Anti-Climacus

LINK: The Guardian, one of the more reflexively left-leaning papers in England, is out with a good piece on the difficult relations between high art and the Left.

Me likey:

"But there is an important difference between questions of the intrinsic value of literary or artistic works in any culture and their social significance to the people who produce them. A cairn of stones, or a figurine of a goat or a goddess might have religious meaning for a community, and be venerated by it, without having or pretending to have artistic merit. But an attentive eye can see the difference between a rough carving and a fine one, whatever its social or religious significance. The latter typically shows more observation and care, and evinces more skill or painstakingness in the working; in short, manifests the marks of quality. A difference in social or religious significance does not affect, still less negate, differences in quality. Those concerned to respect the productions of other cultures are apt not to distinguish these things, thinking that social significance is enough to confer artistic merit, and therefore refusing to allow comparisons on the mistaken ground that doing so implies disrespect."

and:

"A capacity to see these qualities in human cultural productions, especially a developed or (which is the same thing) critical capacity, does not automatically amount to an offensive and exclusive cultural snobbery. It simply means a heightened awareness, and a concomitantly increased enjoyment of what it encounters when it encounters quality; and when quality is at issue, the capacity in question tends to be general and inclusive."