why do most people discourage cliches in art and life?
i more interested in art but both apply. if you can explain it without accusing them of being boring because i dont actually find them boring.
ive been struggling with this for years and still have no idea. so any help anyone can give is a step forward for me.
shorthand for parables makes the “prophet” seem less important
-Imp
Cliches are trite, that’s why they’re cliches.
Personally I like cliches.
Because art has tended to value innovation, albeit a pretty conservative form of innovation (neo-impressionism, what the fork is that all about?)…
yea art must slowly evolve otherwise if it moves too fast it becomes radical and ugly until people catch up to it.
but still trite is like saying its boring. the dictionary could have told me the same thing.
maybe i shouldve made the question why do we encourage innovation in art? why do peronsalities have to be innovative? or why do we not like when peoples personalities are cliche?
Think of your favorite movie. Chances are you fell in love with it because it was like nothing you had seen before (among other factors, of course). Yet if another movie were to come along and straight rip off the same concepts, themes and plot, I suspect the new film wouldn’t strike nearly the same nerve. In fact, unless there was at least something highly original about it, you’d probably say it was a plagerized piece of trash.
Innovation, originality, freshness, uniqueness - these sorts of terms don’t necessarily only apply to art, they apply to all of life: we seek adventure, progress and excitement in nearly all we do, either literally or intellectually. The trite, the cliche, the cheesy, the corny - these represent places we’ve already been, things we’ve already seen. In turn, they fail to stimulate. Knock-knock jokes aren’t funny forever; variety is the spice of life.
Sometimes that’s all you need. Not every question is philosophically profound.
i know that but it shouldnt bother people so much that they openly criticize and insult it. im not saying its all that profound im just wondering what motivates people to goes as far as to find cliches insulting. if it was boring theyd move on. i guess it answers the question but it still feels like an over simplified way of looking at it.
cba,
It’s not that it’s boring for me peray, it’s that they are unaccurate. People avoid cliches not to be innovative, its to be accurate.
Cliches develop from our sense to group and generalize information to as to analyze it earlier. Cliches are simply the end of the spectrum where people are saying things that basically fall on the hazy edges of assumption when considered in an individual context.
Usually cliches are grossly inaccurate most of the time but they do stem from a certain biological/psychological epistemological mechanism.
I don’t want to go off half cocked but I figure if I let it all hang out it would be best for all being the lesser of two evils. Now this may seem off the wall seeming to not have a leg to stand on but I urge you to lend me your ear and see if I can give it to you in a nutshell. Cliches are like old saws, they just fit, e.g. hand in glove, i.e. we’re not trying to fit square pegs into round holes here. As for cliches being art or not art, I feel one is as good as the other. What I mean to say is that a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush so as long as you got the artistic sense take the money and run and don’t look back. It all makes sense especially since, if you really think about it, there is nothing new under the sun. Left to our own devices we would end up no worse for wear so just do it or get left in the lurch.
BTW Responding to a question about cliches with a string of cliches is also cliche but is the above cliche??? Don’t you just love it! LOL!
A more serious answer: Art, (taking Igor Stravinsky’s lead) is essentially constructive. While the basic cliche was once a construction, it has since calcified into a solid unit, which may be used in the construction of something else (as exampled above), or may not be, maybe. if not it would not be a construction therefore not art.
As to why some find cliches insulting: Construction implies work effort on the part of the constructor. If you give something you constructed it has this intrinsic value, if you give something you did not constructed it lacks this intrinsic value. If this intrinsic value was expected, say because it was already given and taken, then one would expect (and I think rightly so) to have their effort returned in kind.
I love cliches though. This is the fault of Jim Thompson and his kick ass book “The Killer Inside Me”.
so like over generalized and shallow?
if so then yea i think a lot of people make that connection atleast subliminally. which is actually closer to what i think i wanted to discuss. cause for some reason im horribly offended when people are shallow and fail to understand the depth of something even if its something i dont understand myself.
then i think with something like art where there is no clear structure it gets hard to express why its offensive to be overly general.
like if some one is to say “that movie is horrible” overly generalizing and youre to ask “why?” for a specific reason their whole feeling of disgust or whatever usually can be broken down into specific reasons but because art or conversation or just about anything is so multifaceted and can be looked at from so many perspectives you can turn a “that movie is horrible” into “i dont know i just dont like it for some reason”.