I'm an adult, I don't think highly of "true artists" who, due to their enormous egos, think they have some kind of right to tell me how I ought to think. Who are they to tell me that I even need to be "inspired," or "freed," or "woken up"?
If you allow me, there are several fallacies at play here, and some ego mirroring. Firstly, not all true or great artists (there's no such thing, really, there is only relevance and irrelevance) have enormous egos. I, for one, can't remember an artist I admire or like that would be suspect of an enormous ego. Leonardo da Vinci? Gustav Klimt? Alex Grey? Neil Gaiman? Umberto Eco? Vincent van Gogh? Leo Tolstoy? They may have a strong
identity, but identity does not equal ego (and all of these were rather explicitly selfless artists). Identity usually emerges after the ego is shed, because ego usually impedes creative identity. (One example would be Salvador Dali, but he's a difficult one to read, because much of his behavior was indeed artistic performance, so, a show. Oscar Wilde can be accused of ego too, but if you read his De Profundis, you'll realize it's anything but.) So, then, I think it's safe to assume not all great artists have huge egos. The successful ones usually have a diminished ego. Ego doesn't bring success (at least, not artistic, because the values that an ego would produce would not stand the test of time).
I also find it very ironic that you talk about enormous egos and "who are they to tell me", but you confess you read Nietzsche. LOL, can I ask why? Did Nietzsche perhaps force your hand to buy a book of his so he can preach unto your precious adult person? No, he did not. No artist, or author, or philosopher, ever does. They hold an opinion (or an idea), and they present it to the world, the general public, the humanity (sometimes aggressively, sometimes very humbly). The relation there is one addressing the world, humanity. So one's ideas go out. Now, you, as an individual, go out, enter a bookstore or a video store, and make a conscious choice to pick up an artist's (or author's, pr philosopher's) book or a work, and then you see what it has to communicate to you - the author's/work's values and ideas are presented to you, let me repeat, BY YOUR FREE CHOICE, and thereafter you DECIDE what you do with it. Wanna hate the author? Fine. Disagree with him/her? Perfectly fine. Agree? Fine too. Anything but "he made me do it", or "he was vain so he had the audacity to tell me what to think", because that's purely hypocritical. You can't blame someone else for his work or words for YOUR choice to read/experience what that person said or created. He didn't push your hand. You, decided, to see what he thinks. And blaming an artist for a 'huge ego' or insinuating 'they try to change you' is disingenuous and I think, hardly adult. An adult doesn't evade personal responsibility by shifting the weight of his free choice to an artist or author that probably isn't even alive. An adult owns his choices.
I'll skip the prejudiced judgments about young Europeans etc. Now on to the positive:
Contrary to what one such "true artist" may think, I am intelligent enough to go watch Transformers (as an example, personally I hated it) and then go home and read Nietzsche.
You see, me too. We're on the same page here. But there's a whole crowd out there that wouldn't accept anything less entertaining as Transformers. It's a culture thing (I wouldn't go deeper here, it would probably take another paragraph).
True, not all art is entertainment.
Thanks for agreeing.
However, ALL successful art is entertaining.
Not so sure about this, however. Why? Because what's "entertaining" is a pretty relative notion, maybe even completely subjective. To me, Transformers is boring, and will be forgotten 10 years from now. To someone else (IMO the "I watch movies for entertainment crowd"), Alien is boring, and will be forgotten in 10 years. (Hint: is it? It's been almost 30-40 since then.) Using the same analogy, 95% of the people out there will most definitely find Nietzsche boring as hell. Is Nietzsche forgotten, though? No, he isn't. Why? Surely not because of his desire to entertain. And so on. So, on this, I disagree. Entertainment is not what gives something a lasting value, it's rather, meaning. Just my opinion, anyways.
Otherwise it is doomed, rightfully so, to be forgotten.
Lots of 'boring' works of art still endure and will continue to do so long after we're gone. So, nope.
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