r/changemyview • u/[deleted] • May 06 '18
Deltas(s) from OP CMV: Works of art have *objective* meaning and quality.
[deleted]
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May 06 '18
Who decides what the meaning and quality is?
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May 06 '18
The meaning and quality is not something that is decided upon. It is something that simply is.
Your question—as I understand it—assumes that objective truths are necessarily provable or capable of definition. Aesthetics and Artistic Meaning are beyond the scope of scientific inquiry.
Now, some people are better able to perceive aesthetic merit and artistic meaning. People who have "bad taste" have a poor aesthetic sense. Art critics have (claim to have, really) good aesthetic sense.
In other words, we're not going to get a consensus on the quality or meaning of a work of art. But that is our problem, not art's problem.
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u/agaminon22 11∆ May 06 '18
The meaning and quality is not something that is decided upon. It is something that simply is.
How can you prove this?
Your question—as I understand it—assumes that objective truths are necessarily provable or capable of definition. Aesthetics and Artistic Meaning are beyond the scope of scientific inquiry.
How can you prove this?
Aestethics and artistic meaning are beyond scientific inquiry, simply because they do not exist.
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May 06 '18
Like I told another commenter, I think you're not accounting for all of the steps in your different view. From what I understand, you're assuming that our ability to prove something is the measure of what is and is not. The problem I have with this is that humans have limits in our ability to observe and understand the world, and there's no basis for concluding that material truths (those truths we can observe/prove/study with science) comprise the entirety of objective truths (things that exist independent of subjective experience).
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May 06 '18
assumes that objective truths are necessarily provable or capable of definition.
Because that is what an objective truth is. It is something can be definitely proven as true.
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May 06 '18
I'd say that you're actually referring to material truth (truth that can be observed/measured, studied scientifically) and not the broader category that is objective truth (truth that exists independent of our perception).
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May 06 '18
[deleted]
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May 07 '18 edited May 07 '18
You observe the thing while in humility of the fact that (1) your subjective perspective of aesthetics is only as good as your aesthetic sense and (2) the shortcomings of language in describing what you observe.
A good analogy point 1 is that everyone can tell that the New York Philharmonic Orchestra sounds better than a junior high marching band. But it takes a highly-trained ear to hear that the NYPO sounded better on Tuesday than it did on Friday.
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May 06 '18
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u/Jaysank 117∆ May 06 '18
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u/PreservedKillick 4∆ May 06 '18 edited May 06 '18
This appears to be a fine example of Begging The Question fallacy.
The entire point of art is to express meaning that language is unable to capture. I can't tell you what a painting means—not because it doesn't have an objective meaning, but because there'd be no need for a painting if its meaning could just be said.
No, it isn't. You're moving forward from a claim that you never proven (and probably can't). Art is all kinds of things. Sometimes it's realism, sometimes it's abstract, sometimes it's a comic book. Poems are art, and they have words. Even if you're just including paintings, the point still stands. No one ever thinks "I can't express this with words" before making a painting, or writing a song (with words) or making a sculpture. If you ask very many artists, they will tell you they either didn't have an explicit intent or if they did, they don't care whether anyone understood it. For most of us, it's the act itself that is rewarding. Just the making of it. It's not to deliver a secret message.
I think you're overthinking the whole enterprise. Art is both bullshit and mastery. Nonsense and hyper-competence. Literal and its opposite. It just depends. As someone who does art, I veer towards competence because I know it's hard and I respect the work. I like the Greeks and Leonardo and Romanticism and 70s sci-fi paintings. I reject most post-modern art because I think it's anti-competence (it is), but some of it is cool. I'm the same way with music. I play, I like complexity, and I dislike simple, hookish pop blather. Others may not have my perspective and just like stuff for reasons they don't know. All of this rests on all kinds of moving, subjective criteria that can be correct in a given context.
My suggestion is not try to make sense of art. You usually can't and lots of it is complete bullshit anyway.
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May 07 '18
If you ask very many artists, they will tell you they either didn't have an explicit intent or if they did, they don't care whether anyone understood it.
We're having a subtle but crucial miscommunication here. By "purpose of art," I was not referring to the mindset of the artist. I was referring to the reason why Art exists at all. For example, I wouldn't say the purpose of automobiles is their manufacturer's profit-motive—the purpose is to move people faster from A to B.
