The video is unavailable to me here in the U.S.

@Redheadedgammy Sorry, it is the BBC.

Fernapple: I am totally confused by your comment about Art. It sounds like you are referring to "truth" or "god". Art doesn't pretend to be true or safe or trustworthy, or manipulative. To assign those qualities to art is totally a matter of subjectivity. Art exists or not, depending on your point of view. It defies description, and requires none. Art is the antithesis to religion and those who buy and sell it are parasites and bullies.

@fishline79 Sorry this is a bit long, but I hope you will stick with it.

A lot of art is yes neutral, but firstly there is a belief in "high" art which is widespread and deeply embedded in our culture. In which there is said to be an artistic culture which is thought of as having its own truth. Great artists are though to be able to tap into that, and they thereby gain authority. Which is a very religious view, religion in many ways being a synonym for the "proof by authority" fallacy. While moreover other religions are able to buy into that authority, a share of the artistic cult if you like, simple by exhibiting or commissioning art.

And secondly, perhaps far more importantly, you have to understand that we are products of our evolution. And evolution by natural selection can only work retrospectively, it can not prefit any creature for a new environment, if creatures land in new environments by accident, they may survive, but they will be ill fitted to that environment for a long time. And few creatures had such a sudden and dramatic change of environment as we did, when we moved from being hunters in the forest, to being civilized creatures living in a mainly cultural environment. Nearly all of which culture is some form of art. A world for which we have no pre-adaptions.

For example. A company wants to sell us garden furniture, so it shows us a picture of large numbers of impossibly beautiful people more than would ever gather naturally, with some airbrushing, in a garden, having an impossibly good time, with wonderful food, and people run out to buy the furniture. Because our poor ape brains are fooled, we do not really want the furniture, what we really want are the friends, the food and the party. Art is used to manipulate us, by overloading our ape brains. That is why nobody spends as much on art as people like the Nazis did, because all art is advertising and most is an attempt at mind control, 'NOT' always for bad purposes, but often.

While religion is itself an art form, perhaps the biggest art form of them all, incorporating everything from painting and litrature to story telling. The purest form of advertising, with no other product to sell but more of itself, and its own artistic life. And we poor apes, made to live in groups of no more than thirty or forty in the shade of the forest, walk into the cathedral lit by a thousand stained glass windows and candles, glittering with gold, hung with great paintings, and we hear a thousand voices singing hymns composed by rare geniuses, all played on instruments which could not be made in a forest with the resources of hunter gatherers. And we go weak at the knees in awe. Which awe we are told, comes from god, but it does not come from god, it comes from artistic technology.

@Fernapple I see why you are a "9". They must award level points according to verbosity. I think you are referring to illustration rather than art. I don't categorize graphic propaganda as "art" do you? And the concept of art in the natural world, as you well know, is exclusive to our species. I don't think of "art" as you apparently do. As I said, it is very subjective, or personal, if you will, and as I also said, it defies description, and, as such, it is futile to qualify or discuss it's merits. Of course, I separate that condition from the use of the word as a metaphor, as in, "That car is a work of art", such as I would use when referring to a Jaguar XJ 13.

By the way, I don't consider religion as "Art", just because they use it in their institutions, as the furniture salesman would, but I would have to consider that use of paintings and sculptures in Renaissance Art, for example, can be included as objects of art. I don't have to be religious to consider the great cathedrals of Europe as art so I won't disagree with your statements. Anyway, what use would it serve if I did?

@fishline79 Then you are a true believer in the art religion. (Not religion as an art.) I would define art, as any use of technology, to promote ideas or entertain rather than produce material goods. If you wish to define it in the "high art" sense, then I am sorry but you are promoting a religious cult. I do define graphic propaganda as art in the broard sense, because I do not believe that art in any other sense really exists, just as I do not believe that the sky fairy, ghosts or the big foot exists. Nor do I believe that it defies description, art in the high sense defies description in the same way that god or spirituality defy description, because, what does not exist can not be described.

Nor do I consider religion as an art merely because it uses other art forms. But because it is a technology used to manipulate human minds, just like graphic propaganda.

@Fernapple I defer to your superior knowledge of the subject. I have an "artistic" temperament. Not a "scientific" one, or as they say, "I don't know much about art. I just know what I like?" LOL

@fishline79 I am the same, I don't know much about art, who does ? But I like it.

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