What makes art art? What makes art good?

[firefolk]

Hot damn, smart people stuff! I recently re-read Barfield's Poetic Diction (again), and I keep comprehending his thesis a little bit more each time. It seems to be, at least in large part, that the evolution of language is driven by wordsmiths who create such compelling new usages of old words that those new usages become common parlance. Sooooo--if a speaker/writer comes along that a large number of people are prepared to listen to, and says, "Hey guys, being a geek is cool!"--then suddenly, the old negative connotations sort of shrivel up and blow away in the winds of Fashion. Reading comic books would get you stuffed in a locker when I was in high school; but now, heck, Jessica Alba was in the Fantastic Four movies--you can't get a stronger endorsement than that from the in crowd. (Incidentally, my cousin Jes and I used to beat up the in crowd and take their beer; but somehow even that never really made us cool in the traditional sense. I guess you just can't escape the stigma of thinking that Shakespeare isn't boring.) You know what kills me? TV advertisements that offer you "free gifts." What the hell does that mean?--is there a kind of "gift" that you have to pay for?

[ebdonlon]

(re: gifting) I am heartily in agreement. The trouble with that particular term (versus "geek" which has character, thanks to Tyrone Power and all he represents) is that it is a sign of laziness, not originality or the fascinating malleability of language. Shakespeare and Sam Johnson invented words! Fanny Burney invented words! Are we to stand by and watch the language fall to pieces because internet users are too lazy to use language properly? I don't mind abbreviations and informal speech, but "gifting"? Sheesh...

I think I should go bathe my temples in Eau de Cologne or put a cold compress on my head (or whatever it is that overexcited females do in Nancy Mitford novels...which I have never read, and about which I therefore feel perfectly justified in having definite opinions).

P.S. I get a kick out of the Fantastic Four movies, and I shall look up Barfield forthwith! Maybe I can get a copy as a free gift...

[cristina]

katycarl said:

Doesn't it seem as though the term "geek" started out with negative connotations and acquired positive ones as time went on and those stuck with the epithet embraced and reclaimed it?

I, for one, did embrace and reclaim it

[syme]

Ah, but you know what? This whole "geeks are cool" thing is starting to get on my nerves. Every other day I read some dumb article in the paper about how geeks have crossed over into the mainstream, or about the latest geek-hero, or how geek is the new black, or whatever. I long for the days when the only people who recognized geeks as being cool where geeks themselves. It's were I drew my whole sense of superiority from. It allowed me to give myself the airs of a connoisseur, somehow far above the clouds (even if only in my own mind) of the unwashed masses of the shallow "cool" kids. I was one who could recognize what others could not. But now that geek is mainstream, to what can I turn? What can allow me to compensate for the fact that I'm not your regular Tom Cruise (I mean look-wise, of course...)

But in any case, Katy, when I asked for your comment on "this matter," I meant about what I said regarding fashionable political trends affecting the quality of art. In your essay (which is great), you concentrate mostly on how Christian committment may affect the quality of one's art. The article in the New Criterion suggests that this works both ways.

[katycarl]

I think it absolutely does work both ways, Syme. Bernardo's responsible for the line in the introduction that alludes to that; he pointed out during revisions that fully as much crap art gets made because someone has a particular political agenda to push as because someone has a particular religious agenda, etc. Still, I thought that, given our audience and community, we could all probably furnish more examples of the religious corruption of art than of other kinds. Definitely, it's the corruption most of us are more used to combating and avoiding in our own work.

Here of course it's important to differentiate "pushing an agenda" from its only slightly more reputable cousin, "sending a message," and to differentiate them both again from embodying, incarnating, making concrete a truth through the form of art. These three modes of creating are all part of a family and can seem pretty similar at first blush, but the difference is in quality and integrity. I don't think there's anyone here to whom that isn't already self-evident, so it kind of feels like beating a dead horse after a while, to say it again and again. Then again, finding newer and better and cleaner and more streamlined ways to say it will never get old for me, so please feel free to call a halt if I seem to be wasting too much geeky evangelical zeal on it.