1. Standard memberNatsia
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    29 Apr '08 20:36
    I think the point here, Starrman, is that culture is subjective and therefor defined by its people.
    Those who look on the Angel of the North as a thing of beauty and can admire the architectural and engineering (if any) that went into its construction does not mean that the David is any less an artistic and highly skilled work in view of those who appreciate it for the same reasons.

    Social class, what appeals to some might not appeal to others but cannot in all fairness be disregarded purely because those one the opposite side of the spectrum consider it to be trite.
    Point in case: Rodeos. (Why?)
  2. Joined
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    29 Apr '08 21:071 edit
    Originally posted by Natsia
    I think the point here, Starrman, is that culture is subjective and therefor defined by its people.
    Those who look on the Angel of the North as a thing of beauty and can admire the architectural and engineering (if any) that went into its construction does not mean that the David is any less an artistic and highly skilled work in view of those who appreciate ...[text shortened]... e one the opposite side of the spectrum consider it to be trite.
    Point in case: Rodeos. (Why?)
    If that's the case then there's no point in aesthetic considerations, and yet they're fundamentally important to what we do everyday. Trends become so because a larger percentage of the population find pleasure in them. Why? If it was subjective alone wouldn't we'd be surprised at the notion of trends? Wouldn't we find the notion of some things, which majorities find displeasing, to be more popular in society? If all we can say about aesthetic judgements is that they're subjective then, in my opinion, we're being sloppy.
  3. Standard memberNatsia
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    29 Apr '08 21:46
    Originally posted by Starrman
    If that's the case then there's no point in aesthetic considerations, and yet they're fundamentally important to what we do everyday. Trends become so because a larger percentage of the population find pleasure in them. Why? If it was subjective alone wouldn't we'd be surprised at the notion of trends? Wouldn't we find the notion of some things, which m ...[text shortened]... aesthetic judgements is that they're subjective then, in my opinion, we're being sloppy.
    What is left for anyone to rebel or rally against?
    What is left that has any true shock value?
    How many truly original ideals are out there which have not been silenced or perverted by the influential and rich?

    In a global society where we have information at our disposal 24/7 the masses are still being trained to be stupid and complacent. Culture as we know it has been born of boredom, cheap thrills and entertainment with immediate "benefits" or payoffs.
    Pathetic as it is, it is.
  4. Standard memberNemesio
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    29 Apr '08 22:291 edit
    The post that was quoted here has been removed
    All this post-modernist crap -- where nothing is better than anything else, where any crap stain
    is a piece of art, where refusing to render judgement is considered a virtue -- is just an effort to
    make the mediocre feel like they're not. In this world, everyone is a genius, everyone is an
    artist, everyone has something meaningful to say.

    Well, I hate to tell you this, but 50% of all people are below average. That's just how it is. And,
    sure, it's hard for a person to come to terms with the notion that they're sub-par, but that's just
    life. And people don't like it. 'It's not worse, it's just different,' they say.

    When your toddler draws a picture of a face, and the eyes are off center, one ear is bigger
    than the other, the mouth is crooked, and the body is smaller than the head, you say, 'What
    a beautiful picture!' You want to encourage the child, even though the picture is a poor representation
    of what it aims to represent. You want the child to feel loved, to feel nurtured, to feel supported.
    These are good things, for a child. For an adult, it's not good. When an adult stinks at
    something, when they do a bad job, or when they are just plain mediocre, they still want to
    hear how great they are. And, you do your child a disservice if you continue to stroke its ego
    when its production doesn't keep up with its capacity to produce. If an older child does a mediocre
    job with something, if you tell it that it was 'wonderful,' of course it will have no standard for
    good and bad. And the cycle continues. Why strive for 'better' when 'mediocre' is 'wonderful?'

    By profession I am an organist, which means I attend (i.e., play for) to a lot of funerals. I've
    yet to hear a eulogy where the decedent wasn't a perfect parent, a perfect uncle, a perfect
    grandma -- infinitely patient, generous with money, time or advice, gentle, the best listener,
    loved Jesus more than anyone else, and so on and so on and so on. I'm sure I've played
    five hundred funerals, in which half had eulogies just like that.

