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Re: conlangs as art (was: Re: Wikipedia:Verifiability - Mailing lists as sources

From:Jörg Rhiemeier <joerg_rhiemeier@...>
Date:Wednesday, February 27, 2008, 20:35
Hallo!

On Wed, 27 Feb 2008 11:00:58 -0500, Jim Henry wrote:

> > However, And Rosta, or so it seems to me, maintains a fundamentally > > different position - he claims that there was art that was objectively > > better than other art; I felt a desire to voice my dissent on that. > > The fact that he had to draw dog-turds into the discussion IMHO shows > > just how bankrupt that kind of reasoning is :) > > It's probably useful, on the one hand, to make a distinction > between natural beauty and human-made art, and on the other > hand, to avoid extremes of subjectivism or objectivism in > assessing art. (For the beauty of turds and similar > natural phenomena, see below.)
Yes. And with both natural phenomena and works of art, beauty is subjective.
> The main problem I had with And's comments was not that he > maintains that some art is objectively better than other art, but > that he seems to say that some artforms are inherently > better than other artforms, and that conlanging is one of the > lesser artforms.
Yes, that is a completely fallacious notion. You cannot say that, say, music was "better" than ikebana. All you can say is that music moves you more than ikebana - the next person may feel differently. It is also very dependent on culture. Many if not most westerners consider shadowplay an amusement for children. In China, it is a highly respected art; shadowplays were performed at the imperial court - and not just for the Emperor's grandchildren.
> I don't know enough about his other examples > of lesser artforms to comment on them, but it seems to me > fairly obvious both that, e.g., > > 1. "Hamlet" is a better play than "Fanny and the Servant Problem",
I haven't heard of the latter play, and don't know _Hamlet_ well, so I cannot say which was better.
> and > 2. It's pretty well undecidable whether "Hamlet" is a better play > than the "Moonlight Sonata" is a sonata, or vice versa.
Such comparisons are often made (e.g., "Tolkien was the Beethoven of conlanging") - but they are subjective on both legs.
> That is, people can generally find some consensus about > extreme differences in quality within a given art form, but > can't come to any such agreement about the relative quality > of the best exemplars of different art forms. I would add, > > 3. It's not obvious whether the Moonlight Sonata > is a better sonata than Quenya is as a conlang. > > And probably, > > 4. It's not obvious whether the Crab Nebula is a more beautiful > natural phenomenon than the Moonlight Sonata or Quenya > is a beautiful work of art.
Agreed.
> It's also probable that some people are, whether by nature > or by circumstances, more attuned to some artforms than > to others; better able to appreciate and be deeply moved by > the best exemplars of those artforms than by the best of > some other artforms.
Sure. Ballet does nothing for me; literary criticism is an arcane art for me to which I never found access. You mention comic books - an often underrated art form. Most comic books may contain "trivial" subject matter - but the same is true of literature, film, drama and even opera! ... brought to you by the Weeping Elf

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