# Opinions vs less and more objective argumentation



## Waehnen

There has been some discussion which I think deserves a dedicated thread. I will quote some forum texts as a starting point.



Waehnen said:


> Because this habit of yours sometimes feels like you are trying to either diminish what other people are saying, or on purpose interpreting the sayings of others in a negative way, or you are trying to control what others can say. I am sure that is not your intention so I am interested in where this attitude of yours grows from, so that I can understand it better. Thanks.
> 
> I would find it much more constructive if we encouraged each other to give arguments and define the basis of our thinking -- rather than repeating that everything is just opinions and nothing more. In this instance it could have been asked, on what basis is the concept formed that Tchaikovsky symphonies 1-3 would not be masterpieces and that symphonies 4-6 would be masterpieces. There must be some reasoning and musical value structures (represented by scholars and the classical music canon, perhaps) behind that kind of statements, right?





Waehnen said:


> My point though was to bring up a thought that repeating "that is just your opinion, this is just an opinion, that is not a fact" all over again is not constructive and not good for the discussion or the atmosphere on the forum. Quite the opposite. It is completely unnecessary and even somewhat irritating.
> 
> After all we all know this is not a laboratory where we run systematic tests in order to gain undisputed data of repeatable phenomenon of the natural world.
> 
> Instead we should talk more analytically about the establishment, the literature, the abundance of different theories and aesthetics, the reality of the musical life and concerts, the canons and the community and it´s values and how they are represented in our minds and the way we hear and appreciate music and perceive the musical field with all it´s agents.
> 
> It is not just "an opinion" to consider the 9th Symphony by Beethoven the objectively greater work of art when compared to "A Pentatonic Improvisation on the Black Keys of the Piano on a Sunday afternoon by a 5 year old".






Strange Magic said:


> ^^^^@Waehnen: Two points. I have enjoyed TC a lot for two reasons--A) exposure to different opinions and different ways of expressing them, and B) the opportunity to actually argue/discuss important topics, as I enjoy often arguing with people about certain fundamental issues in esthetics. One of my pet enthusiasms is the conviction--shared with others--that all evaluation in music and the arts is opinion and just opinion, pure and simple, Individual opinions or clusters of opinions. One can therefore hold that Beethoven's 9th (it's always Beethoven and his 9th) is better than your Improvisation counterexample, or the opposite (bizarre as that may seem), and it is still an opinion either way--a large cluster of opinions versus a small, a very small cluster of one (or two).
> 
> Each of us individually has opinions on just about everything--what art objects I think great are likely to not be entirely the set of things you think are great. It is fine and good to discuss what we hold is good or bad in the arts, but not accurate to ascribe the art objects themselves with inherent goodness or badness--which of the elements on the periodic table are good, and why? Which bad? We can only assess such in terms of human experience though we can know a vast amount of verifiable information about each element.
> 
> Same with art objects--they just are and we bring to them our own personal (or shared) net of expectations and reactions, and thus ascribe value to them. It really is all about opinion, though we can assert with confidence many facts about art objects--their color, weight, size, shape, duration (if applicable), when created and by whom, odor (if applicable), temperature, etc. But not if they are great (not in the sense of size but of intrinsic value). This position in no way threatens our ability to find enormous pleasure in the arts, and individual or group-shared opinions/values. But it frees us from holding the awkward notion that--objectively--things in the arts are inherently endowed with value properties that are independent of the perceiver. In that sense, it is indeed all a matter of opinion.



I would suggest that it would not be a game of just 2 opposites (subjective opinions vs hard scientific facts) but there would be some shades of gray as well in between. I believe it would result in better conversations if all forum texts were accepted and appreciated without comments like "that is just a mere opinion" and posters could themselves link their comment to for example some of the categories below, ranging from pure subjective opinions to hard facts.

From the top of my hat on a Saturday Night but you get the idea:

1. Pure opinions: subjective artistic experience and preferences
2. Values of the immediate surrounding musical community + music education
3. Sociology and study of reception
4. Music history + canons
5. Objective analysis of compositional techniques
6. Musical theories, aesthetics and semiotic dimensions
7. Psychology of music
8. Neurology of music
9. Pure facts: Historic facts, physical and concrete facts regarding the instruments, acoustics etc.

Any suggestions, enhancements or defining comments for the list? Let’s evolve it together.


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## Strange Magic

^^^^:
I will only address the issue of opinion versus quantifiable facts, and again point out that the greatness of any art object or its creator is couched entirely upon opinion–other than quantifiable, repeatable observation and measurement. Whether or not an art object (AO) best approaches the criteria set for its evaluation–is “great” or “better” or “not great” evaluates the AO against said criteria that have been established by A) the global population, B) a select population, or C) a population of “Experts”. If or when the Experts (“X”) offer quantifiable measures such as duration, degree of complexity (not necessarily easy to assess–must be an agreed-upon datum), creator, number of units moved, popularity, etc. then all is well and we can say that, among the X cluster, Beethoven’s 9th is Great because it is the majority view of X that these criteria are met or exceeded. We can then disregard the opinions polled among either the global population or any other select populations that differ–”We all say so, so it must be true!”

But AO are experienced individually, and, unless we choose to submit to the judgements of X, each individual will have their own gradation or ranking of AO as to “quality”. I have made a god of my own tastes and am certain of their validity and authenticity, of my self-worth as an assessor of AO, Esthetics can thus be perfectly legitimate if it concerns itself with the degree to whether the criteria of a defined population are met, or to how well the AO comports with the shared neurology/psychology/life experience of that defined population. The tautology is that lovers of Beethoven or of CM itself form a cluster of those who love Beethoven or CM, and all agree within the group that, since they all say so, it must be true.

As I have stated ad infinitum, greatness does not therefore reside as a Platonic ideal within an AO, but rather is imbued with its “greatness” by the application of the opinions, individual or shared, of its perceivers. As someone who eats his own cooking, I can and must affirm that if someone feels that The Turtles’ Happy Together is a greater work than Beethoven’s 9th, they are both entitled to their opinion (though I might disagree), and that, for them, it is a valid and authentic position though a large CM cluster will not share that opinion. If any of this is not well understood, I will be happy to expand upon the topic. It really is all opinion.


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## VoiceFromTheEther

In my humble opinion logical discussions can only succeed when basic premises are agreed upon. One needs a filtered circle, not an arena anyone can enter.


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## Strange Magic

VoiceFromTheEther said:


> In my humble opinion logical discussions can only succeed when basic premises are agreed upon. One needs a filtered circle, not an arena anyone can enter.


Those who enter upon these discussions are not just "anyone".


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## NoCoPilot

Those who are about to die, we salute you.

Music, especially INSTRUMENTAL music, is untethered from reality. WHO wrote it, WHY they wrote it, WHEN they wrote it, WHAT they were thinking about when they wrote, WHO they wrote it for... none of this matters a solitary whit in instrumental music. Therefore ∴ ergo to wit it's all subjective. You like it, or you don't. QED.


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## DaveM

I had understood that since Strange Magic had agreed that there was objectivity in the judgment of classical works and composers, this subject was closed.


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## Malx

I sense another deep dive into the S versus O hole coming here folks - I'm off.


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## Strange Magic

DaveM said:


> I had understood that since Strange Magic had agreed that there was objectivity in the judgment of classical works and composers, this subject was closed.


I asserted that the fact that there are consensuses is certainly true..It is a demonstrable consensus among Beethoven fans that LVB is best or whatever they say it is. And see my post above.


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## Strange Magic

Malx said:


> I sense another deep dive into the S versus O hole coming here folks - I'm off.


I don't blame you!


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## DaveM

I’ve never quite understood the reason for a single post to announce that one is leaving.


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## Strange Magic

DaveM said:


> I’ve never quite understood the reason for a single post to announce that one is leaving.


I think it was a droll warning of what he expects to come.


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## Forster

I'm unconvinced that there are "shades of grey". Can we have an example?


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## Waehnen

Strange Magic said:


> ^^^^:
> I will only address the issue of opinion versus quantifiable facts, and again point out that the greatness of any art object or its creator is couched entirely upon opinion–other than quantifiable, repeatable observation and measurement. Whether or not an art object (AO) best approaches the criteria set for its evaluation–is “great” or “better” or “not great” evaluates the AO against said criteria that have been established by A) the global population, B) a select population, or C) a population of “Experts”. If or when the Experts (“X”) offer quantifiable measures such as duration, degree of complexity (not necessarily easy to assess–must be an agreed-upon datum), creator, number of units moved, popularity, etc. then all is well and we can say that, among the X cluster, Beethoven’s 9th is Great because it is the majority view of X that these criteria are met or exceeded. We can then disregard the opinions polled among either the global population or any other select populations that differ–”We all say so, so it must be true!”
> 
> But AO are experienced individually, and, unless we choose to submit to the judgements of X, each individual will have their own gradation or ranking of AO as to “quality”. I have made a god of my own tastes and am certain of their validity and authenticity, of my self-worth as an assessor of AO, Esthetics can thus be perfectly legitimate if it concerns itself with the degree to whether the criteria of a defined population are met, or to how well the AO comports with the shared neurology/psychology/life experience of that defined population. The tautology is that lovers of Beethoven or of CM itself form a cluster of those who love Beethoven or CM, and all agree within the group that, since they all say so, it must be true.
> 
> As I have stated ad infinitum, greatness does not therefore reside as a Platonic ideal within an AO, but rather is imbued with its “greatness” by the application of the opinions, individual or shared, of its perceivers. As someone who eats his own cooking, I can and must affirm that if someone feels that The Turtles’ Happy Together is a greater work than Beethoven’s 9th, they are both entitled to their opinion (though I might disagree), and that, for them, it is a valid and authentic position though a large CM cluster will not share that opinion. If any of this is not well understood, I will be happy to expand upon the topic. It really is all opinion.


My logic is that the more appropriate, exact and definite the communication, the better. That would mean that for each phenomenon in the world, we should aim at trying to find the most suitable way of communication on the matter at hand, even if the appropriate way of communication requires more and is more taxing than a simplification. I cannot deny that this "everything is just opinions" attitude is a rather bold and unnecessary simplification of the reality and communication.

For starters I will give you just one very simple example. So let´s picture two pieces of music:


*Song A*

traditional tonal melody using a widely used scale
no great interval jumps
no frequent sudden changes in the dynamics
stable rhythmic structures

*Song B *

an atonal melody using a lot of chromatism
frequent great jumps preferring dissonant intervals
frequent sudden changes in the dynamics
unstable and unpredictable rhythmic structures


My premise is that the positive reception of the Song A in the large musical community would be significantly wider even to the extent it can be considered a statistical fact and the results can be considered to be further suggesting links to other factual phenomenon. Underneath I will sketch just a few points using my simple matrix from last night.


*1. Pure opinions: subjective artistic experience and preferences*

An individual might prefer Song A or Song B due to their unique cognitive, psychological, neurological and artistic status at the given time of the performance.
Like Immanuel Kant once wrote, nobody can force someone else to artistically like or dislike a piece of art
Subjective artistic opinions and preferences should be appreciated for there is objectively no "right or wrong"
Opinions can still be researched and communicated statistically


*2. Values of the immediate surrounding musical community + music education*

The features of Song A are much more represented in most people´s immediate musical surroundings and music education.
The immediate musical surroundings will support the cognitive structures that recognize and appreciate the features of Song A over the features of Song B.
Both points above can be considered facts that can be verified by statistical research used by other human sciences


*3. Sociology and study of reception*

Music that has more common features with Song A than Song B is more established and thoroughly represented in the sociological layers or reception (even just the quantity of tonal concert performances over atonal concert performances indicates this)
The point above can be considered a fact that can be verified by research methods used by other human sciences


*4. Music history + canons*

Music that has more common features with Song A than Song B is more established and thoroughly represented in the canons of musical history
The point above can be considered a fact that can be verified by research methods used by other human sciences



*5. Objective analysis of compositional techniques*

Both Song A and Song B can be objectively analyzed although there is more analytical methods applicaple to Song A than Song B.
The point above can be considered a fact that can be verified by research methods used by other human sciences



*6. Musical theories, aesthetics and semiotic dimensions*

Both Song A and Song B can be objectively analyzed although there is more theoretical, aesthetical and semiotic approaches relevant to the Song A than Song B.
The point above can be considered a fact that can be verified by research methods used by other human sciences



*7. Psychology of music*

There is no doubt that the features of common musical language in the Song A make it more appealing to the majority of the human race.
The long history of music more strongly resembling the features of Song A is represented in the collective receptive and experiencing musical mind of the human race
The points above can be considered facts that can be verified by research methods used by psychology


*8. Neurology of music*

There is no doubt that Song A and Song B will have reactions in the neurological structures of both the performers and the listeners that will differ from each other in a statistically significant way.
The melodic features of Song A are much easier and more natural for the vocal cords, human neurology, cognitive performance and muscle memory to produce
The points above can be considered facts that can be verified by research methods used by medicine and neurological sciences


*9. Pure facts: Historic, physical and concrete facts regarding the instruments, acoustics etc.*

The melodic features of Song A are much easier and more natural for even most instruments to which big interval jumps are also more difficult than smaller intervals: woodwinds, valved brass instruments, keyboard instruments, string instruments, pitched percussion etc.
The point above can be considered a fact that can be verified by research methods used by natural sciences


I could go on forever but that is not the point here... The more analytical and multi-faceted approach hinted at above is much more useful, truthful, polite, constructive and effective than, in the tradition of great simplification, just answering to everything: "That is just your opinion".


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## Woodduck

No, it is not all just opinion. Not ALL...

The problem with the "all artistic values are subjective" theory is that it fails to recognize that works of art - like other things - succeed or fail, not merely according to standards of "taste" applied by audiences, but by their own standards. Perhaps the most essential perception in judging a work of art is the perception of what it is trying to be, and perhaps the highest praise we can give a work is that in trying to be something strong, rich, challenging, or original it has carried out its intended idea with consistency and force. Obviously the artist is best positioned to know how well he has succeeded by that standard - he alone knows fully his intent - but works are acclaimed in no small part when the artist has succeeded in communicating a clear intention - a clear vision or concept - by carrying out its expression in a way that coheres and reinforces itself. Coherence - clarity of purpose, consistency of idea, and the appropriateness of means to ends - are admirable not merely as abstract ideals but as crucial conditions of effective aesthetic expression. And - essential to this discussion - they can to a great extent be perceived and are not simply matters of "opinion." That we do perceive them is a principal reason why certain works of music survive and give pleasure for centuries while others are forgotten. They are forgotten because, failing to make a cohesive appeal to our faculties of aesthetic perception and impress us with strong ideas tightly argued, they are intrinsically forgettable (or worse). Works that succeed in these things represent extraordinary achievements by extraordinary creative minds and rightly acquire reputations for superiority.

There are right and wrong, better and worse. decisions an artist can make as he makes the thousands of choices that confront him in the act of creation. What is wonderful for us, his audience, is that we have the power to intuit the appropriateness of his choices and to feel a profound pleasure at the results of his success - as well as a profound indifference or distaste at the results of his failures.


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## Strange Magic

I am truly sorry, but I have found through these many iterations of points of view, that my position remains both unchanged but also unassailable. So much verbiage--and fine verbiage--to somehow sidestep the key factor of clustered opinion in the "Objectivist" viewpoint. But no matter how the argument is framed, it does come down, ultimately, to opinion. Art can be easily be seen to be a human product that has certain qualities that attract or repel certain or even many perceivers-- whether they say they like or dislike it or whether it has successfully reached some goal that a cluster of enthusiasts or experts has set for it. It can only have value imposed upon it by that net of human perception (general or specific--either will do) that it satisfies or fails to. But art is like, as I have said, the elements of the periodic table, neither good nor bad in and of themselves but only as they impinge upon human experience, as a poison or as a key industrial product.

I am delighted that people like or dislike or evaluate art however they choose--whether they think it itself is imbued with Platonic Excellence or, like me, something that I like for any number of reasons. The end result is the same--opinion. The key thing is that it is nice and good to enjoy art along with like-minded others, without having to use a crutch of validating and supporting alleged "facts" about the intrinsic excellence of certain artworks. I cannot make my position more clear, and choose not to attempt to bury my opposition in an enormous mass of additional verbiage, as seems to be the necessary counterargument to the Subjectivist view--somehow Dumbo will find the feather and learn how to fly


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## Waehnen

Strange Magic said:


> I am truly sorry, but I have found through these many iterations of points of view, that my position remains both unchanged but also unassailable. So much verbiage--and fine verbiage--to somehow sidestep the key factor of clustered opinion in the "Objectivist" viewpoint. But no matter how the argument is framed, it does come down, ultimately, to opinion. Art can be easily be seen to be a human product that has certain qualities that attract or repel certain or even many perceivers-- whether they say they like or dislike it or whether it has successfully reached some goal that a cluster of enthusiasts or experts has set for it. It can only have value imposed upon it by that net of human perception (general or specific--either will do) that it satisfies or fails to. But art is like, as I have said, the elements of the periodic table, neither good nor bad in and of themselves but only as they impinge upon human experience, as a poison or as a key industrial product.
> 
> I am delighted that people like or dislike or evaluate art however they choose--whether they think it itself is imbued with Platonic Excellence or, like me, something that I like for any number of reasons. The end result is the same--opinion. The key thing is that it is nice and good to enjoy art along with like-minded others, without having to use a crutch of validating and supporting alleged "facts" about the intrinsic excellence of certain artworks. I cannot make my position more clear, and choose not to attempt to bury my opposition in an enormous mass of additional verbiage, as seems to be the necessary counterargument to the Subjectivist view--somehow Dumbo will find the feather and learn how to fly


I am not surprised since you have obviously constructed this position of yours for years.

You have deliberately and consciously chosen the great laser-focused simplification of a complicated matter. How that affects the conversation you participate in, I do not know.

Despite my opposite view on the matter, I hold on to my right for subjective opinions and preferences, too. I do not have to elaborate on or defend my every opinion nor do I expect that from others.

Still I choose to be polite, tolerate many kinds of utterances and not over-simplify complicated matters just because it’s easier.


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## Forster

Waehnen said:


> Still I choose to be polite, tolerate many kinds of utterances and not over-simplify complicated matters just because it’s easier.


Polite is good.

I don't think SM "over-simplifies" (and certainly not "just because it's easier").

My own current exploration of Schubert's Symphony No 9 inevitably raises comparison with Beethoven's. One of the differences is that, to me, the Schubert sounds more like Haydn than Beethoven, is more readily accessible than Beethoven and easier to get to grips with than the Beethoven. Others may agree with me, but even so, these are all just my opinions. My conclusion might be that not only do I prefer the Beethoven, but it's "better" than the Schubert. I know others agree with me on that last, because we've had a thread dedicated to the Beethoven - but there were some who hear it differently, and don't rate it very highly.

I can't get past the feeling that if a definitive case could be made for the Beethoven's being "the best" in the same way that a case might be made for it's being "better", it would have appeared by now. I guarantee that any posts that follow this one will fail to make that case. The best they might succeed in doing is offer a detailed analysis of the kinds of criteria that might be used and a decent effort at seeing how those criteria might apply. But at the end of the analysis, it will remain an opinion, not a statement of fact, if a conclusion is reached.


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## Strange Magic

^^^^@Waehnen: One person's oversimplification is another's cutting of the Gordian Knot, or akin to Samuel Adams' refutation of the good bishop Berkeley's strange Idealism. But I appreciate your restrained and civil tone throughout this discussion. I do fear that I will have little to contribute if/when the conversation becomes convoluted or arcane. Like the philosopher Ernest Nagel, I prefer my theses to be simple, and of a reality quite close to that experienced by most rational people in everyday life. In matters of art, "There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so."


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## EdwardBast

Strange Magic said:


> I am truly sorry, but I have found through these many iterations of points of view, that my* position remains both unchanged but also unassailable*. So much verbiage--and fine verbiage--to somehow sidestep the key factor of clustered opinion in the "Objectivist" viewpoint. But *no matter how the argument is framed, it does come down, ultimately, to opinion*. Art can be easily be seen to be a human product that has certain qualities that attract or repel certain or even many perceivers-- whether they say they like or dislike it or whether it has successfully reached some goal that a cluster of enthusiasts or experts has set for it. It can only have value imposed upon it by that net of human perception (general or specific--either will do) that it satisfies or fails to. But art is like, as I have said, the elements of the periodic table, neither good nor bad in and of themselves but only as they impinge upon human experience, as a poison or as a key industrial product.
> 
> I am delighted that people like or dislike or evaluate art however they choose--whether they think it itself is imbued with Platonic Excellence or, like me, something that I like for any number of reasons. The end result is the same--opinion. The key thing is that it is nice and good to enjoy art along with like-minded others, without having to use a crutch of validating and supporting alleged "facts" about the intrinsic excellence of certain artworks. I cannot make my position more clear, and choose not to attempt to bury my opposition in an enormous mass of additional verbiage, as seems to be the necessary counterargument to the Subjectivist view--somehow Dumbo will find the feather and learn how to fly


The problem is your position has little to do with what discussions of aesthetic value are about and how they are conducted and structured in the real world (that is, anywhere but on TC). No one serious about such discussions will make a free-floating claim that a work is objectively great because that's not a meaningful move or proposition in the enterprise that is music criticism. Statements about aesthetic value are normally presented and understood as conditional propositions: If one accepts that certain qualities and principles are the basis of aesthetic value in musical works (of a certain style, era, etc.), then here is an objective argument for the existence of such qualities and the successful fulfillment of those principles in a given work. Obviously, if one doesn't accept the values and principles on which the argument is premised, then one won't accept the conclusions. The objective-subjective argument at the center of your position just isn't a meaningful issue. You are making unassailable rules for a game no serious person is playing. It doesn't ultimately come down to opinion, it comes down to more or less objectively verifiable claims made within a system of shared values, with the understanding that the values and the claims are always subject to challenge.


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## 59540

I think the mistake is in setting up a rigid objective-subjective dichotomy and then congratulating yourself when an "objectivist" (which is really a straw man anyway) can't come up with scientific proof.


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## Strange Magic

^^^^@EdwardBast and dissident: I have no problem whatsoever with either of your posts/positions. I think we can all agree that Beauty, Excellence, "Greatness" resides not in the art object but in the perceptive net in which we apprehend the object (conditional propositions), I will be happy to affirm that, once this position is grasped, there is no further argument to be had.


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## Enthusiast

I guess the point of discussions about the value of music on this forum is not to arrive at "the truth" or even agreement or consensus. Different members use different methods and justify their positions in different and frequently incompatible ways. But so what? I like seeing where different people are coming from and where their methods and arguments lead them.


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## 59540

Strange Magic said:


> ^^^^@EdwardBast and dissident: I have no problem whatsoever with either of your posts/positions. I think we can all agree that Beauty, Excellence, "Greatness" resides not in the art object but in the perceptive net in which we apprehend the object (conditional propositions)...


Not necessarily. There is a perceiver but also a thing perceived. If everything is dependent on my own perception of it, I wouldn't need ever to listen to Bach or Mozart to get my doses of "beauty" or "greatness". I could simply create it all myself.


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## hammeredklavier

dissident said:


> If everything is dependent on my own perception of it, I wouldn't need ever to listen to Bach or Mozart to get my doses of "beauty" or "greatness". I could simply create it all myself.





EdwardBast said:


> Statements about aesthetic value are normally presented and understood as conditional propositions: If one accepts that certain qualities and principles are the basis of aesthetic value in musical works (of a certain style, era, etc.), then here is an objective argument for the existence of such qualities and the successful fulfillment of those principles in a given work. Obviously, if one doesn't accept the values and principles on which the argument is premised, then one won't accept the conclusions. ... It doesn't ultimately come down to opinion, it comes down to more or less objectively verifiable claims made within a system of shared values, with the understanding that the values and the claims are always subject to challenge.


"On the other hand, for the French, Mozart was certainly not 'one of us' from a national point of view. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, before Berlioz's time, some influential critics - for instance, Julien-Louis Geoffroy - rejected Mozart as a foreigner, considering his music 'scholastic', stressing his use of harmony over melody, and the dominance of the orchestra over singing in the operas - all these were considered negative features of 'Germanic' music."

-Groups of people who did not think highly of Mozart's style have existed in the past. Just cause majority of them are dead now, it doesn't mean they were "objectively wrong". If "greatness" changes with time, how can be "absolute"? At certain points in history, they weren't just a "minority", but a dominant group, and it's probably how Una cosa rara eclipsed Le Nozze di Figaro in popularity back then.
-How much of Mozart's traits is a result of "different style" and how much is a result of "superior quality" is, still to this day, largely a matter of subjective opinion and perception. Things can be and have qualities to be popular. "Greatness" is something fans use to frame and attribute to things they love and want to glorify. If something is to be considered unquestionably "great" just cause it has a lot of fans; it would be "tyranny of the majority".


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## Forster

EdwardBast said:


> The problem is your position has little to do with what discussions of aesthetic value are about and how they are conducted and structured *in the real world *(that is, anywhere but on TC). *No one serious *about such discussions will make a free-floating claim that a work is objectively great[...]


Ay, there's the rub!

At TC, there are people who will make free-floating claims. It's very unlikely that any serious discussion about aesthetic values could ever take place without constant free-flating claims...


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## NoCoPilot

I believe it is “all just opinion.” Since when does majority opinion make something a fact?


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## DaveM

Forster said:


> Polite is good.
> 
> I don't think SM "over-simplifies" (and certainly not "just because it's easier").
> 
> My own current exploration of Schubert's Symphony No 9 inevitably raises comparison with Beethoven's. One of the differences is that, to me, the Schubert sounds more like Haydn than Beethoven, is more readily accessible than Beethoven and easier to get to grips with than the Beethoven. Others may agree with me, but even so, these are all just my opinions. My conclusion might be that not only do I prefer the Beethoven, but it's "better" than the Schubert. I know others agree with me on that last, because we've had a thread dedicated to the Beethoven - but there were some who hear it differently, and don't rate it very highly.
> 
> I can't get past the feeling that if a definitive case could be made for the Beethoven's being "the best" in the same way that a case might be made for it's being "better", it would have appeared by now. I guarantee that any posts that follow this one will fail to make that case. The best they might succeed in doing is offer a detailed analysis of the kinds of criteria that might be used and a decent effort at seeing how those criteria might apply. But at the end of the analysis, it will remain an opinion, not a statement of fact, if a conclusion is reached.


I think The current discussion is a little more profound than one symphony can be said to be better than another.


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## 59540

hammeredklavier said:


> "On the other hand, for the French, Mozart was certainly not 'one of us' from a national point of view. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, before Berlioz's time, some influential critics - for instance, Julien-Louis Geoffroy - rejected Mozart as a foreigner, considering his music 'scholastic', stressing his use of harmony over melody, and the dominance of the orchestra over singing in the operas - all these were considered negative features of 'Germanic' music."
> 
> -Groups of people who did not think highly of Mozart's style have existed in the past. Just cause majority of them are dead now, it doesn't mean they were "objectively wrong". If "greatness" changes with time, how can be "absolute"?


Who said it's absolute?


> At certain points in history, they weren't just a "minority", but a dominant group, and it's probably how Una cosa rara eclipsed Le Nozze di Figaro in popularity back then.


Regarding Mozart I don't think the naysayers were the "dominant group" even in his lifetime. The quality of his work was pretty readily recognized shortly after his death, regardless of the objections of some French critics. The question to be answered is what is it about Mozart's work that causes it to be "popular" and considered "great" in the first place.


> -How much of Mozart's traits is a result of "different style" and how much is a result of "superior quality" is, still to this day, a matter of subjective opinion and perception. Things can be and have qualities to be popular. "Greatness" is something fans use to frame and attribute to things they love and want to glorify. ...


"Greatness" doesn't depend on unanimity. It's that dichotomy again: if it can't be measured like gravitational pull, it must not exist. It's also circular: it's considered "great" because it's "popular", and it's "popular" because it's considered "great". Bach isn't all that "popular" worldwide.


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## DaveM

hammeredklavier said:


> -Groups of people who did not think highly of Mozart's style have existed in the past. Just cause majority of them are dead now, it doesn't mean they were "objectively wrong". If "greatness" changes with time, how can be "absolute"? At certain points in history, they weren't just a "minority", but a dominant group, and it's probably how Una cosa rara eclipsed Le Nozze di Figaro in popularity back then.
> -How much of Mozart's traits is a result of "different style" and how much is a result of "superior quality" is, still to this day, largely a matter of subjective opinion and perception. Things can be and have qualities to be popular. "Greatness" is something fans use to frame and attribute to things they love and want to glorify. If something is to be considered unquestionably "great" just cause it has a lot of fans; it would be "tyranny of the majority".
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Why do you overrate or underrate composers?
> 
> 
> Your links don't take me to what you've quoted or referred to. ??? "I didn't see the merits of X's music until I had N hours of listening to it" Assumption of greatness I cannot agree that the music of Bach or Beethoven is only considered great because we have been indoctrinated to accept...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.talkclassical.com


The fact that in a moment of time Una Cosa Rara eclipsed Le Nozze di Figaro in the number of performances has nothing to do with anything. There is a reason that one of the two has remained in the current opera repertoire for over 200 years and the other hasn’t. And if you can’t find one or two objective reasons for that then I am surprised that all your research has led you to this point of perspective.

Furthermore, ‘greatness’ can be used in a superficial way or in a profound way. Do you really believe that Beethoven is considered great just because he has a lot of fans and that implies a ‘tyranny of the majority’. Really? (And I’m talking CP era here.)


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## Waehnen

Just a quick comment. When it comes to TC, maybe we should be practical before anything else. That is why I suggest the following:

If someone makes a claim and it bothers you, ask if it is a subjective opinion or if the person thinks there is some "generally agreed" objectivity behind the claim
If the claim is admittedly subjective, leave it there
If the claim is said to carry "generally agreed objectivity", ask for arguments to back it up
Discuss the arguments and points that are being presented with an open mind
Never say "that is just your opinion" or in other rude way try to shut the other person up or implement your own value system


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## Strange Magic

dissident said:


> Not necessarily. There is a perceiver but also a thing perceived. If everything is dependent on my own perception of it, I wouldn't need ever to listen to Bach or Mozart to get my doses of "beauty" or "greatness". I could simply create it all myself.


I am not at all sure whether this gets to the heart of the matter. It is a given, a commonplace that there are perceivers and the perceived. I do not see the conclusion drawn here. When one says "everything is dependent on my own perception", this, I hope, does not fall into an aberrant solipsism by accident or design. Why cannot one be fully capable of enjoying Beauty and Greatness where you find it? For Beethoven perhaps, he could and did create it all himself, though that would be a rare case. Ditto Van Gogh? William Blake?


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## 59540

Strange Magic said:


> I am not at all sure whether this gets to the heart of the matter. It is a given, a commonplace that there are perceivers and the perceived. I do not see the conclusion drawn here. When one says "everything is dependent on my own perception", this, I hope, does not fall into an aberrant solipsism by accident or design. Why cannot one be fully capable of enjoying Beauty and Greatness where you find it? For Beethoven perhaps, he could and did create it all himself, though that would be a rare case. Ditto Van Gogh? William Blake?


Since the notions of what you find "beautiful" and "great" reside solely in your own brain, why can't you realize those perceptions in artistic work of your own?


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## Strange Magic

DaveM said:


> The fact that in a moment of time Una Cosa Rara eclipsed Le Nozze di Figaro in the number of performances has nothing to do with anything. There is a reason that one of the two has remained in the current opera repertoire for over 200 years and the other hasn’t. And if you can’t find one or two objective reasons for that then I am surprised that all your research has led you to this point of perspective.
> 
> Furthermore, ‘greatness’ can be used in a superficial way or in a profound way. Do you really believe that Beethoven is considered great just because he has a lot of fans and that implies a ‘tyranny of the majority’. Really? (And I’m talking CP era here.)


My answer to the above question is--wait for it--Yes. And the reason that Le Nozze has remained in the repertoire for over 200 years is that a large cluster of people like it, pure and simple. The "objective" reason for that is the validity of the polling process and its results--cold hard facts.


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## 59540

Strange Magic said:


> My answer to the above question is--wait for it--Yes. And the reason that Le Nozze has remained in the repertoire for over 200 years is that a large cluster of people like it, pure and simple. ...


Why is that? That's begging the question.


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## Strange Magic

dissident said:


> Since the notions of what you find "beautiful" and "great" reside solely in your own brain, why can't you realize those perceptions in artistic work of your own?


Simple. My "gift" is in arguing about things, and in being content with appreciating the creative gifts of others to engage my approbation. And besides, the notions of what I find beautiful and great reside surely in my own mind but are also often shared--quite widely-- with others. There is no issue here..


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## 59540

Strange Magic said:


> Simple. My "gift" is in arguing about things, and in being content with appreciating the creative gifts...


So there is something objective called "creative gifts" which separate the Bachs and Beethovens from arguers like you and me.


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## Woodduck

Strange Magic said:


> ^^^^@EdwardBast and dissident: I have no problem whatsoever with either of your posts/positions. I think we can all agree that *Beauty, Excellence, "Greatness" resides not in the art object but in the perceptive net in which we apprehend the object (conditional propositions)*, I will be happy to affirm that, once this position is grasped, there is no further argument to be had.


The statement in bold is merely a paraphrase of "all artistic values are subjective" and misstates the contrary assertion, concisely stated by EdwardBast, that an artwork's quality does not "reside" within a set of "conditional propositions" but _within the work's effectiveness in fulfilling the terms of those "propositions."_ A good piece of music, painting or poem employs coherently the aesthetic (cultural, stylistic, technical) premises it accepts, and uses the "language" of those premises to make something distinctive. In this way qualities of excellence have objective existence within a work: People's ability to perceive the artist's success may of course vary, along with the personal value people will assign the work once its qualities are perceived. But the subjective aspects of aesthetic appraisal do not invalidate the objective ones. That is just not a meaningful debate.


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## Strange Magic

dissident said:


> Why is that? That's begging the question.


It is because the work more strongly appeals to/triggers positive emotions on the part of the neurochemical and/or psychological and/or life experiences of a greater cluster of folks than some less well-regarded music, among a certain population predetermined (a bit of predestination here) to prefer it.


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## Strange Magic

dissident said:


> So there is something objective called "creative gifts" which separate the Bachs and Beethovens from arguers like you and me.


Yes. They are excellent, through skill or luck, at triggering positive responses among select audiences than are others.


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## 59540

Strange Magic said:


> It is because the work more strongly appeals to/triggers positive emotions on the part of the neurochemical and/or psychological and/or life experiences of a greater cluster of folks than some less well-regarded music, among a certain population predetermined (a bit of predestination here) to prefer it.


That's still begging the question. What is it about that work that triggers that effect as opposed to Salieri's Falstaff?


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## 59540

Strange Magic said:


> Yes. They are excellent, through skill or luck, at triggering positive responses among select audiences than are others.


And how do they do that?


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## hammeredklavier

dissident said:


> What is it about that work that triggers that effect as opposed to Salieri's Falstaff?


I still wonder; all those traits of Mozart Geoffroy described, for instance, —if Mozart had none of them— how much would we have cared for his music? Is it the "style" of Mozart's music that ultimately appeals to us, or is it the "quality"? How do we know for sure? "I didn't see the merits of X's music...


hammeredklavier said:


> Speaking of chromaticism, there is this pattern; when asked what makes Mozart great, some people will say; _"his richness of chromatic harmony and fluidity of vocal writing, which set him apart from all his contemporaries"_ [1]. Other people will say; _"I dunno. Don't ask me difficult questions like that. I just like his music, and who can blame me for it"_ [2]. To me, both of these groups (1, 2) are _suspicious_ of relying on "received wisdom".
> For example, look at the style of the "S'altro che lacrime" from Mozart's La Clemenza di Tito, and then that of the "Quel ruscelleto" from Haydn's Endimione (or the "Quel viso adorato" from his Andromeda e Perseo) side by side. Isn't it disturbing the former artist is always ranked at around the 1st~3rd places, while the latter artist never appears in any rankings? What if we had been consistently informed from childhood about this "paradox", would things have been the same? -I'm just asking.
> 
> How can we prove Mozart's "greatness" is not a result of the amount of his "exposure" to the public? How do we know for sure the kind of chromatic harmony and vocal writing Mozart employs, for instance, proves his music has "depth" intrinsically, compared to his contemporaries? (Isn't it rather something "creamy"?) People will quote the "purple prose writing" the "experts" have written about him in admiration, which doesn't really prove anything except the fact that they're under the influence of "received wisdom" or "personal opinion". I'm not trying to argue any of the artists represented in the rankings in this thread are overrated or underrated. I'm just discussing the inherent limitations of such methods of evaluation.





hammeredklavier said:


> Aren't these "appeal to authority", "appeal to popularity" fallacies? Isn't it more reasonable to think there can be various factors other than "traits/qualities of artistic work" that ultimately decide who/what get remembered and who/what don't?
> Let's say there was a composer A, whose music had not been distributed widely in his lifetime because he didn't want it printed or published, and it had been "misattributed" to various other composers up until the end of the 20th century. How could "professional critics/academics" during most of the 20th century have had an accurate view of his "greatness"?
> (Isn't it a little disturbing to) think of Echberg's writings about the "canon", which I posted earlier, in relation to this.
> Again, I'm not trying to argue any of the composers mentioned in this thread are overrated or underrated, or that they don't deserve their popularity today, but-
> I read that Hummel wrote about 20 operas, which haven't been recorded yet. How can we simply "conclude" he's inherently "inferior" (not just "different") without giving him enough chance?
> And isn't this an educated opinion as well?- _"One of the many unfortunate legacies of nineteenth-century biographical writing is the excessive focus on the Wunderkind Mozart and the Incomparable Genius Mozart."_.
> How can we logically prove that the Gloria from Mass K.427 (1782) is inherently superior to the Gloria from Missa sancti Ruperti (1782) regardless of their popularity and people's "preferences" today?
> Is "greatness" something that changes with the passing of time? If so, how can it be "absolute"?


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## Strange Magic

Woodduck said:


> The statement in bold is merely a paraphrase of "all artistic values are subjective" and misstates the contrary assertion, concisely stated by EdwardBast, that an artwork's quality does not "reside" within a set of "conditional propositions" but _within the work's effectiveness in fulfilling the terms of those "propositions."_ A good piece of music, painting or poem employs coherently the aesthetic (cultural, stylistic, technical) premises it accepts, and uses the "language" of those premises to make something distinctive. In this way qualities of excellence have objective existence within a work: People's ability to perceive the artist's success may of course vary, along with the personal value people will assign the work once its qualities are perceived. But the subjective aspects of aesthetic appraisal do not invalidate the objective ones. That is just not a meaningful debate.


Who sets the criteria, the aesthetic premises that are accepted by that good piece of music or art? Does the art itself accept its own criteria? If not a cluster of like-minded people, then God? The Zeitgeist?


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## Woodduck

dissident said:


> That's still begging the question. What is it about that work that triggers that effect as opposed to Salieri's Falstaff?


Good example. We have two operas called _Falstaff_ to compare (and we can throw in Nicolai's _Die lustigen_ _Weiber_ _von_ _Windsor_ as well). Why is Verdi's a masterpiece among comic operas, Nicolai's a pleasant work enjoyed in German- speaking countries but rarely elsewhere, and Salieri's a worthy curiosity which hasn't held the stage and - you can bank on it - never will?


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## Strange Magic

dissident said:


> And how do they do that?


There is an active area of science as well as the writings of people like Leonard Meyer teasing out the answers to that very question.


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## Strange Magic

Woodduck said:


> Good example. We have two operas called _Falstaff_ to compare (and we can throw in Nicolai's _Die lustigen_ _Weiber_ _von_ _Windsor_ as well). Why is Verdi's a masterpiece among comic operas, Nicolai's a pleasant work enjoyed in German- speaking countries but rarely elsewhere, and Salieri's a worthy curiosity which hasn't held the stage and - you can bank on it - never will?


I can tell you and have told you why but you prefer your own explanations.


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## DaveM

Strange Magic said:


> My answer to the above question is--wait for it--Yes. And the reason that Le Nozze has remained in the repertoire for over 200 years is that a large cluster of people like it, pure and simple. The "objective" reason for that is the validity of the polling process and its results--cold hard facts.


There‘s something sad about one’s evaluation of what Mozart accomplished in Le Nozze amounting to nothing more than the results of a ‘polling process’.


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## Woodduck

Strange Magic said:


> Who sets the criteria, the aesthetic premises that are accepted by that good piece of music or art? Does the art itself accept its own criteria? If not a cluster of like-minded people, then God? The Zeitgeist?


Good question. The artist sets, accepts, and fulfills (or not) the premises on which the work is based. He doesn't, for the most part, invent those premises - they are largely derived from his culture and profession - but he does, if he's not a mere imitator, find new ways of using those premises and of extending and modifying them. He is then admired for both his ability to grasp and exploit an inherited, common expressive language and for his creative originality.


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## Woodduck

Strange Magic said:


> I can tell you and have told you why but you prefer your own explanations.


Your explanation doesn't explain anything. It's merely a tautology: people like artwork X because they like it.


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## Enthusiast

DaveM said:


> There‘s something sad about one’s evaluation of what Mozart accomplished in Le Nozze amounting to nothing more than the results of a ‘polling process’.


I think this is true. I feel it to be true and I guess that many of those in SM's "polling process" would also feel it to be true. But SM's example concerned what we can know objectively (so he is right, too). We can elevate his "objective fact" by allowing that the enjoyment those numbers of people get from the work is based on many of them being able to detect that the work is ... more effective/enjoyable/heavenly than many pieces that have not enjoyed such audience loyalty. The problems come, though, when we consider that some pop music is much more popular and that some works get neglected for long periods of time only to be rediscovered later (i.e. did the work suddenly become great after a long period of being negligible?).


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## EdwardBast

Strange Magic said:


> ^^^^@EdwardBast and dissident: I have no problem whatsoever with either of your posts/positions. I think we can all agree that Beauty, Excellence, "Greatness" resides not in the art object but in the perceptive net in which we apprehend the object (conditional propositions), I will be happy to affirm that, once this position is grasped, there is no further argument to be had.


No, we can't agree on that! It resides *in the art object* understood with respect to certain values and principles manifested in objective and verifiable features of the work. Judgments of aesthetic value are usually perceived as more credibility when the principles and values by which they're understood are known to have been the ones under which the work was constructed.


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## Forster

Woodduck said:


> Good question. The artist sets, accepts, and fulfills (or not) the premises on which the work is based. He doesn't, for the most part, invent those premises - they are largely derived from his culture and profession - but he does, if he's not a mere imitator, find new ways of using those premises and of extending and modifying them. He is then admired for both his ability to grasp and exploit an inherited, common expressive language and for his creative originality.


So the artist effectively sets their own criteria by which their work shall be estimated, usually based on the prevailing aesthetic, though sometimes on a countervailing aesthetic.

Given that the Baroque aesthetic and Romantic aesthetic are different, how do we determine comparative qualities across the years?


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## Woodduck

Forster said:


> So the artist effectively sets their own criteria by which their work shall be estimated, usually based on the prevailing aesthetic, though sometimes on a countervailing aesthetic.
> 
> Given that the Baroque aesthetic and Romantic aesthetic are different, how do we determine comparative qualities across the years?


That depends on what we mean by "comparative qualities," doesn't it? What do we want to compare, and to what end?


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## CLO

When our judgments turn on matters of perception, familiarity with the medium, styles and conventions used by the artist, the skill of the artist in executing their intention, the success of the artist in conveying emotion or the ability of the artwork to enlarge our understanding of ourselves and the world we inhabit...when those matters are under consideration, we can marshal objective evidence to support our evaluations. 

True, the whole of art does not rotate around these concerns. But some aspects do, and when they do we can cut through the sea of opinions using the same dedication to reason and evidence that we use to resolve other disputes. Will this put to rest all disputes over merits of particular works? Of course not. But they will at very least allow you to distinguish some judgments as being better than others.


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## Strange Magic

DaveM said:


> There‘s something sad about one’s evaluation of what Mozart accomplished in Le Nozze amounting to nothing more than the results of a ‘polling process’.


What is that sad thing? I love the works that I love, and likely many that you love also. But I don't need to have some---What? Something?-- exterior to my appreciation to justify or to grant an imprimatur to my enthusiasm. But it is really nothing more than a polling process whereby Mozart has enthralled a cluster of influential people to coalesce around some particular work or works. But we all are free as birds to fully, completely, exhaustively, richly appreciate, admire, be touched by those art objects that our natures find to our taste.


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## Strange Magic

Woodduck said:


> Your explanation doesn't explain anything. It's merely a tautology: people like artwork X because they like it.


Surely you jest. I have just posted yet again for the ???? time that the workings of what we like or don't are being teased out by science and by what we can call maybe "information theory".


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## Strange Magic

Woodduck said:


> Good question. The artist sets, accepts, and fulfills (or not) the premises on which the work is based. He doesn't, for the most part, invent those premises - they are largely derived from his culture and profession - but he does, if he's not a mere imitator, find new ways of using those premises and of extending and modifying them. He is then admired for both his ability to grasp and exploit an inherited, common expressive language and for his creative originality.


From whence come the premises? In a flash of lightning?


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## Strange Magic

Enthusiast said:


> I think this is true. I feel it to be true and I guess that many of those in SM's "polling process" would also feel it to be true. But SM's example concerned what we can know objectively (so he is right, too). We can elevate his "objective fact" by allowing that the enjoyment those numbers of people get from the work is based on many of them being able to detect that the work is ... more effective/enjoyable/heavenly than many pieces that have not enjoyed such audience loyalty. The problems come, though, when we consider that some pop music is much more popular and that some works get neglected for long periods of time only to be rediscovered later (i.e. did the work suddenly become great after a long period of being negligible?).


How a problem? What problem? Tastes change,populations and conditions change. Even I have changed.


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## Forster

Woodduck said:


> That depends on what we mean by "comparative qualities," doesn't it? What do we want to compare, and to what end?


Well it also depends on the "we", doesn't it. As I thought I'd said earlier, in a post that seems to have disappeared (I'll blame the new website), the "we" might be the many folks who like to compare stuff at TC and come up with endless lists of the greatest. They'd welcome a leg-up with this business, to be able to declare definitively, the top 3, the top tiers, the best Baroque, Handel's operas v Wagner's...you get the idea?


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## Forster

DaveM said:


> I think The current discussion is a little more profound than one symphony can be said to be better than another.


Well, if direct comparison between two works is good enough for Woodduck, it's good enough for me...



Woodduck said:


> Good example. We have two operas called _Falstaff_ to compare (and we can throw in Nicolai's _Die lustigen_ _Weiber_ _von_ _Windsor_ as well). Why is Verdi's a masterpiece among comic operas, Nicolai's a pleasant work enjoyed in German- speaking countries but rarely elsewhere, and Salieri's a worthy curiosity which hasn't held the stage and - you can bank on it - never will?


Besides, even the most recondite philosophising needs practical exemplification.


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## Strange Magic

EdwardBast said:


> No, we can't agree on that! It resides *in the art object* understood with respect to certain values and principles manifested in objective and verifiable features of the work. Judgments of aesthetic value are usually perceived as more credibility when the principles and values by which they're understood are known to have been the ones under which the work was constructed.


Again your own tautologies. Things are good and they are liked because certain purely subjective premises/criteria are met, criteria that have been imposed by the cluster so choosing them. The objectivity, I certainly, routinely agree, comes in the window when we declare that these subjective criteria have been met in the eyes and ears of their establishers.


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## Woodduck

Strange Magic said:


> Surely you jest. I have just posted yet again for the ???? time that the workings of what we like or don't are being teased out by science and by what we can call maybe "information theory".


So you look to science to "explain" art? But what is being teased out? What _can_ be teased out by science? What _needs_ to be teased out, in order to determine what? Do we need science to tell us that Mozart's aria "Deh vieni non tardar" is a melodic miracle that none of Mozart's contemporaries could have written? Or do people have the ability to perceive this without precisely calibrated measuring devices and blackboards covered with equations, and is their perception (and other similar perceptions) the reason why _Le Nozze di Figaro_ is still, after more than two centuries, a pillar of the repertoire while hundreds of other operas of the period are collecting dust in library basements?


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## Woodduck

Forster said:


> Well, if direct comparison between two works is good enough for Woodduck, it's good enough for me...


What do you mean by "good enough for Woodduck"? Good enough for what?



> Besides, even the most recondite philosophising needs practical exemplification.


Um, it helps...


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## Woodduck

Strange Magic said:


> Again your own tautologies. Things are good and they are liked because certain purely subjective premises/criteria are met, criteria that have been imposed by the cluster so choosing them.


The term "purely subjective" seems problematic. What does it mean? And why "purely"? Does that imply "having no necessary relation to reality"? Does it mean "wholly arbitrary," "accidental," or "not derived from any facts of nature"? Is it like a hallucination? A derangement of the senses? An error of logic? A refusal to acknowledge the obvious, or to agree with a truth because we don't feel like it? Do "purely subjective" artistic premises materialize out of nothing? If not, where do they come from, and why would anyone value them or the products that express them?



> The objectivity, I certainly, routinely agree, comes in the window when we declare that these subjective criteria have been met in the eyes and ears of their establishers.


Comes in a window? When we _declare?_ How trivializing of artistic greatness! You are very dismissive of an artist's ability to meet, at a high level of accomplishment and invention, the demands of an artistic language. In fact, the level of dismissiveness required to refuse to acknowledge the magnitude of artistic achievement in the language of Western music represented by _Bach's Mass in b-minor_ or Wagner's _Ring of the Nibelung _is mind-boggling. It's as if Bach and Wagner are celebrated for winning a pie-eating contest, and the important thing in evaluating their achievement is whether or not we like pie.


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## Woodduck

Forster said:


> Well it also depends on the "we", doesn't it. As I thought I'd said earlier, in a post that seems to have disappeared (I'll blame the new website), the "we" might be the many folks who like to compare stuff at TC and come up with endless lists of the greatest. They'd welcome a leg-up with this business, to be able to declare definitively, the top 3, the top tiers, the best Baroque, Handel's operas v Wagner's...you get the idea?


Well, you're really talking to the wrong person. I don't participate in compiling lists and rankings. The only value of such discussions is in the possibility of sharpening our perception and appreciation of things.


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## Enthusiast

Strange Magic said:


> How a problem? What problem? Tastes change,populations and conditions change. Even I have changed.


A problem for the endeavour of arriving at an objective measure of "quality".


----------



## DaveM

Enthusiast said:


> ...The problems come, though, when we consider that some pop music is much more popular and that some works get neglected for long periods of time only to be rediscovered later (i.e. did the work suddenly become great after a long period of being negligible?).


In these discussions I always assume that we are talking about music of the CP era. At least, any position I take is referring to that period and the music and composers thereof.

As far as neglected works being ‘rediscovered’ goes, there are a number of reasons for that other than their suddenly becoming great. One is that prior to the 20th century when there were no recordings, particularly when it came to the larger works, a composer had to have ‘concert time’ to have works heard. Also, composers in some of the smaller countries didn’t get the exposure that those in Germany, Italy and Russia did. 

A major reason that neglected works are being resurrected now is because of recordings and the fact that due to advances in technology, it is less expensive to record and distribute them. It’s amazing to see the number of resurrected symphonies alone from 19th century composers from small European countries turning up on YouTube.


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## Strange Magic

Woodduck said:


> So you look to science to "explain" art? But what is being teased out? What _can_ be teased out by science? What _needs_ to be teased out, in order to determine what? Do we need science to tell us that Mozart's aria "Deh vieni non tardar" is a melodic miracle that none of Mozart's contemporaries could have written? Or do people have the ability to perceive this without precisely calibrated measuring devices and blackboards covered with equations, and is their perception (and other similar perceptions) the reason why _Le Nozze di Figaro_ is still, after more than two centuries, a pillar of the repertoire while hundreds of other operas of the period are collecting dust in library basements?


No, we don't need science to "explain" these things. We don't "need" to explain anything. But it just seems interesting and perhaps enlightening to so explain. Not, in my opinion, a fruitful attitude to disregard--yea, denounce- the science that underpins explanation of the success of Le Nozze.


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## Strange Magic

Woodduck said:


> The term "purely subjective" seems problematic. What does it mean? And why "purely"? Does that imply "having no necessary relation to reality"? Does it mean "wholly arbitrary," "accidental," or "not derived from any facts of nature"? Is it like a hallucination? A derangement of the senses? An error of logic? A refusal to acknowledge the obvious, or to agree with a truth because we don't feel like it? Do "purely subjective" artistic premises materialize out of nothing? If not, where do they come from, and why would anyone value them or the products that express them?
> 
> 
> 
> Comes in a window? When we _declare?_ How trivializing of artistic greatness! You are very dismissive of an artist's ability to meet, at a high level of accomplishment and invention, the demands of an artistic language. In fact, the level of dismissiveness required to refuse to acknowledge the magnitude of artistic achievement in the language of Western music represented by _Bach's Mass in b-minor_ or Wagner's _Ring of the Nibelung _is mind-boggling. It's as if Bach and Wagner are celebrated for winning a pie-eating contest, and the important thing in evaluating their achievement is whether or not we like pie.


I am impressed by the sheer number of rhetorical questions above asked! So many of them. I do admire your enthusiasm for maintaining the reputations of your favorites, as I do mine. But such encomiums are hardly necessary--no one is attacking anybody's favorite anythings--as you know, I scrupulously refrain from knocking anyone else's esthetic choices.


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## DaveM

Strange Magic said:


> I am impressed by the sheer number of rhetorical questions above asked! So many of them. I do admire your enthusiasm for maintaining the reputations of your favorites, as I do mine. But such encomiums are hardly necessary--no one is attacking anybody's favorite anythings--as you know, I scrupulously refrain from knocking anyone else's esthetic choices.


 I’ll horn in here just to say that I think you’re missing the point (of the rhetorical questions).


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## Strange Magic

Enthusiast said:


> A problem for the endeavour of arriving at an objective measure of "quality".


I agree (I think?) if I understand your post as quoted that arriving at an objective measure of "quality" is difficult at the very best.


----------



## Strange Magic

DaveM said:


> I’ll horn in here just to say that I think you’re missing the point (of the rhetorical questions).


I have come to learn that a torrent of rhetorical questions as a method of countering an opposing argument rarely elucidates but serves rather as a squid's ink cloud behind which time is spent scrambling for supporting data. I try to be very sparing in my use of such practice as followers of my posts will attest.

P.S. I apologize to Waehnen for all of us for getting stalled at his first item to be discussed. When will those interested ever get to his other issues?


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## 59540

Strange Magic said:


> I have come to learn that a torrent of rhetorical questions as a method of countering an opposing argument rarely elucidates but serves rather as a squid's ink cloud behind which time is spent scrambling for supporting data. I try to be very sparing in my use of such practice as followers of my posts will attest.


I don't think they're all that rhetorical. Given the confidence you have in your stated position, you should have an answer to cut through the squid ink.


> Things are good and they are liked because certain purely subjective premises/criteria are met


Are the differences between the Mozart and Salieri operas mentioned above strictly subjective? If neither has any intrinsic quality in themselves as works of art, then the Salieri should be just as popular and aesthetically pleasing as the Mozart. In fact anything I come up with sitting at a keyboard would have to be on the same Mozartean level. Meaning no level.


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## DaveM

Strange Magic said:


> What is that sad thing? I love the works that I love, and likely many that you love also. But I don't need to have some---What? Something?-- exterior to my appreciation to justify or to grant an imprimatur to my enthusiasm. But it is really nothing more than a polling process whereby Mozart has enthralled a cluster of influential people to coalesce around some particular work or works. But we all are free as birds to fully, completely, exhaustively, richly appreciate, admire, be touched by those art objects that our natures find to our taste.


But it’s not all about you. The sad thing is that you are dismissing the objective evidence of skill and accomplishment. There are some people who have been blessed with enormous musical talent and those of us lucky enough to be drawn to classical music have reaped the benefits of their artistic accomplishments. But to you, there is no wonder in the various levels of human genius at work here; it is just a matter of subjective opinion whether they’re great or not, regardless of whether the opinion is educated or not.


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## Strange Magic

dissident said:


> I don't think they're all that rhetorical. Given the confidence you have in your stated position, you should have an answer to cut through the squid ink.


Sorry but I will not be drawn into such a whirligig. I prefer clear, terse exposition of viewpoints to which cogent replies can be made. When you are on the receiving end of such torrents I think you will understand what I am about.


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## 59540

Strange Magic said:


> Sorry but I will not be drawn into such a whirligig. I prefer clear, terse exposition of viewpoints to which cogent replies can be made. When you are on the receiving end of such torrents I think you will understand what I am about.


Oh I've been there lots of times.


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## Woodduck

Strange Magic said:


> I am impressed by the sheer number of rhetorical questions above asked! So many of them. I do admire your enthusiasm for maintaining the reputations of your favorites, as I do mine. But such encomiums are hardly necessary--no one is attacking anybody's favorite anythings--as you know, I scrupulously refrain from knocking anyone else's esthetic choices.


1. I'm not here to impress anyone.
2. I'm not attempting to maintain the reputations of anyone or anything.
3. The questions are not rhetorical, even if my rhetoric is exquisite (thank you).
4. The questions are different ways of approaching the same question, which is: are aesthetic principles derived from and intended to express and fulfill real needs, functions, tendencies and preferences of the human mind as such, or are they "purely subjective," and what does "purely subjective" mean?


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## Strange Magic

DaveM said:


> But it’s not all about you. The sad thing is that you are dismissing the objective evidence of skill and accomplishment. There are some people who have been blessed with enormous musical talent and those of us lucky enough to be drawn to classical music have reaped the benefits of their artistic accomplishments. But to you, there is no wonder in the various levels of human genius at work here; it is just a matter of subjective opinion whether they’re great or not, regardless of whether the opinion is educated or not.


We have discussed this topic previously in countless other threads as you recall. You will recall then my example of the great skill of the painter Ingres lavished upon kitsch. There are many other examples.

Please understand that I "attack" no one's favorites (other than offering my very rare negative opinion, as above with Ingres)--the aggressive defensiveness is not needed.


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## 59540

Strange Magic said:


> We have discussed this topic previously in countless other threads as you recall. You will recall then my example of the great skill of the painter Ingres lavished upon kitsch. There are many other examples.
> ...


And partly for that reason Ingres isn't mentioned in the same breath as Rembrandt.


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## TwoFlutesOneTrumpet

@Strange Magic 

Is it your claim that there is no objective measure by which we can judge one of the below pictures to be greater than the other? I can claim that the stick man is a better work of art than the Mona Lisa and you'd take this claim seriously?


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## DaveM

TwoFlutesOneTrumpet said:


> @Strange Magic
> 
> Is it your claim that there is no objective measure by which we can judge one of the below pictures to be greater than the other? I can claim that the stick man is a better work of art than the Mona Lisa and you'd take this claim seriously?
> 
> View attachment 167052
> View attachment 167056


You made my day. I haven’t laughed that hard for quite a while.


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## 59540

I think the current "orthodoxy" would be that if someone subjectively prefers the stick man, then it's "greater". That's the modern dismantling of "art" in a nutshell.


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## Strange Magic

dissident said:


> And partly for that reason Ingres isn't mentioned in the same breath as Rembrandt.


 We could have a paint-off between the two upon a mutually-approved subject.


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## Strange Magic

TwoFlutesOneTrumpet said:


> @Strange Magic
> 
> Is it your claim that there is no objective measure by which we can judge one of the below pictures to be greater than the other? I can claim that the stick man is a better work of art than the Mona Lisa and you'd take this claim seriously?
> 
> View attachment 167052
> View attachment 167056


Precisely so! I prefer Rembrandt but am prepared to accept the consequences of my position. I do not share the aroma of desperation that surrounds those opposed to my viewpoint--people are afraid their choices will be destroyed by my iconoclasm.


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## 4chamberedklavier

I don't think anyone is actually in disagreement with one another, it seems like that we're all operating on different premises or definitions. I agree with Strange Magic that art does not contain immaterial greatness that exists independent of the observer, but it may be the case that his explanation was vague enough that posters came up with different yet valid interpretations.



Woodduck said:


> The problem with the "all artistic values are subjective" theory is that it fails to recognize that works of art - like other things - succeed or fail, not merely according to standards of "taste" applied by audiences, but by their own standards. .


Which is true enough. Famous works are not well-liked because people just wanted to keep up with the trends, but because the work was well-crafted enough that it appealed to the aesthetic values shared by a majority of people due to similarities in the way our brains are structured (which is what I assume most people assume by 'objective greatness' and what Strange Magic means by greatness being a 'polling process')



Enthusiast said:


> The problems come, though, when we consider that some pop music is much more popular and that some works get neglected for long periods of time only to be rediscovered later (i.e. did the work suddenly become great after a long period of being negligible?).





DaveM said:


> There‘s something sad about one’s evaluation of what Mozart accomplished in Le Nozze amounting to nothing more than the results of a ‘polling process’.


These are legitimate concerns to bring up, but they don't necessarily invalidate Strange Magic's position. It's not that pop music is considered greater because more people in general like it, it's more of, the "greatness" of the work is dependent on the criteria used for the "poll". If the only criterion is popularity, then you could say what is popular is better, but if the criteria is something like... "which widely available(!) works can yield a higher degree of enjoyment after repeated listening by people patient enough to listen to longer & unfamiliar works", then the classics would come out on top.


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## Strange Magic

Woodduck said:


> 1. I'm not here to impress anyone.
> 2. I'm not attempting to maintain the reputations of anyone or anything.
> 3. The questions are not rhetorical, even if my rhetoric is exquisite (thank you).
> 4. The questions are different ways of approaching the same question, which is: are aesthetic principles derived from and intended to express and fulfill real needs, functions, tendencies and preferences of the human mind as such, or are they "purely subjective," and what does "purely subjective" mean?


If my position on these matters is still unknown to or understood by you after all these years, I despair.


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## Strange Magic

dissident said:


> I think the current "orthodoxy" would be that if someone subjectively prefers the stick man, then it's "greater". That's the modern dismantling of "art" in a nutshell.


however, that's just the way it is.


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## hammeredklavier

Think of it this way; Mozart's opera and oratorio works from years 1766~1775, for instance, are also staples of the repertoire, whereas other composers' works from the same period are collecting dust in library basements. Is the mentality "Because Mozart's music is so perfect, it deserves this level of treatment" in this case —really different from the mentality displayed by the "Mozart partisans" in the thread <Greatest Ever Opera Composer>, for instance (in their argument, "because Mozart is prolific in other genres, and he is so perfect in expression, barely a note is wasted.. bla bla..")? —The "target" is different ("Mozart's contemporaries from the period 1766~1775" in the former case, and "composers from other periods" in the latter case); and other composers of the same period 1766~1775 haven't got a stable "fanbase" grown (due to their lack of exposure in textbooks, concert repertoire, the recording industry, etc), or a "force of advocates" formed, so they become "easy targets".
If anyone uses the sentences below with "Bach" replaced with the name of a composer from 1766~1775, for instance, would the statement become less "valid" objectively?:


dissident said:


> I think Mozart frequently resorted to musical cliché with the best of them. Of course they all do to a certain extent.
> I love Mozart. But if we knew as little about his life as we know about Bach's, I don't think we would listen to his work in quite the same way.





dissident said:


> The thing is "the tragic" has hung over Mozart since his early death, and so (for example) everything in a minor key is of course full of foreboding and desolation...like the 40th symphony.


----------



## hammeredklavier

A certain member in the past made a good point by posting the following in another thread (something for us to think about):

"All of the factors contributing to greatness are interrelated and dependent on each other. For example, one factor mentioned above is the tradition of received wisdom: belief in A's greatness has been passed down from generation to generation, reinforced by music textbooks and concert performances and internet forums, while belief in B's greatness has not. Another factor mentioned above is the test of time: A seems greater than B because the former's music has survived till today while the latter's has not. But these two factors are mutually reinforcing: if music textbooks have chapters on A but not B, then of course the former is going to have a leg up on the latter when it comes to the test of time. Conversely, if A's music is still performed today while B's is not, then of course music textbooks are going to have chapters on the former but not the latter. Likewise, another factor that has been mentioned is influence: A has demonstrably had a lasting influence on later composers, even today, while B has not. This is also inherently connected to the above factors: since A appears in textbooks and is more widely performed than B, then of course he is going to have a greater influence on later composers than B will.

In other words, the concept of greatness is a complex and circular system. By this point in time it's also a self-sustaining one, precisely because of the circularity. After all, this system is basically what we call a canon, and it is the very purpose of a canon to be self-perpetuating. As I wrote about in another thread some years ago, it is difficult to imagine any canonical composer being removed from the cycle and losing their canonical status, and it's difficult to imagine any non-canonical composer being inserted into the cycle and acquiring canonical status. I don't think the canon was always closed, and I don't want to think it is now, but if I'm being honest with myself then I have to think realistically that it is."


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## 59540

Strange Magic said:


> We could have a paint-off between the two upon a mutually-approved subject.


We have that already. It's called a "body of work".


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## 59540

hammeredklavier said:


> Think of it this way; Mozart's opera and oratorio works from years 1766~1775, for instance, are also "staples of the repertoire", whereas other composers' works from the same period are collecting dust in library basements. Is the mentality "Because Mozart's music is so perfect, it deserves this level of treatment" in this case — really different from the mentality displayed by the "Mozart partisans" in the thread <The Greatest Opera Composer>, for instance (in their argument, "because Mozart is prolific in other genres, and he is so perfect in expression, barely a note is wasted.. bla bla..")? —The "target" is different ("Mozart's contemporaries from the period 1766~1775" in the former case, and "composers from other periods" in the latter case); and other composers of the same period 1766~1775 haven't grown a stable "fanbase" (due to their lack of exposure in textbooks, concert repertoire, recordings, etc), a force of "advocates/defenders", so they become "easy targets".
> If anyone uses the sentences below with "Bach" replaced with the name of a composer from 1766~1775, for instance, would the statement become less "valid"?:


I still stand by both statements. They're not the "gotchas" that you think. "Great" doesn't mean "perfect" or "beyond criticism".


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## 59540

Strange Magic said:


> however, that's just the way it is.


That's the way it becomes when you've been stewing in "what is traditionally called 'great art' is thought so primarily because that's what structures of 'soft power' have led people to believe" ideology for decades, as most of us have. But a lot of us are seeing that approach is a dead end that leads necessarily to absurdities like the stick man comparison. Then there really is no such thing as "art" at all.


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## VoiceFromTheEther

Strange Magic said:


> I do not share the aroma of desperation that surrounds those opposed to my viewpoint





Strange Magic said:


> If my position on these matters is still unknown to or understood by you after all these years, I despair.


----------



## hammeredklavier

TwoFlutesOneTrumpet said:


> I can claim that the stick man is a better work of art than the Mona Lisa and you'd take this claim seriously?


Similarly, a clown has his means of attracting attention and interest from people. Depending on how talented or skilled he is from the perspective of the audience, he can be considered a genius in what he does, ie. his profession. Likewise, music is, in the end, an abstract combination of sounds. Whether or not something is superficially appealing, sentimental, or over the top, or whatnot, belongs in the realm of subjectivity.


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## Woodduck

4chamberedklavier said:


> I don't think anyone is actually in disagreement with one another, it seems like that we're all operating on different premises or definitions.


I agree that much of the debate is the result of people talking past each other's assertions rather than actually addressing them. It's hard to say how this happens in every case, and hard to get past it.



> I agree with Strange Magic that art does not *contain immaterial* *greatness* that exists independent of the observer, but it may be the case that his explanation was vague enough that posters came up with different yet valid interpretations.


The terms we use can be misleading and/or confusing. What exactly does "contain immaterial greatness" mean? When we say that Prokofiev's _Romeo and Juliet_ is a great ballet score, is it helpful to debate whether it has something called greatness inside it? Is anyone really arguing that greatness is a substance which objects contain? I haven't seen that argument offered. What is helpful and accurate is to ask what there is about the music that justifies the attribution of greatness to it. One extreme answer to this question is that nothing can justify doing so, that greatness - or any judgment of quality - can never properly be attributed to art, that the nearest we can come to legitimizing such terms is to recognize that an artist has done some specific thing well, while keeping in mind that doing one sort of thing well is just as artistiscally meaningful and impressive as doing any other thing well, and that all other assessments of quality or value are matters of individual or collective taste. Thus a stick man which perfectly renders every feature necessary to a stick man is not artistically inferior to Bernini's _David,_ and is only considered to be so, carelessly, by cultural snobs who think that what the sculptor of the _David_ is doing is more intrinsically interesting or admirable than what the maker of the stick man is doing.



> It's not that pop music is considered greater because more people in general like it, it's more of, the "greatness" of the work is dependent on the criteria used for the "poll". If the only criterion is popularity, then you could say what is popular is better, but if the criteria is something like... "which widely available(!) works can yield a higher degree of enjoyment after repeated listening by people patient enough to listen to longer & unfamiliar works", then the classics would come out on top.


Of course that isn't an explanation, either of why popular music is more popular, or of why classical music's greatest achievements have reached artistic levels considered higher. I'll suggest that opposing popular to classical music is unnecessary and likely to obfuscate things further. There are many categories of music, but the questions at issue apply to all of them.

I think advocates for the total subjectivity of artistic value are forced to accept one of three views: 1. this work is good because I like it; 2. this work is good because a majority of people like it; or 3. no work should be called good or bad, and if I like looking at stick men more than looking at Bernini sculptures you can't say I'm not a man of exquisite taste.


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## 59540

Woodduck said:


> ...or 3. no work should be called good or bad, and if I like looking at stick men more than looking at Bernini sculptures you can't say I'm not a man of exquisite taste.


And thaaaaaat's the ticket.


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## DaveM

hammeredklavier said:


> Similarly, a clown has his means of attracting attention and interest from people. Depending on how talented or skilled he is from the perspective of the audience, he can be considered a genius in what he does, ie. his profession. Likewise, music is, in the end, an abstract combination of sounds. Whether or not something is superficially appealing, sentimental, or over the top, or whatnot, belongs in the realm of subjectivity.


I continue to wonder how someone who frequently posts about composers with a great amount of detail with examples (and that is not a criticism) can have that perspective. It begs the question as to what those posts are meant to accomplish? I’ve always assumed that you were trying to educate or convince us about the accomplishments and even ‘greatness’ of the composers being discussed. If not, then what’s the point if their output is just a ‘an abstract combination of sounds’ with nothing objectively special about it?


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## Strange Magic

dissident said:


> We have that already. It's called a "body of work".


And what was the mutually-agreed-upon subject? It would be worth walking many miles to see.


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## 59540

Strange Magic said:


> And what was the mutually-agreed-upon subject? It would be worth walking many miles to see.


Representations of thought or character through paint on a canvas. You can have vast amounts of skill and still think very small.


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## 59540

DaveM said:


> I continue to wonder how someone who frequently posts about composers with a great amount of detail with examples (and that is not a criticism) can have that perspective. It begs the question as to what those posts are meant to accomplish? I’ve always assumed that you were trying to educate or convince us about the accomplishments and even ‘greatness’ of the composers being discussed. If not, then what’s the point if their output is just a ‘an abstract combination of sounds’ with nothing objectively special about it?


And the scorn for the John Cages and Stockhausens and praise for Michael Haydn. Puzzling.


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## Sid James

Waehnen said:


> I would suggest that it would not be a game of just 2 opposites (subjective opinions vs hard scientific facts) but there would be some shades of gray as well in between. I believe it would result in better conversations if all forum texts were accepted and appreciated without comments like "that is just a mere opinion" and posters could themselves link their comment to for example some of the categories below, ranging from pure subjective opinions to hard facts.
> 
> From the top of my hat on a Saturday Night but you get the idea:
> 
> 1. Pure opinions: subjective artistic experience and preferences
> 2. Values of the immediate surrounding musical community + music education
> 3. Sociology and study of reception
> 4. Music history + canons
> 5. Objective analysis of compositional techniques
> 6. Musical theories, aesthetics and semiotic dimensions
> 7. Psychology of music
> 8. Neurology of music
> 9. Pure facts: Historic facts, physical and concrete facts regarding the instruments, acoustics etc.
> 
> Any suggestions, enhancements or defining comments for the list? Let’s evolve it together.


I think it boils down to two things:
1. What's the nature of the conversation, and
2. Limitations of internet communication.

I think that in any sort of conversation, particularly controversial topics, the point where people differ will often turn on what they think about the grey areas. That can come out of whatever knolwedge or experience the individual brings to the topic, and how he or she interprets it. Different information can be brought into the conversation, therefore different conclusions will be drawn.

To get back to my first point - conversations will turn out differently depending on their purpose.

A discussion is purely that - a canvassing of various viewpoints, perhaps with an element of contrast, but no more than that. Its often the case that there is so much information on a topic out there - much of which we don't know, or that it would be too time consuming to know - that covering various approaches to it (as in a survey) is more useful than honing in on an issue or a set of them, and trying to make some definitive conclusion about them.

By contrast, an argument about a topic inevitably leads to the need for those involved to form an opinion and stick to it, which is more like a persuasive text (e.g. critics do this when reviewing music, books, movies, etc.). In this case, you're not surveying information in a more or less objective way. You're using information more like a weapon, and any who have opinions which are different to yours become opponents. You use your resources to counter their moves. An analogy can be a chess game or even war.

This brings me to my second point - internet communication. Its fine for discussion, but not so great for arguments. The main reason is that in the former, there's no pressure to reach a conclusion, in the latter there's inevitably a movement towards reducing issues to some sort of dichotomy. Then you get entrenchment, and if things get out of hand, toxicity. One of the worst aspects of this is pretty much everywhere on the net, the echo chamber effect. If we repeat something enough times, it becomes the truth. At the very least it gives the implied message that if you want to participate here, forget any semblance of real conversation, you have to abide by these assumptions and unwritten rules.

This is why in a nutshell I agree that its admirable to try and have what amounts to a normal conversation on the net, but why it isn't easy to achieve. I wouldn't say its impossible, but it almost is.


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## TwoFlutesOneTrumpet

Strange Magic said:


> Precisely so! I prefer Rembrandt but am prepared to accept the consequences of my position. I do not share the aroma of desperation that surrounds those opposed to my viewpoint--people are afraid their choices will be destroyed by my iconoclasm.


It is a rather preposterous consequence, though. It has nothing to do with the destruction of anyone's choices but rather with the rejection that there is an intrinsic quality in art.


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## TwoFlutesOneTrumpet

hammeredklavier said:


> Similarly, a clown has his means of attracting attention and interest from people. Depending on how talented or skilled he is from the perspective of the audience, he can be considered a genius in what he does, ie. his profession. Likewise, music is, in the end, an abstract combination of sounds. Whether or not something is superficially appealing, sentimental, or over the top, or whatnot, belongs in the realm of subjectivity.


I agree. There is an intrinsic quality in music, though, that lives outside the subjective judgment of the listener.


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## Woodduck

Strange Magic said:


> Precisely so! I prefer Rembrandt but am prepared to accept the consequences of my position. I do not share the aroma of desperation that surrounds those opposed to my viewpoint--people are afraid their choices will be destroyed by my iconoclasm.


I think the posited aroma of desperation and the supposed fear that your iconoclasm (is that what it is?) will destroy anyone's convictions are both things you've imagined or invented. I can't speak confidently for others, but I can say without hesitation that I have never feared the invalidation of my aesthetic judgments. I have occasionally altered them in the light of fresh insights, but never as a result of intimidation by either experts or those suspicious of expertise. I knew in my teens that Beethoven's late quartets were about as good as music gets, that Bach's b-minor mass occupied a rarefied summit in the choral literature, and that Wagner's operas are works of immense genius, and nearly sixty years of listening to, and loving, music of all sorts has left those judgments virtually intact. I listen to those things rarely now, but when I return to them the reasons for my esteem are no less obvious than ever.

Like you, I prefer Rembrandt to Ingres, but I would question your description of the latter's work as kitsch. First, I don't think anyone who believes that any person's aesthetic judgments are as good as any other's should use such a value-laden term, especially one with negative implications suggesting criticism of others' tastes. Second, I don't think Ingres' sensibility is for the most part kitschy. Kitsch is not so cool and impersonal, and it's rarely so technically virtuosic and refined. HIs work is mostly portraiture, and it was designed to be at once precise and flattering. We may - and I do - consider that objective to be profoundly shallow compared to Rembrandt's psychological penetration, but unlike you I have no objection to calling it a sign of artistic inferiority. Quality in art resides in what is expressed as well as how skilfully it's expressed. Those who prefer Ingres to Rembrandt - or the abovementioned stick figure to Rembrandt - are entitled to their preference, and may explain it, or not explain it, however they like. I remain confident, unintimidated by anyone's iconoclasm, in calling Rembrandt a greater artist. As for devotees of stick men - well, they'll grow up. Or not.


----------



## 59540

> but I would question your description of the latter's work as kitsch. First, I don't think anyone who believes that any person's aesthetic judgments are as good as any other's should use such a value-laden term, especially one with negative implications suggesting criticism of others' tastes.


 I didn't catch that one. Ouch! Those value-judgement habits are apparently hard to break. And anyway kitschy compared to...? I smell a...hierarchy!


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## Strange Magic

> *Woodduck:* but I would question your description of the latter's work as kitsch. First, I don't think anyone who believes that any person's aesthetic judgments are as good as any other's should use such a value-laden term, especially one with negative implications suggesting criticism of others' tastes.


You seem to hold the view, somehow, that I regard all art as equal in my own mind. Nothing could be further from the truth--my mind positively seethes with judgments and opinions that are mine. My notions of esthetics allows for the maximum of personal valuation of art, but you must admit that I very very rarely voice my negative judgments. For Ingres and kitsch, I make an exception.


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## Strange Magic

dissident said:


> I didn't catch that one. Ouch! Those value-judgement habits are apparently hard to break. And anyway kitschy compared to...? I smell a...hierarchy!


Kitsch as compared to Rembrandt, say. Almost as kitsch as Thomas Kinkade You will think of other examples.


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## Strange Magic

Woodduck said:


> I think the posited aroma of desperation and the supposed fear that your iconoclasm (is that what it is?) will destroy anyone's convictions are both things you've imagined or invented. I can't speak confidently for others, but I can say without hesitation that I have never feared the invalidation of my aesthetic judgments. I have occasionally altered them in the light of fresh insights, but never as a result of intimidation by either experts or those suspicious of expertise. I knew in my teens that Beethoven's late quartets were about as good as music gets, that Bach's b-minor mass occupied a rarefied summit in the choral literature, and that Wagner's operas are works of immense genius, and nearly sixty years of listening to, and loving, music of all sorts has left those judgments virtually intact. I listen to those things rarely now, but when I return to them the reasons for my esteem are no less obvious than ever.
> 
> Like you, I prefer Rembrandt to Ingres, but I would question your description of the latter's work as kitsch. First, I don't think anyone who believes that any person's aesthetic judgments are as good as any other's should use such a value-laden term, especially one with negative implications suggesting criticism of others' tastes. Second, I don't think Ingres' sensibility is for the most part kitschy. Kitsch is not so cool and impersonal, and it's rarely so technically virtuosic and refined. HIs work is mostly portraiture, and it was designed to be at once precise and flattering. We may - and I do - consider that objective to be profoundly shallow compared to Rembrandt's psychological penetration, but unlike you I have no objection to calling it a sign of artistic inferiority. Quality in art resides in what is expressed as well as how skilfully it's expressed. Those who prefer Ingres to Rembrandt - or the abovementioned stick figure to Rembrandt - are entitled to their preference, and may explain it, or not explain it, however they like. I remain confident, unintimidated by anyone's iconoclasm, in calling Rembrandt a greater artist. As for devotees of stick men - well, they'll grow up. Or not.


One can only agree with much of the above post but it does nor deal with the central issue, though the reaction to my notions of seeking outside validation seems to trouble some others, but not you. Amen.


----------



## Woodduck

Strange Magic said:


> *You seem to hold the view, somehow, that I regard all art as equal in my own mind. * Nothing could be further from the truth--my mind positively seethes with judgments and opinions that are mine. My notions of esthetics allows for the maximum of personal valuation of art, but you must admit that I very very rarely voice my negative judgments. For Ingres and kitsch, I make an exception.


Not at all! I know you don't. That's what's interesting. We both hold, in our own minds, some art to be superior. The difference seems to be that I think some art actually is, while you think that's just a feeling that you can somehow transmute into the language of fact.

Sounds like religion, Mr. Scientist!

BTW, I don't often express negative judgments of art either. I have no desire to rain on anyone's parade - and who cares what I think of Ethelbert Nevin anyway?


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## Woodduck

Strange Magic said:


> Kitsch as compared to Rembrandt, say. Almost as kitsch as Thomas Kinkade You will think of other examples.


Poor Ingres! Does such a master craftsman really merit the worst insult you can pummel him with?

I find Ingres much bigger than Kincaide, and to see him as kitsch we have to miss his deeper nature. Think of his works as abstractions from reality by a cold, calculating mind, fascinating for the creepy, almost psychopathic vacuity behind his perfectly composed faces. Any kitschiness we perceive is incidental to the radicalness of an unwholesome vision, the product of a repressed and fractured psyche. Kitsch, by contrast, is generally healthy and tries to appeal to our positive feelings, but does so in a way that seems incompetent, crude, shallow and embarrassing. Ingres boldly eschews any such appeal, and so avoids the amusing embarrassment of failing at it. There's a perverse genius in that. Kincaide is neither genius nor perverse, but profoundly incompetent and laughably common to an almost incomparable degree. (He may, of course, simply be having one on us, purposely producing outrageous kitsch that convinces hordes of buyers that he speaks for their deepest souls. Maybe his success reveals a genius of a kind most lousy artists can't even dream of.)


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## Forster

Woodduck said:


> [...]
> What is helpful and accurate is to ask what there is about the music that justifies the attribution of greatness to it. One extreme answer to this question is that nothing can justify doing so, that greatness - or any judgment of quality - can never properly be attributed to art, that the nearest we can come to legitimizing such terms is to recognize that an artist has done some specific thing well, while keeping in mind that doing one sort of thing well is just as artistiscally meaningful and impressive as doing any other thing well, and that all other assessments of quality or value are matters of individual or collective taste. Thus a stick man which perfectly renders every feature necessary to a stick man is not artistically inferior to Bernini's _David,_ and is only considered to be so, carelessly, by cultural snobs who think that what the sculptor of the _David_ is doing is more intrinsically interesting or admirable than what the maker of the stick man is doing.
> [...]
> Of course that isn't an explanation, either of why popular music is more popular, or of why classical music's greatest achievements have reached artistic levels considered higher. I'll suggest that opposing popular to classical music is unnecessary and likely to obfuscate things further. There are many categories of music, but the questions at issue apply to all of them.


You asked me a question earlier, but to answer it now would seem to turn the discussion back unnecessarily. Instead, I'll just observe that while _I'm _very happy with these points, not everyone on the 'objective' side of the debate will be.

There are those here who wish to debate this issue to the nth degree (that is, at length within a thread and over time over a number of related threads) perhaps _because _the matter is not amenable to a simple resolution, but at any rate, because they find the topic of, shall we say 'abstract' interest. They might also read books about it and take a deep interest in matters of aesthetics.

There are others here who are wedded to their views and only wish to debate so far as it will prove their opinion to be a Universal Truth - that Bach or Cage or Carter or whoever is the Supreme Being and is so because of the intrinsic worth of his mighty compositions; not because of mere popularity; not just because of an establishment truth handed down over the years; not because he is the best of just the classical genre...

The reason this debate happens on a regular basis (and which the stalwarts tend to find tiresome) is not because no-one can agree a position, but partly because new people happen along who've not had the debate before; and partly because the prevailing view across, I would say, the majority of threads, is that there is an _absolute _hierarchy from sublime to crap, and this needs either reasserting or rebutting from time to time. Indeed, there is an explicit TC thread to establish a hierarchy which some enjoy debating for fun and others enjoy debating because they want to get it _right_.



Woodduck said:


> Well, you're really talking to the wrong person. I don't participate in compiling lists and rankings. The only value of such discussions is in the possibility of sharpening our perception and appreciation of things.


And that's fine for me too. I join these discussions because when there is someone "wrong" on the internet, I like to put in my two penn'orth. Not because I am wedded to an absolutist, extreme subjective viewpoint which must be asserted, but because I enjoy the opportunity to turn the issue over and test what I think (which includes taking on those who have the "extreme objective viewpoint"). That said, I have my own temporary hierarchy which is simply of works - classical, rock, pop, etc - that have enduring value for me, regardless of what value it has for others. I fully expect that more pop/rock will be played at my funeral than classical, but that suits me - it's not a statement about the relative intrinsic merits of the music.

I just wish that there weren't so many members here who would think it is, and despair.


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## Waehnen

TwoFlutesOneTrumpet said:


> @Strange Magic
> 
> Is it your claim that there is no objective measure by which we can judge one of the below pictures to be greater than the other? I can claim that the stick man is a better work of art than the Mona Lisa and you'd take this claim seriously?
> 
> View attachment 167052
> View attachment 167056


So it would seem now that the following is not accepted by everyone on TC as the generally accepted best way of having a conversation.

*Person 1:* "I think La Gioconda is generally agreed to be a greater piece of art than the Stick Man".

*Person 2: *"That is just your opinion. We have talked about this a lot on TC."

If I ever encounter a conversation like that again, I will refer to this thread. Thanks everyone!


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## Woodduck

Forster said:


> You asked me a question earlier, but to answer it now would seem to turn the discussion back unnecessarily. Instead, I'll just observe that while _I'm _very happy with these points, not everyone on the 'objective' side of the debate will be.
> 
> There are those here who wish to debate this issue to the nth degree (that is, at length within a thread and over time over a number of related threads) perhaps _because _the matter is not amenable to a simple resolution, but at any rate, because they find the topic of, shall we say 'abstract' interest. They might also read books about it and take a deep interest in matters of aesthetics.
> 
> There are others here who are wedded to their views and only wish to debate so far as it will prove their opinion to be a Universal Truth - that Bach or Cage or Carter or whoever is the Supreme Being and is so because of the intrinsic worth of his mighty compositions; not because of mere popularity; not just because of an establishment truth handed down over the years; not because he is the best of just the classical genre...
> 
> The reason this debate happens on a regular basis (and which the stalwarts tend to find tiresome) is not because no-one can agree a position, but partly because new people happen along who've not had the debate before; and partly because the prevailing view across, I would say, the majority of threads, is that there is an _absolute _hierarchy from sublime to crap, and this needs either reasserting or rebutting from time to time. Indeed, there is an explicit TC thread to establish a hierarchy which some enjoy debating for fun and others enjoy debating because they want to get it _right_.
> 
> 
> 
> And that's fine for me too. I join these discussions because when there is someone "wrong" on the internet, I like to put in my two penn'orth. Not because I am wedded to an absolutist, extreme subjective viewpoint which must be asserted, but because I enjoy the opportunity to turn the issue over and test what I think (which includes taking on those who have the "extreme objective viewpoint"). That said, I have my own temporary hierarchy which is simply of works - classical, rock, pop, etc - that have enduring value for me, regardless of what value it has for others. I fully expect that more pop/rock will be played at my funeral than classical, but that suits me - it's not a statement about the relative intrinsic merits of the music.
> 
> I just wish that there weren't so many members here who would think it is, and despair.


I'm only vaguely aware of the folks you talk about and their obsession - if such it is - with knowing what's better and what's best. Rating and ranking seems to be normal and widespread human behavior, so I don't resent or worry about those who like to do it, but I have little interest in threads where it goes on. Lately we've been comparing singers over in the opera forum, having singers "compete" in the same music, and everyone seems to understand that excellence comes in many forms that aren't directly comparable and that our preferences are just that, no matter how we justify them. Competition thus becomes not an end in itself but a way of gaining exposure and insight, and those of us who participate are grateful for the experience. A number of us have attested to a growth in our understanding of singing and what makes it good or bad. Yes, we do believe there is such a thing as good singing! But we also see that not all good singing is good in the same ways.

In the present rather challenging debates about aesthetic value, I see little to none of the essentially juvenile mentality that needs to rank everything, and I don't find, or recognize, anyone here with an "extreme objective viewpoint," if you mean a viewpoint that denies any meaningful subjective contribution to our evaluations of art. I myself come back to this subject from time to time, mostly because as a lifelong practicing creative artist and musical performer I have personal experience of making artistic judgments that have direct consequences for me, and because I enjoy thinking and talking about the process and fancy I can do so in a perceptive way on the basis of experience that not everyone shares. 

It's interesting to me to observe that in the process of trying to describe artistic judgement, how it works and what it means, I have to make many judgments of an aesthetic nature, which has the pleasantly affirming effect of demonstrating to me the very points I'm making. That there really are better and worse artistic products is something no real artist has ever doubted. It's unfortunate that the implications of that - or what are imagined to be its implications - make some people uncomfortable.


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## Waehnen

Woodduck said:


> I'm only vaguely aware of the folks you talk about and their obsession - if such it is - with knowing what's better and what's best. Rating and ranking seems to be normal and widespread human behavior, so I don't resent or worry about those who like to do it, but I have little interest in threads where it goes on. Lately we've been comparing singers over in the opera forum, having singers "compete" in the same music, and everyone seems to understand that excellence comes in many forms that aren't directly comparable and that our preferences are just that, no matter how we justify them. Competition thus becomes not an end in itself but a way of gaining exposure and insight, and those of us who participate are grateful for the experience. A number of us have attested to a growth in our understanding of singing and what makes it good or bad. Yes, we do believe there is such a thing as good singing! But we also see that not all good singing is good in the same ways.
> 
> In the present rather challenging debates about aesthetic value, I see little to none of the essentially juvenile mentality that needs to rank everything, and I don't find, or recognize, anyone here with an "extreme objective viewpoint," if you mean a viewpoint that denies any meaningful subjective contribution to our evaluations of art. I myself come back to this subject from time to time, mostly because as a lifelong practicing creative artist and musical performer I have personal experience of making artistic judgments that have direct consequences for me, and because I enjoy thinking and talking about the process and fancy I can do so in a perceptive way on the basis of experience that not everyone shares.
> 
> It's interesting to me to observe that in the process of trying to describe artistic judgement, how it works and what it means, I have to make many judgments of an aesthetic nature, which has the pleasantly affirming effect of demonstrating to me the very points I'm making. That there really are better and worse artistic products is something no real artist has ever doubted. It's unfortunate that the implications of that - or what are imagined to be its implications - make some people uncomfortable.


Excellent post. It sums up also my position.

Although I do believe there is art that represents certain rather generally accepted artistic and aesthetic values, principles and systems better than some other art, I really have no need to rank stuff.

I really do not have the need, will nor the skill to rank everything. After some line ranking also really becomes objectively impossible. But we have to be able to talk about the quality and skill in music and music making also as something else than just mere opinions.

Of course as a composer I get inspired by certain works and hold them closer — and will try to analyze just what is it about them that strikes me. And what it is about some other works that annoy me. But that is not compulsive ranking.


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## Strange Magic

There is no question that there exist gradations of the value of art and of the means of establishing those gradations. All my position does is to bring this function down to the precise level where it is truly operative, the individual. Thus, the removal of the evaluating, judging function from A) the global population, B) special and distinct populations, and C) clusters of Experts and Enthusiasts, and instead imbuing each individual--unique, _sui generis_--with the power and the responsibility for evaluating art. This is unlike science--sometimes derided here even on TC--which depends upon the final coherence of views amid a mass of data points to arrive asymptotically to a closer understand of the real world. In art we are (all) free, and our opinions and judgments are of unique value to ourselves whether shared with others or not. Most/all individual choices and values will be shared with others, will form clusters of agreement, yet the totality of any one person's full body of what works for them as art will be unmatched by anyone else; we are uniquely who we are. I bring autonomy, validity, self-worth, confidence in one's choices into the hands of all, individually. We are all free to judge art in a way totally at variance with our ability to judge science, where one's opinions are finally subject to the realities of the natural world.

i hope this will clarify my position. I will cheerfully allow that I do find this never-ending discussion to be quite enjoyable from my perspective. I feel like the Three Musketeers and D'Artagnon rolled into one. I mean no harm to others, and my views detract nothing from the enthusiasm of others, despite fears to the contrary. Art is human construct that does not arrive at truly universal truths, despite the assertions of such advocates for its universal, inherent objectivity. I have made my position clear over my tenure here at TC, and wonder at the ongoing surprise, if any, that one could hold such views as myself.


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## Waehnen

Strange Magic said:


> There is no question that there exist gradations of the value of art and of the means of establishing those gradations. All my position does is to bring this function down to the precise level where it is truly operative, the individual. Thus, the removal of the evaluating, judging function from A) the global population, B) special and distinct populations, and C) clusters of Experts and Enthusiasts, and instead imbuing each individual--unique, _sui generis_--with the power and the responsibility for evaluating art. This is unlike science--sometimes derided here even on TC--which depends upon the final coherence of views amid a mass of data points to arrive asymptotically to a closer understand of the real world. In art we are (all) free, and our opinions and judgments are of unique value to ourselves whether shared with others or not. Most/all individual choices and values will be shared with others, will form clusters of agreement, yet the totality of any one person's full body of what works for them as art will be unmatched by anyone else; we are uniquely who we are. I bring autonomy, validity, self-worth, confidence in one's choices into the hands of all, individually. We are all free to judge art in a way totally at variance with our ability to judge science, where one's opinions are finally subject to the realities of the natural world.
> 
> i hope this will clarify my position. I will cheerfully allow that I do find this never-ending discussion to be quite enjoyable from my perspective. I feel like the Three Musketeers and D'Artagnon rolled into one. I mean no harm to others, and my views detract nothing from the enthusiasm of others, despite fears to the contrary. Art is human construct that does not arrive at truly universal truths, despite the assertions of such advocates for its universal, inherent objectivity. I have made my position clear over my tenure here at TC, and wonder at the ongoing surprise, if any, that one could hold such views as myself.


I am happy to acknowledge your position as ONE valid and well articulated point in the field of music, and an especially useful one for enthusiastic listeners.

It hardly needs to be stated anymore that many of us have OTHER points as well which are also as valid and as necessary. You get this, right?


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## Strange Magic

Waehnen said:


> I am happy to acknowledge your position as ONE valid and well articulated point in the field of music, and an especially useful one for enthusiastic listeners.
> 
> It hardly needs to be stated anymore that many of us have OTHER points as well which are also as valid and as necessary. You get this, right?


If one holds all beliefs to be equally valid, then you are correct--other points of view are equally valid. I do not so hold. I believe that certain theses have been so universally demonstrated to be in congruence with the physical world that to hold a contrary view is to be steeped in Error. The Earth is not a cube, nor does the sun circle it. Evolution exists. Earth is 4.something billion years old. Etc. Art and views on art are very different from the aforesaid in that they are entirely human mental constructs--there is no art in the natural world, only objects existing, waiting to be valued by the human mind. Art springs out of our own minds and exists only there, and not in the products that are created.


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## Waehnen

DELETED, THERE IS ANOTHER POST LATER IN THE THREAD.


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## hammeredklavier

Strange Magic said:


> My notions of esthetics allows for the maximum of personal valuation of art, but you must admit that I very very rarely voice my negative judgments. For Ingres and kitsch, I make an exception.


And there is this, which you've expressed a number of times on the forum:


Strange Magic said:


> Regarding relative merit and quality, I would rather listen to Bob Dylan singing any one of dozens of songs than to any number of empty, long-winded, gaseous late 19th or early 20th century symphonies.


I also wonder, btw, why can't we single out Mahler's symphonies (I'm not necessarily saying they fit the description above) in this thread, with statements like:

_"the level of dismissiveness required to refuse to acknowledge the magnitude of artistic achievement in the language of Western music represented by *Mahler's symphonies* is mind-boggling."_

They somehow don't deserve to be put on this pedestal according to the 'objectivitists' here, according to their Universal Laws of Objective Value?


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## Roger Knox

DaveM said:


> I had understood that since Strange Magic had agreed that there was objectivity in the judgment of classical works and composers, this subject was closed.





Woodduck said:


> I think the posited aroma of desperation and the supposed fear that your iconoclasm (is that what it is?) will destroy anyone's convictions are both things you've imagined or invented. I can't speak confidently for others, but I can say without hesitation that I have never feared the invalidation of my aesthetic judgments. I have occasionally altered them in the light of fresh insights, but never as a result of intimidation by either experts or those suspicious of expertise. I knew in my teens that Beethoven's late quartets were about as good as music gets, that Bach's b-minor mass occupied a rarefied summit in the choral literature, and that Wagner's operas are works of immense genius, and nearly sixty years of listening to, and loving, music of all sorts has left those judgments virtually intact. I listen to those things rarely now, but when I return to them the reasons for my esteem are no less obvious than ever.
> 
> Like you, I prefer Rembrandt to Ingres, but I would question your description of the latter's work as kitsch. First, I don't think anyone who believes that any person's aesthetic judgments are as good as any other's should use such a value-laden term, especially one with negative implications suggesting criticism of others' tastes. Second, I don't think Ingres' sensibility is for the most part kitschy. Kitsch is not so cool and impersonal, and it's rarely so technically virtuosic and refined. HIs work is mostly portraiture, and it was designed to be at once precise and flattering. We may - and I do - consider that objective to be profoundly shallow compared to Rembrandt's psychological penetration, but unlike you I have no objection to calling it a sign of artistic inferiority. Quality in art resides in what is expressed as well as how skilfully it's expressed. Those who prefer Ingres to Rembrandt - or the abovementioned stick figure to Rembrandt - are entitled to their preference, and may explain it, or not explain it, however they like. I remain confident, unintimidated by anyone's iconoclasm, in calling Rembrandt a greater artist. As for devotees of stick men - well, they'll grow up. Or not.


I trust that I will be able to continue using words like beauty, greatness, quality, craft without having the subjective/objective issue hanging over my head. Making substantive judgments concerning composers, works, and performances is a part of what we are here for as can be seen by glancing through a number of Talk Classical forums. Over the years a wealth of informed commentary has developed here. And that is almost nothing compared to the immense amount of original knowledge and insight about classical music that has accumulated over the ages. 

If some wish to continue themselves with a narrow focus on subjectivity and objectivity, it would be helpful to know if there is philosophy forum where it is possible to connect with experts in that area?


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## Waehnen

hammeredklavier said:


> I also wonder, btw, why can't we single out Mahler's symphonies (I'm not necessarily saying they fit the description above) in this thread, with statements like:
> 
> _"the level of dismissiveness required to refuse to acknowledge the magnitude of artistic achievement in the language of Western music represented by *Mahler's symphonies* is mind-boggling."_
> 
> They somehow don't deserve to be put on this pedestal according to the 'objectivitists' here, according to their Universal Laws of Objective Value?


Are you expecting some of us to consider ourselves "objectivists" who would possess "Universal Laws of Objective Value"? And of whom it would be honest to admit that the aim of all this has been to prove that objectively Mahler is the absolute pinnacle of Western music? And that everyone objecting to this are subjectivists who can be considered really bad listeners and who just do not have a valid right to dislike Mahler?

If there are this kind of fears and attitudes in the TC community, then I am worried.


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## DaveM

Strange Magic said:


> I feel like the Three Musketeers and D'Artagnon rolled into one. ..


I think of you as the Man in the Iron Mask and we are the 3 Musketeers and D’Artagnon trying to save you.  And this is (perhaps objectively ) one of the great movie themes:


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## justekaia

Woodduck said:


> No, it is not all just opinion. Not ALL...
> 
> The problem with the "all artistic values are subjective" theory is that it fails to recognize that works of art - like other things - succeed or fail, not merely according to standards of "taste" applied by audiences, but by their own standards. Perhaps the most essential perception in judging a work of art is the perception of what it is trying to be, and perhaps the highest praise we can give a work is that in trying to be something strong, rich, challenging, or original it has carried out its intended idea with consistency and force. Obviously the artist is best positioned to know how well he has succeeded by that standard - he alone knows fully his intent - but works are acclaimed in no small part when the artist has succeeded in communicating a clear intention - a clear vision or concept - by carrying out its expression in a way that coheres and reinforces itself. Coherence - clarity of purpose, consistency of idea, and the appropriateness of means to ends - are admirable not merely as abstract ideals but as crucial conditions of effective aesthetic expression. And - essential to this discussion - they can to a great extent be perceived and are not simply matters of "opinion." That we do perceive them is a principal reason why certain works of music survive and give pleasure for centuries while others are forgotten. They are forgotten because, failing to make a cohesive appeal to our faculties of aesthetic perception and impress us with strong ideas tightly argued, they are intrinsically forgettable (or worse). Works that succeed in these things represent extraordinary achievements by extraordinary creative minds and rightly acquire reputations for superiority.
> 
> There are right and wrong, better and worse. decisions an artist can make as he makes the thousands of choices that confront him in the act of creation. What is wonderful for us, his audience, is that we have the power to intuit the appropriateness of his choices and to feel a profound pleasure at the results of his success - as well as a profound indifference or distaste at the results of his failures.


the things you mention about purpose, ideas, appropriate means are what i consider to be the intrinsic value of a work of art. i would add some elements that i believe are important to assess value like originality, historical context and perhaps also a certain amount of readability (otherwise your 3 elements can not be perceived by the audience). a subject that is of great interest to me in the visual arts is the debate whether you should do research, talk with artists and critics before you see or judge art works. some people believe it limits the possibilities, different meanings or interpretations the audience can attribute to an artwork. ideally you should have your own raw opinion first and then enrich it by research and contacts. contrary to many tc members i am very interested by the genesis, sources of inspiration and content of musical works and also by the personality of the composer. just enjoying the sound satisfies the ears but not the mind.


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## Waehnen

Strange Magic said:


> -there is no art in the natural world, only objects existing, waiting to be valued by the human mind. Art springs out of our own minds and exists only there, and not in the products that are created.


Do you think a mountain does exist in the natural world but a fugue by a Bach does not exist in the natural world? If you think an art object exists only in the perceiver´s mind then logically a mountain also exists only in the perceiver´s mind.

Nevertheless we live in a world where we need to take into consideration that mountains exist and sometimes we need to move around them if we do not wish to climb them. Similar thing with art objects: you cannot play a Bach fugue on the piano without a physical piano or without practicing your playing. Should you also want someone to be interested in your Bach playing, it would also help to get some teaching or getting to know the tradition of Bach playing, and how the musical community (where the Bach fugue is performed) is organized.

You will get nowhere either climbing the mountain or playing the Bach if you just repeat: "This is just an opinion in the perceivers mind, this is just an opinion in the perceivers mind..."

I sense some really illogical ontology here to be frank. It seems to be suitable only to mentally defend a listener who feels their listening preferences is threatened by some assumed objectivist elitists.


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## Woodduck

Strange Magic said:


> There is no question that there exist gradations of the value of art and of the means of establishing those gradations. All my position does is to bring this function down to the precise level where it is truly operative, the individual. Thus, the removal of the evaluating, judging function from A) the global population, B) special and distinct populations, and C) clusters of Experts and Enthusiasts, and instead imbuing each individual--unique, _sui generis_--with the power and the responsibility for evaluating art.


I've been debating this subject with you for a long time, and I have to say that the above does not sound like the position of someone who acts as if he is debating me. If your first sentence is true then we have no debate. 

For the rest, I don't think you're fully describing how art is "truly operative" in the world. Despite the extreme atomization of modern life - loneliness is now a major cause of premature death - art still functions as a social product, and how it's collectively experienced, judged and propagated is still important at every level. This is particularly true of music; although we can all sit at home listening to our recordings or playing our pianos, it isn't, for the most part,"the individual" who decides what music gets programmed or recorded and who gets to perform it, or even, in many cases, who can afford to attend the symphony or opera to hear it. It's also true that any individual wishing to obtain a profound knowledge of music, classical music especially, has an important collective - the 'experts' you deride - to thank for much of what he or she learns. I know that in my early years as a lover and student of music my encounters with the opinions of those with far greater knowledge than my own were not only highly stimulating but formative. 

In affirming that art has more than individual significance I'm not remotely suggesting that anyone's personal taste in music should be subordinated in any confrontation with any so-called consensus, but then I don't know anyone who actually advocates that kind of self-abnegation. I'm sure such humble souls exist, but I for one have no interest in debating them, and I'm surprised that arguing against them seems to you a worthwhile activity.


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## hammeredklavier

> Michael Haydn


"I find it unfair that an "indecent pot-boiler" like Cosi fan tutte survived, while stuff like the "proto-Schubertian" pastoral poem, Die Hochzeit auf der Alm with its later added supplemental music and its "anthem of fidelity" and Die Ährenleserin did not. I find the dramatic structure of this Dzmj8lRLHh0&t=10m43s Dies irae (which integrates the Lacrimosa) more interesting than the one from Mozart's sketchy requiem. I find that none of Mozart's symphonies before No.31 are as "mature" as watch?v=e8ba5g_jF5M , watch?v=v80s4yjSdQM , watch?v=ppTToo8lrMQ " (and so on..)

Of course, I don't hold these opinions, but in a "parallel world" where Mozart's certain contemporaries get as much exposure as him, there could be people holding them. There's no unversal law of objective value that somehow exempts Mozart from these accusations; he isn't somehow on a higher plane than them; that's just an illusion we've created in our minds.


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## DaveM

hammeredklavier said:


> "I find it unfair that an "indecent pot-boiler" like Cosi fan tutte survived, while stuff like the "proto-Schubertian" pastoral poem, Die Hochzeit auf der Alm with its later added supplemental music and its "anthem of fidelity" and Die Ährenleserin did not. I find the dramatic structure of this Dzmj8lRLHh0&t=10m43s Dies irae (which integrates the Lacrimosa) more interesting than the one from Mozart's sketchy requiem. I find that none of Mozart's symphonies before No.31 are as "mature" as watch?v=e8ba5g_jF5M , watch?v=v80s4yjSdQM , watch?v=ppTToo8lrMQ " (and so on..)
> 
> Of course, I don't hold these opinions, but in a "parallel world" where Mozart's certain contemporaries get just as much exposure as him; there "could be" people holding them. There's no unversal law of objective value that somehow exempts Mozart from these criticisms; he isn't somehow on a higher plane than them; that's just an illusion we've created in our minds.


Well, unless I’m misunderstanding, you seem to be playing both ends against the middle. You say you ‘don’t hold these opinions’, but your final sentence suggests otherwise.


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## Strange Magic

> Waehnen, post: 2294539, member: 60476"]
> OK, so you do think that only your point is valid and worth repeating and implementing on fellow forumists. Good to have that one cleared although I am disappointed. Nervertheless, I wish you all the best! ☺


You confuse two concepts. All are free to hold and express whatever views they have. But in a matter such as discussed here, therm can be only one correct viewpoint. Just like the fact that the earth is not a cube. Everyone has a right to have and express an opinion but not everyone can be right (though everyone is right in whatever valuation they put on art). I hold that the evidence for the complete subjectivity of art is irrefutable and thus have no need or requirement to compromise my position.


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## Strange Magic

^^^^@Woodduck: I agree with the bulk of your post #125 above, but as usual with our posts, we fail to fully understand one another. Minor example: how to interpret your statement; "If your first sentence is true then we have no debate". Is this A) that we are in perfect agreement, or B) that we cannot debate these issues; that I have somehow blocked the possibility of debate. An ambiguity. And C) I think you have yet to grasp the central point that I have attempted to have others understand--that art is entirely a human construct and has no meaning or existence in the external world--as art--unless there is human intervention to energize, vitalize, actualize it. In a sense, my position is a variant of Bishop Berkeley's curious thesis that to be is to be perceived in the one instance where his notion is correct. Our friend Waehnen, who is responsible for this whole thread by bringing out our easy weakness in discussing again this topic for the 47th time, tells me that a Bach fugue exists as a physical object, touting this as a refutation of my position of pure subjectivity of art. It would be folly to deny that said fugue exists as writing on a piece of paper, or as sound waves when rendered as such, or that a Bernini statue exists. But with no one to perceive it as such, as art, it has no existence as art. it is a variant of the well-worn notion that if a tree falls in the forest and there is no entity to hear it, does it make a noise? 
As I indicated, all of your other points are true and good--the useful role of experts, the availability of a collective, your remarks about who gets to program, what gets programmed, who can afford,etc.--all well and good. But, again, this does not deal with the issue at hand, to my understanding.


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## Strange Magic

Waehnen said:


> Do you think a mountain does exist in the natural world but a fugue by a Bach does not exist in the natural world? If you think an art object exists only in the perceiver´s mind then logically a mountain also exists only in the perceiver´s mind.
> 
> Nevertheless we live in a world where we need to take into consideration that mountains exist and sometimes we need to move around them if we do not wish to climb them. Similar thing with art objects: you cannot play a Bach fugue on the piano without a physical piano or without practicing your playing. Should you also want someone to be interested in your Bach playing, it would also help to get some teaching or getting to know the tradition of Bach playing, and how the musical community (where the Bach fugue is performed) is organized.
> 
> You will get nowhere either climbing the mountain or playing the Bach if you just repeat: "This is just an opinion in the perceivers mind, this is just an opinion in the perceivers mind..."
> 
> I sense some really illogical ontology here to be frank. It seems to be suitable only to mentally defend a listener who feels their listening preferences is threatened by some assumed objectivist elitists.


See my reply to Woodduck. Being defensive is not part of my nature as the mods will tell you. Nor is feeling threatened by tastes other than my own. And I repeat my mantra about art=opinion because I believe it to be a correct view: Here I Stand. You seem to be looking always for some middle ground halfway between Y and Z--Some say (let's postulate) that the earth is a cube; others that it is a sphere. Is your answer then that the earth is a cube with quite rounded corners and edges? I think not.


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## 59540

hammeredklavier said:


> "I find it unfair that an "indecent pot-boiler" like Cosi fan tutte survived, while stuff like the "proto-Schubertian" pastoral poem, Die Hochzeit auf der Alm with its later added supplemental music and its "anthem of fidelity" and Die Ährenleserin did not. ...


I don't understand. If the one survived and the other didn't, how can you compare...


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## Strange Magic

DaveM said:


> I think of you as the Man in the Iron Mask and we are the 3 Musketeers and D’Artagnon trying to save you.  And this is (perhaps objectively ) one of the great movie themes:


I want the cover art painted by both Ingres and Rembrandt!


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## Woodduck

Strange Magic said:


> ^^^^@Woodduck: I agree with the bulk of your post #125 above, but as usual with our posts, we fail to fully understand one another. Minor example: how to interpret your statement; "If your first sentence is true then we have no debate". Is this A) that we are in perfect agreement, or B) that we cannot debate these issues; that I have somehow blocked the possibility of debate. An ambiguity. And C)* I think you have yet to grasp the central point that I have attempted to have others understand--that art is entirely a human construct and has no meaning or existence in the external world--as art--unless there is human intervention to energize, vitalize, actualize it.* In a sense, my position is a variant of Bishop Berkeley's curious thesis that to be is to be perceived in the one instance where his notion is correct. Our friend Waehnen, who is responsible for this whole thread by bringing out our easy weakness in discussing again this topic for the 47th time, tells me that a Bach fugue exists as a physical object, touting this as a refutation of my position of pure subjectivity of art. It would be folly to deny that said fugue exists as writing on a piece of paper, or as sound waves when rendered as such, or that a Bernini statue exists. But with no one to perceive it as such, as art, it has no existence as art. it is a variant of the well-worn notion that if a tree falls in the forest and there is no entity to hear it, does it make a noise?
> As I indicated, all of your other points are true and good--the useful role of experts, the availability of a collective, your remarks about who gets to program, what gets programmed, who can afford,etc.--all well and good. But, again, this does not deal with the issue at hand, to my understanding.


I extract the following as your attempt to clarify "the central point [you] have attempted to have others understand":

*"art is entirely a human construct and has no meaning or existence in the external world--as art--unless there is human intervention to energize, vitalize, actualize it."*

I'm afraid that statement is not as clarifying as you may think it is. In fact I think it's terribly ambiguous. Art has no existence in the external world? What is filling the walls of museums and the shelves of libraries? Into what world did art emerge, if not the external one, when a painter or writer put his ideas onto canvas or paper? What do you mean by "as art"? By "intervention"? By "energize," "vitalize," "actualize"?

I have to assume that all of that means something more than "if a tree falls in the forest", etc. As far as that's concerned, I can't speak for anyone else here, but I'm sure I've never argued that music is communicating any meaning when it isn't audible, with no one to hear it. That seems so obvious, so epistemically elementary, as to be not worth mentioning, much less debating. I'm sure I've never debated it, and if you've imagined that I have I'd be curious to have my own statements to that effect read back to me. But it does not follow that art has no meaning except during the process of being heard or viewed. Nor does it follow that all worthwhile judgments about the meaning and quality of a piece of music are private, or that all private judgments about a painting or poem represent equally valid understandings of it. Moreover, it does not follow that there are no controlling factors inherent in the artwork and in the human mind that guide and place limits on reasonable interpretation. An Ingres portrait and a Rembrandt portrait cannot legitimately mean the same thing, no matter how drunk or insane the "sovereign individual" looking at them. Rembrandt and Ingres were very different individuals who have both mastered their craft sufficiently to make their differences abundantly clear, and their works contain a wealth of information about who the artists are and what they're trying to communicate. Our personal, individual responses to their work, however eccentric or bizarre, may matter more to us than what anyone else can tell us about them, but those paintings contain what they contain and not something other, and they are sure as hell "in the external world as art," whether or not we choose to "intervene" and "energize," "vitalize," or "actualize" them.

Our appreciation and enjoyment of art is only the final step in a sequence that began in the mind of the artist, and between his mind and ours stands the work - "as art," in the external world - full of implicit meanings bound up in words, sounds, colors, and ready to divulge those meanings to anyone willing and able to look for them. Are many of those meanings ambiguous, open-ended, suggested rather than defined? Of course. A work of art isn't a dissertaion or a sermon. We are expected to contribute. But we do so best when we're curious and humble, and not infatuated with our sovereign individuality.

It is not so much we who energize, vitalize and actualize art, as art that energizes, vitalizes and actualizes us, in ways we could never dream of. That's what art is for.


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## Luchesi

dissident said:


> I think the current "orthodoxy" would be that if someone subjectively prefers the stick man, then it's "greater". That's the modern dismantling of "art" in a nutshell.


Yes, 'greater' for that numbskull but should anyone else care? People have all kinds of silly and transitory moods and preferences. They're not even understandable..


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## Strange Magic

Luchesi said:


> Yes, 'greater' for that numbskull but should anyone else care? People have all kinds of silly and transitory moods and preferences. They're not even understandable..


My point entirely. Your and my views are our own, and we are free to personally hold any view of the tastes of others as we choose. The danger, if there is one, is that one begins to think that one's own evaluation of artwork is better, superior to another's evaluation (perfectly legitimate)--but beyond that, that people whose tastes are different from ours should be reminded of such, that they are lesser beings, numbskulls, etc. This IMO is a corrosive, negative attitude if widely communicated to others when a simple silence or an explanation that one's tastes are different, but not necessarily better. This is why I almost never disparage the tastes of others but merely state that I am not a member of the audience for which that music or art was intended.

Just a thought.


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## Luchesi

Waehnen said:


> Are you expecting some of us to consider ourselves "objectivists" who would possess "Universal Laws of Objective Value"? And of whom it would be honest to admit that the aim of all this has been to prove that objectively Mahler is the absolute pinnacle of Western music? And that everyone objecting to this are subjectivists who can be considered really bad listeners and who just do not have a valid right to dislike Mahler?
> 
> If there are this kind of fears and attitudes in the TC community, then I am worried.


What do we do when we want to learn/appreciate any serious subject, and save time? We seek the experienced and the knowledgeable. 
You don't have to agree, but the likelihood is that you will eventually agree with (or more fully understand) their objective approach. Whether you end up liking a piece is wholly separate, and isn't predictable.


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## Strange Magic

> *Woodduck;* I'm afraid that statement is not as clarifying as you may think it is. In fact I think it's terribly ambiguous. Art has no existence in the external world? What is filling the walls of museums and the shelves of libraries? Into what world did art emerge, if not the external one, when a painter or writer put his ideas onto canvas or paper? What do you mean by "as art"? By "intervention"? By "energize," "vitalize," "actualize"?


I will attempt to clarify yet again by asking a question: If Bernini's sculpture of David or something very like it is sitting on the planet Thraa, several galaxies away, is it still art or simply just another oddly-shaped rock? "Art" objects so very obviously exist in the physical world that only a wet-lipped idiot would deny it, but they only obtain the status of Art by being perceived as such by human agency. And different perceivers will have different views as to its message, meaning, quality, integrity, some very far from the intention of the artist, if that has been stated by such. Hope this makes sense.

The balance of your post, like much of my of my posting, is a repetition of views we have expressed so many times before. I suggest we focus on music and art we love, knowing that we both derive so much pleasure and solace from the art that we have come to know.


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## 59540

Luchesi said:


> Yes, 'greater' for that numbskull but should anyone else care? People have all kinds of silly and transitory moods and preferences. They're not even understandable..


Maybe people shouldn't care, but there are those who care very deeply if you dare to denigrate -- or even question -- the taste and judgement of Stick Man Fan. If you do, you'll get another round of dog-chasing-tail like this one.


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## 59540

Strange Magic said:


> My point entirely. Your and my views are our own, and we are free to personally hold any view of the tastes of others as we choose. The danger, if there is one, is that one begins to think that one's own evaluation of artwork is better, superior to another's evaluation (perfectly legitimate)--but beyond that, that people whose tastes are different from ours should be reminded of such, that they are lesser beings, numbskulls, etc. This IMO is a corrosive, negative attitude if widely communicated to others when a simple silence or an explanation that one's tastes are different, but not necessarily better. ...


If evaluations of art are all equal, then all art is equal. Leonardo=Stick Man. _That's_ corrosive.


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## DaveM

Strange Magic said:


> My point entirely. Your and my views are our own, and we are free to personally hold any view of the tastes of others as we choose. The danger, if there is one, is that one begins to think that one's own evaluation of artwork is better, superior to another's evaluation (perfectly legitimate)--but beyond that, that people whose tastes are different from ours should be reminded of such, that they are lesser beings, numbskulls, etc. This IMO is a corrosive, negative attitude if widely communicated to others when a simple silence or an explanation that one's tastes are different, but not necessarily better. This is why I almost never disparage the tastes of others but merely state that I am not a member of the audience for which that music or art was intended.


Most of us discussing this are enlightened enough to not denigrate the tastes of others. And, contrary to what you infer by perseverating on the subject, no one (that I know of) is denying that individual tastes are totally subjective.

Speaking only of the CP era music, what you choose to ignore is that when a blueprint for what attracts a cross-section of people develops, an individual taste does not necessarily correlate with the quality of the music or the skill that was required to compose it, but collectively, over time, a consensus does. CP era music developed over centuries and, presumably, composers were challenged to innovate with more complex and sophisticated works to attract and enlarge new audiences. If that didn’t/doesn’t suggest the requirement of objective evidence of skill, then I don’t know what does.

Thus, came the Mozart symphonies, concertos and operas, the Beethoven sonatas, concertos and symphonies, the Chopin piano works, the Wagner operas and so forth. This process was an example of the very best of human creativity at work and to ignore the objective evidence of it is to diminish the accomplishment.


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## Strange Magic

dissident said:


> If evaluations of art are all equal, then all art is equal. Leonardo=Stick Man. _That's_ corrosive.


 Only corrosive if it becomes a pas/fail for entry into some sort of club. Besides, in my very own personal view, like you, I hold much art to be better than much other--the 95% is crap figure is quite accurate in the case of art especially _in my own personal and unique view_. Your reply indicates that you still fail to understand my position as to the primacy of the individual interface with art. I too prefer Rembrandt to the Stick Man (which is very like images seen on cave walls and cliff faces and hailed as Great Art . Now that I think about it, maybe set in that context, the Stick Man is closento being Rembrandt's equal. That of course is My Opinion--your opinion may differ.


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## 59540

> _in my own personal and unique view_.


But then your views may not be so unique. That's when a consensus forms: when a lot of individual views converge.


> Now that I think about it, maybe set in that context, the Stick Man is closento being Rembrandt's equal.


I don't think so. The cave painting is pointing toward to what the Rembrandts would accomplish. A starting point. It's "equal to Rembrandt" only if you're ignorant of Rembrandt and/or choose to imaginatively exist in a cave-vacuum.


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## Strange Magic

DaveM said:


> Most of us discussing this are enlightened enough to not denigrate the tastes of others. And, contrary to what you infer by perseverating on the subject, no one (that I know of) is denying that individual tastes are totally subjective.
> 
> Speaking only of the CP era music, what you choose to ignore is that when a blueprint for what attracts a cross-section of people develops, an individual taste does not necessarily correlate with the quality of the music or the skill that was required to compose it, but collectively, over time, a consensus does. CP era music developed over centuries and, presumably, composers were challenged to innovate with more complex and sophisticated works to attract and enlarge new audiences. If that didn’t/doesn’t suggest the requirement of objective evidence of skill, then I don’t know what does.
> 
> Thus, came the Mozart symphonies, concertos and operas, the Beethoven sonatas, concertos and symphonies, the Chopin piano works, the Wagner operas and so forth. This process was an example of the very best of human creativity at work and to ignore the objective evidence of it is to diminish the accomplishment.


 Sorry but No Sale. You, like Woodduck and I, have discussed these matters to a point well beyond the time spent by reasonable people on subjects where there is no real chance of agreement, let alone understanding.. As I stressed to Woodduck, we all agree we love art, CM, so many other and varied things so that it is time to shut it down, Yes? As the saying goes, insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. How about you?


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## Strange Magic

dissident said:


> But then your views may not be so unique. That's when a consensus forms: when a lot of individual views converge.
> 
> I don't think so. The cave painting is pointing toward to what the Rembrandts would accomplish. A starting point.


Congratulations! Your first sentence might indicate that you are halfway there to understanding my position. Your second indicates that you have a view at variance with certain "Experts" who admire the freshness,simplicity, and earnestness of Cro-Magnon and aboriginal art. Surely they are wrong? Bach leads to Beethoven, and hence is the lesser composer, Yes?


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## TwoFlutesOneTrumpet

All art is created equal except some art is more equal than other art 

Any premise that reaches the conclusion that Stick Man is equal to The Mona Lisa or that Beethoven's 5th is equal to a Justin Bieber hit must be discarded for the very fact that it allows for such ludicrous statements.


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## Waehnen

Strange Magic said:


> See my reply to Woodduck. Being defensive is not part of my nature as the mods will tell you. Nor is feeling threatened by tastes other than my own. And I repeat my mantra about art=opinion because I believe it to be a correct view: Here I Stand. You seem to be looking always for some middle ground halfway between Y and Z--Some say (let's postulate) that the earth is a cube; others that it is a sphere. Is your answer then that the earth is a cube with quite rounded corners and edges? I think not.


You totally skipped my comparison of a piece of art to a mountain. In your value system you give a piece of art some fundamentally other ontological status than you give a mountain.

Then again it is a fact both a mountain and a piece of art exist also in the natural world fundamentally in a similar way. Neither one of them is merely a subjective opinion in the mind of a perceiver. Living in this physical world you need to acknowledge the attributes a mountain and a piece of art possess in the perceivable dimensions and as information.

I have to admit your ontology is illogical and bad and it doesn’t carry credibility in any other way than being a ”handy abstractive tool for independent listeners”.

Only if you lived as some neural network on a distant space ship seperated physically from this world, could you to some practical extent talk about these abstract objects like mountains and pieces of art as though they were seperate from the natural world relevant to you. But still the fundamental ontology of neither object would be different.

Here on this planet it is just a very silly choice to ignore the ontology of a mountain and to claim it is just an opinion in the mind of a perceiver. I do not buy this position of yours.

Also I cannot hold ”changing the mind of Strange Magic” indicative of me and others opposing you being succesful in this discussion. It is obvious you will not ever admit to being inaccurate and not having found the only valid way of seing this. You have built your laser-focused position too long for that.


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## DaveM

Strange Magic said:


> Sorry but No Sale. You, like Woodduck and I, have discussed these matters to a point well beyond the time spent by reasonable people on subjects where there is no real chance of agreement, let alone understanding.. As I stressed to Woodduck, we all agree we love art, CM, so many other and varied things so that it is time to shut it down, Yes? As the saying goes, insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. How about you?


Well, the fact is I wasn’t trying to sell you on anything. I am well reminded of the saying about dragging a horse to water. I’m only reminding the general audience in as many different ways as possible what the truth is lest it be misled by the rhetoric from certain quarters.


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## Strange Magic

TwoFlutesOneTrumpet said:


> All art is created equal except some art is more equal than other art
> 
> Any premise that reaches the conclusion that Stick Man is equal to The Mona Lisa or that Beethoven's 5th is equal to a Justin Bieber hit must be discarded for the very fact that it allows for such ludicrous statements.


Please do discard it and never let it trouble you again. Understanding is denied you and it's better that we both move on.


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## Woodduck

Strange Magic said:


> I will attempt to clarify yet again by asking a question: If Bernini's sculpture of David or something very like it is sitting on the planet Thraa, several galaxies away, is it still art or simply just another oddly-shaped rock?


It is still art. It's the creation of a human mind, a mind that created it in a specific way with a specific purpose. Things don't lose their existence and identity because no one happens to be looking at them. If I remember correctly, we discover that in infancy.



> "Art" objects so very obviously exist in the physical world that only a wet-lipped idiot would deny it, but they only obtain the status of Art by being perceived as such by human agency.


What you call "the status of Art" is merely a concept in your mind employing your own preferred definitions of words. It is not an objective description of reality. Objectively, a painting or a song is art because a person engaging in aesthetic thought and activity created it as art, and although that person hopes others will see or hear it, it doesn't cease to be art if that fails to happen. Nor does it suddenly become art again once seen or heard. The case is not equivalent to the tree falling in the forest, since sound (as opposed to sound waves) happens in the ear of the hearer. Art happens under the pen or brush of the creator.



> And different perceivers will have different views as to its message, meaning, quality, integrity, some very far from the intention of the artist, if that has been stated by such.


Certainly. An artist understands and expects that his work may suggest meanings beyond his specific intentions. The meaning of a work of art is open-ended. That's part of what makes it wonderful. But you appear to infer from this that any view of the work is as valid as any other, including, presumably, the view of a two-year-old, of someone falling down drunk, of someone colorblind, or someone hallucinating on LSD, because validity in the understanding of art is a concept applicable only to the individual, with no factors existing objectively - in "external reality" - that limit what a work can legitimately be said to mean. After all, if a painting is art only when someone is looking at it, it must mean exactly what it is thought to mean while being looked at, no matter how outlandish a meaning it's assigned by the looker.

Whether this a correct deduction from your statements or not, I find it nonsensical.


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## Strange Magic

Waehnen said:


> You totally skipped my comparison of a piece of art to a mountain. In your value system you give a piece of art some fundamentally other ontological status than you give a mountain.
> 
> Then again it is a fact both a mountain and a piece of art exist also in the natural world fundamentally in a similar way. Neither one of them is merely a subjective opinion in the mind of a perceiver. Living in this physical world you need to acknowledge the attributes a mountain and a piece of art possess in the perceivable dimensions and as information.
> 
> I have to admit your ontology is illogical and bad and it doesn’t carry credibility in any other way than being a ”handy abstractive tool for independent listeners”.
> 
> Only if you lived as some neural network on a distant space ship seperated physically from this world, could you to some practical extent talk about these abstract objects like mountains and pieces of art as though they were seperate from the natural world relevant to you. But still the fundamental ontology of neither object would be different.
> 
> Here on this planet it is just a very silly choice to ignore the ontology of a mountain and to claim it is just an opinion in the mind of a perceiver. I do not buy this position of yours.
> 
> Also I cannot hold ”changing the mind of Strange Magic” indicative of me and others opposing you being succesful in this discussion. It is obvious you will not ever admit to being inaccurate and not having found the only valid way of seing this. You have built your laser-focused position too long for that.


Your reply above indicates beyond doubt that you utterly and continuously fail to grasp my meaning. Of course a mountain and an art object can and do exist physically. But a mountain exists whatever is thought about it. An art object exists purely as an object without further definition other than what, like the mountain, can be measured, weighed, its color and height determined, etc. The mountain can become art if someone looks at it and declares it so. An art object is the same, though created by a human mind, it is an art object only if viewed as such by a perceiver. Otherwise it is dead, lump, a blob, a thing having no inherent property as "Art" If a mountain--not a painting of a mountain--is declared art, then who is its creator? Bishop Berkeley has one answer. If everything is or can be Art, then the arbitrariness, the subjectiveness of Art is fully on display.

I am content that we will never agree on these matters. I have bid goodbye to DaveM and Woodduck on this topic as we have spent many hundreds of posts on it when we could be listening to music of our choice, and you can mine those posts for ore for your thesis. I have engaged you as one relatively new to this discussion, but it is time to draw the curtain on the show and for everyone to go home, tired and maybe flushed with a sense of victory. I know I will.


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## DaveM

Oh shucks, just when the discussion was getting started... Oh well:


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## Waehnen

Strange Magic said:


> Your reply above indicates beyond doubt that you utterly and continuously fail to grasp my meaning. Of course a mountain and an art object can and do exist physically. But a mountain exists whatever is thought about it. An art object exists purely as an object without further definition other than what, like the mountain, can be measured, weighed, its color and height determined, etc. The mountain can become art if someone looks at it and declares it so. An art object is the same, though created by a human mind, it is an art object only if viewed as such by a perceiver. Otherwise it is dead, lump, a blob, a thing having no inherent property as "Art" If a mountain--not a painting of a mountain--is declared art, then who is its creator? Bishop Berkeley has one answer. If everything is or can be Art, then the arbitrariness, the subjectiveness of Art is fully on display.
> 
> I am content that we will never agree on these matters. I have bid goodbye to DaveM and Woodduck on this topic as we have spent many hundreds of posts on it when we could be listening to music of our choice, and you can mine those posts for ore for your thesis. I have engaged you as one relatively new to this discussion, but it is time to draw the curtain on the show and for everyone to go home, tired and maybe flushed with a sense of victory. I know I will.


A work of art also exists ”whatever is thought about it”, just like the mountain. It is you who CHOOSES to give an art object an ontological status — which in your value system allows you to treat the object with new laws of physics invented by yourself. After that you try to hold us accountable for your choices and speak language invented by you in an alternative universe you have also invented.

There are no art objects ontologically different from a mountain. The ontological art object status is your own invention.


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## TwoFlutesOneTrumpet

Strange Magic said:


> Please do discard it and never let it trouble you again. Understanding is denied you and it's better that we both move on.


It isn't understanding that is denied me - I quite understand your perspective and I see it being very wrong. And I agree that it's better to move on, you're not likely to come around.


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## Forster

@Strange Magic

Well, I got it. I'm not sure why it's so hard to see it - the difference between an 'art' object and 'art'. Not only did I get it, I find it an entirely helpful clarification.



DaveM said:


> Speaking only of the CP era music,


I noticed earlier your declaration that as far as you were concerned, you only wanted to refer to CP music. Why? AFAIK, while we might all bring the same two or three tiresome suspects to mind when we talk about CM, none of us is so determined to exclude other eras as you.

I suspect there is some subtle denigrating going on.


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## Waehnen

Forster said:


> @Strange Magic
> 
> Well, I got it. I'm not sure why it's so hard to see it - the difference between an 'art' object and 'art'. Not only did I get it, I find it an entirely helpful clarification.


It is not a clarification but an arbitrary ontological extra status invented to free the listener from any exhausting bindings to the reality. It allows false omnipotency. It is the easy way.


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## Forster

Waehnen said:


> It is not a clarification but an arbitrary ontological extra status invented to free the listener from any exhausting bindings to the reality. It allows false omnipotency. It is the easy way.


That's your interpretation and you're welcome to it. You only have to have attempted to follow the several threads that have discussed what is 'Beauty', or 'Music', or 'Art' to know that such matters are never resolved into a final consensus definition: it's up to us to settle on what serves us best. If this 'clarification' doesn't suit you, that's fine.


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## Waehnen

Forster said:


> That's your interpretation and you're welcome to it. You only have to have attempted to follow the several threads that have discussed what is 'Beauty', or 'Music', or 'Art' to know that such matters are never resolved into a final consensus definition: it's up to us to settle on what serves us best. If this 'clarification' doesn't suit you, that's fine.


It really is an arbitrary and false ontological choice created to allow omnipotency for the listener. It is also an excuse to ignore the reality behind art. It is not a valid choice for anyone, only a handy abstract tool for listeners who want to bath in their own imagined independency.


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## Forster

Waehnen said:


> It really is an arbitrary and false ontological choice created to allow omnipotency for the listener. It is also an excuse to ignore the reality behind art. It is not a valid choice for anyone, only a handy abstract tool for listeners who want to bath in their own imagined independency.


It took me ten seconds to find an exploration of 'art as a human concept' that questionns the investment in objects by an academic - so you don't have to take the word of a stranger on the internet. It doesn't "explain" what Strange Magic has been going on about, it just illustrates that there is a debate out there about what Art is, and it's not settled.









Art as Human Practice: An Aesthetics


How much does art really matter to human life? To paraphrase Auden on poetry, perhaps art doesn't make anything happen (at least in politics, in human m...




ndpr.nd.edu


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## Sid James

Regarding to the ongoing objective-subjective debate here, I managed to dig up what I said in an old thread about it. Here's an extract from the post in which I summed up my position on the topic:



Sid James said:


> Today, musicians have a whole lot of techniques and aesthetic approaches in their toolbox. There are also new theoretical approaches to and interpretations of music and its history, yet you wouldn’t really know much about it when reading those threads. Intersubjectivity, which Roger Waters mentioned, is one such relatively new approach.


I think that intersubjectivity and the new musicology, which aren't talked about much on this forum, offer a way out of arguments between the two extremes. People here might not know about these, or might be hostile to them as with other approaches coming out of postmodernism, possibly because they don't fit well into modernist notions which are still prevalent at TC (e.g. less restrictive definitions of the canon, interpretations of music history outside the grand narratives view, and music which resists being subjected to traditional methods of formal analysis).


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## Waehnen

Forster said:


> It took me ten seconds to find an exploration of 'art as a human concept' that questionns the investment in objects by an academic - so you don't have to take the word of a stranger on the internet. It doesn't "explain" what Strange Magic has been going on about, it just illustrates that there is a debate out there about what Art is, and it's not settled.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Art as Human Practice: An Aesthetics
> 
> 
> How much does art really matter to human life? To paraphrase Auden on poetry, perhaps art doesn't make anything happen (at least in politics, in human m...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ndpr.nd.edu


Multiple practical approaches and the absolute freedom of a listener I accept but not fundamental ontological claims motivated solely by convenience of an individual. Ontology is hard science.


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## Forster

Waehnen said:


> Multiple practical approaches and the absolute freedom of a listener I accept but not fundamental ontological claims motivated solely by convenience of an individual. Ontology is hard science.


I don't agree that SM is defining art solely to suit himself. The ontology of Art is hard, but at the end of the day, we can all decide for ourselves what the word means and what art objects should be included or excluded. If all this deciding works for philosophers over the years, there's no reason why we can't do it too.





__





History of the Ontology of Art (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)






plato.stanford.edu


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## Waehnen

Forster said:


> I don't agree that SM is defining art solely to suit himself. The ontology of Art is hard, but at the end of the day, we can all decide for ourselves what the word means and what art objects should be included or excluded. If all this deciding works for philosophers over the years, there's no reason why we can't do it too.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> __
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> History of the Ontology of Art (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> plato.stanford.edu


I would have accepted and even suggested myself that ”the SM approach” would have been a one convenient and practical way of seeing things, one articulation on the matter. One ”mode of being” like expressed in the article.

Nevertheless SM insisted that their approach is the only right way of seing this, just like the earth is round. That’s where the claims became fundamental with profound consequences in ontology.

I will never accept that in the deepest sense of reality and ontology an art object would be entitled to different kinds of laws of physics than a mountain.

An art object status given to an object is a choice made by human cognition. This is obvious and not debatable.

Trying to seperate an art object from it’s natural environment and laws of physics and to give it a totally new status at the mercy of the omnipotent listener is the lazy and selfcentered and naive way of perceiving the field of art.

Thank you all.


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## Woodduck

Strange Magic said:

*"I'm not sure why it's so hard to see it - the difference between an 'art' object and 'art'. Not only did I get it, I find it an entirely helpful clarification."*

Waehnen said:

*"It is not a clarification but an arbitrary ontological extra status invented to free the listener from any exhausting bindings to the reality. It allows false omnipotency. It is the easy way." *

I think both of you make legitimate points.

"Art" refers to a number of things, and may be defined differently in different contexts and with respect to its various forms and functions. Various definitions of art may supplement, rather than contradict, each other. If we can keep this in mind, we needn't fall into many of the sorts of arguments that arise. What is really problematic, though, is to advance a theory of art that rejects common, time-honored understandings of it. 

Possibly no idea about art is more commonly accepted than that it entails some sort of object, specifically an object conceived and created by a human being. We can speak of a person's "art" as his profession or occupation, the particular branch of the arts he pursues; we can speak of "art" as the skill or knowledge he possesses in order to create; we can refer to the whole field of human endeavor in which such creation takes place. Further meanings exist. But implicit in all of them is the conception and production of objects. A person who imagines beautiful things but does not produce them may be "artistic" to his core, but he is not an artist and his fantasies are not art as commonly understood. The other side of the coin is that not all created objects are art. The distinction commonly made is that objects exhibiting primarily qualities of practical utility, not appealing to the senses, mind or emotions or suggesting meanings beyond their practical use, are not art objects. (The modern notion that anything, natural or man-made, is art if it's looked at a certain way, called art by someone called an artist, or hung in a gallery and provided with a four-figure price tag, isn't worth discussing here - or, to my way of thinking, anywhere.)

Strange Magic is certainly right in pointing out that "art" as an object and "art" as a larger phenomenon are different concepts. But in reality the concepts cannot be divorced from each other, and he cannot be right in refusing the designation "art" to art objects simply because they are not presently being perceived by an audience. To say that a sculpture unobserved is no longer art but a mere hunk of stone makes as much sense as to say that a piano not being played is no longer a musical instrument but a pile of wood, metal and plastic, or that a plumber/electrician on vacation is no longer a handyman. I see value in pointing out that an important aspect of the total phenomenon of art is its reception by an audience. But in fact the creator of an art object is its first audience, and he is the only audience in the unique and preeminent position of determining, entirely or largely, what the object is (John Cage and his I Ching notwithstanding) prior to and apart from anyone else's understanding, valuation, or use of it. It's what the object IS, objectively, as made by its creator, that entitles it to be called art, and no one can claim to take away that status from it through linguistic sleights of hand.


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## Waehnen

I am composing a symphony, you know. It doesn’t happen by itself. Creating it demands huge amount of time, effort, perspiration, cognitive functions, technical expertise and artistic and aesthetic knowledge and contemplation. I pour my whole personality and history and being into this piece of work.

This symphony of mine is deeply and thoroughly rooted and anchored in this world, the very same reality where I have taken a funicular up a huge mountain. This symphony could not happen without the history of music, without the musical field, this very time and place and existing as a human being.

Nobody has to like it. But this symphony is not merely an abstract object or an opinion. I wish people were able to see something of what is built into it and somehow be interested in it. I wish it communicated something of this existence. I wish people heard something else in it other than their own opinion and ****. 

Sorry.


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## 59540

Strange Magic said:


> Congratulations! Your first sentence might indicate that you are halfway there to understanding my position. Your second indicates that you have a view at variance with certain "Experts" who admire the freshness,simplicity, and earnestness of Cro-Magnon and aboriginal art. ...


I didn't say anything about experts. I think the fascination with cave paintings is less about the quality of the art itself than it is with the manifestation of the artistic impulse among humans.


> Surely they are wrong? Bach leads to Beethoven, and hence is the lesser composer, Yes?


Maybe, but then Bach and Beethoven weren't Cro-Magnons or aborigines.


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## Luchesi

I'm sorry that I used the word numbskull. To me it's always meant willfully ignorant person, but I remember that there are other connotations. 
In astronomy it was discovered that our small group of galaxies is located under the right armpit of the Stick Man. So that triggered an unfitting response in me. Mozart probably had a mild form of Tourette Syndrome, but I don't have that excuse..


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## Luchesi

hammeredklavier said:


> A certain member in the past made a good point by posting the following in another thread (something for us to think about):
> 
> "All of the factors contributing to greatness are interrelated and dependent on each other. For example, one factor mentioned above is the tradition of received wisdom: belief in A's greatness has been passed down from generation to generation, reinforced by music textbooks and concert performances and internet forums, while belief in B's greatness has not. Another factor mentioned above is the test of time: A seems greater than B because the former's music has survived till today while the latter's has not. But these two factors are mutually reinforcing: if music textbooks have chapters on A but not B, then of course the former is going to have a leg up on the latter when it comes to the test of time. Conversely, if A's music is still performed today while B's is not, then of course music textbooks are going to have chapters on the former but not the latter. Likewise, another factor that has been mentioned is influence: A has demonstrably had a lasting influence on later composers, even today, while B has not. This is also inherently connected to the above factors: since A appears in textbooks and is more widely performed than B, then of course he is going to have a greater influence on later composers than B will.
> 
> In other words, the concept of greatness is a complex and circular system. By this point in time it's also a self-sustaining one, precisely because of the circularity. After all, this system is basically what we call a canon, and it is the very purpose of a canon to be self-perpetuating. As I wrote about in another thread some years ago, it is difficult to imagine any canonical composer being removed from the cycle and losing their canonical status, and it's difficult to imagine any non-canonical composer being inserted into the cycle and acquiring canonical status. I don't think the canon was always closed, and I don't want to think it is now, but if I'm being honest with myself then I have to think realistically that it is."


If John Field was composer A and Chopin was composer B, then we wouldn't have to even look at the scores to conclude that Field was better, because of historical circumstances and the ‘preferences’ which had developed.


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## Luchesi

Waehnen said:


> I am composing a symphony, you know. It doesn’t happen by itself. Creating it demands huge amount of time, effort, perspiration, cognitive functions, technical expertise and artistic and aesthetic knowledge and contemplation. I pour my whole personality and history and being into this piece of work.
> 
> This symphony of mine is deeply and thoroughly rooted and anchored in this world, the very same reality where I have taken a funicular up a huge mountain. This symphony could not happen without the history of music, without the musical field, this very time and place and existing as a human being.
> 
> Nobody has to like it. But this symphony is not merely an abstract object or an opinion. I wish people were able to see something of what is built into it and somehow be interested in it. I wish it communicated something of this existence. I wish people heard something else in it other than their own opinion and ****.
> 
> Sorry.


Yes, musicians and composers care much more about this debate than non-musicians, for all the obvious reasons. 

There are many more of them... so we get into this quagmire every time.


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## Luchesi

Waehnen said:


> I would have accepted and even suggested myself that ”the SM approach” would have been a one convenient and practical way of seeing things, one articulation on the matter. One ”mode of being” like expressed in the article.
> 
> Nevertheless SM insisted that their approach is the only right way of seing this, just like the earth is round. That’s where the claims became fundamental with profound consequences in ontology.
> 
> I will never accept that in the deepest sense of reality and ontology an art object would be entitled to different kinds of laws of physics than a mountain.
> 
> An art object status given to an object is a choice made by human cognition. This is obvious and not debatable.
> 
> Trying to seperate an art object from it’s natural environment and laws of physics and to give it a totally new status at the mercy of the omnipotent listener is the lazy and selfcentered and naive way of perceiving the field of art.
> 
> Thank you all.


I was just going to say that this is an excellent post and then I was going to say something that would get hackles up, so I wanted to delete this post (but some programmers just don't include, for whatever reason, a delete function).

Yes, I think of some people as lazy and self-centered about the subject of music. And I definitely shouldn't do that, because I'm the same way about many other subjects.


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## Luchesi

Strange Magic said:


> Sorry but No Sale. You, like Woodduck and I, have discussed these matters to a point well beyond the time spent by reasonable people on subjects where there is no real chance of agreement, let alone understanding.. As I stressed to Woodduck, we all agree we love art, CM, so many other and varied things so that it is time to shut it down, Yes? As the saying goes, insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. How about you?


I can't prove it scientifically, but I suspect there are very different consequences from the different views that both of you hold. 'Consequences for society and human advancement and life enrichment and of course every individual's potential for appreciation and self actualization.


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## Luchesi

Sid James said:


> Regarding to the ongoing objective-subjective debate here, I managed to dig up what I said in an old thread about it. Here's an extract from the post in which I summed up my position on the topic:
> 
> 
> 
> I think that intersubjectivity and the new musicology, which aren't talked about much on this forum, offer a way out of arguments between the two extremes. People here might not know about these, or might be hostile to them as with other approaches coming out of postmodernism, possibly because they don't fit well into modernist notions which are still prevalent at TC (e.g. less restrictive definitions of the canon, interpretations of music history outside the grand narratives view, and music which resists being subjected to traditional methods of formal analysis).


Yes, and we can even say that education offers "a way out". And doesn't it always...


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## Eva Yojimbo

If Strange Magic has left the thread I'm more than willing to take up for the "subjectivist" side.

The more I've had this discussion (not just on here, but elsewhere), the more I've come to realize that the terms themselves are at least partially to blame for why and how people talk past each other. At the least I think I've found four slightly different definitions people seem to be using when mentioning objectivity/subjectivity:

Subjectivity = Mind-dependent things or "individual opinion"
Objectivity = Mind-independent things or "facts not amenable to individual opinion."

There are probably more subtle definitions than this, especially with objective where I've also noticed a definition close to something like "unbiased."

To me, it's quite obvious that any notions of greatness, good, better, best, etc. do not exist as properties of objects without perceiving, feeling, thinking minds that create values and standards based on what they like/dislike. These values and standards can point to objective features of music, but this is very different from saying the greatness is IN those features that we like. This also doesn't mean all artistic judgments exist only as individual opinions. We do, indeed, have have the standards and values formed by groups whether they be as small as a sub-sub-sub culture devoted to a rather obscure genre of music, or the standards of a society/culture over long periods of time. The latter are valuable in large part because they determine what music survives for future generations to discover. It's fine, of course, if you only decide to care about what music you like/enjoy, but to me part of the reason to engage in discussions about greatness, canons, etc. is to play a role (even if it's a minor one) in determining what music is heard in the future. In a way it's a kind of Darwinian approach to aesthetics.

I think the difficulty of this subject is bound up in the messy tangle that happens in the interaction of subjects with art objects. We experience an art object and our reactions (aesthetically, emotionally, intellectually, etc.) themselves are an incredibly complex web of cognitive phenomena influenced by a billion different things that we can have vastly different levels of awareness of, ranging from our socio-cultural conditioning to our individual personalities and tastes to our knowledge about the art in question even to all of the evolutionary psychology that underlies why we appreciate and value art in the first place.

As far as I know, nobody has come close to unraveling this entire mess, though I don't doubt there are steps being made towards it in science that, at the very least, can alert us to some of the unconscious cognitive factors that go into shaping our aesthetic opinions and values, both as individuals and in a larger socio-cultural context. EG, I find it fascinating that generally people's music tastes tend to peak around their teenage years, with the music they latch onto during that period usually remaining lifetime favorites; and declining as they get older, resulting in the cliched attitude of "music in my day was so much better than the crap that's popular today!" Obviously such a phenomenon doesn't describe everyone, but clearly it's a common thing and must have some psychological/neurological underpinning. It's just one example of how I think science can move towards helping us understand why react to art how we do.

I also think the objectivists have a point in that certain things--like the continuing appeal of the "great composers" like Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, and their "masterpieces" over time--scream out for an explanation of why/how that happens. It's a truism that such composers/work are considered great people people continue to think they're great, but explaining why they think/continue to think that is another matter entirely. It could very well be that such great composers/works managed to tap into something that appeals to very fundamental elements in our psychology, allowing them to be appreciated/enjoyed across times/cultures and even by people who aren't well-versed in the social-cultural particularities of the era in which they made their music; but even if that's the case I would still caution against claiming this is any kind of "objective" standard for greatness. What it is is an explanation for why so many subjects think such things are great. You may think that's splitting hairs, but we're still also left with the problem that there is zero music that appeals to everyone, and even the enduring composers/works have relatively little stake in the big picture of all the music out there that people now like.

I would also like to applaud OP for suggesting that we move towards something like a reductionist approach to this issue in which we do try to consider these subjects more piecemeal rather than the big generalities that tend to get spoken about. As much as I'm interested in the subjective/objective distinction from a philosophical angle I do think it would be more useful if we took to discussing the "complex interaction between subjects and art-objects," but part of that has to come with a recognition that the subject, at the very least, plays an equal role in that interaction; that standards/values aren't God-given, aren't found in nature the way rocks and trees are, but are created by human minds with biases and values relative to their time, their cultures, their biases, personalities, individualities, etc. There's something that can easily happen in human cognition when standards are shared by a lot of people within a group that people start thinking those standards have an existence as objectively real as the sun and ignore the fact that they were originally created by other human minds that had their own biases and values relative to the things listed above. It's GOOD to question such things, even if we end up accepting them as our own.


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## DaveM

Now I’m definitely outa here..


----------



## Luchesi

Eva Yojimbo said:


> If Strange Magic has left the thread I'm more than willing to take up for the "subjectivist" side.
> 
> The more I've had this discussion (not just on here, but elsewhere), the more I've come to realize that the terms themselves are at least partially to blame for why and how people talk past each other. At the least I think I've found four slightly different definitions people seem to be using when mentioning objectivity/subjectivity:
> 
> Subjectivity = Mind-dependent things or "individual opinion"
> Objectivity = Mind-independent things or "facts not amenable to individual opinion."
> 
> There are probably more subtle definitions than this, especially with objective where I've also noticed a definition close to something like "unbiased."
> 
> To me, it's quite obvious that any notions of greatness, good, better, best, etc. do not exist as properties of objects without perceiving, feeling, thinking minds that create values and standards based on what they like/dislike. These values and standards can point to objective features of music, but this is very different from saying the greatness is IN those features that we like. This also doesn't mean all artistic judgments exist only as individual opinions. We do, indeed, have have the standards and values formed by groups whether they be as small as a sub-sub-sub culture devoted to a rather obscure genre of music, or the standards of a society/culture over long periods of time. The latter are valuable in large part because they determine what music survives for future generations to discover. It's fine, of course, if you only decide to care about what music you like/enjoy, but to me part of the reason to engage in discussions about greatness, canons, etc. is to play a role (even if it's a minor one) in determining what music is heard in the future. In a way it's a kind of Darwinian approach to aesthetics.
> 
> I think the difficulty of this subject is bound up in the messy tangle that happens in the interaction of subjects with art objects. We experience an art object and our reactions (aesthetically, emotionally, intellectually, etc.) themselves are an incredibly complex web of cognitive phenomena influenced by a billion different things that we can have vastly different levels of awareness of, ranging from our socio-cultural conditioning to our individual personalities and tastes to our knowledge about the art in question even to all of the evolutionary psychology that underlies why we appreciate and value art in the first place.
> 
> As far as I know, nobody has come close to unraveling this entire mess, though I don't doubt there are steps being made towards it in science that, at the very least, can alert us to some of the unconscious cognitive factors that go into shaping our aesthetic opinions and values, both as individuals and in a larger socio-cultural context. EG, I find it fascinating that generally people's music tastes tend to peak around their teenage years, with the music they latch onto during that period usually remaining lifetime favorites; and declining as they get older, resulting in the cliched attitude of "music in my day was so much better than the crap that's popular today!" Obviously such a phenomenon doesn't describe everyone, but clearly it's a common thing and must have some psychological/neurological underpinning. It's just one example of how I think science can move towards helping us understand why react to art how we do.
> 
> I also think the objectivists have a point in that certain things--like the continuing appeal of the "great composers" like Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, and their "masterpieces" over time--scream out for an explanation of why/how that happens. It's a truism that such composers/work are considered great people people continue to think they're great, but explaining why they think/continue to think that is another matter entirely. It could very well be that such great composers/works managed to tap into something that appeals to very fundamental elements in our psychology, allowing them to be appreciated/enjoyed across times/cultures and even by people who aren't well-versed in the social-cultural particularities of the era in which they made their music; but even if that's the case I would still caution against claiming this is any kind of "objective" standard for greatness. What it is is an explanation for why so many subjects think such things are great. You may think that's splitting hairs, but we're still also left with the problem that there is zero music that appeals to everyone, and even the enduring composers/works have relatively little stake in the big picture of all the music out there that people now like.
> 
> I would also like to applaud OP for suggesting that we move towards something like a reductionist approach to this issue in which we do try to consider these subjects more piecemeal rather than the big generalities that tend to get spoken about. As much as I'm interested in the subjective/objective distinction from a philosophical angle I do think it would be more useful if we took to discussing the "complex interaction between subjects and art-objects," but part of that has to come with a recognition that the subject, at the very least, plays an equal role in that interaction; that standards/values aren't God-given, aren't found in nature the way rocks and trees are, but are created by human minds with biases and values relative to their time, their cultures, their biases, personalities, individualities, etc. There's something that can easily happen in human cognition when standards are shared by a lot of people within a group that people start thinking those standards have an existence as objectively real as the sun and ignore the fact that they were originally created by other human minds that had their own biases and values relative to the things listed above. It's GOOD to question such things, even if we end up accepting them as our own.


One person says I like this I don't like that. Leave me alone. It doesn't matter that much.

The other person says, well let's look at what's in the scores, let's see what the different devices do to our brain and try to figure out how that all works in all the different combinations from Art. Perhaps what we learn can be applied elsewhere.. As Goethe exclaimed (we’re told) on his death bed, “More light, more light!”.

Which one is the constructive course?, which one is an investment in our future well-being?, which one will promote through education the best music to endure into the future?

It seems so clear to me, but other people approach many subjects as mere entertainment. Perhaps they’re weary from all the ‘schooling’ from every direction these days. 24 hour news and the whole Internet full of answers that are now so easy to look up, …you can teach yourself technical subjects if you're driven to do that.


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## mmsbls

Eva Yojimbo said:


> The more I've had this discussion (not just on here, but elsewhere), the more I've come to realize that the terms themselves are at least partially to blame for why and how people talk past each other. ...


Thank you for a well thought out and well written response to this debate. Several of us have pointed out (you, 4chamberedklavier, myself, and Sid to some extent) that we feel members are not arguing the same issues. There seems to be no movement towards agreement at least partially for that reason. Personally I believe both sides are generally correct in what they argue. I do believe greatness is subjective (and obviously so), but I believe there are reasons that certain composers and works are considered to stand above others. There are experts (and other knowledgeable people) who can assess works and give reasons that others can understand and appreciate. Those reasons are worth discussing, and those who argue strenuously that those reasons matter are correct.


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## Eva Yojimbo

Luchesi said:


> One person says I like this I don't like that. Leave me alone. It doesn't matter that much.
> 
> The other person says, well let's look at what's in the scores, let's see what the different devices do to our brain and try to figure out how that all works in all the different combinations from Art. Perhaps what we learn can be applied elsewhere.. As Goethe exclaimed (we’re told) on his death bed, “More light, more light!”.
> 
> Which one is the constructive course?, which one is an investment in our future well-being?, which one will promote through education the best music to be endure to the future?
> 
> It seems so clear to me, but other people approach many subjects as mere entertainment. Perhaps they’re weary from all the ‘schooling’ from every direction these days. 24 hour news and the whole Internet full of answers that are now so easy to look up, …you can teach yourself technical subjects if you're driven to do that.


I would answer your questions with this question: constructive to what end, and what does either have to do with our future well-being? We're talking about understanding aesthetics, not curing cancer or learning how to do our taxes! 

I don't see how either approach as you wrote them will "promote through education the 'best' music to endure to the future;" that kind of preservation for posterity falls on choices made by actual educators and, to a lesser extent, passionate music fans like ourselves. As to whether it actually promotes "the best music to endure," that's kinda the issue we're trying to get at, or maybe under. 

I don't disagree with anything in your last paragraph, though I'm also not sure how it relates to the discussion at hand since I didn't really mention entertainment VS learning technical subjects.


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## mmsbls

Luchesi said:


> One person says I like this I don't like that. Leave me alone. It doesn't matter that much.
> 
> The other person says, well let's look at what's in the scores, let's see what the different devices do to our brain and try to figure out how that all works in all the different combinations from Art. Perhaps what we learn can be applied elsewhere.. As Goethe exclaimed (we’re told) on his death bed, “More light, more light!”.
> 
> Which one is the constructive course?, which one is an investment in our future well-being?, which one will promote through education the best music to be endure to the future?
> 
> It seems so clear to me, but other people approach many subjects as mere entertainment. Perhaps they’re weary from all the ‘schooling’ from every direction these days. 24 hour news and the whole Internet full of answers that are now so easy to look up, …you can teach yourself technical subjects if you're driven to do that.


I believe Strange Magic does not approach art as simplistically as you suggest. I assume he is happy to discuss details of art and would engage with others about aspects of a work. I also assume he would and has changed his opinion of the value of works based on reading, discussing, and thinking about them. The only difference is that ultimately, he views all art appreciation as subjective. Everyone in the world could believe that a Rembrandt is superior to the stick figure and still view all art as subjective.


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## 59540

> To me, it's quite obvious that any notions of greatness, good, better, best, etc. do not exist as properties of objects without perceiving, feeling, thinking minds that create values and standards based on what they like/dislike.


"Standards of what we like and dislike" is a little vague. I don't feel particularly predisposed to like atonal music, but I love Webern and most Schoenberg. In other words, I don't think I have a set standard by which I measure everything as "likable" or "unlikable". In fact it was the initial unlikability of atonality that led me to explore what was below the surface. It was in the music, not in my preferences.


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## Strange Magic

DaveM said:


> Oh shucks, just when the discussion was getting started... Oh well:


Talking about esthetics, Sarah Brightman is/was a singularly beautiful creature--In My Opinion! Though her later performances became a little too theatrical for my taste. Well-chosen video DaveM!


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## Eva Yojimbo

mmsbls said:


> Thank you for a well thought out and well written response to this debate. Several of us have pointed out (you, 4chamberedklavier, myself, and Sid to some extent) that we feel members are not arguing the same issues. There seems to be no movement towards agreement at least partially for that reason. Personally I believe both sides are generally correct in what they argue. I do believe greatness is subjective (and obviously so), but I believe there are reasons that certain composers and works are considered to stand above others. There are experts (and other knowledgeable people) who can assess works and give reasons that others can understand and appreciate. Those reasons are worth discussing, and those who argue strenuously that those reasons matter are correct.


Part of it is just the difficulty of not only comprehending such complex subjects but finding ways to communicate that understanding effectively to other people. It's a well-known fact that the people most educated on a given subject don't always make the best teachers because they aren't the best at communicating that knowledge. So not only are we all coming at this with slightly different perspectives and slightly different understandings of all the words being used, we're coming at this with different ways of expressing those perspectives and understandings! 

Nonetheless, I think I agree with everything you say here. My only caution is that experts are often great at telling you about all the objective features in a work, but that there is still an unbridgeable gap between what a work IS and whether or not it's great, good, bad, better, best. etc. One thing I find is that people think that an expertise in facts makes one an expertise in value judgments, and that's not the case; the two things simply inhabit completely different spheres. As a rather absurd example, an expert on colors still has no real authority on what the best color is. But I would absolutely agree that experts are to be valued for the knowledge and insights they do possess, for their ability to educate us and alter/expand our awareness and appreciation of everything that goes into a work of art. 

I also agree that it's worth discussing all the reasons we have (or think we have) for valuing the art we do and don't, but I can also understand why some don't care about such things. We're all here for different reasons.


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## Luchesi

DaveM said:


> Now I’m definitely outa here..


What?


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## Eva Yojimbo

dissident said:


> "Standards of what we like and dislike" is a little vague. I don't feel particularly predisposed to like atonal music, but I love Webern and most Schoenberg.


I'm not sure what you find vague about it as your second sentence doesn't seem to follow. If you like Webern and most Schoenberg then there is some standard (even if you can't articulate it) upon which you think they succeed in order to engender your liking of them. That standard isn't necessarily atonal music in the abstract, but has to do with how they use atonality to make the music they do.


----------



## Eva Yojimbo

Luchesi said:


> What?


I assume it was a reaction to my post as DaveM has expressed his displeasure towards my philosophical verbosity in the past.


----------



## 59540

Eva Yojimbo said:


> I'm not sure what you find vague about it as your second sentence doesn't seem to follow. If you like Webern and most Schoenberg then there is some standard (even if you can't articulate it) upon which you think they succeed...


But they set the standard, not me. The craftsmanship and logic in their work is what is appealing. If it's just a predisposition to "like" something, then first impressions would be set in stone. I don't know how much music I've at first intuitively disliked but then come to admire and in some cases love after studying it more.


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## Eva Yojimbo

dissident said:


> But they set the standard, not me.


They just made the music. If their music becomes the standard it's only because you (and others) liked it and accepted it as the standard by which to judge similar music by. Further, you liked it because you feel it succeeded on some standard, even if the standard is as basic/simple as "it moves me."

EDIT: replied before I saw your further edit, but I feel like you answered me yourself: you found the craftmanship/logic appealing so that was the standard you were using to judge their success. I'm not saying this is necessarily a predisposition towards liking something. Our tastes can change with more exposure and understanding, but that in itself is a subjective phenomena in that what's changing is our minds, not the art.


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## 59540

Eva Yojimbo said:


> They just made the music. If their music becomes the standard it's only because you (and others) liked it and accepted it as the standard by which to judge similar music by. Further, you liked it because you feel it succeeded on some standard, even if the standard is as basic/simple as "it moves me."


They made the music. I didn't. And that's no triviality. If I had that standard pre-implanted in my brain i could've "just made the music" myself. The mind perceives, but there are also qualities in the thing perceived.


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## Eva Yojimbo

dissident said:


> They made the music. I didn't. And that's no triviality. If I had that standard pre-implanted in my brain i could've "just made the music" myself.


I don't see how that follows. What does having a standard in your mind (pre-implanted or not) have to do with making the music yourself? I don't see how the two are even remotely connected. The creative process involves more than just following a standard that you're (consciously or unconsciously) aware of. Composers may have standards that they follow themselves, but backed up by a boatload of technical know-how as well as that mysterious thing we call inspiration.


