Re: <nettime> The insult of the 1 percent: "Art-history majors"

["Sascha D. Freudenheim" <sascha@sascha.com>]

I think you have to view Conard in context. Or a variety of contexts.

One of those contexts has to be the announcement today that David Koch
has made a $35 million gift to the Smithsonian to fix their (very old)
dinosaur halls.

Koch, it must be noted, is: (a) Generous: he's given $100 million to
NYC's Lincoln Center -- for their ballet theater, no less! -- as well
as millions more to other museums and arts-focused non-profits.

(b) Considered one of the Great Right-Wing Satans by many on the left.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/03/koch-gives-smithsonian-35_n_1474389.html

My point is that I don't think over-generalizing from Conard's absurd 
comments is necessarily very helpful. He's one guy. He's entitled to his 
opinions, however ignorant we think they are. But there are people with 
significantly more complex relationships to the world(s) of ideas, art, 
culture, and wealth. Koch is one of them. I don't agree with most of his 
political views, but he is evidence that there are people whose 
motivations as part of the 1% are not as simple-minded as Conard's--and 
not as simple as the rest of us often assume.

Sascha


Sascha D. Freudenheim
Doubt is humanity's best friend.
http://www.thetruthasiseeit.com/
http://www.sascha.com
http://twitter.com/SaschaDF

On 5/3/2012 2:43 AM, Brian Holmes wrote:
> Edward Conard works for Mitt Romney's firm, Bain Capital. He is part
> of the .01% and he is true to his class. A New York Times reporter
> interviewed him on the occasion of his soon-to-be-released book (which
> you should probably steal if you want to read it) called "Unintended
> Consequences." As usual, it declares that the superrich do us all
> a world of good, even though all they want is more for them. In
> Connard's case, he already has enough to crush us like flies. Check
> out his world view, as reported by Adam Davidson:






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