A reviewer might describe the necessary conditions to satisfy his aesthetic desires, and these necessary conditions may include certain properties inherent in the artistic work (the number of adverbs used, say, in a piece of writing, or the shade of blue used in a landscape). In reviewing the game Myst, he may demonstrate how Myst fails similarly to fulfil his own personal selection of fulfilment criteria. In writing his review, he may even use absolutist moral terms for poetic effect; however, he cannot claim that Myst is, de facto, inherently “bad”, and that people who enjoy its lugubrious wallpaper are somehow mistaking some existential truth, any more than he could argue that I am “wrong” to enjoy certain works of Stravinsky or “The Flying Lizards” or ABBA.
The comments thread for the NGJ post below diverted its merry way onto the matter of the philosophy of quality.
In replying to Tim, Nick Mailer found himself taking up more space than could fit into the comments. And indeed more space than can reasonable fit on the front page of this blog. However, it’s an excellent response, so the first paragraph above links to it in full. Enjoy.
March 10th, 2005 on 05:48
Nick: Somewhat pointless obfuscation, but I guess that was the desire.
Granted I too would have pulled Tim up – had I the time or inclination – when he said
“I do believe there is an artistic equivalent to this scientific discovery [or method of empirical testing]”
however I would’ve have spent that long doing it, especially if it was only a comment on a blog! That said you argued it cogently with a firm grasp of the terminology.
If, then, (and I agree) even vast amounts of subjective opinion (on, say, a film or a book or a game) cannot be held as any kind of objective judgment of quality(only “fallacious cultural absolutism”) then what value do we place in subjective opinion, if any? Or is the ensuing discussion and argument the only real reason to hold such views?
It troubles me a lot..but I don’t lose sleep over it.. ;)
March 10th, 2005 on 05:50
* of course I meant to say ‘wouldn’t have’, in the fourth paragraph.
March 10th, 2005 on 10:17
“Nick: Somewhat pointless obfuscation, but I guess that was the desire.”
“…you argued it cogently with a firm grasp of the terminology.”
Erm.
March 10th, 2005 on 11:05
I imagine Rob might mean the same thing I said to you on IM – that I was surprised you managed to make so many words of it.
And then, that said, you’ve written an informed and entertaining essay on the matter.
March 10th, 2005 on 14:05
Objectively good?
Surely we’re over specifying.
You don’t really want a measure of whether a game is objectively good, although one could be written (number of crashes etc.)
What you want is a measure of whether its good according to the cultural values and perspective of the reviewer. Hopefully you share at least some of those values, so what’s good for them is good for you.
Get stuck in a ‘everything’s subjective and therfore all judgement or prediction is worthless’ mindset, and you might as well go and dribble in the corner. Or become the US government.
March 10th, 2005 on 17:28
Yes, well done Nick, have a balloon dog of courage.
I’m not really sure how I should react: should I feel honoured that the great Nick Mailer saw fit to write a whole 3000 word essay to correct me? Should I feel humbled and contrite for daring to state an opinion, contrary to Nick’s, that was never implied to be more than an opinion? Should I feel rather peeved that I have been patronized at such extraordinary length? Should I be grateful – you *have* encouraged me to think a little more carefully about what I was saying, albeit that when I said it, it was (as has been commented above) just a comment on a blog and not a piece of work that I would submit to my tutor. I shall perhaps be more circumspect next time. Should I just laugh? It took no short amount of time to build that sledgehammer to crack the nut.
I was slightly irritated at the line by line approach. Your friend Jacques Derrida would no doubt approve, but then prose is a constant act of saying something, clarifying it, qualifying it, adding to it, and I thought your method unnecessarily picky. I thought it apparent that I was aware of Popper and his requirement for null hypotheses – hence my mention of scientific theory, which provoked your longest excursus. Theory is unproven, theorem is proven – yet only mathematics can legitimately use the latter term (and I was confused by your use of it – was it a pre-Popperian anachronism?). So, good theories are extensively proven to be not unproven, tenuous theories less so. My ‘theory’ that there could be objective truths behind subjective aesthetic experiences has not been proven by me – indeed I never set out to do so, finally appealing to extraordinarily subjective reasoning because I knew I couldn’t argue it – yet it has not been disproven by you, at least not as far as I understand.
A friend of mine commented recently that the trouble with discourse analysts was that if you disagree with them they just assume you didn’t understand.
I have opined that there may be an absolute behind the subjective, and was reticent as to how the unknowable absolute might be found (because I never denied the subjectivity of my perceptions); you absolutely denied the possibility of the absolute by an appeal to absolute subjectivity.
My opinionation was rash, and, you may say, foolish. What was yours?
March 10th, 2005 on 20:30
“Im not really sure how I should react: should I feel honoured that the great Nick Mailer saw fit to write a whole 3000 word essay to correct me? Should I feel humbled and contrite for daring to state an opinion, contrary to Nicks, that was never implied to be more than an opinion?”
I think that’s very rude and completely unnecessary.
March 11th, 2005 on 10:13
John, Nick, rudeness was not my intention, and I apologize. The sentences John picked up on were, however, part of a longer paragraph, which I hoped aptly described the mix of feelings I genuinely felt – furthermore I really did find it difficult to compose a reply that expressed both a reply to Nick’s essay, as an essay, and my feelings at having such big guns wheeled out at me, in a manner I still feel to be egregious, and hence, in its way, also rude.
This is not a justification, this is a request for a little understanding, and then perhaps forgiveness.
Sorry guys.
March 11th, 2005 on 10:45
No ‘big guns’ were wheeled out. Nick is a tiny gun.
Don’t forget, it wasn’t personal – Nick doesn’t know you, nor you Nick. I can imagine seeing the reply to the comment suddenly being a whole entry must have been a shock. I think this is how those academics used to argue in the Olden Days. Except without blogs.
March 11th, 2005 on 12:06
If it’s any help, I think you should ALL be killed with big blunt rocks.
March 11th, 2005 on 13:11
John, thank you, and though I don’t know Nick, via you I am a little aware of Nick’s character, just as he is now aware of one of the worse sides of mine, and so I should have known not to take it personally… And yet – try it!
Rev campbell – and also with you.