:: 10.25.2003 ::

Amendment to Physics
When I said in my last post that I am no plausible, I was making an abysmal understatement. I agree with Vivian in Oscar Wilde's Intentions (1891) who wrote the following in her treatise, "The Decay of Lying: A Protest"

...and if something cannot be done to check, or at least to modify our monstrous worship of facts, Art will become sterile, and beauty will pass away from the land.

Only when art is not convincing, when it is unable to persuade us of its truth, should it be subjected to factual nitpicking and scientific quibbling. Art that is not convincing in itself is bad art, it is dead, so it can't be diminished by such vivisection. The "plausibles" are vultures; they pick over the carcass of art after it has died by some other means.

But when a film is good art, when it is beautiful, the sticklers at Insultingly Stupid Movie Physics are worse than humdrum heathens, they are art-pharisees -- crucifiers of the imagination (see their review of The Hulk). These square-headed bores don't even know the difference between art and a physics lesson!

To the extent that their site salvages an opportunity for science education from the wreckage of The Matrix, I celebrate their intrepid rescue. But as far as they demand that art propagandize for truth and reality, art itself could have no greater enemy.

:: Posted by Grant "C.K." Dexter Haven @ 1:31 AM [+] ::
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