----------



## 59540

Eva Yojimbo said:


> I don't see how that follows. What does having a standard in your mind (pre-implanted or not) have to do with making the music yourself? I don't see how the two are even remotely connected. The creative process involves more than just following a standard that you're (consciously or unconsciously) aware of. Composers may have standards that they follow themselves, but backed up by a boatload of technical know-how as well as that mysterious thing we call inspiration.


Right, and that boatload of technical know-how and skill and judgement are as external to me as the rings of Saturn. That's why even though I may be able to articulate what I love about a Bach fugue, I can't replicate it.


----------



## Luchesi

“I would answer your questions with this question: constructive to what end, and what does either have to do with our future well-being? We're talking about understanding aesthetics, not curing cancer or learning how to do our taxes!”

I think about the children who are lucky enough to develop an interest in CM because it just might stick with them through the decades. Life is difficult and the music can grow with us. And then I think about the kids who have never had the chance.

“I don't see how either approach as you wrote them will "promote through education the 'best' music to endure to the future;" that kind of preservation for posterity falls on choices made by actual educators and, to a lesser extent, passionate music fans like ourselves. As to whether it actually promotes "the best music to endure," that's kinda the issue we're trying to get at, or maybe under.”

I think about the audiences down through the centuries who have had to become educated and accustomed to the rise of dissonance and the more complex forms and all the increasing artistically-constrained ambiguity.

“I don't disagree with anything in your last paragraph, though I'm also not sure how it relates to the discussion at hand since I didn't really mention entertainment VS learning technical subjects.”

It's just that people grow weary of being preached at, with no feelings of a personal interaction.


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## Eva Yojimbo

dissident said:


> Right, and that boatload of technical know-how and skill and judgement are as external to me as the rings of Saturn.


Yes, they're external TO YOU, but still internal to someone's mind... TBH, I'm a bit lost on where this particular discussion is going or what exact points you're trying to get at.


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## Luchesi

mmsbls said:


> I believe Strange Magic does not approach art as simplistically as you suggest. I assume he is happy to discuss details of art and would engage with others about aspects of a work. I also assume he would and has changed his opinion of the value of works based on reading, discussing, and thinking about them. The only difference is that ultimately, he views all art appreciation as subjective. Everyone in the world could believe that a Rembrandt is superior to the stick figure and still view all art as subjective.


As you know, SM and I have talked for years about science stuff. So I'm surprised that he doesn't approach music as he would a subject in science.


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## Eva Yojimbo

Luchesi said:


> “I would answer your questions with this question: constructive to what end, and what does either have to do with our future well-being? We're talking about understanding aesthetics, not curing cancer or learning how to do our taxes!”
> 
> I think about the children who are lucky enough to develop an interest in CM because it just might stick with them through the decades. Life is difficult and the music can grow with us. And then I think about the kids who have never had the chance.
> 
> “I don't see how either approach as you wrote them will "promote through education the 'best' music to endure to the future;" that kind of preservation for posterity falls on choices made by actual educators and, to a lesser extent, passionate music fans like ourselves. As to whether it actually promotes "the best music to endure," that's kinda the issue we're trying to get at, or maybe under.”
> 
> I think about the audiences down through the centuries who have had to become educated and accustomed to the rise of dissonance and the more complex forms and all the increasing artistically-constrained ambiguity.
> 
> “I don't disagree with anything in your last paragraph, though I'm also not sure how it relates to the discussion at hand since I didn't really mention entertainment VS learning technical subjects.”
> 
> It's just that people grow weary of being preached at, with no feelings of a personal interaction.


In modern times with the internet making all music of all times and cultures immediately accessible we have less reason to worry about kids not having a chance to be exposed to any music; the more pressing issue is one of time and interest. Most people are happy with music being a background soundtrack to their lives and aren't too picky about what that soundtrack is or if there are other options out there they aren't aware of but might like more if they took the time/effort to find it. This is still pretty trivial in the grand scheme of "well-being." 

Not sure what you're getting at with the "audiences down through the centuries..." part... 

Do you feel anyone is being preached at in this thread? Or are you referring to some other preaching happening elsewhere?


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## 59540

Eva Yojimbo said:


> Yes, they're external TO YOU...


Yes. That's where it's going. So the thing is that when I listen to a Bach fugue or choral fantasia, my mind and standards are being elevated to approach the artistic standard that _he_ is setting. It's in his construction of the music. It's in the music.


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## Luchesi

Eva Yojimbo said:


> In modern times with the internet making all music of all times and cultures immediately accessible we have less reason to worry about kids not having a chance to be exposed to any music; the more pressing issue is one of time and interest. Most people are happy with music being a background soundtrack to their lives and aren't too picky about what that soundtrack is or if there are other options out there they aren't aware of but might like more if they took the time/effort to find it. This is still pretty trivial in the grand scheme of "well-being."
> 
> Not sure what you're getting at with the "audiences down through the centuries..." part...
> 
> Do you feel anyone is being preached at in this thread? Or are you referring to some other preaching happening elsewhere?


Firstly, sorry about that post. I'm still learning the quote function.

I'll answer this when i come back


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## Eva Yojimbo

dissident said:


> Yes. That's where it's going. So the thing is that when I listen to a Bach fugue or choral fantasia, my mind and standards are being elevated to approach the artistic standard that _he_ is setting. It's in his construction of the music. It's in the music.


No, what's happening when you listen to a Bach fugue or choral fantasia is that you LIKE it, and that like translates to you setting the objective features of the work as the standard by which to judge similar music by. If you listened to that same music and disliked it you would not be setting it as a standard at all. The only reason you would do such a thing (setting as a standard music you dislike) is because you would recognize that other people have done so and you would thus be validating their own reactions and the standards based on them. Standards aren't created based on music nobody likes. There's a reason for that; it's because our subjective liking precedes the standards.


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## DaveM

Strange Magic said:


> Talking about esthetics, Sarah Brightman is/was a singularly beautiful creature--In My Opinion! Though her later performances became a little too theatrical for my taste. Well-chosen video DaveM!


 (Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in. )

Interesting you would mention that because much as I like the song and as much as I agree with you on what a beautiful creature she was in her prime, Brightman’s histrionics in the performance were a bit much.


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## DaveM

mmsbls said:


> ..I do believe greatness is subjective (and obviously so), but I believe there are reasons that certain composers and works are considered to stand above others. There are experts (and other knowledgeable people) who can assess works and give reasons that others can understand and appreciate. Those reasons are worth discussing, and those who argue strenuously that those reasons matter are correct.


I’m confused by the ‘_subjective (obviously so)_’ as if that’s where it ends, particularly since your follow up would suggest that the evaluation of and statement of ‘greatness’ is not totally subjective.


----------



## 59540

Eva Yojimbo said:


> No, what's happening when you listen to a Bach fugue or choral fantasia is that you LIKE it...


And so do millions of others. Why? For all the verbiage (no offense), you can't really say.


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## 59540

DaveM said:


> I’m confused by the ‘_subjective (obviously so)_’ as if that’s where it ends, particularly since your follow up would suggest that the evaluation of and statement of ‘greatness’ is not totally subjective.


 Completely subjective but hierarchical. Doesn't compute. Well, it does in the sense of having your cake and eating it too.

Here's a question: are Bach and Beethoven "great" in any objective sense, or is it possible given obvious subjectivity to say that they both were hopelessly inept? If one individual, or twenty or a million say that both of those were utterly inept, does that make that statement true?


----------



## Strange Magic

Luchesi said:


> As you know, SM and I have talked for years about science stuff. So I'm surprised that he doesn't approach music as he would a subject in science.


I'm also back like DaveM but only to chide Luchesi for asserting despite all evidence to the contrary that I am not approaching this subject in accordance to my science-based focus. Indeed, it is because I know a bit about how to conduct science that my approach to this topic is as it is. The assertion that there are "objective" aspects of art other than measurable properties that can be replicated by all perceivers who do not suffer from a brain erosion or deprivation of their several senses, is To Be Demonstrated (and is not).

Those measurable properties, as I have stated beyond misinterpretation, include properties such as mass, color, size, when created and by whom, duration if applicable, units moved in commerce, and polling results that are carefully examined as to group polled, etc. Can't get any plainer.


----------



## Strange Magic

DaveM said:


> (Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in. )
> 
> Interesting you would mention that because much as I like the song and as much as I agree with you on what a beautiful creature she was in her prime, Brightman’s histrionics in the performance were a bit much.


I agree, but was overwhelmed by her pulchritude. But she has always has had an over-the-top approach to her craft, presumably to the delight of the cluster of her fans.


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## mmsbls

DaveM said:


> I’m confused by the ‘_subjective (obviously so)_’ as if that’s where it ends, particularly since your follow up would suggest that the evaluation of and statement of ‘greatness’ is not totally subjective.


I'll answer in two ways. First, if there are both subjective and objective components to an evaluation, the overall evaluation must be considered subjective. Only a completely objective analysis can be viewed as objective.

Second, I'll use an argument I made earlier in the subjective/objective thread. It's mathematical but hopefully still useful. There are many metrics or criteria with which people can evaluate music. For simplicity, let's imagine 3 - innovation, melody, and funkiness. Again, there are many more, and some may be considered more important, but my argument would be the same if we included all of them. To compare works and conclude one is better, one must essentially calculate a value we can use for comparison, perhaps called its Greatness, G (one could call it lots of things, but hopefully calling it Greatness will not be problematic). To calculate G we would use the equation (assumed linear for simplicity):

G = a*innovation + b*melody + c*funkiness (or G = a*I + b*M + c*F) 

We would then evaluate the works based on innovation, melody, and funkiness. It's possible that someone could create an objective method for assessing innovation, but I doubt everyone would agree on its merit, and subjectivity starts to creep in. I'm pretty certain no one would argue that melody or funkiness could be assessed objectively. So we are left with subjective assessment of the values for I, M, and F. But let's assume that somehow everyone agrees perfectly on assessing those factors, and somehow, they develop what everyone also agrees is an objective valuation. The real problem is the weighting constants a, b, and c. These essentially determine how important are the individual factors in the overall evaluation. Is innovation twice as important as melody? Is funkiness remotely important? If one asks 10 people or even 10 experts, I think it's likely one would get 10 different answers especially if the number of factors were increased to be more inclusive. 

Any evaluation of works will include subjectivity on which factors to include, subjectivity on how to evaluate those factors, and subjectivity on how to weight the factors. For example, I have said for a long time that Beethoven's 9th is my favorite work and the "greatest" work of music. But my friend, Monty, thinks Parliament's P-Funk is better. I would assess the innovation and melody (and other factors) for the 9th and Monty would do the same for P-Funk. Monty actually thinks the 9th scores very high on I and M but rather low on F. P-Funk scores modestly on I and M but very, very high on F. The difference is that my weighting factors are all roughly equal; whereas, Monty's are a = .001, b = .001, and c = .998 (i.e. it's all about funkiness). When he evaluates the works, P-Funk easily beats the 9th. It's difficult to say why he's wrong because it's his evaluation based on what matters to him.


----------



## DaveM

mmsbls said:


> I'll answer in two ways. First, if there are both subjective and objective components to an evaluation, the overall evaluation must be considered subjective. Only a completely objective analysis can be viewed as objective.
> 
> Second, I'll use an argument I made earlier in the subjective/objective thread. It's mathematical but hopefully still useful. There are many metrics or criteria with which people can evaluate music. For simplicity, let's imagine 3 - innovation, melody, and funkiness. Again, there are many more, and some may be considered more important, but my argument would be the same if we included all of them. To compare works and conclude one is better, one must essentially calculate a value we can use for comparison, perhaps called its Greatness, G (one could call it lots of things, but hopefully calling it Greatness will not be problematic). To calculate G we would use the equation (assumed linear for simplicity):
> 
> G = a*innovation + b*melody + c*funkiness (or G = a*I + b*M + c*F)
> 
> We would then evaluate the works based on innovation, melody, and funkiness. It's possible that someone could create an objective method for assessing innovation, but I doubt everyone would agree on its merit, and subjectivity starts to creep in. I'm pretty certain no one would argue that melody or funkiness could be assessed objectively. So we are left with subjective assessment of the values for I, M, and F. But let's assume that somehow everyone agrees perfectly on assessing those factors, and somehow, they develop what everyone also agrees is an objective valuation. The real problem is the weighting constants a, b, and c. These essentially determine how important are the individual factors in the overall evaluation. Is innovation twice as important as melody? Is funkiness remotely important? If one asks 10 people or even 10 experts, I think it's likely one would get 10 different answers especially if the number of factors were increased to be more inclusive.
> 
> Any evaluation of works will include subjectivity on which factors to include, subjectivity on how to evaluate those factors, and subjectivity on how to weight the factors. For example, I have said for a long time that Beethoven's 9th is my favorite work and the "greatest" work of music. But my friend, Monty, thinks Parliament's P-Funk is better. I would assess the innovation and melody (and other factors) for the 9th and Monty would do the same for P-Funk. Monty actually thinks the 9th scores very high on I and M but rather low on F. P-Funk scores modestly on I and M but very, very high on F. The difference is that my weighting factors are all roughly equal; whereas, Monty's are a = .001, b = .001, and c = .998 (i.e. it's all about funkiness). When he evaluates the works, P-Funk easily beats the 9th. It's difficult to say why he's wrong because it's his evaluation based on what matters to him.


While you have clarified some of your position for me at the beginning of the post, the math-based analogy or metaphor lost me a bit. Fwiw, the reason I make it clear that I’m referencing the CP era, is to avoid the introduction of comparisons with other music genres eg. Parliament’s P-Funk or Justin Bieber.

I added the following Edit to my post you referenced above, but I was too late so here it is below:

My position on the subject (re: CP era): The word ‘great’ can be complicated by semantics. An individual can proclaim that Dvorak is in his/her list of top 5 of great composers. Fine, that’s the subjective feeling of that individual based on nothing more than his/her definition of ‘great’ and perspective at the particular moment in time of listening experience.

But the word ‘great’ as applied to composers has a more profound meaning based on the effect on the listeners, composers, musicologists over a long period of time involving comparisons with other composers, parameters of innovation and originality of harmony, counterpoint, use of available instruments etc. In this case, the evaluation of ‘greatness’ goes well beyond individual subjective feelings. Since the CP era resulted, over time, in a general blueprint for what listeners expected or were attracted to, I would posit that a level of objectivity in comparing the greatness of composers is possible. This doesn’t mean that everyone will agree exactly on the order of ‘greatness’, but there is a general consensus that is impressively consistent.

Fwiw, I find it interesting that there were at least two recent concerts in Europe to raise awareness and money related to the Ukraine situation. In both, the main works were Beethoven (not Dvorak ).


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## mmsbls

DaveM said:


> While you have clarified some of your position for me at the beginning of the post, the math-based analogy or metaphor lost me a bit. Fwiw, the reason I make it clear that I’m referencing the CP era, is to avoid the introduction of comparisons with other music genres eg. Parliament’s P-Funk or Justin Bieber.


I use the math because it's the only way for me to be explicit in my analysis of subjective/objective evaluations. I think the most important points are 1) evaluating particular factors (e.g. form, melody, innovation) will always be somewhat subjective because, for example, not everyone will agree on exactly how innovative a work is and 2) few will agree perfectly on how important the factors are relative to each other. I used P-Funk for fun, but I could have used any CP work and made a similar argument (uncertainty selecting factors, uncertainty evaluating factors, uncertainty weighting the factors). People will not all agree on these assessments. That makes the assessments subjective.



> But the word ‘great’ as applied to composers has a more profound meaning based on the effect on the listeners, composers, musicologists over a long period of time involving comparisons with other composers, parameters of innovation and originality of harmony, counterpoint, use of available instruments etc. In this case, the evaluation of ‘greatness’ goes well beyond individual subjective feelings. Since the CP era resulted, over time, in a general blueprint for what listeners expected or were attracted to, I would posit that a level of objectivity in comparing the greatness of composers is possible. This doesn’t mean that everyone will agree exactly on the order of ‘greatness’, but there is a general consensus that is impressively consistent.


I agree with everything here except your term "level of objectivity." The listeners, composers, and musicologists still will differ in their assessments due to individual tastes, views, expertise, etc.. You are referring to a consensus that is not simply the voting of those without expert knowledge. The consensus is between those who have heard a lot of music, been exposed to writing and scholarship on aspects of music, discussed aspects of the music that appeals to them and others, and thought hard about what matters about the music to them and others. Basically, they ask, "What aspects of music affect us strongly? How do composers' works vary in the application of those aspects? How do composers' works _which so many of us adore_ differ from other works?" 

It is not an objective evaluation but rather a practical evaluation. They are essentially saying, "Composers A, B, and C wrote works that many of us greatly enjoy. Composers D, E, and F wrote many fewer works that many of us greatly enjoy. Anyone spending significant time listening to classical music and learning what others have learned will likely come to enjoy/appreciate the works of composers A, B, and C more than works of composers D, E, and F. Not only that, but we can give specific reasons why that is likely to be true." Personally, I think that's enormously valuable.


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## Woodduck

mmsbls said:


> Everyone in the world could believe that a Rembrandt is superior to the stick figure and still view all art as subjective.


Regardless of what exactly it means, that statement needs one heck of a defense.

The formulation "view all art as subjective" itself needs defense, but first it needs translation.

The creative powers required to produce the masterpieces of world art are not "subjective."

This ought to be obvious to everyone who appreciates music enough to be on this forum. But then it's eternally surprising what magnificent things are not obvious or appreciated.


----------



## Woodduck

Eva Yojimbo said:


> My only caution is that experts are often great at telling you about all the objective features in a work, but that *there is still an unbridgeable gap between what a work IS and whether or not it's great, good, bad, better, best. etc.* One thing I find is that people think that an expertise in facts makes one an expertise in value judgments, and that's not the case; the two things simply inhabit completely different spheres. As a rather absurd example, an expert on colors still has no real authority on *what the best color is*.


It's perplexing that otherwise insightful people continue to talk as if ranking works of art - which are comparable in some respects but not in others, with the latter prevailing - rigidly and definitively in terms of 'great, good, bad, better, best. etc.' is possible or valuable. I suppose such an idea has to be disposed of at some point, but I'd have thought that done a long time ago. The _'best color'?_ Holy ****! What could that even mean? Is the conversation really still stuck at this primitive level?


----------



## mmsbls

Woodduck said:


> Regardless of what exactly it means, that statement needs one heck of a defense.
> 
> The formulation "view all art as subjective" itself needs defense, but first it needs translation.
> 
> The creative powers required to produce the masterpieces of world art are not "subjective."
> 
> This ought to be obvious to everyone who appreciates music enough to be on this forum. But then it's eternally surprising what magnificent things are not obvious or appreciated.


Just as several of us have stated, I think you and I are using terms differently. My post above essentially defines (or perhaps describes in great detail) what I mean by subjective. Simply put, people use different methodologies to evaluate works of art (or actually anything in the world). In particular, people will assign differing importance to the factors that they use to evaluate works. There are other aspects of subjectivity in art evaluation as I discuss above. The result is a subjective evaluation. 

I'm not sure what you mean by creative powers. If you mean brain modules, neural interconnectivity, and other relevant aspects that allow thinking, I would agree. These, in theory, could be described objectively. I'm actually not sure that everyone who appreciates music would find that obvious.


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## Woodduck

Just a reminder that it's fallacious that possible differences of opinion disprove the existence of objective values. Well-composed music is well-composed whether any individual can hear that it is or not, and in this universe good composition is a positive value. Mozart's mastery of form and his melodic inventiveness are not up for a vote.


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## TwoFlutesOneTrumpet

dissident said:


> Completely subjective but hierarchical. Doesn't compute. Well, it does in the sense of having your cake and eating it too.
> 
> Here's a question: are Bach and Beethoven "great" in any objective sense, or is it possible given obvious subjectivity to say that they both were hopelessly inept? If one individual, or twenty or a million say that both of those were utterly inept, does that make that statement true?


Bach and Beethoven didn't exist until people heard their music.


----------



## Woodduck

mmsbls said:


> Just as several of us have stated, I think you and I are using terms differently. My post above essentially defines (or perhaps describes in great detail) what I mean by subjective. Simply put, people use different methodologies to evaluate works of art (or actually anything in the world). In particular, people will assign differing importance to the factors that they use to evaluate works. There are other aspects of subjectivity in art evaluation as I discuss above. The result is a subjective evaluation.
> 
> I'm not sure what you mean by creative powers. If you mean brain modules, neural interconnectivity, and other relevant aspects that allow thinking, I would agree. These, in theory, could be described objectively. I'm actually not sure that everyone who appreciates music would find that obvious.


My statement means that appreciating classical music will entail some appreciation of the fact that the human powers needed to create it are - objectively, if it need be said (and here it apparently does) - beyond the ordinary, and the more we appreciate the music's qualities the more impressive those powers will appear. It isn't a matter of 'describing' the powers, but of recognizing their unusual magnitude. In the case of the greatest composers, the magnitude should astonish us.


----------



## mmsbls

Woodduck said:


> My statement means that appreciating classical music will entail some appreciation of the fact that the human powers needed to create it are - objectively, if it need be said (and here it apparently does) - beyond the ordinary, and the more we appreciate the music's qualities the more impressive those powers will appear. It isn't a matter of 'describing' the powers, but of recognizing their unusual magnitude. In the case of the greatest composers, the magnitude should astonish us.


I agree completely.


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## TwoFlutesOneTrumpet

Woodduck said:


> Just a reminder that it's fallacious that possible differences of opinion disprove the existence of objective values. Well-composed music is well-composed whether any individual can hear that it is or not, and in this universe good composition is a positive value. Mozart's mastery of form and his melodic inventiveness are not up for a vote.


Very much so. Just because someone doesn't recognize Mozart's mastery of form or his melodic inventiveness, it doesn't mean they don't exist objectively. It just means that person is ignornant or for some other reason fails to perceive what is objectively great. Now that person may not care about musical form or melody and that is a completely subjective stance but to deny their existence is to deny reality.


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## 59540

😂 This whole thread had been essentially "you like what you like because you obviously like what you like. Prove me wrong."


----------



## Luchesi

Strange Magic said:


> I'm also back like DaveM but only to chide Luchesi for asserting despite all evidence to the contrary that I am not approaching this subject in accordance to my science-based focus. Indeed, it is because I know a bit about how to conduct science that my approach to this topic is as it is. The assertion that there are "objective" aspects of art other than measurable properties that can be replicated by all perceivers who do not suffer from a brain erosion or deprivation of their several senses, is To Be Demonstrated (and is not).
> 
> Those measurable properties, as I have stated beyond misinterpretation, include properties such as mass, color, size, when created and by whom, duration if applicable, units moved in commerce, and polling results that are carefully examined as to group polled, etc. Can't get any plainer.


I know you so I don't think you're mad at me, but I don't see any emoticons..

I only meant that scientists pull things apart and try to make sense of the separate objective facts. Musicologists and musicians and composers do that too. We pull things apart for whatever the immediate task is. We reduce them until we can find something to proceed with objectively

Hand a musician two very different scores and he can probably very quickly tell you which one is better. How does he do it? It doesn't matter if he sounds correct to someone else. He can point to the score and give objective reasons for his evaluation, so it's a level playing field among knowledgeable people. Does that sound condescending?


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## DaveM

mmsbls said:


> ..It is not an objective evaluation but rather a practical evaluation. They are essentially saying, "Composers A, B, and C wrote works that many of us greatly enjoy. Composers D, E, and F wrote many fewer works that many of us greatly enjoy. Anyone spending significant time listening to classical music and learning what others have learned will likely come to enjoy/appreciate the works of composers A, B, and C more than works of composers D, E, and F. Not only that, but we can give specific reasons why that is likely to be true." Personally, I think that's enormously valuable.


(Appreciate the response)

One man’s ‘practical evaluation’ is another man’s ‘objective evaluation’.  Actually, I believe they are saying, among other measurable things, that Composers A, B and C composed works in a clever way never seen before and which were appreciated in a major way at the time and/or before long and continued to attract a broad cross-section from the target-rich environment over generations to the present. Take Mozart’s final operas starting with Idomeneo, for instance: People had never heard operas on this level before. Can one deny the presence of objective reasons why these operas created such a response/stir at the time and have continued to this day?


----------



## DaveM

Luchesi said:


> I know you so I don't think you're mad at me, but I don't see any emoticons..
> 
> I only meant that scientists pull things apart and try to make sense of the separate objective facts. Musicologists and musicians and composers do that too. We pull things apart for whatever the immediate task is. We reduce them until we can find something to proceed with objectively
> 
> Hand a musician two very different scores and he can probably very quickly tell you which one is better. How does he do it? It doesn't matter if he sounds correct to someone else. He can point to the score and give objective reasons for his evaluation, so it's a level playing field among knowledgeable people. Does that sound condescending?


I know from your posts that you’ve been spending a lot of time exploring scores and I find it a useful perspective. Though no expert on the subject, to me it’s intuitive that significant evidence of the differences we hear in the music that differentiates the ‘greats‘ from the also-rans lies in the scores.


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## mmsbls

DaveM said:


> (Appreciate the response)
> 
> One man’s ‘practical evaluation’ is another man’s ‘objective evaluation’.  Actually, I believe they are saying, among other measurable things, that Composers A, B and C composed works in a clever way never seen before and which were appreciated in a major way at the time and/or before long and continued to attract a broad cross-section from the target-rich environment over generations to the present. Take Mozart’s final operas starting with Idomeneo, for instance: People had never heard operas on this level before. Can one deny the presence of objective reasons why these operas created such a response/stir at the time and have continued to this day?


I believe your view and mine are very close. They might be essentially identical. I think we just choose to use different words because we think of the term, objective, somewhat differently. I would amend your last sentence to read something like "Can one deny the presence of _historical and psychological_ reasons why these operas created such a response/stir at the time and have continued to this day?" 

To me objective reasons are things like a gold 1 cm diameter sphere weighs more than an aluminum 1 cm diameter sphere because gold's density is 19.3 g/cm3 compared to aluminum's 2.7 g/cm3 or the Tesla won the drag race over the Porsche because the Tesla's electric motor generates significantly greater torque at low speeds than the Porsche's mechanical driveline. I don't see how anyone could compare a Mozart opera to a Wagner opera in the same manner. Yes, both are spectacular creations that boggle the mind, but the arguments used to speak about them are, in my view, fundamentally different than those used to compare weights of metal spheres.


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## hammeredklavier

Sure, I can admit that "Rowan Atkinson is a genius actor who showed enormous skill and talent in entertaining his audiences. He surely deserves his popularity and fame. Who can argue that?"
Just cause there are people who go further to find "meaning" in his acting, it doesn't mean I have to sympathize with them; doesn't matter how many there are. Whether or not a piece of music strikes as a "kapellmeister work", for instance, even though the skill melody, harmony, form, or whatnot is outstanding, belongs in the realm of subjectivity.


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## DaveM

mmsbls said:


> I believe your view and mine are very close. They might be essentially identical. I think we just choose to use different words because we think of the term, objective, somewhat differently...


Likely true. This subject tends to exaggerate the limits of semantics and how we interpret them.


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## hammeredklavier

DaveM said:


> Well, unless I’m misunderstanding, you seem to be playing both ends against the middle. You say you ‘don’t hold these opinions’, but your final sentence suggests otherwise.


How? I only meant that Mozart doesn't have to be treated as some sort of deity compared to the other composer, who is pretty much forgotten. I don't need to indulge in any idolatry about Mozart to admire his music, or brand anyone as a weirdo going against "objective values" for having a view like:


hammeredklavier said:


> "I find it unfair that an "indecent pot-boiler" like Cosi fan tutte survived, while stuff like the "proto-Schubertian" pastoral poem, Die Hochzeit auf der Alm with its later added supplemental music and its "anthem of fidelity" and Die Ährenleserin did not. I find the dramatic structure of this Dzmj8lRLHh0&t=10m43s Dies irae (which integrates the Lacrimosa) more interesting than the one from Mozart's sketchy requiem. I find that none of Mozart's symphonies before No.31 are as "mature" as watch?v=e8ba5g_jF5M , watch?v=v80s4yjSdQM , watch?v=ppTToo8lrMQ " (and so on..)


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## Strange Magic

Luchesi said:


> I know you so I don't think you're mad at me, but I don't see any emoticons..
> 
> I only meant that scientists pull things apart and try to make sense of the separate objective facts. Musicologists and musicians and composers do that too. We pull things apart for whatever the immediate task is. We reduce them until we can find something to proceed with objectively
> 
> Hand a musician two very different scores and he can probably very quickly tell you which one is better. How does he do it? It doesn't matter if he sounds correct to someone else. He can point to the score and give objective reasons for his evaluation, so it's a level playing field among knowledgeable people. Does that sound condescending?


My friend, no rancor intended! 

But despite all of the verbiage, despite the special pleading for some kind of transcendent trans-physical, quasi-mystical prolixity enveloping the objectivist view, it still boils down to who likes what. It is a chicken-and-egg thing--we hear something we really like (so do the critics and other Experts) and then we begin the process--_ex post facto_--of "discovering" or concocting all the reasons why we (and every other thinking person) should and must, really, like that something. That is the way it really works. People who prefer Beethoven (poor Ludwig!) are many among the select CM audience, and those who prefer the energy and novelty and acidity and bite of Prokofiev (for example) are fewer in number. Therefore, What? It's a poll.


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## Luchesi

DaveM said:


> Oh shucks, just when the discussion was getting started... Oh well:


I've seen the one with the see-through dress, but I hadn't seen this one.


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## Luchesi

Strange Magic said:


> My friend, no rancor intended!
> 
> But despite all of the verbiage, despite the special pleading for some kind of transcendent trans-physical, quasi-mystical prolixity enveloping the objectivist view, it still boils down to who likes what. It is a chicken-and-egg thing--we hear something we really like (so do the critics and other Experts) and then we begin the process--_ex post facto_--of "discovering" or concocting all the reasons why we (and every other thinking person) should and must, really, like that something. That is the way it really works. People who prefer Beethoven (poor Ludwig!) are many among the select CM audience, and those who prefer the energy and novelty and acidity and bite of Prokofiev (for example) are fewer in number. Therefore, What? It's a poll.


If it's merely a poll there's a lot of questions left unanswered.


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## hammeredklavier

EdwardBast said:


> No, we can't agree on that! It resides in the art object understood with respect to certain values and principles manifested in objective and verifiable features of the work. Judgments of aesthetic value are usually perceived as more credibility when the principles and values by which they're understood are known to have been the ones under which the work was constructed.


Which begs the question; do we really listen to a late 18th century work like actual people from the late 18th century Europe (who unquestioningly upheld the values of the Enlightenment in music) would have? If not, why should our "decisions" about its "greatness" be considered to have more "objective credibility" than theirs? (Are we not "cherry-picking" things, by any chance, due to our "limitations in capability to appreciate"?). Fbjim sometimes talked about this, I remember.
And do our "decisions" about music popular in our own little nerdy circles (that comprise like less than 0.01% of the entire population today) even really have significant meaning outside them?


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## DaveM

hammeredklavier said:


> Which begs the question; do we really listen to a late 18th century work like people from late 18th century Europe (who unquestioningly upheld values of Enlightenment in music) would have? If not, why should our "decisions" about its "greatness" should have more "objective credibility" than theirs? (Are we not "cherry-picking" things, by any chance, due to our limitations in capability to appreciate?).
> And do our "decisions" about music popular in our own little nerdy circles (that comprise like less than 0.01% of the population today) even really have significant meaning outside them?


 I’m going to have a hard time enjoying your posts in the future. I was apparently misled that those of the past represented a pride in and appreciation of the works of certain classical music composers and classical music in general. Classical music, nerdy circles or not, still has an important world-wide presence particularly in Europe and Asia.


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## Waehnen

Waehnen said:


> This forum is not a seminar of musicology so I will have to stop myself from laying out a path for the most objective truth possible on the matter.
> 
> I will just say on what criteria I am stating that Sibelius is the greatest symphonist of all time. As an homage to the great 7 symphonies, I will only stick to 7 points for now. (I will continue if needed.)
> 
> 1. Master of tonality: Strong harmonic tendencies, strong and expressive chord sequences, use of clusters, chromatism, modality and other scales. In my opinion only Bach, Wagner and Chopin are as capable in the field of tonality as Sibelius. Not even Beethoven or Brahms come as far, great though they are. Mahler, Bruckner and Shostakovich are far behind.
> 
> 2. Master of melodies: Sibelius Symphonies are full of melodies which are both intellectually stimulating, expressive, emotional and beautiful in their own right. Only Schubert, Tchaikovsky, Chopin and Wagner rival Sibelius is this. There is something meaningfully singable in every movement. Without being a master melodist, Sibelius would not been as great a symphonist.
> 
> 3. Master of the grand scale and architecture: Sibelius’ symphonies are known to be complex and rich entities which are also able to create the sense of unity and balance. There is great unity in the great complex diversity. This resulted in new symphonic forms and structures. No one is quite at Sibelius’ level in this prospect.
> 
> 4. Master of thematic and motific metamorphoses. Sibelius adabted this principle from Beethoven and Brahms and is an equal of them in coherence yet surpasses both in the abundance of the directions and details gained despite the strict symphonic logic.
> 
> 5. Stimulus of both intellect and emotion is always present in all Sibelius. This is one of the key features in Immanuel Kant’s aesthetics: A strong artistic experience is formed when a strong emotional feeling comes together with intellectual conception of the form. This balance is strong in Sibelius in an unique way.
> 
> 
> 6. Nobody can deny the expressive powers of the Sibelius symphonies. In that way Sibelius applies the Tolstoi principle: art must always express something. Sibelius’ music communicates strongly. Every symphony expresses different things. There is nature, there is sense of home, there is patriotism, feeling of getting old, there is nostalgia, there is nocturnal atmospheres, there is the expression of suffering, there is landscape, humanism, cosmic aspects, sorrow and joy... Only Beethoven and Mahler come close to Sibelius in the variety of expressive symphonic powers. Sibelius’ music carries so much MEANING through the musical language he was able to create based on the previous generations and his own genius imagination.
> 
> 
> 7. Sibelius Symphonies are extremely diverse. You could easily take almost whatever Mahler movement and put it into another one of his symphonies and maybe change the key and with some other minor modifications make it work. Same with Brahms and Bruckner: it is always the same voice, strong though they are. The 1st Symphony of Sibelius couldn’t be farther away from the 7th. Only Beethoven rivals Sibelius in this prospect but if we include programmatic Symphonic Poems by Sibelius, Sibelius surpasses even Beethoven.


The text quoted above is just about the most objectivist I might occasionally feel getting. Then again my objectivism above is basically just being honest and making SOME arguments for the sake of conversation even though it is obvious there will never be an objective, final and definite answer to who really was the greatest symphonist of all time.

But I think there is some value in attempts like the one above (even though I don’t myself agree with myself on all points at the time). I would like to encourage such attempts — rather than saying that just stick to your opinion, articulate it in one sentence and tell everyone else to do the same.

The value in aspiring some objectivity should be admitted. For example, it has been the more objectivist or analytical TC posts that really have helped me forward into understanding Mahler. People who have been patient enough to explain.

Then again I value pure and simple opinions, too. I even enjoy the numerous polls to an extent.


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## hammeredklavier

Woodduck said:


> Good question. The artist sets, accepts, and fulfills (or not) the premises on which the work is based. He doesn't, for the most part, invent those premises - they are largely derived from his culture and profession - but he does, if he's not a mere imitator, find new ways of using those premises and of extending and modifying them. He is then admired for both his ability to grasp and exploit an inherited, common expressive language and for his creative originality.


I always respect you for your insight and attitude, Mr. Woodduck. But come on, let's stop kidding our ourselves. (It's starting to get laughable really.) Perpetual aesthetic practices in Mozart, for instance, (even an entire genre) have been disparaged as downright "ridiculous" (no questions asked) on the forum, even though Mozart in his time and "sensibility" would have found them perfectly acceptable. I mean.. suuure.. "_inventiveness of melody_" and "_mastery of form_" are still there.. riiiight.. these things triumph over all the supposed "negatives".. since they're sooo _great_..
Let's talk no more on this; it's getting cringey I feel like getting out of here now, lol.


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## Woodduck

Strange Magic said:


> But despite all of the verbiage, despite the special pleading for some kind of transcendent trans-physical, quasi-mystical prolixity enveloping the objectivist view,


A ludicrously fantastical and insulting description of the work done by many participants in this and other discussions to get at the nature of artistic merit and aesthetic values.



> *it *still boils down to who likes what.


The only _"it"_ that boils down to that is your theory of an equivalence between aesthetic perception and the activity of your taste buds.



> *It *is a chicken-and-egg thing--we hear something we really like (so do the critics and other Experts) and then we begin the process--_ex post facto_--of "discovering" or concocting all the reasons why we (and every other thinking person) should and must, really, like that something. That is the way *it* really works.


The only _"it"_ that "really works" that way is your theoretical model of art=ice cream . You may be (somewhat) qualified to describe what happens in your own brain when you hear a piece of music, but you sure as hell can't speak for what happens in mine. For me, and for innumerable other people, including particularly the artists who create the phenomenally evocative and communicative products you have compared to Hagen Dasz, the process of perceiving, comprehending and appraising art involves much more than "really liking" it and "concocting" justifications for doing so. It's mind-boggling that after all this time, the depth and potential yield of that process has so escaped your comprehension - or so failed to interest you - that you can still trivialize and dismiss as a self-deluding fraud the entire attempt to understand what makes art the powerful product and vehicle of human values that most people with any interest in the matter know it is.



> People who prefer Beethoven (poor Ludwig!) are many among the select CM audience, and those who prefer the energy and novelty and acidity and bite of Prokofiev (for example) are fewer in number. Therefore, What? It's a poll.


Repeating endlessly the fact that different people prefer different music or poetry, and taking polls to determine who prefers what, give us nothing we don't already know except numerical statistics. Neither the simple fact of taste, nor any poll of any number of people concerning their tastes, tells us anything about the nature of art and the human response to it. Since it doesn't, and since you must know that it doesn't, what's the point of continuing to argue for your mysterious _"it"?_

Be sure of one thing: your "it" is not my "it."


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## Sid James

Luchesi said:


> Yes, and we can even say that education offers "a way out". And doesn't it always...


It helps to not only gain knowledge but also develop critical thinking skills. Of course, our conversations here aren't at a scholarly level - and neither should they be - nor are they like those between trusted friends.

The internet falls between the cracks of normal communication, and I don't think I will ever figure it out partly because I'm too old to have grown up with it. Whether we accept them or not, logical fallacies, echo chambers and confirmation bias are pretty much what we buy into when we enter into online discussions.

In many respects, me being a dinosaur is probably a good thing, since I can remember a time when the internet didn't exist. I sometimes wonder whether its limitations are as apparent to those who grew up with it, to whom the norms and expectations of online discussion are like a second nature. I know that critical thinking is still taught at school, but younger people are growing up in a world that tries hard to blur the lines between their lives in reality and online. It must be confusing to need to constantly go against the grain like that, since so much of our lives are spent online nowadays.


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## Woodduck

hammeredklavier said:


> *I always respect you for your insight and attitude, Mr. Woodduck. But come on, let's stop kidding our ourselves.* (*It's starting to get laughable really.*) There have been perpetual aesthetic practices in Mozart, for instance, (even an entire genre) that have been disparaged as downright "ridiculous" (no questions asked) on the forum, even though Mozart in his time and "sensibility" would have found perfectly acceptable throughout his lifetime. I mean.. suuure.. "_inventiveness of melody_" and "_mastery of form_" are still there.. riiiight.. these things triumph over all the supposed "negatives".. since they're sooo _great_..
> Let's talk no more on this; it's getting cringey *I feel like getting out of here now*, lol.


If you actually respected my insight and my "attitude," you would not address me as you do here. Take your own advice: stop kidding yourself, and do get out of here now. Talk to me when you can be simple, sincere, and serious.


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## BachIsBest

mmsbls said:


> I'll answer in two ways. First, if there are both subjective and objective components to an evaluation, the overall evaluation must be considered subjective. Only a completely objective analysis can be viewed as objective.


But this is clearly hopelessly unnuanced. Every judgement made by a human is, to some extent, going to be subjective, by definition. Does this render all human judgements entirely subjective? Really?


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## Forster

Woodduck said:


> Strange Magic said:
> 
> *"I'm not sure why it's so hard to see it - the difference between an 'art' object and 'art'. Not only did I get it, I find it an entirely helpful clarification."*


SM didn't say this - I did. But the 'it' I was referring to was what SM had posted.

One of the things that comes across very strongly in Woodduck's post is the view of the artist. It's one of the reasons why differences of opinion arise in this subject: the amateur consumer (like me), the musicologist, the musician, the composer etc all bring not only different perspectives, but different levels of commitment to certain ideas. I have no investment as an artist; Woodduck has an overwhelming investment as an artist. Consequently, we see 'art' from substantially different perspectives and describe our responses to it in different ways and, perhaps, talk past each other in doing so. It's one os the reasons why musicologists get such a bad press, as they criticise what they themselves don't do (on the whole - I'm sure there are some who are also composers, but I hope my point remains valid).

It also means that when Waehnen started talking about 'ontology', the language of the philosopher is introduced. I only started talking in those terms because the philosophical perspective had been introduced and merited a response. It nevertheless remains a legitimate approach to discuss what 'art' is from the philosophical perspective, even though the artist may feel slighted by the process. I disagree that what SM was about was sleight of hand, but I can see why such a claim might be made.

Earlier, my musing on my own listening experience (dismissed by one as not profound enough for where this discussion was going) nevertheless highlighted my own perspective - and one which has been repeated in one way or another by others: that is the "why". Why do I think that Beethoven is "better" than Schubert (when talking about symphonies)? He is, isn't he? Not am I not the only one who thinks it, not only do many people - artists, composers, music historians etc - think so, but it is pretty universally accepted that this is the case. I don't accept the answer that no matter how many people agree, "it's still all "subjective"" as a sufficient explanation. But I can't also believe that, say, Art Rock is in some way deficient in his hearing or evaluative faculties when he says he doesn't like and doesn't accept the extent of the greatness of LvB's 9th. Subjectivity - the personal response of the individual - still comes into it.

So why do I struggle to offer an objective explanation? I don't know that there is one. The kind of mathematical analysis simulated by mmsbls is a useful illustration that any attempt at a quantifiable explanation is nigh on impossible.

Maybe there is only wonder. I certainly wonder that some find Brightman an appealing performer!


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## mmsbls

BachIsBest said:


> But this is clearly hopelessly unnuanced.


You quoted the first part of my post which tried to give a general statement of my view. The second part was, I believe, rather nuanced and detailed specifically in reference to evaluating music.



> Every judgement made by a human is, to some extent, going to be subjective, by definition. Does this render all human judgements entirely subjective? Really?


The first sentence here apparently agrees with what I said. The second sentence contradicts my words, "if there are _both subjective and objective components_ to an evaluation...". I believe some evaluations of music try to use some objective components.


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## Woodduck

Forster said:


> One of the things that comes across very strongly in Woodduck's post is the view of the artist. It's one of the reasons why differences of opinion arise in this subject: the amateur consumer (like me), the musicologist, the musician, the composer etc all bring not only different perspectives, but different levels of commitment to certain ideas. I have no investment as an artist; Woodduck has an overwhelming investment as an artist. Consequently, we see 'art' from substantially different perspectives and describe our responses to it in different ways and, perhaps, talk past each other in doing so. It's one os the reasons why musicologists get such a bad press, as they criticise what they themselves don't do (on the whole - I'm sure there are some who are also composers, but I hope my point remains valid).
> 
> Earlier, my musing on my own listening experience (dismissed by one as not profound enough for where this discussion was going) nevertheless highlighted my own perspective - and one which has been repeated in one way or another by others: that is the "why".* Why do I think that Beethoven is "better" than Schubert (when talking about symphonies)?* He is, isn't he? Not am I not the only one who thinks it, not only do many people - artists, composers, music historians etc - think so, but it is pretty universally accepted that this is the case. I don't accept the answer that no matter how many people agree, "it's still all "subjective"" as a sufficient explanation. But I can't also believe that, say, Art Rock is in some way deficient in his hearing or evaluative faculties when he says he doesn't like and doesn't accept the extent of the greatness of LvB's 9th. Subjectivity - the personal response of the individual - still comes into it.
> 
> *So why do I struggle to offer an objective explanation? I don't know that there is one. The kind of mathematical analysis simulated by mmsbls is a useful illustration that any attempt at a quantifiable explanation is nigh on impossible.*



A few thoughts come to mind.

I think it's an error to identify "objectively existent" with "quantifiably measurable." The number of relationships that exist between the notes of even a fairly simple musical composition (never mind a 40-minute symphony) is enormous, and beyond our ability to tabulate even if we could be aware of them all. What's amazing is how our brains can perceive these complexities of composition and judge their appropriateness and effectiveness in the context of a work, while our conscious minds can be relaxed and floating in what feels like simple pleasure or emotional gratification. People vary in their minds' ability to sense the relationships a musical composition contains - which means, to grasp its form - and to one degree or another the unconscious mind has to develop and refine this skill with time and experience, but the capacity itself is universal - wired into the human brain - and is fundamental to any meaningful evaluation of art. There is indeed a kind of measurement going on, but we can't bring it to full consciousness and apply a quasi-scientific unit of measurement to it. It's just far too complex.

The point I want to make in this context is that we don't have to be able to quantify, or even consciously identify, a work's characteristics in order to recognize when the artist has been successful in putting together a structure that "works" on all levels - a system of interrelated parts that holds together, delivers what it promises, and leaves a distinct imprint on our minds that tells us that something significant has been done, and tends to make us want to listen again in the expectation that there will be further satisfactions as more of the incomprehensibly numerous interrelationships of the work's form reveal themselves.

Often, music's form and content are spoken of as separate things, as if "a form" is some kind of mold, purchased wherever molds are sold, into which a composer pours whatever expressive content he wants to communicate. In reality, on the higher levels of art (beyond the level where students of composition are imitating in order to learn), form and expression don't work that way. Form, as the sum total of all relationships within a work, is the physical manifestation of the work's expressive meaning, which exists only in and through a specific form and can't exist without it. In art, the wine isn't the contents of the bottle. It _is_ the bottle.

You've pointed out that my perspective on the question of meaning and value in art is that of an artist. That's true. I've spent most of my life searching for significant and successful form in several arts - visual, verbal and musical - and through those pursuits I know in my bones that success in that search is possible, and so fundamental to art as such that its presence can be called both an objectively existent thing and a thing - among several other things - susceptible to appraisals more objective than mere taste. This in no way denies or minimizes the presence and importance of individual responses to music, in all their limitless variety. But people of diverse tastes can recognize in common critical ways in which musical works are successful as works of art, and with respect to a composer like Beethoven can even agree on his greatness whether or not he ranks among their favorites. I'd venture to say that it would be hard for anyone with more than a rudimentary understanding of Western music to hear the "Pastoral" symphony or the "Eroica" and not realize that something remarkable has been achieved.


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## Eva Yojimbo

dissident said:


> And so do millions of others. Why? For all the verbiage (no offense), you can't really say.


The "why" is indeed an interesting question, and I addressed that in my original post. Whatever the answer is it's not going to be a simple one, and will undoubtedly involve both the nature of the music itself and the psychology of all the people that listen to and like it. Still, whatever the answer it won't change the fact that standards spring from our subjective liking of music, or even certain aspects of certain of music, even if that liking is in large part caused by the music itself.


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## Eva Yojimbo

Woodduck said:


> It's perplexing that otherwise insightful people continue to talk as if ranking works of art - which are comparable in some respects but not in others, with the latter prevailing - rigidly and definitively in terms of 'great, good, bad, better, best. etc.' is possible or valuable. I suppose such an idea has to be disposed of at some point, but I'd have thought that done a long time ago. The _'best color'?_ Holy ****! What could that even mean? Is the conversation really still stuck at this primitive level?


I did say the color analogy was an absurd one, but it only served to illustrate the point about the gap between an expert on objective features of a subject and judgments or valuations about that subject. However, I would defend the value (or at least purpose) in rating/ranking things in general as it serves in large part to dictate what art is passed on to future generations. I think it's important despite the fact it all boils down to a fundamental level of subjective likes and dislikes.


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## Waehnen

Most of the writers here do acknowledge both the subjective freedom of the listener to like or dislike whatever they desire, and that to various degrees music has qualities that can be researched and discussed through the common methods of science and philosophy and common talk aiming at objective values.

In a forumist environment, everyone should be allowed to address these issues the way they want whilst at the same time showing respect towards fellow forumists.

Do we all agree on this? Is there still a problem?


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## Eva Yojimbo

Woodduck said:


> Just a reminder that it's fallacious that possible differences of opinion disprove the existence of objective values. *Well-composed music is well-composed whether any individual can hear that it is or not*, and in this universe good composition is a positive value. *Mozart's mastery of form and his melodic inventiveness are not up for a vote*.


What I'm interested in is whether you can demonstrate the above without reference to any subjective notions such as what we (as individuals, as a collective species, or even as just a community of classical music fans) like and value, because this strike me as saying that money has value regardless of whether anyone thinks it does. If the judgment of "well-composed music" depends upon standards we create based on what we like then it is not (by literal definition) objectively well-composed; If Mozart's "mastery of form and melodic inventiveness" depends upon our standards we create based on what kinds of melodies and forms we like then the judgment of their mastery very much is up for a vote and, in fact, that's all it depends on.


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## Eva Yojimbo

BachIsBest said:


> But this is clearly hopelessly unnuanced. Every judgement made by a human is, to some extent, going to be subjective, by definition. Does this render all human judgements entirely subjective? Really?


Even though you weren't responding to me I would give a tentative "yes" to this, though there are nuances. I often like to use the analogy of games because there's less emotional baggage and because the terms are clearly defined. Let's take chess: all of the rules and goals or chess are subjective in the sense that they were invented by human minds (they aren't found in nature, independent of human minds); but once the rules and goals are agreed upon we can "objectively" judge good and bad moves based on how well they accomplish the goal of, first, not losing and, second, checkmating the king and winning.

People take the rules and goals of chess for granted, so it becomes easy to talk about the objective judgments of moves based on those rules/goals (especially in the age of computer-assisted analysis where computers play chess far better than humans can). However, when you deconstruct it it's clear that any notion of objective judgment or valuation is inextricably tied to the rules and goals that were invented by subjective minds and do not, can not, exist without them. So is the evaluation of chess moves "objective?" I'd say yes ONLY if we are taking the rules/goals for granted. To me, what seems to be happening in all of these debates about subjectivity/objectivity in art is that the objectivists are constantly taking for granted all of the subjective machinery that goes into producing the "rules/goals" of art. 

This analogy maps almost perfectly onto art, and the differences are in degree rather than kind. As an example, the "rules/goals" of music are nowhere near as clearly defined as they are in chess, and we don't all agree on exactly what they are. We may, to a limited extent, be able to agree on certain fundamentals that apply within a more limited sphere of music--like tonality. We may, to an even more limited extent, be able to establish shared values and standards, especially within smaller communities where we also share similar tastes.

A key difference between chess and music is that any values and standards we create are most fundamentally tied to what we (again, as individuals and as a larger community) like and dislike. This is why statements like "Mozart's mastery of form and his melodic inventiveness are not up for a vote" strike me as absurd because it should be immediately obvious that the only basis we have for judging such a thing is the fact that a lot of people LIKE Mozart's melodies and his usage of form. If most people listened to Mozart and his music didn't trigger in us the subjective feeling of liking it (whatever form that liking takes: pleasure, beauty, emotion, aesthetic, etc.), what objective, mind-independent thing would you point to to argue for it being good? AFAICT, there is no such thing.

This doesn't mean that the objective properties of the music have no role to play in triggering that "liking" effect, and I am extremely interested in understanding what those objective features are. However, you're never, ever going to get to a full understanding of why art effects us as it does without also unraveling all of the subjective, internal, intellectual and emotional and aesthetic cognition that's happening within the human mind that's perceiving the object; and you certainly aren't going to get to an understanding of how standards, evaluations, and judgments arise without that.


----------



## Waehnen

Eva Yojimbo said:


> Even though you weren't responding to me I would give a tentative "yes" to this, though there are nuances. I often like to use the analogy of games because there's less emotional baggage and because the terms are clearly defined. Let's take chess: all of the rules and goals or chess are subjective in the sense that they were invented by human minds (they aren't found in nature, independent of human minds); but once the rules and goals are agreed upon we can "objectively" judge good and bad moves based on how well they accomplish the goal of, first, not losing and, second, checkmating the king and winning.
> 
> People take the rules and goals of chess for granted, so it becomes easy to talk about the objective judgments of moves based on those rules/goals (especially in the age of computer-assisted analysis where computers play chess far better than humans can). However, when you deconstruct it it's clear that any notion of objective judgment or valuation is inextricably tied to the rules and goals that were invented by subjective minds and do not, can not, exist without them. So is the evaluation of chess moves "objective?" I'd say yes ONLY if we are taking the rules/goals for granted. To me, what seems to be happening in all of these debates about subjectivity/objectivity in art is that the objectivists are constantly taking for granted all of the subjective machinery that goes into producing the "rules/goals" of art.
> 
> This analogy maps almost perfectly onto art, and the differences are in degree rather than kind. As an example, the "rules/goals" of music are nowhere near as clearly defined as they are in chess, and we don't all agree on exactly what they are. We may, to a limited extent, be able to agree on certain fundamentals that apply within a more limited sphere of music--like tonality. We may, to an even more limited extent, be able to establish shared values and standards, especially within smaller communities where we also share similar tastes.
> 
> A key difference between chess and music is that any values and standards we create are most fundamentally tied to what we (again, as individuals and as a larger community) like and dislike. This is why statements like "Mozart's mastery of form and his melodic inventiveness are not up for a vote" strike me as absurd because it should be immediately obvious that the only basis we have for judging such a thing is the fact that a lot of people LIKE Mozart's melodies and his usage of form. If most people listened to Mozart and his music didn't trigger in us the subjective feeling of liking it (whatever form that liking takes: pleasure, beauty, emotion, aesthetic, etc.), what objective, mind-independent thing would you point to to argue for it being good? AFAICT, there is no such thing.
> 
> This doesn't mean that the objective properties of the music have no role to play in triggering that "liking" effect, and I am extremely interested in understanding what those objective features are. However, you're never, ever going to get to a full understanding of why art effects us as it does without also unraveling all of the subjective, internal, intellectual and emotional and aesthetic cognition that's happening within the human mind that's perceiving the object; and you certainly aren't going to get to an understanding of how standards, evaluations, and judgments arise without that.


Do you think the subjectivity of us human beings is somehow outside the field of science? If there is an agreement on the chess rules, it sure can be researched where, when, why and by whom there rules were invented and what it tells about us humans.

Just saying that there is not a single aspect about chess that could not be studied. Neither is there anything about music that could not be studied or researched. Subjectivity of human beings is nothing mystical outside the reality.


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## Eva Yojimbo

Forster said:


> One of the things that comes across very strongly in Woodduck's post is the view of the artist. It's one of the reasons why differences of opinion arise in this subject: the amateur consumer (like me), the musicologist, the musician, the composer etc all bring not only different perspectives, but different levels of commitment to certain ideas. I have no investment as an artist; Woodduck has an overwhelming investment as an artist.


I feel like I could pretty easily map Woodduck's artist-centric views on this subject onto the way in which I'm arguing for the "subjectivist" side. To me, what Woodduck says--to take one example--about Mozart's mastery of form and melodic inventiveness could be slightly rephrased to acknowledge the subjectivist side by noting that Mozart's use of form and melody move us (intellectually, emotionally, aesthetically), which then triggers in us the evaluation of his mastery. My only complaint with what he says is that it glosses over this causal chain in which the objective features of the music interacts with our subjective minds and based on the positivity of that interaction we assign values to Mozart and his music. 

I do think it's unquestionably true that some artists are more skilled at triggering this causal chain than others are, but this very much goes back to SM's point about polling and such in that what we're talking about is greatness is essentially a poll on how many people have been moved by an artist and their work; and when that poll reaches large enough numbers we easily start taking for granted the subjective component in all of this and simply project our collective internal judgment of greatness onto the object (the artist and their work) itself.

It reminds me a lot of what ET Jaynes coined as the mind-projection fallacy, or the innate human bias to project the contents of our mind onto the objects that trigger the state of mind in us. Eliezer Yudkowsky wrote an article on this using popular "alien invasion" fiction as an example, in which aliens, who would have a completely different evolutionary psychology than our own, would often kidnap beautiful women to breed with. The point was that the authors of such works considered "beauty" an objective feature of the women, something that even aliens would recognize, glossing over the fact that our perception of feminine beauty stems from our own species' unique evolutionary psychology. Here's the full article for anyone interested: Mind Projection Fallacy - LessWrong I think something similar is at work in these types of discussions.


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## Eva Yojimbo

Waehnen said:


> Do you think the subjectivity of us human beings is somehow outside the field of science? If there is an agreement on the chess rules, it sure can be researched where, when, why and by whom there rules were invented and what it tells about us humans.
> 
> Just saying that there is not a single aspect about chess that could not be studied. Neither is there anything about music that could not be studied or researched. Subjectivity of human beings is nothing mystical outside the reality.


No, I absolutely think human subjectivity is within the field of science, as we know from fields ranging from neuroscience to cognitive science to the more scientifically rigorous forms of psychology. To take a favorite example, I have studied rationality for years and one of the most fascinating developments of recent decades came from the experiments done by people like Daniel Kahneman (who won a Nobel for his work in the field of Economics) that systematically sought to catalog various forms of cognitive biases via those experiments. 

One importance to acknowledging subjectivity in fields that require it for the establishing of rules/goals (like chess, or art, or ethics) is that any judgments of right/wrong, good/bad, are relative to those subjectively established rules/goals. This isn't the case for purely objective things. Facts about trees don't depend upon any subjective feelings or thoughts about trees. Trees exist external to the mind and the can be studied with extremely minimal reference to our minds (minimal in the sense that we still need our minds to perceive and study anything). Value judgments and the standards that give rise to them don't exist independently of our minds the way trees do.


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## Waehnen

Eva Yojimbo said:


> No, I absolutely think human subjectivity is within the field of science, as we know from fields ranging from neuroscience to cognitive science to the more scientifically rigorous forms of psychology. To take a favorite example, I have studied rationality for years and one of the most fascinating developments of recent decades came from the experiments done by people like Daniel Kahneman (who won a Nobel for his work in the field of Economics) that systematically sought to catalog various forms of cognitive biases via those experiments.
> 
> One importance to acknowledging subjectivity in fields that require it for the establishing of rules/goals (like chess, or art, or ethics) is that any judgments of right/wrong, good/bad, are relative to those subjectively established rules/goals. This isn't the case for purely objective things. Facts about trees don't depend upon any subjective feelings or thoughts about trees. Trees exist external to the mind and the can be studied with extremely minimal reference to our minds (minimal in the sense that we still need our minds to perceive and study anything). Value judgments and the standards that give rise to them don't exist independently of our minds the way trees do.


Precisely. One problem in the conversation is that some people think that anything that involves human mind as a factor is outside objectivity. You know very well that even psychological statistical studies are indeed the field of science.

What would you suggest to clear up and define the terminology used in this conversation?


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## Eva Yojimbo

Waehnen said:


> Precisely. One problem in the conversation is that some people think that anything that involves human mind as a factor is outside objectivity. You know very well that even paychological statistical studies are indeed the field of science.
> 
> What would you suggest to clear up and define the terminology used in this conversation?


I'm not sure how many here (subjectivists or objectivists) have suggested that the human mind is outside the realm of scientific inquiry. I think most would acknowledge we can generate objective facts about subjective things (polling is one such example of an objective fact being generated by subjective opinions). 

Your question is a good one, and I honestly think your OP is a valiant attempt at defining the terminology moving forward. I don't know what my own attempt would look like, but it would probably have similar features. One difficulty in these discussions is navigating between more piecemeal discussions of nuanced particulars and the broader, more general terms and ideas that break down into those particulars. It can give one a sense of vertigo trying to know which direction to go in as it varies from individual-to-individual based on the level of mutual understanding and agreement on the terminology. Any full account would have to be a thorough bottom-up approach, and I'm not sure that's feasible on a casual forum as opposed to in a more thorough academic setting; but yours was as good an attempt as any I could probably manage.


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## Roger Knox

Waehnen said:


> I am composing a symphony, you know. It doesn’t happen by itself. Creating it demands huge amount of time, effort, perspiration, cognitive functions, technical expertise and artistic and aesthetic knowledge and contemplation. I pour my whole personality and history and being into this piece of work.


When I was a graduate student many years ago, I was at one point challenged with writing a piece for orchestra at the same time as being involved in discussions like the one in this thread. As you say composing a symphony is very demanding in many ways, and I found that combining the two activities was something I couldn't handle. A core philosophical challenge was undermining me. In my opinion you are handling a similar challenge very well. But I'd like also to wish you every success with your symphony, and hope this controversy won't be personally discouraging as it was for me.


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## Eva Yojimbo

Roger Knox said:


> When I was a graduate student many years ago, I was at one point challenged with writing a piece for orchestra at the same time as being involved in discussions like the one in this thread. As you say composing a symphony is very demanding in many ways, and I found that combining the two activities was something I couldn't handle. A core philosophical challenge was undermining me. In my opinion you are handling a similar challenge very well. But I'd like also to wish you every success with your symphony, and *hope this controversy won't be personally discouraging as it was for me.*


I'd be curious to know why you find/found such controversies discouraging.


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## DaveM

Eva Yojimbo said:


> .. this strike(s) me as saying that money has value regardless of whether anyone thinks it does.


Bad analogy to support your point of view. If whether money has value depended on the subjective whims of a few people that would be one thing, but as long as the value of money depends on the the view of millions upon millions of people and the full faith and credit of the federal government, there is objective evidence that people can count on the value of money for the foreseeable future.

Besides, this kind of analogy is dismissively useless. Classical music would have no value if no one thought it did. Wow, proof of absolute subjectivity!


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## Woodduck

Eva Yojimbo said:


> What I'm interested in is whether you can demonstrate the above without reference to any subjective notions such as what we (as individuals, as a collective species, or even as just a community of classical music fans) like and value, because this strike me as saying that money has value regardless of whether anyone thinks it does. *If the judgment of "well-composed music" depends upon standards we create based on what we like then it is not (by literal definition) objectively well-composed; If Mozart's "mastery of form and melodic inventiveness" depends upon our standards we create* based on what kinds of melodies and forms we like then the judgment of their mastery very much is up for a vote and, in fact, that's all it depends on.


1. If the standards by which music is judged well-composed were created by its listeners, then you would be correct in claiming that no music could be called objectively well-composed. But that isn't what happens. What happens is that composers and listeners share assumptions and expectations of aesthetic form which have evolved and prevail in their common culture, and a composer strives to make effective use of those assumptions and expectations to create a product that delights the minds and engages the emotions of listeners who share the common musical language. It's obvious that Mozart has done this exceptionally well. It's also obvious, to those who are musically knowledgeable or perceptive, that doing it exceptionally well is no easy task. In fact it's so difficult to do it on Mozart's level of skill and inspiration that he has been virtually worshiped as one of the great creative figures in human history.

2. The principles of melodic, harmonic and rhythmic form with which Mozart (and other composers) were working are highly complex. The number of relationships that exist between the notes of, say, Mozart's 40th symphony is enormous, higher than our conscious minds can deal with as we listen to the music, or even Mozart's mind as he composed it. See my post #234. The manner in which those principles came into existence - who developed them and why - is irrelevant to the fact that Mozart had exceptional skill in exploiting them to produce works simultaneously complex, orderly, original, and capable of affecting other people intellectually and emotionally. The evidence that he did this better than his contemporaries is the more obvious the more we understand music, but also clear from the history of his music in performance and in reputation, during and since its appearance.

3. Principles of order in art are not the arbitrary fancies of wandering minds, for the fundamental reason that principles of order in the universe are not optional but essential to the nature of reality itself. Art succeeds, in all cultures everywhere and for all time, in exploiting these principles and embodying them in microcosmic form, thus satisfying the human need for constructive ordering and representation of their lived experience. The forms of art are for all practical purposes limitless, just as life experience is infinitely diverse, but order is the fundamental vehicle of aesthetic comprehensibility and expressiveness. The ability to order the notes, colors or words of an artwork in interesting and moving ways is an exceptional skill which human minds are wired to perceive and appreciate.

I am very, very tired of people who have not engaged in the incredibly demanding process of creating aesthetic order saying that quality in art is "all subjective" That is simply horse pucky.


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## hammeredklavier

Criticizing Mozart's contemporaries as "failed Mozarts" is always easy, but on what grounds are we assuming they all tried to achieve the exact same artistic goal? Did Mozart write like this in 1769,




Or like this in 1805?




And since when have we judged all composers based on technicality? (melody, harmony, counterpoint, etc)


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## Strange Magic

> *Woodduck:* "I am very, very tired of people who have not engaged in the incredibly demanding process of creating aesthetic order saying that quality in art is "all subjective" That is simply horse pucky."


I think not. Your exact notions can be applied to the vintner's art and skill, though on a smaller scale perhaps. All that labor and all their hyperbolic rhetoric about both the labor and the product. Since you dislike always my ice cream flavor analogy (what is the best flavor?), I turn here to oenology and the oenophile and consider the same mechanisms at work, all reaching the same conclusion--it's all a matter of opinion. Like the other arts under the existing Groupthink, one must be tutored, always, by the Experts, to develop one's palate and one's nose in order to extract the ultimate experience of the particular variety at hand. Yet, to the chagrin of the oenophile, blind taste tests often show a random-number result, with even the tasters with the ultimate reputations for exquisite refinement and discernment losing their way entirely. Horse pucky is a readily-available commodity here in Nova Caesarea--our state animal is the horse--but can be found almost universally, especially in the arts. This is not to be seized upon as a repudiation of the often-useful role of the critic in widening our spectrum of works of interest, but, ultimately, we come down to opinions, individual or clustered into groups. Sorry if this is found tiring but it is what it is.


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## Woodduck

hammeredklavier said:


> Criticizing Mozart's contemporaries as "failed Mozarts" is always easy, but *on what grounds are we assuming they all tried to achieve the exact same artistic goal? *Did Mozart write like this in 1769,
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Or like this in 1805?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> *And since when have we judged all composers based on technicality?* (melody, harmony, counterpoint, etc)


No one has called Mozart's contemporaries failed Mozarts or assumed that all composers are trying to do exactly the same thing. "We" haven't judged all composers based on anything. The nature and significance of melody, harmony, counterpoint and "etc." is hardly summarized by the term "technicality." 

Would you like to try again?


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## Woodduck

Strange Magic said:


> I think not. Your exact notions can be applied to the vintner's art and skill, though on a smaller scale perhaps. All that labor and all their hyperbolic rhetoric about both the labor and the product. Since you dislike always my ice cream flavor analogy (what is the best flavor?), I turn here to oenology and the oenophile and consider the same mechanisms at work, all reaching the same conclusion--it's all a matter of opinion. Like the other arts under the existing Groupthink, one must be tutored, always, by the Experts, to develop one's palate and one's nose in order to extract the ultimate experience of the particular variety at hand. Yet, to the chagrin of the oenophile, blind taste tests often show a random-number result, with even the tasters with the ultimate reputations for exquisite refinement and discernment losing their way entirely. * Horse pucky* is a readily-available commodity here in Nova Caesarea--our state animal is the horse--but *can be found almost universally, especially in the arts. * This is not to be seized upon as a repudiation of the often-useful role of the critic in widening our spectrum of works of interest, but, ultimately, we come down to opinions, individual or clustered into groups.


This is as frivolous and obtuse an approach to art now as it was the first time you offered it. And how many hundred times is that now?

How would you, Mr. "It's All Subjective," know that there's horse pucky in the arts? How would you know it if you saw, read, or heard it? Is horse pucky one of your flavors of ice cream?




> Sorry if this is found tiring but it is what it is.


Yes, it is what it is. But your "it" is not my "it." Thanks to the ubiquity of taste buds, your "it" is easily understood by everyone, including your dog. My "it" - which is the it of people who make art and know what it contains and represents - seems to baffle a lot of otherwise intelligent people. I'm confident that you're one of those, and my confidence is unlikely to waver no matter how much ignorance of the nature of art you display.


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## DaveM

hammeredklavier said:


> ...And since when have we judged all composers based on technicality? (melody, harmony, counterpoint, etc)


I don’t know what to make of this. Assuming CP era music, is the importance of melody, harmony and counterpoint being diminished or dismissed?


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## Strange Magic

Woodduck said:


> This is as frivolous and obtuse an approach to art now as it was the first time you offered it. And how many hundred times is that now?
> How would you, Mr. "It's All Subjective," know that there's horse pucky in the arts? How would you know it if you saw, read, or heard it? Is horse pucky one of your flavors of ice cream?
> Yes, it is what it is. But your "it" is not my "it." Thanks to the ubiquity of taste buds, your "it" is easily understood by everyone, including your dog. My "it" - which is the it of people who make art and know what it contains and represents - seems to baffle a lot of otherwise intelligent people. I'm confident that you're one of those, and my confidence is unlikely to waver no matter how much ignorance of the nature of art you display.


I trust that you are content with your tone here. I find it increasingly informative, and consider my shafts are finding their mark.


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## 59540

Strange Magic said:


> I trust that you are content with your tone here. I find it increasingly informative, and consider my shafts are finding their mark.


Subjectivists seem to be weirdly confident in the objective truth of their positions.


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## Woodduck

Strange Magic said:


> I trust that you are content with your tone here. I find it increasingly informative, and consider my shafts are finding their mark.


Sorry to disappoint, but your "shafts" are spitballs.


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## Woodduck

dissident said:


> Subjectivists seem to be weirdly confident in the objective truth of their positions.


Didn't you know that knowledge is impossible?


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## Woodduck

......................................


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## 59540

Woodduck said:


> Didn't you know that knowledge is impossible?


My subjective knowledge is better than anybody's! 
So my answer to the whole thing is: ya know, I can't really say for sure one way or the other. And...it doesn't hinder my enjoyment of great art either way. I hope that the desperation in my tone was conveyed by the forum software.


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## Strange Magic

dissident said:


> Subjectivists seem to be weirdly confident in the objective truth of their positions.


When you're right, you're right. But the tone was interesting--this is (just) an Internet discussion, and conducted more for play than for combat. My views are almost absurdly simple but people become so agitated by their simplicity that some become........


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## Woodduck

Strange Magic said:


> When you're right, you're right. But the tone was interesting--this is (just) an Internet discussion, and conducted more for play than for combat. My views are almost absurdly simple but people become so agitated by their simplicity that some become........


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## Woodduck

This is all insincere or worse, and all wrong. 

"When you're right, you're right" is an empty redundancy and an unearned boast (the latest of many). 

"Interesting" is condescending. 

"Play" and "combat" are not the only reasons for engaging in discussions like this. 

Your views are not "almost absurdly simple"; they're oblivious and simplistic. No one is agitated by their "simplicity," but rather by your obsessive efforts to invalidate the experience of others when it doesn't fit your narrow paradigm. 

I do try not to take it personally when you keep responding to discussions of art - which I think is the ultimate subject of this forum - with differently worded variants of "all value judgments in art are matters of opinion," along with reams of extraneous verbiage and embarrassing boasts about being utterly self-satisfied and doing victory laps. But it's hard to have to read such stuff over and over.

If you're interested in "play," I might suggest some online games where you can shoot and blow up cartoon figures rather than people who actually care about what they're saying.


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## Strange Magic

Woodduck said:


> This is all insincere or worse, and all wrong.
> 
> "When you're right, you're right" is an empty redundancy and an unearned boast (the latest of many).
> 
> "Interesting" is condescending.
> 
> "Play" and "combat" are not the only reasons for engaging in discussions like this.
> 
> Your views are not "almost absurdly simple"; they're oblivious and simplistic. No one is agitated by their "simplicity," but rather by your obsessive efforts to invalidate the experience of others when it doesn't fit your narrow paradigm.
> 
> I do try not to take it personally when you keep responding to discussions of art - which I think is the ultimate subject of this forum - with differently worded variants of "all value judgments in art are matters of opinion," along with reams of extraneous verbiage and embarrassing boasts about being utterly self-satisfied and doing victory laps. But it's hard to have to read such stuff over and over.
> 
> If you're interested in "play," I might suggest some online games where you can shoot and blow up cartoon figures rather than people who actually care about what they're saying.


Advice: Cease and desist from reading my posts on this matter. Put me on Ignore (if that still exists). It is that simple.


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## Woodduck

Strange Magic said:


> Advice: Cease and desist from reading my posts on this matter. Put me on Ignore (if that still exists). It is that simple.


Sorry, but this is another "it" that isn't "that simple." Few things are.


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## Strange Magic

Woodduck said:


> Sorry, but this is another "it" that isn't "that simple." Few things are.


The alternative that you are choosing, I take it, is to--not stoically--continue to endure my posts. OK with me.


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## mmsbls

Strange Magic said:


> My friend, no rancor intended!
> 
> But despite all of the verbiage, despite the special pleading for some kind of transcendent trans-physical, quasi-mystical prolixity enveloping the objectivist view, it still boils down to who likes what. ...


SM, I still believe people are discussing different aspects of the process of valuation of composers or works. I think people are also using the terms subjective and objective differently. I'd like to try to describe 3 possible views made in this thread and ask you about them. I will try to be as clear and explicit as I think necessary; nevertheless, I may fail to be explicit or clear enough. If so, please ask me for clarification or suggest an improvement.

1) Individuals' enjoyment of various composers or works can have large variation, and we believe this variation is due to things like genetic differences, developmental history, and experiential history. Basically, tastes are subjective.

2) When evaluating composers or works (for example, when comparing one to another), one must determine a set of metrics, evaluate each composer or work on each metric, and determine how each metric is to be weighted in the overall evaluation. Though experts may substantially agree on which metrics to use and may not vary substantially in their evaluation of those metrics or in the weighting functions, all of these steps will lead to variation in the final assessment because each person brings at least a slightly different viewpoint to the valuation. In some cases, there could be significant variation even among experts. That variation is due to their subjective opinions on the metrics and weightings. Overall, such evaluations are fundamentally different from objective considerations such as, "Which ball is heavier?" In other words, this process is also subjective.

3) Those who have significant experience in learning about music, interact often with other knowledgeable people about music, and have vast listening experience (e.g. experts) can assess composers or works in a manner that can lead to a general consensus about those composers or works. Such a consensus is at least somewhat different than simple polling because it is based not just on personal tastes but, more importantly, on a collective determination of aspects of music considered important to those who have a long history of music appreciation. This expert consensus will almost certainly display vastly less uncertainty than mere polling, and it is a valuable addition to those interested in understanding the value of composers or works to the classical music community.

So, I assume you agree with #1 (and consider it obvious) and #2. You may even feel that the metrics utilized, the evaluation of metrics, and the weighting of metrics could vary enormously such that essentially any work or composer could be valued higher than any other (e.g. my funkiness or your stick figure examples). My real question is how you feel about #3. You likely would say that any such evaluation is still subjective, but would you agree that such a consensus has greater value than simple polling of many listeners? That such a consensus can help others discover music that likely will have a greater impact on them than music valued less highly? In other words, is the process described in #3 of greater value to the classical music community than #1?


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## Woodduck

mmsbls said:


> SM, I still believe people are discussing different aspects of the process of valuation of composers or works. I think people are also using the terms subjective and objective differently. I'd like to try to describe 3 possible views made in this thread and ask you about them. I will try to be as clear and explicit as I think necessary; nevertheless, I may fail to be explicit or clear enough. If so, please ask me for clarification or suggest an improvement.
> 
> 1) Individuals' enjoyment of various composers or works can have large variation, and we believe this variation is due to things like genetic differences, developmental history, and experiential history. Basically, tastes are subjective.
> 
> 2) When evaluating composers or works (for example, when comparing one to another), one must determine a set of metrics, evaluate each composer or work on each metric, and determine how each metric is to be weighted in the overall evaluation. Though experts may substantially agree on which metrics to use and may not vary substantially in their evaluation of those metrics or in the weighting functions, all of these steps will lead to variation in the final assessment because each person brings at least a slightly different viewpoint to the valuation. In some cases, there could be significant variation even among experts. That variation is due to their subjective opinions on the metrics and weightings. Overall, such evaluations are fundamentally different from objective considerations such as, "Which ball is heavier?" In other words, this process is also subjective.
> 
> 3) Those who have significant experience in learning about music, interact often with other knowledgeable people about music, and have vast listening experience (e.g. experts) can assess composers or works in a manner that can lead to a general consensus about those composers or works. Such a consensus is at least somewhat different than simple polling because it is based not just on personal tastes but, more importantly, on a collective determination of aspects of music considered important to those who have a long history of music appreciation. This expert consensus will almost certainly display vastly less uncertainty than mere polling, and it is a valuable addition to those interested in understanding the value of composers or works to the classical music community.
> 
> So, I assume you agree with #1 (and consider it obvious) and #2. You may even feel that the metrics utilized, the evaluation of metrics, and the weighting of metrics could vary enormously such that essentially any work or composer could be valued higher than any other (e.g. my funkiness or your stick figure examples). My real question is how you feel about #3. You likely would say that any such evaluation is still subjective, but would you agree that such a consensus has greater value than simple polling of many listeners? That such a consensus can help others discover music that likely will have a greater impact on them than music valued less highly? In other words, is the process described in #3 of greater value to the classical music community than #1?


I want to beg a moment's indulgence. I recognize and respect the fact that you're addressing Strange Magic specifically, and you may not want to respond to this interjection. But I think it's important to point out that your three approaches to evaluating the quality of musical works deal only with different degrees to which personal feelings - subjective opinions - about music can be informed by knowledge. You haven't allowed for the possibility of making statements about quality in music which are true independent of taste and opinion. The ultimate question is: can we say anything about the quality of a musical work which is not a mere opinion having no more validity than any other opinion? This is the rock-bottom issue. Do you have a reason for not at least alluding to it in your questions? Perhaps you're working up to asking about it? Might we expect its appearance as question number 4?

As I said, I don't expect a response, at least at this point. I just want to keep important issues in view. This is your conversation, and I'm capable, on occasion, of being patient.


----------



## Sid James

mmsbls said:


> Thank you for a well thought out and well written response to this debate. Several of us have pointed out (you, 4chamberedklavier, myself, and Sid to some extent) that we feel members are not arguing the same issues. There seems to be no movement towards agreement at least partially for that reason.


I'm not too concerned with agreement, more with being able to get my point across. I think its important on forums like this for people simply just to say what's their opinion. It keeps the place diverse, and avoiding that echo chamber effect which is so pervasive online.



mmsbls said:


> Personally I believe both sides are generally correct in what they argue. I do believe greatness is subjective (and obviously so), but I believe there are reasons that certain composers and works are considered to stand above others. There are experts (and other knowledgeable people) who can assess works and give reasons that others can understand and appreciate. Those reasons are worth discussing, and those who argue strenuously that those reasons matter are correct.


My personal take is that comparisons have to be worth making in the first place. Safe choices might be between contemporaries (e.g. Beethoven and Schubert), or things like genre (e.g. I've often come across this regarding keyboard works of different eras). If two things diverge to the extent that they're not worth comparing, I don't think its worth doing in the first place. After all, there's a lot of music in the roughly thousand years of western classical.

In terms of what I said before about the new musicology, my take on a lot of the comparisons made on this forum boils down to what I see as a key difference between modernism and postmodernism.

My view is that the canon came out of modernism, and basically died with it. Modernism was about competition, which was necessary for the development of the body of works between about 1750 and 1950 which still form the core repertoire of orchestras and opera companies. After the 1950's, postmodernism became more focused on contrast.

A good way to illustrate this shift is Jascha Heifetz's famous quote about the reason why he played modern music. The first version is all over the net, but I can't find a source:

_"I occasionally play works by contemporary composers and for two reasons. First to discourage the composer from writing any more and secondly to remind myself how much I appreciate Beethoven."_

I found a second version, similar to the above, but it has a source so its likely to be what Heifetz actually said:

_"Music by contemporary composers isn't worth the paper it's written on.
Contemporary composers can't write worthwhile music for the violin.
There's really only one composer of note, and that's Beethoven."_ *

Heifetz's views where widespread during his time, which saw the peak and decline of modernism. More recent generations of musicians tend not to think like this or say these things.

Hilary Hahn, for example, has tended to make recordings coupling classics of the canon with either outliers or new works. A good example is her recording of Sibelius with Schoenberg (Heifetz said the latter was unplayable). Another recording like this which I have enjoyed is Francesco Tristano's coupling of piano music by Bach and Cage. Another I have heard is Alicia Weilerstein's Elgar and Carter concertos.

We no longer are where we where in the mid 20th century. Competition isn't necessary, contrast is enough. The same goes with the canon, yes it's there and inevitably acts as a reference point, but what constitutes classical music isn't limited to that.

* Swatridge, C., _The Oxford Guide to Effective Argument and Critical Thinking_, 2014, p. 14 (on Google Books).


----------



## mmsbls

Woodduck said:


> I want to beg a moment's indulgence. I recognize and respect the fact that you're addressing Strange Magic specifically, and you may not want to respond to this interjection. But I think it's important to point out that your three approaches to evaluating the quality of musical works deal only with different degrees to which personal feelings - subjective opinions - about music can be informed by knowledge. You haven't allowed for the possibility of making statements about quality in music which are true independent of taste and opinion. The ultimate question is: can we say anything about the quality of a musical work which is not a mere opinion having no more validity than any other opinion? This is the rock-bottom issue. Do you have a reason for not at least alluding to it in your questions? Perhaps you're working up to asking about it? Might we expect its appearance as question number 4?
> 
> As I said, I don't expect a response, at least at this point. I just want to keep important issues in view. This is your conversation, and I'm capable, on occasion, of being patient.


No, by all means, you're free to inject thoughts into the discussion as always. I actually feel that #3 includes statements about quality in music which are truly independent of taste and opinion. I think #3 would be partly subjective and partly objective by my definitions. I intended my statement - "a collective determination of aspects of music considered important to those who have a long history of music appreciation" to refer to both opinion (I would not say mere opinion) and definitive statements about the music which would not be considered opinions. Obviously one could add a #4 which would include statements that were not opinions at all, but I believe that could limit the usefulness of such evaluations. 

I think it's important to note that some in this discussion (myself included) are trying to understand evaluations of music that can lead to comparisons of composers or works. My sense is that you are less concerned or not concerned at all with comparisons between composers or works and really concerned with simply evaluating a work or composer by itself or herself such that the result is not so much a number that can be used to compare but rather a description of the work(s) that details how well those works were composed. The result is not a 93 but rather a very good composition or perhaps an excellent composition or even a superlative composition. To me, that goal is very different than trying to make comparisons. Also while I do find polling interesting and quite useful for me personally, I think your sense of evaluations are overall of more interest.


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## mmsbls

Sid James said:


> I'm not too concerned with agreement, more with being able to get my point across. I think its important on forums like this for people simply just to say what's their opinion. It keeps the place diverse, and avoiding that echo chamber effect which is so pervasive online.
> 
> My personal take is that comparisons have to be worth making in the first place. Safe choices might be between contemporaries (e.g. Beethoven and Schubert), or things like genre (e.g. I've often come across this regarding keyboard works of different eras). If two things diverge to the extent that they're not worth comparing, I don't think its worth doing in the first place. After all, there's a lot of music in the roughly thousand years of western classical.
> 
> In terms of what I said before about the new musicology, my take on a lot of the comparisons made on this forum boils down to what I see as a key difference between modernism and postmodernism. My view is that the canon came out of modernism, and basically died with it.
> 
> Modernism was about competition, which was necessary for the development of the body of works between about 1750 and 1950 which still form the core repertoire of orchestras and opera companies. After the 1950's, postmodernism became more focused on contrast.
> 
> A good way to illustrate this shift is Jascha Heifetz's famous quote about the reason why he played modern music. The first version is all over the net, but I can't find a source:
> 
> _"I occasionally play works by contemporary composers and for two reasons. First to discourage the composer from writing any more and secondly to remind myself how much I appreciate Beethoven."_
> 
> I found a second version, similar to the above, but it has a source its likely to be what Heifetz actually said:
> 
> _"Music by contemporary composers isn't worth the paper it's written on.
> Contemporary composers can't write worthwhile music for the violin.
> There's really only one composer of note, and that's Beethoven."_ *
> 
> Heifetz's views where widespread during his time, which saw the peak and decline of modernism. More recent generations of musicians tend not to think like this or say these things.
> 
> Hilary Hahn, for example, has tended to make recordings coupling classics of the canon with either outliers or new works. A good example is her recording of Sibelius with Schoenberg (Heifetz said the latter was unplayable). Another recording like this which I have enjoyed is Francesco Tristano's coupling of piano music by Bach and Cage. Another I have heard is Alicia Weilerstein's Elgar and Carter concertos.
> 
> We no longer are where we where in the mid 20th century. Competition isn't necessary, contrast is enough. The same goes with the canon, yes it's there and inevitably acts as a reference point, but what constitutes classical music isn't limited to that.
> 
> * Swatridge, C., _The Oxford Guide to Effective Argument and Critical Thinking_, 2014, p. 14 (on Google Books).


Some here disparage the canon, but I've always found it useful for me. I hope modern and contemporary works start making their way into the canon although time is always necessary for a consensus to form so contemporary works will take more time.


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## Sid James

mmsbls said:


> Some here disparage the canon, but I've always found it useful for me. I hope modern and contemporary works start making their way into the canon although time is always necessary for a consensus to form so contemporary works will take more time.


It might be that the canon doesn't fade, it splits into different parts. William Weber did a lot of work on this. The three main aspects of his model are scholarly, pedagogical and performance.

I think though that its difficult to argue the the old modernist model of the canon is still being developed. Perhaps its being redefined to the extent that its becoming something entirely different to what it was (e.g. possible inclusion of film scores and musicals).

Development of repertoire isn't solely contingent on whether something will be continuously performed live. This itself was part of the competition element of modernism I was talking about. The first public concerts featured a mix of old and new music, and once that process of consensus happened, by the 1950's it reached a sort of plateau.

Like other types of music, classical is more diverse than it was, with many areas of specialisation. What's being performed by orchestras and opera companies is no longer fully representative of what's happening on the classical scene. Neither does live performance dominate as it used to - and now we're beyond analogue and into digital. A work can be recorded many times yet hardly performed.


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## Strange Magic

^^^^@mmsbls: I really appreciate your quiet and controlled effort to bring clarity to the discussion.

I have, as you suspect, no question with your point #1. 

I begin to grow restless at point #2 with your idea of agreed-upon metrics and looking at such metrics to determine how to evaluate music--my experience is that people listen to a new piece of music and then establish whether they like it and, if so, how much. Then, are we to assume that the usual CM listener, or any listener to any genre, then retroactively reviews in their mind why they like it and why therefore they ought to like it? I believe that few enter into hearing a piece of music wondering to themselves whether specific criteria are going to be met and how successfully. There is an _ex post facto_ factor at work here that vitiates the, let's say, full and direct and unmoderated impact of the music. The specter of "Should I like this; is it good to like this?" perhaps makes its appearance. But overall I agree with your #2 though we reach the same conclusion by different paths.

Point #3 I think clearly brings forward the idea of a consensus of experts: "... a collective determination of aspects of music considered important to those who have a long history of music appreciation. This expert consensus will almost certainly display vastly less uncertainty than mere polling, and it is a valuable addition to those interested in understanding the value of composers or works to the classical music community." Polling does not bring forth uncertainty; it does the opposite by letting us know how many like what, who thinks the criteria are met, are they the right criteria, given the group polled. This is but a variant of the oenophile example I used above when it comes to judging wines. And the result is to "understand the value of composers or works"--nothing wrong with that; though it only explains who likes what but doesn't really touch what determines individual choice, and no science ever will be able to determine and then predict _exactly_ what musics will register with each individual--too many variables. If such could be achieved though, it would show the variation in individuals. Or, if some of the notions of some objectivists are valid, and all possess the operative neurology/psychology/life experience, etc. and are not suffering from a brain disease, all would like exactly the same things. If the argument then turns to distinct genres of music within which the consensus has its best flowering, we are then left to decide (poll) which genre is the best, merely moving the question from one level to another. Thus I continue to hold with the wisdom of _de gustibus non disputandum est. _I may be wrong, but I don't think I am..

P.S.: I see nothing wrong with seeing what the experts say. Just don't ever feel their judgment of the worth of an object is more valid than yours. Even critics have their critics.

My other argument, we recall, is whether excellence is an intrinsic, inherent property permeating an art object, or whether we imbue art objects with our own notions of its excellence, bringing our own net of associations to an otherwise inert body. I need not restate my views on that matter.


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## DaveM

Fwiw, I think the term ‘subjectivist’and ‘objectivist’ should apply only to those who are polarized at one of the extremes or other. In my case, I believe that the appreciation and individual preferences of classical music are entirely subjective. But, for reasons I have repeated more than once previously, there is and has been objective evidence that some composers were more accomplished and innovative than others and composed works that over time stood and stand out in the canon more than others.

When a blueprint develops (over time) for what attracts those that are part of the collective classical music community, as it has over the CP era, then there is often objective information behind the reason for the various consensuses that develop regarding composers and their works. And just for the record, the use of the word, objective, does not imply that evaluations based on education and experience are always exactly the same. Still, they are often remarkably similar.


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## Waehnen

The biggest problem with the thinking of Strange Magic could be defining the extent and limits of their claims. It is a totally different thing to have this one brilliant but simplifying thought, "everything is just opinions", and then repeat it in a forumist environment than to apply this simplifying principle to everything. Honestly, I do no know the limits of Strange Magic´s thinking.

Speaking for myself, as long as I remember, I have built my personality on the principle of trying to find the most truthful foundation: realistic awareness of the surrounding world. This foundation is complicated but at least I never have to make compulsive claims on the universe. I try to take it as it is, contribute to it and let myself change in the process of learning more and more. This foundation has required me to accept this truth: most things in human life are both individual and communal, subjective and objective -- at the same time, because that is what we human beings are. Living creatures of the same biological species, with strong individuality and collective functions in the same package, balancing each other out constantly. This has proven to be true time after time, subject after subject.

So when Strange Magic on the forum says "everything is just opinions", it just sounds so silly and naive. To the extend that I find myself needing to ask Strange Magic, rather than making assumptions, what are the limits of this ultimate subjectivism? So I will ask some simple questions, just to clarify things.

Are you interested in the process of creating art?
Are you interested in what artists themselves say about their art?
Do you read biographies of artists?
Are you interested in aesthetic theories or different techniques of creating art?
Are you interested in analyzing art objects and trying to find what contributes to the impact?


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## Woodduck

mmsbls said:


> No, by all means, you're free to inject thoughts into the discussion as always. I actually feel that #3 includes statements about quality in music which are truly independent of taste and opinion. I think #3 would be partly subjective and partly objective by my definitions. I intended my statement - "a collective determination of aspects of music considered important to those who have a long history of music appreciation" to refer to both opinion (I would not say mere opinion) and definitive statements about the music which would not be considered opinions. Obviously one could add a #4 which would include statements that were not opinions at all, but I believe that could limit the usefulness of such evaluations.
> 
> I think it's important to note that some in this discussion (myself included) are trying to understand evaluations of music that can lead to comparisons of composers or works. *My sense is that you are less concerned or not concerned at all with comparisons between composers or works and really concerned with simply evaluating a work or composer by itself or herself such that the result is not so much a number that can be used to compare but rather a description of the work(s) that details how well those works were composed.* The result is not a 93 but rather a very good composition or perhaps an excellent composition or even a superlative composition. To me, that goal is very different than trying to make comparisons. Also while I do find polling interesting and quite useful for me personally, *I think your sense of evaluations are overall of more interest.*


Thanks for clarifying your intent.

Regarding your second paragraph, you're right to say that I'm not interested in explicit and definite ratings and rankings of musical works. This is, among other reasons, because there can be no manageable criteria of comparison applicable to unlike things _taken as wholes._ Dissimilar works of art can be compared with respect to certain definite characteristics they share, and it's very possible to see points of superiority in this way and, sometimes, to generalize from these to a sense of overall superiority. In my younger years, when I was painting and exhibiting work, I participated in some juried shows in which works were judged as meriting first, second, and third prizes (at least). I always knew not to take these prizes seriously as indicators of absolute merit. It could be downright absurd to rank works having little in common except that they were drawings or watercolors. However, I also perceived that the tributes the prizes represented could be, and hopefully would be, a legitimate recognition of merit of one kind or another. That, perhaps, makes art competitions, whether of paintings or of musical performances, somewhat tolerable. But in my heart of hearts I, like many artists I suspect, despise them. They certainly play to and perpetuate the childish idea - which rather pathetically permeates our society - that value depends on having competitors and trouncing them.

What I would say about the place of comparison in the perception of artistic quality, is that it always plays a part, but that we have to recognize the limits of its usefulness and value. Anything we evaluate, we evaluate in the context of its particular field of endeavor. Anyone who knows enough of music to state that Bach is a supremely great composer - a "composer's composer," as musicians often think of him - is stating it in the context of a knowledge of what other composers have done. Comparison - ranking, if you will - is always implied. However, when we listen to a Bach concerto or mass, we are not making comparisons but rather simply delighting in the musical inventiveness and mastery on display, and if comparisons come to mind they might simply be a thought such as "This is absolutely incredible!" or "I've never heard the like of this!" or - if we have the context of knowledge - "Telemann is great, but he doesn't achieve this level of either contrapuntal or expressive richness." Haydn, on hearing selections from Bach's Mass in b-minor, is said to have exclaimed, "We shall never compose anything as great as this!" And Brahms said of Mozart something like, "Why do we try, when in him we have the genuine article?" We can't recognize a composer of genius unless we have a sense of how his capabilities surpass those of ordinary musicians, but, once we have a sense of that, we can simply enjoy the wonderful things he produces and, if we're so inclined, explore the ways in which his exceptional abilities manifest themselves in his work, without further concern for the mere fact of his preeminence, and certainly without the need to try to prove anything by it.

As you know by now, I hold that judgments of the kind Haydn and Brahms were making - and I have only their conclusions here, not the details of their evaluations - can be based on accurate perceptions of what music (or any art) actually - "objectively," if we must - contains, and that judgments of artistic merit, while quite normally subject to the influence of personal taste, need not be mere matters of opinion, either individual or collective. This can't be proven to anyone, since understanding music, and finding merit in works of music, is a matter of perceiving relationships among sounds, and such perception is not transferable, although the objects of perception can be pointed out in hopes that another person will "get it." The fact that great majorities of people who appreciate classical music do "get" the extraordinary qualities of a Bach or a Mozart - even apart from personal taste for their music - can only be rationalized, and very awkwardly, by proponents of the "all judgments of art are subjective" persuasion. My conviction that aesthetic evaluation is a complex mixture of personal taste and real perception of real qualities is supported by both a lifetime of creative activity in the arts and by the wide experience of humanity, in which the act of of getting past personal tastes and cultural conditioning to a broadly comprehensive appreciation of artistic styles, and even the ability to perform and create in such styles at a high level, is a common occurrence among those who care to make the effort. 

There is much more to say about this, but sometimes one doesn't feel encouraged to do the work of formulating one's thoughts in order to say it.


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## Strange Magic

> *Waehnen: *
> 
> "Are you interested in the process of creating art?
> Are you interested in what artists themselves say about their art?
> Do you read biographies of artists?
> Are you interested in aesthetic theories or different techniques of creating art?
> Are you interested in analyzing art objects and trying to find what contributes to the impact?"


Of course to all five questions. Always interested in reading abut the creative process. I have read many biographies of composers--even corresponding via email with a leading biographer of Prokofiev. And who isn't interested in what artists say about their own work? It's as interesting as what they say about the work of other composers..My participation in this and dozens of other threads and hundreds of posts on esthetics are very well attested--you should go back and mine those threads and posts. Finally, I am fascinated by the characteristics of art objects that elicit such strong responses being brought to the art object by myself.

Waehnen, you are obviously as involved in these questions as I, but your five questions above find you wandering far into the trees of the wrong forest entirely--exploring me rather than the subject you purport to be interested in. My position on these matters is obviously radically simple--to the distress of those seeking more than is actually there, and my analogies and parallels drive some people into odd behavior. But the facts, to my mind, long experience, and understanding lead to the very, very old and very simple truths that I repeat over and over, hoping for some shattering of entrenched notions about art that are not congruent with reality. I will not yet again repeat both my notions or the notions of others here--we are all too familiar with them by now surely. But I will not withdraw from--fat chance!--my views and their simplicity.


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## Waehnen

Strange Magic said:


> Of course to all five questions. Always interested in reading abut the creative process. I have read many biographies of composers--even corresponding via email with a leading biographer of Prokofiev. And who isn't interested in what artists say about their own work? It's as interesting as what they say about the work of other composers..My participation in this and dozens of other threads and hundreds of posts on esthetics are very well attested--you should go back and mine those threads and posts. Finally, I am fascinated by the characteristics of art objects that elicit such strong responses being brought to the art object by myself.
> 
> Waehnen, you are obviously as involved in these questions as I, but your five questions above find you wandering far into the trees of the wrong forest entirely--exploring me rather than the subject you purport to be interested in. My position on these matters is obviously radically simple--to the distress of those seeking more than is actually there, and my analogies and parallels drive some people into odd behavior. But the facts, to my mind, long experience, and understanding lead to the very, very old and very simple truths that I repeat over and over, hoping for some shattering of entrenched notions about art that are not congruent with reality. I will not yet again repeat both my notions or the notions of others here--we are all too familiar with them by now surely. But I will not withdraw from--fat chance!--my views and their simplicity.


Thank you. I am happy you are able to limit the consequences of this poignant premise (<—is that English?) of yours. I really do not mind you sticking to the formulation that suits you so well because obviously it does not have to limit the conversations or lead to unpleasant atmosphere on the forum. I wish you all the best!


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## hammeredklavier

Woodduck said:


> Haydn, on hearing selections from Bach's Mass in b-minor, is said to have exclaimed, "We shall never compose anything as great as this!"


I'm not sure he ever made that comment regarding the Bach mass, but there is this:
"Haydn's music library featured works by Bach, including the B minor Mass and at least one set of 24 Preludes and Fugues. He also owned Forkel's biography of Bach. It is doubtful, however, that Haydn admired Bach more than Handel, many of whose works were also in Haydn's library, and who is known to have been specifically praised by Haydn ('He is the master of us all') during his visits to London."
[Painting the Cannon's Roar Music, the Visual Arts and the Rise of an Attentive Public in the Age of Haydn, By Thomas Tolley · 2017 (P. 232)]

On the flipside, we should also consider Berlioz's comments on Bach and Mozart, and Tchaikovsky's on Bach.
I think how these composers were educated from childhood affects their way of thinking in adulthood as well:


hammeredklavier said:


> [ "A biography of Mozart, read to him (Wagner) when he was only six, had made an undying impression on him. ... The overture to Die Zauberflöte was his earliest musical love: it captured so exactly the note of a fairy tale. He conducted it in Mannheim in 1871 at the concert celebrating the founding of the German Richard Wagner Society. He often reminisced about his childhood impressions when Mozart was played at Wahnfried. He had discovered the C minor Fantasy at his Uncle Adolf's house and had dreamt about it for ages afterwards." (Westernhagen, P. 81~82) ]-
> For example, this can be thought of as "indoctrination", depending on how we look at it. To prove the validity of such an "establishment" (ie. "centuries and culture of classical music."), we're essentially relying on historical figures who were also _indoctrinated_ from their youth, as authorities.


Although Haydn's music hasn't been distributed widely (partly due to the composer not wanting his music printed or published in his lifetime), Schubert happened to have exposure to it during his youth as a chorister in Vienna. Of Mozart, Schubert only said "O immortal Mozart! What countless impressions of a brighter, better life hast thou stamped upon our souls!” and that was it, but Haydn was the composer Schubert specifically said he wanted be like; "I thought to myself, 'May thy pure and peaceful spirit hover around me, dear Haydn! If I can ever become like thee, peaceful and guileless, in all matters none on earth has such deep reverence for thee as I have.' (Sad tears fell from my eyes. . . .)"" .
[Franz Schubert: A Biography, By Henry Frost · 2019 (P. 138)]

It maybe difficult to understand from our point of view today, how Schubert could have admired an obscure late 18th century composer over Mozart, but he did. I don't have to indulge in the wishful thinking "All renowned musical minds have worshipped Mozart over all his contemporaries", "Because Mozart was a musical god". I accept that there can be valid differences of opinion, but no such thing as a dogmatic law of objectivity that condemns anyone as a weirdo for holding them.


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## Woodduck

hammeredklavier said:


> I'm not sure he ever made that comment regarding the Bach mass, but there is this:
> "Haydn's music library featured works by Bach, including the B minor Mass and at least one set of 24 Preludes and Fugues. He also owned Forkel's biography of Bach. It is doubtful, however, that Haydn admired Bach more than Handel, many of whose works were also in Haydn's library, and who is known to have been specifically praised by Haydn ('He is the master of us all') during his visits to London."
> [Painting the Cannon's Roar Music, the Visual Arts and the Rise of an Attentive Public in the Age of Haydn, By Thomas Tolley · 2017 (P. 232)]
> 
> On the flipside, we also have to consider Berlioz's comments on Bach and Mozart, and Tchaikovsky's on Bach as well.
> I think how these composers were educated from childhood affects their way of thinking in adulthood as well:
> 
> 
> Although Haydn's music hasn't been distributed widely (partly due to the composer not wanting his music printed or published in his lifetime), Schubert happened to have exposure to it in his youth as a chorister in Vienna. Of Mozart, Schubert only said "O immortal Mozart! What countless impressions of a brighter, better life hast thou stamped upon our souls!” and that was it, but Haydn was the composer Schubert specifically said he wanted be like; "I thought to myself, 'May thy pure and peaceful spirit hover around me, dear Haydn! If I can ever become like thee, peaceful and guileless, in all matters none on earth has such deep reverence for thee as I have.' (Sad tears fell from my eyes. . . .)"" .
> [Franz Schubert: A Biography By Henry Frost · 2019 (P. 138)]
> 
> It maybe difficult to understand from our point of view today, how Schubert could have admired an obscure late 18th century composer over Mozart, but he did. I don't have to indulge in the wishful thinking, "all renowned musical minds have worshipped Mozart over all his contemporaries", "Because Mozart was a musical god". I accept that there can be valid differences of opinion, but no such thing as a dogmatic law of objectivity that condemns anyone as a weirdo for holding them.


This is interesting history, but what point does it make? Apparently the point is in your last sentence: "I accept that there can be valid differences of opinion, but no such thing as a dogmatic law of objectivity that condemns anyone as a weirdo for holding them."

I don't know who has posited a "dogmatic law of objectivity," or even what that is, and I've seen no one condemned as a weirdo for having a different opinion, so quoting you seems to leave us no better off than we were before we inquired.


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## mmsbls

SM: I just have a few clarifying comments.



Strange Magic said:


> I begin to grow restless at point #2 with your idea of agreed-upon metrics and looking at such metrics to determine how to evaluate music--my experience is that people listen to a new piece of music and then establish whether they like it and, if so, how much. Then, are we to assume that the usual CM listener, or any listener to any genre, then retroactively reviews in their mind why they like it and why therefore they ought to like it? I believe that few enter into hearing a piece of music wondering to themselves whether specific criteria are going to be met and how successfully. There is an _ex post facto_ factor at work here that vitiates the, let's say, full and direct and unmoderated impact of the music. The specter of "Should I like this; is it good to like this?" perhaps makes its appearance. But overall I agree with your #2 though we reach the same conclusion by different paths.


I don't think the metrics for #2 are perfectly agreed upon, and in fact, I believe the variation in metrics introduces subjectivity. I do think experts will agree much more than amateurs on which metrics to use. I agree with you that most people do not have a set of metrics in mind before evaluating a work. They listen and, likely without considering metrics, make conclusions about the work.



> Point #3 I think clearly brings forward the idea of a consensus of experts: "... a collective determination of aspects of music considered important to those who have a long history of music appreciation. This expert consensus will almost certainly display vastly less uncertainty than mere polling, and it is a valuable addition to those interested in understanding the value of composers or works to the classical music community." Polling does not bring forth uncertainty; it does the opposite by letting us know how many like what, who thinks the criteria are met, are they the right criteria, given the group polled.


When I say polling generates uncertainty, I simply mean that when people are asked to "grade" a work, they will give a spread in answers. That distribution will have a standard deviation that one can consider the uncertainty of the collective response. 



> My other argument, we recall, is whether excellence is an intrinsic, inherent property permeating an art object, or whether we imbue art objects with our own notions of its excellence, bringing our own net of associations to an otherwise inert body. I need not restate my views on that matter.


I agree. In a similar manner, the concept of a church is not inherent in the building itself, but rather the concept of church exists in people's minds and is applied to the building.


----------



## Waehnen

mmsbls said:


> SM: I just have a few clarifying comments.
> 
> 
> 
> I don't think the metrics for #2 are perfectly agreed upon, and in fact, I believe the variation in metrics introduces subjectivity. I do think experts will agree much more than amateurs on which metrics to use. I agree with you that most people do not have a set of metrics in mind before evaluating a work. They listen and, likely without considering metrics, make conclusions about the work.
> 
> 
> 
> When I say polling generates uncertainty, I simply mean that when people are asked to "grade" a work, they will give a spread in answers. That distribution will have a standard deviation that one can consider the uncertainty of the collective response.
> 
> 
> 
> I agree. In a similar manner, the concept of a church is not inherent in the building itself, but rather the concept of church exists in people's minds and is applied to the building.


But romanic church architecture differs from gothic church architecture and it is an objective fact. I long for the wider view.


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## Strange Magic

> *Woodduck: *
> "This is all insincere or worse, and all wrong.
> "When you're right, you're right" is an empty redundancy and an unearned boast (the latest of many).
> "Interesting" is condescending.
> .Your views are not "almost absurdly simple"; they're oblivious and simplistic."





> *Woodduck: "*I've seen no one condemned as a weirdo for having a different opinion......"


Strictly speaking, the quote immediately above is true.......


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## Strange Magic

Waehnen said:


> But romanic church architecture differs from gothic church architecture and it is an objective fact.......


Who would deny it?


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## Waehnen

Strange Magic said:


> Who would deny it?


No one? Good!

So let’s start a new phase! Where in the following category system would you place your concept of ”Opinion Clusters”. Feel free!

Trying to map a common language here. 👍


1. Pure opinions: subjective artistic experience and preferences
2. Values of the immediate surrounding musical community + music education
3. Sociology and study of reception
4. Music history + canons
5. Objective analysis of compositional techniques
6. Musical theories, aesthetics and semiotic dimensions
7. Psychology of music
8. Neurology of music
9. Pure facts: Historic facts, physical and concrete facts regarding the instruments, acoustics etc.


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## Forster

mmsbls said:


> I don't think the metrics for #2 are perfectly agreed upon, and in fact, I believe the variation in metrics introduces subjectivity.


I think so too, but I suspect that the very notion of 'metrics' is what might be getting in the way of the discussion. If I get Woodduck right, the most important 'metrics' are those chosen by the artist. We should judge the quality of a work by comparing the output with the artist's chosen standards.

But if that's not subjective, I don't know what is.

As for what the experts think, we know that despite some big agreements, there are also some big disagreements. You only have to look at the oft-cited, oft-reviled poll in the BBC Music Magazine on the Greatest Symphony to see that while there was some convergence of views among the 100+ 'experts', there was also some very sharp divergence. I'm not interested in retreading who was top and who was not, I'm only interested in the facts of the disagreement. This isn't about comparing a Mona Lisa with a Stick Man (an amusing but hopelessly unhelpful Straw Man), but about the process of evaluating the quality of the best of the symphony over 300 years through a process of comparison of the symphonies and the 'metrics' by which their quality might be measured. Suffice to say that the broad metrics on offer there were not only too broad, but easy to ignore, subvert, interpret.

I don't believe in the simplistic and misrepresentational "everything is subjective" (and the implication that 'anything goes' which seems to follow) which is a stupid reduction of a serious position on the subject. But I do think that the divergence of opinions I referred to above go some way to show that it's almost impossible to agree the criteria for a judgement, never mind apply the criteria to specific works: the personal human response always finds a way, and though many responses may correspond sufficiently to be able to say that LvB's 9th is "one of the greatest achievements in the field of symphonic music", that tells us only that humans are wired more or less the same: something floats our boat, musically, but it's not the same something for everyone.


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## Eva Yojimbo

DaveM said:


> Bad analogy to support your point of view. If whether money has value depended on the subjective whims of a few people that would be one thing, but as long as the value of money depends on the the view of millions upon millions of people and the full faith and credit of the federal government, there is objective evidence that people can count on the value of money for the foreseeable future.
> 
> Besides, this kind of analogy is dismissively useless. Classical music would have no value if no one thought it did. Wow, proof of absolute subjectivity!


It's posts like this that lead me to my first post in this thread about people talking past each other with different definitions of the terms being used. I am not limiting my usage of subjective to refer to the "whims of a few people," but to anything dependent upon human minds for meaning or value. Money is a clear example of that because without our social agreement it's literally just worthless pieces of green paper, or numbers in a bank account. It only has value because we agree it does. The only difference with art is that with money there is much less disagreement on its value. 

Your second paragraph is even more befuddling. If classical music has no value if no one thought it did, then that is the literal definition of something whose value is subjective--ie, dependent upon human minds to give it value. If that's not proof of "absolute subjectivity" then what is? The objectivists are the ones trying to argue that value is inherent in the music itself and doesn't depend upon opinions or polls of who likes/values what.


----------



## Forster

Strange Magic said:


> my experience is that people listen to a new piece of music and then establish whether they like it and, if so, how much. Then, are we to assume that the usual CM listener, or any listener to any genre, then retroactively reviews in their mind why they like it and why therefore they ought to like it? I believe that few enter into hearing a piece of music wondering to themselves whether specific criteria are going to be met and how successfully.


I'm not going to negate your experience, but I am going to query the conclusion.

True, I didn't sit down with pencil, paper, and a set of criteria to evaluate RVW's Pastoral Symphony when I first set out to listen to it. But in my head, there were undoubtedly 'criteria', though not in some coherent or ordered form, merely the kind of criteria that would swim in my mind while doing anything new. To what extent will this new experience be anything like I've encountered before - in the affective sense - and also in the technical sense (sonata? breadth of instrumentation? use of motifs? And in so doing, I was already assembling the criteria by which I would be deciding if I "like" it (such an innocuous word!)

That of course is not the whole of the experience. My first encounter was not reduced to ticking off some list. Even if such decisions were part of the process, it was a messy business. Listening to new music is a messy business - so, for that matter, is listening to music that is to some degree familiar. Emotion makes sure of that, if you're lucky.


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## hammeredklavier

Woodduck said:


> I've seen no one condemned as a weirdo for having a different opinion


Sure, no one has been explicitly. Although there have been comments like


dissident said:


> It's not "wrong", it's just...*odd*.


But if a person makes up "rules" Mozart must be unquestioningly admired by no matter how much difference of opinion anyone has about him, and doesn't do the same for the forgotten composer Haydn, for example, wouldn't the person still be committing "discrimination in art"? Why would it be that, with Mozart, the _inventiveness of melody_ and _mastery of form _objectively prove him having unquestionable greatness, but somehow the logic doesn't apply to the other, forgotten composer? He doesn't have it in his divertimento in C, for instance? How?


----------



## Strange Magic

> *Forster: "*I don't believe in the simplistic and misrepresentational "everything is subjective" (and the implication that 'anything goes' which seems to follow) which is a stupid reduction of a serious position on the subject. But I do think that the divergence of opinions I referred to above go some way to show that it's almost impossible to agree the criteria for a judgement, never mind apply the criteria to specific works: the personal human response always finds a way, and though many responses may correspond sufficiently to be able to say that LvB's 9th is "one of the greatest achievements in the field of symphonic music", that tells us only that humans are wired more or less the same: something floats our boat, musically, but it's not the same something for everyone."


I appreciate your agreeing with me so substantively, but I understand that you do not wish to be entrapped by the stark reality of my position and thus downplay the full implications thereof.


----------



## Eva Yojimbo

Woodduck said:


> 1. If the standards by which music is judged well-composed were created by its listeners, then you would be correct in claiming that no music could be called objectively well-composed. But that isn't what happens. What happens is that composers and listeners share assumptions and expectations of aesthetic form which have evolved and prevail in their common culture, and a composer strives to make effective use of those assumptions and expectations to create a product that delights the minds and engages the emotions of listeners who share the common musical language. It's obvious that Mozart has done this exceptionally well. It's also obvious, to those who are musically knowledgeable or perceptive, that doing it exceptionally well is no easy task. In fact it's so difficult to do it on Mozart's level of skill and inspiration that he has been virtually worshiped as one of the great creative figures in human history.
> 
> 2. The principles of melodic, harmonic and rhythmic form with which Mozart (and other composers) were working are highly complex. The number of relationships that exist between the notes of, say, Mozart's 40th symphony is enormous, higher than our conscious minds can deal with as we listen to the music, or even Mozart's mind as he composed it. See my post #234. The manner in which those principles came into existence - who developed them and why - is irrelevant to the fact that Mozart had exceptional skill in exploiting them to produce works simultaneously complex, orderly, original, and capable of affecting other people intellectually and emotionally. The evidence that he did this better than his contemporaries is the more obvious the more we understand music, but also clear from the history of his music in performance and in reputation, during and since its appearance.
> 
> 3. Principles of order in art are not the arbitrary fancies of wandering minds, for the fundamental reason that principles of order in the universe are not optional but essential to the nature of reality itself. Art succeeds, in all cultures everywhere and for all time, in exploiting these principles and embodying them in microcosmic form, thus satisfying the human need for constructive ordering and representation of their lived experience. The forms of art are for all practical purposes limitless, just as life experience is infinitely diverse, but order is the fundamental vehicle of aesthetic comprehensibility and expressiveness. The ability to order the notes, colors or words of an artwork in interesting and moving ways is an exceptional skill which human minds are wired to perceive and appreciate.
> 
> I am very, very tired of people who have not engaged in the incredibly demanding process of creating aesthetic order saying that quality in art is "all subjective" That is simply horse pucky.


1. This first point boils down to this: "...a composer strives to make effective use of those assumptions and expectations to create a product that delights the minds and engages the emotions of listeners," which I absolutely agree with; but the sticking point is that we're judging "effective use of assumptions and expectations" precisely by how much they "delight the minds and engage the emotions of listeners." You have just eloquently summed up the subjectivist position: that all judgments and valuations boil down to how the art impacts the minds and emotions of audiences (and I would include other composers as being members of that audience). That's precisely what makes it subjective, the fact that you can't speak about what is good, bad, better, best, or, indeed, what amounts to "effective use of assumptions and expectations" without reference to how the minds of listeners (including composers, who are listeners themselves) think and feel about it. 

This does not, I want to stress, minimize or eliminate the role that the objective music itself plays in triggering that response. It's quite clear that some composers/works make music that triggers this "delighting the mind and engaging the emotions" response more frequently and at a more amplified level than others do. 

2. "The manner in which those principles came into existence - who developed them and why" may be irrelevant if we're only concerned, as your post indicates, with judging Mozart's skill in exploiting them, and as long as we're basing the judgment of that skill on the effect it has on listeners; however, I would not agree that it is irrelevant to this kind of meta-aesthetic discussion of whether such things are subjective/objective. In fact, I'd say they're very much at the heart of the matter. 

3. I don't strongly disagree with much here. I would say that I certainly agree that "principles of order" in the abstract are necessary for any art, even if the "order" in question is the establishing of a context in which art can be randomly generated. However, I would say that the particularities of the principles within any given ordered system are arbitrary to the extent that there can always be OTHER principles guiding creation. As a concrete example, the abstract "hero's journey" form can be found in both the sonata form and in most modern songs: exposition, development, recapitulation just becomes verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus... but both start with the familiar, then have a contrasting section, then back to the familiar. However, the particularities that guide both are different and do, indeed, strike me as arbitrary. There's no reason why, eg, one must utilize harmonic and thematic development ala sonata form beyond the convention to do so and because listeners enjoy it. 

As for this:


> I am very, very tired of people who have not engaged in the incredibly demanding process of creating aesthetic order saying that quality in art is "all subjective" That is simply horse pucky.


I will say you do not have to worry about this with me as I'm very much someone who has "engaged in the demanding process of creating aesthetic order." This does not mean that I mythologize that endeavor to the point I delude myself about what that process is. The "it's all subjective" isn't a phrase that I have uttered. I understand what Strange Magic means by it, especially when speaking of the fundamental level of how these standards/valuations come about, but I'm trying to present a more nuanced and comprehensive view that takes into account both the subjects (individually and communally) and how the objective aspects of music and art affect and interact with that subjectivity.


----------



## Eva Yojimbo

dissident said:


> Subjectivists seem to be weirdly confident in the objective truth of their positions.


Judging by the likes this post received I'm assuming that either many people (including the poster) think it made a good point, or they're just cheering because "their side" got a jab in at "the other side." If it's the former, though, I can't for the life of me think of what point anyone thinks it made. It seems predicated on the completely false assumption that people who are "subjectivists" about music evaluation are subjectivists about everything. This is clearly not the case. I have made it very clear that I think there is a realm of facts and a realm of things based on opinions and that music evaluation resides in the realm of the latter. There are indeed many things that reside in the realm of the former, and I include in that category discussions on meta-aesthetics that involve the question of whether evaluations are subjective or objective. I believe there is a factual answer to that issue and that "it's fundamentally/ultimately subjective" is the correct answer. 

This dichotomy of believing a meta-aesthetic answer is objective but that aesthetic evaluations are subjective would only be "weird" to someone who has no understanding of what my (and other subjectivists') position is.


----------



## Forster

Eva Yojimbo said:


> Judging by the likes this post received I'm assuming that either many people (including the poster) think it made a good point, or they're just cheering because "their side" got a jab in at "the other side." If it's the former, though, I can't for the life of me think of what point anyone thinks it made. It seems predicated on the completely false assumption that people who are "subjectivists" about music evaluation are subjectivists about everything. This is clearly not the case. I have made it very clear that I think there is a realm of facts and a realm of things based on opinions and that music evaluation resides in the realm of the latter. There are indeed many things that reside in the realm of the former, and I include in that category discussions on meta-aesthetics that involve the question of whether evaluations are subjective or objective. I believe there is a factual answer to that issue and that "it's fundamentally/ultimately subjective" is the correct answer.
> 
> This dichotomy of believing a meta-aesthetic answer is objective but that aesthetic evaluations are subjective would only be "weird" to someone who has no understanding of what my (and other subjectivists') position is.


Does this mean that "the objectivists" are not confident, I wonder? Or confident, but not weirdly so? Or...


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## Eva Yojimbo

mmsbls said:


> SM, I still believe people are discussing different aspects of the process of valuation of composers or works. I think people are also using the terms subjective and objective differently. I'd like to try to describe 3 possible views made in this thread and ask you about them. I will try to be as clear and explicit as I think necessary; nevertheless, I may fail to be explicit or clear enough. If so, please ask me for clarification or suggest an improvement.
> 
> 1) Individuals' enjoyment of various composers or works can have large variation, and we believe this variation is due to things like genetic differences, developmental history, and experiential history. Basically, tastes are subjective.
> 
> 2) When evaluating composers or works (for example, when comparing one to another), one must determine a set of metrics, evaluate each composer or work on each metric, and determine how each metric is to be weighted in the overall evaluation. Though experts may substantially agree on which metrics to use and may not vary substantially in their evaluation of those metrics or in the weighting functions, all of these steps will lead to variation in the final assessment because each person brings at least a slightly different viewpoint to the valuation. In some cases, there could be significant variation even among experts. That variation is due to their subjective opinions on the metrics and weightings. Overall, such evaluations are fundamentally different from objective considerations such as, "Which ball is heavier?" In other words, this process is also subjective.
> 
> 3) Those who have significant experience in learning about music, interact often with other knowledgeable people about music, and have vast listening experience (e.g. experts) can assess composers or works in a manner that can lead to a general consensus about those composers or works. Such a consensus is at least somewhat different than simple polling because it is based not just on personal tastes but, more importantly, on a collective determination of aspects of music considered important to those who have a long history of music appreciation. This expert consensus will almost certainly display vastly less uncertainty than mere polling, and it is a valuable addition to those interested in understanding the value of composers or works to the classical music community.
> 
> So, I assume you agree with #1 (and consider it obvious) and #2. You may even feel that the metrics utilized, the evaluation of metrics, and the weighting of metrics could vary enormously such that essentially any work or composer could be valued higher than any other (e.g. my funkiness or your stick figure examples). My real question is how you feel about #3. You likely would say that any such evaluation is still subjective, but would you agree that such a consensus has greater value than simple polling of many listeners? That such a consensus can help others discover music that likely will have a greater impact on them than music valued less highly? In other words, is the process described in #3 of greater value to the classical music community than #1?


I will also try my hand at these: 

1. Agree. 

2. Agree, though I would stress that the very process of "determin(ing) a set of metrics, evaluat(ing) each composer or work on each metric, and determin(ing) how each metric is to be weighted in the overall evaluation" is a fundamentally subjective process dependent upon how people think/feel about any given metrics, the weighting of them, and the extent to which a composer succeeds on them. 

3. The extent to which experts' (or, indeed, any group of listeners') assessments converge is determined by the similarity of their cognitive (including emotional, aesthetic, etc.) processes that react to that music. Obviously experts who share a similar level of experience, knowledge, and passion for any given music are going to be more cognitively similar to each other than people with completely different levels of experience, knowledge, and passion for that genre; or even people with an equal level of experience, knowledge, and passion for a different genre or music, or different artistic mediums altogether. What this boils down to is a truism that people whose minds are similar tend to react similarly to art. Not the same, of course, as there are still variations, and people with similar levels of experience, knowledge, etc. disagree quite frequently. Consensuses are formed by focusing on statistical clusters: basically a "forest not the trees" approach. 

I'm also not sure how you're excepting what you're describing from being essentially polling or tastes. It may not be PERSONAL taste, give that the taste is being shared communally among like-minded people, but communities are made up of individuals whose tastes converge with each other more so than others. We're all here because our tastes converge on the "likes classical music" and "likes to talk about classical music" Venn diagram. I'm also not sure what you mean by such a thing displaying "vastly less certainty..." less certainty about what? Maybe you mean "less variation?" 

To me, the value of paying attention to the people in group 3 largely stems from their ability to guide other like-minded people to music they may enjoy. It's fundamentally a search algorithm but in human form rather than in the kind of Bayesian math that's used in internet searches. Essentially what's happening is that if most similarly-minded people like/love X, and if you find that you share similar values with these people, there's a good probability you will like/love X too. Clearly this is the case in practice. Most who find classical music will find it via composers who are popular and frequently played, and they will be introduced to further composers that many/most other classical fans like and from there their own particular tastes (and experience/knowledge) will develop either in harmony or in contradiction to prevailing opinions and consensuses of both the masses and of the experts. I think this describes ALL of us. Anyone who 100% personally agrees with the consensus is either lying or suffering from Emperor's New Clothes syndrome; and anyone who 100% personally disagrees with the consensuses probably isn't a classical music fan at all!


----------



## NoCoPilot

The belief that "everything is subjective" is very Orwellian, and leads to thinking of "facts" as fungible and "opinions" as becoming true if enough people share the same opinion. We are unfortunately perilously close to that in today's society, where people have been told－by other people with an agenda－that climate science and vaccine science are not true. There are entire networks devoted to gaslighting the public in the pursuit of an oligarchy, and democracies have the Achilles heel that misinformation can lead to people voting against their own self-interest.

In the arts, the results are a little less serious, and the debate more intellectual than elemental.


----------



## Eva Yojimbo

Forster said:


> Does this mean that "the objectivists" are not confident, I wonder? Or confident, but not weirdly so? Or...


I honestly have difficulty understanding many aspects of the objectivists' position without resorting to my understanding of cognitive biases as many of them seem predicated on an emotional reaction to what they think subjectivism entails. It appears to strongly resemble discussions around meta-ethics, where "objectivists" seem to think that the "subjectivist" position would plunge all of humanity into utter chaos and that ethics must be objective because they feel so strongly that ethical positions are as true and real as the sun's existence. I also feel like meta-aesthetic objectivists feel that subjectivists are trying to undermine, or minimize, or even outright dismiss the work and craft that goes into making art that profoundly affects people, which I don't think any of us are doing. I've spent most of my life immersed in an objective-focused aesthetic inquiry, in understanding how the physical objects that are films and poems and novels and music work and why they affect us as they do. The only difference is that I am not ignoring the complex subjective machinery that goes into that equation, especially when discussions turn from aesthetics to meta-aesthetics.


----------



## Eva Yojimbo

NoCoPilot said:


> The belief that "everything is subjective" is very Orwellian, and leads to thinking of "facts" as fungible and "opinions" as becoming true if enough people share the same opinion. We are unfortunately perilously close to that in today's society, where people have been told－by other people with an agenda－that climate science and vaccine science are not true. There are entire networks devoted to gaslighting the public in the pursuit of an oligarchy, and democracies have the Achilles heel that misinformation can lead to people voting against their own self-interest.
> 
> In the arts, the results are a little less serious, and the debate more intellectual than elemental.


And despite being a "subjectivist" in regard to aesthetics I'm very much an objectivist when it comes to issues like climate change and vaccine efficacy. Science is built on the pillars of rational inference and the empirical (and statistical) testing of models and hypotheses. Empiricism is, IMO, the cornerstone in separating things which have factual answers from things that are just based on opinion, and science is based around that. People who confuse facts with opinions easily confuse them both ways: they think matters of facts are just matters of opinions, and they think matters of opinions are matters of facts, and their dividing line between them often seems solely based on how strongly they feel about any particular subject. This is why people need a more rigorous, rationality-based foundation for determining which category any subject falls into. I've attempted to develop such a rigorous foundation in my years of studying philosophy; I don't know if I could say the same for most people here.


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## Eva Yojimbo

Woodduck said:


> In my younger years, when I was painting and exhibiting work, I participated in some juried shows in which works were judged as meriting first, second, and third prizes (at least). I always knew not to take these prizes seriously as indicators of absolute merit. It could be downright absurd to rank works having little in common except that they were drawings or watercolors. However, I also perceived that the tributes the prizes represented could be, and hopefully would be, a legitimate recognition of merit of one kind or another. That, perhaps, makes art competitions, whether of paintings or of musical performances, somewhat tolerable. But in my heart of hearts I, like many artists I suspect, despise them. They certainly play to and perpetuate the childish idea - which rather pathetically permeates our society - that value depends on having competitors and trouncing them.


Perhaps it's because it's fresh in my mind, but this brings to mind Wagner's Meistesinger and its scenes in which the singers'/composers' songs are given demerits by annoyingly scratching on a chalkboard any moment in which the songs divert from a pre-established standard of how any phrase or subject should be rendered musically--as if music was just a formula to be learned and replicated. Wagner was obviously satirizing the absurdity of people that attempted to disparage his music because it did not "follow the rules" of classical form and harmony, but explored new and uncharted dimensions of both, which the reactionary, conservative, contemporary listeners did not and could not perceive. 

I'm not sure if I have a point to make with this that's relevant to the discussion, but your anecdote just brought it to mind. It does, perhaps, serve to illustrate the danger of assuming that the forms and standards of the past are universally applicable to all new art, and that innovation comes from the ways in which artist subvert those forms and standards and/or find and establish new ones.


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## mmsbls

Waehnen said:


> But romanic church architecture differs from gothic church architecture and it is an objective fact. I long for the wider view.


Yes, but the point is that one can describe the differences without ever making reference to the concept of a church. One could describe in detail all types of buildings but a being unfamiliar with the concept of church (or associated concepts) would not be able to select those that are in fact churches.


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## DaveM

Eva Yojimbo said:


> Your second paragraph is even more befuddling...


Not if you realize I was being facetious. I’ll include pictures next time.


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## mmsbls

Forster said:


> I think so too, but I suspect that the very notion of 'metrics' is what might be getting in the way of the discussion. If I get Woodduck right, the most important 'metrics' are those chosen by the artist. We should judge the quality of a work by comparing the output with the artist's chosen standards.


I remember asking my daughter (professional musician) how she evaluates a contemporary work given that there's little consensus on aspects of contemporary music. She said exactly what Woodduck mentioned. She tries to understand what the composer is trying to do and determines to what extent the composer was successful.


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## Eva Yojimbo

DaveM said:


> Not if you realize I was being facetious. I’ll include pictures next time.


I recognized the facetiousness, but I assumed it was still trying to make a point.


----------



## Eva Yojimbo

mmsbls said:


> I remember asking my daughter (professional musician) how she evaluates a contemporary work given that there's little consensus on aspects of contemporary music. She said exactly what Woodduck mentioned. She tries to understand what the composer is trying to do and determines to what extent the composer was successful.


Though I don't totally object to the notion of attempting to understand the intentions of artists and judging whether they succeed or not, even that approach is fraught with difficulties. One difficulty is that we rarely have access to artistic intentions but are simply attempting to infer them from the work, and that gets into very complex and ambiguous issues of how that process happens and how reliable it is. I think it can be reliable to different extents, but it depends on a lot of factors. 

Another difficulty is that I'm not convinced all artists even have conscious intentions, as opposed to simply be struck with inspiration(s) and then attempting to work that out via their craft. My own experience of writing poetry is that often lines or outlines of ideas will come to me and they will prose practical problems that I will have to solve in however I choose to render them. I am rarely conscious of all my intentions from the outset, but tend to discover much (if not most) of them working through it, and often any larger intentions are drowned out in the moment-to-moment work of what is similar to fitting together puzzle pieces. 

A final difficulty is that even without the above there's no guaranteeing that even if the artist succeeds on the standard of achieving their intentions that they'll succeed in evoking or provoking in an audience anything remotely similar to what the piece provokes in them that drove them to create it. Clearly the artists' intentions are not all that matters or is relevant; just as relevant is how those intentions are rendered and how that rendering impacts and affects audiences. I would find that in any case an argument from artist intentions to be a poor counter to arguments that it doesn't move or affect an audience.


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## 59540

Eva Yojimbo said:


> Judging by the likes this post received I'm assuming that either many people (including the poster) think it made a good point, or they're just cheering because "their side" got a jab in at "the other side." If it's the former, though, I can't for the life of me think of what point anyone thinks it made. It seems predicated on the completely false assumption that people who are "subjectivists" about music evaluation are subjectivists about everything. This is clearly not the case. I have made it very clear that I think there is a realm of facts and a realm of things based on opinions and that music evaluation resides in the realm of the latter. There are indeed many things that reside in the realm of the former, and I include in that category discussions on meta-aesthetics that involve the question of whether evaluations are subjective or objective. I believe there is a factual answer to that issue and that "it's fundamentally/ultimately subjective" is the correct answer.
> 
> This dichotomy of believing a meta-aesthetic answer is objective but that aesthetic evaluations are subjective would only be "weird" to someone who has no understanding of what my (and other subjectivists') position is.


Lighten up, Francis. For all the sermonizing, nobody can say authoritatively and for sure. You "believe".


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## Eva Yojimbo

dissident said:


> Lighten up, Francis.


I'm light as a feather, Taylor.


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## 59540

> Another difficulty is that I'm not convinced all artists even have conscious intentions, as opposed to simply be struck with inspiration(s) and then attempting to work that out via their craft.


What's the difference?


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## 59540

hammeredklavier said:


> Sure, no one has been explicitly. Although there have been comments like
> 
> But if a person makes up "rules" Mozart must be unquestioningly admired by no matter how much difference of opinion anyone has about him, and doesn't do the same for the forgotten composer Haydn, for example, wouldn't the person still be committing "discrimination in art"? Why would it be that, with Mozart, the _inventiness of melody_ and _mastery of form _objectively prove him having unquestionable greatness, but somehow the logic doesn't apply to the other, forgotten composer? He doesn't have it in his divertimento in C, for instance? How?


I've seen the light. Michael Haydn is the greatest composer in the history of music.


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## mmsbls

Eva Yojimbo said:


> I'm also not sure how you're excepting what you're describing from being essentially polling or tastes. It may not be PERSONAL taste, give that the taste is being shared communally among like-minded people, but communities are made up of individuals whose tastes converge with each other more so than others. We're all here because our tastes converge on the "likes classical music" and "likes to talk about classical music" Venn diagram. I'm also not sure what you mean by such a thing displaying "vastly less certainty..." less certainty about what? Maybe you mean "less variation?"


Yes, less variation. In a reply to SM I said, "When I say polling generates uncertainty, I simply mean that when people are asked to "grade" a work, they will give a spread in answers. That distribution will have a standard deviation that one can consider the uncertainty of the collective response." I think experts will have less variation.



> To me, the value of paying attention to the people in group 3 largely stems from their ability to guide other like-minded people to music they may enjoy. It's fundamentally a search algorithm but in human form rather than in the kind of Bayesian math that's used in internet searches. Essentially what's happening is that if most similarly-minded people like/love X, and if you find that you share similar values with these people, there's a good probability you will like/love X too. Clearly this is the case in practice. Most who find classical music will find it via composers who are popular and frequently played, and they will be introduced to further composers that many/most other classical fans like and from there their own particular tastes (and experience/knowledge) will develop either in harmony or in contradiction to prevailing opinions and consensuses of both the masses and of the experts. I think this describes ALL of us. Anyone who 100% personally agrees with the consensus is either lying or suffering from Emperor's New Clothes syndrome; and anyone who 100% personally disagrees with the consensuses probably isn't a classical music fan at all!


I do view the value of experts giving a consensus view in practical terms as you say above. The most valuable asset toward my development of a love for classical music was Goulding's book, The 50 Greatest Composers..., precisely because it listed such a consensus about composers and their "greatest" works. I followed those suggestions and fell in love. If I had randomly explored composers or works, I doubt I would have continued to explore classical music in the way I did.


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## DaveM

Eva Yojimbo said:


> I recognized the facetiousness, but I assumed it was still trying to make a point.





Eva Yojimbo said:


> .. *It seems predicated on the completely false assumption that people who are "subjectivists" about music evaluation are subjectivists about everything. This is clearly not the case.* I have made it very clear that I think there is a realm of facts and a realm of things based on opinions and that music evaluation resides in the realm of the latter. There are indeed many things that reside in the realm of the former, and I include in that category discussions on meta-aesthetics that involve the question of whether evaluations are subjective or objective. I believe there is a factual answer to that issue and that "it's fundamentally/ultimately subjective" is the correct answer.
> 
> This dichotomy of believing a meta-aesthetic answer is objective but that aesthetic evaluations are subjective would only be "weird" to someone who has no understanding of what my (and other subjectivists') position is.


For a moment there I thought that what would come after the part in bold would be a clarification about where you find evidence of objectivity. But what follows is IMO hedging to avoid commitment to anything to do with objectivity. One is just left hanging as to whether, when it comes to music evaluation, you are ‘subjectivist‘ about everything or not.


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## Eva Yojimbo

mmsbls said:


> Yes, less variation. In a reply to SM I said, "When I say polling generates uncertainty, I simply mean that when people are asked to "grade" a work, they will give a spread in answers. That distribution will have a standard deviation that one can consider the uncertainty of the collective response." I think experts will have less variation.


If experts have less variation it will only be because they share more similar values than average music fans whose values may be much more disparate. However, you could also say there'd be less variation in the responses of passionate fans of almost any music. If you poll listeners with extensive experience in heavy metal you will also find that bands like Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, and Metallica will regularly be graded near the top, the same way Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven are in classical. This is because the people who tend to enjoy metal and classical are almost certain to encounter these bands/composers and, because of their similarities with other fans, are also quite likely to enjoy them.


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## Strange Magic

*The Return of Stick Man*

A thought experiment. One is transported into a society wherein Stick Man is declared by all experts as being at the pinnacle of art: ("fresh, clean, stark, direct"), whereas a painting by Rembrandt, say, _Belshazzar's Feast, _is described as dark, muddy, hackneyed. What does one then believe and say?

Another experiment, using real art: compare and contrast two sculptures/images (easy on Wikipedia), Bernini's _The Rape of Proserpina_ versus Giacometti's _L'Homme au doigt, _Stick Man's somewhat more fleshy grandfather. Wikipedia: "Alberto Giacometti was a Swiss sculptor, painter, draftsman and printmaker.....* Giacometti was one of the most important sculptors of the 20th century" *sayeth the experts.

I offer these as the not-so-terrible consequences of embracing the full implications of my brand of Total Subjectivism *in the arts and only in the arts. * This is why I have no fear of or hesitation about my analysis of the esthetics of art that seems to so trouble the hopeful we-can-find-a-middle-ground centrists.


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## Eva Yojimbo

DaveM said:


> For a moment there I thought that what would come after the part in bold would be a clarification about where you find evidence of objectivity. But what follows is IMO hedging to avoid commitment to anything to do with objectivity. One is just left hanging as to whether, when it comes to music evaluation, you are ‘subjectivist‘ about everything or not.


I was not attempting any "hedging" and I already addressed where I find evidence for the distinction in this post. However, I'm happy to reiterate and expand on it here: evidence for objectivity is found empirical experience. Anything you can directly see, taste, smell, touch, or hear points to something that exists objectively (external/independent of the mind) causing the empirical sensation. Objective also refers to questions that could be answered by empiricism: "Is there life on X Planet" is something that could only be answered by observing if there is life on that planet even if we currently can't observe that planet. There are some theories for which we do not directly sense what the theory refers to itself but we do/can sense its effects, in which case we create models (typically mathematical ones) that describe and predict the empirical effects we should experience given the theory is true, such as what is regularly done in physics and other hard sciences. Other things we can't directly sense, like the existence of particles or frequencies of light outside the visible spectrum, are still capable of being inferred via measuring devices that have proven capable of measuring objects (or things in objects) that we can sense.

Subjective things lack this empirical bedrock: they rely on feelings, perspectives, tastes, and other things that reside only within and because of thinking subjects. Something like "greatness" is not a property of an object. Greatness is a concept formed based on how we react to objects. You can not point to greatness and directly sense it the way I can point to an apple and you can directly sense the apple. Everyone with working senses will sense the latter, but to "sense" greatness requires that your mind be in a particular state that will have a positive experience towards the object you think is great; or it requires the recognition of the aspects that other minds feel is great. What many here refer to as objectivity is nothing more than the validation of other peoples' subjective experiences. It's me saying "I understand why people react positively to Bach's complex counterpoint, but I am not similarly moved." I am not acknowledging "objective greatness," I'm acknowledging that others, including those I highly respect, feel differently than I do and I'm not seeking to invalidate them.


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## Eva Yojimbo

dissident said:


> What's the difference?


You think there's no difference between consciously intending something and just being struck with inspiration and trying to work that inspiration out via your craft? If you think these are the same thing I'm not sure what I could say to convince you otherwise.

EDIT: I will say that most conscious intentions are trivially easy to achieve. If I intend to write a sonnet, I'm not going to FAIL at writing a sonnet. I doubt any composer who ever intended to write a sonata failed to write one (unless they were completely inept). Even loftier intentions, like, say, Wagner's intention to utilize leitmotifs in attaching them to characters and plot elements so that he could eventually utilize them to tell a clear story with the music alone via those associations, is, while brilliant in its conception, not difficult to achieve when you know that's what you're trying to do. I think such things are more of a guide for audiences: if you don't understand why a work of art is how it is, try to understand intention in order to orient yourself so you aren't completely lost it what might otherwise appear to be chaotic and without order. I still don't think this has much to do with determine the quality of a work.


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## Forster

mmsbls said:


> I think experts will have less variation.


Maybe - it would seem likely. Even so, if we refer to the BBC Music Magazine Poll I mentioned earlier, there is considerable variation. If Leif Segerstam might be permitted the label, 'expert', his choice of symphonies by Sibelius, Brahms and Mahler is not so wide of the mark, but is nevertheless at variance with the majority view of Beethoven's Eroica. More useful is the comment by Robert Spano, also an 'expert', giving his choice of Mahler's 3rd. His criteria include 'philosophy' and 'an incomparable expression of love'. Kirill Karabits chose Lyatoshynsky's 3rd because it's "the sound of Kiev and Ukraine". Daniel Harding said of Mozart's Jupiter, "It's the ultimate demonstration of the rhetorical gesture."

Someone else did the work here (I think) on totting up the numbers of who voted for what, so I'm not about to do it again. Suffice to say that the Eroica was a majority choice, not a unanimous one and there were plenty of examples that were, shall we say, unexpected - Pettersson, Berio, Terterian, Brian, van Gilse, Stenhammar, Sumera...


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## Luchesi

Eva Yojimbo said:


> I did say the color analogy was an absurd one, but it only served to illustrate the point about the gap between an expert on objective features of a subject and judgments or valuations about that subject. However, I would defend the value (or at least purpose) in rating/ranking things in general as it serves in large part to dictate what art is passed on to future generations. *I think it's important despite the fact it all boils down to a fundamental level of subjective likes and dislikes.*


“I think it's important despite the fact it all boils down to a fundamental level of subjective likes and dislikes.”

It’s true that anything is possible with our changeable attitudes (our every mood is at the mercy of what's going on in our lives, for good or bad), but I don't think I'll ever agree with that quote. 

Because when I was first attracted to CM I read from experts (authors anyway) what they admired about Beethoven and Bach and Mozart. I remember I had a couple of books about each composer (I didn't read them all the way through (skimming over bio trivia), I didn't have to. I understood that the approach was constructive and I could do it myself if I applied myself.) 
I hasten to add that it's not that we immediately agree with the advice of experts, but that they guide us and save so much time (but then again, to some listeners saving time is certainly not a priority).

One thing is for sure I didn't ask my neighbor or my coworkers or my relatives or even my trusted friends about their likes and dislikes. Do other new CM fans do this? 

Well, we do it online because it's so easy and fun to get a reply from the great unknown, or someone whom we admire (but we don't really know anything else about them). What was their method? Does it matter? or is it actually true that everyone arrives at pretty much the same conclusions about the rankings of the great composers or the great works (because the objective facts are the same for everyone, whether they can be appreciated or not). I realize that to some people this can feel like a blow to their own ego. It's a very complicated psychological state to be in.


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## Forster

Strange Magic said:


> *The Return of Stick Man*
> 
> A thought experiment. One is transported into a society wherein Stick Man is declared by all experts as being at the pinnacle of art: ("fresh, clean, stark, direct"), whereas a painting by Rembrandt, say, _The Rape of Proserpina, _is described as dark, muddy, hackneyed. What does one then believe and say?


Is that likely? I don't see how these thought experiments do anything other than accentuate the absurdity of the 'subjectivist's' _apparent _position - that anything goes.

You yourself said that you exercise judgements and have preferred musical compositions, so your allegedly extreme position is undermined by reality. Was it Eva Y who said this was like the debate about ethics? That the subjectivist view that all ethics are derived from humans and have no objective authority upsets the objectivists who think the subjectivists immoral for therefore believing that, morally, anything goes. Yet that is not what subjectivists would argue in reality. They would argue for a moral society just as much as the rest of the moral crowd, in reality.


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## Eva Yojimbo

Luchesi said:


> “I think it's important despite the fact it all boils down to a fundamental level of subjective likes and dislikes.”
> 
> It’s true that anything is possible with our changeable attitudes (our every mood is at the mercy of what's going on in our lives, for good or bad), but I don't think I'll ever agree with that quote.
> 
> Because when I was first attracted to CM I read from experts (authors anyway) what day admired about Beethoven and Bach and Mozart. I remember I had a couple of books about each composer (I didn't read them all the way through (skimming over bio trivia), I didn't have to. I understood that the approach was constructive and I could do it myself if I applied myself.)
> I hasten to add that it's not that we immediately agree with the advice of experts, but that they guide us and save so much time (but then again, to some listeners saving time is certainly not a priority).
> 
> One thing is for sure I didn't ask my neighbor or my coworkers or my relatives or even my trusted friends about their likes and dislikes. Do other new CM fans do this?
> 
> Well, we do it online because it's so easy and fun to get a reply from the great unknown, or someone whom we admire (but we don't really know anything else about them). What was their method? Does it matter? or is it actually true that everyone arrives at pretty much the same conclusions about the rankings of the great composers or the great works (because the objective facts are the same for everyone, whether they can be appreciated or not). I realize that to some people this can feel like a blow to their own ego. It's a very complicated psychological state to be in.


Despite you saying you saying you don't agree with the quote, I don't find anything here contradicts it. In fact, what you say about turning to experts for guidance is a method I used (still use) myself. I addressed this elsewhere in noting that when we find ourselves liking classical music it makes sense to turn to people with the most experience as they will likely point us towards composers and works that most people who love classical music love; and if we love classical music as well, we are likely to agree with many of them. This is basically how algorithmic search engines work: you search for something and an engine will show the results that most people have found useful by repeatedly visiting. This is only showing the tautology that like-minded people tend to think alike. 

However, experts gain their expertise through experience and studying of objective facts, which is still separate and distinct from the kind of qualitative judgments and tastes we're talking about. Experts are no more free of subjective biases and tastes than anyone is, it's merely that their similar level of experiences helps eliminate many of the psychological variables that cause variation in tastes, thus allowing their tastes to more frequently converge when compared to average listeners. This is a phenomenon that happens across all genres, btw; it often gives rise to debates about "elitists" vs "average listeners," though in classical it seems much more fans are open to accepting the opinions of experts: maybe because many classical listeners have conservative leanings, an conservativism tends to have more respect for perceived authorities and hierarchies; hard to say, and this is quite tangential anyway.


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## Luchesi

Waehnen said:


> Most of the writers here do acknowledge both the subjective freedom of the listener to like or dislike whatever they desire, and that to various degrees music has qualities that can be researched and discussed through the common methods of science and philosophy and common talk aiming at objective values.
> 
> In a forumist environment, everyone should be allowed to address these issues the way they want whilst at the same time showing respect towards fellow forumists.
> 
> Do we all agree on this? Is there still a problem?


There must be a reason why these questions always come up. I never even think about it because it's such a silly question (to me). 

the listener’s freedom to like or dislike?

allowed to address?

show respect?

most of the writers here?

You haven't been here very long, have you seen such things? 

Other posters have felt the need to remind us — because they say they've seen things in the forum that are just too hard to take, or whatever. And monitors often agree so I am very interested to know what it is that they're routing out, if only so that I understand for the future..


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## Luchesi

Eva Yojimbo said:


> What I'm interested in is whether you can demonstrate the above without reference to any subjective notions such as *what we (as individuals, as a collective species, or even as just a community of classical music fans) like and value,* because this strike me as saying that money has value regardless of whether anyone thinks it does. If the judgment of "well-composed music" depends upon standards we create based on what we like then it is not (by literal definition) objectively well-composed; If Mozart's "mastery of form and melodic inventiveness" depends upon our standards we create based on what kinds of melodies and forms we like then the judgment of their mastery very much is up for a vote and, in fact, that's all it depends on.


But what we like, as humans, is titillating, surprising and very effective expression. The greatest composers achieved this with the available tools (objective) better than others.


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## Eva Yojimbo

Forster said:


> Is that likely? I don't see how these thought experiments do anything other than accentuate the absurdity of the 'subjectivist's' _apparent _position - that anything goes.
> 
> You yourself said that you exercise judgements and have preferred musical compositions, so your allegedly extreme position is undermined by reality. Was it Eva Y who said this was like the debate about ethics? That the subjectivist view that all ethics are derived from humans and have no objective authority upsets the objectivists who think the subjectivists immoral for therefore believing that, morally, anything goes. Yet that is not what subjectivists would argue in reality. They would argue for a moral society just as much as the rest of the moral crowd, in reality.


No, it's very much unlikely, but the value in thought experiments isn't in their literal likelihood, but in how they help clarify issues (different people find different methods helpful for clarification: I prefer analogies, and use them probably way too much!).

I think one confusion is that the subjectivist position contains within it a kind of multi-varied perspective. One perspective is the "God's-eye view" that is attempting to view reality as it is without the (or at least with as minimal as possible) filters that come courtesy of our biases, feelings, emotions, intuitions, prejudices, expectations, perspectives, experiences, ignorance, knowledge, etc. There's an attempt at understanding and getting to reality as-it-is, and with that comes the acceptance of many truths that run counter to our biases, feelings, intuitions, etc. I think evolution designed us (speaking metaphorically of course) to simply trust our feelings and intuitions as if they were no different than objective facts; but it's often the case that such things blur and blind our attempts at understanding how reality really works, which is often radically or completely different than how we perceive it and feel about it.

The other perspective, however, is in recognizing that biases, feelings, emotions, intuitions, etc. exist and have a valuable place in our lives, and one of those places is within art and ethics. I see nothing contradictory about saying that, on the one hand, my tastes are formed by subjective biases, feelings, intuitions, etc. while also saying, from the former perspective, that those things have no grounding in objective facts no matter how strongly I feel about them. The difference is that I am being rationally skeptical that my feelings and intuition necessarily have a connection to objective truth: they MIGHT, but that possible connection is determined by rational, and empirical/scientific investigation, not by just blindly trusting in them.

The latter realization and skepticism makes many people anxious, uncomfortable, and nervous, and that is testified by any number of existential philosophical writings on the matter. Humans crave the comfort that comes from order, and with that craving comes a desire to believe that anything that provides a comfortable order is as objectively true as the sun's existence. To them, if ethics or aesthetics or anything else is just based on mutable human feelings then that is an invitation to chaos, disaster, and ruin. Essentially, their fear drives them to cling onto their intuitions and emotions as if they were truth factories as opposed to what they are: the sloppy product of millions of years of human evolution that evolved to facilitate survival and reproduction, not to necessarily find truth.

I do not worry about such things for many reasons, but the main one is that humans have enough fundamental similarities that no matter how much things change we are likely to stop sliding somewhere on the "slippery slope" before we plummet off the edge. To take an extreme example, the desire to live is not an objective one; but it's one that almost all humans share, and one in which we base a huge chunk of our ethics around. So what is the danger in realizing that this desire is subjective? Are we all going to turn into murderous maniacs even if we all accepted it? I don't think so.

Similarly, the arts are driven by several fundamental values and principles that humans tend to share with each other: Woodduck has eloquently mentioned many before, like the desire for meaningful order, so I think the arts are always going to be pursuing that in various ways that will find audiences in those who perceive and take delight in that particular order.

I know this is a long, largely tangential post, but I do think it attempts to get at the root of many of these issues. Hopefully if anyone finds it "mumbo-jumbo" they will just ask for clarification rather than just dismissing it without understanding.


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## Eva Yojimbo

Luchesi said:


> But what we like, as humans, is titillating, surprising and very effective expression. The greatest composers achieved this with the available tools (objective) better than others.


I would say we as humans like many more things than just what you listed, but still if what we consider great is based on what we like and if that liking only happens because of how our minds react to something then that means greatness is by definition based on subjective factors (namely: what we like). Yes, the "greatest composers" are capable, as I've said many of times, of causally triggering this "like" response better than others are. But that's fundamentally what we're talking about: greatness as defined by what composers/work trigger the "like" function in the most humans at the highest amplitudes. But I don't see how this differs from what SM has said multiple times about greatness being essentially polling where we're simply aggregating how many people like any given works and composers. What's the difference? People try to appeal to expertise, but then we're just shifting the demographic that we care about to one specific group and what they think and feel.


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## Luchesi

Eva Yojimbo said:


> Even though you weren't responding to me I would give a tentative "yes" to this, though there are nuances. I often like to use the analogy of games because there's less emotional baggage and because the terms are clearly defined. Let's take chess: all of the rules and goals or chess are subjective in the sense that they were invented by human minds (they aren't found in nature, independent of human minds); but once the rules and goals are agreed upon we can "objectively" judge good and bad moves based on how well they accomplish the goal of, first, not losing and, second, checkmating the king and winning.
> 
> People take the rules and goals of chess for granted, so it becomes easy to talk about the objective judgments of moves based on those rules/goals (especially in the age of computer-assisted analysis where computers play chess far better than humans can). However, when you deconstruct it it's clear that any notion of objective judgment or valuation is inextricably tied to the rules and goals that were invented by subjective minds and do not, can not, exist without them. So is the evaluation of chess moves "objective?" I'd say yes ONLY if we are taking the rules/goals for granted. *To me, what seems to be happening in all of these debates about subjectivity/objectivity in art is that the objectivists are constantly taking for granted all of the subjective machinery that goes into producing the "rules/goals" of art.*
> 
> This analogy maps almost perfectly onto art, and the differences are in degree rather than kind. As an example, the "rules/goals" of music are nowhere near as clearly defined as they are in chess, and we don't all agree on exactly what they are. We may, to a limited extent, be able to agree on certain fundamentals that apply within a more limited sphere of music--like tonality. We may, to an even more limited extent, be able to establish shared values and standards, especially within smaller communities where we also share similar tastes.
> 
> A key difference between chess and music is that any values and standards we create are most fundamentally tied to what we (again, as individuals and as a larger community) like and dislike. This is why statements like "Mozart's mastery of form and his melodic inventiveness are not up for a vote" strike me as absurd because it should be immediately obvious that the only basis we have for judging such a thing is the fact that a lot of people LIKE Mozart's melodies and his usage of form. If most people listened to Mozart and his music didn't trigger in us the subjective feeling of liking it (whatever form that liking takes: pleasure, beauty, emotion, aesthetic, etc.), what objective, mind-independent thing would you point to to argue for it being good? AFAICT, there is no such thing.
> 
> This doesn't mean that the objective properties of the music have no role to play in triggering that "liking" effect, and I am extremely interested in understanding what those objective features are. However, you're never, ever going to get to a full understanding of why art effects us as it does without also unraveling all of the subjective, internal, intellectual and emotional and aesthetic cognition that's happening within the human mind that's perceiving the object; and you certainly aren't going to get to an understanding of how standards, evaluations, and judgments arise without that.


"To me, what seems to be happening in all of these debates about subjectivity/objectivity in art is that the objectivists are constantly taking for granted all of the subjective machinery that goes into producing the "rules/goals" of art."

I suspect that my main interest, and for me, the attractive premise for appreciating music is that the 'machinery' comes from physics and nature, and surely not from human beings. 

Yes, you can't say that about chess, but you can say it about ALL kinds of music.


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## Eva Yojimbo

Luchesi said:


> "To me, what seems to be happening in all of these debates about subjectivity/objectivity in art is that the objectivists are constantly taking for granted all of the subjective machinery that goes into producing the "rules/goals" of art."
> 
> I suspect that my main interest, and for me, the attractive premise for appreciating music is that the 'machinery' comes from physics and nature, and surely not from human beings.


Not sure what you mean here. Maybe an example would be helpful. I will say that humans are apart of physics and nature, not separate from it. However, if you're just trying to make a distinction between humans and physics/nature as everything outside of us I don't see how music comes from the latter. Outside of birdsong there isn't much music in nature as opposed to just sound.


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## Forster

But it isn't _just _"polling", is it? It's usually "polling with criteria". Those being polled are expected to exercise some critical faculties, not merely choose, crudely, "what they like". It is true that that is sometimes what happens here, and why some (like me) won't participate in polls, but it's probably true that while I will often ask what criteria are we using, some who participate in the polls are taking for granted that their fellow members are all experienced and qualified listeners and no criteria need be made explicit.


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## Eva Yojimbo

Forster said:


> But it isn't _just _"polling", is it? It's usually "polling with criteria". Those being polled are expected to exercise some critical faculties, not merely choose, crudely, "what they like". It is true that that is sometimes what happens here, and why some (like me) won't participate in polls, but it's probably true that while I will often ask what criteria are we using, some who participate in the polls are taking for granted that their fellow members are all experienced and qualified listeners and no criteria need be made explicit.


The criteria itself is formed, though, from what we (again, as individuals and larger communities) like and dislike. To take an example, a lot of classical music fans enjoy the complex polyphony and counterpoint of Bach. That enjoyment is precisely what leads to us using such a thing as a criteria for evaluating quality... but what if someone doesn't value counterpoint, or values it much less than other aspects of music, or values it more or less depending on the context, or even disagrees about what qualifies as good counterpoint at all? How are we to solve any of these issues of criterion without reference to what is and isn't liked? It simply isn't possible afaict. 

This isn't to say that I'm devaluing the formation of criterion in itself. One of the valuable aspects of criticism is the ability to articulate precisely what objective features evoke/provoke in us what subjective reactions, and the criteria we form is often dependent upon our ability to either consciously or unconsciously recognize these objective features and then react positively to them. That's a big reason why tastes change, because we and our perspectives on art changes with time and experience. But, as always, it's important to note it's the subject changing that facilitates the change; the art is objectively always the same.


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## Luchesi

Eva Yojimbo said:


> Despite you saying you saying you don't agree with the quote, I don't find anything here contradicts it. In fact, what you say about turning to experts for guidance is a method I used (still use) myself. I addressed this elsewhere in noting that when we find ourselves liking classical music it makes sense to turn to people with the most experience as they will likely point us towards composers and works that most people who love classical music love; and if we love classical music as well, we are likely to agree with many of them. This is basically how algorithmic search engines work: you search for something and an engine will show the results that most people have found useful by repeatedly visiting. This is only showing the tautology that like-minded people tend to think alike.
> 
> However, experts gain their expertise through experience and studying of objective facts, which is still separate and distinct from the kind of qualitative judgments and tastes we're talking about. Experts are no more free of subjective biases and tastes than anyone is, it's merely that their similar level of experiences helps eliminate many of the psychological variables that cause variation in tastes, thus allowing their tastes to more frequently converge when compared to average listeners. This is a phenomenon that happens across all genres, btw; it often gives rise to debates about "elitists" vs "average listeners," though in classical it seems much more fans are open to accepting the opinions of experts: maybe because many classical listeners have conservative leanings, an conservativism tends to have more respect for perceived authorities and hierarchies; hard to say, and this is quite tangential anyway.


I always try to find analogies in my own long life. And this isn't always helpful. lol
I work in science (a research meteorologist). In the back of our minds at all times is the notion that we know more than the average person in the world who hasn't studied global circulations for many decades. It's great for our egos.

Am I doing this with music appreciation? I probably am. It's pretty much unavoidable.

But I've never read an expert in music giving his likes and dislikes. And I've never read an expert in other fields doing it either. Imagine an atmospheric physicist or a paleobotanist saying I like this and I don't like that.


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## mmsbls

Eva Yojimbo said:


> Though I don't totally object to the notion of attempting to understand the intentions of artists and judging whether they succeed or not, even that approach is fraught with difficulties. One difficulty is that we rarely have access to artistic intentions but are simply attempting to infer them from the work, and that gets into very complex and ambiguous issues of how that process happens and how reliable it is. I think it can be reliable to different extents, but it depends on a lot of factors.
> 
> Another difficulty is that I'm not convinced all artists even have conscious intentions, as opposed to simply be struck with inspiration(s) and then attempting to work that out via their craft. My own experience of writing poetry is that often lines or outlines of ideas will come to me and they will prose practical problems that I will have to solve in however I choose to render them. I am rarely conscious of all my intentions from the outset, but tend to discover much (if not most) of them working through it, and often any larger intentions are drowned out in the moment-to-moment work of what is similar to fitting together puzzle pieces.
> 
> A final difficulty is that even without the above there's no guaranteeing that even if the artist succeeds on the standard of achieving their intentions that they'll succeed in evoking or provoking in an audience anything remotely similar to what the piece provokes in them that drove them to create it. Clearly the artists' intentions are not all that matters or is relevant; just as relevant is how those intentions are rendered and how that rendering impacts and affects audiences. I would find that in any case an argument from artist intentions to be a poor counter to arguments that it doesn't move or affect an audience.


I don't disagree with anything you say. I think her view is that evaluating a work must start somewhere, and using a set of values/metrics/standards inappropriate to the artists goals seems problematic. Obviously, she could be mistaken in what she believes the composer is trying to accomplish. She has no problem with believing that the artist met their goals well but also feeling that the goals were fairly modest and that she doesn't respond positively to the work.


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## Eva Yojimbo

Luchesi said:


> I always try to find analogies in my own long life. And this isn't always helpful. lol
> I work in science (a research meteorologist). In the back of our minds at all times is the notion that we know more than the average person in the world who hasn't studied global circulations for many decades. It's great for our egos.
> 
> Am I doing this with music appreciation? I probably am. It's pretty much unavoidable.
> 
> But I've never read an expert in music giving his likes and dislikes. And I've never read an expert in other fields doing it either. Imagine an atmospheric physicist or a paleobotanist saying I like this and I don't like that.


The key difference, as I mentioned above in how I tell the difference between subjectivity and objectivity, is that scientific fields like meteorology are rooted in empiricism. All of your knowledge derives from people (including yourself perhaps) who have observed and modeled how weather systems behave so that you can make empirical predictions about what will happen. You aren't concerned with liking weather, you're only concerned with understanding and being able to predict it. 

There are elements of this in any musical expertise. One can study facts about dates, the lives of composers, the formal features of music, the popular tastes and trends of the time, the features of works that conform to or subverted those trends, the works' harmonic or structural elements, the evolution of forms and genres over time... there's certainly a million objectively factual issues that can be studied and learned as it relates to music... and not a single one of them gets us one inch closer to understanding how concepts like greatness, badness, better, best, etc. function without understanding the "liking" that gives rise to such issues. 

The fact that you don't engage in ranking and rating weather systems, discussing how they move you emotionally, spark your imagination, and all the other flowery language we use to describe how we react to music is, in itself, another clue that these things inhabit different spheres. You're just trying to understand how nature works; I'd wager that almost all people who care about music do so not because of dispassionate facts about that music but because it moves them emotionally, aesthetically, intellectually, and all standards of goodness, greatness, etc. arise from those feelings (that are, again, partially triggered by the nature of the art itself).


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## Woodduck

Eva Yojimbo said:


> I am not limiting my usage of subjective to refer to the "whims of a few people," but to anything dependent upon human minds for meaning or value. If classical music has no value if no one thought it did, then *that is the literal definition of something whose value is subjective--ie, dependent upon human minds to give it value. If that's not proof of "absolute subjectivity" then what is? The objectivists are the ones trying to argue that value is inherent in the music itself and doesn't depend upon opinions or polls of who likes/values what.*


Herein lies a basic problem with this discussion. I'm picking on you here because you're actually attempting to speak in well-defined terms. It's good to have something besides repetitive rants and self-important bloviation to argue with.

