article-I.D.: mhuxr.267
Posted: Sat Mar  9 18:32:12 1985
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> 
>     No doubt that a limited degree of growth must occur within an artistic
>     subvariety (such as jazz or rock) during its infancy.  But such change
>     disguises the essential sameness of artistic expression over the vast
>     spread of history, especially to those whose viewpoints are limited to a
>     very narrow period (less than a hundred years).
> 

Look, you are entitled to your opinion, but that atrikes me as meaningless.
When is an art form past "infancy"? Does that objection not always apply?
I could make a similar argument shooting down the baroque music you seem
to love as compared to tribal Indian classical music. They are both "art"
They are both "progress" over their ancestors.

If you take art in general as the expression of human emotion in some
interesting way, then art is subjective by definition!!! There are some
relatively technical standards by which academics and snobs judge art.
Progress (or advances) occur when someone comes along and challenges
these standards and proves that the standard is not essential to interesting
work. In fact all those we hold as geniuses are so because they so
successfully challenged the accepted standards of their time and looked
further, toward *interesting* expression of their emotions.

This argument does not purport to show that "people change". In fact,
you are probably right in that the range of human emotions has
changed very little since consciousness evolved. It is the
expression of those emotions that has changed. WHether such changes
are beneficial or not is a subjective matter. I am of the opinion
that they do constitute progress, because they are the manifestation
of restlessness, dissatisfaction with the way things were done before...
All characteristics of the process of creation.

Marcel Simon