No way man. Listen for example to Jason Beckers Serrana. That´s art man. If it was Bach our somwone, it would be one of theirs most famous work. I don´t think that shredding is always for showing off.

There should be no diffrence between playn fast and slow actaully but evryone can play slow and that´s why some pople who can´t play fast say, he´s just showing off, playng as fast as he can on that stupid scale but if you take a closer look to some amazing shredders out there, you´ll discover that it´s hell more than 10 scales and 20 different arpeggios licks.

Shred is difficult to master, just listen to Paganini, he was nothing but shredder and if he played guitar, people like you would say, it´s not an art he´s just showing off but since it´s a violin, you´ll find it as art wich is sad. For some people, guitar players who are fast are bad, boring and almost compared to punk players but I´ll tell you SHRED GUITAR PLAYERS ARE THE BEST GUITAR PLAYERS AND GUITAR MUSIC IS THE MOST FAMOUS ART IN WORLD!!!!!!