[Aiwendil]

Quoth Keneldil:

You take me somewhat out of context. If Michelangelo and a truck driver are looking at a painting, and Mike says "Wow, that is an excellent work of art," but the truck driver just spits and says "Don't look like nuthin' good to me," I would say that each opinion is valid for that person. But I would also say that the quality of Michelangelo’s perspective is probably better than the truck driver's due to his experience with artwork.

My question, then, is this: what do you mean when you say that "the quality of Michelangelo's perspective is probably better"? Clearly, you do not mean that Michelangelo's answer is closer to the truth, because you claim there is not objective truth. So in the absence of an objective truth, how do you define the "quality" of one's perspective? In what way can one view be better than another?

Is it merely that Michelangelo/the published author knows what will sell well or be critically acclaimed and the truck driver/anyone else doesn't? If that's the case, then a "better" view is only a more popular one - but surely the only distinction between the published author and, say, me, is that the published author is (far) more popular. (Note: I would add that the published author also has superior writing skills, but if you insist that there is no objective measure of the quality of art, then "superior writing skills" is placed in the same situation as a "better" view).

This is not a rhetorical question, and I am sincerely interested to hear your answer. It seems to me that you are trying to walk a very fine line between saying that art is subjective and that it is objective, and in my opinion, that doesn't hold up under scrutiny - but perhaps you have an argument that does.

But when an author sells thousands of books, isn’t that the masses telling him he is a good author?

It's at least a decent number of people telling him or her that, yes. But if you assign any value to this, then you are essentially saying that popularity is what determines how good a work of art is.

If it were complete junk no one would buy it.

Again, though you claim that art is entirely subjective, your language implies an objective value. If art is subjective, there is no such thing as "complete junk". There is also no such thing as "not complete junk" - which means that, regardless of other people's views, I am entirely justified and entirely correct in saying "this is complete junk to me".

Fiction’s main purpose is entertainment, otherwise why read it?

I agree with you entirely on this point.

Spake littlemanpoet:

Yes, we are witnessing the demise of liberal arts and humanities in the educational system.

I'm not sure whether to doubt this or be saddened by it. The fact is, my personal experience has been very different. At my college, every student reads Homer, Herodotus, Aeschylus, Aristophanes, Sophocles, Plato, Aristotle, Vergil, Augustine, Aquinas, Dante, Descarte, Luther, Hobbes . . . the list goes on and on. I guess I'm lucky in that regard. I frankly find it hard to believe that most colleges and high schools have no core curriculum at all.

Teithant Cúdae:

The Writers' Clubs (for Sci-Fi and Fantasy only) were destroyed as they promoted "anti-scientific, witch-craft like, and anti-religious" ideas.

Is this true? If so, it's appalling. The fact that they try to sound reasonable by throwing "anti-scientific" in with "witch-craft like" and "anti-religious" is disgusting. Someone wake me up when the dark ages are over.

[ November 21, 2002: Message edited by: Aiwendil ]