Chris writes that everyone believes "good art" exists. He figures I'd be the first to protest this, so he cites even Cheerskep:
"Samuel Johnson wrote most of his good stuff solely to get money" Cheerskep (2009/02/24) Perhaps, Cheerskep would happily replace "good stuff" with the phrase "stuff I think is good" or "stuff that gets anthologized the most". Several points: 1. Sometimes I knowingly use what I've called "kitchen English" to avoid weighing down my message with the grave or overly-long phrasings of rigorous philosophy. But that's not what happened with my Johnson line above. What happened there was because... 2. ...I am woefully prone to verbal fault. For the forum I usually write too fast, or when I'm too tired, or when, if only I knew it, I'm in over my head. So when a line of mine is cited that conveys to too many readers a notion I didn't have mind, the best thing for me to do is just admit I didn't say that well. This is distinguished from my saying, "Gosh, if I said it, I guess I do believe certain works are in some absolute sense good!" 3. I sense you misread my (imperfect) line re Johnson. I meant "Johnson's good stuff" as a general approbation applying to his output, the way I might say, "Dickinson wrote her magnificent poetry in Amherst, Mssachusetts," or "Shakespeare's great plays were written four centuries ago." By that I don't mean to imply she wrote her other, lousy, poems in some other town; or that W.S. wrote his bad stuff in the 1900s. 4. Still, I used the word 'good' in a careless way I should have avoided. I would not accept either of Chris's two phrasings as acceptable avoidances: "replace "good stuff" with the phrase "stuff I think is good" or "stuff that gets anthologized the most"." Some writers, in a discussion of whether or not "Good Art Exists", will feel that if they replace, "HAMLET is a great play," with "I think HAMLET is a great play," they have put themselves in a much more defensible position. They haven't. Because what's at issue is not whether this or that work "is great", but whether such "greatness" ever exists at all -- in some sort of mind-independent, regardless-of-anyone's-opinion way. So for me to respond to Chris's question -- 'Does good art exist" -- by saying, "Well, I think Johnson's writings are good," or "I think HAMLET is good," would be to beg the question. It's an error somewhat akin to Samuel Johnson's own fatuous "refutation" of Berkeley's idealism. Berkeley said individuals can only directly know sensations and ideas; but a sensation or an idea of an object is never the object itself, so we can never know an object directly, or, indeed, that anything other than notion exists. Johnson kicked his notional foot at his notional mental image of a heavy stone and exclaimed, "I refute it thus!" In sum, for me to think I proved "good art" "exists" by asserting, "HAMLET is good art!" -- would by fatuous. I enjoy HAMLET; Tolstoi did not. In the end my entire argument for calling it in some absolute way "good" would be reduced to my pointing at elements that gave me enjoyment (I won't say "aesthetic enjoyment" because in this particular context that too would probably be rejected as amounting to begging the question.) Nor would I use Chris's anthologies phrase, because that would require a convincing argument proving that nothing gets widely anthologized unless it is "good art". I should say these are not mere devil's advocate arguments. I sincerely believe these things. The very things in Johnson or Shakespeare that give me pleasure might bore or disgust the next person. "Well, you shouldn't be bored! You should be transported like me! And if I am transported, it can only be because there is good art there. Thus do I prove good art exists!" I can imagine a devotee of Beckett saying that to me about WAITING FOR GODOT. ************** You're invited to Hollywood's biggest party: Get Oscars updates, red carpet pics and more at Moviefone. (http://movies.aol.com/oscars-academy-awards?ncid=emlcntusmovi00000001)
