Realistically this is just people trying to cause trouble.

December 15, 2024 10:58 AM

Friendly and Hostile Analogies for Taste. Artistic Taste is like...: A. Physics. B. A Priesthood. C. A Priesthood, But With A Fig Leaf Of Semi-Fake Justifications D. As Above, Except The Justifications Are Good And Important E. BDSM Porn F. Like Fashion. A counterargument to this essay provides a definition of taste.

Don't know if these articles are paywalled so here are the two links.
Friendly and Hostile Analogies.
Contra Scott Alexander on Taste

posted by storybored (32 comments total)

Philosophy of aesthetics does not seem to progress, probably because we are fixated on the wrong questions. I took up another angle with connoisseurship once; & this might take us some ways, if only we could jettison chacun à son goût & all its fnord-minions. Maybe what we need is not critics telling us how to do it, but art-sherpas helping us to go where we might not go on our own. A schema is not a map.
posted by graywyvern at 11:33 AM on December 15 [3 favorites]

Well that was not a particularly kink-friendly analogy.
posted by Ishbadiddle at 12:21 PM on December 15

As La Rochefoucauld said:

Our pride is more offended by attacks on our taste than on our opinions.
posted by y2karl at 1:08 PM on December 15 [3 favorites]

“This is a bit mysterious. Most people like certain art which seems obviously pretty. But a small group of people who have studied the issue in depth say that in some deep sense, that art is actually bad (‘kitsch’), and other art which normal people don’t appreciate is better. They can usually point to criteria which the ‘sophisticated’ art follows and the ‘kitsch’ art doesn’t, but to normal people these just seem like lists of pointless rules.”

This might be the stupidest thing I’ve ever read. I was going to add “on art”, but I couldn’t think of anything stupider on any other subject. There might be something equally stupid somewhere out there, but please don’t tell me about it.

“This is a bit mysterious.”

Just because you say something is mysterious doesn’t mean it is.

“Most people like certain art which seems obviously pretty.”

What do any of these phrases refer to: “most people”, “certain art”, “obviously pretty”.

Every art style that is popular started off as either obscure or widely mocked, and what was once considered conventionally beautiful has fallen out of favor.

Furthermore, no one is most people, and every single person has idiosyncratic tastes and opinions about beauty.

“But a small group of people who have studied the issue in depth say that in some deep sense, that art is actually bad (‘kitsch’), and other art which normal people don’t appreciate is better.”

Is this man from the sixties? Kitsch has been a term of endearment by the “small group of people who have studied the issue in depth” since at least the nineties.

Also, every group of people defines themselves in opposition to the larger mass of humanity, thinking that your subculture has better modes of dress or patterns of thought than others is the most basic of social behaviors.

“They can usually point to criteria which the ‘sophisticated’ art follows and the ‘kitsch’ art doesn’t, but to normal people these just seem like lists of pointless rules.”

Is this man from the nineteenth century? Art theorists stopped making general proclamations about what makes art “sophisticated” or not sometime around the time people stopped wearing spats.

Sure, there are people who make up rules for art, and sometimes they intrude on your life (e.g. apps which divide the frame of a photo into a grid of nine boxes when you’re taking a picture) but mostly they’re extremely niche, and reside in manifestos no one ever reads, and “normal people” (again a phrase which has no referent) won’t ever encounter them.

This man has absolutely no idea about the subject he pretends to expound on.
posted by Kattullus at 1:17 PM on December 15 [14 favorites]

I'm reminded of this call coming from inside the "rationalist" house.

Once, she showed me some companies she had proved were fraudulent, and my first reaction was “I could have told you that in seconds; their web design looks scammy.”


Of course, it’s not really the same thing. She had hard evidence; I only had an intuition, and intuition can be wrong.

[...]

But my friend, like a lot of nerds, couldn’t see that difference in branding at a glance. She couldn’t see the difference in connotations that different aesthetic choices evoke. She was almost completely style-blind.

posted by doubtfulpalace at 1:37 PM on December 15 [4 favorites]

This man has absolutely no idea about the subject he pretends to expound on.

That's his whole brand. Being very generous, C is a variant of Bourdieu's position and F is a variant of Dick Hebdige's position. What connects them isn't a grand unified picture of how taste works but rather that taste can work in different ways depending on the local relevance and specific histories of social class, economic class, personal symbolism, medium / material culture, genre, subject matter and more--like, a lot more.
posted by Wobbuffet at 2:15 PM on December 15 [11 favorites]

Nothing on fashions changing, or novelty and attenuation playing a part in exhausting a fashion before movingon? Nor about trying different things and taking a journey through varied styles?

