The Cybertruck is not brutalist

You'd be surprised.

>and has a subjective opinion on what they find appealing

That's true, but not all "subjective opinions" are equally informed, based on study, and refined/cultivated systematically.

For most, their "subjective opinion" in aesthetic matters is as random as their favorite food.

While "objective" things are clear cut (measurable, quantifiable, 100% not arguable), "subjective" is a scale from "uninformed random preference" (say, a person who likes "Dali" paintings because he's some some in websites and they look cool) to "scholarly expertise" (say, an art curator, that has studied Japanese woodblock for decades with masters of the art).

>but everyone has equal legitimacy in their opinion on this

In the modern world everyone has an equal right to offer their opinion.

That's not the same as the different opinions being equally legitimate (e.g. equally worthy of attention, equally informed, equally productive, equally subtle, etc).

Such matters are not decided by arguments, the same way flat earth society members are not won by arguments (they heard them all anyway).

It's up to each person to make the effort to grow their understanding, which requires study and self-development.

>I think there's a reason why even die-hard Adorno "fans" have given up trying to argue why jazz music is so bad.

Yes, because mediocre commercial art prevailed in the end, and the kind of cultural development of bourgeois society declined.

Ironically for a good while jazz took a different route from the earlier kind of jazz Adorno criticised, much closer to those ideals of art. So it's more like Jazz post-50s went closer to Adorno than the other way around...

That's true, but it's falling into the same problem I was trying to tease out of GP, which is whether an argument can be produced that study and self-development will lead to one appreciating Bach over Harry Potter. We say that spherical earth theories are superior to flat earth ones not because individuals applied study and self-development to their opinions, but because the spherical earth theory is objectively true, it conforms to the generally agreed upon epistemology. The same can't be said about art (as far as I can tell).

Is Bach "better" than Harry Potter because an individual who studies and self-develops will judge it to be so, or do those who study and self-develop judge it to be so because it's objectively better?

Even then, let's take the individuals out of the equation. To a person unacquainted with both Harry Potter and Bach, on what grounds does an aesthetician say that we should assign higher value to Bach?

An historical/statistical argument can surely be made.

You seldom see people who have studied aesthetics, music, literature, etc, preferring Harry Potter over Bach.

You'll see many more who seldom read or only read genre books or only listened to anything than the charts their whole life enjoy Harry Potter over Bach.

>To a person unacquainted with both Harry Potter and Bach, on what grounds does an aesthetician say that we should assign higher value to Bach?

On points related to one being immersed in culture to recognise. E.g. having read enough literature to understand the derivative and trite nature of Harry Potter, and having heard enough music and knowing its history to know about the innovation and coherence of Bach. Asking professional musicans/composers etc to describe the merits of Bach's music wouldn't be bad either.

There's also an element of "if you have to ask, you will never know".

But all this rounds to the same initial question "what is the objective measurement that makes Bach better".

But there is no objective measurement or axiomatic argument.

The scale in aesthetics is one of development and cross-correlation of techniques, ideas and experiences, and one can only understand these is they have the knowledge and have made the connections. Not just for Bach, but for anything in arts.

The same way a 13-year old pop music fan doesn't have the same refinement as a 20-year old music fan, who has studied the genres, their history, interplay, who did what, techniques, cultural impact, etc, and even less than a 30 year old music critic.

Harry Potter fans are more of the 13-year old kind.

Of course this is sacrilege to say in the modern world.

> You should care because (presumably) you don't want to be an ignorant person (as in, lacking knowledge).

Everybody is ignorant about approximately everything. People may find me ignorant because I don't follow some celebrities, sports etc. We need to choose what we educate ourselves on.

To me, it seems like you are making a social proof argument. Other people care about it, so I should care about it too, because otherwise I may be labeled as ignorant. But at the same time, I doubt that this is the kind of argument you want to make. I assume you have some stronger reasons.

I like the monologue of Feynman about Beauty: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRmbwczTC6E

To me, aesthetics is more or less a curiosity. An aspect of our cognition, that is relevant only because it is a result of evolution, some kind of heuristics for dealing with the world. Would you agree with that kind of characterization?