# The question which matters most to me



## DavidMahler (Dec 28, 2009)

Is there such a thing as indisputably great in music? Are there definitive excellencies in music which defy opinion. Can one make the argument without imposing their own opinion that Mozart was a greater musical force than Lady Gaga? 

Can one make the assertion that Beethoven's 9th symphony is a greater masterwork than Mendelssohn's Italian Symphony? Are there ways to prove the value of certain artworks beyond question? If not, do you feel that the public consciousness will be forever changing regarding the greatness in music? Do you think there could be a time in the future when techno music is considered by the musical elite to be a higher musical achievement than any works composed in the 19th Century?


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## Guest (Nov 1, 2011)

You ask a lot of question*s*.

Here are my answers:

No.
No. (This one wasn't punctuated as a question, but it was phrased as one.)
No.

No.
No.
Yes.
No.

The concept of greatness is disputably troublesome. Here's my take on it. Greatness is a value judgment. It is the accumulated opinion of many people, and so powerful is the weight of "many" that I have seen over and over again greatness taken to be a fact. Somehow some special alchemy happens to an opinion if it's shared by enough people. But the concept can never be anything other than judgment. Judgment and fact are two different things. They don't turn into each other under certain circumstances, any more than iron turns into gold under certain circumstances.

But a lot of people have a reverence for the word "fact." Fact has more cachet than opinion. (Think of any conversation you've been in where the terms "objective" and "subjective" were used. Objective is always good, isn't it, and subjective always bad (or at best limited and questionable).) And so a lot of opinions about things are granted the status of fact in order to separate them from other, mere, opinions. Granted by whom? The people who hold them of course.

So that's one troublesome aspect of the concept of greatness.

Another thing that troubles me is utility. What's the use of calling something great? Or of saying that one thing is greater than another? Does one's enjoyment of Mendelssohn's 4th alter according to one's opinion of Beethoven's 9th? They can both produce pleasure in their auditors, can't they? Why not leave it at that? It seems to me that all sorts of other things come into play when we compare them and rank them on a scale of greatness that have nothing to do with musical values and everything to do with status. People who think Beethoven's 9th is greater have obviously better taste in music. Or, people who think Mendelssohn's 4th is greater have obviously more refined perceptions. Both of those conclusions are about people, not the music. What about the music?

But let's go ahead and think about the people for a little longer. Greatness is the accumulated opinion of many people over time. (The so-called "test of time" is nothing of the sort. It's the test of opinion. The process takes time, that's all.) But what about you? What do _you_ think? Do you enjoy this piece? Does your relationship to this piece change if you find out that other people enjoy it, too? Do you like it better if you find out that other people hate it? Or does that make you hate it, too? Greatness, so far as I can see, allows individuals to abdicate any personal responsibility for their own relationship to the music. And it kills any spirit of adventure. How often do you see threads that solicit opinions about this or that piece, all in the service of helping the poster make up his or her mind before ever listening to the piece? Or in the service of helping the poster et cetera after he or she has listened to it but wants his or her opinion validated.

I say give over the notion of greatness and listen to some music. Some of it will please you; some of it won't. Some of what pleases you will horrify others; some of what doesn't please you will please someone else very much. Is that a problem?


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## HarpsichordConcerto (Jan 1, 2010)

DavidMahler said:


> Is there such a thing as indisputably great in music? Are there definitive excellencies in music which defy opinion. Can one make the argument without imposing their own opinion that Mozart was a greater musical force than Lady Gaga?
> 
> Can one make the assertion that Beethoven's 9th symphony is a greater masterwork than Mendelssohn's Italian Symphony? Are there ways to prove the value of certain artworks beyond question? If not, do you feel that the public consciousness will be forever changing regarding the greatness in music? Do you think there could be a time in the future when techno music is considered by the musical elite to be a higher musical achievement than any works composed in the 19th Century?


Unless one has a terribly fragile ego, why does one really care about whether what one listens to now is great or not as considered by history / current tastes? If it just so happens that you enjoy piece X and that many listeners of the past agreed, as do current, then good. And if it doesn't, who really cares (unless you take other folks' opinions way too seriously). If you love Vivaldi's concertos while others might think he wrote repetitively hundres of times, so what? My vew is you ought not to infer other people's opinion about the quality of the music on your own musical tastes / senses of appreciation. Unfortuantely, some folks do and end up taking places like TC way too seriously.

On a personal note, it's fun here at TC / discussion boards to poke fun at weird pieces of crappy fart. But if you're one of the stronger souls here at TC as described by my preceding paragraph, then you won't be loosing sleep over any of it.


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## Dodecaplex (Oct 14, 2011)

Well, but still, compare Beethoven to Lady Gaga. If anyone was to truly sit down and study the works of these two people, wouldn't he reach the objective fact that Beethoven composed music that was superior to Lady Gaga's? After all, the task of analyzing a work by Beethoven would even take a much longer time and you would need to put a much more amount of thought into studying Beethoven's works than you would with Lady Gaga. What does this mean? It means that Beethoven himself also put more thought into creating his masterpieces and could therefore easily be considered greater than Lady Gaga.

And this wouldn't be a matter of opinion, nor would it be about how much you enjoy the works. For instance, I've read many posts where members say they dislike Bach's _Art of Fugue_, yet they acknowledge its greatness. And by greatness, of course, I'm not talking about the "test of time" or the opinions of people or even influence for that matter. Greatness, in this case, would simply be about the amount of intelligence and innovation that would be needed to write such music.

This way, even neglected composers, such as Alkan for instance, could be considered great even though their music didn't appeal to the opinions of people nor did it stand the test of time (unless an Alkan revival occurrs). So, study Alkan, then compare him to Lady Gaga; which one wrote music that was objectively greater? And again, it's not a matter of opinion or a matter of how much one enjoys these works. Like I said, it's simply about the intelligence and innovation that's needed to make such music.

So, in this case, how could greatness _not_ be measured objectly? someguy says it's all just judgment, but what's wrong with judging a work based on its artistic merits? What's wrong with analyzing it and comparing it with other works? Like the member Air said, judgment is only wrong if it becomes nothing but relentless dogma.


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## Guest (Nov 1, 2011)

Dodecaplex said:


> Well, but still, compare Beethoven to Lady Gaga.


Why? Why would one do this?


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## Dodecaplex (Oct 14, 2011)

some guy said:


> Why? Why would one do this?


Why would one not do this?


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## kv466 (May 18, 2011)

Dodecaplex said:


> Why would one not do this?


For the simple and obvious fact that they don't even belong in the same sentence.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

Dodecaplex said:


> Why would one not do this?


Because their music has different goals, a different audience, different aesthetics, different everything. To me it comes down to judging something for what it is. I was listening to some incidental music by Poulenc in my Itunes, I gave it 5 stars. Do I think the Poulenc is right up there with the "greatest" symphonies every written, no, but I gave it 5 stars because it had catchy melodies and it painted a musical scene, which is exactly what incidental music's purpose is. It fulfilled that purpose at a 5 star level to me.

Same with the lady gaga Vs. Beethoven. Lady Gaga's aim in most of her music is to make people dance. So why compare it to pieces that are *meant* to be deeper than that.


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## Aramis (Mar 1, 2009)

Dodecaplex said:


> Why would one not do this?


Because in order to compare those two he would actually have to listen to Lady Gaga.


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## regressivetransphobe (May 16, 2011)

With a little discretion, a person can find a nice middle ground somewhere between total, soulless academic objectivity and nothing having any value at all.


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## HarpsichordConcerto (Jan 1, 2010)

some guy said:


> Why? Why would one do this?


To keep places like TC in business and moderators busy with a job, I guess.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

some guy said:


> You ask a lot of question*s*.
> [... quoted to make the connection]
> I say give over the notion of greatness and listen to some music. Some of it will please you; some of it won't. Some of what pleases you will horrify others; some of what doesn't please you will please someone else very much. Is that a problem?


_some guy_, that is an excellent essay. Thanks for expressing the thing much better than I can (that's how 'the thing' gets into my posts).

"Greatness" actually has a personal aspect - I consider a couple of my brothers to have been great men. That is the teacup version of greatness, and maybe the only solid one.


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## Dodecaplex (Oct 14, 2011)

violadude said:


> Because their music has different goals, a different audience, different aesthetics, different everything. To me it comes down to judging something for what it is. I was listening to some incidental music by Poulenc in my Itunes, I gave it 5 stars. Do I think the Poulenc is right up there with the "greatest" symphonies every written, no, but I gave it 5 stars because it had catchy melodies and it painted a musical scene, which is exactly what incidental music's purpose is. It fulfilled that purpose at a 5 star level to me.
> 
> Same with the lady gaga Vs. Beethoven. Lady Gaga's aim in most of her music is to make people dance. So why compare it to pieces that are *meant* to be deeper than that.


