Democracy of Shame

I decided to revise my earlier paper about Duchamp and socially oriented artworks instead of starting a new one. Initially, right after I finished writing it and after I got it back from the professor, I felt like I had regurgitated a conceptual disaster onto the page. I handed it in because it was the only thing I had written, but I was embarrassed to think that he would actually read it. And read it he did. Very, very carefully. I got it back with copious notes - arrows pointing all over the place, comments and question jammed into every conceivable margin. I of course learned that same class that he was also an art historian, in addition to being a professor, a lawyer, on the boards of several art committees and a whole bunch of other stuff. This guy knows his shit. It only increased my humiliation that I know almost nothing about art history, and bluffed my way through the paper. I just hadn't expected him to be armed to the teeth with responses.

On a second reading, and after actually wading through the comments, I realized it wasn't as hopeless as I had thought. I did have a point, after all, and not a bad one at that. Besides, he gave me pretty good guidance in those comments so I feel as if I am starting to make some progress in refining my argument. I get weird mixture of apprehension and laziness when it comes to writing. When you write something, that's it - you write it and effectively it’s been said, and as a result understood by the reader. That’s a scary proposition. To be clear means that people might actually take you seriously, and if you are clear and have something stupid to say, being taken seriously just makes you look even dumber.
Yet I record some pretty personal thoughts on this blog. Not soul crushingly personal, but that is just because I am not the kind of person who has a ton on dark secrets. My secrets sit pretty much on the surface, yet I don't go telling people about how I feel bout working with parents on a regular basis either. I can write here for several reasons. The first, and probably the most common, is the knowledge that I have no readership. So it feels like I am communicating to a wide audience, but really all I'm doing is sending 0's and 1's onto the web. The second is that I am under the delusion that 'Beef & Salt' is an impenetrable alias. The truth is that anyone who knew me could peg me down at this site in seconds flat. And maybe that's what I want. Even though I can border on the intensely shy side, I have a narcissistic exhibitionist tendency. I like to talk about my experiences and my opinions. I also like to take pictures of myself. (So there, I've confessed)
I think that one of the key points that I am trying to make in my paper is that while art requires democracy to exist, it is not a democracy in and of itself, nor should it be.
Break times over.