The Tolkien Template - Carrying on the torch of mythology and folklore

[Keneldil the Polka-dot]

I appreciate your kind words. I will try to clarify my point, if I can.

Why does the collective subjective view necessarily become an objective consensus? If 10,000 people say that day is night and 10,000 people say that night is day, does that mean there are two equally valid objective "consensuses" (or consensii, or consensae etc. )?. Or if 10,000 say that God is female and 3 say that God is male, is the female assertion automatically an objective consensus?

My ideas have been oriented toward art throughout this discussion. I did not give any thought to how they might apply outside that territory. Tunnel vision perhaps, but not necessarily damaging to my argument.

While I appreciate the examples, I question their relevance. Day and night are definitive (simplifying it to light=day, dark=night, ignoring dawn and dusk). They are objectively described. It is not a matter of opinion. As to the question of God’s gender, some would argue that is also not a matter of opinion. Those who accept the Bible as definitive have their proof. Those who do not accept the Bible as proof could be said to have a different God, and therefore comparison is apples and oranges. Still, I see the point you are trying to make. Problem is, I don’t think you can make it using issues that are subjective, as art is.

In art (setting aside for now my “standards imbued by a Creator” idea) we have something that I argue is subjective. My statement about the collective subjective view was perhaps it is the closest we can get to an objective standard for art, not that it formed a purely objective truth. I do not know how to more clearly state this point:

In the aggregate opinion, the individual personality disappears, eliminating subjective bias.

The attempt to assert objectivity in art criticism is as much part of human nature, and yet the notion that popularity is an indication of quality is not meaningful. To measure aesthetic quality requires aesthetics. To assert beauty requires a conception of beauty. There is no reason why popularity in and of itself confers any of these mistifying epithets upon a work of art.

I wish this were true. I fear you give human beings more credit for being free thinkers than we deserve. Advertising works precisely because what you are saying is false. What is popularly seen as beautiful does indeed come to define beauty. Popularity provides the concept of beauty that gets asserted (to pirate your sentence). This is somewhat of a tangent however. I think the word “beauty” inadvertently crept into this discussion. “Beauty” is an even more subjective term than “good”. A work of art may not be seen as beautiful, and yet still be considered a good, perhaps for it’s ability to evoke emotion, etc.

You say the attempt to place objectivity (truth) in art is human nature (I agree- emphasizing “attempt" ). To place an idea as objective truth is to say it works for everyone, just like 2+2 is 4 for everyone. If it is works for everyone, is it not popular? Popularity is the only indication of quality in art that can exist outside the individual in some semblance of objective form.

Looks like I talked myself out of thinking art is purely subjective. The subjective turned objective view, or whatever you want to call it, operates at the group level. I could make this post even longer talking about how the group in turn affects the individual, but I’ve wasted enough of your time already. I don’t usually engage in this sort of hair splitting, even though it is fun. [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]

This might be the worst kind of hair splitting because I don't know that I am trying to prove anything worthwhile. People should try to resist the influence of the group opinion and truly decide for themselves, impossible though that may be.

EDIT: Seems like I can never make a post without having to edit it at least one time.
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[ December 01, 2002: Message edited by: Keneldil the Polka-dot ]