philosophy of art

/* i'm changing how i post the song titles, figured i might as well start posting actual subjects in the subject lines. songs will all be at the end of the post. */

elliot and i had an interesting discussion last night, which was spawned by one he had been a part of during a book study of c.s. lewis' the abolition of man. their discussion, as i understand it, ranged widely over many kinds of art, though elliot and i focused primarily on my fortes -- music and literature. the following is a rehash of our conversation.

the topic of the discussion at large was basically, "can art be purely objective?" my stance is, yes, it can -- in a manner. it is very simple to say that such-and-such is "good" and something else is "bad", but those are pretty obviously subjective terms. taste in art varies immensely, and fortunately so -- if everybody enjoyed the same things, why would you ever see anything different?

that said, many have made a militant case that certain flavors of art are at their core (or to use elliot's term, "intrinsically") better than other kinds. we have a friend who will readily admit that he feels this way about jazz music. his opinion is that jazz is simply the best, to the exclusion of all others. the explanation used is that jazz musicians learn the rules so they know how to break them, creating a different, superior kind of art in the process. none of that i have an argument with, save that his initial point returns to the end of the explanation -- that jazz is better because of how it arrives at its point of creation.

the problem with that statement is that, well, i do not especially like jazz. does that make me wrong? should my enjoyment of music be somehow diminished because of of technicalities of how the music i like came to be? i believe not. i would argue that it is impossible to argue that artistic taste can be wrong. as said in the opening, if there were no new tastes and interests, as a race humans would never have expanded beyond banging a rock with a stick for music. people desire different, greater things all the time.

if we were to say jazz is the pinnacle of human art, how then are all later works treated? derivative, lesser because they came after and by changing it they lost some intrinsic part that made jazz what it is. but then, how was jazz invented? is it not derivative of its predecessors as well? what then separates the origins of jazz from the origins of its offspring or its ancestors? nothing!

therefore, arguing any "intrinsic" value for any one type over any other is illogical, and i would extend that to the (often coinciding) argument, "if you knew more about it you'd understand." education is not now nor ever was a requirement to enjoy art. learning the complexities may increase enjoyment by way of appreciating the finer details, but the same can be said for any topic of study, not just those of a creative nature.

therefore, it is incorrect to argue that jazz is the best music -- but its influence can be plainly stated. there is a very important difference between arguing, "jazz isn't any good," and, "jazz doesn't matter." the former is a matter of taste; the latter is demonstrably wrong. the influence jazz has had over subsequent musical evolution is simply inarguable. my preferred forms of music are in fact almost directly derived from jazz (third wave ska, specifically, though nearly all forms of rock music are derivative as well). i fully recognize that without jazz, the music i love most would never have existed. all music is derivative to some extent or another, and as such no music is intrinsically better.

such a conclusion also extends itself naturally to all other forms of art, from two-dimensional to three-dimensional, theatre, literature, right on down the list. differences in taste created all forms, and thus it is impossible to quantify which is better on those grounds.

an example: literature has come a long way from the spoken poetic epics of homer, norse tribes, and native americans (just to name a few). the invention of the many different genres available to us -- mystery, science fiction, biographies among others -- is a fantastic stretch from their humble spoken origins. even such simple constructs as dialogue and prose were at one time fantastic achievements now taken for granted. would anybody dare to argue that homer is greater than shakespeare, dumas, poe, or tolkien? all entirely different, and all extremely influential -- but none is better than the other from any objective standpoint.

in summary: it is entirely possible to be objective about art, provided such a discourse is limited to historical value. yes, artistic taste is subjective, but arguing that some art is better based on such qualitative measures is fallacious. it is differences in taste that created all of the legion flavors of art.

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name that tune:
Go roll down the window
Go crank up that radio
Let's drive until we hit the sky
It's not about where we go
Let's start living life
Before we die

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