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the layman’s corner Theglorificationof vacuousness Fatuous fire Learning art in schools is an important challenge that we must take onwith the aimof creating critical viewers inour society: true consumers – if not buyers – of art. But without interest, without sensitivity there is no consumption, and fromwhat we cangather, all of us knowwhere this comes from andwhat it’s about. AbrahamMaslow, anAmerican expert on humanbehaviour, understood culture as one of thebasic needs todevelop minimally as a humanbeing and to reach a certain level of personal balance. Herewedon’t havePütchipü’üi ‘messengers of words’, at least not in theway theWayúu culturedoes, where the messenger is the intermediary in conflicts. No, herewe havewordsmiths, word-peddlers and loudmouthswith their accompanyingquorum, of whose verbal diarrhoea only the froth remains, given that there is neither substance nor skill. Lots of talking andnothing new to say: thebewilderment is so terrible that nobody understands nor wants to understand anything. At the endof theday, it’s less interesting to listen to someonewho says they canbut then can’t saywhat. But such a largepack of peddlers is understandable given the amount of fodder around for this particular dungheap. Pythagoras intoned that ‘Apersonwho can’t bequiet can’t speak’. However, it is understandable that themost effusive users of this disheartening exhibitionof immodesty andobscenity feel more at home arguing something that is already patently clear insteadof actually trying todecipher the enigmapresentedby a complex, symbolicpiece of art. Andunder the shelter of a tent that unfolds and nurses bad taste and anti-aesthetics, we find entire hordes of littlebugs andweeds that feed into eachother with cynicism, lack of substance and the emptiness of artistswhose leitmotif is earningmoney at any cost. The aimof good criticism is to recognize and legitimize (or delegitimize) apiece of work via an exercise of objectively analyzing an artisticproposal. This is, or shouldbe, its essencebasedonKant’s rational inhis Critique of Pure Reason . Criticism, then, shouldbe considered the theory of knowledge: a reflection that is greater indepth according to the size of the empirical asset. But also the term ‘art’ has fallen into semanticdisgrace insofar as it has lost a largepart of its fascination, its enigma, disconnecting itself from the traditional concept of cultured art. For themajority of society, takingpart in this deplorable festival of banality is nomore interesting than spending a boringSunday afternoon channel-hopping. That is to say, thepassivity arousedby art is hair-raising. AugusteRodin. El pensador / The Thinker . Lic. CreativeCommons 17