I would like to apologize to DecemRationis. I am sorry for jumping down your throat over the poem you posted recently. I tried to clarify my position in a critique of my own poem, that I was not trying to say you're a hellbound sinner or something.

Technically speaking, anything not perfect is... obviously... IMPERFECT. In trying to figure out what artists should strive for, the only logical conclusion I could come up with after several years of thinking about it deeply, was that we shouldn't mind the trends or ideas of this world, but look to the divine Creator for our example of what really is good and right and perfect in all of the arts that shadow His Divine authorship. The idea being, almost no matter what the art, we can find examples of it in nature. (Music is a bit tough, but there we can resort to looking at the fruits of it, and the order and so forth, evident in God's creation, so we can still look to God and His creation in a general sense.)

It is TECHNICALLY true that the definition of evil is "the lack of some good" due or owed. In laymen's terms, you might say instead that perfection is the ideal, and anything imperfect objectively falls short of it (again, obviously).

Common sense (and a lot of thought) has told me that we must, as with our spiritual lives, strive for perfection in everything... including in our works, and especially in the arts, which are going to be shared with our fellow men. Some "nonsense" will have at least the good of being amusing (most comedy falls into this category). Some things go much higher, and actually strive for perfection in one or more points wherein that art may be judged. Other works objectively are so much actually imperfect that they can do their fellow man no actual good, even as much as giving them a good laugh.

We may disagree on what sort of art yours was, but I realize I was so eager to condemn what I've discovered to be the fraud of modern art, that I overlooked your feelings entirely. While I can't help seeing what I see, I'm sorry for not being more charitable, and perhaps taking it into another thread so it wouldn't seem like a personal attack. I behaved barbarically, and I regret it, though I stand by those things which I hold to be truths, and the only evident truths which I could find regarding the arts themselves.

Perfection is godly, and we were commanded to be perfect. That is pretty much the basis for much of what I believe. I don't hold that it is some kind of SIN to do imperfect work (though it could be depending on what kind of 'imperfection'... eg, if it led people into sin). I only say that it is something the artist ought to strive for, to make their works as perfect as they can be, given what they are (the subject matter). What is perfect for humor or silliness (for the recreation of man, a good) is obviously going to differ from what is perfect for a serious work dealing with some lofty truth.

I thought I should clarify along with my apology. I'm sorry it's late, but I've had a lot on my mind since then.

Dulcamara,

We may disagree on what sort of art yours was, but I realize I was so eager to condemn what I've discovered to be the fraud of modern art, that I overlooked your feelings entirely. While I can't help seeing what I see, I'm sorry for not being more charitable, and perhaps taking it into another thread so it wouldn't seem like a personal attack. I behaved barbarically, and I regret it, though I stand by those things which I hold to be truths, and the only evident truths which I could find regarding the arts themselves.

Of course I accept the fact that you believe there is something you need to apologize to me for. And I accept the apology in the spirit it was offered; yet, if that something in you which prompted the need to apologize was a thought that you had hurt my feelings - don't feel bad on that basis. You never hurt my feelings. It was never about "feelings" for me.

Hey, like I said in the thread, you don't like the poem, think it's horrible, that's fine - and I meant it. The issue for me was the intellectual - not emotional - point that sometimes we don't understand something to which we violently react. It was that aspect that bothered me intellectually, but my feelings as to pride or whatever over a poem I made never entered into our discussion. Like I said, I've been around awhile in terms of offering poems for comment and opinion. I have no insecurity in that regard.

It was just a poem, and means nothing in the grand scheme of things. Nothing. Thank you for the apology, and let us move on and forget the whole thing for the irrelevance it was.

God bless,

DR