ART TALK

Art appraisal is highly subjective. To discuss it obviously you need to use language and language is full of pseudo-objective terms. This makes it sound that when the quality of an artistic work is in question you’re talking about something that exists less in perception and more in the actual work itself. I suggest quality resides to a greater extent in the minds of those who are engaging with the work. The best we get when looking for objective standards in art is a kind of inter-subjectivity which is like a consensus within a group - the bigger the group, the more relevant the work.

GENERATION GAP

Something I predicted as a teenager: It’s about my generation and its relationship with the younger. We appear bracketed. i.e. we are in some ways a seamless whole, the product of a shared set of values. At the very least there’s a thread of commonality runs through the stuff we like, the way we look, the way we talk and think, what our aspirations are etc. This might be less obvious in Britain which has taken a long time to emerge from Victorianism. But in the US it’s clearer. Contrast this with the huge chasm between mine and my parents’ generation. They seemed to us and really were the product of another age. I believe what we have now is a better thing.

CHARLIE BROOKER

The Guardian’s TV critic, Charlie Brooker, takes a swipe here at himself and much of modern culture which likes to pretend it’s bad and mean and not to be messed with - like it’s cool to be at heart just a pubescent kid from the wrong side of the tracks. “Sentiment has a bad name. It isn’t cool sentiment. Nihilism is cool. Look at the name on this column - ‘Screen Burn’ - yeah man, burn! Quake before my scorching cynicism. I’m setting light to the system. I’m an arsonist-anarchist, unafraid to stick a blow torch of truth in the face of the MAN. I toss flaming matches into kittens eyes - GRRRR! “

TRASH TV

The journalist Jasper Gerard interviewed senior BBC person, Lorraine Heggessey, in the Sunday Times. She said: “It’s pretty trashy BBC 1. The trashier the telly, the more the masses are mad for it. That is why for the first time anyone can remember, more people now ogle it than ITV. For they have not been lured by the prime time expositions of Cartesian dualism but with exposures of those dual treasures belonging to Tasman Outhwaite, a soap star.” Heggessey was arguing for trash TV. Gerard tried to put her down but did so in such an unconvincing way that she came over stronger. It happens often that. The argument you want to see triumph is in the hands of such inept case-makers that you end up with more sympathy for your opponents.

EXISTENTIALISTS

For those who celebrate existentialism it usually hasn’t penetrated emotionally. They are often free of the associated angst. Their kind of existentialism is intellectual and held as a belief almost like a religion (Dawkins). For them the “god-shaped hole” is filled by something else - a passionately held ontology.

NIETZSCHE V JESUS

The basic components of Christian philosophy are twofold: faith and compassion. Faith as in the truth of God along with belief in the possibility of human emancipation. Compassion as in how you should act with respect to others. Nietzsche by contrast is the antichrist. His is about perspective before truth. Things are how you see them. Compassion is a form of weakness. You should act resolutely on behalf of your strengths and live out the consequences. In the 20th Century the dynamic moved in Nietzsche’s direction. Or maybe it always had but we merely stopped pretending.

DEALING WITH SCOTS

When dealing with Scottish people there’s usually an added layer of deficit that comes from their cultural inheritance. This manifests in some kind of insecurity. It may come to the surface disguised e.g. as ego or humour. But whichever way it will cause a problem when trying to relate, communicate, initiate, when trying to get things done. Any attempts at coherence will be seriously impaired by the nature of this deficit.

FUTURE POP

I hope the future of pop is different. We’ve had fifty years of re-cycling the expressions and instincts of primitive, immature types. That’s fine but maybe it’s time to move on. Perhaps the next stage could be something more sophisticated with more fusions. It would be articulate, accomplished and intelligent as opposed to primal and dripping with emotion. Above all it would be elevated and civilising in the spirit of Ellington or McCartney.