The social obligation to be bad at things • Hacker News Board

Re: The social obligation to be bad at things

#181

Post by throwaway_pdp09 » Thu, Jun 11, 2020, 11:19 PM UTC

grasshopperpurp wrote: post #115

the_af wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I remember the first time I saw "Fountain" by Duchamps, which, for the uninitiated, is a urinal, on its side, signed and dated by the artist I totally, completely agree with your point and with the parent post ("I could have created this", "but you didn't"), but... ...you can still, after all of this, conclude that the piece of art is snobbish, artless garbage. In fact I reserve the right to do so. I agree with you…

>you can still, after all of this, conclude that the piece of art is snobbish, artless garbage. >I "know" it's worthless to me. So long as one understands the "to me" is implicit, and so long as one understands that POV to be one of countless POV's, I don't see any issue with criticism. For myself, if something doesn't work, and I see that it's not the work of a novice, I tend to default to, "It's not for me right no…

Your post is saying something roughly parallel to what I've been saying in my other, rather less tolerant posts. It's a good description.

Re: The social obligation to be bad at things

#182

Post by yesenadam » Thu, Jun 11, 2020, 11:22 PM UTC

khazhoux wrote: post #111

Author is overlooking an important point: we tend to only judge people who compete with us directly. To paraphrase Nietzsche: "The vanity of others offends our taste only when it offends our own vanity."

La Rochefoucauld (1670s) :

"What makes the vanity of others insufferable to us is that it wounds our own."

Re: The social obligation to be bad at things

#183

Post by mlthoughts2018 » Thu, Jun 11, 2020, 11:35 PM UTC

This is basically a restatement of the core of Robin Hanson’s years-long set of Overcoming Bias posts about “homo hypocritus”.

The short answer is status. The game you are playing with others (whether you want to or not) is all about political status. It’s not at all about objective successful outcomes. It’s about who can utilize politics as a resource to take what they want and entrench their hold of it.

For example in medieval times, decrying scientific progress as heretical served the purpose of allowing monarchs and religious figureheads to retain power. Who gives a shit how planetary orbits work if you can decapitate your enemies becuz god.

This is a very deeply ingrained evolutionary aspect of humans and we are not modern or sophisticated in terms of defeating it.

To expect otherwise is naive & frankly frustrating.

Re: The social obligation to be bad at things

#184

Post by jryle70 » Thu, Jun 11, 2020, 11:37 PM UTC

arexxbifs wrote: post #107

mikeyouse wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a similar experience after visiting a modern art museum with a creative friend of mine. I jokingly said "Even I could have done that" about one of the pieces and my friend replied, "But you didn't" -- hit me in one of those profound realization kind of ways. I started thinking about all of the effort it takes to envision something, find the resources, build it, work to get it displayed somewhere. Just creating…

If your works are displayed in a museum, you're not a struggling amateur. You're supposed to have some kind of ability and that ability shouldn't have to be defended by pointless platitudes. "Modern" "Art" is very far from someone actually creating something out of passion or curiosity. Last time I visited the Guggenheim, there were three different "works" from three different "artists" on display - all of them were…

Presumably you're talking about Agnes Martin, who had an exhibition at Guggenheim a few years ago. If you aren't my apologies.

She had a lot of paintings that look like empty canvas from afar but show lot of details up close [0]

You don't have to like her work, but dismissing her paintings as "full of shit" is, well, remarkably full of...

Minimalism was her artistic choice that spanned many decades, and who knows how much time she spent to master her pursuit. She was so into her choice, she sought out to destroy her earlier works [1]

She was recognized by her peers, who are more qualified than you and I in judging at the very least technique and dedication.

[0] - https://www.moma.org/artists/3787 [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnes_Martin

Re: The social obligation to be bad at things

#185

Post by vertex-four » Thu, Jun 11, 2020, 11:42 PM UTC

the_af wrote: post #178

vertex-four wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last year, I went to a hacker event held in an art space - various things owned by the space were labeled "this is art, don't hack it". However, as the event want on, hastily-printed copies of the same signs appeared on more things - a vending machine, someone's laptop, a staircase, someone's sleeping bag on a balcony. It gave me the opportunity to see these things in a new light - in my opinion, there was art there…

> does it matter? If the word "art" has indeed lost all meaning, does that change the way we interact with the world, or communicate with each other? It does for me. If "art" and "everything" become synonyms, I feel I've lost a valuable concept, and one I definitely use frequently. Your anecdote about the "don't hack this" label is indeed clever and funny, and it's making a statement I can relate to. It's like hackin…

> You're anecdote about the "don't hack this" label is indeed clever and funny, and it's making a statement I can relate to. It's like hacking the event, in a way.

I took away something entirely different from it (I took it as a given that the vending machine was indeed art because someone had proclaimed it to be so, and proceeded to think about what it might have to say within the context of the space and the event), but there you go.

