Blog Post #2

First I’ll give the definition of the word I was given at the end of class. I was given the word ‘altruist’, altruist is a person that is unselfishly concerned for or devoted to the welfare of others (found on dictionary.com).

After rereading Southan’s essay, “Is Art a Waste of Time” I feel as though I picked up on some other language and meaning in the text. I noticed that the text directly confronts “privileged Westerners,” within the first paragraph. I think that the EA group is more coming at the artistic community as, “if you’re successful in the arts right now, thats great now donate to this charity so your work is actually doing something. If you’re an aspiring artists and aren’t successful yet, probably stop now and find a job that you will make decent money in so you can donate to this charity and make an impact on the world.” I think that a lot of people are willing to donate money, but for me personally, the EA’s approach is very aggressive and puts a lot of pressure on my conscious and if they told me my donation wasn’t good enough and to do more, I would withdraw my donation and leave. I think that people in need should be appreciative of every opportunity they’re given. Although, I get the feeling that EA would be more likely to target the extremely wealthy people and its more likely that EAs would try to get them to donate more and more. In comparison to the first time reading it I thought is was more attacking random individuals and artists and pressuring to do better than the next person. In all, I think that both of my interpretations were pretty much the same.