[lbo-talk] Harry Potter, Metritocracy, and Reward

Robert Wrubel bobwrubel at yahoo.com
Thu Aug 23 06:55:10 PDT 2007


Ted Winslow <egwinslow at rogers.com> wrote:

" So, to be truly good, activity creative of intellectual and aesthetic goods requires others with the developed capabilities required to appropriate them."

Wow! That's original! In plain language, an artist can only be as great as the surrounding society is capable of appreciating him/her. Finnegan's Wake and cubism nothwithstanding, the artist and his audience have to speak a common language.

However, as Freud observed, great art is often motivated by frustration with the surrounding world, and has a secret motive of revenge or compensation in it. In my own experience, I'd say the same applies to intellectual work. That's why I think Andie is reluctant to give up inequality -- it's a great motivator.

BobW

,joanna wrote:


> If you're great at something: dance, math, writing, skipping rope,
> drawing....that IS your reward.

If truly good activity is essentially social, the moment to which one would say stay is the moment that actualizes love understood as mutual recognition. So, to be truly good, activity creative of intellectual and aesthetic goods requires others with the developed capabilities required to appropriate them.

The weak person who misunderstands "recognition" as honour and material reward granted to the superior by the inferior lacks the fully developed virtue required for activities truly good in this sense.

Ted

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