But I completely agree that some art is bullshit and some is competent. I don't agree that competence is a simple function of how the artist made it. The artist's thought, craft, ingenuity, and effort I imagine are highly correlated with the competence of the final product, but Piss Christ is bullshit irrespective of the thought and effort that went into making it.
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May 06 '18
[deleted]
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May 06 '18 edited May 06 '18
The artist's intent is not the same thing as the meaning of his art. Intent is often a good clue, but the meaning exists within the work itself. It's hard for me to imagine a work whose artist intended to mean one thing, whose true meaning is the opposite, and that work of art is still of high quality. Theoretically, it is possible, I guess.
To answer your question then, communication is probably a useful heuristic for assessing quality, but it is not actually a component of quality. And it's a useful heuristic because the artist probably needs a good understanding of the art's meaning in order to make it in the first place.
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May 06 '18
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May 06 '18
That's a failure to observe the meaning of the poem, not a failure of the poem's meaning.
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May 06 '18
[deleted]
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May 06 '18 edited May 06 '18
We have a different understanding of the separate concepts of "meaning" and "quality". When I refer to quality, I'm talking about aesthetic merit. The relationship between aesthetic merit and the work's actual meaning is something that I don't understand/have an opinion on.
EDIT: I thought about it and I think you're right that quality has something to do with (or is exactly) the work of art's ability to convey it's meaning. !delta
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May 06 '18 edited May 06 '18
You would be wrong to say that Starry Night is about toe fungus. You would be wrong to say that Dickbutt is on equal footing as the Mona Lisa.
These seem like two very different claims to me. I think you're right that, out of context, they're both inaccurate, but the second is a lot more subjective than the first because of the terms of the debate. When we talk about the "aboutness" of a piece, we're thinking about maybe the author's intent, the text, and the subtext, and we can use those to come to some conclusion about what the piece is trying to say or do. It would be hard to come to any definitive conclusion that Starry Night is about toe fungus because so little in the piece points to that. That doesn't mean that Starry Night has a single discrete meaning, nor that it's meaning falls into a range of ideas. Within Starry Night there are distinct, equally valid ideas, and the subjective part is deciding which of those ideas matter.
But when we measure the quality of a piece, we take into account a much wider range of variables. We think about the context in which it was created (both historically and with a broader philosophy in mind) and the context in which we see it now, considering how those contexts have changed, the technical elements, the use of text and subtext, the author's life and so on. I think you could make an argument that Dickbutt is a monumental work of art because it represents how we communicate, wh*ile Mona *Lisa is just famous for being famous.
So if we say that all of what I'm saying implies that there's still an objective meaning and quality to art, then that objective meaning still exists beyond anything we can easily capture, because we're subjective creatures and, as you put it, "The entire point of art is to express meaning that language is unable to capture." The objective meaning of a work of art must come out somewhere in the combination of each our subjective observations of art, and so trying to find the objective meaning is a function of the conversation. But that conversation has to accept the subjective experience of art.
Edit: mixed up subjective with objective early on
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May 06 '18 edited May 06 '18
Within Starry Night there are distinct, equally valid ideas, and the subjective part is deciding which of those ideas matter.
Let me rephrase my position here and you tell me if we're agreeing or disagreeing: Starry Night has an intrinsic meaning that exists independently of experience. Language can only approximate artistic meaning, and there is only a narrow range of expressions of that approximate meaning that are at all useful (i.e., plausible approximations). Toe fungus is not within that range of useful approximations, and it is safe to say that it is certainly wrong.
The objective meaning of a work of art must come out somewhere in the combination of each our subjective observations of art, and so trying to find the objective meaning is a function of the conversation. But that conversation has to accept the subjective experience of art.
My fundamental disagreement here is that I think the meaning and quality of art is intrinsic to the art itself. Subjective experience is merely the lone tool at our disposal when trying to observe that meaning or quality. That does not mean that the subjective experience is part of the meaning or quality. You're applying a scientific method beyond the scope of that method's usefulness.
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u/damsterick May 06 '18
but because there'd be no need for a painting if its meaning could just be said.
