Weekend at Buchenwald...

Well, that was a disappointing game -- the season in a nutshell.

Jim,

OK. But just to be clear, I think there's a lot of difference between how we
make important ethical decisions in our daily lives and whether or not we
happen to like Weekend at Bernie's or Citizen Kane.

And I do not believe that "great art," whatever that might be, necessarily
makes people behave better.  (Nor do you, I think you are saying.) Here history
provides us with many relevant examples.

And the evolution of the Nazi aesthetic was not my point. The individuals,
the specific, singular, often highly educated people who were working in the
camps, in the offices, for the SS, etc., were reading and listening to all sorts
of diverse things, including Goethe and Mozart, for the same sort of personal
pleasure it might bring to you and me, and at the same time carrying out the
final solution.  Art does not necessarily ennoble. (I think you might be
agreeing with this in your post.)

And the sharing of "to me"s is certainly not an impossible form of discourse,
nothing about subjective opinions makes them incommunicable.   They can
indeed be expressible without the "worth" in question being either intrinsic or
"primary."  So your fear of solipsism is really a red herring.  As to what might
be "between you and the author," that's a completely different topic and one
that has been discussed here at nauseating length in the past.  I'd rather not
go back there.  But just for fun, you can read what I am about to send for
Scottie.

At this point, we're each saying many of the same things over and over, you
know.

I'm off to a holiday party.

'Night,

--John

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Received on Sat Dec 20 17:18:01 2003