On Sep 11, 2013, at 8:35 PM, Ken Friedman <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Greenberg’s idea is a modernist Platonism in which each art form has its pure essence. The closer one can get to the essence of that form, the greater the art.
>
> This is not so much specialization as purism.
Yes. But the purism was not completely unrelated to elements of quality beyond essence:
"Fluxus people tended to reject the notion of historical advances and qualitative claims. They preferred an engagement with life. Robert Filliou addressed this problem in his manifesto 'A Proposition, a Problem, a Danger, and a Hunch’ (Filliou, 2004 [1966], 1971), a declaration against the notion of artistic quality and toward the notion of life. Resolutely accepting mediocrity as the price of his revolution, Filliou called for ‘A refusal to be colonized culturally by a selfstyled race of specialists in painting, sculpture, poetry, music, etc.. . . this is what ‘‘la Re´volte des Me´diocres’’ is about. With wonderful results in modern art, so far.'"
--Ken Friedman "Freedom? Nothingness? Time? Fluxus and the Laboratory of Ideas" -Theory Culture Society- 2012 29: 372
> Ricardo’s theory of comparative advantage is not a matter of specialization, or at least not simply. It involves the advantages that accrue to experience, skill, and learning, and the advantages that arise from the network of activities and opportunities that emerge when a person, region, or nation develops what one might call a specialty.
How does that differ from the advantages of other forms of specialization? And why is it what "might be called" rather than just "a specialty"? (BTW, I'm not arguing one way or another; I'm just trying to understand your point.)
> It is also the case when the shoemaker buys fresh bread every day rather than spending an hour baking that would be more profitably used in making a pair of shoes that could yield a profit that will buy far more bread. And this is the case for the baker who will prosper by selling more bread.
Yes. That's the counterintuitive idea in Ricardo's Law--Even if the shoemaker is better at baking bread than the baker is, the time away from making shoes is more valuable than the bread she would bake.
> Comparative advantage is a different concept than specialization.
But it is an argument for specialization. (Like much economic theory, it assumes that economic outcomes are the only worthwhile measure but that's another conversation.)
> It isn’t related to Greenberg’s concept of artistic media.
Maybe not. I'm not convinced that they are related but you haven't convinced me that they are not.
Thanks for taking the time to consider my half baked (and probably completely shoeless) thought.
Gunnar
Gunnar Swanson
East Carolina University
graphic design program
http://www.ecu.edu/cs-cfac/soad/graphic/index.cfm
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Gunnar Swanson Design Office
1901 East 6th Street
Greenville NC 27858
USA
http://www.gunnarswanson.com
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+1 252 258-7006
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