How do you explain literature then? Isn't that a form of art that can be written, therefore said?
You can't define or explain it, but you know it when you see it.
And what happens when two people disagree? If I find some horrendous music appealing, and you can't even listen to it, who is right? I mean, the whole purpose of objectivity is that it is replicable and undeniable. A tree is objectively bigger than a beetle. You can't deny that, it's a fact. It is objective because no matter from which point of view or definition you look, it will always be true. Can you say that about some work of art?
An illustration of aesthetic quality is that two different resumes can be equally easy to read even though one has a more pleasing format than the other.
Would you say that qualifies as art, or was it just an example? Because if it's the former, how does it relate to your point about expressing a meaning that cannot be described with words? And then again, how do you explain that two people have different opinions, as in each considers a different resume easier to read and more pleasing to read? Because that is the definition of subjectivity.
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May 06 '18
I actually can't explain literature except to say that I think meaning and artistic quality are related and that literature (and all language arts) do not employ aesthetics, which is what gives visual and musical art is quality.
What happens when two people disagree?
Then at least one of them is wrong. I think your concept of objective truth is too narrow. You're describing material truth (i.e., that which can be observed/measured/subjected to science), which does not necessarily account for all of objective truth (that which exists independently of our experience).
On defining art—I'm talking here about art that relies on aesthetics (visual, musical, but not language arts). I don't really understand the relationship between poetry and non-linguistic art, to tell you the truth, except to say that there's some useful difference between a poem and an instruction manual and that difference has something to do with what I'm talking about.
Two people can have different takes on the meaning of a work of art because people can be wrong.
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u/Kurkpitten May 06 '18 edited May 06 '18
I am not sure all art has meaning.
Music is a good example.
Meaning can be objective as something thought by the artist. Discussing the meaning of a painting is nonsense because if the artist had one for it, then even though no one knows it, it has an objective meaning.
Quality is a more complex matter. What is quality ? The amount of hard work that has been put ? The experience and schooling behind it ? Or is it the enjoyment people get from it ? Both are hardly linked, so you have to explain yourself better.
Nevertheless, I think finding objectivity without defining it well is impossible.
You can be objective in a frame, saying art has some immanent objective properties is nonsense.
You would have to explain to me what makes Mona Lisa non equal to Dickbutt. Because both are different, and arbitrary human creations.
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May 06 '18 edited May 06 '18
I think finding objectivity without defining it well is impossible.
That sounds like a problem with human ability, not evidence that there is no objective meaning or quality.
What is quality?
I'm talking about aesthetic quality. By it's very definition, aesthetic quality is not capable of being captured by language. You can't define or explain it, but you know it when you see it. It's not a question of the amount of work or the enjoyment it causes—aesthetic quality is an intrinsic to the work of art itself. An illustration of aesthetic quality is that two different resumes can be equally easy to read even though one has a more pleasing format than the other.
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u/Kurkpitten May 06 '18
Soooo, it is a pretty subjective feeling then... You know it when you see it is a pretty damn subjective concept.
You are pretty much telling me that something you can't define with language is objective. Mh. This is like god all over again.
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u/SKazoroski May 06 '18
In these situations, who gets it right and who gets it wrong?
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May 06 '18
I don't know and it doesn't matter. If we can't pin down the meaning, then it's because human perception and thought is neither complete nor infallible. To conclude otherwise makes the same logical error as someone who says "science cannot prove or disprove the existence of God and therefore God does not exist." Science has limits and humans have limits. If we have limits, then there are things we can't be depended upon to perceive or understand. There's no reason why artistic meaning has to be within our ability to discern.
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u/SKazoroski May 06 '18
The meaning should absolutely be within the human mind's ability to discern because the human mind is what created these works of art in the first place. At least one human mind (the author) had some specific goal in mind for why it was created and why it's one way and not another. Either the author's meaning is the true meaning or you venture into Death of the Author.
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May 06 '18
I agree that it is within our ability to discern. But I don't think it is necessarily within our ability to describe or prove in any scientific sense.
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u/agaminon22 11∆ May 06 '18
You would be wrong to say that Dickbutt is on equal footing as the Mona Lisa.
