Speaking Without Meaning about Art

In the essay ‘To Speak Meaningfully About Art’ a set of rules was produced to explain what was needed for a normal person with some interest in the arts to speak meaningfully about this interest, the requirements for a critic to do the same, and likewise what the requirements were for an artist when speaking meaningfully about art.

We use the general term art, because these rules apply to all the branches of the arts, but as a general rule our focus is on the literary arts.

Similar rules were also shown to exist for speaking meaningfully about the business of art.

In this essay we will discuss the requirements for speaking without meaning about Art, and the people who would wish to do so.

It would seem natural to expect that the way to speak without meaning about Art would be to just neglect to follow the rules laid out in the previous essay, but this is not exactly true. The people that essay assumes to not follow or know the rules nonetheless are people who wish to speak meaningfully about art, in some cases they are reviewers instead of critics, in some cases just normal people intent on telling you what they like and dislike.

There are however those who wish to speak without meaning about art, and whether or not they are familiar with the rules about speaking meaningfully and could follow them if they wished is no matter, it is orthogonal to their purpose.

These people as such do not have rules, but rather strategies that they are drawn to, because those strategies naturally suit their true purpose. For this reason also there is no building up on top of previous rules, because the purposes for these people to talk without meaning about art are in no way related.

This essay will attempt to list some common examples of people who will wish to speak without meaning, why they will wish it, and what strategies they are likely to employ.

People Who Will Speak Without Meaning About Art

The Publicist

The job of the publicist is to sell the art in some way, to do so they in fact need to know at least two of the concepts that are required for meaningful communication — these being what is to the taste of someone and what is not to the taste of someone.

But it is not what is to their taste or not to their taste. The publicist communicates about the presumed tastes of a potential customer of the art.

This becomes tricky when we consider that some potential customers are affected by the perceived quality of the art, that is to say that some customers want the art to be “Good” for them to give it their custom ( Quotation marks around Good to separate it from the phrasing for them, as I am not talking about something that is Good for them.).

You might think that this is the case of all customers but a moment’s reflection should show it is decidedly not, which is why there are people willing to like things that are to their taste but are not good and also willing to announce the fact when discussing the works that are to their taste.

A movie like Con Air is unlikely to have as its audience people who are in the market for ‘Good movies’ (I say this not to disparage Con Air which I love). Given this fact the publicist does not need to sell Con Air as good. This does not mean that a movie cannot be good without having it being sold as such, but a movie that is not initially sold as Good but rather as fitting some taste will, if it is actually good, be supported as such by its fans.

Art sold as Good by its publicist has thus conventional attributes of Goodness, and thus the possession of these conventional attributes identify the publicist’s Good art as a form of genre.

Thus when a publicist discusses art we are left with some categories that are

1. Art that is being placed in the Genre Conventionally Good, and is actually Good.
2. Art that is being placed in the Genre Conventionally Good and is actually Bad.
3. Art that is not in the Genre Conventionally Good, and is Good.
4. Art that is not in the Genre Conventionally Good, and is actually Bad.

Of course as the art that is not conventionally Good but is still Good is championed by its fans it may affect the conventions of the Genre of Good art.

It should be noted that the communications of the publicist are not always just spoken, but that they may, in marketing the art, use other creative arts to do so. The publicist may be in charge of releasing videos, reviews, posters, social media campaigns etc. to talk up a work, that work may be a movie or a book or maybe a song, but what is interesting is that through the publicists a narrative is crafted around it of secondary works, creativity commissioned and existing as a side effect. These secondary works are generally not discussed themselves, at first, but one that seem to be better than the others will in time probably gain a following for themselves as unique artworks separate from the work they are meant to publicize

The Biographer

The purpose of the biographer is of course to illuminate the character and life of the person they are writing about, not to discuss the quality of art.

