Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The social obligation to be bad at things

notebook.drmaciver.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

211–220 of 248 posts

Re: The social obligation to be bad at things

#211

Post by jonnypotty »

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…

People who makes things are the real mvp, not the critics. The thing is that critics are funny.

Re: The social obligation to be bad at things

#212

Post by cutemonster »

renewiltord wrote: post #136

This is the same misunderstanding as the one that leads to angst at interview selection. You don't have a social obligation to do anything. It's just that you share some characteristics with a lot of kooks. For instance, I have a few views that would flip the bozo bit on most people (I am anti-organ-donation, pro-lower-quality-healthcare, anti-Office-of-the-First-Lady, and I think people tried to scapegoat Andrew Wak…

> pro-lower-quality-healthcare

What does that mean? What bigger goal lies behind that?

> you have to symmetrify that in a trusted fashion.

Yes I think so too. And I suppose sometimes someone who, say, wears formal clothes and a suite, does that not because s/he wants to dress like that, but because s/he knows about this too

Re: The social obligation to be bad at things

#213

Post by cutemonster »

WalterBright wrote: post #144

> Why don't we want people to be good at things? Because if A and B start out at the same place, and A succeeds, then B lacks an excuse to justify his non-success. So B needs to tear down A in order to feel better about himself.

Yes, precisely. Well, minor thing:

"in order to continue seeming to be a useful member of the group", I'd say.

And there're other strategies too, of course, one includes trying to help A become even better

Re: The social obligation to be bad at things

#214

Post by marcus_holmes »

Nohnce1 wrote: post #119
marcus_holmes wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love the "feedback bucket" method for dealing with this. Feedback/criticism is basically shit. 99% of it is utterly worthless and useless. So I mentally put it into the "feedback bucket" together with all the other crap (my inner critic is a plentiful source of vicious, spiteful, targetted feedback). Eventually, from the bucket, the Flowers of Insight will grow. My mind's background processing will distill all that…

The visualization alone is helping with compartmentalizing negative feedback. That's a unique way to find insight by having sheer concentration of negative feedback.

Remember though, that the positive feedback goes in the bucket too.

That also helps with the "shucks, thanks, but it's really not that good" reaction. If someone gushes praise over your work, then that goes in the bucket. Smile and nod, thank them for their contribution, move on.

Re: The social obligation to be bad at things

#215

Post by grasshopperpurp »

the_af wrote: post #124
grasshopperpurp wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

Yes, of course, it's always "to me". I don't wish to stop other people from liking it, or set fire to the museum that displays it. I wish we didn't have to be this careful about language. Note I will, however, make a mental judgment of someone who finds "Fountain" very moving or noteworthy. Again, this is my personal judgment and I think I'm entitled to it. edit: > "It's not for me right now" This has definitely happ…

>I wish we didn't have to be this careful about language.

I didn't mean to say you do. I was talking about perspective, because it impacts how we experience things and can help or undermine our ability to enjoy and understand.

>This has definitely happened to me, but with books and movies.

Same - also happens a lot with music.

Re: The social obligation to be bad at things

#216

Post by dTal »

thu2111 wrote: post #207
uxenthusiast wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. When you see an upside down toilet in a museum and art enthusiasts in awe and say "I could have done that" you express you incomprehension : why is something so trivial admired? I thought I had to do something exceptionnal to get admired. The answer you get is "But you didn't", yeah because I didn't think a toilet had value. You feel mocked by the artiste. Cheated. So yeah, creating is hard and it's pretty hard…

Yeah. The debate over Fountain is really a proxy for wider and more important debates about social class, the value of labour etc. When someone can take a toilet, say it's art, and then it sells for >$10 million, it feels to a lot of people like some parts of society are just deliberately mocking them, rubbing their face in it. They're so rich they can flush $10 million on what looks like trying to grab some brief at…

This is my main problem with the "but you didn't" objection. I could have made that, in the sense that I am clever and imaginative and creative enough to look at a toilet and say "wouldn't it be funny to take this toilet and put it in a museum and call it art". It's not a high bar. I could not have made that, in the sense that I lack the power to get things into museums, no matter how much artistic merit they have, and the existence of Fountain confirms that this skill is orthogonal to creating things people want to look at.

