[ExI] John C. Wright Interview

[PJ Manney]

On Jan 26, 2008 1:12 PM, Lee Corbin <lcorbin at rawbw.com> wrote:
> I agree.  There is no excuse for such unappealing verbiage and
> ugly mathematics (unless you like GR).  Utterly no excuse---
> except for one little thing.  We are *forced* to it because it's
> true, and there is just no escaping that.
>
> The same cannot be said for literature.  It's redeeming virtue
> is instead beauty.  And if a lot of people don't happen to like
> something, then that's all, ultimately, that there is to it.

<sigh>

Not true.  Great art is considered great because at some fundamental
level, it reveals perceived truth.  Often, beauty is purposefully
trampled in the dust, especially in the modernist tradition.  In fact,
"Ulysses" exploration of mind's stream of consciousness in the early
20th C. as demonstrated in the quoted text from Damien is exactly what
makes it great.  Joyce said, "I want to give a picture of Dublin so
complete that if the city suddenly disappeared from the earth it could
be reconstructed out of my book."  Many people think he succeeded.
Its portrait of Dublin and its denizens revealed often unpleasant
truths about how we all (or at least many of us) think, live and love.

If its ugliness offends you, you can reject it but you can't say it
has no meaning or validity.

PJ