More art is being produced and sold than ever before, at ever higher prices

Re:More art is being produced and sold than ever before, at ... by pron on Friday March 02, 2018 @01:33PM (#16504362)

I would say that your explanation is simplistic, but really it's no explanation at all (and has little to do with the article, so I'm not even sure what it is that you're responding to except your own interpretation of the title). What does it mean that art is "an asset class like any other"? First, no asset is like any other when its particulars are the subject under discussion. Food isn't like transportation, and neither of them is like art. Second, what does "that's really how it works" explain? It's like saying money is just money. The question is what power structure and dynamics it creates. It's not that "the rich" are "offensive", but they do create a certain dynamics, which is important to understand. And so what if "that's how it works"? Does that mean that the dynamics must never change? It's changing constantly, both in the small (e.g. the particular tax tactics that artworks are used for, discussed in the article) and in the large (the relative power of the rich vs. that of the rest of society). Highlighting the power structure in society (both in the small and in the large) is neither an expression of offense (at least not in the sense of taking offense you seem to allude to) nor an immutable law of nature. It is both an interesting subject of study as well as a subject for change.

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Re:More art is being produced and sold than ever before, at ... by motohagiography on Friday March 02, 2018 @01:45PM (#16504481)

Interesting. To me, "highlighting the power structure," is a critical technique that frames one party as a moral antagonist and there is nothing neutral, objective, or rigorous about that. I should perhaps have been more brief and said only that the article was tawdry marxist outrage porn, but I my intent was to contribute a view that untangled it from its tendentious frame.

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Re:More art is being produced and sold than ever before, at ... by pron on Friday March 02, 2018 @02:23PM (#16504780)

> To me, "highlighting the power structure," is a critical technique that frames one party as a moral antagonist

That's unfortunate. Exploitation does not imply a moral failure on the part of the exploiter (just as "sexist" and "racist" aren't moral accusations like misogynist/xenophobe) but is a description of a dynamics where all parties can (and often do) have good intentions. It seems like the moral reading is your own interpretation, and it is you who is taking offense. Note that the desire to fight the dynamics also does not imply an assumption of a moral failure on the part of those you wish to fight. For example, much of civilization is about fighting nature, yet this does not imply that we believe nature has an ill intent towards us.

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Re:More art is being produced and sold than ever before, at ... by motohagiography on Friday March 02, 2018 @03:09PM (#16505224)

I would be very surprised if anyone outside a few fringe email newsletters would agree that racism and sexism are not moral accusations. In a case where that statement were true, where sexism and racism were intrinsic facts of a struggle between exploiters and exploitees and not circumstantial beliefs to be mitigated by discourse, there is no possibility of peace, tolerance, or coexistance. And yet, these manage to exist today almost everywhere where people who do not believe that sort of thing live.

The main implication of such a view is that discourse is just an artifact of that oppression, that only postpones an inevitable conflict that is necessarily fatal for one of the exploiter or exploited. It also excuses the exploited from being held to the ethics and morality of the exploiter.

Hard not to see such a system of belief as beyond reason and even incarnate evil, but as they say, the devil's greatest trick was convincing us he didn't exist. :)

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Re:More art is being produced and sold than ever before, at ... by mjburgess on Friday March 02, 2018 @03:07PM (#16505206)

You're conflating character assessments with moral ones.

A racist may be both immoral and good natured.

Exploitation is a moral term. It says that the mere existence of a whole group of people is immoral. It's not clear that it is, nor even really what "exploitation" means.

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Re:More art is being produced and sold than ever before, at ... by pron on Friday March 02, 2018 @06:17PM (#16506648)

Moral culpability assumes responsibility. I'm racist and sexist because I was born in a racist and sexist society -- that was not my fault. I spread disease because germs exist, and that's not my fault. But now that I've learned to see and recognize racism, sexism and germs, I try to fight them and not to spread them. If I don't wash my hands or do not fight sexism and racism, then I am morally culpable now, but those facts in themselves do not imply moral culpability even though they do imply harm (in all three cases).

Your statement about exploitation is just an expression of laziness and anger. It is hard for me to believe that you believe that scholars believe that the existence of a group of people is immoral. If that is what you believe, then you aren't paying attention.

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