Damien Hirst takes this mockery you mention and makes it the very focus of his "art". He took a skull and coated it in diamonds and called it "For the love of god". Even the title seems to say "jesus, how far can I push this?"

Re: The social obligation to be bad at things

#217

Post by dTal »

robotresearcher wrote: post #161
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…

> I don't know if Fountain is or isn't art. I "know" it's worthless to me. It's 103 years old and today you are taking the time to discuss it in public. There, at least, is a demonstration that this piece made a dent in the universe.

"Made a dent in the universe" isn't really a synonym for worthwhile.

Re: The social obligation to be bad at things

#218

Post by grasshopperpurp »

throwaway_pdp09 wrote: post #120
wbronitsky wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh boy do I resonate with this. Thank you for sharing this! 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. For years, decades, I cast it aside in my mind as something silly, something artsy, something that wasn't for me. It was ugly, vulgar, and above all, obvious. For years, seeing replica after replica in modern and conte…

So my post was downvoted and flagged. And without any reply, ok, here's why I said you'd swallowed the bullshit. > the simple fact of calling this art was a profound statement, A statement of what? Why is it profound? > one worth considering within its context. Why is it worth considering? Why is it worth doing so within its context ? Its context is its siting within an art gallery, so does the re-siting it into an a…

>A statement of what? Why is it profound?

I view it as part of the wider conversation at the time, where many artists were challenging the standards of art. The Fountain is a little more on the nose than - say - Paul Klee intentionally using imperfect lines to give his art more feeling (which brings to mind J Dilla's slightly off-beat drum patterns). On the nose works better for some people.

Re: The social obligation to be bad at things

#219

Post by raxxorrax »

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…

I think I comprehend the difficulty of creating something but I still rant about things freely.

Not if it isn't interest me and not by shouting lame if there is no interest in the topic. I know how quickly people grow expectations and you begin to put them on yourself. If your most loyal fan would like an update before christmas, you might find yourself putting in quite some extra hours.

Underselling yourself might be from a time when humility was a virtue. I don't see modern societies reflecting that too much anymore. But you can also find yourself in a situation where you have to justify your abilities.

But I believe underselling also keeps you from creating expectations. Smart thing to do is tell everyone how stupid you are. And suddenly you are the guy full of surprises. Better than the other way around and being completely honest is of course out of the question for humans.

Re: The social obligation to be bad at things

#220

Post by throwaway_pdp09 »

imtringued wrote: post #204
throwaway_pdp09 wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So my post was downvoted and flagged. And without any reply, ok, here's why I said you'd swallowed the bullshit. > the simple fact of calling this art was a profound statement, A statement of what? Why is it profound? > one worth considering within its context. Why is it worth considering? Why is it worth doing so within its context ? Its context is its siting within an art gallery, so does the re-siting it into an a…

>so does the re-siting it into an art gallery de-facto make it art? If so that's a pathetically shallow achievement. Yes it is art. There is no barrier to turning into something into art. You don't need to go to a government office and license your work as art. You don't need to go to an established committee of artists to approve your work as art. Art can be bad, otherwise good art couldn't exist. Every good artist…

> There is no barrier to turning into something into art.

Then what divides art from not-art? Is there even a difference?

> Art can be bad

Then why do people look at it? Are you saying they can't distinguish good art from bad?

Isn't at least one of the purposes of an art gallery to exhibit good art and not bad? If not, what is an art gallery for?

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fountain_%28Duchamp%29 it was made in 1917. If it was bad art as you imply, it's been over a century and no-one's officially dismissed it as bad (or is it described officially as bad art?). What does that say.

"Fountain was not rejected by the committee, since Society rules stated that all works would be accepted from artists who paid the fee" - ah,. so money changing hands was a requirement for it to be treated as art.

"The work is regarded by art historians and theorists of the avant-garde as a major landmark in 20th-century art."

Apparently it's good art then. I guess. AFAICT. Who can say?

It's like nobody's even thinking about this, just "it's art so it's art", whereas "am I being suckered" doesn't come into it.

Post reply on HN