My point here is that when comparing a piece of music to another, we should only judge it based on the score itself and nothing else. It doesn't matter what the specific intention of the music was because in the end, it all falls under the same all-encompassing category that I call music. That is my reasoning behind that statement.


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

some guy said:


> Another thing that troubles me is utility. What's the use of calling something great? Or of saying that one thing is greater than another?
> 
> I say give over the notion of greatness and listen to some music. Some of it will please you; some of it won't. Some of what pleases you will horrify others; some of what doesn't please you will please someone else very much. Is that a problem?


The concept of greatness matters a great deal. Consider supply and demand. What is agreed to be great music by great composers enjoys hundreds of performances per year in many different countries, what is not considered to be great rarely gets played and may be forgotten entirely. Suppose you enjoy Salieri more than Mozart, well tough luck for you, your local philharmonic only plays Mozart. I enjoy Wagner. If future generations fail to appreciate Wagner, that means less Wagner for me to enjoy. Hence identifying great music and proselytizing is not purposeless.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Comparisons have to make sense. It's better if they're within the same genre, era, style, etc. Comparing Mozart to Lady Gaga is like comparing the horse and cart to a modern automobile.

I agree fully with violadude that different types of music have different purposes. There's little use in comparing modern dance music or pop music with something like an opera or instrumental piece from a hundred or two hundred years ago.

I listen to a variety of music, because I like variety. I think a lot of our current non-classical musicians are very good. It's the same with them as with the classical composers, once they're dead, they begin to be immortalised. Nobody questions the "greatness" of Elvis Presley or Buddy Holly (or maybe even Kurt Cobain, the recent 20th anniversary of Nirvana's seminal _Nevermind_ album getting some exposure here) same as they don't question the "greatness" of the "great" classical composers who we all know and love. Once you're dead & your name gets set in stone, or you're put on a postage stamp or even on national currency, that's it, you're immortal, you're "great"...


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## Guest (Nov 2, 2011)

Couchie, you bring up what I would think is another reason "greatness" is to be deprecated, the fewness of those who can be considered great and the self-perpetuating quality of the whole situation. Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, Mozart. World without end, amen.

Fortunately, there are plenty of proselytizers, at least in the recording industry. The concert industry lags behind. Music directors are too scared of "the audience" to depart too far from Bach, Beethoven, Mozart. A little bit. Maybe some Dvorak now and again. Some Stravinsky, even, for spice. 

I agree that if one wants recordings of one's favorites, one should be public about one's enthusiasms, but I don't see that one has to fall back on the notion of greatness to do so. Speaking of which, does anyone know if any American orchestra has ever played even one little piece by the soon to be 76 year old Helmut Lachenmann. Wildly inventive and sonically fantastic instrumental writing. Very well known in Europe and even played live there from time to time. Known here by a few folks, who know him only through recordings--even I, with my travelling to Europe two or three times a year, have rarely heard his music live, and then only chamber works. Fortunately, those chamber works are to die for.

Is he greater than Beethoven, or Wagner, or Bach? That question doesn't make any sense to me. He's Lachenmann. And Lachenmann, sui generis, is someone I listen to a lot, with great pleasure.


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## regressivetransphobe (May 16, 2011)

Sid James said:


> (or maybe even Kurt Cobain, the recent 20th anniversary of Nirvana's seminal _Nevermind_ album getting some exposure here)


Just because there's a sucker born every minute. Kurt Cobain dumbed down what bands like Black Flag and Flipper were doing, removed the challenging song structures and meaningful lyrics, and made it digestible to the average American consumer. _Nevermind_ may have sold a zillion copies, but it isn't worth a flea on a dead dog's ****.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

I've listened to some of Lachenmann's music on youtube. I enjoyed what I'd heard. Here he is a "composer's composer" - those in the industry know about him or know some of his music, but listeners, esp. of the generalist type do not. That's actually similar to a lot of composers, eg. Varese, whose music is rarely put on due to the vast resources it requires. But this is changing, this year there have been performances here of the music of Xenakis and Harry Partch.

People who deprecate these composers do so at their peril. Eg. J.S. Bach's music, in it's more "authentic" form, was largely unknown to the majority of the listening audience until fairly recently, until then he was only known & really valued by insiders. Liszt was mainly known for his piano playing and Mahler known for his conducting during their lifetimes, not the music they'd composed. These kinds of examples abound in the history of music because these things are all quite fluid and depend on many seemingly unrelated things. Eg. would Mahler have known that the birth of the long playing vinyl record would usher in the dissemination of his music? Would J.S. Bach had known that "conservatives" wishing to re-establish classical traditions - like esp. Mendelssohn and also Saint-Saens - would work towards resurrecting his music? What about the correspondence of the rise of neo-classicism after World War One and the new appreciation of J.S. Bach, esp. when at that time people playing his music in public for the first time in ages like Wanda Landowska and Pablo Casals emerged? What about the emergence of more "authentic" (so-called HIP) playing techniques in more recent decades?

So "greatness" depends on many factors that are often very hard to predict...


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

regressivetransphobe said:


> Just because there's a sucker born every minute. Kurt Cobain dumbed down what bands like Black Flag and Flipper were doing, removed the challenging song structures and meaningful lyrics, and made it digestible to the average American consumer. _Nevermind_ may have sold a zillion copies, but it isn't worth a flea on a dead dog's ****.


Well, maybe there are people out there who question "immortals" like Cobain, which is good, an element of "healthy" scepticism can be a good thing. I don't know the bands you talk about, I can't comment on that. But what you say comes across a bit like what guys like Louis Jordan, the Afro-American R&B legend said about Elvis & the others, that they kind of stole his - eg. the black man's - thunder & watered it down, commercialised it, etc. for the mass white audience. A kind of cultural imperialism if you like, in some ways. In this sense, there is a difference between the "legends" and those who we label as "great" or "immortal." Eg. late Beethoven, Liszt, Berlioz were all using what amounted to leitmotifs way before Wagner but he kind of got all the credit for doing it in a way to make the biggest impact, eg. operas on steroids. So maybe bigger is better, although many would deny this, this is EXACTLY how they think...


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

DavidMahler said:


> Is there such a thing as indisputably great in music? Are there definitive excellencies in music which defy opinion.


Yes, virtuosity for example. I also think we can measure influence somewhat objectively, and that could at least be considered a form of "greatness."



DavidMahler said:


> Can one make the argument without imposing their own opinion that Mozart was a greater musical force than Lady Gaga?
> 
> Can one make the assertion that Beethoven's 9th symphony is a greater masterwork than Mendelssohn's Italian Symphony? Are there ways to prove the value of certain artworks beyond question?


Yes, in terms of influence.



DavidMahler said:


> If not, do you feel that the public consciousness will be forever changing regarding the greatness in music?


IDK about "If not" but the answer to this question is obviously so.



DavidMahler said:


> Do you think there could be a time in the future when techno music is considered by the musical elite to be a higher musical achievement than any works composed in the 19th Century?


That would surprise me. But it's not fair to measure a whole genre against individual works; techno music surely has and will have its masterpieces, and some of them will ascend in status, maybe even to surpass all 19th century works. But some 19th century works will surely remain more widely admired than most techno works.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Dodecaplex said:


> My point here is that when comparing a piece of music to another, we should only judge it based on the score itself and nothing else. It doesn't matter what the specific intention of the music was because in the end,* it all falls under the same all-encompassing category that I call music*. That is my reasoning behind that statement.


that's exactly what i think.


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## hocket (Feb 21, 2010)

Dodecaplex said:


> It means that Beethoven himself also put more thought into creating his masterpieces and could therefore easily be considered greater than Lady Gaga.
> 
> And this wouldn't be a matter of opinion, nor would it be about how much you enjoy the works.


I couldn't disagreee more. Greater sophistication doesn't equal better it just means more complex. If there is a simpler way of achieving something it might well be argued that it is 'better' than a more complex approach. It is one of the most basic principles of aesthetics that the product is what is important not the process of production. As such it is within the bounds of possibility that 'art' as powerful as the most sophisticated work could actually be created entirely by accident.

