The continuing discomfort of assholes with modernity

From an interview:
"Art doesn’t save souls, but the best of it does have a cathartic effect, as Aristotle said, that is, makes us conscious of unconscious fantasy by way of a complex process of symbolization and identification. Van Gogh, among others, believed in the religion of art, which, whatever else it involved, made it clear that art is more than the sum of its material characteristics and not simply a reflection of everyday life. This is the reason Jacques Barzun celebrated it while acknowledging its limited appeal in a psychoaesthetically indifferent and materialistic society.
Artists are neither little gods nor pseudo-proletariat workers on a postmodern (re)production line, but they do have and represent certain values and attitudes, for which they are responsible, whether they know it or not.
I prefer the values and attitudes that van Gogh (and others) represents rather than those Warhol and Hirst represent. The former conveys respect and concern for the all too human –- and shows how art can make us aware of it and become all the more convincing as art by doing so (indeed, showing how such concern can catalyze creativity and innovation) –- while the latter are profoundly indifferent to it and produce an indifferent art, more of interest as a social symptom than as a vehicle of insight into (and thus psychic transcendence of) the materialist society and social indifference it is symptomatic of.
Their work suggests the cheapness of human life and the dumbness of art, while van Gogh’s suggests the preciousness of life and art’s empathic engagement with it."

THIS MAN is talking through his airtight behind. He is ascribing a philosophy of art to his own discomfort with Warhol and Hirst. He reminds me of the Evangelical Right's discomfort with modernity that makes them intolerant of the rights of gays and women. Ditto Muslims about women. What one does not know one fears. I happen to find Hirst's dissected sheep -- and his big shark -- profoundly thought-provoking: amazing objects for contemplation: deeply spiritual, in fact. There is absolutely nothing indifferent about them.