Dave, being a nice bloke, sees the web as utopia. A transcendent Platonic ideal of Socratic discourse, where those of good faith commune on the nature of the world.
Then there are those who see in the seedier side of the web the darkness of their own souls, for we are all fallen creatures, and the line between good and evil runs through all our hearts.
Friedrich spoke of those who fight against dragons becoming dragons, and that when you gaze into the abyss, you find the abyss gazing into you.
Oscar said
The artist creates beautiful things. Art aims to reveal art and conceal the artist. The critic translates impressions from the art into another medium. Criticism is a form of autobiography. People who look at something beautiful and find an ugly meaning are "corrupt without being charming." Cultivated people look at beautiful things and find beautiful meanings. The elect are those who see only beauty in beautiful things. Books can’t be moral or immoral; they are only well or badly written.
People of the nineteenth century who dislike realism are like Caliban who is enraged at seeing his own face in the mirror.
People of the nineteenth century who dislike romanticism are like Caliban enraged at not seeing himself in the mirror.
It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors.
They had the 20th Century ahead of them. Lets hope we can do better with the 21st.
Tuesday, March 19, 2002
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