Post #697003 by White Devil on Tue, Oct 22, 2013 6:13 AM

The problem inherent in establishing "rules" is that for every rule there will appear at least three exceptions: look at the history of law and organized religion. But there always exist ideals to which we should aspire, whether they're the basics of civilization, or art as we're discussing here. Once you throw out the ideal--and the guidance it provides--it all goes down the toilet. Think, for example, of how art has degenerated from Leonardo da Vinci to the modern quacks who jack off on a stretched canvas: that is symptomatic of a rampant relativism which destroys the ideal.

We can say that aliens have no place in tiki (and be right), but then Munktiki gives us this...

Singa is potentially both, but blurs the definitions because of the obvious inspiration and the excellence of the execution. Singa earns his place in the pantheon because of the genuineness of his inspiration: his adherence to the ideal, rather than to a limiting conformity to "the rules".

The reductionist argument that we're just talking about pop culture cups is certainly true, but evades the responsibility of the tiki torchbearer to be truthful to the ideal. If we keep going down the road away from the timeless (the tiki image), we can only end up in the realm of the insipid (the grinning idiot).

I don't think anyone here wants to see the day when only a handful of tikiphiles, no matter how well-intentioned, gets to determine what tiki becomes, because it may not lie within the commonality of that ideal.