Functionality is very important in modern times as traditional aesthetics, whether rightly or wrongly, have been judged insufficient; and saying that one function is more valid than another is unsupportable (leaving aside the comments about dance that sound like the gooseberry who wasn't invited to the ball). Did Marcel Duchamp completely pass you by? I certainly understand the frustration with the 'all opinions are valid' approach as it encourages intellectual laziness, but in the broadest terms it is inescapable . If you agree to terms and just discuss aesthetics it is possible to judge, within reason and certainly not beyond debate, that someone is better at performing a particular task or function; however, ascribing 'greatness' as some kind of immutable quality is an absurdity. It's an adjective, a descriptive term, an expression of admiration -not an actual quality but a term that tells you at least as much about the speaker as it does of the subject. It tells you what qualities the speaker places greater value on.

What you should really ask yourself is why this is so important to you. It sounds as if you are engaging in a form of idolatry. These people aren't Olympians. As others have said, you should probably focus more on the music and stop ascribing its power to the dead craftsmen who created it. Ever hear of the pathetic fallacy?


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

hocket said:


> Greater sophistication doesn't equal better it just means more complex.


that's true. The problem is, if Lady Gaga with her simplicity is particularly significant in some way. I don't think so. Even in popular music, there are tons of better musicians than her. One thing is to say that there are margins for taste, another is to say that all is at the same artistic level and that there are no differences.


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## jhar26 (Jul 6, 2008)

norman bates said:


> that's true. The problem is, if Lady Gaga with her simplicity is particularly significant in some way. I don't think so. Even in popular music, there are tons of better musicians than her. One thing is to say that there are margins for taste, another is to say that all is at the same artistic level and that there are no differences.


Lady Gaga isn't exclusively about the music. It's at just as much about the creation of the Lady Gaga persona. Much of the creative process (be it from herself or 'her team') has gone into that and I guess that one could say that Lady Gaga herself is the work of art with the music being just one (albeit important) element of the total package. The same is true for Michael Jackson and even Bjork, although I find both of those two more interesting 'works of art' and their music superior to Lady Gaga's.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

jhar26 said:


> Lady Gaga isn't exclusively about the music. It's at just as much about the creation of the Lady Gaga persona.


I know, and she's is very banal even in that (she's a clone of Raffaella Carrà, a trash italian pop singer). It's all about weird costumes, nothing particularly original, and nothing particularly impressive. There's nothing under that. The residents are a group that is interesting not just for the music but also for their image, because there's a meaning. Same for Sun Ra. Not lady gaga. Lady Gaga is just marketing and appearance.


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## Lukecash12 (Sep 21, 2009)

violadude said:


> Because their music has different goals, a different audience, different aesthetics, different everything. To me it comes down to judging something for what it is. I was listening to some incidental music by Poulenc in my Itunes, I gave it 5 stars. Do I think the Poulenc is right up there with the "greatest" symphonies every written, no, but I gave it 5 stars because it had catchy melodies and it painted a musical scene, which is exactly what incidental music's purpose is. It fulfilled that purpose at a 5 star level to me.
> 
> Same with the lady gaga Vs. Beethoven. Lady Gaga's aim in most of her music is to make people dance. So why compare it to pieces that are *meant* to be deeper than that.


It would make more sense if everyone mentioned the elephant in the room and admitted that they feel like they are trapped in a cage full of monkeys.

My guess at the mind of an archetypal objector to "lesser" forms of music: "There's a philosophical objection being held here against intellectual hubris. We don't enjoy the idea that people think irreverent, stagnant, and possibly destructive thoughts so often, and we enjoy it less that they make music supporting a commercialized version of this mediocrity and disingenuous thinking, right? We either object to the music and it's listeners because we really don't align with it's intentions, or we object because it is somewhat distressing to see that many people who aren't morons spend idle time on this music out of habit and for diverse forms of entertainment."

Am I somewhat of a person who objects like that? Probably. But I'm not overly worried about it. A more important and fulfilling concern is simply educating people and learning from them. It does more good than complaining and letting everyone know the judgments I've made. Just compare in your head a good-natured conversation about some subject of educational as well as amusement value to trying to explain a relatively complicated judgment you've made that doesn't sound favorable to the average joe.


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## DavidMahler (Dec 28, 2009)

To add to the lady gaga crap I started, lemme propose this idea that if you took 1 million people at random throughout the world right now and allowed them to sample 3 minutes of Beethoven's Eroica and then 3 minutes of a Lady Gaga song, there is a chance, a fair chance that more people would prefer the Lady Gaga excerpt. 

So my question is:

If music is subjective and all people's opinions are equal in the free world, can one make the assertion beyond the shadow of a doubt that Beethoven's Eroica is better or greater than a Lady Gaga song. If so, how can they do this....when right now it may be possible that more people in this world would prefer the Lady Gaga song...

...which leads me to my next consideration.....

Do certain people's opinions have more weight when valuing and critiquing music. If I went to a bar right now and ACDC popped on I'm pretty sure you'd hear the bar start roaring. If the Opening of Cosi fan Tutti popped on you'd hear a lot of angry dudes say "what is this ****?" Then if you asked them who was greater ACDC or Mozart, nobody would say ACDC.....why is this if they clearly love ACDC and don't particularly care to explore Mozart. Do they feel their own opinion is worth less than the critical elite?Some people, as they read this may think I'm speaking out of my ***, but I've done just this. I once, as an experiment had a bar put a Mozart piece on after ACDC, observed the reactions and then asked everyone in the bar much later that night who they thought was greater


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## hocket (Feb 21, 2010)

norman bates said:


> that's true. The problem is, if Lady Gaga with her simplicity is particularly significant in some way. I don't think so. Even in popular music, there are tons of better musicians than her. One thing is to say that there are margins for taste, another is to say that all is at the same artistic level and that there are no differences.


Sure, I think Babyfingers is miles better than Poker Face but the examples are irrelevant. You're not engaging with the concepts I'm afraid. There is no absolute, universal measure of quality. When you say something is good or bad you are placing value on whatever attribute you feel the subject has. That value is not intrinsic, it is perceived. I have no objection to you doing so, indeed in many respects I'd encourage it. I don't mind people saying X is better than Y as in most cases I know what they mean -I just take it as given that they are speaking within the confines of certain boundaries, most often conventional aesthetics. When, as in this thread, someone starts pining for absolute truth and beauty and the universal acceptance of the divine ones I think a bit more academic rigour is appropriate.

*Lukecash12 wrote:*



> It would make more sense if everyone mentioned the elephant in the room and admitted that they feel like they are trapped in a cage full of monkeys.


I don't feel that way, so I guess it's not a problem. I really don't think you should feel trapped as you are actually allowed to say what you like within the bounds of conventional decency - or are you just afraid that you'll lose the argument?

*DavidMahler:*



> If music is subjective and all people's opinions are equal in the free world


Your experiment might be of minor sociological interest but provides no artistic insight whatsoever. You're barking up the wrong tree. You can only ever say something is 'better' within the confines of a group of limited and mutually agreed (tacitly or otherwise) parameters, and even then it's extremely rare for there to be no grounds for debate. Your approach strikes me as being rather narrow minded -you need a broader conceptual scope. Art isn't a democracy but informed opinion can be just as wrong as the uninformed. Worry less about opinions and think more about the nature of the medium -then the futility of this will become clear.

Tell you what, see if you can explain why emotive or intellectually challenging content is of greater value than dance in a way that is not subjective or culture bound. Good luck...


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

hocket said:


> Sure, I think Babyfingers is miles better than Poker Face but the examples are irrelevant. You're not engaging with the concepts I'm afraid. There is no absolute, universal measure of quality. When you say something is good or bad you are placing value on whatever attribute you feel the subject has. That value is not intrinsic, it is perceived.


For me the argument "The beauty is in the eye of the beholder" (that means that beauty simply doesn't really exists) is an excessive simplification, closer to false than truth. Because if this was true, simply a board like Talk classical should not exist. If everyone have different perceptions of any piece of music (or any other aesthetic experience), a place where to ask suggestions to others have no meaning, everyone could seriously say that his farts are better than the art of the fugue.

I think that instead there is a margin for different tastes, because we have different experiences, but i think also that there's a base of objectivity because we are all of the same race, we hear the same range of frequencies, we perceive a minor triad like more sad than a major one, etc. 
And in fact we are all here on a board where people ask to other people for suggestions.