The problem, and my argument with you here? There are no "objectivists," as far as I can determine, who claim that aesthetic meanings and values exist as entities or substances independent of human minds. Arguing against that position is arguing against a belief no one holds.

Art is a product of the mind and is addressed to the mind, and wouldn't exist otherwise. This is obvious. You cite it as proof of the "absolute subjectivity" of aesthetic evaluation and, by implication, of an artist's creative choices. Well, in that philosophically impeccable sense of the term '"subjective," your position is unassailable. But now that we all know the formal definition of "subjective," how can we use it to come to grips with art and the challenges of evaluating it? Are such philosophical proprieties the least bit useful in answering such questions as whether _Tristan und Isolde_ would be a better opera if the lovers lived on, married, and inherited the crown of Cornwall, or whether Beethoven's Fifth Symphony would be improved by the omission, or the elaboration to twice its length, of the oboe solo in the first movement? Practical, mundane, real-life questions - questions about art down and dirty, on the ground where it lives - and critical questions for Wagner and Beethoven as they sat at their pianos struggling with innumerable dilemmas about form and substance, critical for the artistic integrity of their works and, consequently, for the reception and reputation of their works for the rest of time. Did Wagner and Beethoven make the right choices, thus producing great works of art, or should they have chosen differently?

Well, let me answer that question right away so that no one has to remain sunk in the doldrums of philosophical masochism. _Wagner and Beethoven made the right choices._ Regardless of whether Kant or Wittgenstein or someone on an internet forum would have pronounced their decisions "objective" or "subjective," they made decisions that assured the strength and integrity and effectiveness of their works, decisions that carried out in a coherent way the themes and formal requirements of the particular works they were attempting to write. As a result of these and a million other creative decisions, large and small, they ended up with great and enduring works of art, and whether you or anyone should pronounce that assessment - which is, not at all coincidentally, the assessment of virtually everyone qualified to make such assessments - "objective" or "subjective" is a matter of no more import or consequence than the question of how many angels can dance you know where.

I've said elsewhere that every real artist knows that in the creation of art there are better and worse choices. The implication of this is that there are superior and inferior works of art. Some people seem to think that by pointing out that all artistic choices and judgments are "absolutely subjective" - which we are here told simply means "products of the human mind" - they demonstrate that an artist's or audience's conviction of being in the presence of greatness is not a recognition of anything real, and that someone standing entranced (as I have done) before a painting of Vermeer and knowing that he is looking at a vision of radiant beauty and an embodiment of human genius is merely engaged in a projection onto a meaningless object of something called "liking."

The mind boggles.

I might be able, if I tried hard enough, to sympathize with that very proud or very humble soul who is having difficulty living with the thought that a Mahler symphony, which he can't make head or tail of, might be a greater musical achievement - or God forbid, a greater _human_ achievement - than his favorite pop tune wailed out by some dude with an amplified guitar in his neighbor's basement. And let's be clear; that _is_ what's being propounded here. Can anyone say that one flavor of ice cream is superior to another? No, it's "all subjective" - and there is, apparently, nothing about art that makes it essentially different from food, nothing that can embody or carry within its signs and symbols human meanings that might actually speak to and about the deeper and higher aspects of what it means to be human, and thus nothing that gives us cause to accord some works of art and their creators special esteem. I mean, after all, if we take a poll of who likes what we might actually find that some people prefer romance novels to Faulkner, especially if they have pictures of Fabio on their covers. Really, who wouldn't prefer _As I Lie with Fabio_ to _As I Lay Dying?_


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## Luchesi

Eva Yojimbo said:


> Not sure what you mean here. Maybe an example would be helpful. I will say that humans are apart of physics and nature, not separate from it. However, if you're just trying to make a distinction between humans and physics/nature as everything outside of us I don't see how music comes from the latter. Outside of birdsong there isn't much music in nature as opposed to just sound.


 The harmonic series comes from nature and the effects the intervals have on the human brain come from nature, …come from our naturally-selected emergence and our survival imperatives.

There's nothing but the notes. There is surely some differing opinions by knowledgeable and experienced people about which objective tools are more effective, more interesting, more original, more advanced for the time. But the objective facts in the scores rigidly guide us, and preferences are irrelevant.

If a serious student wants to know about what's more effective, what's more interesting, what's more original and why …and the level of music in each different time period, they will study those achievements (and the logical development down through time). ‘Just as in any other technical field. 

I might be different. I find that I don't really understand something new unless I'm at the limits of my know-how and experience — and it's an uncomfortable state of mind, then it falls together and I’m inspired by it. Does any of it come from the opinions of anonymous folks, no.


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## Luchesi

Eva Yojimbo said:


> The key difference, as I mentioned above in how I tell the difference between subjectivity and objectivity, is that scientific fields like meteorology are rooted in empiricism. All of your knowledge derives from people (including yourself perhaps) who have observed and modeled how weather systems behave so that you can make empirical predictions about what will happen. You aren't concerned with liking weather, you're only concerned with understanding and being able to predict it.
> 
> There are elements of this in any musical expertise. One can study facts about dates, the lives of composers, the formal features of music, the popular tastes and trends of the time, the features of works that conform to or subverted those trends, the works' harmonic or structural elements, the evolution of forms and genres over time... there's certainly a million objectively factual issues that can be studied and learned as it relates to music... and not a single one of them gets us one inch closer to understanding how concepts like greatness, badness, better, best, etc. function without understanding the "liking" that gives rise to such issues.
> 
> The fact that you don't engage in ranking and rating weather systems, discussing how they move you emotionally, spark your imagination, and all the other flowery language we use to describe how we react to music is, in itself, another clue that these things inhabit different spheres. You're just trying to understand how nature works; I'd wager that almost all people who care about music do so not because of dispassionate facts about that music but because it moves them emotionally, aesthetically, intellectually, and all standards of goodness, greatness, etc. arise from those feelings (that are, again, partially triggered by the nature of the art itself).


"...there's certainly a million objectively factual issues that can be studied and learned as it relates to music... and not a single one of them gets us one inch closer to understanding how concepts like greatness, badness, better, best, etc. function without understanding the "liking" that gives rise to such issues."

I think serious scientists study (fundamentally) why people like this or that. I've never been interested in the subject. It seems obvious to me that we're the way we are, from all the information that science has uncovered. Perhaps you really enjoy that mysterious subject, but humans are all predictable in broad terms. Life is so short, I wanna learn about interesting new things and not about people (acting out in the proverbial large monkey cage at the zoo).


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## 59540

> You think there's no difference between consciously intending something and just being struck with inspiration and trying to work that inspiration out via your craft?


Define "inspiration".


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## Luchesi

Forster said:


> Is that likely? I don't see how these thought experiments do anything other than accentuate the absurdity of the 'subjectivist's' _apparent _position - that anything goes.
> 
> You yourself said that you exercise judgements and have preferred musical compositions, so your allegedly extreme position is undermined by reality. Was it Eva Y who said this was like the debate about ethics? That the subjectivist view that all ethics are derived from humans and have no objective authority upsets the objectivists who think the subjectivists immoral for therefore believing that, morally, anything goes. Yet that is not what subjectivists would argue in reality. They would argue for a moral society just as much as the rest of the moral crowd, in reality.


Yes. I think this debate is so unlike any other debate. 
Musicians who analyze music all the time and enjoy doing it, and get so much out of it, are trying to fence (superficially) with people who do none of that analyzing. I say superficially because how can we understand each other?

added: 
I've never watched a game of soccer all the way through. I've never gotten the bug. People who know the history and the logic and the finer balances in the competition and memorize the rules and why the rules are such and what's the famous history with breaking those rules or whatever, on and on. I've never been interested enough.. To me, that's like a casual music listener (but I can see how it sounds derogatory).


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## Strange Magic

Luchesi said:


> But I've never read an expert in music giving his likes and dislikes.


You should read Brockway and Weinstock: _Men of Music_ if you are looking for instances of likes and dislikes, in spades. You could counter, then, by declaring that, ipso facto, they cannot therefore be experts because real music experts would never do such a thing. But they do.


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## Strange Magic

Luchesi said:


> To me, that's like a casual music listener (but I can see how it sounds derogatory).


Only the appreciation of the few for the arts is valid and authentic? I am glad you see the downside of this. We are not talking about science here, but art.


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## Luchesi

Strange Magic said:


> You should read Brockway and Weinstock: _Men of Music_ if you are looking for instances of likes and dislikes, in spades. You could counter, then, by declaring that, ipso facto, they cannot therefore be experts because real music experts would never do such a thing. But they do.


My reply is (heh heh) there are popularizing books on science, and I suspect this is a 'popular' book on music.


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## Strange Magic

Woodduck said:


> It's good to have something besides repetitive rants and self-important bloviation to argue with


The exraordinary long post that follows this brief quote is itself a wonder to read in light of the author's loathing of repetition, rant and bloviation.


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## Strange Magic

Luchesi said:


> My reply is (heh heh) there are popularizing books on science, and I suspect this is a 'popular' book on music.


Thank you for fulfilling my expectation. By the way, what popularizing books on science display likes and dislikes of the subject matter? Perhaps, understandably, those dealing with climate and sustainability issues.


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## Luchesi

Strange Magic said:


> Only the appreciation of the few for the arts is valid and authentic? I am glad you see the downside of this. We are not talking about science here, but art.


I might have the wrong view of this, but I really think that pieces were mostly composed for experienced amateurs to admire and learn from and perform (performing music is so good for you physically, for your brain and your healthy outlooks). But bigger money could be made from the masses - and yes composers have to make a living. 

When did that stop being the case (composing with mainly knowledgeable amateurs in mind)? In the late 1800s? Music used to be serious part of education and maturing as a person. Today it's derogatory to say someone is not educated in music?


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## Strange Magic

Luchesi said:


> I might have the wrong view of this, but I really think that pieces were mostly composed for experienced amateurs to admire and learn from and perform (performing music is so good for you physically, for your brain and your healthy outlooks). But bigger money could be made from the masses - and yes composers have to make a living.
> 
> When did that stop being the case (composing with mainly knowledgeable amateurs in mind)? In the late 1800s? Music used to be serious part of education and maturing as a person. Today it's derogatory to say someone is not educated in music?


I think the problem lies in what I have previously stated, the notion that art/music are for the few. What sort of crowds flocked to see and hear Handel's oratorios?--we are told that many of them were huge popular successes. We also are told that the Soviet Union's programs of sponsoring music and composers brought large populations of quite ordinary people into concert halls.


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## Forster

Woodduck said:


> Herein lies a basic problem with this discussion. I'm picking on you here because you're actually attempting to speak in well-defined terms. It's good to have something besides repetitive rants and self-important bloviation to argue with.
> 
> The problem, and my argument with you here? There are no "objectivists," as far as I can determine, who claim that aesthetic meanings and values exist as entities or substances independent of human minds. Arguing against that position is arguing against a belief no one holds.
> 
> Art is a product of the mind and is addressed to the mind, and wouldn't exist otherwise. This is obvious. You cite it as proof of the "absolute subjectivity" of aesthetic evaluation and, by implication, of an artist's creative choices. Well, in that philosophically impeccable sense of the term '"subjective," your position is unassailable. But now that we all know the formal definition of "subjective," how can we use it to come to grips with art and the challenges of evaluating it? Are such philosophical proprieties the least bit useful in answering such questions as whether _Tristan und Isolde_ would be a better opera if the lovers lived on, married, and inherited the crown of Cornwall, or whether Beethoven's Fifth Symphony would be improved by the omission, or the elaboration to twice its length, of the oboe solo in the first movement? Practical, mundane, real-life questions - questions about art down and dirty, on the ground where it lives - and critical questions for Wagner and Beethoven as they sat at their pianos struggling with innumerable dilemmas about form and substance, critical for the artistic integrity of their works and, consequently, for the reception and reputation of their works for the rest of time. Did Wagner and Beethoven make the right choices, thus producing great works of art, or should they have chosen differently?
> 
> Well, let me answer that question right away so that no one has to remain sunk in the doldrums of philosophical masochism. _Wagner and Beethoven made the right choices._ [etc]


All in your opinion of course.

You object to others' ranting, but your own frustration at the idiocies of others' opinions when to you, Beethoven and Wagner so obviously got everything right (for example), comes across as a suppressed rant.

You're doing no more than telling us all we're wrong and you're right. Of course, you're entitled to do so, but let's not pretend that what you've just written is a calm and cogent counter to the various points made by others who hold different views from you. It's contempt.


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## 59540

Forster said:


> All in your opinion of course.
> 
> You object to others' ranting, but your own frustration at the idiocies of others' opinions when to you, Beethoven and Wagner so obviously got everything right (for example), comes across as a suppressed rant.
> 
> You're doing no more than telling us all we're wrong and youre right. Of course, you're entitled to do so, but let's not pretend that what you've just written is a calm and cogent counter to the various points made by others who hold different views from you. It's contempt.


Well in that case it's contempt in response to condescension. I'm comforted to know that Strange Magic and Eva Yojimbo and yourself know more about what motivates my "likes" and the motivation of artists than I do. Anyway, it's getting late, and my guess is this version of Objective vs Subjective Gladiators is running out of steam. And so we await the next thrilling episode.


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## Woodduck

Strange Magic said:


> The exraordinary long post that follows this brief quote is itself a wonder to read in light of the author's loathing of repetition, rant and bloviation.


I'm glad you find my posts a wonder to read. I wonder about yours too. What I wonder, after several years of watching you find an infinity of ways to say that no judgment of art has any more value than any other, is why you keep it up. It's a simplistic view of a complex reality, it doesn't recognize the way art is really evaluated on an informed level (as EdwardBast explained succinctly in post #19, which you misunderstood and then ignored), and the only real-world evidence for it anyone has offered is that opinions differ and change. Well, we can all see that, but it should be obvious that this tells us nothing about the qualities of any art, nothing about the nature of artistic creation, and not very much about how and why art makes its way in the world, or - perhaps more revealingly - fails to.

Eva Yojimbo is at least looking for a philosophical justification for the "total subjectivism" view. I've stated, in the post you "wonder" at (which of course you don't), why I don't think a strict philosophical definition of "subjective" is useful in answering the question of why some art earns the esteem and attains the longevity it does. Nor does such philosophizing have anything to say to artists, who grapple with value questions to the point of exhaustion and know through their sweat and caffeine what it means to seek and find valid solutions to artistic problems and produce good and bad work. Of course their hope is that some people will have the perceptiveness to know when they've succeeded and what they've succeeded at; there's little gratification in thinking that their reward is just some aesthetic philistine's desire for something pretty to hang over the sofa (though they always appreciate the money). But then, according to "total subjectivism," it's all just opinion and the philistine is as good a judge of art as the artist. I guess the artist should just grin and bear it.

In your first post in this thread, you said _"the greatness of any art object or its creator is couched entirely upon opinion,"_ and _"as someone who eats his own cooking, I can and must affirm that if someone feels that The Turtles’ Happy Together is a greater work than Beethoven’s 9th, they are both entitled to their opinion (though I might disagree), and that, for them, it is a valid and authentic position though a large CM cluster will not share that opinion."_ No one disputes that anyone's opinion is, for them, a valid and authentic position. But of course that bare fact tells us nothing about happy turtles, Beethoven symphonies, or the world in which they exist. It is an absolute intellectual dead end. It may however, tell us something about those who either don't understand the difference or refuse to acknowledge it for reasons of their own. What easier way to validate one's own tastes in music than to dumb down the entire field of art criticism to the level of Aunt Edna's sorority bake off?


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## Forster

dissident said:


> Well in that case it's contempt in response to condescension. I'm comforted to know that Strange Magic and Eva Yojimbo and yourself know more about what motivates my "likes" and the motivation of artists than I do. Anyway, it's getting late, and my guess is this version of Objective vs Subjective Gladiators is running out of steam. And so we await the next thrilling episode.


I regret if I've been condescending; please quote the post.


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## Woodduck

Forster said:


> All in your opinion of course.
> 
> You object to others' ranting, but your own frustration at the idiocies of others' opinions when to you, Beethoven and Wagner so obviously got everything right (for example), comes across as a suppressed rant.
> 
> You're doing no more than telling us all we're wrong and you're right. Of course, you're entitled to do so, but let's not pretend that what you've just written is a calm and cogent counter to the various points made by others who hold different views from you. It's contempt.


Good Lord! I don't recall telling you that you're wrong about anything. Who are "us all?" Who's pretending? Who's claiming that Beethoven and Wagner got everything right? And of course my words express my opinion. Would I be expressing anyone else's?

As my mother would say, you seem to have got up on the wrong side of the bed.


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## Eva Yojimbo

I will respond to recent posts/posters as I have more time tomorrow, but I wanted to address this quickly:


Woodduck said:


> Eva Yojimbo is at least looking for a philosophical justification for the "total subjectivism" view.


I would call this a mischaracterization. I was not looking for a philosophical justification for the total subjectivism view: I've studied (or at least read some) philosophy on subjects like rationality, aesthetics, and epistemology and through that study and my own critical thinking came to think the "subjectivism" view (as I think of it, at least: I don't claim to speak for all other self-identified subjectivists) was correct. I was not especially motivated to find either view correct; if anything I probably leaned towards preferring objectivism to be correct. I am not immune from the desires and biases I've spoken about regarding the comfort in believing that that our tastes and ethics are objectively, factually correct; it's simply that I value truth as a higher priority than my biases and feelings of what I want to be true.

I simply find far less problems with the subjectivist view rationally speaking, it seems far more consistent with more explanatory power. Objectivism seems to fall apart the minute you ask someone to prove it the same way we prove other objective things like how gravity functions or how much a bowling ball weighs. What then usually happens is that objectivists (not unlike religious believers, I've found) start speaking about "other forms of knowing" things that includes appeals to things like strong feelings (not necessarily referring to anyone specific on this forum, btw).


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## Eva Yojimbo

dissident said:


> Well in that case it's contempt in response to condescension. I'm comforted to know that Strange Magic and Eva Yojimbo and yourself know more about what motivates my "likes" and the motivation of artists than I do. Anyway, it's getting late, and my guess is this version of Objective vs Subjective Gladiators is running out of steam. And so we await the next thrilling episode.


I echo Forster's comment that I regret if I've come off as condescending. It was not my intention. I would also appreciate it if you would quote whatever post (or part of whatever post) you find condescending.


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## Luchesi

I don't think that re-familiarizing posters with concepts is condescension.


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## Luchesi

Woodduck said:


> Good Lord! I don't recall telling you that you're wrong about anything. Who are "us all?" Who's pretending? Who's claiming that Beethoven and Wagner got everything right? And of course my words express my opinion. Would I be expressing anyone else's?
> 
> As my mother would say, you seem to have got up on the wrong side of the bed.


We need you here to raise the level of our sights, because discourse should be more open-ended. I don't think that saying that is rude to anybody else.


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## Luchesi

One more thing. Some peoples' avatars maybe accidentally give the wrong impression of a poster. I catch myself thinking oh that's not really him/her in the picture.


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## Woodduck

Eva Yojimbo said:


> I will respond to recent posts/posters as I have more time tomorrow, but I wanted to address this quickly:
> I would call this a mischaracterization. I was not looking for a philosophical justification for the total subjectivism view: I've studied (or at least read some) philosophy on subjects like rationality, aesthetics, and epistemology and through that study and my own critical thinking came to think the "subjectivism" view (as I think of it, at least: I don't claim to speak for all other self-identified subjectivists) was correct. I was not especially motivated to find either view correct; if anything I probably leaned towards preferring objectivism to be correct. I am not immune from the desires and biases I've spoken about regarding the comfort in believing that that our tastes and ethics are objectively, factually correct; it's simply that I value truth as a higher priority than my biases and feelings of what I want to be true.
> 
> I simply find far less problems with the subjectivist view rationally speaking, it seems far more consistent with more explanatory power. *Objectivism seems to fall apart the minute you ask someone to prove it the same way we prove other objective things like how gravity functions or how much a bowling ball weighs. What then usually happens is that objectivists (not unlike religious believers, I've found) start speaking about "other forms of knowing" things that includes appeals to things like strong feelings *(not necessarily referring to anyone specific on this forum, btw).


This, I think, is where we diverge. I don't, to begin with, identify as an "objectivist," and I particularly don't subscribe to what I see as the caricacture of objectivity which is the idea that value somehow resides in things and would be there even if no one capable of valuing existed. Things acquire value in the context of some set of assumptions or circumstances, and that's why the valuation of art becomes deeper as we acquire knowledge - of styles, techniques, artistic objectives - whether we hold that knowledge consciously or subconsciously.

As for objectivity requiring proof, I see aesthetic perception as an epistemically unique area of knowledge, one reliant on specific mental/emotional skills and yielding perceptions which are not transferable between persons and are therefore not subject to proof. If we want to share aesthetic perceptions, we can point to features of artworks and try to describe what we see, but every person has to see for himself. This is, technically, a subjective process - it happens in the mind - but the perceptual relationships we can discern in a work of art are not creations of the observer but really are present in the work waiting to be seen or heard. The process of apprehending a work of art - a piece of music, a painting, etc. - is a complex process that happens mostly subconsciously, and the subconscious mind can do an amazing job of perceiving how well the components of an artistic composition work together to form a satisfying entity. No one can "prove" to another that a work achieves this coherence, but humans in general are capable of this sort of perception at many levels of skill. And, of course, artists make it their life work. Beethoven's struggles to find the right notes are legendary, and even a cursory acquaintance with his sketches illustrates powerfully the process of selection and elimination, the coming together of fit and full conceptions in which the awkward, inappropriate, dysfuntional and extraneous are weeded out and, finally, everything works together. The discovery of the "right" notes, and the achievement of that sense of inevitabilty of which Bernstein spoke so simply and eloquently, was not an exercise of Beethoven's mere "opinion" or "liking" for certain sounds, but of his perception of what was appropriate or necessary in context, which we are invited and, hopefully, able to share and marvel at as we listen.

I'd like to continue with this but right now I'm feeling tired and discouraged by some aspects of the discussion and really need to take time out.


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## Strange Magic

This is my final post on this subject.

This I assert: If esthetics confined itself to mentation, as a subdivision of Neuroscience, Psychology, Brain Chemistry, it would have a better reputation. The plan would be to discern what art stimuli cause positive or negative responses in human brains, in various populations and in the global population. These factors understood–stimuli and reaction–could then be used to craft a theory of ethetics that would account for why certain populations react in whatever way to certain stimuli, and a hierarchy of “values” could be erected based on the effectiveness of certain stimuli–”excellence” would be the term used to describe, say, a Bach fugue that elicited delight (confirmed by testing) in certain populations,also defined. Thus, a gross form, a gross theory of esthetics could be formulated. This would be objective only in the sense that it dealt with measurable, testable, verifiable data shared by all researchers.


However it should be clear that these are all human mental constructs whose only contact with the physical world are the tangible art objects created by human agency, in which themselves no inherent value can be located, like a table–its value only comes from whatever use to which it is put. A table is of no value in its tableness to any living thing except to some humans, other than that of a substrate that appears naturally in an environment. Thus I dispose of the notion of intrinsic, inherent value within art objects. If such is not someone’s belief , we have no issue there.


The second assertion I make is that art appreciation and its power to move specific individuals to certain feelings and emotions cannot be determined by any mechanism conceivable now by way of testing and studying human response to art stimuli. The exquisite variation of human mentation rules against this. Gross determinations can be made, but art is experienced on the individual level, and no esthetic theory can possibly “explain” exactly what we like and why. If it could be so finely determined, then esthetics could predict with unerring accuracy who likes what and why. If esthetics again confined itself to broad generalizations about common elements of human behavior, as determined by that nasty Science, then I would agree that part of it was, in a narrow sense, objective But polling is at the heart of all of the above, polling and neuroscience.


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## DaveM

Forster said:


> I regret if I've been condescending; please quote the post.


Thats an interesting response since I wasn’t able to find the source of your accusation of ‘contempt’ in Wooduck’s post.


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## Waehnen

Strange Magic said:


> This is my final post on this subject.
> 
> This I assert: If esthetics confined itself to mentattion, as a subdivision of Neuroscience, Psychology, Brain Chemistry, it would have a better reputation. The plan would be to discern what art stimuli cause positive or negative responses in human brains, in various populations and in the global population. These factors understood–stimuli and reaction–could then be used to craft a theory of ethetics that would account for why certain populations react in whatever way to certain stimuli, and a hierarchy of “values” could be erected based on the effectiveness of certain stimuli–”excellence” would be the term used to describe, say, a Bach fugue that elicited delight (confirmed by testing) in certain populations,also defined. Thus, a gross form, a gross theory of esthetics could be formulated. This would be objective only in the sense that it dealt with measurable, testable, verifiable data shared by all researchers.
> 
> 
> However it should be clear that these are all human mental constructs whose only contact with the physical world are the tangible art objects created by human agency, in which themselves no inherent value can be located, like a table–its value only comes from whatever use to which it is put. A table is of no value in its tableness to any living thing except to some humans, other than that of a substrate that appears naturally in an environment. Thus I dispose of the notion of intrinsic, inherent value within art objects. If such is not someone’s belief , we have no issue there.
> 
> 
> The second assertion I make is that art appreciation and its power to move specific individuals to certain feelings and emotions cannot be determined by any mechanism conceivable now by way of testing and studying human response to art stimuli. The exquisite variation of human mentation rules against this. Gross determinations can be made, but art is experienced on the individual level, and no esthetic theory can possibly “explain” exactly what we like and why. If it could be so finely determined, then esthetics could predict with unerring accuracy who likes what and why. If esthetics again confined itself to broad generalizations about common elements of human behavior, as determined by that nasty Science, then I would agree that part of it was, in a narrow sense, objective But polling is at the heart of all of the above, polling and neuroscience.


You have not yet helped me in implementing clusters of opinion into the system below. If you did, I believe everybody involved in this conversation would be reasonably happy with the map. So please help!

1. Pure opinions: subjective artistic experience and preferences
2. Values of the immediate surrounding musical community + music education
3. Sociology and study of reception
4. Music history + canons
5. Objective analysis of compositional techniques
6. Musical theories, aesthetics and semiotic dimensions
7. Psychology of music
8. Neurology of music
9. Pure facts: Historic facts, physical and concrete facts regarding the instruments, acoustics etc.


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## Sid James

This aphorism (misattributed to Socrates) pretty much sums up my opinion on this debate, as well as others which have so easily led to an atmosphere of futility, division and rancor on this forum:

_"The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new."_


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## BachIsBest

Eva Yojimbo said:


> It's posts like this that lead me to my first post in this thread about people talking past each other with different definitions of the terms being used. I am not limiting my usage of subjective to refer to the "whims of a few people," but to anything dependent upon human minds for meaning or value. Money is a clear example of that because without our social agreement it's literally just worthless pieces of green paper, or numbers in a bank account. It only has value because we agree it does. The only difference with art is that with money there is much less disagreement on its value.
> 
> Your second paragraph is even more befuddling. If classical music has no value if no one thought it did, then that is the literal definition of something whose value is subjective--ie, dependent upon human minds to give it value. If that's not proof of "absolute subjectivity" then what is? The objectivists are the ones trying to argue that value is inherent in the music itself and doesn't depend upon opinions or polls of who likes/values what.


Generally speaking, the word "objective" has two different commonly accepted meanings. The first is the definition more commonly used philosophically, that is "not of the mind; part of physical reality", which appears to be how you're using it. The second is more common in colloquial discussions (like this one) and is roughly "not based on personal feelings or whims; unbiased", which is how most on the "objectivist" side are using it. It is in this second sense we may call a judges ruling on the law objective. Clearly, the judges ruling is, no matter what, purely "of the mind" so can not be objective in the first sense. It is also in this second sense that we may come to evaluate the work of Bach "objectively".

I'm not sure why you would assume your opponents in a debate are using a less common definition of a word that renders their arguments incomprehensible, when a more common usage of the word at least imbues their arguments with a significantly higher degree of plausibility.


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## Waehnen

Sid James said:


> This aphorism (misattributed to Socrates) pretty much sums up my opinion on this debate, as well as others which have so easily led to an atmosphere of futility, division and rancor on this forum:
> 
> _"The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new."_


Precisely! It is so obvious there are multiple views on this matter because that is the nature of this matter! So why fight on it instead of finding a formulation that everyone can be somewhat happy with. We do live in the same reality and existence after all: biological human beings in an excistence consisting of both subjective and objective, individual and collective elements, creating art in the whole scope of this existence.

Not one slogan or an argued point in a dicotomy can hope to encompass it all!


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## Sid James

Waehnen said:


> Precisely! It is so obvious there are multiple views on this matter because that is the nature of this matter! So why fight on it instead of finding a formulation that everyone can be somewhat happy with. We do live in the same reality and existence after all: biological human beings in an excistence consisting of both subjective and objective, individual and collective elements, creating art in the whole scope of this existence.
> 
> Not one slogan or an argued point in a dicotomy can hope to encompass it all!


I think your nine point list was a good discussion starter, because it explicitly sets out some areas of difference. Its useful to keep those points in mind when discussing any issue about music, particularly if its potentially controversial.

Personally, however, I'm not so keen on "finding a formulation that everyone can somewhat be happy with." I think that's where the discussion turns into an argument (particularly in terms of having to encompass up to a thousand years of classical music - so much changed in the last century alone).


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## Waehnen

Sid James said:


> I think your nine point list was a good discussion starter, because it explicitly sets out some areas of difference. Its useful to keep those points in mind when discussing any issue about music, particularly if its potentially controversial.
> 
> Personally, however, I'm not so keen on "finding a formulation that everyone can somewhat be happy with." I think that's where the discussion turns into an argument (particularly in terms of having to encompass up to a thousand years of classical music - so much changed in the last century alone).


I see the categories merely a tool helping the communication. It is still a rich world with a lot of space and room for discussion! And even argument should that be the choice.


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## Woodduck

BachIsBest said:


> Generally speaking, the word "objective" has two different commonly accepted meanings. The first is the definition more commonly used philosophically, that is "not of the mind; part of physical reality", which appears to be how you're using it. The second is more common in colloquial discussions (like this one) and is roughly "not based on personal feelings or whims; unbiased", which is how most on the "objectivist" side are using it. It is in this second sense we may call a judges ruling on the law objective. Clearly, the judges ruling is, no matter what, purely "of the mind" so can not be objective in the first sense. It is also in this second sense that we may come to evaluate the work of Bach "objectively".
> 
> I'm not sure why you would assume your opponents in a debate are using a less common definition of a word that renders their arguments incomprehensible, when a more common usage of the word at least imbues their arguments with a significantly higher degree of plausibility.


I appreciate your making this distinction. I too have made the point that the strict philosophical definitions of "objective" and "subjective" are not assumed by most participants here, so that to be considered an "objectivist" in aesthetics, in the strict sense, is to be saddled with an absurd view that hardly anyone holds. In past discussions of this subject I've suggested that clarity could be greatly enhanced if the terms "objective/objectivist" and "subjective/subjectivist" were avoided altogether, but "subjectivists" seem content to be called that and so quite naturally tend to label their opponents "objectivists." I for one will always object to the label and insist on essential distinctions. 

But there's another difficulty with these terms which I may be the only one to have considered so far, but which I think lies at the very heart of an epistemology of art. Neither "objective" nor "subjective" does justice to the contents of the mind considered as objects of perception. In the mind of the artist, imagined images and their relationships are contemplated as objects "outside" the mind, and this process is mirrored in the perception of these images and relationships on the part of the viewer or listener. The perceived contents of a piece of music (I'll use music here because it's the most abstract and non-referential of the arts) inhabit a nether region between the subjective (inside of the mind) and the objective (in the world outside the mind). Of course this is the way the mind works as it perceives the world in general, but in the experience of art this "in-between" world of perceptual qualities and relationships, bridging the gap between subject and object, is the fundamental focus of attention. I think this gives art an epistemic status different from that of science, one whereby "objectivity," because it is focused on phenomena within the mind rather than the external world, and "knowledge," becuse it is necessarily individual rather than collective, must be differently conceived. It makes no sense to ask for "proof " of artistic perceptions, since they can't be brought out into public view and subjected to measurement and experimentation, and yet they are "objects" of extraordinary definiteness and clarity, particularly to those who pursue the disciplines of artistic creation. The artist knows, without need of a measuring stick such as the scientist requires, when he's got the right size, shape, color or chord, and he calculates the balance of forces in his work, using the tool of his mind, as confidently and "objectively" as the bridge builder calibrates the tension and strength of a span of steel.

I would hypothesize that, in general, aesthetic qualities are apt to be experienced as strongly "objective," particularly by artists but also by serious students and connoisseurs of art, to whom they seem as solid and definite, and as governed by known laws, as physical objects in the external world, while to people less immersed in the practices and processes of art they may be more intangible and mysterious, and thus more "subjective." This may account for some of the division we see in discussions of aesthetic values.

As I look back at my last post #350, I realize to what a great extent this one is a continuation of the thoughts expressed there. One of the very best things about this forum, for me, is the opportunity to develop ideas as I go. How many others, I wonder, find their participation rewarding in this way?


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## Waehnen

Woodduck said:


> i would hypothesize that, in general, aesthetic qualities are apt to be experienced as strongly "objective," particularly by artists but also by serious students and connoisseurs of art, to whom they seem as solid and definite, and as governed by known laws, as physical objects in the external world, while to people less immersed in the practices and processes of art they may be more intangible and mysterious, and thus more "subjective." This may account for some of the division we see in discussions of aesthetic values.


I agree aesthetics may appear as something objective to a composer. For example in my one movement symphony I am forced to do a lot of work in order to make the transitions between contrasting elements work so that the narrative would flow and magic of the illusion won’t be destroyed. I feel it is an objective requirement of me because the music is undoubtedly better with smooth transitions than with just episodes appearing one after the other with clear cuts.

Were you referring to this kind of things?


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## Woodduck

Waehnen said:


> I agree aesthetics may appear as something objective to a composer. For example in my one movement symphony I am forced to do a lot of work in order to make the transitions between contrasting elements work so that the narrative would flow and magic of the illusion won’t be destroyed. I feel it is an objective requirement of me because the music is undoubtedly better with smooth transitions than with just episodes appearing one after the other with clear cuts.
> 
> Were you referring to this kind of things?


Yes, exactly that. And we know, don't we, what needs to be done - or, if we're stuck and unable to find the solution to the problem, we still believe that a solution is possible. There is a true objectivity to the process, even though it's "technically" subjective because it's internal and abstract. This merging of subject and object is what makes art the nearest thing to magic.


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## Waehnen

Woodduck said:


> Yes, exactly that. And we know, don't we, what needs to be done - or, if we're stuck and unable to find the solution to the problem, we still believe that a solution is possible. There is a true objectivity to the process, even though it's "technically" subjective because it's internal and abstract. This merging of subject and object is what makes art the nearest thing to magic.


I agree with you. Searching for the solution is something we just cannot quit doing, or at least we cannot pretend there is not ”an objective problem” and a need for a solution.

(When my imagination sometimes cannot find a solution I often go to the piano and the combination of my hands, ears and mind find a new angle to the problem. The neurological features of the musician sometimes help the composer. So far I have been able to find a solution to everything, even though it might mean that a section of a piano sonata becomes a section of a symphony.)


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## hammeredklavier

Eva Yojimbo said:


> I am not acknowledging "objective greatness," I'm acknowledging that others, including those I highly respect, feel differently than I do and I'm not seeking to invalidate them.


This is also how I feel we must approach this whole thing; simply let each of us decide for ourselves how much value something has and "just leave it at that". What's the use of forcing other people "acknowledge the objective greatness of something?"; Glorifying (even further) stuff that has been glorified enough already? It would do more harm than good. It's 2022 now and there's still plenty of music by obscure composers we haven't heard yet since it's not recorded or performed. How can we be so sure of their "greatness", if we haven't given them equal amount of chance as the famous composers?
And I believe a large portion of "useless/pointless debates" on certain famous composers, for instance, "Mozart vs. Beethoven" (even though they can be thought to have little to do with each other artistically), has been waged on the premise or the mindset that they're objectively "summits of Western music".


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## Waehnen

hammeredklavier said:


> This is also how I feel we must approach this whole thing; simply let each of us decide how much value something has and "leave it at that". What's the use forcing other people "acknowledge the objective greatness of something?" "Glorifying (even further) stuff that has been glorified enough already"? It would do more harm than good. It's 2022 now and there's still plenty of music in the obscure composers we haven't heard yet since it's not recorded or performed. How can we be so sure of their "greatness", if we haven't given them equal amount of chance as the famous composers?
> And I believe a large portion of the "useless debates" between certain famous composers, for instance, have been waged on the premise or the mindset that they're objectively "summits of Western music".


Just curious: when has anyone ever tried to force you to acknowledge the objective greatness of a piece of music?

Just saying: people seem to feel threatened by the assumed characteristics of an assumed opposition.

I try to rid myself of that.


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## Sid James

Waehnen said:


> I see the categories merely a tool helping the communication. It is still a rich world with a lot of space and room for discussion! And even argument should that be the choice.


True, and all you can do as OP is set up and guide the discussion, while adding your own opinions. As for the rest, its up to the participants. 

Getting others to agree with us is a big part of forming an argument, and as I discussed before, that's not a problem in itself (e.g. critics do it all the time when writing their reviews). I only have a problem of how badly it can pan out online, but that's just the nature of the medium. As a communication tool, I think its better suited to having discussions rather than arguments.


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## EdwardBast

Forster said:


> All in your opinion of course.
> 
> You object to others' ranting, but your own frustration at the idiocies of others' opinions when to you, Beethoven and Wagner so obviously got everything right (for example), comes across as a *suppressed rant.*
> 
> You're doing no more than telling us all we're wrong and you're right. Of course, you're entitled to do so, but let's not pretend that what you've just written is a calm and cogent counter to the various points made by others who hold different views from you. It's contempt.


Oxymoronic self-refutation.


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## hammeredklavier

dissident said:


> I've seen the light. Michael Haydn is the greatest composer in the history of music.


Why not, as long as the decision is subjective? For example, think of the kind of arguments the "Mozart partisans" resorted to in threads like <Greatest Ever Opera Composer> against Puccini, Verdi, Wagner (which I think were unfair); "he didn't write any bad work", "he was great with all genres", "all he wrote was perfect", as if Mozart was the only one who had these attributes objectively. But what if there was a forgotten contemporary of Mozart who can be just as deserving to be described by these attributes, depending on the subjective evaluation by each of us.
Certainly, looking at this forgotten composer's earliest symphonies such as the 4th, watch?v=w-t1JKs_L3U&t=10m52s (which anticipates Mozart's G minor, K.183 in formal layout and impressions of harmony), I can't see how it can't be subjectively thought that this forgotten composer "didn't write any bad work", as compared with Mozart. Why is it so wrong to say, "whether or not this forgotten composer did some things better than Mozart belongs in the realm of subjectivity"? watch?v=v80s4yjSdQM&t=11m8s. I think it's for our own good. The "tyranny of objectivity" has caused all kinds of harm even without many of us realizing.


Red Terror said:


> Decades of marketing/brainwashing have convinced some of you that Bach can never be equaled. However, to my ears (and many others), Zelanka was every bit the composer Bach was.


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## Kreisler jr

One problem here is an ambiguous notion of "subjective" and a false dichotomy of "subjective" and objective. There is one sense (by no means the only one) of subjective that means "in some way dependent on human minds". As Woodduck pointed out, because art is a product of human minds and reception of art is by human minds, this kind of general dependence (vs. mind-independence of some quantitative physical properties) is usually recognized by opponents in the debate and doesn't make a terribly interesting distinction. 
(However, with dependence on the mind of God we immediately get the option of an objective (like maths) aesthetics but I think this is also a level too abstract to be all that interesting in such debates while an interesting debate of its own. And there are also philosophical positions (e.g. Kantian Idealism) that take what we consider "objective" (such as time, space, causality, other basic structures) as at bottom mind-dependent although in a way common to all minds of a certain kind, not individual/personal differences.) 

I think the real problem is with the false dichotomy. First of all, most people see the relevant contrast not between subjective/objective in the strict and general sense of mind(in)depedence but between "personal whim/taste/preference" and "beyond merely personal taste" (and also not simply reducible to the sum of a million personal preferences). Most of our life concerns things that are mind-dependent in the broad sense from above but not dependent on personal taste, therefore objective in this weaker sense.

Consider "Dis iz spelt inkorecli". That the phrase in quotation marks is full of spelling errors is not a "subjective verdict". A teacher marking the errors would be as objectively correct as a teacher marking "2+2=5" as wrong. Language is a contingent and conventional product of human history and culture, thus not mind-independent but it is "objectively" correct that the words above are spelled incorrectly. There is nothing subjective in the sense of dependence on personal preferences about this verdict. And there seems no need for the rules of English spelling or grammar being up there in Platonic heaven or Mind of God to get this kind of objectivity. Neither was there a poll by all users of English about their personal spelling preferences. There was a historic process that led to what is correct spelling today but to model this as a kind of explicit poll would IMO be deeply misleading. Law and many other fields of normativity (with its sense of correct/false, better/worse etc.) in everyday life are rather similar to language, I believe.

Regardless of defending objective aesthetics in a stronger sense, to me it seems plausible that evaluation of art works is a bit similar to this example of rules of spelling and grammar. Of course, there are often no such strict rules in most art forms and precise rule-following would only be one evaluative dimension of several. But there is a reference to a whole, to a frame, to history of art and specific art forms and their paradigms (as standard or excellent exemplars) that is in a similar way beyond personal taste and beyond opinion polls as language is.


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## Eva Yojimbo

Sorry for the length of this post, but I was responding to two different posts. Feel free to edit down as much as you're comfortable with responding to.



Woodduck said:


> The problem, and my argument with you here? There are no "objectivists," as far as I can determine, who claim that aesthetic meanings and values exist as entities or substances independent of human minds. Arguing against that position is arguing against a belief no one holds.


You say this, and yet you have also said before “Well-composed music is well-composed whether any individual can hear that it is or not… Mozart's mastery of form and his melodic inventiveness are not up for a vote.” This very much seems to suggest that you can discover objective greatness without recourse what people think, feel, and even hear; or, at the very least, it implies that what some people think, feel, and hear are correct or true while others' are not. The central question is: can a piece be well-composed if NOBODY thinks it’s well composed? And if people disagree on what “well-composed” means is there a way to sort out who is actually right without recourse to what people think, feel, and value?



Woodduck said:


> But now that we all know the formal definition of "subjective," how can we use it to come to grips with art and the challenges of evaluating it? Are such philosophical proprieties the least bit useful in answering such questions as whether _Tristan und Isolde_ would be a better opera if the lovers lived on, married, and inherited the crown of Cornwall, or whether Beethoven's Fifth Symphony would be improved by the omission, or the elaboration to twice its length, of the oboe solo in the first movement? Practical, mundane, real-life questions - questions about art down and dirty, on the ground where it lives - but critical questions for Wagner and Beethoven as they sat at their pianos struggling with innumerable dilemmas about form and substance, critical for the artistic integrity of their works and, consequently, for the reception and reputation of their works for the rest of time. Did Wagner and Beethoven make the right choices, thus producing great works of art, or should they have chosen differently?


To me, if we recognize what I’m saying is true about standards/values/etc. being derived from what human minds think and value, then the inescapable consequence of that is that any question you ask here or anywhere regarding things like “would the work be improved by the omission or doubling in size of X” must be answered with the tautology that it will be better to the people who prefer it, and not better to the people who do not. There can not be a judgment of better that exists independently and non-relatively to those minds. At most we can say that certain choices will be better to more minds, but then we’re just back to the “poll.”



Woodduck said:


> Well, let me answer that question right away so that no one has to remain sunk in the doldrums of philosophical masochism. _Wagner and Beethoven made the right choices._ Regardless of whether Kant or Wittgenstein or someone on an internet forum would have pronounced their decisions "objective" or "subjective," they made decisions that assured the strength and integrity and effectiveness of their works, decisions that carried out in a coherent way the themes and formal requirements of the particular works they were attempting to write. As a result of these and a million other creative decisions, large and small, they ended up with great and enduring works of art, and whether you or anyone should pronounce that assessment - which is, not at all coincidentally, the assessment of virtually everyone qualified to make such assessments - "objective" or "subjective" is a matter of no more import or consequence than the question of how many angels can dance you know where.


This is largely reiterating what I’ve said many times already about some composers and works being undeniably better at triggering in more people and at greater amplitudes the “like” effect. I know you probably do not find this description as poetically potent as the things you say about “assuring the strength and integrity of their works” resulting in “enduring works of art,” but we’re essentially saying the same thing in different ways. I’m just trying to be more precise and clinical in the terminology and in my modeling of what is happening.

The “consequence” of the assessment is as I said above.



Woodduck said:


> I've said elsewhere that every real artist knows that in the creation of art there are better and worse choices. The implication of this is that there are superior and inferior works of art. Some people seem to think that by pointing out that all artistic choices and judgments are "absolutely subjective" - which we are here told simply means "products of the human mind" - they demonstrate that an artist's or audience's conviction of being in the presence of greatness is not a recognition of anything real, and that someone standing entranced (as I have done) before a painting of Vermeer and knowing that he is looking at a vision of radiant beauty and an embodiment of human genius is merely engaged in a projection onto a meaningless object of something called "liking."


Sure, if we’re defining “better and worse choices” in reference to whether the work will provoke in the composer and others that “like” response, then yes; every choice will have different levels of effect on different people. No issue there, but the implication is that “superior and inferior” is simply defined as art that’s able to move the most minds to the greatest extent: basically what Strange Magic called it: a poll, and a poll that’s based on how we feel about it.

I do not claim that such things are not the recognition of anything real, I’m claiming that their reality is limited to the mind, and the cause is more complex than simply analyzing the objective features of the work itself.



Woodduck said:


> I've I might be able, if I tried hard enough, to sympathize with that very proud or very humble soul who is having difficulty living with the thought that a Mahler symphony, which he can't make head or tail of, might be a greater musical achievement - or God forbid, a greater _human_ achievement - than his favorite pop tune wailed out by some dude with an amplified guitar in his neighbor's basement. And let's be clear; that _is_ what's being propounded here. Can anyone say that one flavor of ice cream is superior to another? No, it's "all subjective" - and there is, apparently, nothing about art that makes it essentially different from food, nothing that can embody or carry within its signs and symbols human meanings that might actually speak to and about the deeper and higher aspects of what it means to be human, and thus nothing that gives us cause to accord some works of art and their creators special esteem. I mean, after all, if we take a poll of who likes what we might actually find that some people prefer romance novels to Faulkner, especially if they have pictures of Fabio on their covers. Really, who wouldn't prefer _As I Lie with Fabio_ to _As I Lay Dying?_


TBH I'm not certain what you're getting at with your "I might be able... to sympathize..." example, though it brings to mind many thoughts. One thought is that your "humble soul" might think the Mahler symphony is a greater achievement for many different reasons, some of which having nothing to do with the music. For example, they might think the Mahler symphony is greater merely because of classical music's historical association with the upper classes. Or, being less cynical, they might think Mahler is greater simply because Mahler genuinely moved them even if they didn't understand it, and they were moved more by Mahler than the "garage guitar" guy. I could sympathize with that; many of my favorite works of art are those that moved me profoundly before I understood them.

The thing is that I do not disagree with what you say about art being capable of “embodying signs and symbols of human meaning that speak to and about the deeper and higher aspects of what it means to be human,” but I would contend such things are to be found across a wide range of artistic mediums and genres in a bewildering different number of forms and styles, from the simplest to the most complex, and that includes the pop tune wailed out by a dude with an amplified guitar in his neighbor’s basement, and romance novels, and every other work of “low art” you can think of to denigrate as being beneath such elevated tastes. This simply becomes an exercise of “my tastes, my mind, my way of perceiving, feeling, is better than yours,” and the only reason someone thinks that is because they are obviously biased to prefer their own tastes.



Woodduck said:


> This, I think, is where we diverge. I don't, to begin with, identify as an "objectivist," and I particularly don't subscribe to what I see as the caricacture of objectivity which is the idea that value somehow resides in things and would be there even if no one capable of valuing existed. Things acquire value in the context of some set of assumptions or circumstances, and that's why the valuation of art becomes deeper as we acquire knowledge - of styles, techniques, artistic objectives - whether we hold that knowledge consciously or subconsciously.
> 
> As for objectivity requiring proof, I see aesthetic perception as an epistemically unique area of knowledge, one reliant on specific mental/emotional skills and yielding perceptions which are not transferable between persons and are therefore not subject to proof. If we want to share aesthetic perceptions, we can point to features of artworks and try to describe what we see, but every person has to see for himself. This is, technically, a subjective process - it happens in the mind - but the perceptual relationships we can discern in a work of art are not creations of the observer but really are present in the work waiting to be seen or heard. The process of apprehending a work of art - a piece of music, a painting, etc. - is a complex process that happens mostly subconsciously, and the subconscious mind can do an amazing job of perceiving how well the components of an artistic composition work together to form a satisfying entity. No one can "prove" to another that a work achieves this coherence, but humans in general are capable of this sort of perception at many levels of skill. And, of course, artists make it their life work. Beethoven's struggles to find the right notes are legendary, and even a cursory acquaintance with his sketches illustrates powerfully the process of selection and elimination, the coming together of fit and full conceptions in which the awkward, inappropriate, dysfuntional and extraneous are weeded out and, finally, everything works together. The discovery of the "right" notes, and the achievement of that sense of inevitabilty of which Bernstein spoke so simply and eloquently, was not an exercise of Beethoven's mere "opinion" or "liking" for certain sounds, but of his perception of what was appropriate or necessary in context, which we are invited and, hopefully, able to share and marvel at as we listen.
> 
> I'd like to continue with this but right now I'm feeling tired and discouraged by some aspects of the discussion and really need to take time out.


Perhaps you don't identify as an objectivist, but you continually appear in these discussions to be arguing against the subjectivists, so you obviously have some qualms with at least some aspect of their perspectives. A large part of that may just be semantic disagreements.

A good example of semantic disagreement is how you're describing knowledge in your second paragraph here. To me, what you're describing is not knowledge. "Aesthetic perception," might be defined as a kind of perceptive awareness, but that's distinct from knowledge. I would question to what extent we're talking about mental/emotional "skills" as opposed to simply different ways of perceiving and reacting to art. I start getting squirmy when you suggest that such thing is a skill, that there is a "right way" to perceive art. I do not deny that learning about art (or creating/practicing art, such as with playing an instrument) can open up new ways of perceiving art, but I question to what extent this can be described as a skill. Skills require goals by which to be judged: what is the "goal" of perceiving art except to be moved by it in some way?

Beethoven's struggle over finding "the right note" mirrors my struggle over finding "the right word" when I wrote poetry. I truly sympathize with that struggle, but, again, to me what is happening in that struggle is the attempt at finding the word (or note) that will elicit first in myself the desired effect intellectually, emotionally, aesthetically, and intuitively; and, second, that will elicit the same in the audience. I have no way to judge the latter by simply referencing how I, myself, feel. It's clear that some artists' perception of "the right (note, word, etc.)" lines up very well with many people's, or no people's, or some people's of different groups. How are we to determine which people or group "got it right" in how they react?

I'm sorry you're feeling discouraged, but ironically I'm feeling the opposite (there's that variability of human perception/reaction at work for you!) as I think this may be the closest we've gotten to agreement on this issue. I feel the remaining issues are rather minor compared to where we began.


----------



## ansfelden

this discussions here stun me, it it very interesting but maybe fruitless...

the phenomenology of music is what interests me. 

both "objective" and "subjective".


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## Eva Yojimbo

BachIsBest said:


> Generally speaking, the word "objective" has two different commonly accepted meanings. The first is the definition more commonly used philosophically, that is "not of the mind; part of physical reality", which appears to be how you're using it. The second is more common in colloquial discussions (like this one) and is roughly "not based on personal feelings or whims; unbiased", which is how most on the "objectivist" side are using it. It is in this second sense we may call a judges ruling on the law objective. Clearly, the judges ruling is, no matter what, purely "of the mind" so can not be objective in the first sense. It is also in this second sense that we may come to evaluate the work of Bach "objectively".
> 
> I'm not sure why you would assume your opponents in a debate are using a less common definition of a word that renders their arguments incomprehensible, when a more common usage of the word at least imbues their arguments with a significantly higher degree of plausibility.


Yes, I noted the multiple uses of the word objective in my very first post in this thread. I understand this thread is getting long and people aren't apt to read every single post, but I've made my usage of the terms clear multiple times. If people want to use the word differently that's fine, and I'm also fine with addressing the alternative definitions, but if people by now aren't getting how I'm using the word despite repeatedly having made myself clear then I'm not sure what else I can do.

The problem I have with the "common" use of the word is that it basically glosses over what is actually happening when you're "not biased by personal feelings or whims," especially in the context of this discussion on the subjective/objective evaluation of art. If you're not evaluating art by your feelings and opinions, then what are you judging it by, and how did THAT criteria come about? I've addressed this before, but, afaict, if you're not using your personal feelings to judge art you're simply accepting the standards created by others based on their personal feelings. The "others" in question may simply be the aggregate opinions and feelings of a certain group over time, like "classical music experts." This is just submitting to a kind of groupthink or, even worse, it's the mistaken belief that such standards are not influenced by opinions merely because they aren't YOUR opinions.

To me, the objective/subjective distinction that means dependent/independent of the mind actually covers this, because it's clear that even the above "not influenced by personal feelings" definition that such things are still dependent upon minds, they just aren't dependent upon YOUR mind.


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## Eva Yojimbo

Kreisler jr said:


> ...this kind of general dependence (vs. mind-independence of some quantitative physical properties) is usually recognized by opponents in the debate and doesn't make a terribly interesting distinction.


Personally I find this distinction much more "interesting" than the more common definition/distinction for a few reasons: one is that it's a subject that's been debated by the greatest minds for as far back as written human history goes. Another reason is because it's one of the few dichotomies that cleanly splits everything that exists into two mutually exclusive categories. A final reason is because of the immense ambiguity and difficulty in categorizing things into those two categories. At times it can place a rather high demand on one's cognitive energies to abstract your thought enough to the point where you can accurately map your own mind and distinguish its contents as being separate and distinct from the reality its perceiving and modeling. Some distinctions are easier than others, of course. You mention Kantian idealism calling into question fundamental things like time as perhaps being mind-dependent. I've thought about that myself, and such points really stretch the limits of the human mind's ability to understand reality as-it-is separate from how its perceiving faculties are filtering it. Stuff like THIS is right at the limits of my ability to comprehend them. 



Kreisler jr said:


> I think the real problem is with the false dichotomy. First of all, most people see the relevant contrast not between subjective/objective in the strict and general sense of mind(in)depedence but between "personal whim/taste/preference" and "beyond merely personal taste" (and also not simply reducible to the sum of a million personal preferences). Most of our life concerns things that are mind-dependent in the broad sense from above but not dependent on personal taste, therefore objective in this weaker sense.


I feel like I covered this in my post here. If you're going to assert that "beyond mere personal taste" isn't reducible to "the sum of a million personal preferences," then what IS it reducible to, if not what I said in my linked post? 



Kreisler jr said:


> Consider "Dis iz spelt inkorecli". That the phrase in quotation marks is full of spelling errors is not a "subjective verdict". A teacher marking the errors would be as objectively correct as a teacher marking "2+2=5" as wrong. Language is a contingent and conventional product of human history and culture, thus not mind-independent but it is "objectively" correct that the words above are spelled incorrectly. There is nothing subjective in the sense of dependence on personal preferences about this verdict.


This is a good example to illustrate the relevant points: 

1. It is true that language is mind-dependent in its invention. 
2. This mind-dependent invention is established with rules that everyone agrees on. 
3. After this agreement, we can judge correctness/incorrectness relative to those rules, and independently of our personal opinions. 
4. It is impossible to judge correctness/incorrectness without those rules. 
5. If the rules change, and we all agree to them, there is no way, independent of what minds think/feel, to judge whether the change is good or bad. 
6. If the rules change and some agree to them, then there is now two different standards by which to judge correctness by. It is impossible to judge either standard as better than the other independent of what minds think/feel. 
7. If the rules change and only one person agrees with them, then there are again two different standards to judge correctness by. It is still impossible to judge either standard as better than the other independent of what minds think/feel. 

In practical terms, 7 rarely happens, but it's useful as a thought experiment because it shows it's fundamentally no different than the other types of changes. If 7 did actually happen, the likely result would be that the person "changing the rules" would be thought stupid or crazy and dismissed: such is the power of groupthink. However stupid or crazy they may be, that still doesn't invalidate the point being made, though. 

Like my chess analogy many pages back, these points map perfectly onto music with the exception (again) that the rules/goals in music are much less clearly defined and agreed upon as in language. However, language and music also share the similarity in that both do, indeed, change over time. New words are invented every year, old usages fall out of use, new ones take their place. Some fundamentals may remain unchanged, but one doesn't have to go back many centuries to find the English language almost completely unrecognizable compared to what it is now. Such is the same for music. 

I also think it's interesting to consider the extent to which the "rules" of language can be mapped onto the standards we create for art and the extent to which different genres can be thought of as different sets of "rules." EG, is classical music really playing by the same "rules" as rock or pop or jazz or...? To some extent the answer may be yes, just as most languages share some commonalities (even if abstract ones); eg, the vast majority of all the music in those genres is tonal, so there is that commonality. However, just like with the above enumerated points, I see now way to declare any genre or set of rules "better" independent of what minds think/feel, and then we're back to the issue of polling, or possibly trying to elevate the opinions of a minority as being more valuable than the majority.


----------



## DaveM

hammeredklavier said:


> ..The "tyranny of objectivity" has caused all kinds of harm even without many of us realizing.


Hyperbole gone wild..

Seems like you’re trying to change a lot of subjective opinions.


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## Eva Yojimbo

DaveM said:


> Hyperbole gone wild..


I doubt it's hyperbole. Behind every terrorist group, tyrannical government, genocidal regime, repressive and oppressive religion, etc. are typically people who have 100% conviction in the objective correctness (and righteousness) of their position. I defer to Yeats: 

The best lack all conviction, while the worst 
Are full of passionate intensity.


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## Woodduck

I'm already exhausted just looking at your post.  I'll make a stab at this, but I do feel a need for a vacation from this topic.



Eva Yojimbo said:


> You say this, and yet you have also said before “Well-composed music is well-composed whether any individual can hear that it is or not… Mozart's mastery of form and his melodic inventiveness are not up for a vote.” This very much seems to suggest that you can discover objective greatness without recourse what people think, feel, and even hear; or, at the very least, it implies that what some people think, feel, and hear are correct or true while others' are not. The central question is: can a piece be well-composed if NOBODY thinks it’s well composed?


I did say ANY individual, not EVERY individual or MOST individuals. You catch my drift (I'm trying to keep this short).



> To me, if we recognize what I’m saying is true about standards/values/etc. being derived from what human minds think and value, then the inescapable consequence of that is that any question you ask here or anywhere regarding things like “would the work be improved by the omission or doubling in size of X” must be answered with the tautology that it will be better to the people who prefer it, and not better to the people who do not. There can not be a judgment of better that exists independently and non-relatively to those minds. At most we can say that certain choices will be better to more minds, but then we’re just back to the “poll.”


The fact that some people don't see something doesn't mean it isn't there. How about replacing the brief oboe solo in movement #1 of Beethoven's 5th with a 15-minute concerto for solo oboe? Would the existence of someone who thought that that improved the symphony make it less of an absurdity? It would be out of keeping with the nature of the work, therefore an artistic mistake, and Beethoven would not be a genius but an idiot. Do you still think we need to take a poll? Honestly, this "poll" talk makes me crazy. When I'm improvising at the piano, I don't need to ask a single individual, much less the general populace, whether the way I've continued the melody I started makes sense or not.



> The thing is that I do not disagree with what you say about art being capable of “embodying signs and symbols of human meaning that speak to and about the deeper and higher aspects of what it means to be human,” but I would contend such things are to be found across a wide range of artistic mediums and genres in a bewildering different number of forms and styles, from the simplest to the most complex, and that includes the pop tune wailed out by a dude with an amplified guitar in his neighbor’s basement, and romance novels, and every other work of “low art” you can think of to denigrate as being beneath such elevated tastes. This simply becomes an exercise of “my tastes, my mind, my way of perceiving, feeling, is better than yours,” and the only reason someone thinks that is because they are obviously biased to prefer their own tastes.


Hey, I enjoy "low" art too, and sometimes it isn't as low as it looks at first glance. It's even possible that I might enjoy _As I Lie with Fabio_ more than _As I Lay Dying_, though I'm not of a mind to test that right now.



> Perhaps you don't identify as an objectivist, but you continually appear in these discussions to be arguing against the subjectivists, so you obviously have some qualms with at least some aspect of their perspectives. A large part of that may just be semantic disagreements.


I argue with the claim that "all aesthetic judgments are subjective" in any but the strictest sense of "within the mind." It's ridiculously obvious that all judgment occurs in the mind. What interests me is whether aesthetic judgments can properly be considered good or bad. As an artist, I find the answer obvious and am (sort of) baffled by people who don't. But they probably find me baffling too.



> A good example of semantic disagreement is how you're describing knowledge in your second paragraph here. To me, what you're describing is not knowledge. "Aesthetic perception," might be defined as a kind of perceptive awareness, but that's distinct from knowledge. I would question to what extent we're talking about mental/emotional "skills" as opposed to simply different ways of perceiving and reacting to art. I start getting squirmy when you suggest that such thing is a skill, that there is a "right way" to perceive art. I do not deny that learning about art (or creating/practicing art, such as with playing an instrument) can open up new ways of perceiving art, but I question to what extent this can be described as a skill. Skills require goals by which to be judged: what is the "goal" of perceiving art except to be moved by it in some way?


OK, maybe skill isn't the best term for the ability to judge whether a line or color is right in the context of a painting's overall concept, or an oboe cadenza in the first movement of a symphony goes on for the optimal amount of time. My point is that there are better and worse solutions to such aesthetic problems faced by the artist - objectively better or worse IN CONTEXT - and that the ability to judge such relationships is something we possess to varying degrees by virtue of having human brains. We can hone this ability to a high degree, to the point where the artistic product gives us the feeling that it wasn't constructed at all but grew like a flower in the garden or fell from heaven or whatever other tired imagery you prefer. Listen to the seamless sleight of hand by which Mozart gets us into the recap of one of his sonata-allegro movements, leaving even a jaded oldster like me thinking, "How the hell did he do that?" Whether we're fond of Mozart or not - and I've never been a big fan - it's quite possible to appreciate what it was about him that had that sturdy musical workman Brahms shaking his head with wonder and admiration.

And we don't need to take a poll to find out who understands this and who doesn't.



> Beethoven's struggle over finding "the right note" mirrors my struggle over finding "the right word" when I wrote poetry. I truly sympathize with that struggle, but, again, to me what is happening in that struggle is the attempt at finding the word (or note) that will elicit first in myself the desired effect intellectually, emotionally, aesthetically, and intuitively; and, second, that will elicit the same in the audience. I have no way to judge the latter by simply referencing how I, myself, feel. It's clear that some artists' perception of "the right (note, word, etc.)" lines up very well with many people's, or no people's, or some people's of different groups. How are we to determine which people or group "got it right" in how they react?


I wish I could tell you how I know when I've chosen the right notes, or how I know when another composer has. The "how" of knowledge is a mystery - permanently so, I believe. Can you tell me HOW you know anything?



> I'm sorry you're feeling discouraged, but ironically I'm feeling the opposite (there's that variability of human perception/reaction at work for you!) as I think this may be the closest we've gotten to agreement on this issue. I feel the remaining issues are rather minor compared to where we began.


Maybe you have more of an appetite for battle than I do. I know Strange magic does, but even he's decided to bow out of this round. I'm feeling inclined to do the same. It's been nice, though. Time for more coffee.


----------



## Eva Yojimbo

I will say this quickly:



Woodduck said:


> Maybe you have more of an appetite for battle than I do. I know Strange magic does, but even he's decided to bow out of this round. I'm feeling inclined to do the same. It's been nice, though. Time for more coffee.


 I do not view this as a battle. Aesthetics is a subject of great interest to me. Discussion like this is one way in which I attempt to clarify my own thought processes on the subject, express them to others in a way that's coherent, consider other perspectives, and attempt to reconcile them (to the extent that I can) with my own. Battle implies harsh conflict between two sides in which one side wins and the other is loses. Discussion, including disagreement and debate, is more a process of mutually navigating through our and others' ways of thinking with the goal of (hopefully) enrichening those thoughts.


----------



## BachIsBest

Eva Yojimbo said:


> Yes, I noted the multiple uses of the word objective in my very first post in this thread. I understand this thread is getting long and people aren't apt to read every single post, but I've made my usage of the terms clear multiple times. If people want to use the word differently that's fine, and I'm also fine with addressing the alternative definitions, but if people by now aren't getting how I'm using the word despite repeatedly having made myself clear then I'm not sure what else I can do.


I wasn't taking issue with how you used the word, but how you were assuming others were using the word.



Eva Yojimbo said:


> The problem I have with the "common" use of the word is that it basically glosses over what is actually happening when you're "not biased by personal feelings or whims," especially in the context of this discussion on the subjective/objective evaluation of art. If you're not evaluating art by your feelings and opinions, then what are you judging it by, and how did THAT criteria come about? I've addressed this before, but, afaict, if you're not using your personal feelings to judge art you're simply accepting the standards created by others based on their personal feelings. The "others" in question may simply be the aggregate opinions and feelings of a certain group over time, like "classical music experts." This is just submitting to a kind of groupthink or, even worse, it's the mistaken belief that such standards are not influenced by opinions merely because they aren't YOUR opinions.
> 
> To me, the objective/subjective distinction that means dependent/independent of the mind actually covers this, because it's clear that even the above "not influenced by personal feelings" definition that such things are still dependent upon minds, they just aren't dependent upon YOUR mind.


When we use language, write on this forum, and discuss topics, we are using a communication tool (in this case English) that was created by others. There is no objective reason we should communicate in English versus the infinity of variations on possible written languages. In other words, this is just the sort of collective agreement you describe. However, once a speaker decides to communicator in English, this does not render the content of his communication equally arbitrary. Similarly, in much of CPT music, there are agreed upon standards and tools for communication that the composer employs. The fact that some of these standards are fairly arbitrary (e.g., the avoidance of parallel fifths), does not render the ability to communicate using this 'language' entirely subjective.

Furthermore, if one examines the art of vastly different cultures across the globe, although there is incredible diversity, it is perhaps more remarkable just how many similarities there are. This is general evidence for the fact that many of these supposedly 'subjective' standards have deep rooting's in the psychology of mankind. Now, one can argue that even things that have deep rooting's in the psychology of mankind (e.g., aversion to the smell of faeces, amorality of murder, desire to avoid pain, etc.) are ultimately subjective, but I consider this a sort of useless line of thinking; these things are so universally rooted in the human psyche that to say they are just based on personal biases is in some sense a bit fallacious.


----------



## Waehnen

Eva Yojimbo said:


> Personally I find this distinction much more "interesting" than the more common definition/distinction for a few reasons: one is that it's a subject that's been debated by the greatest minds for as far back as written human history goes. Another reason is because it's one of the few dichotomies that cleanly splits everything that exists into two mutually exclusive categories. A final reason is because of the immense ambiguity and difficulty in categorizing things into those two categories. At times it can place a rather high demand on one's cognitive energies to abstract your thought enough to the point where you can accurately map your own mind and distinguish its contents as being separate and distinct from the reality its perceiving and modeling. Some distinctions are easier than others, of course. You mention Kantian idealism calling into question fundamental things like time as perhaps being mind-dependent. I've thought about that myself, and such points really stretch the limits of the human mind's ability to understand reality as-it-is separate from how its perceiving faculties are filtering it. Stuff like THIS is right at the limits of my ability to comprehend them.
> 
> I feel like I covered this in my post here. If you're going to assert that "beyond mere personal taste" isn't reducible to "the sum of a million personal preferences," then what IS it reducible to, if not what I said in my linked post?
> 
> This is a good example to illustrate the relevant points:
> 
> 1. It is true that language is mind-dependent in its invention.
> 2. This mind-dependent invention is established with rules that everyone agrees on.
> 3. After this agreement, we can judge correctness/incorrectness relative to those rules, and independently of our personal opinions.
> 4. It is impossible to judge correctness/incorrectness without those rules.
> 5. If the rules change, and we all agree to them, there is no way, independent of what minds think/feel, to judge whether the change is good or bad.
> 6. If the rules change and some agree to them, then there is now two different standards by which to judge correctness by. It is impossible to judge either standard as better than the other independent of what minds think/feel.
> 7. If the rules change and only one person agrees with them, then there are again two different standards to judge correctness by. It is still impossible to judge either standard as better than the other independent of what minds think/feel.
> 
> In practical terms, 7 rarely happens, but it's useful as a thought experiment because it shows it's fundamentally no different than the other types of changes. If 7 did actually happen, the likely result would be that the person "changing the rules" would be thought stupid or crazy and dismissed: such is the power of groupthink. However stupid or crazy they may be, that still doesn't invalidate the point being made, though.
> 
> Like my chess analogy many pages back, these points map perfectly onto music with the exception (again) that the rules/goals in music are much less clearly defined and agreed upon as in language. However, language and music also share the similarity in that both do, indeed, change over time. New words are invented every year, old usages fall out of use, new ones take their place. Some fundamentals may remain unchanged, but one doesn't have to go back many centuries to find the English language almost completely unrecognizable compared to what it is now. Such is the same for music.
> 
> I also think it's interesting to consider the extent to which the "rules" of language can be mapped onto the standards we create for art and the extent to which different genres can be thought of as different sets of "rules." EG, is classical music really playing by the same "rules" as rock or pop or jazz or...? To some extent the answer may be yes, just as most languages share some commonalities (even if abstract ones); eg, the vast majority of all the music in those genres is tonal, so there is that commonality. However, just like with the above enumerated points, I see now way to declare any genre or set of rules "better" independent of what minds think/feel, and then we're back to the issue of polling, or possibly trying to elevate the opinions of a minority as being more valuable than the majority.





Eva Yojimbo said:


> I will say this quickly:
> 
> I do not view this as a battle. Aesthetics is a subject of great interest to me. Discussion like this is one way in which I attempt to clarify my own thought processes on the subject, express them to others in a way that's coherent, consider other perspectives, and attempt to reconcile them (to the extent that I can) with my own. Battle implies harsh conflict between two sides in which one side wins and the other is loses. Discussion, including disagreement and debate, is more a process of mutually navigating through our and others' ways of thinking with the goal of (hopefully) enrichening those thoughts.


May I just say that Eva Yojimbo has made a great impression on me. Who is able to generate so much intelligent and wise text in such a short time?

Not me!

Sorry to talk of you in the 3rd person, Eva, but I had to acknowledge you to the rest of the forum. Your input has been just wonderful. Makes me wanna believe in humanity in these dark times. Just like Händel & Haydn do.


----------



## Woodduck

Eva Yojimbo said:


> I will say this quickly:
> 
> I do not view this as a battle. Aesthetics is a subject of great interest to me. Discussion like this is one way in which I attempt to clarify my own thought processes on the subject, express them to others in a way that's coherent, consider other perspectives, and attempt to reconcile them (to the extent that I can) with my own. Battle implies harsh conflict between two sides in which one side wins and the other is loses. Discussion, including disagreement and debate, is more a process of mutually navigating through our and others' ways of thinking with the goal of (hopefully) enrichening those thoughts.


How idealistic, not to mention pedantic, of you (I want a laughing emoticon here but the ones in this new forum are stupid and grotesque). Of course i agree on the goal. I'm here for the same reason. But things can get heated, people can behave badly, and one can get frustrated and need a romance novel or some other example of art that would probably do well in the polls.


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## 59540

hammeredklavier said:


> Why not, as long as the decision is subjective?


My ears don't hear any particular reasons _for_ it, really. Just because you believe theoretically that M. Haydn and Mozart are exactly equivalent doesn't make them so. Were Rostropovich and Glenn Gould only subjectively "better" musicians than I am? I think one thing that doesn't seem to get discussed in these threads very often is the notion of "talent". One person can do something "better" than another.


Forster said:


> I regret if I've been condescending; please quote the post.


Take your pick.


----------



## DaveM

[


Eva Yojimbo said:


> I doubt it's hyperbole. Behind every terrorist group, tyrannical government, genocidal regime, repressive and oppressive religion, etc. are typically people who have 100% conviction in the objective correctness (and righteousness) of their position. I defer to Yeats:
> 
> The best lack all conviction, while the worst
> Are full of passionate intensity.


You do your credibility no service regarding your perception of the meaning of words particularly in this environment in which they are used. Your doubt about the hyperbole in this instance seems to be derived from the premise that terrorists are typically people with extreme objectivist convictions. Well, as has been pointed out several times, there are no extreme objectivists here and, going out on a stretch.. I‘m assuming there are no terrorists either.

On the other hand, regarding the tyranny of extreme philosophizing subjectivists..


----------



## 59540

Eva Yojimbo said:


> I doubt it's hyperbole. Behind every terrorist group, tyrannical government, genocidal regime, repressive and oppressive religion, etc. are typically people who have 100% conviction in the objective correctness (and righteousness) of their position. ...


Including probably those who objectively believe there is no such thing as objective standards. If everything is subjective, anything is allowable. Your "terror", "repression", "oppression" are simply another person's "justice", "order" and "stability". Prove otherwise. Using objective value judgements to own the "objectivists" isn't as clever as it might appear. In fact, it's incoherent.


----------



## hammeredklavier

BachIsBest said:


> . Similarly, in much of CPT music, there are agreed upon standards and tools for communication that the composer employs. The fact that some of these standards are fairly arbitrary (e.g., the avoidance of parallel fifths), does not render the ability to communicate using this 'language' entirely subjective.


So you're judging things by skills of counterpoint? I don't deny things can be and have qualities to be popular, but whether or not they're popular because they're superficially appealing, sentimental, or over the top, or have attractive concepts (eg. "avantgarde for their time", "tortured artists") etc, still depends on how each one of us perceives them. So you're saying everything done in the CP era can be objectively categorized as either "right" or "wrong" answers?- isn't it a rather boring way to view music history?
How "objectively right" was Verdi when he commented in 1878 on the final movement of Beethoven's 9th?; "supported by the authority of Beethoven, they will all shout; "that's the way to do it!""


----------



## 59540

hammeredklavier said:


> ...
> How "objectively right" was Verdi when he commented in 1878 on the final movement of Beethoven's 9th?; "supported by the authority of Beethoven, they will all shout; "that's the way to do it!""


You've brought the following quote up several times, in a backhandedly disapproving way:

"If you listen to *Beethoven* or to *Mozart*, you see they are always the same but if you listen to *traffic*, you'll see it's always different ..."

Is that objectively correct? Subjectively correct? Incorrect?


----------



## hammeredklavier

dissident said:


> You've brought the following quote up several times, in a backhandedly disapproving way:
> "If you listen to *Beethoven* or to *Mozart*, you see they are always the same but if you listen to *traffic*, you'll see it's always different ..."
> Is that objectively correct? Subjectively correct? Incorrect?


I only meant that Cage's philosophy differs vastly from that of the "classical music" composers, and according to my subjective view, composers like him can be categorized separately/differently from "classical music".


----------



## 59540

hammeredklavier said:


> I only meant that Cage's philosophy differs vastly from that of the "classical music" composers, and according to my subjective view, composers like him can be categorized separately/differently from "classical music".


But I notice you didn't answer the question. And I suppose you're saying that Cage objectively differs from "classical music" composers. What's your evidence for that?


----------



## DaveM

hammeredklavier said:


> I only meant that Cage's philosophy differs vastly from that of the "classical music" composers, and according to my subjective view, composers like him can be categorized separately/differently from "classical music".


I’m amazed at the extent to which subjectivity is applied by some or the extent to which the term ‘objectivity’ is avoided to the detriment of credibility. What the above says to me is ‘_I have a subjective view about categorizing a particular composer, but I have no convincing evidence to support it’ (_given that evidence that can persuade others tends to be objective). Fwiw, if someone comes back and says, ‘I‘m not trying to persuade/convince anyone.’ then I respond: what’s the point of all the information presented?


----------



## 4chamberedklavier

I have to wonder what the greater purpose of this discussion is. I don't believe anyone here thinks greatness in music is exclusively subjective or exclusively objective. Suppose it's subjective in some ways and objective in some ways. Does that mean that it's subjective or objective in a way that _matters_? How would subjectivity or objectivity of greatness affect the bigger picture, i.e. how we interact with & appreciate music?


----------



## 59540

4chamberedklavier said:


> I have to wonder what the greater purpose of this discussion is. I don't believe anyone here thinks greatness in music is exclusively subjective or exclusively objective. Suppose it's subjective in some ways and objective in some ways. Does that mean that it's subjective or objective in a way that _matters_? How would subjectivity or objectivity of greatness affect the bigger picture, i.e. how we interact with & appreciate music?


I do think there are some who believe "greatness" is entirely subjective, and these threads are just their railings against any and all who believe that musical "greatness" has objective elements.

Does it really matter as far as the music itself is concerned? I don't think so. Bach is still great, and "Ice Ice Baby" is still dreck.


----------



## Sid James

4chamberedklavier said:


> I have to wonder what the greater purpose of this discussion is. I don't believe anyone here thinks greatness in music is exclusively subjective or exclusively objective. Suppose it's subjective in some ways and objective in some ways. Does that mean that it's subjective or objective in a way that _matters_? How would subjectivity or objectivity of greatness affect the bigger picture, i.e. how we interact with & appreciate music?


The immediate thing that comes to my mind are the aesthetic arguments of the 19th century. On one side, you had what can be boiled down to formalist objectivism and romantic subjectivism. Vienna being a big centre of music, the two camps formed around Brahms and Hanslick on one side, and Bruckner and Richter on the other.

Aesthetic issues like this are still important, as of course are things like conventions involved with genre, and all manner of techniques. The way I see them is that they are parts of a composer's toolbox, they can pick and choose what they need for their practice. As a listener I am interested, but I don't need to choose any particular tool so to speak, I'm merely receiving what they create.

With increased ease of travel, and of course the internet, musicians face less of the need to identify with one set of theories or practices. The modern era saw the emergence and decline of schools of music.

One writer whose work I think is still highly relevant is Adorno, who wrote about the place of art in capitalism. The more we felt the impacts of industrialisation, the more art became less of an individually crafted piece and more an object of mass production. I think this is still a dilemma, probably even more than back then.

As the world gets smaller, the regional differences start to give way to homogeneity. That being said, part of the diversity of music today are a lot of musicians who work outside - or at least, as freelancers, on the periphery of - the established venues and organisations. They can also work on a local level yet have exposure everywhere via the internet. Even fifty years ago, this was unimaginable.

I'm reading a book about Edith Piaf, and in one of her movies there's a scene of her busking (halfway through the video). She's handing out sheet music of her songs to people. This was a common practice back then, a way musicians used to promote themselves. Sheet music was expensive, and so where recordings. Today, the internet gives much more wider exposure for musicians who want to do this sort of self publishing, and at little or no cost to the consumer.


----------



## Woodduck

dissident said:


> I do think there are some who believe "greatness" is entirely subjective, and *these threads are just their railings against any and all who believe that musical "greatness" has objective elements.*


And when they've finished railing, they can go back to pronouncing the music they hate "trash," free to make the most judgmental remarks because they can't be accused of meaning them "objectively," and shielded from any need to take seriously anyone who might, were they open to it, teach them something.

I should add that I don't believe that this is necessarily why the question is broached. It wasn't the motive in this case. Waehnen in the OP said, "I would suggest that it would not be a game of just 2 opposites (subjective opinions vs hard scientific facts) but there would be some shades of gray as well in between. I believe it would result in better conversations if all forum texts were accepted and appreciated without comments like "that is just a mere opinion." 

It's hard to disagree with that.


----------



## hammeredklavier

dissident said:


> My ears don't hear any particular reasons _for_ it, really. Just because you believe theoretically that M. Haydn and Mozart are exactly equivalent doesn't make them so. Were Rostropovich and Glenn Gould only subjectively "better" musicians than I am? I think one thing that doesn't seem to get discussed in these threads very often is the notion of "talent". One person can do something "better" than another.


How can we be _so sure_ of that, especially when _everything_ has not been recorded yet? How much _chance_ have we given to composer we favor less compared to the one we favor more? Are we simply relying on _received wisdom _in these matters?


hammeredklavier said:


> one thing to bear in mind is that those 20th century critics and academics aren't authorities to be relied upon unquestioningly, as they obviously _did not know everything._
> For instance,
> 1. Donald Tovey said of Beethoven's Missa solemnis: "There is no earlier choral writing that comes so near to recovering some of the lost secrets of the style of Palestrina."
> 
> But look at "Missa in Dominica Palmarum" (1794)
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 2. M. Owen Lee said of the quartet in Mozart's Idomeneo: "Mozart's is by common consent the first great ensemble in opera, a forerunner of the trio in Der Rosenkavalier, the quartet in Rigoletto, the quintet in Die Meistersinger."
> 
> But look at the ones from "Die Wahrheit der Natur" (1769) watch?v=KXcBzebwPyA&t=1m50s (at 1:56, the similarity of harmony to the "Colpa è vostra, oh Dei tiranni" from Idomeneo is striking, btw),
> and "Die Hochzeit auf der Alm" (1768) watch?v=M2SHuHCivRI&t=15s
> 
> 3. Charles Rosen said of Mozart's quintet K.174 (in page 281 of his book, "The Classical Style"): "The immediate model for this work is not at all Michael Haydn, as has been thought, much less Boccherini, but ..."
> 
> But look at quintet in G (1773) watch?v=9gDxnpn5vb4&t=4m25s, and quintet in C (1773) watch?v=Kw3o9ymn6UU&t=2m50s
> 
> So there are 3 obvious errors committed by these famous critics, just from their lack of knowledge of the ouevre of one obscure composer alone. if we're unwilling to "adjust" our views with the discovery of new knowledge, it shows we're nothing more than a 'religious group' worshiping a few selected composers who've been dead for hundreds of years.











"I didn't see the merits of X's music...


"I didn't see the merits of X's music until I had N hours of listening to it" Let's say there are composers (or works) "A" and "B". With A, you didn't see his (its) "merits" at first, but you've had roughly 1000 hours of listening to his music (it), and now you "recognize" them. (At least you...




www.talkclassical.com




If we took tests on the music of the composer we favor less, and on that of the composer we favor more, like the following, for example, how well would we do on the former compared to the latter?:


hammeredklavier said:


> 50 randomly-selected, unidentified 20-second excerpts from 50 different C.P.E. Bach keyboard sonatas (each excerpt extracted from a different work). How many can you identify?


----------



## Strange Magic

Woodduck said:


> And when they've finished railing, they can go back to pronouncing the music they hate "trash," free to make the most judgmental remarks because they can't be accused of meaning them "objectively," and shielded from any need to take seriously anyone who might, were they open to it, teach them something.


Just the opposite. Any follower of this thread and all the other threads on this subject will immediately note that almost all the "railing" stems from those who feel their world will be overturned, shattered, crushed if the music they love--and I love too--is found to be entirely in our heads as opinions and not the workings of some trans-physical force elevated above our quotidian reality and earthly flesh. And no music is trash to those who love it. It's sometimes amazing the projection onto others that goes on here:

"projection, *the mental process by which people attribute to others what is in their own minds*. For example, individuals who are in a self-critical state, consciously or unconsciously, may think that other people are critical of them'"


----------



## DaveM

Strange Magic said:


> Just the opposite. Any follower of this thread and all the other threads on this subject will immediately note that almost all the "railing" stems from those who feel their world will be overturned, shattered, crushed if the music they love--and I love too--is found to be entirely in our heads as opinions and not the workings of some trans-physical force elevated above our quotidian reality and earthly flesh. And no music is trash to those who love it. It's sometimes amazing the projection onto others that goes on here:
> 
> "projection, *the mental process by which people attribute to others what is in their own minds*. For example, individuals who are in a self-critical state, consciously or unconsciously, may think that other people are critical of them'"


Hmm, sounds like a little gaslighting going on here..


----------



## Waehnen

Partly inspired by Strange Magic’s earlier speculation of context.

Yesterday it occurred to me strongly just how important the context is to our listening. I was listening to Paris and London symphonies by Haydn. Haydn is music that in my ears, heart and mind flows and works. Then I thought: what if among all those Haydn symphonies he had all of a sudden composed Sibelius’ 3rd Symphony (most classicist and Haydn-like of the 7)? I listened to the 3rd then.

Sibelius’ 3rd is often neglected and considered the worst of the seven. Many earlier conductors refused to conduct it. But after listening to it in the middle of all the Haydn I have no doubt that had it been a Haydn symphony, it would have changed the world and it would be included on all the ”Best of” -lists you can think of. Conductors in BBC surveys would vote it right next to Eroica.

The point is: Sibelius’ 3rd is neglected because in it’s late romantic context and in the cycle of the 7 symphonies it does not shine as bright as the other 6. But damn it sounded absolutely genius and brilliant in the middle of last nights Haydn and if it was a Haydn symphony, it would be considered his best, and it would have changed the world!

So what we expect of a composition is strongly attached to the context — to an extent and depth of not always and sometimes never being fully aware of it. So the ”objective context” strongly represents itself as subjective element affecting our listening.

This is nothing new but the experience was very strange and strong indeed and made me aware of the projection of my value and style expectations through the awareness of context — projection on the actual piece of music and how I ”experience and rank” the piece of music. Strange indeed!


----------



## Woodduck

Strange Magic said:


> Just the opposite. Any follower of this thread and all the other threads on this subject will immediately note that almost all the "railing" stems from those who feel their world will be overturned, shattered, crushed if the music they love--and I love too--is found to be entirely in our heads as opinions and not the workings of some trans-physical force elevated above our quotidian reality and earthly flesh. And no music is trash to those who love it. It's sometimes amazing the projection onto others that goes on here:
> 
> "projection, *the mental process by which people attribute to others what is in their own minds*. For example, individuals who are in a self-critical state, consciously or unconsciously, may think that other people are critical of them'"


Hmmm... Different people may have different reasons to rail. No projection of anything onto anyone is necessary. But I have to wonder what _you're_ projecting with your extravagant rhetoric. Are there actual examples of anyone here whose statements suggest that their world is threatened with "overturning," "shattering," or "crushing," or anyone suggesting the existence of a "trans-physical force elevated above our quotidian reality and earthly flesh"? I would say that I don't know what any of that means, but I can accept that it's probably just rhetoric that won't yield any meaning no matter how long we think about it. It's of a piece with similar statements such as "I do not share the aroma of desperation that surrounds those opposed to my viewpoint--people are afraid their choices will be destroyed by my iconoclasm," and "my views detract nothing from the enthusiasm of others, despite fears to the contrary." This talk of fear and destruction may not be projection - or it may be. Or it may just be more rhetoric. (I do agree that it's generally wise not to share anyone's aroma.)

The likely truth here is that most people who are thoughtful enough to want to defend the possibility of making objective assessments of works of art are motivated by genuine intellectual objections to the absolutism of those who reject that possibility. As far as I can tell, there are no absolute objectivists here who would be likely to shiver in their dogmatic boots at the approach of a subjectivist. If there do exist people terrified that attributing subjectivity to their personal tastes in music will cause their world to vanish into a black hole of self-doubt, they're not likely to turn up here and risk debating the subject.

By the way, did you think I was talking about you? I wasn't. I was simply describing the psychology of the sort of people who respond to judgments and challenges with "Well, that's just your opinion!" or "Well, that's my opinion!" as if any opinion were as valid as any other (see Waehnen's original post). The world is full of such subjectivists, who haven't developed a sense of the difference between opinion and fact, and who, lacking the mental boundaries imposed by a sense of external reality, feel free to pronounce any sweeping judgment on whoever or whatever, whenever they "feel" like it, but can't comprehend or tolerate judgments pronounced upon them. There is nothing such a subjectivist resents more than a rational challenge to his "opinion." It feels like an invalidation of his person. I think, contrary to your suggestion, that it's the subjectivist, his emotions inseparable from his "opinion," rather than the objectivist who seeks out and weighs the evidence in forming opinions, who is more apt to be motivated by fear, but I'm not a psychologist and, devoted to objectivity as I am, I'm happy to accept correction from those with greater knowledge and expertise.


----------



## Woodduck

Waehnen said:


> Partly inspired by Strange Magic’s earlier speculation of context.
> 
> Yesterday it occurred to me strongly just how important the context is to our listening. I was listening to Paris and London symphonies by Haydn. Haydn is music that in my ears, heart and mind flows and works. Then I thought: what if among all those Haydn symphonies he had all of a sudden composed Sibelius’ 3rd Symphony (most classicist and Haydn-like of the 7)? I listened to the 3rd then.
> 
> Sibelius’ 3rd is often neglected and considered the worst of the seven. Many earlier conductors refused to conduct it. But after listening to it in the middle of all the Haydn I have no doubt that had it been a Haydn symphony, it would have changed the world and it would be included on all the ”Best of” -lists you can think of. Conductors in BBC surveys would vote it right next to Eroica.
> 
> The point is: Sibelius’ 3rd is neglected because in it’s late romantic context and in the cycle of the 7 symphonies it does not shine as bright as the other 6. But damn it sounded absolutely genius and brilliant in the middle of last nights Haydn and if it was a Haydn symphony, it would be considered his best, and it would have changed the world!
> 
> So what we expect of a composition is strongly attached to the context — to an extent and depth of not always and sometimes never being fully aware of it. So the ”objective context” strongly represents itself as subjective element affecting our listening.
> 
> This is nothing new but the experience was very strange and strong indeed and made me aware of the projection of my value and style expectations through the awareness of context — projection on the actual piece of music and how I ”experience and rank” the piece of music. Strange indeed!


I notice that you're talking about a global judgment of a piece's quality. You feel that Sibelius's 3rd sounds like a better work compared with Haydn than with Sibelius's other works. does this mean anything other than the fact that you think Sibelius's symphonies are superior to Haydn's? 

My guess is that if Haydn had composed Sibelius's 3rd and presented it to an audience in 1790 people would have thought he was crazy.


----------



## Waehnen

Woodduck said:


> I notice that you're talking about a global judgment of a piece's quality. You feel that Sibelius's 3rd sounds like a better work compared with Haydn than with Sibelius's other works. does this mean anything other than the fact that you think Sibelius's symphonies are superior to Haydn's?
> 
> My guess is that if Haydn had composed Sibelius's 3rd and presented it to an audience in 1790 people would have thought he was crazy.


I do not like to rank great pieces of art. Sibelius 3rd sure is technically more advanced but that doesn’t necessarily indicate superior artistic effect.

Had Haydn lived around Sibelius’ time he sure would have composed some excellent late romantic and early modernist music.


----------



## Woodduck

Waehnen said:


> I do not like to rank great pieces of art. Sibelius 3rd sure is technically more advanced but that doesn’t necessarily indicate superior artistic effect.
> 
> Had Haydn lived around Sibelius’ time he sure would have composed some excellent late romantic and early modernist music.


If you're not ranking Sibelius's 3rd above Haydn, I don't understand why you say "it sounded absolutely genius and brilliant in the middle of last nights Haydn and if it was a Haydn symphony, it would be considered his best, and it would have changed the world"? Why do you think it would be considered Haydn's best symphony? By whom? Among other things, audiences would have been baffled by the work's form. They very likely would have found the fragmented introduction to the last movement incoherent, and the rest of the movement, with its static, pounding obsessiveness, repugnant. It's hard to imagine even Beethoven liking it.

A man as musically talented as Haydn would probably have written superb music no matter what era he lived in.


----------



## hammeredklavier

Waehnen said:


> Had Haydn lived around Sibelius’ time he sure would have composed some excellent late romantic and early modernist music.


Sure. Likewise, whether or not this is worse/better, or just different from Mozart belongs in the realm of subjectivity. Some may be reminded of Mozart by it, while others may rather be reminded more of stuff like the Rachmaninoff 2nd symphony, for instance, and may even think that comparing this with Mozart to determine which is objectively superior may be as nonsensical as doing the same with Mozart and Rachmaninoff, for instance:




symphony No.18 in C (ii)


----------



## Waehnen

Woodduck said:


> If you're not ranking Sibelius's 3rd above Haydn, I don't understand why you say "it sounded absolutely genius and brilliant in the middle of last nights Haydn and if it was a Haydn symphony, it would be considered his best, and it would have changed the world"? Why do you think it would be considered Haydn's best symphony? By whom? Among other things, audiences would have been baffled by the work's form. They very likely would have found the framented introduction to the last movement incoherent, and the rest of the movement, with its static, pounding obsessiveness, repugnant. It's hard to imagine even Beethoven liking it.
> 
> A man as musically talented as Haydn would probably have written superb music no matter what era he lived in.


Maybe I am personally ranking Sibelius 3rd above the Haydn symphonies. But because the context plays crucial part here, me being more strongely influenced by late romanticism and early modernism than classicism, I dare not make objective claims. Neither would I consider that kind of ranking constructive. These are also sensitive issues.

My point maybe was that the 3rd by Sibelius should be listened to in the context of classicism rather than romanticism, for the greater effect and understanding of the work.


----------



## hammeredklavier

Waehnen said:


> Had Haydn lived around Sibelius’ time he sure would have composed some excellent late romantic and early modernist music.


The Prokofiev 1st and the Shostakovich 9th to mind, actually.


----------



## Woodduck

Waehnen said:


> Maybe I am personally ranking Sibelius 3rd above the Haydn symphonies. But because the context plays crucial part here, me being more strongely influenced by late romanticism and early modernism than classicism, I dare not make objective claims. Neither would I consider that kind of ranking constructive. These are also sensitive issues.
> 
> *My point maybe was that the 3rd by Sibelius should be listened to in the context of classicism rather than romanticism, for the greater effect and understanding of the work.*


Agreed!  (I hate these emojis! The old ones were better - objectively speaking.)


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## Waehnen

Woodduck said:


> Agreed!  (I hate these emojis! The old ones were better - objectively speaking.)


While I have to admit I find Sibelius symphonies personally more appealing and striking than Haydn, I find Haydn vastly superior to Sibelius in both keyboard and chamber music.


----------



## Strange Magic

> *Woodduck: *"But I have to wonder what _you're_ projecting with your extravagant rhetoric."


Oh, Please! I hand to you the crown for over-the-top rhetoric. It is a gift, truly! I prefer sprightly and stimulating prose to endless paeans describing the celestial battles and yearnings of artists or the obvious and repeated pearl-clutching combination of real and simulated rancor and fear by my critics at the devastation my position on the arts might wreak upon civilization. Pearl-clutching:

"a very shocked reaction, especially one in which you show more shock than you really feel in order to show that you think something is morally wrong:"

To requests that I trawl back through hundreds of posts to document others' "extravagant rhetoric", I say Not A Chance! I have moved onto Waehnen's Poinr #2 in another thread entirely, if anyone wants to join me there. I believe this thread has seen all that can be seen and has degenerated into hand-wringing about posting style. Basta already!


----------



## 59540

hammeredklavier said:


> Sure. Likewise, whether or not this is worse/better, or just different from Mozart belongs in the realm of subjectivity. Some may be reminded of Mozart by it, while others may rather be reminded more of stuff like the Rachmaninoff 2nd symphony, and may even think that comparing this with Mozart to determine which is objectively superior may be as nonsensical as doing the same with Mozart and Rachmaninoff:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> symphony No.18 in C (ii)


How does it make you feel any better if the overwhelming majority of people who listen to your samples of Michael Haydn find them to be subjectively inferior? That reality is still there whether it's objective or subjective. Saying that "well theoretically Michael Haydn's music is no 'worse' than anybody else's" isn't really going to change the estimation of Michael Haydn's music any more than it would Brian Ferneyhough's or mine or yours. Saying that there's no such thing as an artistic hierarchy doesn't make the hierarchy go away. Witness the fact that either Bach or Beethoven are still routinely named the "greatest" after decades of "critical theory" indoctrination.


----------



## hammeredklavier

dissident said:


> How does it make you feel any better if the overwhelming majority of people who listen to your samples of Michael Haydn find them to be subjectively inferior?


Subjectively inferior to what? watch?v=v80s4yjSdQM&t=22m55s Mozart's 18th symphony? Tell me what you think of the _average quality_ of both composers' symphonies? You could be disagreeing for the sake of disagreeing just to win an argument. As soon as we do "tests" like [50 Unidentified Excerpts from Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach Keyboard Sonatas] on the music, we'll know who's really familiar with the stuff, knows what he's talking about and who's not.
You know the thing always said about Mozart; "I didn't appreciate Mozart (or a certain work of Mozart) at first, but after about 20~30 listenings, it _started to click._.." Explain why we can't treat the other, forgotten composer similarly? Are people who've spent only several hours at most listening to the other, forgotten composer "qualified" to make comments about the _objective quality_ of his music? (Am I making/asking unreasonable claims/questions here?)
Also, remember you had repeatedly criticized the Alberti bass patterns in Mozart. The forgotten composer has far less of that (like Bach), maybe he's the composer _for you! _But have you really given the time and effort to find out?


----------



## 59540

> Subjectively inferior to what?


It doesn't matter. "Subjectively inferior" such that relatively few want to spend the time digging into it.


----------



## hammeredklavier

dissident said:


> It doesn't matter. relatively few want to spend the time digging into it.


The same can be said of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven. (I know it's sad, but truth is truth). Except maybe very few selected hits, like "Air on G string", Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, Fur Elise, they're only really popular in our own little nerdy circles. The rest of the world, which comprises of more than 99.99% of the population, simply doesn't give a  on daily basis.


----------



## 59540

hammeredklavier said:


> The same can be said of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven. (I know it's sad, but truth is truth). Except maybe very few selected hits, like "Air on G string", Eine Kleine Nachtmusik....


Look up how many recordings of the Goldberg Variations have been released over the past decade. Then the cello suites. Then the Art of Fugue. Then the cantatas. Then the Mass in B Minor. Your devotion to Michael Haydn then would put you in an even tinier and nerdier subset. Comic books are more "popular" than Michelangelo as well. I don't care.


----------



## hammeredklavier

dissident said:


> Look up how many recordings of the Goldberg Variations have been released over the past decade.


Could you prove this guy is "objectively wrong" about that work;








Why I Hate The 'Goldberg Variations'


All this week, we've been delving into Bach's 'Goldberg Variations'




www.npr.org




"Yes, I'm suspicious of the _Goldbergs'_ popularity. Classical Music is not really supposed to be that popular. ... they're not worth discussing."


----------



## 59540

hammeredklavier said:


> Could you prove this guy is "objectively wrong" about that work;
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Why I Hate The 'Goldberg Variations'
> 
> 
> All this week, we've been delving into Bach's 'Goldberg Variations'
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.npr.org
> 
> 
> 
> 
> "Yes, I'm suspicious of the _Goldbergs'_ popularity. Classical Music is not really supposed to be that popular. ... they're not worth discussing."


Sure. From the same series:


> The _Goldbergs_ are like a friend you have who always does everything right. This friend always answers his emails, keeps a clean house, has a kind word for everyone, behaves properly at concerts, writes thank you cards, grooms himself assiduously, knows how to tie a tie, never eats Burger King at 2 AM, and never ever writes silly blog posts saying he hates pieces he really loves. He's an example to the world. He's smiling at you over drinks, listening as always with benevolent patience, and you realize through your gritted hateful envious teeth that he is certainly not your enemy, and what would it hurt to admit, you wouldn't want to face life without him?





> There you are, listening to the _Goldbergs_. The Aria comes back. You are much older now than you were when you first heard it. Perhaps you're Bill Murray now and you were Scarlett Johansson then. Yes, that's what the Aria does when it comes back, it whispers in your ear, the thing you needed to hear, the thing you needed to know. Though this realization is coming to you through Bach, whatever Bach brings out in you here is yours, it comes from you, belongs to you; the other function of the _Goldbergs_ is to give you back your best self.


----------



## mmsbls

hammeredklavier said:


> Subjectively inferior to what? watch?v=v80s4yjSdQM&t=22m55s Mozart's 18th symphony? Tell me what you think of the _average quality_ of both composers' symphonies? (You could be disagreeing for the sake of disagreeing just to win an argument. As soon as we do "tests" like [50 Unidentified Excerpts from Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach Keyboard Sonatas] on the music, we'll know if who's really familiar with the stuff, knows what he's talking about and who's not.)
> You know the thing always said about Mozart; "I didn't appreciate Mozart (or a certain work of Mozart) at first, but after upon 20~30 repeated listenings, I started to..." Explain to me why we can't treat the other, forgotten composer in the same way? Are people who've spent only several hours at most listening to the other, forgotten composer "qualified" to make comments about the _objective quality_ of his music? (Am I making/asking unreasonable claims/questions here?)
> Also, remember you had repeatedly criticized the Alberti bass patterns in Mozart. The forgotten composer has far less of that (like Bach), maybe he's the composer _for you! _But have you really given the time and effort to find out?
> And so far, no one has been able to refute:


I guess I'm not quite sure what you are arguing. If you believe that some of Michael Haydn's works are very good and could reasonably be considered to be better than some of Mozart's or Joseph Haydn's, I think that could certainly be. If you are comparing Michael Haydn's symphonies to all Mozart's including those he wrote at age 8, then I don't see the point. If you believe that people would view the works of Michael Haydn as of similar quality to those of Mozart if only they spent as much time listening to Haydn, I find that unlikely. Are you saying that if only the experts listened more to Haydn, then all the music courses, lectures, books, and concerts would change to reflect the fact that Haydn should be considered one of the top 3 (now 4) composers of all time? There's somehow been a massive conspiracy amongst those experts to purposely downgrade their public views of Haydn? Is that what you believe?

Or do you think Haydn is a bit underrated and if people listened to his works more, they would think more highly of him?


----------



## 59540

> Or do you think Haydn is a bit underrated and if people listened to his works more, they would think more highly of him?


I don't think that would matter much. If I listened to more Michael Haydn and then grant that yeah, he's underrated and deserves to be heard more often, then the moment that I say "Mozart is the better of the two" we're back to "you only think that because... Establishment". You could do the same with Hummel vs Beethoven. I think the mistake is in believing (without much real evidence) that The Establishment creates the consensus rather than reflects it.


----------



## hammeredklavier

mmsbls said:


> If you are comparing Michael Haydn's symphonies to all Mozart's including those he wrote at age 8, then I don't see the point.


Why not? The Mozart works don't deserve "special treatment" just cause they were written by him when he was 8. Again, I don't have to indulge in any idolatry about Mozart to admire his music.




mmsbls said:


> If you believe that people would view the works of Michael Haydn as of similar quality to those of Mozart if only they spent as much time listening to Haydn, I find that unlikely.


How they subjectively view the forgotten composer (only after they spend as much time and effort with the forgotten composer as they do with Mozart) is up to them. I just question the validity of the rationale; _"Mozart can require dozens of listenings to be fully appreciated, but the forgotten composer does not."_
I'm the kind of person who pays careful attention even to stuff like Missa brevis K.194, for instance, and also what can be seen as the equivalents in the other, forgotten composer. I don't consider people who say things like _"Whatever.. I don't care for this and that genre in these composers.."_ to have what it takes to properly judge the relative objective merit in these composers. It doesn't matter _how many_ of these people there are. What's important to me is whether or not they have the _proper mindset_. Hence why I said:


hammeredklavier said:


> do we really listen to a late 18th century work like actual people from the late 18th century Europe (who unquestioningly upheld the values of the Enlightenment in music) would have? If not, why should our "decisions" about its "greatness" be considered to have more "objective credibility" than theirs? (Are we not "cherry-picking" things, by any chance, due to our "limitations in capability to appreciate"?). Fbjim sometimes talked about this, I remember.
> And do our "decisions" about music popular in our own little nerdy circles (that comprise like less than 0.01% of the entire population today) even really have significant meaning outside them?


Otherwise, they could be seen as cherry-picking; trying to pass off what's popular and what they favor in these composers as "objective greatness". I don't pretend I never do, but at least I can say that I try my best (give the effort) to see things fairly.





mmsbls said:


> Are you saying that if only the experts listened more to Haydn, then all the music courses, lectures, books, and concerts would change to reflect the fact that Haydn should be considered one of the top 3 (now 4) composers of all time?


Not really. But I think it's better if we stop do rankings, except to share what we appreciate subjectively. Rather than arguing lofty, but futile ideas such as "objective greatness", spend the time in actual music appreciation, and talks of why we appreciate.





mmsbls said:


> There's somehow been a massive conspiracy amongst those experts to purposely downgrade their public views of Haydn? Is that what you believe?


Not really a "conspiracy", but there is still a phenomenon like (which I can't deny):


hammeredklavier said:


> A certain member in the past made a good point by posting the following in another thread (something for us to think about):
> 
> "All of the factors contributing to greatness are interrelated and dependent on each other. For example, one factor mentioned above is the tradition of received wisdom: belief in A's greatness has been passed down from generation to generation, reinforced by music textbooks and concert performances and internet forums, while belief in B's greatness has not. Another factor mentioned above is the test of time: A seems greater than B because the former's music has survived till today while the latter's has not. But these two factors are mutually reinforcing: if music textbooks have chapters on A but not B, then of course the former is going to have a leg up on the latter when it comes to the test of time. Conversely, if A's music is still performed today while B's is not, then of course music textbooks are going to have chapters on the former but not the latter. Likewise, another factor that has been mentioned is influence: A has demonstrably had a lasting influence on later composers, even today, while B has not. This is also inherently connected to the above factors: since A appears in textbooks and is more widely performed than B, then of course he is going to have a greater influence on later composers than B will.
> 
> In other words, the concept of greatness is a complex and circular system. By this point in time it's also a self-sustaining one, precisely because of the circularity. After all, this system is basically what we call a canon, and it is the very purpose of a canon to be self-perpetuating. As I wrote about in another thread some years ago, it is difficult to imagine any canonical composer being removed from the cycle and losing their canonical status, and it's difficult to imagine any non-canonical composer being inserted into the cycle and acquiring canonical status. I don't think the canon was always closed, and I don't want to think it is now, but if I'm being honest with myself then I have to think realistically that it is."


----------



## 59540

> Otherwise, they could be seen as cherry-picking; trying to pass off what's popular and what they like in these composers as "objective greatness". I don't pretend I never do, but at least I try my best (give the effort) to see things fairly.


What do you mean by "see things fairly"? And you can't say "you only think it's 'great' because it's 'popular' " and then turn around and say "Bach isn't all that 'popular' anyway so he can't be really 'great' ".


> Not really. But I think it's better we stop do rankings, except to share what we appreciate subjectively.


Isn't that what rankings are anyway? What do you want, a statement of faith that nothing is any better than anything else?


----------



## Woodduck

Strange Magic said:


> I prefer sprightly and stimulating prose to *endless paeans describing the celestial battles and yearnings of artists * or the obvious and repeated pearl-clutching combination of real and simulated rancor and fear by my critics at the devastation my position on the arts might wreak upon civilization.


This is pure fantasy, bearing no resemblance to reality. If it were _only_ that it would be excusable.

You know that I'm the ONLY person here who has tried to describe the nature of the artistic process and the perceptions of the artist in the process of creation - NOT the "celestial battles and yearnings of artists," whatever that means - and so it's clear that the above nonsense has to be directed at me personally. No other conclusion is possible. It's fine to criticize views we disagree with, and even to generalize about the mindset of the sorts of people we think might hold those views (though that's riskier), but singling out individuals, misrepresenting them deliberately, and then taking the coward's way of not mentioning names is beyond the pale. Are you trying to be a demonstration model for the irrational subjectivist I've described, who has to personalize disagreement with his views? We've seen a number of them come and go on the forum, but I'd hoped that you were not a member of that club.

Now what about the artist and his "celestial battles"? 

I don't expect many people who don't create art to understand the mental processes involved in the manipulation of aesthetic form very clearly or in detail, or even to see that that's fundamentally what artists spend their time doing - why should most people have thought about that? - but I do expect people to consider the possibility that those who work to make the stuff they enjoy may have something worthwhile to say about it. In the whole history of forum discussions on art, I haven't seen you show any willingness or ability to do that. Is "celestial battles and yearnings of artists'" really all you can get out of anything I've talked about? I'm acutely aware of the challenge of discussing the subject, and I make no claim to have done an adequate job of it, but to have my patient efforts described in such a frivolous, uncomprehending and insulting way is pretty dismaying and disappointing. I might feel truly discouraged if another forum member who's a professional composer (I won't take the liberty of identifying him) hadn't told me that one of my discussions of artistic thinking was as clear a description of the creative process as he had ever read. We can all use a little recognition now and again, and I'm grateful to him.

About the above irrational outburst, there's probably nothing more to say. I hope you'll reconsider it. 

My neglected coffee is getting cold in the kitchen, and I really need it now.


----------



## Strange Magic

Woodduck said:


> This is pure fantasy, bearing no resemblance to reality. If it were _only_ that it would be excusable.
> 
> You know that I'm the ONLY person here who has tried to describe the nature of the artistic process and the perceptions of the artist in the process of creation - NOT the "celestial battles and yearnings of artists," whatever that means - and so it's clear that the above nonsense has to be directed at me personally. No other conclusion is possible. It's fine to criticize views we disagree with, and even to generalize about the mindset of the sorts of people we think might hold those views (though that's riskier), but singling out individuals, misrepresenting them deliberately, and then taking the coward's way of not mentioning names is beyond the pale. Are you trying to be a demonstration model for the irrational subjectivist I've described, who has to personalize disagreement with his views? We've seen a number of them come and go on the forum, but I'd hoped that you were not a member of that club.
> 
> Now what about the artist and his "celestial battles"?
> 
> I don't expect many people who don't create art to understand the mental processes involved in the manipulation of aesthetic form very clearly or in detail, or even to see that that's fundamentally what artists spend their time doing - why should most people have thought about that? - but I do expect people to consider the possibility that those who work to make the stuff they enjoy may have something worthwhile to say about it. In the whole history of forum discussions on art, I haven't seen you show any willingness or ability to do that. Is "celestial battles and yearnings of artists'" really all you can get out of anything I've talked about? I'm acutely aware of the challenge of discussing the subject, and I make no claim to have done an adequate job of it, but to have my patient efforts described in such a frivolous, uncomprehending and insulting way is pretty dismaying and disappointing. I might feel truly discouraged if another forum member who's a professional composer (I won't take the liberty of identifying him) hadn't told me that one of my discussions of artistic thinking was as clear a description of the creative process as he had ever read. We can all use a little recognition now and again, and I'm grateful to him.
> 
> About the above irrational outburst, there's probably nothing more to say. I hope you'll reconsider it.
> 
> My neglected coffee is getting cold in the kitchen, and I really need it now.


Pot. Kettle. I thought there was a consensus to stop complaining about others' posting styles, This does the seriousness of Waehnen's OP no good at all. I am done (again). I had stopped posting about the topic at hand but foolishly returned to respond to a grotesque canard about my posting style.


----------



## 59540

Strange Magic said:


> Just the opposite. Any follower of this thread and all the other threads on this subject will immediately note that almost all the "railing" stems from those who feel their world will be overturned, shattered, crushed if the music they love--and I love too--is found to be entirely in our heads as opinions and not the workings of some trans-physical force elevated above our quotidian reality and earthly flesh. And no music is trash to those who love it. ...


The wish is father to the thought. Critical theory stopped being "shattering and crushing" decades ago, if it ever really was. It's as old hat as a Busby Berkeley set-piece.


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## Woodduck

Strange Magic said:


> Pot. Kettle. I thought there was a consensus to stop complaining about others' posting styles, This does the seriousness of Waehnen's OP no good at all. I am done (again). I had stopped posting about the topic at hand but foolishly returned to respond to a grotesque canard about my posting style.


This has nothing to do with "posting styles." There's nothing wrong with your style or mine.


----------



## DaveM

hammeredklavier said:


> Subjectively inferior to what? watch?v=v80s4yjSdQM&t=22m55s Mozart's 18th symphony? Tell me what you think of the _average quality_ of both composers' symphonies? (You could be disagreeing for the sake of disagreeing just to win an argument. *As soon as we do "tests" like [50 Unidentified Excerpts from Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach Keyboard Sonatas] on the music, we'll know who's really familiar with the stuff, knows what he's talking about and who's not.)*
> You know the thing always said about Mozart; "I didn't appreciate Mozart (or a certain work of Mozart) at first, but after about 20~30 listenings, it _started to click._.." Explain to me why we can't treat the other, forgotten composer similarly? *Are people who've spent only several hours at most listening to the other, forgotten composer "qualified" to make comments about the objective quality of his music? (Am I making/asking unreasonable claims/questions here?)*
> Also, remember you had repeatedly criticized the Alberti bass patterns in Mozart. The forgotten composer has far less of that (like Bach), maybe he's the composer _for you! _But have you really given the time and effort to find out?
> And so far, no one has been able to refute:


It‘s rather illuminating to see a proponent of an (IMO) extreme position on subjectivity post about how much more he knows about a subject in an attempt to convince others that he is right about his position/perspective. If the evaluation of composers and how their music relates to other composers is purely subjective, what is the purpose of arguing the point?

On the other hand, if one views oneself as more knowledgeable and educated on the subject and is trying to convince others of the fact, then, presumably, one needs some rather convincing objective evidence. The most interesting sentence above is the one suggesting that those who have listened to relatively few hours of listening to the forgotten composer can hardly be qualified to make comments about the *objective quality of the music. *Which suggests that if one has listened to many hours then one must be qualified to make comments about the *objective quality of the music.* Hmm, do we have a closet objectivist here?


----------



## hammeredklavier

DaveM said:


> the objective quality of the music.


Or maybe it's something no one knows for sure. There's no valid reason to support the "tyranny of the majority" (like how dissident did in #406) regarding this topic either.


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## Waehnen

If the context for getting the maximum kicks from the Sibelius 3rd Symphony (Barbirolli) is to have a listen to it after some Paris/London Haydn — the
context for maximum effect on the Sibelius 6th Symphony (Berglund/Bournemouth) would be after some gorgeous Händel Water Music or Concerto Grosso.

Never thought that the 6th is a comment on Baroque as well but it sure is. Not on Bach but on Händel, yes it is. People always say that the 6th in it’s modality would be ”renessaince”. I hear baroque and a kinship to Händel. Fascinating!

Without this thread I would not have thought of creating perfect and in a good way manipulative context settings for my favourite music. Maybe a topic for another thread?


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## Woodduck

DaveM said:


> It‘s rather illuminating to see a proponent of an (IMO) extreme position on subjectivity post about how much more he knows about a subject in an attempt to convince others that he is right about his position/perspective. If the evaluation of composers and how their music relates to other composers is purely subjective, what is the purpose of arguing the point.
> 
> On the other hand, if one views oneself as more knowledgeable and educated on the subject and is trying to convince others of the fact, then, presumably, one needs some rather convincing objective evidence. The most interesting sentence above is the one suggesting that those who have listened to relatively few hours of listening to the forgotten composer can hardly be qualified to make comments about the *objective quality of the music. *Which suggests that if one has listened to many hours then one must be qualified to make comments about the *objective quality of the music.* Hmm, do we have a closet objectivist here?


A purely subjectivist view of music must be hard to sustain. It's easy to forget to add "I mean, it's just my opinion, of course" to every sweeping, extreme judgment one utters.


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## 59540

hammeredklavier said:


> Or maybe it's something no one knows for sure. There's no valid reason to support the "tyranny of the majority" (like how dissident did in #406) regarding this topic either.


How is that "tyranny"? You can listen to Michael Haydn all you want, you can post his entire recorded oeuvre here on this forum if you want to (and it seems sometimes that you have). If the majority doesn't agree with your assessment that "he's just as good as Mozart", it doesn't make them "tyrants".


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## DaveM

hammeredklavier said:


> Or maybe it's something no one knows for sure. There's no valid reason to support the "tyranny of the majority" (like how dissident did in #406) regarding this topic either.


 Everything about your and previous posts and all the examples included on the same subject almost ‘scream‘ that _you_ know for sure. That would be fine if it weren‘t for your other posts that take a very polarized subjectivist position. You can’t have it both ways.


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## 59540

^ Or, it's all subjective...but if you don't agree that none of it is any better than any other, you're wrong. I guess we're supposed to accept the objectivity of artistic equality.


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## Eva Yojimbo

Waehnen said:


> May I just say that Eva Yojimbo has made a great impression on me. Who is able to generate so much intelligent and wise text in such a short time?
> 
> Not me!
> 
> Sorry to talk of you in the 3rd person, Eva, but I had to acknowledge you to the rest of the forum. Your input has been just wonderful. Makes me wanna believe in humanity in these dark times. Just like Händel & Haydn do.


I thank you sincerely for the kind words, even if I don't feel I am worthy of them.


----------



## mmsbls

hammeredklavier said:


> Why not? The Mozart works don't deserve "special treatment" just cause they were written by him when he was 8. Again, I don't have to indulge in any idolatry about Mozart to admire his music.


I don't think this is a question of special treatment or idolatry. Einstein is viewed as perhaps the greatest physicist ever and vastly better than I am. However, I'm rather confident that I am a much better physicist than Einstein was when he was 8 or 15. Comparing my works to Einstein's when he was young would make little sense. I was also a much better basketball player (in high school) than Michael Jordan when he was 8, but again, comparing our abilities at those times makes little sense. 



> How they subjectively view the forgotten composer (only after having spent as much time and effort to the forgotten composer as Mozart) is up to them. I just question the validity of the rationale; _"Mozart can require dozens of listenings to be fully appreciated, but the forgotten composer does not."_
> I'm the kind of person who pays careful attention even to stuff like Missa brevis K.194, for instance, and also what can be seen as the equivalents in the other, forgotten composer. I don't consider people who say things like _"Whatever.. I don't care for this and that genre in these composers.."_ to have what it takes to properly judge the relative objective merit in these composers. It doesn't matter _how many_ of these people there are. What's important to me is whether or not they have the _proper mindset_. Hence why I said:
> 
> Otherwise, they could be seen as cherry-picking; trying to pass off what's popular and what they favor in these composers as "objective greatness". I don't pretend I never do, but at least I can say that I try my best (give the effort) to see things fairly.


I understand that you feel people should listen more to the works of some composers before passing judgment. Fair enough. I suspect that experts of the Classical era have heard enough of both M. Haydn and Mozart to make reasonable comparisons. 



> Not really. But I think it's better we stop do rankings, except to share what we appreciate subjectively. Rather than arguing lofty, but futile ideas such as "objective greatness", spend the time in actual music appreciation, and talks of why we appreciate.


Some feel that ranking is fun, others find the results very interesting, and others find rankings a useful tool to find potentially enjoyable music or composers. I see no reason to stop ranking. I have been involved in many of TC's "ranking" projects (usually described as recommendations rather than ranking), and as far as I know, I have never seen a participant say that the results are objective. I'm also happy that many TC members do enjoy discussing music appreciation and describing why they enjoy works or composers.


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## Eva Yojimbo

Woodduck said:


> I did say ANY individual, not EVERY individual or MOST individuals. You catch my drift (I'm trying to keep this short).


Yes, I also caught your drift originally, which is why I also asked this: “And if people disagree on what “well-composed” means is there a way to sort out who is actually right without recourse to what people think, feel, and value?”



Woodduck said:


> The fact that some people don't see something doesn't mean it isn't there. How about replacing the brief oboe solo in movement #1 of Beethoven's 5th with a 15-minute concerto for solo oboe? Would the existence of someone who thought that that improved the symphony make it less of an absurdity? It would be out of keeping with the nature of the work, therefore an artistic mistake, and Beethoven would not be a genius but an idiot. Do you still think we need to take a poll? Honestly, this "poll" talk makes me crazy. When I'm improvising at the piano, I don't need to ask a single individual, much less the general populace, whether the way I've continued the melody I started makes sense or not.


If people fail to see something that’s objectively there then there are a myriad of ways of showing it to them so they see it. What you’re describing in terms of recognizing greatness isn’t just about seeing what’s there, it’s about seeing what’s there AND categorizing the thing that’s there as “great.” And if someone hears any objectively there feature in any work you think is great, and doesn’t think it’s great, is one of you wrong?

As for the concerto in the middle of Beethoven’s 5th, it wouldn’t be absurd to the person who thought it wasn’t. What would be your proof that it was absurd besides the fact that, one, you think it is and, two, a lot of people would agree with you?

The more I read from you, the more I think you’re basically just a Platonic idealist. For any work you believe that there is this perfect Platonic form that can be achieved by making all the right choices, and, once made, anyone with the right kind of mind (and eyes/ears/etc.) will recognize it. Maybe I’m wrong, but that very much seems like what you’re describing with all of this talk about finding the right notes and the right this or that for any work.



Woodduck said:


> Hey, I enjoy "low" art too, and sometimes it isn't as low as it looks at first glance. It's even possible that I might enjoy _As I Lie with Fabio_ more than _As I Lay Dying_, though I'm not of a mind to test that right now.


I’m glad you put “low” in scare quotes as I think the whole high/low art thing is mostly just a nonsense leftover from classism and various other forms of elitism; another way that people have historically said “we and our tastes and ways of thinking and feeling are better than yours.”



Woodduck said:


> I argue with the claim that "all aesthetic judgments are subjective" in any but the strictest sense of "within the mind." It's ridiculously obvious that all judgment occurs in the mind. What interests me is whether aesthetic judgments can properly be considered good or bad. As an artist, I find the answer obvious and am (sort of) baffled by people who don't. But they probably find me baffling too.


What I’m not understanding is why you don’t see the logical consequence that follows from the fact about aesthetic judgments being in the mind. If aesthetic judgments occur in the mind, then how can an aesthetic judgment be good or bad except in relation to the minds that make those judgments? Are you trying to argue that some minds are right and to be deferred to?



Woodduck said:


> I wish I could tell you how I know when I've chosen the right notes, or how I know when another composer has. The "how" of knowledge is a mystery - permanently so, I believe. Can you tell me HOW you know anything?


I don’t know if I’d be capable of explaining my epistemology—probably the area of philosophy I’ve studied most deeply—succinctly in a way that wouldn’t make your eyes roll at what is the end of an already long (again, sorry) post. In the simplest terms, my epistemology is defined as justified belief, in which the “justification” part rests on what I consider the twin pillars of knowledge (empiricism and rationality—especially Bayes’s Theorem), and “belief” is merely the high confidence level attained from that justification.

I do not believe that knowledge pertains to subjective (mind-independent) things except in relation to that mind; meaning that something like “X is great” can only be true relative to that mind, and not true in any other sense as there is no external place or thing to observe and empirically confirm the truth of which. Compare the difference to if I say “there’s a dog in my backyard,” and the ability to simply walk to my backyard and observe said dog. You can’t do this with subjective things. At most you can point to objective features and say “I categorize this objective feature as great,” but if someone disagrees there’s no way to prove who’s right and who’s wrong in a mind-independent way.


----------



## Eva Yojimbo

BachIsBest said:


> I wasn't taking issue with how you used the word, but how you were assuming others were using the word.


Where did I wrongly assume how others were using the word? You initially responded to me responding to someone else who was responding to me about my usages of the words; I wasn’t assuming how he was using them, I was pointing out that how he was using it (in response to me) wasn’t relevant to how I was using them.



BachIsBest said:


> When we use language, write on this forum, and discuss topics, we are using a communication tool (in this case English) that was created by others. There is no objective reason we should communicate in English versus the infinity of variations on possible written languages. In other words, this is just the sort of collective agreement you describe. However, once a speaker decides to communicator in English, this does not render the content of his communication equally arbitrary. Similarly, in much of CPT music, there are agreed upon standards and tools for communication that the composer employs. The fact that some of these standards are fairly arbitrary (e.g., the avoidance of parallel fifths), does not render the ability to communicate using this 'language' entirely subjective.
> 
> Furthermore, if one examines the art of vastly different cultures across the globe, although there is incredible diversity, it is perhaps more remarkable just how many similarities there are. This is general evidence for the fact that many of these supposedly 'subjective' standards have deep rooting's in the psychology of mankind. Now, one can argue that even things that have deep rooting's in the psychology of mankind (e.g., aversion to the smell of faeces, amorality of murder, desire to avoid pain, etc.) are ultimately subjective, but I consider this a sort of useless line of thinking; these things are so universally rooted in the human psyche that to say they are just based on personal biases is in some sense a bit fallacious.


I don’t have much issue with your first paragraph other than some vague terms like what you mean by “the ability to communicate:” the ability to communicate what, exactly? As we’ve seen throughout this thread, language is a good tool for communication, but because we all have slightly different subjective denotations and connotations surrounding words and phrases it’s also a good tool for miscommunication. I might agree that given the standards and conventions of music during certain periods and styles certain things could be communicated and readily understood: I assume almost all of Haydn’s audiences recognized the sonata form and could discern, eg, when the development started (they may not have used these words and terminologies, but I suspect they at least aurally recognized the typical key change and development of previous thematic material). This doesn’t mean, though, that all other things—like the nuances of tone, feeling, etc.—were communicated, and that different aesthetic judgments didn’t arise because of how differently these things were communicated.

I also don’t object strongly to the hypothesis that the many commonalities regarding art across the globe and even aesthetic judgements regarding art have deep roots in mankind’s shared psychology—I even suggested as much way back in my first post. However, I would argue that there is still a usefulness in recognizing the subjectiveness of such things (even if it’s a subjective thing we all happen to agree on), because that also forces us to recognizes that differences arise from the same place. The issue is that when differences arise some people are quick to declare that one way of thinking, perceiving, feeling, etc. is “right” or “superior.” How can that be if all such things are rooted in subjective minds?


----------



## Eva Yojimbo

DaveM said:


> You do your credibility no service regarding your perception of the meaning of words particularly in this environment in which they are used. Your doubt about the hyperbole in this instance seems to be derived from the premise that terrorists are typically people with extreme objectivist convictions. Well, as has been pointed out several times, there are no extreme objectivists here and, going out on a stretch.. I‘m assuming there are no terrorists either.
> 
> On the other hand, regarding the tyranny of extreme philosophizing subjectivists..


You’re mistaken if you think I didn’t understand the meaning in the context in which you (and hammeredklavier) were using those words: I was merely making the point that it’s clearly not hyperbole if we consider the larger context in which those terms are used even more frequently than in aesthetic discussions.

Yes, I’m fairly confident the vast majority of terrorists are objectivists. Maybe there’s a few people who are willing to die for a cause that they don’t believe with complete conviction is right and righteous, but I’m willing to bet they’re in the minority. I certainly wasn’t implying there were any terrorists here; for one thing, just because people are objectivist about art doesn’t mean they are about politics, or anything else really; for another thing, terrorists have a profound motivation to make people submit to what they believe to be objectively true; most objectivists lack that level of motivation. So yes, no “extreme objectivists” or “terrorists” here, so no need to misunderstand me a second time and think I was thinking of you or anyone here.

I’m curious what “tyranny of extreme philosophizing subjectivists” you’re referring to. If you had in mind anyone on this forum, perhaps you should reconsider the wisdom in comparing actual tyranny which can kill and torture millions of people with voluntarily reading and responding to someone you disagree with on a music discussion forum.



DaveM said:


> I’m amazed at the extent to which subjectivity is applied by some or the extent to which the term ‘objectivity’ is avoided to the detriment of credibility. What the above says to me is ‘I have a subjective view about categorizing a particular composer, but I have no convincing evidence to support it’ (given that evidence that can persuade others tends to be objective). Fwiw, if someone comes back and says, ‘I‘m not trying to persuade/convince anyone.’ then I respond: what’s the point of all the information presented?


”Convincing evidence” only pertains to things that are capable of having truth values. The entire issue around subjectivity/objectivity involves (among other things) whether something can have a truth value. Objective things can have truth values because statements about objective things do not depend upon minds but upon features and aspects of the object. Subjective things cannot have truth values (unless we’re talking about subjective beliefs about objective things) except in relation to the minds that think that thing. If “goodness” only arises because of what minds find good, then the question of “is X good” can only be answered with “it is good in relation to minds that think it is, and not to minds that think it is isn’t.”

Objectivists have two, and only two, rational rebuttals to this. One is to claim that that goodness/greatness resides in objects independent of what any mind thinks. Woodduck, at very least, has denied this. The other option is to argue that somehow mind-only products can have truth values that aren’t simply relative to those minds. I have not heard anything remotely approaching a coherent or convincing argument for this. When I press Woodduck on it he responded with “the how of knowledge is mysterious.” Well, mystery is nothing but our perception of our own mind’s ignorance; it’s not a virtue in argumentation and certainly shouldn’t convince anyone. Maybe you have a better response?


----------



## Eva Yojimbo

dissident said:


> Were Rostropovich and Glenn Gould only subjectively "better" musicians than I am? I think one thing that doesn't seem to get discussed in these threads very often is the notion of "talent". One person can do something "better" than another.


Musicianship (especially classical musicianship) generally has as its goal the ability to replicate the music of the classical repertoire. If you aren’t able to do that while Rostro and Gould were, then by that standard they would be better than you. As for whether or not this is “objective,” see my chess analogy many pages back. Musicianship can certainly reach a level where it’s very difficult or even impossible to discern if one musician is better than another. Once they all master the basics and reach advanced levels of what they’re technically able to do it typically becomes more about what elements of technique and interpretation we value and which musicians reach those (ultimately subjective) standards to our ears.



dissident said:


> Including probably those who objectively believe there is no such thing as objective standards. If everything is subjective, anything is allowable. Your "terror", "repression", "oppression" are simply another person's "justice", "order" and "stability". Prove otherwise. Using objective value judgements to own the "objectivists" isn't as clever as it might appear. In fact, it's incoherent.


This would be a more forceful retort if you can name any examples of such people who believe there are no objective standards and do those things. Can you? Because despite hearing this claim for years from objectivists I’ve yet to meet one who could supply me with such an example, while it’s very easy to supply examples of objectivists doing those things. Again, have you met, read, ANY person whom YOU would categorize as a tyrant, terrorist, oppressive/repressive leader, etc. that sounded like a subjectivist as opposed to someone who was very convinced of the objective rightness and righteousness of their position?

You mean “prove otherwise” that they’re wrong? That would depend on defining the terms and linking them to empirical objective facts to see if they match. Methinks that when you kill millions of Jewish people it becomes mighty difficult to justify that in the name of justice, order, and stability in a way that most anyone would agree with. It becomes very easy to justify it to yourself, though, if you simply hate Jews and then erect from that hatred a belief that Jews are objectively inferior, a threat to Germany, and are deserving of extermination; but that’s what happens when you don’t tether your beliefs to objective reality and mistake your feelings/values/judgments for objective facts.


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## Eva Yojimbo

Waehnen said:


> Partly inspired by Strange Magic’s earlier speculation of context.
> 
> Yesterday it occurred to me strongly just how important the context is to our listening. I was listening to Paris and London symphonies by Haydn. Haydn is music that in my ears, heart and mind flows and works. Then I thought: what if among all those Haydn symphonies he had all of a sudden composed Sibelius’ 3rd Symphony (most classicist and Haydn-like of the 7)? I listened to the 3rd then.
> 
> Sibelius’ 3rd is often neglected and considered the worst of the seven. Many earlier conductors refused to conduct it. But after listening to it in the middle of all the Haydn I have no doubt that had it been a Haydn symphony, it would have changed the world and it would be included on all the ”Best of” -lists you can think of. Conductors in BBC surveys would vote it right next to Eroica.
> 
> The point is: Sibelius’ 3rd is neglected because in it’s late romantic context and in the cycle of the 7 symphonies it does not shine as bright as the other 6. But damn it sounded absolutely genius and brilliant in the middle of last nights Haydn and if it was a Haydn symphony, it would be considered his best, and it would have changed the world!
> 
> So what we expect of a composition is strongly attached to the context — to an extent and depth of not always and sometimes never being fully aware of it. So the ”objective context” strongly represents itself as subjective element affecting our listening.
> 
> This is nothing new but the experience was very strange and strong indeed and made me aware of the projection of my value and style expectations through the awareness of context — projection on the actual piece of music and how I ”experience and rank” the piece of music. Strange indeed!


I've written before on here about the influence that expectation and surprise plays in our appreciation of art. Expectation is established by patterns, by common features that people apprehend and understand (even if intuitively) because of how much we are exposed to them. One example would be many of the basics of tonality. People have heard the I-V-vi-IV chord progression so much that, even if they couldn't name it by ear, hearing it will still trigger in them, at least unconsciously, a kind of recognition. All artists make usage of these types of patterns, and the patterns themselves change across time and places and genres. Surprise is the opposite of expectation, and I don't think I need to elaborate on it much, but surprise also plays a huge role in our appreciation and enjoyment of art. All art is a mix, on multiple levels, of pattern and surprise, of common and uncommon (or even novel) elements.

Thatt's the objective side to it: the subjective side is, IMO, even more fascinating. Humans tend to enjoy both pattern and surprise, but to greatly different extents based on the individual. Some people prefer the comfort and familiarity that patterns bring. These types of people tend to enjoy art that doesn’t present too much of a challenge, that presents easily recognizable/digestible patters. They also tend to play their favorite works over and over, delighting in them even more as they start to memorize all the nuances. Some people prefer the excitement and exploration of surprise. These types of people tend to like works with a lot of novelty and originality, with many unique elements. They might rarely play any work more than once or twice, but is always seeking new things to experience. Most people are a mixture of these extremes: they will experience some works many times, others just once; and will with some regularity seek out new things.

Further, there are negative associations with pattern and surprise. Too much pattern can become boring, stale. People get tired of experiencing the same thing over and over again, feeling like they've reaped all the rewards an experience has to offer. On the other hand, too much surprise can make people uncomfortable, it can appear as chaotic and disorganized, provoking anxiety and discomfort. People have radically different tolerance levels to both pattern and surprise, and their tolerance can vary genre to genre, work to work, even artform to artform.

Finally, there's what you talk about: how context plays a role in expectation and surprise. I would also add to the contextual element "experience." The more experienced you are in an artform or genre the more you will encounter certain patterns. With more experience there is a greater likelihood that you will become bored of works and artists that mostly utilize common patterns, while other people, who don't have as much experience and don't experience these patterns as much, may not become easily bored by them. However, as you said, the socio-cultural context plays a role too, as expectation and surprise are deeply rooted in the type of art we are surrounded by in our own culture.

Sibelius's 3rd in the context of Haydn's time would've been almost completely in the "surprise" category. It's harmonic language and structure is radically different from Haydn's. What would've happened is that, if Haydn had composed it, most people probably would've thought him mad, while there might've been a handful of the most hardcore aesthetic "progressives" who thought him a genius. In hindsight, we probably would've seen him as even more of a genius for writing a work that seemed a century ahead of his time, the way we praise Beethoven's Grosse Fugue today. It might be that Sibelius's 3rd has some similarities to the classical era relative to other Sibelius works, but that in itself is a context worth considering. When older music pays tribute to older music, is influenced by it, is a pastiche of it, what elements of that music still remain rooted in their own time. Stravinsky's neo-classical period didn't really sound like music of the classical era, but neither did it completely sound like the music that Stravinsky started out composing: it was a unique hybrid.

I would also suggest that prescient works like the Grosse Fugue are extraordinarily rare. It's very hard to predict the ways in which art will develop even within a decade, much less a century. It's just as likely that very original, avant-garde works become one-offs (or close to it) because not many like them and care to try to replicate them. Generally art changes by small steps rather than huge leaps, connecting elements of the past with those of the present and elements that point towards the future. These elements generate perpetual generational wars between "conservatives" who prefer the old styles and "progressives" who prefer the contemporary and/or futuristic ones; sometimes they’re more pronounced and divisive than others (see the “War of the Romantics”).

So here's a post where I've discussed both the objective and subjective aspects of one way in which we appreciate music. Does anyone want to make the case that the objective aspects play a larger role in determining how we judge good or bad compared to those subjective elements?


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## hammeredklavier

dissident said:


> How is that "tyranny"? You can listen to Michael Haydn all you want, you can post his entire recorded oeuvre here on this forum if you want to (and it seems sometimes that you have). If the majority doesn't agree with your assessment that "he's just as good as Mozart", it doesn't make them "tyrants".


Similarly, 99.99% of the world doesn't give a  about Bach, Mozart, Beethoven. You can try to shove them into their throat all you want. They'll always consider them nothing but "ancient relics" deserving to sit at a museum. Just like how Denk considers the Goldbergs. Nothing more. And somehow none of Renaissance era composers are as "objectively great" as Bach, Mozart, Beethoven. Cause they aren't "popular". Is there an end to these double standards?


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## hammeredklavier

mmsbls said:


> I don't think this is a question of special treatment or idolatry. Einstein is viewed as perhaps the greatest physicist ever and vastly better than I am. However, I'm rather confident that I am a much better physicist than Einstein was when he was 8 or 15. Comparing my works to Einstein's when he was young would make little sense. I was also a much better basketball player (in high school) than Michael Jordan when he was 8, but again, comparing our abilities at those times makes little sense.


Why would that matter from the perspective of pure music appreciation? If Mozart had only 15 years of "mature period", he only had 15 years, nothing we do can change that history and the resulting "product", which is his work. He didn't write the same music as that forgotten composer; I don't think people who can't pass "tests" on the music should pretend to know enough to refute this objectively.
Also, we can imagine in our wet daydreams all we want what kind of things Mozart produced if he lived up to age 70 or 90. Of course, anger erupts when the "usual favorites" are the target; ie. "he would have done things better than Winterreise, Der Freischutz, symphonie Fantastique, etc".


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## hammeredklavier

mmsbls said:


> I suspect that experts of the Classical era have heard enough of both M. Haydn and Mozart to make reasonable comparisons.


Which "experts" are you talking about? A bunch of that forgotten composer's works had been misattributed to the other, more famous composers for a large part of the 20th century. Many "experts" of the 20th century wouldn't have had an "accurate view" of his work.
Please see Post #392 Opinions vs less and more objective argumentation
_"One of the many unfortunate legacies of nineteenth-century biographical writing is the excessive focus on the Wunderkind Mozart and the Incomparable Genius Mozart." _
Professor David Wyn Jones interview-with-david-wyn-jones/
Dr. Eva Neumayr watch?v=YA2sTVyDNrA&t=16m36s


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## 59540

Eva Yojimbo said:


> Musicianship (especially classical musicianship) generally has as its goal the ability to replicate the music of the classical repertoire. If you aren’t able to do that while Rostro and Gould were, then by that standard they would be better than you. As for whether or not this is “objective,” see my chess analogy many pages back. Musicianship can certainly reach a level where it’s very difficult or even impossible to discern if one musician is better than another. Once they all master the basics and reach advanced levels of what they’re technically able to do it typically becomes more about what elements of technique and interpretation we value and which musicians reach those (ultimately subjective) standards to our ears.
> 
> This would be a more forceful retort...


It's not a retort, it's a question. It's not a matter of "replicating", it's a matter of interpreting.


> if you can name any examples of such people who believe there are no objective standards and do those things. Can you? Because despite hearing this claim for years from objectivists


What in the blue blazes is an "objectivist", exactly?


> I’ve yet to meet one who could supply me with such an example, while it’s very easy to supply examples of objectivists doing those things. Again, have you met, read, ANY person whom YOU would categorize as a tyrant, terrorist, oppressive/repressive leader, etc. that sounded like a subjectivist as opposed to someone who was very convinced of the objective rightness and righteousness of their position?


Certainly. The only objective value for Stalin and Hitler was ultimately their own wills. Everything else was molded to that.


> You mean “prove otherwise” that they’re wrong? That would depend on defining the terms and linking them to empirical objective facts to see if they match. Methinks that when you kill millions of Jewish people it becomes mighty difficult to justify that in the name of justice, order, and stability in a way that most anyone would agree with. ...


Uh-uh. "Most anyone"? No. The criterion put forth for, say, the objective "greatness" of J. S. Bach was for it to be undeniable, like the freezing point of water, such that there can be no factual disagreement. So you think that every individual on the planet must, by force of sheer logic, agree on universal and uniform definitions of words like "tyranny", "oppression", "repression" and even "religion"? They don't.


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## 59540

hammeredklavier said:


> Similarly, 99.99% of the world doesn't give a  to Bach, Mozart, Beethoven. You can try to shove them into their throat all you want.


I'm not shoving any composer down anyone's throat. You're ultimately just resentful that whatever particular favorite you might have is viewed by the "tyrannical majority" as "lesser". Therefore there can't be any such thing as "lesser" or "greater".


> They'll always consider them nothing but "ancient relics" deserving to sit at a museum. Just like how Denk considers the Goldbergs.


Your reading comprehension is either severely lacking or else you latch only onto one sentence from that series by Jeremy Denk if you think that's his opinion of the GV. Are you familiar with the guy at all?


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## Eva Yojimbo

dissident said:


> It's not a retort, it's a question. It's not a matter of "replicating", it's a matter of interpreting.
> What in the blue blazes is an "objectivist", exactly?
> Certainly. The only objective value for Stalin and Hitler was ultimately their own wills. Everything else was molded to that.
> Uh-uh. "Most anyone"? No. The criterion put forth for, say, the "greatness" of J. S. Bach was for it to be undeniable like the freezing point of water such that there can be no factual disagreement. So you think that every individual on the planet must, by force of sheer logic, agree on universal and uniform definitions of words like "tyranny", "oppression", "repression" and even "religion"? They don't.


An objectivist is anyone who believes that a subject is objective rather than subjective. In this context, objectivists refer to people who believe that aesthetics and ethics are objective rather than subjective. Of course, part of that depends on how they're defining the term "objective," which has been covered multiple times throughout this thread. I've made it pretty clear how I'm defining the terms as "mind (in)-dependence."

What you claim about Hitler and Stalin is precisely what I'm claiming: that they mistook their wills (mind-dependent things) as objective values. I doubt Hitler had the self-awareness to say that his hatred for Jews was merely rooted in his personal opinion as opposed to Jewish being objectively inferior beings that were an objective threat to Germany and, because of this, deserving of extermination. In fact, we know it's quite the opposite given The Nazi's view on eugenics and their complete misunderstanding and misappropriation of Darwinian evolution. 

So you're disagreeing with the claim that most people would disagree that what Hitler did was justified? 

Of course people disagree on the meaning of words. I addressed this very issue in the bottom portion of my post here. The issue is that we can agree on the intensional definition of words pretty easily; the issue becomes agreeing on what objective, external things (situations, people, works, events, etc.) should be classified as such a thing. However, I do not know of a definition of "tyrant" that would not be forced to include someone who commits the genocide of millions of people.


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## 59540

Eva Yojimbo said:


> An objectivist is anyone who believes that a subject is objective rather than subjective. In this context, objectivists refer to people who believe that aesthetics and ethics are objective rather than subjective.


Point out someone in this thread or anywhere else who has taken the "objective or nothing" stance.



> What you claim about Hitler and Stalin is precisely what I'm claiming: that they mistook their wills (mind-dependent things) as objective values.


So then they were really subjectivists. QED


> So you're disagreeing with the claim that most people would disagree that what Hitler did was justified?


It's not a question of "most people". It has to be "all people" or else it's in the realm of aesthetics and musical "greatness" , i.e. "subjective". Unless of course you can demonstrate that your "oppressive" view of "morality" is somehow "objective".


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## Eva Yojimbo

dissident said:


> Point out someone in this thread or anywhere else who has taken the "objective or nothing" stance.
> 
> So then they were really subjectivists. QED
> It's not a question of "most people". It has to be "all people" or else it's in the realm of aesthetics and musical "greatness" , i.e. "subjective". Unless of course you can demonstrate that your "oppressive" view of "morality" is somehow "objective".


I don't know what you mean "objective or nothing" stance. What I've observed throughout this thread is that most people do not seem to have a very rationally thorough, coherent, and consistent view on this subject that is capable of explaining many (much less most) of all the relevant elements of artistic enjoyment and appreciation. It's certainly fine, of course, to think that anything is a MIX of subjective and objective elements, but then it becomes about delineating that relationship, which I've repeatedly tried to do. One more time here: the objective features of (to keep things simple) music are pitch amplitudes in time and their relations that we describe in terms of notes, keys, harmonies, melodies, etc. as well as the ways in which these things are structured. The subjective elements are any thoughts about greatness, goodness, badness, better, worse, best, etc. We can mentally categorize the objective elements as being good, great, etc., but this does not make the objective elements themselves good or great except in relationship to the mind(s) that think they are.

If you think they were "really subjectivists" because they mistook mind-dependent things for objective values then I would claim that everyone here who thinks musical value is objective is also "really a subjectivist." I don't see the purpose in this. It's a bit like atheists/theists who try to claim that the other side are really on their side but are just denying it or deluding themselves.

I don't know what you mean by "it has to be 'all people'". If it's not "all people" we're thoroughly in the realm of having multiple standards to judge something by as I said in my post about judging language by multiple standards, and there being no way to resolve the issue theoretically. Pragmatically history decides the winners.


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## 59540

> I don't know what you mean "objective or nothing" stance. What I've observed throughout this thread is that most people do not seem to have a very rationally thorough, coherent, and consistent view on this subject that is capable of explaining many (much less most) of all the relevant elements of artistic enjoyment and appreciation.


Yourself and myself most definitely included. And that's what most of us tagged as "objectivists" say in just about all of these things. Most of us don't pretend to know to the degree that we can "shatter and upend and demolish" someone's dearly-held favorites and notions.


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## Eva Yojimbo

dissident said:


> Yourself and myself most definitely included.


I would agree if we're talking about the particularities of why any individual or group of individuals like/dislike something; but at least on the more meta-aesthetic subjects I think my view on the matter is rationally thorough, coherent, and consistent. If you disagree then point out where it is not those things.


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## 59540

Eva Yojimbo said:


> I don't know what you mean by "it has to be 'all people'". If it's not "all people" we're thoroughly in the realm of having multiple standards to judge something by as I said in my post about judging language by multiple standards, and there being no way to resolve the issue theoretically. Pragmatically history decides the winners.


Over and over and over you subjectivists have posited that unanimity -- that which is so scientifically and logically sound and iron-clad that there can't really be disagreement -- as the criterion to judge musical "greatness". In the absence of that it has to be considered subjective.


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## 59540

Eva Yojimbo said:


> I would agree if we're talking about the particularities of why any individual or group of individuals like/dislike something; but at least on the more meta-aesthetic subjects I think my view on the matter is rationally thorough, coherent, and consistent. If you disagree then point out where it is not those things.


How can you address the meta-aesthetic if you can't address the micro?


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## Eva Yojimbo

dissident said:


> Over and over and over you subjectivists have posited that unanimity -- that which is so scientifically and logically sound and iron-clad that there can't really be disagreement -- as the criterion to judge musical "greatness". In the absence of that it had to be considered subjective.


I have never posited this. In fact, I've posited quite the opposite. I've said that subjective things can still be subjective even if everyone in the world agrees with them. If everyone in the world agreed blue was the best color, the quality of "best-ness" still wouldn't reside in the color blue, but in the minds of all the people who thought it was best. Agreement is useful because it allows us to take for granted the bases upon which we judge anything. See my chess example. What "move" is best in chess relies 100% upon the rules and goals of the game that are subjectively invented and agreed upon by every subjective mind that plays the game. With this agreement we can speak about the best move independent of our individual (not subjective) opinions because certain moves either increase or decrease the probability of accomplishing the goals of the game. If we all agreed upon the rules and goals of music, we could also judge independently of personal opinion whether any musical choice was good or better than another in relation to those rules and goals. The problem is that little agreement exists for the rules and goals of music, so instead we have multiple rules and goals that vary from person to person, genre to genre, group to group, time to time, etc., and unlike in chess these musical rules and goals are never clearly defined to begin with.


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## 59540

> I've said that subjective things can still be subjective even if everyone in the world agrees with them. If everyone in the world agreed blue was the best color...


...I don't buy it, sorry. In the first place you will never have such universal agreement, so it's pointless to even use it as a hypothetical.


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## DaveM

Eva Yojimbo said:


> You’re mistaken if you think I didn’t understand the meaning in the context in which you (and hammeredklavier) were using those words: I was merely making the point that it’s clearly not hyperbole if we consider the larger context in which those terms are used even more frequently than in aesthetic discussions.


C’mon, the very point of my use of word ‘hyperbole’ had to do with the use of words (eg. tyranny) that implied something ominous in this relatively benign thread. Suggesting that ‘hyperbole’ doesn’t apply because of actual tyranny elsewhere is, well, a desperate stretch.



> I’m curious what “tyranny of extreme philosophizing subjectivists” you’re referring to. If you had in mind anyone on this forum, perhaps you should reconsider the wisdom in comparing actual tyranny which can kill and torture millions of people with voluntarily reading and responding to someone you disagree with on a music discussion forum.


You don’t have much of a sense of humor do you. Since you were exaggerating in your post, I simply responded with a little facetious rejoinder. Anyway, if you have an issue with the word ‘tyranny’, take it up with the poster who introduced it. Also, by any chance, are you having trouble separating the relatively unimportant subject matter in posts of this thread from the serious matters in the outside world?



> ”Convincing evidence” only pertains to things that are capable of having truth values. The entire issue around subjectivity/objectivity involves (among other things) whether something can have a truth value. Objective things can have truth values because statements about objective things do not depend upon minds but upon features and aspects of the object. Subjective things cannot have truth values (unless we’re talking about subjective beliefs about objective things) except in relation to the minds that think that thing. If “goodness” only arises because of what minds find good, then the question of “is X good” can only be answered with “it is good in relation to minds that think it is, and not to minds that think it is isn’t.”..


You need to take that up with Hammeredklavier.


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## Eva Yojimbo

dissident said:


> How can you address the meta-aesthetic if you can't address the micro?


The same way you can address meta-ethics without addressing ethics. The nature of ethical/aesthetic judgments is simply a different issue than what ethical/aesthetic judgments should be. 

To make the distinction clear (because I'm not sure how many here are familiar with this): aesthetics would be discussions related to judgments, criticism, and analysis of art, just as ethics would be discussions related to judgments, criticism, and analysis of various ethical problems. Meta-aesthetics would be discussion related to the nature of those judgments, such as whether they're objective or subjective and how we know; ditto for meta-ethics.


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## Eva Yojimbo

dissident said:


> ...I don't buy it, sorry. In the first place you will never have such universal agreement, so it's pointless to even use it as a hypothetical.


I'm not sure what you're not buying. I agree such universal agreement is practically impossible, but you're the one that claimed that "us subjectivists" were demanding such universal agreement when I never said any such thing.


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## Eva Yojimbo

DaveM said:


> C’mon, the very point of my use of word ‘hyperbole’ had to do with the use of words (eg. tyranny) that implied something ominous in this relatively benign thread. Suggesting that ‘hyperbole’ doesn’t apply because of actual tyranny elsewhere is, well, a desperate stretch.
> 
> You don’t have much of a sense of humor do you. Since you were exaggerating in your post, I simply responded with a little facetious rejoinder. Anyway, if you have an issue with the word ‘tyranny’, take it up with the poster who introduced it. Also, by any chance, are you having trouble separating the relatively unimportant subject matter in posts of this thread from the serious matters in the outside world?
> 
> You need to take that up with Hammeredklavier.


Again, I understand and acknowledge what your use of the word was. I was merely pointing out a larger context in which that statement is very much not hyperbole. The larger context is worth considering, especially given that the world doesn't revolve around aesthetics. The subjects we discuss on here have larger implications because the same mentality behind our aesthetic perspectives can find correlatives in our perspectives on these larger matters. Generally, there's pretty consistent overlap I've found between, eg, aesthetic and ethical objectivists/subjectivists. (and, no, I'm not having trouble separating them: I merely see the connections)

Was what you said meant to be funny? Sorry if I didn't laugh. I have a sense of humor for things I find funny: the stand-up comedy of George Carlin, the films of Preston Sturges, the music of Weird Al Yankovic, the TV show The Simpsons (well, back in the day), etc. Sorry if I don't think your comment was terribly humorous.


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## 59540

Eva Yojimbo said:


> I'm not sure what you're not buying. I agree such universal agreement is practically impossible, but you're the one that claimed that "us subjectivists" were demanding such universal agreement when I never said any such thing.


Ask Strange Magic about that.


> The same way you can address meta-ethics without addressing ethics. The nature of ethical/aesthetic judgments is simply a different issue than what ethical/aesthetic judgments should be.


One flows from the other. If you're going to have a grip on the meta you'll have some sort of grip on the individual. Otherwise it's verbiage.


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## Eva Yojimbo

dissident said:


> Ask Strange Magic about that.
> One flows from the other. If you're going to have a grip on the meta you'll have some sort of grip on the individual. Otherwise it's verbiage.


If Strange Magic said it then you should've quoted/referenced him rather than "us subjectivists." I don't recall Strange Magic saying this, but the thread is long and nobody can remember everything everyone said. 

Sure, one flows into the other, I agree (to a limited extent--I find most all of the flow is from meta-ethics to ethics, rather than the reverse), but they can still be discussed and considered separately.


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## 59540

> If you had in mind anyone on this forum, perhaps you should reconsider the wisdom in comparing actual tyranny which can kill and torture millions of people with voluntarily reading and responding to someone you disagree with on a music discussion forum.


But that's precisely what you did with alleged "objectivists" here. You're the one that brought up the baddies.


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## 59540

Eva Yojimbo said:


> If Strange Magic said it then you should've quoted/referenced him rather than "us subjectivists." I don't recall Strange Magic saying this...


Well you don't seem to hesitate to register your disagreement with anyone else with a lengthy exposition. That one must've just got past you I guess.


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## Eva Yojimbo

dissident said:


> But that's precisely what you did with alleged "objectivists" here. You're the one that brought up the baddies.


Except I didn't have in mind anyone on this forum. All of the "baddies" I referred to might be objectivists, but not all objectivists are baddies. Not all objectivists are even objectivists about all things.


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## Eva Yojimbo

dissident said:


> Well you don't seem to hesitate to register your disagreement with anyone else with a lengthy exposition. That one must've just got past you I guess.


If I register my disagreement with anyone with a lengthy exposition I usually respond directly to what they're saying (and perhaps any tangential stuff I find relevant to what they're saying): I don't say in response that "you objectivists think X" if that person has never said they think X.


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## 59540

Eva Yojimbo said:


> Except I didn't have in mind anyone on this forum. All of the "baddies" I referred to might be objectivists, but not all objectivists are baddies.


No, just guilt by association I guess. For the life of me I think "objectivists" must be shorthand for "anybody who believes anything can be objective outside of scientific inquiry". Otherwise I have no idea who these "objectivists" are. If the baddies _might be_ objectivists then they also _might be_ subjectivists in which case I can't figure out why they were brought up anyway. Oh well, enough of this thread.

Out.


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## Eva Yojimbo

dissident said:


> No, just guilt by association I guess. For the life of me I think "objectivists" must be shorthand for "anybody who believes anything can be objective outside of scientific inquiry". Otherwise I have no idea who these "objectivists" are. If the baddies _might be_ objectivists then they also _might be_ subjectivists in which case I can't figure out why they were brought up anyway. Oh well, enough of this thread.
> 
> Out.


Your definition is curious given that I would think most people think "objectivity" is synonymous with the kinds of things that science typically studies. You yourself gave (IIRC) the freezing point of water as an example earlier: a subject that's both objective that science is capable of studying.

There's also no intended "guilt by association." If someone wants to be an aesthetic objectivist I really don't care as long as they don't transfer that same objectivist mind-set to ethics and politics and attempt to forcefully make everyone conform to what they feel is objectively the right way to live and think. I already answered "the baddies might be subjectivists" bit. I see zero evidence for this. Such baddies talk exactly like people who have 100% conviction in the objective rightness and righteousness of their positions. AFAICT, such tyranny and terrorism depends on it. Most people don't die for causes they don't feel are objectively right/righteous, and they don't try to force their wills onto others without feeling the same. 

Subjectivism humbles you because it forces you to the realization that your ways of feeling, valuing, and reacting are not innately better or superior to other people. The result I've found tends towards more empathy and cooperation, attempts made to understand where other people are coming from and trying to work it out for the mutual benefit of everyone. What has Strange Magic's consistent position been? The validation of everyone's aesthetic tastes, preferences, reactions, and values. Do "the baddies" tend to sound like the kind of people who sympathize/empathize with others' perspectives, suffering, etc., or those that only care about their own and make an objective God out of them?


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## Woodduck

Eva Yojimbo said:


> Yes, I also caught your drift originally, which is why I also asked this: “And if people disagree on what “well-composed” means is there a way to sort out who is actually right without recourse to what people think, feel, and value?”


What do you mean by "sort out"? What sort of sorting happens when a composition teacher points out that a student's essay in sonata form is thematically undistinguished and awkwardly proportioned, with a repetitious development section and a weakly prepared recapitulation, and when the student, taking a fresh, focused look at his work, lights up with the dawn of understanding and exclaims, "Ah... Yeah! You're right! I get it!"?



> If people fail to see something that’s objectively there then there are a myriad of ways of showing it to them so they see it.


Showing, yes. Proving? That's another matter, and I think proof is what you're after.



> What you’re describing in terms of recognizing greatness isn’t just about seeing what’s there, it’s about seeing what’s there AND categorizing the thing that’s there as “great.”


A meaningful judgment of "great" can only come after other, more specific judgments, conscious or subconscious. I find loose talk of "greatness" annoying. Nevertheless a judgment in superlatives may be inescapable if you understand what a remarkable thing an artist has accomplished.



> And if someone hears any objectively there feature in any work you think is great, and doesn’t think it’s great, is one of you wrong?


Not necessarily. "Great" doesn't describe concrete qualities or features, so it's perfectly reasonable to disagree on what we want to apply it to. But if someone wants to deny acclaim to some really phenomenal artistic achievement, he should have a good reason, or else just say "I don't like that" or "I don't appreciate that" or, more insightfully, "I don't know enough about music to see why this work has been considered a masterpiece for the last three hundred years. What aspects of the piece have earned it such a reputation?"

I take this attitude all the time when it comes to the music of other cultures. I'm powerfully impressed by the classical music of India, but I feel qualified to judge its practitioners only in a somewhat vague and general way. I certainly do not think my ideas about it are as valid as theirs because "it's all subjective."



> As for the concerto in the middle of Beethoven’s 5th, it wouldn’t be absurd to the person who thought it wasn’t. What would be your proof that it was absurd besides the fact that, one, you think it is and, two, a lot of people would agree with you?


Ay ay ay! Are you telling me that you can't see the incongruity, the pointlessness, the utter violation of what Beethoven is trying to do in his 5th Symphony which an oboe concerto, plunked down in the middle of the stern, furious and headlong first movement, would be? I thought that by positing a really egregious error in artistic judgment I could at least show that Beethoven had all his marbles, but it seems his choice not to do the unthinkable was artistically insignificant, and our agreement with his judgment is no more than "subjective opinion," totally unjustified by the nature of his work. Well, what's next? Shall we have Lear on the heath sing "There are fairies in the bottom of our garden"? That would be madness, all right, but it wouldn't be Lear's.



> The more I read from you, the more I think you’re basically just a Platonic idealist. For any work you believe that there is this perfect Platonic form that can be achieved by making all the right choices, and, once made, anyone with the right kind of mind (and eyes/ears/etc.) will recognize it. Maybe I’m wrong, but that very much seems like what you’re describing with all of this talk about finding the right notes and the right this or that for any work.


Platonist? Not at all. You don't have to have a vision of perfection in order to distinguish better from worse, although artists do struggle to get their work "right" and occasionally, very occasionally, feel that they've done it (but of course they may be mistaken, humans being fallible). Some artistic decisions "work" well - they make sense in context, they achieve an end which is obviously intended, they result in a coherent and memorable statement, and they're thus more likely to earn acclaim. Other decisions don't work so well; they contradict or vitiate the desired effect. This isn't a mystery to an artist. In truth, it's a way of life. I guess I should no longer be surprised if others don't understand it.



> I’m glad you put “low” in scare quotes as I think the whole high/low art thing is mostly just a nonsense leftover from classism and various other forms of elitism; another way that people have historically said “we and our tastes and ways of thinking and feeling are better than yours.”


I don't think a distinction between higher and lower art is meaningless. Art can go very low indeed, unspeakably low. I gather you haven't watched much TV. I don't have one. Call me a snob. I don't care.



> What I’m not understanding is why you don’t see the logical consequence that follows from the fact about aesthetic judgments being in the mind. If aesthetic judgments occur in the mind, then how can an aesthetic judgment be good or bad except in relation to the minds that make those judgments? Are you trying to argue that some minds are right and to be deferred to?


I'd argue two things: 1. Artists can be good or less good - at the extremes, incredibly good and depressingly bad - at what they do, and in many respects it's possible to discern and appreciate this. 2. Art can say deeper, richer and more honest things, or shallower, more simple-minded and meretricious, even vicious, things. Last time I looked, the first set of values was worthier than the second set. Or is that just a matter of opinion too? If you think it is, we're done here.

Trying to express noble things doesn't necessarily make art better aesthetically. But that's another issue, and I'm not in a mood to go into it.



> I don’t know if I’d be capable of explaining my epistemology—probably the area of philosophy I’ve studied most deeply—succinctly in a way that wouldn’t make your eyes roll at what is the end of an already long (again, sorry) post. In the simplest terms, my epistemology is defined as justified belief, in which the “justification” part rests on what I consider the twin pillars of knowledge (*empiricism and rationality*—especially Bayes’s Theorem), and *“belief” is merely the high confidence level attained from that justification.
> 
> I do not believe that knowledge pertains to subjective (mind-independent) *[sic; you mean mind-dependent]* things except in relation to that mind; meaning that something like “X is great” can only be true relative to that mind, and not true in any other sense as there is no external place or thing to observe and empirically confirm the truth of which*. Compare the difference to if I say “there’s a dog in my backyard,” and the ability to simply walk to my backyard and observe said dog. You can’t do this with subjective things. At most you can point to objective features and say “I categorize this objective feature as great,” but if someone disagrees there’s no way to prove who’s right and who’s wrong in a mind-independent way.


I understand that epistemological view. It's a very commonsensical description of the way we apprehend the world in our day-to-day affairs. It seems to make perfect sense in our minds' contact with the physical world, and I understand it to be the basis of the physical sciences (though that's not my area and I'm open to correction). But I don't think it's a complete description of what constitutes knowledge, the corollary to which is that not everything that can be known can be proved. The perception that the composition of a painting is strong, purposeful, coherent, and appropriate to the painting's subject and theme rather than random, weak and pointless is just that; a perception. It isn't transferrable from person to person. although much insight and information can and should be shared about why the composition is good, with every person working to whatever extent they wish to refine their perceptual skills and enlarge their context of knowledge. But the knowledge that the painting is well-composed is no less a piece of knowledge for not being shared equally, or with an equal sense of its value.