    It's about self-delusion. If people acknowledge that 50% of culture is below average, then they
    are forced to examine themselves a little bit to see if they might be embracing crap. Don't
    mistake me: I'm not suggesting that one should only surround themselves with the cream of
    the crop of whatever cultural media. Sometimes, 'bad movie night' is fun. Sometimes, you
    just want to listen to Cyndi Lauper, Boy George, or UTFO. Thomas Kincaid is nice to look at.
    There's nothing wrong with vegging out to Miami Vice. But be honest about it: that stuff
    is mediocre at best.

    Is there good or even great contemporary stuff? Of course. This isn't a defense of the 'Dead
    White Men' mindset. But the idea that just because it's art makes it 'good' is baloney. Today,
    just like every other day in the history of humankind, there's a lot of crap being produced by
    a lot of mediocre artists. Today, unlike many times in the past, we just seem afraid to say:
    what a pile of crap! And even worse is when some of us actually have aesthetic convictions,
    the mediocrity-embracing group cries about elitism, judgmentalism, ivory towerism, and every
    other thing in an effort to call attention away from their 'average' production and upon the
    'bad guy' who actually has an opinion.

    Nemesio
  5. Hmmm . . .
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    29 Apr '08 22:58
    Roses are red,
    violets are purple;
    my love’s as sweet
    as maple syruple.

    _________________________________

    The force that through the green fuse drives the flower
    drives my green age,
    that blasts the roots of trees is my destroyer.
    And I am dumb to tell the crooked rose
    my youth is bent by the same wintry fever.

    —Dylan Thomas

    _________________________________

    If the first example is as good as poetry as the second, then put me with Nemesio and Starrman as an elitist snob.
  6. Standard memberDoctorScribbles
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    29 Apr '08 23:01
    Originally posted by vistesd


    If the first example is as good as poetry as the second, then put me with Nemesio and Starrman as an elitist snob.
    Me too, as long as Bible Yo' Mama weighs in above average on the culture scale.
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    29 Apr '08 23:07
    Originally posted by Natsia
    What is left for anyone to rebel or rally against?
    What is left that has any true shock value?
    How many truly original ideals are out there which have not been silenced or perverted by the influential and rich?

    In a global society where we have information at our disposal 24/7 the masses are still being trained to be stupid and complacent. Culture as ...[text shortened]... ap thrills and entertainment with immediate "benefits" or payoffs.
    Pathetic as it is, it is.
    Countless millions of ideas, people have just become blind to the fire of intention, dumbed down by a lowest common denominator society. If you're willing to accept what you suggest; fine. I'm not. Just because there's masses of stuff out there doesn't mean there must be an equal proportion of good culture within it and this notion that culture just is and each to his own is lazy and it undermines good culture. These days it's seen as poncey or elitist to like anything which isn't popular. Trips to the ballet or reading Proust meet with derision from my friends because they'd rather be watching a bunch of overpaid simpletons they worship as demi-gods kick a ball around.

    /rant.

    People don't want to expend effort in finding content when a partial version is available without effort. I don't blame anyone (or at least I try not to), life's hard and the media is powerful, but accepting that culture is when we should be finding what culture could be is a sorry state of affairs.
  8. Standard memberBosse de Nage
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    30 Apr '08 07:18
    Originally posted by vistesd

    If the first example is as good as poetry as the second, then put me with Nemesio and Starrman as an elitist snob.
    People would probably find it easy to pick an excellent soccer player from a bunch of no-hopers. Then again, soccer's a venerable cultural institution. Or, it constitutes a scene that has remained fundamentally unchanged. So, it's easy for everyone to agree on facts. But things aren't always so clear-cut, are they? I mean, I really like Bob Rauschenberg's 'Goat' piece, but divorced from the context in which it was generated, it would probably just look like junk. In the same way, many American football fans ridicule soccer (and vice-versa)because they lack proper contextual understanding. Then there are those who would cock a snook at tiddleywinks ...

    Anyway -- I like your example ('Violets' is so icky I wouldn't repeat it to a three-year-old -- there are much better children's rhymes!). What do you make of this:
  9. Standard memberBosse de Nage
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    30 Apr '08 07:181 edit
    (Click Reply to see the original typography, or if that doesn't work, go here:
    http://jacketmagazine.com/06/pryn-kins.html )

    J.H. Prynne

    Rich in Vitamin C

    Under her brow the snowy wing-case
    delivers truly the surprise
    of days which slide under sunlight
    past loose glass in the door
    into the reflection of honour spread
    through the incomplete, the trusted. So
    darkly the stain skips as a livery
    of your pause like an apple pip,
    the baltic loved one who sleeps.

