A blogger’s trip to Washington, DC

Jacob Lyles, who seems to be some kind of libertarian, writes about his trip to Washington, DC. (Hat tip: Scott Scheule at Catallarchy).

I found some of what he wrote especially interesting. For example:

The humbled cityscape of DC is directly a result of hubris at its center. The entire city is a monument to the arrogance of politicians. There is a law in Mordor [Mordor is the evil land in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings] that no building may be taller than Mount Doom [another Tolkien analogy], the Capitol Dome from which the eye of government watches and controls the world’s affairs. As a result of the ordinance, this masterwork of city planning has a problem with urban sprawl.

I have the same complaint about DC, which is that it would be a better city if it had taller buildings. The arbitrary zoning law restricting the heights of buildings does indeed cause urban sprawl, and even worse, it causes exurbanization, which is why the commutes in the DC area are so bad. (See my post Traffic is bad? Blame the commuter.)

Their walls are emblazoned with slogans trumpeting the virtues of the city’s masters. They use words like freedom, liberty, and equality when they speak of the gifts of government.

Once again, I agree with Jacob, people look at the words without really bothering to consider if they still apply to our modern government.

Finally, Jacob provides us with his thoughts on modern art:

After we left the classical exhibit we proceeded to a display of the work of Ed Ruscha. This “artist” was a no-talent hack. Some of his work resembled scribbles that I had done in middle school. Other famous canvases were literally just nonsensical words written in a plain font on a plain background. Ruscha felt that meaning confined a work of art, and often he tried to avoid it. If he were a character in “The Fountainhead”, Ellsworth Toohey [the socialist who hates people with talent] would be his patron.

I too believe that modern art was a liberal plot (and a very successful one at that) to suppress the truly talented artists. Liberals hate the fact that ability isn’t distributed equally in the population, so they endorse a form of “art” that requires little ability. (See my recent post Thoughts on ability grouping in primary and secondary education.)

Comments

[Michael H.]

Hi Half Sigma
"I too believe that modern art was a liberal plot (and a very successful one at that) to suppress the truly talented artists. Liberals hate the fact that ability isn’t distributed equally in the population, so they endorse a form of “art” that requires little ability."

Tsk. You just don't understand modern art. But then neither do I. :)

[Half Sigma]

There's really nothing to understand. Part of the liberal plot is to make people feel culturally unsophisticated unless they pretend to get it. So it's like the parable about all the people complimenting the emporer on his new clothes when he was, in fact, naked.

[William]

It being the capitol and our national heritage (& a big ego booster), the capitol should remain the highest, but only to an extent. They should do like they have in Paris, where within most of the city there is a height limit, but there is a section in which they allow buildings to go crazy, leading to a section of your typical modern skyline while preserving the dominance & balance of the older masterpieces in the old city.

The argument that modern art is a "liberal plot" is bull. Until you can show me something that says there is an incalculably larger number of rich liberals than conservatives, that just won't be true. The main thing about modern art is that it's rebellious, unconvential. Back in the day that meant a nude marble statue (Michelangelo), as it progressed the torch got passed to Monet, Picasso, etc. The important thing is that it's original, different, & that gets increasingly difficult as all the good ideas get eaten up.