I think I'd better move my points forward a little faster, I think Wofdoc is getting a little bored. Alex is asking for clarifications and faldage's mood is one of detached mild amusement, So...
The advent of language inaugurated a new world where outright lies could be used to perpetuate and enhance the role of the individual to the detriment, or conversely, to the benefit, of the larger group. Quickly it became important to determine which was which.
One way to prevent the spread of lies was to reject all new information. This included information that was transmitted of the mores of other cultures. We still do this.
Another way was to only accept new information from ingroup sources who are considered wise. We still do this too.
The first way never works. Cultures, like people, evolve. Mid-eastern culture is experiencing the foibles of their restrictive mindset while you read. This is so because in a common mindset most all values are intergraded into a belief-system whole. Remove the wrong domino and the system fails and falls.
The second way of protecting against individuals who lie is even worse. Such is the nature of language animals that they will tell the greatest and grandest of lies in order to gain comfort and to insure that a comfortable station is given to the products of their loins. The most cunning become professionals and wrap their profession in high-sounding words that unhappily allows them to persist through time. The greatest offenders are kings, lawyers, doctors, preachers*, teachers*, and scientists* (an asterisk because they get new recruits that believe their own propaganda.) These lies are the stuff of class snobbery, a shameful but functional farce. The problem with this system is that new information is directed toward these self-aggrandized folk before it (rightly or wrongly)can be accessed and assimilated into the group as a whole.
So now we come to the set of pre-ordained conditions that will lie to us about what we should call Art.
(Uh, oh...It's time for me to go play tennis. I've been thrown out of the group for almost a year now, so I feel that today I should be on time.)
To be continued...
