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It's not about practicality. A Formula 1 car or high-performance sailboat has no practical value, but I trust engineers far more than kindergartners about Formu

It's not about practicality. A Formula 1 car or high-performance sailboat has no practical value, but I trust engineers far more than kindergartners about Formula 1 or yacht design. On the other hand, I've seen gifted kindergartners draw things which I thought were pretty good -- on par with some respected artists. It's about having real-world validation. Anyone can have an opinion about art and literature. If your opinion happens to mirror the opinions of English department academics -- just clever enough to be a new twist, but not so brilliant as to go outside of the culture -- you can get a position as a scholar, and keep writing papers within a mutual appreciation society of academics all thinking roughly the same thoughts. Eventually, the whole crew goes down one rabbithole or other. A group of thousands of self-supporting, mutually reaffirming "intelligent scholars, designers, artists, philosophers, and religious figures" doesn't make that opinion any more right or valid than my own. On the other hand, if an engineer can make the fastest sailboat, that's external real-world validation that they got something right. As a subtle point, I'll trust the opinion of filmmakers who receive public acclaim (external validation). I'll trust the opinion of filmmakers of niche artistic films a lot less. That is to say, I'll trust them about the technical aspects (what aperture means, or how to edit a video), but not about the artistic aspects: how you use film as a medium for communication, expression, and so on. A big part of communication and art is understanding the audience, and they haven't demonstrated they can do that, at least outside of their own clique.

