A Matter of Interpretation?
I’m mostly bored by the feud between MSNBC and FNC but every once in a while something comes along which catches my attention. For example, this Keith Olbermann retort to a bizarro Glenn Beck rant about hidden art in plain sight. Olbermann would have scored a home run here except he misses the obvious argument: if people walk by art that nobody knows what it is and, taking Beck’s admittedly questionable argument as valid, then what’s the point? If nobody knows what it’s about or the source then how will it accomplish anything? It’s a tree falls in a forest argument. If nobody hears it, nobody knows it fell. If nobody understands the source or the meaning, nobody’s going to be impacted.
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September 13, 2009 at 11:03 pm
It’s like the people that looked for secret messages by playing a record backwards. Who in there right mind would risk messing up a record player (or a record) by doing that, unless somebody pointed it out to them?
September 14, 2009 at 4:09 am
Maybe I misunderstand you, Spud. But that was Beck’s point. He was saying this stuff is hiding in plain sight. That no one was paying attention. And that people need to get informed and educate themselves. And once you become aware, you point it out to other people.
Watch the last 90 seconds of Beck’s rant:
September 14, 2009 at 7:16 am
Nope. You did misunderstand me. My point is ignorance is bliss. If you don’t know there’s no danger because there’s no conspiracy. For Beck’s threat of dangerous hidden agenda art to work, the agenda HAS to be exposed. If the art remains hidden or the meaning unknown, then it cannot possiby do any damage because nobody would be impacted because nobody would know. It’s only by “exposing” the art as Beck has done that trouble arises. In other words, Beck is creating his own problem by bringing this up. There was no problem, no threat, no danger, to trouble…until Beck said something. It’s manufactured.
September 14, 2009 at 7:21 am
Heh, I thought the same thing you did, Spud. And further – how is art supposed to undermine our capitalist core even if people DO see it? A heroic statue of a blockily-built man with a plow is going to make me want to collectivize farming?
September 14, 2009 at 7:26 am
It’s like cruising the ocean, oblivious to the fact that there may be countless lost snorkels under the sea.
September 14, 2009 at 9:26 am
I interpreted Mr. Beck’s premise differently. The art itself is benign; It’s just art. But who would choose to surround themselves with a series of anti-capitalistic symbols unless their world view favoured that sort of thing?
The idea that a Mr. Rockefeller’s secret desire to shape the political landscape of the world into a more communistic form is plausible. Equally plausible, however, is the idea that the art was commissioned for purely aesthetic reasons and its subject matter at the time was what was familiar to the artist who created it.
September 14, 2009 at 9:57 am
Some historical context: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_at_the_Crossroads
September 14, 2009 at 2:26 pm
I suppose Mr. Beck’s argument could be that this art subliminally subverts the minds of those who walk past it every day. Again, plausible, but its fallacy is that because of how our brains interpret information one would necessarily have to be predisposed to that point of view in order for the alleged subversion to have any influence whatsoever. Essentially, this is why magicians’ slight-of-hand tricks are so effective.
While a neat conspiracy idea, it’s one that could be scientifically debunked in a thousand words or less. Might explain Matt Lauer’s perpetual trance, though….