I personally think the subjectivity of art is to do with each persons emotional disposition. — I like sushi
One strong memory I have from school is one time in English when we "did" Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist, and the teacher gave this long spiel about how it gives us a really good insight into the conditions of the poor in the era. We'd just come from our history class (doing the Reform Acts) where the teacher had spent the last half of the lesson warning us of the dangers of uncorroborated accounts. — Isaac
Why should art have a duty? — Brett
Why do you regard Dickens account as uncorrobated? He was there and wrote about what he saw. — Brett
It has the potential to cause social change and social change (the direction of it) is important to me. — Isaac
I think you’re probably talking about a kind of censorship here — Brett
who decides what these responsibilities serve and what social change should be addressed? — Brett
You need to do some reading on Charles Dickens. — Brett
who decides what these responsibilities serve and what social change should be addressed?
— Brett
The artists and the people consuming the art. — Isaac
I think art has has duty which it's current obsession with 'ideas' is neglecting. Art may reflect life, but life also reflects art in that it influences the way we think. So if art makes even a tiny error in its reflection, that error will be copied, magnified, copied again and so on. — Isaac
How do the artists decide what to produce without creating that error? How do they know what it is? — Brett
Just wondering if you might agree that Dickens did actually carry out his ‘duty’ with his books. — Brett
But that doesn't imply that you can't learn something from Oliver Twist or any other novel. You just need to judge it by different standards. — Baden
When I use 'learn' I generally mean the acquisition of facts, data or something like that. — Isaac
Mybe my fusty academic outlook, but I'm not seeing what there is left to 'learn' from, say Richard III, that a good psychology textbook and a History of England can't tell you better. — Isaac
Why are we teaching opinions in school? — ZhouBoTong
So, I agree it's difficult to quantify what you can learn from a novel or a work of art, but there are different types of knowledge that are more or less easy to make explicit and that ease does not necessarily define their worth. — Baden
And that claim, or at least the claim that his movies are garbage, can be rationally argued on the basis of a number of criteria including characterization, plot, use of language, imagery, quality of acting, etc. etc. In other words, we're talking of opinions, but not just opinions. Some opinions matter more than others because they're supported better. — Baden
It seems a given in educated circles that Shakespeare and DaVinci created "better" art than, lets say, Michael Bay (makes movies that many would consider "low brow" like Transformers or Armageddon). Is there even a little justification for this?
However, once convinced of their superiority, the elites are happy to force their tastes on the rest of us (I never learned anything about Michael Bay movies in school) and they even have the audacity to suggest I am wrong when I say "I like x better than y". Why are we teaching opinions in school? I appreciate the discussion of opinion in school but there should only be judgement of the justification, not the opinion itself. — ZhouBoTong
We just have to be careful to not veer towards thinking that their aesthetic assessments--re what's good, bad, better, worse, etc.--are anything like facts, or that they can be correct or incorrect.
And we can gain just as much spending time with someone who knows Michael Bay-type films inside and out, or commercial pop music a la Britney Spears, Kesha, Pitbull, etc. Those folks can also help you understand that stuff better, help you tune in to its nuances, etc. — Terrapin Station
It seems a given in educated circles that Shakespeare and DaVinci created "better" art than, lets say, Michael Bay (makes movies that many would consider "low brow" like Transformers or Armageddon). Is there even a little justification for this? — ZhouBoTong
(I never learned anything about Michael Bay movies in school) — ZhouBoTong
they even have the audacity to suggest I am wrong when I say "I like x better than y". Why are we teaching opinions in school? — ZhouBoTong
I do feel comfortable enough in my knowledge of education or the arts to justify any insults - for example: Shakespeare is OK at best (brilliant use of language but garbage stories). — ZhouBoTong
On a personal level, I think we all have our preferences. Maybe we identify with sophistication or authenticity or some other concept. We'll probably praise the art we like with terms that we'd like applied to us and our kind of people. Am I eager to be understood as serious and intellectual? Or am I charmingly unpretentious? We can mildly signal group membership with the right references. I can mention Last Week Tonight or James Joyce or Harry Potter or Lil' Wayne. Our personal brand is largely a curated blend of references. I'm not complaining, because I think it's an effective and efficient system. If I know your 5 favorite writers or musical artists, that may be more than enough information --though these days I'm more likely to be interested in business relationships and therefore in skills and conscientiousness.We can not (should not) say Shakespeare's work is sophisticated and Jerry Seinfeld's is not. — ZhouBoTong
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