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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?

#381

Post by watwut »

anm89 wrote: post #209
hardwaregeek wrote: post #191

It amazes me when people seem to lack taste. I'm not even saying the ability to rank items in a way that agrees to some general standard. I'm saying the ability to notice that there is even a difference. I'll talk about taste in the literal sense but this extends to everything. I remember being at a Chinese restaurant with some friends where we were eating scallion pancakes. I said, boastfully, that my family makes b…

This always bothers me specifically about music. I don't claim to have some universal say on what is good and bad music, there is tons of music out there which I think is tasteful but I simply don't like. But like 10% of music let's say is absolute garbage, mostly top 40 stuff made from cosntructed bands with some models as front men, written by a team constructed by a label to create the most generically likeable mu…

> written by a team constructed by a label to create the most generically likeable music possible, edited to the point where it doesn't matter that the models are bad singers.

Maybe it is just the case where team of experts created music many people like. People really don't mind generic when serving foods daydreaming or eating. Generic is often better, because it won't break flow of what they are doing.

Re: Is there such a thing as good taste?

#382

Post by deanCommie »

grujicd wrote: post #269
jacobolus wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> friend remarked that he didn't think there was any difference, that indeed all scallion pancakes were exactly alike to him. This is entirely plausible. If you are used to eating some food regularly over the course of decades, you will be able to discriminate between good vs. mediocre versions. If you have only eaten a food a few times, the most relevant comparisons will be with other types of food, and you won’t ne…

Obligatory XKCD: https://xkcd.com/915/

I always felt like that XKCD comic has the opposite message than how a lot of folks I know take it as.

Interpretation/Message A: You can find nuance and subtlety in anything, including Joe Biden photographs. This means that most wine-tasters/foodie snobs/art critics are just grasping at straws, and there is no value in subject pursuits of evaluation of quality whether it be Food or Art.

This is a disappointingly common perspective amongst tech nerds.

Interpretation/Message B: You can find nuance and subtlety in anything, including Joe Biden photographs. This is a testament to the power of the human mind and personality - that we can identify small minute differences in objects, flavours, and creations, and describe them with specificity. There is genuine beauty in the variety in the world and offhand shallow interactions with them do not adequately permit a full appreciation of the wonders of the universe. It's worth taking the time to find an area to gain an in-depth understanding in in, regardless of what anyone thinks. Yes, even Joe Biden photographs, if that's all it would be.

Re: Is there such a thing as good taste?

#384

Post by watwut »

fijiaarone wrote: post #233
msla wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I claimed "there's no accounting for taste" and my father said "that's not true, you can claim Shakespeare isn't good but you're wrong". So Tolstoy was wrong? https://www.orwell.ru/library/essays/lear/english/e_ltf > Tolstoy begins by saying that throughout life Shakespeare has aroused in him ‘an irresistible repulsion and tedium’. Conscious that the opinion of the civilized world is against him, he has made one at…

Tolstoy is free to try and top Shakespeare. To his credit, he tried his best, and did better than most, but didn't come close.

To the extend you can compare such massively different works, Tolstoy is better.

Re: Is there such a thing as good taste?

#385

Post by watwut »

ARandumGuy wrote: post #197
retube wrote: post #8

I don't agree with his argument. I'd argue that it's perfectly possible for something that took huge skill and execution brilliance to create to be ugly / tasteless / vulgar, indeed completely tasteless.

If you want examples, take a look at https://www.reddit.com/r/ATBGE/ (ATBGE stands for Awful Taste but Great Execution). While I think that taste is subjective, it would be difficult to argue that many of these posts were good ideas.

One problem with subs like that is that people tend to really push it. They want to participate, so they desperstely look for badness.

Re: Is there such a thing as good taste?

#386

Post by Lammy »

Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #289
anm89 wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This always bothers me specifically about music. I don't claim to have some universal say on what is good and bad music, there is tons of music out there which I think is tasteful but I simply don't like. But like 10% of music let's say is absolute garbage, mostly top 40 stuff made from cosntructed bands with some models as front men, written by a team constructed by a label to create the most generically likeable mu…

> written by a team constructed by a label to create the most generically likeable music possible A few years ago, a group engineered the most un likeable song ever: https://youtu.be/-gPuH1yeZ08 Featuring bagpipes, a rapping opera singer, country music, and a children's choir singing holiday music that ends with telling you to do your shopping at Wal-mart.

