I'm an aesthetic fundamentalist - and why you should care

Miscellaneous General
21

Can you be more specific? I’m saying that the market uncovers or reveals what people demand and that the end result is visible in what the market itself produces. Let’s go back 100 years before there were any major public arts subsidies. If you wanted to make a living writing music, your music had to sell tickets. If your music sucked, you were quickly selected out of the market never to return. Yet all the music that people wrote and which sold tickets had common elements in it - structure, theme, melody, rhythm, symmetry, and so on - and my argument is that we can know that these elements are what make music music as opposed to random noises that no one would ever pay money to hear.

Again, can you be more specific? I’m not denying entrepreneurship… composers have to take risks and invent new musical ideas and sounds that will keep bringing audiences back for more, it’s not enough to just apply the “orthodox rules” of music and churn out yet another minor variation on what has been done before. I think of the Haydns and Schumanns in this category.

No, I think the two coexist. I have my values (Cage’s music is shit, for example) and the market reveals the nature of human taste in music (which also suggests that Cage’s music is shit).

Clayton -

22

Can you not see the massive epistemic errors in this line of thinking?

Every variation is its own niche. Every variation has an audience of at least one. The more highly valued a variation doesn’t have to be proportional to the entire market, it can be one man valuing art that no one else does. It can be the composer writing music only he enjoys. This tells us nothing about the market and everything about subjective value.

The market is a process, not a referendum.

How can the market suggest anything unless you appeal to majoritarianism? As long as one person appreciates his music, there is a market for it. The size of the market is not at all correlated with quality.

As a friend, and I do consider you a friend, I think you should give this reconsideration. While you’re frigging brilliant, this stuff is by far some of your worst work.

23

Agreed. My point about market size is that the modern market in elite arts (including music) is distorted by subsidies. Surely, you grant that public subsidization of producers distorts the market with oversupply of the subsidized product and undersupply of products that would be demanded if they were not priced out by the subsidy?? My point is that artists we would never have heard of are given a megaphone if they are well-connected and they drown out artists that many people would have otherwise voluntarily patronized as a result of their own free choice.

Let me translate to a market other than music. We can meaningfully say that people like to drive four-wheeled vehicles in the United States because they select a majority of four-wheeled vehicles. I agree that this is not a value judgment against two-wheeled or three-wheeled vehicles, but we can also note that people generally don’t like to drive Ford Pintos or AMC Gremlins because these cars were pieces of junk to begin with. They failed the market test as well they should have. This is not just an expression of my value judgment (“I don’t like Ford Pintos or AMC Gremlins”) but is a reflection of the difference between good design and poor design as evaluated by consumers. You might say, “Well, the cars were cheap so they couldn’t afford to design them any better to hit that price point” but apparently consumers wouldn’t agree with you… they bought Toyotas and Hondas that were just as cheap but well engineered. In fine art, design is even more crucial since most of the cost of a piece of art is the artist’s time, not the materials which went into producing the art piece (with the exception of sculpture, architecture, some major rock shows and so on). Design, not the frugality of the bill-of-materials, is the deciding factor in the market success or failure of a piece of art.

I agree with you that the market is a process, not a referendum. This is why it’s possible for composers to write great works of art that flopped on their initial release but later came to be elevated to the classical canon (this occasionally happens with movies, as well). So, it is impossible to derive any sort of “objective values” from the outcome of the market process, as Rothbard seems to have attempted to do.

It seems like maybe we’re talking past each other?

Clayton -

24

Clayton,

I think that you’re missing the purpose of morality.

For taste (food taste), what’s the purpose? It’s your subconsciousness advising you on whether or not to continue eating whatever you’re eating. It pays attention to the stuff in the food (whatever that means), what your body needs to prosper, and so on, and makes a recommendation. But thanks to the food industry of the past whatever amount of time, it’s extremely maladaptive in the modern world (at least for my goals). It makes a barrage of totally insane suggestions at every turn (again, at least for my goals). We’re hard-wired to take our taste as an end in itself (that’s why it “tastes so good” to your present self no matter whether your future self would approve), but most of us also want our health to prosper in the long term. During “our primitive existence in the sweeping grasslands of Africa”, I assume that those 2 goals (our present-oriented one and our future-oriented) were perfectly in harmony. There was a harmony of interests between our different selves over time. But in the modern world, we find ourselves with a serious conflict of interests between them. It’s a tricky situation, and it destroys countless lives.

