A very interesting discussion this has been! But I have to say, with
regard to Simon Biggs' comments, that I find it difficult to embrace any
philosophy of art which won't let me measure one thing against another -
"Wallace Stevens is a better poet than Patience Strong", for example; or
"The Mighty Boosh is a better comedy programme than Bread". Such
value-judgements may be open to challenge, in fact they must be open to
challenge, but it's important to be able to make them. I used to belong
to a poetry-society where every poem that was produced by anybody was
greeted, not just with a chorus of approval, but with remarks like
"That's a great poem, that is". Supportive, encouraging, but ultimately
not very helpful. A lot of really dire amateur poetry gets produced
under such circumstances. As an artist you have to be able to make
distinctions about your own work - "This line is weak if I write it like
this, but if I write it like that then it's much stronger" - "This bit's
dragging", "I could do with some more jokes in here", or whatever -
otherwise you can't develop, and these distinctions extend outwards to
the work of other people - "The way he does this is really effective: I
could borrow that technique", or "I don't want to produce something like
that - it's really trite". ("A Hard Day's Night" is better than "Summer
Holiday", by the way.)
Where it gets dangerous is if the value-judgements are supposed to be
beyond question: as in the F R Leavis sort of idea that there's
something called "culture" consisting of things like Shakespeare's plays
which are unquestionably "great", and this "culture" has to be defended
by academics and critics from erosion by mass media and the degradation
of modern society. As soon as we write our judgements in stone it's
dangerous; but it's also dangerous not to make any judgements at all.
If that makes me bourgeois, then sign me up to the WI.
- Edward
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