3 ms·

It’s not that we can’t define it, but that we are not in the habit of doing so. Because it’s become culturally preferable to just be agreeable about others’ pre

It’s not that we can’t define it, but that we are not in the habit of doing so. Because it’s become culturally preferable to just be agreeable about others’ preferences. Since we aren’t in the habit of discussing the topic, our ability to formulate a firm position on it atrophies. Consequently we don’t actually have a good reason why we think X is better than Y and so we just revert to “everyone’s opinion is subjective anyway.” It’s not totally dissimilar from the idea of Newspeak in 1984, except we lose the ability to articulate concepts rather than lose the concept entirely. Taylor goes into this far more than me, so I really wouldn’t base the entire argument on my comment. Unfortunately I do not remember the exact lecture he said this but I think it was in this series: https://youtu.be/j_losVdiARc https://youtu.be/j_losVdiARc

rhines 5y ago
I'm not sure I see how arguing for goodness as an overarching quality promotes more discussion than arguing for goodness of various qualities. Perhaps you get more disagreement, as people who may agree about each individual quality will argue about the value of each quality, but the comments about the art itself will be unchanged - it's merely the discussion about the relative value of each quality that flourishes when we feel we can measure goodness as a whole. Now, perhaps this is the discussion you would like to see survive. If you feel that making arguments for things like why novelty is more valuable than technique is important, then I can understand your perspective and agree that we lose those conversations if we use a multi-axis approach. But if you care about articulating why a technique is impressive, or why a piece speaks to you, then I don't think we need to be able to rank all art on a single axis to have those discussions.
GoblinSlayer 5y ago
If there was a reason to argue about taste, then people would do it, but such reason is unheard of.

rhines 5y ago

I'm not sure I see how arguing for goodness as an overarching quality promotes more discussion than arguing for goodness of various qualities. Perhaps you get more disagreement, as people who may agree about each individual quality will argue about the value of each quality, but the comments about the art itself will be unchanged - it's merely the discussion about the relative value of each quality that flourishes when we feel we can measure goodness as a whole. Now, perhaps this is the discussion you would like to see survive. If you feel that making arguments for things like why novelty is more valuable than technique is important, then I can understand your perspective and agree that we lose those conversations if we use a multi-axis approach. But if you care about articulating why a technique is impressive, or why a piece speaks to you, then I don't think we need to be able to rank all art on a single axis to have those discussions.

GoblinSlayer 5y ago

If there was a reason to argue about taste, then people would do it, but such reason is unheard of.