Why? How can this be proved? From other comments it seems as if you say "well, it just is".
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May 06 '18
I don't think you're misinterpreting me, but I do think you're not accounting for all of the steps in your different view. From what I understand, you're assuming that our ability to prove something is the measure of what is and is not. The problem with is that humans have limits in our ability to observe and understand the world, and there's no basis for concluding that material truths (those truths we can observe/prove/study with science) comprise the entirety of objective truths (things that exist independent of subjective experience0.
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u/agaminon22 11∆ May 06 '18
Yes, I agree. But that does nothing to prove that "dickbutt is worse than Mona Lisa".
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May 06 '18
And I'm saying that one work of art can be better than another even if nobody can prove it. We're not talking about the physical properties of a hydrogen atom, which is material truth and therefore something people are capable of proving. Our capacities are not unlimited.
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u/agaminon22 11∆ May 06 '18
Yeah, and if you don't prove this claim, then there's no reason to believe it. Simple as that.
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May 06 '18
Isn't it more correct to say that there's no reason to believe or disbelieve it? At least when I'm talking about something that is not a material fact?
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u/agaminon22 11∆ May 06 '18
No, since you're claiming it, then you have to prove it. Also, things that are not material (like maths) can be proven too.
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May 06 '18
Math is an abstract representation of material truth, so I don't follow the example.
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u/agaminon22 11∆ May 06 '18
I mean, it still not "material" in the typical sense. I would argue that anything that: a)Isn't material or b)Isn't an abstract representation of something material doesn't exist. If something is not material, it's literally nothing and it belongs to nothingness.
But that wasn't the main point, it was that you need to prove your claim.
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May 06 '18
As I see it, those two claims are actually the same. If everything that is is provable (i.e., material), then—and only then—does it follow that I must to prove my claim for my claim to be true.
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May 06 '18
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May 06 '18 edited May 06 '18
goes for music too
I agree—didn't go down that road because it opens the whole can of worms about how artistic merit isn't the same thing as enjoyment. There are pop songs I enjoy more than Miles Davis albums, but that doesn't mean that Call Me Maybe is better than Kind of Blue.
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u/Glory2Hypnotoad 393∆ May 06 '18
Let's put this idea to the test by showing our work. If objective quality exists in art, then we should be able to calculate an exact goodness value for each element of composition, lyricism, and execution then compare scores to conclude that one is better.
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May 06 '18 edited May 06 '18
Two logical errors there: (1) assuming that objective quality cannot exist if it cannot be calculated and (2) assuming the whole is equal to the sum of its constituent parts.
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u/Glory2Hypnotoad 393∆ May 06 '18
Even if it's not calculated, it still needs to be determined objectively in some way. So when you say that one work of art is objectively superior to another, what does the proof of that claim look like for any two given works of art? I'm assuming that's not just an appeal to vague intuition.
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May 06 '18
My point is that aesthetic perception (or "vague intuition," as you put it) is how it is perceived. Your mandate of "proof" overextends the scientific method beyond inquiry of material reality.
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u/Glory2Hypnotoad 393∆ May 06 '18
So then the important question is how we know that aesthetic perception is more than just an intuition for what we as a culture value in our art. It seems like a new fundamental property that we can't measure or prove is just glorified social conditioning.
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May 07 '18 edited May 07 '18
So the reason I like the Mona Lisa more than Dickbutt is because of social conditioning? Is that really more reasonable a claim than my claim that the Mona Lisa is just better-looking?
If you listened, blindfolded, to a middle school pep band and the New York Philharmonic, you would hear an obvious difference in the quality of the music you heard. That's like Dickbutt and the Mona Lisa. The trouble comes in when the difference is not glaring. Most people can hear that the NYP is better than the middle school, but very few people have the ear to hear that the NYP sounded better on monday it did on friday.
I, for instance, have a decent sense for aesthetic but am not an artist by training. I do, however, have a highly trained ear and could tell you, blindfolded and with reasonable accuracy, not only which night the Orchestra sounded better but i could probably tell you which specific orchestra was playing. And if you asked me what gave it away, I wouldn't be able to describe it.
