2001/08/02
By the way, I get my Trek news from a sort-of Star Trek weblog: TrekToday.Com.
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More about software and art...
I'm with George Orwell: control of language is control of thought is control of the human spirit.
The word "art" was formerly reserved for creative expression of a type fundamentally different from software, cooking, cabinetry, home decorating, and so on.
The greatest possible work of software can't move a person the way Hamlet does.
In deciding that software is art, we forget about that distinction. We forget what Hamlet can do; we lose the capacity to appreciate art. Art is flattened to its lowest common denominator.
Then art is gone.
Good software is, or can be, creative expression. It can be beautiful. But why do we have to use the word "art?" Isn't it enough that it is what is? It's already so many wonderful things.
I imagine a terrible future when everyone is congratulating themselves on living during a renaissance, where art is all around.
I'll be sitting alone in the corner, gnawing my legs off, sticking forks in my palms, complaining that art is dead.