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## DavidMahler (Dec 28, 2009)

hocket said:


> Sure, I think Babyfingers is miles better than Poker Face but the examples are irrelevant. You're not engaging with the concepts I'm afraid. There is no absolute, universal measure of quality. When you say something is good or bad you are placing value on whatever attribute you feel the subject has. That value is not intrinsic, it is perceived. I have no objection to you doing so, indeed in many respects I'd encourage it. I don't mind people saying X is better than Y as in most cases I know what they mean -I just take it as given that they are speaking within the confines of certain boundaries, most often conventional aesthetics. When, as in this thread, someone starts pining for absolute truth and beauty and the universal acceptance of the divine ones I think a bit more academic rigour is appropriate.
> 
> *Lukecash12 wrote:*
> 
> ...


It's not an approach....its meant for discussion purposes.

Do you not find it interesting that...

a group of people could all unanimously dislike a Mozart piece, prefer an AC/DC piece but then when asked who is a greater musician Mozart or AC/DC, no one dare say AC/DC.

I think this says a lot about people's opinions of their own tastes and the respect they may have for the educated elite with regard to art.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

Couchie said:


> The concept of greatness matters a great deal. Consider supply and demand. What is agreed to be great music by great composers enjoys hundreds of performances per year in many different countries, what is not considered to be great rarely gets played and may be forgotten entirely. Suppose you enjoy Salieri more than Mozart, well tough luck for you, your local philharmonic only plays Mozart. I enjoy Wagner. If future generations fail to appreciate Wagner, that means less Wagner for me to enjoy. Hence identifying great music and proselytizing is not purposeless.


Only selfish?


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

I'm interested in listening to music. I'm not really interested in comparisons. In posing the question about Mozart being a greater musical force than Lady Gaga, I must ask to whom? Most pop music fans don't listen to classical music, so these comparisons are irrelevant.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

starthrower said:


> I'm interested in listening to music. I'm not really interested in comparisons. In posing the question about Mozart being a greater musical force than Lady Gaga, I must ask to whom? Most pop music fans don't listen to classical music, so these comparisons are irrelevant.


the only problem of the comparison is that neither Mozart nor Lady Gaga are pieces of music. Maybe a comparison like The jupiter symphony vs Alejandro would be more correct


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## hocket (Feb 21, 2010)

norman bates said:


> For me the argument "The beauty is in the eye of the beholder" (that means that beauty simply doesn't really exists) is an excessive simplification, closer to false than truth.


Well, your dedication to Platonism is charming, but unsupportable. Whilst I broadly agree with your physiological arguments, would this beauty that apparently exists as an individuated thing/force be perceptible to an alien with senses that functiojn in a different way to ours?

In any event it's not the argument I'm making. You are supposing that 'beauty' (whatever that means) is the criterion by which art is judged and yet this is by no means universally agreed. Plenty of people place great value on intellectual content in artworks, for instance. To hardcore Marxists the pre-eminent value in any cultural artifact must be its utility for propaganda. It is you, in a culture bound mentality, placing pre-eminent value upon the idea of beauty. I'm not saying that you are wrong to do so; but I would suggest that it is completely unsupportable to claim that someone is wrong when choosing to value some other attribute to a greater degree.

So I'll ask again. Can you make an argument that is neither subjective nor culture bound showing 'beauty' to be a better or more important attribute for a piece of music to have than danceability? If you can't then I'm afraid your argument doesn't have a leg to stand on -it is merely a belief.

*DavidMahler wrote:*



> Do you not find it interesting that...


No. I find it extremely predictable, as I'm sure you did too. So as I said: of minor sociological interest but providing zero in terms of the question this thread addresses. Why don't you answer my question? Why does this 'matter' so much to you? If you can answer that to yourself honestly I think you'll find it a lot more interesting and revelatory.

Deferring to the opinion of the experts when you know little about a subject may or may not be the right decision in any given circumstance but it doesn't change the fact that the experts might well be wrong, and often have been. A brief look at the history of the musical canon should make that self-evident.

I'm sure that I could very easily make a case for AC/DC being better than Mozart. I would simply have to determine beforehand what attributes I am claiming make something good. For such purposes I would naturally choose those features that AC/DC have in abundance and Mozart does not. So if I believe that crashing electric guitar riffs with driving rhythms combined with uninhibited roaring vocals (Bond Scott obviously, not the dreadful Geordie wailer...) are the only criteria for 'greatness' who are you to say that I'm wrong?


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## Guest (Nov 2, 2011)

DavidMahler said:


> If music is subjective and all people's opinions are equal in the free world, can one make the assertion beyond the shadow of a doubt that Beethoven's Eroica is better or greater than a Lady Gaga song.


Why do you need this assertion?

(Music is objective. Our reactions to it are subjective. This whole objective/subjective thing is not really difficult. We only make it so by worshipping "objectivity.")



DavidMahler said:


> Do certain people's opinions have more weight when valuing and critiquing music.


Of course. People who love a particular kind of music, who have immersed themselves in it, who have studied it, will have opinions of greater weight than people who have not. Question remains, are valuing and critiquing all they're cracked up to be? Are valuing and critiquing the inevitable or necessary results of loving and immersing and studying, or are loving and immersing and studying sufficient?


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

hocket said:


> [...]
> It is you, in a culture bound mentality, placing pre-eminent value upon the idea of beauty. I'm not saying that you are wrong to do so; but I would suggest that it is completely unsupportable to claim that someone is wrong when choosing to value some other attribute to a greater degree.
> 
> So I'll ask again. Can you make an argument that is neither subjective nor culture bound showing 'beauty' to be a better or more important attribute for a piece of music to have than danceability? If you can't then I'm afraid your argument doesn't have a leg to stand on -it is merely a belief.
> [...]


Perhaps you need to examine Beauty as a concept, rather than any concrete realization of it. On those terms, in any age, Beauty has been more important than 'danceability' - except perhaps for dancers trying to make a living.

Beauty is in the senses of its recipient; danceability is in the legs of its dancer. Comparing them is approximately as pointless as comparing the musics of Lady Gaga and Mozart. No, more pointless.

:tiphat:


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## Guest (Nov 2, 2011)

Well, I answered a post of David's before going through the rest of the thread, and when I did, I discovered that hocket had already given my answer. I also discovered that hocket had already answered this post of norman's, but since I've put one foot into it, why not finish and put both in?


norman bates said:


> For me the argument "The beauty is in the eye of the beholder" (that means that beauty simply doesn't really exists) is an excessive simplification, closer to false than truth.


The saying that beauty is in the eye of the beholder does not mean that beauty simply doesn't really exist, though. It simply locates the concept in the observer rather than the observed. (I might as well say that for you to say what you just said means that you think that beholders don't really exist.)

But beholders do exist. And so do objects. And I think that it makes more sense to locate beauty neither in the objects nor the observers but in the relationship that happens when the observing is taking place. So I would say that beauty is neither in the object nor the observer but in the action. The word beauty describes something about the action. So if I were to say, for instance, that Lyn Goeringer's music is beautiful and Aramis, for instance, were to say that it is ugly, what we have said is that my experience of Lyn's music was positive and Aramis' was negative.



norman bates said:


> If everyone have different perceptions of any piece of music (or any other aesthetic experience), a place where to ask suggestions to others have no meaning, everyone could seriously say that his farts are better than the art of the fugue.


Everyone does have different perceptions, yes. How you get from that to "suggestions to others have no meaning" or "everyone could seriously say that his farts are better than the art of the fugue" I have no idea. Different does not mean meaningless. It just means different.

I doubt that anyone would seriously argue that his farts are better than _Art of the fugue,_ though I do know that farting is better at relieving gas than _Art of the fugue_ is.

"Better" you see is not a universal quality. Better is a comparison. And comparisons need a context. It seems to me that the root cause of this whole discussion is a desire for contextless comparisons. A desire for generalities that are true no matter what the particulars are.


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## hocket (Feb 21, 2010)

Hilltroll72 said:


> On those terms, in any age, Beauty has been more important than 'danceability' :


I see. By what measurement?

Why are the senses of the recipient more important than the legs of the dancer? I'm sure I could make a reasonable case for dance being far more conducive to procreation than artistic beauty and thus furthers the species and is therefore a far more valid and whorthwhile attribute (presuming that the multiplication of the species is accepted as a good thing of course).



> Comparing them is approximately as pointless as comparing the musics of Lady Gaga and Mozart. No, more pointless.


I did not suggest that there was any point to it (though I'm afraid your sniffy comments about the value of dance could surely only be made by someone who can't). It is simply necessary to prove that one attribute ('beauty' in norman bates's example) is more important than all the others prior to evaluating something on those grounds as being better or greater than something else. If you can't prove that beauty is more important than danceability then something that is less beautiful but is more danceable could be judged as better by someone holding the relevant viewpoint.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

hocket said:


> I see. By what measurement?
> [...]


