A great artist is their own biggest critic: a bad artist is their own biggest fan.
A piece of text art about the attitudes different artists may have about the quality of their work.
An observation about artists attitudes to their own work. Of course it’s not a universally true observation. All I can say is that I’ve come across some averagely talented artists who seem to think that they are in fact pretty damned good and some very talented artists who think that they are in fact pretty inadequate.
Maybe one of the reasons for this is that good artists are more aware of where their work falls short of their intention and are generally more critical of their work, while less good artists may not have the critical facilities to judge their own work: they may even just be intoxicated by the fact that they’ve created anything at all.
Shame on you for being so insufferably smug and self-righteous that you use the phrase “Shame on you!”
I think I first heard the phrase “Shame on you“ when it was chanted on a political demonstration in which I was taking part. My memory tells me that the demonstration may have been an anti-Trump demonstration during his first term in office. The chant was being directed towards the police and was an admonition of the fact that they were protecting this man so that we, the demonstrators, couldn’t get at him. Shame on them indeed.
On previous demonisations one of the standard taunts directed towards the police had been the sarcastic “We’re only doing our job” (chanted as though it was the police themselves who were saying it as a justification of their stance). This coming from demonstrators the majority of whom probably didn’t have jobs.
The phrase “Shame on you” is now one of the go-to phrases for many demonstrators, and in some circles is used as a stock admonition directed at people who hold different opinions. Unfortunately it tells us more about the people who are using the phrase than about the people whom it’s being directed towards.
It’s a phrase that is redolent with the smell of moral superiority. True, for most people morals are (hopefully) very important, and quite a lot of people aspire quite laudably to a state of moral superiority; but true moral superiority involves the virtue of humility. The moral superiority of the person with the “Shame on you” mindset is the moral superiority of the smug, the self-important and the self-righteous
It’s also a phrase that is dismissive of the person to whom it’s directed. Those with the “Shame on you” mindset feel that they don’t have to engage with the arguments of those whom they disagree with because such people are morally wanting and are therefore unworthy of engagement.
The phrase is meant to diminish the person to whom it’s directed but it in fact diminishes the person uttering it.
Science is wrong. An antiscience message (that’s wrong).
Text art about the notion that science isn’t to be believed.
The wording of this piece is “Science is wrong if it thinks that it can topple people’s faith in the irrational”.
Science is by definition the seeking of truth through experimentation and the study of the material world. Using observations gleaned from these studies and experiments theories are propounded that propose an explanation of a nature of the world around us, of how it works and what lies behind its surface manifestation.
Science is at its essence a method of seeking the truth.
By definition scientific methods are the best way to seek explanations for the working of the world and the universe beyond. After all, what other methods are there? Guesswork ? Making things up? Interpreting dreams? Intuition?
People who dispute scientific findings point to erroneous conclusions following scientific investigations as proof of the falability of science. However, false conclusions in science are usually a result of human error in the pursuit of science. For instance a scientific experiment’s methodology may be flawed. An example could be when experiments fail to take all factors into account, possibly because the experimenters are unaware of what all of the factors are (unknown unknowns). Another example could be to do with the personalities of the experimenters themselves, resulting in the experimenters unconsciously devising biased experiments that give the sort of results that they are expecting.
These are not flaws in science though – they are flaws in the pursuit of science, the result of the fact that human beings and their thought processes are flawed.
Fortunately, as part of the scientific method for the pursuit of truth, when flawed scientific theories are proposed other scientists would do other experiments (different experiments) in order to test the theories and to either reinforce or question the conclusions.
Any criticism of science and the scientific method can equally be applied to any other method of the pursuit of truth, so in many respects criticism of science it’s also a criticism of all methods of the pursuit of truth.
People sometimes don’t like the scientific method because they see it as being cold and inhuman. But in fact that’s one of its strengths – it tries to be dispassionate and analytical (although sometimes it’s criticised for notbeing dispassionate and analytical).
For some people the problem with science is that it comes to conclusions that they don’t like very much. Some religious people for example have a problem with the theory of evolution, preferring to believe that humans were created fully formed by a god rather than being the product of endless eons of gradual change.
Some people have a problem with western medicine. This often focuses on the large drug companies that produce medicines, the argument being that the companies are only interested in making huge profits, and that they do this at the physical expense of the patients. Critics see this as science being used for profit and they may then be tempted to turn their backs on it and to embrace alternative medical practice such as homeopathy or herbalism which are seen as being untainted by financial greed (although you may disagree when you consider the tactics and the balance sheets of high street health outlets).
In recent years, a number of words and terms that were once acceptable in everyday usage have become taboo or verboten.
Writing about such words is a minefield. How can you write about taboo words without mentioning the words that are taboo?
I recently watched a documentary programme on the TV that included archive footage of people from several decades ago talking about things. In the introduction to the programme a voice announced that the programme contained language “of the time” that would now be deemed unacceptable. I watched the programme with added interest to see what these controversial words were going to be. By the end of the programme I had detected ONE word that I recognised as being dodgy. It wasn’t a particularly offensive term, at least in my estimation, and was uttered within a snippet of secondary dialogue within the programme. I’d have probably missed it if I hadn’t been listening out for it. Fortunately I can’t even remember what the word was now, so I can’t be judged on my estimation of it’s offensiveness. My point is that as far as the program makers were concerned the existence of this one minor debatably offensive term in an hour long documentary warranted a warning.
