
When arts die, they turn into hobbies - privong
http://www.thesmartset.com/article/article01201501.aspx
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cmsmith
>It might be nice to live in a world in which poets had the audiences of
pundits. And maybe the making of carrot carnations should be an Olympic event.

I take the opposite message from all of this. It _is_ nice to live in a world
with such absurd levels of human productivity that people have the education
and time for half a dozen "frivolous" hobbies. As a middle class person, I can
learn carrot carving and wood turning and painting without expecting any
financial gain, then stop at a free local art gallery on my way to hear some
free live music at a bar.

Maybe the author thinks that the past was the time of greatness in the arts
because the only people who could afford to participate in the arts were
great.

~~~
dgabriel
There's never really been any money in poetry for people who were just
published poets. "Great" poets were all subsidized by patrons, worked in odd
jobs or other mediums, or died in penury (sometimes all three)! The same is
true now as it was 200 years ago.

~~~
puranjay
There are some exceptions, of course. Lord Byron's poets regularly sold out
and were very profitable. As was Tennyson and Robert Browning's poetry.

If we had perpetual copyright, I suspect Shakespeare's estate would be worth
several billion dollars.

~~~
gizmo686
If we had perpetual copyright, Shakespeare would have been sued out of
existence.

~~~
deciplex
To expand on this, if we had perpetual copyright, we wouldn't have culture.

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roneesh
I appreciate the clarity of the difference between art and craft. Craft is
when the audience is the practitioners. Clarifying that distinction alone was
worth the read.

~~~
robert_tweed
I think that's a poor definition.

I generally consider art to be an expression of ideas. A craft is an
expression of skill.

Further "These are arts that have no audience, other than practitioners of the
art itself. Another word for a craft is a hobby." This is patently false.
Perhaps the archetypal craft is basket-weaving. It's a hobby for some, but for
others (especially in certain regions) it's a profession. The "audience" is
anyone that wants a basket. Perhaps some of that audience can appreciate the
difference between a good basket and a bad one. That does not require that
they be a practitioner of basket-weaving themselves.

In fact, of the terms art and craft, the latter is the one that is reasonably
well defined. Things only get fuzzy when you get into whether or not a craft
is art. Not because of the fuzzy definition of a craft, but because of the
fuzzy definition of art.

~~~
jdmichal
> Perhaps some of that audience can appreciate the difference between a good
> basket and a bad one. That does not require that they be a practitioner of
> basket-weaving themselves.

This is actually pretty close to how I personally define a "professional": A
professional is someone whose work can only be judged by other professionals
of the same domain.

Obvious failure modes are exempted. Anyone can tell you about a bad bridge
_after_ it has failed. But it would take a bridge engineer to tell you that
_before_ it fails.

~~~
noblethrasher
> Anyone can tell you about a bad bridge after it has failed. But it would
> take a bridge engineer to tell you that before it fails.

Right, especially since bridge engineers don't produce bridges, but rather
produce _designs_ for bridges, the quality of which can only be judged by
other bridge engineers.

I like your definition.

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thebooktocome
The Aubrey-Maturin series, including "Master and Commander", is actually quite
good and of significant literary merit.

~~~
jccooper
Sure, but it's not "literary fiction". You can tell because it has a plot and
I can find it in a bookstore. Literary fiction is the "art for art's sake"
side of fiction writing.

~~~
dgabriel
No... that's not true at all. Books like Lolita, Catch-22, Animal Farm, and To
Kill a Mockingbird are all considered literary fiction.

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imjk
Couldn't you argue art is pretty much a hobby for all participants except the
1% in each field that makes a living from it?

~~~
carrotleads
Isn't this the case for many sporting activities... even for Tennis...
supposedly the 1% are the ones who make a living, the rest may well class it
as a hobby.. ref : [http://www.news.com.au/sport/tennis/gap-between-the-haves-
an...](http://www.news.com.au/sport/tennis/gap-between-the-haves-and-have-
nots-in-tennis-continues-to-widen/story-fndkzym4-1227200656908)

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zdw
So, people printing stuff out of PLA plastic on an extrusion printer as a
hobby means what, that product design as an art is going away? Will an army of
hobbyists with the much improved descendants of Makerbots make employing
someone like Jony Ive obsolete in 50 years?

It sure looks like that - it appears to me that Marx's "workers owning the
means of production" argument for collective ownership of workplaces is being
conquered by tool prices going down by successive orders of magnitude.

~~~
jccooper
Industry begins as a hobby, art dies as one.

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dgabriel
I'm not sure I buy this argument. By his criterion, porn is more or less _the_
major art.

~~~
zem
that would require the audience to consist of people who make porn

~~~
dgabriel
No, his argument is that "major art" is widely consumed by people who do not
practice it. He uses poetry -- consumed by a small audience of people who
almost entirely consider themselves poets -- as an example of "craft." I
disagree with his definitions here. They aren't meaningful.

~~~
zem
oops, yes, i misread your argument. agreed, porn would definitely be a "major
art" by that criterion. (and really, who's to say it isn't? it's an orthogonal
classification to good/bad art.)

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startupdoc_Reed
An excellent article about what this culture considers art. I earned an MFA a
few years back and spent a lot of time with the "literary crowd." I love both
literary and genre writing, but I think most academics who favor literary
writing do so because it is esoteric. I honestly don't think many of them
actual "enjoy" these works; they just delve into them because they are not
popular, and they, therefore, make the academic feel smart.

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golemotron
An art that is out of favor is called a craft. Religions are called cults for
the same reason.

~~~
startupdoc_Reed
I didn't know religions were called cults.

~~~
golemotron
You don't think cults are religions?

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mqsoh
Arts don't die.

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kdazzle
Ugh. Such an arrogant writer.

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Animats
Next, music. "I'm in a band" \- big deal. There were how many million Myspace
bands?

~~~
circlefavshape
The "underground" music scene in most cities mostly consists of bands going to
see other bands

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tgb
Seems like the next logical thing to apply this trichotomy to is fields of
study. Uh oh, looks like math is just a hobby now. But since I've convinced
someone to pay me to do that hobby, I guess I don't care what label it's
given.

