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From: dht@druri.UUCP (Davis Tucker)
Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers
Subject: Ken Moreau, Spider Robinson, Art, Helen Keller, and Me
Message-ID: <1153@druri.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 13-Aug-85 23:37:36 EDT
Article-I.D.: druri.1153
Posted: Tue Aug 13 23:37:36 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 18-Aug-85 22:23:29 EDT
Organization: AT&T Information Systems Laboratories, Denver
Lines: 79


>I applaud Spider Robinsons comment that "A critic tells you whether 
>it is *ART*, a reviewer tells you if its a good read".  To me this
>indicates that the two concepts are orthogonal, and have nothing to
>do with each other.  Thank you, I will ignore both *ART* and critics 
>who talk about *ART* because I have found this bias to be pretentious, 
>boring, unapproachable, and generally gives me no pleasure.  
>
>              [KEN MOREAU]

Spider Robinson... (the sound of spitting in derision and disgust) knows
absolutely nothing, or next to nothing, about being a reviewer, as he has
so amply demonstrated in his review columns, and even less about being a
critic. Gene Shalit gives more depth; Rona Barret gives more detail; and
"Entertainment Tonight" gives more understanding. I have never understood
why *ART* is so bad, such a pejorative, in America and especially in American
science fiction. In most places in the world, to say that something is "great
art" is a compliment. To you and Spider Robinson (author of such art as "Harry
Callahan's Crossroad Five-Guys-In-A-Bar-Trade-Stupid-Puns-And-Act-Superior-And-
Incredibly-Sophomoric"), it is an insult. Art and a "good read" may have no-
thing to do with each other, but I and many, many others will disagree
violently at such a purposefully ignorant attitude. These hedonistic tendencies
will leave you with little fulfillment, less enlightenment, and no under-
standing of the world outside D&D games and national news programs. To
ignore art because it gives no pleasure is synonomous with ignoring edu-
cation because it gives no money. A backward, Luddite, barbarian attitude
which makes me wonder how anyone who ever held this belief ever got the drive
and motivation to learn how to read. 

This is not idle electronic banter, and it is not specifically directed at you,
or at Mr. Robinson. But to champion a "good read" over "great art" is very,
very egocentric. It also belies an inferiority complex about one's ability to
appreciate art and uphold one's personal standards as opposed to lying down
and accepting the tyranny of entertainment. Many definitions of great art en-
compass being a "good read", but this quality is but a portion of what it 
takes to write a great novel. Spider Robinson's championing of ease of reading
over depth of feeling is simple laziness. He, and many others, choose not to
exercise their minds or their hearts, but to relax and enjoy and treat books
as if they were TV sit-coms. Subsequently, he says that because this is what he
enjoys - semi-mindless entertainment such as he and so many others in his
field have made a career of - it is what is good, and is better than what he 
does not enjoy - art. I have never made any statements to the effect that some-
thing is good because I enjoy it. I have appreciated many works which I did not
necessarily enjoy or find a "good read". Enrichment of the heart and enlighten-
ment of the mind do not come to the lazy or the proudly ignorant. How many
"enjoyable" works have allowed you or forced you to walk a mile in another
man's shoes ("Soul On Ice"), or understand the nature of death ("The Death
Of Ivan Ilych"), or feel outrage at terrible injustice ("Les Miserables"), or
come face to face with home and family ("The Last Picture Show"), or realize
that politics affects individuals as well as societies ("A Tale Of Two Cities"),
to see the depths of depravity and hatred of self ("Notes From Underground",
"In The Belly Of The Beast", "Heart Of Darkness"), to internalize and gain
some knowledge of the human condition? 

There is so much trash and fluff and junk and silliness in our culture, so much
championing of materialism and the easy road to understanding, a sort of mental
"get rich quick" ethos. To downgrade the name of art in favor of a "good read"
is to say to the world "I am ignorant, and I am proud of it, and I shall remain
blissfully so". It is an attitude which Madison Avenue and every manipulator
loves with a fervor usually reserved for God. There are so many closed minds
in this world, so many minds which have never seen a book or heard a new idea,
too many. It is criminal to close your mind to the sublime and the new because
it does not entertain you, while these who have never had the chance remain
in enforced ignorance, an ignorance which so many in America embrace and raise
to the heights of a new religion. It is diseased, it is animal, it is a total
abnegation of the faculties of intelligence. Choose to ignore art; choose to
wallow in the filth of ignorance and the ordure of pure entertainment; hold
Spider Robinson up as a genius and a great writer and a great commentator on
the human condition. Remain an intellectual and artistic Helen Keller - but
remember that she, who had so little ability to appreciate greatness and art
and love and life, struggled her entire life to appreciate those very things
which you and Mr. Robinson and so many others of your ilk choose to downgrade
and spit upon and despise. 

I shake my head in wonder and awe at the power of ignorance and the majesty
of barbarianism. And I wish that I did not shake my head so often, or so long.

Davis Tucker