Thanks Adam.

I think we’ve taken it down. We decided it was promoting posts on the basis of controversy, not quality. We have a replacement link to top posts in mind, but we haven’t done it yet.

Sheesh.

It’s on the list, I think. I doubt that it has passed Julie’s Horse thread yet, or Melissa’s Powerful Women thread.

Was curious where this was headed on the ten longest.

You have brought back to mind one of the single most bizarre artistic encounters I, as a philistine, have ever had. My friend and I attended a free music recital at BYU only to discover that it was experimental music. This turned out to be very bad. The climax was a variety of, presumably accomplished, violinists smacking their violins in various ways while a man at a mike shouted, “It can hurt, and still be art!”

This was, naturally, the object of a great deal of later mockery by me and my friend, though the point is valid. Whether or not something hurts does not tell me whether or not it is art. The two are seperate questions, each important. Well, at least one of them is important.

Nate: Generally speaking, yes, lit crits can tell serious criticism from parody, although there are borderline cases. (There is one post-classical Latin grammarian that I find absolutely hilarious; others think his description of varieties of Latinity was meant to be serious.) Certain modes of criticism intentionally blur the distinction between scholarly discourse and parodies of the same. They can be useful on some occasions, but tend to be hazardous if being clearly understood is one of your primary objectives. My preference is to avoid writing or reading that brand of criticism where possible. Am I guilty of it in my review? Yes, but it serves a useful purpose there, by making things just ridiculous enough for aesthetic considerations to be palatable while the ethical issues are still causing some people indigestion.