When I say ‘people’, I mean you

Chibi-R AKA Rok is the only person I know with whom I can argue hammer and tongs about something with, and still know that we both really honestly appreciate the other’s point of view. I think it’s important that we have established such an intricate friendship dialect.
This is why I don’t share my artistic tastes with anyone else any-more.
People are incapable of understanding that if they don’t identify with something, it doesn’t immediately mean that the work is invalid for anyone else; what an absolutely juvenile and illogical perspective. Granted, it’s because of the shared history and established dialect that Rok and I have that facilitates greater appreciation of the point of view held by the other person even if it isn’t shared, but this is precisely why I would never seek to invalidate someone else’s perspectives and responses when I do not have the tools that allow me to better understand where their interpretation comes from. I might evaluate someone’s perspective as being narrow or based on misinterpretations, but that still doesn’t wholly invalidate their response, they’re simply responding instinctively. This is what’s so great about Rok and I, that we don’t seek to change the other’s mind, but expand both of our understandings of something.

I’m fond of saying things like ‘Pop-music has no dignity’, and sure there is a lot of radio-fodder that really irritates me, but I don’t think it shouldn’t exist, or that anyone who loves the music somehow suffers from some intellectual deficiency. By the same token, I don’t assume that we of the David Lynch fans somehow also possess some superior intellectual ability. Lynch is no different to anything else, that it’s less approachable than popular work doesn’t mean it means any more or less. Some people will love it, some will hate it, and some will be indifferent, and in all crowds you will find wonderfully intelligent and downright moronic people. I borrowed a Jonas Brothers CD from a work colleague as her kids listen to it simply to find out what they were all about being ignorant myself. After a full listen through the entire album without skipping tracks, OK, I would never buy it or listen to this kind of music, but I can understand that for a 13 year-old girl of this persuasion, it would sound absolutely great. It really captures the vibrance and enthusiasm of being 13. For all 13 year-olds? Of-course not. There will be plenty like me who grew up on traditional rock and who won’t listen to things like the Jonas Brothers, or those who listen to whatever genre of music for whatever reason, it’s perfectly normal. ‘Pop-music has no dignity’ is a bit of a comedic throw-away comment, and I don’t actually sincerely mean it. I might not think it’s worth much, but that doesn’t mean that the people who like it are also worth so little.

Art is many different things to different people, we were discussing the finer points of this on the weekend. I don’t know where this attitude comes from where people think that every piece of art be it visual, aural, textual or interactive absolutely must appeal to them, as if all artists have an irrational obligation to create works that they specifically must identify with, more-so, it must invoke only positive and gratifying emotions. As soon as a work of art doesn’t gel with them, it is immediately regarded as invalid and people discuss them with the attitude that no-one at all ever should identify with them, and if they do, there is something wrong with them.

Yes we all love diversity don’t we, as long as it doesn’t deviate too far from our own sense of propriety.

I’d love to tell the world to grow the fuck up, but it won’t. We don’t really do social-evolution too well. The clothing and technological benefits change, but little else does.