The social 'linking' function of art? (I clearly don't share any hesitancy to write on a blog about art, whether written in Microsoft Word first or not. And don't see why one would.)
I don't believe that a critical response to art must derive pleasure in correcting the opinions of others. People have ideas that differ and clash, and that's both good and inevitable. (Contributing to this blog is one manifestation of my interest in that clash of ideas.) That isn't necessarily a pleasure in correcting other people—I don't think it is—but if it were, that isn't entirely relevant. The point as I see it is not to say that there can't be a pleasure found in correcting someone (the conceit being, one could actually set "right" another person) it's to argue that hopefully a pleasure can be found elsewhere.
You hit on what's nice (for me) about Woolf's conception of a common reader, which is the necessarily non-social pleasure of reading. I'm skeptical of the contention that art has a social mission—it can, and the conversation around it certainly can have a "social linking function"—but like reading, making art and often looking at it (my favorite museum trips tend to be alone) fulfills a very solitary and personal need. The idea that there can be a pleasure in art that is found in solitude runs alongside the idea of art for arts sake, or reading for the sake of reading, both of which I agree with.
Henry
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ADDENDUM:
A joy that pales in comparison to the revolutionary zeal of liberation.
Counter-revolutionary outlooks must be smashed.
People have ideas that differ and clash; this is evidence of the current paradigm's failure to gain unmistakable solidity in its wholesale obliteration of all opposition.
The clashing of ideas and the differences of opinion is only important and interesting in that it shows one set of ideas going by the wayside to make room for another, more apt set.
Ideas are dangerous. Informed and correct thinking leads to informed and correct action. Ideas that go against this imperative for positive change must be actively struggled against and overcome.
Musuems are the places where the solidification of myth and rhetoric reaches its most advanced state as it is not only made material through architecture, but the participants in the architecture (visitors) make True the constructions of curators, historians, and critics of art.
that was an impression of myself if i were a marixt-leninist-stalinist-maoist activist.
Sometimes book clubs are more social, other times more analytical. Both give people joy.
in so many words, I think the book club simile (minus a stultifying cloud of '-ism's preceeding and following it) is probably closer to what I was trying to say than anything I actually said.
joshua
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