Politics makes artists stupid.
– Terry Teachout reviews the Rachel Corrie play
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Samizdata quote of the dayOctober 23rd, 2006 |
 5 comments to Samizdata quote of the day |
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I think it might more accurately be that politics reveals stupidity.
(Though this stupidity is of course encapsulable; some people are only stupid in fairly specific areas, while being brilliant in others. Most of us aren’t very stupid or very brilliant.
Maybe there’s a sort of edges-of-the-bell-curve effect where some people are both stupider and more brilliant in their various areas?
I mean, look at Einstein: brilliant on physics, while completely, hopelessly stupid on politics.)
So where does that leave Daimion Hirst?
Utterly stupid in all directions.
Churchill could paint a bit, but was never daft enough to believe he could make a living out of it.
Today’s artists think they can do anything, when they cant even do what their supposed to do-
Make Art.
I enjoy the arts, and if one does enjoy the arts then one inevitably has to enjoy the output of some people with some deeply stupid offensive politcs. Case in point: I have no disagreement at all with the description in this review of Alan Rickman as “one of England’s best actors”, but I am sure this play is as wrongheaded as it sounds.
“Politics makes artists stupid.” Or stupid artists makes stupid politics. Or stupid politics makes stupid arts. Or stupid artists-wannabes make stupid politics.
Many artists are largely on the dole by such as National Endowment for the Arts, so all they need do is fill out a grant form. That said, it doesn’t take much skill to be an “artist” these days (art for art’s sake) so I would expect you are seeing more of a minus three sigma tail on the intellectual distribution for those calling themselves artists.