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

Re: Is there such a thing as good taste?

#451

Post by jhrmnn » Tue, Nov 16, 2021, 6:22 AM UTC

marifjeren wrote: post #408

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…

> It's whether something legitimately represents power. > Viewed this way, taste is the expression of what you percieve to be power based on your experience What about displays of disposable wealth, which demonstrate power in a way that is nonetheless gaudy? I don't think anyone could seriously argue that a wealthy person is less powerful than a poorer person, and yet displaying that wealth (e.g. having a solid 18k g…

So we just go one step further into the rabbit hole, now discussing what is truly power.

Re: Is there such a thing as good taste?

#452

Post by tsimionescu » Tue, Nov 16, 2021, 6:42 AM UTC

GoblinSlayer wrote: post #397

simiones wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think in choosing rotten meat, you haven't gotten close to the limits - see Surstromming for an example. There are very few universals of taste. Even looking only at food: some people routinely consume, for pleasure, rotten meats, rotten milk (cheese), various bitter poisonous seeds, extremely painful hot peppers, painful acidic or basic substances, and even feces or other bodily fluids. Of course, no one could enj…

You missed the elephant in the room - wine.

Wine is in the same boat. What connoisseurs consider se of the most exquisite wines is pretty far from the tastes of most people. Tannins in wines are liked by some connoisseurs, hated by most people who haven't tried them. Connoisseurs almost universally insist on dry wines, while many people prefer some sweetness.

Re: Is there such a thing as good taste?

#453

Post by hardwaregeek » Tue, Nov 16, 2021, 8:13 AM UTC

ikr678 wrote: post #443

hardwaregeek wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, although this friend is asian american and likely grew up eating scallion pancakes on at least a few occasions. He seemed almost proud of his lack of taste which really surprised me.

Not everyone/every culture has the same relationship to food as the west. (I personally feel being more utilitarian about food is healthier in the long run). Your friend may be predisposed towards idenitfying quality/craftsmanship/expressing taste in other areas of his life -clothing, grooming, music etc.

Really? I can't claim to have gone everywhere but in all the places I've been, people seem to care about food. What's this supposed place that's opposed to "the west"?

Re: Is there such a thing as good taste?

#454

Post by guerrilla » Tue, Nov 16, 2021, 9:29 AM UTC

aidenn0 wrote: post #419

guerrilla wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For every two of those, there are thousands of counterexamples.

I'd like to invoke Sturgeon's law[1] here. Basically it's not useful to claim that the overwhelming majority of pop-music is "low-effort shit" because that's true of nearly all genres. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturgeon%27s_law

Fine, that would just add support to my original point.

Re: Is there such a thing as good taste?

#455

Post by cgrealy » Tue, Nov 16, 2021, 9:51 AM UTC

slibhb wrote: post #417

cgrealy wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>my father said "that's not true, you can claim Shakespeare isn't good but you're wrong". Could not disagree more. Your father can claim Shakespeare is good, but that doesn't make him right. I think Shakespeare is good, but that's a subjective opinion and holds no more weight than someone who thinks Dan Brown is a better writer /shudder.

The essay I linked has a good response to what you wrote: > It is true that some people sometimes express the view that no judgments of taste are really better than others. They say, “There is no right and wrong about matters of taste”. Others will express the same thought by saying that beauty is “relative” to individual judgment or preference, or that it is “socially relative”. Such relativism is part of the intell…

> If you actually believed what you wrote, you wouldn't have included a "/shudder" at the end. In fact, you believe that Shakespeare is better than Dan Brown to the point that disagreement makes you uncomfortable. That's a judgement of taste.

Yes, but it's subjective. The idea that Dan Brown could be considered a better writer than Shakespeare is horrifying to me. The idea that people would put pineapple on a pizza is sacreligious to me. That someone actually likes Nickelbacks music is borderline offensive to me.

Unless you can objectively quantify why x is better than y, that is subjective.

> there is no getting away from the fact that normativity is a necessary condition of judgments of taste or beauty.

Even if you could agree to an evaluative standard for art, you still cannot objectively measure it.

Just because a majority of people agree on something, does not make it so.

Re: Is there such a thing as good taste?

#456

Post by fsloth » Tue, Nov 16, 2021, 10:23 AM UTC

pyrale wrote: post #390

fsloth wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(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 f…

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

No, but if we both are at a painting course and painting the same still life, it is plausible we can come to a honest agreement about whose painting we prefer, which details are better presented in the others work and so on.

We are obviously talking of two entirely different things - art as a social phenomenon, and art as art (a technical skill, an aesthetic experience ).

"Taste as a metric" has entirely different meaning in these two contexts. In the sociological context I completely agree with you.

But in the "art as craft to be done, not merely observed because that is boring" sense the sociological analysis offers nothing (for the skill or the aesthetic experience).

We could be discussing of racing - the sociological aspect of observing the race - or of the actual driving which operate on completely two context.

So sociology studies audiences, while I am talking about actually driving/painting and how the perceptions in that domain have nothing to do with sociology but the craft based aspects only.

Considering the complexity,we are beyond the point where the work is so difficult that Taylorian external analysis of purely mechanical facts leads to an incomplete understanding of the actual work done.

So if someone would focus only on the sociological, observe-without-learning-craft type of analysis, their viewpoint would not envelope the art-ding-an-sich. Which is totally fine - but external to actually _doing art_.

Re: Is there such a thing as good taste?

#457

Post by ksec » Tue, Nov 16, 2021, 11:16 AM UTC

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…

I have a term for it, "Pepla". People who cant taste the difference between Pepsi and Coca Cola. I used to joke about this 10+ years ago. Until there are lots of YouTube video showing people really cant tell the difference.