Thanks for the links, I'll have a think about what they add to my aesthetic and appreciation.
posted by k3ninho at 2:17 PM on December 15

Ugh, on re-reading, that's F and the poorly-expressed ideas of E, respectively.

Comrades, this piece again failed to conduct a power analysis, who's declaring what's good taste and not or who gains and loses by being considered good taste and bad taste. (It seems to consider that the drivers for aesthetics are universal and the experience of aesthetics universal, where I'd say it depends where you sit on the power chart.)
posted by k3ninho at 2:38 PM on December 15 [5 favorites]

This also seems to force the hyper-american viewpoint that it's somehow another persons problem what my tastes are. I guess this is the new consensus reality, what with the situation and all, but maybe these dudebros could imagine a position where they are not the people feeling left out? Maybe everything not being the same could be good? But it sure does sound like people who 'aren't political'.
posted by mayoarchitect at 3:50 PM on December 15 [2 favorites]

“Most people like certain art which seems obviously pretty.”

Or to rephrase: "my tastes are very mainstream, and I cannot for a moment entertain the thought that the stuff I think is ugly is not considered ugly by the people who like it, beauty is subjective. But no, if I think something looks ugly, then the person who likes it must just like ugly things, not disagree about that assessment.'

What a complete shitgibbon.
posted by Dysk at 4:29 PM on December 15 [6 favorites]

The headline piece seems absurdly mean-spirited. Instead of giving the people who claim to like "highbrow" art the benefit of the doubt, the author prefers to construct elaborate psychological theories to explain why they are not telling the truth. The only concession to the idea that people might be reporting their taste honestly is theory E, in which enjoyment of art is compared to an addiction in which ever-larger doses are required due to increasing tolerance. I don't think I am over-interpreting the piece when I detect a chip on the author's shoulder: if they really believed that aesthetics is purely subjective and that no-one's taste is better than anyone else's, there would be no need to lash out in this way.
posted by cyanistes at 4:32 PM on December 15 [4 favorites]

Somewhere in the dim past I received a degree in Art History. We were taught that to understand the art you needed to know who the patrons were. You know, the people and institutions that paid for this stuff. In Western European art it went from Church, to Church plus monarchy (mostly synonymous at the time), to Church plus monarchy plus wealthy patrons (Renaissance mostly), to less Church and monarchy and more wealth and secular institutions of "taste", to simply wealth and institutions (the 18th and 19th centuries) to finally simply wealth. Given this, ART today is essentially just another commodity made for profit and marketing. Whatever sells...
posted by jim in austin at 4:54 PM on December 15 [5 favorites]

apps which divide the frame of a photo into a grid of nine boxes when you’re taking a picture

optimist: the glass is half full
pessimist: the glass is half empty
photographer: the glass violates the rule of thirds
posted by doubtfulpalace at 5:32 PM on December 15 [8 favorites]

engineer: The glass is the wrong size
posted by Greg_Ace at 6:21 PM on December 15 [4 favorites]

This man has absolutely no idea about the subject he pretends to expound on.

Isn't this the part in Back To The Future where the DeLorean is strapped to the front of the steam locomotive?
posted by y2karl at 6:22 PM on December 15 [1 favorite]

surrealist: ceci n'est pas un glass
posted by storybored at 6:43 PM on December 15 [5 favorites]

Well that was not a particularly kink-friendly analogy.

Funny because this guy is definitely in some sort of polycule (not just stereotyping, I’m fairly sure it’s true).
posted by atoxyl at 9:34 PM on December 15 [2 favorites]

Anyway it’s kind of amazing that these guys still have a chip on their shoulder about art snobs in A.D. 2024.
posted by atoxyl at 9:36 PM on December 15 [4 favorites]

safety engineer: This should not be made out of glass
posted by clew at 9:57 PM on December 15 [3 favorites]

Anyway it’s kind of amazing that these guys still have a chip on their shoulder about art snobs in A.D. 2024.