As I alluded to in the previous paragraph, I suspect that the violent disagreements, and absolutely dumbfounded regrets, that almost everybody experiences day in and day out with respect to what to eat (should I indulge or not?) is because of some sort of unnatural situation (fake food, easy access, and so on). In other words, I suspect that if one were in a more natural situation (no fake food, the necessity to do some hard exercise to “earn” your food, and so forth), there would be some sort of harmony of interests between your different selves over time. It wouldn’t be that you would hope to God that you would be able to overcome some sort of “base craving” so as to sustain your health in the long term (such as avoiding eating too many donuts or something); it would be that your short term interests would align perfectly with your long term ones. Just as the state can destroy the harmony of interests among the people, and destroy the mechanisms which coordinate the actions of the different market participants over time, an unnatural situation for your body can wreck the harmony of interests among your different selves, and wreck the machinery which coordinates them over time.

But because the taste system that I was born with is so maladaptive in the modern world (yet again, at least for my goals!), I must compensate. I must submit some conscious intervention and regulation into the process, lest I find my different selves make war with each other. If I simply go by what tastes good, I will find my different selves torn in a distracting battle, while my ultimate goals go unfulfilled. So what’s there to do? For my decision of what to eat, I can either listen to my subconsciousness (my taste system’s output), my consciousness (what I consciously think about it), or a combination of both. To avoid droning on and on about this, I will avoid talking about how exactly I solve this classic problem, but for the purpose of this topic it’s sufficient to point out that I’m not the slave of my taste system’s output. As it’s very unstable in the modern world, I must intervene with its activity. If I let it go about its own thing, it will lead me into destruction. I mustn’t take its output as the final world on the subject. I don’t find it an end in itself (as some may), so I must question it. If it outputs bad results (e.g., it tells me to eat something, but I suspect that it would be a bad idea to take that advice), I mustn’t let it push me around.

Now, it’s the same exact thing with morality. For your moral sense, it’s your subconsciousness advising you about whether or not to approve of whatever social interaction that you’re witnessing or a part of. But (as you stated), thanks to the market system, it’s extraordinarily maladaptive in the modern world (at least for our goals). For most people (maybe not us?), it makes a flood of completely moronic recommendations at every corner (again, at least for our goals). And on and on. It’s all the same with morality as it was with taste. Just as we must decide what to eat based on our conscious calculations (common sense, biology, medicine, and so on), the advice from our subconsciousness (what the food actually tastes like), or a combination of both, we must do the same with what social interactions to condone. And as our conscious goals are the final word on what we should eat, our conscious goals are the same for what interactions we should approve of. If the purpose of our taste system is to advice us on what to eat, the purpose of our moral sense is to do the same for whether we should condone a given kind of social interaction. But if either of them outputs bad results (i.e., anything going against one’s conscious goals), one mustn’t let it push them around.

25

sigh

Ok, let’s start with basics, please stop writing walls of text, I ignore 80% of it anyway.

What can consumers, assuming a majority, since it is unlikely they all make the same choices, and even if they all reject the same choice, zero sales doesn’t reflect a cardinal value but a low ordinal priority, meaningfully tell us by their choices?

Can they tell us what we should choose? Can they tell us what is morally right? Can they tell us what is high quality? Can they tell us what is scientifically proven? (rhetorical questions)

Praxeologically, what conclusions can you draw or infer from any choice made by another individual? What conclusions are known to be outside the scope of our knowledge?

26

I think you are mischaracterizing human nature… what you describe sounds more like Data from Star Trek. The vast majority of the decisions you make each day are made with very little forethought or reflection and are mainly the result of habit or impulse. How to comb your hair, which route to drive to work, where to park your car, whether to smile or ignore a passerby, whether to look twice into a shop window, and so on.

Clayton -

27

Why exactly do you think that our taste system and our moral sense evolved?

28

As a producer, you had better draw conclusions from the choices of consumers or you’re likely to go out of business. A shoemaker who makes shoes with steel spikes in the insole is probably not going to have great sales figures.

I don’t know what your second question means.

Clayton -

29

The only reason anything evolves: survival and reproduction.

Clayton -

30

But what purpose do those 2 systems have for our survival and reproduction?

31

But what purpose do those 2 systems have for our survival and reproduction?

I am assuming you are referring to morality and taste here, if not then please correct me.