I do believe in "subjective knowledge," in relation to things of the mind and spirit, and aesthetics and ethics are the two critically important realms of human experience where scientific standards of truth and proof meet their limits (I know the two are different, but I don't feel like getting into that). I will conclude by saying that evaluating art on an informed level always involves judging it in relation to both oneself and ltself; we ask (not necessarily consciously) whether the work resonates with our temperament and values, and simultaneously whether it carries out well the concepts it sets out for development and exploration. The first part of the process is what we're calling "subjective" evaluation; the second part has a good deal of objectivity - identifying things outside us - to it. If we must be hung up on "greatness" - a word I for one would like never to hear again! - it's quite reasonable to call "great" those artists and works that set high and difficult goals and meet them with amazing imaginative and technical brilliance.


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## Sid James

dissident said:


> How can you address the meta-aesthetic if you can't address the micro?





Eva Yojimbo said:


> The same way you can address meta-ethics without addressing ethics. The nature of ethical/aesthetic judgments is simply a different issue than what ethical/aesthetic judgments should be.
> 
> To make the distinction clear (because I'm not sure how many here are familiar with this): aesthetics would be discussions related to judgments, criticism, and analysis of art, just as ethics would be discussions related to judgments, criticism, and analysis of various ethical problems. Meta-aesthetics would be discussion related to the nature of those judgments, such as whether they're objective or subjective and how we know; ditto for meta-ethics.


I think that its virtually impossible to have a coherent discussion about aesthetics without some sort of common reference point. If we're making "judgements, criticism, and analysis of art," then what art is it? Or, what views of aesthetics are we debating, and from what period?

I think that the reason for all the grief in these sorts of discussions on TC is that there are no goal posts, or if there are attempts to set up any, they keep shifting. Its obvious that a period covering up to a thousand years of classical music is too broad, but if there's no agreement as to what specific time frame we choose, the result is a mess.

I think of when I have been to concerts or exhibitions with friends. One of the good things about this is that there are common reference points to discuss - what we're seeing or hearing - and we can contrast our points of view. There's a difference between that and a general conversation about art, music or literature.

Its probably better to discuss matters like aesthetics with a reference point, or somehow narrow the focus. Its easier to start from somewhere more concrete then branch out and relate that to broader matters of relevance. Then if we have to make comparisons, they'll more likely be ones that are worth making.


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## 59540

Eva Yojimbo said:


> If someone wants to be an aesthetic objectivist I really don't care as long as they don't transfer that same objectivist mind-set to ethics and politics and attempt to forcefully make everyone conform to what they feel is objectively the right way to live and think. I already answered "the baddies might be subjectivists" bit. I see zero evidence for this. Such baddies talk exactly like people who have 100% conviction in the objective rightness and righteousness of their positions.


Well, one more. Firstly, I honestly can't think of any thorough-going "aesthetic objectivists". Secondly, I can think of several "postmodern" thinkers who were apparently fairly convinced of the 100% rightness and righteousness (if you want to call it that) of their positions. They're hardly "objectivists", except insofar as such skepticism/relativism/subjectivism itself becomes an objectivism. Can such people be "baddies"? You bet, as nihilists.


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## mmsbls

hammeredklavier said:


> Why would that matter from the perspective of pure music appreciation? If Mozart had only 15 years of "mature period", he only had 15 years, nothing we do can change that history and the resulting "product", which is his work.


I guess if you wish to compare mature composers music to that of children's music, that's fine. I just don't think others will take that comparison as meaningful.



> He didn't write the same music as that forgotten composer; I don't think people who can't pass "tests" on the music should pretend to know enough to refute this objectively.


I don't understand what you mean here. I'm assuming you are still referring to M. Haydn whom I doubt anyone on TC has forgotten. Is there anyone who would say Mozart and M. Haydn wrote the same music? I will say that I love the idea of requiring people to pass "tests" on music before they can comment in any manner on such topics (just to be clear - I'm being sarcastic).


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## Woodduck

Eva Yojimbo said:


> If someone wants to be an aesthetic objectivist I really don't care as long as they don't transfer that same objectivist mind-set to ethics and politics and attempt to forcefully make everyone conform to what they feel is objectively the right way to live and think.


Yeah, let's not claim there's anything "objectively" reprehensible about Putin committing genocide on Ukrainians, and let's not presume we have any moral authority to tell him how he should think and live.



> I already answered "the baddies might be subjectivists" bit. I see zero evidence for this. Such baddies talk exactly like people who have 100% conviction in the objective rightness and righteousness of their positions. AFAICT, such tyranny and terrorism depends on it. *Most people don't die for causes they don't feel are objectively right/righteous*, and they don't try to force their wills onto others without feeling the same.


So "subjectivists" don't have "100% convictions" and aren't willing to die for righteous causes? That's admirably consistent. I guess we can be glad Europe and America weren't full of subjectivists when Hitler was trying to eliminate the Jews and conquer the Western world. Maybe we should suggest - with "subjectivist" humility - that the citizens of Mariupol - what's left of them - should be good subjectivists and lay down their arms and become good Russians rather than die for the objectively righteous cause of keeping their country.

Are "subjectivists" capable of having 100% convictions about anything? What, for example?



> Subjectivism humbles you because it forces you to the realization that your ways of feeling, valuing, and reacting are not innately better or superior to other people. The result I've found tends towards more empathy and cooperation, attempts made to understand where other people are coming from and trying to work it out for the mutual benefit of everyone. What has Strange Magic's consistent position been? The validation of everyone's aesthetic tastes, preferences, reactions, and values.


"The validation of everyone's tastes" isn't a remarkable, difficult, noble or rare position to hold. I too consider all artistic tastes "valid," and I think most people feel that way. "Chacun..." and "de gustibus" and all that. That is not the same thing as to consider all aesthetic judgments equally accurate in describing art or equally valuable in understanding it, which is as absolutist a position as can be taken in aesthetics. No so-called objectivist I see here - no person I've ever known, in fact - defends such an absolute position so rigidly. Is such absolutism compatible with "empathy and cooperation" and "attempts made to understand where other people are coming from" ? Spinning condescending fantasies about one's intellectual opponents being terrified that your brilliant proclamations of "truth" will bring their world crashing down, to be followed by your private victory dances, doesn't sound particularly empathetic to me.

There are various and incompatible conceptions of what "objectivity," "objectivism," "subjectivity" and "subjectivism" entail. Extrapolating from someone's views on aesthetics to their moral and social attitudes seems to me a perilous endeavor. Don't you think we'd do well not to be labeling people with these slippery terms?


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## DaveM

Eva Yojimbo said:


> The subjects we discuss on here have larger implications because the same mentality behind our aesthetic perspectives can find correlatives in our perspectives on these larger matters.


No they don’t (have larger implications).


> Generally, there's pretty consistent overlap I've found between, eg, aesthetic and ethical objectivists/subjectivists. (and, no, I'm not having trouble separating them: I merely see the connections)


No wonder some of your posts seem to imply that you think you are speaking truth of world-wide import rather than to minions on a classical music forum.


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## hammeredklavier

mmsbls said:


> I guess if you wish to compare mature composers music to that of children's music, that's fine. I just don't think others will take that comparison as meaningful.


You're saying that still doesn't affect anyone's impression of his overall published ouevre? What do you think about this:


hammeredklavier said:


> "....none of Mozart's symphonies before No.31 are as "mature" as watch?v=e8ba5g_jF5M , watch?v=ppTToo8lrMQ , watch?v=v80s4yjSdQM " (and so on..)
> Of course, I don't hold these opinions, but in a "parallel world" where Mozart's certain contemporaries get as much exposure as him, there could be people holding them.





mmsbls said:


> I don't understand what you mean here. I'm assuming you are still referring to M. Haydn whom I doubt anyone on TC has forgotten.


It's safe to say he's pretty much "forgotten". I have never seen a single ranking by anyone with his name in the list, on TC or everywhere else. And when you ask people about Mozart's contemporaries, names like Salieri, Gluck, Boccherini are what you'll usually get.



mmsbls said:


> Is there anyone who would say Mozart and M. Haydn wrote the same music?


There is this attitude in the classical music community; "I'm closing my ears, lalalala, I don't care what the forgotten composer wrote, he was always absolutely worse than Mozart in whatever he did." When it comes to Mozart, trying to have serious discussions on "objective greatness" while forgetting all this (rediscovering-michael-haydn-an-interview-with-david-wyn-jones/) doesn't seem right to me. It's at least worth asking the question, how much consideration and effort have we given.



mmsbls said:


> I will say that I love the idea of requiring people to pass "tests" on music before they can comment in any manner on such topics (just to be clear - I'm being sarcastic).


I'm not trying to be obnoxious in any way; the message I want to get across-


hammeredklavier said:


> How can we be _so sure_ of that, especially when _everything_ has not been recorded yet? How much _chance_ have we given to composer we favor less compared to the one we favor more? Are we simply relying on _received wisdom _in these matters?


And it's not just Haydn, there are still things we haven't discovered yet; there could be so many unknowns, uncertainties. I find it disturbing when people pretend like there are none of these things.


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## DaveM

hammeredklavier said:


> I'm not trying to be obnoxious in any way; the message I want to get across-
> 
> And it's not just Haydn, there are still things we haven't discovered yet; there could be so many unknowns, uncertainties. I find it disturbing when people pretend like there are none of these things.


I'm not sure why your knickers are in such a knot over this. There are other unknowns from the mid to late 19th century whose piano concertos are IMO comparable to those of Mendelssohn and Chopin and some of whose symphonies approach those of Mendelssohn and Schumann. It’s understandable, for all sorts of reasons, that some composers get more attention than others. It’s not personal.


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## Sid James

dissident said:


> Well, one more. Firstly, I honestly can't think of any thorough-going "aesthetic objectivists". *Secondly, I can think of several "postmodern" thinkers who were apparently fairly convinced of the 100% rightness and righteousness (if you want to call it that) of their positions.* They're hardly "objectivists", except insofar as such skepticism/relativism/subjectivism itself becomes an objectivism. Can such people be "baddies"? You bet, as nihilists.


I think you're throwing out the baby with the bathwater here. The whole objective-subjective aesthetic issue was more polarising during the modern era, particularly mid to late 19th century. Hanslick's _On the Musically Beautiful _(1850's) was a key text in setting the tone for the debates which would dominate the period.

Even before postmodernism, you had many composers who didn't care or care much about which side they fit into. I think its fair to say that for composers born after 1900, maybe even after 1890, a bigger issue that emerged was technique (their response to atonality and serialism become more of a dividing line). Eventually, that dissipated too.

The certainties of modernism where at best illusory, one reason being was that they where built between polarities. Postmodernism doesn't deny their existence, its more about looking at the differences in terms of contrast rather than competition. As I've said, maybe the competitive element had its uses, because it was during the modern era that music became a profession (taught at university), public concerts where established and a body of work (repertoire) needed to be developed.

Now, where's the need for the polarisation? Core repertoire is pretty much fossilised, at least in terms of performance. Composers don't find so much of a need to justify where they stand in terms of the aesthetic spectrum. Things change so fast now on the music scene anyway, so the moment we'd try to lock things down, any sort of manifesto or set of theories would be almost immediately obsolete. It wouldn't last as long as a reference point like Hanslick's treatise did, that's for sure.

Postmodernism merely acknowledges that there will be a diversity of viewpoints on issues like aesthetics. That's why I see different aesthetic approaches as being like a toolbox for composers, and a smorgasbord for listeners. I don't see a pressure for people to fit in anywhere, at least not compared to what went on in the past (even compared to when I was growing up, there's less tribalism in terms of musical taste now, and that's thanks largely to the digital revolution).


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## mmsbls

hammeredklavier said:


> You're saying that still doesn't affect anyone's impression of his overall published ouevre? What do you think about this:


I'm not sure what you mean, but I think people generally consider a composer's best or at least better works when considering how good or important a composer is. I doubt many think of Mozart's earlier symphonies when they evaluate his overall status.



> It's safe to say he's pretty much "forgotten". I have never seen a single ranking by anyone with his name in the list, on TC or everywhere else. And when you ask people about Mozart's contemporaries, names like Salieri, Gluck, Boccherini are what you'll usually get.


Well, I know of a ranking with M. Haydn. 



> There is still an attitude in the classical music community; "I'm closing my ears, lalalala, I don't care what the forgotten composer wrote, he was always absolutely worse than Mozart in whatever he did." When it comes to Mozart, trying to have serious discussions on "objective greatness" while forgetting all this (rediscovering-michael-haydn-an-interview-with-david-wyn-jones/) doesn't seem right to me. It's at least worth asking the question, how much consideration and effort have we given.
> 
> I'm not sure if you're bothered by those who view Mozart as _objectively_ greater than M. Haydn or simply those who feel Mozart is greater than M. Haydn. I do believe most here would not refer to objective greatness.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> And it's not just Haydn, there are still things we haven't discovered yet; there could be so many unknowns, uncertainties. I find it disturbing when people pretend like there are none of these things.
> 
> 
> 
> I find many on TC who feel they have much to discover in classical music. There may be some who think there are no new discoveries, but I suspect they are rare.
Click to expand...


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## mmsbls

A Reminder: Please refrain from purely political content.


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## 59540

DaveM said:


> I'm not sure why your knickers are in such a knot over this. There are other unknowns from the mid to late 19th century whose piano concertos are IMO comparable to those of Mendelssohn and Chopin and some of whose symphonies approach those of Mendelssohn and Schumann. It’s understandable, for all sorts of reasons, that some composers get more attention than others. It’s not personal.


By the way, I agree. I think Hummel for one is way underrated and unjustly ignored. But I don't have to go after Beethoven and his admirers in an effort to get Hummel's music more attention through some oddball quest to level the playing field. Hummel<Beethoven. That doesn't mean Hummel doesn't deserve listeners. Lots of composers<Beethoven.


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## DaveM

dissident said:


> By the way, I agree. I think Hummel for one is way underrated and unjustly ignored. But I don't have to go after Beethoven and his admirers in an effort to get Hummel's music more attention through some oddball quest to level the playing field. Hummel<Beethoven. That doesn't mean Hummel doesn't deserve listeners. Lots of composers<Beethoven.


I can’t help but give another example: the Larghetto from Ries’ Piano Concerto #7 op132 (1824) (listen at 17:30). The opening alone is up there among or even beyond some of the concertos around the same time or to arrive in the not to distant future. It’s a wonderful movement! (I’m sure Ries had heard a fair amount of Hummel.)


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## hammeredklavier

"Strawberry tastes better than cheese" is a subjective statement, whereas "strawberry tastes more like raspberry than cheese" is an objective statement. As David Wyn Jones points out, there's an uncanny relationship between Mozart and the forgotten composer, in stylistic intricacies and angularities of chromaticism, and mercurial qualities in instrumental melody and vocal writing, like how strawberry tastes like raspberry. I believe the existence of this relationship to be more "objective" than anything. This is a different matter from composers like Hummel or Ries simply being "underrated in someone's opinion". Anyone who describes Mozart as being special from his contemporaries by pointing out these attributes should at least try to address this "issue", (which critics and academics of the 20th century generally failed to). To those who think this is not important— if Mozart had none of these attributes, would you have cared for his music at all?


mmsbls said:


> I'm not sure what you mean, but I think people generally consider a composer's best or at least better works when considering how good or important a composer is. I doubt many think of Mozart's earlier symphonies when they evaluate his overall status.


Imagine, what if all his symphonies were written with the maturity of his late symphonies?


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## DaveM

hammeredklavier said:


> "Strawberry tastes better than cheese" is a subjective statement, whereas "strawberry tastes more like raspberry than cheese" is an objective statement. As David Wyn Jones points out, there's an uncanny relationship between Mozart and the forgotten composer, in stylistic intricacies and angularities of chromaticism, and mercurial qualities in instrumental melody and vocal writing, like how strawberry tastes like raspberry. I believe the existence of this relationship to be more "objective" than anything. This is a different matter from composers like Hummel or Ries simply being "underrated in someone's opinion". Anyone who describes Mozart as being special from his contemporaries by pointing out these attributes should at least try to address this "issue", (which critics and academics of the 20th century generally failed to). To those who think this is not important— if Mozart had none of these attributes, would you have cared for his music at all?
> 
> Imagine, what if all his symphonies were written with the maturity of his late symphonies?


I read it and I reread it and the point of it remains obscure. Not sure why one is supposed to accept David Wyn Jones‘ description of Mozart’s attributes as what his legacy rises and falls on. And how the relationship between Mozart and the forgotten composer is ‘like how strawberry tastes like raspberry’ is a complete mystery.


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## BachIsBest

Eva Yojimbo said:


> If we all agreed upon the rules and goals of music, we could also judge independently of personal opinion whether any musical choice was good or better than another in relation to those rules and goals. The problem is that little agreement exists for the rules and goals of music, so instead we have multiple rules and goals that vary from person to person, genre to genre, group to group, time to time, etc., and unlike in chess these musical rules and goals are never clearly defined to begin with.


Although there isn't complete agreement, and never will be, there is a large amount of agreement especially within specific musical contexts. I fail to see how we can't at least partially judge music based on this? I think this is all we "objectivists" (even using this word makes me think of some sort of crazy Ayn Rand person, but I digress) have been arguing for.


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## Woodduck

Sid James said:


> I think that its virtually impossible to have a coherent discussion about aesthetics without some sort of common reference point. If we're making "judgements, criticism, and analysis of art," then what art is it? Or, what views of aesthetics are we debating, and from what period?
> 
> I think that the reason for all the grief in these sorts of discussions on TC is that there are no goal posts, or if there are attempts to set up any, they keep shifting. Its obvious that a period covering up to a thousand years of classical music is too broad, but if there's no agreement as to what specific time frame we choose, the result is a mess.
> 
> I think of when I have been to concerts or exhibitions with friends. One of the good things about this is that there are common reference points to discuss - what we're seeing or hearing - and we can contrast our points of view. There's a difference between that and a general conversation about art, music or literature.
> 
> Its probably better to discuss matters like aesthetics with a reference point, or somehow narrow the focus. Its easier to start from somewhere more concrete then branch out and relate that to broader matters of relevance. Then if we have to make comparisons, they'll more likely be ones that are worth making.


It's good to see a post making this specific point, and not merely passing references to it in other, convoluted discussions. The need for context in any discussion of artistic values has been brought up, but it seems to be difficult to keep in mind. Those calling themselves "subjectivists" have sometimes characterized those they call "objectivists" as "Platonists" or "mystics" (among other things), as if people were advocating a concept of artistic values as self-subsistent entities untethered to any cultural context or prior assumptions, or even the existence of humanity. But art is created by people in specific times, places and cultures, and those factors provide a context, knowledge of which can be important in understanding the aims of artists and appreciating their achievements.

If we want to argue that a work of art is well-made, or made better than another work, we have to say what specifically is good about it, and that may involve familiarity with culturally-derived objectives and standards which the skills of the artist are enlisted to express. Criteria of excellence are partly culture-transcending - we can appreciate the beauty of Chinese painting while knowing nothing about China or the finer techniques of ink painting - but partly culture-dependent; as we listen to the music of our own culture, we bring to it particular expectations or preconceptions which we know the composer is addressing in his attempt to make something meaningful to himself and us. A composer's excellence consists, to a significant degree, in how well he "speaks" his and our "language," and our assessment of his success depends partly on the way his work strikes us as individuals but also, importantly, on our understanding of the musical language he uses (knowledge which will in turn affect our personal reponses). We have to know how to judge it in a stylistic and cultural context; not only to see the work's virtues as a specimen of its kind but so that when we compare it with other specimens we're comparing apples to apples and not to broccoli. Questions such as "who is the greatest opera composer?" are fun to play with, and our personal preferences may be crystal clear to us, but when we have to compare _Le Nozze di Figaro_ with _Parsifal _we have a problem for which we can't expect a solution that will mean much to anyone except the most fervent Mozart or Wagner partisans. There is no unit of general measurement applicable to such unlike things, and it's best just to settle for the happy realization that both composers have created masterpieces which do superbly what they set out to do.


----------



## Strange Magic

As now a passive bystander to this rich discussion, I again note the "the more things change, the more they remain the same" is a particularly apt commentary upon it all. I joined TC in September 1915 and 6 months later found myself in the middle of a discussion on Profundity, with a cast of TC characters largely now lost in the mists of time, though Woodduck and I persevere..... here is the link, for those who wish to plumb the history of this never-ending discussion:

What is "profundity"?








s


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## hammeredklavier

DaveM said:


> And how the relationship between Mozart and the forgotten composer is ‘like how strawberry tastes like raspberry’ is a complete mystery.


For example, Charles Rosen says in page 283 of his book "The Romantic Generation":
"... Perhaps this interest in the inner parts accounts for Chopin's idolization of Mozart's music, where the inner part writing is richer than in any of Mozart's contemporaries."
Likewise, a lot of things critics and academics of the 20th century said are basically like "Mozart did this and that {specific things} better than his contemporaries, so he was the best among them", but with the discovery of a certain forgotten contemporary, it seems like they were "deluded"; a lot of things they said lose credibility in objectivity.


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## 59540

> I joined TC in September 1915


The world's oldest living human. (Sorry, I couldn't resist. Yes, I know you meant 2015.)


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## 59540

hammeredklavier said:


> "Strawberry tastes better than cheese" is a subjective statement, whereas "strawberry tastes more like raspberry than cheese" is an objective statement. As David Wyn Jones points out, there's an uncanny relationship between Mozart and the forgotten composer, in stylistic intricacies and angularities of chromaticism, and mercurial qualities in instrumental melody and vocal writing, like how strawberry tastes like raspberry. I believe the existence of this relationship to be more "objective" than anything. This is a different matter from composers like Hummel or Ries simply being "underrated in someone's opinion". ...


No, it's the same situation. You think that the admiration given to Mozart is either misplaced or overdone at the expense of "the forgotten". I don't know how you get this notion that admiring composers' works is a zero-sum game...that if I love Mozart's music for what it is, then there's not going to be much admiration left for Michael Haydn. M. Haydn's work fell into obscurity on its own. It wasn't Mozart's fault or the fault of Mozart's admirers.


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## DaveM

dissident said:


> The world's oldest living human. (Sorry, I couldn't resist. Yes, I know you meant 2015.)


We’ve got to start cutting the poor dude some slack. I calculate him to be about 122 years old!


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## 59540

DaveM said:


> We’ve got to start cutting the poor dude some slack. I calculate him to be about 122 years old!


Maybe older. He might've attended the Rite of Spring premiere, and he's never been the same since.


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## hammeredklavier

dissident said:


> It wasn't Mozart's fault or the fault of Mozart's admirers.


Of course it's not their fault, but if we consider ourselves not just a "religious group", we still need to continue to look back at those critics' remarks and reassess all their validity, depending on what we discover.



dissident said:


> I don't know how you get this notion that admiring composers' works is a zero-sum game.


Of course it's not a zero-sum game. But if another composer with those qualities (ie. the particular style of angularities in chromaticism, fluidity of vocal writing, mercurial-ness of instrumental melody, darkness in using minor keys) is forgotten, the implications are huge. "The things of Mozart that set him apart from all his contemporaries" in our minds could be "illusions". It implies that Mozart could just as have been forgotten (to a degree) depending on circumstance, say, if he locked himself up in Salzburg and didn't get his music printed, like the other, forgotten composer.
So all this "inherent objective greatness" thing is maybe a rule you made up yourselves, and pretend like it's like a "universal law of physics that governs the course of history" or something like that,- when in fact, it's all about fanbase and popularity.


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## hammeredklavier

mmsbls said:


> Well, I know of a ranking with M. Haydn.


I'm not sure what _you're_ trying to say with that. It's as if you're saying _"Hey, I do have him in my list, at around 97th place, maybe? He could be lower! Haha! But at least I know he exists! lol!"_, similar to what BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist intended with his poll thread <Joseph vs. Michael> in the past. I don't appreciate this. The more we talk this way, the more I'm convinced that people who haven't given enough chance to the forgotten composer _simply don't know_. If you don't recognize the elements I discussed in #474 (like our good friend DaveM), you won't understand what I'm saying.


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## 59540

hammeredklavier said:


> I'm not sure what _you're_ trying to say with that. It's as if you're saying _"Hey, I do have him in my list, at around 97th place, maybe? He could be lower! Haha! But at least I know he exists! lol!"_, similar to what BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist intended with his poll thread <Joseph vs. Michael> in the past. I don't appreciate this. The more we talk this way, the more I'm convinced that people who haven't given enough chance to the forgotten composer "simply don't know". If you don't recognize the elements I discussed in #474 (like our good friend DaveM), you won't understand what I'm saying.


What if we all give M. Haydn a chance and still find him lacking? What you're saying is that if you _truly_ give M. Haydn a chance then the only appropriate reaction is to say that he's the equal of Mozart. That sounds kind of objectivist to me.


----------



## 59540

hammeredklavier said:


> ...
> So all this "inherent objective greatness" thing is maybe a rule you made up yourselves, and pretend like it's like a "universal law of physics that governs the course of history" or something like that,- when in fact, it's all about fanbase and popularity.
> ...


I don't recall anyone saying anything about "inherent objective greatness" but rather possibly objective elements to "greatness". And where did that "fanbase and popularity" come from? And again you can't snark about the "unpopularity" of a Bach or Mozart and then turn around and say they're only considered "great" because they're "popular".


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## mmsbls

hammeredklavier said:


> I'm not sure what _you're_ trying to say with that. It's as if you're saying _"Hey, I do have him in my list, at around 97th place, maybe? He could be lower! Haha! But at least I know he exists! lol!"_, similar to what BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist intended with his poll thread <Joseph vs. Michael> in the past. I don't appreciate this. The more we talk this way, the more I'm convinced that people who haven't given enough chance to the forgotten composer _simply don't know_. If you don't recognize the elements I discussed in #474 (like our good friend DaveM), you won't understand what I'm saying.


Actually, I'm saying something completely different. He's in my top 100 meaning I consider him one of the greatest composers who ever lived. Out of all the composers who have written classical music (many, many 1000s), he's in my top 100. I've more than heard of him. I love his music. He has over 200 compositions recorded on the Naxos Music Library including about 40 symphonies and a large number of masses and other vocal works. Obviously, he is not forgotten. At all. His work is viewed less highly than apparently you view his work. Isn't that OK? 

As far as I can tell, you think M. Haydn would be viewed vastly differently if people took the time to listen carefully to his music. I don't know. You don't appreciate the "experts", those who have extensive knowledge of music and have discussed their views with others over time, and you seem to think their considered view of his work is perhaps _objectively wrong. _You give the impression that no knowledgeable person who has listened to M. Haydn's work could possibly not view him as one of the greats. Why do you consider your opinion of Haydn so vastly superior to others' opinions? Why not view his work as wonderful music that is appreciated by a large number of musicians?


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## 59540

mmsbls said:


> ...
> As far as I can tell, you think M. Haydn would be viewed vastly differently if people took the time to listen carefully to his music. I don't know. You don't appreciate the "experts", those who have extensive knowledge of music and have discussed their views with others over time, and you seem to think their considered view of his work is perhaps _objectively wrong. ..._


While ironically relying on musical authorities to bolster the case.


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## hammeredklavier

mmsbls said:


> As far as I can tell, you think M. Haydn would be viewed vastly differently if people took the time to listen carefully to his music. I don't know. You don't appreciate the "experts", those who have extensive knowledge of music and have discussed their views with others over time, and you seem to think their considered view of his work is perhaps _objectively wrong._


Have you looked at:


hammeredklavier said:


> Which "experts" are you talking about?* A bunch of that forgotten composer's works had been misattributed to the other, more famous composers for a large part of the 20th century. Many "experts" of the 20th century wouldn't have had an "accurate view" of his work.*
> Please see Post #392 Opinions vs less and more objective argumentation
> _"One of the many unfortunate legacies of nineteenth-century biographical writing is the excessive focus on the Wunderkind Mozart and the Incomparable Genius Mozart." _
> Professor David Wyn Jones interview-with-david-wyn-jones/
> Dr. Eva Neumayr watch?v=YA2sTVyDNrA&t=16m36s





mmsbls said:


> You give the impression that no knowledgeable person who has listened to M. Haydn's work could possibly not view him as one of the greats. Why do you consider your opinion of Haydn so vastly superior to others' opinions? Why not view his work as wonderful music that is appreciated by a large number of musicians?


Ok. Let's FORGET about rankings for now. What I'm talking about is the kind of styles the forgotten composer employs with respect to Mozart; do you recognize them?


hammeredklavier said:


> if another composer with those qualities (ie. the particular style of angularities in chromaticism, fluidity of vocal writing, mercurial-ness of instrumental melody, darkness in using minor keys) is forgotten, the implications are huge.


If you don't, you won't understand what I'm saying. I see no point continuing this discussion between both of us if you don't (just like the "Bach vs Handel in harmony" discussion). And I'm not suggesting Haydn is "underappreciated"; or complaining about it in any way. I'm just using the "Haydn phenomenon" to explain my view about people's evaluation of greatness.


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## mmsbls

hammeredklavier said:


> Have you looked at:


Yes, but I think you see the fact that some of Haydn's music was misattributed and that he was overshadowed by his brother and Mozart, as much more significant than I do. 



> Ok. Let's FORGET about rankings for now. What I'm talking about is the kind of styles the forgotten composer employs with respect to Mozart; do you recognize them?
> 
> If you don't, you won't understand what I'm saying. I see no point continuing this discussion between both of us if you don't (just like the "Bach vs Handel in harmony" discussion). And I'm not suggesting Haydn is "underappreciated"; or complaining about it in any way. I'm just using the "Haydn phenomenon" to explain my view about people's evaluation of greatness.


I think it's reasonable to drop "the forgotten composer" and simply speak about Michael Haydn. Yes, I see similarities of style. I agree that we often don't seem to be on the same page in these discussions so I'm happy to move on.


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## hammeredklavier

mmsbls said:


> Yes, but I think you see the fact that some of Haydn's music was misattributed and that he was overshadowed by his brother and Mozart, as much more significant than I do.


"Some"? Only like 5 symphonies by him were published in his lifetime. Vast majority of them and the quintets had been misattributed to his older brother in Hoboken's catalog, I believe. There's still no way to get access to the score of his symphonies online. How many of his works were recorded before 1990?




mmsbls said:


> You don't appreciate the "experts", those who have extensive knowledge of music and have discussed their views with others over time, and you seem to think their considered view of his work is perhaps _objectively wrong._


Objectively wrong on what about his work, exactly? We can't be sure if the "experts" have listened to _everything_. For instance, Donald Tovey said of Beethoven's Missa solemnis: _"There is no earlier choral writing that comes so near to recovering some of the lost secrets of the style of Palestrina." _
But look at "Missa in Dominica Palmarum" (1794) 



The earliest generation of "experts" neglected X, then the next generation could also, then the pattern continues, until X falls more and more into obscurity. I'm just saying it's not an impossibility.


hammeredklavier said:


> A certain member in the past made a good point by posting the following in another thread (something for us to think about):
> 
> "All of the factors contributing to greatness are interrelated and dependent on each other. For example, one factor mentioned above is the tradition of received wisdom: belief in A's greatness has been passed down from generation to generation, reinforced by music textbooks and concert performances and internet forums, while belief in B's greatness has not. Another factor mentioned above is the test of time: A seems greater than B because the former's music has survived till today while the latter's has not. But these two factors are mutually reinforcing: if music textbooks have chapters on A but not B, then of course the former is going to have a leg up on the latter when it comes to the test of time. Conversely, if A's music is still performed today while B's is not, then of course music textbooks are going to have chapters on the former but not the latter. Likewise, another factor that has been mentioned is influence: A has demonstrably had a lasting influence on later composers, even today, while B has not. This is also inherently connected to the above factors: since A appears in textbooks and is more widely performed than B, then of course he is going to have a greater influence on later composers than B will.
> 
> In other words, the concept of greatness is a complex and circular system. By this point in time it's also a self-sustaining one, precisely because of the circularity. After all, this system is basically what we call a canon, and it is the very purpose of a canon to be self-perpetuating. As I wrote about in another thread some years ago, it is difficult to imagine any canonical composer being removed from the cycle and losing their canonical status, and it's difficult to imagine any non-canonical composer being inserted into the cycle and acquiring canonical status. I don't think the canon was always closed, and I don't want to think it is now, but if I'm being honest with myself then I have to think realistically that it is."


What do you mean by "extensive knowledge of music", if a person calls himself an "expert" of C.P.E. Bach keyboard music, for example, but cannot pass tests like [50 Unidentified Excerpts from Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach Keyboard Sonatas]- would you still consider him an "expert" in matters regarding it? What you're suggesting might be _"blind submission to authority."_

A person can think that Mozart's period of maturity was too short, even though the quality of his mature masterpieces is high; this, for example, is where "subjectivity" can come in, even if he has high regard for Mozart. (I'm not saying I think this way; I'm just saying it's not too unreasonable a view.) But obviously, people who haven't had exposure to the extensive ouevre of Haydn won't know it. It doesn't matter how many of these people there are, they still won't know. Isn't this _common sense? Y_ou know the Bible even without reading it? A person who has read the Bible 10 times carefully has greater chance of knowing what's inside than a person who only skimmed through it once.
And about our talk of Mozart's symphonies —obviously, your evaluation of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven is also affected by the amount of "masterpieces" they wrote. Do you rate them so highly because you only care for less than 5% of what they wrote, for instance?


----------



## mmsbls

hammeredklavier said:


> What do you mean by "some"? Only like 5 symphonies by him were published in his lifetime. Vast majority of them and the quintets had been misattributed to his older brother in Hoboken's catalog, I believe. There's still no way to get access to the score of his symphonies online.


I'm not concerned with how people viewed him in the 1700s. In recent years people have his music and can evaluate him as a composer. I'm not sure what you mean by not getting access to his symphonies. IMSLP and sheetmusicplus seem to have many of his symphonies available. sheetmusicplus states that they have 384 items of Michael Haydn sheet music. 



> Objectively wrong on what about his work, exactly? We can't be sure if the "experts" have listened to _everything_. For instance, Donald Tovey said of Beethoven's Missa solemnis: _"There is no earlier choral writing that comes so near to recovering some of the lost secrets of the style of Palestrina." _
> But look at "Missa in Dominica Palmarum" (1794)
> 
> 
> 
> The earliest generation of "experts" neglected X, then the next generation can also neglect it, then the pattern continues, until X falls more and more into obscurity. I'm just saying it's not an impossibility.


I suggested that _you _seem to think others are objectively wrong. I have no idea what you think they are wrong about other than that Haydn should be considered better. Yes, it's possible that 200 years ago, people neglected M. Haydn and that neglect influenced others knowledgeable about Classical era music. Lots of things are not impossible. Given what I know about scholars in my fields, I'd be shocked if musicologists did not work to properly evaluate the music of many Classical era composers. But, yes, maybe only 2 people know about M. Haydn's true genius, and possibly no one knows that person X, long ago lost completely to posterity, is the greatest Classical composer of all.



> What do you mean by "extensive knowledge of music", if a person calls himself an "expert" of C.P.E. Bach keyboard music, for example, but cannot pass tests like [50 Unidentified Excerpts from Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach Keyboard Sonatas], would you still consider him an "expert" in matters regarding it? What you're suggesting might be _"blind submission to authority."_


I don't understand your idea of "tests". I've been considered an expert in a couple of fields, and no one would ever think to give me tests to show that I was an expert. That's not how expertise is determined in any field I know. 



> A person can think that Mozart's period of maturity was too short, even though the quality of his mature masterpieces is high; this, for example, is where "subjectivity" can come in, even if he has high regard for Mozart. (I'm not saying I think this way; I'm just saying it's not that unreasonable a view.) But obviously, people who haven't had exposure to the extensive ouevre of Haydn won't know it. It doesn't matter how many of these people there are, they still won't know. Isn't this _common sense? Y_ou know the Bible even without reading it? A person who read the Bible 10 times carefully has greater chance of knowing what's inside than a person who only skimmed through it once.
> And about our talk of Mozart's late symphonies —obviously, your evaluation of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven is also affected by the amount of "masterpieces" they wrote. Do you rate them so highly because you only care for less than 5% of what they wrote, for instance?


I care about much more than 5%, but I've never wondered what percentage matters to me. Everyone I know evaluates composers based on their best works, not their complete output. Usually there are quite a few of a composer's "best" works. No one I know includes Mozart's first symphony or Beethoven's Wellington's Victory in their estimation of those composers.

If I understand you, you believe that some composers are potentially overrated or underrated because people do not evaluate enough of their works for a variety of reasons. Essentially, people are missing critical aspects of the composer's output, and therefore, are basing their opinions on a subset of music that does not fully allow proper evaluation. Maybe. Personally, I believe that today's experts (I've defined this several places) likely do have access to and properly evaluate enough works to make reasonable assessments of composers' music. Those assessments are subjective. Of course, TC members, in general, have vastly less experience listening to a range of works, have read significantly less about various composers, and know less about music theory than experts in the field.


----------



## hammeredklavier

mmsbls said:


> In recent years people have his music and can evaluate him as a composer. I'm not sure what you mean by not getting access to his symphonies. IMSLP and sheetmusicplus seem to have many of his symphonies available.


You can't get them on IMSLP, there are violin parts available for MH393, D minor, but not much else. Hence the reason why there have been people saying


Gargamel said:


> Where can I find scores for M. Haydn's Symphonies? Some of them are extremely hard to find and unavailable on sites such as Sheet music plus.


And how many of his works were recorded before 1990? There have been many "experts" who simply didn't bother to listen to his music. Let's face it.
It's simply _impossible_ to listen to _everything_, since life is _short_. People tend to neglect composers neglected by others. "Experts" are no different.


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## hammeredklavier

mmsbls said:


> Given what I know about scholars in my fields, I'd be shocked if musicologists did not work to properly evaluate the music of many Classical era composers.


If you have a copy of Charles Rosen's <The Classical Style>, have a look at page 281, where he discusses Mozart's K.174 quintet; _"The immediate model for this work is not at all Michael Haydn, as has been thought, much less Boccherini, but ..."_
In this manner, he goes onto discuss Mozart's other quintets, how they were homage to a certain composer (other than Michael Haydn).
The closeness of chromatic language and stuff Mozart has with Michael, —Rosen does not mention.
MH287: watch?v=qIPffGnkaKU&t=3m33s (compare with K.515/i)
MH284: watch?v=ppTToo8lrMQ&t=6m6s (compare with K.465/i)
Each of Michael Haydn's quintets (MH187, MH189, MH367, MH411, MH412) predates Mozart's by several months ~ 1 year (MH367, the slow movement of which resembles that of K.465, predates it by months), but Rosen does not mention this either.
The relationship between the fugal final movements of MH287 and K.387 (both of which begin on 4-note patterns) the slow variation movements of both composers' A major quartets, MH299 and K.464, (+ a bunch of other things) —he does not mention.
Why? It's because Rosen did NOT know the stuff.


----------



## hammeredklavier

mmsbls said:


> you believe that some composers are potentially overrated


Not really. I agree with dissident that _"it's not a zero-sum game"_. But our subjective views of composers can be different depending on our personal experiences and preferences. Due to my "subjective view", I find it hard to agree with the "objectivist" side in this thread. Based on what I believe, there would be less "disturbing contradictions" resulting from my thinking, if I supported the the opposite side.


----------



## Eva Yojimbo

Woodduck said:


> What do you mean by "sort out"? What sort of sorting happens when a composition teacher points out that a student's essay in sonata form is thematically undistinguished and awkwardly proportioned, with a repetitious development section and a weakly prepared recapitulation, and when the student, taking a fresh, focused look at his work, lights up with the dawn of understanding and exclaims, "Ah... Yeah! You're right! I get it!"?


In this case “sort out” means determine, decide, judge, and whatever synonym you want to use. In your example the composition teacher is viewed as an authority whose aesthetic judgment the students are free to accept or reject in principle, but whom they generally accept for practical purposes (like the desire for good grades and accolades from said authorities). We have very clear examples of artists in all mediums who have flouted the traditional standards and rules for what makes “good works” within their mediums, and then later been declared geniuses because others found value in their flouting of those rules. 



Woodduck said:


> Showing, yes. Proving? That's another matter, and I think proof is what you're after.


In this particular instance I wasn’t making that distinction. If you define what a fugue is and point to an example of a fugue in JS Bach then I can say you have proved the objective existence of a fugue in Bach. This demonstration of an objective feature doesn’t entail, though, the judgment of its greatness or lack thereof, and it’s the latter that needs to be shown or proved in the same way you showed or proved that the fugue was objectively there.



Woodduck said:


> A meaningful judgment of "great" can only come after other, more specific judgments, conscious or subconscious. I find loose talk of "greatness" annoying. Nevertheless a judgment in superlatives may be inescapable if you understand what a remarkable thing an artist has accomplished.


What I’m asking is how any judgment can be “inescapable” and how a “remarkable accomplishment” can be recognized in the way that the existence of a fugue can be recognized.



Woodduck said:


> Not necessarily. "Great" doesn't describe concrete qualities or features, so it's perfectly reasonable to disagree on what we want to apply it to. But if someone wants to deny acclaim to some really phenomenal artistic achievement, he should have a good reason, or else just say "I don't like that" or "I don't appreciate that" or, more insightfully, "I don't know enough about music to see why this work has been considered a masterpiece for the last three hundred years. What aspects of the piece have earned it such a reputation?"


I’m not sure what you mean by “deny acclaim” to. In the subjectivist view the work would be worthy of acclaim to the people who feel/think it’s a “phenomenal achievement.” But there is no real difference between the people who feel it’s a “phenomenal achievement” and the person who feels it isn’t other than the polar opposite differences in their subjective reactions. The people who judge it a “phenomenal achievement” do so either because the work provokes in them the feeling of greatness, or because they are acknowledging it does the same in others. My point a few posts back is that all art, including much of what you might denigrate as “low art” that’s of lesser value than that of, say, Bach is also capable of provoking in people this same feeling.

I’m also not sure what a “good reason” to you would look like to “deny acclaim,” and what it COULD look like other than pointing to objective features of the work and saying “I don’t like that.” I remember back when hammeredklavier would post long posts about the harmonic deficiencies in Schubert. I think most (rightly) took those posts as him saying “see these objective qualities? I do not like these qualities,” while those who love Schubert would respond with either “I like those qualities” or “I don’t mind those qualities” or “Schubert possesses other qualities that I love (like his melodicism) so I don’t care that his harmonies are less complex, original, etc. than Bach or whomever.” I don’t really look at any of these as “good reasons” to like and dislike Schubert, I look at them as the act of people looking at the same objective things and having different reactions and valuations of those objective features. To me, reason must be tied to the goal of finding truth, which itself must be tied to statements about objective reality, not subjective values.



Woodduck said:


> Ay ay ay! Are you telling me that you can't see the incongruity, the pointlessness, the utter violation of what Beethoven is trying to do in his 5th Symphony which an oboe concerto, plunked down in the middle of the stern, furious and headlong first movement, would be? I thought that by positing a really egregious error in artistic judgment I could at least show that Beethoven had all his marbles, but it seems his choice not to do the unthinkable was artistically insignificant, and our agreement with his judgment is no more than "subjective opinion," totally unjustified by the nature of his work. Well, what's next? Shall we have Lear on the heath sing "There are fairies in the bottom of our garden"? That would be madness, all right, but it wouldn't be Lear's.


I could see very clearly how such a thing would violate Beethoven’s own subjective ideal for what he wanted the work to be, yes; what I would reject is the notion that Beethoven (or any composer/artist) is the ultimate arbiter of the quality of their work as opposed to just another subjective opinion (though a privileged one in many ways). I addressed this in detail with another poster many pages back. I think artist intentions can help us orient ourselves within a work, but that within that we are still free to think the work would’ve been better or worse with completely different features or even goals than what the artist intended. Of course, I also think we are free to accept artists’ goals and intentions as the standard by which to judge works. Again, the subjectivist would treat either the rejection or acceptance of them to be a valid approach.

Have you ever thought about this idea of yours in the context of something like Beethoven’s Grosse Fugue? Here’s a work that he originally intended to be the finale of a string quartet. I have no doubt that when he finished it he probably thought it was a fine work, in the way you have so poetically described before the artist feeling such a thing. Yet when the work was premiered many people thought quite differently, enough so that Beethoven replaced it with another finale. After the reception, was Beethoven still as confident in his feeling of its fineness? Of its appropriateness in ending that string quartet? What are we, now, to think in regard to his original intention Vs the amendment with the different finale? Which of Beethoven’s intentions is the right one? The better one? To me, these questions are easily answered by the subjectivist: you can agree or disagree with either of Beethoven’s intentions, you can feel that both are equally right, or equally wrong, or some combination. You can ignore his intention entirely. There's no ground I see for answering these questions (even by referencing Beethoven's intentions) which can determine the right answer without reference to our feelings on the matter. 



Woodduck said:


> Platonist? Not at all. You don't have to have a vision of perfection in order to distinguish better from worse, although artists do struggle to get their work "right" and occasionally, very occasionally, feel that they've done it (but of course they may be mistaken, humans being fallible). Some artistic decisions "work" well - they make sense in context, they achieve an end which is obviously intended, they result in a coherent and memorable statement, and they're thus more likely to earn acclaim. Other decisions don't work so well; they contradict or vitiate the desired effect. This isn't a mystery to an artist. In truth, it's a way of life. I guess I should no longer be surprised if others don't understand it.


Again, the language confuses: they “feel they’ve done it” but “they may be mistaken…” well, mistaken according to what or whom? Yes, I’ve agreed previously that if we’re judging good/bad or what “works” in references to choices being able to trigger in people a “like” response then some choices are better able to do this in more people at greater amplitudes than others. The issue, as always, is when we try to discuss good/bad or what works without reference this. If a work triggers a like response in 50% of people and doesn’t trigger it in 50% of people, then is there any way to determine whether the work is good or works? Or can we only say “it’s good and works for 50% of people, and isn’t good/doesn’t work for 50% of people?” To me, the latter is obviously the correct answer.



Woodduck said:


> I don't think a distinction between higher and lower art is meaningless. Art can go very low indeed, unspeakably low. I gather you haven't watched much TV. I don't have one. Call me a snob. I don't care.


I don’t know if I watch “much” TV but I watch some TV. As in any medium I find there are many great and many terrible TV shows according to my own tastes, values, standards, etc. I generally prefer film, music, literature, and even video games to TV.



Woodduck said:


> I understand that epistemological view. It's a very commonsensical description of the way we apprehend the world in our day-to-day affairs. It seems to make perfect sense in our minds' contact with the physical world, and I understand it to be the basis of the physical sciences (though that's not my area and I'm open to correction). But I don't think it's a complete description of what constitutes knowledge, the corollary to which is that not everything that can be known can be proved. The perception that the composition of a painting is strong, purposeful, coherent, and appropriate to the painting's subject and theme rather than random, weak and pointless is just that; a perception. It isn't transferrable from person to person. although much insight and information can and should be shared about why the composition is good, with every person working to whatever extent they wish to refine their perceptual skills and enlarge their context of knowledge. But the knowledge that the painting is well-composed is no less a piece of knowledge for not being shared equally, or with an equal sense of its value.
> 
> I do believe in "subjective knowledge," in relation to things of the mind and spirit, and aesthetics and ethics are the two critically important realms of human experience where scientific standards of truth and proof meet their limits. Of course the two are different, but I don't feel like getting into that. I will conclude by saying that evaluating art on an informed level always involves judging it in relation to both oneself and ltself; we ask (not necessarily consciously) whether the work resonates with our temperament and values, and simultaneously whether it carries out well the concepts it sets out for development and exploration. The first part of the process is what we're calling "subjective" evaluation; the second part has a good deal of objectivity - identifying things outside us - to it. If we must be hung up on "greatness" - a word I for one would like never to hear again! - it's quite reasonable to call "great" those artists and works that set high and difficult goals and meet them with amazing imaginative and technical brilliance.


I’m heartened you understand the position, as one often wonders exactly how much one is being understood in these discussions.

I would agree there can be things known but not proved, but these things still rely on the ways in which I defined (at least my own) epistemology. To take an example, I cannot prove what I ate for lunch today. I can provide various forms of evidence, including my testimony, but no proof. My “knowledge” is based on my memory, which is not directly transferable to others, and even though my memory (as all memories) is imperfect. However, I still don’t see how aesthetic valuations fall under the categorical exceptions of things that can be known but not proved. At least with my “lunch” example you can imagine a hypothetical scenario where you built a time machine and went back a few hours today to my location and observed what I ate. That, then, would be proof via your own empirical observation. There’s simply no such observation that could even hypothetically be made with aesthetic judgments. They reside in a completely different realm that’s based around our feelings, not facts observable in the physical, objective world.

What you say about “The perception that the composition of a painting is strong, purposeful, coherent, and appropriate to the painting's subject and theme rather than random, weak and pointless is just that; a perception” is, IMO, not perception, but perception combined with judgment. I’m sympathetic to the notion that artists try to make artistic choices they feel appropriate to their subject matter. In my own artistic endeavor of poetry, Alexander Pope laid out this example hundreds of years ago in his Essay on Criticism:



> True Ease in Writing comes from Art, not Chance,
> As those move easiest who have learn'd to dance,
> 'Tis not enough no Harshness gives Offence,
> The Sound must seem an Echo to the Sense.
> Soft is the Strain when Zephyr gently blows,
> And the smooth Stream in smoother Numbers flows;
> But when loud Surges lash the sounding Shore,
> The hoarse, rough Verse shou'd like the Torrent roar.
> When Ajax strives, some Rocks' vast Weight to throw,
> The Line too labours, and the Words move slow;
> Not so, when swift Camilla scours the Plain,
> Flies o'er th'unbending Corn, and skims along the Main.


It’s very easy to analyze these lines and understand the metaphorical connections Pope is making between the “sound” of language and the “sense” of the words. I do not take issue with the claim that such metaphorical connections exist in the arts. I believe you’ve previously referred to such connections as “cross-domain mapping.” Again, my issue is with the notion that such things entail any given value judgment. I can sit here and recognize all day long the artistic craft that Pope is displaying in these lines, and still not think it great because what I value in poetry lies in other things. Anyone can do the same with any objective feature you could point out in any art.

I would also say that what you describe as “ask(ing)… whether it carries out well the concepts it sets out for development and exploration” is fundamentally no different than the question of whether it resonates with our temperaments and values… either that, or we’re asking if it resonates with others’ (the artist’s, other members of the audience’s) temperaments and values.

Because this post is already long, I'm going to elide the discussion on ethics, especially given the recent warning about mentioning politics. I will, however, link to two videos that I think provide a short, dense, but very clear and lucid introduction to subjective morality from a YouTuber who's also a philosophy student at Oxford: 









You can watch them when you have time and give me your thoughts, or feel free to ignore them and we can just stick to this discussion in the context of aesthetics.


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## Eva Yojimbo

DaveM said:


> No they don’t (have larger implications).
> 
> No wonder some of your posts seem to imply that you think you are speaking truth of world-wide import rather than to minions on a classical music forum.


Yes, they do. Do you think the parts of your brain that give rise to your opinions on aesthetics have zero function in other aspects of life?

Pardon me for only making it “seem” that way rather than being explicit with my belief that there is indeed world-wide import to the cognition that gives rise to beliefs about the objective rightness of a position based on the projection of subjective values, intuitions, feelings, etc. I could give countless examples of the horrendous consequences of this in contexts of much graver importance than aesthetics.


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## Eva Yojimbo

dissident said:


> Well, one more. Firstly, I honestly can't think of any thorough-going "aesthetic objectivists". Secondly, I can think of several "postmodern" thinkers who were apparently fairly convinced of the 100% rightness and righteousness (if you want to call it that) of their positions. They're hardly "objectivists", except insofar as such skepticism/relativism/subjectivism itself becomes an objectivism. Can such people be "baddies"? You bet, as nihilists.


As for you second, sure, again, I’ve said numerous times people can be subjectivists or objectivists on any number of topics, including those closely related. I’ve said I’m objectivist when it comes to meta-aesthetics but a subjectivist when it comes to aesthetics. The Postmodern thinkers you mention might’ve been the same (hard to say since the Postmodern thinkers I’m aware of are hardly unified in their thinking).

Again, I don’t know of many “baddie” nihilists. Care to name any?


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## 59540

Eva Yojimbo said:


> ...
> Again, I don’t know of many “baddie” nihilists. Care to name any?


The Marquis de Sade, for one...and there have been many in that mold, from mob bosses to serial killers to Nazis.


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## Sid James

Woodduck said:


> It's good to see a post making this specific point, and not merely passing references to it in other, convoluted discussions. The need for context in any discussion of artistic values has been brought up, but it seems to be difficult to keep in mind....*But art is created by people in specific times, places and cultures, and those factors provide a context, knowledge of which can be important in understanding the aims of artists and appreciating their achievements.*


I've always been interested in those things, the lives, times and inspirations which the art emerged from. Civilisation is about how these things interrelate.



> Those calling themselves "subjectivists" have sometimes characterized those they call "objectivists" as "Platonists" or "mystics" (among other things), as if people were advocating a concept of artistic values as self-subsistent entities untethered to any cultural context or prior assumptions, or even the existence of humanity.


I'm quite sure that the people you're describing would object to you labelling them - as you probably would to them labelling you. I'm also not sure if they'd agree with how you've summarised their points of view. In any case, this isn't my battle, neither in terms of involvement or relevance.



> If we want to argue that a work of art is well-made, or made better than another work, we have to say what specifically is good about it, and that may involve familiarity with culturally-derived objectives and standards which the skills of the artist are enlisted to express. Criteria of excellence are partly culture-transcending - we can appreciate the beauty of Chinese painting while knowing nothing about China or the finer techniques of ink painting - but partly culture-dependent; as we listen to the music of our own culture, we bring to it particular expectations or preconceptions which we know the composer is addressing in his attempt to make something meaningful to himself and us. A composer's excellence consists, to a significant degree, in how well he "speaks" his and our "language," and our assessment of his success depends partly on the way his work strikes us as individuals but also, importantly, on our understanding of the musical language he uses (knowledge which will in turn affect our personal reponses). We have to know how to judge it in a stylistic and cultural context; not only to see the work's virtues as a specimen of its kind but so that when we compare it with other specimens we're comparing apples to apples and not to broccoli. Questions such as "who is the greatest opera composer?" are fun to play with, and our personal preferences may be crystal clear to us, but when we have to compare _Le Nozze di Figaro_ with _Parsifal _we have a problem for which we can't expect a solution that will mean much to anyone except the most fervent Mozart or Wagner partisans. There is no unit of general measurement applicable to such unlike things, and it's best just to settle for the happy realization that both composers have created masterpieces which do superbly what they set out to do.


Most of the time, I'm happy to stop at understanding, because judgement is another level and I usually don't see a need to do it. Someone who works as a critic, for example, doesn't have that luxury.

I associate the concern with greatness more with the time when the traditional canon was being developed. The canonical masterpieces which form the basis of repertoire stretch between roughly 1750 and 1950 (maybe we can even go back to 1600, the time of the shift from modal to diatonic). I think that the music from before and especially after those dates is what forms the bone of contention for this forum's debates about what's great and what's not.

A lot of this is to do with how music from those times can be so different to the core rep, and also because musicology which took a large role in forming the canon, emerged in the 19th century. So, a lot of the conversations about greatness have the values of that time embedded in them, and serve to largely exclude music from outside that two to three hundred year timeframe.

Of course, people can compare what they want, and the guys that created the masterpieces are great, but what about all the rest? Maybe a Dowland song has more in common with a pop song than something by Schubert, and towards the other end of the spectrum, maybe something by John Cage is more like a piece of conceptual art than music. I think that's okay, because in the 20th century, you had things expand backwards with the early music and HIP movements, and the high point of experimentation in the 1950's which led to new pathways, and the eventual decline of modernism.

The traditional canon remains as a reference point, but still, we can't peg everything to it. The ground shifted long ago. However much we pine for the apparent certainties of the past, we have to accept that our own era is about uncertainty. Maybe the big question is whether we accept instability or reject it?


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## Eva Yojimbo

dissident said:


> The Marquis de Sade, for one...and there have been many in that mold, from mob bosses to serial killers to Nazis.


Sade is extremely debatable. For one, nihilism wasn't even a thing in his time, so at most his work could only be read as a precursor to nihilism... but then so can Hamlet. This doesn't mean the man himself was a nihilist. That he did some pretty terrible things is undeniable, but the extent to which he thought they were philosophically justifiable and why/how is unknown. Further, there's at least dozens of different forms of nihilism and, like with subjectivism (which doesn't necessarily entail nihilism, by the way), can be applied to individual topics. Moral nihilism is one small slice of the pie, and it's also distinct from moral subjectivism. 

Most of the genuine nihilism I see stems from philosophers whose lives tend to revolve around thinking about this stuff. The much more common position for the vast majority of people is to simply project the subjective meanings, values, and purposes they find into some objective form like religion or, absent religion, their socio-cultural surroundings (including politics). It typically requires a lot of thought and questioning before anyone gets close to nihilism, and even some who get there ultimately reject it; and even for the few who accept it it's just as likely to lead to apathy than anything nefarious. Most of the real "baddies" I see in history didn't seek to justify their badness through nihilism, but through proclaiming the objective values of their various positions. 

Your other examples are too vague. Most of the writings I've read from Nazis (which isn't a lot, admittedly) does not strike me as nihilist. Most Nazis believed they were objectively superior and were thus justified in taking power and eliminating undesirables in the name of racial and national purity. Most of the Nazis were Christians (or, at least, identified as such) for Pete's sake. Hitler may have only used Christianity opportunistically for public relations, but his own views were still not that of a nihilist or subjectivist.


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## Eva Yojimbo

BachIsBest said:


> Although there isn't complete agreement, and never will be, there is a large amount of agreement especially within specific musical contexts. I fail to see how we can't at least partially judge music based on this? I think this is all we "objectivists" (even using this word makes me think of some sort of crazy Ayn Rand person, but I digress) have been arguing for.


This is the point where we'd have to start getting specific: what is there agreement on, specifically, and to what extent does this enable us to judge works based upon that agreement? I also feel compelled to note that it's still possible for anyone (any individual or group) to reject these agreements and invent other standards and values to judge anything by, and if they choose to do so there is no way to argue they are objectively wrong to do so. Let's also keep in mind that even in the past when cultures were more homogenized than they are now there was still vociferous disagreement. Berlioz had a great quote about feeling mad from the diversity of opinions even among intelligent, thoughtful, musical people he respected. Wish I could find the exact quote... I posted it a while back on here but can't find it now.


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## DaveM

Eva Yojimbo said:


> Yes, they do. Do you think the parts of your brain that give rise to your opinions on aesthetics have zero function in other aspects of life?





Eva Yojimbo said:


> The subjects we discuss on here have larger implications because the same mentality behind our aesthetic perspectives can find correlatives in our perspectives on these larger matters.


You have no way of knowing how my opinions (or anybody elses’s here) on the role of objectivity in the evaluation of composers and their music translate into my perspective in other aspects of life, let alone whether they have larger implications.


> Pardon me for only making it “seem” that way rather than being explicit with my belief that there is indeed world-wide import to the cognition that gives rise to beliefs about the objective rightness of a position based on the projection of subjective values, intuitions, feelings, etc. I could give countless examples of the horrendous consequences of this in contexts of much graver importance than aesthetics.


It is purely your conjecture (and a presumptuous one at that) that what is going on here is an ‘_objective rightness based on the projection of subjective values, intuitions, feelings, etc.’ _Not to mention the general implication that a belief in a role of objectivity in the subject at hand can have _horrendous consequences of graver importance._

I can only assume that something personal has resulted in this way of thinking because translating the various ways some posters, including myself, have viewed the role of objectivity into nothing more than a projection of subjectivity indicates an unfortunate prejudice.

In my mind, recognizing where objectivity exists entails a search for proof and a mind that thinks along those lines can be one that is an asset in the real world where judgment is important. Judgment in decisions that affects the lives of other people requires, among other things, objectivity. The philosopher can indulge in objectivity-denial navel-gazing all day long. One the other hand, in some vocations, one had better hope that there are people who can be as objective as possible. And btw, people who have to be as objective as possible are likely to recognize objectivity where it exists.


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## Eva Yojimbo

DaveM said:


> You have no way of knowing how my opinions (or anybody elses’s here) on the role of objectivity in the evaluation of composers and their music translate into my perspective in other aspects of life, let alone whether they have larger implications.


And I did not say I know that, and have, in fact, said many times that someone can be a subjectivist/objectivist on one subject and not on others. I have also merely said that the two (being an ob/sub in aesthetics and other philosophy) correlates strongly based on my experience. 



DaveM said:


> It is purely your conjecture (and a presumptuous one at that) that what is going on here is an ‘_objective rightness based on the projection of subjective values, intuitions, feelings, etc.’ _Not to mention the general implication that a belief in a role of objectivity in the subject at hand can have _horrendous consequences of graver importance._
> 
> I can only assume that something personal has resulted in this way of thinking because translating the various ways some posters, including myself, have viewed the role of objectivity into nothing more than a projection of subjectivity indicates an unfortunate prejudice.
> 
> In my mind, recognizing where objectivity exists entails a search for proof and a mind that thinks along those lines can be one that is an asset in the real world where judgment is important. Judgment in decisions that affects the lives of other people requires, among other things, objectivity. The philosopher can indulge in objectivity-denial navel-gazing all day long. One the other hand, in some vocations, one had better hope that there are people who can be as objective as possible.


It is not "purely my conjecture" that's what's going on here, it's my reasoned conclusion based on years of studying this stuff in philosophy and even cognitive science. The fact that nobody can give an objective account of these subjects (without resorting to redefining objectivity as being relative to human values, which is definitionally nonsensical) alone is reason to reject it and pursue other hypotheses to explain the phenomena. 

It's funny you accuse me of being presumptuous in one paragraph and in the very next one explicitly assume my perspective from this derives from some personal bias. First, my perspective on this, again, derives from my study of what I mentioned above. Second, the extent I've been personally affected by this is the same extent to which we are all affected various forms of human irrationality and projection: which, of course, is a significant amount. The problem about how you and others here "view the role of objectivity" is that I don't think I've read anything from anyone here that remotely approaches a logically coherent view on the matter. It's probably summed up best when Woodduck called human knowledge mysterious. Well, if you don't even have any idea how you know things, how can you know if something is objective/subjective? I've tried to give coherent, consistent definitions of knowledge, objectivity, and subjectivity, and delineate the ways in which they relate to each other in aesthetics and outside of aesthetics. 

As far as your last paragraph goes I'd have to request that you actually define a good amount of the words you're using, as you've already shown a tendency to not understand how I was using them and I wouldn't want to make the same mistake with you. After you've defined them, you'd have to explain how you can have objective proof when it comes to things like the judgment of art. Also, for the umpeenth time, I've said that one can be subjectivist/objectivist on pretty much any subject, so you don't need to bring up "some vocations" in which objectivity is required because I obviously agree.


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## mmsbls

hammeredklavier said:


> Not really. I agree with dissident that _"it's not a zero-sum game"_. But our subjective views of composers can be different depending on our personal experiences and preferences. Due to my "subjective view", I find it hard to agree with the "objectivist" side in this thread. Based on what I believe, there would be less "disturbing contradictions" resulting from my thinking, if I supported the the opposite side.


I checked, and you are correct that neither IMSLP nor sheetmusicplus has full scores for M. Haydn's symphonies. There are some full scores of his orchestral works but relatively few.

As with everyone on this thread who believes music evaluation is subjective, I agree with your statement that our views can be different depending on experiences, genetic endowment, and development. 

I think perhaps you meant "there would be _more_ "disturbing contradictions" resulting from my thinking, if I supported the the opposite side." In other words believing in subjective evaluation makes it easier for you to understand how people react to music.


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## 59540

> Sade is extremely debatable. For one, nihilism wasn't even a thing in his time


It makes no difference if it was named as such or not.


> Moral nihilism is one small slice of the pie, and it's also distinct from moral subjectivism.


A subjectivist view is the gateway drug. As for the rest, TL;DR


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## Eva Yojimbo

dissident said:


> It makes no difference if it was named as such or not.
> A subjectivist view is the gateway drug. As for the rest, TL;DR


What "makes a difference" is whether or not you can point to any writing where Sade explicitly expresses/adopts the position of nihilism. Attempting to infer that from his life and fiction(!) is not enough. 

Provide evidence that subjectivism is a "gateway drug," please. Claiming that morality stems from the subjective seems a radically different claim than the notion that morality simply doesn't exist, or rejecting all morality.


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## 59540

Eva Yojimbo said:


> What "makes a difference" is whether or not you can point to any writing where Sade explicitly expresses/adopts the position of nihilism. Attempting to infer that from his life and fiction(!) is not enough.


You can't infer that about de Sade, but you can infer lots about some commenters on a thread.



> Provide evidence that subjectivism is a "gateway drug," please. Claiming that morality stems from the subjective seems a radically different claim than the notion that morality simply doesn't exist, or rejecting all morality.


It's the logical endpoint. How does a moral subjectivist refute a moral nihilist? It's shifting sand. About all you can come up with is some paragraphs from a college philosophy text outlining each.


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## Eva Yojimbo

dissident said:


> You can't infer that about de Sade, but you can infer lots about some commenters on a thread.
> 
> 
> It's the logical endpoint. How does a moral subjectivist refute a moral nihilist? It's shifting sand.


What have I inferred about anyone in this thread in particular? 

No, it's not the logical endpoint. I don't know what you mean by "refute a moral nihilist." Refute them in what sense and about what?


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## 59540

Eva Yojimbo said:


> What have I inferred about anyone in this thread in particular?


All these "objectivists"...


> No, it's not the logical endpoint. I don't know what you mean by "refute a moral nihilist." Refute them in what sense and about what?


Refute: To prove to be false or erroneous; overthrow by argument or proof.

"All human beings have inherent rights." Is that an objective statement or a subjective one?


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## Eva Yojimbo

dissident said:


> All these "objectivists"...
> 
> Refute: To prove to be false or erroneous; overthrow by argument or proof.


And what have I inferred about them? 

And what claim are the nihilists making that needs to be refuted? If they reject all morality then the subjectivist says they are subjectively doing so; their rejection of morality isn't something amenable to refutation. If the nihilists start making meta-ethical claims about the nature of morality, then there might be something to refute; but what would those claims be?


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## 59540

Since you may not have seen it, I'll repeat the edit from my comment above:

"All human beings have inherent rights." Is that an objective statement or a subjective one?


> but what would those claims be?


That it doesn't exist?


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## DaveM

Eva Yojimbo said:


> The problem about how you and others here "view the role of objectivity" is that I don't think I've read anything from anyone here that remotely approaches a logically coherent view on the matter...


Well, that’s really all I need to know when it comes to spending minutes of my life that I can’t get back responding to you.


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## 59540

DaveM said:


> Well, that’s really all I need to know when it comes to spending minutes of my life that I can’t get back responding to you.


I'm getting a "arguing philosophy in the Student Union" vibe from it.


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## Eva Yojimbo

dissident said:


> Since you may not have seen it, I'll repeat the edit from my comment above:
> 
> "All human beings have inherent rights." Is that an objective statement or a subjective one?


I view it as subjective. Rights are things invented by humans for the benefit of other humans so we can get along together in a society. The rights that are granted can easily be taken away. See George Carlin on the matter (skip to 4:24).


dissident said:


> That it doesn't exist?


That what doesn't exit? Morality? OK, in what sense does morality not exist?


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## Eva Yojimbo

DaveM said:


> Well, that’s really all I need to know when it comes to spending minutes of my life that I can’t get back responding to you.


If you disagree you can easily link to any post you think presents the objectivist view in a logically coherent manner. Chances are I've already responded to it and explained exactly why I didn't find it to be such.


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## Eva Yojimbo

dissident said:


> I'm getting a "arguing philosophy in the Student Union" vibe from it.


Better than the "arguing with people who've never gone anywhere near a philosophy course or book and just winging it based on our intuitions" vibe that I'm getting.


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## Woodduck

Sid James said:


> I'm quite sure that the people you're describing would object to you labelling them - as you probably would to them labelling you. I'm also not sure if they'd agree with how you've summarised their points of view. In any case, this isn't my battle, neither in terms of involvement or relevance.


I haven't labeled anyone. The labels "subjectivist" and "objectivist" are being tossed about by others here, and I believe it's the self-described "subjectivists" of the extreme variety who are using the latter label freely to designate anyone who doesn't seem to agree with them. I've made it plain (I hope) that I, at least, don't accept labels, and if I mention subjectivists I try to prefix it with "self-described," as I did here. Clearly you missed that, but no hard feelings. It's hard to know what to regard or disregard in these discussions.

I've always wondered how this discussion and others similar to it would proceed if we all dispensed with the ambiguous terms "objective" and "subjective"and were thus forced to explain exactly what it is we're talking about. I'm sure we'll never find out.


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## Eva Yojimbo

Woodduck said:


> I haven't labeled anyone. The labels "subjectivist" and "objectivist" are being tossed about by others here, and I believe it's the self-described "subjectivists" of the extreme variety who are using the latter label freely to designate anyone who doesn't seem to agree with them.


Though this wasn't addressed to me, I will say I'm fine with doing away with labels if they're getting in the way of productive discussion and if people feel they're being mislabeled. We can talk about our views and what we believe without putting a label on them and then simply discuss whatever issues we have with them.


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## 59540

Eva Yojimbo said:


> I view it as subjective. Rights are things invented by humans for the benefit of other humans so we can get along together in a society. The rights that are granted can easily be taken away. See George Carlin on the matter (skip to 4:24).


OK, well then quit looking with horror on genocides, tyranny, repression, oppression in objectively moral terms. Others may be cool with it.


> That what doesn't exit? Morality? OK, in what sense does morality not exist?


In what sense does anything not exist? Good grief.


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## Eva Yojimbo

dissident said:


> OK, well then quit looking with horror on genocides, tyranny, repression, oppression in objectively moral terms. Others may be cool with it.
> In what sense does anything not exist? Good grief.


Others may be cool with it, but I am not and do not have to be. I also don't have to look at them in "objectively moral terms" to not be cool with it. 

You "good grief" this like it's obvious. Do mind-dependent concepts exist? If you answer yes, then if morality is a mind-dependent concept then it obviously exists because people have mental concepts of morality. If you answer no, then you'd probably be throwing under the bus everything that does not reduce to fundamental physics. If you want to simply argue it doesn't exist in the way some people conceive of it--as being objective--then that's a point subjectivists and nihilists agree on, but that just means people are mistaken, not that it doesn't exist.


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## 59540

Eva Yojimbo said:


> Others may be cool with it, but I am not and do not have to be. I also don't have to look at them in "objectively moral terms" to not be cool with it.


Well then, other than in terms of self-defense why can't you just accept different moral codes or outright amorality in the same way that we should accept tastes differing from our own with the acknowledgement that we aren't the sole arbiters? We can't sit in judgement. No one in particular is asking you if you like it.


> You "good grief" this like it's obvious. Do mind-dependent concepts exist? If you answer yes, then if morality is a mind-dependent concept then it obviously exists because people have mental concepts of morality. ...


Then so do the greatness of Bach and Beethoven. This is sounding suspiciously like wanting to have your cake and eat it too through the magic of verbiage. I'm beginning to see why so many feel that philosophy is useless.


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## DaveM

Eva Yojimbo said:


> If you disagree you can easily link to any post you think presents the objectivist view in a logically coherent manner. Chances are I've already responded to it and explained exactly why I didn't find it to be such.


It occurs to me that your judgment of people based on their view of objectivity vs subjectivity and the philosophizing thereof is that of a rank amateur and you wouldn’t know a logically coherent explanation if it was staring you in the face.


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## Eva Yojimbo

dissident said:


> Well then, other than in terms of self-defense why can't you just accept different moral codes or outright amorality in the same way that we should accept tastes differing from our own with the acknowledgement that we aren't the sole arbiters? We can't sit in judgement. No one in particular is asking you if you like it.


If someone's morality doesn't affect anyone else then I have no issue with it. The moment it starts affecting someone else is when I have issue with it. The thing with morality is any system both practically and pretty much by definition affects others because that's what morality is about to begin with. So we're all essentially trying to figure out a moral system that works for ourselves and for others... or some people are just trying to figure out one that works themselves.



dissident said:


> Then so do the greatness of Bach and Beethoven. This is sounding suspiciously like wanting to have your cake and eat it too through the magic of verbiage. I'm beginning to see why so many feel that philosophy is useless.


Yes, the greatness of Bach and Beethoven exists in the minds of people who think that. This is not synonymous with saying Bach and Beethoven are great; it's synonymous with saying Bach and Beethoven are great to the people who think they're great, which is the subjectivist position.

So all philosophy is useless? Including the philosophy that allows science to function? What about the philosophy that informs laws: that useless too?


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## Eva Yojimbo

DaveM said:


> It occurs to me that your judgment of people based on their view of objectivity vs subjectivity and the philosophizing thereof is that of a rank amateur and you wouldn’t know a logically coherent explanation if it was staring you in the face.


And does this "occur to you" the same way that the objective greatness of works/composers occur to you? As a mere feeling and intuition, or as something you can prove, you know, objectively? If it's the latter, then present the argument, or respond to my objections and point out the logical flaws and what I "don't know." Without that this just sounds like an empty personal attack.


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## Woodduck

I'm going to have to break up, condense, elide, etc. your post. I have a tolerance for longer posts, but not infinitely long ones!



Eva Yojimbo said:


> In your example *the composition teacher is viewed as an authority* whose aesthetic judgment the students are free to accept or reject in principle, but whom they generally accept for practical purposes (like *the desire for good grades and accolades from said authorities*). We have very clear examples of artists in all mediums who have flouted the traditional standards and rules for what makes “good works” within their mediums, and then later been declared geniuses because others found value in their flouting of those rules.


This is not what the "Aha!" experience of the composition student shows. It shows that he has an innate aesthetic sense - a sense of balance, proportion, purpose, economy, etc. - which he only needed awakened by the precisely-directed comments of his professor. Every young artist with talent (or maybe even without it) experiences such "Aha! moments" - many, many of them - as he develops the mental skills that will enable him to do good work. I know I did; I can remember distinct episodes in this process of revelation - the emergence of spatial perceptiveness within myself as I watched my own ability to control visual space grow. Eventually - and at an early age in my case - people began marveling over my sense of design. In later years, when my emphasis shifted to music, they were amazed at my ability to improvise, with no planning whatsoever, coherent musical compositions with well-shaped, expressive melodies, which I did to accompany ballet.

The artist's ability to organize space or sound meaningfully and in ways satisfying to the human body/mind - yes, the aesthetic sense is physical as well as mental - is not rooted in "authority" or the mere imitation of models. That you should resort immediately to such "explanations" tells me that you lack an understanding of aesthetics at its most fundamental, biological level. You're living too much in your head.



> In this particular instance I wasn’t making that distinction. If you define what a fugue is and point to an example of a fugue in JS Bach then I can say you have proved the objective existence of a fugue in Bach. This demonstration of an objective feature doesn’t entail, though, the judgment of its greatness or lack thereof, and it’s the latter that needs to be shown or proved *in the same way you showed or proved that the fugue was objectively there.*
> 
> What I’m asking is how any judgment can be “inescapable” and how a “remarkable accomplishment” can be recognized in the way that the existence of a fugue can be recognized.


I believe I've already said that the excellence of a Bach fugue - as opposed, say, to an exercise in fugue by the aforementioned composition student (let's call him Angelo) - cannot be proved "in the same way" that its existence can be proved. It can't be proved at all, of course, by the only methods acceptable in your epistemological universe. But it can be proved by anyone who has an aesthetic sense and has learned to use it, and it does appear that most people who are interested in such things as Bach fugues are able to perceive that they're better than those of young Angelo in Counterpoint 101, even if they have no ability to conceptualize the reasons for it.

If you think that Bach fugues are really not better than Arturo's clumsy and dreary efforts, but are only called better by some people based on some received model, on "authority," or on an inexplicable and possibly substance-induced "feeling," have at it. I think they're called better by most people because it's screamingly obvious to people's innate aesthetic perceptiveness that they are. And more: I am 100% certain that it's screamingly obvious to you, but your "epistemology" won't allow you to believe it.



> In the subjectivist view the work would be worthy of acclaim to the people who feel/think it’s a “phenomenal achievement.” But *there is no real difference between the people who feel it’s a “phenomenal achievement” and the person who feels it isn’t other than the polar opposite differences in their subjective reactions. *


Really? There is _no difference in aesthetic perceptiveness between these people? _Really?



> The people who judge it a “phenomenal achievement” do so either because the work provokes in them *the feeling of greatness*, or because they are acknowledging it does the same in others. My point a few posts back is that all art, including much of what you might denigrate as “low art” that’s of lesser value than that of, say, Bach is also capable of provoking in people this same *feeling*.


You think the perception of aesthetic qualities, and the ability to imagine, create, manipulate and appreciate them, is just FEELING_? _"Sorry, honey, I just don't FEEL like it tonight." I hope not too many artists are reading this. If they are they'd better set down their coffee, or have plenty of paper towels handy, and maybe a few diapers too.


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## hammeredklavier

mmsbls said:


> maybe only 2 people know about M. Haydn's true genius


By "2 people" I take it that you mean the two experts I mentioned in #437; David Wyn Jones and Eva Neumayr. I have editted one of my comments (#494) earlier; I don't know if you have seen it— "It's simply _impossible_ to listen to _everything_, since life is _short_. People tend to neglect composers neglected by others. "Experts" are no different."
So even among "experts", there are ones who know his music, and ones who don't.

"... Phrases tend to be short and contrasting, and the harmonic language is more chromatic and bold. Nevertheless, the high professionalism that is a hallmark of Michael Haydn’s compositions is evident throughout. ..." -*Benjamin Perl* (from the article "Mozartian Touches in Michael Haydn’s Dramatic Works" Mozartian_Touches77-88.pdf#page=5)
"... It is fair to say that he surpassed by far such colleagues as Anton Cajetan Adlgasser and Leopold Mozart and that his was the only talent that seriously rivalled the genius of young Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. ..." -*Charles H. Sherman* (from the "foreward" from the Carusmedia score of 'Missa Tempore Quadragesimae MH 553 (1794) à 4 Voci in pieno, col’Organo' 50/5032700/5032700x.pdf#page=4)


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## BachIsBest

Eva Yojimbo said:


> This is the point where we'd have to start getting specific: what is there agreement on, specifically, and to what extent does this enable us to judge works based upon that agreement? I also feel compelled to note that it's still possible for anyone (any individual or group) to reject these agreements and invent other standards and values to judge anything by, and if they choose to do so there is no way to argue they are objectively wrong to do so. Let's also keep in mind that even in the past when cultures were more homogenized than they are now there was still vociferous disagreement. Berlioz had a great quote about feeling mad from the diversity of opinions even among intelligent, thoughtful, musical people he respected. Wish I could find the exact quote... I posted it a while back on here but can't find it now.


To just give a general example, given this is a classical music forum, introducing thematic material, exploring it's musical constituents, before skilfully guiding the piece to the recapitulation of the full theme is something that is universally recognised as desirable in CPT music. I respect that such a standard as this example is not directly applicable to, say, a simple folk song, but I feel if we go too far down the "at any point people can just make up any new standard they so please" road, we do end up with rather silly arguments. Technically, any group of people could do away with the "unprovoked violence is morally wrong" standard, but this tells us nothing insightful about morality.


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## hammeredklavier

Eva Yojimbo said:


> Have you ever thought about this idea of yours in the context of something like Beethoven’s Grosse Fugue? Here’s a work that he originally intended to be the finale of a string quartet. I have no doubt that when he finished it he probably thought it was a fine work, in the way you have so poetically described before the artist feeling such a thing. Yet when the work was premiered many people thought quite differently, enough so that Beethoven replaced it with another finale. After the reception, was Beethoven still as confident in his feeling of its fineness? Of its appropriateness in ending that string quartet? What are we, now, to think in regard to his original intention Vs the amendment with the different finale? Which of Beethoven’s intentions is the right one? The better one? To me, these questions are easily answered by the subjectivist: you can agree or disagree with either of Beethoven’s intentions, you can feel that both are equally right, or equally wrong, or some combination. You can ignore his intention entirely. There's no ground I see for answering these questions (even by referencing Beethoven's intentions) which can determine the right answer without reference to our feelings on the matter.


Good point, and apparently, no one is tackling this one.


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## hammeredklavier

BachIsBest said:


> Although there isn't complete agreement, and never will be, there is a large amount of agreement especially within specific musical contexts. I fail to see how we can't at least partially judge music based on this?


Sure. A clown who doesn't make mistakes in his acting (and does it flawlessly) scores higher points and has potential to gain greater fame than a clown who makes mistakes in his. "Objectively great" things = things that have amassed large numbers of fans. "Greatness" is essentially what fans attribute to things they love and would defend them against criticisms. Since people are allergic to the term "tyranny", I'll say "argumentum ad populum".



BachIsBest said:


> I think this is all we "objectivists" (even using this word makes me think of some sort of crazy Ayn Rand person, but I digress) have been arguing for.





BachIsBest said:


> To just give a general example, given this is a classical music forum, introducing thematic material, exploring it's musical constituents, before skilfully guiding the piece to the recapitulation of the full theme is something that is universally recognised as desirable in CPT music.


Sure, but in the end, all you're repeating is "well-composed music is all about good melody, good harmony, good counterpoint, good sense of form ..."


hammeredklavier said:


> things can be and have qualities to be popular, but whether or not they're popular because they're superficially appealing, sentimental, or over the top, or have attractive concepts (eg. "avantgarde for its time") etc, still depends on how each one of us perceives them. So you're saying everything done in the CP era can be objectively categorized as either "right" or "wrong" answers?- isn't it a rather boring way to view music history?
> How "objectively right" was Verdi when he commented in 1878 on the final movement of Beethoven's 9th?; "supported by the authority of Beethoven, they will all shout; "that's the way to do it!""


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## TwoFlutesOneTrumpet

So glad I chose to spend my time listening to the music I subjectively like that I know to be objectively great instead of continuing to engage in this discussion


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## Waehnen

TwoFlutesOneTrumpet said:


> So glad I chose to spend my time listening to the music I subjectively like that I know to be objectively great instead of continuing to engage in this discussion


Choose your battles — now that is a slogan I believe in.


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## BachIsBest

hammeredklavier said:


> Sure. A clown who doesn't make mistakes in his acting (and does it flawlessly) scores higher points and has potential to gain greater fame than a clown who makes mistakes in his. "Objectively great" things = things that have amassed large numbers of fans. "Greatness" is essentially what fans attribute to things they love and would defend it against criticisms. Since people are allergic to the term "tyranny", I'll say "argumentum ad populum".


Or not.



hammeredklavier said:


> Sure, but in the end, all you're repeating is "well-composed music is all about good melody, good harmony, good counterpoint, good sense of form ..."


I mean, in a way, this is what I've said, just reduced to a ridiculous level of generality and non-specificity.


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## Woodduck

Eva Yojimbo said:


> I’m [...] not sure what a “good reason” to you would look like to “deny acclaim,” and what it COULD look like other than pointing to objective features of the work and saying “I don’t like that.”


Art teachers and music professors don't point to students' work and say "I don't like that." See my last post.



> I remember back when hammeredklavier would post long posts about the harmonic deficiencies in Schubert. I think most (rightly) took those posts as him saying “see these objective qualities? I do not like these qualities,” while those who love Schubert would respond with either “I like those qualities” or “I don’t mind those qualities” or “Schubert possesses other qualities that I love (like his melodicism) so I don’t care that his harmonies are less complex, original, etc. than Bach or whomever.” *I don’t really look at any of these as “good reasons” to like and dislike Schubert,* I look at them as the act of people looking at the same objective things and having different reactions and valuations of those objective features. To me, reason must be tied to the goal of finding truth, which itself must be tied to statements about objective reality, not subjective values.


Nobody needs reasons to like or dislike Schubert. If you need more counterpoint to be happy, you may not like Schubert. Counterpoint isn't obligatory. There's no problem here.



> I could see very clearly how such a thing [an oboe concerto instead of the brief oboe cadenza in Beethoven's 5th] would violate Beethoven’s own subjective ideal for what he wanted the work to be, yes; *what I would reject is the notion that Beethoven (or any composer/artist) is the ultimate arbiter of the quality of their work as opposed to just another subjective opinion (though a privileged one in many ways).*


Well, sure, we're entitled to question Beethoven's artistic judgment. That says nothing about the quality of our ideas versus his.



> I addressed this in detail with another poster many pages back. I think artist intentions can help us orient ourselves within a work, but that within that *we are still free to think the work would’ve been better or worse with completely different features or even goals than what the artist intended.* Of course, I also think we are free to accept artists’ goals and intentions as the standard by which to judge works. Again, the subjectivist would treat either the rejection or acceptance of them to be a valid approach.


Yeah, we're "free to think the work would’ve been better or worse with completely different features or even goals than what the artist intended."

Being free doesn't make us smart.



> Have you ever thought about *this idea of yours*...


I'm not making this stuff up.



> ...*in the context of something like Beethoven’s Grosse Fugue?* Here’s a work that he originally intended to be the finale of a string quartet. I have no doubt that when he finished it he probably thought it was a fine work, in the way you have so poetically described before the artist feeling such a thing. Yet when the work was premiered many people thought quite differently, enough so that Beethoven replaced it with another finale. After the reception, was Beethoven still as confident in his feeling of its fineness? Of its appropriateness in ending that string quartet? What are we, now, to think in regard to his original intention Vs the amendment with the different finale? *Which of Beethoven’s intentions is the right one? The better one? To me, these questions are easily answered by the subjectivist: you can agree or disagree with either of Beethoven’s intentions, you can feel that both are equally right, or equally wrong, or some combination. You can ignore his intention entirely.* There's no ground I see for answering these questions (even by referencing Beethoven's intentions) which can determine the right answer without reference to our feelings on the matter.


I think most listeners - and every quartet player - has thought about this. People have their preferences. I don't know what Beethoven ultimately felt about it, but there are reasonable considerations favoring both approaches. One of the major ones is whether we want to regard Op. 130 as a stand-alone work or as part of a cycle of quartets tied together by certain thematic germs. The major theme of the fugue occurs prominently as a unifying element in Op. 131 and Op. 132 as well, and provides justification for performing these three quartets together as a cycle.

In citing this example you appear to be saying that the existence of alternative versions and performance options means that the composer's intentions as expressed in a work are as aesthetically arbitrary as anyone else's, and that an "anything goes" approach to musical criticism and performance is justified. I'd say "non sequitur." The fact that I can "ignore Beethoven's intentions entirely" doesn't mean that Franco Alfano's completion of Puccini's _Turandot_ would work equally well as a finale for the Quartet in Bb, Op. 132.

If our conclusions are absurd, we have good reason to question our premises. Your conclusion that anything we can do to disfigure a work of art is as aesthetically good and valid as anything the artist did in creating it is just such an absurdity.


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## Woodduck

hammeredklavier said:


> Good point, and apparently, no one is tackling this one.


 Someone did.


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## 59540

Eva Yojimbo said:


> Better than the "arguing with people who've never gone anywhere near a philosophy course or book and just winging it based on our intuitions" vibe that I'm getting.


No, better to use your own intuition than to regurgitate someone else's.


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## hammeredklavier

Eva Yojimbo said:


> I remember back when hammeredklavier would post long posts about the harmonic deficiencies in Schubert. I think most (rightly) took those posts as him saying “see these objective qualities? I do not like these qualities,”


Mostly copied and pasted from some critics' articles. Even at the time, I don't think I really meant to say those features were "_objective_ deficiencies". It's true I was overzealous and intolerant at the time. It seemed to me like everyone was negative about Mozart; people like NLAdriaan, Allegro con brio, aioriacont, and especially Jacck, would at times criticize Mozart as "overrated" or "elevator music", other times they would praise Schubert. What I meant with those posts; "see these qualities of Schubert that can be _subjectively_ seen as "faults"?" Anyway, I still feel guilty about those posts; should have listened to Woodduck sooner regarding those topics. And also, at the same time, I should have respected his views more, like-
Woodduck: "I only listen to Mozart when I'm in the mood for _Mozartkugeln_, but the _Mozartkugeln_ can be too _sickeningly sugary sweet_ sometimes."
Me: "Brutal."


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## Kreisler jr

Woodduck said:


> People have their preferences. I don't know what Beethoven ultimately felt about it, but there are reasonable considerations favoring both approaches. One of the major ones is whether we want to regard Op. 130 as a stand-alone work or as part of a cycle of quartets tied together by certain thematic germs. The major theme of the fugue occurs prominently as a unifying element in Op. 131 and Op. 132 as well, and provides justification for performing these three quartets together as a cycle.
> 
> In citing this example you appear to be saying that the existence of alternative versions and performance options means that the composer's intentions as expressed in a work are as aesthetically arbitrary as anyone else's, and that an "anything goes" approach to musical criticism and performance is justified. I'd say "non sequitur." The fact that I can "ignore Beethoven's intentions entirely" doesn't mean that Franco Alfano's completion of Puccini's _Turandot_ would work equally well as a finale for the Quartet in Bb, Op. 132.
> 
> If our conclusions are absurd, we have good reason to question our premises. Your conclusion that anything we can do to disfigure a work of art is as aesthetically good and valid as anything the artist did in creating it is just such an absurdity.


Yes. And of course no "subjectivist" acts like that in practice (just like nobody ever acts like a hardcore philosophical sceptic or a solipsist or true moral relativist, it's practically impossible to live like that). It seems to me a variant of the fallacy of fuzzy borders (the paradox of the heap is one such case, nobody can exactly say how many grains of rice one needs for a heap (i.e. with 50 it might be uncertain but this doesn't change the fact that 5 grains are not a heap while 5000 in heap shape clearly are. So from the existence of fuzzy, indefinite cases and unclear borders it does not follow that there are no clear cases along the spectrum). 
Similarly, from the impossibility to conclusively "objectively" decide for one of the options in op.130/133 it does neither follow that there are no arguments for each of these options that can be rationally evaluated nor that "anything goes". The explanatory poverty of subjectivism can be seen by the restriction to these two options. Why not end the piece with the Cavatina? Why not take the finale from op.18/6 instead? Or from Mozart's "Hunt" quartet"? Or a zillion other options? Which strange force restricts the reasonable debate and practice to the two options of op.133 or alternate finale? 

We can apply this to many of the "strange" convergences in aesthetic evaluations. (The objectivist may have trouble to explain lack of unanimity but the subjectivist must do some work to plausibly explain the high unanimity.) They must all be ultimately "external" (to the aesthetic object). Because of the subjectivity of all the individual responses, the convergence cannot be ultimately grounded in objective properties of an object that within a certain context evokes these responses in sensitive subjects with a high probability but it must be Groupthink, following experts etc. But what about the causes for the groupthink, the expert opinions etc.? It seems unavoidable to give the aesthetic object some causal role at the end. Now it seems that aesthetic object do not have as specific causal roles as most physical objects but again, to explain the relative unanimity it seems bizarre to assume a totally unspecific, "random" action on perceiving subjects. (And there is no (at least not obvious, immediate) need whatsoever to introduce non-physical causes, the aesthetic object acts via its physical properties in their particular combination.)


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## Kreisler jr

Another strange thing is why people give reasons for e.g. preferring op.133 as finale or a certain work of art vs. another or a certain interpretations at all. 
Why such an elaborate self-deceiving? game of giving and taking reasons as if it was a rational debate (or at least in many ways similar/analogue)? 
It would be much easier just to say, I like/prefer the alternate finale in op.130 because I like it that way, just as one does not feel compelled to give reasons for preferring a certain sort of ice cream. From the subjectivists's pov it is quite mysterious that "naively" we do not treat aesthetic judgements like ice cream preferences, so we need to invoke either historical reasons or (again!) something external, such as the idea that one wants to feel superior because of superior taste or sth. like that. What's so bad about aesthetics that similarly soft (from the physics/maths/logics pov) external explanations from psychological or sociological hypotheses to conspiracy theories (elitist mumbo jumbo to keep the plebs out) seem preferable to taking it at face value?


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## Strange Magic

*^^^^@Kreisler jr: *It seems after all these posts that the opponents of the subjectivist viewpoint still fail to understand the fundamentals of the argument. It is obviously true that certain clusters of folks sharing certain common traits will, when polled, have their views form a bell curve of one sort or another. They are then content to, very properly, consider the bell curve and its consequences--the opinions drawn from it--as objective facts, data, information. No one disputes this. But this sort of "objectivism" is thin gruel indeed, compared, say, to the effects of gravitation, which are "felt" or experienced by every single particle in the universe, including those with no mass at all such as photons. When we add to this the very wide variation in individuals--in their neurology, psychology, life experiences, etc., then the most we can expect is a gross, broad-brush sort of esthetics that, at best, speaks only to members of select clusters or to some generic average individual. I have no problem--never have had one--with this approach (how could one?). But please do not call such as something beyond polling and hence the summing and bell-curving of masses of discrete individuals who can and do vary widely in what they bring to art objects.


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## DaveM

Strange Magic said:


> *^^^^@Kreisler jr: *It seems after all these posts that the opponents of the subjectivist viewpoint still fail to understand the fundamentals of the argument. *It is obviously true that certain clusters of folks sharing certain common traits will, when polled, have their views form a bell curve of one sort or another.* They are then content to, very properly, consider the bell curve and its consequences--the opinions drawn from it--as objective facts, data, information. No one disputes this. *But this sort of "objectivism" is thin gruel indeed, compared, say, to the effects of gravitation, which are "felt" or experienced by every single particle in the universe, including those with no mass at all such as photons.* When we add to this the very wide variation in individuals--in their neurology, psychology, life experiences, etc., then the most we can expect is a gross, broad-brush sort of esthetics that, at best, speaks only to members of select clusters or to some generic average individual. I have no problem--never have had one--with this approach (how could one?). But please do not call such as something beyond polling and hence the summing and bell-curving of masses of discrete individuals who can and do vary widely in what they bring to art objects.


Since you’re outside the Bell curve on this issue, I can understand why you would be sensitive about the Bell curve and what it signifies..or doesn’t. Also, presenting the ‘gravitation’ analogy indicates that you have to have objectivity (like the presence of gravity) smack you in the face (figuratively) to recognize it.


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## Strange Magic

DaveM said:


> Since you’re outside the Bell curve on this issue, I can understand why you would be sensitive about the Bell curve and what it signifies..or doesn’t. Also, presenting the ‘gravitation’ analogy indicates that you have to have objectivity (like the presence of gravity) smack you in the face (figuratively) to recognize it.


Being outside the bell curve gives one the opportunity to view it "objectively" from a more detached vantage point.😇 Plus I enjoy and revel in the "tyranny of the individual". But on a more serious note, it is difficult for the objectivist to account for the often profound variation in individual responses to art. As I suggested in my post, any sort of theory of esthetics ought to be universally applicable and universally valid rather than be merely the statement of poll results. Even neurology, etc. has a long uphill battle to get even within shouting distance of coming up with a meaningful explanation for individual human responses to art. Esthetic theory should be made of sterner stuff.

Posters--some--have linked art subjectivism with grander moral arbitrariness. And correctly so. Morals are derived from a whole host of different inputs--youthful imprinting, maternal bonding, empathy (bonobos, elephants), rational self-interest agreed upon by social groups, the rarity of fatal encounters between fighting males of the same species, so many more go into the amalgam. The opposite of this is to be handed a moral code from well outside human ken--but these matters were best discussed back in the Groups, now extinct, dealing with Religion and Politics. You yourself were there a participant.


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## hammeredklavier

Kreisler jr said:


> I grant all kinds of technical contrapuntal wizardry singling Bach out but I don't see how even a rather modest Telemann cantata like "Du aber Daniel gehe hin" or the choruses from the Passion section of Messiah (to stick with the best known, there are plenty of other examples) are not in the same range of expression and gravitas (or Schütz for music 100 years earlier). Of course, unlike inverted triple mirror fugues, "emotional depth" or gravitas are rather vague attributes.
> 
> And while this is a bit of negative cherry picking, I think it is odd that the same Bach who supposedly puts deeply symbolic and profound text exegesis into music is let away with the most blatant parodies from totally different texts in the Xmas oratorio (some work better than others, but a few like "Ich will nur dir zu Ehren leben" or that Echo thing I find rather bizarre). Sure, this is baroque as usual but this is precisely the point: Quite a bit of Bach is baroque as usual and not on a lofty higher level of profundity. (Not going into authenticity questions because I don't think this concerns any major works although I have seen a professional organist claim that a third or so of Bach's organ works would have to be counted as dubious.)
> 
> Bach is overall mostly contemplative, even in the passions very little is dramatic (it's a few short passages that together amount to 5, at most 10 min. in a 2-3 hours long work, the one or two dramatic arias in an earlier version of the St. John were later cut); there is a whole dimension of dramatic characterization one finds in the best opera (such as Handel and Rameau) that is absent because Bach didn't do opera (neither quasi-operatic oratorios with characters like Saul or Theodora). This is not a "fault" but I think it is just ignored by people who claim that Bach could of course have easily written a great opera. (The point is _not_ that the two Bach passions might be overall better than most or all baroque operas; I would agree with that if I granted that they were easily comparable.)
> 
> I also think that in some other works the focus on the concertato style makes some pieces dragged out and less effective. E.g. in the b minor mass the choir is often treated like a concerto soloist. This is of course often to good effect, if it concerns only one 5-8 min. choir like the first of a cantata, but to have a two minute slow instrumental ritornello in the Kyrie I, then basically the same music by the choir and so on is overdoing it a bit.
> Even some of the fast/happy choruses lose effect because Bach has to get in 20 bars of instrumental introduction to conform to that concertato style. Or, if Bach apparently realized that this would weaken the effect and starts with the choir (as in "Et resurrexit") one gets a ritornello put in later on during the piece.


What do you think about Woodduck's comments about Bach in this thread (the B minor mass is virtually unreachable by anything in Handel, Telemann, Zelenka, etc). Is it objective truth or a subjective opinion?


----------



## science

All hens agree that sitting on eggs is a divine experience. Transcendent, beyond what can be expressed with mere clucks. Since they all agree, they must be objectively correct.


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## DaveM

Strange Magic said:


> Being outside the bell curve gives one the opportunity to view it "objectively" from a more detached vantage point.😇 Plus I enjoy and revel in the "tyranny of the individual". But on a more serious note, it is difficult for the objectivist to account for the often profound variation in individual responses to art. As I suggested in my post, any sort of theory of esthetics ought to be universally applicable and universally valid rather than be merely the statement of poll results. Even neurology, etc. has a long uphill battle to get even within shouting distance of coming up with a meaningful explanation for individual human responses to art. Esthetic theory should be made of sterner stuff.
> 
> Posters--some--have linked art subjectivism with grander moral arbitrariness. And correctly so. Morals are derived from a whole host of different inputs--youthful imprinting, maternal bonding, empathy (bonobos, elephants), rational self-interest agreed upon by social groups, the rarity of fatal encounters between fighting males of the same species, so many more go into the amalgam. The opposite of this is to be handed a moral code from well outside human ken--but these matters were best discussed back in the Groups, now extinct, dealing with Religion and Politics. You yourself were there a participant.


Yes I was and fwiw I view our overall agreement about the main subject matter in that Group as more important than our disagreement here.

As to the wandering mind of another poster, I have no patience with the attempt to apply one’s support for some objectivity on this subject with some nefarious consequences in the outside world. Also, I would suggest not putting us all in the same basket. There are extremes on this subject on both sides. I don’t see my position as an extreme.


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## 59540

science said:


> All hens agree that sitting on eggs is a divine experience. Transcendent, beyond what can be expressed with mere clucks. Since they all agree, they must be objectively correct.


I suppose the "objectivists" are supposed to wince at the "gotcha", but I don't get the cleverness. It doesn't make sense. We aren't hens.

Those tagged as "objectivists" in these threads seem to be pretty diverse. The "subjectivists" are pretty much singing from the same hymnal. I wonder if it's "objective" itself.


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## Eva Yojimbo

As always, feel free to elide/condense to your heart's content.



Woodduck said:


> This is not what the "Aha!" experience of the composition student shows. It shows that he has an innate aesthetic sense - a sense of balance, proportion, purpose, economy, etc. - which he only needed awakened by the precisely-directed comments of his professor. Every young artist with talent (or maybe even without it) experiences such "Aha! moments" - many, many of them - as he develops the mental skills that will enable him to do good work. I know I did; I can remember distinct episodes in this process of revelation - the emergence of spatial perceptiveness within myself as I watched my own ability to control visual space grow. Eventually - and at an early age in my case - people began marveling over my sense of design. In later years, when my emphasis shifted to music, they were amazed at my ability to improvise, with no planning whatsoever, coherent musical compositions with well-shaped, expressive melodies, which I did to accompany ballet.
> 
> The artist's ability to organize space or sound meaningfully and in ways satisfying to the human body/mind - yes, the aesthetic sense is physical as well as mental - is not rooted in "authority" or the mere imitation of models. That you should resort immediately to such "explanations" tells me that you lack an understanding of aesthetics at its most fundamental, biological level. You're living too much in your head.


Well, yes, everyone has an innate aesthetic sense. In your example the “aha!” could indeed indicate that the young student is discovering something consciously that aligns with his unconscious aesthetic sense, or it could indicate that he’s adopting the aesthetic sense of the teacher based on the teacher’s authority. The latter may be a slightly cynical take, but it’s undeniable people (some more than others) are prone to such things. Yes, I’ve had “aha” moments myself, but I’ve never thought of them as anything more than becoming conscious of what are entirely subjective aesthetic preferences, ideals, etc. that may or may not algin with other people’s.

I also wasn’t suggesting that such things are rooted ONLY in authority. Of course not. I’ve granted many times that much art probably resonates with us because it taps into fundamental aspects of our being and psychology. That’s not the issue as it’s not something I deny. The issue is how to explain differences in aesthetic senses that leads to different value judgments. Are you trying to claim that there are certain aesthetic senses that are superior than others by which we can judge quality when such differences arise?



Woodduck said:


> I believe I've already said that the excellence of a Bach fugue - as opposed, say, to an exercise in fugue by the aforementioned composition student (let's call him Angelo) - cannot be proved "in the same way" that its existence can be proved. It can't be proved at all, of course, by the only methods acceptable in your epistemological universe. But it can be proved by anyone who has an aesthetic sense and has learned to use it, and it does appear that most people who are interested in such things as Bach fugues are able to comprehend why they're better than those of young Angelo in Counterpoint 101.
> 
> If you think that Bach fugues are really not better than Arturo's clumsy and dreary efforts, but are only called better by some people based on some received model, "authority," or on an inexplicable and possibly substance-induced "feeling," have at it. I think they're called better by most people because it's screamingly obvious to people's innate aesthetic perceptiveness that they are. And more: I am 100% certain that it's screamingly obvious to you, but your "epistemology" won't allow you to believe it.


If we agree it can’t be proved on my epistemic standards then the issue shifts to how it can be proven on your (or other) epistemic standards. All I really get from how you describe from this is that some people have an aesthetic that will lead them to conclude the excellence of a Bach fugue; which I agree. The issues is what about all those people who have a different aesthetic sense that conclude differently about the Bach fugue? How are they “wrong?” ARE they “wrong?”

It's also not about what “I” think. Yes, I’m sure I value Bach fugues more than your hypothetical Arturo. That doesn’t mean that I therefor conclude Bach’s fugues are better in any way independent of my tastes/values and those who happen to agree with me. If someone comes along and declares Arturo’s better, I do not think they’re wrong, I think our aesthetic senses/values simply differ.



Woodduck said:


> Really? There is _no difference in aesthetic perceptiveness between these people? _Really?


There COULD be a hypothetical difference in aesthetic perception, but there doesn’t have to be. See my example about the possibility of perceiving/recognizing a Bach fugue and thinking it not great.



Woodduck said:


> You think the perception of aesthetic qualities, and the ability to imagine, create, manipulate and appreciate them, is just FEELING_? _"Sorry, honey, I just don't FEEL like it tonight." I hope not too many artists are reading this. If they are they'd better set down their coffee, or have plenty of paper towels handy, and maybe a few diapers too.


No, now you’re getting confused. Perception isn’t a feeling, it’s perception; the ability to imagine, create… etc. is about craft, which is driven by feelings of what does/doesn’t work. One problem I think you’re having is conflating perception with the judgment of what’s being perceived. It’s the judgment that’s based on feelings, not the perception.



Woodduck said:


> Art teachers and music professors don't point to students' work and say "I don't like that." See my last post.


You’re being too literal. Of course they don’t say that, but everything that you can list that they may point out or make note of they do because either they don’t like that, or because the authorities they learned from didn’t like that, or because audiences don’t like that, or some combination of the above. The thing is, for any piece of advice they can give, just ask “why do/not do that?” and for whatever answer you might concoct for them, just keep asking that question until you exhaust the answers. At the bottom of it is going to rest some variation of the “like” response.




Woodduck said:


> Nobody needs reasons to like or dislike Schubert. If you need more counterpoint to be happy, you may not like Schubert. Counterpoint isn't obligatory. There's no problem here.


I think you missed my point, which is that it’s always possible to point to the objective features of anything and say “this is good/bad,” which is merely an expression of what someone likes/doesn’t like, or an expression of what others like/don’t like.




Woodduck said:


> Well, sure, we're entitled to question Beethoven's artistic judgment. That says nothing about the quality of our ideas versus his.


And who judges the quality of either’s ideas?




Woodduck said:


> Yeah, we're "free to think the work would’ve been better or worse with completely different features or even goals than what the artist intended."
> 
> Being free doesn't make us smart.


So now aesthetic sensibility is about being smart?




Woodduck said:


> I'm not making this stuff up.


I meant “this idea of yours you’re proposing,” not necessarily “this idea of yours you invented.”



Woodduck said:


> I think most listeners - and every quartet player - has thought about this. People have their preferences. I don't know what Beethoven ultimately felt about it, but there are reasonable considerations favoring both approaches. One of the major ones is whether we want to regard Op. 130 as a stand-alone work or as part of a cycle of quartets tied together by certain thematic germs. The major theme of the fugue occurs prominently as a unifying element in Op. 131 and Op. 132 as well, and provides justification for performing these three quartets together as a cycle.
> 
> In citing this example you appear to be saying that the existence of alternative versions and performance options means that the composer's intentions as expressed in a work are as aesthetically arbitrary as anyone else's, and that an "anything goes" approach to musical criticism and performance is justified. I'd say "non sequitur." The fact that I can "ignore Beethoven's intentions entirely" doesn't mean that Franco Alfano's completion of Puccini's _Turandot_ would work equally well as a finale for the Quartet in Bb, Op. 132.
> 
> If our conclusions are absurd, we have good reason to question our premises. Your conclusion that anything we can do to disfigure a work of art is as aesthetically good and valid as anything the artist did in creating it is just such an absurdity.


You’re only addressing here the issue of performance rather than that of the aesthetic judgment of the work based on the multiple ways it can be performed. The point is that you’re always talking about the composer “knowing” they did good work, but if Beethoven knew this upon finishing the Grosse Fugue then why change the quartet? Do you think if audiences had been enthusiastic about it he would’ve changed, or did the negative reception impact his feelings about whether it was a good work, or even whether it worked at all as he conceived it? There are several points to be made about this, one being that artists’ aesthetic perceptions and judgments of their own works aren’t necessarily immune from the perceptions and judgments of others. Another is that they don’t always align with those of others; and when there’s a difference, who’s to say whose is correct?


You can even imagine the most “absurd hypothetical,” that of using Alfano’s completion of Turandot as the finale for Op. 132, and then ask yourself: what if this, or something similar, was done and it was widely considered a masterpiece by most classical music fans who praised its daring, avant-garde “rule breaking” approach? It’s not as if many prior to (and even in) Beethoven’s time wouldn’t have considered his conception of the 9th Symphony with its immense choral finale, or, indeed, the Grosse Fugue as being the ending of any String Quartet, an absurdity. We don’t consider them absurd now because more than century and the process of canonization makes such radical conceptions seem inevitable rather than absurd. Much of the 20th century has been about testing the ability of such absurdities, of just how far we can break the rules and push the boundaries before everyone stops listening/caring. And if we must care about Beethoven’s intentions and judge the works accordingly, why not the intentions of Carter, Ferneyhough, and any other avant-garde composer you (and many others) may dislike?


----------



## Strange Magic

dissident said:


> I suppose the "objectivists" are supposed to wince at the "gotcha", but I don't get the cleverness. It doesn't make sense. We aren't hens.
> 
> Those tagged as "objectivists" in these threads seem to be pretty diverse. The "subjectivists" are pretty much singing from the same hymnal. I wonder if it's "objective" itself.


It's clear we have differences in our reactions to the same stimuli--a fine example of subjectivism at work. Perhaps the diversity of opinion among the objectivists themselves is indicative. The truths of subjectivism are clear to our proponents, a clear cause of the near-unanimity on our side. 😊


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## Eva Yojimbo

dissident said:


> I suppose the "objectivists" are supposed to wince at the "gotcha", but I don't get the cleverness. It doesn't make sense. We aren't hens.
> 
> Those tagged as "objectivists" in these threads seem to be pretty diverse. The "subjectivists" are pretty much singing from the same hymnal. I wonder if it's "objective" itself.


Anything objectively true is true for everyone, hens, humans, or otherwise. Anything that's only true for one species is only true for that species because it depends upon that species' subjectivity, which is the point. 

So you see no difference between the way hammeredklavier, Strange Magic, myself, Forster, and, most recently, science are expressing ourselves? Plus, for all the diversity of the "objectivists" I've yet to hear any thorough accounting of differences in aesthetic judgments, and how to make sense of that if such judgments are to be considered objective.


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## Eva Yojimbo

BachIsBest said:


> To just give a general example, given this is a classical music forum, introducing thematic material, exploring it's musical constituents, before skilfully guiding the piece to the recapitulation of the full theme is something that is universally recognised as desirable in CPT music. I respect that such a standard as this example is not directly applicable to, say, a simple folk song, but I feel if we go too far down the "at any point people can just make up any new standard they so please" road, we do end up with rather silly arguments. Technically, any group of people could do away with the "unprovoked violence is morally wrong" standard, but this tells us nothing insightful about morality.


 The sonata form is an example of an aesthetic formal principle but not really a principle by which to make aesthetic judgment. There are thousands, maybe millions, of pieces written in the sonata form by hundreds, maybe thousands, of composers. By what standard do we judge good usage of the form from bad? Further, such formalism exists in the vast majority of music, and many of these forms (popular song form, typical jazz improvisatory form) actually share a strong resemblance to the sonata form with its beginning in the familiar, the adventuring out to the unfamiliar, and the return to the familiar. The form itself is stupidly easy to write in for anyone with an awareness of it and even the most basic of music/song composition skills. This still isn’t a standard for judging the aesthetic quality of any particular usage of it.

Yet at any point we COULD make up new standards. The history of art is nothing but a (usually slow and gradual) changing of such standards. There may be limits to that change that reach a point where everyone stops caring and enjoying it, but we haven’t found that point yet. Almost everything has its audience.

Hypothetically people could do the same for moral standards as well, but the problem is that any such change like you mention in moral standards is going to result in immense social changes that will impact people’s lives, and most people are not going to consider that change for the better. Most people don’t want to live in a society where they are in constant fear of their lives and health from others, so we make laws to enforce that (ultimately subjective) desire. The “standards of art” exist for the same purpose: to help in making the kind of art we like. The major difference between art and, say, morality is that most morality fundamentally reduces to our desire for well-being, while art reduces to our desire to have an experience we like; and time/history has shown that a bewildering variety of art with an equal variety of standards can elicit that “like” effect.


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## Eva Yojimbo

hammeredklavier said:


> Mostly copied and pasted from some critics' articles. Even at the time, I don't think I really meant to say those features were "objective deficiencies". It's true I was overzealous and intolerant at the time. It seemed to me like everyone was negative about Mozart; people like NLAdriaan, Allegro con brio, aioriacont, and especially Jacck, would at times criticize Mozart as "overrated" or "elevator music", other times they would praise Schubert. What I meant with those posts; "see these qualities of Schubert that can be subjectively seen as "faults"?" Anyway, I still feel guilty about those posts…


I don’t hold it against you. I was just using to illustrate the point that it’s always possible to point out objective features and try to make an argument from those features why something is good or bad, but that the argument ultimately rests on whether or not we like those features (or the extent to which we care). I honestly think most people do not consider the immense variety of ways that music or any art can “work” to provoke us to either like or dislike it. Even the simplest art typically has an interplay of dozens of different elements that we all respond differently to. I also think that in our critical attempts at delineating what kinds of elements make us respond as we do we’re typically missing the forest for the trees, not only about the work itself but as it relates to our own subjectivities. To take a concrete example, one my find themselves enraptured by a particular Schubert melody… but why? And what do we say to the person who doesn’t like the melody? Or who doesn't think it's "enough" to make up for the other elements they find lacking? Is there any way to demonstrate that a melody is good or bad apart from how we react to it? How are we to reconcile completely different reactions? Again, these are all easy questions for “subjectivists,” but not for those who want to declare that aesthetic judgment is objective.


----------



## DaveM

Aside from the fact that some supporting subjectivity seem to have a problem deciphering posts or the coherence therein authored by those with an objectivist perspective when the message is often perfectly clear to those with an open mind, a main problem seems to be that they see the issue as objectivity vs subjectivity when, in fact, more than not, the support for some objectivity is not nearly as extreme as the support for subjectivity from what are, truly, subjectivists.


----------



## Eva Yojimbo

Kreisler jr said:


> Yes. And of course no "subjectivist" acts like that in practice (just like nobody ever acts like a hardcore philosophical sceptic or a solipsist or true moral relativist, it's practically impossible to live like that). It seems to me a variant of the fallacy of fuzzy borders (the paradox of the heap is one such case, nobody can exactly say how many grains of rice one needs for a heap (i.e. with 50 it might be uncertain but this doesn't change the fact that 5 grains are not a heap while 5000 in heap shape clearly are. So from the existence of fuzzy, indefinite cases and unclear borders it does not follow that there are no clear cases along the spectrum).
> 
> Similarly, from the impossibility to conclusively "objectively" decide for one of the options in op.130/133 it does neither follow that there are no arguments for each of these options that can be rationally evaluated nor that "anything goes". The explanatory poverty of subjectivism can be seen by the restriction to these two options. Why not end the piece with the Cavatina? Why not take the finale from op.18/6 instead? Or from Mozart's "Hunt" quartet"? Or a zillion other options? Which strange force restricts the reasonable debate and practice to the two options of op.133 or alternate finale?
> 
> We can apply this to many of the "strange" convergences in aesthetic evaluations. (The objectivist may have trouble to explain lack of unanimity but the subjectivist must do some work to plausibly explain the high unanimity.) They must all be ultimately "external" (to the aesthetic object). Because of the subjectivity of all the individual responses, the convergence cannot be ultimately grounded in objective properties of an object that within a certain context evokes these responses in sensitive subjects with a high probability but it must be Groupthink, following experts etc. But what about the causes for the groupthink, the expert opinions etc.? It seems unavoidable to give the aesthetic object some causal role at the end. Now it seems that aesthetic object do not have as specific causal roles as most physical objects but again, to explain the relative unanimity it seems bizarre to assume a totally unspecific, "random" action on perceiving subjects. (And there is no (at least not obvious, immediate) need whatsoever to introduce non-physical causes, the aesthetic object acts via its physical properties in their particular combination.)


One of the many fallacious arguments against subjectivism is that it entails any way in which to act (the same is true of skepticism, solipsism, or relativism). How “should” one “live” if one adopts any of those positions? Further, I don’t consider the “fallacy of fuzzy borders” a fallacy, I think it demonstrates the conflict between our subjectively invented concepts and various objective realities that exist on spectrums. In Sorites Paradox, which you mention, the “heap” is ultimately an arbitrary distinction. This doesn’t mean it’s not often useful to have concepts that divide such spectrums (especially when precision is not needed) as long as we don’t mistake our concepts for reality itself: the map is not the territory.

I think I covered the Op.130/133 issues in my above reply to Woodduck, with the sticking point being: how is it not the case that any “argument for the options” ultimately rests on subjective feelings about it? You can present “reasons” all you want, but the reasons themselves are predicated either on your aesthetic preferences/ideals or someone else’s. All of your “why not end the piece with…” can be answered with “we could… but most people wouldn’t like it.” 

The subjectivist has no more problem explaining unanimity than the objectivist does: the subjectivist claims unanimity is caused by the similarity within human minds. What objectivist hypothesis has more explanatory power? The objectivist wants to claim it’s similar features in the objective works of art that cause this reaction, but if that were the case then these works should have the same impact on all minds, but they clearly don’t, often even within groups that share very similar tastes there is variance.

I, at least, have not claimed groupthink or following experts explain all such unanimity. I’ve merely said that’s something that undeniably happens in some cases. I’ve also (happily, and many times) given aesthetic objects a causal role, and even suggested that where unanimity exists it could very well be such art objects tapping into the fundamental and universal aspects of our humanity. This is still ultimately subjective. As an analogy, if we are shot by a bullet the bullet may cause us pain, but the pain is not objective, it’s a subjective experience. Such is the same for aesthetic judgments, regardless of the causal role the art object plays.



Kreisler jr said:


> Another strange thing is why people give reasons for e.g. preferring op.133 as finale or a certain work of art vs. another or a certain interpretations at all.
> 
> Why such an elaborate self-deceiving? game of giving and taking reasons as if it was a rational debate (or at least in many ways similar/analogue)?
> 
> It would be much easier just to say, I like/prefer the alternate finale in op.130 because I like it that way, just as one does not feel compelled to give reasons for preferring a certain sort of ice cream. From the subjectivists's pov it is quite mysterious that "naively" we do not treat aesthetic judgements like ice cream preferences, so we need to invoke either historical reasons or (again!) something external, such as the idea that one wants to feel superior because of superior taste or sth. like that. What's so bad about aesthetics that similarly soft (from the physics/maths/logics pov) external explanations from psychological or sociological hypotheses to conspiracy theories (elitist mumbo jumbo to keep the plebs out) seem preferable to taking it at face value?


It’s human nature to try to explain things, including our own reactions. The “elaborate self-deceiving” isn’t intentional, it’s just the product of irrationality and cognitive biases, themselves due to the very sloppy process of evolution which didn’t “tune” use to be perfectly rational and find truth, but to survive and reproduce. So whenever we seek to answer anything we are liable to search for intuitively satisfying answers rather than rational ones. Science works in large part because it minimizes bias by insisting that any explanatory hypothesis makes empirical predictions. We are not always capable of doing that, but at the very least we should lean on rational skepticism and seek objections to any hypothesis we happen to be considering. 

For me, the “ease” is not the issue, to me it’s just the end-point of any such rationalizing about art. “Reasons” are great for issues that have as their end-point objective answers; but I don’t see any reasoning about aesthetic judgments that don’t reach the end-point of “that’s what I/we/they happen to like/dislike.” This doesn’t mean that we must stop doing aesthetics, stop trying to articulate why we like/dislike certain objective features of art, or even how those objective features of art work. I just think it means we should be cautious about swallowing hook, line, and sinker our own mythologizing BS about it. 

It’s also worth mentioning that many people DO treat aesthetic judgments like ice cream preferences. We (in this community) do not because we represent a tiny minority of people who have a much greater “like” for art (especially music) than the vast majority of people. However bad the above-mentioned cognitive biases are in normal, everyday examples of trying to explain things, they’re amplified tremendously when strong feelings enter the mix. The reason, I suspect, people react negatively to the subjectivist position isn’t really due to any rational objections to it, but because it seems (to them) to minimize the profound feelings they have about art, and this goes back to the desire for intuitively satisfying answers is often much stronger than the desire for true answers.


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## Eva Yojimbo

DaveM said:


> Aside from the fact that some supporting subjectivity seem to have a problem deciphering posts or the coherence therein authored by those with an objectivist perspective when the message is often perfectly clear to those with an open mind, a main problem seems to be that they see the issue as objectivity vs subjectivity when, in fact, more than not, the support for some objectivity is not nearly as extreme as the support for subjectivity from what are, truly, subjectivists.


Rather than these passive-aggressive provocations against those you disagree with, how about actually offering evidence for any of the various claims you make? What is an example of a subjectivist "having problem deciphering posts or the coherence therein?" And do you think it's a coincidence that the "open minds" to which these objectivist posts are "perfectly clear" to just so happen to be the same minds that agree with the things the objectivists are claiming? You seem to interpret disagreement and the challenging of claims as "(having) a problem deciphering posts" as opposed to having rational objections to things being claimed in said posts. 

Just as your accusations of "deciphering problems" are vague and unsubstantiated, so is the claim of "extremity" on either side. What is an "extreme" objectivist/subjectivist?


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## Eva Yojimbo

dissident said:


> No, better to use your own intuition than to regurgitate someone else's.


Two quick points: 

1. Intuition is a terrible method to use, in general, for addressing any subject with objectively true answers. 

2. You are regurgitating someone else's thoughts whether you're aware of it or not. Nobody here has or is going to say anything that hasn't been said by many philosophers before them.


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## Strange Magic

As a radical subjectivist and staunch individualist, I bring down to the individual the accurate operation and consequences of an esthetic theory. If it so happens that one's notions are congruent with those of another or others, then we have experiences of unanimity, of being one among one's peers, etc. The tyranny of the individual is the appreciation of art as a consequence of the unique template that each individual brings to art. But I am firmly lodged within many bell curves as are we all.


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## 59540

Eva Yojimbo said:


> Two quick points:
> 
> 1. Intuition is a terrible method to use, in general, for addressing any subject with objectively true answers.


So how did your sources come by their ideas? 



> 2. You are regurgitating someone else's thoughts whether you're aware of it or not. Nobody here has or is going to say anything that hasn't been said by many philosophers before them.


Probably, but I'm not quite so pompous about it.


----------



## 59540

Eva Yojimbo said:


> So you see no difference between the way hammeredklavier, Strange Magic, myself, Forster, and, most recently, science are expressing ourselves?


 Not all that much, no.


> Plus, for all the diversity of the "objectivists" I've yet to hear any thorough accounting of differences in aesthetic judgments, and how to make sense of that if such judgments are to be considered objective.


If we're "diverse" why are we expected to have a "thorough accounting"?


----------



## Eva Yojimbo

dissident said:


> So how did your sources come by their ideas?
> 
> Probably, but I'm not quite so pompous about it.


Which sources and what ideas? It depends on both. We can always use rational skepticism which is distinct from intuition. 

Am I pompous about what philosophers I'm regurgitating? I think I've only mentioned one in this entire thread!



dissident said:


> Not all that much, no.
> If we're "diverse" why are we expected to have a "thorough accounting"?


If that's the case then I'm not sure DaveM is leveling his "problem deciphering posts" accusations at the right people!

A thorough accounting would be expected in any logically coherent case for something that's objectively true. Diversity doesn't bode well for any position that wants to claim objective truthfulness for itself.


----------



## 59540

Eva Yojimbo said:


> ...
> A thorough accounting would be expected in any logically coherent case for something that's objectively true. Diversity doesn't bode well for any position that wants to claim objective truthfulness for itself.


Just because you may happen to believe there may be objective elements to "greatness" doesn't mean you're required to produce them on the spot.


> We can always use rational skepticism which is distinct from intuition.


OK, that's fine too. 


> “Ladies and gentlemen, our age is proud of the progress it has made in man’s intellectual development. The search and striving for truth and knowledge is one of the highest of man’s qualities - though often the pride is most loudly voiced by those who strive the least. And certainly we should take care not to make the intellect our god; it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality. It cannot lead, it can only serve; and it is not fastidious in its choices of a leader. This characteristic is reflected in the qualities of its priests, the intellectuals. The intellect has a sharp eye for methods and tools, but is blind to ends and values. So it is no wonder that this fatal blindness is handed from old to young and today involves a whole generation.”





Eva Yojimbo said:


> Am I pompous...


Just a wee bit.


----------



## Eva Yojimbo

dissident said:


> Just because you may happen to believe there may be objective elements to "greatness" doesn't mean you're required to produce them on the spot.


Produce them "on the spot?" This discussion (and those like it) have been going on for centuries, and even if we limit it to this forum they've been going on for years. Has anyone ever been able to produce them? 



dissident said:


> Just a wee bit.


You're free to your subjective opinion.


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## Eva Yojimbo

DaveM said:


> As to the wandering mind of another poster...


More passive aggressive personal attacks I see. I'm curious, who do you think you're fooling by not mentioning my name directly in these snide remarks? And, as always, you take umbrage with what I say without being able to articulate any faults in it except by inventing strawmen of what I say to skewer.


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## DaveM

Eva Yojimbo said:


> Rather than these passive-aggressive provocations against those you disagree with, how about actually offering evidence for any of the various claims you make? What is an example of a subjectivist "having problem deciphering posts or the coherence therein?"


Passive-aggressive provocations eh? If you’re hoping to be psychiatrist, don’t quit your day-job. As for your question, anyone who essentially says that they find -in such a long thread- all explanations from the opposition incoherent and has to ask for an example of a subjectivist having a problem deciphering posts is missing one very close at hand.



> And do you think it's a coincidence that the "open minds" to which these objectivist posts are "perfectly clear" to just so happen to be the same minds that agree with the things the objectivists are claiming? You seem to interpret disagreement and the challenging of claims as "(having) a problem deciphering posts" as opposed to having rational objections to things being claimed in said posts.
> 
> Just as your accusations of "deciphering problems" are vague and unsubstantiated, so is the claim of "extremity" on either side. What is an "extreme" objectivist/subjectivist?


Read your own posts. Btw, the ‘deciphering posts’ was mentioned 3 times in your post. Hmm.


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## 59540

Eva Yojimbo said:


> Produce them "on the spot?" This discussion (and those like it) have been going on for centuries, and even if we limit it to this forum they've been going on for years. Has anyone ever been able to produce them?


No, and no one's produced a Grand Unified Theory yet, either. It doesn't mean it's impossible. Do you have a completely satisfactory counter-explanation? No. That's why the discussion goes on.



> You're free to your subjective opinion.


Well it isn't personal. I can be pretty pompous on occasion too.


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## Strange Magic

Eva Yojimbo said:


> More passive aggressive personal attacks I see. I'm curious, who do you think you're fooling by not mentioning my name directly in these snide remarks? And, as always, you take umbrage with what I say without being able to articulate any faults in it except by inventing strawmen of what I say to skewer.


My take on DaveM's reference to the wandering mind of another poster was that he was not referring to you EY but rather to a very zealous member of the objectivist persuasion who carried his critique of the subjectivist viewpoint into talk of terror, torture, dictators, etc. I could be wrong--DaveM could clarify but probably won't.


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## Eva Yojimbo

DaveM said:


> Passive-aggressive provocations eh? If you’re hoping to be psychiatrist, don’t quit your day-job. As for your question, anyone who essentially says that they find -in such a long thread- all explanations from the opposition incoherent and has to ask for an example of a subjectivist having a problem deciphering posts is missing one very close at hand.


I've read every single post thoroughly and responded to most all of the ones I disagree with articulating why I disagree with them. I did not say I find them incoherent, I said I find them logically incoherent. Logical coherency isn't the same as coherency, which is more synonymous with intelligibility. "Big foot exists because the sky is blue" is as perfectly coherent (ie, intelligible) as it is logically incoherent. 



DaveM said:


> Read your own posts. Btw, the ‘deciphering posts’ was mentioned 3 times in your post. Hmm.


Reading my own posts doesn't help me to understand how you're defining subjectivist/objectivist extremism. "Deciphering posts" was a direct quotation of what you had said.


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## 59540

Strange Magic said:


> My take on DaveM's reference to the wandering mind of another poster was that he was not referring to you EY but rather to a very zealous member of the objectivist persuasion who carried his critique of the subjectivist viewpoint into talk of terror, torture, dictators, etc. I could be wrong--DaveM could clarify but probably won't.


Would that zealous person of the objectivist persuasion be me? I raised the topics concerning the "baddies" only because a zealous member of the subjectivist persuasion expressed objective disapproval of same, and obliquely warned that belief in the "objective greatness" of Bach, if left unchecked, could lead to the Fourth Reich. By the way I don't consider myself "zealous" about the topic, certainly not enough to write screeds.


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## DaveM

Eva Yojimbo said:


> More passive aggressive personal attacks I see. I'm curious, who do you think you're fooling by not mentioning my name directly in these snide remarks? And, as always, you take umbrage with what I say without being able to articulate any faults in it except by inventing strawmen of what I say to skewer.


I would just point out that calling people incoherent and suggesting that their perspective on objectivity suggests negative and even nefarious consequences in the outside world are personal attacks and it is interesting that you can dole it out without aforethought, but are quick to take offense when there is, what you should have expected, a response.


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## Eva Yojimbo

dissident said:


> No, and no one's produced a Grand Unified Theory yet, either. It doesn't mean it's impossible. Do you have a completely satisfactory counter-explanation? No. That's why the discussion goes on.


Impossibility is beside the point. If you're going to try to make a claim for objective truth but have no unified theory that accounts for all the variables there is no reason to believe one exists until the evidence is provided. Impossibility carries such a heavy burden of proof we can't even meet it for the vast majority of the most absurd ideas. At most you can appeal to logical impossibility, which I've, in fact, tried to do with the objectivist position. 



dissident said:


> Well it isn't personal. I can be pretty pompous on occasion too.


And no offense taken. I'd have an awfully rough time of it if I started worrying about what strangers on an internet forum thought of me, and you can't please everyone all the time anyway. One poster wants to personally thank me for my profound contributions and another wants to accuse me of failing to comprehend everything I read. Such is the subjective variability of human perception!


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## BachIsBest

Eva Yojimbo said:


> The sonata form is an example of an aesthetic formal principle but not really a principle by which to make aesthetic judgment. There are thousands, maybe millions, of pieces written in the sonata form by hundreds, maybe thousands, of composers. By what standard do we judge good usage of the form from bad? Further, such formalism exists in the vast majority of music, and many of these forms (popular song form, typical jazz improvisatory form) actually share a strong resemblance to the sonata form with its beginning in the familiar, the adventuring out to the unfamiliar, and the return to the familiar. The form itself is stupidly easy to write in for anyone with an awareness of it and even the most basic of music/song composition skills. This still isn’t a standard for judging the aesthetic quality of any particular usage of it.


I described what a good composer does with sonata form, not just sonata form. I agree that other musical forms have similar elements (something I even hinted at earlier), but you're the one who wanted to get specific, so I obliged. 

Mozart once wrote the piece "A Musical Joke", wherein he displayed how a well-intentioned, but ultimately clueless, composer would write a terrible piece in sonata form. Trills between notes that weren't even that close, poor development, modulation without purpose, parts that he knew even top instrumentalists would botch, and, of course, the final "gag". I suppose to you, if someone preferred the "profundity" and "musical acumen" demonstrated in this piece, it would be an equally valid aesthetic judgement to someone who recognisies the obvious flaws for what they are, jokes, and knows it is perfectly obvious that, say, the Jupiter symphony is far superior.



Eva Yojimbo said:


> Yet at any point we COULD make up new standards. The history of art is nothing but a (usually slow and gradual) changing of such standards. There may be limits to that change that reach a point where everyone stops caring and enjoying it, but we haven’t found that point yet. Almost everything has its audience.
> 
> Hypothetically people could do the same for moral standards as well, but the problem is that any such change like you mention in moral standards is going to result in immense social changes that will impact people’s lives, and most people are not going to consider that change for the better. Most people don’t want to live in a society where they are in constant fear of their lives and health from others, so we make laws to enforce that (ultimately subjective) desire. The “standards of art” exist for the same purpose: to help in making the kind of art we like. The major difference between art and, say, morality is that most morality fundamentally reduces to our desire for well-being, while art reduces to our desire to have an experience we like; and time/history has shown that a bewildering variety of art with an equal variety of standards can elicit that “like” effect.


"The justification of art is the internal combustion it ignites in the hearts of men and not its shallow, externalized, public manifestations. The purpose of art is not the release of a momentary ejection of adrenaline but is, rather, the gradual, lifelong construction of a state of wonder and serenity."

-Glenn Gould


If you don't think the replacement of the aesthetic standards of the classical music tradition with ones randomly chosen so recitations of "Ice Ice Baby" are inserted every five seconds into every piece would result in a markedly poorer "state of wonder and serenity", as Mr Gould so eloquently puts it, I don't know what to say. If you don't think this to, along with morality, would reduce the well-being of those of us who devote much of our time, thought, and spirit to the admiration, aesthetic evaluation, and/or creation of classical music, I'm at a complete loss.


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## Strange Magic

> "dissident, post: 2298561, member: 59540". Do you have a completely satisfactory counter-explanation? No. That's why the discussion goes on.


i thank I do, and have presented it approximately 157 times. It is a fleshing-out of _de gustibus non disputandum est, _an adage that is centuries if not millennia old and postulates that, on the granular and individual level, tastes vary beyond our then or now current power to predict or explain. There are clusters of agreement but that's about all we can demonstrate.


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## 59540

Eva Yojimbo said:


> Impossibility is beside the point. If you're going to try to make a claim for objective truth but have no unified theory that accounts for all the variables there is no reason to believe one exists until the evidence is provided.


But the search (or the speculation) goes on.


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## BachIsBest

Eva Yojimbo said:


> Impossibility is beside the point. If you're going to try to make a claim for objective truth but have no unified theory that accounts for all the variables there is no reason to believe one exists until the evidence is provided. Impossibility carries such a heavy burden of proof we can't even meet it for the vast majority of the most absurd ideas. At most you can appeal to logical impossibility, which I've, in fact, tried to do with the objectivist position.


Then you must admit all of physics is subjective since you have no unified theory that accounts for all the variables, no?


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## 59540

Strange Magic said:


> i think I do, and have presented it approximately 157 times. It is a fleshing-out of _de gustibus non disputandum est, ..._


You think. But it's not totally satisfactory either. Maybe to you, but not to others. It's not an objective explanation.


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## Eva Yojimbo

Strange Magic said:


> My take on DaveM's reference to the wandering mind of another poster was that he was not referring to you EY but rather to a very zealous member of the objectivist persuasion who carried his critique of the subjectivist viewpoint into talk of terror, torture, dictators, etc. I could be wrong--DaveM could clarify but probably won't.





dissident said:


> Would that zealous person of the objectivist persuasion be me? I raised the topics concerning the "baddies" only because a zealous member of the subjectivist persuasion expressed objective disapproval of same, and obliquely warned that belief in the "objective greatness" of Bach, if left unchecked, could lead to the Fourth Reich. By the way I don't consider myself "zealous" about the topic, certainly not enough to write screeds.


^ What dissident said, except I feel compelled to clarify (again) I never warned (obliquely or otherwise) that the belief in the "objective greatness" of Bach could lead to the Fourth Reich. What I was warning about is the similarity in the cognitive errors that give rise to both, which was in itself a response to DaveM's claim that it was hyperbole that (quoting hammeredklavier): "The "tyranny of objectivity" has caused all kinds of harm even without many of us realizing." There are still a million different other factors that would be required to form any "fourth reich" completely independent of the projection of subjective values into objective beliefs. I don't think any such examples of that projection are good, rational, or healthy, but they're so common as to be practically universal, and most examples are pretty innocuous (like these aesthetic discussions); but I'm not blind to any number of the more serious socio-political conflicts due to them either.


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## Strange Magic

dissident said:


> Would that zealous person of the objectivist persuasion be me? I raised the topics concerning the "baddies" only because a zealous member of the subjectivist persuasion expressed objective disapproval of same, and obliquely warned that belief in the "objective greatness" of Bach, if left unchecked, could lead to the Fourth Reich. By the way I don't consider myself "zealous" about the topic, certainly not enough to write screeds.


DaveM is the only one who knows for sure.


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## 59540

> I never warned (obliquely or otherwise) that the belief in the "objective greatness" of Bach could lead to the Fourth Reich. What I was warning about is the similarity in the cognitive errors that give rise to both,


Oh, fine. So if you think Bach is objectively great, or that there are objective elements in the "greatness" of Bach, you're thinking like a Nazi.

Relax, by the way. Tongue in cheek.


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## Eva Yojimbo

DaveM said:


> I would just point out that calling people incoherent and suggesting that their perspective on objectivity suggests negative and even nefarious consequences in the outside world are personal attacks and it is interesting that you can dole it out without aforethought, but are quick to take offense when there is, what you should have expected, a response.


I never called anyone incoherent and I delineated above the extent which I think the objectivist mind-set has consequences (nefarious and otherwise) in the outside world. These are also attacks on the idea(s), not on the person. You calling me a "wandering mind" is a direct, personal attack on me, not on any of my ideas.


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## Eva Yojimbo

dissident said:


> Oh, fine. So if you think Bach is objectively great, you're thinking like a Nazi.


To very limited extent of projecting subjective beliefs into objective ideals? Yes. In any other way? I certainly hope not. I should also mention that it's also thinking like the vast majority of humans, Nazi or otherwise.


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## Sid James

Woodduck said:


> I haven't labeled anyone. The labels "subjectivist" and "objectivist" are being tossed about by others here, and I believe it's the self-described "subjectivists" of the extreme variety who are using the latter label freely to designate anyone who doesn't seem to agree with them. I've made it plain (I hope) that I, at least, don't accept labels, and if I mention subjectivists I try to prefix it with "self-described," as I did here. Clearly you missed that, but no hard feelings. It's hard to know what to regard or disregard in these discussions.





Eva Yojimbo said:


> Though this wasn't addressed to me, I will say I'm fine with doing away with labels if they're getting in the way of productive discussion and if people feel they're being mislabeled. We can talk about our views and what we believe without putting a label on them and then simply discuss whatever issues we have with them.


As I said, its not really my fight, but when I'm on here I try to communicate the way I do in real life - go hard on the topic, go easy on the person. Easier said than done, and like most people here, I've had my moments. I think that using labels can tip the conversation too much in a confrontational direction.



Woodduck said:


> I've always wondered how this discussion and others similar to it would proceed if we all dispensed with the ambiguous terms "objective" and "subjective"and were thus forced to explain exactly what it is we're talking about. I'm sure we'll never find out.


As I said, I've usually come across these terms in relation to the debates which arose in the 19th century. Outside music, they probably have other meanings.

I think the current thread is meant to be a broad discussion, which is fine because the OP made the effort of listing a handful of points we could take up and depart from at our will.

Long ago when I created threads, I made this one where I narrowed the discussion to aesthetics. I explained the two polarities - classicist and romantic - and asked people where they sat on that spectrum. I was also specific in limiting discussion to the timeframe to which these terms can be applied the most easily (in historical terms, the moderrn era, c. 1750-1950). I probably wouldn't do it the same way now, but I think it turned out to be a nice little discussion.









The swinging pendulum and your musical taste. . .


Broadly speaking, there's this 'swinging pendulum' effect in terms of eras and their 'styles' of focus. It's like the swinging pendulum of one of those antique 'grand father' clocks, it swings back and forth. I'm using these words without capitals as they don't necessarily mean the eras we...




www.talkclassical.com


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## 59540

Eva Yojimbo said:


> I never called anyone incoherent and I delineated above the extent which I think the objectivist mind-set has consequences (nefarious and otherwise) in the outside world. These are also attacks on the idea(s), not on the person. You calling me a "wandering mind" is a direct, personal attack on me, not on any of my ideas.


Not tongue in cheek this time: you're the one being passive-aggressive. You assume an air of intellectual superiority and then retreat to "who, me?" when you're called out on it. And with that I do sincerely think this discussion has gone on longer than it needed to.


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## Strange Magic

dissident said:


> You think. But it's not totally satisfactory either. Maybe to you, but not to others. It's not an objective explanation.


Yes it is. You and your cohorts still cannot break the thought habits of a lifetime, most inherited from your peers and mentors. Explain why I love Brahms, _cante flamenco,_ Led Zeppelin, Doo-*** and Gharnati. (Crazy software that eliminates reference to an established genre.)


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## 59540

Strange Magic said:


> Yes it is. You and your cohorts still cannot break the thought habits of a lifetime, most inherited from your peers and mentors. ...


Is that an objective, provable statement? Or is that web-spinning? I can't figure out why on earth it takes 30 pages of screeds to say "it's all subjective".


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## Eva Yojimbo

BachIsBest said:


> Then you must admit all of physics is subjective since you have no unified theory that accounts for all the variables, no?


Three points about this. 

1. The theories of physics have limited spheres of validity. Right now those limited spheres are defined by General Relativity for all things not the size of particles or with the makeup of black holes, and quantum physics for the rest. Whether these can be unified is a century-old issue. 

2. Whether or not they can be unified, it's important to note that these theories are models of objective (mind-independent) reality and together can make predictions about how physical reality will behave with incredible accuracy. 

3. If you're going to claim that the claims of any aesthetic theory has anything in common with such theories of physics you need to demonstrate the limits of their validity with similarly accurate predictions. Right now I don't know of any aesthetic theory that makes any predictions, accurate or not, nor one that account for even the most basic varied outcomes in how humans respond to the same art objects. 

Further, even if you were able to come up with such an aesthetic theory we're still left in the position of what Strange Magic described as the bell-curve of polling. We still haven't gotten any closer to deciding which variety of aesthetic sensibilities and judgments are objectively right and wrong.


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## Strange Magic

BachIsBest said:


> Then you must admit all of physics is subjective since you have no unified theory that accounts for all the variables, no?


This is weak stuff indeed. All of physics subjective because of lack of a UFT? Nothing more needs to be said....


----------



## Woodduck

QUOTE="Eva Yojimbo, post: 2298507, member: 43651"



> Well, yes, everyone has an innate aesthetic sense.


Good! Maybe we can agree on something basic. What IS an aesthetic sense? I've been using the term in a specific way, the way most applicable to music, to refer to our perception and judgment of artistic form and the dynamics of form. Through our mind's basic organization of sense data we perceive such formal qualities as duration, continuity, contrast, balance, and proportion, and our aesthetic sense is what tells us when these qualities exist in a coordinated pattern that's coherent and purposeful rather than chaotic and random. A lot can be said about this, but I'll leave it at that for now, except to say that the aesthetic sense is rooted in our body's movements and sensations as well as the way our brains work. This dual origin seems to me essential to understand when we consider the reality of man's powerful affective response to something as apparently abstract as music. Emotions, too, are phenomena of both mind and body, and artistic forms seem capable of acting as a gateway to them.



> In your example the “aha!” could indeed indicate that the young student is discovering something consciously that aligns with his unconscious aesthetic sense, or it could indicate that he’s adopting the aesthetic sense of the teacher based on the teacher’s authority. The latter may be a slightly cynical take, but it’s undeniable people (some more than others) are prone to such things. Yes, I’ve had “aha” moments myself, but I’ve never thought of them as anything more than becoming conscious of what are entirely subjective aesthetic preferences, ideals, etc. that may or may not align with other people’s.


In my example of the composition student understanding what his teacher was trying to tell him, I was talking about insight, not imitation, intimidation, or submission. Nobody ever learned how long the coda to a sonata movement needs to be by consulting a rule book.



> I also wasn’t suggesting that such things are rooted ONLY in authority. Of course not. I’ve granted many times that much art probably resonates with us because it taps into fundamental aspects of our being and psychology. That’s not the issue as it’s not something I deny.


We're good so far...



> The issue is how to explain differences in aesthetic senses that leads to different value judgments. Are you trying to claim that there are certain aesthetic senses that are superior than others by which we can judge quality when such differences arise?


It makes perfect sense that the perception and judgment entailed in the aesthetic response is better developed in some people than in others. How could this possibly not be the case? It's better developed in a mature artist than in a beginner. Like other brain functions, it develops and enables greater competence.



> If we agree it can’t be proved on my epistemic standards then the issue shifts to how it can be proven on your (or other) epistemic standards. All I really get from how you describe from this is that some people have an aesthetic that will lead them to conclude the excellence of a Bach fugue; which I agree. The issues is what about all those people who have a different aesthetic sense that conclude differently about the Bach fugue? How are they “wrong?” ARE they “wrong?”


I don't think different people have a "different aesthetic sense." Human physiology and brain function are essentially uniform. What's different is life experience, which can differ enormously and leave people at sea when confronted with unfamiliar cultural products. What's different, too, is people's ability and willingness to try to understand the unfamiliar as opposed to judging it from a position of ignorance.

People equipped by natural aptitude and life experience to understand the nature of Western music and fugal writing agree that Bach was a master of the fugue. People who say that he wasn't are simply in no position to render that judgment and ought to be humble enough to keep quiet. I don't go around offering judgments on Indian musicians, or even jazz musicians, not because there's anything wrong with my aesthetic sense but because I lack knowledge and experience. If I wanted to immerse myself in these kinds of music I have no doubt that I could develop a degree of understanding that would entitle me to make fine judgments, and in the process I would open myself up to feelings about the music I could not have predicted.



> I’m sure I value Bach fugues more than your hypothetical Arturo. That doesn’t mean that I therefor conclude Bach’s fugues are better in any way independent of my tastes/values and those who happen to agree with me. *If someone comes along and declares Arturo’s better, I do not think they’re wrong,* I think our aesthetic senses/values simply differ.


They _are_ wrong. They can discover _how_ wrong by attentive listening, and perhaps some study. It's possible, though, that they don't really care, but just want to put their two cents in. There's plenty of that going around.



> No, now you’re getting confused. Perception isn’t a feeling, it’s perception; the ability to imagine, create… etc. is about craft, which is driven by feelings of what does/doesn’t work. One problem I think you’re having is conflating perception with the judgment of what’s being perceived. It’s the judgment that’s based on feelings, not the perception.


I'm not confused. Aesthetic perception, as I've described it, involves "feeling," but it's feeling of a certain kind, akin to the "feeling" we get when we finally hit on the answer to a riddle or the solution to an equation. You can have that feeling in error, but it's pretty reliable. Other feelings, of a more emotional and personal nature, may of course accompany the feeling of rightness engendered by the effective ordering of aesthetic space or time. The response to art - either in making or in perceiving it - is very complex, and "subjective" responses are very variable. They may even overpower or obliterate aesthetic judgment: we can and often do dislike works of artistic genius. A well-developed aesthetic sense can often see and comprehend this seeming paradox as it plays out. People who say that if there were such a thing as objectivity in art we should all like the same things are deeply confused, as are people who point to the diversity of tastes as evidence of the impossibility of unbiased appraisal.

Bach is a master of fugue, whether or not you like Bach or fugues. Punkt.


----------



## 4chamberedklavier

Perhaps it's time to take a pause before things get too nasty. Have a drink of water, or something.


----------



## Strange Magic

dissident said:


> Is that an objective, provable statement? Or is that web-spinning? I can't figure out why on earth it takes 30 pages of screeds to say "it's all subjective".



Easy. Some people are slow learners. Objective fact.


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## Eva Yojimbo

dissident said:


> Is that an objective, provable statement? Or is that web-spinning? I can't figure out why on earth it takes 30 pages of screeds to say "it's all subjective".


It doesn't take 30 pages to say it, it takes 30 pages (and much more) of saying it in a variety of ways so that some people might get why it is so.


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## DaveM

Eva Yojimbo said:


> I never called anyone incoherent and I delineated above the extent which I think the objectivist mind-set has consequences (nefarious and otherwise) in the outside world. These are also attacks on the idea(s), not on the person. You calling me a "wandering mind" is a direct, personal attack on me, not on any of my ideas.


You can have the last word. All this does is result in a post in red print.


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## 59540

Eva Yojimbo said:


> It doesn't take 30 pages to say it, it takes 30 pages (and much more) of saying it in a variety of ways so that some people might get why it is so.


"Why it is so." So is there an objective, provable truth that you're trying to convey?


Strange Magic said:


> Easy. Some people are slow learners. Objective fact.


Are you confident enough in your thesis to call it an objective fact that must be learned?

It seems that both of you are saying the following with varying degrees of verbosity:

"What I want to be subjective is subjective. What I want to be objective may be subjective but I will give it the attributes of an objectivity reserved for observable scientific fact." Otherwise your 30 pages are no more "objective" than 30 pages of those "slow learners" saying "Bach is the greatest". They're just a couple more opinions to add to the pile, which can just as well figuratively go in one slow-learning ear and out the other.


----------



## Strange Magic

dissident said:


> "Why it is so." So is there an objective, provable truth that you're trying to convey?
> Are you confident enough in your thesis to call it an objective fact that must be learned?
> 
> It seems that both of you are saying the following with varying degrees of verbosity:
> 
> "What I want to be subjective is subjective. What I want to be objective may be subjective but I will give it the attributes of an objectivity reserved for observable scientific fact." Otherwise your 30 pages are no more "objective" than 30 pages of those "slow learners" saying "Bach is the greatest". They're just a couple more opinions to add to the pile, which can just as well figuratively go in one slow-learning ear and out the other.


As you wish. This time it's not my "failure to communicate" but rather others to almost willfully not understand. Please present the Objectivist Esthetic Unified Field Theory that explains any one person's real world preferences; what they bring to the experience of an array of art objects. It cannot be done.


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## BachIsBest

Strange Magic said:


> This is weak stuff indeed. All of physics subjective because of lack of a UFT? Nothing more needs to be said....


That's precisely my point, if you care to read the conversation.


----------



## BachIsBest

Eva Yojimbo said:


> 1. The theories of physics have limited spheres of validity. Right now those limited spheres are defined by General Relativity for all things not the size of particles or with the makeup of black holes, and quantum physics for the rest. Whether these can be unified is a century-old issue.


Physical theories are valid in the ranges we have tested them. These "spheres of validity" don't have rigorous mathematical definitions and rely on physical intuition (along with mathematical justification) and experiment. They can even fail to be predictive in the sphere of validity in which they were assumed to be valid (see cosmic censorship for a recent example of this).

Regardless, this does mean these physical theories are not a "unified theory that accounts for all the variables", which was your standard for aesthetic judgements to be objective.



Eva Yojimbo said:


> 2. Whether or not they can be unified, it's important to note that these theories are models of objective (mind-independent) reality and together can make predictions about how physical reality will behave with incredible accuracy.


They're models of observed reality, which I would argue is different from "mind-independent reality", and they make predictions about observations with incredible accuracy. Regardless, I have already stated I'm not interested in arguing that musical judgements are somehow "mind-independent", only that they can be called objective in the sense a judges ruling is called objective.



Eva Yojimbo said:


> 3. If you're going to claim that the claims of any aesthetic theory has anything in common with such theories of physics you need to demonstrate the limits of their validity with similarly accurate predictions. Right now I don't know of any aesthetic theory that makes any predictions, accurate or not, nor one that account for even the most basic varied outcomes in how humans respond to the same art objects.


I make no such claim, or at least I don't think they are similar enough for meaningful arguments to be had. My post was simply to account for how silly such a standard of evidence as that you were presenting was.


----------



## Strange Magic

> *BachIsBest: *"Physical theories are valid in the ranges we have tested them".


Who would disagree? A strange assertion though if meant to be a critique of science in general and physics in particular. They are not then valid in the ranges we have not tested them? How do we know that? General Relativity, Evolution, Plate Tectonics all seem to be valid in the ranges we have tested them.


----------



## Woodduck

Eva Yojimbo said:


> You’re only addressing here the issue of performance rather than that of the aesthetic judgment of the work based on the multiple ways it can be performed. The point is that *you’re always talking about the composer “knowing” they did good work, but if Beethoven knew this upon finishing the Grosse Fugue then why change the quartet?* Do you think if audiences had been enthusiastic about it he would’ve changed, or did the negative reception impact his feelings about whether it was a good work, or even whether it worked at all as he conceived it? There are several points to be made about this, one being that *artists’ aesthetic perceptions and judgments of their own works aren’t necessarily immune from the perceptions and judgments of others.* Another is that *they don’t always align with those of others; and when there’s a difference, who’s to say whose is correct?*


A composer's knowledge that he's done good work doesn't imply perfection, but more than that, it doesn't even assume that there is always such a thing as perfection (although the artist is always gazing at that horizon), and it doesn't mean that an aesthetic situation may not have multiple resolutions, each of which has merit.

"Who's to say?" Anyone can say anything they want to say. It won't affect one iota the aesthetic intelligence and skill of the work in question, which various individuals will either perceive or not. No "polls" are needed to determine that Op. 132 is fine work, with or without fugue.



> You can even imagine the most “absurd hypothetical,” that of using Alfano’s completion of Turandot as the finale for Op. 132, and then ask yourself: what if this, or something similar, was done and it was widely considered a masterpiece by most classical music fans who praised its daring, avant-garde “rule breaking” approach?


That will not happen, but even if someone, somewhere, enjoys hearing these two works conflated it won't detract from the merits of Beethoven's work as conceived and written by Beethoven. An Op. 130 with a _Turandot_ finale will not be Op. 130, whatever else it may be. Anybody can do anything to any work of art; a mustache on the _Mona Lisa_ may be amusing, but it won't be Leonardo's painting and it won't imply anything about Leonardo, Mona herself, or any theory of art.

We've seen, BTW, plenty of "daring, avant-garde rule breaking” in our lifetimes. It's just tiresome. Let it lie (pun intended).



> It’s not as if many prior to (and even in) Beethoven’s time wouldn’t have considered his conception of the 9th Symphony with its immense choral finale, or, indeed, the Grosse Fugue as being the ending of any String Quartet, an absurdity.


What are your "poll" numbers on this? Surely every good subjectivist has them ready to hand, considering the importance you attach to them.



> We don’t consider them absurd now because more than century and the process of canonization makes such radical conceptions seem inevitable rather than absurd.


Oh, come! We don't consider them absurd because they aren't. I can assure you that when I first heard and thrilled to Beethoven's 9th I was not conscious of any "canonization," and I'm sure that is the experience of most listeners. I wasn't even aware that having a choral finale in a symphony was "radical," and so had no preconceptions about the idea of putting one there. But if your point is that estimates of art change through time, what else would you expect? People of any era encountering new art normally DO have preconceptions, and that is all that's needed to explain the hesitation to accept the new. In nearly all cases, throughout most of history, new music has overcome that hesitation rather quickly when people had exposure to it. Why? Because people can appreciate aesthetic qualities even in unfamiliar sorts of music once the shock of the new has worn off. The victory of excellence over habit and prejudice is almost inevitable, and typically swift. Soon after its initial "failure," _Carmen_ was the most popular opera in the world, and the _Rite of Spring_ was a hit in concert halls almost before the bruises of the rioters at its premiere had healed.



> Much of the 20th century has been about testing the ability of such absurdities, of just how far we can break the rules and push the boundaries before everyone stops listening/caring. And if we must care about Beethoven’s intentions and judge the works accordingly, why not the intentions of Carter, Ferneyhough, and any other avant-garde composer you (and many others) may dislike?


I'm not quite seeing your point here. Yes, why _isn't_ the world playing Ferneyhough to, for example, inspire the Ukrainians fighters for freedom from Russian domination, much as Beethoven's 9th has been used for it's inspirational value? Hmmm.... that's a toughie... Are you suggesting that if we "cared" about the intentions of contemporary composers we would take their work to our bosoms, as we have Beethoven's?


----------



## BachIsBest

Strange Magic said:


> Who would disagree? A strange assertion though if meant to be a critique of science in general and physics in particular. They are not then valid in the ranges we have not tested them? How do we know that? General Relativity, Evolution, Plate Tectonics all seem to be valid in the ranges we have tested them.


I'm not trying to critique science; I have, in fact, dedicated my working life so far to the study and research of mathematics and physics. I'm pointing out the limitations. It is not some transcendental process that points us like an arrow to universal, absolute, objective, truths that are totally independent of the humans making them. That being said, it is by far (not even close), the best way to accurately predict the result of observable, reproducible, natural phenomena (experiments). On questions pertaining to the realm of science, it is a rather stupid idea to go to other "knowledge systems" (it's trendy right now to include "non-western knowledge systems" as "ways of knowing" things that we should really turn to science for). However, I fail to see how science pertains to the evaluation of aesthetic excellence.


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## DaveM

Woodduck said:


> ..
> Oh, come! We don't consider them absurd because they aren't.* I can assure you that when I first heard and thrilled to Beethoven's 9th I was not conscious of any "canonization," and I'm sure that is the experience of most listeners. I wasn't even aware that having a choral finale in a symphony was "radical," and so had no preconceptions about the idea of putting one there. *But if your point is that estimates of art change through time, what else would you expect? People of any era encountering new art normally DO have preconceptions, and that is all that's needed to explain the hesitation to accept the new. In nearly all cases, throughout most of history, new music has overcome that hesitation rather quickly when people had exposure to it. Why? Because people can appreciate aesthetic qualities even in unfamiliar sorts of music once the shock of the new has worn off. The victory of excellence over habit and prejudice is almost inevitable, and typically swift. Soon after its initial "failure," _Carmen_ was the most popular opera in the world, and the _Rite of Spring_ was a hit in concert halls almost before the bruises of the rioters at its premiere had healed.


(As I mentioned in a previous post) Why did a 7 year old (me)l never having heard it or any other concerto, symphony or major classical work, take out a dusty 78rpm album of the Brahms Violin Concerto (Szigeti) in the basement and get immediately hooked by it? And why, a few weeks later, after seeing a movie with segments of the Rach 2 Piano Concerto and Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto did my father get recordings of those works as my birthday present which started the beginning of a ravenous, ‘can’t get enough of it‘ period?

No one else in this seven year old’s life was listening to CM. There was no ‘canonization’, no modeling and no example to follow. Likely, there’s a particular network of neurons and gray matter at play. Maybe that’s a common denominator. 



> ..Yes, why _isn't_ the world playing Ferneyhough to, for example, inspire the Ukrainians fighters for freedom from Russian domination, much as Beethoven's 9th has been used for it's inspirational value? Hmmm.... that's a toughie... Are you suggesting that if we "cared" about the intentions of contemporary composers we would take their work to our bosoms, as we have Beethoven's?


Well said.


----------



## science

dissident said:


> We aren't hens.


So who's right and how can we know?


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## Woodduck

BachIsBest said:


> I fail to see how science pertains to the evaluation of aesthetic excellence.


The only relevance I can see for hard science in evaluating art might be provided by neuroscience, where we can expect to understand better how particular aesthetic stimuli - sounds, colors, shapes, etc., and the structural complexes composed of them - affect the body and emotions in particular ways. We don't need science to observe this happening or to teach artists how to make it happen, but we might expect more understanding of what happens in the brain. I can vaguely imagine composers of the future using complex computer programming as an adjunct to, or in place of, normal aesthetic intuition in the construction of musical works, but I doubt they'd achieve superior results unless they have no talent at all and a computer program would give their work a semblance of competence.

I can't see that eventuality as anything to look forward to.


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## Woodduck

science said:


> So who's right and how can we know?


You have to use an aesthetometer. Unfortunately the judgment of which brand gives the most accurate results is entirely subjective.


----------



## DaveM

Now that hens have been introduced, has this thread become a clustercluck?


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## Strange Magic

The last several posts, #599 through #602, can be taken to be living proof of subjectivity in action in the real world. We have chance encounters with new music, we have youthful imprinting, we have an admission that science cannot account for much of anything regarding the esthetic impulses of unique individuals--I stress this. But we do also get a whiff, a hint, of some sort of objective "rightness", greatness, sneaking in through the back door soaking into certain art objects like rum soaking into a rum cake, bringing a repudiated concept subtly back into play.


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## Woodduck

Strange Magic said:


> The last several posts, #599 through #602, can be taken to be living proof of subjectivity in action in the real world. We have chance encounters with new music, we have youthful imprinting, we have an admission that science cannot account for much of anything regarding the esthetic impulses of unique individuals--I stress this. But we do also get a whiff, a hint, of some sort of objective "rightness", greatness, sneaking in through the back door soaking into certain art objects like rum soaking into a rum cake, bringing a repudiated concept subtly back into play.


Subjectivity in the real world? Who'd have guessed it after only 31 pages?


----------



## Strange Magic

Woodduck said:


> The only relevance I can see for hard science in evaluating art might be provided by neuroscience, where we can expect to understand better how particular aesthetic stimuli - sounds, colors, shapes, etc., and the structural complexes composed of them - affect the body and emotions in particular ways. We don't need science to observe this happening or to teach artists how to make it happen, but we might expect more understanding of what happens in the brain. I can vaguely imagine composers of the future using complex computer programming as an adjunct to, or in place of, normal aesthetic intuition in the constructioin of musical works, but I doubt they'd achieve superior results unless they have no talent at all and a computer program would give their work a semblance of competence.
> 
> I can't see that eventuality as anything to look forward to.


*From Wikipedia: *
"Created in February 2016, AIVA specializes in classical and symphonic music composition.[1][2] It became the world's first virtual composer to be recognized by a music society (SACEM).[3][4] By reading a large collection of existing works of classical music (written by human composers such as Bach, Beethoven, Mozart) AIVA is capable of detecting regularities in music and on this base composing on its own.[5][6] The algorithm AIVA is based on deep learning and reinforcement learning architectures.[7] Since January 2019, the company offers a commercial product, Music Engine, capable of generating short (up to 3 minutes) compositions in various styles (rock, pop, jazz, fantasy, shanty, tango, 20th century cinematic, modern cinematic, and Chinese)."

I also do not believe that AI is going to replace the human composer, though it may fill the world with generic musical junk, keeping Sturgeon's Law that 95% of everything is crap fully in play. It is difficult to see how AI can incorporate the element of surprise, the cusp experience, into music, where it is often completely unpredictable--sudden key changes, abrupt endings and beginnings of musical ideas, switching back and forth between ostinato and crescendo, etc. For these we need the quirky human individual mind both as composer and as auditor.


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## Strange Magic

Woodduck said:


> Subjectivity in the real world? Who'd have guessed it after only 31 pages?


31 pages, yes, but it's been fun! 😊


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## Woodduck

Strange Magic said:


> I also do not believe that AI is going to replace the human composer, though it may fill the world with generic musical junk, keeping Sturgeon's Law that 95% of everything is crap fully in play. It is difficult to see how AI can incorporate the element of surprise, the cusp experience, into music, where it is often completely unpredictable--sudden key changes, abrupt endings and beginnings of musical ideas, switching back and forth between ostinato and crescendo, etc. For these we need the quirky human individual mind both as composer and as auditor.


