White Balance

What kind of representation makes you look less like yourself?

Srikanth Srinivasan — February 19, 2022 · 343 views · 28 comments

While art could not exist completely independent of any mind (as a feature of nature), its rules and determinations exist as good or bad art independent of what anyone person might say of them. It takes reliable practices of aesthetic critique to be someone who can find and make objective judgments about those emergent truths of taste. Throughout I also discuss the failure of a purely subjectivist account in lieu of this but also the particular persistence of agreement about aesthetic judgments in history. Finally, I dispel any elitist illusions this view often brings with it that I do not share.

Now, ask that same person (a couple of days later, so they forget you asked the previous question) whether they think if the recent Korean hit film Parasite is better than uncanny-valley-dystopian-masterpiece Cats. If you cringed a little bit in my application of “masterpiece” to Cats, you might get my next point already. The point is that the prior characterization of the pure subjectivism of art is precisely not how we engage with each other about it. In pronouncing one’s preference for Cats over Parasite David Hume tells us what will happen:

“no one pays attention to such a taste; and we pronounce, without scruple, the sentiment of these pretended critics to be absurd and ridiculous. The principle of the natural equality of tastes is then totally forgot … it appears an extravagant paradox, or rather a palpable absurdity, where objects so disproportioned are compared together.”

How are we supposed to make sense of this? On the one hand, we have a commitment to subjectivism; on the other, we become betrothed to hostile argumentation about this being better than that. (This is what Kant called the ‘antimony of taste.’) If the first is true, then in the second case we must be arguing about well, nothing. There is no content or meaning, except maybe a personal report of our experience. While some might be content with this, they must give up any notion of better or worse judgement — they must not dispute those who posit Cats as a masterpiece, in fact, they must say there is no basis for disagreement about matters of taste, at all. If they do argue (which we all often do), they fail on their own account. My claim here is that in arguing about good and bad art, we seem to be arguing about something.

Subjectivity in Action

Ask anyone the question: “Do you think art is objective, that is, that some art is just in itself better than other art?” Most people I have talked to vehemently deny this. They say, “art is subjective; it is something only up to each to individual’s unique experience.” Our emotional reaction to a piece of art cannot be wrong. It is what it is. It has no reference to anything outside of itself. In other words, they may say there is no truth of the matter about whether something is good or not. And this is reasonable, the culture, time in history, class — or any other contingent circumstances can easily sway these judgements. A brief survey of history tells us how absurd tastes of the past were, especially in fashion: mullets, leg warmers, powdered wigs (why?). All of these would surely vindicate this opinion. That is the old saying: beauty is in the eye of the beholder.