What Raemon's trying to say is that if your art sucks, it's not going to further your politics, presumably because nobody will want to go near it unless they're already sold.
Upon further reflection, I think I was approaching it from a different angle, which resulted in unspoken assumptions. As an artist, I care about each project I do for its own sake in addition to whatever purpose it serves, and the goals are simultaneously intertwined, and of parallel, equal importance to me.
This is me speaking as an artist. If I'm a producer/propagandist who wants to hire an artist, then yes, the politics is the true purpose and the art "merely" needs to be able to cut.
But from inside the visual-art-algorithm, the "art"...
Today's post, Politics and Awful Art was originally published on 20 December 2007. A summary (taken from the LW wiki):
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