I agree with this. The examples of AI "composition" I've heard have been uninteresting, going-through-the-motions affairs. Music that's simply modeled on other music and has no spark of personality or originality can be produced by talentless music students; we don't need computers for it. But I suppose geekdom will always pursue the chimaera of replacing humans with their toys.


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## DaveM

Strange Magic said:


> The last several posts, #599 through #602, can be taken to be living proof of subjectivity in action in the real world. We have chance encounters with new music, we have youthful imprinting, we have an admission that science cannot account for much of anything regarding the esthetic impulses of unique individuals--I stress this. But we do also get a whiff, a hint, of some sort of objective "rightness", greatness, sneaking in through the back door soaking into certain art objects like rum soaking into a rum cake, bringing a repudiated concept subtly back into play.


So, did you partake of the cake?


----------



## Luchesi

Strange Magic said:


> This is my final post on this subject.
> 
> This I assert: If esthetics confined itself to mentation, as a subdivision of Neuroscience, Psychology, Brain Chemistry, it would have a better reputation. The plan would be to discern what art stimuli cause positive or negative responses in human brains, in various populations and in the global population. These factors understood–stimuli and reaction–could then be used to craft a theory of ethetics that would account for why certain populations react in whatever way to certain stimuli, and a hierarchy of “values” could be erected based on the effectiveness of certain stimuli–”excellence” would be the term used to describe, say, a Bach fugue that elicited delight (confirmed by testing) in certain populations,also defined. Thus, a gross form, a gross theory of esthetics could be formulated. This would be objective only in the sense that it dealt with measurable, testable, verifiable data shared by all researchers.
> 
> 
> However it should be clear that these are all human mental constructs whose only contact with the physical world are the tangible art objects created by human agency, in which themselves no inherent value can be located, like a table–its value only comes from whatever use to which it is put. A table is of no value in its tableness to any living thing except to some humans, other than that of a substrate that appears naturally in an environment. Thus I dispose of the notion of intrinsic, inherent value within art objects. If such is not someone’s belief , we have no issue there.
> 
> 
> The second assertion I make is that art appreciation and its power to move specific individuals to certain feelings and emotions cannot be determined by any mechanism conceivable now by way of testing and studying human response to art stimuli. The exquisite variation of human mentation rules against this. Gross determinations can be made, but art is experienced on the individual level, and no esthetic theory can possibly “explain” exactly what we like and why. If it could be so finely determined, then esthetics could predict with unerring accuracy who likes what and why. If esthetics again confined itself to broad generalizations about common elements of human behavior, as determined by that nasty Science, then I would agree that part of it was, in a narrow sense, objective But polling is at the heart of all of the above, polling and neuroscience.


Honestly, no other serious subject for study, that I know of, is concerned with what people like or don't like.


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## Strange Magic

DaveM said:


> So, did you partake of the cake?


Yes, but I supply the rum--the cake is ordinary plain white sheet cake before I add the rum. 😊


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## Luchesi

I did want to say quickly that when I posted that above I hadn't refreshed the page. I was three pages behind, which hadn't loaded yet..


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## Strange Magic

Luchesi said:


> Honestly, no other serious subject for study, that I know of, is concerned with what people like or don't like.


I assume that you refer to all the aspects of human mentation that involve voluntary choices involving pleasure and pain. If so, I find the literature on these subjects to be abundant. Or maybe you mean something else.


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## Luchesi

Strange Magic said:


> I assume that you refer to all the aspects of human mentation that involve voluntary choices involving pleasure and pain. If so, I find the literature on these subjects to be abundant. Or maybe you mean something else.


Do we care why one person likes something and somebody else doesn't like it?

It might be helpful if we're talking about spectator sports or flavors of ice cream or even fashion (I don't know much about fashion). 

I don't follow your thinking if your basic premise is we can derive something foundational from why one person likes something and somebody else doesn't like it. Because then you're going to use this for some logical conclusion when it's illogical at the start (at least to me).

Can musicians be understood by non-musicians? Can non-musicians be understood by musicians? Can they both understand aesthetics as the same science?

We can find the answer if someone with your opinions will study music for many decades to see if their opinion changes.


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## Luchesi

Strange Magic said:


> Yes it is. You and your cohorts still cannot break the thought habits of a lifetime, most inherited from your peers and mentors. Explain why I love Brahms, _cante flamenco,_ Led Zeppelin, Doo-*** and Gharnati. (Crazy software that eliminates reference to an established genre.)


Look at the scores. It's nowhere else.


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## Strange Magic

Luchesi said:


> Do we care why one person likes something and somebody else doesn't like it?
> 
> It might be helpful if we're talking about spectator sports or flavors of ice cream or even fashion (I don't know much about fashion).
> 
> I don't follow your thinking if your basic premise is we can derive something foundational from why one person likes something and somebody else doesn't like it. Because then you're going to use this for some logical conclusion when it's illogical at the start (at least to me).
> 
> Can musicians be understood by non-musicians? Can non-musicians be understood by musicians? Can they both understand aesthetics as the same science?
> 
> We can find the answer if someone with your opinions will study music for many decades to see if their opinion changes.


I would personally be fascinated by why I and others like what they do as a totality--this would be a fantastic breakthrough in understanding the human mind on a granular level. I think others would also be very interested. And i am expanding the field to include wine, ice cream, odors (perfume v. dirty socks--My wife and I appreciate the smell of a skunk at a distance on a warm spring evening) etc. More knowledge. More data. Always good. I have analyzed in a primitive way why I like my top ten Rock favorites to determine their common properties. How about you?


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## DaveM

science said:


> So who's right and how can we know?


I’ve been particularly persuaded by DaveM’s posts.


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## Strange Magic

Luchesi said:


> Look at the scores. It's nowhere else.


If only it was that simple. But it's not and I think you know that. Try listening to some _cante flamenco_ or Gharnati. Or a raga or two.


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## Luchesi

Strange Magic said:


> If only it was that simple. But it's not and I think you know that. Try listening to some _cante flamenco_ or Gharnati. Or a raga or two.


Simple? I'd like to know where else it is. Perhaps I'd understand more about how you think about music. 
Now that I think about it, forums on the Internet are really the best place to do this.


----------



## Luchesi

Strange Magic said:


> I would personally be fascinated by why I and others like what they do as a totality--this would be a fantastic breakthrough in understanding the human mind on a granular level. I think others would also be very interested. And i am expanding the field to include wine, ice cream, odors (perfume v. dirty socks--My wife and I appreciate the smell of a skunk at a distance on a warm spring evening) etc. More knowledge. More data. Always good. I have analyzed in a primitive way why I like my top ten Rock favorites to determine their common properties. How about you?


Yes we would be fascinated, but I don't see what it has to do with the supreme value of objectivity in appreciating music.


----------



## Woodduck

Strange Magic said:


> *I would personally be fascinated by why I and others like what they do as a totality*--this would be a fantastic breakthrough in understanding the human mind on a granular level. I think others would also be very interested. And i am expanding the field to include wine, ice cream, odors (perfume v. dirty socks--My wife and I appreciate the smell of a skunk at a distance on a warm spring evening) etc. More knowledge. More data. Always good. I have analyzed in a primitive way why I like my top ten Rock favorites to determine their common properties. How about you?


I'm pretty sure that this can't happen. Human individuality, which includes our personal responses to things, is almost certainly too complex ever to be fully dissected. You'd have to be able to study someone's brain activity with unimaginable granularity and precision, evoking all the cognitive experiences they've ever had, conscious and subconscious, in order to trace and weigh the impact of their life experience. This process would have to be exhaustive lest anything of possible significance for their personal development be overlooked.

If I understand Luchesi rightly, I agree with him that figuring out the "objective" reasons for our tastes, which we may be able to rationalize only crudely, is of no value in answering the questions of whether, how, and in what sense the painting we're looking at, the poem we're reading, or the music we're listening to is well or incompetently made, genuine or meretricious, refined or crude, superficial or profound, etc. The validity of such questions is at issue here. Taste is another matter, though one not unrelated in practice.


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## Strange Magic

Luchesi said:


> Yes we would be fascinated, but I don't see what it has to do with the supreme value of objectivity in appreciating music.


After all this discussion, could you briefly clarify what you mean by "the supreme value of objectivity in appreciating music"?


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## Strange Magic

Woodduck said:


> I'm pretty sure that this can't happen. Human individuality, which includes our personal responses to things, is almost certainly too complex ever to be fully dissected. You'd have to be able to study someone's brain activity with unimaginable granularity and precision, evoking all the cognitive experiences they've ever had, conscious and subconscious, in order to trace and weigh the impact of their life experience. This process would have to be exhaustive lest anything of possible significance for their personal development be overlooked.
> 
> If I understand Luchesi rightly, I agree with him that figuring out the "objective" reasons for our tastes, which we may be able to rationalize only crudely, is of no value in answering the questions of whether, how, and in what sense the painting we're looking at, the poem we're reading, or the music we're listening to is well or incompetently made, genuine or meretricious, refined or crude, superficial or profound, etc. The validity of such questions is at issue here. Taste is another matter, though one not unrelated in practice.


You seem to pretty much agree with my posts #541 and #543 on the very low likelihood of anyone's specific preferences being understood over a broad array of art.

As far as assessing well or incompetently made, genuine or meretricious (not exactly an antonym for genuine but close enough), refined or crude, superficial or profound--are these not subjective evaluations, food for debate and disagreement?


----------



## Luchesi

Luchesi said:


> Simple? I'd like to know where else it is. Perhaps I'd understand more about how you think about music.
> Now that I think about it, forums on the Internet are really the best place to do this.





Strange Magic said:


> After all this discussion, could you briefly clarify what you mean by "the supreme value of objectivity in appreciating music"?


I know I would enjoy teaching you all about music.


----------



## Luchesi

Woodduck said:


> I'm pretty sure that this can't happen. Human individuality, which includes our personal responses to things, is almost certainly too complex ever to be fully dissected. You'd have to be able to study someone's brain activity with unimaginable granularity and precision, evoking all the cognitive experiences they've ever had, conscious and subconscious, in order to trace and weigh the impact of their life experience. This process would have to be exhaustive lest anything of possible significance for their personal development be overlooked.
> 
> If I understand Luchesi rightly, I agree with him that figuring out the "objective" reasons for our tastes, which we may be able to rationalize only crudely, is of no value in answering the questions of whether, how, and in what sense the painting we're looking at, the poem we're reading, or the music we're listening to is well or incompetently made, genuine or meretricious, refined or crude, superficial or profound, etc. The validity of such questions is at issue here. Taste is another matter, though one not unrelated in practice.


I can't get the fact out of my mind, that two musicians can look at two scores and very quickly (without likes or dislikes) conclude which is the greater achievement. We do it quite unconsciously with popular songs, but we can also do it with works of Beethoven and Czerny, or Chopin and John Field.

Beethoven indicated to someone (I forget who) that his F# Sonata was better than his C#m Sonata. Maybe he just liked it better (whatever that actually means), but I doubt it..


----------



## Woodduck

Luchesi said:


> I can't get the fact out of my mind, that two musicians can look at two scores and very quickly (without likes or dislikes) conclude which is the greater achievement. We do it quite unconsciously with popular songs, but we can also do it with works of Beethoven and Czerny, or Chopin and John Field.


This is something that musicians - composers and performers - know but most others would have no way of knowing. Of course there's never 100% agreement, and comparisons beyond a certain point are absurd (and who cares anyway, besides devotees of lists and polls?) but the degree of unanimity is striking. It's simply beyond the ken of "total subjectivists," who will have to rationalize it away. Buckle up.


----------



## Woodduck

Strange Magic said:


> You seem to pretty much agree with my posts #541 and #543 on the very low likelihood of anyone's specific preferences being understood over a broad array of art.


The statement that stands out for me in your post #543 is "it is difficult for the objectivist to account for the often profound variation in individual responses to art." (I might comment on your use of the word "profound," which you've said doesn't apply to art, to apply to people's response to art, but...)

I assume "objectivist" is assumed to include me, although I disavow that designation as a comprehensive description of my view of the the aesthetic response, which I consider a complex mix of factors. But be that as it may, I'm clearly more of an "objectivist" than you are, so I'll just say that accounting for the differences in individuals' responses to art shouldn't be the least bit difficult for anyone who'll give it a moment's thought. Individuals respond differently to _everything,_ not just art. Humans notoriously fail to see what's right in front of their faces, objectivity can be difficult to achieve in complex matters - especially matters of the heart or matters in which personal interests impinge - and whole cultures are built on fond illusions. The idea that if there were any objectivity to art appreciation everyone would like more or less the same art - which I've actually seen expressed here - is absurd on its face.

What's remarkable, and needs explanation, is how some works of art - a small minority of those produced - acquire and keep, century after century, a reputation for special excellence and potency. What's also remarkable is how people from Hoboken, New Jersey, know as soon as they see them that paintings of Sung Dynasty China are incredibly beautiful. There are many other remarkable things that "subjectivity" can't explain...



> As far as assessing well or incompetently made, genuine or meretricious (not exactly an antonym for genuine but close enough), refined or crude, superficial or profound--are these not subjective evaluations, food for debate and disagreement?


Only partially, if by "subjectve" you mean "not mere matters of opinion."


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## 59540

Strange Magic said:


> As you wish. This time it's not my "failure to communicate" but rather others to almost willfully not understand. Please present the Objectivist Esthetic Unified Field Theory that explains any one person's real world preferences; what they bring to the experience of an array of art objects. It cannot be done.


But you didn't answer. Have you and Eva Yojimbo posted comments over 30+ pages to tell us any "truths", or just your own subjective opinions which are ultimately no more valid than my opinion of the Mona Lisa as compared to Mark Rothko?


----------



## DaveM

dissident said:


> But you didn't answer. Have you and Eva Yojimbo posted comments over 30+ pages to tell us any "truths", or just your own subjective opinions which are ultimately no more valid than my opinion of the Mona Lisa as compared to Mark Rothko?


It didn’t help that the above-mentioned poster dismissed all of us as being logically incoherent:
_’I don't think I've read anything from anyone here that remotely approaches a logically coherent view on the matter...’_


----------



## 59540

DaveM said:


> It didn’t help that the above-mentioned poster dismissed all of us as being logically incoherent:
> _’I don't think I've read anything from anyone here that remotely approaches a logically coherent view on the matter...’_


I know, they have this confidence that they're the bearers of truth to us poor benighted folk. I think to be that dogmatic in the matter you'd have to demonstrate at least a little expertise in neuroscience and probably also music. I'm not feelin' it. Subjectively speaking.

I would think that the opinion of Stravinsky was that Bach was the greatest composer of them all. Personally, I'd agree. So what possible similarities are there between Stravinsky's background and mine that would bring about that similar attitude half a world and about a century apart? Or between me and Masaaki Suzuki? Or Rosalyn Tureck? Do so many cellists have such similarities in background, perceptions, tastes -- the whole thing -- that makes all of them want to learn Bach's suites?

Or is it something in the music itself?


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## Strange Magic

Posts #624 to #630 bring to mind a quote from Schiller. But never mind, we are back at Square One. And to again quote _Cool Hand Luke_, what we do have here is both failure to communicate and failure to grasp.. I have a great new book to read: Last Call at the Hotel Imperial and need to stop neglecting it for yet again beating that putrefying horse.


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## 59540

Strange Magic said:


> Posts #624 to #630 bring to mind a quote from Schiller. But never mind, we are back at Square One. And to again quote _Cool Hand Luke_, what we do have here is both failure to communicate and failure to grasp..


Or maybe it's just a subjective aversion to subjective matter that's being offered.


----------



## Eva Yojimbo

Woodduck said:


> Good! Maybe we can agree on something basic. What IS an aesthetic sense? I've been using the term in a specific way, the way most applicable to music, to refer to our perception and judgment of artistic form and the dynamics of form. Through our mind's basic organization of sense data we perceive such formal qualities as duration, continuity, contrast, balance, and proportion, and our aesthetic sense is what tells us when these qualities exist in a coordinated pattern that's coherent and purposeful rather than chaotic and random. A lot can be said about this, but I'll leave it at that for now, except to say that the aesthetic sense is rooted in our body's movements and sensations as well as the way our brains work. This dual origin seems to me essential to understand when we consider the reality of man's powerful affective response to something as apparently abstract as music. Emotions, too, are phenomena of both mind and body, and artistic forms seem capable of acting as a gateway to them.


I don’t have much issue with this other than the notion that even “coherent and purposeful” are necessary attributes of good art. The 20th century has seen the exploration of a lot of art that can be called “chaotic and random,” which many people seem to have an aesthetic sensibility that tells them is good, from aleatory music to surrealism in all its various forms. The juxtaposition of random and chaotic elements carries with it its own aesthetic effects that many find quite good, perhaps even better than more ordered, balanced, patterned, etc. ones.



Woodduck said:


> In my example of the composition student understanding what his teacher was trying to tell him, I was talking about insight, not imitation, intimidation, or submission. Nobody ever learned how long the coda to a sonata movement needs to be by consulting a rule book.


You can of course play God in your own hypothesis, I was just noting that without you playing God and dictating why the student is reacting as he is there are possible alternative hypotheses that could also explain his “aha!” The idea that humans can have their minds swayed by the influence of authorities isn’t exactly a controversial idea. In fact, I’d assume you of all people would realize this given that composition students have been trained to follow in the footsteps of all these contemporary and post-modern composers you dislike. Are their aesthetic senses being manipulated by authorities, or are their aesthetic senses just naturally drawn to these avant-garde modes of compositions? Maybe a bit of both?



Woodduck said:


> It makes perfect sense that the perception and judgment entailed in the aesthetic response is better developed in some people than in others. How could this possibly not be the case? It's better developed in a mature artist than in a beginner. Like other brain functions, it develops and enables greater competence.


It may be “better developed” in the sense than some become more conscious of it and, in the case of artists, better able to mold it into forms that appeal to themselves and others. I don’t know how this makes much sense for audiences, though, except via that awareness I mentioned. I’m fairly certain I could teach any random person how to be aware of, say, the sonata form or fugue, but this doesn’t mean they’re going to respond to either the same way you or I do, just as you might not respond to the music they like as they do. Why is your aesthetic sense “better developed” for preferring one type of music and them another? 

Further this also ignores the fact that people with equally developed aesthetic senses, who’ve also devoted their lives to the arts as performers, creators, critics, or even just fans, still vociferously disagree with each other all the time; and even if they DID agree, they’re still just another “group” to consider in the poll. Is music and aesthetic judgments only for those with the most developed aesthetic senses?



Woodduck said:


> I don't think different people have a "different aesthetic sense." Human physiology and brain function are essentially uniform. What's different is life experience, which can differ enormously and leave people at sea when confronted with unfamiliar cultural products. What's different, too, is people's ability and willingness to try to understand the unfamiliar as opposed to judging it from a position of ignorance.
> 
> People equipped by natural aptitude and life experience to understand the nature of Western music and fugal writing agree that Bach was a master of the fugue. People who say that he wasn't are simply in no position to render that judgment and ought to be humble enough to keep quiet. I don't go around offering judgments on Indian musicians, or even jazz musicians, not because there's anything wrong with my aesthetic sense but because I lack knowledge and experience. If I wanted to immerse myself in these kinds of music I have no doubt that I could develop a degree of understanding that would entitle me to make fine judgments, and in the process I would open myself up to feelings about the music I could not have predicted.


I think we might fundamentally disagree about people not possessing different aesthetic senses. Even to take your example above, people’s tolerance to and preference for the poles of “chaos” and “order” vary tremendously. Some find too much order boring, or too much chaos anxiety-inducing; some have high or low tolerances for both, have different preferences for what the balances should be, and that varies by experience (both life experience and their experience with the artforms or even genres in question). Even with something like the ability of art to produce different emotions, moods, tones, atmospheres… people have radically different preferences for which of those they prefer. People have a preference for different SOUNDS in music. And you’re going to try to sort through all of this and judge on the basis of whose aesthetic sense is more developed? Really?

What you’re saying with the second paragraph just strikes me as practically a tautology for “people who have the aesthetic sense for liking Bach fugues will like Bach fugues,” and one can say the same of almost every artist or their work under the sun and then turn around and say anyone who disagrees “are simply in no position to render that judgment and ought to be humble enough to keep quiet.” How is this different from what Strange Magic describes as polling and the resultant bell curves?



Woodduck said:


> They _are_ wrong. They can discover _how_ wrong by attentive listening, and perhaps some study. It's possible, though, that they don't really care, but just want to put their two cents in. There's plenty of that going around.


And how is this attentive listening and study going to prove their wrongness? Here’s a secret: I don’t care for most of Bach fugues myself, despite very attentive listening and study (as much as a non-professional musician can study music). After a while they start to sound like clockwork. Very intricate clockwork, but clockwork nonetheless. I’ve even queried why they elicit this apathetic response in me to where the fugues of many other composers do not, and what I’ve come up with is that I usually prefer fugues as spices rather than main dishes, and even then the spice should elicit some feeling in me beyond its clockwork intricacy and complexity. It’s why I love Beethoven’s Grosse Fugue (which is even a “dish” rather than a spice) because, complex/intricate or not, it makes me feel something, and it’s a something that provoked my mother when I was 13 to burst into my room wondering what that noise I was playing was (one of the very few classical works that ever provoked that reaction).

Yet I can’t imagine what aesthetic deficiencies I lack because of this preference. I am perfectly capable of listening and recognizing and following along with Bach’s fugues. I accept they elicit some rapturous responses in others and I am not going to seek to invalidate their response by declaring Bach’s fugues bad any more that I’m going to invalidate mine by declaring them good. I say they’re good according to the aesthetic senses that find them good and bad to those who find them bad. Any attempt to validate them beyond that requires the establishment of standards for judgment that I (nor is anyone) obliged to accept.



Woodduck said:


> I'm not confused. Aesthetic perception, as I've described it, involves "feeling," but it's feeling of a certain kind, akin to the "feeling" we get when we finally hit on the answer to a riddle or the solution to an equation. You can have that feeling in error, but it's pretty reliable. Other feelings, of a more emotional and personal nature, may of course accompany the feeling of rightness engendered by the effective ordering of aesthetic space or time. The response to art - either in making or in perceiving it - is very complex, and "subjective" responses are very variable. They may even overpower or obliterate aesthetic judgment: we can and often do dislike works of artistic genius. A well-developed aesthetic sense can see and comprehend this as it happens.


I just think this a confusion of terms. Perception and feeling are simply two different things, regardless of whether we’re adding the “aesthetic” qualifier. A perception of any kind need not carry with it a feeling. Perceptions can be neutral, or can provoke strong or weak feeling towards either end of the positive and negative poles. Maybe to you this feeling is like realizing the answer to a riddle, but I’d wager it is not that for most people. At most, the only riddle I felt I was solving was the nature of my own subjectivity, and even then only to a very limited extent. I’m not sure how such a feeling can be “reliable” except as a guide to what you, yourself think and feel.



Woodduck said:


> A composer's knowledge that he's done good work doesn't imply perfect insight, but more than that, it doesn't assume that there is such a thing as perfection (although the artist is always gazing at that horizon), and it doesn't mean that an aesthetic situation may not have multiple resolutions, each of which has merit.
> 
> "Who's to say?" Anyone can say anything they want to say. It won't affect one iota the aesthetic intelligence and skill of the work in question, which various individuals will either perceive or not. No "polls" are needed to determine that Op. 132 is fine work, with or without fugue.


You say “a composer’s knowledge that he’s done good work doesn’t imply perfect insight,” which, in itself, implies that this knowledge can be wrong. So he had knowledge it was right when he felt it was right, and knowledge it was wrong when he felt it was wrong? It sure does seem like this knowledge is dependent upon how he feels about it! If knowledge can be wrong, is it really knowledge? What is the evidence that convinced them otherwise, and can whatever this evidence is be completely independent from their subjective feelings?

You then imply (if not outright say) that “aesthetic intelligence and skill” exists in the object in a way that people can simply perceive presumably the same way I’ve mentioned people can see when they hear a Bach fugue… but still haven’t offered any way of proving that except through this personal knowledge, which you’ve already admitted can be wrong. Surely you see the difficulty I’m having here. Can you imagine if any scientific theories presented themselves in such contradictory ways?



Woodduck said:


> That will not happen, but even if someone, somewhere, enjoys hearing these two works conflated it won't detract from the merits of Beethoven's work as conceived and written by Beethoven. A _Turandot_ finale to Op. 130 will not be Op. 130, whatever else it may be. Anybody can do anything to any work of art; a mustache on the _Mona Lisa_ may be amusing, but it won't be Leonardo's painting and it won't imply anything about Leonardo, Mona herself, or any theory of art.
> 
> We've seen, BTW, plenty of "daring, avant-garde rule breaking” in our lifetimes. It's just tiresome. Let it lie (pun intended).


Now you’re ignoring the rules of my hypothetical. I granted you could play God with your music student, now let me play God with mine: what if everyone came to think of this conflated work as being a superior masterpiece than Op. 130 by itself, to the point that it was almost always programmed and recorded that way. What then? Sure enough, it wouldn’t be Beethoven’s work alone anymore, but what about its status as a work of art? Would Beethoven’s still be better if nobody preferred it?

Also, your “tiresome” is other people’s “vital and energizing.” Why are you right and they wrong? I will also say that such “rule breaking” will never stop. It’s how and why art changes and evolves over time. None of the major art forms have remained static and unchanged with rules established in granite enduring for all time. It’s just not how things work. You can lament the changes all you want, but they will not stop for you or anyone.



Woodduck said:


> What are your "poll" numbers on this? Surely every good subjectivist has them ready to hand, considering the importance you attach to them.


I don’t attach importance to poll numbers: I don’t even care, I just note them for what they are, especially when arguments essentially reduce to them.



Woodduck said:


> Oh, come! We don't consider them absurd because they aren't. I can assure you that when I first heard and thrilled to Beethoven's 9th I was not conscious of any "canonization," and I'm sure that is the experience of most listeners. I wasn't even aware that having a choral finale in a symphony was "radical," and so had no preconceptions about the idea of putting one there. But if your point is that estimates of art change through time, what else would you expect? People of any era encountering new art normally DO have preconceptions, and that is all that's needed to explain the hesitaion to accept the new. In nearly all cases, throughout most of history, new music has overcome that hesitation rather quickly when people had exposure to it. Why? Because people can appreciate aesthetic qualities even in unfamiliar sorts of music once the shock of the new has worn off. The victory of excellence over habit and prejudice is almost inevitable, and typically swift. Soon after its initial "failure," _Carmen_ was the most popular opera in the world, and the _Rite of Spring_ was a hit in concert halls almost before the bruises of the rioters at its premiere had healed.


You did not hear Beethoven’s 9th in the context of the time it was created and premiered, and you did not listen to it an vacuum in your own time either, unless it was the very first piece of music you ever heard. You did not have the same expectations and tastes as people in Beethoven’s time would’ve had, and if you’re this conservative in your tastes now there’s a good chance you would’ve been just as conservative then. Nothing wrong with having conservative tastes, but Beethoven’s 9th (and the Grosse Fugue) were not conservative-friendly works in the context of their own time.

I think your “victories of excellence over habit” can be explained by more mundane facts like influence making it so that later generations grow up experiencing these works in ways that are much more familiar and palatable. Beethoven doesn’t sound radical to us precisely because his influence became so entrenched in later composers so that it became ubiquitous in the culture and people adjusted to it through it being so common. These are all statements about the subjective differences of audiences, by the way; the objective music remains the same. I might also mention that some people enjoy the “shock of the new” as well and dislike the “dull of the old,” which is how Beethoven (and most classical music) probably strikes most modern ears now, hence its dwindling popularity.



Woodduck said:


> I'm not quite seeing your point here. Yes, why _isn't_ the world playing Ferneyhough to, for example, inspire the Ukrainians fighters for freedom from Russian domination, much as Beethoven's 9th has been used for it's inspirational value? Hmmm.... that's a toughie... And are you suggesting that if we "cared" about the intentions of contemporary composers we would take their work to our bosoms, as we have Beethoven's?


The point being that Beethoven’s standards for artistic excellence are obviously completely different from, say, Ferneyhough’s. You are adamant about respecting the former and claiming we can recognize excellence merely by adopting his standards; but why would the same not be true of Ferneyhough’s? Why not adopt his standards for excellence and see the “good work” he sees in what he produces? The reason is because people don’t actually react to art like this, but they bring their own biases, tastes, preferences, ideals, etc. to it. Beethoven aligns with many people’s tastes etc. so it’s easy to act like what’s happening is that you are “recognizing excellence” that’s objectively there merely because yours and Beethoven’s standards align, which doesn’t happen with yours and Ferneyhough’s. Why so many people’s align with Beethoven’s and not with Ferneyhough’s is a valid question for which I think there are many possible and not mutually exclusive answers, ranging from the influence and changing tastes I mentioned above to the “tapping into universal aspects of humanity” I mentioned way back in my first post. This is all still within the realm of human subjectivity, though, including the universal aspects of our subjectivities.


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## Eva Yojimbo

DaveM said:


> It didn’t help that the above-mentioned poster dismissed all of us as being logically incoherent:
> _’I don't think I've read anything from anyone here that remotely approaches a logically coherent view on the matter...’_


You know, this statement bothered you so much that you've felt compelled to mention it multiple times in posts not directly addressed to me despite me clarifying exactly what I meant and despite you ignoring that clarification. If you disagree with my point-of-view then it must be because you find something logically incoherent about my posts as well. If you found me perfectly logically coherent, then why are you disagreeing with me?


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## Eva Yojimbo

BachIsBest said:


> I described what a good composer does with sonata form, not just sonata form. I agree that other musical forms have similar elements (something I even hinted at earlier), but you're the one who wanted to get specific, so I obliged.
> 
> Mozart once wrote the piece "A Musical Joke", wherein he displayed how a well-intentioned, but ultimately clueless, composer would write a terrible piece in sonata form. Trills between notes that weren't even that close, poor development, modulation without purpose, parts that he knew even top instrumentalists would botch, and, of course, the final "gag". I suppose to you, if someone preferred the "profundity" and "musical acumen" demonstrated in this piece, it would be an equally valid aesthetic judgement to someone who recognisies the obvious flaws for what they are, jokes, and knows it is perfectly obvious that, say, the Jupiter symphony is far superior.
> 
> "The justification of art is the internal combustion it ignites in the hearts of men and not its shallow, externalized, public manifestations. The purpose of art is not the release of a momentary ejection of adrenaline but is, rather, the gradual, lifelong construction of a state of wonder and serenity."
> 
> -Glenn Gould
> 
> If you don't think the replacement of the aesthetic standards of the classical music tradition with ones randomly chosen so recitations of "Ice Ice Baby" are inserted every five seconds into every piece would result in a markedly poorer "state of wonder and serenity", as Mr Gould so eloquently puts it, I don't know what to say. If you don't think this to, along with morality, would reduce the well-being of those of us who devote much of our time, thought, and spirit to the admiration, aesthetic evaluation, and/or creation of classical music, I'm at a complete loss.


Beyond you saying “skillfully guiding the piece to the recapitulation” the rest (“introducing thematic material, exploring it's musical constituents”) was just a description of what the sonata form is, and the “skillfully guiding” part is vague. What objectively constitutes “skillfully guiding,” and doesn’t our definition of “skillful” depend upon what objective features we subjectively like?

Yes, Mozart’s piece demonstrated many features that he and most of the people of his time would’ve considered bad composition. We have still not removed their subjectivity from these considerations, though. If someone thought it profound and whatnot their view would, indeed, be an “equally valid aesthetic judgment” objectively speaking. What can you point to (again, objectively) that can prove otherwise? Us agreeing (and we DO, to be clear, agree) that Mozart’s Jupiter is a “superior demonstration of musical acumen” than his joke is just us subjectively agreeing about what features of music we like and dislike, just as Mozart shared similar views with the people of his own time so that they could make in-jokes about it. This shows subjective agreement, it doesn’t demonstrate objective judgment.

Similarly, Gould’s statement is a lovely, poetic statement of his subjective preferences which many (probably including myself to a large extent) happen to share. Still, nothing approaching anything like an objective judgment that’s independent of what subjective minds value and prefer. I’m sure that the hypothetical standard that inserts “Ice, Ice, Baby” into all pieces would not be subjectively preferable to the vast majority of people but, I reiterate, mass agreement on subjective preferences doesn’t transform those subjective preferences into objective facts.

I absolutely think that the adoption of many systems of morality would reduce well-being, assuming we come to an agreement on how to define well-being; but the desire for well-being is, in itself, a subjective preference. The fact that we can (hypothetically) make objective judgments about whether or not any moral system increases or reduces well-being still doesn’t remove the fundamental subjective thing that grounds those judgments. See my “rules of chess” analogy many pages back. There’s also a very (civil, thoughtful and intelligent) discussion on this exact issue on YouTube between Steven Woodford and Alex O’Connor if you care to check it out



BachIsBest said:


> Physical theories are valid in the ranges we have tested them. These "spheres of validity" don't have rigorous mathematical definitions and rely on physical intuition (along with mathematical justification) and experiment. They can even fail to be predictive in the sphere of validity in which they were assumed to be valid (see cosmic censorship for a recent example of this).


We agree here.



BachIsBest said:


> Regardless, this does mean these physical theories are not a "unified theory that accounts for all the variables", which was your standard for aesthetic judgements to be objective.


I think your mistake is thinking I was demanding a unified theory to account for any-and-all claims of objectivity. I was not. Dissident first mentioned the hypothetical GUT stating it might not be impossible, and I simply said there’s no reason to assume such a theory exists without evidence. I obviously agree theories of physics are objective despite lacking a GUT, and my initial sentence you responded to works just as well without the “If you're going to try to make a claim for objective truth” part by simply saying: “but you have no unified theory that accounts for all the variables there is no reason to believe one exists until the evidence is provided.” The reason I added the “if you’re going to…” part wasn’t to imply any claims of objectivity must have a unified theory that accounts for all variables, but merely that you’re trying to make a claim for objectivity but then excuse why you have no “unified theory” (his words) or ANY theory to explain them. IE, you’re making claims your lack of theories can’t support.



BachIsBest said:


> They're models of observed reality, which I would argue is different from "mind-independent reality", and they make predictions about observations with incredible accuracy. Regardless, I have already stated I'm not interested in arguing that musical judgements are somehow "mind-independent", only that they can be called objective in the sense a judges ruling is called objective.


In my epistemology “mind-independent reality” is synonymous with “observable reality” because it’s the only evidence and inference we have to such a thing. The alternative is a retreat into some form of solipsism.

Your judge example can work into the mind-(in)dependent distinction. What happens with a judge is they are trying to infer from the evidence the mind-independent state of affairs that happened in the past that would determine their ruling on the case. Hypothetically if time machines existed they could travel back in time and observe the event(s) in question, know exactly what happened, and make a ruling based on that. So even in this case there is some hypothetically observable thing that would determine, say, whether a person was murdered by someone else.

As is, the only “objectivity” the judge displays is their attempt to reason with a minimum of bias from the evidence to what most probably happened (in the case of jury trials their "objectivity" includes not being biased for/against either side and making sure both sides follow the rules, kinda like a referee's job in sports). How does this map onto the issue of aesthetic judgments? Any evidence we look at that refers to the aesthetic objects in question inevitably allows us to ask “why consider this good/bad?,” and how can that question every be resolved by pointing to objective features of the art as opposed to how people (individuals or groups) feel about it?

As I’ve said, I get the feeling that some people think this form of objectivity happens when they ignore their own aesthetic sensibilities in deference to that of others, especially when “the others” is a large and authoritative group, like classical music experts.


----------



## Eva Yojimbo

dissident said:


> Not tongue in cheek this time: you're the one being passive-aggressive. You assume an air of intellectual superiority and then retreat to "who, me?" when you're called out on it. And with that I do sincerely think this discussion has gone on longer than it needed to.


And just like I asked of DaveM I’m going to ask of you to provide evidence of these claims, even if it’s through PM so as not to incur the wrath of the moderators.



dissident said:


> "Why it is so." So is there an objective, provable truth that you're trying to convey?
> 
> Are you confident enough in your thesis to call it an objective fact that must be learned?
> 
> It seems that both of you are saying the following with varying degrees of verbosity:
> 
> "What I want to be subjective is subjective. What I want to be objective may be subjective but I will give it the attributes of an objectivity reserved for observable scientific fact." Otherwise your 30 pages are no more "objective" than 30 pages of those "slow learners" saying "Bach is the greatest". Just another opinion.


I've said numerous times in this thread that people can be subjectivist/objectivist on any number of issues, and that I'm a subjectivist when it comes to aesthetic values and an objectivist when it comes to meta-aesthetics. I'm also an objectivist when it comes to science, a subjectivist when it comes to the quality of food, an objectivist when it comes to what I ate for lunch yesterday, a subjectivist on beauty... you get the point.

The way I distinguish them has nothing to do with which I want the subject to be; it has to do with whether questions within that subject have answers that depend on human minds or not. Can aesthetic judgments be made and be true without referencing what human minds think and feel? I think not, and have spent 30 pages explaining why. However, the ways in which particles and atoms move and behave don't, as far as I can tell, depend upon human minds, neither does what I ate for lunch yesterday, or whether there's intelligent life elsewhere in the universe, etc. The commonality with all these objective things is that there is, at the very least, a theoretical possibility of empirically observing something to confirm whether or not it's true. What can be observed to confirm the truth of an aesthetic judgment? If the answer is nothing, then is there some other epistemic method by which you can confirm the judgment, and, if so, what is it and how do you know?


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## 59540

> Here’s a secret: I don’t care for most of Bach fugues myself, despite very attentive listening and study (as much as a non-professional musician can study music). After a while they start to sound like clockwork. Very intricate clockwork, but clockwork nonetheless.


That isn't a logically coherent criticism, when the same could apply to so much music up to the present. And if you think Bach's fugues are "clockwork", the Baroque suite (including Handel's) would be even more so.


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## 59540

> I'm also an objectivist when it comes to science, a subjectivist when it comes to the quality of food, an objectivist when it comes to what I ate for lunch yesterday, a subjectivist on beauty... you get the point.


What about human rights?


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## Eva Yojimbo

Woodduck said:


> If I understand Luchesi rightly, I agree with him that figuring out the "objective" reasons for our tastes, which we may be able to rationalize only crudely, is of no value in answering the questions of whether, how, and in what sense the painting we're looking at, the poem we're reading, or the music we're listening to is well or incompetently made, genuine or meretricious, refined or crude, superficial or profound, etc. The validity of such questions is at issue here. Taste is another matter, though one not unrelated in practice.


What I question is how "questions of whether, how, and in what sense the (art we're experiencing) is well or incompetently made" can possibly be answered without reference to what we subjectively prefer, and the "we" there can refer to individuals, certain groups, or all humans. AFAICT, "well and incompetently made" are defined by what we as subjects like/dislike in the art. There's no such thing as "well-made art" that nobody likes.


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## Eva Yojimbo

dissident said:


> That isn't a logically coherent criticism, when the same could apply to so much music up to the present. And if you think Bach's fugues are "clockwork", the Baroque suite (including Handel's) would be even more so.


Logical coherency doesn't pertain to statements of subjective impressions. Handel's suites contain some fugues but not that many (with a quick check I count 5 out of 38 tracks) and I generally find them more melodic than most of Bach's. 



dissident said:


> What about human rights?


Subjective. I'm fairly certain I answered this pages back and linked to Carlin's stand-up on the subject.


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## 59540

Eva Yojimbo said:


> Logical coherency doesn't pertain to statements of subjective impressions. Handel's suites contain some fugues but not that many (with a quick check I count 5 out of 38 tracks) and I generally find them more melodic than most of Bach's.


Well it doesn't have to be logically incoherent, though. If you state a "reason" and it doesn't turn out to be much of one, maybe it's time for "I just don't like it".

By the way I wasn't referring to fugues as suite movements, but rather to the predictable structure of the Baroque dance suite movement itself.



> Subjective. I'm fairly certain I answered this pages back and linked to Carlin's stand-up on the subject.


So "bad Nazi" is really just a matter of taste.


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## BachIsBest

Eva Yojimbo said:


> Beyond you saying “skillfully guiding the piece to the recapitulation” the rest (“introducing thematic material, exploring it's musical constituents”) was just a description of what the sonata form is, and the “skillfully guiding” part is vague. What objectively constitutes “skillfully guiding,” and doesn’t our definition of “skillful” depend upon what objective features we subjectively like?


I'll defer these to Wooduck's posts as he is much better at explaining these things than I could ever hope to be. My knowledge of music theory is limited to online courses and what I have learned on TC.



Eva Yojimbo said:


> Yes, Mozart’s piece demonstrated many features that he and most of the people of his time would’ve considered bad composition. We have still not removed their subjectivity from these considerations, though. If someone thought it profound and whatnot their view would, indeed, be an “equally valid aesthetic judgment” objectively speaking. What can you point to (again, objectively) that can prove otherwise? Us agreeing (and we DO, to be clear, agree) that Mozart’s Jupiter is a “superior demonstration of musical acumen” than his joke is just us subjectively agreeing about what features of music we like and dislike, just as Mozart shared similar views with the people of his own time so that they could make in-jokes about it. This shows subjective agreement, it doesn’t demonstrate objective judgment.


I do think if a composer writes an intentionally terrible piece of music, someone completely uneducated on the music of such composer thinks it is in fact the most profound thing he has ever heard, and then your epistemology demands that you accept this persons opinion as an "equally valid aesthetic judgement", you should conclude that your epistemology needs work.



Eva Yojimbo said:


> Similarly, Gould’s statement is a lovely, poetic statement of his subjective preferences which many (probably including myself to a large extent) happen to share. Still, nothing approaching anything like an objective judgment that’s independent of what subjective minds value and prefer. I’m sure that the hypothetical standard that inserts “Ice, Ice, Baby” into all pieces would not be subjectively preferable to the vast majority of people but, I reiterate, mass agreement on subjective preferences doesn’t transform those subjective preferences into objective facts.


Yes, you have indeed made it clear that mass agreement on subjective preferences does not translate into objective fact. Please keep in mind I am arguing more for "objective judgement" of music than "objective fact".



Eva Yojimbo said:


> I absolutely think that the adoption of many systems of morality would reduce well-being, assuming we come to an agreement on how to define well-being; but the desire for well-being is, in itself, a subjective preference. The fact that we can (hypothetically) make objective judgments about whether or not any moral system increases or reduces well-being still doesn’t remove the fundamental subjective thing that grounds those judgments. See my “rules of chess” analogy many pages back. There’s also a very (civil, thoughtful and intelligent) discussion on this exact issue on YouTube between Steven Woodford and Alex O’Connor if you care to check it out


I don't think this is overly relevant to the discussion at hand. My point was that changing the standards of music in completely arbitrary ways would result in a loss of well-being, not that changing the standards of morality wouldn't. Anyhow, as you could probably guess, I don't think moral judgements are necessarily subjective (using the common definition of subjective not "of the mind").



Eva Yojimbo said:


> I think your mistake is thinking I was demanding a unified theory to account for any-and-all claims of objectivity. I was not. Dissident first mentioned the hypothetical GUT stating it might not be impossible, and I simply said there’s no reason to assume such a theory exists without evidence. I obviously agree theories of physics are objective despite lacking a GUT, and my initial sentence you responded to works just as well without the “If you're going to try to make a claim for objective truth” part by simply saying: “but you have no unified theory that accounts for all the variables there is no reason to believe one exists until the evidence is provided.” The reason I added the “if you’re going to…” part wasn’t to imply any claims of objectivity must have a unified theory that accounts for all variables, but merely that you’re trying to make a claim for objectivity but then excuse why you have no “unified theory” (his words) or ANY theory to explain them. IE, you’re making claims your lack of theories can’t support.


In so far as I understand this, I guess this was a misunderstanding.



Eva Yojimbo said:


> In my epistemology “mind-independent reality” is synonymous with “observable reality” because it’s the only evidence and inference we have to such a thing. The alternative is a retreat into some form of solipsism.


If we're comparing epistemologies I would generally take it as axiomatic that, roughly speaking, all other humans have a similar sort of experience as myself, but do not assume this shared experience corresponds to an "absolute reality", as Kant would call it, because I don't see enough evidence from fundamental physics to support this assertation. I recognise, however, the consistency of the observations of various people and take this consistency to be axiomatic to the fact others have a similar sort of experience as myself (I don't believe in some sort of post-modern nonsense about "all interpretations being equally valid").

I would again like to stress no one is arguing for the mind-independent judgement of music.



Eva Yojimbo said:


> Your judge example can work into the mind-(in)dependent distinction. What happens with a judge is they are trying to infer from the evidence the mind-independent state of affairs that happened in the past that would determine their ruling on the case. Hypothetically if time machines existed they could travel back in time and observe the event(s) in question, know exactly what happened, and make a ruling based on that. So even in this case there is some hypothetically observable thing that would determine, say, whether a person was murdered by someone else.
> 
> As is, the only “objectivity” the judge displays is their attempt to reason with a minimum of bias from the evidence to what most probably happened (in the case of jury trials their "objectivity" includes not being biased for/against either side and making sure both sides follow the rules, kinda like a referee's job in sports). How does this map onto the issue of aesthetic judgments? Any evidence we look at that refers to the aesthetic objects in question inevitably allows us to ask “why consider this good/bad?,” and how can that question every be resolved by pointing to objective features of the art as opposed to how people (individuals or groups) feel about it?


I'm not just talking about reconstructing the past using evidence, which I agree could be objective in the philosophical sense of the word using your epistemology (jeese this is getting complicated). The judge then has decide, given what he thinks the reconstructed past is, what would be the appropriate punishment; in other words, he has to decide how "bad" the crime was. It is here that we find the better analogy to the aesthetic judgement of how "good" a piece of music is.



Eva Yojimbo said:


> As I’ve said, I get the feeling that some people think this form of objectivity happens when they ignore their own aesthetic sensibilities in deference to that of others, especially when “the others” is a large and authoritative group, like classical music experts.


Yes, I enjoy listening and praising music I don't enjoy nor think worthy of praise. How do you know so much about me?


----------



## 59540

"I don't really know very much about this thing you say you like, but I can tell you for sure that your reasons for liking it are entirely subjective."


----------



## Woodduck

Eva Yojimbo said:


> I don’t have much issue with this other than the notion that even “coherent and purposeful” are necessary attributes of good art. The 20th century has seen the exploration of a lot of art that can be called “chaotic and random,” which many people seem to have an aesthetic sensibility that tells them is good, from aleatory music to surrealism in all its various forms. The juxtaposition of random and chaotic elements carries with it its own aesthetic effects that many find quite good, perhaps even better than more ordered, balanced, patterned, etc. ones.


Anyone is free to prefer chaos to order. Needless to say, in the universe as a whole, and in the affairs of life, this doesn't work too well. The suggestion that chaos can be more than a "special effect" in any art with a claim to excellence is just another astoundingly absurd example of why "total subjectivism" is... well, absurd.



> You can of course play God in your own hypothesis, I was just noting that without you playing God and dictating why the student is reacting as he is there are possible alternative hypotheses that could also explain his “aha!” The idea that humans can have their minds swayed by the influence of authorities isn’t exactly a controversial idea. In fact, I’d assume you of all people would realize this given that composition students have been trained to follow in the footsteps of all these contemporary and post-modern composers you dislike. Are their aesthetic senses being manipulated by authorities, or are their aesthetic senses just naturally drawn to these avant-garde modes of compositions? Maybe a bit of both?


I "of all people" do realize that humans can be swayed by authorities. In fact an appalling and dangerous number of them are. But that's not what I was talking about when I was playing God (which for an atheist is quite a trick).



> It may be “better developed” in the sense than some become more conscious of it and, in the case of artists, better able to mold it into forms that appeal to themselves and others. I don’t know how this makes much sense for audiences, though, except via that awareness I mentioned. I’m fairly certain I could teach any random person how to be aware of, say, the sonata form or fugue, but this doesn’t mean they’re going to respond to either the same way you or I do, just as you might not respond to the music they like as they do. Why is your aesthetic sense “better developed” for preferring one type of music and them another?


You don't know how the aesthetic perceptiveness of audiences affects how they hear music? Really? What do you mean "be aware of sonata form?" Yeah, anybody can be "aware" of it...Who said anybody has to respond to a work the way I do? Or that being aesthetically knowledgeable and sensitive has anything necessarily to do with what "type" of music we prefer? I certainy haven't said those things.



> Further this also ignores the fact that people with equally developed aesthetic senses, who’ve also devoted their lives to the arts as performers, creators, critics, or even just fans, still vociferously disagree with each other all the time; and even if they DID agree, they’re still just another “group” to consider in the poll. Is music and aesthetic judgments only for those with the most developed aesthetic senses?


Groan. This is so unspecific and indefinite I'll just have to decline (though I suspect I've discussed some of it already, somewhere). As to your question: some people are better qualified than some other people to judge some things. Is that a novel thought?



> I think we might fundamentally disagree about people not possessing different aesthetic senses. Even to take your example above, people’s tolerance to and preference for the poles of “chaos” and “order” vary tremendously. Some find too much order boring, or too much chaos anxiety-inducing; some have high or low tolerances for both, have different preferences for what the balances should be, and that varies by experience (both life experience and their experience with the artforms or even genres in question). Even with something like the ability of art to produce different emotions, moods, tones, atmospheres… people have radically different preferences for which of those they prefer. People have a preference for different SOUNDS in music. And you’re going to try to sort through all of this and judge on the basis of whose aesthetic sense is more developed? Really?


No, I'm not going to do that. I'm not a neuropsychologist, if that's a thing. You're talking about preferences in styles of music. Music is endlessly varied, as are tastes in music. I am at pains here to distinguish taste from aesthetic discrimination. You and other "subjectivists" keep conflating them, but then I guess that's what a "subjectivist aesthetics" (which sounds rather oxymoronic to me) does by definition.

The issue isn't "people’s tolerance to and preference for the poles of 'chaos' and 'order'." The issue is people's ability to tell when a composer has done a good job in making use of those, and other, more specific, formal principles - in other words, whether human beings in general have the sort of mental equipment that enables them, under appropriate conditions, to make such discriminations. Of course there's more to appreciating music than grasping form and assessing a composer's competence in handling it, but I suspect you quite underestimate what handling form actually means in the creation of art, just as I think you undersestimate the mental process needed to grasp it. Some "daring, revolutionary, iconoclastic, etc." composer out there could produce a completely aleatory piece of "music," a piece that could be played by any instrumental or vocal forces up to thousands of singers and players, and could go on for any length of time, and we would give him full credit for being utterly competent in handling the "form" of his work. For you, I assume, that work would not be "objectively" inferior to a Mozart piano concerto, and the mental process by which some desperate soul might prefer it to the Mozart would show that "people possess different aesthetic senses." For me it would simply show that the person isn't employing the aesthetic sense that he has. But aesthetic sense is hardly the only sense that people fail to employ.



> What you’re saying with the second paragraph just strikes me as practically a tautology for “people who have the aesthetic sense for liking Bach fugues will like Bach fugues,” and one can say the same of almost every artist or their work under the sun and then turn around and say anyone who disagrees “are simply in no position to render that judgment and ought to be humble enough to keep quiet.” How is this different from what Strange Magic describes as polling and the resultant bell curves?


There is no tautology in saying, as I did, that "People equipped by natural aptitude and life experience to understand the nature of Western music and fugal writing agree that Bach was a master of the fugue," any more than there is tautology in saying that people who know how tennis is played are in the best position to appreciate the brilliance of Roger Federer, even though people who don't know tennis can still enjoy watching him. This has nothing to do with polling and bell curves. What do you think I mean by natural aptitude and life experience? Natural aptitudes are given, but differ in degree between individuals. Life experience is what it sounds like. What's difficult about this?



> And how is this attentive listening and study going to prove their wrongness? Here’s a secret: I don’t care for most of Bach fugues myself, despite very attentive listening and study (as much as a non-professional musician can study music). After a while they start to sound like clockwork. Very intricate clockwork, but clockwork nonetheless. I’ve even queried why they elicit this apathetic response in me to where the fugues of many other composers do not, and what I’ve come up with is that I usually prefer fugues as spices rather than main dishes, and even then the spice should elicit some feeling in me beyond its clockwork intricacy and complexity. It’s why I love Beethoven’s Grosse Fugue (which is even a “dish” rather than a spice) because, complex/intricate or not, it makes me feel something, and it’s a something that provoked my mother when I was 13 to burst into my room wondering what that noise I was playing was (one of the very few classical works that ever provoked that reaction).
> 
> Yet I can’t imagine what aesthetic deficiencies I lack because of this preference. I am perfectly capable of listening and recognizing and following along with Bach’s fugues. I accept they elicit some rapturous responses in others and I am not going to seek to invalidate their response by declaring Bach’s fugues bad any more that I’m going to invalidate mine by declaring them good. I say they’re good according to the aesthetic senses that find them good and bad to those who find them bad. Any attempt to validate them beyond that requires the establishment of standards for judgment that I (nor is anyone) obliged to accept.


So you don't care for Bach fugues. This may hamper your ability to hear Bach's mastery of the formal processes involved in fuguing. Maybe you're not drawn to the music enough to want to try to assess the composer's inventive powers and skills, much less his exploitation of the expressive possibilities of the medium. That's all fine. But doesn't it make sense to admit that, given your lack of interest, others are in a better position to say how good Bach's fugues are? Maybe their opinion is, in this case, worth more than yours in understanding what Bach has done, and the quality of it. That, at least, is my attitude toward music I'm not interested in and don't fully appreciate, or care to.


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## Eva Yojimbo

dissident said:


> Well it doesn't have to be logically incoherent, though. If you state a "reason" and it doesn't turn out to be much of one, maybe it's time for "I just don't like it".
> 
> By the way I wasn't referring to fugues as suite movements, but rather to the predictable structure of the Baroque dance suite movement itself.


My entire point in this thread is that any "reason" ultimately boils down to "I just (don't) like it." A reason in regards to any aesthetic judgment is just saying "see these objective features? I don't like these features." Some people have a greater ability to precisely articulate what objective features there are, how they are similar/dissimilar to others, but at the end of the day any qualitative judgment of those features boils down to either how you feel about them, or how others feel about them. 

I understand what you mean RE the predictable structures of the suites, but my comment about the "clockwork" nature wasn't about the predictability. There's plenty of really predictable music I love. I was more trying to point out how in clockwork there are many interlocking and interdependent mechanism that work together to keep the whole functioning. I feel that same relationship with the multiple voices and harmonic developments in Bach's fugue, the same kind of purposeful, logical, mechanistic interdependence... but just as I have no emotional reaction to the intricacies of clockwork (other than to dispassionately admire the craft), I feel the same with much (not all!) of Bach's fugues. This is a wholly subjective reaction. Other people have the polar opposite reaction to Bach's fugues. My subjectivist approach deems both of these feelings/reactions valid without the need to declare that one is objectively right and the other is objectively wrong. 



dissident said:


> So "bad Nazi" is really just a matter of taste.


It's a matter of what our subjective moral standards are, and our "subjective moral standards" can refer to us as individuals or us as groups. Again, the entire issue is that if you want to declare such moral (or aesthetic) judgments objectively right or wrong you have to have some method of resolving conflicts of judgment that don't rest on what we prefer, feel, value, etc. I feel, as strongly as anyone, that Nazis are bad, but a strong feeling is not evidence of an objective truth. If people can have strong feelings about contradictory propositions (like "Nazis are good/bad,") then it's obvious the strong feeling is not a reliable epistemic measure of truth.


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## 59540

> My entire point in this thread is that any "reason" ultimately boils down to "I just (don't) like it."


Why didn't you just say so?


> but my comment about the "clockwork" nature wasn't about the predictability. There's plenty of really predictable music I love. I was more trying to point out how in clockwork there are many interlocking and interdependent mechanism that work together to keep the whole functioning.


That describes any music that isn't complete chaos, with the possible exception of a single melodic line.


> I feel, as strongly as anyone, that Nazis are bad, but a strong feeling is not evidence of an objective truth.


Well then I don't see the point in using them as a reference as the "objectivist thinking" polar opposite of the "good" subjectivist way of looking at things. They just are/were, nothing more.


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## Eva Yojimbo

dissident said:


> "I don't really know very much about this thing you say you like, but I can tell you for sure that your reasons for liking it are entirely subjective."


I don't know what this is in reference to but, yes, you can say that because that's how liking works. Understanding something doesn't carry with it any obligation towards feeling any particular way about it.


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## science

dissident said:


> "I don't really know very much about this thing you say you like, but I can tell you for sure that your reasons for liking it are entirely subjective."


Of course! Liking or not liking is subjective. 

We can study them and draw plausibly objective conclusions -- most hens enjoy brooding on their eggs, most rat snakes enjoy eating those eggs, most people enjoy music with the meters common in the music they heard growing up -- but the enjoyment (or lack of it) is _by definition_ subjective.


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## DaveM

Eva Yojimbo said:


> It's a matter of what our subjective moral standards are, and our "subjective moral standards" can refer to us as individuals or us as groups. Again, the entire issue is that if you want to declare such moral (or aesthetic) judgments objectively right or wrong you have to have some method of resolving conflicts of judgment that don't rest on what we prefer, feel, value, etc. *I feel, as strongly as anyone, that Nazis are bad, but a strong feeling is not evidence of an objective truth.* If people can have strong feelings about contradictory propositions (like "Nazis are good/bad,") then it's obvious the strong feeling is not a reliable epistemic measure of truth.


Its hard to believe that someone could think that way, let alone put it down in print. People have a strong feeling about those mentioned because there is objective evidence that they were bad. Not to mention that it is presumptuous to use that as an example in such a superficial way since the subject matter it reminds one of is, not in any way, superficial.


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## hammeredklavier

I don't get all the talk about the Grosse fuge in relation to the other movements of Op.130 or Beethoven's other quartets. I think it's a red herring— some people in this thread are trying to avoid discussing the fugue itself, how it relates to "the accepted way of writing a fugue".
Albrechtsberger was a master of fugue, and if he told Beethoven Grosse fuge was not the way, would Beethoven have said, "aha!"?
"The young composer, by the recommendation of Haydn, soon started visiting Albrechtsberger, three times a week. A surviving note from one teacher to the other shows that Haydn was very much aware of the magnitude of Beethoven’s raw talent: _Another six months in counterpoint and he can work on whatever he wants._
Unlike Haydn, Albrechtsberger was a born teacher. He was tireless, pedant and systematic. He first showed the young man the secrets of counterpointing, followed by imitation, choral fugue, double and triple counterpoint. Altogether 160 exercises would survive."


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## hammeredklavier

hammeredklavier said:


> So you're saying everything done in the CP era can be objectively categorized as either "right" or "wrong" answers?- isn't it a rather boring way to view music history?


the-vocal-music-of-ludwig-van-beethoven "Beethoven was uncharacteristically unsure of his talents as a composer of vocal music: “When sound stirs within me I always hear the full orchestra; I know what to expect of instrumentalists, who are capable of almost everything, but with vocal composition I must always be asking myself: can this be sung?”


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## hammeredklavier

> Music that's simply modeled on other music and has no spark of personality or originality


Did Bach and Mozart think music in terms of personality and originality though? Is "music of personality or originality" (in the objective sense, in this case) just another fancy term for "well-composed music"? How do we know exactly how "new" their sounds were compared to all other music in their time, without hearing it all? Does it depend on the perspective? What if we had been educated from childhood to think like Kriesler jr, on Bach? (See Post#544) What if we had been educated from childhood that Zelenka (eg. Missa omnium sanctorum ZWV21) has a way cooler, groovier sound quality than Bach? If we had been brainwashed from youth with the theory that Mozart was a craftsman blindly following the tradition, with no originality of his own whatsoever,- would the "subjective biases" have affected the way we view the "objectivity" in these matters?
MH188/i: v80s4yjSdQM&t=3m23s K.466/i: hvaNnPhC0mM&t=1m12s
MH188/i: v80s4yjSdQM&t=7m57s K.551/iv: gAmw8ATln68&t=38m8s
MH188/ii: v80s4yjSdQM&t=10m18s K.345/ii: RtJEN3Z2Jpg&t=4m17s
MH188/iv: v80s4yjSdQM&t=23m26s K.425/iv: XDnXB7nGg4I&t=2m44s
MH188/i: v80s4yjSdQM&t=3m39s K.425/iv: XDnXB7nGg4I&t=2m54s
MH188/i: v80s4yjSdQM&t=3m15s K.345/iv: RtJEN3Z2Jpg&t=16m15s


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## Woodduck

I said: *"Aesthetic perception, as I've described it, involves "feeling," but it's feeling of a certain kind, akin to the "feeling" we get when we finally hit on the answer to a riddle or the solution to an equation. You can have that feeling in error, but it's pretty reliable. Other feelings, of a more emotional and personal nature, may of course accompany the feeling of rightness engendered by the effective ordering of aesthetic space or time." *



Eva Yojimbo said:


> Perception and feeling are simply two different things, regardless of whether we’re adding the “aesthetic” qualifier. A perception of any kind need not carry with it a feeling. Perceptions can be neutral, or can provoke strong or weak feeling towards either end of the positive and negative poles. Maybe to you this feeling is like realizing the answer to a riddle, but I’d wager it is not that for most people.


"Feelings" may be different kinds of things. They may be physical sensations or cognitive events, they may be emotions or unemotional intuitions, they may have objects or no objects, and they may or may not have consequences or utility. The "feeling" a composer has of having found an effective continuation for a melodic fragment is the sort of feeling that has an object - the melody he's trying to find a continuation for - and it has cognitive value. He "perceives," intuitively and usually without need for conscious justifications, that he's made a good or bad choice. To someone like me, who goes through the day with improvised tunes relentlessly unspooling themselves in his head (when I was a ballet accompanist this was a sort of continuous busman's holiday), it's obvious that the process of criticizing the way melodies unfold, and distinguishing effective and creative continuations from trite or "illogical" ones, is cognitive and not emotional, although I usually feel some pleasure or displeasure as a result of the feeling/perception that I'm making good or bad creative choices.

As to what "most" people "feel" about such compositional processes, I really can't say, but I will say that a listener who has any familiarity with the style of the music may be, usually unconsciously but sometimes consciously (especially if the music isn't well-composed), perceiving the work's aesthetic choices using exactly the same criteria used by the composer. Does this introduction work well with the main body of the movement? Is this theme distinctive and memorable enough to track as it's subjected to permutations? Are the harmonic changes so frequent that they obscure the work's tonal plan? Is this bridge to the exposition repeat elegant and organic or heavy-handed? Does this peroration go on longer than necessary to make its point? Is the piece organized meaningfully and lucidly or does it stumble and meander? Etc., etc., etc.



> At most, the only riddle I felt I was solving was the nature of my own subjectivity, and even then only to a very limited extent. I’m not sure how such a feeling can be “reliable” except as a guide to what you, yourself think and feel.


This, which looks like some sort of aesthetic solipsism, or narcissism - or maybe onanism - doesn't decribe the cognitive process of creating or performing music, or, for musicians at least, of experiencing it. Let Eduard Hanslick provide a clue: "An inward singing, not an inward feeling, prompts a gifted person to compose a piece of music."


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## Woodduck

hammeredklavier said:


> Did Bach and Mozart think music in terms of personality and originality though?


They didn't have to. Like all first-rate creators, they had personality and originality without having to strive for it or wear it as an affectation.



> Is "music of personality or originality" (in the objective sense, in this case) just another fancy way of saying "well-composed music"?


No.



> How do we know exactly how "new" their sounds were compared to all other music in their time, without hearing all of it?


Why do we need to know "exactly"? Who cares?



> Does it depend on the perspective? What if we had been educated from childhood to think like Kriesler jr, on Bach? (See Post#544) What if we had been educated from childhood that Zelenka (eg. Missa omnium sanctorum ZWV21) has a way cooler, groovier sound quality than Bach? If we had been brainwashed from youth with the theory that Mozart was a craftsman blindly following the tradition, with no originality of his own whatsoever,- would the "subjective biases" have affected the way we view the "objectivity" in these matters?
> MH188/i: v80s4yjSdQM&t=3m23s K.466/i: hvaNnPhC0mM&t=1m12s
> MH188/i: v80s4yjSdQM&t=7m57s K.551/iv: gAmw8ATln68&t=38m8s
> MH188/ii: v80s4yjSdQM&t=10m18s K.345/ii: RtJEN3Z2Jpg&t=4m17s
> MH188/iv: v80s4yjSdQM&t=23m26s K.425/iv: XDnXB7nGg4I&t=2m44s
> MH188/i: v80s4yjSdQM&t=3m39s K.425/iv: XDnXB7nGg4I&t=2m54s
> MH188/i: v80s4yjSdQM&t=3m15s K.345/iv: RtJEN3Z2Jpg&t=16m15s


Ugh. I think these are silly questions. And they've been answered before. Sorry.


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## BachIsBest

Eva Yojimbo said:


> Yes, Mozart’s piece demonstrated many features that he and most of the people of his time would’ve considered bad composition. We have still not removed their subjectivity from these considerations, though. If someone thought it profound and whatnot their view would, indeed, be an “equally valid aesthetic judgment” objectively speaking. What can you point to (again, objectively) that can prove otherwise? Us agreeing (and we DO, to be clear, agree) that Mozart’s Jupiter is a “superior demonstration of musical acumen” than his joke is just us subjectively agreeing about what features of music we like and dislike, just as Mozart shared similar views with the people of his own time so that they could make in-jokes about it. This shows subjective agreement, it doesn’t demonstrate objective judgment.


So you surely now admit that within the Classical period, there were standards that could be applied to determine a piece was bad (although, of course, you still argue these standards are themselves subjective)? I feel this is at least progress towards common ground.


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## Woodduck

I wrote: "A composer's knowledge that he's done good work doesn't imply perfect insight, but more than that, it doesn't assume that there is such a thing as perfection (although the artist is always gazing at that horizon), and it doesn't mean that an aesthetic situation may not have multiple resolutions, each of which has merit."



Eva Yojimbo said:


> You say “a composer’s knowledge that he’s done good work doesn’t imply perfect insight,” which, in itself, implies that this knowledge can be wrong. So he had knowledge it was right when he felt it was right, and knowledge it was wrong when he felt it was wrong? It sure does seem like this knowledge is dependent upon how he feels about it! If knowledge can be wrong, is it really knowledge? What is the evidence that convinced them otherwise, and can whatever this evidence is be completely independent from their subjective feelings?


Are you saying that the possibility of being mistaken - in this case, about having made the best possible artistic choice - means that a composer can never tell when he's done good work? That would mean that artists, who make mistakes all the time, know it, and work to correct them, can never know whether their work is any good. It means that if Beethoven, in creating a monumental set of variations on a trivial tune by Diabelli, imagined that his work was in any way superior in artistic value to Diabelli's, his mind was simply being overwhelmed by his feelings, which were no more significant than those of his housekeeper, who probably thought he was half-crazy.

What a ludicrous notion. These are yet more out-of-this-world conclusions that call your premises into question.



> You then imply (if not outright say) that “aesthetic intelligence and skill” exists in the object in a way that people can simply perceive presumably the same way I’ve mentioned people can see when they hear a Bach fugue… but still haven’t offered any way of proving that except through this personal knowledge, which you’ve already admitted can be wrong. Surely you see the difficulty I’m having here. Can you imagine if any scientific theories presented themselves in such contradictory ways?


The appeal for '"scientific" proof of artistic value is, as has been said, irrelevant. Art is not science. The perception that the forms and forces in a painting or a sonata cohere and balance cannot be corroborated through any experiment, and if a quasi-scientific replication is desired, that must be done by each individual employing his own mental guage, which I've called the aesthetic sense. This of course happens all the time; musicians tend largely to agree on artistic merit, a fact that non-musicians may not be aware of. But one person can't '"prove" to another that the Diabelli Variations possess any particular qualities unless that other person can hear those qualities. Do we need to keep repeating this?



> I granted you could play God with your music student, now let me play God with mine: what if everyone came to think of this conflated work [the last scene of Puccini's _Turandot _used as the last movement of Beethoven's Op. 130 string quartet] as being a superior masterpiece than Op. 130 by itself, to the point that it was almost always programmed and recorded that way. What then? Sure enough, it wouldn’t be Beethoven’s work alone anymore, but what about its status as a work of art? Would Beethoven’s still be better if nobody preferred it?


A hypothetical which doesn't describe a possible reality can't show anything. But the fact that you're posing such silliness as a meaningful possibilty again casts serious doubt on your basic assumptions. Relevant assumptions appear to be: 1.) that human beings do not have an aesthetic sense that would prevent the majority of them from preferring an artistic monstrosity over a beautifully composed work of art; and/or 2.) that there are no principles of aesthetic fitness that could be embodied in works of art and give people reason to regard Beethoven's work as artistically superior to the mongrel alternative.

Human experience throughout history argues against both assumptions. Most humans have sought beauty in the created forms of art, and most have had, despite great cultural variations in its expression, a good idea of what that means, such that the specific beauties of different artistic traditions regularly cross cultural boundaries and entrance people of foreign backgrounds and sensibilities. Trust me: a Puccini opera glued to the derriere of a Beethoven quartet isn't getting a passport.


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## hammeredklavier

BachIsBest said:


> So you surely now admit that within the Classical period, there were standards that could be applied to determine a piece was bad


That would even be harder to determine because everyone kept all the "rules" at the time. Show me an example of a work from that period (the late 18th century) that blatantly goes against the rules of voice-leading and other rules of good taste such as sentence structure and cadence.
Even someone like J.G. Naumann, whose liturgical music was controversial from the point of view of Mozart and J.F. Doles, kept all the rules of composition accepted at the time. Show me an example of an "objectively bad piece" by Naumann. The opening to Mozart's K.465 quartet was criticized in a music magazine for its "weirdness", and as I pointed out earlier; a significant number of people at the time disliked him for his strong "Germanness" in harmony and orchestration. Whether or not Orlando Paladino (where Haydn's style shows; compare the "Ah se dire io vi potessi" with the slow movement of Op.76 No.5, and the "Quel tuo visetto amabile" with that of the 100th symphony, etc.) is worse, equal, or better to Mozart depends on subjective opinion. Again, it's all about fanbase and popularity.


----------



## hammeredklavier

hammeredklavier said:


> "I find it unfair that an "indecent pot-boiler" like Cosi fan tutte survived, while stuff like the "proto-Schubertian" pastoral poem, Die Hochzeit auf der Alm with its later added supplemental music and its "anthem of fidelity" and Die Ährenleserin did not. I find the dramatic structure of this Dzmj8lRLHh0&t=10m43s Dies irae (which integrates the Lacrimosa) more interesting than the one from Mozart's sketchy requiem. I find that none of Mozart's symphonies before No.31 are as "mature" as watch?v=e8ba5g_jF5M , watch?v=v80s4yjSdQM , watch?v=ppTToo8lrMQ " (and so on..)
> 
> Of course, I don't hold these opinions, but in a "parallel world" where Mozart's certain contemporaries get as much exposure as him, there could be people holding them. There's no unversal law of objective value that somehow exempts Mozart from these accusations; he isn't somehow on a higher plane than them; that's just an illusion we've created in our minds.


No one wants to tackle this still? The Haydn requiem could even be said to be consistent throughout, in expressive theme, compared to the Mozart, in the Sanctus and Benedictus. watch?v=Dzmj8lRLHh0&t=21m


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## hammeredklavier

Woodduck said:


> They didn't have to. Like all first-rate creators, they had personality and originality without having to strive for it or wear it as an affectation.


Aren't you attributing these things to them as a result of your subjective response to their music? Who are the first-rate creators of each decade of European music from 1000-1700? Do people need to care about their "greatness" cause it's also objective? What are some things you found "plain ridiculous" in Mozart, even though they stemmed from the common practice of his time? Aren't you compromising the "negatives" with the "positives" based on your subjective evaluation?


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## Woodduck

hammeredklavier said:


> Aren't you attributing these things to them as a result of your subjective response to their music? Who are the first-rate creators of each decade of European music from 1000-1700? Do people need to care about their "greatness" cause it's also objective? What are some things you found "plain ridiculous" in Mozart, even though they stemmed from the common practice of his time? Aren't you compromising the "negatives" with the "positives" based on your subjective evaluation?


No, I'm attributing creative individuality to Bach and Mozart because their music exhibits it. 

No, people don't need to care about their "greatness."

I don't know what I found "plain ridiculous." Why do you care?

i have no idea what your last question means.


----------



## Eva Yojimbo

BachIsBest said:


> I'll defer these to Wooduck's posts as he is much better at explaining these things than I could ever hope to be. My knowledge of music theory is limited to online courses and what I have learned on TC.


That’s fair, but it’s worth noting that music theory is ultimately descriptive rather than prescriptive.



BachIsBest said:


> I do think if a composer writes an intentionally terrible piece of music, someone completely uneducated on the music of such composer thinks it is in fact the most profound thing he has ever heard, and then your epistemology demands that you accept this persons opinion as an "equally valid aesthetic judgement", you should conclude that your epistemology needs work.


The composer’s attempt at a “completely terrible piece of music” is predicated on the shared subjective tastes and standards between the composer and his culture. There is no obligation to accept these tastes and standards as our own. There is no epistemology that can declare standards and tastes based on subjective preferences as being right or wrong. Even normal epistemology only works if we carefully define it as being based around empiricism and the kind of empirically predictive modeling of science.



BachIsBest said:


> Yes, you have indeed made it clear that mass agreement on subjective preferences does not translate into objective fact. Please keep in mind I am arguing more for "objective judgement" of music than "objective fact".


I don’t see what distinction you’re making between “objective judgment” and “objective fact” here. How is objective acting differently in either?



BachIsBest said:


> I don't think this is overly relevant to the discussion at hand. My point was that changing the standards of music in completely arbitrary ways would result in a loss of well-being, not that changing the standards of morality wouldn't.


I guess I misunderstood you, but then I can’t fathom how changing standards of music would result in a loss of well-being, except in the sense that there would be more music that more people didn’t like, and having less music to like is detrimental to well-being?



BachIsBest said:


> In so far as I understand this, I guess this was a misunderstanding. It does seem to be saying one needs a unified theory that accounts for all the variables.


Yes, I understand the confusion, and it was badly phrased on my on part. Hopefully my explanation cleared it up, but I probably should’ve phrased it as “don’t make claims of objective facts without a theory that supports them, and don’t assume a GUT exists unless you have one that can explain all the variables.” The problem was I tried to combine these two separate statements into one and made it confusing. My fault.



BachIsBest said:


> If we're comparing epistemologies I would generally take it as axiomatic that, roughly speaking, all other humans have a similar sort of experience as myself, but do not assume this shared experience corresponds to an "absolute reality", as Kant would call it, because I don't see enough evidence from fundamental physics to support this assertation. I recognise, however, the consistency of the observations of various people and take this consistency to be axiomatic to the fact others have a similar sort of experience as myself (I don't believe in some sort of post-modern nonsense about "all interpretations being equally valid").
> 
> I would again like to stress no one is arguing for the mind-independent judgement of music.


I’m not making claims for an “absolute reality” either. We have no access to what Kant termed the “ding-an-sich,” or things as they are without reference to human perception and all the mental machinery that goes into decoding and making sense of that perception (which we also know is prone to flaws and errors). My only point was that if we’re going to try to make a meaningful distinction between objective and subjective it has to start with the inference that things we directly sense exist independent of the mind. That’s an inference, but without it there’s no distinction possible.

I get not everyone is using objective to mean mind-independent, but how are you using it?



BachIsBest said:


> I'm not just talking about reconstructing the past using evidence, which I agree could be objective in the philosophical sense of the word using your epistemology (jeese this is getting complicated). The judge then has decide, given what he thinks the reconstructed past is, what would be the appropriate punishment; in other words, he has to decide how "bad" the crime was. It is here that we find the better analogy to the aesthetic judgement of how "good" a piece of music is.


Right, but the judge’s judgment of the “appropriate punishment” and how “bad” the crime is will depend upon, one, their personal subjective feeling of how bad it is; two, the subjective feelings of all the judges/cases before them (“precedent”); and, three, the subjective feelings of everyone who has helped established by law how “bad” such a thing is. Now, the judge can’t completely ignore the law, so in that sense they can be “objective” in the sense that they aren’t relying solely on their personal feelings/judgments but that of others; but they are usually given leeway within the law to use a combination (based on their personal/subjective feelings) of precedent and their subjective feelings.

If we try to map this onto aesthetics, the “law” is the equivalent to the aesthetic judgments and standards created by humans and various communities over time. These (like the law itself) are still ultimately based in how people feel, but it’s based on how MANY people feel rather than a few. “Precedent” might be the equivalent of the judgments of the “experts” within smaller communities; which is still, ultimately, based on how those experts feel. While the personal subjective element is how the judge in this particular case feels.

The issue that “us subjectivists” are making is that, especially in aesthetics, we are under no obligation to accept “the law” of the community (or any community), nor that of experts. They are all ultimately based on feelings and we are allowed to accept or reject them as we wish. Further, any claim to objectivity is really just a claim that can only be true in reference to one of these groups: “X is good” can be true relative to “the law” of the community, and the “precedence” of experts, but it may be untrue in reference to the individual, or, indeed, the “law” of another community, or other experts. A big problem in aesthetics is that even the “law” of communities and opinions of “experts” are not monolithic but often completely disagree with each other.

Hmmm, I think I really like your judge analogy in explaining how all this works. Don’t know what others think, but I love playing with extended analogies… reminds me of my poetry-writing days. 



BachIsBest said:


> Yes, I enjoy listening and praising music I don't enjoy nor think worthy of praise. How do you know so much about me?


I was not talking about you in particular but some people who have espoused this “objective” view where they seem to mean something along the lines of ignoring their personal aesthetic judgments in favor of accepting those of experts. If you’re not doing then it doesn’t apply to you.



BachIsBest said:


> So you surely now admit that within the Classical period, there were standards that could be applied to determine a piece was bad (although, of course, you still argue these standards are themselves subjective)? I feel this is at least progress towards common ground.


First, I would agree that standards exist but they are, indeed, ultimately subjective (even if agreed upon by many people). Second, I'd not that even within any given era or within any community they are rarely rigid and monolithic. I mentioned this before, but Wagner's Meistersinger is something of a parody on the notion of such rigid standards in his scenes where artists/singers are judged by pre-determined standards of how every word/phrase should be sung. Wagner himself felt the sting of being judged harshly by conservative critics applying old(er) standards to his music.


----------



## Eva Yojimbo

DaveM said:


> Its hard to believe that someone could think that way, let alone put it down in print. People have a strong feeling about those mentioned because there is *objective evidence that they were bad.* Not to mention that it is presumptuous to use that as an example in such a superficial way since the subject matter it reminds one of is, not in any way, superficial.


Your pearl clutching over mainstream philosophical positions is amusing. How do you define what good and bad is without reference to what people think and feel? If you have a problem with the example take it up with dissident.


----------



## Eva Yojimbo

dissident said:


> Why didn't you just say so?
> 
> That describes any music that isn't complete chaos, with the possible exception of a single melodic line.
> 
> Well then I don't see the point in using them as a reference as the "objectivist thinking" polar opposite of the "good" subjectivist way of looking at things. They just are/were, nothing more.


Errr, I HAVE said so!

Yes, but to different extents given the nature of the music. Homophonic music typically has a supportive bed for one voice, and the supportive textures aren’t interlocking with the melodic voice the way that happens in fugues.

I use them as a reference to objectivist thinking because that’s what can (not "will") happen when you mistake your subjective values/feelings for an objective truth. Yes, objectively they just “are/were, nothing more,” but that’s not how WE, subjectively, think of them, now is it? Forget what’s objective, do you, subjectively, want to live in a world where irreconcilable conflicts arise over people who believe they are objectively right based on subjective feelings/values and who can’t be persuaded otherwise because they “know it’s true” via their strong feelings; or would you prefer to live in one where we all recognize our feelings and values are subjective, that they can differ either minorly or substantially in comparison to others, that neither is objectively right or wrong, but that if we agree we’d rather live in peace then then that necessitates us finding common ground from which to build from?


----------



## Eva Yojimbo

Woodduck said:


> Anyone is free to prefer chaos to order. Needless to say, in the universe as a whole, and in the affairs of life, this doesn't work too well. The suggestion that chaos can be more than a "special effect" in any art with a claim to excellence is just another astoundingly absurd example of why "total subjectivism" is..well, absurd.


Plenty of people have found chaos to be more than a “special effect” in art, and your “astounding absurd” judgment is (wait for it…) just the expression of your subjective preference. 



Woodduck said:


> You don't know how the aesthetic perceptiveness of audiences affects how they hear music? Really? What do you mean "be aware of sonata form?" Yeah, anybody can be "aware" of it...Who said anybody has to respond to a work the way I do? Or that being aesthetically knowledgeable and sensitive has anything necessarily to do with what "type" of music we prefer? I certainy haven't said those things.


No, I realize it affects how they hear music, but most of what you were saying seemed more uniquely relevant to artists rather than audiences. By “aware of sonata form” I mean teaching them ability to recognize its parts (the themes of the exposition, when development begins, etc.). These things aren’t terribly difficult to perceive once you’re aware of them and have examples to listen to; and, yes, I’m well-aware of how this awareness changes how one hears the music. My point, however, is that it would be entirely possible to teach someone this and they STILL wouldn’t like the music, because awareness of what’s happening in the music is but a small part in what affects our aesthetic judgments of that music.

The issue isn’t so much that one MUST respond to a work how you do, but if they respond differently then there exists two opposite aesthetic judgments: yours and theirs. Why/How is one objectively right and the other objectively wrong? It’s fundamental logic that A and Not-A can’t both be objectively true. The only way both can be true is if their truth is relative to different things, like different subjectivities.



Woodduck said:


> Groan. This is so unspecific and indefinite I'll just have to decline (though I suspect I've discussed some of it already, somewhere). As to your question: some people are better qualified than some other people to judge some things. Is that a novel thought?


I mean, yes, it’s unspecific in the sense that I didn’t give examples, but are you denying that “experts” have disagreements regarding aesthetic judgments? To me, the only thing some people are better at making judgments about pertain to objective matters as I’ve described in epistemology previously: doctors are better able to judge a health condition than laymen, mechanics better able to judge what’s wrong with a car than laymen, etc. But these issues (what a condition is, what’s wrong with a car) pertain to objective, mind-independent facts and don't depend on how people feel. _Aesthetics is not like this._



Woodduck said:


> No, I'm not going to do that. I'm not a neuropsychologist, if that's a thing. You're talking about preferences in styles of music. Music is endlessly varied, as are tastes in music. I am at pains here to distinguish taste from aesthetic discrimination. You and other "subjectivists" keep conflating them, but then I guess that's what a "subjectivist aesthetics" (which sounds rather oxymoronic to me) does by definition.


The only distinction between taste and “aesthetic discrimination” I can make out is that the latter is determined by the tastes of communities and authorities over time and the former is just what an individual prefers. The former, of course, is still based on tastes, but it’s tastes aggregated among large communities based on commonalities most all of us share. 



Woodduck said:


> Of course there's more to appreciating music than grasping form and assessing a composer's competence in handling it, but I suspect you quite underestimate what handling form actually means in the creation of art, just as I think you undersestimate the mental process needed to grasp it.


That’s mighty presumptuous of you given that I’d say the bulk of my actual study on aesthetics has been focused on form. Especially in poetry I have enormous textbooks that are nothing but explorations of various forms, including a 700-page tome (that I read cover-to-cover) of a formal analysis of Shakespeare’s sonnets by Helen Vendler. I read that book and emerged with a million different ideas about interesting ways to utilize the sonnet form, and an immense admiration for the near infinitely varied ways in which Shakespeare did, concluding that his formal mastery was unparalleled… and not once did I ever think to myself that ANY of this was objective, that my judgment of Shakespeare’s mastery of form didn’t ultimately rest on my subjective liking of what he did, or that Vendler’s analysis, as objective as it was (in pointing out features that are undeniably there), determined or dictated any given aesthetic judgment.

See, Woodduck, the thing is that when it comes to this kind of formal appreciation I AM you, to a very large extent. The only difference between us is that I have a level of rational skepticism that doesn’t assume my strong feelings about something translate to objective truths. I’m capable of understanding that there are a million different ways and reasons that people enjoy art, including music and poetry, and that any given objective features of any art is going to appeal to certain subjective values and standards and not to others. I recognize that there will be many people who don’t give two pints about all the formal intricacies in Shakespeare’s sonnets because they value other things in poetry. If they conclude Shakespeare’s sonnets are bad because of those different values, they are correct that, in relation to those subjective values, Shakespeare’s sonnets are bad; just as I am right that, in relation to my own subjective values, Shakespeare’s sonnets are great and masterful. Everything that Shakespeare does with sonnet form is only “good” to the extent that people like it. It is not good independent of that, and the same is true of all aesthetic judgments.



Woodduck said:


> Some "daring, revolutionary, iconoclastic, etc." composer out there could produce a completely aleatory piece of "music," a piece that could be played by any instrumental or vocal forces up to thousands of singers and players, and could go on for any length of time, and we would give him full credit for being utterly competent in handling the "form" of his work. For you, I assume, that work would not be "objectively" inferior to a Mozart piano concerto, and the mental process by which some desperate soul might prefer it to the Mozart would show that "people possess different aesthetic senses." For me it would simply show that the person isn't employing the aesthetic sense that he has. But aesthetic sense is hardly the only sense that people fail to employ.


I simply cannot share your contempt and patronizing pity for “poor souls” that feel differently than I do about any art or music, and I am not presumptuous enough to assume that people who feel differently aren’t “employing the aesthetic sense” that they have as oppose to genuinely having different aesthetic senses. This sounds just like the argument from theists that everyone believes in God, but are just lying to themselves. Now, you’ve mentioned you’re an atheist and I presume you wouldn’t take kindly to people telling you what you really think/believe, so perhaps you should extend the same courtesy to others. 



Woodduck said:


> So you don't care for Bach fugues. This may hamper your ability to hear Bach's mastery of the formal processes involved in fuguing. Maybe you're not drawn to the music enough to want to try to assess the composer's inventive powers and skills, much less his exploitation of the expressive possibilities of the medium. That's all fine. But doesn't it make sense to admit that, given your lack of interest, others are in a better position to say how good Bach's fugues are? Maybe their opinion is, in this case, worth more than yours in understanding what Bach has done, and the quality of it. That, at least, is my attitude toward music I'm not interested in and don't fully appreciate, or care to.


I don’t think it does hamper my ability. I’m able to follow along with a score, follow the individual voices, see how they relate and develop harmonically. I see nothing that I’m overlooking in terms of what is objectively there. They simply do not elicit strong emotional reactions in me… of course, I say that noting that there are some exceptions. The Passacaglia and Fugue in Cm is one of my favorite classical works, so it’s not ALL Bach’s fugues I dislike, just many (perhaps most) of them. I also think I perfectly understand what people see/hear I them, especially given their clockwork intricacies. Again, it’s perfectly possible to look at these objective features and say they’re not good because they don’t move me; and if any are hesitant to do so it’s only because they know so many look at those same objective features and say “they DO move me.” 



Woodduck said:


> I said: "Aesthetic perception, as I've described it, involves "feeling," but it's feeling of a certain kind, akin to the "feeling" we get when we finally hit on the answer to a riddle or the solution to an equation. You can have that feeling in error, but it's pretty reliable. Other feelings, of a more emotional and personal nature, may of course accompany the feeling of rightness engendered by the effective ordering of aesthetic space or time."
> 
> "Feelings" may be different kinds of things. They may be physical sensations or cognitive events, they may be emotions or unemotional intuitions, they may have objects or no objects, and they may or may not have consequences or utility. The "feeling" a composer has of having found an effective continuation for a melodic fragment is the sort of feeling that has an object - the melody he's trying to find a continuation for - and it has cognitive value. He "perceives," intuitively and usually without need for conscious justifications, that he's made a good or bad choice. To someone like me, who goes through the day with improvised tunes relentlessly unspooling themselves in his head (when I was a ballet accompanist this was a sort of continuous busman's holiday), it's obvious that the process of criticizing the way melodies unfold, and distinguishing effective and creative continuations from trite or "illogical" ones, is cognitive and not emotional, although I usually feel some pleasure or displeasure as a result of the feeling/perception that I'm making good or bad creative choices.
> 
> As to what "most" people "feel" about such compositional processes, I really can't say, but I will say that a listener who has any familiarity with the style of the music may be, usually unconsciously but sometimes consciously (especially if the music isn't well-composed), perceiving the work's aesthetic choices using exactly the same criteria used by the composer. Does this introduction work well with the main body of the movement? Is this theme distinctive and memorable enough to track as it's subjected to permutations? Are the harmonic changes so frequent that they obscure the work's tonal plan? Is this bridge to the exposition repeat elegant and organic or heavy-handed? Does this peroration go on longer than necessary to make its point? Is the piece organized meaningfully and lucidly or does it stumble and meander? Etc., etc., etc.
> 
> This, which looks like some sort of aesthetic solipsism, or narcissism - or maybe onanism - doesn't decribe the cognitive process of creating or performing music, or, for musicians at least, of experiencing it. Let Eduard Hanslick provide a clue: "An inward singing, not an inward feeling, prompts a gifted person to compose a piece of music."


We can parse all of the nuances and varieties of feelings that we want, but all of them are ultimately subjective things. Any feeling of “rightness” the artist feels is simply due to bringing the objective art to a state that matches their subjective ideal, standards, goals, etc., which may or may not match with the subjective ideals, standards, etc. of audiences ranging from other musicians, to experts, to laymen. There is no method by which to judge any of these feelings as right or correct in any objective manner. I also don’t think it’s useful to distinguish cognitive from emotional in this way; in this sense the cognitive must have as its anchor some ideal or goal, and that ideal or goal is anchored by some positive feeling. When you make what you consider a “right choice,” that “rightness” is not dictated by any external, objective factor, it’s dictated by what you feel about it. “That works” or “that’s right” are just different ways of saying “it feels good to me.” It may be a different flavor of feeling than typical emotions are, but it’s a feeling nonetheless. It’s completely different from questions like “what is a tree made of?” or “does the sun exist?” or “is there a dog in my back yard,” questions whose answers do not rely on your mind or feelings but on the investigation and/or observation of mind-independent objects, things which anyone with working senses would confirm. When people observe the object you feel “right” about and have a different feeling about it than you do, that difference is due to subjectivities. You are both observing the same object, but feeling different things about it.

It’s not that I don’t appreciate (or even identify with) your descriptions of the process of artistic creation, it’s simply that I have a very different view of what that process actually is. Again, I understand the feeling of finding the right word, the right phrase, the right metaphor, the right image, the right form… but all of these are still subjective feelings based on my artistic ideals, standards, goals, etc. while understanding there are many others that differ from mine. That subjective difference is what explains the differences in artistic tastes and standards for what counts as good/bad. You can’t have objective judgments of good or bad separated from these ultimately subjective standards, and everyone (or “the right people,” like experts) agreeing about them doesn’t make them objective.



Woodduck said:


> Are you saying that the possibility of being mistaken - in this case, about having made the best possible artistic choice - means that a composer can never tell when he's done good work? That would mean that artists, who make mistakes all the time, know it, and work to correct them, can never know whether their work is any good. It means that if Beethoven, in creating a monumental set of variations on a trivial tune by Diabelli, imagined that his work was in any way superior in artistic value to Diabelli's, his mind was simply being overwhelmed by his feelings, which were no more significant than those of his housekeeper, who probably thought he was half-crazy.


I’m saying that what you’re describing isn’t even knowledge to begin with. If you have any epistemology that leads to “knowledge” that can be deemed wrong merely because of what other people think then that’s a terrible epistemology. If you have an epistemology upon which two people can radically disagree and you have no way to determine who is right, that’s a terrible epistemology. That’s what happens when you try to base an epistemology around subjective feelings rather than objective empirical observation and rationality. All the composer “knows” is that they’ve created something that conforms to their ideals/standards for what “good work” is, that may or may not conform to others ideals/standards. This is not knowledge except in the “know thyself” sense.



Woodduck said:


> The appeal for '"scientific" proof of artistic value is, as has been said, irrelevant. Art is not science.


This is the same excuse that theists give for how we can know God exists. Religion isn’t science. God is known by other internal methods. If you don’t know God through those internal methods then you’re either lying or just wrong, etc.



Woodduck said:


> A hypothetical which doesn't describe a possible reality can't show anything. But the fact that you're posing such silliness as a meaningful possibilty again casts serious doubt on your basic assumptions. Relevant assumptions appear to be: 1.) that human beings do not have an aesthetic sense that would prevent the majority of them from preferring an artistic monstrosity over a beautifully composed work of art; and/or 2.) that there are no principles of aesthetic fitness that could be embodied in works of art and give people reason to regard Beethoven's work as artistically superior to the mongrel alternative.
> 
> Human experience throughout history argues against both assumptions. Most humans have sought beauty in the created forms of art, and most have had, despite great cultural variations in its expression, a good idea of what that means, such that the specific beauties of different artistic traditions regularly cross cultural boundaries and entrance people of foreign backgrounds and sensibilities. Trust me: a Puccini opera glued to the derriere of a Beethoven quartet isn't getting a passport.


Thought experiments, no matter how absurd, can serve to investigate the logical coherency/consistency or lack thereof of any argument or position. Shrodinger’s Cat is an absurd hypothetical that nobody would ever attempt to replicate, but it demonstrates what Shrodinger intended: that the Copenhagen view of QM seems absurd when you apply it macro-sized objects. So does the Sleeping Beauty experiment with the objective VS subjective nature of probability.

It doesn’t matter whether my hypothetical is “meaningfully possible,” what it serves to show is that what you’re describing as objectivity is nothing more than an appeal to what most people (or, really, the “right people”) happen to agree on. “Everyone happens to agree about X, so X is objectively true” is, I hope you’d agree, nonsensical. Truth doesn’t depend upon agreement about subjective things. So if you’re going to argue that art can be objectively good or bad regardless of how people feel, then my hypothetical is perfectly suited to addressing that. If a hypothetical work of art you deem as a monstrosity was suddenly thought a masterpiece by everyone, then is it suddenly a masterpiece? If no, then its greatness comes from some other source besides what people think; if so, what is that source and how can you prove it? If it does become a masterpiece because everyone thinks so, then that demonstrates how notions of greatness are ultimately subjective, relying on what people think/feel.


----------



## BachIsBest

Eva Yojimbo said:


> The composer’s attempt at a “completely terrible piece of music” is predicated on the shared subjective tastes and standards between the composer and his culture. There is no obligation to accept these tastes and standards as our own. There is no epistemology that can declare standards and tastes based on subjective preferences as being right or wrong. Even normal epistemology only works if we carefully define it as being based around empiricism and the kind of empirically predictive modeling of science.


But I claim something more subtle than this. That is, the claim is that aesthetic judgements on a piece of art can be right or wrong based on the standards of the artwork itself.



Eva Yojimbo said:


> I don’t see what distinction you’re making between “objective judgment” and “objective fact” here. How is objective acting differently in either?


A judgement is clearly "of the mind", by definition. When we say objective fact it makes me think we are using your definition of objective, which I am, again, not arguing for. Strictly speaking, I guess agree there is not much difference.



Eva Yojimbo said:


> I guess I misunderstood you, but then I can’t fathom how changing standards of music would result in a loss of well-being, except in the sense that there would be more music that more people didn’t like, and having less music to like is detrimental to well-being?


To put it very simply, I believe music can improve well-being, and removing something that improves well-being definitionally is a detriment to well-being.



Eva Yojimbo said:


> Yes, I understand the confusion, and it was badly phrased on my on part. Hopefully my explanation cleared it up, but I probably should’ve phrased it as “don’t make claims of objective facts without a theory that supports them, and don’t assume a GUT exists unless you have one that can explain all the variables.” The problem was I tried to combine these two separate statements into one and made it confusing. My fault.


This is not related to the thread, but as a brief physics note GUT does not refer to a theory of everything. A GUT is just a quantum field theory that allows the strong and electroweak forces to be viewed as one force. One doesn't even need a GUT to get a theory of everything, as there is nothing contradictory about having the strong and electroweak forces being two fundamentally different things.



Eva Yojimbo said:


> I’m not making claims for an “absolute reality” either. We have no access to what Kant termed the “ding-an-sich,” or things as they are without reference to human perception and all the mental machinery that goes into decoding and making sense of that perception (which we also know is prone to flaws and errors). My only point was that if we’re going to try to make a meaningful distinction between objective and subjective it has to start with the inference that things we directly sense exist independent of the mind. That’s an inference, but without it there’s no distinction possible.
> 
> I get not everyone is using objective to mean mind-independent, but how are you using it?


The colloquial definition of the word, not the philosophical one. Just the first definition on Merriam-Webster seems satisfactory to me: "expressing or dealing with facts or conditions as perceived without distortion by personal feelings, prejudices, or interpretations." The second definition seems to be more or less yours.



Eva Yojimbo said:


> Right, but the judge’s judgment of the “appropriate punishment” and how “bad” the crime is will depend upon, one, their personal subjective feeling of how bad it is; two, the subjective feelings of all the judges/cases before them (“precedent”); and, three, the subjective feelings of everyone who has helped established by law how “bad” such a thing is. Now, the judge can’t completely ignore the law, so in that sense they can be “objective” in the sense that they aren’t relying solely on their personal feelings/judgments but that of others; but they are usually given leeway within the law to use a combination (based on their personal/subjective feelings) of precedent and their subjective feelings.
> 
> If we try to map this onto aesthetics, the “law” is the equivalent to the aesthetic judgments and standards created by humans and various communities over time. These (like the law itself) are still ultimately based in how people feel, but it’s based on how MANY people feel rather than a few. “Precedent” might be the equivalent of the judgments of the “experts” within smaller communities; which is still, ultimately, based on how those experts feel. While the personal subjective element is how the judge in this particular case feels.
> 
> The issue that “us subjectivists” are making is that, especially in aesthetics, we are under no obligation to accept “the law” of the community (or any community), nor that of experts. They are all ultimately based on feelings and we are allowed to accept or reject them as we wish. Further, any claim to objectivity is really just a claim that can only be true in reference to one of these groups: “X is good” can be true relative to “the law” of the community, and the “precedence” of experts, but it may be untrue in reference to the individual, or, indeed, the “law” of another community, or other experts. A big problem in aesthetics is that even the “law” of communities and opinions of “experts” are not monolithic but often completely disagree with each other.


So you would disagree that the decision by a judge to give a certain may be called "objective", because it is based on the subjective feelings of the judge and other people in the law system and, mor generally, society at large? Do you not think this is in disagreement with the colloquial definition of objective and the way most people use the word?



Eva Yojimbo said:


> First, I would agree that standards exist but they are, indeed, ultimately subjective (even if agreed upon by many people). Second, I'd not that even within any given era or within any community they are rarely rigid and monolithic. I mentioned this before, but Wagner's Meistersinger is something of a parody on the notion of such rigid standards in his scenes where artists/singers are judged by pre-determined standards of how every word/phrase should be sung. Wagner himself felt the sting of being judged harshly by conservative critics applying old(er) standards to his music.


They were rigid and monolithic enough that one could write a musical joke, and all within the music community would get it. Since we agree that an artist can tell a joke through composition, by playing on established conventions both within and external to the artwork, it is not too much of a stretch to claim an artist can likely communicate much more than mere jokes through their art; and once this has been established, I fail to see why art that successfully communicates much of importance, and possibly even of great profundity, can not be called better than art which says nothing. 

If you wish to call the preference for art that communicates important profound things as opposed to art which says nothing of interest a subjective preference, then I honestly don't care. Fine. Do it. It's like saying murder is subjectively wrong only; even if this is so, it has no particular relevance in real life. In real life, murder is wrong, and this is the end of the story.


----------



## Woodduck

Eva Yojimbo said:


> Plenty of people have found chaos to be more than a “special effect” in art, and your “astounding absurd” judgment is (wait for it…) just the expression of your subjective preference.


I get that as a thoroughgoing subjectivist you would have to say that a purported work of music consisting of recorded sounds produced by the chewing and farting of livestock, a purported painting consisting of splatters of mustard and ketchup created by throwing bottles of them at the wall, or a purported work of literature created by flinging the tiles of a scrabble game across the floor, all constitute works of art of as much intrinsic merit as the Brahms _Requiem_ or Stravinsky's _Firebird,_ and that it's only in some people's subjective judgment that these two works possess greater merit than the chaos represented by the first three examples. After all, as you say, "many people" enjoy chaos.

I thought it useful to make that explicit and clear, in case anyone retains a vestige of hope that common sense might still have a place in a discussion of art.



> By “aware of sonata form” I mean teaching them ability to recognize its parts (the themes of the exposition, when development begins, etc.). These things aren’t terribly difficult to perceive once you’re aware of them and have examples to listen to; and, yes, I’m well-aware of how this awareness changes how one hears the music. My point, however, is that *it would be entirely possible to teach someone this and they STILL wouldn’t like the music, because* *awareness of what’s happening in the music is but a small part in what affects our aesthetic judgments of that music. *


To say that it isn't obligatory to like a sonata movement merely because we understand sonata form is to argue with no one. But as for the second clause of your statement, I don't know what you're thinking of, but it's pretty clear to me that the _aesthetic_ qualities of a piece of music are precisely "what's happening" in it, and an actual _aesthetic_ judgment, as opposed to a feeling of liking or disliking, is by definition based mainly on what's happening in it ("mainly," because, obviously, we may bring extraneous ideas and attitudes to the perception of things).

You might as well say that what's happening in a courtroom is but a small part of what affects the verdict and sentencing by jury and judge.



> The issue isn’t so much that one MUST respond to a work how you do, but *if they respond differently then there exists two opposite aesthetic judgments: yours and theirs. Why/How is one objectively right and the other objectively wrong? It’s fundamental logic that A and Not-A can’t both be objectively true.* The only way both can be true is if their truth is relative to different things, like different subjectivities.


Differences of opinion don't rule out one being right and the other wrong - or one reasonable and the other irrational, or one more likely than the other, or one based on knowledge and the other a stab in the dark.



> I mean, yes, it’s unspecific in the sense that I didn’t give examples, but *are you denying that “experts” have disagreements regarding aesthetic judgments?* To me, the only thing some people are better at making judgments about pertain to objective matters as I’ve described in epistemology previously: doctors are better able to judge a health condition than laymen, mechanics better able to judge what’s wrong with a car than laymen, etc. But these issues (what a condition is, what’s wrong with a car) pertain to objective, mind-independent facts and don't depend on how people feel. _Aesthetics is not like this._


Of course "experts" can disagree. Is anyone arguing for omniscience? Is anyone even arguing that all questions about quality in art are meaningful or worthwhile? I sense an effort to return me, despite my protests, to the box labeled "absolute objectivist, proponent of platonic essences." Do not ask me whether _Tristan und Isolde_ is a "better" opera than _Parsifal. _I will tell you, though, that both are works of genius and incomparably better as art - "many [?] people" to the contrary - than the recorded sounds of cattle chewing and farting. We could zero in on why it's rational to think that, but why should I work that hard, only to be told that it's just my "subjective judgment?"



> The only distinction between taste and “aesthetic discrimination” I can make out is that the latter is determined by the tastes of communities and authorities over time and the former is just what an individual prefers. The former, of course, is still based on tastes, but it’s tastes aggregated among large communities based on commonalities most all of us share.


Really? That's the only distinction you can make out?



> That’s mighty presumptuous of you given that I’d say the bulk of my actual study on aesthetics has been focused on form. Especially in poetry I have enormous textbooks that are nothing but explorations of various forms, including a 700-page tome (that I read cover-to-cover) of a formal analysis of Shakespeare’s sonnets by Helen Vendler. I read that book and emerged with a million different ideas about interesting ways to utilize the sonnet form, and an immense admiration for the near infinitely varied ways in which Shakespeare did, concluding that his formal mastery was unparalleled… *and not once did I ever think to myself that ANY of this was objective, that my judgment of Shakespeare’s mastery of form didn’t ultimately rest on my subjective liking of what he did,* or that Vendler’s analysis, as objective as it was (in pointing out features that are undeniably there), determined or dictated any given aesthetic judgment.
> 
> See, Woodduck, the thing is that when it comes to this kind of formal appreciation I AM you, to a very large extent. The only difference between us is that I have a level of rational skepticism that doesn’t assume my strong feelings about something translate to objective truths.


"Rational skepticism" that prevents an intelligent, sensitive and apparently normal person from saying outright, and in a tone of wonder and admiration, that the works of Shakespeare are brilliant and profound, and therefore great works of art, is about as irrational as anything I can think of.



> *I’m capable of understanding that there are a million different ways and reasons that people enjoy art,* including music and poetry, and that any given objective features of any art is going to appeal to certain subjective values and standards and not to others.


I'm capable of it too, and I agree completely. And none of it obviates the fact that Haydn was a master of lucid musical form.



> I recognize that *there will be many people who don’t give two pints about all the formal intricacies in Shakespeare’s sonnets because they value other things in poetry. If they conclude Shakespeare’s sonnets are bad because of those different values, they are correct that, in relation to those subjective values, Shakespeare’s sonnets are bad*; just as I am right that, in relation to my own subjective values, Shakespeare’s sonnets are great and masterful.* Everything that Shakespeare does with sonnet form is only “good” to the extent that people like it.* It is not good independent of that, and the same is true of all aesthetic judgments.


So it's "rational" to call Shakespeare a bad poet if I don't personally care for sonnets? Uh huh... Well, consider: maybe I could just reserve judgment for a little while, take a little time to learn what makes a good sonnet, and possibly realize that, my preferences in poetic form notwithstanding, Shakespeare handled the sonnet form rather well. What an idea! I mean, jeez, if I could get that far, I might just possibly start to see what other, more objective, less self-satisfied people see in him, and begin to feel the first stirrings of admiration. Egad and zounds! Who knoweth what wonders do await one not cocooned in his "subjective judgment"?

Looking ahead, I see that I've only begun to deal with your elephantine post. It really is too much, physically as well as mentally; I even begin to lose my place on the screen. It doesn't facilitate conversation.


----------



## DaveM

Eva Yojimbo said:


> Your pearl clutching over mainstream philosophical positions is amusing...


Pearl Clutching? I prefer marbles:


----------



## hammeredklavier

Woodduck said:


> i have no idea what your last question means.


With Mozart, even though there's a lot of what you perceive as "negative attributes" (eg. his "Classical sensibilities and limitations"), there's also what you perceive as "positive attributes", so it seems that as long as you try to forget the "negative attributes" and pretend (fool yourself) they're not there, you can appreciate his music.
But there are plenty of people who find the "negative attributes" (what they perceive as "negative attributes") too unbearable, they cannot appreciate his music.
This is probably what's happening with composers from the period 1000~1700; even though there are 'theoretically' "first-rate creators" among them, they're ignored or at least not treated with as much respect as Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, because people find the "negative attributes" (what they perceive as "negative attributes") too unbearable.
So isn't all this 'evaluation of composers' "subjective"?

Btw, when I first came to TC, regarding Mozart, I thought you were simply trying to be "obnoxious". (Likewise, I thought some people on the forum were trying to be "obnoxious", so I mistakenly thought I also had to be "obnoxious" and pretend to dislike composers I didn't even dislike.). It was only after reading your older posts, I began to understand, even sympathize with your responses to people like DavidA. I feel I didn't respect your views enough, I regret about it nowadays.



Woodduck said:


> Me, I come here to find out what people think about music and to say what I think. The title of this thread is "The Genius of Mozart." If that is intended as a ban on those who doubt that Mozart's genius encompasses the entire experience of mankind, I'd appreciate having that stated explicitly. Until it is (and until the forum rules approve of such bans), I will freely say, whenever I feel like it, that other composers, among them Haydn, possess qualities which I value and don't find in Mozart. This is not intended to knock Mozart's bust off its pedestal, but it does have the effect of removing an overly ornamented rococo pedestal that his finely carved, classically elegant bust looks better without.





Woodduck said:


> "I cite those [Bach, Beethoven, Bruckner, Wagner] in particular because I find nothing in Mozart (not even the requiem) that comprehends life's terrible darkness and cosmic mystery _as they do in their disparate ways,_ and because I don't trust a heaven that doesn't require a decent initiation by hellfire as part of the price of admission."[/I] I did _not_ say that there is no expression of darkness and mystery in Mozart.
> There were reasons why, in Mozart's own time - and, by the way, in aspects of his own music - the Romantic movement swept Europe. It did so because it was needed. There were things people needed to say about life in society, about the inner life of man, and about the universe that did not find adequate or comfortable expression in Mozart's society or in his music. Beethoven was necessary, Wagner was necessary, so that those things could be said. Was the "perfect" elegance and poise of ideal Classicism violated in order to say them? Yes - and thank goodness it was! For "perfection" is itself an imperfect image of life.


----------



## Woodduck

Eva Yojimbo said:


> I simply cannot share your contempt and patronizing pity for “poor souls” that feel differently than I do about any art or music, and *I am not presumptuous enough to assume that people who feel differently aren’t “employing the aesthetic sense” that they have as oppose to genuinely having different aesthetic senses.*


Why would you assume that humans consistently employ any faculty of mind? We know they don't. Also implicit in your response is the idea that aesthetic sensibilities can't be developed and refined. We know they can, with practice and the increase of knowledge. Music that sounds like bizarre noise to us at first can morph into a world of wonder if we're actually listening rather than nursing those precious "subjective opinions" you're so fond of.



> I’m able to follow along with a score, follow the individual voices, see how they relate and develop harmonically. I see nothing that I’m overlooking in terms of what is objectively there. They simply do not elicit strong emotional reactions in me… of course, I say that noting that there are some exceptions. The Passacaglia and Fugue in Cm is one of my favorite classical works, so it’s not ALL Bach’s fugues I dislike, just many (perhaps most) of them. I also think I perfectly understand what people see/hear I them, especially given their clockwork intricacies. Again, *it’s perfectly possible to look at these objective features and say they’re not good because they don’t move me; and if any are hesitant to do so it’s only because they know so many look at those same objective features and say “they DO move me.*”


It's perfectly possible to say anything we wish about Bach fugues, and perfectly acceptable not to be moved by them. I wouldn't say that I'm necessarily moved by them (though I can be), but I can still say with the confidence born of musical understanding that they are masterful compositions. No musician is going to take seriously someone's assertion that Bach's music isn't good because it "doesn't move me." What makes anyone think that Bach's music, or any music, _should_ "move" them?

The failure to distinguish appreciation from liking still baffles me. Certainly enjoyment is both a contributor to and a consequence of admiration, but getting the feelies or the swoonies from music is definitely not a requirement for perceiving all manner of excellences in it. As I and Luchesi have pointed out, musicians are often quick to evaluate an unfamiliar score visually and to concur, in general terms at least, on its quality. They've had no time to be "moved," but craft and inspiration have ways of showing to those who know what they're looking at.



> We can parse all of the nuances and varieties of feelings that we want, but all of them are ultimately subjective things. Any feeling of “rightness” the artist feels is simply due to bringing the objective art to a state that matches their subjective ideal, standards, goals, etc., which may or may not match with the subjective ideals, standards, etc. of audiences ranging from other musicians, to experts, to laymen. *There is no method by which to* *judge any of these feelings as right or correct* in any objective manner.
> 
> I’m saying that *what you’re describing isn’t even knowledge* to begin with. If you have any epistemology that leads to “knowledge” that can be deemed wrong merely because of what other people think then that’s a terrible epistemology. If you have an epistemology upon which two people can radically disagree and you have no way to determine who is right, that’s a terrible epistemology. That’s what happens when you try to base an epistemology around subjective feelings rather than objective empirical observation and rationality. *All the composer “knows” is that they’ve created something that conforms to their ideals/standards for what “good work” is,* that may or may not conform to others ideals/standards. This is not knowledge except in the “know thyself” sense.


I've distinguished the perception of aesthetic rightness - e.g., the perception that the second half of a tune is an appropriate continuation of the first half - from other kinds of "feelings" (not a very academically sophisticated term, you must admit) because it has a cognitive value that other feelings do not. The composer knows, without having to think about it, that of two possible continuations of a tune, A "works" and B does not. "Bringing the objective art to a state that matches their subjective ideal, standards, goals, etc." does not adequately describe this perception. Certainly the composer is doing those things, but none of it identifies the principle of the integration, the integrity, of the work. The question for the artist is always, "does A or B work at this particular point in this particular work?" His "subjective ideals, standards and goals" are always operative as context for his nuts and bolts decisions, but when he's chosen certain bolts, not all nuts will fit them. In the course of creating a work, hundreds or even thousands of "fittings" must be accomplished, and if he makes good choices he'll end up with something strong. That strength will be apparent to people who couldn't have achieved it themselves; the artist's aesthetic sense will resonate with the same sense in them, if they're tuned in. This principle operates across artists, works and styles, and so we're able to appreciate quality - which in this context means aesthetic integrity and the artist's power to achieve it - in work we may not even like. To identify aesthetic excellence with "subjective preference" (meaning, basically, taste) is to eliminate a whole cateegory, an entire wondrous realm, of human cognitive experience.



> *This is the same excuse that theists give for how we can know God exists.* Religion isn’t science. God is known by other internal methods. If you don’t know God through those internal methods then you’re either lying or just wrong, etc.


Excuse? Nice insult to every artist on earth. And no, the perception of aesthetic integrity is not equivalent to a belief in heavenly ghosts.



> It doesn’t matter whether my hypothetical is “meaningfully possible,”


I said that using a mongrelized work of "art" that no one will ever create, much less like, cannot demonstrate anything about art. I stand by that. If you want to say something about reality, you can't illustrate it with things that will never be real.



> If a hypothetical work of art you deem as a monstrosity was suddenly thought a masterpiece by everyone, then is it suddenly a masterpiece? If no, then its greatness comes from some other source besides what people think; if so, what is that source and how can you prove it? If it does become a masterpiece because everyone thinks so, then that demonstrates how notions of greatness are ultimately subjective, relying on what people think/feel.


In posing an impossible hypothetical, you want to ignore the reasons why it's impossible. You want to ignore what people actually can and do think and feel. You want to ignore the nature of human thinking and feeling, and art's power to evoke and shape these functions of mind. You want to overlook the fact that art's power to evoke functions of mind works in particular ways and has limits. You also want to use words without defining them. What does "masterpieece" mean to you? What is "greatness"? I can't be drawn into dodgy mind games like this.

"Notions of greatness are ultimately subjective" is, strictly speaking, tautological. Notions of anything, material or immaterial, are subjective. That doesn't tell us what realities those notions may describe. The question is whether art can be a thing to which "notions of greatness" (or any other judgment of quality) can be reasonably assigned. Since near the dawn of human time, since people painted vivid, graceful deer and bison by firelight on the walls of caves, this world has been flooded by art of every decription, art embodying in its sounds, words, forms and colors the human mind and spirit expressing itself with varying but often transcendent levels of understanding, imagination, feeling, and skill, wrapped in what humans have elected to call "beauty." When these qualities have shown themselves most emphatically and memorably, the resulting art has tended to survive its time and place and to continue to speak to people who know nothing of its origins. Whether we want to call the qualities of such art, including its seemingly inexhaustible grip on the human mind, "greatness'" or something else, the spectacle of ivory-tower "epistemologists" droning on about "subjectivity" in an attempt to explain away, for whatever reason, the inescapable fact of artistic excellence is depressing when it isn't simply baffling.

As I've said more than once, absurd conclusions are a pretty good indicator of incorrect assumptions. The idea that because evaluations are by definition "subjective" - which means nothing more than products of the mind - we cannot recognize and pay tribute to different levels of creative excellence in works of art, is a non sequitur and an absurdity of the first order, and illustrates perfectly the unfortunate power of ideology - in this case an inadequate theory of knowledge I'll call "scientistic" - to replace reality. Every musician, and innumerable other people who've cared to consider the question seriously, knows and has always known that Bach was a composer whose creativity and skill entitle him to the highest accolades. Only ivory-tower philosophers claim that this is not knowledge, because they can't "measure" Bach's greatness with a meter or conduct a replicable experiment to prove it to any musically ignorant person who might claim that, to him, Bach's music is trash. But it doeesn't matter to anyone but that benighted individual what Bach is to him. Bach is what he is, and there are those who know what he is. Your "subjective feelings" or mine have no power to change that, and his great artistic powers will assure his continued abilty to move people to wholly merited words of acclamation long after we are gone.


----------



## hammeredklavier

Woodduck said:


> I can still say with the confidence born of musical understanding that they are masterful compositions. No musician is going to take seriously someone's assertion that Bach's music isn't good because it "doesn't move me." What makes anyone think that Bach's music, or any music, _should_ "move" them?


"Bach charges at this fact with full foreknowledge, even brazenly. He says, in effect, _yes this is bound to be boring but I am going to be so masterful that you will be in awe and not care even if you will be bored_." -Pianist Jeremy Denk why-i-hate-the-goldberg-variations

"Mozart deserves a special place. It is not true that he is the worst of all composers; his prodigious technical skills developed by age six. Sometimes it is not so great to be a prodigy,- I often feel his emotional and dramatic palette is set at the same age. Rather he is the most overrated composer of them all." -Composer Arnold Rosner Arnold Rosner


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## BachIsBest

hammeredklavier said:


> "Bach charges at this fact with full foreknowledge, even brazenly. He says, in effect, _yes this is bound to be boring but I am going to be so masterful that you will be in awe and not care even if you will be bored_." -Pianist Jeremy Denk why-i-hate-the-goldberg-variations
> 
> "Mozart deserves a special place. It is not true that he is the worst of all composers; his prodigious technical skills developed by age six. Sometimes it is not so great to be a prodigy,- I often feel his emotional and dramatic palette is set at the same age. Rather he is the most overrated composer of them all." -Composer Arnold Rosner Arnold Rosner


Yes, because there is no other discipline where you can find experts who should know better saying stupid things. Einstein went to his grave convinced quantum mechanics was false despite the overwhelming evidence that it was correct.


----------



## science

Any claim that all art is equally good is either as subjective or as objective as any claim that some art is better than other art.

So the question isn't whether some art is better. The question is whether the bases of our judgments that some art is better -- or our judgment that it is not -- are objective (true or false regardless of anything about the mind that makes the judgment) or subjective (true or false depending on something about the subject making the judgment).

What is at stake is whether people disagree about how good art is because they have legitimate differences (like parents disagreeing about whose child is most important or most adorable) or simply because one of them is more correct than the other (like children disagreeing about the solution to a simple arithmetic problem).


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## 59540

hammeredklavier said:


> "Bach charges at this fact with full foreknowledge, even brazenly. He says, in effect, _yes this is bound to be boring but I am going to be so masterful that you will be in awe and not care even if you will be bored_." -Pianist Jeremy Denk why-i-hate-the-goldberg-variations
> ...


I really wish you would actually read that entire NPR series by Jeremy Denk from a decade ago, learn what "tongue in cheek" means, and quit linking it as some kind of official slam against Bach. Come on, hammeredklavier. It's embarrassing.


> But this is a charge that can be leveled at Bach generally: being too excellent. A reviewer at a recital I played (Ives' first Sonata and the _Goldbergs_) complained that he wished Bach would have let himself be more Ivesian, thrown in some wrong notes, let himself go. Ha, take that, Johann Sebastian! The Kalamazoo press just totally trashed you! I often talk about Bach as a great humanist, as having an empathy for the whole range of human emotion. (Rather than the cerebral, fugal stereotype.) I love the way his music seems to look down on the whole human deal, but not condescendingly, with (now I'm letting myself rhapsodize subjectively) a kind of benevolent understanding. He does not look down bitterly (like Shostakovich, for instance), saying look at this terrible empty comedy of human emotion. Nor is he himself the emoter, like Beethoven; but he is not distanced, either. He has hit a sweet spot. Perhaps the most serious complaint you could make about Bach is that he has every quality of humanity except imperfection.


Denk's words, not mine.


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## Woodduck

science said:


> Any claim that all art is equally good is either as subjective or as objective as any claim that some art is better than other art.


This means that no claim about artistic merit can be more or less objective than any other claim. In practice, it means that there can be NO objectivity in artistic judgments, since no judgment can have greater validity than any completely uninformed claim.



> So the question isn't whether some art is better.


There would be, according to your statement above, no way to determine this.



> The question is whether the bases of our judgments that some art is better -- or our judgment that it is not -- are objective (true or false regardless of anything about the mind that makes the judgment) or subjective (true or false depending on something about the subject making the judgment).
> 
> *What is at stake is whether people disagree about how good art is because they have legitimate differences* (like parents disagreeing about whose child is most important or most adorable) *or simply because one of them is more correct than the other* (like children disagreeing about the solution to a simple arithmetic problem).


My view is that people can disagree because of any combination of objective and subjective factors. Why should it be one or the other? The balance in any particular case depends largely on the acuteness and development of our aesthetic sensitivity, our understanding of the kind of art we're dealing with and of what constitutes quality in that kind of art, and our sense of the magnitude of the artist's achievement. The less these factors are in play the more exclusively personal (subjective) our responses are.

Objective and subjective responses are all legitimate and valid for those offering them, but uninformed subjective reactions of the blanket variety - "Wow! That was great (or awful)!" - are generally pretty empty of content. "What's great about it?" is an essential question, but answers will differ radically depending on how much they proceed from simple feeling, on the one hand, or from informed and developed perception of the art's nature and qualities, on the other. Total subjectivism would deny that "informed and developed perception of the art's nature and qualities" can provide any basis for objective judgments, which, they believe, cannot exist. From your first statement above, you appear to be in that camp.


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## Roger Knox

Woodduck said:


> Total subjectivism would deny that "informed and developed perception of the art's nature and qualities" can provide any basis for objective judgments, which, they believe, cannot exist. From your first statement above, you appear to be in that camp.


Am I correct in my understanding that, in total subjectivism:


if one person knows a work from memory, can play and teach it, and can remember and discuss interpretations by different artists, while
another person has heard the work once, cannot recognize any part of it when it is played back, or sing back any motif no matter how slight after hearing it,

any judgement of the work or its performance by one person must be considered to be of equal credibility and value to that of the other?


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## Woodduck

Roger Knox said:


> Am I correct in my understanding that, in total subjectivism:
> 
> 
> if one person knows a work from memory, can play and teach it, and can remember and discuss interpretations by different artists, while
> another person has heard the work once, cannot recognize any part of it when it is played back, or sing back any motif no matter how slight after hearing it,
> 
> any judgement of the work or its performance by one person must be considered to be of equal credibility and value to that of the other?


That is certainly what I would conclude from what's been said by people who identify as subjectivists. Every artistic question, they say, comes down to what the individual - any individual - personally prefers, and for any reason. I can always hope to be disabused of this conclusion, of course.


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## 59540

Roger Knox said:


> Am I correct in my understanding that, in total subjectivism:
> 
> 
> if one person knows a work from memory, can play and teach it, and can remember and discuss interpretations by different artists, while
> another person has heard the work once, cannot recognize any part of it when it is played back, or sing back any motif no matter how slight after hearing it,
> 
> any judgement of the work or its performance by one person must be considered to be of equal credibility and value to that of the other?


I'd say it would have to be. So a person who knows absolutely nothing about music but is eye-deep in subjectivist philosophy could still be a "great" (whatever that means) music critic for a major newspaper. Correction: I don't think they'd have to know anything about philosophy at all.


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## Strange Magic

Woodduck said:


> That is certainly what I would conclude from what's been said by people who identify as subjectivists. Every artistic question, they say, comes down to what the individual - any individual - personally prefers, and for any reason. I can always hope to be disabused of this conclusion, of course.


As the uttermost subjectivist in the room, I reply: Indeed, every artistic question, I say, comes down to what the individual--any individual--personally prefers. And it can be for any reason. Such decisions are individual, unique, personal choices, utterly valid and authentic. Nobody else is forced to either agree or disagree with said opinion--it is a case of free will to be able, if one chooses, to be completely comfortable with one's appraisal of what one likes--(is good)--or dislikes--(is bad, not so good, not interesting). All others are perfectly free to build enormous objective castles in the air to justify, explain, rationalize their opinions. but opinions they remain. No one can legitimately question or fault or disparage the tastes of another--there is no shred of evidence that some sort of universal template governs and dictates what is objectively better or worse in art, though people are free to believe so and to believe that they are right. It all comes down to polling and clusters of the polled and, ultimately, to _de gustibus...._ Yet no matter how many times I state this, few can pierce the membrane of grooved thinking that, if they like something, it must be objectively good, and not that they like it for myriad, likely unknowable, neurochemical, psychological, and life experiences that differ uniquely from person to person. I have yet to see a scintilla of evidence for the contrary position despite the hundreds, maybe now thousands of posts on this subject


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## Eva Yojimbo

I will try to catch up with this thread tomorrow. Was too busy today. Until then, some shorts:



BachIsBest said:


> Yes, because there is no other discipline where you can find experts who should know better saying stupid things. Einstein went to his grave convinced quantum mechanics was false despite the overwhelming evidence that it was correct.


The issue isn't whether you can find in any discipline where experts who should know better "saying stupid things;" the issue is when that happens what recourse is there to prove that they were stupid (and wrong)? In science, stupidity and wrongness is proven by the empirical, predictive power of models and theories. What is the epistemic means by which to judge what's stupid or wrong in matters of aesthetic judgment? Because so far all I see anyone offering is an argument from the majority, even if it's a majority of experts. Nothing in science, or any discipline where objective truth is possible in practice, is a matter decided by a vote.



Roger Knox said:


> Am I correct in my understanding that, in total subjectivism:
> 
> 
> if one person knows a work from memory, can play and teach it, and can remember and discuss interpretations by different artists, while
> another person has heard the work once, cannot recognize any part of it when it is played back, or sing back any motif no matter how slight after hearing it,
> 
> any judgement of the work or its performance by one person must be considered to be of equal credibility and value to that of the other?


It must be considered to be of OBJECTIVELY equal value, yes. What people don't seem to get is that "objectively equal value" doesn't equate to "equal value." Value is determined by human minds. Most human minds value informed opinions (even if it's on subjective matters), so informed opinions are more valuable to people who value them. This is so obviously true it's basically a tautology, yet people still can't get it for some reason.

Think of the value in terms of real world objects. What is the TRUE value of any antique? Is it what most people will pay for it? Enthusiasts will pay for it? What the biggest enthusiast in the world will pay for it? What a poor person would pay for it? There is no "objectively true" value, any truth to the value is completely relative to the subjective minds who place value on the thing.

At most, the only counter to this is "for things that almost all humans feel is valuable, we can just assume the value and treat it as objectively so." Pragmatically perhaps there's little difference for some things, but the problem with this pragmatism is people who adopt it tie themselves in knots every time there is a disagreement on values to try to determine the "objective value" that they just started assuming existed, rather than understanding this "value is relative to subjectivities" point.

What's funny about this is reading all the responses from "objectivists" trying to claim that yes, this is what a subjectivist thinks, when it's really not. It just goes to show the gross misunderstanding that's happening here.


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## Woodduck

Strange Magic said:


> As the uttermost subjectivist in the room, I reply: Indeed, every artistic question, I say, comes down to what the individual--any individual--personally prefers. And it can be for any reason. Such decisions are individual, unique, personal choices, utterly valid and authentic. Nobody else is forced to either agree or disagree with said opinion--it is a case of free will to be able, if one chooses, to be completely comfortable with one's appraisal of what one likes--(is good)--or dislikes--(is bad, not so good, not interesting). All others are perfectly free to build enormous objective castles in the air to justify, explain, rationalize their opinions. but opinions they remain. No one can legitimately question or fault or disparage the tastes of another--there is no shred of evidence that some sort of universal template governs and dictates what is objectively better or worse in art, though people are free to believe so and to believe that they are right. It all comes down to polling and clusters of the polled and, ultimately, to _de gustibus...._ Yet no matter how many times I state this, few can pierce the membrane of grooved thinking that, if they like something, it must be objectively good, and not that they like it for myriad, likely unknowable, neurochemical, psychological, and life experiences that differ uniquely from person to person. *I have yet to see a scintilla of evidence for the contrary position despite the hundreds, maybe now thousands of posts on this subject*


Yes. You have yet to see evidence. That's because you're looking for the wrong kind of evidence, and, if you do see any real evidence of excellence in art (which I'm certain you do), you can't call it what it is. Your scientistic ideology won't allow you to. I understand. If I thought artistic quality could only be perceived if it could be weighed and measured like a sack of potatoes, I wouldn't believe in it either.

If, in many decades of living, you have yet to see in what ways Mozart and Haydn surpass their contemporaries in the exploitation of the musical idioms of their time, exhibiting a virtuosity others could rarely match and earning thereby the recognition of musically knowledgeable and sensitive people up to and beyond the present day, you probably never will see it. I saw it easily, and many, many others - I'll guess the great majority who understand Classical music - have seen it as well. These legions of people don't listen to a symphony of Mylivecek and say, "Well, this guy's every bit as good as Haydn, because Haydn can't actually be better than anyone else, because there's no such thing as better in art." We can't ask him now, but I'd wager that the first person to call that statement laughable nonsense would be Myslivecek. 

You believe that artistic quality is a misnomer, that it's really a synonym for "liking," or reputation. I believe that reputations are made, and sustained through millennia of time, by artistic quality. I can believe this quite easily for several reasons, but first among them is that I experience differences of artistic quality as an inescapable reality every day of my life. I've tried to talk about how this faculty of aesthetic discrimination works and manifests itself in me and other artists (and virtually every human being to some degree). To you this is clearly a foreign land which it seems no description will ever make real, and so you speak of it with a mocking tone unbecoming in someone your age.The artists here, among others, know what I'm talking about. Of course they do.

No attempt to tell those who make art, and spend their lives striving to make BETTER art, that better art is merely a fantastic concept with no reality outside someone's mind, can trivialize or obliterate the meaning and value of that striving. In telling us over and over and over and over, for years on end - and what for? - that we who aspire to excellence and work for it don't know what we're really doing, you insult us and reveal an ignorance of a dimension of reality you haven't learned to identify even when you see it.

The third dimension is invisible to the residents of Flatland, who nonetheless are three-dimensional beings.


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## Woodduck

Eva Yojimbo said:


> What people don't seem to get is that "objectively equal value" doesn't equate to "equal value." Value is determined by human minds. Most human minds value informed opinions (even if it's on subjective matters), so informed opinions are more valuable to people who value them. This is so obviously true it's basically a tautology, yet people still can't get it for some reason.


Actually we do get it. Saying that "Most human minds value informed opinions... so informed opinions are more valuable to people who value them" implies that holding _uninformed_ opinions - i.e., spouting any kind of moronic nonsense - is _objectively_ just as good as knowing what we're talking about, since "good" is a value judgment and therefore, objectively, nothing is good, including having opinions that aren't nonsense, except to someone who thinks it is. 

Yeah, we get the "subjective/objective" thing. Those terms, repeated ad infinitum, persist in functioning as a veil between us and realities actually worth talking about. The reality here is that some values are more conducive to the success of our physical, mental and spiritual lives than others. Knowing what we're talking about - having _informed_ _opinions_ - is such a value, and it's _valuable_ - it is _good_ for human beings to value it - whether anyone actually thinks it's valuable or not. If we'd dispense with the "subjective/objective" incantation, such things might be clearer.



> What's funny about this is reading all the responses from "objectivists" trying to claim that yes, this is what a subjectivist thinks, when it's really not. It just goes to show the gross misunderstanding that's happening here.


I understand the subjectivist position quite well. It's a position that leaves some of the most important and profound aspects of life at the mercy of "taste." It's always gratifying to me to know that my neighbor Steven has no "taste" for murdering me. I do regret his taste in music, but luckily he keeps the volume low.


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## Strange Magic

> *Woodduck:* "You have yet to see evidence. That's because you're looking for the wrong kind of evidence, and, if you do see any real evidence of excellence in art (which I'm certain you do), you can't call it what it is. Your scientistic ideology won't allow you to. I understand. If I thought artistic quality could only be perceived if it could be weighed and measured like a sack of potatoes, I wouldn't believe in it either".


The "right" kind of evidence is found within a cluster of the like-minded, who share one another's criteria. It could be a big cluster; it could be small. A thought experiment: let's say you are of the opinion that an opera by Carl Orff is the best opera ever written--you can't hear it enough-- but you find yourself utterly alone in your assessment. Is Orff's opera still actually, objectively, the best ever if no one agrees with you? If not one of your peers or mentors or authority figures can find any real merit in the work? The "right ' kind of evidence for the objectivist is (nothing but) the shared opinion of a cluster.

My view grants all authority and validity and judgement to the individual; the individual decides who or what is great, good, boring, etc. and will be happy to find others in agreement, and often does, but does not extract from that shared opinion the demonstration that the shared opinion represents anything other than--shared opinion. Good, bad, boring in the arts and in other such individual taste-dependent areas of choice are reserved wholly within the mind of the individual and only retain their "reality", their potency within the individual's own mind. But the subjectivist will likely say "I like this and dislike that" rather than say this is great, this is junk--though they are free to express their views any way they choose. We were just asked, and are asked over and over, What is The Greatest art object or creator? And, funny thing, we get all kinds of answers. We get clusters, to be sure, but only clusters of the opinions of the polled group.

The sciences are different. There, "goodness" is best termed "accuracy" in that a particular explanation of phenomena is overwhelmingly obvious to and accepted by essentially all in the field by way of data, and by observations by any observer not suffering from a brain disease or in the grip of a powerful compulsion. This of course is not universally true in that science is always open to new evidence, new tests that will nullify previous assertions or will result in yet more detailed refinements to the "theory" in question. Things like Evolution, the age of the Earth, Plate Tectonics, the expanding universe and other astronomical verities, and more, are thus well-established and asymptotically approach utter certainty. Other notions are active areas of contention and discussion--like Mantle Plumes in geology--because the evidence is slim, hard to get, and ambiguous when obtained. Thus it is difficult for the scientifically-trained mind to place any credence in notions of inherent, intrinsic artistic truths and values that lie beyond shared neural circuits--though scientists are just as perceptive to and moved by art as anyone else.


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## hammeredklavier

Roger Knox said:


> Am I correct in my understanding that, in total subjectivism:
> 
> if one person knows a work from memory, can play and teach it, and can remember and discuss interpretations by different artists, while
> another person has heard the work once, cannot recognize any part of it when it is played back, or sing back any motif no matter how slight after hearing it,
> any judgement of the work or its performance by one person must be considered to be of equal credibility and value to that of the other?


Similarly, without getting ourselves familiar with Haydn's symphonies (which number up to 41), for instance, we can't make judgement on their _average_ level of quality, maturity compared to Mozart's.
You can of course say "All I care for is Mozart's final four anyway; any quantity of symphonies in Haydn would not match that." But of course that will always be a subjective opinion.


hammeredklavier said:


> MH188/i: v80s4yjSdQM&t=3m15s K.345/iv: RtJEN3Z2Jpg&t=16m15s


Actually MH63/i ( nNEmvc9xMt0&t=1m52s , also take note of the transformation of this in the false recap at 3:57 and the dissonances, also the closeness of the slow movement with that of Mozart K.338 in motif ) might be more related to the Mozart example here (in terms of the motif, not the pedal)



Woodduck said:


> If, in many decades of living, you have yet to see in what ways Mozart and Haydn surpass their contemporaries in the exploitation of the musical idioms of their time, exhibiting a virtuosity others could rarely match


How do both compare to the other Haydn in liturgical music objectively, for instance? How are the musical idioms of the time exploited in the genre? In this thread, we've had constant lectures that "counterpoint matters, (so Bach is great)". How do they relate to "virtuosity" in the genre?



Woodduck said:


> and earning thereby the recognition of musically knowledgeable and sensitive people up to and beyond the present day, you probably never will see it.


I don't think the general attitude or mindset _"I'm not really into 18th century Classicism anyway, so I'm not interested in finding out how good the other Haydn is, since I can't afford the time and effort; Mozart and Haydn are good enough for me"_, for instance, should be passed off as _"musically knowledgeable and sensitive"_, regarding that topic.



Woodduck said:


> "These legions of people don't listen to a symphony of Mylivecek and say, Well, this guy's every bit as good as Haydn, because Haydn can't actually be better than anyone else, because there's no such thing as better in art." We can't ask him now, but I'd wager that the first person to call that statement laughable nonsense would be Myslivecek.


Again, it's the modern-day thinking that "Viennese-style" motivic development was somehow less banal (even with its style of thematic repetitions and sequences. Keep listening to copious cycles of Haydn quartets if you value it so highly) and objectively superior to Dittersdorf's "sensuous Austro-Italian melodic style", for instance. It's similar to the modern-day thinking that Mozart's strong "Germanness" in harmony and orchestration (which was disliked by many at the time for its perceived "weirdness"; such as the reviewer from Cramer's Magazin der Musik in 1789, who compared Mozart's K.465 quartet to Kozeluch) somehow had intrinsic "objective superiority" from its birth.
So "greatness" changed with the changes of people's perspective over time. How can it be absolute?


hammeredklavier said:


> Which begs the question; do we really listen to a late 18th century work like actual people from the late 18th century Europe (who unquestioningly upheld the values of the Enlightenment in music) would have? If not, why should our "decisions" about its "greatness" be considered to have more "objective credibility" than theirs? (Are we not "cherry-picking" things, by any chance, due to our "limitations in capability to appreciate"?). Fbjim sometimes talked about this, I remember.
> And do our "decisions" about music popular in our own little nerdy circles (that comprise like less than 0.01% of the entire population today) even really have significant meaning outside them?


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## 4chamberedklavier

It's not that difficult to roughly determine if a composer is "great". It's just a matter of checking whether certain conditions have been met. Has this composer created many works that are widely appreciated by a large number of people? Do these works require skill, effort, and/or talent? Is there variety in this composer's output? In other words, a composer _can_ be objectively great.

It's more challenging to quantify & compare "greatness". It depends on the standards used to define what is "great". Problem is impossible to find a universal set of standards that can apply for every person. You can choose standards that a majority of people will agree with, but they're likely to be broad, and the broader the standards, the more difficult it is to quantify. But the more specific your standards are, the smaller the number of people who will find the standards good enough to represent their preferences. So while a composer _can_ be objectively great, whether a composer is the_ greatest_ is so hard to find out you might as well call it subjective.

I don't think that the most well-known composers are necessarily the greatest, but they couldn't have achieved their status without being great on some level.


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## 59540

Eva Yojimbo said:


> It must be considered to be of OBJECTIVELY equal value, yes. What people don't seem to get is that "objectively equal value" doesn't equate to "equal value." Value is determined by human minds. Most human minds value informed opinions (even if it's on subjective matters), so informed opinions are more valuable to people who value them. This is so obviously true it's basically a tautology.


But it doesn't answer _why_ informed opinions are more valuable. That's making "informed" an objective value. Some particular minds may find such "informed opinions" to be utter crap and instead place more value on the naive freshness of the gloriously unlearned.



> Think of the value in terms of real world objects. What is the TRUE value of any antique? Is it what most people will pay for it? Enthusiasts will pay for it? What the biggest enthusiast in the world will pay for it? What a poor person would pay for it? There is no "objectively true" value, any truth to the value is completely relative to the subjective minds who place value on the thing.


And again while the exact price tag may be a subjective judgement, it doesn't answer _why_ a higher value is placed on a Michelangelo statue than on a case of Play-Doh.

What's actually funny is to see "subjectivists" being not quite able to break the old "objectivist" habits. It's understandable though.


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## Strange Magic

In esthetics, informed opinions are of no more value than naively fresh opinions, just as in science the direct perception and appreciation of beauty is unaffected by knowledge of the subject--in esthetics, skill can be evaluated like typing speed (see _Ingres_, paintings by).

What is actually funny is to see objectivists squirm and struggle to assign objective value to things their cluster likes while refusing to see that it's just a poll. Examine the art sold every year at fantastic prices at auctions, presumably helped by the opinion of Experts, or see evaluations on Antiques Road Show. I know, dissident, old habits are hard to break, and Groupthink difficult to buck--the current is powerful.


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## hammeredklavier

Woodduck said:


> If, in many decades of living, you have yet to see in what ways Mozart and Haydn surpass their contemporaries in the exploitation of the musical idioms of their time, exhibiting a virtuosity others could rarely match and earning thereby the recognition of musically knowledgeable and sensitive people up to and beyond the present day, you probably never will see it.


the harmonies, starting at 2:27-




"I thought to myself, 'May thy pure and peaceful spirit hover around me, dear Haydn! If I can ever become like thee, peaceful and guileless, in all matters none on earth has such deep reverence for thee as I have.' (Sad tears fell from my eyes. . . .)" . [Franz Schubert: A Biography, By Henry Frost · 2019 (P. 138)]


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## 59540

Strange Magic said:


> ...
> 
> What is actually funny is to see objectivists squirm and struggle to assign objective value to things their cluster likes while refusing to see that it's just a poll. Examine the art sold every year at fantastic prices at auctions, presumably helped by the opinion of Experts, or see evaluations on Antiques Road Show. I know, dissident, old habits are hard to break, and Groupthink difficult to buck--the current is powerful.


I'm not squirming at all. The ones who are spilling dissertations all over the place are the ones who are squirming. "It's just a poll" is absolutely meaningless unless you know what motivates the poll. So what? "It's a poll. Behold my insight." What's _really_ funny is to see subjectivists preaching their dogma as objective truth. Ultimately what would it matter anyway? The poll and its results are still going to be there. Telling me that Bach's greatness is all in my brain doesn't make me think Bach is any less great. Telling me that Bach and Vanilla Ice are of equal value doesn't convince me that they are, either. Nor does it excuse and sanctify the abject ignorance of anyone would rank them equally, or give Mr Van Winkle the nod.


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## DaveM

In a nutshell:

In general, objectivity lies in the acknowledgment that a human mind and body with an innate talent/skill has accomplished something few other people can. The validity of the acknowledgment and the associated objectivity that some of the greatest works have a special value increases over centuries as subsequent generations come to the same conclusions. Thus in the arts, we have the iconic works of The David, The Mona Lisa and the Sistine Chapel and the works of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and on.

Dismissing the recognition of the genius of gifted artists and composers as nothing more than the result of polls is a superficial construct, especially when the polls are undefined and can include people who are the equivalent to those who can’t hold a tune and think they can be the next American Idol or those who vote in polls on greatness based only on whether they like an artist’s works or not.


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## Woodduck

Strange Magic said:


> The "right" kind of evidence is found within a cluster of the like-minded, who share one another's criteria. It could be a big cluster; it could be small. A thought experiment: let's say you are of the opinion that an opera by Carl Orff is the *best opera ever written*--you can't hear it enough-- but you find yourself utterly alone in your assessment. Is Orff's opera still actually, objectively, the best ever if no one agrees with you? If not one of your peers or mentors or authority figures can find any *real merit* in the work? *The "right ' kind of evidence for the objectivist is (nothing but) the shared opinion of a cluster.*


Hypotheticals - thought experiments - are only useful if their terms are clearly defined. In this case, the crucial terms "best" and "merit" have no discernible meaning. What does "best opera ever" mean? What would constitute "merit" in an opera? Are you simply saying that those terms can't mean anything real, that those things can't exist?

Failure to define our terms is possibly the most consistent and intractable problem in these discussions.

While you're chewing on that, I'll remark that when I improvise a composition at the piano, which I do frequently, my perception of its merit has nothing to do with "shared opinions," and isn't even a simple matter of my own "opinion." Every work of art establishes, in its course, its own parameters, and the farther it proceeds, the more what has come before limits the suitability of what comes after. If this were not the case, any continuation would be equally meritorious, including complete chaos. Eva Yojimbo and certain "avant garde" people to the contrary, chaos, in itself, is not a value - regardless of who claims to value it - but a disvalue, the negation of all values. The creation of perceptible order is thus the first criterion of merit in art. If I want to say what "merit" is, that's where I begin. It isn't where I end, but that's all I want to say right now.


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## Woodduck

DaveM said:


> In a nutshell:
> 
> In general, objectivity lies in the acknowledgment that a human mind and body with an innate talent/skill has accomplished something few other people can. The validity of the acknowledgment and the associated objectivity that some of the greatest works have a special value increases over centuries as subsequent generations come to the same conclusions. Thus in the arts, we have the iconic works of The David, The Mona Lisa and the Sistine Chapel and the works of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and on.
> 
> Dismissing the recognition of the genius of gifted artists and composers as nothing more than the result of polls is a superficial construct, especially when the polls are undefined and can include people who are the equivalent to those who can’t hold a tune and think they can be the next American Idol or those who vote in polls on greatness based only on whether they like an artist’s works or not.


Well stated. The doing of things that few people can do isn't the sole determinant of artistic excellence, but it's a conspicuous one.


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## Strange Magic

dissident, DaveM, Woodduck: please know that I remain unmoved and unimpressed by your arguments.. I think very well of you all and probably we all love what art we love with equal fixity and enthusiasm (how does one prove otherwise??). But I continue to find your arguments still subjectivism unknowingly, uncomprehendedly misinterpreted by you as evidence of some sort of trans-opinioned reality. The simple and ancient truth of _de gustibus _remains after all the rationalization is swept aside. This is the third(?) time i bid this thread goodbye--too much good music to hear, books to read, art to enjoy--but no guarantees. Not sure, unlike Arnold, that I'll Be Back, but who knows?


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## Eva Yojimbo

dissident, I will say I greatly admire your ability to keep posts/points succinct. It's a quality I genuinely wish I possessed. 



dissident said:


> But it doesn't answer _why_ informed opinions are more valuable. That's making "informed" an objective value. Some particular minds may find such "informed opinions" to be utter crap and instead place more value on the naive freshness of the gloriously unlearned.


Your second sentence does not logically follow from your first, and your third sentence is demonstrably true. Any art that functions as a commercial endeavor cares about opinions of the "gloriously unlearned" masses who account for the bulk of their profits. See Billy Wilder: "An audience is never wrong. An individual member of it may be an imbecile, but a thousand imbeciles together in the dark - that is critical genius."



dissident said:


> And again while the exact price tag may be a subjective judgement, it doesn't answer _why_ a higher value is placed on a Michelangelo statue than on a case of Play-Doh.


The question of why Mikey's David has more value than Play-Doh-David is always a question worth asking, but the answer will always be some combination of the nature of the art-object itself, the human subjectivities it's interacting with, and the nature of that interaction. However, we don't have to answer that question definitively (which is impossible without a complete understanding of human minds, both the collectively universal elements and the individual variations) to understand that the valuation of the object comes from those minds. 

What I see happening in this thread is that the "objectivists" are almost obsessively focused on the nature of the art-object, trying to understand everything about it that's possible to understand. Don't get me wrong, that's a worthwhile endeavor in itself; but the subjectivists are merely coming along and saying "hey, you know human minds? All this talk about valuation and judgments doesn't exist without them, and any claims to "truth" must make reference to those minds as it also can't exist without it." Subjectivists aren't denying the role that art objects play, we're saying there's much more to it than that. 



dissident said:


> What's actually funny is to see "subjectivists" being not quite able to break the old "objectivist" habits. It's understandable though.


What habits are these? I believe I already said that being a subjectivist does not entail any behavior. Subjectivists can behave exactly as an objectivist can, they just draw the line at saying certain things are objectively true.


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## Eva Yojimbo

BachIsBest said:


> But I claim something more subtle than this. That is, the claim is that aesthetic judgements on a piece of art can be right or wrong based on the standards of the artwork itself.


The artwork has no standards: the artist has standards, and his society/culture has standards (which are a kind of aggregation of standards of many different individuals). You can, indeed, consider the art work good or bad relative to any of these standards. You can say “the art is bad relative to the standard of the artist” or “relative to the experts” or “relative to the non-experts,” or even get more granular and say “it’s good/bad relative to THESE experts” or “THESE non-experts.” That’s essentially what us subjectivists are saying, that any judgment of good and bad is relative to these various subjective standards, and isn’t good or bad objectively, without regards for these subjective standards.



BachIsBest said:


> To put it very simply, I believe music can improve well-being, and removing something that improves well-being definitionally is a detriment to well-being.


I would tentatively agree with this, with the stipulation that if we think music improves well-being because people get something out of it they deem positive, then it’s very difficult to find music that doesn’t do that, including “so bad it’s good” music like The Shaggs.



BachIsBest said:


> This is not related to the thread, but as a brief physics note GUT does not refer to a theory of everything. A GUT is just a quantum field theory that allows the strong and electroweak forces to be viewed as one force. One doesn't even need a GUT to get a theory of everything, as there is nothing contradictory about having the strong and electroweak forces being two fundamentally different things.


Fair enough. I was just going off dissident’s terminology and what (I thought) he meant by it.



BachIsBest said:


> The colloquial definition of the word, not the philosophical one. Just the first definition on Merriam-Webster seems satisfactory to me: "expressing or dealing with facts or conditions as perceived without distortion by personal feelings, prejudices, or interpretations." The second definition seems to be more or less yours.


To me, this first definition just provokes the question of how you determine what “facts and conditions… without distortion by personal feelings… etc.” are to begin with. To me, the mind-(in)dependent definition is HOW you make that distinction. Things independent of the mind have a factual status that’s independent of our feelings etc., while things (like aesthetic judgments) that are dependent upon the mind do not. The only way aesthetic judgments can not depend on subjective feelings is that they might not depend on our personal subjective feelings by appealing to the standards of others.



BachIsBest said:


> So you would disagree that the decision by a judge to give a certain may be called "objective", because it is based on the subjective feelings of the judge and other people in the law system and, mor generally, society at large? Do you not think this is in disagreement with the colloquial definition of objective and the way most people use the word?


The problem is that the colloquial definition is vague (see above). The colloquial definition, at best, would only mean “not relying on one’s personal feelings,” not that it’s relying on facts that don’t depend on anyone’s feelings. It’s fine if we want to have the word “objective” to refer to these two different things, but they are two different things; and if we say something is objective in one sense we can’t then pretend it’s objective in both senses.



BachIsBest said:


> They were rigid and monolithic enough that one could write a musical joke, and all within the music community would get it. Since we agree that an artist can tell a joke through composition, by playing on established conventions both within and external to the artwork, it is not too much of a stretch to claim an artist can likely communicate much more than mere jokes through their art; and once this has been established, I fail to see why art that successfully communicates much of importance, and possibly even of great profundity, can not be called better than art which says nothing.


There can certainly be agreement about very fundamental features that almost all art that’s liked possesses, which is what allows one to write works that either eschew all of those elements, or else utilizes those elements in such an overbearing way that it’s perceived as a joke because people are made conscious of their usage (essentially, they “see through the illusion” of the craft). Mozart’s joke mostly works via the latter.

I have no issue with the notion of art communicates or express something, though I might with the notion that expressing/communicating something of “importance or profundity” is necessarily better than art that doesn’t. What profound thing does Mozart’s 41st Symphony express? I can’t think of anything in terms of external meaning, but I still find listening to it, especially the fugal finale of its final music, a transcendental experience; but I also get that many don’t react as I do and wouldn’t think it important or profound or anything at all, and this includes people who love and are knowledgeable about classical music. That’s differences in aesthetic sensibilities for you.



BachIsBest said:


> If you wish to call the preference for art that communicates important profound things as opposed to art which says nothing of interest a subjective preference, then I honestly don't care. Fine. Do it. It's like saying murder is subjectively wrong only; even if this is so, it has no particular relevance in real life. In real life, murder is wrong, and this is the end of the story.


I fundamentally disagree that it has no relevance “in real life.” One relevance is what I said to dissident above: it’s very easy for people to come to believe almost anything based on strong feelings, including the Nazis believing they were an objectively superior race, that Jews were inferior and a threat to Germany and deserved extermination. Believing that subjective aesthetic judgments are objective is, obviously, inconsequential compared to the above, but I think both beliefs stem from the same source of people mistaking their “strong feelings” for objective facts. Once people do that it’s nearly impossible to convince them otherwise because there’s no way to demonstrate a strong feeling is wrong in the way you can demonstrate genuine objective claims are wrong via empiricism, prediction, etc. Yes, people can also come to believe things like “murder is wrong” is objectively true too, which may be a “good thing” (relative to our subjective dislike for murder), but IMO this does not counter the wealth of “bad things” (relative to our subjective moralities) that people can come to believe on that same epistemic standard; and if we’re genuinely concerned with the truth we shouldn’t be worried about these pragmatic considerations anyway. The question is still “in what sense is ‘murder is wrong’ ‘true’?”

Plus, I do not believe in the common hysterical objection that the idea that “murder is wrong is only true relative to our shared subjective standards” means everyone (or even anyone) is going to start murdering people when they otherwise wouldn’t have. For one, we still have laws and, regardless of whether their source is subjective or not, people will still be punished for breaking them, and most people don’t want to be punished. For another, I have to believe that the vast majority of people do not want to murder others even if there are no laws or no objective morality that says they shouldn’t. When people suggest such things I have to worry about their own sense of empathy.


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## EdwardBast

Strange Magic said:


> What is actually funny is to see objectivists squirm and struggle to assign objective value to things their cluster likes while refusing to see that it's just a poll.


As I've stated, I think the objectivist-subjectivist distinction is fruitless. I'm a realist. And what's obvious to me is that if "it's just a poll," it's a very peculiar kind of poll, one in which some votes are vastly more equal than others. In judging the aesthetic value of fugues, to cite one popular recent example, the opinions of those who don't know what a fugue is are worthless. The opinions of those who know in a general sense what a fugue is but don't know the fugue literature or how they ae constructed are nearly worthless. The votes of those who perform fugues, those who understand fugal writing in a deep sense, and those who have composed them or attempted to compose them count a lot and tend to establish the canon. If it makes one feel good to think ones opinion matters then "it's all just a poll" is no doubt a satisfying illusion.


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## Eva Yojimbo

4chamberedklavier said:


> It's not that difficult to roughly determine if a composer is "great". It's just a matter of checking whether certain conditions have been met. Has this composer created many works that are widely appreciated by a large number of people?


This is setting the standard for "greatness" the subjectivity of what people think about it, which is precisely the point subjectivists are arguing. First, you can have objective data about subjective preferences, but this is Strange Magic's "polling." Second, and more importantly, nobody (no individual or group) is under obligation to accept "widely appreciated by a large number of people" as the standard for judging greatness. Were that the case all classical fans would deem Max Martin or any beloved pop star great. 



4chamberedklavier said:


> Do these works require skill, effort, and/or talent?


Skill and talent are judged relative to a goal, and those goals are set by human minds and in many cases, especially in terms of the end-result of the art itself, is extremely variable. At least with musicians the universal goal is to be able to play as much as possible with the greatest facility on their instruments so we can somewhat judge skill/talent relative to that goal*. Aesthetic quality doesn't really have such universal agreement as there are too many possible objective features in art that people value differently. 

*As I type this I realize that many artist/musicians don't even care about that, all they care about is being able to play well enough to make the music they want to make with their chosen instrument, which is also a viable goal. Classical musicians are different in the respect they predominantly play the works of others. 



4chamberedklavier said:


> In other words, a composer _can_ be objectively great.


What you've described isn't objective greatness, it's greatness relative to subjective standards, which is what subjectivists are arguing for.


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## Eva Yojimbo

EdwardBast said:


> As I've stated, I think the objectivist-subjectivist distinction is fruitless. I'm a realist. And what's obvious to me is that if "it's just a poll," it's a very peculiar kind of poll, one in which some votes are vastly more equal than others. In judging the aesthetic value of fugues, to cite one popular recent example, the opinions of those who don't know what a fugue is are worthless. The opinions of those who know in a general sense what a fugue is but don't know the fugue literature or how they ae constructed are nearly worthless. The votes of those who perform fugues, those who understand fugal writing in a deep sense, and those who have composed them or attempted to compose them count a lot and tend to establish the canon.


Again someone speaking of worth and value as if those things don't originate in human minds and are thus, by definition, subjective. Also, why the devaluation of ignorant opinions in aesthetic matters? Consider the common objectivist claim that great music supposedly possesses these features that appeal to the universal aspects of human nature. Well, if that's true, then why must one be "learned" to appreciate or value the music that possesses it? 

The notion that one must be learned to judge art is just pure elitism founded on the fantasy that objective knowledge translates to objectively true or objectively valuable opinions. They do not. That's a logical impossibility. 



EdwardBast said:


> If it makes one feel good to think ones opinion matters then "it's all just a poll" is no doubt a satisfying illusion.


On the contrary, it clearly makes some feel better to think their opinions on ultimately subjective matters are superior to those of others.


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## Strange Magic

EdwardBast said:


> As I've stated, I think the objectivist-subjectivist distinction is fruitless. I'm a realist. And what's obvious to me is that if "it's just a poll," it's a very peculiar kind of poll, one in which some votes are vastly more equal than others. In judging the aesthetic value of fugues, to cite one popular recent example, the opinions of those who don't know what a fugue is are worthless. The opinions of those who know in a general sense what a fugue is but don't know the fugue literature or how they ae constructed are nearly worthless. The votes of those who perform fugues, those who understand fugal writing in a deep sense, and those who have composed them or attempted to compose them count a lot and tend to establish the canon. If it makes one feel good to think ones opinion matters then "it's all just a poll" is no doubt a satisfying illusion.


Again, a near-perfect(?) regurgitation of the objectivist position. I don't know about you but my opinion matters to me more than yours, but not more than yours to you. And it still is "just a poll". "What is a fugue?" is another question entirely, like "What is a horse". Let's go look at some horses and hear some fugues while we're doing so. And what is fugal writing "in a deep sense"? This drips of subjectivism. EB, you have lured me out of my very short-term retirement. But it will not count against you.


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## BachIsBest

Eva Yojimbo said:


> The artwork has no standards: the artist has standards, and his society/culture has standards (which are a kind of aggregation of standards of many different individuals). You can, indeed, consider the art work good or bad relative to any of these standards. You can say “the art is bad relative to the standard of the artist” or “relative to the experts” or “relative to the non-experts,” or even get more granular and say “it’s good/bad relative to THESE experts” or “THESE non-experts.” That’s essentially what us subjectivists are saying, that any judgment of good and bad is relative to these various subjective standards, and isn’t good or bad objectively, without regards for these subjective standards.


Yes, there is the standards of the time period, and the artistic tradition in which the artwork belongs, but the art itself also establishes terms by which it can succeed or fail.



Eva Yojimbo said:


> To me, this first definition just provokes the question of how you determine what “facts and conditions… without distortion by personal feelings… etc.” are to begin with. To me, the mind-(in)dependent definition is HOW you make that distinction. Things independent of the mind have a factual status that’s independent of our feelings etc., while things (like aesthetic judgments) that are dependent upon the mind do not. The only way aesthetic judgments can not depend on subjective feelings is that they might not depend on our personal subjective feelings by appealing to the standards of others.


Look, I can't define 'fact' or 'truth'. If, as you seem to be keen to do, you define things to be 'true' as being things that are mind-independent, your definition of truth isn't true as it is mind-dependant.



Eva Yojimbo said:


> I have no issue with the notion of art communicates or express something, though I might with the notion that expressing/communicating something of “importance or profundity” is necessarily better than art that doesn’t. What profound thing does Mozart’s 41st Symphony express? I can’t think of anything in terms of external meaning, but I still find listening to it, especially the fugal finale of its final music, a transcendental experience; but I also get that many don’t react as I do and wouldn’t think it important or profound or anything at all, and this includes people who love and are knowledgeable about classical music. That’s differences in aesthetic sensibilities for you.


This a fundamental misunderstanding of art. If I could write, in a two paragraph TC post, what Mozart's 41st symphony expresses, then Mozart's 41st symphony would be a terrible symphony. It is a 'great' symphony, at least partially because, maybe even precisely because, it expresses something I can't write or explain in a TC post.

I'm not going to argue with the statement that you take issue "with the notion that expressing/communicating something of “importance or profundity” is necessarily better than art that doesn’t." I would say this is virtually axiomatic, but if you think not, then so be it.



Eva Yojimbo said:


> I fundamentally disagree that it has no relevance “in real life.” One relevance is what I said to dissident above: it’s very easy for people to come to believe almost anything based on strong feelings, including the Nazis believing they were an objectively superior race, that Jews were inferior and a threat to Germany and deserved extermination. Believing that subjective aesthetic judgments are objective is, obviously, inconsequential compared to the above, but I think both beliefs stem from the same source of people mistaking their “strong feelings” for objective facts. Once people do that it’s nearly impossible to convince them otherwise because there’s no way to demonstrate a strong feeling is wrong in the way you can demonstrate genuine objective claims are wrong via empiricism, prediction, etc. Yes, people can also come to believe things like “murder is wrong” is objectively true too, which may be a “good thing” (relative to our subjective dislike for murder), but IMO this does not counter the wealth of “bad things” (relative to our subjective moralities) that people can come to believe on that same epistemic standard; and if we’re genuinely concerned with the truth we shouldn’t be worried about these pragmatic considerations anyway. The question is still “in what sense is ‘murder is wrong’ ‘true’?”
> 
> Plus, I do not believe in the common hysterical objection that the idea that “murder is wrong is only true relative to our shared subjective standards” means everyone (or even anyone) is going to start murdering people when they otherwise wouldn’t have. For one, we still have laws and, regardless of whether their source is subjective or not, people will still be punished for breaking them, and most people don’t want to be punished. For another, I have to believe that the vast majority of people do not want to murder others even if there are no laws or no objective morality that says they shouldn’t. When people suggest such things I have to worry about their own sense of empathy.


Saying "if everyone believed in objective morality then we could end up with the Nazis" is equally as dumb as saying "if everyone believed in subjective morality then murder would be rampant in our society". They're both ridiculous non-sequiturs. All that I will say is that both positions could be abused to do terrible things, but I would also argue this is true of many philosophical positions, and I don't see it as particularly relevant to this debate.


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## 59540

Eva Yojimbo said:


> The notion that one must be learned to judge art is just pure elitism...


And there's the postmodern nub of it. You say earlier that we value the better-informed opinion; but yet better-informed is elitist. I don't see how knowledge is elitist.


> On the contrary, it clearly makes some feel better to think their opinions on ultimately subjective matters are superior to those of others.


If in my subjective opinion my tastes are superior, then prove otherwise. When the only "correct" response is "now I've seen the light. Bach music in itself is really no better than anything I could write", then you're preaching an objective dogma.


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## science

Woodduck said:


> This means that no claim about artistic merit can be more or less objective than any other claim.


No, that is a misrepresentation of what I wrote. 

I wrote, "Any claim that all art is equally good is either as subjective or as objective as any claim that some art is better than other art." 