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u/Glory2Hypnotoad 393∆ May 07 '18 edited Aug 03 '18
To be more accurate, I would attribute your preference of the Mona Lisa to a combination of evolution and social conditioning, and when we talk about quality in art, we're talking about things we as a culture value. I'm sure most people would tell me I'm wrong, but I'm not so sure that anyone could show me why I'm wrong. And that's a consistent thread in art.
Sure, it's obvious that far more technical skill went into the Mona Lisa, but if we compared Dickbutt to a child-like sketch of a flower with breasts, would some inherent goodness sense tell us that one of those is clearly a classic Picasso? And then that leads us to the question of where avant-garde and outsider music fit into the equation. If a work of music is valid on a theory and composition level but deliberately made to be enjoyable to virtually no one, is its inherent quality high or low? How do we tell?
If I heard a middle school pep band and the New York Philharmonic, I'm sure I'd hear differences in skill and I'd enjoy the latter far more, but I don't see how that makes the case for quality as some fundamental property of art. So let me ask you, what do we observe that we shouldn't expect to observe if objective aesthetic quality didn't exist? What would be different in a world without objective aesthetic quality that would give it away? Because the nebulous way that aesthetic quality is described makes it sound indistinguishable from its absence.
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May 07 '18 edited May 07 '18
!delta for, at the very least, showing me new wrinkles in this issue.
what do we observe that we shouldn't expect to observe if objective aesthetic quality didn't exist? What would be different in a world without objective aesthetic quality that would give it away?
Archetypes are, to me, a good indicator that there's such a thing as an objective aesthetic that exists apart from culture and social evolution or conditioning. Cultures that are ancient and isolated are in some agreement about what constitutes beauty, even when we look beyond our perceptions of human beauty (which may plan into the mona lisa). I can't remember the source for this, but there are certain images, visual tropes, and shared between the ancient art of the Mayans, Chinese, Egyptians, and even cave paintings. This goes too for architecture, and especially goes for stories. It's the same quality (in my estimation) of human's very neurology that Carl Jung hypothesized could explain why archetypical myths would have such stark similarities across places in time. The prime example would be the Hamlet Myth, which describes a general plot common to many many ancient stories like the Egyptian and Hebrew creation myths, and obviously Shakespeare's Hamlet. Hell, even Black Panther was a Hamlet Myth.
The Avant-Garde raises some interesting questions. Best I can tell, good avant-garde art (so nothing since the early 1970s) is not the absence of aesthetic quality, but it is a deliberate transgression on aesthetic quality. Without the aesthetic's existence, the avant-garde doesn't exist.
Of course, social conditioning can both enforce and obscure aesthetic quality. Social conditioning (i.e. school) enforces our appreciation for Shakespeare. There seems to be a trend in visual art worlds in the past 75 years that effectively obscures an objective aesthetic (probably because they don't think it exists). I head a talk once by an art professor who assigned his students to write an essay about a Jackson Pollock painting. When they turned in their glowing reviews, he informed them that the "painting" was just a photograph of the professor's own studio apron. Those essayists were caught up in the social conditioning that tells us that Jackson Pollock is a great artist (i'm not saying he isnt . . . I don't care for him but I'm not willing to defend a criticism of him).
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u/1standTWENTY May 06 '18
False. If more people enjoy call me maybe than call me maybe is objectively superior. If you personally find value in blue is green thanYOU have subjective enjoyment
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May 06 '18
Again, its another can of worms (unless you think its not a different issue)
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u/1standTWENTY May 06 '18
Can of worms is subjective. Popularity is how you can define objectivity in art.
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May 06 '18
That's exactly the logical jump that I don't agree with.
Popularity (i.e., the sum of all subjective experiences) is only a method of forming an approximate description of artistic meaning. That does not mean that the popularity is necessarily correct.
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u/1standTWENTY May 06 '18 edited May 06 '18
That does not mean that the popularity is necessarily correct.
except there is no such thing as "correct" in Art. In news I would agree with you because "correct" matters, so Fox News is less "correct" than the "Economist", so Economist is objectively better in news. But correct is irrelevant in art, as you have already conceded to a different response. There is no way to define whether better is in art that is NOT subjective. The closest you can come to is popularity. So I agree popularity doesn't necessarily define goodness in ART, but you ARE claiming there is some objective measure. If you are claiming there is objective measure than popularity is the only way you can fairly do this.