By my measurement. Your measurement is of minimal interest to me.

ut:

[edit: I was unable to to determine the value of your measurement until you replied to my post. Had I known, I would not have troubled you. I sincerely wish I had not.]


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

hocket said:


> Well, your dedication to Platonism is charming, but unsupportable. Whilst I broadly agree with your physiological arguments, would this beauty that apparently exists as an individuated thing/force be perceptible to an alien with senses that functiojn in a different way to ours?


I don't know, maybe not. It's not our problem, at least for now :lol:
But certainly music elicits emotions there are recognizable by every human. Now i'm not considering experience (that is important), but if a lot of people think that Coltrane's music is spiritual or that Robert Crumb's Black angel is scary, it's a valid argument against the complete subjectivity.



hocket said:


> In any event it's not the argument I'm making. You are supposing that 'beauty' (whatever that means) is the criterion by which art is judged and yet this is by no means universally agreed. Plenty of people place great value on intellectual content in artworks, for instance. To hardcore Marxists the pre-eminent value in any cultural artifact must be its utility for propaganda. It is you, in a culture bound mentality, placing pre-eminent value upon the idea of beauty. I'm not saying that you are wrong to do so; but I would suggest that it is completely unsupportable to claim that someone is wrong when choosing to value some other attribute to a greater degree.


Even if we accept that there are other values in art aside beauty, what other values there are in Lady Gaga's music? She's not original; her "provocations" are incredibly derivative. There's nothing new. 
But she is famous. Is it a value for you?



hocket said:


> So I'll ask again. *Can you make an argument that is neither subjective nor culture bound showing 'beauty' to be a better or more important attribute for a piece of music to have than danceability?* If you can't then I'm afraid your argument doesn't have a leg to stand on -it is merely a belief.


No, i don't! But even in that sense there is a lot of dance music better than her.

@Some guy: i'll reply to your post later


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## Philip (Mar 22, 2011)

DavidMahler said:


> Is there such a thing as indisputably great in music? Are there definitive excellencies in music which defy opinion. Can one make the argument without imposing their own opinion that Mozart was a greater musical force than Lady Gaga?
> 
> Can one make the assertion that Beethoven's 9th symphony is a greater masterwork than Mendelssohn's Italian Symphony? Are there ways to prove the value of certain artworks beyond question? If not, do you feel that the public consciousness will be forever changing regarding the greatness in music? Do you think there could be a time in the future when techno music is considered by the musical elite to be a higher musical achievement than any works composed in the 19th Century?


my question: why exactly is this "the question which matters most" to you?


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## Philip (Mar 22, 2011)

did Mozart sell 10 millions copies of his first record in less than 2 years?
does Mozart have over 15 million (and counting) twitter followers?
does Mozart have an HBO special?

*Lady Gaga > Mozart*


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## DavidMahler (Dec 28, 2009)

It matters very much to me because without the belief that there are non-subjective truths in art, the only determinant of quality is how many people like an/or spend their money on specific art.

Otherwise, there has to be non-subjective truths in art and exploring all the possibilities of these non-subjective aspects is of great interest to me.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

some guy said:


> The saying that beauty is in the eye of the beholder does not mean that beauty simply doesn't really exist, though. It simply locates the concept in the observer rather than the observed. (I might as well say that for you to say what you just said means that you think that beholders don't really exist.)


yes, but as members of the human race we are similar observers. And beauty means something only if it's a shared value, otherwise how can it be recognized as a value?



some guy said:


> But beholders do exist. And so do objects. And I think that it makes more sense to locate beauty neither in the objects nor the observers but in the relationship that happens when the observing is taking place. So I would say that beauty is neither in the object nor the observer but in the action. The word beauty describes something about the action. So if I were to say, for instance, that Lyn Goeringer's music is beautiful and Aramis, for instance, were to say that it is ugly, what we have said is that my experience of Lyn's music was positive and Aramis' was negative.


You have not said enough: in that case would be also interesting to know how much music and what kind of music do you listen and for what music you have "symphaty" in general (because it's more difficult to understand the music of a man that for whatever reason you can't stand), and how much do you have listened to a certain piece. I know people who have listened maybe one piece of classical music and they say that "classical music is boring". The experience of one piece is enough to say that the classical music is boring? I don't think so, and i think it's the same for you.
And even between persons with similar experiences there could be differences, but there are also a lot of affinities.



some guy said:


> Everyone does have different perceptions, yes. How you get from that to "suggestions to others have no meaning" or "everyone could seriously say that his farts are better than the art of the fugue" I have no idea. Different does not mean meaningless. It just means different.


As i've said, i'm not saying that there are not differences. But there's also affinities. Without that, without a little shared idea of what constitute the value of a piece of music (or any work of art) there's no communication (and probably in many cases the abscence of communication is what has determined the disaffection of the public toward a lot of modern art). 
That's the world of total subjectivity, where Lady Gaga's Alejando is a work with the same artistic dignity of the Art of the fugue and everything has the same value, because there's nothing that can be more recognized as a value.


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## regressivetransphobe (May 16, 2011)

> That's the world of total subjectivity, where Lady Gaga's Alejando is a work with the same artistic dignity of the Art of the fugue and everything has the same value, because there's nothing that can be more recognized as a value.


Thank god we don't have to choose between total subjectivity and total objectivity.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

I was reading a book on music of the Classical Era by Melanie Lowe, and in it she talked about intersubjectivity, which is like a combination of subjective and objective factors re appreciating/valuing music. HERE is a thread I created on it earlier, with many quotes explaining her theory.

Basically, I think musical appreciation boils down to commonsense. Also, there are "baseline" opinions, there is consensus. There are also debates about more controversial things, which if well argued and backed up by some form of facts/evidence, can become mainstream/consensus over time.

If the OP wants these questions answered, he will have to answer them himself, & what I've found rewarding is just reading widely about music. I never got through Dr. Lowe's book and I'm thinking of borrowing it again & reading it all the way through. Even her introductory chapter from which I pulled those quotes was pretty fascinating. It sure beats these fallacious comparisons between the musical equivalents of horses and carts with modern automobiles...


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## Aramis (Mar 1, 2009)

The question which matters most to you is worthless because it's absolutely seperated from, shall we say, practical knowledge. When you ask such questions you will find many people to talk, talk and talk about how everything is subjective and you can't prove that X is better than Y, X being regarded artist, Y being low/pop stuff. In the meantime everybody (almost, at least) knows that X is better/more valueable than Y - the whole mystery is as follows: there is obviousness which all people realize but they are not satisfied with knowing it, they want to know how they can prove it and then some of them come to conclusion that this obviousness is untrue and false obviousness. It is a obviousness nevertheless and I'm totally satisfied by knowing that Mozart is something greater than Lady Gaga - I don't need to ask myself "what if I'll meet some crazy pseudo-philosopher finding pleasure in putting everything to question?".


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## HarpsichordConcerto (Jan 1, 2010)

Aramis said:


> The question which matters most to you is worthless because it's absolutely seperated from, shall we say, practical knowledge. When you ask such questions you will find many people to talk, talk and talk about how everything is subjective and you can't prove that X is better than Y, X being regarded artist, Y being low/pop stuff. In the meantime everybody (almost, at least) knows that X is better/more valueable than Y - the whole mystery is as follows: there is obviousness which all people realize but they are not satisfied with knowing it, they want to know how they can prove it and then some of them come to conclusion that this obviousness is untrue and false obviousness. It is a obviousness nevertheless and I'm totally satisfied by knowing that Mozart is something greater than Lady Gaga - I don't need to ask myself "what if I'll meet some crazy pseudo-philosopher finding pleasure in putting everything to question?".


In other words, great music speaks for itself but crap punishes itself. The old rule that never fails.

P.S.
As I wrote though, such discussions are to keep places like TC in business, which is good and super-moderators at jobs to make sure we are good boys and girls.


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## Philip (Mar 22, 2011)

do people talk about lady gaga in classical music forums? yes

do people talk about mozart in lady gaga forums? no

nuff said.


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## hocket (Feb 21, 2010)

norman bates said:


> But certainly music elicits emotions there are recognizable by every human. Now i'm not considering experience (that is important), but if a lot of people think that Coltrane's music is spiritual or that Robert Crumb's Black angel is scary, it's a valid argument against the complete subjectivity.


