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The objectivity question
Offnotesnotes asks "can music be objectively good?" and Tom repeats the question and Daddino and I comment. Sane people tend to flee such discussion, but I don't, and this was my two cents:
Well, a problem is that the word "objective" has an air of precision about it but it's actually vague and problematic as all shit, and Marc never told us or figured out what he was asking. A connotation of "objective" is that everyone who has access to the same facts or data or sense impressions and isn't mentally deficient and is willing to do the work must come to the same conclusion, and we can't imagine that they wouldn't. Generally, the word that "objective" attaches to is "true" rather than "good," the distinction supposedly being that we can - or, once we know more about tides and winds and such, we will be able to - determine objectively whether a dike in or near New Orleans can withstand Category Four or Category Five hurricanes. Whereas whether New Orleans is worth the trouble of protecting and preserving, and what about New Orleans you want to protect and preserve, and whether dikes are the way you want to do it (rather than, say, moving the city periodically) are generally considered value judgments, which are supposedly the sort of thing that we can imagine disagreeing about, no matter how much data we collect.
For a whole slew of reasons I won't go into here, I wish the words "objective" and "subjective" would disappear: notice that in the question we're discussing now the word "objective" is a barrier rather than a spur to thought. I suspect that what might really be nagging at people isn't whether the term "good song" can be moved into the category "fact," where we can't imagine disagreement, but rather that it seems to waver somewhere between "matter of taste" and "matter of judgment." For example, whether broccoli tastes better than cauliflower is generally considered a matter of taste, with nothing much riding on whether we agree or not, whereas whether a particular embezzler deserves prison is considered a matter of judgment. I'd say that, e.g., for the people who care about hip-hop, whether Asher Roth is better than Kanye West isn't considered just a mere matter of taste, but why it isn't, or just how important the question is, is not clear. In general, moving a question from the category "judgment" to either the category "fact" or the category "matter of taste" is an attempt to end discussion, but in matters of music the attempt always fails.
(This isn't meant to imply that people are clear or definite as to how they categorize something, or are putting thought into it; "matter of taste" means "you can't criticize me" and "matter of fact" means "you have to agree with me (and therefore can't criticize me), or ideally you would agree, anyway, once we gather all the data," but people's behavior in regard to music doesn't cooperate with either of those categories.)
Well, a problem is that the word "objective" has an air of precision about it but it's actually vague and problematic as all shit, and Marc never told us or figured out what he was asking. A connotation of "objective" is that everyone who has access to the same facts or data or sense impressions and isn't mentally deficient and is willing to do the work must come to the same conclusion, and we can't imagine that they wouldn't. Generally, the word that "objective" attaches to is "true" rather than "good," the distinction supposedly being that we can - or, once we know more about tides and winds and such, we will be able to - determine objectively whether a dike in or near New Orleans can withstand Category Four or Category Five hurricanes. Whereas whether New Orleans is worth the trouble of protecting and preserving, and what about New Orleans you want to protect and preserve, and whether dikes are the way you want to do it (rather than, say, moving the city periodically) are generally considered value judgments, which are supposedly the sort of thing that we can imagine disagreeing about, no matter how much data we collect.
For a whole slew of reasons I won't go into here, I wish the words "objective" and "subjective" would disappear: notice that in the question we're discussing now the word "objective" is a barrier rather than a spur to thought. I suspect that what might really be nagging at people isn't whether the term "good song" can be moved into the category "fact," where we can't imagine disagreement, but rather that it seems to waver somewhere between "matter of taste" and "matter of judgment." For example, whether broccoli tastes better than cauliflower is generally considered a matter of taste, with nothing much riding on whether we agree or not, whereas whether a particular embezzler deserves prison is considered a matter of judgment. I'd say that, e.g., for the people who care about hip-hop, whether Asher Roth is better than Kanye West isn't considered just a mere matter of taste, but why it isn't, or just how important the question is, is not clear. In general, moving a question from the category "judgment" to either the category "fact" or the category "matter of taste" is an attempt to end discussion, but in matters of music the attempt always fails.
(This isn't meant to imply that people are clear or definite as to how they categorize something, or are putting thought into it; "matter of taste" means "you can't criticize me" and "matter of fact" means "you have to agree with me (and therefore can't criticize me), or ideally you would agree, anyway, once we gather all the data," but people's behavior in regard to music doesn't cooperate with either of those categories.)