    Or as syrup in a cloud, down below in
    the cup, you excuse each folded
    cry of the finch's wit, this flush
    scattered over our slant of the
    day rocked in water, you say
    this much. A waver of attention at
    the surface, shews the arch there and
    the purpose we really cut;
    an ounce down by the water, which

    in cross-fire from injustice too large
    to hold he lets slither
    from starry fingers
    noting the herbal jolt of cordite
    and its echo: is this our screen, on some
    street we hardly guessed could mark
    an idea bred to idiocy by the clear
    sight-lines ahead. You come in
    by the same door, you carry

    what cannot be left for its own
    sweet shimmer of reason, its false blood;
    the same tint I hear with the pulse it touches
    and will not melt. Such shading
    of the rose to its stock tips the bolt
    from the sky, rising in its effect of what
    motto we call peace talks. And yes the
    quiet turn of your page is the day
    tilting so, faded in the light.
  10. Standard memberPalynka
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    30 Apr '08 09:08
    Originally posted by Nemesio
    All this post-modernist crap -- where nothing is better than anything else, where any crap stain
    is a piece of art, where refusing to render judgement is considered a virtue -- is just an effort to
    make the mediocre feel like they're not. In this world, everyone is a genius, everyone is an
    artist, everyone has something meaningful to say.

    Well, I hate ...[text shortened]... he
    'bad guy' who actually has an opinion.

    Nemesio
    That all sounds very good, but then there's always the issue of how to decide (and who will decide) what is 'good' art and what is not. Is there an objective way to label art? To call a spade, a spade, you need to know what a spade is!

    Because if there is no objective way to 'label' art, it must be so that it its appreciation is subjective. Of course, you can call it like you see it, but why should your opinion have any particular value?

    And I think we can all agree that popularity (or the aggregate sum of individual subjective views) cannot be the way to judge art. Note also, that the 'test of time' is also simply an intertemporal measure of popularity.

    This is the paradox. One that I believe none of you as yet addressed properly.
  11. Standard memberBosse de Nage
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    30 Apr '08 10:151 edit
    Originally posted by Palynka

    This is the paradox. One that I believe none of you as yet addressed properly.
    Sure -- but why rush into art when it's yet to be established whether bingo is a better game than soccer?

    If 'complexity' is the answer, then I believe that Tracy Emin's bed constitutes a trenchant refutation of post-modernism's detractors.
  12. Standard memberPalynka
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    30 Apr '08 10:21
    Originally posted by Bosse de Nage
    Sure -- but why rush into art when it's yet to be established whether bingo is a better game than soccer?

    If 'complexity' is the answer, then I believe that Tracy Emin's bed constitutes a trenchant refutation of post-modernism's detractors.
    I'd say because if the hypothesis that there is an objective difference is true, one would expect that to be more apparent in art than in games or sports.

    You have to begin somewhere.
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    30 Apr '08 10:30
    Originally posted by Palynka
    I'd say because if the hypothesis that there is an objective difference is true, one would expect that to be more apparent in art than in games or sports.
    Why? I'd have thought it was the other way around. Sport has the clear advantage of having an empiric basis; points, goals, winners etc. That puts it miles above art in the objectivity stakes.
  14. Standard memberBosse de Nage
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    30 Apr '08 10:34
    Originally posted by Palynka
    I'd say because if the hypothesis that there is an objective difference is true, one would expect that to be more apparent in art than in games or sports.

    You have to begin somewhere.
    OK! Watch this and rate it out of 10! On your marks, get set, go!

    http://www.ubu.com/film/paik_beatles.html
  15. Standard memberPalynka
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    30 Apr '08 10:57
    Originally posted by Starrman
    Why? I'd have thought it was the other way around. Sport has the clear advantage of having an empiric basis; points, goals, winners etc. That puts it miles above art in the objectivity stakes.
    Not really. Such objective characteristics are not comparable on a non-subjective basis. For example, that handball has more goals than football is meaningless. Same is true for basketball and cricket points.

    Just because they're called the same, doesn't mean they are the same or even objectively comparable.

    But why do you not address the issue of how to objectively differentiate art?
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