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> The strongest proof would be to show that taste exists in the narrowest sense, so I'm going to talk about taste in art. You have better taste than me if the a

by bmitc 5y ago

> The strongest proof would be to show that taste exists in the narrowest sense, so I'm going to talk about taste in art. You have better taste than me if the art you like is better than the art I like. > If there's no such thing as good taste, then there's no such thing as good art. Because if there is such a thing as good art, it's easy to tell which of two people has better taste. Show them a lot of works by artists they've never seen before and ask them to choose the best, and whoever chooses the better art has better taste. This makes no sense to me.

ramraj07 5y ago
Seems like PG has run out of good insights. It’s possible almost all the great essays he wrote were seeded quite early in his life and he slowly evolved them into great writing. But once he exhausted that original bucket nothing good has come out of his head since :(
uncomputation 5y ago
Because his argument is not good. The structure is “If there is no X, then there is no Y. Because Y, X.” This is circular reasoning which is more obvious if we use the same structure as “If carbon exists, then carbon-based alien life forms exist. Because carbon-based aliens exist, carbon exists.” Logically, not wrong, but you missed the most interesting part of the proof: aliens exist?! PG missed proving the most interesting part of his post: that good taste exists. I don’t think reductio ad absurdum really works here because there are millions of possible explanations for the “effects” of good taste. In his example, the fact that people have non-random responses to art. The problem here is just the fact that people have consistent responses to art does not suppose that there exists some inherent reasoning called “taste.” In fact, many popular things are abhorred as poor taste. I think we can agree that liking Citizen Kane more than Twilight would be called “good taste.” The problem here of course is that “taste” is a sociological construct - not a logical or philosophical one - designed by humans to distinguish class upon non-obvious signifiers. Perhaps you could dress a lower class person in fancy dress and perfume, but any upper class person could snuff them out in a moment by any hundreds of small little signifiers. PG seems to want to talk about taste without having to say any of the unfashionable things about it, not naming any specific art works or signifiers of taste. He wants to “prove” taste exists without ever even defining it. Without a single example in this framework that lends credence to his ideas. By his logic, Marvel movies and Twilight should be more tasteful than Vertigo because more people more consistently like it. In reality, taste works the opposite way, but it’s not that simple either. Most people would hate Tommy Wiseau’s The Room, but that does not mean that liking it means you have good taste. Rather the opposite in fact. The truth here, of course, is that “taste” is a cultural, social, and economic property and lens, not a logical one. You have to get into real world to argue about taste, which PG seems entirely uninterested in doing. If I may be a bit tongue in cheek, I would advise Paul that if you want to start talking about taste, you must first talk about scarcity and then irony.

by bmitc 5y ago

ramraj07 5y ago

Seems like PG has run out of good insights. It’s possible almost all the great essays he wrote were seeded quite early in his life and he slowly evolved them into great writing. But once he exhausted that original bucket nothing good has come out of his head since :(

uncomputation 5y ago

Because his argument is not good. The structure is “If there is no X, then there is no Y. Because Y, X.” This is circular reasoning which is more obvious if we use the same structure as “If carbon exists, then carbon-based alien life forms exist. Because carbon-based aliens exist, carbon exists.” Logically, not wrong, but you missed the most interesting part of the proof: aliens exist?! PG missed proving the most interesting part of his post: that good taste exists. I don’t think reductio ad absurdum really works here because there are millions of possible explanations for the “effects” of good taste. In his example, the fact that people have non-random responses to art. The problem here is just the fact that people have consistent responses to art does not suppose that there exists some inherent reasoning called “taste.” In fact, many popular things are abhorred as poor taste. I think we can agree that liking Citizen Kane more than Twilight would be called “good taste.” The problem here of course is that “taste” is a sociological construct - not a logical or philosophical one - designed by humans to distinguish class upon non-obvious signifiers. Perhaps you could dress a lower class person in fancy dress and perfume, but any upper class person could snuff them out in a moment by any hundreds of small little signifiers. PG seems to want to talk about taste without having to say any of the unfashionable things about it, not naming any specific art works or signifiers of taste. He wants to “prove” taste exists without ever even defining it. Without a single example in this framework that lends credence to his ideas. By his logic, Marvel movies and Twilight should be more tasteful than Vertigo because more people more consistently like it. In reality, taste works the opposite way, but it’s not that simple either. Most people would hate Tommy Wiseau’s The Room, but that does not mean that liking it means you have good taste. Rather the opposite in fact. The truth here, of course, is that “taste” is a cultural, social, and economic property and lens, not a logical one. You have to get into real world to argue about taste, which PG seems entirely uninterested in doing. If I may be a bit tongue in cheek, I would advise Paul that if you want to start talking about taste, you must first talk about scarcity and then irony.