::scr Re: doesn't have the morlocks

[Simon Kinahan]

> Yes, there are reactionary old farts on both sides of the culture gap,
> but there are a damn sight more people trying to bridge the gap than
> there were when CP Snow first wrote about the 'Two Cultures'.

That is true, but I still suspect, just as when Snow first wrote, people on
the technical side are much more aware of the problem, and are less
presumptious about the importance of their speciality. It is not hardly
remarked on at all when scientists and techies with serious interests on
"the Other Side", but where artists have technical interests this seems to
be regarding as eccentric and even vaguely wrong. People on radio 4
talk-shows can still express that characteristic combined ignorance and
contempt for technology and not be assured of a good verbal thrashing from
any of the other participants, but anyone saying "I don't really see the
value of literature" in the same forum would be inconceivable.

> Are the people who reject Whiteread's House, Picasso's
> Guernica, Hirst's Shark and everything Tracy Emin has ever done
> ignorant in the same way as those who don't see the beauty in a
> satisfying proof? Or are they just idiotic reactionary boors who see
> the world through Daily Mail (or, ghod help us, Metro) coloured
> glasses? You decide.

Hmmm ... Is it not also possible that Tracy Emin's work really has no value,
and those who pretend to believe it does are just pretentious twits ? It is,
of course, possible that I just don't have the way of seeing required to
appreciate it, but it is hard to see what value there is in moving your
unmade bed into an art gallery. This view is not confined to techies
either - plenty of "arty people" seem to agree. I can see what's going on
with all the others, but I don't finnd Hirst's shark to be exactly
beautiful.

Simon