I'd agree with that. But the thing is, I also feel that a lot of this disrespect is totally fair. Why? Because your average joe flourisher isn't doing anything. One cut looks the same as the next, it's not interesting, it's not well thought out, it's not done for any particular reason except because we think it looks cool and cool people like D&D are good at it.
The reason I asked for the difference between card juggling and flourishing is this: Many people I've heard would say the flourishing is more than mere card juggling - it's an art, etc.
And I laugh, and ask, How on earth is that an art?
As I have mentioned in the past, I know one person personally who makes flourishing an art - one single person out of two to three dozen people I know who flourish.
I went to a jam today, and after two or three hours, I was bored, because I felt like what I was doing and what we were doing was completely mundane. So I've started thinking of ways to make it more interesting and useful.
Sitting there doing endless two handed cuts which, for all intents and purpose, look the same (and yes, I do know flourishing reasonably well, it's not just because I don't know anything - although this raises the question of what spectators see), is not an art.
When I talk to my friend about flourishing, he looks at a flourish, and he says something along the lines of, "It's nice... But I don't really like it because it doesn't go anywhere. There's no further development possible, nothing I can build up on or extend further." Which is interesting - cause it's fast and has lots of packets - but that by itself describes 95% of flourishes. Then he looks at something else and says "I'm much more excited about this though - check this out. I've been working on this concept for a few weeks, look what I've developed" - and what he's developed, that is Art. Not this random generic crap, but he tries to do stuff with flourishing. Just as, in magic, it is Deadly to become generic (a reference to Peter Brook's Deadly Theatre, in case anyone's read The Empty Space). People get criticised for it all the time. Why then are we allowed to be generic in flourishing, if so many people want to tout flourishing as an equally respectable thing as magic?
The truth is, it is that, in the hands of those most capable, but it is not that in 95% of flourishers who sit there and do nothing.
One other quick thing I want to address. Flourishing has often been condescendingly called masturbation with cards. Well, honestly, I don't see the problem with masturbating, I really don't. If it makes you happy - how is it different from collecting stamps, or other such pasttimes?
Flourishing has never been something I'm naturally skilled at, nor will it ever come close to my magic in terms of love or importance. I like it to a point, which is why I learn some flourishes. But for me, it's a curiosity, a passing show of impressive decksterity I show my magician friends and occasionally laymen friends. My focus is my magic.
It's those that claim to be more than "mere juggling", who claim that flourishing is "an art", but don't live up to these claims, and don't make any attempt to live up to these claims, but rather are quite happy to wallow in mediocrity and claim greatness (including, largely, implicitly so), which annoy me.
It reminds me of Steerpike's topic: It's fine that you're not artists, as long as you don't call yourselves artists. One more little thing to add here, as I'm sure someone will think or say this: No, not everyone goes around consciously believing or saying to themselves that they are artists, that they are great, doing something high and mighty, etc. But I do feel that this mentality is, even at a subconscious, implicity level, active in much of flourishing.
Finally, to come back to what squ!rrel was saying: I do agree that juggling is most often a condescending term used unfairly in the sense that it is often applied as a stereotype to all flourishers regardless of skill, a blanket statement over this form of manipulation. I do however believe that it is fair in another sense, in the sense that the huge majority of "flourishers", fulfill this stereotype, whilst insisting on something greater.
