[Keneldil the Polka-dot]

I knew I was going to get in trouble by saying “somewhat”. Cudae deftly stated what I had in mind when I made that qualifier:

If someone knows little about art, he may be inclined to agree with Michelanglo out of trust in a famed artist's ideas. Or he may go with the truck driver's ideas because he can relate to a common man better.

The call on which opinion weighs more lies with the individual. I said “somewhat” because different people will value different things. It may not matter to someone that Michelangelo was steeped in art for his lifetime. I am not saying Mike’s opinion is better in the sense that it is closer to an objective truth. I am saying better in the sense that it was created from better origins. The construction of Mike’s opinion came out of his awareness, which in the subject of art, is greater than the truck driver’s. Who would honestly say they would ever weigh the truck drivers opinion on art above Michelangelo's?

However, without an objective standard, what use are thought or experience?

Thought and experience are what an opinion is made of. In this instance I take experience to mean “to interact with”. A person experiences a work of art by seeing it or reading it or whatever, thinks about it, and forms an opinion. Maybe that person turns to sources with opinions he/she considers to have authority on the subject in order to help form an opinion, or maybe they don’t. Opinions are formed without objective standards all the time.

“What’s your favorite color?”
“Blue.”
“Why?”
“Uh…….”

How about we turn this around? You demostrate to me how art is objective.

Cudae, that all sounds pretty horrible. Am I right in guessing you go to a private school? I think it is important to experience works of art and literature that a person doesn’t like or disagrees with just as much as ones they do like. The more exposure a person gets the more aware they become, and the better (I use that words just to twit Aiwendil [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img] ) formed their opinions are.

There is a big difference between reading something and liking it. I think that the majority of people who speak ill of Robert Jordan have read him, with, I hope, an open mind; indeed it seems likely that this experience is the foundation of their dislike for him.

Of course, I agree with the difference and I also think you are probably right about the Barrow-Downers who do not like Jordan. There are a lot of well formed opinions in here. But I think saying "I don't like Jordan's work" and saying "Jordan is a bad writer" are two different things.

I like Terry Brooks too, obvious Tolkien influence and all. His earlier work though, not so much what he is turning out lately.

[ November 26, 2002: Message edited by: Keneldil the Polka-dot ]