Actually, I didn't make an argument for total subjectivity (at least not within agreed confines and even then you do have to accept a degree of subjectivity, but hey you can't have everything). Anyway, what you say could be taken as evidence of the possibility of some kind of immutable concept of beauty in the Platonic mould (though it could be viewed just as easily as evidence of precisely the opposite, amongst other things) but it is certainly not proof of it. As such it is certainly not a 'valid argument'. The fact that lots of people believe in God, and many claim that they have felt his presence, is not a valid argument for his existence as there is no tangible proof -it remains a matter of opinion (or faith if you prefer). By contrast, Aristotle and Aquinas's argument for the 'unmoved mover' is a valid argument for God's existence as it is founded on reason -even if I don't agree with it.



> Even if we accept that there are other values in art aside beauty, what other values there are in Lady Gaga's music? She's not original; her "provocations" are incredibly derivative. There's nothing new.
> But she is famous. Is it a value for you?
> No, i don't! But even in that sense there is a lot of dance music better than her.


No argument. By the way, what makes you think that I'm talking about my own values?

*Hilltroll 72,*
Marcel Duchamp was and is one of the most critically admired artists of the 20th century yet his work has pretty much no emotional content and frequently defies any attempt to classify it as in any way beautiful. Is the urinal that he found, signed and placed in an art gallery 'beautiful'? I suspect that the majority of people would say the same about Bach's Art of Fugue -it is neither emotive nor beautiful. Nonetheless many people place great value on it (can't bear it myself, but there you go). Does the fact that I don't like it make it crap? The fact that the case I made might seem absurd to you is irrelevant; I am simply making a point -one which you have been unable to refute. Aramis *knows* that something is better than something else even though he can't prove it. Of course that's total nonsense. If fact I'm sure that he could prove, at least within reason, that a piece by Mozart is superior in many respects to one of Lady Gaga's songs, and given enough material to work with could surely display that Mozart is more skilled in a number of respects and at achieveing various effects than Gaga is. However the limited terms of the evaluation would need to be elucidated for the judgement to be of any worth. It is well within the bounds of possibility that Gaga is better at some things than Mozart and that some of her songs do things that Mozart's don't (for instance, as has been observed Gaga's music is probably better to dance to that Mozart's is). The fact that you, or indeed many people place greater value on a particular attribute such as 'beauty' doesn't make those who place greater value on other aspects wrong -its a value judgement and thereby a choice on your part by necessity.

*DavidMahler wrote:*



> It matters very much to me because without the belief that there are non-subjective truths in art, the only determinant of quality is how many people like an/or spend their money on specific art.
> 
> Otherwise, there has to be non-subjective truths in art and exploring all the possibilities of these non-subjective aspects is of great interest to me.


This is a pretty spectacular logical fallacy. Exactly why is it that if the 'only determinant of quality' is *not* 'how many people like and/or spend their money' on something is it that 'there must be non-subjective truths in art'?

Are there really no other options? Are subjective truths of no value and if so why not? Just why are non-subjective truths so essential. Just why do these 'great' composers need to be universally acknowledged as the best?

If there are no 'non-subjective truths in art' exactly why does people spending their money on something determine quality? Is it like voting and if enough people like Beethoven then he'll get to be President? Is Tchaikovsky a less good composer now than he used to be because he's not as fashionable as he once was? If he becomes more highly regarded again in the future will his music become better? Awesome.

Anyway, your ardent determination to believe in 'non-subjective truths in art', which has been evident in an 'I want to believe' fashion since the beginning of this thread, makes it very clear that you are suffering from the pathetic fallacy. I suggest you look into it or you'll end up trying to live in the Intimations Ode for the rest of your life.

What's most disturbing about your posts is that you seem to be under the impression that the whole point of art is to provide evidence to reinforce the Canon and justify you in your worship of your heroes and their 'genius'. It might be worthwhile re-thinking that...


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

DavidMahler said:


> a group of people could all unanimously dislike a Mozart piece, prefer an AC/DC piece but then when asked who is a greater musician Mozart or AC/DC, no one dare say AC/DC.


I don't know those people. The AC/DC fans I know would certainly not say that Mozart was "greater."


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

norman bates said:


> the only problem of the comparison is that neither Mozart nor Lady Gaga are pieces of music. Maybe a comparison like The jupiter symphony vs Alejandro would be more correct


I'm not a Mozart fan, so I might have to vote for Gaga's music. Heh, heh!!!

I can't blame most folks for enjoying pop music and ignoring the classics.
Mozart and Hadyn bore me to tears.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

I think there is a sense amongst non-classical listeners of respect for classical music. They respect it, but they don't like it more than what they like (be it rock, pop, metal, whatever), or at least not in an especially deep way. I don't know if non-classical listeners would say that Mozart was "greater," but most of them would probably have a good deal of respect for him as well as other classical composers, musicians, etc. A number of people I know do like classical but not as a regular part of their listening diet, eg. they might go to a classical concert once or twice a year, or they might watch a few documentaries on classical music, etc. I like to think they are not against classical music, they are actually for it, but they are not as highly into it compared to what they usually listen to...


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## Guest (Nov 3, 2011)

It would be very nice to have some consensus about what the words "objective" and "subjective" mean, that's for sure.

The idea that "subjective" means "valueless" fair takes my breath away, indeed it does. 

Words like "value" and "evaluate" and "great" and "opinion" all the rest are all on the subjective side of things. Anything that ranks or values. Objective is just facts. The sun is hot. Dogs are mammals. Beethoven was born in Bonn. Even false statements of this sort are classified as "facts." Like "Beethoven was born on December 16, 1770." That's probably true, but possibly false (the two things a "fact" can be). The only fact that can be verified is that he was baptized on the 17th.

A factual statement can be either true (whales are mammals) or false (whales are fish). An opinion can be either valid or invalid; what determines validity is how well an opinion is supported, by facts, by logic, by other opinions (experts in a field concurring kinda thing). An opinion that's merely stated without being supported is invalid.

It's not very difficult or mysterious, but giving up a belief in the natural superiority of "objective" is probably not going to happen. (It might help, though, to stop putting "just" in front of "opinion." That is such a giveaway!)


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

hocket said:


> Actually, I didn't make an argument for total subjectivity (at least not within agreed confines and even then *you do have to accept a degree of subjectivity*


i totally accept it, i only don't accept the notion of total subjectivity (i was not saying that you were talking about your opinion, by the way), like the artistic object has no real aesthetic values (balance, vitality, i don't know) and the emotions caused in the spectator (or listener) are not tied to the object in any way. 
Aesthetic values shared at least from the human point of view, i don't know about your alien 



hocket said:


> The fact that lots of people believe in God, and many claim that they have felt his presence, is not a valid argument for his existence as there is no tangible proof -it remains a matter of opinion (or faith if you prefer).


not a good example for me, you can't have any real proof of god's existence but music is a real object, because the vibration of the air is physics and the reactions of the brain are studied by neuropsychology.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

starthrower said:


> I'm not a Mozart fan, so I might have to vote for Gaga's music. Heh, heh!!!
> 
> I can't blame most folks for enjoying pop music and ignoring the classics.
> Mozart and Hadyn bore me to tears.


I'm not a fan of Mozart either, and if i listen to poker face i don't dislike it. But, i don't know about you but in the case of lady gaga i totally understand it, in the case of Mozart i know that probably i'm missing something. Even because i don't listen to Mozart enough (more than six hundred works, and Haydn by the way has more the hundred symphonies, do you have listened to all?).

To say that one person prefer one thing to another doesn't means that the person in question knows well the objects of his opinions (i have the strong suspect that a lot of times it's true the exact contrary)


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

some guy said:


> It would be very nice to have some consensus about what the words "objective" and "subjective" mean, that's for sure.
> 
> The idea that "subjective" means "valueless" fair takes my breath away, indeed it does.


but it's pure logic: if you have an artistic object and every person have only different reactions about it withouth similarities, it means precisely that the object is totally indifferent and it has no real value.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

norman bates said:


> but it's pure logic: if you have an artistic object and every person have only different reactions about it withouth similarities, it means precisely that the object is totally indifferent and it has no real value.


More like it signifies a basic difference in the understanding of those terms. And what is signified by 'real'. And the 'real' world failures of empiricism and materialism. And how 'pure your 'pure' logic is. And...and...


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## Guest (Nov 3, 2011)

Yes. A consensus on meaning would be really helpful.