While I totally agree, guys with chips on their shoulders seem to be the very essence of 2024.
posted by mumimor at 2:52 AM on December 16 [6 favorites]

Ok, maybe I'm a curmudgeon, but I just saw the 4th brightly pained randomly welded girder as 'public art' on a trip, and I'm in the mood to agree with the author. That's just lazy. It sucks that every statue we put up is a racist guy, so now we've devolved to random piles of metal.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:54 AM on December 16

the 4th brightly pained randomly welded girder as 'public art' on a trip

How many were by this same artist, John Henry, who did a lot of them at many scales? He passed away in 2022.
posted by Wobbuffet at 8:57 AM on December 16 [1 favorite]

How many were by this same artist, John Henry, who did a lot of them at many scales? He passed away in 2022.

Hopefully all of them, but I never looked at any of them close enough to read a plaque or anything on them, because to me they are the epitome of 'inoffensive corporate art'. I'd rather read and study the text on a fast food cup.
posted by The_Vegetables at 9:08 AM on December 16

The one I know best drew a lot of the same reactions, but I never really had a feeling about it one way or the other. It's true that it's so big and noticeable and in a well-used path that it became a reference point on campus, and without addressing the opportunity cost of putting in something more interesting, I guess it added something to the unmemorable architecture of a nearby building. But, yeah, I'd genuinely wonder if it's something that will happen less now.
posted by Wobbuffet at 9:20 AM on December 16 [1 favorite]

This might be the stupidest thing I’ve ever read. I was going to add “on art”, but I couldn’t think of anything stupider on any other subject. There might be something equally stupid somewhere out there, but please don’t tell me about it.
…
This man has absolutely no idea about the subject he pretends to expound on.


Kattullus: i see you haven't previously had the, er, pleasure of encountering Scott Alexander Siskind! The best essay about his writing is Elizabeth Sandifer's The Beigeness, or How to Kill People with Bad Writing: The Scott Alexander Method, which is much more competent, informed, and entertaining than anything Scott has ever written.
posted by adrienneleigh at 2:24 PM on December 16 [7 favorites]

Why do people keep trying to trick me not reading Scott Alexander? I feel like every link should be required to have a person walk 20 feet in front of it with a warning flag. The Sandifer article is very good.
posted by GenjiandProust at 3:02 PM on December 16 [3 favorites]

The Sandifer article is very good.

El is a friend of mine and she is goddamn brilliant. Just a fantastic writer.
posted by adrienneleigh at 6:37 PM on December 16 [1 favorite]

...I am not going to discuss the aforementioned fumbling about the hook clasps of human biodiversity at any great length, mostly because it’s too straightforward to actually occupy that kind of time. This is someone who repeatedly speaks admiringly of Charles Murray, puts Nick Land, Razib Khan, and various other fashy types on his blogroll, and openly advocates eugenics. The Reddit community around his work is the sort of place where posting the fourteen words gets dozens of upvotes and complaining about that gets you banned. Those adamant about defending him will point out—at astonishing length—that he penned an essay called “The Anti-Reactionary FAQ,” but it’s revealing that this consists of a tedious Gish gallop working its way through a host of minor claims, whereas his corresponding essay “Reactionary Philosophy in an Enormous, Planet-Sized Nutshell” offers a credulous account of the high level claims of neoreaction, a disparity that does not exactly amount to refutation. The claim that he’s troublingly invested in racist bullshit is straightforward and, frankly, uninteresting; anyone trying to dispute it has a disingenuous agenda most likely involving racist bullshit.

The Beigeness, or How to Kill People with Bad Writing: The Scott Alexander Method
posted by y2karl at 11:01 PM on December 16

I linked Sandifer's essay above, y2karl -- were you duplicating the link for a reason?
posted by adrienneleigh at 1:50 AM on December 17 [2 favorites]

"Appreciation of art is just like being addicted to BDSM porn! I am very fair."
posted by cyanistes at 1:56 AM on December 17 [2 favorites]

I linked Sandifer's essay above, y2karl -- were you duplicating the link for a reason?

Just being a completist in the comment. I know who it came from.
posted by y2karl at 2:31 AM on December 17 [1 favorite]

adrienneleigh: Kattullus: i see you haven't previously had the, er, pleasure of encountering Scott Alexander Siskind!

Oh damn! It’s that guy! I’ve successfully avoided thinking about him since he was given the Not Like Us-treatment by Elizabeth Sandifer (who I agree is brilliant, her book Neoreaction A Basilisk is one I never get tired of recommending).

Normally you won’t hear a word from me in criticism of the Google Reader community, but I’ll say that there were a few too many people there sharing posts from his blog. Though it did serve to inoculate me against his brand of nonsense.
posted by Kattullus at 11:21 AM on December 17 [1 favorite]