Is there such a thing as good taste? • Hacker News Board

Re: Is there such a thing as good taste?

#141

Post by rossdavidh » Mon, Nov 15, 2021, 4:03 PM UTC

If PG's arguments were true, then a lot of people whose taste seemed to be quite good, were completely wrong about the Impressionists when they first appeared on the scene. Ditto almost every other new art school. So no one prior to that had good taste? You take a time machine to the century prior to Van Gogh's life, and you might not find anyone in Europe who thought his paintings were good if you showed them what they looked like. So no one in Europe had good taste then?

Nonsense. One can have "refined taste", which means that you can detect all the subtleties of a particular kind of art (e.g. modern abstract art, or modern jazz) that I cannot. My taste in other fields is considerably more refined than the person who likes modern jazz and abstract art; perhaps they cannot stand any science fiction, whereas I have strong opinions about which is good and which is not.

The phrase "good taste" implies there is one standard, one dimension on which one can rate art, but clearly there are many different ones, depending on ones tastes.

Re: Is there such a thing as good taste?

#142

Post by not_fin_advice » Mon, Nov 15, 2021, 4:04 PM UTC

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…

> pitting a group of PhD physicists vs. French lit. PhDs in a contest to reproduce each other's work better - whom would you bet on?

I know that Thiel is clearly trying to get the audience to go "oh wow, physics is harder than lit!"

But strangely enough this runs counter to my personal experience. While not physics in particular, I know far more lit/classics/humanities people doing advanced/research work in technical areas than I do technically trained people excelling in anything humanities related.

My experience has also been that most physicists, when confronted with challenging French critical theory, simply dismiss it as nonsense rather than taking any time to understand it. I have met far more people who were trained on reading Derrida who can converse casually about advanced calculus topics than the reverse.

Additionally I find something like Lagrangian mechanics to take far less time to under stand than not just learning French, but learning French well enough to engage deeply with texts and theory spanning a fairly broad period of history.

As to your question:

> Sistine Chapel ceiling, who would more likely impress the fans of the other, that artist trying to reproduce Michaelangelo's work or vice versa?

That's a combination of a straw man and a false equivalency. First the "dot on a white canvas" represents a very, very narrow part of a very specific field of Modern art which the vast majority of trained academic artists and theorists will agree is not particularly their taste. There's plenty of niche physicists doing work that most physicists find questionable. A better example of postmodern art is Pulp Fiction, and I think if you polled the general public on whether or not they wanted to see the Sistine chapter or watch Pulp Fiction you'd find a bigger split, and likewise each artist would have an equally hard time.

The false equivalency is that you're comparing Michelangelo to some imagined Modernist painting that I'm guessing you don't have a name for. This is a bit like comparing Einstein to an imaginary string theorist a liberal arts college.

Re: Is there such a thing as good taste?

#143

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Nov 15, 2021, 4:05 PM UTC

codeulike wrote: post #56

mojuba wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Social signals exist, no doubt about it, but that doesn't explain a lot. Let's say you are in a museum alone, some of the works presented can resonate and excite you more than the others, but you can't share your excitement with anyone. Where is the social signaling element gone then?

Social signals aren't real-time light-beams that someone has to be there to witness; they make up our likes and interests and who we are. Let's say you are in a museum alone, some of the works presented can resonate and excite you more than the others, but you can't share your excitement with anyone. Where is the social signaling element gone then? Lets say: Two months later I'll be at a dinner party and over a bowl…

[deleted]

Re: Is there such a thing as good taste?

#144

Post by watwut » Mon, Nov 15, 2021, 4:06 PM UTC

lr4444lr wrote: post #137

watwut wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

But that is not the same thing as "validly prefering". The "how much skill and effort it takes to reproduce it" is completely different criteri then "which one do you prefer".

Re: Is there such a thing as good taste?

#145

Post by tartoran » Mon, Nov 15, 2021, 4:07 PM UTC

sombremesa wrote: post #106

andi999 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Next thing you want to tell me is that wine doesn't really taste good? (the high quality wine of course)

Who determines that the wine is high quality? You’ve already established taste there, regardless of the wine’s taste.

At least ones that give you headaches could arguably be placed in the lower quality bucket? Or the ones that taste like vinnegar? But once the low hanging fruit is done with it becomes a subjective experience and the price becomes the differentiator.

Re: Is there such a thing as good taste?

#146

Post by CyberRabbi » Mon, Nov 15, 2021, 4:07 PM UTC

jackcosgrove wrote: post #90

CyberRabbi wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While you claim to oppose the postmodern idea that there is no truth, you’ve ceded the premise to the postmodernists by framing truth in their terms of objectivity and subjectivity. The success of the postmodernists was precisely to discredit all “subjective” truths by way of distinguishing them from “objective” truths, which no common person can deny. A stronger position is one that does not require the truth to be…

I'm curious do you believe abstract truths are immanent or transcendent?

If by that you are asking whether abstract truths dwell purely in the minds of humans (or otherwise) or exist in some external “realm of ideas” to which minds must be connected, then I don’t have a position on that because I see it as a meaningless distinction. I don’t see a meaningful difference between the two possibilities from my perspective, the result would be the same.

Re: Is there such a thing as good taste?

#147

Post by dagw » Mon, Nov 15, 2021, 4:08 PM UTC

lr4444lr wrote: post #134

dfxm12 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 hav…

uneducated person would rather have hanging on their wall for their equally ignorant friends to come and see.

But now we are no longer talking about them as art, but as interior design and decoration.

Re: Is there such a thing as good taste?

#148

Post by SilasX » Mon, Nov 15, 2021, 4:09 PM UTC

long_time_gone wrote: post #79

SilasX wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Anything recognizable as a Michelangelo will automatically win just because he's Michelangelo. It wins because it’s good work, not because it’s Michelangelo. A Michelangelo work will win even when the viewer doesn’t know it’s Michelangelo or even who that is. That the point: people will appreciate it without having to be told “oh this is the high-status guy, you’re supposed to like it”, “only the high-status people…

> A Michelangelo work will win even when the viewer doesn’t know it’s Michelangelo or even who that is. This seems like a big assumption. Is there a study that tests this idea?

Why is it a big assumption that most people don't need to know "This is by Michelangelo and he is a high status artist" to enjoy the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel (or whatever else)?

If you're going to demand copious evidence solely of the hypotheses you don't like, you're going to be locked into confirmation bias.

But yes, there are easy tests you could do: get the ratios of "can't identify who made this" to "I like this" for visitors to Michaelangelo (or any still-displayed Renaissance artist, really) vs random high-status super-edgy modern.

Re: Is there such a thing as good taste?

#149

Post by watwut » Mon, Nov 15, 2021, 4:10 PM UTC

nepeckman wrote: post #140

ryanSrich wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

To be fair, Mona Lisa as general go to example of bestest painting is on itself a proof that taste is socially constructed.

Re: Is there such a thing as good taste?

#150

Post by dagw » Mon, Nov 15, 2021, 4:10 PM UTC

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.

No one is arguing the Michelangelo wasn't a fantastic and talented craftsman, far more so than our made up modern artist. Everybody agrees that to do what he did takes decades of practice and schooling.

But equally, that is not what made Michelangelo a great artist. There where dozens of extremely technically skilled painters that lived around the same time, none of whom most people have heard of. So if you want to argue for Michelangelo as a great artists, you cannot simply say "well he was very good at painting and made pretty pictures". Lots of people did that, so why is Michelangelo famous today and none of them.