That means, either "this art is better than that art" is an objective claim, in which case "all art is equal" is also an objective claim, or else "this art is better than that art" is a subjective claim, in which "all art is equal" is also a subjective claim. 

I do not know why you so consistently disregard what I actually write and accuse me of writing things that I do not write. 

The rest of the post is more of that, so, whatever. 



Woodduck said:


> From your first statement above, you appear to be in that camp.


I do not believe you care what camp I am actually in as long as you can misrepresent me to get me into one that you can slander.


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## 4chamberedklavier

Eva Yojimbo said:


> This is setting the standard for "greatness" the subjectivity of what people think about it, which is precisely the point subjectivists are arguing. First, you can have objective data about subjective preferences, but this is Strange Magic's "polling." Second, and more importantly, nobody (no individual or group) is under obligation to accept "widely appreciated by a large number of people" as the standard for judging greatness. Were that the case all classical fans would deem Max Martin or any beloved pop star great.
> 
> Skill and talent are judged relative to a goal, and those goals are set by human minds and in many cases, especially in terms of the end-result of the art itself, is extremely variable. At least with musicians the universal goal is to be able to play as much as possible with the greatest facility on their instruments so we can somewhat judge skill/talent relative to that goal*. Aesthetic quality doesn't really have such universal agreement as there are too many possible objective features in art that people value differently.
> 
> *As I type this I realize that many artist/musicians don't even care about that, all they care about is being able to play well enough to make the music they want to make with their chosen instrument, which is also a viable goal. Classical musicians are different in the respect they predominantly play the works of others.
> 
> What you've described isn't objective greatness, it's greatness relative to subjective standards, which is what subjectivists are arguing for.


I see your main objection is with my choice of standards. That's understandable. I have to clarify what I meant by "objective". For me, something is "objective" when it asks a question that only has one answer. If you accept the criteria that I mentioned, then the answer to whether or not a composer fits the criteria is either "yes" or "no". Can't be both.

You may not agree with my choice of standards, but I think that choosing standards is a separate issue from evaluating something given a certain set of standards. Something can be objectively true, even if the standards were subjectively chosen. 

fwiw, I think this discussion would benefit greatly if the people here all agreed on what standards they would like use in order to define "greatness".


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## Woodduck

science said:


> No, that is a misrepresentation of what I wrote.
> 
> I wrote, "Any claim that all art is equally good is either as subjective or as objective as any claim that some art is better than other art."
> 
> That means, either "this art is better than that art" is an objective claim, in which case "all art is equal" is also an objective claim, or else "this art is better than that art" is a subjective claim, in which "all art is equal" is also a subjective claim.
> 
> I do not know why you so consistently disregard what I actually write and accuse me of writing things that I do not write.
> 
> The rest of the post is more of that, so, whatever.
> 
> 
> 
> I do not believe you care what camp I am actually in as long as you can misrepresent me to get me into one that you can slander.


Relax. Don't tell me what I "consistently do," and look up the word "slander." There's more than enough hyperbole in the world.

I haven't accused you of anything. I found your statement opaque and I struggled to interpret it. You tell me that I did not succeed. What a tragedy! I will flagellate myself for misunderstanding you if it will cure whatever malady is possessing you and making you defend yourself against nonexistent offenses.


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## Woodduck

4chamberedklavier said:


> Something can be objectively true, even if the standards were subjectively chosen.


Absolutely. For example, the fact that the common practice tonal harmony of Western music, entailing certain procedures and possibilities, is a human invention - and thus "subjective" - doesn't imply that a composer can't be more or less creative and masterful - perceptibly and _objectively_ creative and masterful - in using it.


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## Eva Yojimbo

Still working on my reply to Woodduck. I think our best course of action is one of three options: 

1. Continue as we are, but not feel compelled to type these responses daily as opposed to a few times a week. 
2. Do a "soft reset" where we attempt to steelman each others' arguments and try to clearly articulate our precise, key points of disagreement and work on them. 
3. Just drop the discussion altogether. 

I personally would not prefer option 3, but I'm fine with either 1 or 2. 



Woodduck said:


> Absolutely. For example, the fact that the common practice tonal harmony of Western music, entailing certain procedures and possibilities, is a human invention - and thus "subjective" - doesn't imply that a composer can't be more or less creative and masterful - perceptibly and _objectively_ creative and masterful - in using it.


And I agree with this as long as we're also anchoring our judgment of "creative and masterful" to the the mind-dependent values that people put on what they're doing. IE, "what a composer did was creative and masterful" is another way of saying "what a composer did is valued by many people."


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## Strange Magic

Woodduck said:


> Absolutely. For example, the fact that the common practice tonal harmony of Western music, entailing certain procedures and possibilities, is a human invention - and thus "subjective" - doesn't imply that a composer can't be more or less creative and masterful - perceptibly and _objectively_ creative and masterful - in using it.


More subjectivism passing or attempting to pass as objectivism. Creative and masterful are a different way of saying "different". Music/art can surely be new and different as a determinable fact. How valuable the difference is, is up to the individual perceiver.


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## 59540

You mean a symphony that I might attempt wouldn't be "worse" or "less masterful" than a Beethoven one. It would just be "different". I really don't understand the horror at saying that something was excellently done. 


> "what a composer did was creative and masterful" is another way of saying "what a composer did is valued by many people."


"So why is it valued by many people?" "Well they _think_ that it's 'creative' and 'masterful' but we know there are no such things..." This is peeling the onion and finding nothing at the center.


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## Woodduck

Eva Yojimbo said:


> Again someone speaking of worth and value as if those things don't originate in human minds and are thus, by definition, subjective.


An obvious (?) fallacy. "Value" may be objective, subjective, or both. "Value" is not synonymous with "evaluation." A thing may be of value to me whether I recognize it or not. It may also, as art does, represent or express things which have objective value (benefit) to human beings - or things which are inimical to them - whether or not any individual recognizes or cares about that particular representation or expression.



> Also, why the devaluation of ignorant opinions in aesthetic matters?


Because they are ignorant. Last time I checked, ignorance - like chaos, which you also defend - is not valuable to human beings, and tends to make one's pronouncements worthless to others. I guess someone who can't conceive of anything being objectively valuable will have to gloss over such obvious facts of reality.



> Consider the common objectivist claim that great music supposedly possesses these features that appeal to the universal aspects of human nature. Well, if that's true, then why must one be "learned" to appreciate or value the music that possesses it?


Are you suggesting that ignorance is no impediment to grasping things of universal significance, especially through the symbolic languages of art?



> The notion that one must be learned to judge art is just pure elitism


Well, that answers my question!

I don't know how much learning one needs to be "learned," but my response is to say that the notion that one can adequately judge the music of Bach - or even the Beatles - without a context of relevant knowledge is contrary to reason and experience. Anyone may judge anything, but why should we care? When we want to understand something, we don't turn to "anybody." When it comes to judging art, some people are - wait for it - _superior_ to others in perception and insight, and with art of any complexity, perception and insight are enhanced by knowledge, often greatly.

Resuming your sentence:



> The notion that one must be learned to judge art is just pure elitism founded on the fantasy that objective knowledge translates to objectively true or objectively valuable opinions. They do not. That's a logical impossibility.


Elitism. And there it is. The heart - as opposed to the cerebral cortex - of the issue. If there is one thing we must never, ever be, it's "elitist." And what more perfect way to avoid the stuffy smell of elitism, the awful, undemocratic suggestion that someone may have knowledge, ability or expertise that someone else doesn't, than to deny the very possibility that any value or judgment can be better, truer or worth more than any other? It's an old playbook, here fancily packaged in epistemology (which you can tell is not an elitist subject by the sound of it  ).



> On the contrary, it clearly makes some feel better to think their opinions on ultimately subjective matters are superior to those of others.


It clearly makes some feel relieved to think that their ignorance is just as good as others' knowledge, and that Vanilla Ice or Strawberry Souffle is musically equal to Brahms and Mahler because they, Mr. Ice and Ms. Souffle, with the magisterial authority of their non-elitist taste, say it's so, while non-elitist subjectivist philosophers cheer them on.


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## Woodduck

Strange Magic said:


> More subjectivism passing or attempting to pass as objectivism. Creative and masterful are a different way of saying "different". Music/art can surely be new and different as a determinable fact. How valuable the difference is, is up to the individual perceiver.


 Wrong again. Being '"different" doesn't make anyone either creative or masterful. Come now, you're smarter than that!


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## Woodduck

Eva Yojimbo said:


> IE, "what a composer did was creative and masterful" is another way of saying "what a composer did is valued by many people."


No, it is not! Some artists are obviously more creative than others. Most artists are not very inventive, or are merely eccentric (a different form of "difference," _pace_ SM), which is why we've never heard of them. We don't have to vote on whether Beethoven, Berlioz and Wagner were extraordinarily creative. And mastery of an artistic language at a level permitting such immense creativity to bear fruit is an extraordinary distinction. Tell your pollsters to stick with politics.


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## Eva Yojimbo

Woodduck said:


> No, it is not! Some artists are obviously more creative than others. Most artists are not very inventive, or are merely eccentric (a different form of "difference," _pace_ SM), which is why we've never heard of them. We don't have to vote on whether Beethoven, Berlioz and Wagner were extraordinarily creative. And mastery of an artistic language at a level permitting such immense creativity to bear fruit is an extraordinary distinction. Tell your pollsters to stick with politics.


Yeah, this fact is so obvious you've spent 30 pages claiming it without being able to demonstrate it and, when probed, you retreat to a kind of internal knowledge that you have claimed is mysterious.


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## hammeredklavier

Look at this take on "creativity in Bach and Vivaldi": critique-musicale.com/bachen.htm (Is Johann Sebastian Bach a Great Composer?) _"In fact, according to all the musicologists, Vivaldi had a great importance in the transformation of the concerto, developping the mind of solist, on the other hand the novelties he carries in the symphonism were incontestable. On the contrary, Bach was a typically conservative who did not change the musical language."_


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## Luchesi

dissident said:


> I know, they have this confidence that they're the bearers of truth to us poor benighted folk. I think to be that dogmatic in the matter you'd have to demonstrate at least a little expertise in neuroscience and probably also music. I'm not feelin' it. Subjectively speaking.
> 
> I would think that the opinion of Stravinsky was that Bach was the greatest composer of them all. Personally, I'd agree. So what possible similarities are there between Stravinsky's background and mine that would bring about that similar attitude half a world and about a century apart? Or between me and Masaaki Suzuki? Or Rosalyn Tureck? Do so many cellists have such similarities in background, perceptions, tastes -- the whole thing -- that makes all of them want to learn Bach's suites?
> 
> *Or is it something in the music itself?*


Yes, Bach was so lucky. It might be their harmonic tradition culminating, and it is that accidental outcome which helped so much. Most of his movements have an organic flow, distinctive of him and only he has it (oh and Handel). Playing through many movements of the suites for keyboard gives the player that feeling of long lines and scale figures. If you can hold the long lines together and make musical sense of them, the rest will take care of itself. It's surprising.


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## hammeredklavier

EdwardBast said:


> those who have composed them or attempted to compose them count a lot and tend to establish the canon.


Is there such a correlation? There are many forgotten contrapuntists. For example, Franz Joseph Aumann ( 1728 – 1797 ): "Aumann's music was a large part of the repertoire at St. Florian in the 19th century, and Anton Bruckner availed himself of this resource for his studies of counterpoint. Bruckner focused a lot of his attention on Aumann's Christmas responsories and an Ave Maria in D major. Bruckner, who liked Aumann's coloured harmony, added in 1879 an accompaniment by three trombones to his settings of Ecce quomodo moritur justus and Tenebrae factae sunt."
I recently had this conversation with dissident:


dissident said:


> I think Mozart frequently resorted to musical cliché with the best of them. Of course they all do to a certain extent.
> I love Mozart. But if we knew as little about his life as we know about Bach's, I don't think we would listen to his work in quite the same way.





hammeredklavier said:


> I respect your views in topics like this. (It's why I hadn't come back after my last post), but I must also point out there's also "myth" about Bach that does disservice to other composers as well, especially the immediate later composers. Consider "Bach Chorale Harmonizations"; it almost seems that any chorale Bach wrote is to be regarded as some sort of "divinely-crafted, complex counterpoint" cause Bach did it, taught in every institution as some sacred relic. Still in the minds of many people today, he's like the greatest "avant-gardist" of the 18th century who always strove for "artistic complexity" without ever giving in to the "dumb", "shallow" simplicity and frivolity of the newer aesthetics of his time. Johann Ludwig Krebs never gets this sort of recognition.


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## Woodduck

Eva Yojimbo said:


> Yeah, this fact is so obvious you've spent 30 pages claiming it without being able to demonstrate it and, when probed, you retreat to a kind of internal knowledge that you have claimed is mysterious.


I'm guessing that so long as you cling to your _*totally subjective* *opinion*_ that the unmistakable (one would have thought) glories of the titans of art can't possibly be anything but imaginary if they can't be "proved" to every fool who doesn't know enough even to ask, you'll go on producing more mile-long streams of inadequate and useless epistemology to render us all catatonic.

No doubt all the creative geniuses of history, who are objectivist and elitist enough to know what they and their fellows have achieved and what it's cost them to achieve it, are causing an earthquake right now, laughing at this foolishness and thanking the stars that they didn't live into the 21st century to have to put up with people who proclaim with a straight face that "chaotic art" and "uninformed opinions" are as objectively valuable as order and knowledge because some pretentious, anti-elitist know-nothings may _prefer_ them.

If the "kind of internal knowledge" exercised by the artist and true appreciator of art is an impenetrable mystery to you because it doesn't fit your bean-counter's version of reality, that's your misfortune. You do at least have plenty of postmodern, non-objective, non-elitist company, but I'll lay you any odds that the artists are, by and large, not among them. We, or at least the more thoughtful and observant of us, know what we're doing, and what you're trying to tell us we're doing is a joke without a punch line.


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## hammeredklavier

BachIsBest said:


> Yes, because there is no other discipline where you can find experts who should know better saying stupid things.


Aren't we the ones indulging in idolatry of certain artists? Why do they need to be glorified even further, as if they haven't been glorified enough already? Why is that, with certain artists, it is considered "unintelligent" to have a view like:


Kreisler jr said:


> I grant all kinds of technical contrapuntal wizardry singling Bach out but I don't see how even a rather modest Telemann cantata like "Du aber Daniel gehe hin" or the choruses from the Passion section of Messiah (to stick with the best known, there are plenty of other examples) are not in the same range of expression and gravitas (or Schütz for music 100 years earlier). Of course, unlike inverted triple mirror fugues, "emotional depth" or gravitas are rather vague attributes.
> 
> And while this is a bit of negative cherry picking, I think it is odd that the same Bach who supposedly puts deeply symbolic and profound text exegesis into music is let away with the most blatant parodies from totally different texts in the Xmas oratorio (some work better than others, but a few like "Ich will nur dir zu Ehren leben" or that Echo thing I find rather bizarre). Sure, this is baroque as usual but this is precisely the point: Quite a bit of Bach is baroque as usual and not on a lofty higher level of profundity. (Not going into authenticity questions because I don't think this concerns any major works although I have seen a professional organist claim that a third or so of Bach's organ works would have to be counted as dubious.)
> 
> Bach is overall mostly contemplative, even in the passions very little is dramatic (it's a few short passages that together amount to 5, at most 10 min. in a 2-3 hours long work, the one or two dramatic arias in an earlier version of the St. John were later cut); there is a whole dimension of dramatic characterization one finds in the best opera (such as Handel and Rameau) that is absent because Bach didn't do opera (neither quasi-operatic oratorios with characters like Saul or Theodora). This is not a "fault" but I think it is just ignored by people who claim that Bach could of course have easily written a great opera. (The point is _not_ that the two Bach passions might be overall better than most or all baroque operas; I would agree with that if I granted that they were easily comparable.)
> 
> I also think that in some other works the focus on the concertato style makes some pieces dragged out and less effective. E.g. in the b minor mass the choir is often treated like a concerto soloist. This is of course often to good effect, if it concerns only one 5-8 min. choir like the first of a cantata, but to have a two minute slow instrumental ritornello in the Kyrie I, then basically the same music by the choir and so on is overdoing it a bit.
> Even some of the fast/happy choruses lose effect because Bach has to get in 20 bars of instrumental introduction to conform to that concertato style. Or, if Bach apparently realized that this would weaken the effect and starts with the choir (as in "Et resurrexit") one gets a ritornello put in later on during the piece.


----------



## 59540

hammeredklavier said:


> Aren't we the ones indulging in idolatry of certain artists? Why do they need to be glorified even further, as if they haven't been glorified enough already? Why is that, with certain artists, it is considered "unintelligent" to have a view like:


So tell us...why exactly do you spend so much time flogging the music of Michael Haydn and not Salieri or Cherubini or Spohr? I don't see any justification for some sort of requirement that I must concede that Telemann's cantatas are "just as good as or better than" Bach's just because of an opinion from Kreisler jr (to which he's entitled)...which isn't exactly the knockout punch you always seem to think.


----------



## 59540

hammeredklavier said:


> Look at this take on "creativity in Bach and Vivaldi": critique-musicale.com/bachen.htm (Is Johann Sebastian Bach a Great Composer?) _"In fact, according to all the musicologists, Vivaldi had a great importance in the transformation of the concerto, developping the mind of solist, on the other hand the novelties he carries in the symphonism were incontestable. On the contrary, Bach was a typically conservative who did not change the musical language."_


Nor did Michael Haydn or even Mozart, for that matter. "Creativity" doesn't necessarily equal "changing the musical language". At any rate Bach was certainly more of an influence on Beethoven, Schoenberg and Stravinsky than Vivaldi ever was.


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## DaveM

Eva Yojimbo said:


> The question of why Mikey's David has more value than Play-Doh-David is always a question worth asking, but the answer will always be some combination of the nature of the art-object itself, the human subjectivities it's interacting with, and the nature of that interaction. However, we don't have to answer that question definitively (which is impossible without a complete understanding of human minds, both the collectively universal elements and the individual variations) to understand that the valuation of the object comes from those minds...


The question has already been answered and the answer accepted over centuries. Can you point to anyone, anytime, anywhere (other than this forum) raising a question about the basis for The David, The Mona Lisa and The Sistine Chapel having a significant objective standing in the world of art? Are there TV programs or podcasts dedicated to the question as to whether The David has more value than a Play-Doh-David or something comparable?

In another thread back a ways, I used The Sistine Chapel as objective evidence of skill, talent and yes, genius, in the arts. One person responded that he had visited said Chapel and wasn’t moved as if that was somehow significant. We‘ve seen this thinking before in this thread.


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## Woodduck

DaveM said:


> The question has already been answered and the answer accepted over centuries. Can you point to anyone, anytime, anywhere (other than this forum) raising a question about the basis for The David, The Mona Lisa and The Sistine Chapel having a significant objective standing in the world of art? Are there TV programs or podcasts dedicated to the question as to whether The David has more value than a Play-Doh-David or something comparable?
> 
> In another thread back a ways, I used The Sistine Chapel as objective evidence of skill, talent and yes, genius, in the arts. One person responded that he had visited said Chapel and wasn’t moved as if that was somehow significant. We‘ve seen this thinking before in this thread.


Damn! All it takes is one peson who "isn't moved," and all the greatness goes out of Michelangelo like air out of a leaky tire.


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## Strange Magic

> *Woodduck: "Anyone may judge anything, but why should we care? When we want to understand something, we don't turn to "anybody." When it comes to judging art, some people are - wait for it - superior to others in perception and insight, and with art of any complexity, perception and insight are enhanced by knowledge, often greatly."*


I see we are now talking about understanding when judging art, and have abandoned discussion of value, inherent or otherwise. Nothing wrong with understanding but understanding, while a good thing in itself, is no sure guide to whether we are profoundly affected by art or not. I find the paintings of Van Gogh magnificent _prima facie_, as i do with all art that pleases me. The way that enjoyment grows is largely through repeated exposure. Knowledge is always good but it is not a _sine qua non _for being moved by art. And i agree, why should anyone care whether or how I love Van Gogh--it is a private matter unless we choose to make it public.


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## Strange Magic

DaveM said:


> The question has already been answered and the answer accepted over centuries. Can you point to anyone, anytime, anywhere (other than this forum) raising a question about the basis for The David, The Mona Lisa and The Sistine Chapel having a significant objective standing in the world of art? Are there TV programs or podcasts dedicated to the question as to whether The David has more value than a Play-Doh-David or something comparable?
> 
> In another thread back a ways, I used The Sistine Chapel as objective evidence of skill, talent and yes, genius, in the arts. One person responded that he had visited said Chapel and wasn’t moved as if that was somehow significant. We‘ve seen this thinking before in this thread.


Again, failure to communicate or understand. No one disputes the *fact* that the David, the Mona Lisa, and the Sistine Chapel have significant objective, measurable, quantifiable standing in the world of art. That is profoundly not the issue. Again, I despair.


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## Strange Magic

Woodduck said:


> Damn! All it takes is one peson who "isn't moved," and all the greatness goes out of Michelangelo like air out of a leaky tire.


 You got that right. The Platonic gas, for that person, is drained away. This harms no one while affirming the validity of personal,individual taste


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## DaveM

Strange Magic said:


> Again, failure to communicate or understand. No one disputes the *fact* that the David, the Mona Lisa, and the Sistine Chapel have significant objective, measurable, quantifiable standing in the world of art..


Apparently the poster I was responding to Is uncertain about it.


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## Strange Magic

> *Woodduck:* "I'm guessing that so long as you cling to your _*totally subjective* *opinion*_ that the unmistakable (one would have thought) glories of the titans of art can't possibly be anything but imaginary if they can't be "proved" to every fool who doesn't know enough even to ask, you'll go on producing more mile-long streams of inadequate and useless epistemology to render us all catatonic[."


A rhought: Your denunciation of EY's " mile-long streams of inadequate and useless epistemology" is curious given the endless stream of rhetoric emanating from your computer-- a critic of Senator Everett Dirksen of Illinois said that Dirksen's prose was "like a long string of overripe cantaloupes". Some might judge such prose as a mixture of paean and denunciation. Just the opinion of an outside observer. "...[T]he unmistakable glories of the titans of art" is one mild example of the paean; the reference to fools who fail to share your views illustrates the denunciation. By way of contrast, I keep my remarks quite terse in comparison, mostly because my thesis is both clear and brief. I fear often that this is why it so often fails to be understood.


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## Strange Magic

DaveM said:


> Apparentlythe poster I was responding to Is uncertain about it.


I speak only for myself. But you must be pleased that I ascribe objective reality to the fact that the works of Michelangelo are widely and highly regarded by a large cluster of enthusiasts.


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## Woodduck

Strange Magic said:


> A rhought: Your denunciation of EY's " mile-long streams of inadequate and useless epistemology" is curious given the endless stream of rhetoric emanating from your computer-- a critic of Senator Everett Dirksen of Illinois said that Dirksen's prose was "like a long string of overripe cantaloupes". Some might judge such prose as a mixture of paean and denunciation. Just the opinion of an outside observer. "...[T]he unmistakable glories of the titans of art" is one mild example of the paean; the reference to fools who fail to share your views illustrates the denunciation. By way of contrast, I keep my remarks quite terse in comparison, mostly because my thesis is both clear and brief. I fear often that this is why it so often fails to be understood.


Your "I keep my remarks quite terse in comparison" is b*****. I doubt anyone here considers you terse. In fact you just can't quit; you keep promising to go away but keep coming back with - surprise, surprise - nothing to say that you didn't say the last time you came back. You're right about one thing: your thesis is clear and brief, and all too easy to repeat ad nauseam.

I suggest having your own conversations with Ms./Mr. Yojimbo and leaving other people's exchanges alone. He/she can take care of him/herself and doesn't need your childish bragging and victory laps. It's a display of "subjectivity" that would embarrass someone more self-aware. I also suggest that attempting to respond to my posts is a bad idea. If it tempts you into gratuitous knocks like the one above, the consequences couldn't possibly be pleasant for either of us. Take that any way you want.


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## Strange Magic

Woodduck said:


> Your "I keep my remarks quite terse in comparison" is b*****. I doubt anyone here considers you terse. In fact you just can't quit; you keep promising to go away but keep coming back with - surprise, surprise - nothing to say that you didn't say the last time you came back. You're right about one thing: your thesis is clear and brief, and all too easy to repeat ad nauseam.
> 
> I suggest having your own conversations with Ms./Mr. Yojimbo and leaving other people's exchanges alone. He/she can take care of him/herself and doesn't need your childish bragging and victory laps. It's a display of "subjectivity" that would embarrass someone more self-aware. I also suggest that attempting to respond to my posts is a bad idea. If it tempts you into gratuitous knocks like the one above, the consequences couldn't possibly be pleasant for either of us. Take that any way you want.


It is an objective and easily verified, quantifiable *fact *that my posts are near-microscopic when compared to others here in the thread. To deny this is to deny reality itself. My thesis is brief; my posts are brief. I repeat the thesis in hopes that by constant battering, insight might be achieved. Again I suggest that others put me on Ignore if they find my posts not to their liking. I certainly do keep promising to go away, and keep coming back as the architect and chief protagonist of my views, correcting the endless misrepresentations of the thesis that are posted every day if not hour. BTW I have yet to encounter any cogent evidence either refuting my views or supporting those of my debating partners--all we get, as I note, is a mix of paragraph-long paeans of praise for artistic loves, or over-the-top denunciations of the views of others or their mode of expression (see quote above)--I thought a taste of such's own medicine might be efficacious. I do not denounce others' views in the sorts of terms such as used above; I merely point out that they are both wrong and also fail to correctly portray mine. If this is my offense, Guilty As Charged.


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## 59540

Strange Magic said:


> A rhought: Your denunciation of EY's " mile-long streams of inadequate and useless epistemology" is curious given the endless stream of rhetoric emanating from your computer-- a critic of Senator Everett Dirksen of Illinois said that Dirksen's prose was "like a long string of overripe cantaloupes". Some might judge such prose as a mixture of paean and denunciation. Just the opinion of an outside observer. ...


To be fair, Woodduck's comments are long because he's responding to a long comment. Of which there have been quite a few, objectively speaking.


Strange Magic said:


> Again, failure to communicate or understand. No one disputes the *fact* that the David, the Mona Lisa, and the Sistine Chapel have significant objective, measurable, quantifiable standing in the world of art. That is profoundly not the issue. Again, I despair.


The question is, why do they have that standing? That's the issue.


hammeredklavier said:


> ...
> I respect your views in topics like this. (It's why I hadn't come back after my last post), but I must also point out there's also "myth" about Bach that does disservice to other composers as well, especially the immediate later composers. Consider "Bach Chorale Harmonizations"; it almost seems that any chorale Bach wrote is to be regarded as some sort of "divinely-crafted, complex counterpoint" cause Bach did it, taught in every institution as some sacred relic. Still in the minds of many people today, he's like the greatest "avant-gardist" of the 18th century who always strove for "artistic complexity" without ever giving in to the "dumb", "shallow" simplicity and frivolity of the newer aesthetics of his time. Johann Ludwig Krebs never gets this sort of recognition.


There's that zero-sum stuff again. If Krebs was a fine composer, how does that make Bach less of one? When I'm listening to or playing Bach, I don't think "wow, this is so much better than Krebs/Handel/whoever". If your attitude is that no composer's work is actually any better than any other's, I don't want to see any more multicolored, multiparagraphed and footnoted screeds from you in this forum praising any particular composer or denigrating Cage or Stockhausen.


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## hammeredklavier

_Who_ made up the rules that Bach, Mozart, Beethoven must be considered as "musical equivalents" of the David, the Mona Lisa, and the Sistine Chapel, and not just some popular "music-makers" (popular today for a variety of reasons described in #383). _You.
Who_ made up the rules that people must still respect Bach for his counterpoint even if they aren't "moved" by his music, whereas Zelenka with his double counterpoint in the Crucfixus of his ZWV21 TQ1BFI1Tahg&t=32m32s doesn't need to be treated with the same level of respect. _You.
Who_ made up the rules that the things Bach did were aesthetically "correct" objectively in all times and places (even with, for example, all the length, or the prominent brass in the Quoniam, Gloria, Sanctus, etc, and all the dance movements in BWV232, which would have been considered "undesirable" by, not only his predecessors such as Kuhnau, but also some of his contemporaries such as Fux). _You._


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## hammeredklavier

dissident said:


> There's that zero-sum stuff again. If Krebs was a fine composer, how does that make Bach less of one? When I'm listening to or playing Bach, I don't think "wow, this is so much better than Krebs/Handel/whoever".


Some people still aren't clear in answering questions like this:


hammeredklavier said:


> there is this, which you've expressed a number of times on the forum:
> 
> 
> Strange Magic said:
> 
> 
> 
> Regarding relative merit and quality, I would rather listen to Bob Dylan singing any one of dozens of songs than to any number of empty, long-winded, gaseous late 19th or early 20th century symphonies.
> 
> 
> 
> I also wonder, btw, why can't we single out Mahler's symphonies (I'm not necessarily saying they fit the description above) in this thread, with statements like:
> _"the level of dismissiveness required to refuse to acknowledge the magnitude of artistic achievement in the language of Western music represented by *Mahler's symphonies* is mind-boggling."_
> They somehow don't deserve to be put on this pedestal according to the 'objectivitists' here, according to their Universal Laws of Objective Value?
Click to expand...


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## Strange Magic

dissident said:


> To be fair, Woodduck's comments are long because he's responding to a long comment. Of which there have been quite a few, objectively speaking.
> The question is, why do they have that standing? That's the issue.
> There's that zero-sum stuff again. If Krebs was a fine composer, how does that make Bach less of one? When I'm listening to or playing Bach, I don't think "wow, this is so much better than Krebs/Handel/whoever". If your attitude is that no composer's work is actually any better than any other's, I don't want to see any more multicolored, multiparagraphed and footnoted screeds from you in this forum praising any particular composer or denigrating Cage or Stockhausen.


A) Woodduck's comments are long and they are often filled with belittling rancor.

B) They have that standing because lots of people like their work. Simple. Why do they like their work? Because it scratches their personal, individual itch. In the arts, why do we like anything?

C) Nobody sane believes that no composer's work is actually no better than some other composer's work. I personally believe that Prokofiev's work is superior to -----------'s work. Again, this notion is not in any way part of the subjectivist thesis--we each individually determine for ourselves whose work is good, whose work is forgettable.


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## 59540

Strange Magic said:


> A) Woodduck's comments are long and they are often filled with belittling rancor.


 In response to condescending "I know the truth but you're too dense to get it".



> B) They have that standing because lots of people like their work. Simple. Why do they like their work? Because it scratches their personal, individual itch. In the arts, why do we like anything?


That's not quite the end of the story when large numbers of people report the same itch being scratched.



> C) Nobody sane believes that no composer's work is actually no better than some other composer's work. ...


In an objective, factual sense that would have to be true. Otherwise subjective vs objective is just a distinction without a difference.


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## 59540

hammeredklavier said:


> Some people still aren't clear in answering questions like this:


There's a large number of people who think just that. Most who can think a little bit don't dismiss Mahler just because they think Joachim Raff is unjustly underrated.


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## BachIsBest

DaveM said:


> In another thread back a ways, I used The Sistine Chapel as objective evidence of skill, talent and yes, genius, in the arts. One person responded that he had visited said Chapel and wasn’t moved as if that was somehow significant. We‘ve seen this thinking before in this thread.


Actually, I remember this. The same poster said they would prefer a turd on the end of a stick as an artwork. C'est la vie.


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## 59540

BachIsBest said:


> Actually, I remember this. The same poster said they would prefer a turd on the end of a stick as an artwork. C'est la vie.


It's the "postmodern" leveling impulse. "Great art" is elitist, a class identifier and the product of oppressive power structures. Down it must go if there's to be general emancipation.


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## Luchesi

Strange Magic said:


> You got that right. The Platonic gas, for that person, is drained away. This harms no one while affirming the validity of personal,individual taste


In all the subjects for study, in this one you care a lot what the average person 'appreciates'. ?? I've never seen the connection.
For you, this subject is not like others.. It's just curious to me (for a person like you with so many serious interests).
Musicians and non-musicians. Geologists and gem collectors. A Grandmaster and a 1500 player. A botanist and a gardener. A race car mechanic and a shadetree mechanic (that's me).


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## hammeredklavier

dissident said:


> It's the "postmodern" leveling impulse.


What is this then; the phenomenon you describe in the post:


dissident said:


> Well a lot of it predates Amadeus, and in fact you could say Amadeus was a symptom of it. Also Beethoven's biography had been embroidered with plenty of half-truths and apocrypha as well. The thing is "the tragic" has hung over Mozart since his early death, and so (for example) everything in a minor key is of course full of foreboding and desolation...like the 40th symphony.


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## hammeredklavier

hammeredklavier said:


> J.G. Naumann, whose liturgical music was controversial from the point of view of Mozart and J.F. Doles





dissident said:


> At any rate Bach was certainly more of an influence on Beethoven, Schoenberg and Stravinsky than Vivaldi ever was.


Naumann's Dresden Amen:












It could be argued that Parsifal wouldn't have been "possible" (at least not in the way we know it today) without its "influence". So all these things about "influence" also depend on how you interpret them (can also be "positive" or even "negative" depending on how you interpret. (eg. the idea to use voices in symphonies)).


hammeredklavier said:


> A certain member in the past made a good point by posting the following in another thread (something for us to think about):
> 
> "All of the factors contributing to greatness are interrelated and dependent on each other. For example, one factor mentioned above is the tradition of received wisdom: belief in A's greatness has been passed down from generation to generation, reinforced by music textbooks and concert performances and internet forums, while belief in B's greatness has not. Another factor mentioned above is the test of time: A seems greater than B because the former's music has survived till today while the latter's has not. But these two factors are mutually reinforcing: if music textbooks have chapters on A but not B, then of course the former is going to have a leg up on the latter when it comes to the test of time. Conversely, if A's music is still performed today while B's is not, then of course music textbooks are going to have chapters on the former but not the latter. *Likewise, another factor that has been mentioned is influence: A has demonstrably had a lasting influence on later composers, even today, while B has not.* *This is also inherently connected to the above factors: since A appears in textbooks and is more widely performed than B, then of course he is going to have a greater influence on later composers than B will.*
> 
> In other words, the concept of greatness is a complex and circular system. By this point in time it's also a self-sustaining one, precisely because of the circularity. After all, this system is basically what we call a canon, and it is the very purpose of a canon to be self-perpetuating. As I wrote about in another thread some years ago, it is difficult to imagine any canonical composer being removed from the cycle and losing their canonical status, and it's difficult to imagine any non-canonical composer being inserted into the cycle and acquiring canonical status. I don't think the canon was always closed, and I don't want to think it is now, but if I'm being honest with myself then I have to think realistically that it is."


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## 59540

hammeredklavier said:


> Naumann's Dresden Amen:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> It could be argued that Parsifal wouldn't have been "possible" (at least not in the way we know it today) without its "influence". So all these things about "influence" also depend on how you interpret them (can also be "positive" or even "negative" depending on how you interpret. (eg. the idea to use voices in symphonies)).


One motivic influence on one opera? Seriously? The medieval Dies Irae is even more influential than that.


> What is this then; the phenomenon you describe in the post:


"Mythologizing".

Again I'd ask though why you plaster Michael Haydn vids all over the place and not Salieri, Cherubini and Spohr? Or Raff, even.


----------



## hammeredklavier

dissident said:


> The medieval Dies Irae is even more influential than that.


So how do you "rate" the "influence" of the medieval Dies Irae compared to that of Bach?
And remember:
_"people tend to confuse ANY fugal or baroque style with Bachian influence, which is wrong because musicians of Beethoven's generation were all trained in counterpoint, often without knowing (much) Bach."_ -Kreisler jr



dissident said:


> Again I'd ask though why you plaster Michael Haydn vids all over the place and not Salieri, Cherubini and Spohr? Or Raff, even.


In the context of this thread topic? See posts #474 , #479 , #484.



dissident said:


> "Mythologizing".


So you believe there's "myth" about Mozart that does disservice to Bach, but not to any of Mozart's contemporaries.


----------



## 59540

hammeredklavier said:


> So how do you "rate" the "influence" of the medieval Dies Irae compared to that of Bach?


What does it say about the influence of Michael Haydn, beyond Schubert's weeping at his grave?
Bach's influence is in trying to realize the architectural, about innovation _within_ form, profundity and a sense of painstaking craftsmanship. Now tell me about Vivaldi's influence on Stravinsky.


> In the context of this thread topic?


No, in any context.


> So you believe there's "myth" about Mozart that does disservice to Bach, but not to Mozart's contemporaries. Is that a subjective opinion, or objective truth?


It's neither. I've never said believing Mozart is a "tragic crying man-child smiling delicately through the tears" in everything he wrote is a disservice to anyone but Mozart.


----------



## hammeredklavier

dissident said:


> Mozart is a "tragic crying man-child smiling delicately through the tears"


No one implied that in that thread either; it was you who started talking about that suddenly. Even though there's an overwhelming number of people thinking Mozart's music is more _childish_ than Bach's (and I actually used the term _childish_), you didn't agree, cause it didn't fit your _agenda_. But I still respected your "subjective opinion" as a valid one.


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## 59540

hammeredklavier said:


> No one implied that in that thread either, it was you who started talking about that suddenly. Even though there's an overwhelming number of people thinking Mozart's music is more _childish_ than Bach's (and I actually used the term _childish_), you didn't agree, cause it didn't fit your _agenda_. ...


What "agenda" is that? As I recall, it was your calling some bit of Michael Haydn more "childlike" than this that or the other, without defining what "childlike" is. That was _your_ agenda.


----------



## hammeredklavier

dissident said:


> What "agenda" is that? As I recall, it was your calling some bit of Michael Haydn more "childlike" than this that or the other, without defining what "childlike" is. That was _your_ agenda.


I don't think anything I said in that thread was unreasonable though;


hammeredklavier said:


> part of it has to do with the idiomatic aesthetics (Classical, Baroque, etc) they worked with. It's also why Wagner is perceived today as "unrestrained in passion and fantasy" (compared to Mozart.)


This is the thing. "Childish" is as "vague" as "great". Does the fact that people generally believe "Mozart's music is more childish than Bach's" render your unpopular opinion less valuable?


----------



## 59540

> This is the thing. The concept "childish" is as "vague" as the concept "great". Do you think the fact that people generally believe "Mozart's music is more childish than Bach's" render your unpopular opinion less valuable?


So why'd you take it up, and why the sudden Michael Haydn mania? I couldn't care less if people think Mozart's music is more "childish" (I think you mean "childlike") than whoever's. Some demonstrations and definitions would be nice though. But that isn't really an invitation to post yet another M. Haydn video.


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## hammeredklavier

dissident said:


> So why'd you take it up, and why the sudden Michael Haydn mania?


Perhaps we can resolve this in private conversation if you want. If you have problems with me discussing his music under any context such as


hammeredklavier said:


> remember you had repeatedly criticized the Alberti bass patterns in Mozart. The forgotten composer has far less of that (like Bach), maybe he's the composer _for you! _But have you really given the time and effort to find out?


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## 59540

hammeredklavier said:


> Perhaps we can resolve this in private conversation if you want. If you have problems with me discussing his music under any context such as


I don't think it would go anywhere. I'm hardly the only one who's ever criticized the prosaic nature of the Alberti bass. But the prosaic and clichéd can often be transcended. Bach sometimes indulges in the musical clichés of his time as well. They all do.


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## Strange Magic

Luchesi said:


> In all the subjects for study, in this one you care a lot what the average person 'appreciates'. ?? I've never seen the connection.
> For you, this subject is not like others.. It's just curious to me (for a person like you with so many serious interests).
> Musicians and non-musicians. Geologists and gem collectors. A Grandmaster and a 1500 player. A botanist and a gardener. A race car mechanic and a shadetree mechanic (that's me).


Contrary to your assertion, I do not care one whit about what the average person appreciates. What I care about and affirm is that whatever anybody appreciates it is, for them--and for me--valid and authentic. There is a difference. This is why I keep asserting that my critics have yet to understand the subjectivist viewpoint and instead tilt at windmills of their own making.


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## Strange Magic

dissident said:


> In response to condescending "I know the truth but you're too dense to get it".
> 
> That's not quite the end of the story when large numbers of people report the same itch being scratched.
> 
> In an objective, factual sense that would have to be true. Otherwise subjective vs objective is just a distinction without a difference.


A) But what if others repeatedly fail to understand my position? This is demonstrated every day. Not condescension, just fact.

B) It actually is the story, the whole story. In a nutshell.

C) Then why are objectivists offering up, over and over, misrepresentations that require my rebuttal? Do you believes that there is anyone who has no sense of what they like and dislike. Who thinks that?


----------



## Eva Yojimbo

DaveM said:


> In a nutshell:
> 
> In general, objectivity lies in the acknowledgment that a human mind and body with an innate talent/skill has accomplished something few other people can. The validity of the acknowledgment and the associated objectivity that some of the greatest works have a special value increases over centuries as subsequent generations come to the same conclusions. Thus in the arts, we have the iconic works of The David, The Mona Lisa and the Sistine Chapel and the works of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and on.
> 
> Dismissing the recognition of the genius of gifted artists and composers as nothing more than the result of polls is a superficial construct, especially when the polls are undefined and can include people who are the equivalent to those who can’t hold a tune and think they can be the next American Idol or those who vote in polls on greatness based only on whether they like an artist’s works or not.


I readily acknowledge that there are people who can accomplish what few other people can. Who would disagree with such a thing? The disagreement in this thread over what the nature of that accomplishment is. 

Also, your “validity of the acknowledgement” is, despite your protestations, reducing back to Strange Magic’s poll, but accompanied by that smug sense of superiority about some in that poll being better than others. Man, I’m glad I don’t have the kind of disdain you and Woodduck so gleefully demonstrate for your fellow humans. Yes, all those poor ignorant sods who know nothing about music, who cares about them? Surely not Mozart, who wrote explicitly to his father about his desire to appeal to both the learned and laymen alike. No, this music and the judgment thereof is preserved only for us learned few. Hope you don’t get sore from all the mutual back-patting.



DaveM said:


> The question has already been answered and the answer accepted over centuries. Can you point to anyone, anytime, anywhere (other than this forum) raising a question about the basis for The David, The Mona Lisa and The Sistine Chapel having a significant objective standing in the world of art? Are there TV programs or podcasts dedicated to the question as to whether The David has more value than a Play-Doh-David or something comparable?


I'm not even sure what you're asking here anymore. TV programs don't concern themselves with aesthetic philosophy; neither do the vast majority of people outside the handful who really love art and love discussing it and the philosophy behind it. Indirectly, any philosophy that addresses the nature of aesthetic judgments will be addressing the basis for why works have a significant standing in the world of art. Directly, I don't know because I don't care much for the visual arts, but I would be shocked that if you visited forums devoted to visual arts there wouldn't be people having these same discussions assuming the forum had a large enough userbase.


----------



## Eva Yojimbo

4chamberedklavier said:


> I see your main objection is with my choice of standards. That's understandable. I have to clarify what I meant by "objective". For me, something is "objective" when it asks a question that only has one answer. If you accept the criteria that I mentioned, then the answer to whether or not a composer fits the criteria is either "yes" or "no". Can't be both.
> 
> You may not agree with my choice of standards, but I think that choosing standards is a separate issue from evaluating something given a certain set of standards. Something can be objectively true, even if the standards were subjectively chosen.
> 
> fwiw, I think this discussion would benefit greatly if the people here all agreed on what standards they would like use in order to define "greatness".


I could quibble with how you’re defining objective but it’s not too important given that I fundamentally agree with what you’re saying. This is like my chess analogy: if we all agree on/accept the rules/goals of the game (which were created by human minds and can be changed by those same minds) then we can judge the goodness/badness of a move relative to those rules or goals. I would tentatively agree that we can do the same in art, with the caveats that I would describe this process as “judgments relative to agreed upon goals/standards” rather than “objective;” and with the recognition that there are many such goals/standards because art is complex and people value different things about art to different degrees, and that when disagreements arise there is no judging objective goodness/badness if we can’t agree on the standards or how to value them.


----------



## Eva Yojimbo

dissident said:


> If in my subjective opinion my tastes are superior, then prove otherwise. When the only "correct" response is "now I've seen the light. Bach music in itself is really no better than anything I could write", then you're preaching an objective dogma.


Why would I try to “prove otherwise” something I’ve been claiming all along? Yes, TO YOU in your subjective opinion your tastes are superior. I agree with that. TO ME, in my subjective opinion my tastes are superior. There is no issue until one of us tries to claim our tastes are objectively superior to the other, or to others in general, and that’s when there’s a burden of proof on the one making the claim, the same burden that exists in all claims of objective truth.



dissident said:


> The ones who are spilling dissertations all over the place are the ones who are squirming.


The two biggest “spillers of dissertations” are myself and Woodduck… so we’re both squirming? Writing long posts is indicative of squirming? Curious conclusion you’ve made there.



dissident said:


> What's really funny is to see subjectivists preaching their dogma as objective truth.


Your humor belies the fact you’ve mentioned this several times already and I’ve explained just as many how one can be a subjectivist on one issue and objectivists on others. Somehow you seem to think there’s a contradiction “that’s funny” where none exists if you understood what’s being said.



dissident said:


> Telling me that Bach's greatness is all in my brain doesn't make me think Bach is any less great.


Nor should it. None of us subjectivists are trying to change your mind about what art you value nor how much you value it.



dissident said:


> Telling me that Bach and Vanilla Ice are of equal value doesn't convince me that they are, either.


And nobody has said they’re of equal value, we’ve said they’re of equal objective value. If you disagree, then the burden is on you to prove what the objective value of either is.



dissident said:


> Nor does it excuse and sanctify the abject ignorance of anyone would rank them equally, or give Mr Van Winkle the nod.


Abject ignorance about what? So now everyone who disagrees with your aesthetic judgments are abjectly ignorant? And, again, if music is supposed to possess this thing that appeals to the universal aspects of our humanity then why would ignorance be a barrier for recognizing such things? It’s almost as if that universality that the objectivists like to mythologize isn’t all there is to it.


----------



## Botschaft

The genius of Beethoven’s achievements is objective whether the subjectivists like it or not. I don’t think reality is very concerned about being called it elitist.


----------



## Eva Yojimbo

BachIsBest said:


> Yes, there is the standards of the time period, and the artistic tradition in which the artwork belongs, but the art itself also establishes terms by which it can succeed or fail.


I’m not quite sure what you mean by “the art itself… establishes terms by which it can succeed or fail.” The art itself just exists. It has no terms, no standards, no anything. The artist that creates it has these things, and the audience that experiences it has these things, and perhaps if the work is original enough many use that work to set the standard by which to judge similar things by… but if you mean something other than this I don’t know what it is.



BachIsBest said:


> Look, I can't define 'fact' or 'truth'. If, as you seem to be keen to do, you define things to be 'true' as being things that are mind-independent, your definition of truth isn't true as it is mind-dependant.


I’m not sure if by “can’t define ‘fact’ and ‘truth’” you mean you literally can’t define them or you don’t have a thorough understanding of how these terms work epistemically speaking. If it’s the latter then you’d be the second person (Woodduck the first) to essentially admit to a kind of epistemic naivety. There’s nothing wrong with that, but if you don’t have a thorough foundation of what counts as facts, truths, or (in Woodduck’s case) knowledge, then perhaps it’s a good idea to investigate that before asserting that you know certain things. 

Yes, I agree definitions themselves cannot be true or false, so any definition of truth is subjective (though language functions via mass agreement on these subjective definitions). However, this doesn’t mean, given a certain definition, that what is true or not is subjective. Very important distinction there.



BachIsBest said:


> This a fundamental misunderstanding of art. If I could write, in a two paragraph TC post, what Mozart's 41st symphony expresses, then Mozart's 41st symphony would be a terrible symphony. It is a 'great' symphony, at least partially because, maybe even precisely because, it expresses something I can't write or explain in a TC post.
> 
> I'm not going to argue with the statement that you take issue "with the notion that expressing/communicating something of “importance or profundity” is necessarily better than art that doesn’t." I would say this is virtually axiomatic, but if you think not, then so be it.


I think our only disagreement in your first paragraph here is how we’re defining “expresses something.” If by that you’re including notions of evoking all kinds of reactions we deem to be positive (including “profound” and “important” ones), then we don’t disagree at all.

With the latter, there’s actually a work of art that had a profound impact on my thinking in this matter: Preston Sturges’s film Sullivan’s Travels. The premise of the film is that Sullivan is a very self-important filmmaker who wants to make these important, profound works of art, so he then goes on a journey to understand the plight and struggle of everyday people and winds up at the end of the film realizing the value of, shall we say, art that isn’t all that profound or important to the very people he was trying to understand to make his film for. Ironically, a film arguing for the value of superficially entertaining art also ended up arguing for it in (what I consider to be, at least) a profound and important way. It’s a great, entertaining film worth seeing regardless of these thematic concerns as well.



BachIsBest said:


> Saying "if everyone believed in objective morality then we could end up with the Nazis" is equally as dumb as saying "if everyone believed in subjective morality then murder would be rampant in our society". They're both ridiculous non-sequiturs. All that I will say is that both positions could be abused to do terrible things, but I would also argue this is true of many philosophical positions, and I don't see it as particularly relevant to this debate.


My point is slightly more subtle than “we could end up like the Nazis,” and it must be said that at least one of these examples comes from the real world as oppose to the other which is just a fear without, AFAICT, many real-world examples except maybe a handful of sociopaths. However, one doesn’t need to jump to Nazis to demonstrate the point. We just emerged from a pandemic where large swaths of the population mistook their feelings (fears, anxieties, skepticism of authorities, etc.) for objective facts about the dangers of a virus and the efficacy of the vaccine. Believing things are objectively true based on strong feelings has a millions negative, real-world consequences that isn’t limited to extreme moral atrocities like the Nazis. Some people of course compartmentalize so they will rely on their feelings for epistemic truth for some things but not others. I'm pretty clear in saying it's a bad idea to do with regards to anything where objective truth is concerned.


----------



## Eva Yojimbo

Woodduck said:


> To say that it isn't obligatory to like a sonata movement merely because we understand sonata form is to argue with no one. But as for the second clause of your statement, I don't know what you're thinking of, but it's pretty clear to me that the _aesthetic_ qualities of a piece of music are precisely "what's happening" in it, and an actual _aesthetic_ judgment, as opposed to a feeling of liking or disliking, is by definition based mainly on what's happening in it ("mainly," because, obviously, we may bring extraneous ideas and attitudes to the perception of things).


I'm glad we agree on that, but for what follows you would have to clearly define what "aesthetic qualities," how this necessitates any given aesthetic judgment, and how this judgment is true independent of human minds.



Woodduck said:


> Differences of opinion don't rule out one being right and the other wrong - or one reasonable and the other irrational, or one more likely than the other, or one based on knowledge and the other a stab in the dark.
> 
> Of course "experts" can disagree. Is anyone arguing for omniscience? ...


Absolutely true, but this only applies to subjects that have true and false answers that are independent of what human minds think. Consider my mechanic example: what is wrong with a car has an objective answer that is independent on human minds. Two mechanics can have different levels of knowledge and one can be more rational than the other in diagnosing the issue... but all of this is because the answer to "what's wrong with the car" is not dependent upon what human minds think about it. In this case, we are judging rightness and wrongness, ignorant and informed, rational and irrational, in relation to what the "true independent of human thought" answer is. We cannot do that when it comes to aesthetics or any subject where the valuation of minds is involved.

Also, the issue isn't omniscience. The issue is that when you have two opposite and mutually exclusive opinions, how can you objectively declare either right or wrong without reference to what human minds think, feel, and value? If it was an issue like the broken car, or literally anything in science, then the answer is decided by the objective nature of the car. When two people react to the same work of art differently, you can't just point to the work of art to settle that difference like the mechanic can when he discovers what's wrong with the car and is able to prove it.



Woodduck said:


> "Rational skepticism" that prevents an intelligent, sensitive and apparently normal person from saying outright, and in a tone of wonder and admiration, that the works of Shakespeare are brilliant and profound, and therefore great works of art, is about as irrational as anything I can think of.


It doesn't prevent me from saying those things, it just prevents me from believing they are objectively true independent of what I or anyone thinks about them.



Woodduck said:


> So it's "rational" to call Shakespeare a bad poet if I don't personally care for sonnets? Uh huh... Well, consider: maybe I could just reserve judgment for a little while, take a little time to learn what makes a good sonnet, and possibly realize that, my preferences in poetic form notwithstanding, Shakespeare handled the sonnet form rather well. What an idea! I mean, jeez, if I could get that far, I might just possibly start to see what other, more objective, less self-satisfied people see in him, and begin to feel the first stirrings of admiration. Egad and zounds! Who knoweth what wonders do await one not cocooned in his "subjective judgment"?
> 
> Looking ahead, I see that I've only begun to deal with your elephantine post. It really is too much, physically as well as mentally; I even begin to lose my place on the screen. It doesn't facilitate conversation.


Technically, rationality pertains to reasoning about objective issues, so I don't consider it rational or irrational to make any judgments about art. Such things are arational. But, yes, what you say is true relative to the minds that think that, yes.

The issue is, again, "what makes a good sonnet" is nothing but code for "what features of a sonnet do people like/value?" There is no such thing as a "good sonnet" independent of that.



Woodduck said:


> It's perfectly possible to say anything we wish about Bach fugues, and perfectly acceptable not to be moved by them. I wouldn't say that I'm necessarily moved by them (though I can be), but I can still say with the confidence born of musical understanding that they are masterful compositions. No musician is going to take seriously someone's assertion that Bach's music isn't good because it "doesn't move me." What makes anyone think that Bach's music, or any music, _should_ "move" them?


The only reason Bach's fugues are deemed masterful is because they clearly move some people. Again, there's no "great music" that nobody likes. I also don't care whether a hypothetical musician takes me seriously or not. I don't have to take them seriously either!



Woodduck said:


> The failure to distinguish appreciation from liking still baffles me.


Appreciation is built on the subjective scaffolding of what people like. The only way in which appreciation doesn't depend upon liking is in the personal sense in which you can appreciate why others would like something even if you don't.



Woodduck said:


> I've distinguished the perception of aesthetic rightness - e.g., the perception that the second half of a tune is an appropriate continuation of the first half - from other kinds of "feelings" (not a very academically sophisticated term, you must admit) because it has a cognitive value that other feelings do not. The composer knows, without having to think about it, that of two possible continuations of a tune, A "works" and B does not. "Bringing the objective art to a state that matches their subjective ideal, standards, goals, etc." does not adequately describe this perception. Certainly the composer is doing those things, but none of it identifies the principle of the integration, the integrity, of the work. The question for the artist is always, "does A or B work at this particular point in this particular work?" His "subjective ideals, standards and goals" are always operative as context for his nuts and bolts decisions, but when he's chosen certain bolts, not all nuts will fit them. In the course of creating a work, hundreds or even thousands of "fittings" must be accomplished, and if he makes good choices he'll end up with something strong. That strength will be apparent to people who couldn't have achieved it themselves; the artist's aesthetic sense will resonate with the same sense in them, if they're tuned in. This principle operates across artists, works and styles, and so we're able to appreciate quality - which in this context means aesthetic integrity and the artist's power to achieve it - in work we may not even like. To identify aesthetic excellence with "subjective preference" (meaning, basically, taste) is to eliminate a whole cateegory, an entire wondrous realm, of human cognitive experience.


Yes, and our disagreement is what you are calling a perception I'm calling a feeling. A composer's "perception" that A "works" reduces to some feeling that A is better than B. This is STILL a feeling, STILL a subjective process that's happening in their mind due to their aesthetic tastes, sensibilities, standards, goals, etc. This feeling of "rightness" isn't some God-given 6th sense that happens in a vacuum without reference to all the billions of things happening in the mind (and that shaped that mind) that leads to that feeling. As always, the issue isn't that such "feelings of rightness" or "feelings that A 'works' better than B" exist, the issue is how are such statements objectively true independent of the human mind that thinks it? You can think something is objectively true all you want, but I've yet to see any epistemic justification for this other than "a lot of people agree with the artist," which puts us right back at the poll and what Strange Magic says about like-minded individuals sharing tastes/judgments/etc.

The rest of this I do not disagree with and, again, identify as being true in my own work in poetry.



Woodduck said:


> ... the perception of aesthetic integrity is not equivalent to a belief in heavenly ghosts.


What's the difference?



Woodduck said:


> In posing an impossible hypothetical, you want to ignore the reasons why it's impossible.


Again, the (practical) impossibility is completely irrelevant to the point I'm making, which has to do with the logical consistency and coherency of your position. This is the entire point of thought experiments no matter how impossible they are. The Sleeping Beauty thought experiment is every bit as impossible as mine, but it illustrates the differing perspectives on probability perfectly.



Woodduck said:


> You want to ignore what people actually can and do think and feel. You want to ignore the nature of human thinking and feeling, and art's power to evoke and shape these functions of mind. You want to overlook the fact that art's power to evoke functions of mind works in particular ways and has limits. You also want to use words without defining them. What does "masterpieece" mean to you? What is "greatness"? I can't be drawn into dodgy mind games like this.


I don't want to ignore any of this, and the fact that you think I do just demonstrates to me that you're now interested in skewering strawmen of my position rather than engaging with what I have to say.



Woodduck said:


> You "Notions of greatness are ultimately subjective" is, strictly speaking, tautological. Notions of anything, material or immaterial, are subjective. That doesn't tell us what realities those notions may describe. The question is whether art can be a thing to which "notions of greatness" (or any other judgment of quality) can be reasonably assigned. Since near the dawn of human time, since people painted vivid, graceful deer and bison by firelight on the walls of caves, this world has been flooded by art of every decription, art embodying in its sounds, words, forms and colors the human mind and spirit expressing itself with varying but often transcendent levels of understanding, imagination, feeling, and skill, wrapped in what humans have elected to call "beauty." When these qualities have shown themselves most emphatically and memorably, the resulting art has tended to survive its time and place and to continue to speak to people who know nothing of its origins. Whether we want to call the qualities of such art, including its seemingly inexhaustible grip on the human mind, "greatness'" or something else, the spectacle of ivory-tower "epistemologists" droning on about "subjectivity" in an attempt to explain away, for whatever reason, the inescapable fact of artistic excellence is depressing when it isn't simply baffling.
> 
> As I've said more than once, absurd conclusions are a pretty good indicator of incorrect assumptions. The idea that because evaluations are by definition "subjective" - which means nothing more than products of the mind - we cannot recognize and pay tribute to different levels of creative excellence in works of art, is a non sequitur and an absurdity of the first order, and illustrates perfectly the unfortunate power of ideology - in this case an inadequate theory of knowledge I'll call "scientistic" - to replace reality. Every musician, and innumerable other people who've cared to consider the question seriously, knows and has always known that Bach was a composer whose creativity and skill entitle him to the highest accolades. Only ivory-tower philosophers claim that this is not knowledge, because they can't "measure" Bach's greatness with a meter or conduct a replicable experiment to prove it to any musically ignorant person who might claim that, to him, Bach's music is trash. But it doeesn't matter to anyone but that benighted individual what Bach is to him. Bach is what he is, and there are those who know what he is. Your "subjective feelings" or mine have no power to change that, and his great artistic powers will assure his continued abilty to move people to wholly merited words of acclamation long after we are gone.


If it’s tautological then why has it taken 30+ pages for you to even get as far as admitting that? I have almost zero disagreement with your poetic description of art “since near the dawn of human time” and onward. The entire issue comes down to is the nature of these judgments. The unavoidable consequence of accepting the subjectivist position is that issues of aesthetic judgments can only be true relative to what human minds think, feel, value, etc, and human minds demonstrably differ in what they think, feel, value, etc. Some people accept this, and some other people try to build elaborate justifications for why thinking, feeling, and valuing certain things is “right” (and objectively so) and “superior” (and objectively so) compared to others. All these notions of art embodying aspects of life in a way that powerfully affects humans in a way that continues to resonate across decades and centuries and cultures… none of that is up for dispute as it’s also demonstrably true. It’s all about the nature of explaining how and why that happens, and it cannot be explained without reference to human minds the way what’s wrong with the car can.

Absurd conclusions need to be demonstrated not just asserted. An absurd conclusion isn’t just one that strikes you as absurd. And I’ve said nothing about the inability of “paying tribute to different levels of creative excellence;” it’s merely about recognizing that our perception of “creative excellence” isn’t true independent of what we think, feel, and value.




Woodduck said:


> The reality here is that some values are more conducive to the success of our physical, mental and spiritual lives than others. Knowing what we're talking about - having informed opinions - is such a value, and it's valuable - it is good for human beings to value it - whether anyone actually thinks it's valuable or not. If we'd dispense with the "subjective/objective" incantation, such things might be clearer.


I don’t disagree with any of this until you get to the “it is good for human beings to value it whether anyone thinks it’s valuable or not.” That’s a non sequitur from what came before.



Woodduck said:


> An obvious (?) fallacy. "Value" may be objective, subjective, or both. "Value" is not synonymous with "evaluation." A thing may be of value to me whether I recognize it or not. It may also, as art does, represent or express things which have objective value (benefit) to human beings - or things which are inimical to them - whether or not any individual recognizes or cares about that particular representation or expression.


It's an obvious fallacy that things which originate in human minds are subjective by definition? You may insist that value can be objective but I've seen no demonstration of this.



Woodduck said:


> Because they are ignorant. Last time I checked, ignorance - like chaos, which you also defend - is not valuable to human beings, and tends to make one's pronouncements worthless to others.


The problem here is you're conflating ignorance about objectively factual matters with ignorance when it comes to influencing aesthetic tastes and values. They are not the same thing. There are very pragmatic reasons why we don't value ignorance when it comes to objectively factual matters, but music and art has never been exclusively for those learned and educated about them. That's magic for other magicians, not magic for the people who pay to enjoy it.



Woodduck said:


> Are you suggesting that ignorance is no impediment to grasping things of universal significance, especially through the symbolic languages of art?


What I'm suggesting is that you have to be educated to grasp such things then such things are not inherently in the music in a way that speaks to the universal human condition. Pretty obvious point.



Woodduck said:


> I don't know how much learning one needs to be "learned," but my response is to say that the notion that one can adequately judge the music of Bach - or even the Beatles - without a context of relevant knowledge is contrary to reason and experience. Anyone may judge anything, but why should we care? When we want to understand something, we don't turn to "anybody." When it comes to judging art, some people are - wait for it - _superior_ to others in perception and insight, and with art of any complexity, perception and insight are enhanced by knowledge, often greatly.


You keep saying things like "adequately judge," as if that has any meaning other than in relation what you perceive to be the "correct" judgment. Further, I'm not saying you should care, nor should anyone care about how your or anyone else judge things. You and they are free to care or not care about how any individual or any group judges anything to your heart's content. Do you think it's the subjectivist position that you should care how other people (learned or not) judge things?

As long as "understanding something" is anchored to objective facts then, yes, people knowledgeable about those objective facts are valuable to learn from. The mistake you and others are frequently making is thinking that objective facts about something equates to any given value judgment of that something when it doesn't. This is why I've spent so much time saying someone can learn to recognize the sonata form and yet not value it or any of the music made with it. Some people who judge art may, indeed, be superior when it comes to perceiving what is objectively in the art work, but this perceptiveness also doesn't translate to any aesthetic judgment that's more objective than any other.



Woodduck said:


> Elitism. And there it is. The heart - as opposed to the cerebral cortex - of the issue. If there is one thing we must never, ever be, it's "elitist." And what more perfect way to avoid the stuffy smell of elitism, the awful, undemocratic suggestion that someone may have knowledge, ability or expertise that someone else doesn't, than to deny the very possibility that any value or judgment can be better, truer or worth more than any other? It's an old playbook, here fancily packaged in epistmology (which you can tell is not an elitist subject by the sound of it ).
> 
> It clearly makes some feel relieved to think that their ignorance is just as good as others' knowledge, and that Vanilla Ice or Strawberry Souffle is musically equal to Brahms and Mahler because they, Mr. Ice and Ms. Souffle, with the magisterial authority of their non-elitist taste, say it's so, while non-elitist subjectivist philosphers cheer them on.


If you think that's the "heart" of my complaints you clearly haven't been paying attention these last 30 pages. What you're doing here is rather transparent attempt at dismissing my entire argument because you think you've discovered a "gotcha!" in the form of a subjective moral judgment, while irrationally concluding that my entire position is based around justifying that moral judgment. I hate to burst your fantasy, but that's simply not how any of this works. Yes, I find such elitism an ugly characteristic in humans, fueled by the petty, prideful desire to feel superior to others even in matters where that superiority has no objective basis. I can understand it somewhat when it comes to the sciences, but even there scientists will try to educate people rather than just rest on their authoritative say-so. This judgment of mine has zero impact, however, on the thorough philosophical arguments I've laid out for subjectivity in the case of aesthetic judgments, and the philosophical arguments preceded my distaste for elitism by many years. It was my own philosophical investigations that ended my OWN elitism.

If you're going to concoct some fantasy about me and my beliefs in order to pacify your desire to believe my position is fueled by the emotion of my moral judgment rather than the philosophical arguments I've spent all these pages expanding on and reiterating then I can't disabuse you of that notion beyond saying it's not true.



Woodduck said:


> I'm guessing that so long as you cling to your totally subjective opinion that the unmistakable (one would have thought) glories of the titans of art can't possibly be anything but imaginary if they can't be "proved" to every fool who doesn't know enough even to ask, you'll go on producing more mile-long streams of inadequate and useless epistemology to render us all catatonic.
> 
> No doubt all the creative geniuses of history, who are objectivist and elitist enough to know what they and their fellows have achieved and what it's cost them to achieve it, are causing an earthquake right now, laughing at this foolishness and thanking the stars that they didn't live into the 21st century to have to put up with people who proclaim with a straight face that "chaotic art" and "uninformed opinions" are as objectively valuable as order and knowledge because some pretentious, anti-elitist know-nothings may prefer them.
> 
> If the "kind of internal knowledge" exercised by the artist and true appreciator of art is an impenetrable mystery to you because it doesn't fit your bean-counter's version of reality, that's your misfortune. You do at least have plenty of postmodern, non-objective, non-elitist company, but I'll lay you any odds that the artists are, by and large, not among them. We, or at least the more thoughtful and observant of us, know what we're doing, and what you're trying to tell us we're doing is a joke without a punch line.


I don’t know what you mean by “imaginary” here, but the phrase “people in glass houses…” comes to mind. How “adequate and useful” do you think your appeals to mysterious knowledge would be among anyone who isn’t already convinced of what you believe? Get outside the hermetic bubble of this forum and try these same arguments on for size against philosophers who spend their entire lives thinking about this stuff; see how many “likes” you get. You’re so quick to defend the elitism of aesthetic tastes that you don’t seem to realize there are elitists—those who’ve spent their lives in devotion to a topic and refined their thinking about such—for everything under the sun, including philosophy, and however much you think your elitism is earned in aesthetic matters you are incredibly naïve when it comes to philosophically justifying it.

I also have no use for what artists think of this stuff and even less use for what YOU think artists believe about any of this. It matters as much as what baseball players think about physics just because they swing bats and hit balls that move. The practice of doing a thing guarantees no understanding of how that thing works on a fundamental level. All you know is what you feel, but you’ve tried to mythologize this feeling into an epistemology that’s so full of holes it’s more hole than bucket.


----------



## Woodduck

Strange Magic said:


> It is an *objective* and *easily verified*, *quantifiable* *fact *that my posts are *near-microscopic* when compared to others here in the thread. *To deny this is to deny reality itself.*


Who do you suppose will want to verify that your posts are "objectively" and "quantifiably" "near-miscroscopic" compared to anyone else's? Who would want to risk that degree of exposure to "reality itself"? 

Brevity is not necessarily a virtue. It may simply mean that one has little to say. Saying that little over and over strongly suggests this, and certainly negates the value of brevity.



> My thesis is brief; my posts are brief. I repeat the thesis in hopes that by *constant battering*, insight might be achieved.


"Constant battering." Your words to describe what you do. I can't imagine more apt ones.

You say you batter people in hopes of giving them insight. I doubt that that's the reason. If you imagine that your "thesis" requires much insight to grasp, or that others don't possess the necessary insight, you're wrong. "All aesthetic judgments are subjective" is a straightforward expression of a simple idea. If people question you skeptically, it isn't because they don't understand the words. It's because they can't quite believe anyone here would utter them, can't help wondering that such a simplistic statement could be offered seriously to a forum that includes many musicians among its members, musicians whose knowledge and experience tells them that artistic appraisal involves a complex mix of subjective and objective evaluations. Some of these people might even say that to deny the possibility of making valid assessments and comparisons of quality in music is to "deny reality itself." 



> Again I suggest that others put me on Ignore if they find my posts not to their liking. I certainly do keep promising to go away, and keep coming back as the architect and chief protagonist of my views, correcting the endless misrepresentations of the thesis that are posted every day if not hour. BTW I have yet to encounter any cogent evidence either refuting my views or supporting those of my debating partners--all we get, as I note, is a mix of paragraph-long paeans of praise for artistic loves, or over-the-top denunciations of the views of others or their mode of expression (see quote above)--I thought a taste of such's own medicine might be efficacious. I do not denounce others' views in the sorts of terms such as used above; I merely point out that they are both wrong and also fail to correctly portray mine. If this is my offense, Guilty As Charged.


I hope there will be no more such virtue signaling.


----------



## Eva Yojimbo

And for anyone complaining about my "long posts" but not Woodduck's, in my last reply I copied both his and my words onto a Word doc: his are 1975 words, mine was 1895. His is actually more than this given that I elided some of his replies and shortened others. 

Also, this is what objective truth looks like.


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## 59540

> Yes, TO YOU in your subjective opinion your tastes are superior. I agree with that. TO ME, in my subjective opinion my tastes are superior.


So then what's so elitist about 10 million people saying their collective subjective tastes are superior?


----------



## Botschaft

Eva Yojimbo said:


> And for anyone complaining about my "long posts" but not Woodduck's, in my last reply I copied both his and my words onto a Word doc: his are 1975 words, mine was 1895. His is actually more than this given that I elided some of his replies and shortened others.
> 
> Also, this is what objective truth looks like.


As for objective greatness/genius:


----------



## Eva Yojimbo

dissident said:


> So then what's so elitist about 10 million people saying their collective subjective tastes are superior?


Not really sure what this question is asking or what the point of it is... who are these 10 million people claiming their subjective tastes are superior and when/where did I say they were elitist? My elitism comment was in regards to people thinking their tastes were objectively superior, not subjectively superior. I thought that was obvious!


----------



## Eva Yojimbo

Botschaft said:


> As for objective greatness/genius:


I hear a symphony that I think is great/genius; I do not see where in the symphony itself is the greatness or genius, though.


----------



## hammeredklavier

dissident said:


> (I think you mean "childlike")


No; I used "childish" to imply that it isn't necessarily an objectively positive trait.


----------



## 59540

Eva Yojimbo said:


> And for anyone complaining about my "long posts" but not Woodduck's, in my last reply I copied both his and my words onto a Word doc: his are 1975 words, mine was 1895. His is actually more than this given that I elided some of his replies and shortened others.
> 
> Also, this is what objective truth looks like.


Replying point by point to a realllllllly long post might produce another reallllllllly long post. I don't have the time or inclination. Another example of an objective truth.


----------



## Strange Magic

Woodduck said:


> Who do you suppose will want to verify that your posts are "objectively" and "quantifiably" "near-miscroscopic" compared to anyone else's? Who would want to risk that degree of exposure to "reality itself"?
> 
> Brevity is not necessarily a virtue. It may simply mean that one has little to say. Saying that little over and over strongly suggests this, and certainly negates the value of brevity.
> 
> "Constant battering." Your words to describe what you do. I can't imagine more apt ones.
> 
> You say you batter people in hopes of giving them insight. I doubt that that's the reason. If you imagine that your "thesis" requires much insight to grasp, or that others don't possess the necessary insight, you're wrong. "All aesthetic judgments are subjective" is a straightforward expression of a simple idea. If people question you skeptically, it isn't because they don't understand the words. It's because they can't quite believe anyone here would utter them, can't help wondering that such a simplistic statement could be offered seriously to a forum that includes many musicians among its members, musicians whose knowledge and experience tells them that artistic appraisal involves a complex mix of subjective and objective evaluations. Some of these people might even say that to deny the possibility of making valid assessments and comparisons of quality in music is to "deny reality itself."
> 
> I hope there will be no more such virtue signaling.


I see that you have abandoned entirely a discussion with me of the "facts of the case" regarding objectivism and subjectivism. I understand. BTW I appreciate EY's devotion to gathering actual data in comparing your verbosity with that of others. Data vs. no data. Always good.


----------



## 59540

hammeredklavier said:


> No; I used "childish" to imply that it isn't necessarily an objectively positive trait.


"Childish" has negative connotations that "childlike" may not. Either one can be objective or subjective I guess (and I'm heartily sick of all the above). Anyway I have to set up a new cello I bought so I'm going to do something a little more productive. 🕊


----------



## Eva Yojimbo

dissident said:


> Replying point by point to a realllllllly long post might produce another reallllllllly long post. I don't have the time or inclination. Another example of an objective truth.


I agree, and you're welcome to your preferences. However, it would be helpful if you at least READ the posts that respond to you, rather than making the same point multiple times that has already been responded to and ignored.


----------



## Woodduck

Eva Yojimbo said:


> I'm glad we agree on that, but for what follows you would have to clearly define what "aesthetic qualities," how this necessitates any given aesthetic judgment, and how this judgment is true independent of human minds.
> 
> Absolutely true, but this only applies to subjects that have true and false answers that are independent of what human minds think. Consider my mechanic example: what is wrong with a car has an objective answer that is independent on human minds. Two mechanics can have different levels of knowledge and one can be more rational than the other in diagnosing the issue... but all of this is because the answer to "what's wrong with the car" is not dependent upon what human minds think about it. In this case, we are judging rightness and wrongness, ignorant and informed, rational and irrational, in relation to what the "true independent of human thought" answer is. We cannot do that when it comes to aesthetics or any subject where the valuation of minds is involved.
> 
> Also, the issue isn't omniscience. The issue is that when you have two opposite and mutually exclusive opinions, how can you objectively declare either right or wrong without reference to what human minds think, feel, and value? If it was an issue like the broken car, or literally anything in science, then the answer is decided by the objective nature of the car. When two people react to the same work of art differently, you can't just point to the work of art to settle that difference like the mechanic can when he discovers what's wrong with the car and is able to prove it.
> 
> It doesn't prevent me from saying those things, it just prevents me from believing they are objectively true independent of what I or anyone thinks about them.
> 
> Technically, rationality pertains to reasoning about objective issues, so I don't consider it rational or irrational to make any judgments about art. Such things are arational. But, yes, what you say is true relative to the minds that think that, yes.
> 
> The issue is, again, "what makes a good sonnet" is nothing but code for "what features of a sonnet do people like/value?" There is no such thing as a "good sonnet" independent of that.
> 
> The only reason Bach's fugues are deemed masterful is because they clearly move some people. Again, there's no "great music" that nobody likes. I also don't care whether a hypothetical musician takes me seriously or not. I don't have to take them seriously either!
> 
> Appreciation is built on the subjective scaffolding of what people like. The only way in which appreciation doesn't depend upon liking is in the personal sense in which you can appreciate why others would like something even if you don't.
> 
> Yes, and our disagreement is what you are calling a perception I'm calling a feeling. A composer's "perception" that A "works" reduces to some feeling that A is better than B. This is STILL a feeling, STILL a subjective process that's happening in their mind due to their aesthetic tastes, sensibilities, standards, goals, etc. This feeling of "rightness" isn't some God-given 6th sense that happens in a vacuum without reference to all the billions of things happening in the mind (and that shaped that mind) that leads to that feeling. As always, the issue isn't that such "feelings of rightness" or "feelings that A 'works' better than B" exist, the issue is how are such statements objectively true independent of the human mind that thinks it? You can think something is objectively true all you want, but I've yet to see any epistemic justification for this other than "a lot of people agree with the artist," which puts us right back at the poll and what Strange Magic says about like-minded individuals sharing tastes/judgments/etc.
> 
> The rest of this I do not disagree with and, again, identify as being true in my own work in poetry.
> 
> What's the difference?
> 
> Again, the (practical) impossibility is completely irrelevant to the point I'm making, which has to do with the logical consistency and coherency of your position. This is the entire point of thought experiments no matter how impossible they are. The Sleeping Beauty thought experiment is every bit as impossible as mine, but it illustrates the differing perspectives on probability perfectly.
> 
> I don't want to ignore any of this, and the fact that you think I do just demonstrates to me that you're now interested in skewering strawmen of my position rather than engaging with what I have to say.
> 
> If it’s tautological then why has it taken 30+ pages for you to even get as far as admitting that? I have almost zero disagreement with your poetic description of art “since near the dawn of human time” and onward. The entire issue comes down to is the nature of these judgments. The unavoidable consequence of accepting the subjectivist position is that issues of aesthetic judgments can only be true relative to what human minds think, feel, value, etc, and human minds demonstrably differ in what they think, feel, value, etc. Some people accept this, and some other people try to build elaborate justifications for why thinking, feeling, and valuing certain things is “right” (and objectively so) and “superior” (and objectively so) compared to others. All these notions of art embodying aspects of life in a way that powerfully affects humans in a way that continues to resonate across decades and centuries and cultures… none of that is up for dispute as it’s also demonstrably true. It’s all about the nature of explaining how and why that happens, and it cannot be explained without reference to human minds the way what’s wrong with the car can.
> 
> Absurd conclusions need to be demonstrated not just asserted. An absurd conclusion isn’t just one that strikes you as absurd. And I’ve said nothing about the inability of “paying tribute to different levels of creative excellence;” it’s merely about recognizing that our perception of “creative excellence” isn’t true independent of what we think, feel, and value.
> 
> 
> I don’t disagree with any of this until you get to the “it is good for human beings to value it whether anyone thinks it’s valuable or not.” That’s a non sequitur from what came before.
> 
> It's an obvious fallacy that things which originate in human minds are subjective by definition? You may insist that value can be objective but I've seen no demonstration of this.
> 
> The problem here is you're conflating ignorance about objectively factual matters with ignorance when it comes to influencing aesthetic tastes and values. They are not the same thing. There are very pragmatic reasons why we don't value ignorance when it comes to objectively factual matters, but music and art has never been exclusively for those learned and educated about them. That's magic for other magicians, not magic for the people who pay to enjoy it.
> 
> What I'm suggesting is that you have to be educated to grasp such things then such things are not inherently in the music in a way that speaks to the universal human condition. Pretty obvious point.
> 
> You keep saying things like "adequately judge," as if that has any meaning other than in relation what you perceive to be the "correct" judgment. Further, I'm not saying you should care, nor should anyone care about how your or anyone else judge things. You and they are free to care or not care about how any individual or any group judges anything to your heart's content. Do you think it's the subjectivist position that you should care how other people (learned or not) judge things?
> 
> As long as "understanding something" is anchored to objective facts then, yes, people knowledgeable about those objective facts are valuable to learn from. The mistake you and others are frequently making is thinking that objective facts about something equates to any given value judgment of that something when it doesn't. This is why I've spent so much time saying someone can learn to recognize the sonata form and yet not value it or any of the music made with it. Some people who judge art may, indeed, be superior when it comes to perceiving what is objectively in the art work, but this perceptiveness also doesn't translate to any aesthetic judgment that's more objective than any other.
> 
> If you think that's the "heart" of my complaints you clearly haven't been paying attention these last 30 pages. What you're doing here is rather transparent attempt at dismissing my entire argument because you think you've discovered a "gotcha!" in the form of a subjective moral judgment, while irrationally concluding that my entire position is based around justifying that moral judgment. I hate to burst your fantasy, but that's simply not how any of this works. Yes, I find such elitism an ugly characteristic in humans, fueled by the petty, prideful desire to feel superior to others even in matters where that superiority has no objective basis. I can understand it somewhat when it comes to the sciences, but even there scientists will try to educate people rather than just rest on their authoritative say-so. This judgment of mine has zero impact, however, on the thorough philosophical arguments I've laid out for subjectivity in the case of aesthetic judgments, and the philosophical arguments preceded my distaste for elitism by many years. It was my own philosophical investigations that ended my OWN elitism.
> 
> If you're going to concoct some fantasy about me and my beliefs in order to pacify your desire to believe my position is fueled by the emotion of my moral judgment rather than the philosophical arguments I've spent all these pages expanding on and reiterating then I can't disabuse you of that notion beyond saying it's not true.
> 
> I don’t know what you mean by “imaginary” here, but the phrase “people in glass houses…” comes to mind. How “adequate and useful” do you think your appeals to mysterious knowledge would be among anyone who isn’t already convinced of what you believe? Get outside the hermetic bubble of this forum and try these same arguments on for size against philosophers who spend their entire lives thinking about this stuff; see how many “likes” you get. You’re so quick to defend the elitism of aesthetic tastes that you don’t seem to realize there are elitists—those who’ve spent their lives in devotion to a topic and refined their thinking about such—for everything under the sun, including philosophy, and however much you think your elitism is earned in aesthetic matters you are incredibly naïve when it comes to philosophically justifying it.
> 
> I also have no use for what artists think of this stuff and even less use for what YOU think artists believe about any of this. It matters as much as what baseball players think about physics just because they swing bats and hit balls that move. The practice of doing a thing guarantees no understanding of how that thing works on a fundamental level. All you know is what you feel, but you’ve tried to mythologize this feeling into an epistemology that’s so full of holes it’s more hole than bucket.


I wonder why Strange Magic hasn't beat up on you, as he has on me, for the length of your posts. Well, no, actually it's obvious why. Obviously he's flattered by your unqualified acceptance of his "simple thesis."

I didn't read everything you had to say here, and it still probably took me ten minutes. This is really counterproductive practice. You must realize that.

I have one thing to say here. You are wrong if you think I don't understand your simple, realist, empirical/rational theory of knowledge. I not only understand it, I agree with it - in those realms of existence where it seems (and I stress _seems_) to account fully for experience. I have simply come to believe that it doesn't describe or account for all knowledge, and I've tried to describe, based on my own experience as a working artist in several different arts, things that people can know that can't be verified by the standards you identify as objective proof. Your attempts to explain away the perception of aesthetic fitness - the principle in service to which artists devote their lives - in terms of your own "objectivist" epistemology do not convince.

I note that we haven't really gone into a broader theory of values, but I see your offhand rejection of my contention that values may be objective, subjective or both. I think values in art are inextricably bound to human values in general, and this is another aspect - humanly a very important one - of what constitutes quality in art. The value of art may depend on what it has to say, as well as how effectively it says it. But since I feel sure that you won't accept any possibility that art can be better or worse in consequence of the values it expresses, I see no point in continuing the conversation.


----------



## Eva Yojimbo

Strange Magic said:


> I see that you have abandoned entirely a discussion with me of the "facts of the case" regarding objectivism and subjectivism. I understand. BTW I appreciate EY's devotion to gathering actual data in comparing your verbosity with that of others. Data vs. no data. Always good.


Many forums actually have features where moderators/admins can see the amount of text/words typed by each user in a thread. I have little doubt I would be tops for this thread, but that's partly because I'm carrying on multiple discussions with multiple posters. I don't know if the average length of my posts are any longer than Woodduck's... not that it should really matter.


----------



## BachIsBest

Eva Yojimbo said:


> I’m not quite sure what you mean by “the art itself… establishes terms by which it can succeed or fail.” The art itself just exists. It has no terms, no standards, no anything. The artist that creates it has these things, and the audience that experiences it has these things, and perhaps if the work is original enough many use that work to set the standard by which to judge similar things by… but if you mean something other than this I don’t know what it is.


Composers do this all time. As a piece of music develops, it creates standards and expectations. A skilled composer manipulates these and ultimately either succeeds or fails.



Eva Yojimbo said:


> I’m not sure if by “can’t define ‘fact’ and ‘truth’” you mean you literally can’t define them or you don’t have a thorough understanding of how these terms work epistemically speaking. If it’s the latter then you’d be the second person (Woodduck the first) to essentially admit to a kind of epistemic naivety. There’s nothing wrong with that, but if you don’t have a thorough foundation of what counts as facts, truths, or (in Woodduck’s case) knowledge, then perhaps it’s a good idea to investigate that before asserting that you know certain things.


I mean I literally have never seen a satisfactory definition of truth. I have read enough philosophy to know that this is not an unusual position to take. This does not mean I don't believe in the concept.



Eva Yojimbo said:


> Yes, I agree definitions themselves cannot be true or false, so any definition of truth is subjective (though language functions via mass agreement on these subjective definitions). However, this doesn’t mean, given a certain definition, that what is true or not is subjective. Very important distinction there.


Once you define truth, I would argue it is an important test of your definition that it is, in fact, true. Or at the very least, it could be ambiguous. With your definition, by the definition itself, the definition can not be true.



Eva Yojimbo said:


> I think our only disagreement in your first paragraph here is how we’re defining “expresses something.” If by that you’re including notions of evoking all kinds of reactions we deem to be positive (including “profound” and “important” ones), then we don’t disagree at all.


In a sense, yes. I do believe that great works of art express something more specific than "evoking sadness", for example, but I also would argue that if it is truly a great work of art that specific thing is not the sort of thing one can express in a couple of paragraphs. I know Tolstoy once complained about how people asked him what he meant by _Anna Karenina; _his response was he meant what he wrote in the novel and he couldn't say it in any other way - this being precisely why he wrote the novel that way.



Eva Yojimbo said:


> My point is slightly more subtle than “we could end up like the Nazis,” and it must be said that at least one of these examples comes from the real world as oppose to the other which is just a fear without, AFAICT, many real-world examples except maybe a handful of sociopaths. However, one doesn’t need to jump to Nazis to demonstrate the point. We just emerged from a pandemic where large swaths of the population mistook their feelings (fears, anxieties, skepticism of authorities, etc.) for objective facts about the dangers of a virus and the efficacy of the vaccine. Believing things are objectively true based on strong feelings has a millions negative, real-world consequences that isn’t limited to extreme moral atrocities like the Nazis. Some people of course compartmentalize so they will rely on their feelings for epistemic truth for some things but not others. I'm pretty clear in saying it's a bad idea to do with regards to anything where objective truth is concerned.


Well, as you said, there are psychopaths who use the subjectivity of morality to justify their actions. I do agree the Nazi's did actually happen, but I would still say this is a complete non-sequitur. What happened during the pandemic was a large amount of the population believed in something false; it may have been partially due to them letting their emotions overrule their reason, but it also had a large part to do with misinformation. Those of us on the 'objective' side of the debate are arguing that one may, at least partially, judge music with some level of reason and rationality rather than emotion. If you argue against our position by saying we shouldn't believe this, because we are relying on our emotions, you beg the question.


----------



## 59540

Eva Yojimbo said:


> I agree, and you're welcome to your preferences. However, it would be helpful if you at least READ the posts that respond to you, rather than making the same point multiple times that has already been responded to and ignored.


You mean this?


> My elitism comment was in regards to people thinking their tastes were objectively superior, not subjectively superior. I thought that was obvious!


So if I subjectively think that my tastes are superior...and 10 million more think likewise...then that isn't elitist? Come on. The fact is you have a position that can't be proven as any sort of absolute truth either way but you'll throw in plenty of inkhorn terms and other piles of verbiage to distract from that fact. It might be helpful (and less wearying) if you just say "I think it's subjective" and leave it at that. Minus the preening. The difference is I don't profess to _know_ either way. And neither do you. Most of the verbiage from us so-called "objectivists" has been in response to the inconsistencies in the subjectivist sermons we've seen.

Now time for something more productive.


----------



## Botschaft

Of course some people have more discerning taste than others (including myself). What’s elitist about acknowledging that?



Eva Yojimbo said:


> I hear a symphony that I think is great/genius; I do not see where in the symphony itself is the greatness or genius, though.


Leonard Bernstein might help you:


----------



## Eva Yojimbo

Woodduck said:


> I wonder why Strange Magic hasn't beat up on you, as he has on me, for the length of your posts. Well, no, actually it's obvious why. Obviously he's flattered by your unqualified acceptance of his simple "thesis."


Oh, it's obvious why, but not for the reason you think. It's obvious because you first "beat up on me" for my long posts, to which SM responded with a variation on "people in glass houses..." I doubt SM actually cares about our long posts; what he didn't appreciate (neither do I) was the hypocrisy. 



Woodduck said:


> I didn't read everything you had to say here, and it still probably took me ten minutes. This is really counterproductive practice. You must realize that.


Sure, that's why I offered three alternatives for how to proceed. 



Woodduck said:


> I have simply come to believe that it doesn't describe or account for all knowledge, and I've tried to describe, based on my own experience as a working artist in several different arts, things that people can know that can't be verified by the standards you identify as objective proof.


And the problem I have with this is the same problem I have with theistic epistemologies that try to excuse why God can't be known by the epistemic standards of science but by similar private conceptions of epistemology like revelation. Both of these things fail for the same reason: because private notions of knowledge can't convince anyone who doesn't already believe (or want to believe). They're also more "hole than bucket" and can be used to believe just about any absurd thing imaginable. 



Woodduck said:


> I note that we haven't really gone into a broader theory of values, but I see your offhand rejection of my contention that values may be objective, subjective or both. I think values in art are inextricably bound to human values in general, and this is another aspect - humanly a very important one - of what constitutes quality in art. The value of art may depend on what it has to say, as well as how effectively it says it. But since I feel sure that you won't accept any possibility that art can be better or worse in consequence of the values it expresses, I see no point in continuing the conversation.


As always, I suspect we share many, many values as it pertains to being human, and that those values extend to why we value the art that we do, of which our tastes also coincide to a large extent (our adoration of Wagner, eg). This is why when you engage in your various defenses of the nobility of art and artists I largely agree with you... my agreement just ceases the moment you think these things cross over into the realm of objective truth or into notions of elitist superiority with regard to others who have different values. As long as those values aren't hurting other people it really shouldn't matter.


----------



## Forster

BachIsBest said:


> Well, as you said, there are psychopaths who use the subjectivity of morality to justify their actions.


Do psychopaths really bother with justification?

For me, there is an important difference between the notion of "subjective morality" and "subjective aesthetic standards". It is that the former simply objects to the idea that there is some absolute authority from whom morals are obtained; the latter generally makes no such objection because mostly, those who hold to the idea of objective aesthetic standards don't bring the Divine into it, except perhaps in a metaphorical sense.


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## Eva Yojimbo

dissident said:


> You mean this?
> So if I subjectively think that my tastes are superior...and 10 million more think likewise...then that isn't elitist? Come on. The fact is you have a position that can't be proven as any sort of absolute truth either way but you'll throw in plenty of inkhorn terms and other piles of verbiage to distract from that fact. It might be helpful (and less wearying) if you just say "I think it's subjective" and leave it at that. Minus the preening. The difference is I don't profess to _know_ either way. And neither do you. Most of the verbiage from us so-called "objectivists" has been in response to the inconsistencies in the subjectivist sermons we've seen.
> 
> Now time for something more productive.


No, I was specifically thinking of your comment about it being "funny" how us subjectivists argue for the objectivity of our positions. I've explained multiple times why that's not a contradiction. 

Thinking your tastes are subjectively superior is fine. All that's saying is "according to the standards I have created, my tastes are best," which is completely "duh" and something both SM and I agree with. That has never, ever been the issue; the issue is that some people are not content with this "my tastes are superior according to my standards," but try to claim their tastes/standards are superior to others in a way that is objectively true independent of what they or anyone else thinks. THAT'S the issue us subjectivists have a problem with. 

As always it's amusing to read people's attempts at telling me what my motivations are, like using "inkhorn terms" (such as?) and "piles of verbiage" to "distract." That's an interesting hypothesis you have there, but like so many others in this thread I'm afraid it's threadbare when it comes to evidence supporting it. I'm also not interested in being told what I do or don't know from people who admit to not knowing themselves.


----------



## 59540

> ... my agreement just ceases the moment you think these things cross over into the realm of objective truth or into notions of elitist superiority with regard to others who have different values. As long as those values aren't hurting other people it really shouldn't matter.


Oh I can't pass this one up before I go. Is "hurting other people" objectively or subjectively "wrong"? That's the big inconsistency: the constant preaching of subjectivity while still habitually grasping for objective values. Now if the reality is, as you have stated over and over and over, that opinions are subjective regardless of whether I think they're objective or not, it matters little if anything if I say it's based on objectivity to any degree. In your view of reality, that's simply illusion. So I don't quite get the fervor to preach that it's all subjective if the goal isn't to recognize a sort of "equality of art". Believing in some sort of objective morality or objective values might bring about the Nazis and other "baddies" that we went over before, but it can also end the transatlantic slave trade. I would also wager that all the "great" artists that have been mentioned here -- most especially Bach and Mozart -- would be dismissed by you as "objectivists". And they created more than just internet forum dustups over "it's all in your mind".


----------



## Eva Yojimbo

Botschaft said:


> Leonard Bernstein might help you:


Thanks for linking me to a video I've already seen. Lenny explains the objective features in the work. He does not explain where the objective greatness/genius is. This is, as always, just a case of the mind projection fallacy at work. The great irony is that I recall he opens that video by discussing how many experts vehemently disagreed about the work being objectively great or genius in his own time and even for a good time afterwards. I guess one can claim they were all objectively wrong (despite expressing themselves with the same fervency as all objectivists do) and we know that wrongness because they're now all dead and their opponents are in the comfortable majority. Always easy to pronounce objective rightness amidst the comfort of mass agreement... like shouting an insult at someone from the back of a massive army marching towards them.


----------



## Eva Yojimbo

dissident said:


> Oh I can't pass this one up before I go. Is "hurting other people" objectively or subjectively "wrong"? That's the big inconsistency: the constant preaching of subjectivity while still habitually grasping for objective values. Now if the reality is, as you have stated over and over and over, that opinions are subjective regardless of whether I think they're objective or not, it matters little if anything if I say it's based on objectivity to any degree. In your view of reality, that's simply illusion. So I don't quite get the fervor to preach that it's all subjective if the goal isn't to recognize a sort of "equality of art". Believing in some sort of objective morality might bring about the Nazis and other "baddies" that we went over before, but it can also end the transatlantic slave trade.


Subjectively wrong, of course. There is no "grasping for objective values" on my part, there is the appeal to shared subjective values. The most basic concept about how to resolve disputes about subjective matters is to work back to a point where there is mutual agreement and work forward from there. This doesn't make these agreements objective, just as "it's wrong to harm others" is not an objective statement, but it's one almost all of us (I hope) subjectively agree on.

In reality, that IS the goal. The recognition of subjectivity should force us not to just loudly proclaim our thoughts/feelings/opinions/tastes are objectively superior to others, but to understand that the path to resolving conflicts must be paved from the point of our subjective agreements. In morality it's actually fairly easy to get to that point because almost all humans fundamentally care about well-being (even if we have different ideals for what constitutes well-being both for individuals and societies); are there any such near-universal points of agreement on aesthetics? Perhaps there are, but whatever they are I think the manifestations of them are so varied and people place such different valuations on these different aspects and permutations that it's near impossible to find this kind of agreement in a way that matters for judging art on any standards based on that agreement. At best we have what we have, which is a multitude of communities devoted to the particular virtues that community sees in whatever art it is they all happen to like; and even then there are still frequent, vehement disagreement within those communities.


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## 59540

> Always easy to pronounce objective rightness amidst the comfort of mass agreement...


And they're as "right" as you are in disagreeing with it. That's where "prove otherwise" comes in.


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## Woodduck

Eva Yojimbo said:


> Oh, it's obvious why, but not for the reason you think. It's obvious because you first "beat up on me" for my long posts, to which SM responded with a variation on "people in glass houses..." I doubt SM actually cares about our long posts; what he didn't appreciate (neither do I) was the hypocrisy.
> 
> Sure, that's why I offered three alternatives for how to proceed.


Offering people "alternatives" for dealing with a post that responds to two or three posts at once and takes fifteen minutes to read through just to decide what to do with it is a bit, um, ungenerous. And watch out with that "hypocrisy" stuff. I can be mistaken, but not untruthful.



> And the problem I have with this is the same problem I have with theistic epistemologies that try to excuse why God can't be known by the epistemic standards of science but by similar private conceptions of epistemology like revelation. Both of these things fail for the same reason: because private notions of knowledge can't convince anyone who doesn't already believe (or want to believe). They're also more "hole than bucket" and can be used to believe just about any absurd thing imaginable.


It may be that not all "private truths" are equally valid or invalid, and truth may not depend on the possibility of convincing others. You know a great deal about yourself, but can never prove any of it to anyone. An artist's knowledge that some of his choices and judgments are superior to others does not lead to the acceptance of "any absurd thing imaginable." Your basic assumptions about what are the only possible truths cannot themselves be proven by your own methods, but are simply articles of belief. They appear believable in relation to physical reality, but consciousness has never been reducible to physics.



> As always, I suspect we share many, many values as it pertains to being human, and that those values extend to why we value the art that we do, of which our tastes also coincide to a large extent (our adoration of Wagner, eg). This is why when you engage in your various defenses of the nobility of art and artists I largely agree with you... my agreement just ceases the moment you think these things cross over into the realm of objective truth or into notions of elitist superiority with regard to others who have different values. As long as those values aren't hurting other people it really shouldn't matter.


It doesn't matter to me what people like. I like a lot of different stuff, some of it simple and unsophisticated and of no great or lasting value. I can even count myself one of those people you think I look down on: as a painter, I see the miraculous vision of Vermeer and his transcendental technique, and I know that I will never be anywhere near as good - as _objectively_ good - as he. I'm the humblest soul in the world - where it's appropriate to be. But I've worked hard to learn where humility is appropriate. I've learned from the so-called elites you scorn, and I'm grateful to them for passing their knowledge along to me. I think "elite" is something to aspire to, not something to scorn. But then I think our cultural heritage embodies actual, objective values for mankind, not just things some people can feel good about.


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## Luchesi

Strange Magic said:


> Contrary to your assertion, I do not care one whit about what the average person appreciates. What I care about and affirm is that whatever anybody appreciates it is, for them--and for me--valid and authentic. There is a difference. This is why I keep asserting that my critics have yet to understand the subjectivist viewpoint and instead tilt at windmills of their own making.


The gem collector's appreciation is as valid and authentic as the geologist's?
hmmm..


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## BachIsBest

Forster said:


> Do psychopaths really bother with justification?
> 
> For me, there is an important difference between the notion of "subjective morality" and "subjective aesthetic standards". It is that the former simply objects to the idea that there is some absolute authority from whom morals are obtained; the latter generally makes no such objection because mostly, those who hold to the idea of objective aesthetic standards don't bring the Divine into it, except perhaps in a metaphorical sense.


Sure, sure. I didn't bring morality up and agree that there is obviously differences between "subjective morality" and "subjective aesthetic standards". Just to be clear though, I would consider myself relatively agnostic, but still believe there are objective moral standards, so no one has to bring the Divine into anything (although people often do).

Also just to be clear, many psychopaths are not like the people you see in the movies, and many do attempt to live moral lives. Being a psychopath just means the part of their brain responsible for empathetic feelings does not function properly.


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## Eva Yojimbo

Woodduck said:


> Offering people "alternatives" for dealing with a post that responds to two or three posts at once and takes fifteen minutes to read through just to decide what to do with it is a bit, um, ungenerous. And watch out with that "hypocrisy" stuff. I can be mistaken, but not untruthful.


It was not just an alternative for "dealing with a post," it was an alternative for how to proceed. And, as I noted when I counted the respective word counts in your and mine last posts, yours are just as long. The fact that you post your responses across many posts and I contain mine to one doesn't make a bit of practical difference.



Woodduck said:


> It may be that not all "private truths" are equally valid or invalid, and truth may not depend on the possibility of convincing others. You know a great deal about yourself, but can never prove any of it to anyone. An artist's knowledge that some of his choices and judgments are superior to others does not lead to the acceptance of "any absurd thing imaginable." Your basic assumptions about what are the only possible truths cannot themselves be proven by your own methods, but are simply articles of belief. They appear believable in relation to physical reality, but consciousness has never been reducible to physics.


That may be the case, but there's still the burden of determining which private truths are and aren't valid. Having subjective knowledge of one's self (one's own subjectivity) is fine; claiming what one subjectively "knows" is "objectively true" is a different matter, including that of "an artist's knowledge." What "basic assumptions" are you referring to? Also, the "consciousness isn't reducible to physics" is a frequent talking point of theists, because they think it lends credence to the notion that God is like consciousness, or is a form of consciousness.



Woodduck said:


> It doesn't matter to me what people like. I like a lot of different stuff, some of it simple and unsophisticated and of no great or lasting value. I can even count myself one of those people you think I look down on: as a painter, I see the miraculous vision of Vermeer and his transcendental technique, and I know that I will never be anywhere near as good - as _objectively_ good - as he. I'm the humblest soul in the world - where it's appropriate to be. But I've worked hard to learn where humility is appropriate. I've learned from the so-called elites you scorn, and I'm grateful to them for passing their knowledge along to me. I think "elite" is something to aspire to, not something to scorn. But then I think our cultural heritage embodies actual, objective values for mankind, not just things some people can feel good about.


I've learned from the so-called elites as well when it comes to genuinely objective matters, like what Shakespeare is doing with the sonnet form. I only "scorn" them when they think this expertise translates to objective aesthetic judgments. I would also agree that being elite is something to aspire to, but being elite is different than being elitist. Unless you are secretly some world-renowned and respected artist you are not an "elite," and even if you were it still doesn't justify elitism in regard to aesthetic judgments.


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## 59540

BachIsBest said:


> Being a psychopath just means the part of their brain responsible for empathetic feelings does not function properly.


Or it could simply be a choice.


Forster said:


> Do psychopaths really bother with justification?
> 
> For me, there is an important difference between the notion of "subjective morality" and "subjective aesthetic standards". It is that the former simply objects to the idea that there is some absolute authority from whom morals are obtained; the latter generally makes no such objection because mostly, those who hold to the idea of objective aesthetic standards don't bring the Divine into it, except perhaps in a metaphorical sense.


Whether you want to bring "the Divine" into it or not, objective aesthetics is still saying that aesthetic standards exist outside of your own mind. Subjective morality and subjective aesthetics would be the same framework but different spheres, with the ultimate arbiter still being the individual.


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## Botschaft

Eva Yojimbo said:


> Thanks for linking me to a video I've already seen. Lenny explains the objective features in the work. He does not explain where the objective greatness/genius is.


He does. He specifically points out the genius of the work. It’s all there, in the music.


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## Eva Yojimbo

Botschaft said:


> He does. He specifically points out the genius of the work. It’s all there, in the music.


Nope. Just ask yourself why anything he points out is greatness/genius.


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## Eva Yojimbo

dissident said:


> Subjective morality and subjective aesthetics would be the same framework but different spheres, with the ultimate arbiter still being the individual.


I'm not sure I agree that "the ultimate arbiter is the individual," because it depends on what's meant by "ultimate arbiter." I might say that individuals are the ultimate arbiter in regards to their own judgments and actions, but that's not the whole story with either aesthetics or morality. Especially morality, and especially in practice, is defined by societies' agreements over various (ultimately subjective) matters, and that society is the "ultimate arbiters" of what happens to individuals who go against that agreement. Aesthetics isn't this extreme as the vast majority of people are willing to like and let like and leave it alone (even the few who care enough to discuss these issues aren't arguing for throwing anyone who disagrees into the gulag), but even there the "ultimate arbiter" of, eg, what art is of lasting importance (as defined by its continuing ability to appeal to people) isn't down to any individual but large groups of individuals across time.


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## Botschaft

Eva Yojimbo said:


> Nope. Just ask yourself why anything he points out is greatness/genius.


It’s genius because it bears witness to the genius of its creator.


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## Eva Yojimbo

Botschaft said:


> It’s genius because it bears witness to the genius its creator.


And how does it do that?


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## Botschaft

Eva Yojimbo said:


> And how does it do that?


Ask Woodduck. He knows a thing or two about music theory; I don’t.


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## Woodduck

Strange Magic said:


> I see that you have abandoned entirely a discussion with me of the "facts of the case" regarding objectivism and subjectivism. I understand. BTW I appreciate EY's devotion to gathering actual data in comparing your verbosity with that of others. Data vs. no data. Always good.


If your thesis produced any new "facts of the case" regarding objectivism and subjectivism, i might be tempted to discuss them. But if it ever did contain any, they ran out some time ago. There are no data "proving" your thesis, except the seemingly standard observation that different people like different things. That doesn't demonstrate anything except that people are different, which everyone knows.

Here are some data:

1. Art objects produced by highly diverse cultures have numerous aesthetic traits in common. Certain characteristics, such as some form of tonality in music, are almost always present.
2. Works of art created by prehistoric cave dwellers 40,000 years ago are still considered aesthetically superb.
3. Works of art created in a wide range of styles by a wide range of cultures throughout the history of mankind continue to be appreciated by people all over the world.
4. Where arts of past or foreign cultures are not immediately appreciated, people learn to appreciate them, often rapidly and easily, and may become successful creators and performers in the styles of those arts.
5. Our appreciation of art - our enjoyment of it and our ability to evaluate it - is not fixed, but is expanded and deepened by exposure and study. We learn to recognize and respond to qualities we didn't see before.
6. Artists study and work to make their art better. They believe that they know what "better" means, and they see their job as finding the means to realize what they know.
7. Professional musicians, musicologists and scholars very substantially agree on what works of music they consider masterpieces, and which composers they consider the producers of the best work.
8. Musical performers know that with superior music most of the work of selling it to an audience has been done by the composer, whereas with lesser music the performer must do more to conceal the work's poverty of invention and make the work interesting (a principle which does vary with the style of the music). Again, there is substantial agreement as to which is which.

You want data, there's some data. Always good indeed. This is off the top of my head as I eat lentils. I offer it, not as "proof" of anything (in case people are still grooving on that broken record), but as data possibly relevant to the "subjectivity/objectivity" dichotomy. I call it a dichotomy because I consider it a deceptive and counterproductive polarization.


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## Eva Yojimbo

dissident said:


> And they're as "right" as you are in disagreeing with it. That's where "prove otherwise" comes in.


I didn't even say I disagreed with it and that's completely beside the point. Again, why would I try to "prove otherwise" things which I've already admitted can't be proven because they rely on subjective feelings or agreement? It's like you either don't read what I say or don't comprehend it. If it's the former that's on you, if it's the latter then it may be partly on both of us, but I can't help if you can't articulate what you don't understand and why.


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## Eva Yojimbo

Botschaft said:


> Ask Woodduck. He knows a thing or two about music theory; I don’t.


Allow me to introduce you to the last 40(!!) pages of this thread where Woodduck and I have been discussing this. You might find his music theory (of which I know some too) can't and doesn't translate into objective aesthetic judgments.


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## 59540

Eva Yojimbo said:


> I'm not sure I agree that "the ultimate arbiter is the individual," because it depends on what's meant by "ultimate arbiter." I might say that individuals are the ultimate arbiter in regards to their own judgments and actions, but that's not the whole story with either aesthetics or morality. Especially morality, and especially in practice, is defined by societies' agreements over various (ultimately subjective) matters, and that society is the "ultimate arbiters" of what happens to individuals who go against that agreement. Aesthetics isn't this extreme as the vast majority of people are willing to like and let like and leave it alone (even the few who care enough to discuss these issues aren't arguing for throwing anyone who disagrees into the gulag), but even there the "ultimate arbiter" of, eg, what art is of lasting importance (as defined by its continuing ability to appeal to people) isn't down to any individual but large groups of individuals across time.


So if it's large groups of individuals it's simply a large group of subjective judgements. The "group" isn't somehow objective with the "aesthetic standard" now hovering over them. And it still doesn't address what it is exactly that's binding that large group of individuals. It's the same sort of problem with morality. If morality were solely the product of my subjective mind and the subjective minds of other human beings, there'd really be no such thing as "immoral" by definition. I would be 100% morally correct at all times, by definition. But I know I'm not. In fact there wouldn't even be a moral-immoral dichotomy. The same with aesthetic standards. If they are only in my own subjective thought processes, I could be a creator of beautiful and moving works of art. But I'm not.


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## Botschaft

Eva Yojimbo said:


> Allow me to introduce you to the last 40(!!) pages of this thread where Woodduck and I have been discussing this. You might find his music theory (of which I know some too) can't and doesn't translate into objective aesthetic judgments.


It’s simply a matter of artistic proficiency. Some artists are better at what they do than others and their works make this known.


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## Eva Yojimbo

Woodduck said:


> Here are some data:
> 
> 1. Art objects produced by highly diverse cultures have numerous aesthetic traits in common. Certain characteristics, such as some form of tonality in music, are almost always present.
> 2. Works of art created by prehistoric cave dwellers 40,000 years ago are still considered aesthetically superb.
> 3. Works of art created in a wide range of styles by a wide range of cultures throughout the history of mankind continue to be appreciated by people all over the world.
> 4. Where arts of past or foreign cultures are not immediately appreciated, people learn to appreciate them, often rapidly and easily, and may become successful creators and performers in the styles of those arts.
> 5. Our appreciation of art - our enjoyment of it and our ability to evaluate it - is not fixed, but is expanded and deepened by exposure and study. We learn to recognize and respond to qualities we didn't see before.
> 6. Artists study and work to make their art better. They believe that they know what better "means," and they see their job as finding the means to realize what they know.
> 7. Professional musicians, musicologists and scholars very substantially agree on what works of music they consider masterpieces, and which composers they consider the producers of the best work.
> 8. Musical performers know that with superior music most of the work of selling it to an audience has been done by the composer, whereas with lesser music the performer must do more to conceal the work's poverty of invention and make the work interesting (a principle which does vary with the style of the music). Again, there is substantial agreement as to which is which.


Much of that is kinda-sorta data, but it's data interspersed with your objectivist hypothesis that ignores alternative explanations. 

1. This isn't data, it's very vague claims. "Numerous aesthetic traits" and "some form of tonality in music" are not data points you'd ever find any statistical research; and even the truth of which doesn't connect these commonalities with objective aesthetic judgments of these objective features. 
2. Yes, the actual "data" of which would be determined by polling people to see who finds it "aesthetically superb" and who doesn't. 
3. Undoubtedly true. 
4. Also undoubtedly true, with the slight niggle over what "learn to appreciate them" means, exactly. 
5. Agreed, though "learn to... respond to qualities" is a bit odd and sounds like some behaviorism view. I don't think (or know if) you meant it that way. This goes back to my point that awareness of objective qualities does not dictate any reaction to them positive or negative. 
6. I'd like some actual "data" on whether artists think they "know what better means" as opposed to just feeling some things are better than others and recognizing that feeling as subjective. You obviously speak for yourself here, not all artists. Either way, it still wouldn't matter as to whether they're right about knowing such things or not. People are wrong en masse about all kinds of things because of how faulty human cognition is. 
7. "Very substantially" is also not data and ignores the amount of disagreement among these groups, as well as the possibility of explaining such agreement on the similarities of subjectivities of these groups. 
8. I see no data here at all. It's 99% claims about "superior" and "lesser" music, as if you can just gloss over how to define/determine that, you know, objectively. Further, it's not even true. A lot of other music simply places more value on different aspects of music, or sees certain qualities like simplicity as a virtue, or hybridize them with other things (like dance/performance) to create art that works on multiple levels, the musical level being only one of them.


----------



## Woodduck

Eva Yojimbo said:


> there's still the burden of determining which private truths are and aren't valid.


By "determine" you mean "prove to others." I have already determined that Haydn's quartets are superior as works of art to Benjamin Frankiin's. i can offer extensive evidence that they're much more worthy of investigation, including what is basically the agreement of the whole of mankind, but not proof. Apologies to fans of Ben Franklin.



> Having subjective knowledge of one's self (one's own subjectivity) is fine; claiming what one subjectively "knows" is "objectively true" is a different matter, including that of "an artist's knowledge."


I'm not sure why self-knowledge gets a pass here. In fact, I think it can be much harder to know oneself than to know how superb an opera _Otello_ is. I could tell the latter the first time I heard it, at an age when I had all sorts of illusions about myself. Knowledge of how well a work of art fits together, and knowledge of how it would be ruined if certain alterations were made, is based on perceptual abilities that are simply innate in humans. Of course those abilities are subject to development, and artists are always busy doing that in themselves. Is the knowledge of _Otello'_s aesthetic fitness provable to anyone else? No. but I still know that it's knowledge.



> Also, the "consciousness isn't reducible to physics" is a frequent talking point of theists, because they think it lends credence to the notion that God is like consciousness, or is a form of consciousness.


I don't care whose talking point it is. I don't talk in talking points. There is, however, plausibility in the idea that life and consciousness, which we still can't explain as "products'" of an apparently material reality, must exist as basic properties of the universe in some manner.



> I've learned from the so-called elites as well when it comes to genuinely objective matters, like what Shakespeare is doing with the sonnet form. I only "scorn" them when they think this expertise translates to objective aesthetic judgments. I would also agree that being elite is something to aspire to, but being elite is different than being elitist. Unless you are secretly some world-renowned and respected artist you are not an "elite," and even if you were it still doesn't justify elitism in regard to aesthetic judgments.


I don't scorn the judgments of experts until they say dumb things.


----------



## Eva Yojimbo

dissident said:


> So if it's large groups of individuals it's simply a large group of subjective judgements. The "group" isn't somehow objective with the "aesthetic standard" now hovering over them. And it still doesn't address what it is exactly that's binding that large group of individuals.


All of this is correct, though I'd say what's binding that large group of individuals is precisely their subjective agreement, which stems from the common features shared among all members of the same species like the desire for well-being.



dissident said:


> It's the same sort of problem with morality. If morality were solely the product of my subjective mind and the subjective minds of other human beings, there'd really be no such thing as "immoral" by definition. I would be 100% morally correct at all times, by definition. But I know I'm not. In fact there wouldn't even be a moral-immoral dichotomy. The same with aesthetic standards. If they are only in my own subjective thought processes, I could be a creator of beautiful and moving works of art. But I'm not.


No, there would be no such thing as "objective immorality," by definition. I see no justification for thinking things based on subjectivities do not exist. The rules of chess do not exist without human subjectivities to invent and agree to them; does this mean the game of chess doesn't exist? There are a million examples I could give along these same lines, but the core idea is that subjective things exist subjectively; subjective things do not need to be objective to exist every bit as much as objects do. So immorality exists relative to all the subjectivities that agree upon what defines immorality by their subjectively agreed-upon standards.

As for you "knowing you are not 100% morally correct at all times," I see this as nothing more than recognizing that your morality clashes with that of society's, and "knowing you are not right" is really just giving weight to social morality. This kind of thing is probably deeply ingrained in us as a social species as it allows individuals to function within a society and societies to thrive and offer protection for those individuals. LIkewise, if you created art that was thought beautiful and moved anyone then you would be a creator of beautiful and moving art to everyone who (subjectively) found it beautiful and moving, even if it was just yourself.


----------



## Eva Yojimbo

Botschaft said:


> It’s simply a matter of artistic proficiency. Some artists are better at what they do than others and their works make this known.


Define "artistic proficiency" and "better than others" in ways that make no reference to what people subjectively like and prefer. I'll wait (probably forever, since that's the been the challenge of this thread that none of the "objectivists" have yet met).


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## BachIsBest

dissident said:


> Or it could simply be a choice.


No. Being a jerk is a choice. Psychopaths actually have impaired brain function, and being a psychopath is the medical diagnosis for this impaired brain function. This does not mean psychopaths are destined to be a jerk, but they do have to actively work to take into account other peoples emotions and feelings (what we would commonly call empathy), whereas for most of us this happens automatically (humans near-literally have an "empathy filter" in our brain that process the things we say). This has been studied both psychologically and from a neurological brain-scan perspective and is well-documented.


----------



## Woodduck

Eva Yojimbo said:


> Much of that is kinda-sorta data, but it's data interspersed with your objectivist hypothesis that ignores alternative explanations.


I'm not offering "explanations," just observations. Take 'em or leave 'em.



> 1. This isn't data, it's very vague claims. "Numerous aesthetic traits" and "some form of tonality in music" are not data points you'd ever find any statistical research; and even the truth of which doesn't connect these commonalities with objective aesthetic judgments of these objective features.


That works of art in remote times and places share important structural traits is not a "vague claim." I'm afraid you'll have to do your own homework here. I'm about tuckered out.



> 5. Agreed, though "learn to... respond to qualities" is a bit odd and sounds like some behaviorism view. I don't think (or know if) you meant it that way. This goes back to my point that awareness of objective qualities does not dictate any reaction to them positive or negative.


I'm not claiming it "dictates' anything. Of course it does contribute to them, and may sometimes be the main factor in determining them.



> 6. I'd like some actual "data" on whether artists think they "know what better means" as opposed to just feeling some things are better than others and recognizing that feeling as subjective. You obviously speak for yourself here, not all artists. Either way, it still wouldn't matter as to whether they're right about knowing such things or not. People are wrong en masse about all kinds of things because of how faulty human cognition is.


Groan!. Artists are always looking for the best solution to every problem they encounter. They do not think to themselves, "I feel better now." They think, "That's it!" or "That's better, but still..." or "This sucks. Gaughin, come in here and tell me what's wrong with this!" There is always the assumption that something is right, something is wrong, something could be better or not. As a painting or piece of music proceeds, it tells the artist increasingly, because of the conditions he's set up, what it needs. The process is subjective and objective at once. If he gives the work what it needs it will have integrity. People looking at it or listening to it can sense the integrity, or even talk about if they have that kind of knowledge. This awareness is mostly unconscious, but it suddenly becomes conscious if at some point in the work the artist has failed to find a solution that ensures the work's integrity. Integrity, by the way, is an objective value in life and in the activities of life. That's why we should and do value it in art, as one of life's activities and as a microcosm of life.



> 8. I see no data here at all. It's 99% claims about "superior" and "lesser" music, as if you can just gloss over how to define/determine that, you know, objectively. Further, it's not even true. A lot of other music simply places more value on different aspects of music, or sees certain qualities like simplicity as a virtue, or hybridize them with other things (like dance/performance) to create art that works on multiple levels, the musical level being only one of them.


You're complicating this unnecessarily. I think it's habitual in an effort to be thorough. Admirable but sometimes not useful.


----------



## 59540

Eva Yojimbo said:


> All of this is correct, though I'd say what's binding that large group of individuals is precisely their subjective agreement, which stems from the common features shared among all members of the same species like the desire for well-being.
> 
> No, there would be no such thing as "objective immorality," by definition. I see no justification for thinking things based on subjectivities do not exist. The rules of chess do not exist without human subjectivities to invent and agree to them; does this mean the game of chess doesn't exist? There are a million examples I could give along these same lines, but the core idea is that subjective things exist subjectively; subjective things do not need to be objective to exist every bit as much as objects do. So immorality exists relative to all the subjectivities that agree upon what defines immorality by their subjectively agreed-upon standards.
> 
> As for you "knowing you are not 100% morally correct at all times," I see this as nothing more than recognizing that your morality clashes with that of society's, and "knowing you are not right" is really just giving weight to social morality. This kind of thing is probably deeply ingrained in us as a social species as it allows individuals to function within a society and societies to thrive and offer protection for those individuals. LIkewise, if you created art that was thought beautiful and moved anyone then you would be a creator of beautiful and moving art to everyone who (subjectively) found it beautiful and moving, even if it was just yourself.


In other words, the only way out of it is wordplay and semantics.

You see, when I'm listening to the opening chorus of Bach's BWV 80, I am not being satisfied by aesthetic standards that pre-existed all along in my mind. Instead my consciousness is being raised to _Bach's_ aesthetic standards. By the way,



> which stems from the common features shared among all members of the same species like the desire for well-being.


If it were all shared it would be no sweat being a 100% "moral" person. As I said there wouldn't even be such a thing as "morality" vs "immorality", objectively or otherwise.


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## BachIsBest

Eva Yojimbo said:


> Define "artistic proficiency" and "better than others" in ways that make no reference to what people subjectively like and prefer. I'll wait (probably forever, since that's the been the challenge of this thread that none of the "objectivists" have yet met).


Look, you think my desire "not to be murdered" is just a personal preference of mine that happens to be shared by others (although you will admit, I'm sure, evolutionary reasons for this). If you take it as axiomatic that value statements are subjective, then value statements about art are subjective. Fine, you win in this sense.

However, if you take viewing the desire not be murdered not just as a really strong version of a preference for your daughters room to be pink, but rather as something axiomatic to the human condition, then you can end up with the perfectly reasonable conclusion that to call the desire not to be murdered a "personal preference" is a rather absurd statement. This is essentially how I view the desire for art that is meaningful, logical, beautiful, insightful, and profound; to call it a "personal preference" is absurd. 

Some of the Greek philosophers thought acting in a certain way because it was good, believing a certain thing because it was true, and actively perceiving a thing because it was beautiful as equal, axiomatic, statements. Few (if any) people would go quite this far today, but ultimately we can wallow in a philosophical purgatory of vagueness until we make crazy statements that are both irrelevant and make no sense intuitively, or we can accept that to examine things like aesthetics or morality, we need to make rational, justifiable assumptions that allow us to make relevant and meaningful statements.

I think I might be out, but maybe not .


----------



## Strange Magic

Luchesi said:


> The gem collector's appreciation is as valid and authentic as the geologist's?
> hmmm..


Yes. I have lost count of the number of times I have been asked yet another variant of the same question. I am sure that I'll be asked more so long as people fail to understand, or will themselves to misunderstand the tenets of the subjectivist thesis.


----------



## mmsbls

Strange Magic said:


> Yes. I have lost count of the number of times I have been asked yet another variant of the same question. I am sure that I'll be asked more so long as people fail to understand, or will themselves to misunderstand the tenets of the subjectivist thesis.


I have posted that I believe the "two sides" (i.e. those arguing against each other's position) in this thread are actually arguing different theses. I would like to ask you if you feel:

1) Those on the other side from you actually believe you are correct in arguing that aesthetics and value judgments in art are subjective. However, they feel that knowledgeable people (those trained in art by, for example, years of analysis, reading others' analysis, discussing these analyses, etc.) can define characteristics of art that they all, or mostly, agree are important and that they can evaluate these characteristics to determine quality and excellence in works. Those who are knowledgeable can generally agree on the evaluation of these characteristics to determine which works are excellent or superior. There is subjectivity in the selection of characteristics and the evaluation of these characteristics, but the subjectivity results in only modest variation allowing others with similar views to find the analyses very useful. (Those on the "other side" may disagree somewhat with the details of my description of their position, but it roughly gets at what they are arguing.)

2) Those on the other side believe that knowledgeable people can make objective evaluations of works. That the methodology used (selection of characteristics, evaluation of characteristics, and weighting of characteristics) is objective and not a product of individual people who have can have varying views.


----------



## Luchesi

mmsbls said:


> I have posted that I believe the "two sides" (i.e. those arguing against each other's position) in this thread are actually arguing different theses. I would like to ask you if you feel:
> 
> 1) Those on the other side from you actually believe you are correct in arguing that aesthetics and value judgments in art are subjective. However, they feel that knowledgeable people (those trained in art by, for example, years of analysis, reading others' analysis, discussing these analyses, etc.) can define characteristics of art that they all, or mostly, agree are important and that they can evaluate these characteristics to determine quality and excellence in works. Those who are knowledgeable can generally agree on the evaluation of these characteristics to determine which works are excellent or superior. There is subjectivity in the selection of characteristics and the evaluation of these characteristics, but the subjectivity results in only modest variation allowing others with similar views to find the analyses very useful. (Those on the "other side" may disagree somewhat with the details of my description of their position, but it roughly gets at what they are arguing.)
> 
> 2) Those on the other side believe that knowledgeable people can make objective evaluations of works. That the methodology used (selection of characteristics, evaluation of characteristics, and weighting of characteristics) is objective and not a product of individual people who have can have varying views.


One person knows Portuguese and appreciates Portuguese poetry (with study and with repeatable, reliable reasons).

The majority of people don't know Portuguese, but might like the sound of it, or admire the concepts vaguely explained in English by someone else. There's that distance.


----------



## Eva Yojimbo

mmsbls said:


> I have posted that I believe the "two sides" (i.e. those arguing against each other's position) in this thread are actually arguing different theses. I would like to ask you if you feel:
> 
> 1) Those on the other side from you actually believe you are correct in arguing that aesthetics and value judgments in art are subjective. However, they feel that knowledgeable people (those trained in art by, for example, years of analysis, reading others' analysis, discussing these analyses, etc.) can define characteristics of art that they all, or mostly, agree are important and that they can evaluate these characteristics to determine quality and excellence in works. Those who are knowledgeable can generally agree on the evaluation of these characteristics to determine which works are excellent or superior. There is subjectivity in the selection of characteristics and the evaluation of these characteristics, but the subjectivity results in only modest variation allowing others with similar views to find the analyses very useful. (Those on the "other side" may disagree somewhat with the details of my description of their position, but it roughly gets at what they are arguing.)
> 
> 2) Those on the other side believe that knowledgeable people can make objective evaluations of works. That the methodology used (selection of characteristics, evaluation of characteristics, and weighting of characteristics) is objective and not a product of individual people who have can have varying views.


I think for most 1) is the case, but I wouldn't be surprised that there are some here who think 2) is the case: I don't want to generalize when I'm uncertain. The problem is that even for those who think like 1), they generally don't express themselves like this. What's funny is that I had a very brief exchange with *4chamberedklavier *who started out espousing the objectivist position, but when I made objections he immediately acknowledged those objections and moved towards articulating something similar to what you describe in 1). By the time of my second reply, we seemed to be in agreement on everything but the semantics of it. The reason for the prolonged exchanges with some participants here is that they haven't even gotten as far as articulating ideas like "subjectivity in the selection of characteristics and evaluations of these characteristics, but with modest variation... (among) knowledgeable people" etc. 

I actually think our exchange (myself and 4chamberedklavier) is illustrative of how things SHOULD'VE gone if people here actually believe something along the lines of 1), and I'll post all of it as it's short enough to see what I mean: 



4chamberedklavier said:


> It's not that difficult to roughly determine if a composer is "great". It's just a matter of checking whether certain conditions have been met. Has this composer created many works that are widely appreciated by a large number of people? Do these works require skill, effort, and/or talent? Is there variety in this composer's output? In other words, a composer _can_ be objectively great.
> 
> It's more challenging to quantify & compare "greatness". It depends on the standards used to define what is "great". Problem is impossible to find a universal set of standards that can apply for every person. You can choose standards that a majority of people will agree with, but they're likely to be broad, and the broader the standards, the more difficult it is to quantify. But the more specific your standards are, the smaller the number of people who will find the standards good enough to represent their preferences. So while a composer _can_ be objectively great, whether a composer is the_ greatest_ is so hard to find out you might as well call it subjective.
> 
> I don't think that the most well-known composers are necessarily the greatest, but they couldn't have achieved their status without being great on some level.





Eva Yojimbo said:


> This is setting the standard for "greatness" the subjectivity of what people think about it, which is precisely the point subjectivists are arguing. First, you can have objective data about subjective preferences, but this is Strange Magic's "polling." Second, and more importantly, nobody (no individual or group) is under obligation to accept "widely appreciated by a large number of people" as the standard for judging greatness. Were that the case all classical fans would deem Max Martin or any beloved pop star great.
> 
> Skill and talent are judged relative to a goal, and those goals are set by human minds and in many cases, especially in terms of the end-result of the art itself, is extremely variable. At least with musicians the universal goal is to be able to play as much as possible with the greatest facility on their instruments so we can somewhat judge skill/talent relative to that goal. Aesthetic quality doesn't really have such universal agreement as there are too many possible objective features in art that people value differently.
> 
> What you've described isn't objective greatness, it's greatness relative to subjective standards, which is what subjectivists are arguing for.





4chamberedklavier said:


> I see your main objection is with my choice of standards. That's understandable. I have to clarify what I meant by "objective". For me, something is "objective" when it asks a question that only has one answer. If you accept the criteria that I mentioned, then the answer to whether or not a composer fits the criteria is either "yes" or "no". Can't be both.
> 
> You may not agree with my choice of standards, but I think that choosing standards is a separate issue from evaluating something given a certain set of standards. Something can be objectively true, even if the standards were subjectively chosen.
> 
> fwiw, I think this discussion would benefit greatly if the people here all agreed on what standards they would like use in order to define "greatness".





Eva Yojimbo said:


> I could quibble with how you’re defining objective but it’s not too important given that I fundamentally agree with what you’re saying. This is like my chess analogy: if we all agree on/accept the rules/goals of the game (which were created by human minds and can be changed by those same minds) then we can judge the goodness/badness of a move relative to those rules or goals. I would tentatively agree that we can do the same in art, with the caveats that I would describe this process as “judgments relative to agreed upon goals/standards” rather than “objective;” and with the recognition that there are many such goals/standards because art is complex and people value different things about art to different degrees, and that when disagreements arise there is no judging objective goodness/badness if we can’t agree on the standards or how to value them.


Now, 4chamberedklavier "liked" my last post but didn't respond, so I assume this means he either agreed with me, or just didn't feel like responding anymore. Either way, one key difference in this exchange and the vast majority I've had on here was his ability to immediately recognize my objections, repeat them back to me in a way that demonstrated this understanding, and clarify what he meant over the things we "disagreed" about. Most here have not been able to do this, and, in fact, many have presented "subjectivist" views that both myself and Strange Magic have said completely misunderstand/misrepresent our views. Given that I could reach this mutual understanding with 4chamberedklavier after 4(!) posts while I have not been able to with others suggests the fault isn't with myself. As always, I could be wrong, and am open to evidence to the contrary.


----------



## DaveM

Eva Yojimbo said:


> ..Given that I could reach this mutual understanding with 4chamberedklavier after 4(!) posts while I have not been able to with others suggests the fault isn't with myself.


Ah, the ole ‘the exception is the rule’ gambit.


----------



## Eva Yojimbo

DaveM said:


> Ah, the ole ‘the exception is the rule’ gambit.


Maybe 4chamberedklavier is just an exceptionally reasonable proponent for the objectivist side and I should not expect that from everyone else.


----------



## Forster

mmsbls said:


> knowledgeable people (those trained in art by, for example, years of analysis, reading others' analysis, discussing these analyses, etc.) can define characteristics of art that they all, or mostly, agree are important and that they can evaluate these characteristics to determine quality and excellence in works. Those who are knowledgeable can generally agree on the evaluation of these characteristics to determine which works are excellent or superior. There is subjectivity in the selection of characteristics and the evaluation of these characteristics, but the subjectivity results in only modest variation


As I pointed out earlier, the BBC Music Magazine's polls represent this view at work. However, there is more than "modest variation" in the results, which may have arisen from differences between individual "knowledgeable people" in their interpretation of criteria; or differences in application of the criteria; or, simply, differences in preferences. (This assumes that all those polled take the exercise equally seriously of course).

Others have also argued that if the evidence to support the criteria chosen for evaluation (say, "originality"), and the evidence arising from the application of the criteria (say "Eroica was the first symphony to break with some of the established conventions of the symphony as composed by Haydn and Mozart") were objective and obvious, there would surely be universal agreement The fact that in a poll of "knowledgeable people", Mozart, Mahler and Beethoven (et al) were all claimed to have written the "greatest symphony" rather confirms that such objectivity is elusive at best.

@mmsbls I appreciate that you were not setting forth a case for this, only setting out a description of the people who believe these things. Your post just seemed a convenient place at which I could make my point about variation in evaluation countering the notion of objective judgement.


----------



## BachIsBest

Eva Yojimbo said:


> Maybe 4chamberedklavier is just an exceptionally reasonable proponent for the objectivist side and I should not expect that from everyone else.


This is truly shocking. You view the person with the views the closest to your own as the most reasonable? What?



I know I said I might be out of this thread, but I have no willpower when it comes to these things.


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## BachIsBest

Forster said:


> As I pointed out earlier, the BBC Music Magazine's polls represent this view at work. However, there is more than "modest variation" in the results, which may have arisen from differences between individual "knowledgeable people" in their interpretation of criteria; or differences in application of the criteria; or, simply, differences in preferences. (This assumes that all those polled take the exercise equally seriously of course).
> 
> Others have also argued that if the evidence to support the criteria chosen for evaluation (say, "originality"), and the evidence arising from the application of the criteria (say "Eroica was the first symphony to break with some of the established conventions of the symphony as composed by Haydn and Mozart") were objective and obvious, there would surely be universal agreement The fact that in a poll of "knowledgeable people", Mozart, Mahler and Beethoven (et al) were all claimed to have written the "greatest symphony" rather confirms that such objectivity is elusive at best.
> 
> @mmsbls I appreciate that you were not setting forth a case for this, only setting out a description of the people who believe these things. Your post just seemed a convenient place at which I could make my point about variation in evaluation confounding the notion of objective judgement.


But there is a large amount of agreement, it just depends on what question you ask. If you ask "who is the #1 greatest violinist ever TM", then there will be a lot of disagreement, but no one here is claiming this has an objective answer. If you ask, was Yehudi Menuhin a great violinist, yes or no, to a group of knowledgeable violin experts, I can't imagine your going to get many noes.


----------



## Forster

BachIsBest said:


> But there is a large amount of agreement, it just depends on what question you ask. If you ask "who is the #1 greatest violinist ever TM", then there will be a lot of disagreement, but no one here is claiming this has an objective answer. If you ask, was Yehudi Menuhin a great violinist, yes or no, to a group of knowledgeable violin experts, I can't imagine your going to get many noes.


Yes, there is a lot of agreement, and a lot of disagreement. As for the role of the question, yes, it affects the outcomes, but that is part of the business of the criteria for evaluation, which remains unclear.

The reason this question comes up so often is because of the extent to which some TC members do make claims of comparative greatness (or not) for this music, that composer or these musicians. See this thread for example, but my search for threads with 'greatest' in the title came up with 369 results!

eg Your list of the five greatest composers

Despite the lengthy toing and froing about subjectivity and objectivity in the abstract, it's only of interest when it's applied in practice, and there seems to have been a reluctance to offer worked examples.


----------



## Waehnen

It really is a question of defining the subjective and the objective in a particular conversation. A conversation with different definitions is bound to fail — and result in something like this thread.

That is why I suggested a category system in the OP. We could link our statements to one or more categories and also discuss the relevance of the links if needed, in the open.

It should be noted that for example Strange Magic refused to discuss or refer to the categories despite me suggesting it. It resulted in me concluding that I cannot discuss these things further with Strange Magic in a theoretical context. Exchanging slogans is not conversation. In practical context, for sure we can talk.


----------



## Strange Magic

Waehnen said:


> It really is a question of defining the subjective and the objective in a particular conversation. A conversation with different definitions is bound to fail — and result in something like this thread.
> 
> That is why I suggested a category system in the OP. We could link our statements to one or more categories and also discuss the relevance of the links if needed, in the open.
> 
> It should be noted that for example Strange Magic refused to discuss or refer to the categories despite me suggesting it. It resulted in me concluding that I cannot discuss these things further with Strange Magic in a theoretical context. Exchanging slogans is not conversation. In practical context, for sure we can talk.


Not at all sure what you are referring to here about categories? A) We lost you in this thread many pages ago so I cannot remember anything other than your original 9 Points. I could have missed something but you may recall that I was the only one to pick up your Point #2 and run with it. Few followed. B) I don't exchange slogans as my position generates the enunciation of facts. Area=pi times the radius squared is not slogan. The elements of my thesis are facts that have so far not been controverted. Fact: There is not an iota of evidence that artistic value or greatness or whatever immeasurable property of art is anything other than opinion. We can very accurately measure or discover an art objects' creator, mass, color, duration, density, when created, where, complexity (standards to be agreed upon), etc. Value or "greatness" are only affixed to art objects by polling individuals or clusters of individuals. I think (or hope) we dispensed with the idea of inherent, integral excellence or greatness being found like an ether wind inside the art object itself; the value or greatness are ascribed to the art object by the mind/will/attention of the observer. If these are slogans, then I stand guilty. Are you looking for compromise? You will not get it from me. The earth is either a somewhat oblate spheroid or it is not.


----------



## Strange Magic

mmsbls said:


> I have posted that I believe the "two sides" (i.e. those arguing against each other's position) in this thread are actually arguing different theses. I would like to ask you if you feel:
> 
> 1) Those on the other side from you actually believe you are correct in arguing that aesthetics and value judgments in art are subjective. However, they feel that knowledgeable people (those trained in art by, for example, years of analysis, reading others' analysis, discussing these analyses, etc.) can define characteristics of art that they all, or mostly, agree are important and that they can evaluate these characteristics to determine quality and excellence in works. Those who are knowledgeable can generally agree on the evaluation of these characteristics to determine which works are excellent or superior. There is subjectivity in the selection of characteristics and the evaluation of these characteristics, but the subjectivity results in only modest variation allowing others with similar views to find the analyses very useful. (Those on the "other side" may disagree somewhat with the details of my description of their position, but it roughly gets at what they are arguing.)
> 
> 2) Those on the other side believe that knowledgeable people can make objective evaluations of works. That the methodology used (selection of characteristics, evaluation of characteristics, and weighting of characteristics) is objective and not a product of individual people who have can have varying views.


The question you posed is not what I believe about art evaluation but what I believe that others believe--a very important difference that not all grasped, I fear. To directly answer your question--not only do I believe, but it is abundantly clear that the opponents of my sort of subjectivism fall into both camps. Whether equally would have to be determined by polling each of my opponents and summing the results. I do regard that both groups have fallen into Error, but the differences in their error are substantial, with Group #1 being the less dogmatic. My position is dogmatic, and I recognize that. But it is polling that is the beating heart of the objectivist position yet they cannot see it, or can, but their zeal overwhelms them and they find the necessary clothing for the emperor.


----------



## Waehnen

Strange Magic said:


> Not at all sure what you are referring to here about categories? A) We lost you in this thread many pages ago so I cannot remember anything other than your original 9 Points. I could have missed something but you may recall that I was the only one to pick up your Point #2 and run with it. Few followed. B) I don't exchange slogans as my position generates the enunciation of facts. Area=pi times the radius squared is not slogan. The elements of my thesis are facts that have so far not been controverted. Fact: There is not an iota of evidence that artistic value or greatness or whatever immeasurable property of art is anything other than opinion. We can very accurately measure or discover an art objects' creator, mass, color, duration, density, when created, where, complexity (standards to be agreed upon), etc. Value or "greatness" are only affixed to art objects by polling individuals or clusters of individuals. I think (or hope) we dispensed with the idea of inherent, integral excellence or greatness being found like an ether wind inside the art object itself; the value or greatness are ascribed to the art object by the mind/will/attention of the observer. If these are slogans, then I stand guilty. Are you looking for compromise? You will not get it from me. The earth is either a somewhat oblate spheroid or it is not.


I am sorry to be blunt but your great simplification in this matter is effectively a slogan. Nothing is to be gained by dogmatism over a slogan. Nothing truly valuable is built of the slogan. The slogan is just to be repeated.

A compromise is a deal by at least two parties, and it would seem to me that you do not seek a deal. You seek to repeat a slogan. A slogan that is of no practical or theoretical use to me. 

Your slogan is of course very interesting and I am happy you have let us know it! So thanks.


----------



## Strange Magic

Waehnen said:


> I am sorry to be blunt but your great simplification in this matter is effectively a slogan. Nothing is to be gained by dogmatism over a slogan. Nothing truly valuable is built of the slogan. The slogan is just to be repeated.
> 
> A compromise is a deal by at least two parties, and it would seem to me that you do not seek a deal. You seek to repeat a slogan. A slogan that is of no practical or theoretical use to me.
> 
> Your slogan is of course very interesting and I am happy you have let us know it! So thanks.


I am delighted that you understand my position (for the most part). A) The issues are simple; the facts are incontrovertable. If stating and restating the obvious is sloganeering , then e=mc squared is a slogan. B) I do not seek compromise or a deal; you are correct there. As I asked you before, is the Earth a sphere or a cube? The compromise position is that it is a cube with softly rounded corners and edges. Why do you seek compromise so fervently? If it's discussion you want, you got it 41-fold here in this thread.

P.S. Did you read my previous post, or just quote it? It says everything I have repeated here.


----------



## hammeredklavier

Woodduck said:


> 5. Our appreciation of art - our enjoyment of it and our ability to evaluate it - is not fixed, but is expanded and deepened by exposure and study. We learn to recognize and respond to qualities we didn't see before.


Which begs the questions:


hammeredklavier said:


> Let's say there are composers (or works) "A" and "B".
> With A, you didn't see his (its) "merits" at first, but you've had roughly 1000 hours of listening to his music (it), and now you "recognize" them. (At least you think you do.)
> With B, you've had only 10 hours of listening to his music (it). At this point, you treat B the same way you treated A back then when you had only 10 hours of listening to A.
> 
> 1. Would you decide that A is "objectively superior" to B artistically anyway?
> 2. (If you said yes to 1,) wouldn't the decision be "unfair" to B (in comparison to your current treatment of A)?
> 3. How would you know if the following is true or false at this point: 'B also has his (its) merits, its just that you don't recognize them cause you haven't spent enough time with his music (it).'


----------



## Waehnen

Strange Magic said:


> I am delighted that you understand my position (for the most part). A) The issues are simple; the facts are incontrovertable. If stating and restating the obvious is sloganeering , then e=mc squared is a slogan. B) I do not seek compromise or a deal; you are correct there. As I asked you before, is the Earth a sphere or a cube? The compromise position is that it is a cube with softly rounded corners and edges. Why do you seek compromise so fervently? If it's discussion you want, you got it 41-fold here in this thread.
> 
> P.S. Did you read my previous post, or just quote it? It says everything I have repeated here.


Just commenting that I really do not see your slogan a fact like the scientific formulas you quote. Even the term 'opinion' so fervently used by you is very vague indeed, hardly a fact. Should we look deeper into these sloganous terms 'polling' and 'opinion' and reflect them upon the 9 points in the OP, we might actually get somewhere. But you insist on just sticking to the slogan. As it is, I gain nothing by pondering over the slogan as it is in me to get further. But it´s OK, I suppose. 

Later on I might actually compare these 2 musical pieces and reflect them on the 9 points in the OP.

*Piece A*
Mahler: Symphony no 2 performed by Klemperer/Philharmonia, recorded by a professional record company

*Piece B*
5 year old: A pentatonic improvisation on the black keys of a piano on a Sunday afternoon, recorded by a cell phone

Is it merely just "polled opinions" that the Mahler is considered the more valuable artistic work of the two, and should we just admit that there is nothing more to be said on the matter? That in the polls Mahler gets more points and that´s it.

Or could we possible say something more on the matter? Something that would more accurately and thoroughly describe the world we live in, and through that, actually result in something useful and constructive. 

It is the difference of being a smart-*** and a serious contributor.


----------



## Strange Magic

BachIsBest said:


> But there is a large amount of agreement, it just depends on what question you ask. If you ask "who is the #1 greatest violinist ever TM", then there will be a lot of disagreement, but no one here is claiming this has an objective answer. If you ask, was Yehudi Menuhin a great violinist, yes or no, to a group of knowledgeable violin experts, I can't imagine your going to get many noes.


If it can be shown that violinist X most closely followed the composer's score and made the fewest outright errors. one could establish a greatest or even great violinist, just like one could determine the greatest typist. If beauty of expression is the key, then we are instantly in polling mode.


----------



## Strange Magic

Waehnen said:


> Just commenting that I really do not see your slogan a fact like the scientific formulas you quote. Even the term 'opinion' so fervently used by you is very vague indeed, hardly a fact. Should we look deeper into these sloganous terms 'polling' and 'opinion' and reflect them upon the 9 points in the OP, we might actually get somewhere. But you insist on just sticking to the slogan. As it is, I gain nothing by pondering over the slogan as it is in me to get further. But it´s OK, I suppose.
> 
> Later on I might actually compare these 2 musical pieces and reflect them on the 9 points in the OP.
> 
> *Piece A*
> Mahler: Symphony no 2 performed by Klemperer/Philharmonia, recorded by a professional record company
> 
> *Piece B*
> 5 year old: A pentatonic improvisation on the black keys of a piano on a Sunday afternoon, recorded by a cell phone
> 
> Is it merely just "polled opinions" that the Mahler is considered the more valuable artistic work of the two, and should we just admit that there is nothing more to be said on the matter? That in the polls Mahler gets more points and that´s it.
> 
> Or could we possible say something more on the matter? Something that would more accurately and thoroughly describe the world we live in, and through that, actually result in something useful and constructive.


 We can confidently state our individual views and opinions on such a comparison and all other comparisons in the arts. Error comes in when we attribute to our opinions the fixity of "correctness" outside our own perceptions. Then we poll others. They agree. Or not. You are becoming more familiar with my argumenst, I sense, and someday my arguments will be found to be more than sloganeering.


----------



## Waehnen

Strange Magic said:


> We can confidently state our individual views and opinions on such a comparison and all other comparisons in the arts. Error comes in when we attribute to our opinions the fixity of "correctness" outside our own perceptions. Then we poll others. They agree. Or not. You are becoming more familiar with my argumenst, I sense, and someday my arguments will be found to be more than sloganeering.


What is wrong with this stament?

_"In the context of the western art music it is generally agreed that Piece A is considered artistically and aesthetically more valuable than Piece B and through analysis many reasons contributing to this result can be described."_


----------



## Strange Magic

Waehnen said:


> What is wrong with this stament?
> 
> _"In the context of the western art music it is generally agreed that Piece A is considered artistically and aesthetically more valuable than Piece B and through analysis many reasons contributing to this result can be described."_


Nothing. "Generally considered" is the giveaway. If we acknowledge that, we are halfway home (to somewhere).


----------



## Waehnen

Strange Magic said:


> \
> 
> Nothing. "Generally considered" is the giveaway. If we acknowledge that, we are halfway home (to somewhere).


Cool.


----------



## Strange Magic

The results of a poll are facts--among a certain cluster, Beethoven was considered a great or the greatest composer.
What is not a fact is that the intrinsic greatness of Beethoven is not objectively established or establishable--it is only asserted by the poll. Grouped opinions are still opinions.


----------



## Waehnen

Strange Magic said:


> The results of a poll are facts--among a certain cluster, Beethoven was considered a great or the greatest composer.
> What is not a fact is that the intrinsic greatness of Beethoven is not objectively established or establishable--it is only asserted by the poll. Grouped opinions are still opinions.


I much prefer this

_"In the context of the western art music it is generally agreed that Piece A is considered artistically and aesthetically more valuable than Piece B and through analysis many reasons contributing to this result can be described."_

to this

_"Everything is just opinions in a poll"._

The first statement shows some appreciation and respect. The latter statement shows disrespect and downplaying.


----------



## hammeredklavier

Music is a different animal from visual arts when it comes to appreciation; with visual arts, you can instantly see what the artist expresses by observing in sight. Whereas music takes time to be listened to and how much you see and appreciate can depend on how much time you've spent listening. This is why, in music, the phenomenon (experts not knowing _everything_, because they have only so much time to spend listening to music, just like us) I described in this thread (see pages 24 and onward) happens.

Of course I've wept (sometimes uncontrollably) listening to Mozart. Of course I could indulge in _sentimental rhetorics_ like "Haydn could never write anything like Mozart K.488; so he's objectively inferior in artistic achievement" (just like you), and kid myself that a valid argument of the converse ("Mozart never wrote anything like Haydn's [X]") can never be made objectively.
You can accuse me of not perceiving Mozart's "mastery" (whatever that means), but I rather think I'm smart enough to avoid indulging in idolatry or bias, to know what's "idolatry" and what's "healthy admiration", to try to take a step back and have a broader view of the composers' works (to see the forest rather than the tree), and judge things fairly by considering all aspects (eg. "average level of maturity and quality across the works").
You can either prove to me you've put in the time, effort, and consideration, or _stop pretending like you know everything_.


----------



## 4chamberedklavier

I would hazard to say that the connotation of a "poll" is a source of misunderstanding here. To say something is just polling could imply that whatever conclusions that can be drawn from the poll are only applicable to a specific group and not to society at large. It should be made clear that while conventional aesthetic values are technically a result of polling, these values did not arise from a small portion of the population that has been "polled", but from most of the world both in the past & present. So whatever conclusions are drawn from this poll are more significant than the word "poll" suggests.


----------



## mmsbls

Forster said:


> As I pointed out earlier, the BBC Music Magazine's polls represent this view at work. However, there is more than "modest variation" in the results, which may have arisen from differences between individual "knowledgeable people" in their interpretation of criteria; or differences in application of the criteria; or, simply, differences in preferences. (This assumes that all those polled take the exercise equally seriously of course).


There was large variation in this poll caused in part by asking for only 5 responses from each participant, including personal enjoyment as one of 4 criteria, and asking a question that was not well defined (Who is the greatest?). As some suggested, they likely would have gotten much better agreement if they had asked "Do you believe X is great?" even though "great" is not well defined.



> Others have also argued that if the evidence to support the criteria chosen for evaluation (say, "originality"), and the evidence arising from the application of the criteria (say "Eroica was the first symphony to break with some of the established conventions of the symphony as composed by Haydn and Mozart") were objective and obvious, there would surely be universal agreement The fact that in a poll of "knowledgeable people", Mozart, Mahler and Beethoven (et al) were all claimed to have written the "greatest symphony" rather confirms that such objectivity is elusive at best.


Agreed. Again, though it still would remain a subjective question, "Did Mozart, Mahler and Beethoven write great symphonies?" would get much more agreement.



> @mmsbls I appreciate that you were not setting forth a case for this, only setting out a description of the people who believe these things. Your post just seemed a convenient place at which I could make my point about variation in evaluation countering the notion of objective judgement.


Sure. The variation in evaluation is evidence for subjectivity. Thinking about the process of evaluation leads some of us to the conclusion that "It's obviously subjective."


----------



## 59540

4chamberedklavier said:


> I would hazard to say that the connotation of a "poll" is a source of misunderstanding here. To say something is just polling could imply that whatever conclusions that can be drawn from the poll are only applicable to a specific group and not to society at large. It should be made clear that while conventional aesthetic values are technically a result of polling, these values did not arise from a small portion of the population that has been "polled", but from most of the world both in the past & present. So whatever conclusions are drawn from this poll are more significant than the word "poll" suggests.


Well also just saying "it's all a poll" doesn't say anything at all about what those commonly-held values _are_. It's sweeping it under the rug.


----------



## mmsbls

Waehnen said:


> It really is a question of defining the subjective and the objective in a particular conversation. A conversation with different definitions is bound to fail — and result in something like this thread.
> 
> That is why I suggested a category system in the OP. We could link our statements to one or more categories and also discuss the relevance of the links if needed, in the open.


I, and others in the thread, agree about definitions. One problem in a forum is that the effort necessary to fully define terms can be exhausting. Philosophers can spend a whole chapter on definitions. People here won't do that, nor will they read and use others' attempts to define terms. Your 9 categories could make the discussion more interesting and potentially lead to greater (or even some) agreement though I suspect that fully defining them would lead to more exhaustive discussion. For example, I'm a materialist who views neurology of music as fact. If we knew enough about the brain and sensory inputs, we could predict everyone's response to music as it varied over time.


----------



## 59540

mmsbls said:


> ... For example, I'm a materialist who views neurology of music as fact. If we knew enough about the brain and sensory inputs, we could predict everyone's response to music as it varied over time.


I don't know. That might run into quantum indeterminacy.


----------



## mmsbls

Waehnen said:


> I am sorry to be blunt but your great simplification in this matter is effectively a slogan. Nothing is to be gained by dogmatism over a slogan. Nothing truly valuable is built of the slogan. The slogan is just to be repeated.
> 
> A compromise is a deal by at least two parties, and it would seem to me that you do not seek a deal. You seek to repeat a slogan. A slogan that is of no practical or theoretical use to me.
> 
> Your slogan is of course very interesting and I am happy you have let us know it! So thanks.


The term polling, though accurate in a sense, is perhaps unfortunate because it has connotations that probably are unintended. Strange Magic does not truly mean that all musical evaluations are done by asking a value question and having people answer by, for example, selecting a response in a poll online as we do for many "easier" questions (e.g. which is your favorite ice cream flavor?). He's aware that the process of polling in this case can be the outcome of years of study, numerous discussions with others, and possibly many changes in one's thinking. He's simply saying that ultimately, no matter how involved one's thinking, answers to value questions include personal views on a variety of issues relevant to the result. So when he says, "It's all opinion", that's shorthand for a set of potentially detailed, knowledge laden results that include areas of subjectivity. 

For me the two largest subjective areas are choice of metrics or criteria and weighting of those metrics (how important is one relative to another). Given variation in the metrics and weighting, there could be enormous variation in output (e.g. P-funk over Beethoven 9).

NOTE: Strange Magic, I hope I have not misstated your view here.


----------



## mmsbls

dissident said:


> I don't know. That might run into quantum indeterminacy.


It might, and some physicists seem to believe that quantum effects are important for free will (e.g. Penrose). Most I think would view those effects as having a miniscule impact on the macroscopic outputs of brains. Even if the impact was not small, one could in theory give objective probabilities for responses.


----------



## hammeredklavier

Waehnen said:


> *Piece A*
> Mahler: Symphony no 2 performed by Klemperer/Philharmonia, recorded by a professional record company
> *Piece B*
> 5 year old: A pentatonic improvisation on the black keys of a piano on a Sunday afternoon, recorded by a cell phone
> 
> Is it merely just "polled opinions" that the Mahler is considered the more valuable artistic work of the two, and should we just admit that there is nothing more to be said on the matter? That in the polls Mahler gets more points and that´s it.


How do we explain this phenomenon?:


Tchaikov6 said:


> that's silly. There are plenty of rap albums I enjoy more than certain 19th century sleep-inducing Romantic symphonies. Comments like these are what make other genre lovers look upon classical fans as snobs.





Tchaikov6 said:


> Music is subjective. Period. I don't think anyone would argue against that? There is plenty of rap music I enjoy than certain Bach and Mozart pieces (that happen to be my two favorite composers). There is no "greatest work" and someone's junk can be someone else's masterpiece.


----------



## Strange Magic

Waehnen said:


> I much prefer this
> 
> _"In the context of the western art music it is generally agreed that Piece A is considered artistically and aesthetically more valuable than Piece B and through analysis many reasons contributing to this result can be described."_
> 
> to this
> 
> _"Everything is just opinions in a poll"._
> 
> The first statement shows some appreciation and respect. The latter statement shows disrespect and downplaying.


Where does truth fit into your position? Your quest for everybody getting along and fudging their differences is laudatory but it has its drawbacks.


----------



## Waehnen

hammeredklavier said:


> How do we explain this phenomenon?:


When there are gifted and diligent musicians and composers putting their effort in a piece of music, it is likely to be weighty music inside the genre. I have no interest in lifting one music genre above some other. 

I for example dislike rap and R&B and "Stevie Wonder kind of music", and to be honest, I do not understand the fine things about that music. But I would never say there is no quality in the music. Neither would I participate in any "polling" on music I have no knowledge about and which does not interest me.


----------



## Waehnen

Strange Magic said:


> Where does truth fit into your position? Your quest for everybody getting along and fudging their differences is laudatory but it has its drawbacks.


The first statement is what I see as the truth on this matter.


----------



## Strange Magic

4chamberedklavier said:


> I would hazard to say that the connotation of a "poll" is a source of misunderstanding here. To say something is just polling could imply that whatever conclusions that can be drawn from the poll are only applicable to a specific group and not to society at large. It should be made clear that while conventional aesthetic values are technically a result of polling, these values did not arise from a small portion of the population that has been "polled", but from most of the world both in the past & present. So whatever conclusions are drawn from this poll are more significant than the word "poll" suggests.


This is a strange position. Please show me a poll of most of the world (even as a thought experiment) wherein Beethoven is regarded as the greatest composer or that the 9th is the greatest music ever. Polling and the group polled will generate ultimately whatever conclusion you want to draw. Among the Beethoven Fan Club, if polled, the results will likely be predictable but even there there may be disagreement over the 9th and the 3rd. How about Bob Dylan? You can supply many more counterexamples yourself.


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## Strange Magic

dissident said:


> Well also just saying "it's all a poll" doesn't say anything at all about what those commonly-held values _are_. It's sweeping it under the rug.


That is correct. The subject of values is another thread entirely.


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## Strange Magic

Waehnen said:


> The first statement is what I see as the truth on this matter.


What does this mean? Please clarify.


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## DaveM

Strange Magic said:


> ..But it is polling that is the beating heart of the objectivist position yet they cannot see it, or can, but their zeal overwhelms them and they find the necessary clothing for the emperor.


I could have sworn that I’ve heard that before. The thing is that the pure subjectivity position is a rigid, one-trick-pony position. It doesn’t require much in the way of intellectual inquiry. On the other hand, the subjectivity/objectivist position is nuanced. It recognizes the significant role of subjectivity that accounts for and allows for the variations in opinions and the fact that there will be disagreements when it comes to such things as the exact order in polls.

But it also allows for objectivity when a blueprint/foundation has been set for artistic accomplishment in an era such as Common Practice. Thus there is an objective basis for recognizing and declaring the great composers and the iconic classical works. When, over centuries and among many different cultures, the same composers and works have been judged similarly, there is something more at work than rank subjectivity and ‘polling’. When concerts for situations of profound sadness and worry for the future are programmed, a poll isn’t necessary to decide on the content. There is objective experience about which works will reassure and raise spirits as they have over decades.


----------



## BachIsBest

Forster said:


> Yes, there is a lot of agreement, and a lot of disagreement. As for the role of the question, yes, it affects the outcomes, but that is part of the business of the criteria for evaluation, which remains unclear.
> 
> The reason this question comes up so often is because of the extent to which some TC members do make claims of comparative greatness (or not) for this music, that composer or these musicians. See this thread for example, but my search for threads with 'greatest' in the title came up with 369 results!
> 
> eg Your list of the five greatest composers
> 
> Despite the lengthy toing and froing about subjectivity and objectivity in the abstract, it's only of interest when it's applied in practice, and there seems to have been a reluctance to offer worked examples.


Although such threads of "five greatest composers" can be fun, to make a contribution or see what other members put, surely no one takes the results as objective gospel truth? Nobody here believes such things.


----------



## Woodduck

DaveM said:


> I could have sworn that I’ve heard that before. The thing is that the pure subjectivity position is a rigid, one-trick-pony position. It doesn’t require much in the way of intellectual inquiry. On the other hand, the subjectivity/objectivist position is nuanced. It recognizes the significant role of subjectivity that accounts for and allows for the variations in opinions and the fact that there will be disagreements when it comes to such things as the exact order in polls.
> 
> But it also allows for objectivity when a blueprint/foundation has been set for artistic accomplishment in an era such as Common Practice. Thus there is an objective basis for recognizing and declaring the great composers and the iconic classical works. *When, over centuries and among many different cultures, the same composers and works have been judged similarly, there is something more at work than rank subjectivity and ‘polling’. When concerts for situations of profound sadness and worry for the future are programmed, a poll isn’t necessary to decide on the content. There is objective experience about which works will reassure and raise spirits as they have over decades.*


The "something more at work" is, as you say,_ terra incognita_ to the radical subjectivists. They - at least the two or three who take up most of the oxygen here - have nothing, or nothing useful - to say about the roots and significance of the impact art has on humanity, while demanding "facts" and "proof" of a notion of objectivity that virtually no one believes in.


----------



## Woodduck

Strange Magic said:


> The subject of values is another thread entirely.


Afre you saying that artistic values can be discussed without reference to wider human values?


----------



## DaveM

Strange Magic said:


> This is a strange position. Please show me a poll of most of the world (even as a thought experiment) wherein Beethoven is regarded as the greatest composer or that the 9th is the greatest music ever. Polling and the group polled will generate ultimately whatever conclusion you want to draw. Among the Beethoven Fan Club, if polled, the results will likely be predictable but even there there may be disagreement over the 9th and the 3rd. How about Bob Dylan? You can supply many more counterexamples yourself.


Well, you know that, in this case, it is the world of classical music. Serious polls regarding the composers and works of the CP era will have similar results in the most important areas. Sadly, almost all the polls I’ve seen on TC. have not been serious, certainly not when Dvorak is declared a top 5 composer (by one contributor).


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## mmsbls

DaveM said:


> I could have sworn that I’ve heard that before. The thing is that the pure subjectivity position is a rigid, one-trick-pony position. It doesn’t require much in the way of intellectual inquiry. On the other hand, the subjectivity/objectivist position is nuanced. It recognizes the significant role of subjectivity that accounts for and allows for the variations in opinions and the fact that there will be disagreements when it comes to such things as the exact order in polls.


I agree that the subjectivity position does not require much intellectual inquiry. That's why I said awhile back that it's obvious. The selection of criteria, evaluation of those criteria, and weighting of the criteria all involve subjective components thus making the output subjective. As you say, your position recognizes the "significant role of subjectivity." 



> But it also allows for objectivity when a blueprint/foundation has been set for artistic accomplishment in an era such as Common Practice. Thus there is an objective basis for recognizing and declaring the great composers and the iconic classical works. ...


I assume when you say "a blueprint/foundation has been set" you mean here that a group of, let's say, experts has selected a set of criteria to evaluate for CP works. I assume you recognize that, although there may be widespread agreement among those experts, the selection of criteria is still subjective. But let's move past that. Once the criteria is set, people will evaluate works or composers by that set of criteria. Evaluating a particular criterion involves some subjective assessment. A work might be viewed as innovative, but exactly how innovative? Once you've finished evaluating all the criteria, one must determine how important each criterion is (weighting the criteria). Is innovation more or less important than form? And how much more or less important? Without determining the weighting, how can you use both criteria together for an overall assessment? 

Do you truly believe that the process of evaluating a work/composer is objective once the criteria are set? Even if the outcome is simply to determine if a composer is great or important or accomplished, one must set a standard of greatness, importance, or accomplishment to compare one's assessment against. Setting that standard is clearly subjective. 

Would you be OK with saying, "Thus there is a _rational_ basis for recognizing and declaring the great composers and the iconic classical works"?


----------



## mmsbls

DaveM said:


> Well, you know that, in this case, it is the world of classical music. Serious polls regarding the composers and works of the CP era will have similar results in the most important areas. Sadly, almost all the polls I’ve seen on TC. have not been serious, certainly not when Dvorak is declared a top 5 composer (by one contributor).