Now we may assume that if the biographer is writing about an artist then the quality of the art becomes an important point of discussion but the biographer reverses the relationship of the art to artist, in discussing the quality of art we may look at the biography of the artist to determine meaning or at least intention but in discussing the artist the art itself is used as a tool of psychological insight.

The Biographer may of course prefer that the art produced by their subject is good, but the focus will be on what the art means about its artist.

Of course this usage is more evident for biographies of people that were not artists but had a great affinity for one particular art, perhaps supporting the arts extensively, or having an especial love of some art or artist, or in some cases being known for something other than the arts but having a hobby in the arts. In these cases, that the quality of the art is secondary to how it relates to the character of the subject of the biography becomes even more apparent.

The Moralist

The moralist will of course wish to promote art that supports the moral views they want supported, and punish that art that goes against the morals they want supported. The moralist is half a publicist and half a censor.

Let us suppose a moralist arguing for something we find abhorrent, a publicist for the virtues of slavery and racism. This immoral moralist would want to talk up The Adventures of Tom Sawyer which is an idyllic representation of a slaveholding society, and talk down The Adventures of Huckelberry Finn in which the main protagonist turns his back on that society to help a slave escape to freedom. If the moralist is defending a work that preaches values beloved of their society well, there is not too much work to do, just say this work is for our values hurrah! The same if the work is against values hated by society, just point out where it falters morally and everyone will keep away from it as is proper.

But things can get tricky if the work is for things the moralist is pushing that society does not like, because then the moralist must either sell to like-minded supporters of their morality or keep the moral lesson shrouded while talking about some other quality to sell it. At this point the moralist will pursue the tactics of the publicist.

Also if the moralist is against thing in the work that society is for, it obviously won’t do to admit that, therefore the moralist will often attack it on a some other ground, for example that it can be painted as being against something society is for, that is to say misdirection of the actual moral argument is used because the actual moral argument can not be guaranteed to win the case.

I said earlier that the Moralist in such a case is like a censor, which is true in that the Censor and the Moralist both want the work removed from the public’s access completely separate from the quality of the work or in many cases of their own enjoyment of the work, but of course there is one major difference in that the Moralist probably does not have the Censor’s power.

The Censor

The Censor in discussing the works that they remove from public access may often use words similar to the Moralist in discussing them, but this will be added to with references to regulations and laws, because the Censor is a Moralist second but a Bureaucrat first.

The Artist

Artists will often have reasons to speak without meaning about art, although you might wish this were not the case. The reasons that artists choose to speak without meaning about are can generally be enumerated as;

1. The artist is discussing their own art, but finds discussion about art to be problematic and potentially demeaning, therefore they have a strategy of misleading people when discussing their own art. At any rate the creator of a work often has multiple reasons why they want to obfuscate the sources or meanings of the work. If successful or looking at potential success after all the artist is also their own publicist whenever discussing the work.
2. The artist is discussing the art of a rival, and instead of addressing the art on its merits they would like to deal with it maliciously. This can happen quite often, especially if a rival in a rival in the public’s imagination or the critical world but you do not even find their work to your taste, must less like it. This kind of thing is likely to get someone to talk smack, and smack is not meaningful.

The Problem-Solver

The problem solver has a problem to solve, like the oppression of an ethnic group, or the eradication of a beloved city landmark, or any number of other causes that are no doubt meaningful and important to solve. When solving problems you look for tools to help you and sometimes the problem solver chooses a work of art to help solve it.

Thus when the problem solver discusses the art in question they discuss it not in any way that is meant to achieve a deeper understanding of the art, but only in how the art relates to their problem they want solving and the solution they are pushing. In essence the problem solver is a publicist for their problem, but instead of commissioning a new trailer to get people interested in a movie they are taking an already formed work and manipulating it to fit the narrative they want.

Sometimes the Moralist will act as a problem solver, that is to say the ‘immorality’ of one piece of art is the problem to solve, and they will use as a tool another piece of art to pursue that discussion,

This Article was written by IG Agent 13.