Taste is the easy one and addressed mosty above by Clayton. Your sense of taste gives you feedback as to what nutrients you need to survive. If something tastes bad it probably is not conducive to your survival. If something tastes good then it is probably condusive to your survival. This of course no longer applies since human technology has outpaced biological evolution.

Morality is a little more complex but my understanding of it is that evolution has proven (many times over) that working together with others has a net positive effect on survival and reproduction. By banding together into a family, tribe, society, etc. we have a competative advantage over those who don’t. Morality is natures way of encouraging this behavior. Things like mirror neurons that cause us to feel empathy play a major role in this. We know something has a negative effect on our own survival/reproduction (pain, bad taste, etc.) and when we see that in others of our species our mirror neurons cause us to feel a similar emotion which encourages us to stop whatever from happening to the other person. When they do this for us and we do it for them we, as a species, have a competative advantage over those that are entirely self serving (e.g.: lacking in mirror neurons).

32

Wait, wasn’t that me?

Yeah, that’s what I was trying to get Clayton to agree to.

Yeah, and that’s what I was trying to point out by bringing up our sense of taste.

And doesn’t all of that support my conclusion (that if they output useless advice, we shouldn’t let them push us around)?

I mean, if you want to take pleasing one of those systems as an end in itself (as many people consciously do with taste), that’s perfectly fine. I just want everybody to understand that our moral sense isn’t arbitrary or something. There’s a reason why it’s one way and not another.

If you’re trying to figure out how to organize a stable society, your moral sense isn’t the final word on that subject; it’s possible that its advice isn’t useful. If you recognize that your moral sense is simply nature’s way of encouraging a certain kind of behavior (i.e., organizing into a society), it’s possible not only to question (a) whether you want to engage in that kind of behavior, but also (b) whether it’s even giving you the right advice anyway (e.g., whether what it’s encouraging you to do really would result in a stable society).

And if you get all that, it’s easy to see that economics (or whatever) is the science of making conscious decisions about how to interact with other people (or whether to condone a certain kind of social interaction), and that your moral sense is simply nature’s (probably outdated) opinion on the subject.

33

That’s a non sequitur. Please try again.

You actually tried to answer it with the first. You’re just grasping at ideas with no consistent train of reasoning that I can discern. Which is to be expected because you’re trying to read more into subjective values than can be extrapolated into a broader truth.

I will repeat the first question, so you can really think about what I am asking, and what the question is looking for in an answer.

Praxeologically, what conclusions can you draw or infer from any choice made by another individual?

34

Wait, wasn’t that me?

Wow, sorry. Totally misread that as from Clayton.

35

LS, if I may be so bold, I think what you’re saying is that people’s choices in the market only reflect their individual and necessarily subjective value judgements. There are no objectively “correct” value judgements to be made there. However, I think Clayton has pointed out that there are certain broad commonalities in people’s esthetics. For example, most people seem to greatly prefer tonal music to atonal music. That doesn’t make the former objectively “good” and the latter objectively “bad”, of course.

36

Clayton,

Firstly I think your general point regarding dual morality and the morality of the population providing constraints for state action is spot on. Further your link with this to aesthetics is indespensible: all art even ostensible non-narrative art such as architecture, in fact tells a story and stories can be virtuous, despicable or a mixture of both. Further art heralds certain acts heroic and others shameful. This then influences how actors how they ought to act in their own stories within the metanarrative (in this context I’m purely defining this term as the dawn of the universe until and am prescribing no content thereafter).

As an aside I have heard it argued that architecture is the most influential art form since we see it all the time and yet do not reflect upon.

Where I would disagree is that to be consistent with the above argument you must hold an objective aesthetics and morality. To say that “aesthetics are subjective and not arbitary” is word play unless you can account for a subjectivity within an objectivity; your appeal solely to human nature is attempting to bridge is ought with an illusory, rather than actual bridge. The necessity of both objectivity and subjectivity, or form and freedom, which you have aptly demonstrated in your musical criticism can solely be accounted for by the trinitiarian God. You have the form in the shared nature and freedom in the three persons who have their own tastes and preferences. (Just for a quick logical defense of the trinity - if God is defined as the Father, the Son and the Spirit loving each other as scripture indicates we have no problem of 1+1+1=1. Rather 1+1+1= 3 persons and 3 persons ≡ 1 God)

Finally thanks for the music links, they were wonderful. Regarding my own musical taste I tend to not like the Classical period proper as it seems to concerned about form and ends up being too neat and tidy thereby alerting the listener solely to the piece rather than to somethng beyond itself; the Baroque and Romantic music are far better at this and as such tend to be better. In a different way serialism is all form too however even worse than the Classical period it is egalitarian: no note is more important than any other in the piece. In fact I think the best way tto convince an egalitarian the idiocy of the position is to listen to serialist music; if they enjoy it, give up.

