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a problem is the people involved in The Arts are more interested in being prescriptive about what people should like instead of discovering what we in fact desire.

we make this same mistake in tech all the time, building things we think other people should do instead of what they want, shopping it around to "get funded," without any customer traction, and then ending up on some government services vehicle just to get enough money to keep making the same mistake and hoping maybe the state will mandate our solution to someone. It's every non-US startup ever, and it comes from the same welfare state mentality that produces the funded Arts nobody cares about.

the main people who support artists are the market makers who connect audiences, dealers, managers, distributors, marketers, students, and collectors. trying to replace "aristocrats and corporations," with another patron just continues the cycle of dependency and paternalism that produces the same token flattery nobody wants.

if you want better art, learn what it means to make a market, and then grow one.




I agree with this, having interacted with a number of artists, a lot of what is produced simply isn't that great, different or interesting.

Of course if creating things makes you happy go for it, but don't expect to be able to live off of that.


> a problem is the people involved in The Arts are more interested in being prescriptive about what people should like instead of discovering what we in fact desire.

The thing that grinds my gears is that they do this by trying to redefine language. They don't come out and say "you should like X". They say "X is beautiful" (and if you think otherwise, you're obtuse/privileged/etc). Nevermind what beauty used to mean, since it's just a cultural artifact of a capitalist white patriarchy, and you don't want to be associated with that, do you?

What one considers beautiful stops being an instinctive felt sense coming from within, and becomes just an empty statement used for signaling others how sophisticated/class-aware/etc you are.

It's pure neurosis, and I'm not surprised such disembodied people have trouble actually creating beauty.




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