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Is there any point to debating about art? (film, books, comics, paintings etc)

03:25 / 14.11.03

This message board and countless others are filled with back and forth debates over film, comics, books, paintings, what-have-you. Is there a point?

Thinking about myself, there's a certain feeling I get, a certain glow, when I like something - perhaps it's where the expression 'warming to something' comes from. Conversely, there's a sinking, hollow feeling I get after - sometimes during - experiencing something I don't like.

Now, this feeling is what usually decides if I like something or not. I can intellectually appreciate a piece's artistic value but that's not the same as liking. It also seems that no amount of discussion with my friends or reading of message board opinion will change this feeling and opinion. I participate in these discussions as much as anyone else, but always in the back of my mind I think that what I'm doing is futile.

I find debates of this type very different from arguments about pants or holiday destinations or video games. There you can point-counter point pros and cons and some of the pros or cons may actually sway a decision.

So why do we do it and have you ever been convinced to a different opinion by something you've heard or read.

(Please keep debates about films, books etc to separate threads.)

03:56 / 14.11.03

there are two reasons to debate stuff like that;

for people who have no strong opinion, so they can figure out which side they are likely to come down on before they buy/visit/listen.

for people who agree to get that feeling of kinship that comes from liking the same bands/movies/coasters as someone else.

i have never been swayed merely by argument, but for a while in my youth i didnt get thrash, and that had to be explained. that was more of an inbuilt bias that i broke down by listening to the tunes, though.

05:22 / 14.11.03

i've honestly never taken part in an online debate over any piece of art in any medium.

i like debating the intrinsic value of a piece of art, or what some other person feels is art. on occasion i am swayed to see another person's point of view. although i am rarely enticed to reverse my original opinion, the debate can serve in refining my own opinions. it forces me to think about the reasons why i feel strongly about a piece in the first place.

06:26 / 14.11.03

Short answer to the topic abstract - yes. I defintely get my opinions on art and music swayed by people here, no doubt. I'm a few years older than a lot of the people and can be very dismissive of music in particular, think I've "heard it all before". One of the reasons I like this place is because it sways my opinion and lets me soak up a bit of collective excitement for new things.

Tryphena Absent

08:29 / 14.11.03

Why is this in conversation?

Our Lady of The Two Towers

08:40 / 14.11.03

I rarely get my opinion changed by arguments, but that's mainly because my opinions tend to go along with the mainstream, unlike Ganesh I don't have the patience to go and find somewhere like C&F and try to have conversations with people I know I'll disagree with. Years of USENET has really soured me on that, a collection of people shouting their belief and either calling you stupid when you disagree with the 'self evident truth' of their beliefs or dumping you in the killfile.

Arguments tend to deepen my appreciation of that side of the... um, argument, but not often sway me.

Having said that, there have been the odd occasions when that's happened on here, though not recently...

08:41 / 14.11.03

I find that there's no point in debating anything when all the debaters involved have already made their minds up. It tends to move very swiftly from debating to arguing!
Also I've noticed that the people who say they like to debate are actually people who like to force their opinions on everyone else in order to always prove themselves right.

I've never been swayed by debate, I've been swayed by further information on the item though.

08:49 / 14.11.03

(It's in Conversation because it's relevant to all the arts fora, ie, the Spectacle, and yet cannot be put in all of them at once, I guess).

Tryphena Absent

08:56 / 14.11.03

I really enjoy a good debate. Actually I think it's very unhealthy to never exercise your brain in that way. Debate allows an examination that just doesn't usually happen for most people, it allows you to take these types of things apart but it rarely turns me either. Slightly consistent exposure will usually mean that I don't mind something but if I really dislike a piece than I'm always going to dislike a piece.

09:40 / 14.11.03

Rakehell -- Just by way of an example, what is your opinion on The Wizard of Oz? Do you like it?

09:52 / 14.11.03

The only time I've ever been swayed by an argument was the second time I read "Wuthering Heights". In high school I had believed it to be godawful nonsense, but then I read it in university with a series of lectures and the book came into a different perspective. Not exactly debate, I suppose, but someone else's opinion definitely swayed my initial reaction to the book.

Zoom.

11:08 / 14.11.03

Firstly we argue about books and films and stuff because it's fun (cf. real life conversations) and because we think we're right.
No matter how much I intellectually grasp that it's all a matter of opinion, I simply cannot accept that someone could like the Backstreet Boys over Bob Dylan- they're just wrong.
I've had my opinions changed regularly by what other people say, both ways. Same as Illmatic, I like to be proved wrong when I contemptuously dismiss something out of hand, and sometimes something I initially like I can be turned off by other people hating it- they highlight things I wasn't aware of and bring up comparisons I hadn't considered.