Perhaps you are joking, but if not, isn't your contention that the polls must not be serious because another TC member has a distinctly different view of Dvorak than you do simply a demonstration of subjectivity? Some contemporary composers in the BBC poll did not take the poll seriously (e.g. all 5 selections were the same), but the others presumably took the poll very seriously. The poll involved their life's work. It would have been more interesting if they had selected more than 5 composers. Still, I assume they carefully thought about the criteria and made their selections, which turned out to be quite varied. Experts subjectively selected widely varying composers.


----------



## DaveM

mmsbls said:


> I assume when you say "a blueprint/foundation has been set" you mean here that a group of, let's say, experts has selected a set of criteria to evaluate for CP works. I assume you recognize that, although there may be widespread agreement among those experts, the selection of criteria is still subjective. But let's move past that.


Rather than by a group of experts, my view is that the criteria were set by the broad experience of listeners, composers, publishers, musicologists and instrumentalists over time. This didn’t happen overnight and therein is a clue as to why the criteria are rather profound. And by ‘experience’, I don’t just mean experience that implies conditioning or repeated exposure to the same general musical format, I also mean my experience as a 7 year old who with no encouragement or previous exposure picked up some dusty records in a basement and was entranced by a Brahms concerto. Some people of the era in question were moved by the music for no other reason than something in the music itself.



> Do you truly believe that the process of evaluating a work/composer is objective once the criteria are set? Even if the outcome is simply to determine if a composer is great or important or accomplished, one must set a standard of greatness, importance, or accomplishment to compare one's assessment against. Setting that standard is clearly subjective.


I think my view of the criteria above addresses this. I would add to that explanation that this was not criteria set in stone early on. It was a dynamic criteria that changed and grew in important and profound ways while still staying within certain boundaries (digressing: that were eventually totally removed in the 20th century). Thus occurred the transition of the baroque to classical to romantic CM.



> Would you be OK with saying, "Thus there is a _rational_ basis for recognizing and declaring the great composers and the iconic classical works"?


I suppose. Perhaps for some, ‘rational‘ works better than ‘objective’, but being okay with it doesn’t change my perspective that there is something far more important than general polling at play here.


----------



## Luchesi

Forster said:


> As I pointed out earlier, the BBC Music Magazine's polls represent this view at work. However, there is more than "modest variation" in the results, which may have arisen from differences between individual "knowledgeable people" in their interpretation of criteria; or differences in application of the criteria; or, simply, differences in preferences. (This assumes that all those polled take the exercise equally seriously of course).
> 
> Others have also argued that if the evidence to support the criteria chosen for evaluation (say, "originality"), and the evidence arising from the application of the criteria (say "Eroica was the first symphony to break with some of the established conventions of the symphony as composed by Haydn and Mozart") were objective and obvious, there would surely be universal agreement The fact that in a poll of "knowledgeable people", Mozart, Mahler and Beethoven (et al) were all claimed to have written the "greatest symphony" rather confirms that such objectivity is elusive at best.
> 
> @mmsbls I appreciate that you were not setting forth a case for this, only setting out a description of the people who believe these things. Your post just seemed a convenient place at which I could make my point about variation in evaluation countering the notion of objective judgement.


I agree that musicians will probably give a different answer to the questions of objectivity and subjectivity, than a non-musician would. And this factoid might make for spinning of wheels in a discussion.
I think every technical subject is like this, isn't it?


----------



## DaveM

mmsbls said:


> Perhaps you are joking, but if not, isn't your contention that the polls must not be serious because another TC member has a distinctly different view of Dvorak than you do simply a demonstration of subjectivity? Some contemporary composers in the BBC poll did not take the poll seriously (e.g. all 5 selections were the same), but the others presumably took the poll very seriously. The poll involved their life's work. It would have been more interesting if they had selected more than 5 composers. Still, I assume they carefully thought about the criteria and made their selections, which turned out to be quite varied. Experts subjectively selected widely varying composers.


There are more than one reason why these polls are not serious, insofar as most of them are loosey-goosey about defining what the poll is about. Simply saying ‘list the greatest composers’ seems to be defined by those who respond variably by ‘my favorites’ or (often from new listeners) ‘those that I’m listening to now and really like and which might change anytime’ or ‘those that are contemporary composers because I don’t like anything before 1900’. Thus, the more narrowly and carefully the poll is defined, the more likely the results will be based on some objectivity.

Personally, the BBC poll was of little use simply because, as you say, some took it seriously and others did not. While on the general subject, I would say that polls will have more significance if the comparisons are apples to apples and oranges to oranges. A poll which has contemporary composers picking composers that have a pittance of listeners and little or no ‘test of time’ over many of those of the CP era is, well, subjectivity at its worst.


----------



## mmsbls

DaveM said:


> Rather than by a group of experts, my view is that the criteria were set by the broad experience of listeners, composers, publishers, musicologists and instrumentalists over time. This didn’t happen overnight and therein is a clue as to why the criteria are rather profound. And by ‘experience’, I don’t just mean experience that implies conditioning or repeated exposure to the same general musical format, I also mean my experience as a 7 year old who with no encouragement or previous exposure picked up some dusty records in a basement and was entranced by a Brahms concerto. Some people of the era in question were moved by the music for no other reason than something in the music itself.


Ok, I guess I view composers, publishers, musicologists and instrumentalists as experts, but that doesn't matter. I think it also doesn't matter that the criteria were selected over a broad period of time. They were still selected by some "group" in a process that involved personal opinions even if those opinions often coincided. 



> I suppose. Perhaps for some, ‘rational‘ works better than ‘objective’, but being okay with it doesn’t change my perspective that there is something far more important than general polling at play here.


Yes, the term "general polling" may not be appropriate due to connotations of polling. The term polling can refer to the process of combining a large number of individual inputs from potentially highly knowledgeable people interacting over a long time period. It does not have to be considered simplistic or automatically devaluing the inputs. In this case the "poll" is rather valuable to those like me who wish to understand which composers or works are considered exceptional by those who have studied and thought about the question.


----------



## Eva Yojimbo

BachIsBest said:


> This is truly shocking. You view the person with the views the closest to your own as the most reasonable? What?
> 
> I know I said I might be out of this thread, but I have no willpower when it comes to these things.


I don't know what to say if you think my reason for praising his reasonableness has anything to do with the closeness of his views to my own. That post was clearly about his ability to quickly and clearly articulate a view close to what *mmsbls *mentioned in the post I responded to; the point being that if that's what other people think, they haven't expressed it very well. 

FWIW, I give posters like you a pass because you've expressed your "agnosticism" on the issue and have engaged with the arguments I've presented such that we've been able to make progress. My issue is with some other posters who clearly have strong feelings on this matter but have presented a very murky, woo-woo filled epistemology for justifying those strong feelings. Woodduck even refused to address one of my hypotheticals (after I'd addressed his) because he obviously didn't like what the hypothetical suggested about his position. Others have consistently misrepresented mine and SM's views, which you have not done... at least perhaps until this post.


----------



## Forster

mmsbls said:


> There was large variation in this poll caused in part by asking for only 5 responses from each participant, including personal enjoyment as one of 4 criteria, and asking a question that was not well defined (Who is the greatest?). As some suggested, they likely would have gotten much better agreement if they had asked "Do you believe X is great?" even though "great" is not well defined.
> 
> 
> 
> Agreed. Again, though it still would remain a subjective question, "Did Mozart, Mahler and Beethoven write great symphonies?" would get much more agreement.
> 
> 
> 
> Sure. The variation in evaluation is evidence for subjectivity. Thinking about the process of evaluation leads some of us to the conclusion that "It's obviously subjective."


Poll methodology is bound to affect the outcomes. In the TC thread I posted the link to, I made that point at the time.



BachIsBest said:


> Although such threads of "five greatest composers" can be fun, to make a contribution or see what other members put, surely no one takes the results as objective gospel truth? Nobody here believes such things.


Judging by some of the responses in that thread, and in other similar threads, and by the number of polls on the TC forums, I'd say some people take polls pretty seriously, and get quite agitated if the results are "wrong."

Unless you're suggesting that TC is only about fun, and no one here has anything serious to say about such things?

Anyway, I only posted the link to offer evidence to support my view that there is a reason why threads about objectivity etc come up so frequently.



Luchesi said:


> I agree that musicians will probably give a different answer to the questions of objectivity and subjectivity, than a non-musician would.


Is that what I said?


----------



## Strange Magic

DaveM said:


> I could have sworn that I’ve heard that before. The thing is that the pure subjectivity position is a rigid, one-trick-pony position. It doesn’t require much in the way of intellectual inquiry. On the other hand, the subjectivity/objectivist position is nuanced. It recognizes the significant role of subjectivity that accounts for and allows for the variations in opinions and the fact that there will be disagreements when it comes to such things as the exact order in polls.
> 
> But it also allows for objectivity when a blueprint/foundation has been set for artistic accomplishment in an era such as Common Practice. Thus there is an objective basis for recognizing and declaring the great composers and the iconic classical works. When, over centuries and among many different cultures, the same composers and works have been judged similarly, there is something more at work than rank subjectivity and ‘polling’. When concerts for situations of profound sadness and worry for the future are programmed, a poll isn’t necessary to decide on the content. There is objective experience about which works will reassure and raise spirits as they have over decades.


Nuance is a wonderful thing where it is both appropriate and operable. Where simplicity works just as well if not better, go with simplicity.


----------



## Strange Magic

Woodduck said:


> The "something more at work" is, as you say,_ terra incognita_ to the radical subjectivists. They - at least the two or three who take up most of the oxygen here - have nothing, or nothing useful - to say about the roots and significance of the impact art has on humanity, while demanding "facts" and "proof" of a notion of objectivity that virtually no one believes in.


The same could be said about another very widely distributed social construct that we ought not discuss on TC.


----------



## Woodduck

Strange Magic said:


> *Fact: There is not an iota of evidence that artistic value or greatness or whatever immeasurable property of art is anything other than opinion.* We can very accurately measure or discover an art objects' creator, *mass, color, duration, density, *when created, where, complexity (standards to be agreed upon), etc. *Value or "greatness" are only affixed to art objects by polling* individuals or clusters of individuals. I think (or hope) we dispensed with the idea of *inherent, integral excellence or greatness being found like an ether wind inside the art object itself*; the value or greatness are ascribed to the art object by the mind/will/attention of the observer. If these are slogans, then I stand guilty. *Are you looking for compromise? You will not get it from me. * The earth is either a somewhat oblate spheroid or it is not.


People who begin assertions with "FACT:" should immediately arouse suspicion, either of their grasp of facts or of their motives.

That said, it is not a "fact" that "there is not an iota of evidence that artistic value or greatness or whatever immeasurable property of art is anything other than opinion." Bluntly asserting something a million times doesn't make it factual. There are good reasons, and good reasons have been offered, for regarding art as having intrinsic merit, but you refuse to consider any of them and would prefer merely to "batter" (your word, not mine) people with your - wait for it - subjective opinion, offering no facts or data pertinent to the actual nature of art while demanding "facts," "data," "evidence" and "proof" of its merit from everyone else.

So what about your "factual" argument? Any argument entails assumptions - premises or axioms on which the argument rests - which are taken as given and unquestionable. Behind your argument I perceive two assumptions that look like unquestioned premises (there may be other important ones, but let's make a start).

1.) That any belief that can't be "proved," either by a syllogism or by an empirical demonstration satisfactory to any "rational" observer, can have no truth value. In other words, nothing that can't be proved to everyone by the methods of the physical sciences can constitute knowledge. It can only be a matter of ''subjective opinion" to be discovered by "polling."

2.) That the qualities "intrinsic" to a thing do not include what that thing does - how it functions in the world and the effects it has on things around it. Your insistence that excellence can't be found "in" a piece of music assumes this; it rejects the effects that the music produces in the world - emotionally, intellectually, physically, neurologically, culturally, historically - as a legitimate property of it. This is equivalent to saying that the moral character of a person should be found by dissecting him, and that if we don't find anything called "goodness" in his nerves or viscera the notion of goodness can't be attributed to him.

Both of these premises are merely assumptions, not facts. Together they suggest to me a particular way of conceptualizing reality - a way I'll dub, for the fun of it, "object reification" - which regards the universe as a collection of sharply bounded objects whose identities stop at their skins, objects that are adequately understood and defined if we don't consider their relationships and effects on each other, their position and function in a larger whole. Thus, if we want to claim that a piece of music has any merit, we must look for excellence - its _arete_ or _virtus_ - in its physical score or, at most, in its formal characteristics, and reject _a priori _the idea that a work's power to affect, influence and alter people's minds, emotions and culture is any part of its identity, and thus any valid contributor to a judgment of its value.

These two premises are only conceptualizations of reality, which may have utility in some circumstances but may misrepresent the world and be counterproductive in others, rather like Newtonian physics (about which you know more than I). They are not "reality itself," a phrase you tried to claim for yourself in a previous post. There are other ways of understanding our cosmic home than as a collection of discrete objects, and other kinds of truths than the "facts" that keep those objects in their conceptual boxes.

When you said in post #756 that "data and facts" are "always good," I responded quickly with post #791, laying out eight suggestions for "data and facts" I thought relevant to an approach to the question quality in art. You ignored that post completely, and personal motives aside, it's clear why you did. I offered data which rejects your "object reification" of art as a thing whose identity, and thus whose criteria of merit, can be divorced from its actions in the world. I can see why such considerations would not be "data" to you, and thus would have no relevance.

I welcome any correction or clarification of your beliefs, or your beliefs about your beliefs. Some of these thoughts are newly formulated and I might easily be mistaking or missing something.


----------



## Strange Magic

Woodduck said:


> Afre you saying that artistic values can be discussed without reference to wider human values?


Yes.


----------



## Strange Magic

mmsbls said:


> I agree that the subjectivity position does not require much intellectual inquiry. That's why I said awhile back that it's obvious. The selection of criteria, evaluation of those criteria, and weighting of the criteria all involve subjective components thus making the output subjective. As you say, your position recognizes the "significant role of subjectivity."
> 
> 
> 
> I assume when you say "a blueprint/foundation has been set" you mean here that a group of, let's say, experts has selected a set of criteria to evaluate for CP works. I assume you recognize that, although there may be widespread agreement among those experts, the selection of criteria is still subjective. But let's move past that. Once the criteria is set, people will evaluate works or composers by that set of criteria. Evaluating a particular criterion involves some subjective assessment. A work might be viewed as innovative, but exactly how innovative? Once you've finished evaluating all the criteria, one must determine how important each criterion is (weighting the criteria). Is innovation more or less important than form? And how much more or less important? Without determining the weighting, how can you use both criteria together for an overall assessment?
> 
> Do you truly believe that the process of evaluating a work/composer is objective once the criteria are set? Even if the outcome is simply to determine if a composer is great or important or accomplished, one must set a standard of greatness, importance, or accomplishment to compare one's assessment against. Setting that standard is clearly subjective.
> 
> Would you be OK with saying, "Thus there is a _rational_ basis for recognizing and declaring the great composers and the iconic classical works"?


Then there is always the case of _ex post facto _finding reasons to retroactively support why we had to have liked a work.


----------



## Luchesi

Forster said:


> Poll methodology is bound to affect the outcomes. In the TC thread I posted the link to, I made that point at the time.
> 
> 
> 
> Judging by some of the responses in that thread, and in other similar threads, and by the number of polls on the TC forums, I'd say some people take polls pretty seriously, and get quite agitated if the results are "wrong."
> 
> Unless you're suggesting that TC is only about fun, and no one here has anything serious to say about such things?
> 
> Anyway, I only posted the link to offer evidence to support my view that there is a reason why threads about objectivity etc come up so frequently.
> 
> 
> 
> Is that what I said?


Aren't we all agreeing about this?

If I dare take it a step further, musicians are very different people - have different brains from the time they're playing and becoming proficient, in their early teens hopefully.

Ergo, I think it's unfair to expect other people to be this odd, and have these experiences. So is it true that we just can't understand each other on a very deep level (so that it isn't likely to be understood in words between people so unlike each other)?

As an example, when you first want to hear a work, what is it that you want to hear or identify or figure out or be impressed by? I think our two answers would be very different.

I will hear some small (but crucial) part of it and I'll want to go to the score and see what they did..

and then I'll go back and forth..

or maybe I'll read the whole score first to see if I really want to do this and spend the time for just one interesting section of it. Why not just go right to that part, learn it, and then play it on the piano or whatever’s the musical originality in the work. I tell myself that there's always plenty of time to go back and hear the whole work, but that's problematic, there’s so little time for just attentive listening.


----------



## hammeredklavier

Strange Magic said:


> We can very accurately measure or discover an art objects' creator, mass, *color*, duration, density, when created, where, complexity (standards to be agreed upon), etc.






*(Why The Ancient Greeks Couldn't See Blue)*


----------



## Woodduck

Eva Yojimbo said:


> Woodduck even refused to address one of my hypotheticals (after I'd addressed his) because he obviously didn't like what the hypothetical suggested about his position.


I addressed your hypothetical by saying that it hypothesized something impossible. You didn't like that. Too bad. Don't make up stuff about what I did or didn't "address," or try to analyze my reasons to score points.

Suggestion: it's bad practice to characterize third parties until you're sure you aren't misrepresenting them.


----------



## Strange Magic

Luchesi said:


> I agree that musicians will probably give a different answer to the questions of objectivity and subjectivity, than a non-musician would. And this factoid might make for spinning of wheels in a discussion.
> I think every technical subject is like this, isn't it?


I don't think this is a technical discussion; it is a primary discussion about whether what we like in the arts is universal or particular. Everybody not only has a say but can have a say.


----------



## Woodduck

Woodduck said:
Are you saying that artistic values can be discussed without reference to wider human values?



Strange Magic said:


> Yes.


I not only disagree, but think that the failure to view art as an important expression of values is a gaping hole in any discussion of it.


----------



## Woodduck

................................................


----------



## Strange Magic

Woodduck said:


> People who begin assertions with "FACT:" should immediately arouse suspicion, either of their grasp of facts or of their motives.
> 
> That said, it is not a "fact" that "there is not an iota of evidence that artistic value or greatness or whatever immeasurable property of art is anything other than opinion." Bluntly asserting something a million times doesn't make it factual. There are good reasons, and good reasons have been offered, for regarding art as having intrinsic merit, but you refuse to consider any of them and would prefer merely to "batter" (your word, not mine) people with your - wait for it - subjective opinion, offering no facts or data pertinent to the actual nature of art while demanding "facts," "data," "evidence" and "proof" of its merit from everyone else.
> 
> So what about your "factual" argument? Any argument entails assumptions - premises or axioms on which the argument rests - which are taken as given and unquestionable. Behind your argument I perceive two assumptions that look like unquestioned premises (there may be other important ones, but let's make a start).
> 
> 1.) That any belief that can't be "proved," either by a syllogism or by an empirical demonstration satisfactory to any "rational" observer, can have no truth value. In other words, nothing that can't be proved to everyone by the methods of the physical sciences can constitute knowledge. It can only be a matter of ''subjective opinion" to be discovered by "polling."
> 
> 2.) That the qualities "intrinsic" to a thing do not include what that thing does - how it functions in the world and the effects it has on things around it. Your insistence that excellence can't be found "in" a piece of music assumes this; it rejects the effects that the music produces in the world - emotionally, intellectually, physically, neurologically, culturally, historically - as a legitimate property of it. This is equivalent to saying that the moral character of a person should be found by dissecting him, and that if we don't find anything called "goodness" in his nerves or viscera the notion of goodness can't be attributed to him.
> 
> Both of these premises are merely assumptions, not facts. Together they suggest to me a particular way of conceptualizing reality - a way I'll dub, for the fun of it, "object reification" - which regards the universe as a collection of sharply bounded objects whose identities stop at their skins, objects that are adequately understood and defined if we don't consider their relationships and effects on each other, their position and function in a larger whole. Thus, if we want to claim that a piece of music has any merit, we must look for excellence - its _arete_ or _virtus_ - in its physical score or, at most, in its formal characteristics, and reject _a priori _the idea that a work's power to affect, influence and alter people's minds, emotions and culture is any part of its identity, and thus any valid contributor to a judgment of its value.
> 
> These two premises are only conceptualizations of reality, which may have utility in some circumstances but may misrepresent the world and be counterproductive in others, rather like Newtonian physics (about which you know more than I). They are not "reality itself," a phrase you tried to claim for yourself in a previous post. There are other ways of understanding our cosmic home than as a collection of discrete objects, and other kinds of truths than the "facts" that keep those objects in their conceptual boxes.
> 
> When you said in post #756 that "data and facts" are "always good," I responded quickly with post #791, laying out eight suggestions for "data and facts" I thought relevant to an approach to the question quality in art. You ignored that post completely, and personal motives aside, it's clear why you did. I offered data which rejects your "object reification" of art as a thing whose identity, and thus whose criteris of merit, can be divorced from its actions in the world. I can see why such considerations would not be "data" to you, and thus would have no relevance.
> 
> I welcome any correction or clarification of your beliefs, or your beliefs about your beliefs. Some of these thoughts are newly formulated and I might easily be mistaking or missing something.


I reply by invoking Occam's Razor and also linking your views with those of another mindset widely held by a large proportion of humankind and by them not a fit candidate for close inquiry.


----------



## Strange Magic

Woodduck said:


> Woodduck said:
> Are you saying that artistic values can be discussed without reference to wider human values?
> 
> 
> 
> I not only disagree, but think that the failure to view art as an important expression of values is a gaping hole in any discussion of it.


Nothing wrong with such a discussion--see Goya, Picasso, Millet. Then see Jackson Pollock, Rothko, Inness, so many other examples.


----------



## Eva Yojimbo

4chamberedklavier said:


> I would hazard to say that the connotation of a "poll" is a source of misunderstanding here. To say something is just polling could imply that whatever conclusions that can be drawn from the poll are only applicable to a specific group and not to society at large. It should be made clear that while conventional aesthetic values are technically a result of polling, these values did not arise from a small portion of the population that has been "polled", but from most of the world both in the past & present. So whatever conclusions are drawn from this poll are more significant than the word "poll" suggests.


What you say about what a poll implies is exactly what it implies and is very much the point. Poll different groups and you get different answers. If the group in question is "everyone that's alive" you will indeed find certain near-universal commonalities. That's not in dispute. As always, the issue arises when someone wants to come along and claim that there is an objective right answer that transcends this polling, that it's not just "what certain groups like/prefer" but that what some groups like/prefer is objectively better than what other groups like/prefer. Then it becomes about proving that claim, which, AFAICT, nobody has been able to do. Even with the "near-universal commonalities" it should be recognized that universal agreement on subjective matters doesn't make for an objective fact, and if someone disagrees with most everyone this doesn't make that lone individual "wrong" except in relation to what the majority think/feel. 

As I've said numerous times, the kind of objectivity some in this thread seem to be referring to is the eschewing of personal tastes in favor of the consensus opinion of respected groups, like "classical music experts." My issue is that the opinions of classical music experts are still subjective opinions; they're merely another group with aesthetic tastes that tend to have a lot in common given their similar subjectivities. An appeal to what you perceive to be authoritative subjectivities is still a subjective process. Further, some seem to think that being an authority on objective matters translates to being an authority on subjective aesthetic judgments, and it very much does not; the two things reside in completely different spheres.


----------



## Woodduck

Strange Magic said:


> I reply by invoking Occam's Razor and also linking your views with those of another mindset widely held by a large proportion of humankind and by them not a fit candidate for close inquiry.


In other words, you can't answer objections to your so-called "factual thesis," but can only repeat it, over and over, for years on end, until you've succeeded in driving all but the hardiest away.


----------



## Strange Magic

Woodduck said:


> In other words, you can't answer objections to your so-called "factual thesis," but can only repeat it, over and over, for years on end, until you've succeeded in driving all but the hardiest away.


I seem to not be absolutely alone.


----------



## Eva Yojimbo

mmsbls said:


> I assume when you say "a blueprint/foundation has been set" you mean here that a group of, let's say, experts has selected a set of criteria to evaluate for CP works. I assume you recognize that, although there may be widespread agreement among those experts, the selection of criteria is still subjective. But let's move past that. Once the criteria is set, people will evaluate works or composers by that set of criteria. Evaluating a particular criterion involves some subjective assessment. A work might be viewed as innovative, but exactly how innovative? Once you've finished evaluating all the criteria, one must determine how important each criterion is (weighting the criteria). Is innovation more or less important than form? And how much more or less important? Without determining the weighting, how can you use both criteria together for an overall assessment?
> 
> Do you truly believe that the process of evaluating a work/composer is objective once the criteria are set? Even if the outcome is simply to determine if a composer is great or important or accomplished, one must set a standard of greatness, importance, or accomplishment to compare one's assessment against. Setting that standard is clearly subjective.


The funny thing is that Wagner, a composer I'm well-aware that Woodduck (like myself) reveres, parodied this exact attitude in his Meistersinger. The notion that you can develop a set of criteria by which to rigidly judge art is ridiculous and almost completely betrays the ways in which art-forms develop, change, and in which new geniuses and masterpieces come to be recognized. It most certainly isn't via the rigorous, strict establishment of standards by which all future work is judged, it's by the development of new ways of approaching the art that translates to audiences adopting new/different standards by which to judge those (and similar) works by. There may be some commonalities spread across a given medium or genre for long periods of time, but even those can change, such as the development of 12-tone techniques in Modern classical; and such commonalities are typically so common as to not be useful in aesthetic judgments anyway. One is free to dislike such developments of course, but it's undeniable that such developments bring new standards and there is no objective means of judging either standard "better" than the other, and we are even free to adopt and accept both if we like/enjoy both approaches. 

This same thought extends across all genres and styles, even the "lowliest" genres that Woodduck likes to look down on (while admitting he occasionally goes slumming in them); these genres create standards that place emphasis on different aspects of musical expression that are relatively ignored by a genre like classical. This is true of even the most niche genres that the vast majority of people would hate. Enthusiasts of such genres get together because they share similar aesthetic sensibilities that draws them to these genres, and they develop (even if informally and loosely) standards by which they judge and rank bands, and polls are often conducted to see which bands/artists appeal the most to most fans. The process in these genres is the same as it is in classical; the only difference being that some classical fans have the attitude that their consensuses aren't mere polling but the expression of objective truth regarding artistic greatness. It's of course convenient that this objective artistic greatness happens to coincide with their own aesthetic tastes, but that's always the case for such claims.


----------



## Woodduck

Eva Yojimbo said:


> This same thought extends across all genres and styles, even the "lowliest" genres that Woodduck likes to look down on (while *admitting he occasionally goes slumming in them)*


This is another third-person characterization I reject. I do not consider enjoyment of any music I like to be "slumming." And you are quite out of bounds telling some one else - or the form in general - that I '"like to look down on" things.


----------



## Eva Yojimbo

Woodduck said:


> I addressed your hypothetical by saying that it hypothesized something impossible. You didn't like that. Too bad. Don't make up stuff about what I did or didn't "address," or try to analyze my reasons to score points.
> 
> Suggestion: it's bad practice to characterize third parties until you're sure you aren't misrepresenting them.


That's not addressing the hypothetical, that's providing an excuse for why you're refusing to address it. I would be curious if anyone would disagree with me on this.


----------



## Eva Yojimbo

Woodduck said:


> This is another third-person characterization I reject. I do not consider enjoyment of any music I like to be "slumming." And you are quite out of bounds telling some one else - or the form in general - that I '"like to look down on" things.


You HAVE looked down on such things. The very fact that you admitted to believing in "low art" is indicative of this. You expressed "pity" for the "poor soul" that enjoyed guitar-garage music but felt there might be some since in which Mahler was better that he couldn't understand. If this isn't "looking down" on other music (and the people who prefer/like it) I don't know what is.


----------



## Woodduck

Eva Yojimbo said:


> That's not addressing the hypothetical, that's providing an excuse for why you're refusing to address it. I would be curious if anyone would disagree with me on this.


It isn't obligatory to "address" things we consider irrelevant or worthless. Tacking Puccini's _Turandot_ onto the butt of a Beethoven quartet is a monumentally stupid idea. Any point that might have been made by "addressing" it was already made. Cripes, why even bring it up?

Some people just like to argue for the sake of it. It's wearisome.


----------



## Strange Magic

*^^^^@Eva Yojimbo*: I agree completely with your point about different genres and the different expectations that listeners bring to them. I am moved by works that express, without much nuance, direct emotion. This includes much _cante flamenco, _much/many Blues, PJ Harvey's album _Let England Bleed, _songs like Janis' _Ball and Chain, _Dylan's _Blood on the Tracks--_so many more. But it still is my personal preference that I bring to the music though the fact that lyrics are involved somewhat complicates the nature of my reaction, as a different part of my brain is involved.


----------



## Eva Yojimbo

Woodduck said:


> It isn't obligatory to "address" things we consider irrelevant or worthless. Tacking Puccini's _Turandot_ onto the butt of a Beethoven quartet is a monumentally stupid idea. Any point that might have been made by "addressing" it was already made. Cripes, why even bring it up?
> 
> Some people just like to argue for the sake of it. It's wearisome.


Well it's nice to know that you're the sole arbiter of what's relevant and worthwhile. I must not have gotten the memo. I'd say investigating the logical coherency of your position is always relevant and worthwhile, which is what my hypothetical was designed to do. I "brought it up" in a comment to BachIsBest in the context of his ability to address my arguments/points as an example of your being unwilling to in that example. 

If I "liked to argue for the sake of it" I would not have reached a mutual understanding with 4ChamberedKlavier so fast. The expediency of our ability to resolve our disagreement was telling of the difference in our exchanges.


----------



## Woodduck

Eva Yojimbo said:


> You HAVE looked down on such things. The very fact that you admitted to believing in "low art" is indicative of this. You expressed "pity" for the "poor soul" that enjoyed guitar-garage music but felt there might be some since in which Mahler was better that he couldn't understand. If this isn't "looking down" on other music (and the people who prefer/like it)* I don't know what is.*


Exactly. YOU DON"T KNOW WHAT IS. Don't try to diagnose my feelings and motives in such SUBJECTIVE matters. For a subjectivist you sure do take a lot of cocksure positions, as I am not the first to note. Repeat: don't try to tell others what I - or any other member - think or feel, and if I object explicitly to what you say about me, respect it and for God's sake STOP ARGUING.

I hope that's objective enough to be clear.


----------



## Woodduck

Eva Yojimbo said:


> Well it's nice to know that you're the sole arbiter of what's relevant and worthwhile. I must not have gotten the memo. I'd say investigating the logical coherency of your position is always relevant and worthwhile, which is what my hypothetical was designed to do. I "brought it up" in a comment to BachIsBest in the context of his ability to address my arguments/points as an example of your being unwilling to in that example.
> 
> If I "liked to argue for the sake of it" I would not have reached a mutual understanding with 4ChamberedKlavier so fast. The expediency of our ability to resolve our disagreement was telling of the difference in our exchanges.


 Jeez, you're still at it.


----------



## Strange Magic

Woodduck said:


> It isn't obligatory to "address" things we consider irrelevant or worthless. Tacking Puccini's _Turandot_ onto the butt of a Beethoven quartet is a monumentally stupid idea. Any point that might have been made by "addressing" it was already made. Cripes, why even bring it up?
> 
> Some people just like to argue for the sake of it. It's wearisome.


Why staple the Ode to Joy onto a perfectly good symphony (that could use a little pruning). (grenade explodes, or was it a braincase?)


----------



## Woodduck

Strange Magic said:


> Why staple the Ode to Joy onto a perfectly good symphony (that could use a little pruning). (grenade explodes, or was it a braincase?)


According to you there are no perfectly good symphonies, only symphonies that poll well.


----------



## Eva Yojimbo

Strange Magic said:


> *^^^^@Eva Yojimbo*: I agree completely with your point about different genres and the different expectations that listeners bring to them. I am moved by works that express, without much nuance, direct emotion. This includes much _cante flamenco, _much/many Blues, PJ Harvey's album _Let England Bleed, _songs like Janis' _Ball and Chain, _Dylan's _Blood on the Tracks--_so many more. But it still is my personal preference that I bring to the music though the fact that lyrics are involved somewhat complicates the nature of my reaction, as a different part of my brain is involved.


I would even go so far as to say I feel this way even about music I dislike. I typically watch late night talk shows when I work out and I always look forward to the musical guests as I've discovered some good ones on there, but even with those I personally dislike I will often imagine the kind of subjectivities that such music would speak to: what kind of life experiences, beliefs, values, etc. would find meaning or reflection in this kind of music? What kinds of attitudes, ways of being, personalities, tones, atmospheres, etc. is this music expressing? Much of that stems from my days of studying poetry where trying to understand tone and speaker via language was often a great challenge, but working through that challenge allowed me to see the similarities with music, and I'm often incredibly charmed by music's innate ability to embody such things even in music that doesn't connect with me. One such recent example that really moved me when I tried to have this kind of empathetic/sympathetic imagination was this performance on Colbert: 




Something that's completely NOT my "kind of music," but it should be immediately obvious that anyone trying to critique this by the standards of classical music is being so myopic they might as well be blind. Even if you don't like this it shouldn't be difficult to imagine why this could be a powerful, moving work to some people. Is it more poetry than music? Maybe. Who cares? It's still art.


----------



## Eva Yojimbo

Strange Magic said:


> Then there is always the case of _ex post facto _finding reasons to retroactively support why we had to have liked a work.


This is also an important point I feel like people on here have either failed to grasp, or at least failed to respond to. We experience a work of art. We have some emotional, aesthetic, spiritual (choose your words) reaction to it. Then we go back and analyze the objective features of the work and try to claim that these features caused that reaction. This methodology would be laughed at in science as it's so clearly ex post facto to be a blatant logical fallacy. This doesn't mean these objective features had no influence on our reaction, but to pretend they solely caused them is a classic "just-so" story and ignores the wealth of other influences including the nature of our subjectivities.


----------



## Eva Yojimbo

Woodduck said:


> Exactly. YOU DON"T KNOW WHAT IS. Don't try to diagnose my feelings and motives in such SUBJECTIVE matters. For a subjectivist you sure do take a lot of cocksure positions, as I am not the first to note. Repeat: don't try to tell others what I - or any other member - think or feel, and if I object explicitly to what you say about me, respect it and for God's sake STOP ARGUING.
> 
> I hope that's objective enough to be clear.


Pardon, let me be clear: I know what it looks like and it's precisely what you've repeatedly done. Your protestations to the contrary do not convince, nor does your continued misunderstanding of the fact that while I am a subjectivist about aesthetics I'm an objectivist about many other things: this being one of them. 



Woodduck said:


> Jeez, you're still at it.


It takes two to tango.


----------



## Eva Yojimbo

Also: 



Woodduck said:


> The "something more at work" is, as you say,_ terra incognita_ to the radical subjectivists. They - at least the two or three who take up most of the oxygen here - have nothing, or nothing useful - to say about the roots and significance of the impact art has on humanity, while demanding "facts" and "proof" of a notion of objectivity that virtually no one believes in.


Before declaring that these oxygen-sucking subjectivists "have nothing... useful to say about the roots and significance of the impact of art on humanity" it might be, well, useful to hear what they actually have to say about such a subject in a thread that's about that subject. This thread is not about that subject. Perhaps you forgot or didn't notice.


----------



## Eva Yojimbo

BachIsBest said:


> Composers do this all time. As a piece of music develops, it creates standards and expectations. A skilled composer manipulates these and ultimately either succeeds or fails.


I don’t know what you mean by “it creates” standards and expectations. At most the composer creates standards and expectations based on his subjective response to what he has created/is creating. The notion that the work imposes any such thing on composers doesn’t make sense to me.



BachIsBest said:


> I mean I literally have never seen a satisfactory definition of truth. I have read enough philosophy to know that this is not an unusual position to take. This does not mean I don't believe in the concept.


Ah, I gotcha. Well, it may not be (it rarely is, IME) necessary to define truth or fact or knowledge in any robust, thorough way to reach specific agreements on any subject. Let me try to explain how I see this particular issue without using these controversial terms:

I think you would agree that if we ask a question about objects of sense perception—like, “why is this car not running?”—that whatever the answer is doesn’t depend upon what we think or feel about it. What I’ve been arguing is that this is very different from what we’re talking about in regards to aesthetic judgments. Just keep asking the same train of “why” questions that you would ask about your car and see where the answers terminate:

A: “Beethoven is objectively great!”
B: “What makes him objectively great?”
A: “Because he was original and innovative and look at all these things he did with form and harmony!”
B: “But why are ‘original’ and ‘innovative’ and the things he did with form and harmony the standard for judging greatness.”

Whatever A says, you can just ask the same thing, and at some point this Q&A train is going to terminate with “because people LIKE that.” Why is what Beethoven did with form and harmony “good?” Because people LIKE what he did with form and harmony. Explaining WHAT he did with form and harmony doesn’t impose any aesthetic judgment without the fact of people liking it.

Now, people often move from this point to trying to argue that some people making judgments are objectively better than others, but this runs into the same problem as the above. At some point the questioning is going to terminate in a point about what people think, feel, value, etc, even if that point is at something we all happen to agree with. This is all still fundamentally different from the car example. Another method (currently being used by Woodduck) is to argue for an alternative form of essentially private knowledge that can’t be communicated to others. I would hope all rational individuals would not be satisfied with this.



BachIsBest said:


> Once you define truth, I would argue it is an important test of your definition that it is, in fact, true. Or at the very least, it could be ambiguous. With your definition, by the definition itself, the definition can not be true.


I don’t see how definitions can be true are false. They are similar to (not exactly like, of course) logical or mathematical axioms, things that are assumed rather than proved. Really, words are just symbols that stand in for the things they refer to, so it’s better to just ask what things you’re trying to express with any given word rather than arguing over the definition of the word itself.



BachIsBest said:


> Well, as you said, there are psychopaths who use the subjectivity of morality to justify their actions. I do agree the Nazi's did actually happen, but I would still say this is a complete non-sequitur. What happened during the pandemic was a large amount of the population believed in something false; it may have been partially due to them letting their emotions overrule their reason, but it also had a large part to do with misinformation. Those of us on the 'objective' side of the debate are arguing that one may, at least partially, judge music with some level of reason and rationality rather than emotion. If you argue against our position by saying we shouldn't believe this, because we are relying on our emotions, you beg the question.


Forster already took my response to this, but I question how much sociopaths/psychopaths attempt to justify their actions philosophically as opposed to just attempting to achieve whatever they want without incurring the wrath of a society that doesn’t want them doing that and make laws against it.

I agree with what you say about the pandemic, but why do you think such misinformation flourished? I don’t think most people spread it KNOWING it was misinformation. The entire reason so many uncritically accept misinformation is because it conforms with their biases of what they want to be true, just as they are super-critical of any information that doesn’t conform with those biases: this is confirmation/disconfirmation bias at work, and it’s amplified tremendously when strong emotions are at play.

AFAICT, the only way that one can “reason” about aesthetic judgments is by accepting certain standards that are themselves (as I mentioned above) founded upon the emotions of what people like and dislike. I don’t disagree that can happen, but I reiterate that nobody is obligated to accept any given standards for what counts as artistic goodness/greatness etc.



BachIsBest said:


> Look, you think my desire "not to be murdered" is just a personal preference of mine that happens to be shared by others (although you will admit, I'm sure, evolutionary reasons for this). If you take it as axiomatic that value statements are subjective, then value statements about art are subjective. Fine, you win in this sense.


Great, though I would prefer agreement rather than “winning.”



BachIsBest said:


> However, if you take viewing the desire not be murdered not just as a really strong version of a preference for your daughters room to be pink, but rather as something axiomatic to the human condition, then you can end up with the perfectly reasonable conclusion that to call the desire not to be murdered a "personal preference" is a rather absurd statement. This is essentially how I view the desire for art that is meaningful, logical, beautiful, insightful, and profound; to call it a "personal preference" is absurd.


Being “axiomatic to the human condition” doesn’t negate any of the objective/subjective distinctions above, though; and what practical difference do think there is between viewing it as “personal preference” (even one that everyone happens to share) rather than as some kind of axiomatic truth? In my view it’s simply that the latter leads to all kinds of false notions and the other (the personal preference one) does not.



BachIsBest said:


> Some of the Greek philosophers thought acting in a certain way because it was good, believing a certain thing because it was true, and actively perceiving a thing because it was beautiful as equal, axiomatic, statements. Few (if any) people would go quite this far today, but ultimately we can wallow in a philosophical purgatory of vagueness until we make crazy statements that are both irrelevant and make no sense intuitively, or we can accept that to examine things like aesthetics or morality, we need to make rational, justifiable assumptions that allow us to make relevant and meaningful statements


I don’t necessarily disagree with what you say, but it’s rather vague, and I don’t feel as if I’m “wallowing in a philosophical purgatory of vagueness,” I feel like my view on these subjects are quite clear and thorough; but having clear and thorough views and expressing them in a way that's clear and thorough are two different matters. Reminds me of the days I spent trying to get people to intuitively understand Bayes' Theorem, which is extremely counter-intuitive to most.


----------



## Strange Magic

Woodduck said:


> According to you there are no perfectly good symphonies, only symphonies that poll well.


Wrong. There are, in my opinion, perfectly good symphonies. Many do poll well. Others not.


----------



## 4chamberedklavier

Eva Yojimbo said:


> What you say about what a poll implies is exactly what it implies and is very much the point. Poll different groups and you get different answers. If the group in question is "everyone that's alive" you will indeed find certain near-universal commonalities. That's not in dispute. As always, the issue arises when someone wants to come along and claim that there is an objective right answer that transcends this polling, that it's not just "what certain groups like/prefer" but that what some groups like/prefer is objectively better than what other groups like/prefer. Then it becomes about proving that claim, which, AFAICT, nobody has been able to do. Even with the "near-universal commonalities" it should be recognized that universal agreement on subjective matters doesn't make for an objective fact, and if someone disagrees with most everyone this doesn't make that lone individual "wrong" except in relation to what the majority think/feel.
> 
> As I've said numerous times, the kind of objectivity some in this thread seem to be referring to is the eschewing of personal tastes in favor of the consensus opinion of respected groups, like "classical music experts." My issue is that the opinions of classical music experts are still subjective opinions; they're merely another group with aesthetic tastes that tend to have a lot in common given their similar subjectivities. An appeal to what you perceive to be authoritative subjectivities is still a subjective process. Further, some seem to think that being an authority on objective matters translates to being an authority on subjective aesthetic judgments, and it very much does not; the two things reside in completely different spheres.


You're right that consensus opinion is indeed subjective*, but I will mention that the not all subjective opinions are treated the same way. The consensus, in a way, holds more weight than what an individual might prefer, so it's safer (in that it's generally applicable, not always) to use this consensus opinion as a standard. It is not an objective standard, but it functions similarly to one. I think that this is what many people have in mind when they say there is objective greatness in certain music. They're technically not correct, but I would not fault them for thinking of it that way, because these consensus standards are 'objective' in a practical sense.

*subjective in that it's based on subjectively chosen standards. I still believe that you can make objective statements given these subjective standards, but that's kind of beside the point. Just mentioning it so it doesn't seem like I'm contradicting myself.


----------



## Luchesi

Strange Magic said:


> I don't think this is a technical discussion; it is a primary discussion about whether what we like in the arts is universal or particular. Everybody not only has a say but can have a say.


Doesn't this sound like the discussions of other technical subjects. 

It sounds like chemists here trying to discuss a weather problem (for launching their experiment) with our atmospheric physicist. The non-meteorologist has trouble discussing and understanding from the viewpoint and experience of the expert (so there have been conflicts and hurt feelings). One chemist said, "On your chart it looks like there's good gap between the two weather systems there." The expert says, "But the winds. Do you remember how we forecast winds from the 700mb layer?" The chemist, "Uh, you lost me." That chemist was one of the smartest guys (in other subjects). Actually, the launch went earlier, because of the infamous Baja Low we have down here. Everybody was happy!


----------



## Eva Yojimbo

4chamberedklavier said:


> You're right that consensus opinion is indeed subjective*, but I will mention that the not all subjective opinions are treated the same way. The consensus, in a way, holds more weight than what an individual might prefer, so it's safer (in that it's generally applicable, not always) to use this consensus opinion as a standard. It is not an objective standard, but it functions similarly to one. I think that this is what many people have in mind when they say there is objective greatness in certain music. They're technically not correct, but I would not fault them for thinking of it that way, because these consensus standards are 'objective' in a practical sense.
> 
> *subjective in that it's based on subjectively chosen standards. I still believe that you can make objective statements given these subjective standards, but that's kind of beside the point. Just mentioning it so it doesn't seem like I'm contradicting myself.


Again we are not very far off from each other. My quibbles here is that such consensuses "hold more weight" to the people who value them, and we are not obligated to value them ourselves. I respect them to the extent that I respect all harmless opinions. The extent to which I fault someone for holding such views is the extent to which they use them to try to cudgel anyone who disagrees with them, including declaring that their standards (and the art they like based on them) are objectively great, best, better than others, etc. Beyond that I really don't care, but it's difficult for me to think such irrationality, even if harmless in this instance of aesthetics, is harmless elsewhere in life. 

I also appreciate your clarification on what you mean by subjectivity/objectivity and I can work with those definitions.


----------



## Forster

Luchesi said:


> Aren't we all agreeing about this?
> 
> If I dare take it a step further, musicians are very different people - have different brains from the time they're playing and becoming proficient, in their early teens hopefully.
> 
> Ergo, I think it's unfair to expect other people to be this odd, and have these experiences. So is it true that we just can't understand each other on a very deep level (so that it isn't likely to be understood in words between people so unlike each other)?
> 
> As an example, when you first want to hear a work, what is it that you want to hear or identify or figure out or be impressed by? I think our two answers would be very different.
> 
> I will hear some small (but crucial) part of it and I'll want to go to the score and see what they did..
> 
> and then I'll go back and forth..
> 
> or maybe I'll read the whole score first to see if I really want to do this and spend the time for just one interesting section of it. Why not just go right to that part, learn it, and then play it on the piano or whatever’s the musical originality in the work. I tell myself that there's always plenty of time to go back and hear the whole work, but that's problematic, there’s so little time for just attentive listening.


I'm not sure I quite understand what you're getting at in your first few sentences (at least, I don't see how it connects to what I last posted.)

I will confirm that what you and I listen for is different, when trying a new piece. For a start, I never go near a score! But then, I'm an amateur consumer, not a musician (Initial Grade Piano got me to start reading music, but not much more).

I try to latch on to something accessible - a rhythm or melody or mood perhaps. I want to get to the stage where I can hum along more or less accurately, so I keep listening through the whole piece, repeatedly, enjoying first spotting, then anticipating the familiar pieces until I have the whole under my belt. I don't usually listen only to bits at a time, I want to know the whole, and not be overfamiliar with certain passages. This is easier with Beethoven than it is with Mahler, whose 6th is the only symphony I can hum along with (whereas with Beethoven, I can hum them all).

Not sure this isn't straying off the topic.


----------



## Strange Magic

4chamberedklavier said:


> You're right that consensus opinion is indeed subjective*, but I will mention that the not all subjective opinions are treated the same way. The consensus, in a way, holds more weight than what an individual might prefer, so it's safer (in that it's generally applicable, not always) to use this consensus opinion as a standard. It is not an objective standard, but it functions similarly to one. I think that this is what many people have in mind when they say there is objective greatness in certain music. They're technically not correct, but I would not fault them for thinking of it that way, because these consensus standards are 'objective' in a practical sense.
> 
> *subjective in that it's based on subjectively chosen standards. I still believe that you can make objective statements given these subjective standards, but that's kind of beside the point. Just mentioning it so it doesn't seem like I'm contradicting myself.


I agree that, for practical reasons, it is better for a newcomer to any genre to use "generally accepted" polling data to first explore new music. That is what I did, that plus often pure serendipity, stumbling by chance upon a wonderful work. This use of "generally accepted" opinion will, with the passage of time, evolve into one's unique esthetic signature


----------



## 59540

Eva Yojimbo said:


> ...
> A: “Beethoven is objectively great!”
> B: “What makes him objectively great?”
> A: “Because he was original and innovative and look at all these things he did with form and harmony!”
> B: “But why are ‘original’ and ‘innovative’ and the things he did with form and harmony the standard for judging greatness.”
> ...


Well then what is it that makes Beethoven subjectively great to such a large number of listeners? Merely saying "he polls well" is circularity.


Strange Magic said:


> I don't think this is a technical discussion; it is a primary discussion about whether what we like in the arts is universal or particular. Everybody not only has a say but can have a say.


And that's part of the problem. Every opinion is not equally valid. If your frame of reference has been exclusively disco all of your life, I'm really not interested in hearing what you have to say about Beethoven's 9th, regardless of educational background. You can have a say, but it would be like me holding forth on Russian language and literature when I only know a handful of words in the language. Not that any kind of rarefied knowledge is a requirement for enjoyment, but if you're going to maintain that the appeal of Beethoven's 9th is completely this or that it would help to know Beethoven's 9th. And it follows that it would help to know a bit of music theory and compositional technique and tradition. Beyond that all you can say with any authority is "I do/don't like it." Period.


----------



## Strange Magic

Forster said:


> I'm not sure I quite understand what you're getting at in your first few sentences (at least, I don't see how it connects to what I last posted.)
> 
> I will confirm that what you and I listen for is different, when trying a new piece. For a start, I never go near a score! But then, I'm an amateur consumer, not a musician (Initial Grade Piano got me to start reading music, but not much more).
> 
> I try to latch on to something accessible - a rhythm or melody or mood perhaps. I want to get to the stage where I can hum along more or less accurately, so I keep listening through the whole piece, repeatedly, enjoying first spotting, then anticipating the familiar pieces until I have the whole under my belt. I don't usually listen only to bits at a time, I want to know the whole, and not be overfamiliar with certain passages. This is easier with Beethoven than it is with Mahler, whose 6th is the only symphony I can hum along with (whereas with Beethoven, I can hum them all).
> 
> Not sure this isn't straying off the topic.


Just as important as imprinting is the essential role played by repeated hearing.


----------



## Strange Magic

dissident said:


> Well then what is it that makes Beethoven subjectively great to such a large number of listeners? Just merely saying "he polls well" is circularity.
> And that's part of the problem. Every opinion is not equally valid. If your frame of reference has been exclusively disco all of your life, I'm really not interested in hearing what you have to say about Beethoven's 9th, regardless of educational background. You can have a say, but it would be like me holding forth on Russian language and literature when I only know a handful of words in the language.


They just don't understand. Every opinion is equally valid just like every vote is valid in a fair election (no politics intended). The individual's opinion, for the individual, trumps (see previous disclaimer) anybody else's opinion. If there are factual issues regarding the Russian language, then by all means consult the experts. Not a good comparison with esthetic choices.


----------



## BachIsBest

Eva Yojimbo said:


> I don't know what to say if you think my reason for praising his reasonableness has anything to do with the closeness of his views to my own. That post was clearly about his ability to quickly and clearly articulate a view close to what *mmsbls *mentioned in the post I responded to; the point being that if that's what other people think, they haven't expressed it very well.
> 
> FWIW, I give posters like you a pass because you've expressed your "agnosticism" on the issue and have engaged with the arguments I've presented such that we've been able to make progress. My issue is with some other posters who clearly have strong feelings on this matter but have presented a very murky, woo-woo filled epistemology for justifying those strong feelings. Woodduck even refused to address one of my hypotheticals (after I'd addressed his) because he obviously didn't like what the hypothetical suggested about his position. Others have consistently misrepresented mine and SM's views, which you have not done... at least perhaps until this post.


My post was meant to be in jest, not a serious attack on your position, making light of the common human mistake of confusing "agrees with me" with "reasonable person". I think most posts on this thread are at least somewhat reasonable, especially by the standards of previous threads such as this one.

To clarify, I'm not sure how much I'm "agnostic" on this issue. I was very much under the impression I was on the opposing side in the debate. Lest you think I'm a saint compared to Wooduck's devil (we actually arranged beforehand to do a good cop bad cop thing with you), I would also have refused to address that particular hypothetical, as I believe it assumes things to be false, which I hold to be more or less axiomatically true. You would probably find fault with the hypothetical "what if a completely different intelligent life form evolved and thought all the same art great in the exact same way we do" so perhaps that gives some understanding as to the flaw in the hypothetical "what if the same humans came about but liked completely different art".


----------



## 59540

Strange Magic said:


> They just don't understand. Every opinion is equally valid...


You just don't understand.
No.
They.
Are.
Not.

I am really not interested in hearing Robert Christgau's opinion on Nikolaus Harnoncourt, for example.


----------



## Eva Yojimbo

dissident said:


> Well then what is it that makes Beethoven subjectively great to such a large number of listeners? Just merely saying "he polls well" is circularity.


Let me take a different tact to answering this. Let's consider the entirety of the interaction between Beethoven and the listener, including the resultant "subjective belief in greatness" as a kind of causal chain. What I mean is that the objective features of the music--the pitch amplitudes in time and their patterns that we describe as notes, melodies, rhythm, form, etc.--enters the ears, interacts with the subjectivity of the listener, and the result of this interaction is that the listener's mind ends up in a state of believing Beethoven is great. 

You're asking "why does their subjectivity end up in this state?" Any complete answer would require the same kind of "causal diagnosis" that we see in science or medicine. It would require understanding every objective aspect of the work, the subjective minds of the listeners (which will be slightly different listener-to-listener), as well as all the ways in which these objective aspects interact with the subjective aspects. 

I am not sure what the "full answer is," but neither is anyone and that includes the objectivists. Their objective analysis is basically what SM described as an ex post fact fallacy, and I've described as a "just so" story. That doesn't mean such analysis is useless, merely that it's far from the whole story. If your question is actually answerable it will probably come via neuro and cognitive sciences studying the ways in which and reasons why people react as they do to music. We know some of the basic reasons: people delight in aural patterns, especially memorable ones, but also crave the excitement of surprise and novelty. It's clear that Beethoven's music possesses both elements of memorable patterns and novelty/surprise... but so does a lot of music. 

It's very difficult to nail down why Beethoven rather than some other composers leave such a strong impression on so many. I'm sure there are objective answers to this question, but the complete answer will require a full understanding of what I mention above, and that's a level of knowledge that nobody possesses. Until then, we are free to speculate on the reasons: analyze the objective aspects, talk about our subjective reactions... but we should be extremely skeptical of these ex post facto and just-so fallacies that delude us into thinking we actually comprehend why we/so many feel Beethoven or any composer/work is great more than we do. We should also be skeptical of people claiming internal, private, mysterious knowledge of which that they can't communicate or justify. 



dissident said:


> And that's part of the problem. Every opinion is not equally valid. If your frame of reference has been exclusively disco all of your life, I'm really not interested in hearing what you have to say about Beethoven's 9th, regardless of educational background. You can have a say, but it would be like me holding forth on Russian language and literature when I only know a handful of words in the language.


Prove to me that the disco-only listener's opinion is objectively less valuable than the classical music expert's. By "prove" I don't mean assert the fact that you and I would value the opinion of the expert more, I mean actually prove that it's less valuable in a way that's independent of what we (or everyone) thinks, feels, values, etc. Because saying that it's "less valuable to people who love classical music" is exactly the kind of subjective-relative valuation and "polling" that us subjectivists are saying is what's happening. 

I mean, you said it yourself: YOU'RE not interested in disco-man's opinion. That's your right to not care about his opinion, but don't mistake your not caring about his opinion to his opinion being less valuable in any objective sense, as opposed to being less valuable in relation to what you (and those like you) happen to value.


----------



## Strange Magic

dissident said:


> You just don't understand.
> No.
> They.
> Are.
> Not.
> 
> I am really not interested in hearing Robert Christgau's opinion on Nikolaus Harnoncourt, for example.


Read my post again. The answer is there.


----------



## 59540

Eva Yojimbo said:


> ...
> It's very difficult to nail down why Beethoven rather than some other composers leave such a strong impression on so many. I'm sure there are objective answers to this question...


But strong impression he has had for 2 centuries now. I'm sure there are objective answers too and just because you or I can't produce them on demand doesn't mean they're not there.



> Prove to me that the disco-only listener's opinion is objectively less valuable than the classical music expert's.


Prove to me that that opinion is objectively equal. That is what you're saying.


----------



## Eva Yojimbo

dissident said:


> But strong impression he has had for 2 centuries now. I'm sure there are objective answers too and just because you or I can't produce them on demand doesn't mean they're not there.


Yes, and that continued "strong impression" itself will probably be explained by a combination of the objective features of the work, the elements of human subjectivity they appeal to that have persisted over that time, and perhaps other elements many around here would be less inclined to recognize like the "follow the authorities" cognitive bias. I'm very much not saying the objective features of Beethoven's work have no influence on the causal chain; I'm just saying they're not the whole story. 



dissident said:


> Prove to me that that opinion is objectively equal. That is what you're saying.


As I said in another thread I can't prove an absence of something, in this case that there's an absence of value in the object of the opinion itself. Objectivists could prove there is if they could provide some method of showing the value of an opinion that didn't rely on what other people think, feel, and value. None have been able to do so.


----------



## Luchesi

Forster said:


> I'm not sure I quite understand what you're getting at in your first few sentences (at least, I don't see how it connects to what I last posted.)
> 
> I will confirm that what you and I listen for is different, when trying a new piece. For a start, I never go near a score! But then, I'm an amateur consumer, not a musician (Initial Grade Piano got me to start reading music, but not much more).
> 
> I try to latch on to something accessible - a rhythm or melody or mood perhaps. I want to get to the stage where I can hum along more or less accurately, so I keep listening through the whole piece, repeatedly, enjoying first spotting, then anticipating the familiar pieces until I have the whole under my belt. I don't usually listen only to bits at a time, I want to know the whole, and not be overfamiliar with certain passages. This is easier with Beethoven than it is with Mahler, whose 6th is the only symphony I can hum along with (whereas with Beethoven, I can hum them all).
> 
> Not sure this isn't straying off the topic.


Well, that's what a subjectivist would want. We're helpless to help. 'Not that you indicate that you need help. After 25 years a new brain isn't coming, isn't that what they say..

Now the question for me is what subjective pleasures am I missing out on? Those receptors have been overwritten I fear.


----------



## Eva Yojimbo

BachIsBest said:


> My post was meant to be in jest, not a serious attack on your position, making light of the common human mistake of confusing "agrees with me" with "reasonable person". I think most posts on this thread are at least somewhat reasonable, especially by the standards of previous threads such as this one.
> 
> To clarify, I'm not sure how much I'm "agnostic" on this issue. I was very much under the impression I was on the opposing side in the debate. Lest you think I'm a saint compared to Wooduck's devil (we actually arranged beforehand to do a good cop bad cop thing with you), I would also have refused to address that particular hypothetical, as I believe it assumes things to be false, which I hold to be more or less axiomatically true. You would probably find fault with the hypothetical "what if a completely different intelligent life form evolved and thought all the same art great in the exact same way we do" so perhaps that gives some understanding as to the flaw in the hypothetical "what if the same humans came about but liked completely different art".


If it was meant in jest then I apologize for the overreaction. Jests in texts are often difficult to discern, especially when threads take a turn towards being more contentious as one becomes less inclined towards the Principle of Charity. Even if you do wholly agree with Woodduck I still consider you more reasonable, if only because you aren't asserting the existence of mysterious internal knowledge. I very much cringe at such things. I also don't think Woodduck a demon. Despite our contentiousness here we have an incredible amount in common; just scroll through our discussions and note how many times I agree with things he's saying. 

Like I said, the point of the hypothetical isn't their potential for actually happening. I believe just as you two do that the practical chances are as close to zero as humanly possible. The issue was whether if such a thing happened it would put the aesthetic sensibilities of Woodduck (and all who agree with him) at odds with the vast majority of people, including experts. If you found yourself at such odds, would you still be declaring the work in question objectively great because of the consensus, or objectively bad based on what he felt are the universal aspects of humanity that lead to such consensuses? I was really interested in what his answer would be. 

I also have no issue addressing your hypothetical. If such a thing happened it would certainly be fascinating. I would not be convinced of the objectivist view, but would be very interested in studying such creatures to see the extent to which their brains/minds were similar to our own and see if such similarities could perhaps explain their similar conclusions on aesthetic matters. If there were no such similarities then I would be very confused, but perhaps even more intrigued! I mean, we know from science that animals don't even respond to the same music we do, though they can respond to music; that difference can, indeed, be explained by the different brains/minds between animals and humans... but a different intelligent life form having completely different brains/minds coming to the same conclusions as us? Would be a very, very interesting phenomenon, and one I have no problem with pondering. 

Though it's very tangential, I would be curious in what your opinion is on the Sleeping Beauty problem. I've referenced it numerous times, and being someone who deals with probability for a living and whose epistemic philosophy is largely based around probability it's particularly fascinating for me, and I'm quite ambivalent about it, though lean towards the "thirders" view.


----------



## 59540

Eva Yojimbo said:


> Yes, and that continued "strong impression" itself will probably be explained by a combination of the objective features of the work, the elements of human subjectivity they appeal to that have persisted over that time, and perhaps other elements many around here would be less inclined to recognize like the "follow the authorities" cognitive bias. ...


Listen carefully: _that's all we "objectivists" have been saying._


----------



## BachIsBest

Eva Yojimbo said:


> I think you would agree that if we ask a question about objects of sense perception—like, “why is this car not running?”—that whatever the answer is doesn’t depend upon what we think or feel about it. What I’ve been arguing is that this is very different from what we’re talking about in regards to aesthetic judgments. Just keep asking the same train of “why” questions that you would ask about your car and see where the answers terminate:
> 
> A: “Beethoven is objectively great!”
> B: “What makes him objectively great?”
> A: “Because he was original and innovative and look at all these things he did with form and harmony!”
> B: “But why are ‘original’ and ‘innovative’ and the things he did with form and harmony the standard for judging greatness.”
> 
> Whatever A says, you can just ask the same thing, and at some point this Q&A train is going to terminate with “because people LIKE that.” Why is what Beethoven did with form and harmony “good?” Because people LIKE what he did with form and harmony. Explaining WHAT he did with form and harmony doesn’t impose any aesthetic judgment without the fact of people liking it.


I think this is where we fundamentally disagree. Eventually, you do run into a statement somewhat like "because people like that". This is precisely why I bring up the statement "because people like not being murdered"; we see, in some sense, that this is a true statement, but most people would also consider it ridiculous. The reason is, is that such a statement can, and I would argue should, be taken as axiomatic to the human condition. To consider such a thing a personal preference is an absurdity.



Eva Yojimbo said:


> Now, people often move from this point to trying to argue that some people making judgments are objectively better than others, but this runs into the same problem as the above. At some point the questioning is going to terminate in a point about what people think, feel, value, etc, even if that point is at something we all happen to agree with. This is all still fundamentally different from the car example. Another method (currently being used by Woodduck) is to argue for an alternative form of essentially private knowledge that can’t be communicated to others. I would hope all rational individuals would not be satisfied with this.


This is not what Wooduck is arguing for. Perhaps an example will help. When tutoring first year university students calculus, especially those who are not in mathematics, I often run into the problem that no matter how obviously I spoon feed them the answer to a question, they just can't see the solution. You could then say that this 'calculus' thing is a form of essentially private knowledge I can't communicate (and many a befuddled student appear to hold just such a belief), or you could argue that the student, for whatever reason, hasn't perceived the answer yet. 



Eva Yojimbo said:


> I don’t see how definitions can be true are false. They are similar to (not exactly like, of course) logical or mathematical axioms, things that are assumed rather than proved. Really, words are just symbols that stand in for the things they refer to, so it’s better to just ask what things you’re trying to express with any given word rather than arguing over the definition of the word itself.


Definitions can be false if they make claims (or contradictory), but anyone in mathematics or logic will tell you there are good definitions and bad definitions. Usually, when attempting to come up with a definition for something, one starts with a list of properties one would like the definition to have. In defining truth, you are defining both what can be true, and what the truth of these things should be. Hopefully, a good definition of truth has the property that, what it claims can be true, is true (that is, the claim is true). Your definition clearly lacks this, and actually asserts that such claims can not be true.



Eva Yojimbo said:


> I agree with what you say about the pandemic, but why do you think such misinformation flourished? I don’t think most people spread it KNOWING it was misinformation. The entire reason so many uncritically accept misinformation is because it conforms with their biases of what they want to be true, just as they are super-critical of any information that doesn’t conform with those biases: this is confirmation/disconfirmation bias at work, and it’s amplified tremendously when strong emotions are at play.


Again, I think you're begging the question here. I am arguing that evaluations about art may be based partially on rationality rather than emotions and biases.



Eva Yojimbo said:


> I don’t necessarily disagree with what you say, but it’s rather vague, and I don’t feel as if I’m “wallowing in a philosophical purgatory of vagueness,” I feel like my view on these subjects are quite clear and thorough; but having clear and thorough views and expressing them in a way that's clear and thorough are two different matters. Reminds me of the days I spent trying to get people to intuitively understand Bayes' Theorem, which is extremely counter-intuitive to most.


To be clear, I don't think your viewpoints are unclear, just that the conclusions of your viewpoints don't allow you to make clear, rational, statements about artistic quality, for the rather trivial reason that you don't believe in a rational basis for artistic quality. 

I'm sorry I deleted a large part of your post, but I assure you I read the whole thing, and deleted parts where I felt my answer would be redundant.


----------



## Eva Yojimbo

dissident said:


> Listen carefully: _that's all we "objectivists" have been saying._


Fine, but you've also been saying that this constitutes some objective standard for judging greatness, which it does not. It also doesn't explain the fact that different subjectivities land in a similar "X is great" position over a bewildering variety of music and art, and some of them DON'T end up in such a state over Beethoven. I've yet to hear a convincing account of this from objectivists yet, just some claims that some people have the "wrong" kinds of subjectivities like those "poor ignorant souls" that prefer different kinds of music.


----------



## 59540

> Fine, but you've also been saying that this constitutes some objective standard for judging greatness


Nobody has. Bach was great. That doesn't mean Beethoven had to reach Bach greatness. They're each their own "great".


> and some of them DON'T end up in such a state over Beethoven.


You mean that if even one individual on the planet doesn't like Beethoven, that means he's bad or at best inconsequential? Of maybe just objectively neutral. That comes down to: I won't focus on all those who love Beethoven, but on those who don't. And since more people love Justin Bieber than Beethoven, what's so great about Beethoven anyway? It really doesn't "prove" the subjectivist position as much as provide a rationale for believing it. And also provides a rationale for that "leveling" exercise that calls classical music "elitist" because its followers think the genre is "better" or more "artistic" than, say, bluegrass or hip hop. That just isn't done.


----------



## Luchesi

Eva Yojimbo said:


> Yes, and that continued "strong impression" itself will probably be explained by a combination of the objective features of the work, the elements of human subjectivity they appeal to that have persisted over that time, and perhaps other elements many around here would be less inclined to recognize like the "follow the authorities" cognitive bias. I'm very much not saying the objective features of Beethoven's work have no influence on the causal chain; I'm just saying they're not the whole story.
> 
> As I said in another thread I can't prove an absence of something, in this case that there's an absence of value in the object of the opinion itself. *Objectivists could prove there is if they could provide some method of showing the value of an opinion that didn't rely on what other people think, feel, and value. None have been able to do so.*


Yes, it's in the score for those who are prepared. Everyone talks around the score. Where else is the value? The score's the achievement.

The performance is a different question for me. A performer can present me with something beyond the objective facts of the score and I will have a subjective response (unique to me it seems at the tme). Glenn Gould did this with the last Haydn sonata. I knew the score (memorized) and yet he gave it so much more cohesion (and spirit). That last movement has a lot in it to uncover (ah, now I see).


----------



## BachIsBest

Eva Yojimbo said:


> I also don't think Woodduck a demon.


I was again trying to lighten the mood. My comedic attempts appear to be worsening by the minute.



Eva Yojimbo said:


> Like I said, the point of the hypothetical isn't their potential for actually happening. I believe just as you two do that the practical chances are as close to zero as humanly possible. The issue was whether if such a thing happened it would put the aesthetic sensibilities of Woodduck (and all who agree with him) at odds with the vast majority of people, including experts. If you found yourself at such odds, would you still be declaring the work in question objectively great because of the consensus, or objectively bad based on what he felt are the universal aspects of humanity that lead to such consensuses? I was really interested in what his answer would be.


If this happened it would make me reconsider my position. You are asking if something hypothetically happened that vindicated your position and ruined mine, what would my response be. Well, of course I would have to, to some degree, admit you were right, but such a thing hasn't happened, and unless I am wrong, it won't. Thus, I don't think it is particularly relevant.



Eva Yojimbo said:


> Though it's very tangential, I would be curious in what your opinion is on the Sleeping Beauty problem. I've referenced it numerous times, and being someone who deals with probability for a living and whose epistemic philosophy is largely based around probability it's particularly fascinating for me, and I'm quite ambivalent about it, though lean towards the "thirders" view.


I haven't heard about it, and would have to think about it.


----------



## Eva Yojimbo

dissident said:


> Nobody has. Bach was great. That doesn't mean Beethoven had to reach Bach greatness. They're each their own "great".


So nobody in the objectivist camp feels that the standards for judging greatness are themselves objective? So is one standard objectively better than another? 



dissident said:


> You mean that if even one individual on the planet doesn't like Beethoven, that means he's bad or at best inconsequential?


Good grief, if you think this is what I mean after everything I've written then I don't know what to say except go back through this thread and read my posts some more until you understand me better. 



dissident said:


> That comes down to: I won't focus on all those who love Beethoven, but on those who don't. And since more people love Justin Bieber than Beethoven, what's so great about Beethoven anyway? It really doesn't "prove" the subjectivist position as much as provide a rationale for believing it. And also provides a rationale for that "leveling" exercise that calls classical music "elitist" because its followers think the genre is "better" or more "artistic" than, say, bluegrass or hip hop. That just isn't done.


I'm happy to focus on those who love Beethoven. It's the people here who insist that Beethoven isn't just better than Bieber according to their subjective (according to you/them?) chosen standards, but that Beethoven is objectively better in a way that's independent of such subjectivities. Literally none of us subjectivists are trying to belittle, disparage, minimize, etc. the "greatness" of Beethoven for the people (including ourselves!) who feel he's great; what we're saying is his greatness is not an objective fact independent of what we feel about him, and that someone who feels Bieber is better is justified in doing so for themselves and for everyone who agrees with him. 

I swear, it's like you can't help but see this as a zero-sum game. If Beethoven is great then Bieber can't be great or vice versa... as opposed to them both being great on different standards and to different people who value those standards. I say this is someone who literally has not an ounce of like for Bieber's music!


----------



## hammeredklavier

Eva Yojimbo said:


> You HAVE looked down on such things. The very fact that you admitted to believing in "low art" is indicative of this. You expressed "pity" for the "poor soul" that enjoyed guitar-garage music but felt there might be some since in which Mahler was better that he couldn't understand. If this isn't "looking down" on other music (and the people who prefer/like it) I don't know what is.


I also remember these instances I had with Woodduck. Ironically, this is something I grew to like about him; makes him look cool, I think. He's actually adorable in these instances, it seems that I can't forget them (I would just reply to him, "Mr. Woodduck, the Mozart you find ridiculous, is one of my guilty pleasures!"):


Woodduck said:


> ^^^ The baroquey stuff in K608 is great, but then you have that "Little Maria Therese Breaking her Fast with Mozartkugeln" at about 3 minutes in, which lacks only a glass harmonica to make my teeth ache. It's as if Mozart felt he had to reassure his audience that he would not lose them in a Gothic labyrinth in which their enlightened sensibilities would be darkened for all eternity. The poor things.





Woodduck said:


> Oh, you 'absolute' musicians. Clarity, control, clean Classical canvas - _ay caramba!_ A meditative, chromatic "Kyrie" followed by a cheerily diatonic "Gloria" would provide plenty of contrast.
> Why do these "HIP" performances take such frantic tempos? It sounds cartoonish and makes the music even more superficial than it really is. Some moments in that Mozart are ridiculous.


Setting the Kyrie of a mass with lighter moods (and with modulations to darker colors depending on the size of the form) was an "idiomatic, period practice" at the time, especially if the mass was to be sung in celebratory occasions (coronation or name day festivals, for example). So the text "Kyrie eleison" in such a context could serve as something like "God save the king". Even Bach has a "prototypical version" in his Mass in A, BWV234.

Remember I asked him in this thread-
Me: "What are some things you've found "ridiculous" in Mozart, even though they stemmed from the idiomatic practices he worked with in his time?"
Woodduck: "I don't know what I found "ridiculous" in Mozart. Why do you want to know?"


----------



## Woodduck

Strange Magic said:


> Wrong. There are, in my opinion, perfectly good symphonies. Many do poll well. Others not.


If one of your faces says that in your "opinion" there are good symphonies, while the other face says that art can't be "intrinsically" good, then your "opinion" is not really about symphonies, which according to subjectivist dogma have no value, but about yourself. Well, well. Who could be surprised at that?

It's all about provocation and one-upmanship. In light of such doublespeak as the above, your gripes about others not understanding your "simple thesis" ring completely hollow.


----------



## 59540

> So nobody in the objectivist camp feels that the standards for judging greatness are themselves objective? So is one standard objectively better than another?


You're the one who posited objective elements in Beethoven's continuing impact. You tell me.


> I swear, it's like you can't help but see this as a zero-sum game. If Beethoven is great then Bieber can't be great or vice versa...


No, that would be hammeredklavier with his "if you think Bach is great then you're taking glory away from Johann Krebs". It helps if the two "opposed" are in the same universe.


----------



## Strange Magic

Luchesi said:


> Doesn't this sound like the discussions of other technical subjects.
> 
> It sounds like chemists here trying to discuss a weather problem (for launching their experiment) with our atmospheric physicist. The non-meteorologist has trouble discussing and understanding from the viewpoint and experience of the expert (so there have been conflicts and hurt feelings). One chemist said, "On your chart it looks like there's good gap between the two weather systems there." The expert says, "But the winds. Do you remember how we forecast winds from the 700mb layer?" The chemist, "Uh, you lost me." That chemist was one of the smartest guys (in other subjects). Actually, the launch went earlier, because of the infamous Baja Low we have down here. Everybody was happy!


Are you quite sure that you want to turn esthetic decisions over to Experts? I am too proud and too confident in my own capacity to appreciate fully the art I like. I don't need outside validation.


----------



## Luchesi

Eva Yojimbo said:


> So nobody in the objectivist camp feels that the standards for judging greatness are themselves objective? So is one standard objectively better than another?
> 
> Good grief, if you think this is what I mean after everything I've written then I don't know what to say except go back through this thread and read my posts some more until you understand me better.
> 
> I'm happy to focus on those who love Beethoven. It's the people here who insist that Beethoven isn't just better than Bieber according to their subjective (according to you/them?) chosen standards, but that Beethoven is objectively better in a way that's independent of such subjectivities. Literally none of us subjectivists are trying to belittle, disparage, minimize, etc. the "greatness" of Beethoven for the people (including ourselves!) who feel he's great; what we're saying is his greatness is not an objective fact independent of what we feel about him, and that someone who feels Bieber is better is justified in doing so for themselves and for everyone who agrees with him.
> 
> I swear, it's like you can't help but see this as a zero-sum game. If Beethoven is great then Bieber can't be great or vice versa... as opposed to them both being great on different standards and to different people who value those standards. I say this is someone who literally has not an ounce of like for Bieber's music!


When reaching 60 years of age will a female Bieber fan still be a fan? There's a lot more going on than just music.

When reaching 60 years of age will a female Beethoven fan still be a fan?


----------



## Luchesi

Strange Magic said:


> Are you quite sure that you want to turn esthetic decisions over to Experts? I am too proud and too confident in my own capacity to appreciate fully the art I like. I don't need outside validation.


We need experts in everything. Now more than ever? (but every generation says that).

Confidence, well, would looking at the info in the score of the Grosse Fuge op133 impress you?


----------



## Strange Magic

Woodduck said:


> If one of your faces says that in your "opinion" there are good symphonies, while the other face says that art can't be "intrinsically" good, then your "opinion" is not really about symphonies, which according to subjectivist dogma have no value, but about yourself. Well, well. Who could be surprised at that?
> 
> It's all about provocation and one-upmanship. In light of such doublespeak as the above, your gripes about others not understanding your "simple thesis" ring completely hollow.


You are correct in a strange way that may help some to understand my position. I immediately turn aside the complaint about my posting style that so annoys--again I urge pressing the Ignore button (wherever it is to be found), In my thesis, the only opinion that counts with me is mine. I have in my mind long lists of works I like, as do we all. But I do not require or seek outside validation. I welcome sharing views, likes, dislikes with others, but otherwise am content to stand alone. 
This is not radical stuff.


----------



## Strange Magic

Luchesi said:


> We need experts in everything. Now more than ever? (but every generation says that).
> 
> Confidence, well, would looking at the info in the score of the Grosse Fuge op133 impress you?


Not really.


----------



## hammeredklavier

It baffles me; why do we all need to be under the "burden" of "kneeling" before Bach, Mozart, Beethoven? There are literally thousands of other composers. I know janxharris doesn't consider Sibelius to be less significant than Mozart. How is his "opinion" objectively wrong?


----------



## Strange Magic

dissident said:


> Listen carefully: _that's all we "objectivists" have been saying._


Is that really all you have been saying? And they accuse me of oversimplifying. Put me down as someone who listens to music and likes what I like for whatever reason.


----------



## 59540

Strange Magic said:


> Is that really all you have been saying?


Yeah, pretty much.


> Put me down as someone who listens to music and likes what I like for whatever reason.


Honestly, Strange Magic, although I know I'm supposed to, _I don't care_.


----------



## Eva Yojimbo

Luchesi said:


> When reaching 60 years of age will a female Bieber fan still be a fan? There's a lot more going on than just music.
> 
> When reaching 60 years of age will a female Beethoven fan still be a fan?


I understand the point but these are statements about changing subjectivities. The teenagers that love Bieber are drawn to him for both musical and non-musical reasons, but all of these things impact on their subjectivity resulting in their minds ending up in the same "Bieber is great!" judgment that the lover of Beethoven's mind ends up in. Both of their reactions are caused by differing subjectivities that hear and react to these artists/composers differently. 

It's absolutely true that the teenager who loves Bieber's mind/subjectivity will change over time (we know that from neuroscience), and so the subjective states that caused them to love Bieber may not be there by the time they're 60. All of this may or may not be true for the lover of Beethoven. I suspect some teenagers could come to love Beethoven but grow out of loving him later in life as well for many different possible reasons. Is such thing as common as with Bieber and the like? Probably not, but who cares? We are now just setting as a standard for greatness "art that continues to appeal to people as they age," which, as always, is fine if you care about such a thing, but nobody is obligated to care. Personally, I've been through "phases" of loving all different kinds of music, some of which I may never return to (if only due to life/time being finite), but I don't devalue my time/experience with them just because I've found other music I may want to return to more. 

Further, it's fine to "not care" about the opinion of the teenager who loves Bieber; after all, your/our subjectivities are very different from theirs, so it wouldn't make sense to turn to such different subjectivities for opinions on what music we might like as opposed to more like-minded people. As always, though, this "not caring" can be done without pronouncing that our standards/tastes are objectively superior to theirs. Music exists for all people in all walks of life for all different reasons and purposes. Embracing that doesn't entail the belittle of the art we think great; it entails the expansion and acceptance of all art others also deem great.


----------



## 59540

hammeredklavier said:


> It baffles me; why do we all need to be under the "burden" of "kneeling" before Bach, Mozart, Beethoven? ...


You don't. You can venerate Michael Haydn or Cardi B or whoever all you want. Your problem is that other people think the "Big Three" are the acme. Why should that bother you?


----------



## Woodduck

Art's power to move, affect, influence the world is not something separate from what it IS. It's insufficient to talk about the evaluation of art while discounting its activity and position in the world as just a collection of "opinions" or a "poll." Things are defined as much by what they do as by what they look or sound like. Art has influence. Art has power. Art persudes, and by persuading, endures. These things don't just "happen." Even if we concede that there are no other reasons to attribute intrinsic value to art (which I don't concede), its ability to shape minds and cultures, and its history of doing so in particular ways, present objective grounds for assigning value. Beethoven surpassed Dittersdorf in a number of ways, as Wagner surpassed Meyerbeer, and their impact on the world is not the least significant of those ways. I contend that an artist's superior power to affect the culture by making a deep impression on the human mind and spirit is not _evidence_ of his superiority, but an intrinsic _aspect _of it.


----------



## Strange Magic

dissident said:


> Yeah, pretty much.
> 
> Honestly, Strange Magic, although I know I'm supposed to, _I don't care_.


We are as one.


----------



## Strange Magic

Woodduck said:


> Art's power to move, affect, influence the world is not something separate from what it IS. It's insufficient to talk about the evaluation of art while discounting its activity and position in the world as just a collection of "opinions" or a "poll." Things are defined as much by what they do as by what they look or sound like. Art has influence. Art has power. Art persudes, and by persuading, endures. These things don't just "happen." Even if we concede that there are no other reasons to attribute intrinsic value to art (which I don't concede), its ability to shape minds and cultures, and its history of doing so in particular ways, present objective grounds for assigning value. Beethoven surpassed Dittersdorf in a number of ways, as Wagner surpassed Meyerbeer, and their impact on the world is not the least significant of those ways. I contend that an artist's superior power to affect the culture by making a deep impression on the human mind and spirit is not _evidence_ of his superiority, but an intrinsic _aspect _of it.


Again I note, let's say, an increasing invocation of the sort of thing and rhetoric associated with another widely-shared and powerful impulse ( I hesitate to name it for fear of raising the hackles of the mods--but you know what I am talking about, remember DavidA and millionrainbows).


----------



## Strange Magic

dissident said:


> You just don't understand.
> No.
> They.
> Are.
> Not.
> 
> I am really not interested in hearing Robert Christgau's opinion on Nikolaus Harnoncourt, for example.


Actually Christgau's views might be both enlightening and fun. Different perspective.


----------



## 59540

Strange Magic said:


> Actually Christgau's views might be both enlightening and fun. Different perspective.


His views on Anglo-Saxon poetry might be "fun" too. Probably not all that enlightening or useful though.


----------



## hammeredklavier

dissident said:


> You can venerate Michael Haydn all you want.


It doesn't particularly matter if you care for him or not. _He was a master of counterpoint. PUNKT._







Woodduck said:


> Bach is a master of fugue, whether or not you like Bach or fugues. Punkt.


----------



## Woodduck

Strange Magic said:


> Again I note, let's say, an increasing invocation of the sort of thing and rhetoric associated with another widely-shared and powerful impulse ( I hesitate to name it for fear of raising the hackles of the mods--but you know what I am talking about, remember DavidA and millionrainbows).


Again you note? You're not saying anything.


----------



## 59540

hammeredklavier said:


> It doesn't particularly matter if you care for him or not. _He was a master of counterpoint. PUNKT._


Fine. I listened to about 45 seconds. _PUNKT_.

Actually, it's pretty nice music. Pleasant.


----------



## DaveM

Eva Yojimbo said:


> ..My issue is that the opinions of classical music experts are still subjective opinions; they're merely another group with aesthetic tastes that tend to have a lot in common given their similar subjectivities. An appeal to what you perceive to be authoritative subjectivities is still a subjective process...


Where I come from, no matter what the subject, education often counts for something.


----------



## Strange Magic

dissident said:


> His views on Anglo-Saxon poetry might be "fun" too. Probably not all that enlightening or useful though.


Fun is good. I like fun. And there is always the possibility of Enlightenment, I wouldn't fight it.


----------



## Strange Magic

DaveM said:


> Where I come from, no matter what the subject, education often counts for something.



Who would disagree?


----------



## 59540

Strange Magic said:


> Fun is good. I like fun. And there is always the possibility of Enlightenment, I wouldn't fight it.


Not from someone who doesn't know what he's talking about (assuming Christgau isn't an Anglo-Saxonist on the side). But if he and his audience were equally ignorant of the subject, it might be pretty cool.

You have to wonder why such aesthetic, subjective things as music and literature are even taught in an educational environment anyway. After all, you can just say "go out there and find what you like and if you like it, then it's great". Heck, we can all be university faculty. I have an M.F.A., MMus and Ph.D. in knowing what I like.


----------



## DaveM

Eva Yojimbo said:


> Fine, but you've also been saying that this constitutes some objective standard for judging greatness, which it does not. It also doesn't explain the fact that different subjectivities land in a similar "X is great" position over a bewildering variety of music and art, and some of them DON'T end up in such a state over Beethoven. I've yet to hear a convincing account of this from objectivists yet, just some claims that some people have the "wrong" kinds of subjectivities like those "poor ignorant souls" that prefer different kinds of music.


You haven’t been paying attention. Really. So much of your post content is dedicated to ‘I have yet to hear or see’, ‘nowhere have objectivists this or that’, ‘show me some proof that’ and then a myriad of philosophy-speak to cover up the fact that there is very little meat on the bone. The fact is that those who support a role for objectivity have given a lot specifics, but are not about to keep repeating them to closed ears. Furthermore, their message is far more enlightened because in allowing for the role of subjectivity in judgment about artists and their works, they are not over at a far extreme that you and SM seem to be.


----------



## 59540

DaveM said:


> You haven’t been paying attention. Really. So much of your post content is dedicated to ‘I have yet to hear or see’, ‘nowhere have objectivists this or that’, ‘show me some proof that’ and then a myriad of philosophy-speak to cover up the fact that there is very little meat on the bone. The fact is that those who support a role for objectivity have given a lot specifics, but are not about to keep repeating them to closed ears. Furthermore, their message is far more enlightened because in allowing for the role of subjectivity in judgment about artists and their works, they are not over at a far extreme that you and SM seem to be.


"Not one of you has yet produced any objective standard. I have yet to see it. Where is it?
(fill in with 6 paragraphs of epistemology here)
Check. Mate.


----------



## DaveM

Strange Magic said:


> Who would disagree?


EY for one. Assuming that ‘experts’ have some expertise on the subject infers some education behind the expertise. But that is diminished as just another subjective opinion. If everyone thought that way, one would wonder why anyone would bother with an education in music.


----------



## Eva Yojimbo

This post is like a microcosm of our relationship in this thread. I agree with all of this: 


Woodduck said:


> Art's power to move, affect, influence the world is not something separate from what it IS. It's insufficient to talk about the evaluation of art while discounting its activity and position in the world as just a collection of "opinions" or a "poll." Things are defined as much by what they do as by what they look or sound like. Art has influence. Art has power. Art persudes, and by persuading, endures. These things don't just "happen." Even if we concede that there are no other reasons to attribute intrinsic value to art (which I don't concede), its ability to shape minds and cultures, and its history of doing so in particular ways...


And then stop agreeing the moment you reach your conclusion of: 


Woodduck said:


> ...present objective grounds for assigning value.


For the 47-pages of reasons I've given and won't repeat here. 



Woodduck said:


> Beethoven surpassed Dittersdorf in a number of ways, as Wagner surpassed Meyerbeer, and their impact on the world is not the least significant of those ways. *I contend that an artist's superior power to affect the culture by making a deep impression on the human mind and spirit is not evidence of his superiority, but an intrinsic aspect of it.*


The only problem here is that this is, essentially, what the subjectivists have been saying, but in different ways. You like to phrase it poetically as the artist "(having) superior power to affect the culture by making a deep impression on the human mind and spirit," while I phrase it as "some artists are better at creating art that affects more subjectivities at greater amplitudes." We're saying the same thing in different ways. The subjectivists don't deny this, all we say as that in terms of "objective greatness" this is no different than polling, asking people how much they like something and to what extent and looking at the results. The key word there is OBJECTIVELY speaking, as in being able to quantify the extent of the "impression" and "impact" you describe. You seem to reject this because it doesn't seem to match the poetic way you perceive this, but that doesn't mean it's not referring to the same thing.


----------



## Eva Yojimbo

DaveM said:


> Where I come from, no matter what the subject, education often counts for something.


Sure, it counts for something, even a great deal on objective matters. I just don't think it counts for anything when it comes to subjective aesthetic judgments.



DaveM said:


> EY for one. Assuming that ‘experts’ have some expertise on the subject infers some education behind the expertise. But that is diminished as just another subjective opinion. If everyone thought that way, one would wonder why anyone would bother with an education in music.


Your ability to completely misunderstand my views/perspectives persists, I see.


----------



## Eva Yojimbo

dissident said:


> You have to wonder why such aesthetic, subjective things as music and literature are even taught in an educational environment anyway.


Because there are a million different objective facts that can be learned about both. Again this confusion that somehow subjectivists on aesthetic judgments must think everything is subjective despite multiple corrections saying otherwise.


----------



## Eva Yojimbo

Just for clarification (and the for umpteenth time) there are indeed millions of objective facts to be learned as it pertains to music or any art-form. SM has mentioned many of these: who composed, when, for what occasion, date of first performance, socio-cultural expectations for such works, what the critical reaction reactions were, the nature of the work itself (length, form, genre, style, harmonic content, etc.); or, when it comes to studying composition, there's all the things to be learned as it pertains to music theory, form, orchestration, etc. All of these are perfectly legitimate subjects to learn and, when learned, makes one an expert on these objective matters. 

*AESTHETIC JUDGMENTS ARE IN A DIFFERENT CATEGORY FROM THESE THINGS. *(Sorry for yelling). Of course, it requires that dreaded "armchair philosophizing" to explain WHY aesthetic judgments are in a different category compared to the above objective facts, and some people seem either incapable of understanding those reasons, unwilling to accept them, or some combination of the two.


----------



## Eva Yojimbo

DaveM said:


> You haven’t been paying attention. Really. So much of your post content is dedicated to ‘I have yet to hear or see’, ‘nowhere have objectivists this or that’, ‘show me some proof that’ and then a myriad of philosophy-speak to cover up the fact that there is very little meat on the bone. The fact is that *those who support a role for objectivity have given a lot specifics,* but are not about to keep repeating them to closed ears. Furthermore, their message is far more enlightened because in allowing for the role of subjectivity in judgment about artists and their works, they are not over at a far extreme that you and SM seem to be.


First, even most subjectivists "support a role for objectivity" in some respects. See my "causal chain" explanation to dissident. 

Second, and more importantly everything that's been given does not amount to actual objectivity, it amounts to at (at most) the acceptance of subjectively agreed-upon standards as determined by people who you (the objectivists) deem experts, or at least worthy of determining such things. This is SM's "polling" approach to greatness. All it tells us is what this/these group(s) value. Some people in these groups may point to what objective features they happen to value, but this likewise reduces to what I described as the subjective liking of objective features, which is also not objectivity, certainly not what I mean by it, and I suspect not what most people would mean by it.


----------



## DaveM

Eva Yojimbo said:


> Sure, it counts for something, even a great deal on objective matters. I just don't think it counts for anything when it comes to subjective aesthetic judgments.
> 
> 
> Your ability to completely misunderstand my views/perspectives persists, I see.


No it doesn’t. It’s right there in your first sentence. Note to those with years in music and the degrees that may go with it: Your judgment on composers and their music has no more value than that of the unwashed masses. But that raises a question about those with an education in philosophy and the degrees that may go with it. Since philosophizing seems to be a total subjective activity, perhaps education on the subject is a waste of time.


----------



## DaveM

Eva Yojimbo said:


> First, even most subjectivists "support a role for objectivity" in some respects. See my "causal chain" explanation to dissident.


You actually call that a ‘support for a role for objectivity’?



> ..Some people in these groups may point to what objective features they happen to value, but this likewise reduces to what I described as the subjective liking of objective features, which is also not objectivity, certainly not what I mean by it, and I suspect not what most people would mean by it.


Did you somewhere in this thread get the idea that most people agree with your view of subjectivity and objectivity here and elsewhere?


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## hammeredklavier

DaveM said:


> Your judgment on composers and their music has no more value than that of the unwashed masses.


Who are the "unwashed masses"? Everyone in the world who would look at me and think; _"Wow.. you still listen to this music.. Do you keep a powdered wig in your closet or something?"_


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## Woodduck

Eva Yojimbo said:


> This post is like a microcosm of our relationship in this thread. I agree with all of this:
> And then stop agreeing the moment you reach your conclusion of:
> For the 47-pages of reasons I've given and won't repeat here.
> 
> The only problem here is that this is, essentially, what the subjectivists have been saying, but in different ways. You like to phrase it poetically as the artist "(having) superior power to affect the culture by making a deep impression on the human mind and spirit," while I phrase it as "some artists are better at creating art that affects more subjectivities at greater amplitudes." We're saying the same thing in different ways. The subjectivists don't deny this, all we say as that in terms of "objective greatness" this is no different than polling, asking people how much they like something and to what extent and looking at the results. The key word there is OBJECTIVELY speaking, as in being able to quantify the extent of the "impression" and "impact" you describe. You seem to reject this because it doesn't seem to match the poetic way you perceive this, but that doesn't mean it's not referring to the same thing.


I'm not sure about this. That some art has exhibited greater power to influence the world is "objectively" true and easy to observe. That it must do so, in part, by virtue of qualities inherent in its form and message, is unavoidable. But why is quantification a necessary criterion for the "objectivity" of these conclusions? Obviously, there can be no "quantification" of art's effects, except in the sense of recognizing their relative strength. But I can't see how referring to art's impact on people as "affecting their subjectivities" diminishes the objective fact that art has the aforementioned power, and that works of art differ greatly - and again observably - in the powers they possess. We don't need to take a poll to determine that they do, or to see the ways in which that power plays out. Who cares exactly how many people prefer _La Traviata_ to _Il Trovatore? _We only need to notice how these works affect people. (Parenthetically, I'll go out on a limb here and guess that _Traviata_ is preferred by more people, and I'm guessing that not just because I "subjectively" feel better about it but because its warmly human story, memorable and sympathetic heroine, dramatic cohesiveness and atmospheric score make it clearly a more impressive artistic achievement than _Trovatore_, whose somewhat silly plot about barbecued babies and noisy anvils or whatever can't be recounted by anyone and is redeemed mainly by a succession of good tunes, which _Traviata_ also has. I know you'll say, "What if more people liked...etc." I think I'll drop this now  ).

My point was that art works can't be fully and fairly evaluated without reference to their observable effects on the world, that their ability to have such effects is intrinsic to their identities as works, and that this can be one factor in making our assessments of merit more objective. The ability of a work, created in and for a specific place and moment in time, to keep listeners fascinated and moved for three hundred years is, in any rational view of what art is, a distinct merit. I believe there are other routes to objective understanding of art, not all of which have had anything close to adequate discussion in this thread, but I want to stress I'm not such an objectivist as to think that any work of art has a single fixed meaning or value, or that the contribution of the individual audience member is insignificant. Wagner, and artist who knew what he was doing and whose works have had a profound effect in the world, wrote to his friend August Roeckel that true works of art are apt to have meanings - to convey and suggest things - that even their creators are unaware of.


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## hammeredklavier

Woodduck said:


> That some art has exhibited greater power to influence the world is "objectively" true and easy to observe.


What do you think about: critique-musicale.com/bachen.htm


hammeredklavier said:


> A certain member in the past made a good point by posting the following in another thread (something for us to think about):
> 
> "All of the factors contributing to greatness are interrelated and dependent on each other. For example, one factor mentioned above is the tradition of received wisdom: belief in A's greatness has been passed down from generation to generation, reinforced by music textbooks and concert performances and internet forums, while belief in B's greatness has not. Another factor mentioned above is the test of time: A seems greater than B because the former's music has survived till today while the latter's has not. But these two factors are mutually reinforcing: if music textbooks have chapters on A but not B, then of course the former is going to have a leg up on the latter when it comes to the test of time. Conversely, if A's music is still performed today while B's is not, then of course music textbooks are going to have chapters on the former but not the latter. Likewise, another factor that has been mentioned is influence: A has demonstrably had a lasting influence on later composers, even today, while B has not. This is also inherently connected to the above factors: since A appears in textbooks and is more widely performed than B, then of course he is going to have a greater influence on later composers than B will.
> 
> In other words, the concept of greatness is a complex and circular system. By this point in time it's also a self-sustaining one, precisely because of the circularity. After all, this system is basically what we call a canon, and it is the very purpose of a canon to be self-perpetuating. As I wrote about in another thread some years ago, it is difficult to imagine any canonical composer being removed from the cycle and losing their canonical status, and it's difficult to imagine any non-canonical composer being inserted into the cycle and acquiring canonical status. I don't think the canon was always closed, and I don't want to think it is now, but if I'm being honest with myself then I have to think realistically that it is."


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## hammeredklavier

Influences can also be _negative_ depending on how you view them (eg. the idea to use voices in symphonies). All the "innovations" and "inventions" were Pandora's boxes that eventually led to modernism, which some people always express disapproval for (even though it's an indispensable part of modern culture such as film music expressing "horror").

"On the other hand, for the French, Mozart was certainly not 'one of us' from a national point of view. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, before Berlioz's time, some influential critics - for instance, Julien-Louis Geoffroy - rejected Mozart as a foreigner, considering his music 'scholastic', stressing his use of harmony over melody, and the dominance of the orchestra over singing in the operas - all these were considered negative features of 'Germanic' music."


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## Luchesi

hammeredklavier said:


> It baffles me; why do we all need to be under the "burden" of "kneeling" before Bach, Mozart, Beethoven? There are literally thousands of other composers. I know janxharris doesn't consider Sibelius to be less significant than Mozart. How is his "opinion" objectively wrong?


Because they took music a long way towards Schubert, Brahms, Chopin. Where did Sibelius take music? His violin concerto is amazing.


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## Strange Magic

dissident said:


> Not from someone who doesn't know what he's talking about (assuming Christgau isn't an Anglo-Saxonist on the side). But if he and his audience were equally ignorant of the subject, it might be pretty cool.
> 
> You have to wonder why such aesthetic, subjective things as music and literature are even taught in an educational environment anyway. After all, you can just say "go out there and find what you like and if you like it, then it's great". Heck, we can all be university faculty. I have an M.F.A., MMus and Ph.D. in knowing what I like.


People like talking about music and literature--you do, I do. Who, especially here on TC, doesn't? Another factor that I have previously brought up is David Riesman's explication of what he calls "Taste Exchanging"--a way of bonding with others. Back to Robert Christgau, with whom I have many disagreements--he is a bright person who knows something about music. I would like to get his perspective on CM. Who is afraid of Virginia Woolf?


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## Strange Magic

DaveM said:


> EY for one. Assuming that ‘experts’ have some expertise on the subject infers some education behind the expertise. But that is diminished as just another subjective opinion. If everyone thought that way, one would wonder why anyone would bother with an education in music.


I doubt it and, secretly, so do you. It again is hardly a tenet of subjectivism that education is bad: I merely note that it is not a _sine qua non _for enjoying and deeply appreciating music of any sort. Education, in fact, is always good. The misrepresentations of subjectivism are legion and again demonstrate "failure to communicate'' and failure to understand or think through the position.


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## Luchesi

hammeredklavier said:


> What do you think about: critique-musicale.com/bachen.htm


If I could find works by an unknown that I will appreciate in all the aspects, for decades, I wouldn't care who composed them. What would be the issue? Different countries? I don't think about the countries. Maybe I should.


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## Strange Magic

DaveM said:


> Did you somewhere in this thread get the idea that most people agree with your view of subjectivity and objectivity here and elsewhere?


Let's take a poll. Let there be a show of hands.


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## Strange Magic

*^^^^@Woodduck: "*That some art has exhibited greater power to influence the world is "objectively" true and easy to observe."

Yes, and.......? Again, who would dispute this? Subjectivism never asserted the contrary. Constructing windmills and then tilting at them. See post #953 above.


----------



## Luchesi

Eva Yojimbo said:


> I understand the point but these are statements about changing subjectivities. The teenagers that love Bieber are drawn to him for both musical and non-musical reasons, but all of these things impact on their subjectivity resulting in their minds ending up in the same "Bieber is great!" judgment that the lover of Beethoven's mind ends up in. Both of their reactions are caused by differing subjectivities that hear and react to these artists/composers differently.
> 
> It's absolutely true that the teenager who loves Bieber's mind/subjectivity will change over time (we know that from neuroscience), and so the subjective states that caused them to love Bieber may not be there by the time they're 60. All of this may or may not be true for the lover of Beethoven. I suspect some teenagers could come to love Beethoven but grow out of loving him later in life as well for many different possible reasons. Is such thing as common as with Bieber and the like? Probably not, but who cares? We are now just setting as a standard for greatness "art that continues to appeal to people as they age," which, as always, is fine if you care about such a thing, but nobody is obligated to care. Personally, I've been through "phases" of loving all different kinds of music, some of which I may never return to (if only due to life/time being finite), but I don't devalue my time/experience with them just because I've found other music I may want to return to more.
> 
> Further, it's fine to "not care" about the opinion of the teenager who loves Bieber; after all, your/our subjectivities are very different from theirs, so it wouldn't make sense to turn to such different subjectivities for opinions on what music we might like as opposed to more like-minded people. As always, though, this "not caring" can be done without pronouncing that our standards/tastes are objectively superior to theirs. Music exists for all people in all walks of life for all different reasons and purposes. Embracing that doesn't entail the belittle of the art we think great; it entails the expansion and acceptance of all art others also deem great.


Some good points I haven't heard before (I haven't read every post). 

I'm mostly concerned with what these opinions of adult music fans do to young minds (and they're everywhere not just in this forum (which makes me think I might be wrong or out of touch)). I want everyone coming up to have a chance to BEGIN to appreciate CM, not for when they're still young, but for when they turn 50 or 60. 
Educators who haven't been through the process can't know how important it is. 'Up there with making a good salary. As other interests slowly fall away, music should get more rewarding at the same time, as you continue to learn.


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## hammeredklavier

Things can be and have qualities to be popular, but whether or not they're popular because they're superficially appealing, sentimental, or over the top, or have attractive concepts (eg. "avantgardists of their time", "tortured artists", "musical philosophers", "masters of universal laws of complexity/simplicity") etc, still depends on how each one of us perceives them.


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## Woodduck

Eva Yojimbo said:


> who composed, when, for what occasion, date of first performance, socio-cultural expectations for such works, what the critical reaction reactions were, the nature of the work itself (length, form, genre, style, harmonic content, etc.); or, when it comes to studying composition, there's all the things to be learned as it pertains to music theory, form, orchestration, etc. All of these are perfectly legitimate subjects to learn and, when learned, makes one an expert on these objective matters.
> 
> *AESTHETIC JUDGMENTS ARE IN A DIFFERENT CATEGORY FROM THESE THINGS. *(Sorry for yelling). Of course, it requires that dreaded "armchair philosophizing" to explain WHY aesthetic judgments are in a different category compared to the above objective facts, and some people seem either incapable of understanding those reasons, unwilling to accept them, or some combination of the two.


Yes, indeed they are in a different category, and I don't think their specific nature is well understood or even much thought about by most people. I can't speak of them in as much detail as I'd like to, but I've found thinking about them to be important, enlightening, and enjoyable.

Aesthetic judgments occupy a category of their own in human experience. The challenge to perception and judgment faced by the artist when he has to answer the question of what the next note should be relative to what's come before and may come after, and the similar challenge faced by the performer of the completed work when he has to figure out just where the climax of the work occurs and how strong it needs to be relative to what's come before and what will come after, is the essential and unique challenge to the mind posed by art. The minds of the audience are allowed to perceive, mostly subconsciously, both the artist's questions and his answers, and the experience may be more or less satisfying depending on the adequacy of the answers. Not all answers are equally adequate, and most people have the innate ability to sense this. While the trained mind of the artist can define it more explicitly, our minds are constantly judging art as we watch or listen to it, asking and answering the question, "does this make sense?", and this process of question posed/answer given is going on at a subconscious level whether we're aware of it or not. it is not a random or lawless process; the mind's drive for making sense of stimuli forbids that, and there are specific "laws," or pattern templates which we recognize and which give the mind satisfaction.

The specific templates utilzed by any work of art are various and depend on numerous factors, including the style and idiom of the music and the intentions of artist. As an example, one of the commonest and most profoundly meaningful patterning templates in music is the presence of a specific scale containing a tonal center and entailing a hirerachy of relationships among the notes of the scale. This concept has arisen independently all over the world in various forms, and enables music to present a context for the listener in which the primal polarities of stability/instability, tension/resolution, frustration/ satisfaction can be expressed. Western music has evolved the most complex system of tonal relationships through its development of harmony.

Why go into this here (and it's only a bare start on a huge subject)? Because it exemplifies ways in which aesthetic perception is an identification of _objectively significant_ qualities in the structures of music, and sets up an important context in which objectively meaningful judgments can be made. How a composer handles the elements of structure - specifically, the degree to which he is able to make cogent use of structures, some of which are deeply rooted in and expressive of our biological nature and others of which are more specific to cultures but still significant in the listener's perception of order and meaning - greatly determines how his music will impact its hearers and how important it will be found to be in the greater scheme of things. From the moment of its conception in the artist's studio to its eventual destiny out in the culture and the world, decisions are being made in the brains of both creator and audience which are not simply matters of "taste" but matters of meaningful judgment upon what is actually before them.

None of this constitutes a rejection or diminution of the role of subjectivity in musical preferences. I simply reject any attempt at a subjective/objective dichotomy in the perception of art or the assessment of artistic merit.


,


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## Woodduck

Strange Magic said:


> *^^^^@Woodduck: "*That some art has exhibited greater power to influence the world is "objectively" true and easy to observe."
> 
> Yes, and.......? Again, who would dispute this? Subjectivism never asserted the contrary. Constructing windmills and then tilting at them. See post #953 above.


I haven't suggested that anyone would dispute it. The statement is only part of a larger argument. Think about the larger point and get back to us. I would never tilt at a defenseless windmill. I hope not to tilt at all for some years yet.


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## Woodduck

Eva Yojimbo said:


> everything that's been given does not amount to actual objectivity, it amounts to at (at most) the acceptance of subjectively agreed-upon standards as determined by people who you (the objectivists) deem experts, or at least worthy of determining such things. This is SM's "polling" approach to greatness. All it tells us is what this/these group(s) value. Some people in these groups may point to what objective features they happen to value, but this likewise reduces to what I described as the subjective liking of objective features, which is also not objectivity, certainly not what I mean by it, and I suspect not what most people would mean by it.


You can't reduce evaluations of the choices of artists or the perceptions of audiences to "liking." The artist works within a set of conditions and assumptions that determine his intellectual materials and their physical embodiments. If he handles these materials in ways that are cogent and distinctive to the mind, he does good work. If he doesn't, he doesn't. His success is, in general and in the long run - allowing for people's adjustment to the unfamiliar - very perceptible. The human capacity for such discriminations is innate, and is capable of extraordinary range and finesse. This is the basis, the fundament, on which artistic appreciation is built.

The continued inability to see this, or to recognize its importance, is amazing to me.


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## Waehnen

I actually do not have problems with most of the stuff said on this thread. Complicated matters can be addressed in many ways.

It is just the arrogance and the lack of respect suggested by the Sloganism of Strange Magic that admittedly irritates me.

Imagine a Lifetime Award Party of an old symphonic composer. This conversation is like dragging a young ignorant rap artist to do the honours:

”Good evening, good old composer. Suppose you are the great symphonist here. I haven’t heard a single complete symphony in my life. But you know what? Your opinion on the matter is no better than mine. And I am here to say: your music is just bad, I listened to it for 5 minutes yesterday. Nobody’s interested. I have more listeners than you. I made a poll: you suck. None of my friends even know who you are. But I suppose you have been doing it for long so for just for the extramusical accomplishments: congratulations, grand old man! No hard feelings! Just telling the undisputed truth here!”

That is the picture I get of the Strange Magic attitude and ”scientific formula”.


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## Strange Magic

*^^^^@Woodduck: *Your post #959 is all well and good but it does not account for the very wide diversity in responses to music (and other arts) on the part of unique individuals. All that labor and explanation is fine for a gross, broad-brush generic sort of theory of esthetics, a general summing of reactions on the part of what audience. if I or you were generic souls, then we would all like the same things and artists would produce the same works. This is obviously not the case and TC lists and polls constantly demonstrate this. The unique nature, _sui generis, _of human responses to art renders moot any explanation that would attempt to explain the complexity of our individual responses--too many variables, too many neural circuits, too different past experiences. The objectivist thesis, according to you, is that a generic theory will explain the reactions of a generic human being--all individual distinctiveness goes out the window. Robots assessing robots. People are unique,


----------



## Strange Magic

Waehnen said:


> I actually do not have problems with most of the stuff said on this thread. Complicated matters can be addressed in many ways.
> 
> It is just the arrogance and the lack of respect suggested by the Sloganism of Strange Magic that admittedly irritates me.
> 
> Imagine a Lifetime Award Party of an old symphonic composer. This conversation is like dragging a young ignorant rap artist to do the honours:
> 
> ”Good evening, good old composer. Suppose you are the great symphonist here. I haven’t heard a single complete symphony in my life. But you know what? Your opinion on the matter is no better than mine. And I am here to say: your music is just bad, I listened to it for 5 minutes yesterday. Nobody’s interested. I have more listeners than you. I made a poll: you suck. None of my friends even know who you are. But I suppose you have been doing it for long so for just for the extramusical accomplishments: congratulations, grand old man! No hard feelings! Just telling the undisputed truth here!”
> 
> That is the picture I get of the Strange Magic attitude and ”scientific formula”.


I am beginning to believe you. More important than pursuing the truth is being nice, to dear old composers and to everybody else. And your arrogance is peeking out from under your soft robes.


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## Waehnen

Strange Magic said:


> I am beginning to believe you. More important than pursuing the truth is being nice, to dear old composers and to everybody else. And your arrogance is peeking out from under your soft robes.


Is that really your reaction to my carricature? I would have hoped not. 

I am both a classical musician and a rocker and a progger, even a pop artist. Not to mention Finnish folk. So no arrogance on my part related to different genres. Quite the contrary: respect towards all.


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## Forster

Eva Yojimbo said:


> [...] We know some of the basic reasons: people delight in aural patterns, especially memorable ones, but also crave the excitement of surprise and novelty. It's clear that Beethoven's music possesses both elements of memorable patterns and novelty/surprise [...]


Perhaps going off at a tangent, I'd query the point about novelty/surprise. The exceedingly well-informed expert listener (EWIEL) might well spot "novelty" on a first hearing of a Beethoven symphony, but many average fan of CM wouldn't, would they? And, I would argue, the EWIEL would gain some satisfaction from their spotting the novelty, but only like the quizzer gets from correctly answering an obscure item of trivia.

For me, there is a sweet spot in getting to know a composition, where the emotional thrill of the anticipation of a particular resolution, or cadence, or key change can only come about because we know what's coming. Once we're well familiar with it, it no longer carries quite the same impact.


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## Woodduck

Strange Magic said:


> *^^^^@Woodduck: *Your post #959 is all well and good but it does not account for the very wide diversity in responses to music (and other arts) on the part of unique individuals. All that labor and explanation is fine for a gross, broad-brush generic sort of theory of esthetics, a general summing of reactions on the part of what audience. if I or you were generic souls, then we would all like the same things and artists would produce the same works. This is obviously not the case and TC lists and polls constantly demonstrate this. The unique nature, _sui generis, _of human responses to art renders moot any explanation that would attempt to explain the complexity of our individual responses--too many variables, too many neural circuits, too different past experiences. The objectivist thesis, according to you, is that a generic theory will explain the reactions of a generic human being--all individual distinctiveness goes out the window. Robots assessing robots. People are unique,


If the question at issue is what your doctrine suggests it is - are all aesthetic judgments "subjective"? - then there is no need for anyone to try to account for the wide diversity of responses to art, but only to show whether objectivity in aesthetic judgment is possible, and perhaps to indicate its importance. That is all I've tried to do. Specifically, I've tried to show that there are essential aspects to aesthetic experience, kinds of perceiving that define aesthetic perceptions _as aesthetic,_ and distinct from other perceptions. I did this in direct response to Eva Yojimbo's statement , "Aesthetic judgments are in a different category from these things" [see her post], with which I wholeheartedly agreed. I believe that aesthetic judgments are in a different category from _all_ other judgments, on account of the nature of the material which is their object.

The unique subjective traits in all of us which create and respond to different kinds of art and to the same art in different ways, and the personal visions of artists that manipulate form for unique expressive ends,.are not denied or undermined by the mind's quest for cogent, satisfying form. In fact, it's the universal perception of form which creates the many systems of signs and symbols - the world's diverse artistic "languages" - which allow the artist to use form as an effective vehicle of expression, no matter what he wishes to express, by playing off of the expectations of his audience. Some signs and symbols and the patterns made from them seem to have universal significance, while some are strictly conventional, but all can be a vehicle for artistic communication if - and only if - the artist is conscious of basic principles or laws of form and can use them to make an object comprehensible to the mind. Artists can do this more or less successfully, and audiences, in general and in the long, reward him accordingly.

There is no suggestion here that people are or ought to be "generic" in order for the processes of aesthetic perception to occur or to have value, even in the perception of radically different forms of art, and across the different arts. In fact, the same basic perceptual processes occur in everyday life away from designated "art objects," because aesthetic perception is, at bottom, a refined form of the brain's need and drive to make sense of raw data, a pattern-generating activity which goes on constantly, even in sleep (even the seeming craziness of dreaming is a sorting out of experience in order to integrate the brain's contents). What's unique in art is that the process becomes itself a subject of perception and enjoyment - and, for the artist, of purposeful deployment.

I want to stress that the deployment and enjoyment of universal or quasi-universal (culture-wide) mental templates which constitute the formal qualities we call "aesthetic" not only does not deny or restrict, but actually enables, the expressive potential of the wide diversity of artistic styles. This isn't as esoteric as it may seem; it's easy to see that music, in particular, would not have the power of expression it has for us unless there were some basic aspects of our mental functioning - and our physical functioning too - that it could represent and resonate with. Artists are the people whose job it is to reach into the well of aesthetic form and create objects that satisfy the brain's desire for order and, through the forms thus created, express whatever aspects of human experience the artists and their audiences might value and want to represent and contemplate. In the aesthetic realm, the universal is the necessary foundation for the uniquely personal.

As for the subjective/objective dichotomy and the disputes engendered by effort to "take sides," it is entirely alien and irrelevant to my experiences as an artist. That is my only reason for describing the problem-soving aspect of artistic creation, which involves a continuous interplay between the subjective need to make a personal artistic statement and the awareness that objective qualities of form, and the sensitive and precise use of them, are the necessary vehicle for attaining that end. I like to call the aesthetic experience, whether on the part of the artist in the production of work or the audience in the reception of it - the one mirroring the other - the "subjective/objective." The artist is "subjectively" free to say whatever he wants, but he needs an "objective" grasp of the principles and conditions of formal expression in order to say it.


----------



## 59540

Strange Magic said:


> People like talking about music and literature--you do, I do. Who, especially here on TC, doesn't? Another factor that I have previously brought up is David Riesman's explication of what he calls "Taste Exchanging"--a way of bonding with others. Back to Robert Christgau, with whom I have many disagreements--he is a bright person who knows something about music. I would like to get his perspective on CM. Who is afraid of Virginia Woolf?


Well, and philosophy for that matter. I don't see why unprovable concepts of philosophy can be called upon as authority in paragraphs-long posts, the quality of which is determined by how much you've studied the topic, while music -- which also features logical rules and procedures -- is a free for all, no matter what your level of knowledge.


Strange Magic said:


> People like talking about music and literature--you do, I do. Who, especially here on TC, doesn't? Another factor that I have previously brought up is David Riesman's explication of what he calls "Taste Exchanging"--a way of bonding with others. Back to Robert Christgau, with whom I have many disagreements--he is a bright person who knows something about music. I would like to get his perspective on CM. Who is afraid of Virginia Woolf?


It isn't a question of fear, it's a question of whether it's useful or worthwhile. His take on HIP would probably be no more informed than mine on hip hop.


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## 59540

hammeredklavier said:


> What do you think about: critique-musicale.com/bachen.htm


I say it doesn't matter. I'm pretty confident Bach's work will always stand up against several pages of anti-Bach prose on the Web. If I and millions of others think Bach's work is great, how are you going to convince us that it really isn't and that Vivaldi is better? By posting Vivaldi vids all over the place? I've heard Vivaldi already.


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## 59540

Woodduck said:


> As for the subjective/objective dichotomy and the disputes engendered by effort to "take sides," it is entirely alien and irrelevant to my experiences as an artist.


I suspect that the whole thing is just to provide a rationale for saying that Beethoven et al are "no better than" pop music. It's postmodern leveling. The dogs bark but the caravan moves on.


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## Strange Magic

Waehnen said:


> Is that really your reaction to my carricature? I would have hoped not.
> 
> I am both a classical musician and a rocker and a progger, even a pop artist. Not to mention Finnish folk. So no arrogance on my part related to different genres. Quite the contrary: respect towards all.


Are you also a joker, a smoker, and a midnight toker? Are you Maurice who sings of the pompetus of love? Are you the Gangster of Love? We certainly share a respect for all genres.


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## hammeredklavier

Woodduck said:


> The continued inability to see this, or to recognize its importance, is amazing to me.


I respect all your views, but after all the things you've said on the forum, I can't help but thinking statements like the above sound like "The continued inability to see the objective mediocrity of Mahler and Strauss (compared to Wagner) is amazing." 
I'm sorry, but it's just the impression I get.


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## Strange Magic

Forster said:


> Perhaps going off at a tangent, I'd query the point about novelty/surprise. The exceedingly well-informed expert listener (EWIEL) might well spot "novelty" on a first hearing of a Beethoven symphony, but many average fan of CM wouldn't, would they? And, I would argue, the EWIEL would gain some satisfaction from their spotting the novelty, but only like the quizzer gets from correctly answering an obscure item of trivia.
> 
> For me, there is a sweet spot in getting to know a composition, where the emotional thrill of the anticipation of a particular resolution, or cadence, or key change can only come about because we know what's coming. Once we're well familiar with it, it no longer carries quite the same impact.


Regarding your excellent point about the balance between expectation and its denial in music: One aspect in music that is often not taken into account is what is called the Cusp Experience or Response wherein even knowing that a musical cusp or profound turning point is coming in the music, we can (some of us) still feel a distinct gooseflesh thrill as we encounter the cusp. There have been several studies of the role of the limbic system/autonomic nervous system in explaining this phenomenon, and some have reached the conclusion that about 50% of the population share this trait. This, maybe not strangely, fits in with the observation that some 50% also are susceptible to the phenomenon of limerence as first investigated and defined by the psychologist Dorothy Tennov. I am prone to both conditions and so am always thrilled and chilled by certain cusp passages in music. The musical analyst Leonard Meyer, while being the expert of the expectation/denial link, says almost nothing about there being this neurologically-liked cusp experience, perhaps dismissing it as part of the "sensual" aspect of music, which he chose not to concern himself with deeply.


----------



## Strange Magic

dissident said:


> Well, and philosophy for that matter. I don't see why unprovable concepts of philosophy can be called upon as authority in paragraphs-long posts, the quality of which is determined by how much you've studied the topic, while music -- which also features logical rules and procedures -- is a free for all, no matter what your level of knowledge.
> 
> It isn't a question of fear, it's a question of whether it's useful or worthwhile. His take on HIP would probably be no more informed than mine on hip hop.


Have you no curiosity? Wouldn't you like to know what Kenneth Clark or Richard Feynman thought about music? I know I would.


----------



## Strange Magic

dissident said:


> I suspect that the whole thing is just to provide a rationale for saying that Beethoven et al are "no better than" pop music. It's postmodern leveling. The dogs bark but the caravan moves on.


Yet again the almost total inability to grasp the key points of subjectivism. Subjectively all are free to praise Beethoven to the skies, to regard him as a demigod of music, if they so choose. Subjectivism does not concern itself with the content of the views of others except as a matter of curiosity. It is concerned with the integrity, validity, authenticity of the unique individual perception of art. The bond to authority or to group consensus becomes entirely voluntary.


----------



## Strange Magic

dissident said:


> I say it doesn't matter. I'm pretty confident Bach's work will always stand up against several pages of anti-Bach prose on the Web. If I and millions of others think Bach's work is great, how are you going to convince us that it really isn't and that Vivaldi is better? By posting Vivaldi vids all over the place? I've heard Vivaldi already.


A wonderful yet brief exposition of the concept of the cluster of like-minded individuals. Well done! "We all say so, so it must be true!"


----------



## Forster

Strange Magic said:


> Regarding your excellent point about the balance between expectation and its denial in music: One aspect in music that is often not taken into account is what is called the Cusp Experience or Response wherein even knowing that a musical cusp or profound turning point is coming in the music, we can (some of us) still feel a distinct gooseflesh thrill as we encounter the cusp. There have been several studies of the role of the limbic system/autonomic nervous system in explaining this phenomenon, and some have reached the conclusion that about 50% of the population share this trait. This, maybe not strangely, fits in with the observation that some 50% also are susceptible to the phenomenon of limerence as first investigated and defined by the psychologist Dorothy Tennov. I am prone to both conditions and so am always thrilled and chilled by certain cusp passages in music. The musical analyst Leonard Meyer, while being the expert of the expectation/denial link, says almost nothing about there being this neurologically-liked cusp experience, perhaps dismissing it as part of the "sensual" aspect of music, which he chose not to concern himself with deeply.


I guess I might have to buy a copy of Meyer.

I'm surprised that only 50% are susceptible to "limerence"...a new word to me so I might not have grasped it correctly as it seems akin to "love".


----------



## hammeredklavier

dissident said:


> The dogs bark but the caravan moves on.


Who are the dogs and the caravan in this case?:


hammeredklavier said:


> The same can be said of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven. (I know it's sad, but truth is truth). Except maybe very few selected hits, like "Air on G string", Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, Fur Elise, they're only really popular in our own little nerdy circles. The rest of the world, which comprises of more than 99.99% of the population, simply doesn't give a  on daily basis.


----------



## Strange Magic

Forster said:


> I guess I might have to buy a copy of Meyer.
> 
> I'm surprised that only 50% are susceptible to "limerence"...a new word to me so I might not have grasped it correctly as it seems akin to "love".


I think the best book by Meyer for the non-specialist is his _Music, the Arts, and Ideas_, where he not only outlines (not the right word, as you will find Meyer very dense reading as do I) his thinking on musical structure and the expectation/denial phenomenon but also you read his marvelous and prescient take on the New Stasis in the arts, which has been demonstrated and even strengthened by the passage of time.

Dorothy Tennov's book is _Love and Limerence. _Anyone who has been suddenly smitten with another--The Thunderbolt -- (with a very strong sexual overtone) will immediately weep with joy at Tennov's grasp and explanation of the phenomenon. I read it after "falling in love" inappropriately with a woman half my age and was grateful for Tennov's sympathetic yet clinical depiction of limerence.


----------



## hammeredklavier

I still stand by these statements:


hammeredklavier said:


> It would do more harm than good. It's 2022 now and there's still plenty of music by obscure composers we haven't heard yet since it's not recorded or performed.
> a large portion of "useless/pointless debates" on certain famous composers, for instance, "Mozart vs. Beethoven" (even though they can be thought to have little to do with each other artistically), has been waged on the premise or the mindset that they're objectively "summits of Western music".


People like neoshredder and Weston have actually found more value in Boccherini than Mozart. If anyone thinks that way, I would listen to him explain why, rather than condemning him as "objectively obtuse".


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## Strange Magic

*^^^^@Woodduck: *I appreciate your thoughtful post #967, and it would be difficult to find disagreement with it. I think our situation is one, or may be only one about the utility and the use of our different approaches to esthetic judgments on the part of the individual. As is clear, I am a fierce partisan of the validity of everyone's taste in and reaction to art. I have long ago lost interest in much Renaissance art--there are clearly exceptions, such as Giorgione--also lost any interest in much other European art older than, say, Goya and some of the Dutch painters (we both like Vermeer). The Experts, estheticians, etc., often do not allow for a disinclination toward works they deem "great". We have seen my reaction to, say, my favorite whipping boy Ingres as a refutation of the essential value of skill in art. I find, with exceptions, the work of Rembrandt to be dark and muddy, yet dark and muddy is also a hallmark of Ryder, whose art is, in its own way, as gripping as Rembrandt's. Finding myself often at odds with high-end esthetic pontificators, I rightly chose to cast aside their theoretical "explanations" and justifications for why some art was greater than others, and instead restored to the individual (myself as a template) complete authority over their esthetic choices and judgments. I repeat the question: who Is To Be Master? The consequences of this liberation include acknowledging the value to each individual of their own perceptions and preferences. I long ago quit paying serious attention to formal estheticians and critics as gatekeepers to what is good and bad. Art is to serve individual people. If those people fall into a cluster of like-minded souls, that is all that such constitutes--it tells us nothing of the value of the art to others. As we have disposed of the notion that excellence is to be found within an art object, what is left is the freedom to bring to art whatever unique net of neurological, etc. filters and predispositions that are uniquely our own. As an aside, we have all seen those optical illusion illustrations where some see an old man, others a young girl, etc., or a vase or two faces facing one another. Food for thought.


----------



## Luchesi

Waehnen said:


> I actually do not have problems with most of the stuff said on this thread. Complicated matters can be addressed in many ways.
> 
> It is just the arrogance and the lack of respect suggested by the Sloganism of Strange Magic that admittedly irritates me.
> 
> Imagine a Lifetime Award Party of an old symphonic composer. This conversation is like dragging a young ignorant rap artist to do the honours:
> 
> ”Good evening, good old composer. Suppose you are the great symphonist here. I haven’t heard a single complete symphony in my life. But you know what? Your opinion on the matter is no better than mine. And I am here to say: your music is just bad, I listened to it for 5 minutes yesterday. Nobody’s interested. I have more listeners than you. I made a poll: you suck. None of my friends even know who you are. But I suppose you have been doing it for long so for just for the extramusical accomplishments: congratulations, grand old man! No hard feelings! Just telling the undisputed truth here!”
> 
> That is the picture I get of the Strange Magic attitude and ”scientific formula”.


I assume that SM has never had the exhilarating experiences of making music, exploring music as a physical activity (participatory), shaping great works to his own self-actualization, sharing music with other musicians he highly respects, analyzing his way through music history...

How could we find common feelings?, we might have in common about music? I mean deep feelings which result in the strong opinions which are so important to us, our outlooks and our egos.

This thread has gone into so much that I think we're down at that visceral level. If those are the right words for it.


----------



## 59540

hammeredklavier said:


> Who are the dogs and the caravan in this case?:


Doesn't matter.


----------



## Luchesi

Strange Magic said:


> Are you also a joker, a smoker, and a midnight toker? Are you Maurice who sings of the pompetus of love? Are you the Gangster of Love? We certainly share a respect for all genres.


Unless they're merely unhelpful distractions to young people when they're promoted by the creeping relativism of the culture. It's illogical to do this to young minds.


----------



## 59540

hammeredklavier said:


> I still stand by these statements:
> 
> People like neoshredder and Weston have actually found more value in Boccherini than Mozart.


So what? Are you saying there's more objective value in Boccherini than in Mozart? That they're completely equal? If so, Boccherini can find his place in the pantheon on his own merits without the aid of subjectivist internet commenters.


----------



## Strange Magic

Luchesi said:


> I assume that SM has never had the exhilarating experiences of making music, exploring music as a physical activity (participatory), shaping great works to his own self-actualization, sharing music with other musicians he highly respects, analyzing his way through music history...
> 
> How could we find common feelings?, we might have in common about music? I mean deep feelings which result in the strong opinions which are so important to us, our outlooks and our egos.
> 
> This thread has gone into so much that I think we're down at that visceral level. If those are the right words for it.


To carry your thought a tiny bit further, let us postulate that only those who have the described experiences are fit to correctly enjoy or to be thought capable of enjoying CM. Again going a little bit further, we have Milton Babbitt proposing to his fellow iconoclasts that they abandon composing music for a public and only write for one another. That way the purity, the genuineness, the just plain Rightness of having the correct audience for CM would be assured. Everyone else is fumbling at experiencing music, or just faking it.


----------



## Strange Magic

Luchesi said:


> Unless they're merely unhelpful distractions to young people when they're promoted by the creeping relativism of the culture. It's illogical to do this to young minds.


Are you referring to other genres, the non-CM genres that both Waehnen and myself have said we have no animus toward? Or do I read Waehnen's remarks wrongly and note that I much prefer posters who say what they mean and mean what they say, obvious irony excluded.


----------



## Luchesi

Strange Magic said:


> To carry your thought a tiny bit further, let us postulate that only those who have the described experiences are fit to correctly enjoy or to be thought capable of enjoying CM. Again going a little bit further, we have Milton Babbitt proposing to his fellow iconoclasts that they abandon composing music for a public and only write for one another. That way the purity, the genuineness, the just plain Rightness of having the correct audience for CM would be assured. Everyone else is fumbling at experiencing music, or just faking it.


No, what I meant was, we should be more understanding of you and your experiences. We should put ourselves in your place. (It might not be possible, because communing generally requires knowing the same language and its beauties.)

I play a little game with myself, musing about youngsters vs old, experienced experts of music (conductors, composers, performers, critics, theorists, educators). I think of them as two separate species, so different. What are their different approaches and what have been their successes, and WHY.


----------



## Waehnen

Strange Magic said:


> To carry your thought a tiny bit further, let us postulate that only those who have the described experiences are fit to correctly enjoy or to be thought capable of enjoying CM. Again going a little bit further, we have Milton Babbitt proposing to his fellow iconoclasts that they abandon composing music for a public and only write for one another. That way the purity, the genuineness, the just plain Rightness of having the correct audience for CM would be assured. Everyone else is fumbling at experiencing music, or just faking it.


One point: I may be a composer but damn are there more open minded and earded listeners than me here on TC. And I love it.

I will forever object to ”ranking listeners” and people feeling bad because they think they do not know enough or are not sophisticated enough to listen to and enjoy great art.

I would scold myself if I ever made somebody feel bad about or somehow ”lesser than me” listening to classical music. I almost said I would not forgive myself.

As listeners we are equal in experiencing classical music.

It is another matter that some people also create their own music or analyze and study the art scene and hence have more tools to certain kind of argumentation.

You do not need to know everything about flying buttresses’ abilities to share structural weight to enjoy some gothic architecture.


----------



## Strange Magic

Luchesi said:


> No, what I meant was, we should be more understanding of you and your experiences. We should put ourselves in your place. (It might not be possible, because communing generally requires knowing the same language and its beauties.)
> 
> I play a little game with myself, musing about youngsters vs old, experienced experts of music (conductors, composers, performers, critics, theorists, educators). I think of them as two separate species, so different. What are their different approaches and what have been their successes, and WHY.


A restatement, a reinforcement of your previous position. Babbitt would approve. Music is really for the few, so why worry about either the Young or the greater mass of callow amateurs?


----------



## Strange Magic

Waehnen said:


> One point: I may be a composer but damn are there more open minded and earded listeners than me here on TC. And I love it.
> 
> I will forever object to ”ranking listeners” and people feeling bad because they think they do not know enough or are not sophisticated enough to listen to and enjoy great art.
> 
> I would scold myself if I ever made somebody feel bad about or somehow ”lesser than me” listening to classical music. I almost said I would not forgive myself.
> 
> As listeners we are equal in experiencing classical music.
> 
> It is another matter that some people also create their own music or analyze and study the art scene and hence have more tools to certain kind of argumentation.
> 
> You do not need to know everything about flying buttresses’s abilities to share structural weight to enjoy some gothic architecture.


Is Luchesi aware of your views? You had better check with him.


----------



## Luchesi

Strange Magic said:


> Are you referring to other genres, the non-CM genres that both Waehnen and myself have said we have no animus toward? Or do I read Waehnen's remarks wrongly and note that I much prefer posters who say what they mean and mean what they say, obvious irony excluded.


Yes, entertainment music. I perform a lot of it, and enjoy playing it.

I'll write something that I might regret here.
Entertainment music is like astrology, while music which intends to advance the art of music is astronomy.
Astronomy comes from logic and from its history of fundamental discoveries, etc..

Astrology, people imagined pictograms (different pictograms for each culture!) among the bright stars.


----------



## Waehnen

Strange Magic said:


> Is Luchesi aware of your views? You had better check with him.


Excuse me? I do not report to anyone on my views. For me this is not a battle of two camps.


----------



## fbjim

Luchesi said:


> Yes, entertainment music. I perform a lot of it, and enjoy playing it.
> 
> I'll write something that I might regret here.
> Entertainment music is like astrology, while music which intends to advance the art of music is astronomy.
> Astronomy comes from logic and from its history of fundamental discoveries, etc..
> 
> Astrology, people imagined pictograms (different pictograms for each culture!) among the bright stars.


When I listen to Brahms 4 because I love Brahms 4, and want to enjoy listening to Brahms 4: is that an act of entertainment, or an act of logic?


----------



## Luchesi

Strange Magic said:


> A restatement, a reinforcement of your previous position. Babbitt would approve. Music is really for the few, so why worry about either the Young or the greater mass of callow amateurs?


Again, because I've found that it's so important for their lives as they get past middle age.


----------



## Strange Magic

Waehnen said:


> Excuse me? I do not report to anyone on my views. For me this is not a battle of two camps.


I am not asking you to report to Luchesi, but to merely explore his notions of who should listen to CM and what is the correct way of experiencing CM. We are, I think, concerned with retaining if not expanding the audience for CM.


----------



## Luchesi

fbjim said:


> When I listen to Brahms 4 because I love Brahms 4, and want to enjoy listening to Brahms 4: is that an act of entertainment, or an act of logic?


Well, you might enjoy it for the evoking and titillating sounds. I can relate to that, but it's a minor consideration when there's so much more.


----------



## Strange Magic

Luchesi said:


> Again, because I've found that it's so important for their lives as they get past middle age.


What does that mean? As I have noted before, years ago, your "elliptical" posts are often difficult to parse.


----------



## Strange Magic

Luchesi said:


> Well, you might enjoy it for the evoking and titillating sounds. I can relate to that, but it's a minor consideration when there's so much more.


More of the same!


----------



## Luchesi

Strange Magic said:


> I am not asking you to report to Luchesi, but to merely explore his notions of who should listen to CM and what is the correct way of experiencing CM. We are, I think, concerned with retaining if not expanding the audience for CM.


You'll immediately get a push back if you write words like 'should" or "correct way". There are methods that work in education, but others approaches are off-putting (and we might not realize it soon enough).


----------



## Luchesi

Strange Magic said:


> More of the same!


Thanks. It is clear thinking, isn't it?


----------



## Strange Magic

Luchesi said:


> Thanks. It is clear thinking, isn't it?


It's called Luchesi Thinking.


----------



## Strange Magic

Luchesi said:


> You'll immediately get a push back if you write words like 'should" or "correct way". There are methods that work in education, but others approaches are off-putting (and we might not realize it soon enough).


So true! This exchange is a perfect example. BTW: how should I properly and correctly listen to the Brahms 4th? I want my experience to be an authentic and meaningful one.


----------



## Woodduck

hammeredklavier said:


> I respect all your views, but after all the things you've said on the forum, I can't help but thinking statements like the above sound like "The continued inability to see the objective mediocrity of Mahler and Strauss (compared to Wagner) is amazing."
> I'm sorry, but it's just the impression I get.


Well, people have all sorts of impressions, don't they? For example, I have the impressioin that you intend your many posts showing that different people have expressed different opinions about music as proof of something beyond the fact that different people have expressed different opinions about music. My impression may be mistaken. Yours may as well.


----------



## Luchesi

Strange Magic said:


> So true! This exchange is a perfect example. BTW: how should I properly and correctly listen to the Brahms 4th? I want my experience to be an authentic and meaningful one.


That's why we have music education. We need constructive guidance.


----------



## Woodduck

Strange Magic said:


> I long ago quit paying serious attention to formal estheticians and critics as gatekeepers to what is good and bad. Art is to serve individual people. If those people fall into a cluster of like-minded souls, that is all that such constitutes--it tells us nothing of the value of the art to others. * As we have disposed of the notion that excellence is to be found within an art object, what is left is the freedom to bring to art whatever unique net of neurological, etc. filters and predispositions that are uniquely our own. *As an aside, we have all seen those optical illusion illustrations where some see an old man, others a young girl, etc., or a vase or two faces facing one another. Food for thought.


Why can't we acknowledge excellences of many kinds - the visible, audible, readable traces of the experiences and insights of thoughtful and skilled artists - and still feel completely free to like or dislike what they do? Where is the constraint we must break free of? Are we perpetual teenagers in permanent rebellion against parental authority?


----------



## Waehnen

Woodduck said:


> Why can't we acknowledge excellences of many kinds - the visible, audible, readable traces of the experiences and insights of thoughtful and skilled artists - and still feel completely free to like or dislike what we do? Where is the constraint we must break free of? Are we perpetual teenagers in permanent rebellion against parental authority?


Precisely! I happily take the advantage and benefit of listening to the wise but still keep my mental and spiritual and intellectual and artistic freedom!


----------



## Strange Magic

Woodduck said:


> Why can't we acknowledge excellences of many kinds - the visible, audible, readable traces of the experiences and insights of thoughtful and skilled artists - and still feel completely free to like or dislike what they do? Where is the constraint we must break free of? Are we perpetual teenagers in permanent rebellion against parental authority?


Nobody I know is denying excellence where they perceive it. We just don't all share the same notions as to whom and what.


----------



## Strange Magic

Luchesi said:


> That's why we have music education. We need constructive guidance.


Yet again, more of the same. You and Advokat (Zhdanov reborn?) have much in common.


----------



## Strange Magic

Waehnen said:


> Precisely! I happily take the advantage and benefit of listening to the wise but still keep my mental and spiritual and intellectual and artistic freedom!


Who can argue against this?


----------



## Luchesi

Strange Magic said:


> Yet again, more of the same. You and Advokat (Zhdanov reborn?) have much in common.


Well, think of all the ways you're different from a composer or a performer or a respected critic. If you want know music you have to delve into the fascinating details of what it's comprised of and study how one work is more effective than another (whatever the goals are).


----------



## Luchesi

Strange Magic said:


> Nobody I know is denying excellence where they perceive it. We just don't all share the same notions as to whom and what.


My question always is, how do you think you will come to understand what the "what" is?


----------



## fbjim

Luchesi said:


> My question always is, how do you think you will come to understand what the "what" is?


That is very personal - in fact I think that is entirely personal.

I know people for whom technical art analysis is like the proverb that explaining a joke is like dissecting a frog - in other words, they are actively hostile to it, because they believe that - like finding out how a magic trick works - it will impede the pure experience of being a listener. Others feel compelled to dive into works they enjoy, into every scrap of biographical history, music theory, and analysis they can find, because they find pleasure in doing so.

Hopefully as music listeners both sides can come to an understanding of each others views of aesthetics even if they don't share the same sense of what gives them aesthetic pleasure.


As for me - I'd say that if one _had_ to know music theory on the level of Brahms in order to get pleasure out of Brahms, his music wouldn't hold any interest to me. Like film editing, or stage magic, I think great musical composition works even when one doesn't know the tricks being used.


----------



## Woodduck

Strange Magic said:


> Nobody I know is denying excellence where they perceive it. We just don't all share the same notions as to whom and what.


Obviously, to both points. But how is this a response to my question? To paraphrase it: Why would a recognition that aesthetic excellence is something art actually embodies in its structure, as opposed to something we merely attribute to it - as a completely subjectivist view of artistic judgment must maintain - be a constraint on our freedom to bring to art our own unique viewpoints? Your statement, "*As we have disposed of the notion that excellence is to be found within an art object, what is left is the freedom to bring to art whatever unique net of neurological, etc. filters and predispositions that are uniquely our own, " *implies that it is such a constraint. The only constraint I can see is the one we live under at every moment: if we can see that something exists, we're constrained by conscience not to claim that it doesn't. Of course we can always lie. I guess that's a freedom some people cherish, but I'm sure it isn't the freedom you're talking about.


----------



## hammeredklavier

> But this is a charge that can be leveled at Bach generally: being too excellent. A reviewer at a recital I played (Ives' first Sonata and the _Goldbergs_) complained that he wished Bach would have let himself be more Ivesian, thrown in some wrong notes, let himself go. Ha, take that, Johann Sebastian! The Kalamazoo press just totally trashed you! I often talk about Bach as a great humanist, as having an empathy for the whole range of human emotion. (Rather than the cerebral, fugal stereotype.) I love the way his music seems to look down on the whole human deal, but not condescendingly, with (now I'm letting myself rhapsodize subjectively) a kind of benevolent understanding. He does not look down bitterly (like Shostakovich, for instance), saying look at this terrible empty comedy of human emotion. Nor is he himself the emoter, like Beethoven; but he is not distanced, either. He has hit a sweet spot. Perhaps the most serious complaint you could make about Bach is that he has every quality of humanity except imperfection.


----------



## 59540

Luchesi said:


> My question always is, how do you think you will come to understand what the "what" is?


After 51 pages of this I'm still wondering what the whole point is. Subjective, objective...the "rankings" are still going to be what they are and people aren't suddenly going to have an epiphany and say "you know, Justin Bieber really _is_ just as good as Beethoven! How could I have been so blind!!!!" Telling me it's all in my brain isn't going to make me think any less of the music I love and value. It's mostly preening and posturing.


----------



## Strange Magic

Luchesi said:


> Well, think of all the ways you're different from a composer or a performer or a respected critic. If you want know music you have to delve into the fascinating details of what it's comprised of and study how one work is more effective than another (whatever the goals are).


'And more of the same.


----------



## Strange Magic

Luchesi said:


> My question always is, how do you think you will come to understand what the "what" is?



Should the ranks of CM lovers be purged for failure to properly appreciate the music? Your position is increasingly clear. Let's not expand the audience--lets reduce, cleanse, and purify it a la Advokat. It should become a cult.


----------



## fbjim

I've expressed this before but I'm consistently surprised at the position that true understanding and "correct" listening of classical music involves, e.g. deep score dives, rigorous analysis of musical form, etc. This is absolutely a source of pleasure for a lot of people, and enhances their appreciation of works - but - for a great deal of history, classical music was written with the expectation that a lot of listeners might listen to a given piece a few times in their lives. The ability of any given listener to learn music theory, and especially to be able to pour over recordings at will are modern inventions. 

Of course some romantics and modernists didn't give a fig about the end listener - but I think that those who analyze Bach from deep-diving formalist tendencies of form analysis, theoretical analysis, etc are being more modernist than they may believe.


----------



## Woodduck

fbjim said:


> That is very personal - in fact I think that is entirely personal.
> 
> I know people for whom technical art analysis is like the proverb that explaining a joke is like dissecting a frog - in other words, they are actively hostile to it, because they believe that - like finding out how a magic trick works - it will impede the pure experience of being a listener. Others feel compelled to dive into works they enjoy, into every scrap of biographical history, music theory, and analysis they can find, because they find pleasure in doing so.
> 
> Hopefully as music listeners both sides can come to an understanding of each others views of aesthetics even if they don't share the same sense of what gives them aesthetic pleasure.
> 
> 
> As for me - *I'd say that if one had to know music theory on the level of Brahms in order to get pleasure out of Brahms, his music wouldn't hold any interest to me. Like film editing, or stage magic, I think great musical composition works even when one doesn't know the tricks being used.*


Agree completely. Art that needs to be studied minutely in order to be appreciated is always goiing to be a tiny percentage of art produced, though it might be briefly fashionable in some quarters. Most artists aren't interested in presenting puzzles to their audiences, and music produced by academics for other academics - as a lot of mid-20th-century atonal and serialist stuff was - has demonstrated its inability to speak to most people directly, both in its own day and since. It's fascinating - and in my experience quite funny - to read the way a composer like Milton Babbitt described his own music. Try this:

_From the standpoint of aggregate structure, the second section is a pitch-class retrograde of the first, while from the standpoint of the set structure of the instrumental lines, it is a pitch-class inversion, but it must be emphasized and understood...that since aggregate structure does not define the orderings of its component parts, the total pitch progression of the second section is by no means a retrogression of the first section, and since the component timbral lines are timbrally reinterpreted on the basis of combinatorial connection, neither is the linear pitch progression._

Thanks for that, Milt. But tell me: is your music any good?


----------



## Strange Magic

Woodduck said:


> Obviously, to both points. But how is this a response to my question? To paraphrase it: Why would a recognition that aesthetic excellence is something art actually embodies in its structure, as opposed to something we merely attribute to it - as a completely subjectivist view of artistic judgment must maintain - be a constraint on our freedom to bring to art our own unique viewpoints? Your statement, "*As we have disposed of the notion that excellence is to be found within an art object, what is left is the freedom to bring to art whatever unique net of neurological, etc. filters and predispositions that are uniquely our own, " *implies that it is such a constraint. The only constraint I can see is the one we live under at every moment: if we can see that something exists, we're constrained by conscience not to claim that it doesn't. Of course we can always lie. I guess that's a freedom some people cherish, but I'm sure it isn't the freedom you're talking about.


Because it presupposes that excellence in art exists somewhere in spacetime irrespective of human perception and intention. My reply always is that art objects are neutral and without "value", like neutron stars. It is we, individually, who bring art to life. It can be argued that the creator of the art has X and/or Y in mind during the creation, but in order for the link to be made, the perceiver must be as one with its creator. It sometimes happens, I suppose, or we think it does, but there is no predicting what another will read into an art object. We can generalize and hope and thus feel better. i prefer not to read into my relationship with a work of art more than can be directly and personally experienced, the notions of the creator interesting to learn of but not essential to my full enjoyment.


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## Strange Magic

Woodduck said:


> Agree completely. Art that needs to be studied minutely in order to be appreciated is always goiing to be a tiny percentage of art produced, though it might be briefly fashionable in some quarters. Most artists aren't interested in presenting puzzles to their audiences, and music produced by academics for other academics - as a lot of mid-20th-century atonal and serialist stuff was - has demonstrated its inability to speak to most people directly, both in its own day and since. It's fascinating - and in my experience quite funny - to read the way a composer like Milton Babbitt described his own music. Try this:
> 
> _From the standpoint of aggregate structure, the second section is a pitch-class retrograde of the first, while from the standpoint of the set structure of the instrumental lines, it is a pitch-class inversion, but it must be emphasized and understood...that since aggregate structure does not define the orderings of its component parts, the total pitch progression of the second section is by no means a retrogression of the first section, and since the component timbral lines are timbrally reinterpreted on the basis of combinatorial connection, neither is the linear pitch progression._
> 
> Thanks for that, Milt. But tell me: is your music any good?


Schonberg is very good on this subject in his chapter on the International Serial Movement in _Lives of the Great Composers._


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## Luchesi

fbjim said:


> they are actively hostile to it, because they believe that - like finding out how a magic trick works - it will impede the pure experience of being a listener


If that's the fear of listeners like SM then it's understandable.


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## Luchesi

fbjim said:


> I've expressed this before but I'm consistently surprised at the position that true understanding and "correct" listening of classical music involves, e.g. deep score dives, rigorous analysis of musical form, etc. This is absolutely a source of pleasure for a lot of people, and enhances their appreciation of works - but - for a great deal of history, classical music was written with the expectation that a lot of listeners might listen to a given piece a few times in their lives. The ability of any given listener to learn music theory, and especially to be able to pour over recordings at will are modern inventions.
> 
> Of course some romantics and modernists didn't give a fig about the end listener - but I think that those who analyze Bach from deep-diving formalist tendencies of form analysis, theoretical analysis, etc are being more modernist than they may believe.


I never thought of that, thanks.
We're making huge progress as the centuries pass. Next it will be Virtual Reality available for everyone. Not just listening.


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## Woodduck

Strange Magic said:


> Because it presupposes that excellence in art exists somewhere in spacetime irrespective of human perception and intention.


Of course excellence doesn't exist "somewhere in spacetime irrespective of human perception and intention." If it were not for human perception and intention, the idea of something being excellent - of a thing fulfilling some intention and being perceived as doing so - could never arise. But there is a deceptive ambiguity in your use of the terms "exist" and "irrespective." Can you see that? It creates a fog that obscures the sense in which abstract qualities have real existence and judgments of quality have legitimacy. If something is well-made, we can say that there is excellence in it, in a perfectly legitimate sense. As applied to art, excellence in the fulfillment of artistic intentions and the expression of aesthetic (and other) values is everywhere to be seen and heard. I wouldn't have thought this mysterious or controversial. To say that quality is not "in" a work of art is a trick of language.



> My reply always is that art objects are neutral and without "value", like neutron stars. It is we, individually, who bring art to life. It can be argued that the creator of the art has X and/or Y in mind during the creation, but in order for the link to ethobe made, the perceiver must be as one with its creator.


This is poetic, but the apparent implication that Brahms's Piano Quintet possesses fine artistic qualities only while it's being listened to is nonsensical (see my first paragraph).



> I prefer not to read into my relationship with a work of art more than can be directly and personally experienced, the notions of the creator interesting to learn of but not essential to my full enjoyment.


In the way that you're conceiving of "the notions of the creator," as ideas not actually embodied and experienced in the structure of the music, I agree. A work has a life of its own after it leaves it's creator's nest, and it's our privilege to hear it exactly as we will. But in a fuller sense of the creator's "notions," we perceive his intentions continuously as we listen, and on at least a subconscious level we grasp them and judge how well he is fulfilling them. That's the source of much of our pleasure in music. Brahms, I must say, is a composer who makes his intentions very clear and carries them out with conspicuous craft, if an occasional whiff of calculation, which some people dislike in him but which he himself was aware of when he compared himself unfavorably to Mozart.


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## Luchesi

Woodduck said:


> Agree completely. Art that needs to be studied minutely in order to be appreciated is always goiing to be a tiny percentage of art produced, though it might be briefly fashionable in some quarters. Most artists aren't interested in presenting puzzles to their audiences, and music produced by academics for other academics - as a lot of mid-20th-century atonal and serialist stuff was - has demonstrated its inability to speak to most people directly, both in its own day and since. It's fascinating - and in my experience quite funny - to read the way a composer like Milton Babbitt described his own music. Try this:
> 
> _From the standpoint of aggregate structure, the second section is a pitch-class retrograde of the first, while from the standpoint of the set structure of the instrumental lines, it is a pitch-class inversion, but it must be emphasized and understood...that since aggregate structure does not define the orderings of its component parts, the total pitch progression of the second section is by no means a retrogression of the first section, and since the component timbral lines are timbrally reinterpreted on the basis of combinatorial connection, neither is the linear pitch progression._
> 
> Thanks for that, Milt. But tell me: is your music any good?


any good? Did he achieve what he set out to do (or what he discovered while he was composing and then completed it)? I would believe him and I would admire the effort in any case. This is because he knows so much more about what he's doing and the music he's envisioning than I do. Casual listeners might not (admire the effort). 😇


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## Luchesi

Strange Magic said:


> Should the ranks of CM lovers be purged for failure to properly appreciate the music? Your position is increasingly clear. Let's not expand the audience--lets reduce, cleanse, and purify it a la Advokat. It should become a cult.


I clearly want to get young people educated for the long life (hopefully) ahead of them. 

As for older people who have missed this boat, well, maybe they can’t be helped because they’re passed the vital age of receptiveness, tinged with hormonal molecules and peer pressure survival imperatives. Do I really believe that? I really can't overlook the plight of my many non-musician acquaintances, but there's so little reliable evidence, and it's not repeatable. So many variables!


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## Eva Yojimbo

Forster said:


> Perhaps going off at a tangent, I'd query the point about novelty/surprise. The exceedingly well-informed expert listener (EWIEL) might well spot "novelty" on a first hearing of a Beethoven symphony, but many average fan of CM wouldn't, would they? And, I would argue, the EWIEL would gain some satisfaction from their spotting the novelty, but only like the quizzer gets from correctly answering an obscure item of trivia.
> 
> For me, there is a sweet spot in getting to know a composition, where the emotional thrill of the anticipation of a particular resolution, or cadence, or key change can only come about because we know what's coming. Once we're well familiar with it, it no longer carries quite the same impact.


I think there's two ways one could look at this: the EWIEL might better perceive both the ways in which Beethoven is similar and dissimilar to the music before him, after him, and contemporaneous with him; while to a more average fan Beethoven might sound completely novel (if they have very little to no CM experience) or completely generic (if they have just enough experience to perceive similarities, but not enough to pick out differences). The point you bring up demonstrates one way in which our perception and enjoyment of music is hugely subjective given that we bring such radically different levels of experience to music, both in general (as in all music) and in specifics (as in specific genres or composers), and the way(s) in which we hear that music is radically colored by this experience or lack thereof. 

Your second paragraph is very true too, and I agree about there being such "sweet spots." I usually find it happens around the 3rd listen or so, depending on the complexity of a piece. It may take more than that if the experiences are spread out over time.


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## Strange Magic

Luchesi said:


> If that's the fear of listeners like SM then it's understandable.


Glad you used "If". I hope you do not fear non-specialists in music will hear it "wrong".


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## Woodduck

Luchesi said:


> any good? Did he achieve what he set out to do (or what he discovered while he was composing and then completed it)? I would believe him and I would admire the effort in any case. This is because he knows so much more about what he's doing and the music he's envisioning than I do. Casual listeners might not (admire the effort). 😇


I've never heard the work he's describing. but if he did achieve what he set out to do my next question would be, "is what he set out to do something I'd care to hear done?" Given his technocratic description (which isn't all he had to say, but who's got time?), I'm content not to find out. I do have my suspicions... 😉


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## Eva Yojimbo

Luchesi said:


> No, what I meant was, we should be more understanding of you and your experiences. We should put ourselves in your place. (It might not be possible, because communing generally requires knowing the same language and its beauties.)


I mentioned this kind of "aesthetic sympathy" many pages back where I noted how I practice such a thing myself: Opinions vs less and more objective argumentation


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## Eva Yojimbo

Waehnen said:


> One point: I may be a composer but damn are there more open minded and earded listeners than me here on TC. And I love it.
> 
> I will forever object to ”ranking listeners” and people feeling bad because they think they do not know enough or are not sophisticated enough to listen to and enjoy great art.
> 
> I would scold myself if I ever made somebody feel bad about or somehow ”lesser than me” listening to classical music. I almost said I would not forgive myself.
> 
> As listeners we are equal in experiencing classical music.
> 
> It is another matter that some people also create their own music or analyze and study the art scene and hence have more tools to certain kind of argumentation.
> 
> You do not need to know everything about flying buttresses’ abilities to share structural weight to enjoy some gothic architecture.


I normally don't do this because TC's "like" function is basically meant for it, but QFMFT.


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## Strange Magic

*^^^^@Woodduck: "*Of course excellence doesn't exist "somewhere in spacetime irrespective of human perception and intention." If it were not for human perception and intention, the idea of something being excellent - of a thing fulfilling some intention and being perceived as doing so - could never arise."

I am content with your agreement with this key tenet of subjectivism. The rest of your post is an attempt to walk back that admission. It is obvious that the Brahms quintet only has what excellence it does if it is being perceived as such by a listener. Otherwise it is ink on paper somewhere in a drawer. And what abstract qualities have real existence? Do they exist if nobody is there? Love? Beauty? Faith? These are mental states that only exist in fleshy brains and other bodily parts and have no independent existence.


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## Luchesi

Strange Magic said:


> Glad you used "If". I hope you do not fear non-specialists in music will hear it "wrong".


Wrong?

I vaguely remember what I was able to hear from the age of about 8 and then 12 and then 20 and then 40. This is because this question often comes up in our talkbacks, after we play.

At 8 I couldn't make head nor tails of Beethoven's Seventh. I had found an old record in a box in the cellar and it said Beethoven. I put it on my little battery driven phonograph and I said to myself, “People really listen to this? People really buy something like this?” I'm somewhat embarrassed to answer the question like this but I do think it helps some people (in our talkback).
At 11 or 12 I was playing clever little piano pieces, but I still couldn't hear a string quartet or difficult orchestral works.
At 20 I had caught up. I could follow separate parts without a score, etc.
At 40 I could see images of the melodies/themes of the great works in my mind, but not in helpful detail like some of my musician friends.


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## Eva Yojimbo

BachIsBest said:


> I think this is where we fundamentally disagree. Eventually, you do run into a statement somewhat like "because people like that". This is precisely why I bring up the statement "because people like not being murdered"; we see, in some sense, that this is a true statement, but most people would also consider it ridiculous. The reason is, is that such a statement can, and I would argue should, be taken as axiomatic to the human condition. To consider such a thing a personal preference is an absurdity.


I have no issue with this “reasoning from axiomatically assumed propositions;” this is similar to my chess analogy in which moves can be rationally assessed via the axiomatically accepted rules/goals of chess. The issue is that if someone wants to come along and create new rules for chess (this has been done), the quality of any move will be relative to THOSE rules, not “objective” without relation to any set of rules. It would be rather absurd for someone to assert that one set of rules was objectively superior to the other. I see no difference between this and the standards we create for art, which, it must be said, are nowhere near as clear and universally agreed upon as the rules/goals of chess.



BachIsBest said:


> This is not what Wooduck is arguing for. Perhaps an example will help. When tutoring first year university students calculus, especially those who are not in mathematics, I often run into the problem that no matter how obviously I spoon feed them the answer to a question, they just can't see the solution. You could then say that this 'calculus' thing is a form of essentially private knowledge I can't communicate (and many a befuddled student appear to hold just such a belief), or you could argue that the student, for whatever reason, hasn't perceived the answer yet.


Yes, but the evidence for calculus being an actual form of knowledge is the existence of mathematicians and other scientists all using calculus the same way everywhere in the world including applications that have empirically testable consequences. There aren’t, afaik, completely different standards for using calculus that result in radically different outcomes of whatever it’s being applied towards. This isn’t the same for music. Hell, it’s not even the same for classical music. There may be some commonalities but there’s far more variations with how a student, teacher, or any composer can approach the teaching, learning, and application of music. In fact, I’d say this is one of the key defining differences between the sciences and music is the complete universality of the former. Anyone who does physics comes back with the same results when testing relativity or quantum mechanics; they very much do not when it comes to music.

Further, I’m sure you’d recognize that it’s easy for anyone to just claim such private truths about anything. I’ve offered the examples of theists claiming they know God, but people can and have used such things to justify beliefs in anything and everything: ghosts, astrology, alien abductions, demons, etc. Where and how do we draw the line on what kind of “private knowledge” is legitimate knowledge and which isn’t? I just don’t think what Woodduck is describing is knowledge, I think it’s a feeling of rightness/goodness.



BachIsBest said:


> Definitions can be false if they make claims (or contradictory), but anyone in mathematics or logic will tell you there are good definitions and bad definitions. Usually, when attempting to come up with a definition for something, one starts with a list of properties one would like the definition to have. In defining truth, you are defining both what can be true, and what the truth of these things should be. Hopefully, a good definition of truth has the property that, what it claims can be true, is true (that is, the claim is true). Your definition clearly lacks this, and actually asserts that such claims can not be true.


At least in everyday language I think “good” and “bad” definitions are really just about clarity and precision that facilitates communication and understanding, and science and math have many advantages here for many reasons.

However, I’m confused to the extent that you think the definition itself is true, as opposed to the definition covering properties that all things we think are true have in common. If it’s the former I wholly disagree that that that’s even how language works; if it’s the latter then we do agree that’s what should be done. I’m merely saying that it’s rarely necessary for meaningful communication. EG, in my car example, if someone says “the car’s motor is broken,” and they replace the motor and the car works, is it not then true that the car’s motor was broken? Let’s assume for logic’s sake they tested all other possibilities to rule them out first. It seems clear that what we mean by “true” is that a person had in their mind a hypothesis about an objective state of affairs (the state of the car’s engine causing it not to run), that they went ant tested this hypothesis by replacing the engine to see if this changed the state of affairs, which it did. So “truth” in this case seems to be about the successful empirical testing of a subjective belief. To me, all claims of truth need to have this kind of “matching” relationship between the “map” (our beliefs, hypotheses, etc.) and the “territory” (empirical reality).

There may be other kinds of truths, but they will all be distinct from this. Like, it may be true that Woodduck’s student became aware of, say, a compositional trick that he hadn’t thought of before, and it may be true that this awareness triggered in him a sense of rightness/goodness; but the issue is: is it true in any objective sense the way the “car motor” example is. If it is, I do not see it.



BachIsBest said:


> I'm sorry I deleted a large part of your post, but I assure you I read the whole thing, and deleted parts where I felt my answer would be redundant.


No problem. I appreciate the effort. My only issue is that I feel like you never addressed the extent to which the car example is/isn’t different from the aesthetics of Beethoven example.


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## Eva Yojimbo

BachIsBest said:


> I was again trying to lighten the mood. My comedic attempts appear to be worsening by the minute.


No, this time I actually got your levity, I just wanted to clarify that my antagonism towards Woodduck is more just temporary frustration on this one issue than anything else. It’s like two people who agree on 99% of everything but who go to war over that 1%. I just don’t want that 1% to completely obscure the 99%.



BachIsBest said:


> If this happened it would make me reconsider my position. You are asking if something hypothetically happened that vindicated your position and ruined mine, what would my response be. Well, of course I would have to, to some degree, admit you were right, but such a thing hasn't happened, and unless I am wrong, it won't. Thus, I don't think it is particularly relevant.


I think the reason I thought it relevant is that is kinda shows the problem of basing what you feel to be “objective opinions” on what the majority of people think. Even if what the majority thinks may not change as radically as we described, it’s undoubtedly true that such things have change over time before on all kinds of subjects. It goes back to what I said about it being easy to make announcements of objective rightness from behind an army of likeminded folks; harder to buy into when you’re the person that army is marching towards.



BachIsBest said:


> I haven't heard about it, and would have to think about it.


Let me know what you think, even if just through PM.


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## Eva Yojimbo

dissident said:


> In other words, the only way out of it is to wordplay and semantics.


I don’t know what “the way out” means (way out of what?), and I don’t know what “wordplay and semantics” you’re referring to. You tried to claim that subjective things don’t exist, I say subjective things exist subjectively. How is that “wordplay and semantics?” I don’t have some magical, psychic link to your mind to know what you mean by any of these terms if you don’t explain yourself clearly.



dissident said:


> Well, and philosophy for that matter. I don't see why unprovable concepts of philosophy can be called upon as authority in paragraphs-long posts, the quality of which is determined by how much you've studied the topic, while music -- which also features logical rules and procedures -- is a free for all, no matter what your level of knowledge.


