Any perusal of comment sections on such public forums as CNN.com leads one to the inescapable conclusion that there is a vast sunless sea of people united by the conviction that their incomprehension results, not from some inability on their part, but from the stupidity of those they identify as a Liberal Elite. Being uninhibitedly glib in the facility of self promotion through Liberal bashing is a cheap initiation fee and all the dues they deed pay to belong to the only club that will have them as a member.
Reading this morning, for instance, of a rather uninteresting Van Gogh floral arrangement having been stolen from a Cairo museum and about suspects having been apprehended trying to flee Egypt, I encountered the predictable comments amongst which are:
"I am starting to think that Americans are the most entitled, dumb people on this planet. Are all Americans as dumb as this post implies? Or are you just the dumb liberals- who we always knew were dumb? If you are not happy with living in the USA then I will pay for you to move somewhere else. "
What an ugly picture! 50 million? covet much? Oh look, shiny baubles!!!! I MUST OWN THEM AT ALL COSTS!!!!"
More copy book comments followed in quick non-sequitur: about Republican lobbyists, the foolishness of art in general and other populist drivel scarcely worthy of having been scribbled on the walls of the worst toilet in Scotland, although I suspect the grammar, spelling and logic might be better in that venue. The rabble are only to happy to pay their dues.
Of course it is indeed a most uninspiring painting and it's proposed value would have been more appropriate to the late 1980's when Japanese corporations were buying up Western art and Van Gogh in particular, as part of a scheme to transfer money illegally between corporations. I doubt it could be sold at nearly that price today, yet still; one of the uncountable things that mystify the untaught crowd is art and it's monetary value. That which is not understood needs to be denounced as worthy of only fools -- and of course Liberals. If you want to belong to the Vulgus Indoctum after all, you need to pay your dues.
I wonder if one could earn life membership by offering to finance the expulsion ( as a Liberal elitist parasite ) of anyone who might distinguish between Van Eyck and Van Dyke or perhaps have a nice little solution for Fermat's theorem. I might in fact, apply for the deportation so kindly offered, but that any of these folk-slingers could afford the sort of place in Monte Carlo I have in mind, I have serious doubts.
Several things:
ReplyDeleteThe level of comments on that thread is just a tad (about one-tenth of a millimeter) above that on any Yahoo.com news story. I sometimes check those, only to end up gaping in astonishment, feeling that I'd like to say something, somewhere, but having absolutely no idea where to start and with what.
The horrific beauty of them Interwebs is that it brings to us, so immediately and visibly, the shameless naked self-expression of Joe and Jane Public, who feel compelled -- and proud! -- to share with everyone their innermost nothingness, sometimes the more ignorant and vile, the better.
The marketplace of ideas, indeed. It has shown itself to be, again and not surprisingly, a forum where the loudest, cruelest and most ignorant occupy the most space and time.
Then there is the whole issue of art and its appreciation that, predictably, ties in with the above. One of the commenters on that CNN thread noted, ruefully, that for the amount of money shelled for the painting one could buy a whole army. And one has to agree, no? Surely that way you'd get more bang for your buck.
Last but not least, what do you have against Scottish toilets, Captain? ;)
Speaking of Scottish toilets, there is this quote from MoDo's NYT column today:
ReplyDeleteScottish historian Charles Mackay observed: “Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, one by one.”
In his case, I don't think the insanity is temporary. Flimflammery has always been part of Amerika's culture from frontier days when the medicine show and snake oil salesmen first wowed and snookered the country bumpkins. This time: Different era, same bumpkins.
The painting may not be authentic, but indeed -- why buy art when you can buy an army? I could put one to good use.
ReplyDeleteI've been in Scottish toilets and they're probably better than the average English public loo, but the picture is from the movie "trainspotters" the toilet scene of which still nauseates me after many years.
Once we bought the snake oil with dollars, now we're buying it with out birthright.
Captain,
ReplyDeleteI've been reading Susan Jacoby's The Age of American Unreason--unbelievably slowly, a page or three a day. When I find something I want to blog or quote, I dog-ear the bottom of the page. I had dog-eared so many pages, the book was about half an inch fatter at the bottom than at the top. So I took to half-folding the best pages. Finally, I just picked up a highlighter.
She focuses on the war in America against intellectualism, but it starts to look to me more like a war against intellect.
It's a war against decency, respect, reason, honesty and anything you might call human values.
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