Why Quality (in Anything) Still Matters
Pop Quiz, everyone: Which of these two pictures is art?
this.....
or this?
[image error]
Well. $44 MILLION DOLLARS says Picture Number Two.
For those who haven't noticed, for the past half century "modern art" has dominated Western civilization's artistic culture. It is so prevalent that the mockery is almost an expected cliche.' Yet it persists. To this day utter garbage (sometimes literally-- look up the concept of found art) is called art, while art that displays skill, composition, structure, and pleasing visual qualities is labeled "pedestrian" or "bourgoise," or (oh gods no!) Commercial. The Emperor is not merely without clothes, he is stone deaf to the hoots of derision of the populace, and continues his parade down main street daily... and the thieves who swindled him are showered with money. High art, which is supposed to be the pinnacle of a civilization's creative culture, has become a scam or hustle, and the people who create real art are regarded with disdain and forced to scrabble for pennies... even though more thought goes into the design of a typical burger wrapper than into the pieces of garbage hanging on the walls of the average museum.
How did this happen?
It was a simple and methodical process. We deplored quality as a concept. Quality was merely a matter of opinion, you see. And egalitarianism demands that all opinions be equally valid--- except of course for ones like "Good" or "Bad." Those were, of course, wrong.
And so, step by step, the bad became the tolerated. The tolerated became the commonplace. And the commonplace became the rule, rather than the exception.
For those that insist, in spite of the above, that all things are still merely a matter of personal taste or opinion, I ask one armor piercing question:
If opinions don't matter, than why do you have a comments section below your work?
Acknowledging that there are a variety of opinions on what is quality does not mean accepting that there are no objective standards. There are still limits to how far the boundaries of subjective opinion will let you go. The purpose of having a free market of ideas is not to proclaim all ideas equivalent, its purpose is so that we can develop values... so that we can suss out what concepts have merit -- and that includes artistic merit. That goes for painting, composing, drawing, writing, ALL forms of creative productivity.
When we start insisting that all artistic concepts are equal, no matter what, it is always the BAD that climbs to the top of the heap. Huxters and shysters always thrive in a game with no rules. And given enough time they'll write their own rules for the game-- ones that favor them, ones so nonsensical that they'll have people wearing shoes on their head and hats on their feet.
In any system, criticism is what pushes and goads the creators into improving their own work, in developing a consensus of quality, into setting standards--- standards higher and tighter than the merely acceptible and that go beyond mere technique (all films are on celluloid and use the same tools, same sets and same movie tropes, but not all movies are equal... and even a diehard fan of schlock movies admits that they are schlock.) And yes many opinions will be unfairly biased against a particular style or work, but answering all criticism by insisting that "everyone has their opinion" is functionally the same as insisting that no opinion matters.
And the true quality work gets lost in an ocean of bad.
There are those who will still insist that "good" and "bad" are subjective opinions. But they will have to admit, after looking at the two above pictures, that "good" and "bad" STILL EXIST.
The rest... the ones who can look at the above works and insist that there is no real artistic difference between the two-- or worse, that the $44 million dollar swindle is "true art" while the other is not....
Their problem is evident.
this.....
or this?
[image error]
Well. $44 MILLION DOLLARS says Picture Number Two.
For those who haven't noticed, for the past half century "modern art" has dominated Western civilization's artistic culture. It is so prevalent that the mockery is almost an expected cliche.' Yet it persists. To this day utter garbage (sometimes literally-- look up the concept of found art) is called art, while art that displays skill, composition, structure, and pleasing visual qualities is labeled "pedestrian" or "bourgoise," or (oh gods no!) Commercial. The Emperor is not merely without clothes, he is stone deaf to the hoots of derision of the populace, and continues his parade down main street daily... and the thieves who swindled him are showered with money. High art, which is supposed to be the pinnacle of a civilization's creative culture, has become a scam or hustle, and the people who create real art are regarded with disdain and forced to scrabble for pennies... even though more thought goes into the design of a typical burger wrapper than into the pieces of garbage hanging on the walls of the average museum.
How did this happen?
It was a simple and methodical process. We deplored quality as a concept. Quality was merely a matter of opinion, you see. And egalitarianism demands that all opinions be equally valid--- except of course for ones like "Good" or "Bad." Those were, of course, wrong.
And so, step by step, the bad became the tolerated. The tolerated became the commonplace. And the commonplace became the rule, rather than the exception.
For those that insist, in spite of the above, that all things are still merely a matter of personal taste or opinion, I ask one armor piercing question:
If opinions don't matter, than why do you have a comments section below your work?
Acknowledging that there are a variety of opinions on what is quality does not mean accepting that there are no objective standards. There are still limits to how far the boundaries of subjective opinion will let you go. The purpose of having a free market of ideas is not to proclaim all ideas equivalent, its purpose is so that we can develop values... so that we can suss out what concepts have merit -- and that includes artistic merit. That goes for painting, composing, drawing, writing, ALL forms of creative productivity.
When we start insisting that all artistic concepts are equal, no matter what, it is always the BAD that climbs to the top of the heap. Huxters and shysters always thrive in a game with no rules. And given enough time they'll write their own rules for the game-- ones that favor them, ones so nonsensical that they'll have people wearing shoes on their head and hats on their feet.
In any system, criticism is what pushes and goads the creators into improving their own work, in developing a consensus of quality, into setting standards--- standards higher and tighter than the merely acceptible and that go beyond mere technique (all films are on celluloid and use the same tools, same sets and same movie tropes, but not all movies are equal... and even a diehard fan of schlock movies admits that they are schlock.) And yes many opinions will be unfairly biased against a particular style or work, but answering all criticism by insisting that "everyone has their opinion" is functionally the same as insisting that no opinion matters.
And the true quality work gets lost in an ocean of bad.
There are those who will still insist that "good" and "bad" are subjective opinions. But they will have to admit, after looking at the two above pictures, that "good" and "bad" STILL EXIST.
The rest... the ones who can look at the above works and insist that there is no real artistic difference between the two-- or worse, that the $44 million dollar swindle is "true art" while the other is not....
Their problem is evident.
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