If you practice everything in moderation you're practicing moderation excessively
relates to what I was talking about with Plato in the other thread - if the ideal soul is moderate in all things, is it not excessive in moderation?
that's something I wondered about reading it, anyway
in that case he's talking about moderation more in terms of negation, sacrifice - excising all weaknesses to reach an ideal
in the lineage of tasteful art it comes across more like - cowardice isn't quite the word, as it implies a conscious flinching away. timidity, maybe.
it's the root of the complaint against self-conscious ambient and all its derivatives - never going for it, just this staid endless hum
like always - make "good" art, make "bad art", just make interesting art
i.e. Basquiat looks like shit up next to a Rembrandt or whatever, but Basquiat is among the handful of greatest painters to ever live