Chris writes: "you just have a taste -- a very strange taste -- for arguments
concerning the fuzziness of words. You want every issue to become a
discussion of notational fuzziness - with you as sharp old prosecutor and
everyone
else as fuzzy-minded defendant.)"
You're partly right but mostly wrong. I absolutely don't want every issue to
become a discussion of notational fuzziness. I want to argue about such things
as the nature of so-called "aesthetic experience". But I repeatedly jump on
forum fuzziness because it repeatedly undermines the possibility of any
fruitful argument at all.
I sit here and learn things continually about visual "art" from all you
listers. You all know more about it than I do. Well, I know some aspects of
philosophy and the anatomy of argument that various listers don't, and I want
to
convey some of it because I think it will help many of the discussions here. If
it
reminds you of a prosecutor, it's because the teachers of most courses in
"argument" -- be they in philosophy, law, or anywhere else -- are required to
do
that in their teaching. Recall John Houseman in "The Paper Chase". To adapt
the line you yourself quoted: "What does the teacher see? The pupil's
mistakes."
For example, here's an argument-diagnosis tip: If you sense a discussion has
gone awry somewhere along the way, and you examine why, you'll find many minor
reasons, but the major reason will be that the interlocutor, in responding,
has ignored all the central criticisms just put to him. Instead, he may talk
about only one small aspect of the criticism with a tone and conclusiveness
that suggests he's addressing it all. Or he may adopt that shrewd, powerful
tactic of evasion: talking volubly but about something that's completely
irrelevant. Also watch for him to shift the flow to a discussion of the
annoying
TRAITS of the other guy, thus sidestepping the other guy's ARGUMENTS.
You ignored 80% of my argument for why your notion of "taste" is so alien to
what most people have in mind when they say "Ellen has taste" that it amounts
to extinguishing the word, executing it. Granted, some words in our language
deserve execution, but then it behooves the executioner to come up with a
different word -- or, rather, two different words: one for his new "concept",
and
another to salvage the elements in the old majority notion that need to be
preserved.
By so stretching the coverage of the word, what your position does to 'taste'
reminds me of what the cynic would do to 'altruism' or 'kindness'. The
cynic argues that everyone acts solely out of self-interest, they do only what
they want to do, so the altruist deserves no more praise than the selfish guy
--
the altruist is only pleasing himself. What this ignores is the difference
between the KINDS of acts that please the altruist and those that please bad
guys. It's wrong-headed to say, "There goes that selfish bastard Miller giving
food to the hungry again. We all know he only does it because he likes the
feeling it gives him." We praise the altruist not because he's doing what he
wants
to do, but because WHAT he wants is to make other people more comfortable.
Similarly, those who praise a person for having "taste" are not praising him
merely for having "preferences" -- what they are approving of is the KINDS of
preferences he has. You may say in your recent reply "That's exactly what art
teachers should do -- claim that one taste is better than another", but your
stated position says nothing about "better": Taste is the responsiveness within
that produces "preferences", and since everyone has preferences everyone has
taste. When you claimed teachers teach taste you said nothing about "better"
or "worse" taste. This puts you in the seemingly silly position of asserting
the teacher who inculcates what you'd call awful preferences is nevertheless
doing his job of "teaching taste".
I see this ignoring the central criticism not infrequently on the forum, and
usually I can't tell for sure if the other guy is intentionally evading
criticisms he can't rebut because his ego can't stand facing up to it, or he
simply
isn't acute enough to see his position's faultiness.
For those interested in the background to this current posting, I reprint
below Chris's last response, and, further down, the posting I claim he largely
ignores in that response.
*****
I'm certainly not excluding the possibility that some people may claim that
one taste is better than another -- indeed, that exactly what art teachers do
and should do -- and aren't people doing that continuously with other --
whether it's a taste for other people or a taste for certain kinds of weather
?
(While you have a taste for clarity in speech. No -- wait --- you never
really
try to achieve it --
That's what I'd call teaching taste.
Did I really say that's the ONLY thing art school teachers teach ?
What I meant to say -- is that taste is the most important thing they teach -
and that teaching taste is unavoidable - whether the subject appears to be
the
latest theory of art -- or simply how to clean brushes.
*********************************************
Chris, you wrote:
" I would assert -- the best (or only?) true evidence for taste is the
product thereof."
You then accepted "preferences" as a "product" of "taste",
and went on to
say, "Everyone has personal preferences."
Since everyone has preferences, it follows that, with your usage of 'taste',
everyone has "taste".
I then listed numerous preferences of mine that most people would say have
nothing to do with the their notion of taste. -- e.g. I prefer zippers and
velcro to buttons because I have an arthritic thumb.
You reply: "yes -- I am using the word 'taste' much more broadly than you
might -- because I don't want to categorically exclude any kind of
relationship
from consideration -- especially when discussing preferences in the
imaginative
arts."
You can do that, Chris, but I claim you have stretched the coverage of the
word 'taste' so broadly most literate wouldn't recognize it. I myself hold
little brief for the word 'taste' because I've noticed such a wildly
disparate
and
fuzzy array of notion behind various people's usages, many of which are
mutually exclusive. (And, of course, I don't believe there is any "THE
meaning
of"
'taste.) But let's examine those notions because they almost universally
contain an element that your usage leaves out. Thus your personal stipulative
definition of 'taste' -- i.e. your description of your notion -- is unlikely
to be
adopted by your readers, so every time you use the word you will not be
"understood".
The notion most people have in mind when they use the word 'taste' contains
an element of JUDGMENT: Almost anyone who might say, "Ellen has taste," would
have in mind not just that Ellen has preferences, but that they are
APPROVABLE
preferences.
Example: With your usage, it's nonsense to say, "Ellen has taste. Her husband
has none at all." By you, it's illogical to say someone has "no taste",
because everyone has preferences. But of course someone who says that "means"
her
husband has no approvable preferences. And, by you, to assert that Ellen has
taste is not to say anything favorable about Ellen, since everyone has taste.
In truth, one of the reasons I recoil a bit from the common usage of 'taste'
is its suppressed but undeniable assumption that there are, in some sort of
"fact of the matter" way, right and wrong preferences.
I'd say you were backed into a bootless position by your original assertion
about what art school teachers teach. You said they "teach taste", period. If
you'd said, "They teach preferences," I myself could have no quarrel with it.
(However, you also said they teach ONLY taste, which I feel is patently
wrong. Teaching what's the best solvent to use in cleaning brushes and your
hands
is not a matter of taste under anyone's notion -- though WANTING to clean up
might by some be thought a matter of "taste". And in fact you also say
something
that suggests you also think they might teach such stuff though it isn't a
matter of "taste": "only taste is important -- since whatever technical
stuff is
required can be self-taught or picked up along the way.")
Footnote: The common, fuzzy notion of "taste" has a flaw that's more
grievously displayed in the common, fuzzy notion of "art". Both words are
commonly
used with a built-in element of approval. "Now that's art! The other thing is
rubbish."