I don't think that a word like subjective can be legitimately modified by words like partial or total. My girlfriend is partially pregnant, you know.



norman bates said:


> i... don't accept the notion of total subjectivity..., like the artistic object has no real aesthetic values (balance, vitality, i don't know) and the emotions caused in the spectator (or listener) are not tied to the object in any way.
> Aesthetic values shared at least from the human point of view, i don't know about your alien


To repeat, all values are in the subjective arena. Balance, vitality, the things norman doesn't know, all these things are subjective. To say that subjectivity means no value is to subvert the very meaning of subjective. But "subjective" has for so long been used to mean "bad" (since we all worship the almighty OBJECTIVE), I don't see that subversion going away any time soon. Oh, I'll still do my little part, here!

Anyway, no has said that the emotions caused in the spectator are not tied to the object in any way. In fact, I was at some pains to demonstrate that the relationship between object and observers is important; it is there that I would locate "beauty," for instance.

And humans (and possibly aliens, too) do indeed share many values, just not universally, although some humans desire universality. This remark


norman bates said:


> if you have an artistic object and every person have only different reactions about it withouth similarities


is a perversion of my point. Of course there will always be certain areas of agreement. Agreement about values does not turn the values into facts, however, does not turn subjectivity into objectivity, any more than agreement about facts makes them true. Some people agree that flying saucers are real and that bigfoot exists. The truth or falseness of those facts cannot be verified or validated by those agreements.

(Berlioz took a chorus to certain villages around where he used to live. The villagers were unanimous that they were all nice people but that they couldn't sing in tune. What was the chorus doing? Singing harmony. The villagers only idea of singing was unison singing.)


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

some guy said:


> Yes. A consensus on meaning would be really helpful.
> 
> I don't think that a word like subjective can be legitimately modified by words like partial or total. My girlfriend is partially pregnant, you know.


if we are talking of an argument where there are subjective aspects AND objective aspects, the result is exactly this.



some guy said:


> To repeat, all values are in the subjective arena. Balance, vitality, the things norman doesn't know, all these things are subjective. To say that subjectivity means no value is to subvert the very meaning of subjective. But "subjective" has for so long been used to mean "bad" (since we all worship the almighty OBJECTIVE), I don't see that subversion going away any time soon. Oh, I'll still do my little part, here!


I'm not using the word "subjective" like it's something bad. I'm saying that without the objective part there would be no communication: if an artist made a piece of music trying to get an effect and that effect is interpreted in that way only by him and for all the listeners is something else, all the training and the years spent to be a better artist are a waste of time: you can't simply improve nothing, because everything could be interpreted in every way. This means exactly that every artistic attempt of expression is meaningless. Why try to achieve a greater sophistication and new way of musical expressions when "sophistication" means nothing?



some guy said:


> And humans (and possibly aliens, too) do indeed share many values, just not universally, although some humans desire universality. This remark
> is a perversion of my point. Of course there will always be certain areas of agreement. Agreement about values does not turn the values into facts, however, does not turn subjectivity into objectivity, any more than agreement about facts makes them true.


if two different persons think that All night vigil is a spiritual composition (only hearing it, and without knowing nothing about the intentions of the composer) it means exactly that there is also an objective part, and aesthetic values that are shared at least by persons with a similar culture.



some guy said:


> Some people agree that flying saucers are real and that bigfoot exists. The truth or falseness of those facts cannot be verified or validated by those agreements.


again, totally wrong example: some time ago i've posted a link (in a discussion with you if i remember well) where scientific experiments had proved that a minor chord is perceived as sad by a lot of people. We're not talking of flying saucers or god, we're talking of neuropsychology and physics.



some guy said:


> (Berlioz took a chorus to certain villages around where he used to live. The villagers were unanimous that they were all nice people but that they couldn't sing in tune. What was the chorus doing? Singing harmony. The villagers only idea of singing was unison singing.)


what does this means? Probably with a training the same persons would have learned to sing polyphonic music.


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## hocket (Feb 21, 2010)

norman bates said:


> (i was not saying that you were talking about your opinion, by the way)


Yeah, that remark was aimed more at Hilltroll72. I got the impression that he was struggling to get out of a conventional view of arts and so being unable to understand where I was coming from.



> i only don't accept the notion of total subjectivity... , like the artistic object has no real aesthetic values (balance, vitality, i don't know) and the emotions caused in the spectator (or listener) are not tied to the object in any way.
> Aesthetic values shared at least from the human point of view, i don't know about your alien


Yeah of course a piece of music has objective qualities and, at least for a large proportion of the population, should produce a standardised physiological response. I suspect that shared aesthetic values as a constant is probably going too far. As you say though, and I think this is the most important thing, the concept of 'beauty' is a human perception and response to a variety of stimuli. It is not some fixed universal constant that exists separately and free of human (or other!) perception, something fixed that artists must aspire to, as if it were already present simply waiting to be revealed by the process of carving a sculpture or writing a concerto.

Whilst I would not suggest that there are no such things as good and bad taste, I suspect that a shared aesthetic constant is unrealistic. I think that what we call 'taste' in artistic terms is slightly different to what we call taste in physiological terms such as when someone just finds a particular foodstuff disgusting when most of the population likes it. I think that artistic 'taste' is more a matter of cultural stimuli/development and of experience and sophistication within a particular field in which you can 'learn' to expand your aesthetic horizons. However I think that some people just won't like spinach, some people like to have sex with corpses, and the same is true of aesthetics. I think a more accurate picture of your 'shared aesthetic' would be to imagine it as a venn diagram in which a lot of people's (though not necessarily all) potential aesthetic boundaries partially overlap.



> not a good example for me, you can't have any real proof of god's existence but music is a real object, because the vibration of the air is physics and the reactions of the brain are studied by neuropsychology.


Well, not to get sidetracked, but I wasn't trying to prove or disprove the existence of music but rather I was comparing the process of debating God's existence to debating 'beauty's' existence as a separate, independent 'thing' in neo-Platonic fashion (which is what your earlier post strongly implied, and was quite clearly what DavidMahler was on about). In that sense I think it's an extremely apt comparison as the Romantics widely used the idea of immutable beauty in place of God as the foundation of a belief system. This is why people sometimes get in a sweat about this because they feel their worldview is being threatened and will become chaotic if beauty is not a fundamental, fixed constant.

FWIW I would characterize 'beauty' as a composite concept. It's an emotional/physiological response that is caused in turn by the responses to combinations of a variety of stimuli. Investing it with any more than that is simply wishful thinking, usually caused by the pathetic fallacy.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

hocket said:


> Yeah, that remark was aimed more at Hilltroll72. I got the impression that he was struggling to get out of a conventional view of arts and so being unable to understand where I was coming from.
> [...]
> FWIW I would characterize 'beauty' as a composite concept. It's an emotional/physiological response that is caused in turn by the responses to combinations of a variety of stimuli. Investing it with any more than that is simply wishful thinking, usually caused by the pathetic fallacy.


Wrong impression. "The arts" don't come into it, and I have no struggle with the concept of beauty. Considering the pile of words you use to bury the concept, I have to conclude that it is you who are struggling. When you have 'penetrated' the problem to the level of little switches opening and closing, the old saw about forest and trees becomes applicable.

:devil:


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## hocket (Feb 21, 2010)

Hilltroll72 said:


> Wrong impression. "The arts" don't come into it, and I have no struggle with the concept of beauty.


I didn't say that I thought you had a problem with the concept of beauty. Do try and keep up. I had gotten the impression that your mentality was confined by the limits of conventional aesthetics and that you were therefore struggling to understand that the hypothetical reasoning I was positing for favouring various other values over beauty, or emotional content, or whatever, are perfectly valid choices. Culture has no inherent determinant function, it is only by assigning it one that you can assume some property or other to be its 'true' essence.

Nothing you've said since has led me to think otherwise, indeed quite the contrary. If I have received the wrong impression then by all means elucidate and show me why you think I am wrong rather than just making smug remarks but offering nothing in terms of content.


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## brianwalker (Dec 9, 2011)

The egalitarian strain has deeply penetrated our social consciousness to such a degree that most of those with good taste in the arts now suffer from this neurotic cognitive dissonance with regards to the question of Greatness. 

There is no way to "prove" "indisputably" that Mahler is greater than Lil Wayne. Likewise, there is no way to prove that Heidi Klum is more desirable than a whale, since absolute popularity is pitifully ephemeral. Harold Bloom once said something along that lines that in any given population only the top 2-3%, who constitute the "cognitive elite", have the ability to truly appreciate great, "strong" poetry. I believe that the same is true for music. Most people, even educated in a proper music culture, will prefer pop to Bach or Mozart, as most women would prefer Twilight over Henry James. 

