[Hitman]

my background is the set of liberties and values that derived from the age of enlightenment, and the French revolution ideals. The idea of humanism as an attitude of mind, the equality of male and female, the ideas you can see expressed in the French, American and German constitutions, and the deriving order of a nation, the strict separation between state and religion, the message of Jesus (I could also say Buddha, for I am no Christian fundamentalism, or even Christian at all). I am aware of the importance that ancient Greek history and philosophy had on Rome and thus, on our contemporary way of thinking. The development of sciences, and arts. The liberties we enjoy, and that are no voluntary offers by someone, but can be sued for at courts on the basis of valid laws.

Me too. But it is important to add the lessons learned from fascism, comunism and WW2

Capitalism claims it's right for unlimited freedom of acting by he individual

Capitalism is not a political ideology, but an economic system. As such, it is politically neutral and as unlimited/limited as mathematics. A different matter is that a Political ideology (Liberalism) embraces it as a way of organizing a society.

Today, a Pax Americana - if only it would not base on the greed and profit interests of corporations, but the true ideals that were originally expressed by the American founding fathers, would be a blessing for the world.

Yes, you hear right. It will surprise people when it is Sky bird saying that, for I have my reputation of criticising the USA so unforgivingly. But I also always made it clear that I see the US of today not representative for the original idea that it once was, in the past.

Me too. The US have lots of defects, like any other country, but they have never been fans of "violent" imperialism, but instead of "economic" imperialism, even if being involved in many wars in this and the past two centuries (Hard to avoid when you are a super-power). Anyone can critizise their imperialism, like the imperialism of any mighty nation in history can be critizised (Spain has a long and interesting history about that), but at least it has been much more peaceful than others in the past.

But when the general context that embraces and houses all this is unable to give the audience any standards to judge what is "good" in the meaning of fostering this culture, and what is "bad" in temrs of helping to forget or even to pervert it's identity, then this is not a sign of the amount of tolerance in "culture", but is culture that is denying itself and deconstruct itself.

The problem is that in the end, those "standards" must be given not by "the general context", but instead by certain guys, with a certain name. And who are those guys? The government? The courts? The teachers?

The general context nowadays is in fact the idiots, my friend. There are millions of them All those ideals about humanism, enlightning, etc. were the result of the "Despotic Enlightmeent", when a certain group of "enlighted" guys decided what the rest of the society should consider good or bad. They convinced the millions of idiots to make a revolution (And die by thousands) in order to seize the power from the King and create the democracy, only to ensure that not the King's heir but instead the spiritual heirs of those "Despotic enlighteds" would rule. Was their standard better than the old King's standard? For sure. Is it way better than the idiot's standards? For sure. But is it still a way of telling the idiots what is better from them, instead of letting them decide? For sure too.

Throwing some paint bin at the wall - is no arts. It may result in a visual pattern that somebody likes, maybe even me, but it is no art. Everybody can put a huge piece of Butter onto a chair (the infamous "Fettstuhl").

Sure. That's what Picasso or Van Gogh heard a lot at the start of their careers :hmm:

Hammering a statue out of a stone that makes the audience standing in silence and admire the beauty in it - that is something that not everybody can do. Or in TV: everybody can make an ape out of himself in Big Brother, but not everybody is able to pick a role and play it in a way that the audience is convinced that it is no actor playing, but that the figure itself has come to life.

Not everyone can eat 10 burgers in 5 minutes (Like in Guiness Records), but that doesn't make it an art. Not everyone can drive a Formula 1 under 1.55 seconds in Barcelona circuit, and that doesn't make it an art.

Is art dependant from how many can do something?

Classical music has become ridiculously cheap and affordable for every peter and Paul. Every supermarket offers partially high quality recordings, for just some cents. It led to this: masterpieces of classical music are being omnipresent now and are being used without any differentiations.

Well I thought it also helped widespreading classic music and allowing more people to access it. I personally would not like to have paid 3 times as much for my already large collection

even worse, hip hop rappers and wannabee-girlies whith screeching voices but no ability to hold a clear tone when singing pick up a classical peice and rape it to their liking. the result is crap, and the loss of quality means a detoriation of culture as well. People cannot appreciate what it is that they have. They can't estimate it's truevalue.

I guess when the first ancient man of the caverns started blowing air through an empty bone and tried to make some music out of it, his neighbours probably thought the same. As I said before, Van Gogh as many others was not much appreciated at the start of his career (I certainly still don't like his paintings and wouldn't hang one in my living room, even if it cost only 1€).

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But don't get me wrong. From all this discussion I recognize that I share completely your vision about what is crap and what isn't, what is better for everyone in our civilization, and what isn't. The only difference is that I still have a philosophical doubt about wether I have or not the right to say that my understanding of this all is the correct one, and that others are wrong. (A doubt which ironically is also a part of that cultural heritage of humanism)

You, instead, are very sure about your convictions -on a well founded basis, IMO- and therefore have the fighting spirit to demand it. To a certain extent, I envy you I only can be so sure about a minimal amount of things.

Cheers