The thing is that simply saying that something is "artless" isn't interesting - someone claimed it is art, and they did it for artistic purpose, and people are thinking about it as if it were art, so why isn't it? There's a big difference between saying that it's a stupid reaction to its context or that it's snobbish, and that it's artless.

I really enjoy witnessing the tagging and graffiti around the railways in the cities I've lived in, and feel there's definitely art in claiming the space in that way, but others feel it's spoiling the view and artless. Which of us is right?

Re: The social obligation to be bad at things

#186

Post by m463 » Thu, Jun 11, 2020, 11:47 PM UTC

commandlinefan wrote: post #3

Can I agree with his overall premise but disagree with thinking that scheduling weekly one-on-one's with your wife is in any way a good idea? I also wonder if the social obligation to be bad at things - that is, to avoid arrogance at all costs, even at the risk of withholding potentially useful advice - is more an American thing than a worldwide phenomenon. Not being embarrassed when you can't spell words correctly s…

I've found that one-on-ones are vitally important for any relationship, no matter what you call them.

I would even make one observation. If there is a sort of time or power imbalance in a relationship, the personal meeting is probably of vital importance to the one with more time or less power. In other words "the meeting is for them, not for you"

Re: The social obligation to be bad at things

#187

Post by carapace » Thu, Jun 11, 2020, 11:47 PM UTC

> If I sat down and tried to design a set of social norms for discouraging people from being their best selves, I honestly don't think I could have done a better job than this.

> Why don't we want people to be good at things?

Historically most people were peasants or serfs. The only thing they were expected to be good at was that, and were actively discouraged from doing anything else.

We have gone from "Civilization and Its Discontents" to the Human Potential Movement in the blink of an eye.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilization_and_Its_Disconten...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Potential_Movement

Re: The social obligation to be bad at things

#188

Post by askafriend » Thu, Jun 11, 2020, 11:50 PM UTC

abathur wrote: post #172

arexxbifs wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jump right in! I seem to be in rant mode anyway. :) Defining art and defining beauty must not be confused. I don't think art _must_ be beautiful, I was commenting on whether three blank canvases could convey some kind of beauty. Perhaps, to some, depending on how they were arranged, the background offsetting them, the overall surroundings, etc. But having to construct some abstract concept around exhibiting them and…

I don't think you've found bedrock. Don't confuse being able to measure something with attempts to explain what the measurement means. Even if everyone agrees the mathematically-perfect face or landscape is beautiful, "we" are what was actually measured. If there isn't absolute agreement that the mathematically-perfect face is beautiful, be very suspicious of the interpretation. Beauty is an experience, not a thing.…

You expressed the idea I wanted to far better than I did. Great framing around the personal and experiential nature that drives (what I consider) art.

Re: The social obligation to be bad at things

#189

Post by h0l0cube » Fri, Jun 12, 2020, 12:06 AM UTC

evmar wrote: post #12

I found that, as a person who (sometimes) creates things, my attitude towards other people who create things has significantly shifted. When I was younger I would just see the fault -- the typos, the narcissism, the pointlessness, the already-been-done-better-by-others -- of people's work. But after trying a bit, it sometimes (for the same reasons the OP talks about) creating anything new ends up being really hard in…

> creating anything new ends up being really hard in part because while you struggle everyone is shouting "lame!" from the sidelines

This reminds me of the 'curse of development' from the Gervais Principle.

https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2010/04/14/the-gervais-principle-...

Re: The social obligation to be bad at things

#190

Post by AgentMatt » Fri, Jun 12, 2020, 12:16 AM UTC

leroy_masochist wrote: post #36

> I was at a liberating structures event recently, and one of the people I was working with related an anecdote in which he tried a party game as an ice breaker. Many of those are cringe, but this one sounded fun and inoffensive (it was a sentence continuation game where each person said a word following on from a previous one, in an attempt to construct something that sounded like an aphorism). Most people were relu…

I think you are conflating introversion and shyness or a broader uncomfortableness / inexperience with social interactions.

Yes, these things can be related. Spending less time socialising will lead to fewer opportunities to learn social skills, and to being less used to interactions with strangers.

Things being (perceived as) awkward are in my experience a result of lack of knowing what's appropriate behavior in a given situation. Something that will come with experience, and with self-confidence (reduces the need to "know the protocol" to feel comfortable in a social situation).

I would consider myself an introvert. I also used to be very shy, and was very concerned about appearing weird to others. In retrospect, one of the reasons for that was that _I_ was judging people all the time for all kinds of things, and believed they must be doing the same, and I couldn't bear that thought.

Nowadays I am comfortable in social situations and enjoy them greatly with the right people. Still don't go to parties a lot, still spent a lot of time by myself.

By self-proclaiming yourself as introvert and implying that entails unchangeable defects in social abilities, you will prevent yourself from learning and acquiring these abilities.