 And there's no way to go after this, right? Other than to have another renaissance. Because the only way to go after this is, yeah, to nothing. To shapes. Now shapes can be pretty. They can be smooth, or rough, or whatever. But what does any of this mean? Nothing. It's just shapes. It's just somebody putting together something that he thought was... Shapy? I don't know. And I'm sure people have written dissertations. University dissertations about what this means. It's a lot of pseudo-intellectual gibberish. Because there's nothing here. There really isn't. There's no story. There's no values. There's nothing to reflect back at you. Now it gets scary, right? Spiders. Sharks. Outside my hotel, here in Edinburgh, there are two giraffes. Pretty bad giraffes. Giraffes wouldn't like these giraffes. But why? What are you trying to say? What's the value? It's not pretty. It's not beautiful. This isn't beautiful. It's just ugly. And it's not reflecting anything. Maybe scared, scariness, if that's a value to anybody. And of course, everybody knows it's a joke. They know it's bankrupt. They know there's no there, there. They know this is garbage. So they put a urinal in a museum. I mean, I don't think Duchamp, I don't know Duchamp, right? Maybe he thought this was really art. I doubt it. His whole point is a nihilistic point. His whole point is if anything can be art, then what? Logically, then nothing is art. This is pure nihilism. This is an attempt to destroy all art and all our ability to enjoy art and destroy it. And Dali, who is famous for having fun at these kind of things, you know, a lobster on the telephone, okay? I'm not sure exactly what to do with that. But again, it's ridiculing. Ridiculing what? Ridiculing us for taking him seriously. For thinking this is meaningful in any kind of sense. It deserves maybe a smile, but mostly just ignoring it. Art is a truly important experience for human beings. The more I think you experience art in a funny way, the better you become as a thinker. Because the better you become at dealing with the abstractions, because you now have them in some way concretized for you. They are spiritual fuel. They should motivate us, inspire us to continue in life, to pursue our dreams, to pursue the challenges. Life is indeed difficult. It sometimes even sucks. But I don't need somebody to tell me, yeah, it sucks. I want somebody to inspire me and remind me that it doesn't suck for a long time, that I can overcome, that I can change, that I can make choices that make it better. Great art is art that truly inspires. It's art that reminds us of what is possible in the world. If I listen to a Beethoven symphony, I get energized. I want to go out and do stuff. If I look at Michelangelo's David, I get a very similar feeling. That's the life I want to live. That's the kind of people I want to hang out with. That's the kind of world I want to be in. I want to be in a world of Davids, at whatever activity we're engaged in. When I look at what's called modern art, I get nothing. I don't even get the negative of the depressing, I don't know, dark European movies that delve into how much life sucks. I don't even get that. I just get nothing. What upsets me about modern art is not what they do, because it's nothing. What upsets me about modern art is that people build museums and host it in them. Then we spend public money to subsidize these artists and then host them in museums and in intellectuals. And then what happens is that the common person, most of us who are not art specialists, who now have this nonsense in their mind as art, lots of stories of janitors throwing out sculptures in museums because they thought it was trash. Literally, they thought it was trash, and it turns out that it was an art piece. But when we associate trash with art, then we lose interest in art. And we lose what art can actually provide us. Now some of us maybe won't, but many people do. So if an average person who doesn't know much about art, who hasn't taken the art classes, who hasn't listened to intellectuals, walks into the Tate Modern and looks around, their response is going to be, this is stupid. It is. You just go ask them. And then he's going to say, well, art is stupid. And they're going to miss out. They're going to miss out on what art can provide them. Holding those things two together, those two together is incredibly damaging for us, for our ability to enjoy the great art. So let's stop calling modern art art. It's modern, if that word means anything, but it's not art. It's something we can come up with a new term for it. I don't know. But art reflects values to us. Art tells us a story. Art tells us something about the artist's values. And it tells us, most importantly, about our own values. Art is a way to learn about yourself. Experience lots of it. Good art. And you'll become a better human being. You'll become a better introspector in terms of knowing yourself. And you'll have a lot more fun. Thank you. Thank you for listening or watching the Iran Book Show. If you'd like to support the show, we make it as easy as possible for you to trade with me. You get value from listening. You get value from watching. Show your appreciation. You can do that by going to iranbookshow.com. I go to Patreon, Subscribestar, Locals, and just making an appropriate contribution on any one of those channels. Also, if you'd like to see the Iran Book Show grow, please consider sharing our content. And of course, subscribe. Press that little bell button right down there on YouTube so that you get an announcement when we go live. And for those of you who are already subscribers and those of you who are already supporters of the show, thank you. I very much appreciate it.