I'd call that a postmodern understanding of art, and one originating from just one particular sect of postmodernism at that. There's a lot of postmodernists who would say that the artist's intentions in creating the work are secondary, or even irrelevant. (A lot of others who would say it too.)

The world of art is filled with warring philosophies just like everywhere else and you can't pretending that your preferred definition of 'art' is 'the one, the true, the only'. (Well, you can. Just anyone who adheres to a different philosophy of aesthetics won't take you too seriously.)

> Text books, no matter how relevant they may be to your experience, are different from novels. And it's precisely because Jim wouldn't call it art that it isn't.

I firmly assert this is wrong. You firmly assert contrary. Let's leave it at that. Further discussion is useless.

You assert that text books are no different from novels? That's absurd.

(If your assertion is that text books are, in fact, art, then I agree with you. But they're a very different sort of art from the sort that _why was creating – starting from the fact that the Poignant Guide is a work of fiction, and most textbooks are not.)

> You assert that text books are no different from novels? That's absurd.

No. I assert that a textbook could be art and that art could be a textbook. Transitively, though. This is outside the scope of the original discussion.

People here are frantic to give _why credit for doing something unique, and he did. But he was unique in his specifics. The general pattern has been repeated many times.

People seem to think that me saying, "Lot's of people have done things in the same category as what _why has done, before _why did it," is controversial. It isn't and shouldn't be. _why can be a unique snowflake, highly significant to you, and not be some sort of genesis for a new type of art previous undreamed by human minds.

I mean, seriously, how is what _why did any different from http://www.catb.org/esr/writings/unix-koans/ten-thousand.htm... ? Which has been growing since before many people on this website were born and will continue to do so after many of us are gone.

And Corey Doctorow probably has a few things to say about the idea that Novels cannot be textbooks for specific subjects. Little Brother had a lot of very specific detail on reproducible physical hacks people could do in their day-to-day lives for privacy purposes!

And the method of using a work of fiction as a teaching tool? Ancient.

I must assert that this is not the case. Many textbooks, especially in b-school (ok, ok) are fictional narratives of a heroic quest to solve a problem. Through that narrative, lessons are expressed.

The Goal, by Goldratt, is an example of such a textbook novel.

Since it does not have a conventional novel form, I refrain from claiming the same status for Everyone Poops.