You Really Are Wrong, Sometimes

35 If two different groups say the same thing, you really are wrong

The last writers' mantra said not to argue with those in the writers' group who say your prose sucks. The presumption defending the rightness of your prose is a waste of time. You are right and the group is wrong. This makes sense for the reasons enumerated there.

But.

In the town where I live there are multiple writers' groups. I've been known to haunt more than one of them.  For the most part, the folks who go to the group at Barnes & Noble don't go to the group at the Public Library. This is an important distinction.

So, let's suppose you are writing "Lesbian Nazi Cannibals on the Moon." And someone at one group makes a specific complaint that maybe Nazism is not a viable alternative lunar lifestyle. The last mantra provides guidance: thank that person and shut up.

If you really believe your Nazi story works, take it to the other group and read the same passage. If you hear the same specific complaint, from someone who was not at the other group, this is a clue. Ignore it at your peril: You are wrong.

This is a chance for you to learn. People learn by being wrong, owning up to that reality, and figuring out something different to do.

But.

I have a friend at one of the writers' groups I attend who tends to be blown about by every wind of criticism in the group. As a result, he doesn't quite finish anything, but churns. This is the opposite error to make.

When you have people tell you what's wrong with your prose you'll hear signal and you'll hear noise. The wise listener can filter out signal and noise. But that can be hard, even for the wise.

The thing about noise is that it is random. Half the time it'll say you're too hot, and half the time it'll say you're too cold. They cancel out. Consensus-seeking behavior can lead to a groupthink that can make the noise seem very strong. But a different group will have its own different groupthink. So, if you take the same prose to two places, you're likely to have the noise cancel out, and you're likely to have the true signal you need to hear reinforced.

Rich People Can Be Stupid

One of the things about the local ArtPrize competition this year is that they open up the Grand Rapids Art Museum for free. It's a beautiful facility, but it gets too crowded during ArtPrize. Since I wanted to avoid the crowds, I went into the regular art museum's non-ArtPrize floors. What I saw was remarkable.

Remarkably bad.

It's my opinion that beauty inheres within the object. This is a minority opinion, because we see lots of cases where one person regards something as beautiful when another regards it as ugly. My reply to this is that tastes need to be cultivated. When I was a child I thought coffee tasted horrid, and Tabasco was painful. As I grew older, I acquired a more sophisticated palette. If beauty inheres within the object and tastes are subject to cultivation, then a wise individual will try to cultivate virtuous tastes and eschew vicious ones. That doesn't happen much in today's society.

Instead rich guys of dubious taste hire art experts. These art experts proceed to curate art collections and to acquire pieces that will enhance the reputation of the collection. It's all a matter of reputation and unlike the fable of the Emperor's New Clothes, there's no little boy to point out the ridiculous.

Thus I went through the collection at the Grand Rapids Art Museum marveling at the pieces that had been donated by this rich guy or that rich guy. "You paid good money for that?" I thought. "Stupid."

That's the subversive threat of ArtPrize. People can see a hundred times more art in a few weeks than they'd otherwise see in years. Anyone can enter anything and quite frankly, a lot of stuff is put out that should be tacked to the refrigerator. Yet, there's a lot of beauty on display and the public is more inclined to vote for beauty than for ugliness.

Once you get an eyeful of ArtPrize entries, you can look at the high art in the museum and I for one have found it woefully lacking. The experts are caught in a groupthink where they only listen to similarly credentialed experts. And because they're experts, rich guys take them seriously.

And that's how Rich People Can Be Stupid.