As I’ve said, plenty of subjects/topics in philosophy are subjective too. It just depends on what we’re talking about. In this case the problem is less a matter of whether the kind of meta-aesthetics we’re discussing is subjective/objective and more an issue that people don’t seem to have a very consistent, thorough, fully worked-out conception of this, starting from basic definitions and working from the ground-up to actually having an account for the full phenomena of the differences and similarities of aesthetic judgments.

Even this in itself wouldn’t be an issue if some weren’t trying to make claims towards objective truth. The minute anyone starts making objective truth claims they have a burden of proving that. I hold myself to that burden. I’ve also claimed that the question of meta-aesthetics (whether or not judgments are subjective/objective) is also an objective matter, and I’ve tried to make the case for that. Unfortunately, when I make that case it seems as if some posters’ eyes gloss over because of the “paragraphs of armchair philosophy.” Well, it’s not my fault if people can’t follow such things because some people very much can.


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## Eva Yojimbo

Woodduck said:


> I'm not sure about this. That some art has exhibited greater power to influence the world is "objectively" true and easy to observe. That it must do so, in part, by virtue of qualities inherent in its form and message, is unavoidable. But why is quantification a necessary criterion for the "objectivity" of these conclusions? Obviously, there can be no "quantification" of art's effects, except in the sense of recognizing their relative strength. But I can't see how referring to art's impact on people as "affecting their subjectivities" diminishes the objective fact that art has the aforementioned power, and that works of art differ greatly - and again observably - in the powers they possess. We don't need to take a poll to determine that they do, or to see the ways in which that power plays out. Who cares exactly how many people prefer _La Traviata_ to _Il Trovatore? _We only need to notice how these works affect people. (Parenthetically, I'll go out on a limb here and guess that _Traviata_ is preferred by more people, and I'm guessing that not just because I "subjectively" feel better about it but because its warmly human story, memorable and sympathetic heroine, dramatic cohesiveness and atmospheric score make it clearly a more impressive artistic achievement than _Trovatore_, whose somewhat silly plot about barbecued babies and noisy anvils or whatever can't be recounted by anyone and is redeemed mainly by a succession of good tunes, which _Traviata_ also has. I know you'll say, "What if more people liked...etc." I think I'll drop this now ).
> 
> My point was that art works can't be fully and fairly evaluated without reference to their observable effects on the world, that their ability to have such effects is intrinsic to their identities as works, and that this can be one factor in making our assessments of merit more objective. The ability of a work, created in and for a specific place and moment in time, to keep listeners fascinated and moved for three hundred years is, in any rational view of what art is, a distinct merit. I believe there are other routes to objective understanding of art, not all of which have had anything close to adequate discussion in this thread, but I want to stress I'm not such an objectivist as to think that any work of art has a single fixed meaning or value, or that the contribution of the individual audience member is insignificant. Wagner, and artist who knew what he was doing and whose works have had a profound effect in the world, wrote to his friend August Roeckel that true works of art are apt to have meanings - to convey and suggest things - that even their creators are unaware of.


I do want to clarify that none of us subjectivists are denying that some art has “greater power” to do what you describe; it’s merely that it’s only one part of the puzzle, with the other huge part being all of the subjectivities that art interacts with and affects. All the subjectivists claim is that the similarities of judgments can be explained partly by the nature of what the art (the object) is, and partly by the similarities of human subjectivities; however, the differences of judgments can only be explained by the differences in human subjectivities. The latter can’t be explained by the art/objects itself, because the art/object is the same for everyone. The only difference between the mind that hears Beethoven and thinks him great and the mind that hears Beethoven and doesn’t are the difference in subjectivities between the two. THAT’S the variable that changes. Further, I’ve said that this isn’t the same for some things in life. A question like “why is this car not running” simply doesn’t depend in any way shape or form on differing subjectivities. Whatever the answer to that question, the cause lies within the object that is the car itself.

It’s not so much that the quantification I described is necessary for objectivity, I’m merely saying that that’s essentially what you’re describing. What art as has affected the most and by how much. That’s a poll-type standard. I have no issue using that standard for determining greatness with regards to the question “what art has affected the most people at the highest level?” but at the end of the day are you really sitting down and listening to music and wondering how many that music has affected and how much? Or do you really, truly, honestly, just care about whether the art affects YOU? To me, the kind of objective greatness you describe is really just a means of us being respectful about other people’s subjectivities, and having respect for the art/artists that have moved so many. I’m fine having that respect; just as I’m fine respecting all art and all the people who are moved by it regardless of “poll numbers”. The Shaggs were a favorite of Zappa and Kurt Cobain. I’d rather step on a rusty nail than listen to The Shaggs (as would most, I suspect), but I respect them and their ability to really move Zappa, Cobain, and everyone else who loves them. More power to them for being “great” to those people.

I guess my point here is that I’m just not willing to let “greatness” be limited or defined by “art that has affected the most people at the highest level.” I think if we want to talk about the art that’s affected the most people (and culture at large) to the highest degree then that’s a fine thing to talk about. I just reject the claim that that (or anything) must be THE standard for greatness. I’m comfortable with having as many standards as there are people, with each one of them having their own hierarchies for greatness that, when combined with other people’s, form consensuses about what artists and works have affected the most. I see no need or reason to go beyond this, and as far as calling any of this “objective” I’ve already said my piece too many times.



Woodduck said:


> ...The minds of the audience are allowed to perceive, mostly subconsciously, both the artist's questions and his answers, and the experience may be more or less satisfying depending on the adequacy of the answers. Not all answers are equally adequate, and most people have the innate ability to sense this. While the trained mind of the artist can define it more explicitly, our minds are constantly judging art as we watch or listen to it, asking and answering the question, "does this make sense?", and this process of question posed/answer given is going on at a subconscious level whether we're aware of it or not. it is not a random or lawless process; the mind's drive for making sense of stimuli forbids that, and there are specific "laws," or pattern templates which we recognize and which give the mind satisfaction.


As usual, I don't disagree with much in your post #959, but as always I want to stress that this process you're describing is wholly subjective by definition (it's occurring in the minds of listeners and artists). I certainly agree that our judgments are not random or lawless, but at the same time they are not uniform, as is testified by the voluminous disagreements and debates over aesthetic judgments. To the extent that they converge that speaks to the similarities of subjectivities; to the extent that they diverge that speaks to the differences in subjectivities. When divergences happen, there is no means of settling on who is right, which is objectively better.

Art is too complex and has too many different objective elements that people will value differently, often radically different. Further, humanity and life itself is too complex for any art to embody anything but a tiny portion of it, and just as people are drawn to different aspects in art they are drawn to different aspects of life. I, like you, value art's ability to speak to the profoundest aspects of life and humanity, but I also get that not everybody cares about this head-in-the-clouds kind of art. They have lives that are full of toil and hardship and art is just escapist fun, an oasis amidst life's rigors. They don't want or need art that challenges them as they have enough of that elsewhere. The things they value in art are just as valuable as what we do, and the fact that they find that in pop songs, or Marvel films, and not in Wagner or Ingmar Bergman, is also unsurprising.



Woodduck said:


> Why go into this here (and it's only a bare start on a huge subject)? Because it exemplifies ways in which aesthetic perception is an identification of objectively significant qualities in the structures of music, and sets up an important context in which objectively meaningful judgments can be made.


Nobody denies that the existence of things like tonality are an objective part of music. The sticking point is that so many people like tonality because of the nature of our subjectivities, because it allows us a means of perceiving hierarchies that subjectively resonates with our perception of hierarchies elsewhere in life. If we weren't a species that recognized hierarchies, the presence of tonal hierarchies probably wouldn't have much (if any) appeal to us. Further, it's also the case that many (even if not most) have found that atonal music can be just as rewarding: there are plenty fans of atonal composers, and there have been plenty of fans of music from cultures both ancient and modern in which tonality (at least as we know it) is not a feature of their music.



Woodduck said:


> You can't reduce evaluations of the choices of artists or the perceptions of audiences to "liking."


When I say “liking” I’m referring to any positive feelings towards, from the most profound to the most superficial. We can wax rhapsodic about how (to continue the above) tonality resonates with our profoundly human perception of hierarchies and desire for pattern and organization… but this falls under the general “liking” category. It’s a different kind of like from, say, how people like ice cream, but both of them generalize to “positive feelings,” and “liking” is shorter to type.



Woodduck said:


> I did this in direct response to Eva Yojimbo's statement , "Aesthetic judgments are in a different category from these things" [see her post],


Quick note; I am a he. “Eva” is short for “Evangelion,” and my moniker in general was carried over from the old IMDb forums from which other members of the classical music board there migrated to here. I probably should’ve changed it but… old habits, I guess.



Woodduck said:


> Obviously, to both points. But how is this a response to my question? To paraphrase it: Why would a recognition that aesthetic excellence is something art actually embodies in its structure, as opposed to something we merely attribute to it - as a completely subjectivist view of artistic judgment must maintain - be a constraint on our freedom to bring to art our own unique viewpoints?


Because if one of those "unique viewpoints" includes the viewpoint that _insert any whipping-boy composer or pop artist here_ is better than _insert any composer most CM fans/critics consider a monumental titan here_ they will be "corrected" as to the wrongness of their opinion. Once we have established that something is objectively true, such as the idea that excellence is "something art actually embodies in its structure" then we simultaneously do away with the notion that people are disagreeing over subjective tastes, values, etc.

People don't disagree with facts like the sun exists, things that are immediately accessible to direct perception. People might disagree with facts like the Earth is a sphere, but those people are often demonstrably ignorant about science and the relevant facts that lead inevitably to the conclusions that Earth is indeed a sphere; and even in that disagreement few would dispute that the question "is the Earth a sphere or flat?" is a question with an objectively true answer, even if they disagree on what that answer is.

The entire point is whether the question "is artistic excellence embodied in the art" objectively true the way the question of the Earth's shape is objectively true; or does its truthfulness ultimately depend on the standards and values that originate in our subjectivities? Because I don't think anyone doubts that the shape of Earth doesn't depend on what anyone values or thinks or feels.


----------



## Luchesi

Eva Yojimbo said:


> ...this is similar to my chess analogy in which moves can be rationally assessed via the axiomatically accepted rules/goals of chess. The issue is that if someone wants to come along and create new rules for chess (this has been done), the quality of any move will be relative to THOSE rules, not “objective” without relation to any set of rules.


I fancy the idea that the 'rules' come from physics and the harmonic series. That's about as universal as you can get. The problem is I haven't been able to find direct connections, except for perhaps dominance/subdominance in nature (which is from a scholarly paper about the dominant and the subdominant in music).


----------



## BachIsBest

Eva Yojimbo said:


> I have no issue with this “reasoning from axiomatically assumed propositions;” this is similar to my chess analogy in which moves can be rationally assessed via the axiomatically accepted rules/goals of chess. The issue is that if someone wants to come along and create new rules for chess (this has been done), the quality of any move will be relative to THOSE rules, not “objective” without relation to any set of rules. It would be rather absurd for someone to assert that one set of rules was objectively superior to the other. I see no difference between this and the standards we create for art, which, it must be said, are nowhere near as clear and universally agreed upon as the rules/goals of chess.


Again, this is where our differences lie. If someone came along and told me his standards for art were that art should be as meaningless, arbitrary, and plain as possible, then I would consider that persons standards for art to be wrong.



Eva Yojimbo said:


> Yes, but the evidence for calculus being an actual form of knowledge is the existence of mathematicians and other scientists all using calculus the same way everywhere in the world including applications that have empirically testable consequences. There aren’t, afaik, completely different standards for using calculus that result in radically different outcomes of whatever it’s being applied towards. This isn’t the same for music. Hell, it’s not even the same for classical music. There may be some commonalities but there’s far more variations with how a student, teacher, or any composer can approach the teaching, learning, and application of music. In fact, I’d say this is one of the key defining differences between the sciences and music is the complete universality of the former. Anyone who does physics comes back with the same results when testing relativity or quantum mechanics; they very much do not when it comes to music.
> 
> Further, I’m sure you’d recognize that it’s easy for anyone to just claim such private truths about anything. I’ve offered the examples of theists claiming they know God, but people can and have used such things to justify beliefs in anything and everything: ghosts, astrology, alien abductions, demons, etc. Where and how do we draw the line on what kind of “private knowledge” is legitimate knowledge and which isn’t? I just don’t think what Woodduck is describing is knowledge, I think it’s a feeling of rightness/goodness.


I absolutely agree with your evidence for calculus and science and completely agree that anyone could make up such "private knowledge". However, I am personally convinced that when it comes to artistic matters the knowledge Wooduck described is very real, for the reasons he has detailed. Astrology is demonstratable false through experiments so is not a good example. As for ghosts and alien abductions I really fail to see the common ground of understanding that exists in art, especially across cultures. All early cultures had their own myths and legends; these served similar purposes, but the actual details in them vary wildly, and there are virtually no universals. In contrast, with music, it is virtually impossible to find early music that doesn't have a tonal centre in any sense; this, with the fact that so many composers seem to refine their skills in exploiting tonality in much the same way a mathematician may refine his skills in algebra, combined with many other factors Wooduck has mentioned previously, make me believe that this "private knowledge", really is knowledge, and not just some woo-woo feeling. 



Eva Yojimbo said:


> At least in everyday language I think “good” and “bad” definitions are really just about clarity and precision that facilitates communication and understanding, and science and math have many advantages here for many reasons.
> 
> However, I’m confused to the extent that you think the definition itself is true, as opposed to the definition covering properties that all things we think are true have in common. If it’s the former I wholly disagree that that that’s even how language works; if it’s the latter then we do agree that’s what should be done. I’m merely saying that it’s rarely necessary for meaningful communication. EG, in my car example, if someone says “the car’s motor is broken,” and they replace the motor and the car works, is it not then true that the car’s motor was broken? Let’s assume for logic’s sake they tested all other possibilities to rule them out first. It seems clear that what we mean by “true” is that a person had in their mind a hypothesis about an objective state of affairs (the state of the car’s engine causing it not to run), that they went ant tested this hypothesis by replacing the engine to see if this changed the state of affairs, which it did. So “truth” in this case seems to be about the successful empirical testing of a subjective belief. To me, all claims of truth need to have this kind of “matching” relationship between the “map” (our beliefs, hypotheses, etc.) and the “territory” (empirical reality).
> 
> There may be other kinds of truths, but they will all be distinct from this. Like, it may be true that Woodduck’s student became aware of, say, a compositional trick that he hadn’t thought of before, and it may be true that this awareness triggered in him a sense of rightness/goodness; but the issue is: is it true in any objective sense the way the “car motor” example is. If it is, I do not see it.


I agree with your truth example, it's just that I think it is too restrictive. In everyday language I agree it is not necessary to provide philosophically sound definitions, but you wish to argue against the existence of musical quality on philosophical grounds, so I think you ought to hold yourself to higher standards. Your definition is too restrictive; for example, the statement "all claims of truth need to have this kind of “matching” relationship between the “map” (our beliefs, hypotheses, etc.) and the “territory” (empirical reality)" is not true, given your definition of truth.


----------



## Luchesi

Strange Magic said:


> *^^^^@Woodduck: "*Of course excellence doesn't exist "somewhere in spacetime irrespective of human perception and intention." If it were not for human perception and intention, the idea of something being excellent - of a thing fulfilling some intention and being perceived as doing so - could never arise."
> 
> I am content with your agreement with this key tenet of subjectivism. The rest of your post is an attempt to walk back that admission. It is obvious that the Brahms quintet only has what excellence it does if it is being perceived as such by a listener. Otherwise it is ink on paper somewhere in a drawer. And what abstract qualities have real existence? Do they exist if nobody is there? Love? Beauty? Faith? These are mental states that only exist in fleshy brains and other bodily parts and have no independent existence.


Isn't it also an obvious fact for an objectivist?


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## fbjim

Eva Yojimbo said:


> It’s not so much that the quantification I described is necessary for objectivity, I’m merely saying that that’s essentially what you’re describing. What art as has affected the most and by how much. That’s a poll-type standard. I have no issue using that standard for determining greatness with regards to the question “what art has affected the most people at the highest level?” but at the end of the day are you really sitting down and listening to music and wondering how many that music has affected and how much? Or do you really, truly, honestly, just care about whether the art affects YOU? To me, the kind of objective greatness you describe is really just a means of us being respectful about other people’s subjectivities, and having respect for the art/artists that have moved so many. I’m fine having that respect; just as I’m fine respecting all art and all the people who are moved by it regardless of “poll numbers”. The Shaggs were a favorite of Zappa and Kurt Cobain. I’d rather step on a rusty nail than listen to The Shaggs (as would most, I suspect), but I respect them and their ability to really move Zappa, Cobain, and everyone else who loves them. More power to them for being “great” to those people.


I've said this before, but maybe it bears repeating - I can easily, easily make a case for Wagner, a composer I have little familiarity with, as an all-time great by this method. In fact, if I had never listened to a single note of Wagner in my life, I could do this. The effects on Wagner on the development of music are - if not strictly quantifiable, are close enough to being objective truth for me.

The thing is, I can do this without listening to a single note of Wagner, which is a clue that this isn't really an aesthetic evaluation at all. In fact, I could theoretically know zilch about Wagner and construct a case for his importance and greatness entirely through the words of his contemporaries, and the words of musical historians. It's evidence of the work's historical import, importance, and influence, but these things, while peripheral to aesthetic evaluation, should not be mistaken for an aesthetic evaluation itself.

This is the strength and weakness of the so-called "polling methods" where we evaluate based on import - sure, we focus strictly on criteria which have objectively measurable (if not quantifiable) values, but we do so at the expense of any actual aesthetic judgment.


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## Strange Magic

Luchesi said:


> Isn't it also an obvious fact for an objectivist?


I think so.


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## Woodduck

Strange Magic said:


> *^^^^@Woodduck: "*Of course excellence doesn't exist "somewhere in spacetime irrespective of human perception and intention." If it were not for human perception and intention, the idea of something being excellent - of a thing fulfilling some intention and being perceived as doing so - could never arise."
> 
> I am content with your agreement with this key tenet of subjectivism. The rest of your post is an attempt to walk back that admission. It is obvious that the Brahms quintet only has what excellence it does if it is being perceived as such by a listener. Otherwise it is ink on paper somewhere in a drawer. And what abstract qualities have real existence? Do they exist if nobody is there? Love? Beauty? Faith? These are mental states that only exist in fleshy brains and other bodily parts and have no independent existence.


There is no "walking back" of any "admission." Your self-congratulation is premature, and silly as usual. It is not at all "obvious" that a piece of music meriting a judgment of "excellent" stops meriting that judgmernt when people stop looking at it. In fact it's irrational and absurd. The piece would be excellent even if the composer lost it in the storm drain on the way to the publishing house and no one ever heard it. It's excellence is in the musical ideas the composer produced from his brain, not in the ink and paper they're written on or the physical sounds that occur in someone's ear when they're played. And please desist from any ridiculous debates on whether music "is" idea, score, or sound. It's any or all of these, but at the heart of it is idea, and it's ideas that distinguish a composer, and on his ideas that a composer is judged. Without them we have only your ink and paper in a drawer.


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## fbjim

I think the concern is if the piece exists in the public at all, not if it begins and stops being great at the moment of performance. 

It's a bit Schrodinger's Composition, innit. We can't say "is a brilliant work of classical music great if nobody has ever heard it", because to call it a brilliant work is to imply that we've made an aesthetic judgement already. 

Overall I don't think it's a very interesting question. virtually all frameworks require a listener, at some point, to render judgement. Without this we don't have anything at all.


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## Strange Magic

Woodduck said:


> There is no "walking back" of any "admission." Your self-congratulation is premature, and silly as usual. It is not at all "obvious" that a piece of music meriting a judgment of "excellent" stops meriting that judgmernt when people stop looking at it. In fact it's irrational and absurd. The piece would be excellent even if the composer lost it in the storm drain on the way to the publishing house and no one ever heard it. It's excellence is in the musical ideas the composer produced from his brain, not in the ink and paper they're written on or the physical sounds that occur in someone's ear when they're played. And please desist from any ridiculous debates on whether music "is" idea, score, or sound. It's any or all of these, but at the heart of it is idea, and it's ideas that distinguish a composer, and on his ideas that a composer is judged. Without them we have only your ink and paper in a drawer.


There is no useful response to this dog's breakfast centered on an obvious walking back of a previous assertion, and, sadly, a display of your hectoring way of engaging in dialogue. It saddens me. And your argument remains as myopic as always. End of conversation.


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## Eva Yojimbo

fbjim said:


> I've said this before, but maybe it bears repeating - I can easily, easily make a case for Wagner, a composer I have little familiarity with, as an all-time great by this method. In fact, if I had never listened to a single note of Wagner in my life, I could do this. The effects on Wagner on the development of music are - if not strictly quantifiable, are close enough to being objective truth for me.
> 
> The thing is, I can do this without listening to a single note of Wagner, which is a clue that this isn't really an aesthetic evaluation at all. In fact, I could theoretically know zilch about Wagner and construct a case for his importance and greatness entirely through the words of his contemporaries, and the words of musical historians. It's evidence of the work's historical import, importance, and influence, but these things, while peripheral to aesthetic evaluation, should not be mistaken for an aesthetic evaluation itself.
> 
> This is the strength and weakness of the so-called "polling methods" where we evaluate based on import - sure, we focus strictly on criteria which have objectively measurable (if not quantifiable) values, but we do so at the expense of any actual aesthetic judgment.


Excellent point.


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## hammeredklavier

Woodduck said:


> Why can't we acknowledge excellences of many kinds - the visible, audible, readable traces of the experiences and insights of thoughtful and skilled artists - and *still feel completely free to* like or *dislike* what they do?


How exactly? For example, are these people, mikeh375, tdc, Kreisler jr, doing exactly what you describe, with Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, Bach?

mikeh375: "I too think Mozart is overrated. Imv, he is too easy to listen to with 21stC hindsight and I feel that music these days has more traits worth exploring than immediacy of appeal. Don't shout at me though, I mean, I am an owner of the complete Phillips Edition. It's just that he is relegated these days to background whilst playing Scrabble in my household....uh oh.....sorry Mozart fans.
OK maybe that's too harsh when I think of his perfection and some of his glorious work, so I'll rescind a little.... "

tdc: "I respect Haydn for his innovations and musical influence, but I would not rank him as a top ten composer, the only reason I rate him at all, is because of his inventiveness with form and because many others whose opinions I respect, do. I don't listen to his music, because I find it dull and with respect to dissonance, impotent. He uses dissonance, but not effectively in my view. It is like food without spice. His music strikes me as the kind of thing a man would write who has never himself experienced anything in life one could call 'deep' or 'profound'. It seems he resorts to humor, because there is nothing else of substance he has to say."

tdc: "Beethoven's sense of vertical harmony leaves me underwhelmed, so his longer musical paragraphs, although groundbreaking in form, don't help in redeeming his music for me. They actually make it worse.
For me it is like listening to someone who is chatty but doesn't have anything that meaningful to say. Or someone that is telling me a boring story, but they try to spice it up by being over dramatic.
I acknowledge his greatness, virtuosity and genius in form but that is how his music subjectively impacts me."

Kreisler jr: I grant all kinds of technical contrapuntal wizardry singling Bach out but I don't see how even a rather modest Telemann cantata like "Du aber Daniel gehe hin" or the choruses from the Passion section of Messiah (to stick with the best known, there are plenty of other examples) are not in the same range of expression and gravitas (or Schütz for music 100 years earlier). Of course, unlike inverted triple mirror fugues, "emotional depth" or gravitas are rather vague attributes.


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## Woodduck

Eva Yojimbo said:


> I do want to clarify that none of us subjectivists are denying that some art has “greater power” to do what you describe; it’s merely that it’s only one part of the puzzle, with the other huge part being all of the subjectivities that art interacts with and affects. All the subjectivists claim is that the similarities of judgments can be explained partly by the nature of what the art (the object) is, and partly by the similarities of human subjectivities; however, the differences of judgments can only be explained by the differences in human subjectivities. The latter can’t be explained by the art/objects itself, because the art/object is the same for everyone. The only difference between the mind that hears Beethoven and thinks him great and the mind that hears Beethoven and doesn’t are the difference in subjectivities between the two.


I'd take exception to one thing here. Similarities of artistic judgment can be explained by the nature of the art itself and by the _similarities in the mental and physical constitution of human beings._ If your "subjectivities" is meant to encompass the full range of what that implies, then OK, but I'm not sure that it really does.

I think it's rather important to spell out just what we're talking about, and I see the constant resort to the terms "subjectivity," "subjective," "objective," etc. as frequently obscuring important ideas, partly because of the different derfinitions of these words that make it easy for implications often not intended to sneak in, leading to misunderstandings. I'm quite clear on your formal definitions of these terms, and if I thought clarity could be maintained I might be more inclined to use them, but I'm never trusting in matters of communication.

Is anything else you've said in your first paragraph being disputed? I don't see that it is, except possibly that you can't speak for all the "subjectivists," whoever they are. Sometimes you cite Strange Magic with approval, but I'd like to feel sure that I'm talking to just one of you at a time.



> It’s not so much that the quantification I described is necessary for objectivity, I’m merely saying that that’s essentially what you’re describing. What art has affected the most and by how much. That’s a poll-type standard.


Is "poll-type" a term in epistemology? 😉 It really needs to go. It trivializes everything. Pollsters are looking for numbers, not meaning. I don't give a rodent's tail about how many people "like" Brahms, any more than I care whether anyone thinks Tchaikovsky is a "greater" composer. I'm interested in the quality of an artist's impact on the world, not merely the quantity of it. I'm sure you know that and agree, but the triviality of the polling image doesn't steer our thinking that way.



> t the end of the day are you really sitting down and listening to music and wondering how many that music has affected and how much? Or do you really, truly, honestly, just care about whether the art affects YOU? *To me, the kind of objective greatness you describe is really just a means of us being respectful about other people’s subjectivities, and having respect for the art/artists that have moved so many.*


I'm not focused on anyone's "subjectivities." I'm focused on recognizing and respecting the exceptional powers of extraordinary artists. An important power (but not the only important one) is the ability to make work capable of resonating strongly enough with basic elements of human consciousness to not only appeal to but shape people's "subjectivities" and cultures, and not only in the moment but enduringly. Given the constant emphasis subjectivists place on the differences between individual human "subjectivities," they should readily admit that the ability of an artist to achieve widespread, sometimes almost unanimous acclaim across space and time is a remarkable thing, and is not something to be accounted for except by reference to some very fundamental aspects of the human organism and human experience.



> I guess my point here is that *I’m just not willing to let “greatness” be limited or defined by “art that has affected the most people at the highest level.”*


Who's doing that? Not I.



> I think if we want to talk about the art that’s affected the most people (and culture at large) to the highest degree then that’s a fine thing to talk about. *I just reject the claim that that (or anything) must be THE standard for greatness. *


Who made that claim? Not I.



> I’m comfortable with having as many standards as there are people, with each one of them having *their own hierarchies for greatness *


I have my own hierarchy for pleasure, but not for greatness. I don't assume that my favorite things are the "greatest" things. That just degrades language.



> Art is too complex and has too many different objective elements that people will value differently, often radically different. Further, humanity and life itself is too complex for any art to embody anything but a tiny portion of it, and just as people are drawn to different aspects in art they are drawn to different aspects of life. I, like you, value art's ability to speak to the profoundest aspects of life and humanity, but I also get that not everybody cares about this head-in-the-clouds kind of art. They have lives that are full of toil and hardship and art is just escapist fun, an oasis amidst life's rigors. They don't want or need art that challenges them as they have enough of that elsewhere. The things they value in art are just as valuable as what we do, and the fact that they find that in pop songs, or Marvel films, and not in Wagner or Ingmar Bergman, is also unsurprising.
> 
> Nobody denies that the existence of things like tonality are an objective part of music. *The sticking point is that so many people like tonality because of the nature of our subjectivities, because it allows us a means of perceiving hierarchies that subjectively resonates with our perception of hierarchies elsewhere in life.*


Why is this a "sticking point"?



> *If we weren't a species that recognized hierarchies, the presence of tonal hierarchies probably wouldn't have much (if any) appeal to us.*


And if humans didn't have two legs, they wouldn't be bipedal

"Things would be so different if they were not as they are." (Anna Russell)



> Further, it's also the case that many (even if not most) have found that *atonal music can be just as rewarding: there are plenty fans of atonal composers*, and there have been plenty of fans of music from cultures both ancient and modern in which tonality (at least as we know it) is not a feature of their music.


No single feature has to be a part of any work of art. Why is this remarkable? (I might also ask how many is "plenty'? I've never knowm anyone who has had more than a peripheral interest in atonal music. There's something for everyone, and someone for everything.)

I can't see what point is being made by the foregoing paragraphs. It just looks like a rehash of "different people like different things and have different opinions about the same things," on the way to saying that that somehow "proves" that nothing is inherently good, bad, superior or inferior. Hammeredklavier has been hammering away at that klavier for quite a while. It seems intended to prove something, but it doesn't.



> When I say “liking” I’m referring to any positive feelings towards, from the most profound to the most superficial. We can wax rhapsodic about how (to continue the above) tonality resonates with our profoundly human perception of hierarchies and desire for pattern and organization… but this falls under the general “liking” category. *It’s a different kind of like from, say, how people like ice cream, but both of them generalize to “positive feelings,*” and “liking” is shorter to type.


So the artistic experience that tells us that an artist has coherently exploited, through the symbolic vocabulary of his art, basic patterns of human thought, perception, feeling and activity, not to mention cosmic forces external to our human organisms but impinging on us and affecting us in profound ways, offers us nothing more significant than a "postive feeling"? And we're back to ice cream, along with polls?



> Because if one of those "unique viewpoints" includes the viewpoint that _insert any whipping-boy composer or pop artist here_ is better than _insert any composer most CM fans/critics consider a monumental titan here_ they will be "corrected" as to the wrongness of their opinion. *Once we have established that something is objectively true, such as the idea that excellence is "something art actually embodies in its structure" then we simultaneously do away with the notion that people are disagreeing over subjective tastes, values, etc.*


A thorough misunderstanding. Aesthetic excellence is not "something art actually embodies in its structure." It is, rather, the successful deployment of structure to embody something. It's deploying the structural components of an artistic "language" in such a way as to make an object coherent to the mind. There are other kinds and markers of excellence in art, but it's with the kind we call specifically aesthetic that I've been concerned.There are other kinds of values which art can embody to attain greater distinction and deserve praise, but that's another, much wider conversation. No point in going there when we can't even get straight what we're discussing now.

The perception of aesthetic excellence doesn't "do away" with individual, personal values in art. I've suggested that aesthetic fitness does in fact underlie and make possible much of the diverse expressive content that people perceive in art. Feelings have structure, and art can trace the forms and trajectories of emotion and evoke them, perhaps most obviously in music.



> T*he entire point is whether the question "is artistic excellence embodied in the art" objectively true the way the question of the Earth's shape is objectively true*; or does its truthfulness ultimately depend on the standards and values that originate in our subjectivities? Because I don't think anyone doubts that the shape of Earth doesn't depend on what anyone values or thinks or feels.


I don't consider that a point, or question, that needs debating, and i've never debated it. _Of course_ "excellence" is not a thing, or an aspect of objects _as objects,_ the way "shape" is a thing or an aspect of things. Excellence is an attribution justified by the recognition of something done well. The only question that needs to be answered is whether the attribution is justified - whether humans have the capacity to recognize whether art has been made well. This has never been a question I've needed to ask, as I know that I and other humans possess an extraordinarily sharp and sensitive capacity to guage the aesthetic skill of artists - their ability to create coherent form and to use it for expressive ends. Our perceptions of such skill may be influenced by our personal tastes, often or seldom, depending on the development of our own perceptivenss. The artist works for a lifetime to develop his; its essential to the job description. The suggestion that he's merely expressing his "positive feelings" is absurd, and since the artist's perceptions are mirrored in his audience when they take in his work, it's ultimately absurd in their case as well. People study and train in the arts partly in order to go beyond mere "positive feelings" to an appreciation of what artists can do and have done.


----------



## BachIsBest

fbjim said:


> I've said this before, but maybe it bears repeating - I can easily, easily make a case for Wagner, a composer I have little familiarity with, as an all-time great by this method. In fact, if I had never listened to a single note of Wagner in my life, I could do this. The effects on Wagner on the development of music are - if not strictly quantifiable, are close enough to being objective truth for me.
> 
> The thing is, I can do this without listening to a single note of Wagner, which is a clue that this isn't really an aesthetic evaluation at all. In fact, I could theoretically know zilch about Wagner and construct a case for his importance and greatness entirely through the words of his contemporaries, and the words of musical historians. It's evidence of the work's historical import, importance, and influence, but these things, while peripheral to aesthetic evaluation, should not be mistaken for an aesthetic evaluation itself.
> 
> This is the strength and weakness of the so-called "polling methods" where we evaluate based on import - sure, we focus strictly on criteria which have objectively measurable (if not quantifiable) values, but we do so at the expense of any actual aesthetic judgment.


I'm sure most reasonably educated laypeople could make a case for the objective truth of quantum mechanics despite knowing not a shred of quantum mechanics. How would you do this? By looking at the opinions of the all the experts in the field and finding they all agree quantum mechanics is a good physical theory. The fact that we can use expert consensus to form opinions says nothing about aesthetic evaluation, because we can use expert consensus to form opinions in literally any human endeavour.


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## BachIsBest

Woodduck said:


> A thorough misunderstanding. Aesthetic excellence is not "something art actually embodies in its structure." It is, rather, the successful deployment of structure to embody something.


This might have just made keeping up with fifty some pages of this thread worth it.*


*_Just my opinion. No claims of objectively being 'worth it' made. Subjectivity included, batteries not. Read in whatever manner happens to subjectively please you, or read in whatever manner subjectively doesn't please you, if this is your subjective desire. The author takes no responsibility for objective claims made, except in a subjective sense. Use at your own, subjective, risk._


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## Forster

fbjim said:


> In fact, I could theoretically know zilch about Wagner and construct a case for his importance and greatness entirely through the words of his contemporaries, and the words of musical historians.


Well surely you'd have to know _something_, else how would you know the truth of what his contemporaries and musical historians were saying?

“One can’t judge Wagner’s opera ‘Lohengrin’ after a first hearing, and I certainly don’t intend hearing it a second time.” -Gioacchino Rossini

“Wagner’s music is better than it sounds.” -Edgar Wilson Nye, quoted in Mark Twain’s autobiography

“[The Prelude to _Tristan und Isolde_] reminds one of the old Italian painting of a martyr whose intestines are slowly unwound from his body on a reel.” -Eduard Hanslick

“Wagner’s music, in spite of all its wondrous skill and power, repels a greater number than it fascinates.”


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## Woodduck

BachIsBest said:


> This might have just made keeping up with fifty some pages of this thread worth it.*
> 
> 
> *_Just my opinion. No claims of objectively being 'worth it' made. Subjectivity included, batteries not. Read in whatever manner happens to subjectively please you, or read in whatever manner subjectively doesn't please you, if this is your subjective desire. The author takes no responsibility for objective claims made, except in a subjective sense. Use at your own, subjective, risk._


Thanks for lighting on that. i was rather proud of it when it happened.

I will also take your disclaimer in fine print seriously once I've acquired enough objectivity to do that.


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## Becca

BachIsBest said:


> I'm sure most reasonably educated laypeople could make a case for the objective truth of quantum mechanics despite knowing not a shred of quantum mechanics. How would you do this? By looking at the opinions of the all the experts in the field and finding they all agree quantum mechanics is a good physical theory. The fact that we can use expert consensus to form opinions says nothing about aesthetic evaluation, because we can use expert consensus to form opinions in literally any human endeavour.


This is a admittedly a diversion from the topic but worth making - quantum mechanics is not an objective truth, it is only a descriptive model, albeit one which describes what we currently observe and is successfully used to make predictions of the unknown. But then Newtonian mechanics was very successful for about 250 years ... until physics started finding places that it wasn't.

When it comes the the usefulness of expert opinion, I suggest that you should read Lee Smolin's _The Trouble with Physics._ Smolin is a well regarded theoretical physicist.


----------



## science

In a way I'm surprised that anyone can imagine that our thoughts and feelings, our pleasures and pains, our judgments of all kinds -- even those of the most elite of us, the most sensitive and highly educated -- are simply and straightforwardly "unbiased." The difficulty is figuring out what ideas, if any, we can regard as "objective." That's not easy. 

Of course such intellectual difficulties will never slow down anyone who is constructing justifications for a social hierarchy that would favor them, so in that sense I am not surprised.


----------



## 59540

science said:


> ...
> Of course such intellectual difficulties will never slow down anyone who is constructing justifications for a social hierarchy that would favor them, so in that sense I am not surprised.


How exactly is my place in the "social hierarchy" affected by admiring classical music? Hint: believe me, it's not. If anything, it makes me more of an outsider within any "social hierarchy'. This is just more of that speculative postmodern thinking posing as objective dogma.


----------



## fbjim

BachIsBest said:


> I'm sure most reasonably educated laypeople could make a case for the objective truth of quantum mechanics despite knowing not a shred of quantum mechanics. How would you do this? By looking at the opinions of the all the experts in the field and finding they all agree quantum mechanics is a good physical theory. The fact that we can use expert consensus to form opinions says nothing about aesthetic evaluation, because we can use expert consensus to form opinions in literally any human endeavour.


Of course we can. Just as studying the opinions of scientists and making a judgement call that their consensus is probably correct should not be confused with the actual act of scientific study, nor should a "polling" analysis of classical music be considered the act of aesthetic evaluation. It is an objective statement on the historical import, or historical reputation of composers, which I do not believe anyone has actually contested. "Bach is a well-regarded composer by most listeners and experts" is clearly not a subjective statement.


----------



## hammeredklavier

Woodduck said:


> It's absurd enough to claim that a comic opera like _Le Nozze di Figaro_ is the highest cultural achievement in the history of mankind (yes, someone here actually said that), but equally ridiculous is the assertion that had he lived long enough he would have surpassed all other composers at doing whatever it is they did.


Here, obviously your _subjective bias against_ comic operas as a genre affects your _objective evaluation_ of Figaro. Your _subjective bias_ against Mozart's contemporaries such as Haydn causes you to think it's OK to conclude Mozart _objectively_ surpassed him, but not, say, Wagner. Whether or not Mozart surpassed them has been determined by criteria made up by the posterity _subjectively_ (not set in stone).


----------



## BachIsBest

fbjim said:


> Of course we can. Just as studying the opinions of scientists and making a judgement call that their consensus is probably correct should not be confused with the actual act of scientific study, nor should a "polling" analysis of classical music be considered the act of aesthetic evaluation. It is an objective statement on the historical import, or historical reputation of composers, which I do not believe anyone has actually contested. "Bach is a well-regarded composer by most listeners and experts" is clearly not a subjective statement.


Right, this is my point, no? I thought you were saying that the only 'objectivity' going on in aesthetic evaluation is in the opinion of experts. Perhaps I have misunderstood.


----------



## hammeredklavier

Woodduck said:


> . It just looks like a rehash of "different people like different things and have different opinions about the same things," on the way to saying that that somehow "proves" that nothing is inherently good, bad, superior or inferior. Hammeredklavier has been hammering away at that klavier for quite a while. It seems intended to prove something, but it doesn't.


I didn't say that, dear friend (and I still respect all your views in this thread). Have a look back at #958, which is my thesis. Mozart's style of harmony and orchestration was once widely considered to be "grating", the K.465 quartet was perceived to be "weird", just like how people's tastes for beauty changed over time (eg. over things like plumpiness vs slimness in women).
People can say Mozart is better than rap, but that still doesn't automatically mean that the Coronation mass (1779) is an objectively greater work than Missa sti. Hieronymi (1777). Things can be forgotten due to the "snowball effect" of the "canon" (look back at #949), which I discussed a number of times in this thread. It's simply _impossible_ for us to know _everything_.


----------



## BachIsBest

Becca said:


> This is a admittedly a diversion from the topic but worth making - quantum mechanics is not an objective truth, it is only a descriptive model, albeit one which describes what we currently observe and is successfully used to make predictions of the unknown. But then Newtonian mechanics was very successful for about 250 years ... until physics started finding places that it wasn't.
> 
> When it comes the the usefulness of expert opinion, I suggest that you should read Lee Smolin's _The Trouble with Physics._ Smolin is a well regarded theoretical physicist.


I get the point you're making. If you wanted to be really precise you could say something like "when the ratio of the velocity's to the speed of light is small, and higher order gravitational effects can be neglected, then quantum mechanics gives precise experimental predictions and the previous was an objectively true statement". For the sake of brevity, I assumed by stating quantum mechanics was objectively true, it would be understood I only claimed it was true in regions it was valid.

I won't comment on Smolin or his book.


----------



## hammeredklavier

Eva Yojimbo said:


> have presented a very murky, woo-woo filled epistemology for justifying those strong feelings. Woodduck even refused to address one of my hypotheticals





Woodduck said:


> Hammeredklavier has been hammering away at that klavier for quite a while.


lol, I feel like calling you names too, "Woo-woo-duck", cause you keep presenting murky, woo-woo filled epistemology. -I'm just joking. I think you're _awesome_.


----------



## science

dissident said:


> How exactly is my place in the "social hierarchy" affected by admiring classical music? Hint: believe me, it's not. If anything, it makes me more of an outsider within any "social hierarchy'. This is just more of that speculative postmodern thinking posing as objective dogma.


If this were true, you'd probably stop liking it. Our semi- and sub-consciousnesses aren't perfect in detail, but they usually have fairly good strategies in the big picture.

Does loving Bach actually does cause the people whose esteem you most value to respect you less? I suspect you don't actually have much respect for the people who would feel that way, whereas you probably admire the people who share your tastes and hope for their admiration in return. Maybe I'm wrong, of course; maybe you're blasting Mozart in the trailer park, weeping that the other hillbillies -- whose respect you desperately crave -- ostracize you, unable to find love or friendship with anyone you respect, and yet unwilling to use headphones.

Or perhaps maybe your tastes align rather well with your social ambitions. 

I know mine do. Nothing wrong with that, either. We're all only human.


----------



## BachIsBest

science said:


> If this were true, you'd probably stop liking it. Our semi- and sub-consciousnesses aren't perfect in detail, but they usually have fairly good strategies in the big picture.
> 
> Does loving Bach actually does cause the people whose esteem you most value to respect you less? I suspect you don't actually have much respect for the people who would feel that way, whereas you probably admire the people who share your tastes and hope for their admiration in return. Maybe I'm wrong, of course; maybe you're blasting Mozart in the trailer park, weeping that the other hillbillies -- whose respect you desperately crave -- ostracize you, unable to find love or friendship with anyone you respect, and yet unwilling to use headphones.
> 
> Or perhaps maybe your tastes align rather well with your social ambitions.
> 
> I know mine do. Nothing wrong with that, either. We're all only human.


I generally avoid telling people I like classical music until I know them really well. In real life, I'm the only person I'm one of two people I know who really like classical music, and the other guy took composition in university. Generally speaking, if you want to gain prestige through music taste, avoid classical; instead it's critical that your music taste involve words like "eclectic taste", "music of Afro-American origin", "jazz", and/or something supporting trendy political issues. For example, the following is a sure-fire winner:

Q: What kind of music do you like.

A: I enjoy an eclectic mix of Eurononcentric music examining the role of antineoracism in supporting postcolonialdecapitalisation. In particular I've recently been really digging experimental jazz of Afro-American origin that extrainterincorporates northern Inuit throat singing in extradeexamining the role of Tubas, an overcolonial telewhite instrument, in autoredeveloping a transautoracial unsubcolonial megasupersociety. How about yourself?


----------



## Kreisler jr

fbjim said:


> I've said this before, but maybe it bears repeating - I can easily, easily make a case for Wagner, a composer I have little familiarity with, as an all-time great by this method. In fact, if I had never listened to a single note of Wagner in my life, I could do this. The effects on Wagner on the development of music are - if not strictly quantifiable, are close enough to being objective truth for me.
> 
> The thing is, I can do this without listening to a single note of Wagner, which is a clue that this isn't really an aesthetic evaluation at all. In fact, I could theoretically know zilch about Wagner and construct a case for his importance and greatness entirely through the words of his contemporaries, and the words of musical historians. It's evidence of the work's historical import, importance, and influence, but these things, while peripheral to aesthetic evaluation, should not be mistaken for an aesthetic evaluation itself.


I agree that this is an important distinction to be made.

But wouldn't it be utterly bizarre if your "external investigation" was mostly/merely "peripheral" to aesthetic evaluation while virtually EVERYONE involved in that historical process you investigated, i.e. Wagner himself, all the other musicians, critics, audiences etc. were convinced that they were actually involved in aesthetic evaluation, namely by producing Wagner's works, by being impressed or scandalized by them, by taking elements of them up in their own works and so on. Were these people all wrong about what they were doing? It seems preposterous for us 100-150 years later to claim that artists, experts and audiences at least as smart as we are were mistaken about what they were actually doing. 

Thus it is extremely plausible that the "external" description was a surface description founded on an "aesthetic dynamics" underneath that was driven by "aesthetic forces". 
The external description would be like Kepler's laws phenomenologically describing the movements of the planets whereas the driving forces, i.e. the causes of planetary movement would be described by Newtonian dynamics. 
Likewise, the "internal", i.e. aesthetic level is what causes the "peripheral" history of the reception, scandal, influence, fandom etc. of Wagner.
They are not independent, but interdependent. That's why the external (social-historical) description gives some hints towards the more elusive, aesthetic level. The difference to Kepler/Newton is that in the Wagner case the "external" and "internal" description use "different languages".


----------



## 59540

science said:


> If this were true, you'd probably stop liking it. Our semi- and sub-consciousnesses aren't perfect in detail, but they usually have fairly good strategies in the big picture.


It is true, and I still like it.


> Or perhaps maybe your tastes align rather well with your social ambitions.


I don't have any "social ambitions" of the sort in which my taste in music would play any role whatsoever. You assume quite a bit.


----------



## science

BachIsBest said:


> I generally avoid telling people I like classical music until I know them really well. In real life, I'm the only person I'm one of two people I know who really like classical music, and the other guy took composition in university. Generally speaking, if you want to gain prestige through music taste, avoid classical; instead it's critical that your music taste involve words like "eclectic taste", "music of Afro-American origin", "jazz", and/or something supporting trendy political issues. For example, the following is a sure-fire winner:
> 
> Q: What kind of music do you like.
> 
> A: I enjoy an eclectic mix of Eurononcentric music examining the role of antineoracism in supporting postcolonialdecapitalisation. In particular I've recently been really digging experimental jazz of Afro-American origin that extrainterincorporates northern Inuit throat singing in extradeexamining the role of Tubas, an overcolonial telewhite instrument, in autoredeveloping a transautoracial unsubcolonial megasupersociety. How about yourself?


I think you're right. Eclectic and cross-cultural taste has definitely been "in" with the global elite since at least the 1960s. This has lowered the relative status of western classical music but not so much that it is associated with the working class of any country.


----------



## science

dissident said:


> It is true, and I still like it.
> 
> I don't have any "social ambitions" of the sort in which my taste in music would play any role whatsoever. You assume quite a bit.


Well, I'll have to take your word for it, but you might be the only person who is invested in music to such an extent that you'd post on a message board about it and yet music has no affect on any of your personal relationships. I don't think there's any aspect of my life, from my taste in music down to the socks I choose to wear, that has no bearing on how I present myself to the world.


----------



## 59540

science said:


> Well, I'll have to take your word for it, but you might be the only person who is invested in music to such an extent that you'd post on a message board about it and yet music has no affect on any of your personal relationships. I don't think there's any aspect of my life, from my taste in music down to the socks I choose to wear, that has no bearing on how I present myself to the world.


And then again you might be projecting. The issue wasn't about how you present yourself to the world but rather worrying about what the world thinks of the presentation.


----------



## science

dissident said:


> And then again you might be projecting. The issue wasn't about how you present yourself to the world but rather worrying about what the world thinks of the presentation.


I don't understand the distinction you're making.


----------



## 59540

science said:


> I don't understand the distinction you're making.


We all present ourselves to the world. Not everyone has the "social ambitions" that you attribute to them. This is just more of The Politicization of Everything.


----------



## science

dissident said:


> We all present ourselves to the world. Not everyone has the "social ambitions" that you attribute to them. This is just more of The Politicization of Everything.


Perhaps I've communicated poorly. By "social ambitions" I mean things like wanting to have friends, wanting to be loved, wanting to be respected, and so on. Of course I wasn't excluding politics, but I meant something much broader. 

I wonder if a different term might have been clearer?


----------



## Luchesi

BachIsBest said:


> I get the point you're making. If you wanted to be really precise you could say something like "when the ratio of the velocity's to the speed of light is small, and higher order gravitational effects can be neglected, then quantum mechanics gives precise experimental predictions and the previous was an objectively true statement". For the sake of brevity, I assumed by stating quantum mechanics was objectively true, it would be understood I only claimed it was true in regions it was valid.
> 
> I won't comment on Smolin or his book.


I would say the Standard Model not QM. QM concepts gave rise to the Standard Model, but QM might be telling us recently that the Standard Model is wrong and will have to be downplayed like Newtonian physics.


----------



## 59540

science said:


> Perhaps I've communicated poorly. By "social ambitions" I mean things like wanting to have friends, wanting to be loved, wanting to be respected, and so on. Of course I wasn't excluding politics, but I meant something much broader.
> 
> I wonder if a different term might have been clearer?


It still doesn't apply. I don't love Bach and Mozart because I want to have friends and be loved and respected. I love their music simply because I do. That's frankly a kind of weird utilitarian or cynical way of looking at things.


----------



## fbjim

Kreisler jr said:


> But wouldn't it be utterly bizarre if your "external investigation" was mostly/merely "peripheral" to aesthetic evaluation while virtually EVERYONE involved in that historical process you investigated, i.e. Wagner himself, all the other musicians, critics, audiences etc. were convinced that they were actually involved in aesthetic evaluation, namely by producing Wagner's works, by being impressed or scandalized by them, by taking elements of them up in their own works and so on. Were these people all wrong about what they were doing? It seems preposterous for us 100-150 years later to claim that artists, experts and audiences at least as smart as we are were mistaken about what they were actually doing.


I think the concern here is that when we talk about art with others, we're usually concerned with the experience of listening to it ourselves- our concern with things like reputation and polls can be adjacent to this (to see if others agree with our tastes, or just to see if others see things the way we do) - rather than a simple gathering of data points. Or maybe that's not true, given how popular poll threads are.


Also I think you misunderstood - the writings on Wagner and the data points on his impact - those are aesthetic evaluations themselves - but the act of performing some kind of analysis on those data points is not an aesthetic evaluation. In the same way that performing an experiment is to participate in the scientific method, but reading a paper about an experiment is not.


----------



## Eva Yojimbo

DaveM said:


> You actually call that a ‘support for a role for objectivity’?


Yes, and it’s ACTUAL objectivity in that I’m saying the actual object, the music itself, plays some role in how the subject’s mind ends up in the “think X is great” state. It’s not the faux-objectivity that the “objectivists” seem to think is objective.



DaveM said:


> Did you somewhere in this thread get the idea that most people agree with your view of subjectivity and objectivity here and elsewhere?


First, I’m not interested in what “most” think as that’s just a popularity contest; I care about what’s true.

Second, if we’re going to care about what experts think, then why would I care about what non-experts in philosophy think about my views on subjectivity/objectivity, terms that originate in philosophy?


----------



## Eva Yojimbo

DaveM said:


> No it doesn’t. It’s right there in your first sentence. Note to those with years in music and the degrees that may go with it: Your judgment on composers and their music has no more value than that of the unwashed masses. But that raises a question about those with an education in philosophy and the degrees that may go with it. Since philosophizing seems to be a total subjective activity, perhaps education on the subject is a waste of time.


I have no idea what you’re first two sentences are referring to. Philosophy is not a “totally subjective activity.” It depends on the branch and subject of philosophy. Some of it is objective and some if it’s subjective; same with music education. I know this “sometimes objective, sometimes subjective” seems to confuse your (and dissident’s, apparently) all-or-nothing thinking, but I promise if you would actually read and comprehend my armchair philosophizing you’d realize I’ve laid out all that’s necessary to distinguish which is which.


----------



## science

dissident said:


> It still doesn't apply. I don't love Bach and Mozart because I want to have friends and be loved and respected. I love their music simply because I do. That's frankly a kind of weird utilitarian or cynical way of looking at things.


It is definitely cynical, but I think that's okay. I also doubt that we are conscious of more than a tiny minority of our motivations. 

As far as I can tell, music even in non-human animals is social, and humans are eminently social animals. I am intensely skeptical of any idea that any human being (barring mental illness) does anything -- from crying as newborn babies to whatever the last intentional acts of our lives will be, but definitely nothing as apparently wasteful of energy and time as music is -- as a truly atomistic individual, completely unconcerned by how any other people (especially the people we value) might regard it.


----------



## Eva Yojimbo

BachIsBest said:


> Again, this is where our differences lie. If someone came along and told me his standards for art were that art should be as meaningless, arbitrary, and plain as possible, then I would consider that persons standards for art to be wrong.


Yes, but can you prove they’re wrong in the same way that we can prove “the Earth is flat” is wrong? Is it only wrong relative to your subjective standards (and those of most people)? Is it wrong in some other way?



BachIsBest said:


> As for ghosts and alien abductions I really fail to see the common ground of understanding that exists in art, especially across cultures. All early cultures had their own myths and legends; these served similar purposes, but the actual details in them vary wildly, and there are virtually no universals. In contrast, with music, it is virtually impossible to find early music that doesn't have a tonal centre in any sense; this, with the fact that so many composers seem to refine their skills in exploiting tonality in much the same way a mathematician may refine his skills in algebra, combined with many other factors Wooduck has mentioned previously, make me believe that this "private knowledge", really is knowledge, and not just some woo-woo feeling.


I don’t see the difference between all cultures having their own myths and legends and all cultures having their own musical traditions, many of which do not include notions of Western tonality. Even within western tonality there are so many different applications of that tonality that it’s clear that tonality itself is not enough to determine goodness/greatness. Then we start getting into particular applications of tonality, and where is the evidence that any of THAT is objectively better as opposed to being based on what people like?



BachIsBest said:


> I agree with your truth example, it's just that I think it is too restrictive. In everyday language I agree it is not necessary to provide philosophically sound definitions, but you wish to argue against the existence of musical quality on philosophical grounds, so I think you ought to hold yourself to higher standards. Your definition is too restrictive; for example, the statement "all claims of truth need to have this kind of “matching” relationship between the “map” (our beliefs, hypotheses, etc.) and the “territory” (empirical reality)" is not true, given your definition of truth.


I don’t think my definition of truth is too restrictive, I think it reduces to one clear, universally-accepted version of truth, and any others, even if we accepted them as valid, would be quite different from what I’m describing. We may attempt to delineate other valid notions of truth, but however valid they are they will still be distinct from the version I have articulated. This is one of the traps of language in that we often use the same words to describe many different and disparate aspects of reality. When I mentioned math and science has a leg-up on common language on clarity one reason why is that both disciplines value reductionism where definitions are, indeed, limited to describing very specific things and there’s less of the ambiguous “overlap” with multiple concepts as in ordinary language. This is, I guess, a long way of saying that I think the restrictiveness of my definition is a feature, not a bug.

Also, I want to repeat that definitions can’t be true. Definitions can point to features (objective or subjective) for what we want the word to describe. So when I describe an objective/subjective phenomenon of “matching the ‘map’ of subjective beliefs/hypotheses to the ‘territory’ of empirical reality” I’m describing something, and then saying “I want to call THAT ‘truth.’” You may say that you want this word to describe other things, but it doesn’t make sense to say that the word/definitions can be true in and of itself. We could just as easily say “I want to call THAT ‘smorgasborgle.’” and it works just as well. See here for a good explanation of this: Where to Draw the Boundary? - LessWrong

Also, I feel it should be said that however much I’m burdened with defining truth in a way that argues from that towards why I feel aesthetic judgments are subjective, the same burden should fall on those arguing that aesthetic judgments are objective. However much you may find my definition of truth limited, it is at least clear; while “personal knowledge is mysterious” is not. Woodduck (or you) should be at least as obligated to define how the student is realizing a "truth" as opposed to just understanding what the teacher is saying (which itself may not be an objective truth), or realizing something that conforms with their own subjective biases, standards, tastes, etc. In what sense is what the student realizing objectively true?


----------



## 59540

science said:


> It is definitely cynical, but I think that's okay. I also doubt that we are conscious of more than a tiny minority of our motivations.
> 
> As far as I can tell, music even in non-human animals is social, and humans are eminently social animals. I am intensely skeptical of any idea that any human being (barring mental illness) does anything -- from crying as newborn babies to whatever the last intentional acts of our lives will be, but definitely nothing as apparently wasteful of energy and time as music is -- as a truly atomistic individual, completely unconcerned by how any other people (especially the people we value) might regard it.


It's one thing to have the thought, but it's a little risky to apply it generally without some solid foundation other than a cynical view of reality.


----------



## fbjim

The other thing about polling/"quantitative" analysis is that it often isn't used objectively at all, or is used in service of subjective analysis. A lot of musical analysis takes the form of what sometimes seems like excessively ex-post-facto formal analysis on what makes works popular - i.e. "Mozart is popular, well, it must be because he wrote in this particular manner" which can sometimes be interesting, but too often seems like just-so justificaitons to find patterns in the data.

The other is when subjective opinion is brought to the forefront to discount objective facts, or to explain them away. For instance, someone who says that the evidence that Beethoven's music is great lies in the impact his work had on the development of music might become hesitant when it comes to the undoubted historical impact of Schoenberg, or Stockhausen, or Cage, or Reich. Then it must be qualified subjectively - where it is explained that Beethoven had a beneficial impact, while someone else had a detrimental impact. Or perhaps the scholars who held certain composers highly should be discredited in some way, for reasons of bad taste, or for political reasons. Once we do this, we've departed the field of dry objective analysis and have brought our own aesthetic tastes into the picture.


----------



## 59540

fbjim said:


> Then it must be qualified subjectively - where it is explained that Beethoven had a beneficial impact, while someone else had a detrimental impact.


I don't think Beethoven's influence was entirely beneficial, and I don't think Schoenberg's was entirely detrimental. I think there's a tendency all around to caricature without much justification. If you love the "Big Three" then you're going to hate the Second Viennese School and everything after. If you love classical music, you're an aspiring snob or you trust authority too much. If you believe in "objective values", you're on the perilous path to Nazism.


----------



## Eva Yojimbo

fbjim said:


> The other thing about polling/"quantitative" analysis is that it often isn't used objectively at all, or is used in service of subjective analysis. A lot of musical analysis takes the form of what sometimes seems like excessively ex-post-facto formal analysis on what makes works popular - i.e. "Mozart is popular, well, it must be because he wrote in this particular manner" which can sometimes be interesting, but too often seems like just-so justificaitons to find patterns in the data.
> 
> The other is when subjective opinion is brought to the forefront to discount objective facts, or to explain them away. For instance, someone who says that the evidence that Beethoven's music is great lies in the impact his work had on the development of music might become hesitant when it comes to the undoubted historical impact of Schoenberg, or Stockhausen, or Cage, or Reich. Then it must be qualified subjectively - where it is explained that Beethoven had a beneficial impact, while someone else had a detrimental impact. Or perhaps the scholars who held certain composers highly should be discredited in some way, for reasons of bad taste, or for political reasons. Once we do this, we've departed the field of dry objective analysis and have brought our own aesthetic tastes into the picture.


All of this is true as well. Both SM and I have discussed the fallacious reasoning that is these ex post facto objective analyses that amounts to "just so stories." I'm extremely skeptical of such things, the notion that by simply analyzing the objective features of any work of art we can say with any authority that those features are what triggered the subjective effect in us or in others. In science such a thing would actually require testing, but we already know that those objective features don't trigger the same effect in other; so what's the different variable between the two? It isn't the work itself, it's obviously the different subjectivities. 

The inconsistency you mention in your second paragraph is also problematic. It makes it seem that the entire endeavor is just an elaborate attempt at objectively justifying certain subjective tastes, which I believe it largely is.


----------



## fbjim

dissident said:


> I don't think Beethoven's influence was entirely beneficial, and I don't think Schoenberg's was entirely detrimental. I think there's a tendency all around to caricature without much justification.


You are inappropriately reading yourself into this story.

Many people have stated that objective facts like historical importance, contemporary and current reputation, and the like are fair, objective ways to determine who the most important composers were. Any time someone says something like "Well, I don't like Chopin, but it's silly to say he was bad, look at the impact his work had on piano music", they're doing something like that - suspending aesthetic judgement to make an appeal to objective fact about a composer's importance (they're also being subjective in the sense that they're making a decision to equate historical import with "good/bad" but that's besides the point)

Now if someone says "Chopin might have changed piano music, he turned it into gloopy romantic trash", they've brought their aesthetic tastes into the picture. There's nothing wrong with this at all - certainly everyone here has probably said mean things about a well-regarded composer - but one can't simultaneously do this and still maintain that they're in the realm of pure objective analysis, which sometimes happens.


----------



## science

dissident said:


> It's one thing to have the thought, but it's a little risky to apply it generally without some solid foundation other than a cynical view of reality.


There's a lot of evidence that people are social animals, that we're unaware of most of our motivations, that we care about our status vis-a-vis the people around us, and that music is often a social activity and often involved in other social activities. At an anecdotal level, it seems to relate strongly to our identities as well. I'd go so far as to consider music as a form of religion. 

I know of course that acknowledging this threatens a certain way that some of us would like to present ourselves to the world -- we want people to think that we "just happen to" like whatever we like because we won't be trusted if we are too honest about our social motivations. I suspect that this is one reason that our minds do not allow us to be conscious of all of our motivations: if people thought that we were consciously mirroring their postures in order to manipulate them, mirroring would communicate much less. 

As trailer park trash -- we were literally the poorest people in the park! -- who later attended an Ivy League college, I might have a little more interest in how we acquire social capital and maybe even a little more awareness of how I've tried to so, but in the end it's okay (at least with regard to music) to like what I like no matter why (consciously or subconsciously) I like it, and I think we can all affirm that for ourselves.


----------



## 59540

fbjim said:


> You are inappropriately reading yourself into this story.
> ...


I wasn't necessarily referring to myself.



> A lot of musical analysis takes the form of what sometimes seems like excessively ex-post-facto formal analysis on what makes works popular - i.e. "Mozart is popular, well, it must be because he wrote in this particular manner" which can sometimes be interesting, but too often seems like just-so justificaitons to find patterns in the data.


Well then what else do you have other than the speculative "it's the Establishment and sociopolitical pressures that done it"? "Popular" in this instance might be better expressed as "a very similar opinion held by a large number of people" i.e. a consensus. That is something worth looking into.


----------



## Luchesi

science said:


> It is definitely cynical, but I think that's okay. I also doubt that we are conscious of more than a tiny minority of our motivations.
> 
> As far as I can tell, music even in non-human animals is social, and humans are eminently social animals. I am intensely skeptical of any idea that any human being (barring mental illness) does anything -- from crying as newborn babies to whatever the last intentional acts of our lives will be, but definitely nothing as apparently wasteful of energy and time as music is -- as a truly atomistic individual, completely unconcerned by how any other people (especially the people we value) might regard it.


They might look up to you.


----------



## science

Luchesi said:


> They might look up to you.


I'm not sure who you mean might do so, but I hope they do anyway!


----------



## 59540

science said:


> There's a lot of evidence that people are social animals, that we're unaware of most of our motivations, that we care about our status vis-a-vis the people around us, and that music is often a social activity and often involved in other social activities. At an anecdotal level, it seems to relate strongly to our identities as well. I'd go so far as to consider music as a form of religion.


Ok...although I don't think music is as much a substitute religion for some as political agendas have become. Also I don't identify myself by the music I listen to or play.



> I know of course that acknowledging this threatens a certain way that some of us would like to present ourselves to the world -- we want people to think that we "just happen to" like whatever we like because we won't be trusted if we are too honest about our social motivations.


So you know _for sure_ what my motivations are? I'm sorry, but that's just presumptuous.



> As trailer park trash -- we were literally the poorest people in the park! -- who later attended an Ivy League college, I might have a little more interest in how we acquire social capital and maybe even a little more awareness of how I've tried to so, but in the end it's okay (at least with regard to music) to like what I like no matter why (consciously or subconsciously) I like it, and I think we can all affirm that for ourselves.


And I congratulate you on that, but you can't project your background and the attitudes and opinions that it may have fostered in you onto everyone else.


----------



## Luchesi

dissident said:


> I wasn't necessarily referring to myself.
> 
> Well then what else do you have other than the speculative "it's the Establishment and sociopolitical pressures that done it"? "Popular" in this instance might be better expressed as "a very similar opinion held by a large number of people" i.e. a consensus. That is something worth looking into.


Many people can't satisfactorily evaluate pieces (satisfactorily for themselves) (it's not their fault) so they join a consensus comprised of various subjective reasons that are easy to understand and admire.

You can't evaluate the art of Portuguese poetry if you don't know Portuguese.


----------



## fbjim

dissident said:


> Well then what else do you have other than the speculative "it's the Establishment and sociopolitical pressures that done it"? "Popular" in this instance might be better expressed as "a very similar opinion held by a large number of people" i.e. a consensus. That is something worth looking into.


If I had an answer to that, I'd be the world's most popular composer.

"Mozart is popular" is objective fact, not an aesthetic judgment.
"Mozart is great because he is popular" is a subjective value judgment, but still not an aesthetic judgment. It still, however, rests on solid factual ground where the only question is whether or not others accept your framing of values (popular = great) or not. 
"Mozart is popular because of these reasons" gets into the territory of trying to explain the aesthetic tastes of ourselves, or others, and that's where we depart the solid ground of objective fact entirely. We could say "Mozart is popular because of historical accident, and anyone else in the right place or time could have had his popularity if a butterfly had flapped its wings differently", we can try to go pure formalist and write "Mozart writes these notes just so, and people like that", or go with an appeal to our own sense of aesthetics - "Just listen to Mozart, and you'll understand". We can attempt to frame the question of "Why is Mozart popular" in a hundred different ways and come up with a thousand different answers, but I certainly don't think we'll come up with any sort of firm answer that most people can agree on. Even those who love Mozart may not be able to answer why they like his music in terms of specifics, let alone with objective fact.


----------



## science

dissident said:


> Ok...although I don't think music is as much a substitute religion for some as political agendas have become. Also I don't identify myself by the music I listen to or play.


No one does _exclusively_ by music. But we all know what kind of person likes what kind of music. Same for what we eat, how we dress, the dialect we speak with, pretty much everything else that isn't sheer biological need. We have identities and we express them in our behaviors. 



dissident said:


> So you know _for sure_ what my motivations are? I'm sorry, but that's just presumptuous.


You mean at the level of "wanting to be respected" or in detail? I don't claim to know "for sure" what my own motivations are, and in an earlier post I actually agreed to go along with the idea that you don't have any social ambition at all. 



dissident said:


> And I congratulate you on that, but you can't project your background and the attitudes and opinions that it may have fostered in you onto everyone else.


I'm certainly not attributing my background to you. I was using myself as a worst-case scenario. If it's okay for me to be me, surely it's okay for you to be you. Neither one of us -- especially since we've brought ourselves here -- has to pretend that our musical tastes exist absolutely separate from and play absolutely no role in our social lives.


----------



## 59540

Luchesi said:


> Many people can't satisfactorily evaluate pieces (satisfactorily for themselves) (it's not their fault) so they join a consensus comprised of various subjective reasons that are easy to understand and admire.
> 
> You can't evaluate the art of Portuguese poetry if you don't know Portuguese.


Yeah anything's going to attract bandwagon riders, but that's not the whole story of how the consensus formed in the first place.


----------



## Luchesi

science said:


> I'm not sure who you mean might do so, but I hope they do anyway!


I've had the people who know what CM is - look up to me, but the people who knew more about it than I did as I was growing up, I surely looked up to them.

I've never had this negative opposite reaction that people in here have definitely had, because they talk about it so matter-of-factly. I'd have to think about the how and why of it.


----------



## 59540

science said:


> No one does _exclusively_ by music. But we all know what kind of person likes what kind of music.


Not always, no we dont. People just don't always fit into these sociological molds.



> You mean at the level of "wanting to be respected" or in detail? I don't claim to know "for sure" what my own motivations are, and in an earlier post I actually agreed to go along with the idea that you don't have any social ambition at all.


Well we all have the need for love, friendship, a modicum of respect etc, but that isn't the reason I love the music that I love.



> I'm certainly not attributing my background to you. I was using myself as a worst-case scenario. If it's okay for me to be me, surely it's okay for you to be you. Neither one of us -- especially since we've brought ourselves here -- has to pretend that our musical tastes exist absolutely separate from and play absolutely no role in our social lives.


But your original point was that our social lives play a large role in forming our musical tastes. That's not always true enough to be stated with any confidence.


----------



## science

Luchesi said:


> I've had the people who know what CM is - look up to me, but the people who knew more about it than I did as I was growing up, I surely looked up to them.
> 
> I've never had this negative opposite reaction that people in here have definitely had, because they talk about it so matter-of-factly. I'd have to think about the how and why of it.


One thing it reminds me of is how some groups make their members embarrass themselves in order to prove their commitment to the group. To be in such a group, you have to prove that the people who aren't supposed to like you don't like you. 

Not sure if that really is relevant, but it is something that I wonder about.


----------



## science

dissident said:


> Well we all have the need for love, friendship, a modicum of respect etc, but that isn't the reason I love the music that I love.


Well, if you're right about yourself, then you're a really remarkable person. I wonder what other behaviors are completely separate from your social life, and what message boards you post about those on?


----------



## Luchesi

fbjim said:


> If I had an answer to that, I'd be the world's most popular composer.
> 
> "Mozart is popular" is objective fact, not an aesthetic judgment.
> "Mozart is great because he is popular" is a subjective value judgment, but still not an aesthetic judgment. It still, however, rests on solid factual ground where the only question is whether or not others accept your framing of values (popular = great) or not.
> "Mozart is popular because of these reasons" gets into the territory of trying to explain the aesthetic tastes of ourselves, or others, and that's where we depart the solid ground of objective fact entirely. We could say "Mozart is popular because of historical accident, and anyone else in the right place or time could have had his popularity if a butterfly had flapped its wings differently", we can try to go pure formalist and write "Mozart writes these notes just so, and people like that", or go with an appeal to our own sense of aesthetics - "Just listen to Mozart, and you'll understand". We can attempt to frame the question of "Why is Mozart popular" in a hundred different ways and come up with a thousand different answers, but I certainly don't think we'll come up with any sort of firm answer that most people can agree on. Even those who love Mozart may not be able to answer why they like his music in terms of specifics, let alone with objective fact.


Mozart is excellent for various many reasons. All the fine reasons that people have found in his classism. We know the laudatory words, but it's much more effective I've found to take out the score and listen to the section and get excited - it's coming up!, watch the score. THAT's how he does that! 
People see it and recognize the originality (hopefully) and hear the effectiveness at the same time (like a performer of CM always does).


----------



## Luchesi

science said:


> One thing it reminds me of is how some groups make their members embarrass themselves in order to prove their commitment to the group. To be in such a group, you have to prove that the people who aren't supposed to like you don't like you.
> 
> Not sure if that really is relevant, but it is something that I wonder about.


I think I must be past that age. One thing about getting old and looking a little decrepit, the people you only casually know take it very easy with you, and what you say. It's just some kind of innate politeness.


----------



## Eva Yojimbo

On the point @science has been making about music as personal identity, this is something I noticed long ago when I became aware of how much negative criticism towards certain artists, genres, etc. weren't directed at the objective features of the artists/genres themselves, but at the audience those things were for. "Bieber is music for teenage girls," might be one such example. This always struck me as odd: why in the world would you criticize an artist because of who their primary fans are? It eventually occurred to me that this was a bi-product of music-as-identity or even music-as-fashion, the notion that some music isn't liked largely because you don't identify with the group that predominantly likes it. The minute I realized the absurdity of that I actually started liking a lot of the music I'd previously felt I wasn't allowed to like because of how I'd defined my own identity through the music I did like. 

I also don't think most people are consciously aware they're doing this, and I do think some are conscious enough to try to ground their tastes in objective features of the music itself; but ever since then I've been skeptical of mine (and others') proposed reasons for liking any art compared to the unconscious motivations for liking that same art that's been rationalized by our conscious minds. Most psychologists/psychiatrists who've studied things like cognitive biases will tell you that humans are amazing in their ability to be consciously unaware of the motivations behind their decisions, tastes, or just about anything.


----------



## hammeredklavier

Kreisler jr said:


> Were these people all wrong about what they were doing? It seems preposterous for us 100-150 years later to claim that artists, experts and audiences at least as smart as we are were mistaken about what they were actually doing.


There's no such thing as "undeserved popularity"; people can "like" whatever they want limitlessly; there's no law X shouldn't be popular or Y should be, -but even "experts" can tell the "wrong history", and we need to realize that. Please see my posts from page 24 and onward, where I explained this in detail with examples.
Btw, bashing Bach (ie. suggesting he's "overrated") is not any less sophomoric an act than bashing other famous composers in a similar manner.


----------



## 59540

science said:


> Well, if you're right about yourself, then you're a really remarkable person. I wonder what other behaviors are completely separate from your social life, and what message boards you post about those on?


I'm not remarkable. Message boards? This is really the only one I come to with any regularity. Btw I'd also say I don't believe in "trailer trash". I've known some good people who live in trailers and I've some trashy ones who live in multi-million dollar houses.


----------



## science

Luchesi said:


> I think I must be past that age. One thing about getting old and looking at little decrepit, the people you only casually know take it very easy with you, and what you say. It just some kind of innate politeness.


That is a really interesting insight. There are so many life-cycle issues involved in all of this. 

Children are so intensely awful to each other, but so much is at stake for them. Later in our lives, we know who we are a bit better and we don't need all that meanness.

Teenagers desperately need group membership; later in our lives, we're free to relax a little more. 

The older we get, the firmer our foundations are and the less we have to gain or lose. '

On a related note, I intend to do harder and harder drugs as I age. I've reached the age where I can assume that tobacco is not going to play a major role in my death, so I don't hesitate to have a cigar when I want to. Perhaps I can start indulging in alcohol a little more frequently too. Maybe in a few years I'll start pot. We'll see if I make it that far!


----------



## 59540

Eva Yojimbo said:


> On the point @science has been making about music as personal identity, this is something I noticed long ago when I became aware of how much negative criticism towards certain artists, genres, etc. weren't directed at the objective features of the artists/genres themselves, but at the audience those things were for. "Bieber is music for teenage girls," might be one such example.


Sweeping generalization based on a few comments. I've honestly never listened to Justin Bieber much at all, but what I've heard just didn't impress me much, regardless of who his usual audience is.


> I also don't think most people are consciously aware they're doing this, and I do think some are conscious enough to try to ground their tastes in objective features of the music itself; but ever since then I've been skeptical of mine (and others') proposed reasons for liking any art compared to the unconscious motivations for liking that same art that's been rationalized by our conscious minds.


I'm skeptical of using "unconscious motivations" which can be used to demonstrate anything.


----------



## science

dissident said:


> I'm not remarkable. Message boards? This is really the only one I come to with any regularity. Btw I'd also say I don't believe in "trailer trash". I've known some good people who live in trailers and I've some trashy ones who live in multi-million dollar houses.


Nice, warm, cuddly thoughts, but tangential to the points. 

Back to the point: If music and sociality are truly separate for you, why are you _here _when you could be enjoying music all by yourself?


----------



## science

science said:


> That is a really interesting insight. There are so many life-cycle issues involved in all of this.
> 
> Children are so intensely awful to each other, but so much is at stake for them. Later in our lives, we know who we are a bit better and we don't need all that meanness.
> 
> Teenagers desperately need group membership; later in our lives, we're free to relax a little more.
> 
> The older we get, the firmer our foundations are and the less we have to gain or lose. '
> 
> On a related note, I intend to do harder and harder drugs as I age. I've reached the age where I can assume that tobacco is not going to play a major role in my death, so I don't hesitate to have a cigar when I want to. Perhaps I can start indulging in alcohol a little more frequently too. Maybe in a few years I'll start pot. We'll see if I make it that far!


Going on a tangent of my own, this reminds me of why older people rarely learn a language fluently: too little is at stake. Of course I'm aware of the critical period theory, and I reject it. We can discuss that elsewhere. 

What I'd replace it with is something like that "period of critical need" theory. If you're ten and you're surrounded by English speakers and your mind expects to be surrounded by them for most of your life, you'd better figure out the difference between look/see/view/watch and say/speak/tell and mercy/compassion/charity/kindness and you'd better train your mouth to make an "r" and an "l" and a "v" and an "v" and both "th" sounds and so on -- but if you're twenty-five and you've got a pretty secure identity as a member of a different language community, why bother with all that? For most people that age, it's too much work for too little reward. 

Anyway, these are thoughts I enjoy and hope someone else enjoyed, though they are certainly tangential to the main discussion, aside from an analogy between learning the culture of a language and learning its music.


----------



## Eva Yojimbo

dissident said:


> Sweeping generalization based on a few comments. I've honestly never listened to Justin Bieber much at all, but what I've heard just didn't impress me much, regardless of who his usual audience is.
> I'm skeptical of using "unconscious motivations" which can be used to demonstrate anything.


I was not referring to you or anyone in specific, merely remarking on that particular trend that I've noticed before here and elsewhere. I don't care for Bieber's music either based on what I've heard, but it would never occur to me to bash Bieber or anyone because of who likes him. 

I'm also not trying to use "unconscious motivations" to demonstrate anything, I'm merely mentioning them as a reason to be skeptical about the conscious justifications people provide for liking anything or thinking anything great. That unconscious motivations exist is something that's been rigorously demonstrated in cognitive science; that any specific unconscious motivations exist in any individual's taste in music and to what extent is more dubious to say.


----------



## science

Eva Yojimbo said:


> On the point @science has been making about music as personal identity, this is something I noticed long ago when I became aware of how much negative criticism towards certain artists, genres, etc. weren't directed at the objective features of the artists/genres themselves, but at the audience those things were for. "Bieber is music for teenage girls," might be one such example. This always struck me as odd: why in the world would you criticize an artist because of who their primary fans are? It eventually occurred to me that this was a bi-product of music-as-identity or even music-as-fashion, the notion that some music isn't liked largely because you don't identify with the group that predominantly likes it. The minute I realized the absurdity of that I actually started liking a lot of the music I'd previously felt I wasn't allowed to like because of how I'd defined my own identity through the music I did like.
> 
> I also don't think most people are consciously aware they're doing this, and I do think some are conscious enough to try to ground their tastes in objective features of the music itself; but ever since then I've been skeptical of mine (and others') proposed reasons for liking any art compared to the unconscious motivations for liking that same art that's been rationalized by our conscious minds. Most psychologists/psychiatrists who've studied things like cognitive biases will tell you that humans are amazing in their ability to be consciously unaware of the motivations behind their decisions, tastes, or just about anything.


Of course I think you're exactly right. I'm sure everyone is very surprised! 

I'd extend the idea in the first paragraph to a pre-agricultural world of nomadic foraging groups -- the world that our minds are primarily adapted to. I believe that world was one of constant warfare: not primarily Hobbesian warfare of individuals against other individuals -- it is astounding and revealing that so many Western thinkers were able to take that idea seriously even as myth -- but primarily warfare of bands and tribes against bands and tribes. 

In that world, almost the only reason to like or not like some kind of music is what one's relationship is to the people who make it. You'd better like the music of your own people; if they abandon you and for some reason a different group takes you in, your tastes had better change pronto. You might not want to be too conscious of your reasons for needing to change. 

This is, I think, how our ancestors evolved the minds that we have inherited; and this explains why it is impossible for us to be conscious of our reasons for liking or not liking something -- especially something as socially significant as music.


----------



## 59540

Eva Yojimbo said:


> I was not referring to you or anyone in specific, merely remarking on that particular trend that I've noticed before here and elsewhere. I don't care for Bieber's music either based on what I've heard, but it would never occur to me to bash Bieber or anyone because of who likes him.


So a red herring.



> I'm also not trying to use "unconscious motivations" to demonstrate anything, I'm merely mentioning them as a reason to be skeptical about the conscious justifications people provide for liking anything...


So you were using them but not using them.


----------



## science

dissident said:


> I'm skeptical of using "unconscious motivations" which can be used to demonstrate anything.


This is a good point. One key is to have a much bigger worldview in which they are a part. 

In other words, I'm not saying anything about you in particular or why you like your particular music; I don't know enough about you (yet) even to hazard a guess, and even of myself I can only guess. 

Instead, I'm talking about humanity as a whole. I have a view of how human minds evolved and what role music (among other things, especially violence, speech, religion, and quasi-monogamous mating) played in that. As far as I can tell, my worldview is not particularly challenged by the behavior of anyone in the modern world, no matter what kind of music they like. 

Also, I know that my worldview is apparently cynical, but it's not meant as a criticism of anyone. Reality, it appears, is horrible, and often people are too. I do not except myself! We can be honest about it and still live flourishing lives.


----------



## Eva Yojimbo

science said:


> Of course I think you're exactly right. I'm sure everyone is very surprised!
> 
> I'd extend the idea in the first paragraph to a pre-agricultural world of nomadic foraging groups -- the world that our minds are primarily adapted to. I believe that world was one of constant warfare: not primarily Hobbesian warfare of individuals against other individuals -- it is astounding and revealing that so many Western thinkers were able to take that idea seriously even as myth -- but primarily warfare of bands and tribes against bands and tribes.
> 
> In that world, almost the only reason to like or not like some kind of music is what one's relationship is to the people who make it. You'd better like the music of your own people; if they abandon you and for some reason a different group takes you in, your tastes had better change pronto. You might not want to be too conscious of your reasons for needing to change.
> 
> This is, I think, how our ancestors evolved the minds that we have inherited; and this explains why it is impossible for us to be conscious of our reasons for liking or not liking something -- especially something as socially significant as music.


This reminds me a lot of Yudkowsky's "Politics is the Mind-Killer" sequence. To quote the relevant part:


> People go funny in the head when talking about politics. The evolutionary reasons for this are so obvious as to be worth belaboring: In the ancestral environment, politics was a matter of life and death. And sex, and wealth, and allies, and reputation . . . When, today, you get into an argument about whether “we” ought to raise the minimum wage, you’re executing adaptations for an ancestral environment where being on the wrong side of the argument could get you killed. Being on the _right_ side of the argument could let _you_ kill your hated rival!
> 
> ...
> 
> Politics is an extension of war by other means. Arguments are soldiers. Once you know which side you’re on, you must support all arguments of that side, and attack all arguments that appear to favor the enemy side; otherwise it’s like stabbing your soldiers in the back—providing aid and comfort to the enemy. People who would be level-headed about evenhandedly weighing all sides of an issue in their professional life as scientists, can suddenly turn into slogan-chanting zombies when there’s a Blue or Green position on an issue.


There's probably something similar at work in our musical tastes as well, though perhaps not to such an extreme degree as most do not think/feel music as being as crucial a part of their lives and identity as politics and other things; though some people DO feel this way. I've remarked before that notions of objective greatness in the arts are almost wholly relegated to the handful of people that take art very seriously. Go ask regular folks who just enjoy music with friends or an occasional movie on the weekend what they think about art being objectively great independent of personal/subjective opinions and most of them will give you a funny look. I suspect that's because the more important we perceive something to be the more inclined we are treat our opinions/feelings about that something as objective fact. We regularly do this with politics and ethics, but most don't do this with the arts.


----------



## Eva Yojimbo

dissident said:


> So a red herring.
> 
> So you were using them but not using them.


I don't know what you mean a "red herring." That such a thing happens is demonstrable fact. How much it generalizes to all people doing it on some level is debatable, sure. I didn't mean to suggest otherwise. 

I wasn't using them to demonstrate anything specific beyond the general "skepticism" I mentioned.


----------



## BachIsBest

Eva Yojimbo said:


> Yes, but can you prove they’re wrong in the same way that we can prove “the Earth is flat” is wrong? Is it only wrong relative to your subjective standards (and those of most people)? Is it wrong in some other way?


No I can't prove it wrong in the exact same way I can prove "the Earth is flat" is wrong. I never made that claim. If by subjective you mean mind-dependant, then yes, it is only wrong according to mind-dependant things. However, I would argue it is wrong according to rational principles, in much the same way I would argue murder is wrong. I'm just repeating the same thing ad nauseum here.



Eva Yojimbo said:


> I don’t see the difference between all cultures having their own myths and legends and all cultures having their own musical traditions, many of which do not include notions of Western tonality. Even within western tonality there are so many different applications of that tonality that it’s clear that tonality itself is not enough to determine goodness/greatness. Then we start getting into particular applications of tonality, and where is the evidence that any of THAT is objectively better as opposed to being based on what people like?


I never said western tonality. I never said western tonality itself is enough to determine goodness/greatness. I even explicitly put the words "for example" in front of it, but you seemed to take that as justification for assuming this was the entirety of my thoughts on the matter, rather than assuming it was a specific example.



Eva Yojimbo said:


> I don’t think my definition of truth is too restrictive, I think it reduces to one clear, universally-accepted version of truth, and any others, even if we accepted them as valid, would be quite different from what I’m describing. We may attempt to delineate other valid notions of truth, but however valid they are they will still be distinct from the version I have articulated. This is one of the traps of language in that we often use the same words to describe many different and disparate aspects of reality. When I mentioned math and science has a leg-up on common language on clarity one reason why is that both disciplines value reductionism where definitions are, indeed, limited to describing very specific things and there’s less of the ambiguous “overlap” with multiple concepts as in ordinary language. This is, I guess, a long way of saying that I think the restrictiveness of my definition is a feature, not a bug.


I already explained why I'm arguing against the restrictiveness because I feel it implies absurd things about the definition itself.



Eva Yojimbo said:


> Also, I want to repeat that definitions can’t be true. Definitions can point to features (objective or subjective) for what we want the word to describe. So when I describe an objective/subjective phenomenon of “matching the ‘map’ of subjective beliefs/hypotheses to the ‘territory’ of empirical reality” I’m describing something, and then saying “I want to call THAT ‘truth.’” You may say that you want this word to describe other things, but it doesn’t make sense to say that the word/definitions can be true in and of itself. We could just as easily say “I want to call THAT ‘smorgasborgle.’” and it works just as well. See here for a good explanation of this: Where to Draw the Boundary? - LessWrong


Indeed, in a formal logic system, definitions can't be true. There are still "good" and "bad" definitions, any mathematician will tell you this. However, definitions can lack internal consistency. As an obvious famous example, one can define "the set of all sets that are not an element of themselves". If this set is an element of itself, then it is not an element of itself, if this set is not an element of itself, then it is an element of itself. The definition is innately contradictory.



Eva Yojimbo said:


> Also, I feel it should be said that however much I’m burdened with defining truth in a way that argues from that towards why I feel aesthetic judgments are subjective, the same burden should fall on those arguing that aesthetic judgments are objective. However much you may find my definition of truth limited, it is at least clear; while “personal knowledge is mysterious” is not. Woodduck (or you) should be at least as obligated to define how the student is realizing a "truth" as opposed to just understanding what the teacher is saying (which itself may not be an objective truth), or realizing something that conforms with their own subjective biases, standards, tastes, etc. In what sense is what the student realizing objectively true?


If I had a good definition of truth, I'd be a famous philosopher, not a TC member. As I have already stated, I don't mean "mind-independently" true, maybe "rational basis" would be a better term.


----------



## Luchesi

science said:


> That is a really interesting insight. There are so many life-cycle issues involved in all of this.
> 
> Children are so intensely awful to each other, but so much is at stake for them. Later in our lives, we know who we are a bit better and we don't need all that meanness.
> 
> Teenagers desperately need group membership; later in our lives, we're free to relax a little more.
> 
> The older we get, the firmer our foundations are and the less we have to gain or lose. '
> 
> On a related note, I intend to do harder and harder drugs as I age. I've reached the age where I can assume that tobacco is not going to play a major role in my death, so I don't hesitate to have a cigar when I want to. Perhaps I can start indulging in alcohol a little more frequently too. Maybe in a few years I'll start pot. We'll see if I make it that far!


I've been thinking that the young tend to talk past each other when they anticipate what the other will say (usually do). But with a person from an older age group who listens to them, it's more of an intense experience and they sense they need a less-automatic, more serious behavior mode. It turns on like a light. It's fascinating.

As for pot, I hint to people that they should try it at least once, so that they know what the issues are. Try it for that respectable and high purpose (pun) so that you can retain your sober perspective immediately afterward.


----------



## science

Eva Yojimbo said:


> This reminds me a lot of Yudkowsky's "Politics is the Mind-Killer" sequence. To quote the relevant part: There's probably something similar at work in our musical tastes as well, though perhaps not to such an extreme degree as most do not think/feel music as being as crucial a part of their lives and identity as politics and other things; though some people DO feel this way. I've remarked before that notions of objective greatness in the arts are almost wholly relegated to the handful of people that take art very seriously. Go ask regular folks who just enjoy music with friends or an occasional movie on the weekend what they think about art being objectively great independent of personal/subjective opinions and most of them will give you a funny look. I suspect that's because the more important we perceive something to be the more inclined we are treat our opinions/feelings about that something as objective fact. We regularly do this with politics and ethics, but most don't do this with the arts.


Interesting! I'd never heard of him but I googled that and enjoyed reading it. 

I often say that in the natural (i.e. foraging) world, it was better to be wrong with your people than right without them. That's basically why we have tribalism. 

Within the group, things could be different. Of course there could be power struggles and groups would sometimes split over them, forming new in- and out-groups. But as long as the group was stable, I suspect there would have been relatively more "conservative" group members who distrusted anything and anyone new and were therefore a little more prepared to fight, and relatively more "liberal" group members who were open to new ideas and people and therefore were a little less prepared to fight but more able to learn new and useful things, to establish profitable alliances and (what was the same thing) trading relationships. A healthy group needed both sides. 

Back to your post, I think part of what you're seeing among "regular folks" (when you see what you describe) is an embrace of democracy. They no longer need to believe that their "betters" really are their betters, so they say we all just like what we like. It's fine for me to like this and you to like that. 

I do think people are a bit more tribalistic about music though. It hits us too deeply, moves us too much, for us to consistently take a free-for-all approach.


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## Luchesi

science said:


> Going on a tangent of my own, this reminds me of why older people rarely learn a language fluently: too little is at stake. Of course I'm aware of the critical period theory, and I reject it. We can discuss that elsewhere.
> 
> What I'd replace it with is something like that "period of critical need" theory. If you're ten and you're surrounded by English speakers and your mind expects to be surrounded by them for most of your life, you'd better figure out the difference between look/see/view/watch and say/speak/tell and mercy/compassion/charity/kindness and you'd better train your mouth to make an "r" and an "l" and a "v" and an "v" and both "th" sounds and so on -- but if you're twenty-five and you've got a pretty secure identity as a member of a different language community, why bother with all that? For most people that age, it's too much work for too little reward.
> 
> Anyway, these are thoughts I enjoy and hope someone else enjoyed, though they are certainly tangential to the main discussion, aside from an analogy between learning the culture of a language and learning its music.


Yes, sadly, it's the same with learning sight-reading and dry music theory, fugue concepts. So much better for your brain to learn it while young. In music what's first in is foundational in so many mysterious ways. I wish I had learned more when I was between the ages of 5 and 10. Those guys have a crucial 5 years on me!


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## EdwardBast

Eva Yojimbo said:


> Again someone speaking of worth and value as if those things don't originate in human minds and are thus, by definition, subjective. Also, why the devaluation of ignorant opinions in aesthetic matters? Consider the common objectivist claim that great music supposedly possesses these features that appeal to the universal aspects of human nature. Well, if that's true, then why must one be "learned" to appreciate or value the music that possesses it?
> 
> The notion that one must be learned to judge art is just pure elitism founded on the fantasy that objective knowledge translates to objectively true or objectively valuable opinions. They do not. That's a logical impossibility.
> 
> On the contrary, it clearly makes some feel better to think their opinions on ultimately subjective matters are superior to those of others.


You are missing the context. Worthless meaning their opinion in establishing the canon of great fugues doesn't count. For the same reason an illiterate's opinion of Dostoyevsky doesn't count.



Strange Magic said:


> Again, a near-perfect(?) regurgitation of the objectivist position. I don't know about you but my opinion matters to me more than yours, but not more than yours to you. And it still is "just a poll". "What is a fugue?" is another question entirely, like "What is a horse". Let's go look at some horses and hear some fugues while we're doing so. And what is fugal writing "in a deep sense"? This drips of subjectivism. EB, you have lured me out of my very short-term retirement. But it will not count against you.


My opinion has nothing to do with objectivism (whatever that means). I'm stating that the subjective evaluations of some people are more valuable than those of others. I think the word you're looking for is elitist.


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## Eva Yojimbo

science said:


> Interesting! I'd never heard of him but I googled that and enjoyed reading it.


Lesswrong has a wealth of interesting posts on a variety of subjects from language to epistemology to science, to A.I. (Yudkowsky's actual profession is an AI researcher). I've learned a lot from that site, but also found many views I already had thought about expressed in very articulate ways that helped clarify my own thoughts on certain matters. You can read the entire thing in an organized "sequence" for free here: Rationality: From AI to Zombies I wish that had been around when I first discovered it, which was around 2010. If you read one article a day it would take about a year to get through it (I think the "print book" version is 1600 pages). 



science said:


> I often say that in the natural (i.e. foraging) world, it was better to be wrong with your people than right without them. That's basically why we have tribalism.
> 
> Within the group, things could be different. Of course there could be power struggles and groups would sometimes split over them, forming new in- and out-groups. But as long as the group was stable, I suspect there would have been relatively more "conservative" group members who distrusted anything and anyone new and were therefore a little more prepared to fight, and relatively more "liberal" group members who were open to new ideas and people and therefore were a little less prepared to fight but more able to learn new and useful things, to establish profitable alliances and (what was the same thing) trading relationships. A healthy group needed both sides.
> 
> Back to your post, I think part of what you're seeing among "regular folks" (when you see what you describe) is an embrace of democracy. They no longer need to believe that their "betters" really are their betters, so they say we all just like what we like. It's fine for me to like this and you to like that.
> 
> I do think people are a bit more tribalistic about music though. It hits us too deeply, moves us too much, for us to consistently take a free-for-all approach.


Dead on about tribalism, which is another reason I'm skeptical of appeals to what amounts to "poll numbers." It gives off the vibe of people who have some fear (even if unconscious/intuitive) of going against the tribe. 

We see this in-group/out-group dynamic on both small and large scales as well. Within a family unit there are such groups, within a local community, within a state, within a country, within groups of countries, etc. It's amazing how that dynamic expands and contracts both ways with such consistency. I also think the stability of larger groups is, as you say, important for allowing the "conservative/liberal" divide within that group. Both sides seem necessary for balancing out the worst tendencies that can happen if we go too far to either extreme, and humans seem well adapted to adopting either more conservative or liberal tendencies in response to their environment. An example would be how nations tend to get more conservative in response to threats, while more liberal the more stable and secure things are. I play poker for a living and I've noted how this strategy mirrors the correct strategy in poker tournaments where the more threat one faces in regards to being eliminated, the more conservative their playing strategy should be; while the opposite is true when they are more secure and in no such danger. So our conservative/liberal attitudes seem, at least in part, a response to security and perceived threats. I'm not sure how/if that factors into musical tastes, but it's interesting to ponder. 

Undoubtedly people are or can be tribalistic about music (even the "music as personal identity" thing I mentioned is part of that tribalism), but it just doesn't tend to manifest in such extreme ways compared to politics, with the exceptions being those few that take art very seriously.


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## Eva Yojimbo

EdwardBast said:


> You are missing the context. Worthless meaning their opinion in establishing the canon of great fugues doesn't count. For the same reason an illiterate's opinion of Dostoyevsky doesn't count.


Their opinion is only worthless to those who deem it worthless. The fact that people who love fugues don't care about the opinions of those who dislike (or don't understand) fugues is more of the same like-minded people sharing similar subjective opinions phenomena. One can say this about any music, any genre, or any specific feature of any music. Most who love country music also don't care about the opinions of people who don't love country music and deem such opinions useless to establishing the canon of country music.


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## EdwardBast

Forster said:


> Do psychopaths really bother with justification?


Of course they do. They tend to be manipulative and will self-justify to the extent they can get what they want by doing so.


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## EdwardBast

Eva Yojimbo said:


> Their opinion is only worthless to those who deem it worthless. The fact that people who love fugues don't care about *the opinions of those who dislike* (or don't understand) fugues is more of the same *like-minded people sharing similar subjective opinions phenomena*. One can say this about any music, any genre, or any specific feature of any music. Most who love country music also don't care about the opinions of people who don't love country music and deem such opinions useless to establishing the canon of country music.


I said nothing about those who dislike fugues. Lots of people who don't particularly like fugues are capable of descernment in evaluating them. Nice try.

It's not like-minded versus differing. It's minded versus mindless. Do I get points for concision?


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## Eva Yojimbo

EdwardBast said:


> I said nothing about those who dislike fugues. Lots of people who don't particularly like fugues are capable of descernment in evaluating them. Nice try.
> 
> It's not like-minded versus differing. It's minded versus unminded. Do I get points for concision?


People who don't like fugues are just discerning the features that other people like about them. Nice try. 

So now everyone who disagrees with you or the majority or the experts are "unminded?" OK, then.


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## 59540

Eva Yojimbo said:


> I don't know what you mean a "red herring." That such a thing happens is demonstrable fact. How much it generalizes to all people doing it on some level is debatable, sure. I didn't mean to suggest otherwise.


It's a hypothetical quote from a hypothetical individual. Maybe it's not so much a red herring as simply irrelevant to the discussion here. No one in the thread tied their identity to classical music or denigrated pop because of its assumed primary audience.



> I wasn't using them to demonstrate anything specific beyond the general "skepticism" I mentioned.


And I remain skeptical of appealing to "unconscious motivations" that can't really be known.


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## Eva Yojimbo

dissident said:


> It's a hypothetical quote from a hypothetical individual. Maybe it's not so much a red herring as simply irrelevant to the discussion here. No one in the thread tied their identity to classical music or denigrated pop because of its assumed primary audience.
> 
> And I remain skeptical of appealing to "unconscious motivations" that can't really be known.


If I wanted to take the time I could find such quotes from people on here, especially in the non-classical forum (probably in that "The Death of Pop Harmony" thread). Besides, I was not even limiting the example to what I've read on here. Such things are uttered not infrequently on pretty much any site where music is discussed. If I had a crystal ball and knew I would be discussing this with a skeptic maybe I would've noted each and every instance of it so I could provide you with ample evidence that it's not just a hypothetical but something that actually happens. 

What is known is that unconscious motivations exist and affect everyone just by virtue of being human. If you want a list of them you can search "list of cognitive biases," find the Wikipedia link, and then research the citations if you want. Daniel Kahnemann won a Nobel for his work in cognitive biases in the field of economics and his Thinking, Fast and Slow is a great laymen's read on the subject. The only thing that's not known is the exact extent to which they affect every individual as it relates to any given subject, but I would be shocked if anyone is completely unbiased in pretty much any aspect of life.


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## fbjim

EdwardBast said:


> I said nothing about those who dislike fugues. Lots of people who don't particularly like fugues are capable of descernment in evaluating them. Nice try.
> 
> It's not like-minded versus differing. It's minded versus mindless. Do I get points for concision?


Anyone with a working set of ears can "evaluate" music. Certainly if a _mindless_ listener loves a piece, it's given as evidence for its universality and appeal toward unknown aesthetic truths.


Mindless/minded here seem simply like differences in one's approach to art. No special education is required to listen, or to say "ehh I don't like that".


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## fbjim

To expand on that, I think the "ability" for one to differentiate between classical music one likes or dislikes isn't based on learnedness, it's based on what I'd generally call "affinity". This can be learned or just come naturally, but one has to like the style of music for aesthetic comparisons to really be possible - otherwise you get that classic phrase of someone who doesn't like a genre of music, be it classical, rap, electronic, or disco: "it all sounds the same to me".


If we "reject" or "discount" someone's opinion because they have no affinity towards classical music, it has nothing to do with education, knowledge, or intellectual rigor - it's because someone with zero affinity for a genre of music has placed themselves outside the generally accepted audience for that music.


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## Strange Magic

Luchesi said:


> Many people can't satisfactorily evaluate pieces (satisfactorily for themselves) (it's not their fault) so they join a consensus comprised of various subjective reasons that are easy to understand and admire.
> 
> You can't evaluate the art of Portuguese poetry if you don't know Portuguese.


People are free to evaluate or to not evaluate anything in the arts. What if someone chooses not to attempt to evaluate Portuguese poetry for any one of a number of reasons--indifferent to or hates poetry, or Portugal, or the Portuguese or for any other reason why Portuguese poetry is of no interest to them (it never entered their head), I have no interest in Bulgarian poetry, And I certainly do not worry for a second that I can't satisfactorily evaluate Bulgarian poetry. Why should I? Who does? Is it your notion that all must evaluate everything in the arts? In music, I am free to evaluate anything I choose to. Or not. Satisfactorily. I still can't understand why the absence of a template agreed to by a peer group, is so unnerving to some. "Taste Exchanging" and social bonding and the threat of its withdrawal are one factor; another is akin to a quasi-religious yearning for the comfort and certainty of received dogma. 

So, Luchesi, I agree with your observation that many people seek shelter in subjective reasons.. But there is a larger population who, to them, can satisfactorily evaluate music, believing their evaluation is objective. But actually it again is pure subjectivism, Bonding, polling, and the power of authority figures.


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## DaveM

Strange Magic said:


> ..But there is a larger population who, to them, can satisfactorily evaluate music, believing their evaluation is objective. But actually it again is pure subjectivism, Bonding, polling, and the power of authority figures.


Subjectivity is always the beginning of an individual’s attraction to, enjoyment of and evaluation of the arts, but it is doesn’t define the middle or the end. You’re stuck at the beginning.


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## science

DaveM said:


> Subjectivity is always the beginning of an individual’s attraction to, enjoyment of and evaluation of the arts, but it is doesn’t define the middle or the end. You’re stuck at the beginning.


What are the middle and end? 

I can imagine that you might answer something like "learning" but then everything that is learned either has no effect on the subjective experience or it affects the subjective experience.


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## Forster

EdwardBast said:


> Of course they do. They tend to be manipulative and will self-justify to the extent they can get what they want by doing so.


You don't have to be a psychopath to be manipulative. We all self-justify, but assuming we're talking about justifying "wrong" behaiour, I think we just get on and do it. Well, I sometimes do and sometimes don't...

...maybe I'm a psychopath.


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## Luchesi

Strange Magic said:


> People are free to evaluate or to not evaluate anything in the arts. What if someone chooses not to attempt to evaluate Portuguese poetry for any one of a number of reasons--indifferent to or hates poetry, or Portugal, or the Portuguese or for any other reason why Portuguese poetry is of no interest to them (it never entered their head), I have no interest in Bulgarian poetry, And I certainly do not worry for a second that I can't satisfactorily evaluate Bulgarian poetry. Why should I? Who does? Is it your notion that all must evaluate everything in the arts? In music, I am free to evaluate anything I choose to. Or not. Satisfactorily. I still can't understand why the absence of a template agreed to by a peer group, is so unnerving to some. "Taste Exchanging" and social bonding and the threat of its withdrawal are one factor; another is akin to a quasi-religious yearning for the comfort and certainty of received dogma.
> 
> So, Luchesi, I agree with your observation that many people seek shelter in subjective reasons.. But there is a larger population who, to them, can satisfactorily evaluate music, believing their evaluation is objective. But actually it again is pure subjectivism, Bonding, polling, and the power of authority figures.


My advice is for teenagers, who are more easily lead astray, and it is a concern if you look at the big picture.
Anyway, I've had an obstinate teenager tell me I want to be “free” to learn what I want to learn, and anyway my music is just as good as your Beethoven stuff. Teenagers have good reason to be rebellious, whether they know it or not.

I should be adult about it, but I don't want to help him have something valuable when he’s 50 or 60. I would be tilting against the whole culture of creeping relativism, and it's just too pervasive. Even a kid like that has gotten a whiff of it. Any chance to be lazy about anything and they'll take it, because they've been designed by natural selection to conserve their energy for important survival things. I obviously don't take it personally I'm just saddened by the whole situation. Adults should know better, but they’re also too young to have had the opportunities that used to be available in the 1950s and 60s.

I might be a rare person but I've never bonded with anyone over CM. We did bond over the Beatles’ songs as they came out and we were trying to work them out on the friends’ pianos. Good times! We all outgrew this bonding, but I continued on with music.
I've always thought that polls were quite silly. What does any poll have to do with me? Popularity lists not based on objective analyses, again, you quickly outgrow such popularisms once you learn about music. 

Authority figures, like music theorists?


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## fbjim

I don't think teenagers are lazy. In fact, everything these days is career-oriented. Kids used to do things like extra-curricular activities because they had an interest in them, but now the emphasis is on how good it'll look on a college application, with the goal of turning a college education from a prestige school into a career. 

If you want kids to have interest in arts as a pleasure activity, you need to give them more leisure time, not less.


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## Strange Magic

*^^^^@Luchesi: *"I might be a rare person but I've never bonded with anyone over CM." 

Over the years I have bonded with people over CM. With your passion for it, I am surprised that you have not. I have several times had friends tell me about something new that they just heard (and bought), and have immediately benefited by that.


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## EdwardBast

EdwardBast said:


> I said nothing about those who dislike fugues. Nice try. It's not like-minded versus differing. It's minded versus unminded. Do I get points for concision?





Eva Yojimbo said:


> People who don't like fugues are just discerning the features that other people like about them. Nice try.
> 
> So now everyone who disagrees with you or the majority or the experts are "unminded?" OK, then.


I said that people who don't know what a fugue is are not credible judges of fugal writing, just as illiterates are not good literary critics. The issue of agreement with me or anyone else didn't come up. You seem to be having trouble following this argument(?)


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## Luchesi

fbjim said:


> Anyone with a working set of ears can "evaluate" music. Certainly if a _mindless_ listener loves a piece, it's given as evidence for its universality and appeal toward unknown aesthetic truths.
> 
> 
> Mindless/minded here seem simply like differences in one's approach to art. No special education is required to listen, or to say "ehh I don't like that".


It does sound condescending to say that people who don't appreciate what the objectivists are saying will probably never get it unless they put in a lot of work and read some books about musical analysis. It is a sad fact.
I’ve just never found any other way to say it.
It's the same with cosmology or astronomy or meteorology or paleontology or any technical subject that I'm interested in. People know a little bit and then they lose interest. It's all very natural.


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## Luchesi

Strange Magic said:


> *^^^^@Luchesi: *"I might be a rare person but I've never bonded with anyone over CM."
> 
> Over the years I have bonded with people over CM. With your passion for it, I am surprised that you have not. I have several times had friends tell me about something new that they just heard (and bought), and have immediately benefited by that.


I remember when I was very young some older folks were bonding over CM. But I expect was born too late, especially with the explosion of musical distractions of the 60s, and young people with their predictable imperatives taking over when they had some disposable income. This is when I was the most vulnerable. And later, none of the recommendations from Jethro Tull and ELO fans made sense to me. I quit listening to how great YES was (well, it was for them).


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## Torkelburger

fbjim said:


> To expand on that, I think the "ability" for one to differentiate between classical music one likes or dislikes isn't based on learnedness, it's based on what I'd generally call "affinity". This can be learned or just come naturally, but one has to like the style of music for aesthetic comparisons to really be possible - otherwise you get that classic phrase of someone who doesn't like a genre of music, be it classical, rap, electronic, or disco: "it all sounds the same to me".
> 
> 
> If we "reject" or "discount" someone's opinion because they have no affinity towards classical music, it has nothing to do with education, knowledge, or intellectual rigor - it's because someone with zero affinity for a genre of music has placed themselves outside the generally accepted audience for that music.


The above is by no means a fact. It is just a pet theory of yours and has not been my own personal experience, nor the experience of other musicians in my family. I did not care about classical music at all until 10 years of age on the first day of school in 4th grade music class when we began learning theory (we were about to start to learn the soprano recorder). I immediately became obsessed with classical music.
The same with some of the children in my family. They never were interested in classical music until they took piano lessons or were in band/orchestra. All at a relatively late age (middle school). Now they like classical music and listen to it on their own.


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## Torkelburger

In regards to the topic, it makes no difference that judgments about the sound quality of a musical piece are opinions and not facts.

In science, there are hard, tangible, objective methods scientists use to identify and quantify creativity, imagination, and intelligence in subjects. Musical craftmanship is no exception. It is not necessary to even hear a single note to determine whether a musical piece was put together intelligently or creatively. The audible enjoyment factor is ancillary to its merits that are measurable.

My uncle who is an engineer often speaks of being able to tell good design from poor design in engineering. There are objective ways of identifying it. He never refers to anyone’s opinion on what it looks like. The construction of music is no different. Whether you like how it sounds or not, we can identify the merits of its craftmanship through objective means.


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## fbjim

Torkelburger said:


> The above is by no means a fact. It is just a pet theory of yours and has not been my own personal experience, nor the experience of other musicians in my family. I did not care about classical music at all until 10 years of age on the first day of school in 4th grade music class when we began learning theory (we were about to start to learn the soprano recorder). I immediately became obsessed with classical music.
> The same with some of the children in my family. They never were interested in classical music until they took piano lessons or were in band/orchestra. All at a relatively late age (middle school). Now they like classical music and listen to it on their own.


At no point did I intend to imply that this is some sort of hard-coded, unchangeable aspect of people. Affinity can be learned through exposure, changing of tastes, or any given reason. In fact, I explicitly stated that this can be learned.


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## Luchesi

Torkelburger said:


> The above is by no means a fact. It is just a pet theory of yours and has not been my own personal experience, nor the experience of other musicians in my family. I did not care about classical music at all until 10 years of age on the first day of school in 4th grade music class when we began learning theory (we were about to start to learn the soprano recorder). I immediately became obsessed with classical music.
> The same with some of the children in my family. They never were interested in classical music until they took piano lessons or were in band/orchestra. All at a relatively late age (middle school). Now they like classical music and listen to it on their own.


Yes, there's something about when the kids see the notes and hear the sounds together while they're playing an instrument the sounds are spirited and the dots on the page are dry, very dry. It’s such a contrast in the whole experience of contrasts in the making of music. So when the kids get the experience of making the music from the dots then they want to see other performers do it so much better than they can, and then they get around to appreciating how composers compose those dot patterns.


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## DaveM

Torkelburger said:


> In regards to the topic, it makes no difference that judgments about the sound quality of a musical piece are opinions and not facts.
> 
> In science, there are hard, tangible, objective methods scientists use to identify and quantify creativity, imagination, and intelligence in subjects. Musical craftmanship is no exception. It is not necessary to even hear a single note to determine whether a musical piece was put together intelligently or creatively. The audible enjoyment factor is ancillary to its merits that are measurable.
> 
> My uncle who is an engineer often speaks of being able to tell good design from poor design in engineering. There are objective ways of identifying it. He never refers to anyone’s opinion on what it looks like. The construction of music is no different. Whether you like how it sounds or not, we can identify the merits of its craftmanship through objective means.


Inevitably, there are those who will come back and say (and I will save them the trouble) that the merits of craftsmanship are a subjective construct. But, as always, they will ignore or dismiss the fact that the CP era, over decades and centuries laid the groundwork for what is considered excellence in composing (that music).

Originality, ingenuity and other signs of skill that indicate the innate musical intelligence of a Beethoven that managed to attract such a broad audience of listeners and experts during the early, mid, latter CP period and to this day demands recognition. When I watch live performances of his concertos and symphonies, I am in awe at how he came up with such things as the originality of the use of the woodwinds in concert with the strings without reminding of predecessor composers. No composer has quite matched the extent of originality across the broad categories of sonatas, trios, quartets, concertos and symphonies. And some want to dismiss it as subjective polling popularity?


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## Luchesi

DaveM said:


> Inevitably, there are those who will come back and say (and I will save them the trouble) that the merits of craftsmanship are a subjective construct. But, as always, they will ignore or dismiss the fact that the CP era, over decades and centuries laid the groundwork for what is considered excellence in composing (that music).
> 
> Originality, ingenuity and other signs of skill that indicate the innate musical intelligence of a Beethoven that managed to attract such a broad audience of listeners and experts during the early, mid, latter CP period and to this day demands recognition. When I watch live performances of his concertos and symphonies, I am in awe at how he came up with such things as the originality of the use of the woodwinds in concert with the strings without reminding of predecessor composers. No composer has quite matched the extent of originality across the broad categories of sonatas, trios, quartets, concertos and symphonies. And some want to dismiss it as subjective polling popularity?


Yes, but I think they're looking for something they like, 

and not originality or craftsmanship or the advancement of the art using the effectiveness from the historical rise of dissonance. They can't be blamed. It sounds arcane to some people.


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## Strange Magic

Torkelburger said:


> In regards to the topic, it makes no difference that judgments about the sound quality of a musical piece are opinions and not facts.
> 
> In science, there are hard, tangible, objective methods scientists use to identify and quantify creativity, imagination, and intelligence in subjects. Musical craftmanship is no exception. It is not necessary to even hear a single note to determine whether a musical piece was put together intelligently or creatively. The audible enjoyment factor is ancillary to its merits that are measurable.
> 
> My uncle who is an engineer often speaks of being able to tell good design from poor design in engineering. There are objective ways of identifying it. He never refers to anyone’s opinion on what it looks like. The construction of music is no different. Whether you like how it sounds or not, we can identify the merits of its craftmanship through objective means.


I do not agree that science has found objective ways to measure creativity, imagination, and intelligence. The data gathered is objective but what is being measured may have little or no relevance to the stated goals of the research. Lie detectors, IQ tests, puzzle boxes only measure what the design of the test measures--GSR, speed with which a puzzle is solved, answers to test questions,etc.

I also, for similar reasons, dispute your analogy between engineering and music--we are talking apples vs. oranges here--there is no similarity between good engineering and musical composition. A bridge is either well-engineered and will not fall into the gorge or it will. A musical composition will be interpreted, evaluated, liked, disliked in many different ways by many individuals.


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## fbjim

I'm not sure we even have a stable, non-contraversial _definition_ of intelligence, let alone a scientifically rigorous way of quantifying it.


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## 59540

DaveM said:


> Inevitably, there are those who will come back and say (and I will save them the trouble) that the merits of craftsmanship are a subjective construct. ...


Which is why this is all pointless. No matter what, the subjectivist zealots are going to cling to their objective truth that it's all subjective.


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## TwoFlutesOneTrumpet

I wonder, is my subjectivity objectively subjective? Is the objective nature of the physical world only an illusion created by our subjective minds which can only make sense of things when objectifying that which exists only when perceived by the mind? Is my cat alive when I'm not looking at it? If I don't put my socks on, are they actually socks when they just lie in my drawer?


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## 59540

TwoFlutesOneTrumpet said:


> I wonder, is my subjectivity objectively subjective? Is the objective nature of the physical world only an illusion created by our subjective minds which can only make sense of things when objectifying that which exists only when perceived by the mind? Is my cat alive when I'm not looking at it? If I don't put my socks on, are they actually socks when they just lie in my drawer?


I have a fear that each question there will bring forth a multi-paragraph screed.


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## Eva Yojimbo

EdwardBast said:


> I said that people who don't know what a fugue is are not credible judges of fugal writing, just as illiterates are not good literary critics. The issue of agreement with me or anyone else didn't come up. You seem to be having trouble following this argument(?)


They are perfectly credible judges as to how a fugue makes someone who doesn't know what a fugue is makes them feel. You may then ask "why should we care about what someone who doesn't know what a fugue is thinks about a fugue?" The simple response is thus: if the argument is that music is one of the arts that is capable of bypassing our intellectual barriers and reaching straight into and affecting our emotions and aesthetic responses then any music that's capable of doing that should be able to do that for anyone regardless of their knowledge or ignorance of any of the music's technical qualities. People who don't know what counterpoint is have been quite receptive to, eg, Handel's Hallelujah! Chorus, and many of Bach's most famous fugues, so obviously this CAN happen. 

The problem is you (like so many) are wanting to talk about judging what a fugue is based on some intellectual, theoretical ideal that completely divorces it from what, IMO, music's core purpose should be, which is the stirring of emotions and aesthetic responses. If a fugue is capable of doing that, then it's a "good fugue," if a fugue isn't capable of doing that, then it's a "bad fugue." As I said elsewhere, if I wanted to appreciate a fugue for its "inexorable logic" I'd rather go study great chess games. That's not what I value in music, nor is it for most people. 

This is not, I want to stress, an indictment against learning and understanding music. I understand what fugues are. I can follow a fugue in its multiple voices and harmonic movement. It's simply that if the fugue doesn't MOVE me I'm not going to just admire its logic and pretend like it's "good" because I have some intellectual justification when it's not making me feel anything; and people who are completely ignorant of fugues are capable of knowing how they make them feel as good as I am or as good as the most serious Bach scholar is. 

Music is different than literature. All of literature's emotional, dramatic, and aesthetic impact requires as a prerequisite the intellectual understanding of the language it's written in. Music isn't like this. People can delight in sound and patterns of sound and all its aesthetic, dramatic, tonal, etc. potential without understanding one iota of theory. Further, music theory should be descriptive, not prescriptive: a way of saying "here's what composers/artists do and how they do it," with the understanding that people care about this because what they do moves them. The moment music theory moves from that to "this is what should be done" something has gone wrong or, at the very least, that "should" should always be tethered to the goal of making music that moves people, which, it must be said, changes from time to time, place to place, person to person, and genre/style to genre/style.


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## Eva Yojimbo

Luchesi said:


> It does sound condescending to say that people who don't appreciate what the objectivists are saying will probably never get it unless they put in a lot of work and read some books about musical analysis. It is a sad fact.


What about those of us who've done this and STILL don't agree with what the objectivists are saying, like myself? My problem with the objectivists isn't that I haven't read books on musical analysis, it's that I've also read a lot of other books on philosophy and understand that being an expert on objective things doesn't make one an expert on subjective judgments; and that the kind of "objective judgments" they're mostly talking about is just having a respect for others' subjective judgments (which is a respect they only selectively choose to have).


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## Eva Yojimbo

Torkelburger said:


> In science, there are hard, tangible, objective methods scientists use to identify and quantify creativity, imagination, and intelligence in subjects. Musical craftmanship is no exception.


Big claims. At least I assume by "quantifying... intelligence" you mean IQ, so sure, to whatever extent we can say IQ correlates to intelligence. The rest I'd like to see evidence for.


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## Eva Yojimbo

Woodduck said:


> I'd take exception to one thing here. Similarities of artistic judgment can be explained by the nature of the art itself and by the _similarities in the mental and physical constitution of human beings._ If your "subjectivities" is meant to encompass the full range of what that implies, then OK, but I'm not sure that it really does.


Yes, we’re in agreement here. Subjectivity includes everything that relates to an individual including their mental and physical constitution.



Woodduck said:


> Is "poll-type" a term in epistemology? 😉 It really needs to go. It trivializes everything. Pollsters are looking for numbers, not meaning. I don't give a rodent's tail about how many people "like" Brahms, any more than I care whether anyone thinks Tchaikovsky is a "greater" composer. I'm interested in the quality of an artist's impact on the world, not merely the quantity of it. I'm sure you know that and agree, but the triviality of the polling image doesn't steer our thinking that way.


I think trivializing is often a consequence of objectively looking at anything. If we take a large enough “objective” view of humanity we are just one of millions of species existing on a tiny planet that’s but a speck within a galaxy that’s but a grain of sand within a universe whose life span is barely the blink-of-an-eye within its history. This objective view may be trivializing to the importance of humanity and it may conflict with how important we perceive ourselves to be, but it’s also true. It’s also true that BOTH perspectives can co-exist, that it’s perfectly fine that we are important to ourselves, but unimportant in the biggest picture of the universe.

So if “polling” seems trivializing to you, that’s partly the intended effect because it’s showing that what you describe about art impacting the most people at the highest level is, on an objective level, simply quantifying how many like certain art, how many were influenced by it, how they were influenced by it, etc. It’s the kind of data that you can get from polling.



Woodduck said:


> I'm not focused on anyone's "subjectivities." I'm focused on recognizing and respecting the exceptional powers of extraordinary artists. An important power (but not the only important one) is the ability to make work capable of resonating strongly enough with basic elements of human consciousness to not only appeal to but shape people's "subjectivities" and cultures, and not only in the moment but enduringly. Given the constant emphasis subjectivists place on the differences between individual human "subjectivities," they should readily admit that the ability of an artist to achieve widespread, sometimes almost unanimous acclaim across space and time is a remarkable thing, and is not something to be accounted for except by reference to some very fundamental aspects of the human organism and human experience.


All I’m saying is that part of “recognizing and respecting the exceptional powers of extraordinary artists” is in recognizing the role that our (both yours as an individual and ours as a species) subjectivities plays in this. As I confirmed in my last post, none of us subjectivists (I don’t think) are denying that some artists have made works that resonate strongly with common elements of human consciousness, shape those consciousnesses and cultures, and do so in an enduring way. These are, indeed, all objective facts, but we can speak about these facts without making them the only determining factor for what is considered great.



Woodduck said:


> I have my own hierarchy for pleasure, but not for greatness. I don't assume that my favorite things are the "greatest" things. That just degrades language.


AFAICT, the “hierarchies for greatness” is nothing but the aggregate of many people’s hierarchies of pleasure. If _insert any widely-considered-to-be-great composer here_ didn’t rank high on many people’s “hierarchy of pleasure” then they also wouldn’t be considered great. I’ve made this point before, but nothing that is considered great is something nobody likes. Plus, the way you’re describing greatness here still just seems like the recognition of and respect for the wealth of subjectivities that like (again “like” as “any positive feeling”) something.



Woodduck said:


> Why is this a "sticking point"?


Because if we recognize that the things you’re describing, like tonality, are widely accepted because of the nature of our subjectivities, then we must also accept that there’s no way to declare that tonality is better than, say, atonality except by appealing to those same subjectivities… and if we have subjectivities that prefer atonality, and some that prefer tonality, neither is or can be right or wrong. 

This has been the (or at least my) sticking point all along, and it bears repeating: anything that is rooted in our subjectivity can only be true in relation to that subjectivity, and the moment that our subjectivities differ there is no way to declare which is right or wrong except in relation to the subjectivities that think it. This is very different than matters of objective fact, like what is wrong with a car, whether the Earth is flat, etc. This distinction is very important and is, IMO, at the heart of this whole debate.



Woodduck said:


> I can't see what point is being made by the foregoing paragraphs. It just looks like a rehash of "different people like different things and have different opinions about the same things," on the way to saying that that somehow "proves" that nothing is inherently good, bad, superior or inferior. Hammeredklavier has been hammering away at that klavier for quite a while. It seems intended to prove something, but it doesn't.


The point is the same is above. I still don’t understand how you think your view (I won’t call it the “objectivist” view) accounts for this difference. At most you’ve been saying that, eg, most people prefer tonality because of the nature of our subjectivities… but, again, how is that not just a poll. “Most people prefer tonality, so tonality is objectively better?” How does that even make sense?

Also, when you say that you haven’t known people with more than a peripheral interest in atonal music you have to be joking. You mean those composers who’ve devoted their lives to composing atonal music have no more than a peripheral interest in it? Hell, I’ve flat-out seen some posters around here saying their primary interest in CM is modern-and-later composers who are primarily atonal. Hell, my best friend on the old IMDb forum largely preferred the atonal composers and didn’t care much for any of the tonal composers outside of Wagner.



Woodduck said:


> So the artistic experience that tells us that an artist has coherently exploited, through the symbolic vocabulary of his art, basic patterns of human thought, perception, feeling and activity, not to mention cosmic forces external to our human organisms but impinging on us and affecting us in profound ways, offers us nothing more significant than a "postive feeling"? And we're back to ice cream, along with polls?


Again, you seem to be frustrated by the fact that objective analysis doesn’t conform with your very poetic ways of phrasing things that reflect how you subjectively feel about them; but, yes, at the end of all that poetic language about what an artist supposedly does is the subjectivity that has a positive feeling towards whatever has been done, and without the positive feeling nobody would give a rat’s patootie about the rest of it.



Woodduck said:


> A thorough misunderstanding. Aesthetic excellence is not "something art actually embodies in its structure." It is, rather, the successful deployment of structure to embody something. It's deploying the structural components of an artistic "language" in such a way as to make an object coherent to the mind. There are other kinds and markers of excellence in art, but it's with the kind we call specifically aesthetic that I've been concerned.There are other kinds of values which art can embody to attain greater distinction and deserve praise, but that's another, much wider conversation. No point in going there when we can't even get straight what we're discussing now.


Not really a misunderstanding as I did get that’s what you meant; but by art embodying something you think that is synonymous with also embodying excellence, yes? I mean, you don’t merely think that the notion of art embodying something is subjective, nor that this embodiment is merely subjectively excellent, do you? I have not gotten that impression from your posts. If you’re trying to say that art can embody something and that is objective, but that the evaluation of that embodiment is only subjectively excellent, then we don’t really have much of an issue.



Woodduck said:


> I don't consider that a point, or question, that needs debating, and i've never debated it. _Of course_ "excellence" is not a thing, or an aspect of objects _as objects,_ the way "shape" is a thing or an aspect of things. Excellence is an attribution justified by the recognition of something done well.


I’m glad we can at least agree on the former, but with the latter I still question how you think this “justified by the recognition of something done well” actually happens, and the extent to which it is dependent upon human subjectivities (both individual and collective), and the extent to which we can declare any of this true independent of those subjectivities.


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## Eva Yojimbo

BachIsBest said:


> No I can't prove it wrong in the exact same way I can prove "the Earth is flat" is wrong. I never made that claim. If by subjective you mean mind-dependant, then yes, it is only wrong according to mind-dependant things. However, I would argue it is wrong according to rational principles, in much the same way I would argue murder is wrong. I'm just repeating the same thing ad nauseum here.


Sorry if you feel you’re repeating yourself too much, but sometimes repetition is necessary to distinguish exactly where the agreements/disagreements are. OK, so I understand you don’t think it’s true in the mind-independent way, but in the based-on-the-agreement-of-axiomatic-assumptions way. My only issue here would be in determining what those axiomatic assumptions are and the degree to which we actually agree on them. Further, would you agree that, just as in the “chess rules” example, if there are disagreements over which axioms to start from there is no way to declare one set “better” than the other, nor any judgments that based on those differing axioms?



BachIsBest said:


> I already explained why I'm arguing against the restrictiveness because I feel it implies absurd things about the definition itself.


I’m not sure what absurd things you think it implies except the notion that the definition of truth can’t be true in the way other true things are. I don’t think that’s an absurdity, I just don’t think language can be true in that way.



BachIsBest said:


> If I had a good definition of truth, I'd be a famous philosopher, not a TC member. As I have already stated, I don't mean "mind-independently" true, maybe "rational basis" would be a better term.


OK, but then how do you build from the rational basis (I assume based on axiomatic assumptions) to what the student realizes being true? I think I have an intuitive idea of what you might mean, but I don’t want to assume.


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## hammeredklavier

DaveM said:


> Originality, ingenuity and other signs of skill that indicate the innate musical intelligence


I see what you're saying, but different composers were "innovative", "influential", "inventive" with different things, under different circumstances. It's something we can't objectively measure quantitatively or qualitatively in various cases.



hammeredklavier said:


> "Chopin continued to express, in both words and deeds, his admiration for Hummel. For example, on December 10, 1842, five years after Hummel's death, Chopin would proclaim that Hummel was one of the "masters we all recognize." It is noteworthy that the only other names on Chopin's list were Mozart and Beethoven. Chopin also showed his high regard by using so many of Hummel's works to teach his students, as his pupil Adolf Gutmann recalled: "Chopin held that Clementi's Gradus ad Parnassum, Bach's pianoforte fugues, and Hummel's compositions were the key to pianoforte-playing, and he considered a training in these composers a fit preparation for his own works. The two great pianists were also in complete agreement on many aspects of playing the keyboard. One was fingering, a matter of great importance to Chopin, who wrote in his own unfinished piano method "everything is a matter of knowing good fingering."
> 
> "William Mason, one of Liszt's American pupils, tells us in his book Touch and Technic (1889) that Liszt considered a "two-finger exercise" by Hummel to be the source of his technique. The exercise consisted of playing a scale with two fingers, alternating accented and unaccented notes and using an elastic touch by pulling the fingers in towards the palm. Liszt's high opinion of Hummel as an artist and as a man never diminished. It is evident in a letter he wrote to Weimar's Grand Duke Carl Alexander in 1860, reminding his employer that "he should be proud to create works that resemble [Hummel's]."
> 
> "Schubert must have been delighted to finally have personal contact with the composer of music he had known and admired for more than a decade. One of the works that Schubert knew quite well was Hummel's Septet in D minor, op. 74, his most popular chamber music composition. Schubert, in fact, used the quintet version of this work as the model for his famous Trout Quintet. The solo piano music that Schubert composed between 1816 and his death in 1828 also reveals the strong influence of Hummel's brilliant, virtuosic style of piano writing, culminating in the last three piano sonatas (D. 958-60). Schubert intended to dedicate these works to Hummel but died before they were published."
> 
> "the young Schumann, the aspiring virtuoso pianist studying with Friedrich Wieck in Leipzig in 1829, desperately wanted to become Hummel's student. Despite repeated attempts, he never realized this goal, but Hummel would remain Schumann's idol through-out his student years. He was also his role model, as we read in Schumann's letter to his mother of 15 May 1831: "I can have only four goals: Kapellmeister, music teacher, virtuoso and composer. With Hummel, for example, all of these are combined." Schumann's diary also tells us that he practiced Hummel's Clavierschule with a devotion bordering on obsession, once even writing that he planned to play all the exercises in succession. He maintained a lasting admiration for a select group of Hummel's works, such as the piano concertos in A minor and B minor, the Septet in D minor, op. 74, and the Piano Sonata in F-sharp minor, op. 81. The F-sharp minor sonata had a particularly significant impact on Schumann's early piano compositions, as can be seen by the striking similarity of the examples below (Fig. 1). Schumann acknowledged his admiration for Hummel's F-sharp minor sonata in his Neue Zeitschrift für Musik of April 26, 1839, predicting, "this sonata will alone immortalize his name.""
> 
> "Schubert, Schumann, Liszt, and Chopin - these emblematic symbols of the Romantic era are indeed indebted to Hummel. The same can be said for many other 19th-century composers, including César Franck, who graduated as a prize-winning pianist from the Paris Conservatoire by playing Hummel's music. Some critics have even found similarities between Hummel's F-sharp minor sonata and the Piano Sonata in F-sharp minor, op. 2, of Brahms. Hummel the Classicist, Hummel the Romantic - both descriptions are correct. His life spanned two eras, and so did his music."
> 
> -excerpts from "Hummel and the Romantics" by Mark Kroll


I also mentioned that Bruckner was avidly interested in F.J. Aumann's liturgical music, avidly revised the instrumentation and studied the counterpoint and the "colored harmony", in Sankt Florian.
"In Sankt Florian, most of the repertoire consisted of the music of Michael Haydn, Johann Georg Albrechtsberger and Franz Joseph Aumann." (wiki/Anton_Bruckner#Organist_in_Sankt_Florian)
With this in mind, I'll address dissident's question, which I missed some time ago:



dissident said:


> What does it say about the influence of Michael Haydn, beyond Schubert's weeping at his grave?


Consider, for instance:
"The numerous settings of liturgical texts in German, the secular German part-songs and Lieder, together with his expanding sphere of influence as a teacher of composition in the 1790s, place Michael Haydn in a position of importance in the early history of both German sacred music and German song. One of his students Georg Schinn (1768-1833), left Salzburg in 1808 to take a position in the Munich Hofkapelle, where Michael Haydn's Latin and German sacred music was performed frequently throughout the 19th century." <Michael Haydn and "The Haydn Tradition:" A Study of Attribution, Chronology, and Source Transmission / Dwight C. Blazin / P.28>

Why assume that, if Beethoven was in Haydn's position, Beethoven would have influenced Mozart and Weber (who wrote some of his early dramatic works under Haydn's supervision) the same way Haydn did? No matter how highly you regard Beethoven, he wasn't the one who wrote watch?v=I-TeHK-bVvU in 1769.

"According to contemporary reports, instead of the usual Baroque scenery, in the subsidiary piece the theatre was made up »in the manner of an alpine hut. On one side there was a waterfall, on the other a high mountain cliff. In the morning and evening sunlight [...] one could see the cattle up on the Alpine pastures.« Haydn's Wedding on the Alpine Pasture was no doubt a pioneering work for the Salzburg Theatre. The individual arias and instrumental movements together with the entire singspiel were adapted by Haydn himself and other composers and - as witness numerous copies of the work - were soon in wide distribution in the abbeys of Kremsmünster and Seitenstetten or being taken further afield by the boatsmen who plied the waters of the Salzach river at Laufen." (an excerpt from the program notes for Brunner's recording of Die Hochzeit auf der Alm MH107)

Today, we are shoved in our throats, the _dogma_; "it was _all about_ Bach, Mozart, Beethoven. They were the ones who _did everything (pretty much)_". But if we were educated from youth to be more open to _free-thinking_; for example, "Aumann could have been influential in ways Mozart wasn't", —our way to view classical music history _could have_ been different.


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## hammeredklavier

dissident said:


> the subjectivist zealots are going to cling to their objective truth that it's all subjective.


My arguments are more subtle than that. I'll explain with another example. Anyone can honestly think that, for instance; "Of course Mozart is _damn good_; it's just that all (the advantage) he has over his contemporaries is _creaminess, _which is _good_ for all of us for sure", —having both an objective sense of seeing things ("Mozart is _good"), _and a subjective opinion ("it's all _creaminess"_) at the same time.
Captainnumber36: "his sugar gets too sweet after a while."
Xisten267: "everything too happy, pretty and fluffy in his music,"
Woodduck: "Don't feel bad. It isn't you. I sensed that about him from the start and have kept my distance. I find him a useful companion when I'm in the mood for skittles, but the scatology is wearing after a while."


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## DaveM

hammeredklavier said:


> I see what you're saying, but different composers were "innovative", "influential", "inventive" with different things. It's something we can't objectively measure quantitatively or qualitatively in many cases.


Oh, I think in many cases we can. We‘ve had the benefit of centuries of experience by a broad cross-section to make comparisons and the result is an obvious consistency in the judgment of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven et al over the ages. Not to mention the benefit of recordings where for a century people have been able to listen to all sorts of works by what were already considered the great composers inspecting and dissecting the nuances of their creations in a way never before possible.



> Why assume that, if Beethoven was in Haydn's position, Beethoven would have influenced Mozart and Weber (who wrote some of his early dramatic works under Haydn's supervision) the same way Haydn did? No matter how outstanding you consider Beethoven, he wasn't the one who wrote watch?v=I-TeHK-bVvU in 1769.


Why assume that hypothetical at all? It makes no sense. Beethoven wasn’t the one who wrote the Goldberg Variations or the B-minor Mass either. So what? Beethoven‘s record of influence on composers going forward stands on its own. That’s all that matters.



> Today, we are shoved in our throats, the _dogma_; "it was _all about_ Bach, Mozart, Beethoven. They were the ones who _did everything (pretty much)_". But if we were educated from youth to _free-think_; for example, "Aumann could have been influential in ways Mozart wasn't", —our way to view classical music history _could have_ been different.


I don’t know why you’re so troubled by this. You’re assuming the possibility of things that have, at best, limited supporting evidence. It seems like a lot of unnecessary musical masochism.


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## 59540

hammeredklavier said:


> Today, we are shoved in our throats, the _dogma_; "it was _all about_ Bach, Mozart, Beethoven. They were the ones who _did everything (pretty much)_".


Who exactly is shoving those three down your throat? In my case nobody really did. My piano teacher was more a Chopin and Liszt fan. I get the feeling that you define the consensus that those 3 are "the greatest" as shoving them down your throat. You're free to listen to whatever music you want. Don't get mad at people if they don't agree with your offbeat evaluations.


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## hammeredklavier

dissident said:


> Don't get mad at people


Have you visited forums or websites of other music genres, looked at their debates on subjectivity vs. objectivity, and seen which side dominates? Maybe we're the barking dogs and the rest of the world is the caravan. I'm just asking.


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## science

I was at the Konzerthaus in Berlin tonight and I saw busts of Dessau, Eisler, Lortzing, and Zelter, but none of Liszt or Chopin. 

Also no Verdi or Vivaldi. 

I might have to build my own venue so that I can dictate the figures to whom we must pay homage!


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## 59540

science said:


> I was at the Konzerthaus in Berlin tonight and I saw busts of Dessau, Eisler, Lortzing, and Zelter, but none of Liszt or Chopin.
> 
> Also no Verdi or Vivaldi.
> 
> I might have to build my own venue so that I can dictate the figures to whom we must pay homage!


I'd bet the Big Three are there. The rest are negotiable. 


hammeredklavier said:


> Have you visited forums or websites of other music genres, looked at their debates on subjectivity vs. objectivity, and seen which side dominates? Maybe we're the barking dogs and the rest of the world is the caravan. I'm just asking.


It really doesn't bother me that much, hammeredklavier. If you think Bach and Beethoven are overrated and you absolutely adore Michael Haydn, that is fine with me. What seems to stir up the anger is a statement like "Bach/Beethoven/Mozart is the greatest". The anger and streams of purple prose that brings forth usually indicate some unbridgeable philosophical difference that has little to do with actual music. It doesn't matter to me which are the dogs and which is the caravan. I love the music I love.


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## Chibi Ubu

*Steve Hackett - I Know What I Like*

This one says it all for me:





Cheers!


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## Torkelburger

Strange Magic said:


> I do not agree that science has found objective ways to measure creativity, imagination, and intelligence. The data gathered is objective but what is being measured may have little or no relevance to the stated goals of the research. Lie detectors, IQ tests, puzzle boxes only measure what the design of the test measures--GSR, speed with which a puzzle is solved, answers to test questions,etc.
> 
> I also, for similar reasons, dispute your analogy between engineering and music--we are talking apples vs. oranges here--there is no similarity between good engineering and musical composition. A bridge is either well-engineered and will not fall into the gorge or it will. A musical composition will be interpreted, evaluated, liked, disliked in many different ways by many individuals.


That’s silly. That’s like saying science has not found objective ways to measure someone’s health just because an EKG only measures your heart rate.

The context I was using should have been obvious to anyone who isn’t deliberately being obtuse that I am not making a literal comparison--as if I’m saying that music builds an actual bridge to drive on. As was obvious, the analogy refers to principles of design and craftmanship that are common to both fields, such as efficient use of resources being a better hallmark of design—in engineering, if one design can do the same exact thing as another but by simpler, more efficient means, then it is a sign of higher craftmanship, etc. Similar things are said in music.


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## Torkelburger

Post by Strange Magic:--"A bridge is either well-engineered and will not fall into the gorge or it will. A musical composition will be interpreted, evaluated, liked, disliked in many different ways by many individuals."


Incorrect. A bridge can be evaluated as well, regardless of whether it falls in a gorge or not. For example, if there is one bridge that efficiently goes straight across the gorge and immediately joins the other side, then it can be evaluated against another bridge that zigzags back and forth, up and down for no reason, aimlessly, then darts sideways across the gorge to the other side in all sorts of complex, wasteful means, even though it still doesn’t fall into the gorge either.

And music can “fall into a gorge” and therefore be poorly crafted whether an individual likes the style or not. Such as writing an A below the staff in an Oboe piece. In CPT, and unless any logical reason indicating otherwise, we can rationally conclude poor craftmanship in composition by writing that sort of unplayable music. Or pppp dynamics for the lowest Bb in an Oboe piece. Straight into the gorge. There are many examples.


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## Torkelburger

fbjim said:


> I'm not sure we even have a stable, non-contraversial _definition_ of intelligence, let alone a scientifically rigorous way of quantifying it.


Just because you’re not sure, doesn’t mean everyone else is too.


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## Torkelburger

Eva Yojimbo said:


> Big claims. At least I assume by "quantifying... intelligence" you mean IQ, so sure, to whatever extent we can say IQ correlates to intelligence. The rest I'd like to see evidence for.


So, you cannot think of any objective way at all, none whatsoever, of telling the difference between writing notes down completely randomly with no thought process behind them and by writing them down through intelligent means with purpose, design, and craftmanship? The two ways are indecipherable? You really can’t tell the difference? Strange, that.


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## Torkelburger

Originally posted by Eva Yojimbo:--"They are perfectly credible judges as to how a fugue makes someone who doesn't know what a fugue is makes them feel."


That is not what we are talking about. At least me. The problem through these entire discussions is as follows: there is a huge difference between 1) CRAFT and 2) STYLE/AESTHETICS. You are confusing the two and using them interchangeably.

You are talking about style and aesthetics, which doesn’t always even pertain to art, really. Take aesthetics. A sunset or a flower is not designed or created by anyone, but is still “moving”, “pleasing to the eye”, “aesthetically satisfying”, etc.

And look at musical performance (as opposed to composition). There is CRAFT and there is STYLE (and aesthetics). I am a professional tubist, for example. There is one, and only one, correct and proper way to physically play the tuba. This is CRAFT. That is not up for debate. However, when myself, or Gene Pokorny, or Warren Deck, are to perform the tuba solo from Mahler’s First, we can STYLE the music aesthetically different to suit our own (or the conductor’s) purpose. And that IS up for debate, and is open to make people feel however you want, like or dislike. But we all go by the same principles of CRAFT. Same with singers, etc. What have you. This goes for composition too.


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## Torkelburger

Originally posted by Eva Yojimbo:--"You may then ask "'why should we care about what someone who doesn't know what a fugue is thinks about a fugue?'"


If they know absolutely nothing about the CRAFT of composition, then their opinion of it means absolutely nothing. Nada. They can’t even give an opinion about it, so it doesn’t matter anyway. If the style or aesthetics doesn’t move them, fine. Experts who judge music, judge it by the objective standards involving craftmanship. I, myself may not like a certain composer or composition by a certain composer because I do not like its style or aesthetics, but that does not mean I do not recognize its merits in craftmanship that I can objectively see are there and are recognized by others, many of whom are more informed on such matters than myself.


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## Torkelburger

Originally posted by Eva Yojimbo:--"The simple response is thus: if the argument is that music is one of the arts that is capable of bypassing our intellectual barriers and reaching straight into and affecting our emotions and aesthetic responses then any music that's capable of doing that should be able to do that for anyone regardless of their knowledge or ignorance of any of the music's technical qualities."


The thing is though, which you should recognize, is that many people find music which is intellectual, logical, and intelligently written makes them happy and will get an emotional response from those features.


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## Torkelburger

Originally posted by Eva Yojimbo:--"The problem is you (like so many) are wanting to talk about judging what a fugue is based on some intellectual, theoretical ideal that completely divorces it from what, IMO, music's core purpose should be, which is the stirring of emotions and aesthetic responses. If a fugue is capable of doing that, then it's a "good fugue," if a fugue isn't capable of doing that, then it's a "bad fugue." As I said elsewhere, if I wanted to appreciate a fugue for its "inexorable logic" I'd rather go study great chess games. That's not what I value in music, nor is it for most people."


Strawman. This isn’t a problem. Nor is anyone SOLELY doing this. This is all anyone can do when judging musical craftmanship, and not style and aesthetics. If you want to talk style and aesthetics, we can sit here all day.


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## Torkelburger

Originally posted by Eva Yojimbo:--"As I said elsewhere, if I wanted to appreciate a fugue for its "inexorable logic" I'd rather go study great chess games."


Not me. I want to study fugues for their logic, so I study fugues. They move me for that reason among many others.


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## Torkelburger

Originally posted by Eva Yojimbo:--"Music is different than literature. All of literature's emotional, dramatic, and aesthetic impact requires as a prerequisite the intellectual understanding of the language it's written in. Music isn't like this. People can delight in sound and patterns of sound and all its aesthetic, dramatic, tonal, etc. potential without understanding one iota of theory."


Not so fast. Understanding a language and understanding theory are two different things, not interchangeable as you are doing here. Just because someone understands the words of Joyce, does not mean they understand the theory of how Ulysses was written and the merits of its craftmanship. And I highly doubt the native people of Indonesia would get the same emotional, dramatic, and aesthetic impact out of Mozart as they do from gamelan music and vice versa (European vs. gamelan). There is a certain degree of exposure/understanding (given that musical vocabularies often reflect the sounds and patterns of the language of the culture in which it is from) necessary to levels of appreciation.


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## fbjim

Torkelburger said:


> So, you cannot think of any objective way at all, none whatsoever, of telling the difference between writing notes down completely randomly with no thought process behind them and by writing them down through intelligent means with purpose, design, and craftmanship? The two ways are indecipherable? You really can’t tell the difference? Strange, that.


If you're proposing that there are hard, objective methods with which we can identify and quantify(!) creativity, intelligence and imagination in music, I think the onus is on you to prove that.


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## fbjim

Torkelburger said:


> Just because you’re not sure, doesn’t mean everyone else is too.


A paper in the peer-reviewed journal Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence and Applications cites approximately 70 definitions of "intelligence". Whether or not intelligence can be specifically defined, or meaningfully quantified is the subject of significant research and discussion.


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## DaveM

fbjim said:


> A paper in the peer-reviewed journal Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence and Applications cites approximately 70 definitions of "intelligence". Whether or not intelligence can be specifically defined, or meaningfully quantified is the subject of significant research and discussion.


There will always be ‘significant research and discussion’ about many aspects of the functioning of the human brain including intelligence. When it comes to the present level of the evaluation of the latter, what are you looking for, perfection? And if it doesn’t rise to the level of perfection you expect, do you think what we know about it is insignificant?


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## fbjim

DaveM said:


> There will always be ‘significant research and discussion’ about many aspects of the functioning of the human brain including intelligence. When it comes to the present level of the evaluation of the latter, what are you looking for, perfection? And if it doesn’t rise to the level of perfection you expect, do you think what we know about it is insignificant?


If it's argued that a) there exist hard, quantifiable ways to measure intelligence in science _and b)_ these methods are applicable to music, I think it's reasonable to ask which quantifiable methods we're talking about here.

It should be relatively obvious, for instance, that IQ, the result of a subject taking a standardized test, can not be reasonably applied to works of art.


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## Strange Magic

*Torkelburger:*


> "That’s silly. That’s like saying science has not found objective ways to measure someone’s health just because an EKG only measures your heart rate.
> 
> The context I was using should have been obvious to anyone who isn’t deliberately being obtuse that I am not making a literal comparison."


Glad to see you're up and about. Your objection to my and others' statements that measuring devices and tests only tell one about that which is specifically being measured is, of course, obviously silly.. The assessment of health relies upon many tests and medical histories, all combined together, along with luck, to form a picture of health. IQ as has been pointed out, is another matter entirely, and tells us--as it is so variously defined--very little compared to assessments of general health. And general (good) health itself varies with age, sex, ethnicity. My health is lousy for a 20-year-old, but amazingly good for my age and with three heart conditions.

To avoid others having the opportunity to be deliberately obtuse, don't give them the opportunity; rigorously define the context.


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## Eva Yojimbo

@Torkelburger, I appreciate your replies but I'm not sure if or how long I will be able to maintain this discussion. Replying to posts in the "Profundity Revisited" thread is already taking up most of the time I have to spend online. I will, at the very least, make one assail at this initial volley of replies. 



Torkelburger said:


> So, you cannot think of any objective way at all, none whatsoever, of telling the difference between writing notes down completely randomly with no thought process behind them and by writing them down through intelligent means with purpose, design, and craftmanship? The two ways are indecipherable? You really can’t tell the difference? Strange, that.


I'm not sure what this has to do with the post your responded to; but, sure, there is certainly, at least most of the time, a discernible difference between writing music randomly and doing so with purpose and design. I can't fathom what this had to do with a quote about IQ tests, though... 



Torkelburger said:


> Originally posted by Eva Yojimbo:--"They are perfectly credible judges as to how a fugue makes someone who doesn't know what a fugue is makes them feel."
> 
> That is not what we are talking about. At least me. The problem through these entire discussions is as follows: there is a huge difference between 1) CRAFT and 2) STYLE/AESTHETICS. You are confusing the two and using them interchangeably.
> 
> You are talking about style and aesthetics, which doesn’t always even pertain to art, really. Take aesthetics. A sunset or a flower is not designed or created by anyone, but is still “moving”, “pleasing to the eye”, “aesthetically satisfying”, etc.
> 
> And look at musical performance (as opposed to composition). There is CRAFT and there is STYLE (and aesthetics). I am a professional tubist, for example. There is one, and only one, correct and proper way to physically play the tuba. This is CRAFT. That is not up for debate. However, when myself, or Gene Pokorny, or Warren Deck, are to perform the tuba solo from Mahler’s First, we can STYLE the music aesthetically different to suit our own (or the conductor’s) purpose. And that IS up for debate, and is open to make people feel however you want, like or dislike. But we all go by the same principles of CRAFT. Same with singers, etc. What have you. This goes for composition too.


I don't think I'm confusing the two at all, and I'm certainly not sure how you got from that bit of my post you quoted that I'm mixing them up. I generally agree with the distinction you make between craft and style, though when you describe the way of playing a Tuba I'd be more inclined to label that technique than craft, but that's a minor point. I'm also not sure how this relates to composition since the end-goal of composition is, by whatever craft or technique, to make music that people judge as aesthetically valuable, and history has shown there are millions of different forms of craft and techniques capable of generating even more aesthetic styles that people respond to as being aesthetically valuable; and the value of any craft or technique producing any aesthetic is only valid within the group of the people that value that aesthetic. To make a concrete example, the technique and craft of singing is very different in opera than it is in most other genres whose aesthetic goals are different from those of opera. 



Torkelburger said:


> If they know absolutely nothing about the CRAFT of composition, then their opinion of it means absolutely nothing. Nada. They can’t even give an opinion about it, so it doesn’t matter anyway. If the style or aesthetics doesn’t move them, fine. Experts who judge music, judge it by the objective standards involving craftmanship. I, myself may not like a certain composer or composition by a certain composer because I do not like its style or aesthetics, but that does not mean I do not recognize its merits in craftmanship that I can objectively see are there and are recognized by others, many of whom are more informed on such matters than myself.


Their opinion might not mean anything as it relates to the craft, but it means plenty as it relates to how the aesthetics of that craft affect someone who is ignorant of that craft. Before you say this is meaningless too, please consider that most all music and all art are not created by professionals for other professionals, but by professionals for a laymen audience. The notion that laymen's opinions don't count is contradicted by the fact of whom the vast majority of artists have always created art for, including most of the great composers. I also reject the idea that musicians objectively judge music by "standards of craftsmanship," as if they aren't biased and possess personal aesthetic tastes like everyone else. Musicians may incorporate concerns of craft into their judgment in a way that laymen audience's don't, but to act as if that's all they care about in terms of aesthetic evaluations is simply false. Also, even the choice of choosing to judge music (or any art) on "the standards of craft" is a subjective choice, as is the choice of WHICH standards of craft to choose, as if there was only one. 



Torkelburger said:


> Originally posted by Eva Yojimbo:--"The simple response is thus: if the argument is that music is one of the arts that is capable of bypassing our intellectual barriers and reaching straight into and affecting our emotions and aesthetic responses then any music that's capable of doing that should be able to do that for anyone regardless of their knowledge or ignorance of any of the music's technical qualities."
> 
> The thing is though, which you should recognize, is that many people find music which is intellectual, logical, and intelligently written makes them happy and will get an emotional response from those features.


I agree. 



Torkelburger said:


> Originally posted by Eva Yojimbo:--"Music is different than literature. All of literature's emotional, dramatic, and aesthetic impact requires as a prerequisite the intellectual understanding of the language it's written in. Music isn't like this. People can delight in sound and patterns of sound and all its aesthetic, dramatic, tonal, etc. potential without understanding one iota of theory."
> 
> Not so fast. Understanding a language and understanding theory are two different things, not interchangeable as you are doing here. Just because someone understands the words of Joyce, does not mean they understand the theory of how Ulysses was written and the merits of its craftmanship. And I highly doubt the native people of Indonesia would get the same emotional, dramatic, and aesthetic impact out of Mozart as they do from gamelan music and vice versa (European vs. gamelan). There is a certain degree of exposure/understanding (given that musical vocabularies often reflect the sounds and patterns of the language of the culture in which it is from) necessary to levels of appreciation.


IIRC, someone else made the comparison of someone judging literature when not understanding the language it was written in, which prompted that response. I agree understanding a language and understanding the craft of literature is also different things, but that wasn't what the post I was responding to was about. I basically agree with what you're saying here.


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## Eva Yojimbo

Strange Magic said:


> IQ as has been pointed out, is another matter entirely, and tells us--as it is so variously defined--very little compared to assessments of general health.


I'm rather ambivalent about IQ. On the one hand, I don't think it captures everything there is to know about intelligence; on the other hand, IQ correlates extremely well with a number of positive life outcomes, including those we generally judge intelligence by: GPA, income, life expectancy, professional aptitude, etc. Using myself as an example, I was apparently weird enough as a child that I was given a variety of tests, including an IQ test, after which my parents started making a big fuss about expecting much from me because of it. I couldn't have been less interested at the time, living as I did in my own imaginative world and only caring about whatever I cared about at time; but in retrospect I have to think my IQ played a big part in why I was able to, for example, pick up the game of poker (and the underlying math/theory) so well and so easily that I was able to make a profession out of it for years. At the time I took for granted that I could very easily mentally process the kind of math the game involves that many others can not. So whether or not IQ captures everything there is to know about intelligence I certainly think it captures something about human cognition that suggests certain people will have a much easier time with a variety of challenges in life that requires rational thought and problem solving to navigate and overcome. I also worry about much of what Jordan Peterson says here about society perhaps becoming too complex for people with low IQs, which amounts to 10% of the population.


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## Strange Magic

*^^^^@Eva Yojimbo: *I can agree with almost all you post here, but my chief concern is that IQ, however defined and tested for, not be used to close doors of possibility to whole swathes of young people. Some just don't test well for several reasons but later can flower into high-achieving adults.


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## annaw

Torkelburger said:


> If they know absolutely nothing about the CRAFT of composition, then their opinion of it means absolutely nothing. Nada. They can’t even give an opinion about it, so it doesn’t matter anyway. If the style or aesthetics doesn’t move them, fine. Experts who judge music, judge it by the objective standards involving craftmanship. I, myself may not like a certain composer or composition by a certain composer because I do not like its style or aesthetics, but that does not mean I do not recognize its merits in craftmanship that I can objectively see are there and are recognized by others, many of whom are more informed on such matters than myself.


I think judging the craftsmanship of music is significantly easier than talking of proper aesthetic judgments (where neither might be subjective contra a widely held opinion). That is simply because we follow certain rules of compositional writing when we make judgments about its craft. Someone might be able to write excellent fugues, and we can recognise that (and an expert might recognise that even better!), but this does not mean that an expert is uninterested in the aesthetics. What is a good fugue worth, if it is not backed up by proper aesthetic choices?

So I think that, ultimately, while you are right that craft can be easily judged, such judgments would be relatively useless when separated from aesthetics. I deeply doubt that experts who judge music do not care for aesthetics. Similarly, an artist might have excellent technical skills of painting but when they use them to paint something disgusting, those skills hardly amount to anything of value. Sure, an expert might recognise those technical skills but I hardly see what help that would be. For this very reason, I also think it's rather questionable to think that an aesthetic judgement of someone who has no knowledge of the craft is useless or means absolutely nothing (it certainly means something!). I mean, useless for what? What is the use even supposed to be? (I don't think we ever think we are doing something particularly useful when we make an aesthetic judgement--rather, we simply express something and that need seems to have to do with human nature, not with anything pragmatic.) An expert opinion about the craft is not going to overturn someone's aesthetic judgment and the latter is, in the end, important.


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## Strange Magic

*^^^^@annaw: *A fine example of the disconnect of craft and esthetic judgement is that of the painter Ingres and several later Academy painters who painted _kitsch _in exquisite detail. There are instances in music of skilled composers also writing boring music--too long, dull, generic, pedestrian, or indecipherable as music.


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## 59540

Strange Magic said:


> *^^^^@annaw: *A fine example of the disconnect of craft and esthetic judgement is that of the painter Ingres and several later Academy painters who painted _kitsch _in exquisite detail. ...


What is "kitsch" and who's judging it? I mean, it's your term. Do you have an objective standard for separating it from "non-kitsch"?


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## Strange Magic

dissident said:


> What is "kitsch" and who's judging it? I mean, it's your term. Do you have an objective standard for separating it from "non-kitsch"?


I will take you seriously upon your presentation of any sort of coherent view of anything.


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## DaveM

Strange Magic said:


> *^^^^@annaw: *A fine example of the disconnect of craft and esthetic judgement is that of the painter Ingres and several later Academy painters who painted _kitsch _in exquisite detail. There are instances in music of skilled composers also writing boring music--too long, dull, generic, pedestrian, or indecipherable as music.


Would be interested to know which composers and works you have in mind. (Serious question.)


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## Strange Magic

DaveM said:


> Would be interested to know which composers and works you have in mind. (Serious question.)


Have you abandoned the other thread? Check my Post #907 there.


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## DaveM

Strange Magic said:


> Have you abandoned the other thread? Check my Post #907 there.


That post doesn’t tell very much.


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## Eva Yojimbo

annaw said:


> I think judging the craftsmanship of music is significantly easier than talking of proper aesthetic judgments (where neither might be subjective contra a widely held opinion). That is simply because we follow certain rules of compositional writing when we make judgments about its craft. Someone might be able to write excellent fugues, and we can recognise that (and an expert might recognise that even better!), but this does not mean that an expert is uninterested in the aesthetics. What is a good fugue worth, if it is not backed up by proper aesthetic choices?
> 
> So I think that, ultimately, while you are right that craft can be easily judged, such judgments would be relatively useless when separated from aesthetics. I deeply doubt that experts who judge music do not care for aesthetics. Similarly, an artist might have excellent technical skills of painting but when they use them to paint something disgusting, those skills hardly amount to anything of value. Sure, an expert might recognise those technical skills but I hardly see what help that would be. For this very reason, I also think it's rather questionable to think that an aesthetic judgement of someone who has no knowledge of the craft is useless or means absolutely nothing (it certainly means something!). I mean, useless for what? What is the use even supposed to be? (I don't think we ever think we are doing something particularly useful when we make an aesthetic judgement--rather, we simply express something and that need seems to have to do with human nature, not with anything pragmatic.) An expert opinion about the craft is not going to overturn someone's aesthetic judgment and the latter is, in the end, important.


This brings to mind a recent video game stream I watched of someone playing Metal Gear Solid for the first time. That game is now over 20 years old but was something of a watershed for the medium when it came out in the late 90s, with its creator (Hideo Kojima) becoming one of the most famous, successful, and, really, first "video game auteurs" in the world. Of course, 20 years is a long time for a fledgling artistic medium to progress, and we now live in a world where video games have the budgets of mainstream blockbuster films and feature major talents in every field (including professional film/stage actors and directors) working on them. Anyway, the point is that the game undoubtedly seems quite cheesy by today's standards: "as if an edgy 14-year old wrote it" was one comment. Someone else commented: "If Kojima took a creative writing class, he'd definitely get some notes." Also, yes; but that made me reflect on the rather absurdity of that statement: why would one of the most successful people in arguably the biggest (in terms of money) creative field today need to "take notes" from any professor? If anything, shouldn't it be the reverse?

I think the thing I took away from that reflection is how easily we get our priorities reversed, where principles of aesthetic craft take priority over the actual results of that craft, as if "good" exists in a bubble of eternal principles as opposed to the proof being in the pudding of what people like. If someone can arise to the top of their profession by breaking every rule of aesthetic "good taste" (good composition, good writing, good directing, etc.), then to me that should provoke us to, at the very least, reconsider our standards for what counts as "good taste" rather than condemning the thing for being in bad taste.


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## Strange Magic

DaveM said:


> That post doesn’t tell very much.


As you know, I very, very rarely disparage the preferences of others. If your intent is to goad me into breaking that rule, it will not be realized. Surely you can think of your own examples where composers have produced works you find unworthy of their craft.


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## DaveM

Strange Magic said:


> As you know, I very, very rarely disparage the preferences of others. If your intent is to goad me into breaking that rule, it will not be realized. Surely you can think of your own examples where composers have produced works you find unworthy of their craft.


Not sure why you would come up with a nefarious motive from a simple question. When it comes to works where composers have ’produced works unworthy of their craft’, I can come up with relatively few. IMO, the quality of output of composers of the CP era was so high that even their lesser works were worth spending some time with.


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## Strange Magic

DaveM said:


> Not sure why you would come up with a nefarious motive from a simple question. When it comes to works where composers have ’produced works unworthy of their craft’, I can come up with relatively few. IMO, the quality of output of composers of the CP era was so high that even their lesser works were worth spending some time with.


Perhaps our standards differ.


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## Barbebleu

Eva Yojimbo said:


> I think the thing I took away from that reflection is how easily we get our priorities reversed, where principles of aesthetic craft take priority over the actual results of that craft, as if "good" exists in a bubble of eternal principles as opposed to the proof being in the pudding of what people like. If someone can arise to the top of their profession by breaking every rule of aesthetic "good taste" (good composition, good writing, good directing, etc.), then to me that should provoke us to, at the very least, reconsider our standards for what counts as "good taste" rather than condemning the thing for being in bad taste.


Perhaps ‘good’ and ‘bad’ taste don’t exist. There is only ‘my’ taste and ‘your’ taste.


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## Forster

Barbebleu said:


> Perhaps ‘good’ and ‘bad’ taste don’t exist. There is only ‘my’ taste and ‘your’ taste.


Yes, and mine is unimpeachably fantastic 😁


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## Strange Magic

*^^^^@Forster: *I am reminded of the old story of the four tailors doing business on the same street in Paris (or anywhere--it doesn't really matter). The first tailor put up a sign saying he was the best tailor in Paris. Spurred on, the 2nd tailor put up his sign, saying he was the best tailor in France. The third, not to be outdone, hung a sign claiming to be the best tailor in the world. But the 4th tailor put up a notice that he was the best tailor on the street.


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