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Is there such a thing as good taste?

paulgraham.com

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Re: Is there such a thing as good taste?

#131

Post by nickelpro »

rp1 wrote: post #120
nickelpro wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The conflation of skill with taste demonstrates exactly why Graham is wrong. There's many widely recognized works of art, by critics of similarly recognized taste, that are far less skillful than what a competent art student can put out today and yet held in higher acclaim. Post-modernism, Dada, and surrealism drove the stake through this point, The Treachery of Images or Fountain (Duchamp) aren't extremely skillful,…

I think you’re taking too narrow a definition of skill. True, drawing a straight line is a skill, but the vision to draw a particular line in an innovative way is also a skill.

And what counts as visionary and what counts as nonsense is entirely subjective. We can judge how straight a line is objectively, but we can't judge "vision" objectively, and thus "taste" is inherently subjective.

That Graham wrote an entire essay rubbing up against this point without once encountering any literature that explains this (seminally Bourdieu, but there are many others) is surprising.

Re: Is there such a thing as good taste?

#132

Post by dwmbt »

beaconstudios wrote: post #121
dwmbt wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i'm not a philosophy nut or anything, but consider looking into empiricism versus rationalism and looking at Paul's writing, or conversations about the objectivity/subjectivity of aesthetics through that lens. Paul lives up to his rational roots here.

PG's essay is awful - I was looking for something with more merit. PG is a logical positivist, which is just a philosophical position - it isn't inherently rational, especially outside the hard sciences.

i agree. personally, i tend to look at the world through something akin to Kant's empirical realism. though it's not epistemology, his work Critique of Judgement is unique in that he directly tackles how "the judgement of taste" (X is beautiful) is reached. i recommend reading critiques on the critique, as this is how i regularly consume philosophy. on that note, i was wondering if you had any recommendations for how to consume philosophy, since it is something of interest to you?

Re: Is there such a thing as good taste?

#133

Post by watwut »

lr4444lr wrote: post #129
watwut wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Select for what? Art students nowdays can create Michealengelo like art. Not just reproduction, but own pieces with same style. They are not admired nor anything like that. Also, I would not picked any of those for living room. Might pick dot for background screen. And this choice have nothing to do with actual value of either.

Art students, yes. But not the average guy off the street as compare to a single dot on a canvas.

Yes and? I honestly don't know what it is supposed to argue.

Re: Is there such a thing as good taste?

#134

Post by lr4444lr »

dfxm12 wrote: post #92
lr4444lr wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it doesn't hold up the other way when you remove one piece. I'd wager most people would select a Michaelangelo replica even if they were directly told it was a replica than the dot on the canvas if told it was a replica of whatever artist made it.

If this is true, I would bet it has more to do with metadata of the art rather than the art itself. Taste might not even enter the equation. The Michelangelo piece has many things going for it before you even get to the art itself: Painter's name value, importance to a Catholics (and probably other Christians, too), the original is a larger part of pop culture, the original is hung in a more iconic building, the impo…

Fair challenge. But go to a totally different culture where no one has heard of either of the two artists or at least produce a replica of a very obscure work from each of them and ask the unknowing, uneducated person would rather have hanging on their wall for their equally ignorant friends to come and see. I have a really tough time believing that even an African bushman living as a hunter gatherer would rather have an abstract paint spatter to a figured scene with complex light and composition. The difference in the skilled labor is compellingly hard to ignore.

Re: Is there such a thing as good taste?

#135

Post by watwut »

ryanSrich wrote: post #125
watwut wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How? The kid will like the one painting targeted at kids and that is it. Also, kids are exactly the demographics super susceptible to claim liking or disliking things based on what their friends say about them.

That doesn’t make sense. Show a kid 2 paintings they’ve never seen before. Show it to them in isolation. Guess which one they pick?

How would that prove there is no sociological aspect? Or that people don't use taste as in-group signaling?

Re: Is there such a thing as good taste?

#136

Post by beaconstudios »

dwmbt wrote: post #132
beaconstudios wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PG's essay is awful - I was looking for something with more merit. PG is a logical positivist, which is just a philosophical position - it isn't inherently rational, especially outside the hard sciences.

i agree. personally, i tend to look at the world through something akin to Kant's empirical realism. though it's not epistemology, his work Critique of Judgement is unique in that he directly tackles how "the judgement of taste" (X is beautiful) is reached. i recommend reading critiques on the critique, as this is how i regularly consume philosophy. on that note, i was wondering if you had any recommendations for how…

I have to be honest, it's something I struggle with too - especially as the postmodernists are known to be quite difficult to read. I tend to start with secondary sources (books about a field, essays from academics, even YouTube video essays) to understand a philosopher's broader contentions and positions and the vocabulary that they have inevitably invented, then go back and read the primary source with that initial knowledge in mind.

Re: Is there such a thing as good taste?

#137

Post by lr4444lr »

watwut wrote: post #108
lr4444lr wrote: post #2

I don't get into these kinds of discussions with people anymore, because they're not socially palatable. I try to stay open minded too about perspectives that are not mine, and try to be objective about my own biases. But I can't shake the feeling that much as someone might validly prefer some abstract dot on a white canvas to the Sistine Chapel ceiling, who would more likely impress the fans of the other, that artis…

> But I can't shake the feeling that much as someone might validly prefer some abstract dot on a white canvas to the Sistine Chapel ceiling, That is straw position. > who would more likely impress the fans of the other, that artist trying to reproduce Michaelangelo's work or vice versa? There are many artist capable to reproduce Michaelangelo's work. They are not impressing people who admire Michaelangelo or classica…

You're missing my point: it isn't that Michaelangelo himself is unsurpassable. It's that his style insofar as it's appreciated for its quality cannot be reproduced in a convincing way to people with an eye for that without some much higher minimum skill as opposed to the minimum level it takes to impress a connoisseur of abstract art with the painter's alleged talent. At least, this is my unshakable feeling.

Re: Is there such a thing as good taste?

#139

Post by guerrilla »

> If there's no such thing as good taste, then there's no such thing as good art.

No problem.

> So if you want to discard the concept of good taste, you also have to discard the concept of good art. And that means you have to discard the possibility of people being good at making it.

This skips a step. It assumes without argument that production skill corresponds to subjective preferences. There are many people who are extremely skilled who produce things people hate and there are many productions which take virtually no effort which people love. Again, good blahblah is just consensus of subjective preferences. The whole article is just a disguised appeal to popularity fallacy that depends on confounding skill and value through equivocation on "good."

Re: Is there such a thing as good taste?

#140

Post by nepeckman »

ryanSrich wrote: post #125
watwut wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How? The kid will like the one painting targeted at kids and that is it. Also, kids are exactly the demographics super susceptible to claim liking or disliking things based on what their friends say about them.

That doesn’t make sense. Show a kid 2 paintings they’ve never seen before. Show it to them in isolation. Guess which one they pick?

I'm almost positive most kids would pick a Lisa Frank piece over the Mona Lisa. Are you trying to make the point that bright colors, rainbows, and unicorns are the highest form of art?
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