Of course, even in this "elite" community there does not exist "absolute consensus", but the consensus that it has had is good enough to last, and that is proof enough that it is valid. Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, Wagner, etc, have been considered by the musical community as the greatest for some time now, and it hasn't changed.

"Tolstoy was correct to say that certain folk tunes have an ease of expressive access that complex symphonic works do not - and in that sense have a greater universality just on account of their simplicity, in the same way that street signs are more easily read than the novels of Henry James. " - Martha Nussbaum, who by the way, wrote an excellent chapter on Emotions and Music, with a large part focused on Mahler, in Upheavals of Thought, definitely recommended for any fan of Mahler.

Given that absolute music is the least representational of the arts, it is the least susceptible to changes in ideology. 

Sure, the Beatles and Bob Dylan (and Black Sabbath, how could I almost forget) have been popular since their inception, and their popularity has lasted, but they are in no way eternal in the same manner that Bach or Stravinsky is. Their greatness is so inextricably tied up with the sociopolitico-historical significance of the 60s that once the values of the 60s fade, and it will fade, they will be forgotten completely.

" As such, the only nonsocial and authentic criterion for judging these specifically cultural things is their relative permanence and even eventual immortality. Only what will last through the centuries can ultimately claim to be a cultural object. " - Hannah Arendt


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## Guest (Dec 10, 2011)

I completely missed a mistake in norman bates' post on page three of this thread. So with the kind indulgence of the board, I will unmiss it now.


norman bates said:


> [M]usic elicits emotions there are recognizable by every human. Now i'm not considering experience (that is important), but if a lot of people think that Coltrane's music is spiritual or that Robert Crumb's Black angel is scary, it's a valid argument against the complete subjectivity.


It's _George_ Crumb (I can't believe that no one who saw this commented on it--but there it is) and the piece is _Black Angels._ Anyway, that's how important objective fact is, eh?


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

some guy said:


> I completely missed a mistake in norman bates' post on page three of this thread. So with the kind indulgence of the board, I will unmiss it now.It's _George_ Crumb (I can't believe that no one who saw this commented on it--but there it is) and the piece is _Black Angels._ Anyway, that's how important objective fact is, eh?


Oh weird, when I was reading Norman's post my brain automatically substituted Robert for George without telling me. :O


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## kv466 (May 18, 2011)

In response to the OP,...it's all a matter of simple opinion; as with everything and anything.


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## hocket (Feb 21, 2010)

some guy said:


> I completely missed a mistake in norman bates' post on page three of this thread. So with the kind indulgence of the board, I will unmiss it now.It's _George_ Crumb (I can't believe that no one who saw this commented on it--but there it is) and the piece is _Black Angels._ Anyway, that's how important objective fact is, eh?


I just saw the name and presumed he was talking about a comic strip, which seemed pretty cool. Oops.

Brian Walker wrote:



> Sure, the Beatles and Bob Dylan (and Black Sabbath, how could I almost forget) have been popular since their inception, and their popularity has lasted, but they are in no way eternal in the same manner that Bach or Stravinsky is.


That's rather missing the point. The question is whether anything is 'eternal'. A fairly cursory examination of the history of the canon would indicate that it isn't.

Your argument appears to be that 'Some famous smart people have said that only really clever people can appreciate the really good stuff therefore anyone who disagrees with me must just be dumber then me'.

Nice.

The fallaciousness of this argument should be self evident.


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## brianwalker (Dec 9, 2011)

hocket said:


> That's rather missing the point. The question is whether anything is 'eternal'. A fairly cursory examination of the history of the canon would indicate that it isn't.
> 
> Your argument appears to be that 'Some famous smart people have said that only really clever people can appreciate the really good stuff therefore anyone who disagrees with me must just be dumber then me'.
> 
> ...


What the hell is "it" in your first sentence? Homer and Sophocles are more or less eternal, as are the masterpieces of many a great other artists.

"Intelligence is really a kind of taste: taste in ideas." - Susan Sontag, and to that might I add music.

The fact of the matter is that these people aren't just really famous, but also really brilliant. Harold Bloom and Hannah Arendt are towering giants in the literary world, their fame cuts across the various disciplines. To dismiss them as mere "famous people" is impertinent and woefully ignorant. Nothing is self-evident, and you have not made an argument to the contrary. Their opinions means something (or else we wouldn't have entire internet pages devoted to the quotes of famous people), something that takes a bothersome amount of time to fully explain. They have thought more about these questions, and have thought about them more exhaustively, than you and I. To dismiss them as mere assertions is like dismissing Philosophical Investigations because Wittgenstein doesn't "make arguments".

If you are the "scientific" type, here: http://musicthatmakesyoudumb.virgil.gr/

The literary canon is but the old books that the cognitive elite find interesting. They live on because they are championed in universities, mentioned in contemporary books, either in the form of analysis in theory or allusions in fiction. Madame Bovary continues to figure in the popular imagination because among novelists it is just so damn popular. This definition is vulgar but it is true. All the debate over literary merit is uninteresting. Great works of art are axiomatic and shine in their own light.


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## Glissando (Nov 25, 2011)

I get the argument that there can be no finally objective assessment of artistic merit. That's an insight that goes back to Kant, who likened it to the insight that there can be no ultimately objective understanding of the empirical world. Our senses affect every perception of actuality that you could name, and therefore every judgment we make, no matter how well-informed and seasoned we fancy ourselves, is inevitably tainted by an inescapable degree of subjectivity. 

However - given that rendering a final truth about the artistic validity of composers and pop stars is something that only an all-knowing deity could presume to do - I believe that a healthy dose of pragmatism is in order. I mean "pragmatism" in the philosophical sense, to refer to thinkers like William James et al., who accepted for all practical purposes our abilities to make value judgments. In essence, their claim was that this inability to provide a final grounding to our beliefs should not mean that we can't still speak about them along with common points of reference, such as "better than" or "worse than."

With that said, I think it is well within reason to say that Beethoven is a greater composer than Lady Gaga, and that all the folks who prefer her music are either lacking in taste or haven't yet had the good fortune to be exposed to truly great music. Where it gets trickier is when people argue about closer points of distinction - for instance (hypothetically), "Mozart was a better composer than Brahms because Mozart had a preternatural facility such that he could compose masterpieces within the span of days and could remember symphonies note for note years after hearing them, while Brahms was a self-confessed workhorse who labored at times for years over his works." Something like that, I would agree, goes too far in the direction of ascribing artistic merit to aspects of the compositional process that may not necessarily be reflected in the quality of the final product (which was a point made by someone earlier in the thread). As such, I don't spend too much time worrying over whether Brahms was better or worse than Wagner, or Beethoven better or worse than Haydn, etc. The passing of time sifts out the strong composers from the weak, which is not to say that history's verdict is necessarily correct. But the fact that the history books still mention Brahms and Mozart as great composers does reflect the judgment of many, many people over the years who know much more about music than I do. I'm inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt before I decide I don't like a certain composer or piece of music.


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## hocket (Feb 21, 2010)

brianwalker said:


> Homer and Sophocles are more or less eternal, as are the masterpieces of many a great other artists. QUOTE]
> 
> Here's the original question posed in this thread:
> 
> ...


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## brianwalker (Dec 9, 2011)

hocket said:


> brianwalker said:
> 
> 
> > Your reasoning in answering this question appears to be that there is such a thing as being eternally great because some things are eternally great. Can you see the flaw in this approach?
> ...


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## hocket (Feb 21, 2010)

> S/Z is focused on Balzac.


...and Mythologies most famous chapter is on professional wrestling! His most famous cause celebre 'The Death of the Author' has devastating consequences (should you accept its conclusions) for the distinction between high and low culture that you seem to have segued onto -and of course it is Balzac whose role as author that is deconstructed. Umberto Eco has made a career out of blurring the distinction between high and low culture whilst Baudrillard's most celebrated bon mot is that there is nothing more beautiful than the sight of a burning car.



> You haven't made any substantial arguments that art is equal.


...and with good reason. I have never espoused any such notion. If you had actually bothered to read my earlier posts you might know that. I merely criticized your comments because I thought they came across as arrogant and elitist. Can't say that my impression has been much altered.



> Your basic point is that we merely presume that unless Greatness and Timelessness can be proven, we assume otherwise.


Actually I haven't done that, but it is still necessarily the case that the onus of proof must be upon justifying a belief in 'Greatness and Timelessness'.



> My argument is that since neither contentions are provable we should look to the preponderance of evidence to see to which side we should prefer as the default.


I have no problem with evidence, I just don't think that 'because Harold Bloom says so' qualifies.


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