Comments on Criticism and its Future

To put it more succinctly:

Monkey see, Monkey feel, Monkey do.

Once again, can somebody PLEASE tell my how this man gets paid to TEACH PEOPLE???

You lost me with how mirror neurons tie to art criticism. If we experience everything we see within ourselves, doesn't that negate the purpose of an art critic? Watching a painter doesn't inform us of what the painting means to him or her.

If you clipped a talk-to-type mic on a mumbling homeless person for a day, this is what would come out.

Ah, the Slog - it's where we come to read posts like this from Charles that are actually pretty fascinating + mumbling idiot jerks (yeah, I'm talking to you, BobHall @2, DE &4, etc.) with nothing to say.

"OMG, Charles (blah blah blah)..."
"Oh, fucking ECB (blah blah blah)..."

Can't the shitheads just mosey on over to the Seattle Weekly site or something..?

My mirror neurons are dreaming of Parmesan cheese.

I've never met Charles Mudede, but I imagine him as either a tragically unhip neckbearded 20something who inspires uncomfortable smiles and nods during conversations or a wild-eyed old man with trembling hands and stains around his mouth.
WHICH IS IT, CHUCK?

my head is full of echo/dub neurons.

Well, then....

That's settled.

Charles, I agree with you, up to a point. If motor neurons lead us to understanding of the creation and comprehension of art, they must also lead us to understanding of the creation and consumption of goods and services. Both commerical activity and artistic activity are part of what I would call "economic" activity, which I would define as all human behavior in the environment.

Drawing a line between art, politics, economics, religion, philosophiy or any other class of human activity serves, at least in part, to obfuscate the nature of human motive and confuse attempts to understand our future.

Charles, I agree with you, up to a point. If motor neurons lead us to understanding of the creation and comprehension of art, they must also lead us to understanding of the creation and consumption of goods and services. Both commerical activity and artistic activity are part of what I would call "economic" activity, which I would define as all human behavior in the environment.

Drawing a line between art, politics, economics, religion, philosophiy or any other class of human activity serves, at least in part, to obfuscate the nature of human motive and confuse attempts to understand our future.

Haven't art- and literature-sensitive people always known this, Charles? It seems to me that the best criticism has always recognized what we now "know" to be true with the discovery of mirror neurons.

I'm not sure I necessarily see this as an unambiguously happy development for aesthetics or philosophy. We don't really believe in something or trust it until science has proven it somehow, until it has been validated at the neural level?

Doesn't that say much more about our collective modern neurosis than it does about the value of art or literature? And did we really need this discovery to observe the crumbling of the whole Marxist edifice of superstructure?

And @2: I'm sure that Charles is an amazing teacher. Why should you always agree with, or understand, your teachers? I wish I had had many more teachers like Charles — people I don't always agree with but who are provocative and challenging in what they have to say, who dare to think outside the suffocatingly conventional intellectual boxes.

I agree and disagree.
Keep in mind that, with the stolid ideals superimposed over contemporary art installations in the venue of viewer response, it isn’t until a “learning moment” occurs that the true stimulus (neurons) is measurable. When the work learns itself – when it grasps at the reptilian root of subjectivism and milks a true response from a consumer – that is when the language breaks the barriers of miscommunication and translation (as even a perfect translation is not “true”) and is able to be transmitted in its purest forms; a video, earth, clay, colored oils or a geyser of watercolor.

truth, why should I understand my teachers, certainly that is not what the are paid to do... You know, TO MAKE THEIR STUDENTS UNDERSTAND.

If your going to try to suck yourself off all day, you could at least recognize the humor in it Charlie.

Well, at long last I now know why I get hard when I see one dude sucking on another dude's cock.

The most important fact about mirror neurons is that they offer hard biological evidence of empathy. Why do "civilized" human beings value ethics? In part because we are wired to do so. In the context of Charles' piece this begs the question; "Is (art) criticism legitimate if it is not ethical"? One could perhaps argue that if (art) criticism is unethical (i.e., unempathetic or cynical) then it is illegitimate.

To say that there's "no difference" between things you experience yourself or vicariously - based on something you read about on the internet a few months ago ... is a great example of what's wrong with science journalism. Your conclusions are very poetic, but utterly wrong.

Gotta go with "get hard when I see one dude sucking anothers dick".

Honestly, could there be anything stupider than making an art critic "invulnerable" to doubt?

And how, pray tell, was great art created before Charles's great discovery?

Really, Mudede should move further from the freeway. Obviously too much carbon monoxide in the air there.

An art critic invulnerable to doubt? Isn't that the same thing as saying that all taste will be homogenized and placed beyond debate? I suppose in Charles' future world (the soon-to-arrive paradise of international socialism, by which I assume he means real socialism and not mamby-pamby bailout equity stakes) there will be no difference in taste because there will be no difference in class and all will be equally well educated.

Or do you, Charles, disagree with Bourdieu's thesis in "Distinction"? Taste is a construction and to make this construction universal and unassailable, Chuck M, you have to obliterate the instinct to distinguish yourself from some 'other'. So presumably there can be no 'other'.

Oh crap, does Charles intend to kill everyone else in the world and proclaim himself art critic supreme? Will he start with the offices of The Stranger?