Steve Schwartz <[log in to unmask]> wrings his arguments:

>Denis Fodor replies to Don Satz:
>
>>You sift the opinions of the established authorities in order to set up
>>a paradigm for what is good.
>
>Oh boy!  Who exactly are these established authorities and who
>establishes them?

I think it can be erratic to focus too much on "upper" and "lower" because
"upper" and "lower" moves slightly but constantly like a boilung soup
upwards and downwards and back and asides all the time.  We can make
models, but this is tricky to do.

>Do we, for example, take a Haydn expert at face value on the worth of
>a particular Haydn piece? How about a Stockhausen expert on the worth of a
>Stockhausen piece?

Yes!  I think that is what often happens.  There is something called
"degree that and that from university that and that" which gives us
authority to speak with power.  If I for own hand should make all the
university work of a student of similar capacity as me, ok I learn as much.
Still when oneother wants to know about chuckensnipes or hat the course was
about, he will in all cases not ask me, but he who has a degree.  If you
don't belive in this, look around when you watch TV or listen to radio or
read the paper whom the journalists consult when they want to have the
truth told.  Of course someone who is a prof in chickensnipes probably know
a lot of chickensnipes, and that is fully ok, but the same manner is
applied not only on mathematics, but also on art, and the sciences which
has a bigger amount of "this cannot be proved" than mathematics.  History
for instance.

>It seems to me that no one group -- composer, performer, critic, scholar,
>commercial agent, or listener -- establishes this consensus.

I would say it does, but in that group.  In difference to Schwartz I call
a subculture a group here.

>Again, I'm not quite sure why a consensus is desirable.

But I am.  The thing is that in every consencus in every group, there is a
meaning "we who think this are together.  Those who belive different are
the other.".  So, this is not the question if Mozart is better than Spice
Girls.  I do in this case have a preference for Mozart, but it is not just
my beauty that is THE beauty, as beauty can be many things.  Consencus then
has a janusface.  First of all, in a society where the ruling elite has
another conscencus then the mass, rulers and mass will strive in different
directions (can be economically(!), socialy, ideologigally, religiously)
as their anners are alien to each other, and the society will with the
time suffer and take loss from this.  It doesn't necessarily needs to be
what clearly can be identified as "the ruling class" involved, it works
the same way also for different kinds of subcultures which grow strong
and accentuated enough diversifying from each other.  That is my stutting
allegory with the boiling soup.  The economic unstability of the Roman
Empire after the Antoninian Emperors of the 3rd century, through the growth
of Latifundiae until the etablishment of Feodalism is one good example of
schism, which one can compare with for example the raise of Arabia from 622
and onwards as an example on a culture in growth and unity.

The Baeutiful Arts then, reflect these movings in the society, but what is
important to realize is that the chain is tied in the other end too: art
affects society.  Therefore, Mr Schwartz, it can very well be so that it
does matter where you start listen to Music; at Beethoven or Schoenberg.
Or Spice Girls or Anouhar Brahem.

>You contend it gives you the advantage of establishing a paradigm of the
>good. I've never seen such a paradigm, so I tend to doubt this.

No, becuase you are more interested in winnign a discussion than even
keep honest to yourself.  Ever read art history? Ever heard of Baroque?
Classicism? Romanticism? Let go models, of course Romanticism started with
C.P.E Bach's "Sturm und Drang".  Of course classicism still showed its face
in 1860.

>Far more important to me, at any rate, is to try to understand what's
>before me in its own terms.

Please allow me to tie back to an old discussion I had with you on the
list long ago: With the above sentence you state that there is objective
beauty?

>It seems to me you can establish a paradigm of what you find good among
>what you yourself like.

And now you are subjective again? Your arguing is a whole mess here Mr.
Schwartz!

>The argument is that the permanence of the canon guarantees something
>about the truth of the paradigm.  It seems to me that the paradigm is only
>historically, rather than Platonically, true, and only for a brief moment.

Her I temporarly agree on what I find to be an observation similar to
my own.  Also here is though different levels.  Consider the Hellinstic
Litterature of the Roman period.  Different writers went in and out, up
and down: Julius Kaisars sparesome style of "De bello Gallico" or "bello
civil" is something ratehr different from the Voluptousness of Catullus or
take Vergilius or Emperor Nero.  Then we have the Christian influence, and
after Plotinos certainly there were other or at least other favoutrties
added on top to Catullus and the Augustinian cradle.  Still the period from
long before Romes Empire can be tied together with even uttrances of the
Byzantine Empire as a tradition.  Like we consider Monteverdi and Mahler
both part of Western Classical Music, both part of Wests cultural unity.
Persian Carpets, however contrasts to Chagalls paintings, or Aztec
scultptured heads of Jade with Michelangelos "David".  (I have said nothing
about that one of those should be better beauty than the other).  Do you
see my point?

>I realize music of this century in particular confuses many intelligent
>people.  But the idea that individual taste is confirmed by some ethereal
>standard, however arrived at, usually points up the insecurity people feel
>toward their own taste.  This is sad.

Right on the nail.  And it is sad.  I will make a confession too: I
realize that modern art can and has shaken many ideas about what art is and
can be.  Art is good to raise questions ok, it is just that that I would
care about this if there were no connection between art and societys moves
and turns.  One can also argue that extending the limits of what art can be
should work as a lockopener for pluralism and multiculturalism.  I am not
sure whether it works that way or not,- I don't know here - but what I
think is sad is that that argument needs to be raised at all.  But who
cares what I think?

>The Hardwired Brain is terra incognita -- we don't have the schematics
>for the brain, let alone the mind, which is what apprehends art.

This is a hard argument to crack, that we don't know enough about the brain
yet to explain everything.  I could shabble away your question here with
some proto-intellecual schick-schack or hocus-pocus, but this time, let me
ask how the squirrel know that it shall jump in trees.  How does the little
bird know that it shall fly? How does the worm recognize another worm? Why
do sucklings recognize mother and mothers breats, and draws to warm, and
repels cold? Are there treejumpingschools for squirrels, or?

>I think it more healthy to admit we like what we like without having to
>apologize (which is what these justifications come down to).

I think that too.

Mats Norrman
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