That's not it. They are basically saying "the Emperor has no clothes".

i.e. that people pretend to get it, but really, there's nothing there. And what they don't understand is why pretend?

I've had someone say this about all of poetry. All of it...

It takes some breathtaking arrogance to think that a good chunk of educated and intelligent people are indulging in pretending to 'get something'.

I have written (edit: arguably terrible) poetry that people really enjoyed. But, I never thought of it as anything other than a word game. When someone called it deep there was a part of me that wanted to call BS and say it's attacking the part of your mind that seeks meaning in everything.

  Just Die  *What someone says*
  End the Endless Breath with Death *What an author says*
  Endless Breath Ended *What a poet says*

PS: Some people feel it's the readers who create meaning not the author or words themselves. I always felt that was a little to close to the chinese room argument. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_room (Edit: Organization is important, a living body and a dead body may have the same atoms, but the dead one does not understand language.)

The same applies to music. There are great variations in taste and there are people who exist who can't appreciate music at all. But it would clearly be absurd for them to claim that music is a case of emperor's clothes. I see your point though.

You can by definition not understand why they don't understand. If you understood why they don't understand then you'd likely not understand yourself. Likewise, if they understood why they don't understand then they'd probably have understood in first place.

That argument works for the purely logical definition of "understand", but not so much for the "appreciate" or "accept" meanings of the word.

Its not so much that I don't understand how you have have the capacity to understand these things but rather what do you actually understand?

Think of some art you really like, then find someone who doesn't feel anything from it. Now try explaining why you like it to them. That's what you're asking us to do.

Art makes you think or feel outside your normal scripts... you don't need to "understand" anything. What is the origin of creativity?

Understanding is difficult - let's go shopping.