From cardhore Sent Mon, May 10th 1999, 02:57
From cardhore Sent Mon, May 10th 1999, 02:57
>Well, we are quite far afield from the topic of graffiti. It might >also be asked "what gives anyone the right to foist their concept of art on >people in the public forum as such?". The burden of proof would actually lie >with you, though, as the commonly accepted position IS that of the >propriety of personal ownership - notwithstanding the fact that you slipped your >premise under the door in the form of a question - and you need to unseat the >established position before proceeding to establish a new one. hmm, where did you get the rule that you "need to unseat the established position before proceeding to establish a new one?" i'm sure you probably know more about logic than me, but as far as i've found in my own argumentative exploits it's a nasty catch-22... you can't unseat the established position with nothing solid to replace it with. ya know, you're always hearing people say, "Well, maybe you're right, maybe _____ is wrong, but there's no better way, is there?" and then _____ stays put. and lots of times, without a new position, you'll never see that the old one needs unseating. for example, Galileo couldn't have said, "Shit! This Aristotelian view of the heavens is totalyl wrong!" before he looked in his telescope and saw the moons of Jupiter and the craters on the moon and all that. >Even so, I'd go with this : Personal investment in said object(s) along the lines >of commonly accepted currency and the responsibilities thereof in the >community at large. Behind this would lie the self-evident (imo, of course) >problem of human nature....while a world where we dole all things out equitably >is a nice ideal, it doesn't seem to fit well into the experience of >reality. We all tend to be a tad selfish, greedy and get-over at times. Without >the conventions we recognize as boundries and ownership, I'm not at all >convinced that we wouldn't be even less civilized than we are. human nature? experience of reality? that's awful presumptive of you, thinking that the "reality" of our history is the only possible way. actually, i'd think that looking back into our history, it's pretty convincing that the way we've been going about things -- capitalism and all its components, specifically slash-and-burnism, dominateeverythingism, getrichandstayrichism, and lockupthefoodism -- is something to rebel from, not reluctantly defend. ,rj../ ___,"www.gl.umbc.edu/~nworth1 ___________________________________________________________________ You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail. Get completely free e-mail from Juno at http://www.juno.com/getjuno.html or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866]