Don Satz wrote in the aftermath of my attack on David Wright:

>Felix Delbruck wrote strongly:
>
>>...fundamentally our views on art are nakedly subjective, and this
>>sort of pompous claim to objectivity and reason is in my view dishonest,
>>not to mention bloody irritating.
>
>I agree with Felix that art is inherently subjective, but I wouldn't be
>so hard on those who don't agree.  Many people have a strong need to have
>order in their world.  Toward that end, they tend to dislike subjective
>areas of life and attempt to objectify them.  We're all just doing the
>best we can.  There likely are some objective areas in music, but folks
>can never agree what they are.

I was in a foul mood when I wrote my posting and there's no doubt I went
over the top. While I don't think we can ever transcend the bounds of our
experience, I certainly don't believe that we're fettered to a level of
unreflected, instinctive subjectivity.  We should of course try to find
reasons for our opinions and make sure that those reasons are at least
internally consistent.  It was was precisely the lack of any such
intellectual rigour that I missed in the article, and the use of the
language of fact rather than opinion was merely the straw that broke the
camel's back.

Felix Delbruck
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