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What you describe is something a bit more sublime than "We have been seduced into conniving in the violation, because we have permitted our fantasies to accept what we know to be revolting", though the latter may be involved in the former. But the former goes dimensions further in using art to serve humanity.

As for the notion that "art is supposed to challenge", that's like saying "everyone should be equal": it's meaningless.

Art is supposed to express the truth.

I've never read the book and never will, so I don't know if this "art" redeems itself. I gather not.

I prefer not to be "challenged" "to accept what we know to be revolting" nor do I think such an experience is the mother of virtue. In fact, I argue it's the opposite.

Actually that sentence is more sublime than my description. Understand the lines being drawn there. Our FANTASIES have accepted what we KNOW to be revolting. It’s not drawing you to accept the bad, it’s drawing you to fantasize about the bad, and remember it’s bad. You are still revolted in the end, but for that time, you DREAMED.

It’s not meaningless at all. Art, good art, should rattle WITHIN your head, not just around it. In our current world we are constantly surrounded by “art”, mass produced music, TV shows that mark time, generic paintings that exist to break up the monotony of blank walls. It’s all very ignorable, you can be exposed to it all day every day and never give it a second thought. We forget that real art is supposed to give you that second thought, and preferably a 3rd and 4th. There was a thread this weekend about “messed up” art, that actually consisted mostly of religious art from the Renaissance, but it was religious art with some “oomph”, so some of it was nude (sublime Virgin Mary), some of it was bloody (horrible sin), and all of it was challenging. You had to think about it, you couldn’t just hang it on a wall in a hotel and walk past it.

It’s a good book. It makes you think. It makes you acknowledge. It doesn’t make the behavior good, it simply points out that you’re not very many bad decisions from the same path.

Lots of people prefer not to be challenged. Frankly, they’re all pathetic wastes of flesh. You’ll never be really good at being you if you don’t challenge yourself.