Weitz

Weitz provides us with no definition or definitive explanation for art in his essay. This is extremely odd in a book solely devoted to finding and exploring the definition and nature of art. If you look closer, however, it offers us some interesting and points about art and the way it effects us. His definition, as well, can be applied to numerous everyday things. Weitz asserts that art cannot be define because it encompasses and can encompass too many things. New forms of art are constantly arising and we extend the word "art" to them. He believes we are more talking about the concept of art. This is what I have been talking about in my past blogs. Why are we so obsessed with defining an elusive and difficult concept? Why is this so important to us when, like Weitz said, it has eluded the human population since Plato's time and from then on. We are trying to define and pin down an ever-changing thing and over-simplify something that is amazingly complex. This, I think, can be said for many things in our lives. Like love and happiness and contentment and entertainment and food and civilization and technology. It is simply impossible to pin down any of those things. Love today means a totally different thing than it did in the early 16th century. There are marriages between people that was forbidden and condemned years ago and we are fighting now for rights for even more people and their definition of love. There are no set conditions that can be applied to every single thing that we describe as love and happiness. We could go all day trying to describe conditions and characteristics and never get all of them. But can that not be said for most things in these lives we lead? Do we all try to pin people, places, and things and define them to the death so we are comforted in knowing we are knowledgeable even falsely so? Why do you think we do not live more instinctively and less wrapped in emotion and definition and wondering?