Thoughts on thinking

It astonishes me sometimes how completely stupid and reductive some HN takes on arts and creativity can be. I am astounded continually at how we can produce humans who are so capable in one sphere of life and so ignorant and oblivious of others...yet all too willing to make dismissive claims about them...

Creativity is much more than the derivative production of artifacts. What the OP is driving at is that creativity is a process of human connection and communication—you can see this most clearly in the art of interpretation. A single literary work has an almost uncountable number of possible interpretations, and a huge element of its existence in the world as a price of art are the discussions and debates that emerge over those interpretations, and how they shape us as individuals, instill morals, etc etc. Quite a lot more than "making elves by adding pointy ears to humans".

Your post stinks of the very gross consumerist mindset the OP called out. The creation and preservation of meaning is about way more than the production of fungible decontextualized objects--it's all about the mediation and maintenance of human relationships through artifacts. The fact that the elves have pointy ears doesn't even begin to scratch at their actual meaning (e.g. they exist in a world with very big real problems that effect you and me too, e.g. race relations, and exaggerated features estrange these relations so as to make them more discernible to us and allow us to finally see the water we swim in).

If humans stop engaging with these processes, it's reasonable to believe that a lot of that semiotic richness, which is much of what, in my opinion, makes us human and not just super smart animals in the first place, will be lost.

In full agreement with you on the flagrant incapability of a sizeable part of the HN crowd to understand and value of the arts.

Throughout history man has been celebrated and distinguished as the rational animal. As master of the earth this animal in our days dedicates its brightest minds to the continual increase of economic growth. Ask the rational man what is growth good for and after a few exchanges they perhaps will say that it ultimately improves our quality of life and even extends it. If might even allow the human race to flourish beyond earth and thus prevail long after resources on earth are depleted. But ask him then why is improving the quality of life a good thing at all? Is it just a meaningless cycle in which we improve the quality of life so that we can then improve the quality of life even further? No. Ask an individual human (in contrast to the ultra rationalist who thinks they represent the human race as a whole) what they work for, what they strive to achieve, what does quality of life ultimately mean to them and you will end up with happy times spent among family and friends. With meaningful moments listening to music, watching a film, reading a book. About time spent in creative endeavors that are totally their own. The rational animal in its hubris forgot what it thinks for and trapped itself in an endless cycle where the true meaning of being human is hidden from the sight of many.

But I think a wake up call is due very soon. The rational animal is about to discover the rationality it prides itself on was merely a sample of the true possibility. From the rational animal we have been relegated to another animal with some rational capability. As we slowly realize how futile are our attempts at thinking, we'll realize to our horror that the gift we are left with is the ability to recognize the futility and inadequacy of our attempts. Hopefully then we'll decide to retreat back into what truly makes us human, to what is ours, to what quality of life really means.

I'm reminded of that My dinner with Andre monologue, and totally agree.