He tried pretending that taste is just taste but I see, he's dancing his way back to me
Me, responding over at Tom's tumblr in regard to contenderizer and Tim Finney on this ilX Pitchfork's Albums thread (search for "tough and complicated idea" and "partners"*)(I like ogmor's comments**). I'm repeating myself, of course (saying in less full form what I'd said here), but I think this needs to be repeatedly hammered in: "Personal taste" and "objectively true" not only aren't the only two choices, neither can be fallen back on when the issue is a value judgment. Here's what I wrote:
The problem with either analogy - taste in music is like taste in gender, taste in music is like taste in partners - is that "best album" is not an expression of taste. It's a value judgment, and in our society, at any rate, no one has successfully been able to pry it loose from "value judgment" and relegate it to the "taste" category. If anything, the reverse is true: apparent expressions of taste - "I love this," "this is my favorite," "this is boring," "this turns my stomach" - tend to play as value judgments anyway. So even if my judgments are just rationalizations of my taste, they function in the world as judgments. Now, there's plenty of recognition that judgments are connected to taste and to personality and to social role and the like, so we're not expected to all make the same judgment. But in my online world we are nonetheless encouraged and even expected to give reasons why we think something is good or bad, not just reasons for why something appeals to us. People's outrage or contempt at our taking Mariah and Taylor and Ashlee seriously (to take Dan's triumvirate of dislike) isn't outrage at our taste, at our personal preferences, but at our thinking that we're at least in some way right, and that those who dislike those artists are wrong, and at our thinking these women are worthy of time and space, the reader's or listener's time as well as our own - and those who won't give them time can fuck off with their opinions (except that such opinions are usually a sociological gold mine).
*I'm searching for both.
**Does anyone know who contenderizer and ogmor are (or their former ilX names, at any rate; I've lost track of who is who)?
The problem with either analogy - taste in music is like taste in gender, taste in music is like taste in partners - is that "best album" is not an expression of taste. It's a value judgment, and in our society, at any rate, no one has successfully been able to pry it loose from "value judgment" and relegate it to the "taste" category. If anything, the reverse is true: apparent expressions of taste - "I love this," "this is my favorite," "this is boring," "this turns my stomach" - tend to play as value judgments anyway. So even if my judgments are just rationalizations of my taste, they function in the world as judgments. Now, there's plenty of recognition that judgments are connected to taste and to personality and to social role and the like, so we're not expected to all make the same judgment. But in my online world we are nonetheless encouraged and even expected to give reasons why we think something is good or bad, not just reasons for why something appeals to us. People's outrage or contempt at our taking Mariah and Taylor and Ashlee seriously (to take Dan's triumvirate of dislike) isn't outrage at our taste, at our personal preferences, but at our thinking that we're at least in some way right, and that those who dislike those artists are wrong, and at our thinking these women are worthy of time and space, the reader's or listener's time as well as our own - and those who won't give them time can fuck off with their opinions (except that such opinions are usually a sociological gold mine).
*I'm searching for both.
**Does anyone know who contenderizer and ogmor are (or their former ilX names, at any rate; I've lost track of who is who)?