Date: Tue, 20 Jan 1998 17:54:05 -0500 (EST)
From: Howard Hastings <hhasting-AT-osf1.gmu.edu>
Subject: Re: PLC: Anyone get Gass?


On Tue, 20 Jan 1998, Patsloane wrote:
> 
> I could imagine a society in which there were artists but no art critics.  I
> can't imagine a society in which there were art critics but no artists.  The
> rather common jibe that critics are parasites is based on this observation.  

This "observation" is like saying "I can imagine a society in which there
are tables and no one who paints tables, but I can't imagine a society in
which people paint tables but there are no tables." 

The argument used to make criticism "parasitical" also frequently
gets used to characterize art as useless or superfluous. (Without
tablemakers there could be no painters of tables.)

I also can imagine a society of artists without critics, but in much the
same way that I could imagine a society of women without men--ie. as a
kind of science fiction or counter-world example, in which the universie
operates under different laws than the one I am presently living in.
> 
> BTW, thanks to George and Howard, we're defining "theorist" so broadly that
> virtually anyone who says anything about anything "has a theory."  Usually,
> when a person talks about being interested or not interested in theory, the
> word is being used in a narrower sense.  

What's happening here is very common.  Some people begin speaking as if
one had the world over here and theory over there, posing alternatives 
between some natural, original, individual approach to the world and some
artificial system invented by other people.  Authentic artists don't
follow systems, same with people who authentically respond to art, etc.

Next someone comes along to point out that those people who presume that
theory is what other folks have ALSO have a theory, one they have learned
over a long period of time and which has come now to seem natural.

In response comes the complaint that theory is being defined too broadly.  

I don't think so. 

What is really needed here is a recognition of implicit and explicit
theories--and that there is no such thing as immaculate perception.

If agreement on this point cannot be reached, well, that is not quite the
same thing as defining theory too broadly.

hh



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