As a praise word, "punk" was far deadlier than "poetry" was

Just posted this on an old blogger thread that I found via Google:

Bug said: I've read it over thirty times now and am still no closer to understanding what the penman actually meant by this.

"through the process of our appreciating them[, we] turn them into nothing."

What does this mean?
Seriously. It's not a rhetorical question.

Wish you [rmd] had made more of an effort to answer this, as it is an excellent question that I quite sympathize with. In fact, it's what I was trying to understand way back then, and still am.

Anyway, if you're still in touch with Bug (whoever you are, whoever he/she is), I'll try to give a rudimentary answer, just with an example:

( You will never in a million years guess which current pop singer I use in my example )