The message that this sent to the watching public was that even the most trivial infringement of, or deviation from, currently acceptable linguistic usage is worthy of censure. The warning, to me, was both hilarious and sinister. It was hilarious because of the thought of the programme makers earnestly thinking that they must announce the existence of the debatably dodgy word and it was sinister for exactly the same reason. If this minor infringement of modern sensitivities is worthy of a warning, does that mean that all minor infringements are equally deserving of censure?
Hardly a week goes by without a minor celebrity or person in the public eye losing their job because they’ve been caught using a forbidden word. Sometimes they’ve been caught using it 10 years ago in a social media post and sometimes they’ve been caught using it yesterday when they didn’t realise they were being recorded. When these stories are announced on the news the person involved as often accused of using a “slur“. The annoying thing is that the word itself is rarely mentioned so it may be impossible to gauge how despicable the slur was.
But once you accept that, you can get down to enjoying it.
For some people, especially those born into an advantageous situation, life often starts with an expectation of great promise.
For some other people, particularly those born into a less advantageous situation, life may still be seen to have great promise although it may entail doing a bit of striving to achieve it.
People often have high expectations of how their lives are going to pan out and they may feel gravely disappointed if it doesn’t turn out that way.
The problem is that life doesn’t actually owe you anything. We’re not put on this earth to have a good time or to do interesting things. Basically, we are born into a disinterested the world in which the only aim that actually exists is the aim to survive (and maybe to try to reproduce). Achieving satisfaction above and beyond this is definitely a bonus.
Despite what it says in the US Declaration of Independence, happiness is not a human right. The declaration declares that people are endowed with “certain inalienable Rights, that among these Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness”. The pursuit of happiness may be a right, but the achieving of it probably isn’t.
In our modern hyper-individualistic western world, where self fulfilment is seen as a right, any factor that thwarts fulfilment is seen as abherent and practically a violation of the laws of nature.
It’s hard in the current age of mass communication and entertainment overload to avoid a constant bombardment of images depicting beautiful people leading beautiful lives, eating beautiful food, living in beautiful houses and taking beautiful, exotic holidays. They all seem so incredibly happy that their lives seem like the way things are meant to be, which means that if we ourselves aren’t as happy as they are it must be because we are being deprived of something. Happiness is being stolen from us.
A piece of text based art on the subject of humour.
Humour can sometimes rely on qualities such as insult, sarcasm and ridicule in order to achieve its humorous effect, sometimes aimed at individual people. These qualities may be frowned upon by some people who may think that they are socially unacceptable.
The qualities of insult, sarcasm and ridicule are particularly prevalent in political humour, where an individual politician, a political party or a political ideology may be being criticised or attacked.
In the current heightened moral climate of the 2020s practically any form of humour that is aimed at people can be interpreted as being offensive if people want to perceive it as such, therefore it’s only a relatively small step before the concept of banning humour becomes a possibility. After all, humour can be seen as a form of aggression, and who in their right mind wouldn’t want to ban aggression (except when exhibited in specific highly controlled contexts such as sport of course)?
It’s not as far fetched as you might think. There are places in the world and places in history that have seen music banned after all.
It has been known for some people to excuse their appalling behaviour by declaring that they can’t help it, that it’s just the way they are.
This is possibly even truer now than it has been in the past, as we now live in a ‘no blame’ culture that applies to at least certain parts of the population for whom newly coined medical conditions can be supplied to account for unfortunate personality traits.
Text based art. Are you running towards something?
Or away from something?
A piece of text based art that asks the question “Are you running towards something or away from something?
This could be an observation about highly motivated or highly ambitious people. Are they striving so that they can achieve something or are they striving to try to escape from something? For instance a need to strive for recognition may be the result of a feeling of inadequacy. There’s often something inside high achievers that’s pushing them to strive rather than to just sit on the sofa and enjoy a good show on the tele.
But where would we be without psychologically damaged high achievers? Still in the caves?
I’d like to apologise profoundly and sincerely for my opinions.
I promise to change them to your opinions.
This text is a comment on the relatively recent phenomenon of people, especially those in the public eye, having to apologise openly for comments that they’ve made (often on social media platforms such as Twitter or X). The apologies are often grovelling, and bring to mind the sort of retractions that people living under totalitarian regimes are sometimes forced to make.
Whether the apologies are actually genuine or are simply feigned is open to debate. As is wondering which of those two options is the better choice.
The closing phrase “as soon as I can stomach the hypocrisy of doing so” highlights the dilemma of having to apologise for something you actually believe in.
A piece of text based art featuring the words “I Instagram therefore I am”.
The wording is taken from René Descartes famous saying “I think therefore I am”, or, as he actually said, “cogito ergo sum” . My wording is based on the observation of the widespread modern need for some people to validate their existence by posting on Instagram to the extent that if they don’t post they feel that they don’t exist.
This modern tendency to photograph everything and to post to platforms such as Instagram is a supercharged version of a tendency that has existed for a very long time (perhaps since the dawn of humanity). It’s just that before the digital age photographs had to be taken sparingly due to the price of film. And before the invention of photography the idea of drawing or painting every minor life event was just too impractical to contemplate.
The layout of the text in this piece places the letters in “I am” directly below the same letters in the top line. The yawning gap between the “I” and the “am” is meant to symbolise the void that can exist in some people’s lives when they aren’t plugged in to the internet.
