As such, I would not be inclined to call them 'stupid' in the usual meaning of the term. However, there are many that are serious attempts to engage a difficult problem in an intelligent manner. Some of them are, in fact, what could be called stupid. Having taught aesthetics for quite some time I have read a multitude of attempts to define art. However, being honest, I must also admit that there is truth in what he says. The reality is that what “is” and “isn’t art” is something we can determine with a slider in our prefrontal cortex.īeing, I suppose, in the intellectual class I naturally take some issue with his remarks. This is sometimes termed anti-intellectualism, usually by intellectuals, when what it is in truth is an opposition to intellect for intellect’s sake. I have always been white trash, and will never cease to be so what that means is that I was raised with an inherent distrust in the Hoity and a base and brutal urge to dismantle the Toity.

Generally speaking, when a person constructs a thought-machine of this kind, what they’re actually trying to do is determine what isn’t art. I don’t think I’ve ever read a definition for art that wasn’t stupid. Holkins is not a man who minces words or treads lightly across the interwebs. As a philosophy professor who teaches an aesthetic class every spring semester, I was pleased to see two of my interests merge (like a fireball merging into a pack of gnolls). In his column, Jerry Holkins made some interesting comments about defining art. Like most gamers, I am a regular reader of Penny Arcade.

Define rarify