I find this funny on HN because up to ~2017/18 the mainstream HN view was all these so called "taste" were people being mentally manipulated by advertising. There is no such thing as "taste", as PG's Dad said. And then gradually, somehow, HN changed. We have this [1]

>> Having taste makes you require more dollars to get the same level of satisfaction

I have carefully avoided trying excessively high quality things because once I've experienced something truly luxury then it becomes an ongoing expense to keep up that level of experience. The irritating part is that before I was perfectly happy in my ignorance of something better being available out there, but aftewards I feel like I'm "ruined" because I'm constantly disappointed and frustrated if I can't keep up the level of quality.

There are lots of people who couldn't tell the difference between 120hz screen and 60hz screen. High PPI and low PPI. Prime and Choice Ribeye. French Butter and Margarine. I mean lots of nerds only compare "spec", and fail to recognise there are lots of things beyond spec and numbers.

>One could argue that Steve Jobs was a product supertaster.

And that is why he was the low paying Beta tester and a yardstick of quality. And that was the reason why he was hard to work with. Most people simply dont have his "taste", at least not anywhere near the bar of Steve. And that is why we now have UI design decision devalued into A/B testing. Having an objective measure to prove something. In reality, without people demanding excellence, quality will quickly drift to the average of the team's taste. The results of design by committees.

Re: Is there such a thing as good taste?

#458

Post by Rastonbury » Tue, Nov 16, 2021, 11:53 AM UTC

dvh1990 wrote: post #4

This question is what Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is all about - that quality is objective. I know PG is familiar with that book, which is why I find it odd that there's no mention of it in this essay.

I find it odd that anyone who has read that book would write such an essay. He'd be aware that there is whole branch of philosophy dedicated aesthetics/quality and didn't touch on any of that either. Maybe cuz it was derived from a talk he gave and it had to be calibrated for a certain audience (definitely not philosophy students)

Re: Is there such a thing as good taste?

#459

Post by dagw » Tue, Nov 16, 2021, 12:22 PM UTC

SilasX wrote: post #394

long_time_gone wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never demanded "copius evidence" I asked a clarifying question. If you are going to make specific claims, people might ask for evidence of those claims. It's not confirmation bias to ask for supporting details, quite the opposite. > 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)? Th…

>I never demanded "copius evidence" I asked a clarifying question. If you are going to make specific claims, people might ask for evidence of those claims. It's not confirmation bias to ask for supporting details, quite the opposite. It is when you don't ask for the same evidence of the opposite, original assertion, and when the test you demand/clarify-the-existence-of is a strangely narrow test that no one would hav…

The assertion is that the knowledge of Michelangelo and his association with that work is artificially raising the viewer's appreciation of it. My contrary claim was that it's appreciated as good work,

Both of these statements can be true at the same time. As an extreme example, take the Mona Lisa. No matter how much you think it's a good painting, there is no way that people would travel from around the world in their thousands to see that painting if it wasn't for the whole story/mythology/history around that painting and its creator. It's not THAT good a painting. There are dozens of technically more interesting and 'better' painting hanging in the Louvre that those people happily run past just to see the Mona Lisa. Or go to the Galleria dell'Accademia and count how many people who are just interested in the David statue and ignore all the other, equally 'good', statues they have.

Or take an uninteresting commissioned portrait of a minor nobelmans daughter and tell people it's an original Michelangelo. They will all of a sudden find the painting much more interesting than if you told them it was by an unknown contemporary of Michelangelo.

And there is nothing weird about this. A rusty sword that you can prove has been used by a famous general in a great battle will attract more interest and attention than a rusty sword of unknown provenance.

All of this can be true without taking anything away from Michelangelo as one of the greatest artists who has ever lived.

Re: Is there such a thing as good taste?

#460

Post by foldr » Tue, Nov 16, 2021, 12:25 PM UTC

motohagiography wrote: post #205

tompccs wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is very wrong, and the foundation of modernism in art and architecture (which is to say, you are wrong in a very unoriginal way!) The Greeks used all sorts of forced perspective tricks in their architecture. Columns aren't equally spaced and lines aren't straight, but when viewed by a human observer at ground level the buildings built to Greek aesthetic rules appear "nicer" than those built to pure geome…

I replied to another comment related, but the anti- version of modernism is of course post-modernism, where nothing is real and everything is mainly its symbolic value. The conceit of that argument is that aesthetics are somehow trivial because anyone can appreciate them but very few can produce them - whereas you take anything post-modern and everyone can produce them but almost nobody can appreciate them sincerely.…

I don't think it's quite right to think of postmodermism as an 'anti-version' of modernism. To the extent that postmodernism is a single identifiable thing at all, it's a tendency that developed partly as a reaction against the idea of all-encompassing systems of thought. Antimodermism would be something different: a definite belief in the negation of the key theses of modernism. There's no Nicene Creed of postmodernism. Postmodernism is the mess you get when people stop even looking for that kind of foundation.

For this reason, I don't think you can really refute postmodernism simply by having some kind of direct experience of reality of the sort you were listing – as if postmodernists explicitly deny the primacy of these sorts of experiences. Postmodernists would only contend that a system of thought based on the primacy of such experiences is no more inherently valid or universally applicable than a system of thought with some other basis. (Though of course that is a very trite slogan, and I am not suggesting that all 'postmodern' thinkers would express things in those terms, or even agree at all.)

Understandably, people who don't like postmodern tendencies in thought want to find a definite definition of postmodernism to argue against. But as soon as you cast postmodernism as a particular doctrine that makes particular claims, it's no longer postmodernism.