"This announcement from the producers of this record contains important information for radio program directors, and is not for broadcast. The first cut on this record has been cross-format-focused for airplay success. As you well know, a record must break on radio in order to actually provide a living for the artists involved. Up until now, you've had to make these record-breaking decisions on your own, relying only on perplexing intangibilities like 'taste' and 'intuition', but now there's a better way. The cut that follows is the product of newly-developed compositional techniques, based on state-of-the-art marketing analysis technology. This cut has been analytically designed to break on radio."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82fshB1F_tE

Re: Is there such a thing as good taste?

#387

Post by GoblinSlayer »

deanCommie wrote: post #382
grujicd wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obligatory XKCD: https://xkcd.com/915/

I always felt like that XKCD comic has the opposite message than how a lot of folks I know take it as. Interpretation/Message A: You can find nuance and subtlety in anything, including Joe Biden photographs. This means that most wine-tasters/foodie snobs/art critics are just grasping at straws, and there is no value in subject pursuits of evaluation of quality whether it be Food or Art. This is a disappointingly comm…

Message C: there's one true way to grasp at straws.

Re: Is there such a thing as good taste?

#388

Post by jacquesm »

handrous wrote: post #224
motohagiography wrote: post #103

Wrote professionally about taste in a previous life. It is related more closely than we expect to techne or competence from physical knowledge. When we think of poor taste, we tend to think of symbols that are separated from their function and meaning, where instead of representing that, "I do this thing," something gaudy says, "I have this thing!" That's what crassness is, and it comes down to our relative apprehens…

> That's what crassness is, and it comes down to our relative apprehension of the real vs. the represented, where typically, something real is powerful independent of who is observing it, and the representation is not. > That difference between effect and affect is one of the sneakiest bits of the english language and perhaps even the culture's most cunningly set trap. Do not underestimate the value of good taste, it…

This nicely explains overpriced T shirts with the name of some designer on it. It's a T shirt! But it screams 'I could afford to pay too much for this T shirt'.

Re: Is there such a thing as good taste?

#389

Post by ohyeshedid »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #309
zzbzq wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps your friend was signaling a taste you couldn't perceive. For example, I generally look down upon scallion pancakes as a category. Consider an American food analogue. Do I distinguish good and bad grilled cheese? How can I when its identity is that of a basic, unhealthy, cheap, low-class food? If you add more exotic ingredients, it becomes distant from its quintessential identity, so it becomes "good" grilled…

> How can I when its identity is that of a basic, unhealthy, cheap, low-class food That's an assertion, not a self-evident fact. And one that I (and I am certain, many other people) would dispute.

So, then: which one of you has good taste?

Re: Is there such a thing as good taste?

#390

Post by pyrale »

fsloth wrote: post #354
etage3 wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Please, we can discuss art theory without political dimension. Bourdieu discusses this very point in the Preface of The Rules of Art . "(...) countless are those who forbid sociology any profaning contact with the work of art. (...) I would simply ask why so many critics, so many writers, so many philosophers take such satisfaction in professing that the experience of a work of art is ineffable, that it escapes by d…

(The below is with an intent of explaining my view of Paul's essay and is written with the tone of a devil's advocate) Sorry I prefer quoting Feynman - art theory is about as usefull for enjoying and doing art as ornithology is for birds. The original quote was "Philosophy of science is about as useful for science as ornithology is for birds." Note! This does not denigrate the "useless" fields as such - but the point…

> I think the whole point was to point out that some things can be considered rationally better than others

While it's anyone's right to pass their opinion as a fact, it helps little in terms of explaining how different people react to art.

> art theory is about as usefull for enjoying and doing art as ornithology is for birds.

I believe the trouble here is that birds rarely try to pass as ornithologists. Trying to formulate a general theory about what makes art or artistic taste is sociology work, not art.

> some things can be considered rationally better than others

I hope blue is your favorite color, because it's mine; and if it's not yours, you're wrong.

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