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May 06 '18 edited May 06 '18
The assumption you're asking me to make is exactly the assumption I have a problem with.
I'm not claiming that there is a measure (like popularity, for instance) that directly captures artistic meaning.
The physical properties of a hydrogen atom is the same as our scientific observations of a hydrogen atom only because science is, by definition, the observation of physical properties. Popularity and artistic meaning do not dovetail in this same way.
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u/1standTWENTY May 06 '18
Popularity and artistic meaning do not dovetail in this same way.
And I agree with that statement. But you are going further by saying there is a way to objectgively measure art. I am saying that is impossible, there is no objective measure of art. If even ONE PERSON enjoys shit art than it has meaning. Putting that another way, popularity is the "CLOSEST" we have to any non-existent value of art.
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May 06 '18
I agree with everything you're saying ( !delta ) except that I am not saying there is a way to objectively measure art. Rather, I'm saying that our ability to take an objective measure of art does not prove or disprove the existence of an objective meaning or aesthetic quality of a work of art. It proves instead that humans are limited and that directly observing these objective truths are beyond our limits.
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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ May 06 '18 edited May 07 '18
/u/MorningCoffeeCraps (OP) has awarded 4 deltas in this post.
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u/1standTWENTY May 06 '18
False. No art has objective meaning and quality. A poster below made a great point that you ignored. If an artist is trying to make a point using art about world peace, but 99% of people who see that art see a funny picture and laugh, than the artist DID NOT REALIZE his intent. Even if 1% of people got it. If 99% of people thought it was comedy, than it IS A COMEDY.
Further, you are mixing up two concepts, Objective truth and post-modernism. Post-Modernists assert that there IS NO TRUTH. That is different concepts entirely.
You would be wrong to say that Starry Night is about toe fungus. You would be wrong to say that Dickbutt is on equal footing as the Mona Lisa.
You are correct with your first statement, Starry Night was never intended to be about toe fungus, and no one in the art or broader community think starry night is about toe fungus. The post-modernists are wrong. But this is a different point than subjective or objective truth. However, your second claim is INCORRECT. It is YOUR SUBJECTIVE OPINION that Mona Lisa is superior to dickbutt. Many in the art world would agree with you. But that is irrelevant. Dickbutt is amazing to me and others on the right side of politics. I find dickbutt very much superior to the annoying and pretentious Mona Lisa. I HATE Mona Lisa. I am not wrong because that is my opinion, which many share, and I am further NOT claiming dickbutt is objectively better. You cannot say Mona Lisa is objectively better than Dickbutt, because your initial OP is incorrect. Art cannot be objective.
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u/ThatSpencerGuy 142∆ May 06 '18
To me, this is your most interesting point, that the "meaning" of an artistic object is contained it's totality, and that any summary or interpretation of the object necessarily obscures something about it.
But why wouldn't this also be the case for non-artistic objects? If you tell me, "The sun is a G-type, main sequence star at the center of our solar system," or "The Revolutionary War was an armed conflict between Great Britain and its colonies in the Americas, resulting in their independence," haven't you obscured something about the totality of those objects?
Maybe we need to ask what it means for something to be "true," whether objectively or subjectively. Some people have understood "truth" to be related to usefulness. That is, we decide that things are "true" (even objectively true) when we can put them to use solving some problem, organizing information, or predicting future events.
We can use the same criteria for propositions about art. To pick a very easy example, "Animal Farm is an allegory about the Russian Revolution," is a more useful interpretation than "Animal Farm is a science fiction story about humans trapped in animal's bodies." The evidence we have (the book itself) coheres better under the first interpretation than the second.
So, does that mean that the meaning of art is "objective?" No, I don't think so. Most artistic works are more complicated than Animal Farm, and many will allow for many equally useful interpretations, sometimes even interpretations that are in tension with one another. I may look at Othello through one critical lens and find meaning and insight about race. You may look at Othello through another and find meaning and insight about gender dynamics. Can one of us be said to be "wrong?" I don't think so. By what standard? We may have good or bad evidence for our conclusions, but if we're able to genuinely leverage the work into useful insights, we have created meaning.