keiferski 7y ago
You do realize that the activity of art-making and the field of aesthetics (defined broadly as philosophical thought about art-making) are thousands of years old? And that just as there are arguments for certain political systems over others, there are arguments for certain ways of interpreting and valuing art over others? The idea that artistic value is only based on modern academics is really quite myopic.
- claudiawerner 7y ago
  I'm curious as to what the argument actually is against the idea that it is perfectly reasonable to value Bach and JK Rowling's Harry Potter with the latter having more "value" than the former. What argument do aestheticians put forth to say that my judgement is incorrect, or worse, than that of the Bach scholar? It seems to me that the challenge for the "objective" theory of aesthetics is pretty much the same as the one for moral realism. Yes, the fact that people disagree about artistic value doesn't mean that artistic value is subjective - but I'm yet to be convinced that it's objective in any meaningful sense. In the end, though, you're right about disagreement over political systems (despite some attempts to do away with political relativism, e.g. Badiou) - but only because different people have different, mutually exclusive, visions of what society is and should be, and the methods to get there. The arguments you're talking about in politics only have any meaning once at least one set goal is agreed upon - e.g. human freedom. But I struggle to think of any such goal that the Bach scholar and the Harry Potter fan are going to agree on. I think there's a reason why even die-hard Adorno "fans" have given up trying to argue why jazz music is so bad. When someone can think up an argument to convince a Harry Potter fan that they should really judge Bach's music as more beautiful, pleasing, of higher artistic value etc. than Harry Potter, then I'm curious.
  - keiferski 7y ago
    Aestheticians don’t frame the question as “objective vs. subjective” so I wouldn’t use that as a goal or a starting point. There are various approaches and none is more “objective”, just as the X political philosophy is not more objective than Y political philosophy. They are constructed of arguments, evidence, worldviews, and other things that have nothing to do with arriving at some standard of “objectively better.” My criticism of the “ignorant relativist” is that he is uninformed on the reasoning of his position and of other positions, not that he thinks art is subjective.
    - claudiawerner 7y ago
      How is the question framed, then? Either everyone's aesthetic judgement is equally valid, or there are some judgments that are better than others. I'm interested in the defense of the latter position. By what reasoning can an aesthetician convince me that Bach is better (in some, in any way) than Harry Potter? Or if that's not the right question either: by what reasoning can an aesthetician argue that a particular interpretation or assignment of value is better than another? Yes, I arrived at my position out of ignorance, but I've had this kind of argument online before, and nobody has been able to offer me an argument for the side which says we can arrive at value judgments about art that are independent of the person, or whatever the opposite opinion to "art is subjective" is supposed to be.
      - admax88q 7y ago
        Let's say there's two books in front of us. A and B. I have read both you have only read A. I argue that B is better because the plot was more intricate. You argue that A is better because you think the cover of book B is bad. Do you think these two judgements have equal value?
  - coldtea 7y ago
    >When someone can think up an argument to convince a Harry Potter fan that they should really judge Bach's music as more beautiful, pleasing, of higher artistic value etc. than Harry Potter, then I'm curious. Such matters are not decided by arguments, the same way flat earth society members are not won by arguments (they heard them all anyway). It's up to each person to make the effort to grow their understanding, which requires study and self-development. >I think there's a reason why even die-hard Adorno "fans" have given up trying to argue why jazz music is so bad. Yes, because mediocre commercial art prevailed in the end, and the kind of cultural development of bourgeois society declined. Ironically for a good while jazz took a different route from the earlier kind of jazz Adorno criticised, much closer to those ideals of art. So it's more like Jazz post-50s went closer to Adorno than the other way around...
- murgindrag 7y ago
  For political systems, I can look at how happy people are, how healthy people are, how affluent they are, how much economic progress there is, how much scientific progress there is, equality, stability, as well as apply whatever theories of morality I like (e.g. utilitarianism). There is a value judgement as to how I weigh those, or which ones I care about, but I can evaluate it in some way. People might argue about the merits of a meritocracy versus a democracy, but broadly speaking, everyone will agree that a progress democracy is better than an exploitative, violent, oppressive dictatorship. The quality of art, in contrast, is fully in the eye of the beholder. If you'd like to see how this manifests in practice, it's worth looking at Soviet Russia, the French Revolution, or many democracies which failed in practice, despite what were, on the surface, plausible ideas. This contrasts with literature, where there is no objective metric, and much of the time, someone says "that's great, now let's go even further" to an idea as good as North Korean style communism.
  - keiferski 7y ago
    ...and there are ways to evaluate art or literature and make value judgments. You simply seem to be unaware of them.
    - Nullabillity 7y ago
      Sure, but there is no intrinsic canonical way to do so, because there is no objective goal that is common to instances of a certain form of art. As a result, those evaluation metrics become as arbitrary as the art itself.
- AtlasBarfed 7y ago
  Yes but that idea validates the habitation of an ivory tower. The notion that visual design for a consumer product isn't fundamentally validated by a sufficient demand by a sufficiently large set of consumers, to me, is stupid. So much of humanities seems to be somewhat arbitrary and fashionable categorization in a (somewhat vain) attempt to be able to academically analyze (or at least publish the equivalent). So this article seems hilarious to me.

keiferski 7y ago

You do realize that the activity of art-making and the field of aesthetics (defined broadly as philosophical thought about art-making) are thousands of years old? And that just as there are arguments for certain political systems over others, there are arguments for certain ways of interpreting and valuing art over others? The idea that artistic value is only based on modern academics is really quite myopic.