37

@ Clayton

In conclusion, I think that to stop at criticizing the monopoly on force and legalized aggression is to stop far short of the root problem. Buttressing the modern State are perversions in our legal system and buttressing these are perversions in our moral sense and aesthetic sense. Hence, promotion of good morals and good taste are central to the project of tearing down the State and correcting the many ills of modern society. The Renaissance in the arts and humanities came first, classical liberalism came later.

Can you explain how the promotion of good morals and good taste during the Renaissance led to the philosophy of classical liberalism?

The National Endowment for the Arts, the subsidy of arts programs in public schools and universities, the preoccupation of the religious leaders in the world’s largest religious organizations with what people see on television or hear on the radio… these are all vehicles for the perversion of good taste and good morals. The attack on the arts began in earnest in the early 20th century. Its effects can be seen everywhere from the dull grey prison-like concrete architecture of the modernists to Lady Gaga. Gone are the Vermeers and the Wagners.

It is tempting to view the Lady Gaga phenomenon simply as the result of the demand of the masses, like televisions, washing machines and cars. After all, people freely spend enormous amounts of money on all sorts of inferior products: cheap pornography, fast food, dime novels, plastic toys, etc. Do public subsidies really have that much power to pervert our aesthetic sense? Can you recommend any reading on the “attack on the arts” that would support your thesis?

38

I’m not denying entrepreneurship… composers have to take risks and invent new musical ideas and sounds that will keep bringing audiences back for more, it’s not enough to just apply the “orthodox rules” of music and churn out yet another minor variation on what has been done before. I think of the Haydns and Schumanns in this category.

Do you mean that Haydn and Schumann were risk-takers who invented new musical ideas, or that they only applied “orthodox rules” and churned out unoriginal material?

39

No, I mean what I wrote. The difference between me and the audience of John Cage is that there are billions of people who share my tastes and precious few (hundreds? thousands maybe?) who actually enjoy Cage’s crap. This is not to say that numbers determine aesthetics… far from it. But go back to what I wrote on the music market and look at the situation from the point of view of a would-be music composer in a genuine market for music. Let’s say he really enjoys Cage’s music and, if he had his own way, would write music that is in Cage’s “style”. Nevertheless, he is constrained by market demand. Unless he’s subsidized or has a patron (patronage is also a kind of market, by the way) he must respond to the audience’s demands, go hungry or find a different line of work. Music that cannot pass a market test is shit music.

What about the billions of people who enjoy Lady Gaga, buy her albums, and pay to see her perform? Are they to be disregarded because their tastes have been perverted by the “attack on the arts?” I am reminded of Walter Block’s response to the critique that Austrain economics is shit economics because it has not passed the market test. Block says that rap music is much more popular than classical, but that does not mean 50-Cent is a better musican than Mozart.

With the advent of modern recording technologies and iTunes, it is amazing how cheap and easy it is to access the highest quality classical music. Yet, given this free market, people still choose Lady Gaga. Perhaps it has less to do with the perversion of taste and morals, and more to do with the distribution of intelligence in the human population. Most people just aren’t smart enough to appreciate Bach and Mozart.

40

You’re making the same mistake that IRyan and ls have made… I’m not saying that market size is an objective measure of a product’s quality or value (certainly not value as value is purely subjective). What I’m saying is that the marketplace is distorted. Bach and Mozart were never popular with the masses in the heyday of classical music to begin with. The masses were stomping it out in pubs singing the folk tunes they grew up with. People often forget that. Rock music is just today’s folk music. Despite all the hoopla, there’s nothing fundamentally new about it. Classical music has always been elite music and I’m not saying it would become popular but for the State. Rather, what I’m saying is that State subsidies in the arts “crowd out” artists that the market would have selected otherwise in that market. It’s like if the government started giving away Ford Pintos for free. Even though they’re total crap cars, you’d start seeing lots of Pintos on the road because you can’t beat free. This would put a squeeze on car manufacturers, especially in the low end, whose markets are being saturated with a product with which they cannot compete at the subsidized price-point.

It’s my opinion that this is not just a mistake. I think that the elite arts are under attack and for a reason, the reasons I’ve given above.

Clayton -