Andre Jute wrote:
Bruce C. Miller wrote:
Andre Jute wrote:
You're not a Bohemian, Bruce, you're a snob.

I would have thought you would have been more supportive.

Why ever? If you lurk on RAT you will know I admire precision of
thought and expression. But why should I stroke someone who hasn't even
troubled to discover the correct name for what he aspires to? You don't
even know what a Bohemian is. Bohemia was a part of central London
inhabited by artists and people closely involved with them.

Actually, that part of London is a part of Bohemia, rather than the
other way around. Bohemianism manifested itself in various urban
centers all over the Northern hemisphere.

Painters,
models, art dealers, are one example of a set of related bohemians.
They produced works of art or were instrumental in producing them or in
selling them. Someone who merely goes to a gallery to look at the
painting made by Bohemian doesn't thereby become a Bohemian. Some
Bohemians had a louche lifestyle, free love and all that, and some
didn't wash too often, and some moved out to the countryside and
committed incest with their daughers (Eric Gill), but the
distinguishing mark of all was a life in the arts. (Note that all this
is in the past tense. Bohemia is now inhabited by my publishers --
those who haven't yet moved further out, all of whom would be hugely
flattered to be called louche and some of whom may still dream of being
offered free love but all of whom would certainly not touch the person
who offered it with a ten-foot pole.) Bohemianism doesn't describe what
you are trying to do with your life.

Bohemianism, in the way the term is generally used today, still refers
to the international cultural movement that you mention in part. The
lifestyle it represents is one much more "primitive" than to that which
I aspire. This is why I qualified my usage of the label with the
adjective "modern." Now, if we're done arguing semantics...

If you had said merely that you want to be a cultured person, or
stylish, or a trendy, or a hanger-on of the arts or intellectual life,
I would have helped you out with a list of the right possessions, words
and attitudes. Now that the communications revolution will put all
information instantly at your fingertips, and all entertainment,
literature, etc, we need enlightened, actively discriminating consumers
of culture, which you are as specifically as you are not a Bohemian. (I
suspect anyway from your writing and obsession with lists that you
would be most uncomfortable with the general standard of hygiene among
the arty-farties.)

As you have observed with my mechanical obsession of list making (an
obsession involving the making of a single list, by the way), art is an
influence on my life but will never be a way of life. This is because
while I am an eccentric, I am also a practical person. A non-relativist
cannot give himself completely to art without corrupting his world
view.

Thus, I don't admire art or artists in the same way that I suspect the
majority of true art devotees do. Take abstract art for an extreme
example. While an artist can claim that a formless blob of paint can
represent, say, a rebellion against architecture, I would say he's full
of ****. However, I can appreciate such a painting on an aesthetic
level. I can even more appreciate a clever and well executed metaphor
in more realistic art or ones that effectively evoke emotions, but I
won't worship it as some inexpressible cosmic gospel. This kind of
limited appreciation will exclude me from any art groupie crowd.

snip
Additionally, these changes have happened slowly over the last 10 years
or so. It's not like I woke up one day and decided I no longer liked
Hollywood movies and was going to watch art films. In the case of film,
for example, I gradually grew disenchanted with the assembly line of
cookie cutter plots and gravitated more towards more thoughtful films,
like I would assume any intelligent person would after getting a
constant dose of Hollywood for years and years. I don't hate those who
can find enjoyment out of a mindless action flick, but having
experienced it countless times, I'm tired of it. If that makes me a
snob, then I guess I am one.

What makes you a snob is publicly expressed contempt for sound
middle-class values, and dumb cracks about the proletariat. What makes
you a snob is choosing some form of consumption because it is a
minority interest. What makes you a snob is looking down on majority
tastes. All of these solecisms you have publicly admitted to.

In practice, I have a live and let live policy with our plebian
friends. However, I shouldn't have to immediately follow a phrase like
"no, I mainly only watch independent films" with the phrase "but I'm
not a snob." An anti-cultural backlash awaits you in the majority of
commoners out there. Try telling some of the locals in your area about
your tastes in wines, electronics, and other finery and you'll
experience it too.

snip
I could very well be quite intelligent. Or not. I don't
think any of this stuff has much to do with true intellect. One could
be a cultured idiot or an uncultured genius.

To be cultured, discrimination, a learned art, is as good as true
intellect. True intellect gives entree to intellectual activities
peripheral to the arts, like criticism, and talent besides can make one
an artist. None of this necessarily brings happiness. Critics want to
be artists. True artists are never satisfied; the desire to do better
is what drives them. I know many perfectly self-satisfied trendies; I
don't let them in my house, of course, but they are at least happy in
their ignorance of the greener grass in the paddock next door.

I want to be and am an engineer, first and foremost. In whatever time I
have left over from this, I want to experience the best of what the
arts and the good life in general have to offer. The life of a starving
artist is something I want to avoid, but that doesn't mean I have to be
a trendy hanger-on. I can experience and even try my hand at art up to
the point that it ceases to enrich my life. I have no intention of
suffering for it.

In addition, you'll notice that art appreciation is but one part of a
larger development process. Just as important is time away from
stimulus. Alot of people's lives are constant overstimulation from
television, radio, traffic, and signs. I read on your site that you
listen to music 12 hrs a day. I've found that time alone with one's
thoughts can be just as enlightening as quality sensory input. My goal
is simply to reduce the noise and improve the quality of the signal.