On 06 December 2001 05:39, [EMAIL PROTECTED] [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] wrote: > I've said this before, and it bears repeating now. It's very important to > always keep in mind that there is personal taste, and there is critical > assessment, and these are two quite independent judgements. Personal taste is > completely subjective, and something with which you just can't (and > shouldn't) argue, but critical evaluation has objective components, such as > standards of quality based on a thorough working knowledge of the topic, and > a broader consensus tempered by historical perspective.
This is the whole scientific approach, isn't it? But haven't they pretty much proven that expectations of observers can influence what is observed/concluded. I think it is extremely difficult to be totally objective about anything, but that's just my opinion, and I'm sure there are more than a few people on the list would could write pages and pages to the contrary. > To illustrate crudely, if someone says that Kenny G is their favorite jazz > saxophonist, well ... that's their taste (and their problem, as far as we may > be concerned). But if that person wants to extrapolate from their own taste > and claim that Kenny G is a higher quality saxophonist than, say Wayne > Shorter, that's pretty much wrong, plain and simple. But I think it's wrong before you even get to the conclusion. What is wrong, in my view, is comparing them at all. It's like apples and oranges. Within the context of KennyG, he might be playing saxophone better than he ever played before - to the best of his ability. There is value in that effort at perfection. KennyG's saxophone playing should only be compared to what he did before and not to what anyone else is doing. The effort (and maybe even the result in relation to previous efforts) is what I am talking about. That is where the value is - this is what should be valued. Anyone attempting to bring beauty into the world, in however humble a fashion, should be valued and encouraged. I'm speaking very ideally. I think comparisons can get us into trouble. I get frustrated with them. I think maybe I confused what I was trying to say about valuing effort by including all those names of people. What I meant to convey by including all the names was that the products of different artists appeal to different people because of individual tastes and therefore, the products also have value - this is what most people value or not. This is where comparisons and criticism comes into the picture. Maybe to someone, KennyG's saxophone playing transports them to another level of consciousness where they feel at one with the universe (or maybe that happens for him when he plays), but this is a different thing than the effort involved in creating the sound in the first place. > In other words, it's essential to not confuse one's own taste with critical > appraisal, especially when the two don't intersect. I think maybe we're talking about different things here. You are talking about taste vs. objective criticism, and I am talking about valuing the effort of trying to bring beauty into the world - not valuing the result, but valuing the process. Marian
