Chairs are used for sitting

Here's a shard from an op-ed piece by Jonathan Franzen, published in the New York Times on May 28, 2011. The topic is "liking" in the Facebook sense, and how that applies to stuff we could buy:

"This is, in fact, the definition of a consumer product, in contrast to the product that is simply itself and whose makers aren’t fixated on your liking it. (I’m thinking here of jet engines, laboratory equipment, serious art and literature.)"

So there's a clue -- that serious art and literature should not be preoccupied with you liking it.

Not sure how much I agree with that. Me, I think there's art in creating art that is popular and serious, or at least in creating art that tries to meet the audience at least half-way. To ignore this aspect of art is like being a furniture designer who creates this really cool chair that can't be used for sitting.