Sunday, 22 April 2012

Being too indulgent to artists that don't communicate well

For every artist that I don't understand, there are three possibilities:
  1. The artist has a valid perspective on the human experience that is so different from my own that the understanding gap is too high
  2. The artist has an understandable perspective that they have made unnecessarily complicated as a result of a lack of clarity of thinking
  3. The artist is not communicating anything of value, but makes the illusion of doing so (wrapped up in complexity) for the rewards of attention and money
Due to the difficulty and subjectiveness in distinguishing between the above possibilities, we are often indulgent to artists, assuming option 1, when options 2 or 3 might be the case.

By contrast, scientists who do not clearly communicate their work are given far less indulgence. So much so that scientists with a valid perspective are sometimes recognised only after their death when the rest of the world has caught up.

My view: scientists could do with a little more; artists with a little less.

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