claudiawerner 7y ago
I'm curious as to what the argument actually is against the idea that it is perfectly reasonable to value Bach and JK Rowling's Harry Potter with the latter having more "value" than the former. What argument do aestheticians put forth to say that my judgement is incorrect, or worse, than that of the Bach scholar? It seems to me that the challenge for the "objective" theory of aesthetics is pretty much the same as the one for moral realism. Yes, the fact that people disagree about artistic value doesn't mean that artistic value is subjective - but I'm yet to be convinced that it's objective in any meaningful sense. In the end, though, you're right about disagreement over political systems (despite some attempts to do away with political relativism, e.g. Badiou) - but only because different people have different, mutually exclusive, visions of what society is and should be, and the methods to get there. The arguments you're talking about in politics only have any meaning once at least one set goal is agreed upon - e.g. human freedom. But I struggle to think of any such goal that the Bach scholar and the Harry Potter fan are going to agree on. I think there's a reason why even die-hard Adorno "fans" have given up trying to argue why jazz music is so bad. When someone can think up an argument to convince a Harry Potter fan that they should really judge Bach's music as more beautiful, pleasing, of higher artistic value etc. than Harry Potter, then I'm curious.
- keiferski 7y ago
  Aestheticians don’t frame the question as “objective vs. subjective” so I wouldn’t use that as a goal or a starting point. There are various approaches and none is more “objective”, just as the X political philosophy is not more objective than Y political philosophy. They are constructed of arguments, evidence, worldviews, and other things that have nothing to do with arriving at some standard of “objectively better.” My criticism of the “ignorant relativist” is that he is uninformed on the reasoning of his position and of other positions, not that he thinks art is subjective.
  - claudiawerner 7y ago
    How is the question framed, then? Either everyone's aesthetic judgement is equally valid, or there are some judgments that are better than others. I'm interested in the defense of the latter position. By what reasoning can an aesthetician convince me that Bach is better (in some, in any way) than Harry Potter? Or if that's not the right question either: by what reasoning can an aesthetician argue that a particular interpretation or assignment of value is better than another? Yes, I arrived at my position out of ignorance, but I've had this kind of argument online before, and nobody has been able to offer me an argument for the side which says we can arrive at value judgments about art that are independent of the person, or whatever the opposite opinion to "art is subjective" is supposed to be.
    - admax88q 7y ago
      Let's say there's two books in front of us. A and B. I have read both you have only read A. I argue that B is better because the plot was more intricate. You argue that A is better because you think the cover of book B is bad. Do you think these two judgements have equal value?
- coldtea 7y ago
  >When someone can think up an argument to convince a Harry Potter fan that they should really judge Bach's music as more beautiful, pleasing, of higher artistic value etc. than Harry Potter, then I'm curious. Such matters are not decided by arguments, the same way flat earth society members are not won by arguments (they heard them all anyway). It's up to each person to make the effort to grow their understanding, which requires study and self-development. >I think there's a reason why even die-hard Adorno "fans" have given up trying to argue why jazz music is so bad. Yes, because mediocre commercial art prevailed in the end, and the kind of cultural development of bourgeois society declined. Ironically for a good while jazz took a different route from the earlier kind of jazz Adorno criticised, much closer to those ideals of art. So it's more like Jazz post-50s went closer to Adorno than the other way around...
murgindrag 7y ago
For political systems, I can look at how happy people are, how healthy people are, how affluent they are, how much economic progress there is, how much scientific progress there is, equality, stability, as well as apply whatever theories of morality I like (e.g. utilitarianism). There is a value judgement as to how I weigh those, or which ones I care about, but I can evaluate it in some way. People might argue about the merits of a meritocracy versus a democracy, but broadly speaking, everyone will agree that a progress democracy is better than an exploitative, violent, oppressive dictatorship. The quality of art, in contrast, is fully in the eye of the beholder. If you'd like to see how this manifests in practice, it's worth looking at Soviet Russia, the French Revolution, or many democracies which failed in practice, despite what were, on the surface, plausible ideas. This contrasts with literature, where there is no objective metric, and much of the time, someone says "that's great, now let's go even further" to an idea as good as North Korean style communism.
- keiferski 7y ago
  ...and there are ways to evaluate art or literature and make value judgments. You simply seem to be unaware of them.
  - Nullabillity 7y ago
    Sure, but there is no intrinsic canonical way to do so, because there is no objective goal that is common to instances of a certain form of art. As a result, those evaluation metrics become as arbitrary as the art itself.
AtlasBarfed 7y ago
Yes but that idea validates the habitation of an ivory tower. The notion that visual design for a consumer product isn't fundamentally validated by a sufficient demand by a sufficiently large set of consumers, to me, is stupid. So much of humanities seems to be somewhat arbitrary and fashionable categorization in a (somewhat vain) attempt to be able to academically analyze (or at least publish the equivalent). So this article seems hilarious to me.