William wrote: > Ok. But you should explain, I think, why you proclaim "aesthetic ideals aren't > about being good,...or taste" > > Taste is always an issue with aesthetics since taste is a subjective judgment. > Good, or goodness, is inextricable from moral judgment, too, because it > suggests the affirmative, as in 'this is good for me or for life" > > My statement about 'excessive' is meant to imply that whatever the boundaries of > the aesthetic might be, they can be expanded because they are always affected by > the flow of life, the reality and its continuing expansion or accumulation of > events (time's arrow, etc). In this respect being excessively is simply an > effort to keep up with reality -- to embrace it and not to trim it to fit the > parameters of the past.
Taste denotes a different attitude or reference point from "aesthetic ideal." As you say, taste is a judgment: one exercises taste, one chooses based on taste. I like or dislike X, so I choose it or reject it. Aesthetic ideals are used as a standard to judge something, which may fall short of the ideal but still appeal to one's taste or simply to one's desire for it. Berg's stated that "excess" was per se bad (should it be curbed, he asked) and that it encouraged novelty, which leads to decay, etc. By his reasoning, only that which falls within the ambit of the ideals is not excessive and thus not susceptible to novelty and decadence. Not so. As you rightly point out, everything continues, grows, and exceeds boundaries--which according to Berg would be excess. Or is that what he had in mind. Let's ask him: Joseph, what do you have in mind when you say that "desure fir excess" should be curbed? | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Michael Brady