I think as well there's a difference between quality and opinion, there are lots of things I admit are good but I dislike them, and loads of things I like that are technically crap, but I love them anyway (e.g. Transformers, several embarassing one hit wonders).

11:13 / 14.11.03

No. AFWOTAM.

12:35 / 14.11.03

How likely are you to change your intial opinion to a piece?

Extremely likely.

There are loads of examples of things I now love which I was massively underwhelmed with on first exposure but persisted with, largely due to other peoples enthusiasm for thing in question..

Appreciation of music or film or literature or art is often a very slow-burning process for me - prolonged exposure & consideration, often fuelled by debate, can radically alter first impressions.

Also, debates aren't just pointless "IT'S GREAT!", "IT'S SHIT!" arguments (or, at least, they shouldn't be). Regradless of whether you're likely to be 'convinced' or not, aren't you at all interested in hearing other people's take on things?

12:40 / 14.11.03

aren't you at all interested in hearing other people's take on things?

...but can't you hear other's take on things in a "discussion" rather than a "debate".

13:32 / 14.11.03

...have you ever been convinced to a different opinion by something you've heard or read.

No, because opinions/debate etc cannot do anything to affect the idiot toddler at the centre of my brain who has ultimate say over what I like and what I don't. He's the instinctive, emotional and aesthetic centre that my conscious self has no control over, and knowledge (which is all that opinions give you, even if the opinion is "I feel X about Y") can't touch him.

However, opinions and debate can affect the Parents and Teachers Association that is my conscious self, the bit that checks everything out after the idiot toddler has got its grubby mitts on it, and this can have a subtle affect on my appreciation of things. These might be:

- enjoyment tainted. Say you find out that the guy who writes the instrumental music you love is a fascist. It's like being handed something nice by someone who stinks of wee. The thing itself is no less lovely, but you can't enjoy it with the same gusto, can you?
- appreciation enhanced. "Here's a rock." "So?" "It comes from fucking Mars!" "Cool!" Knowledge makes it interesting all of a sudden.

13:41 / 14.11.03

Ah, there's this as well. Scroll to my last post in that thread (on a similar theme to this one, incidentally) for an explanation about 'the voices in my head'. This would be where unwelcome outsiders gatecrash the P.A.T. association to jeer and heckle. This would come under the category of 'appreciation made awkward and uncomfortable'.

18:49 / 14.11.03

Why is this in conversation?
because the head shop is scaaarrry.

Our Lady of The Two Towers

07:08 / 15.11.03

Oh don't, let's not start the 'why don't more people go to the Head Shop' thread again, please...

I'm just trying to think about how argument and debate is framed in public spaces. There's quite a bit of 'debate' style forums, Newsnight, Question Time, opinion pieces in newspapers and on radio, but these are all "this is my truth, tell me yours so i can ridicule you" or at least "this is what I believe". Even the House of Commons is no more a forum for 'debate' than the letters page of the NME, it might become so if all MPs automatically had a secret ballot on each thing they vote on, it shocked me when I found out that everyone in Parliament knows which way you vote on each issue, so debate in the chamber is meaningless. David Blunkett could stand up and say "Vote for ID cards because my dog will bite you if you don't", the Shadow Home Sec. could make a 90 minute speech drawing on the finest rhetorical devices and quotes from the full range of English Literature and the drones are still going to vote the way that their whips tell them.

I think perhaps argument and debate have become misidentified in the public mind, it's weak to compromise.

10:31 / 15.11.03

Debate is a good thing whatever the subject, whether or not there's any chance of changing minds. The mind-changing stuff may take years of chipping away but it can happen. It can also happen suddenly - I have often been so influenced by reading a good argument or a pov from someone whose opinion I respect that I look at a piece of art or some disputed subject matter with fresher eyes.

Even if my opinion remains unchanged, the debate often allows me to understand my response more fully, or add some intellectual justification to a visceral reaction.

Popular media thrust so much crap at us, hyping any old rubbish for monetary gain, that any way of flagging up the left field stuff or challenging assumptions has to be a good thing. Novelty and ubiquity distort any consideration of intrinsic worth and debate allows some balance in.

I like it when people agree with me but I don't think they're automatically wrong if they don't and I don't feel I need to change my mind just because my viewpoint may be that of the minority. I do think it's useful to work out why people think differently though. "I like X" doesn't say anything at all unless you supplement that information with "because of Y, which is personal prejudice, and Z, which I read on The Lith".

Often with books and all the time with modern art and photography, I have changed my mind 180 degrees after taking on board further information and assessments from other people.

As Churchill never said: "Jaw, jaw is better than Shut the fuck up unless you agree with me".

14:42 / 15.11.03

No matter how much I intellectually grasp that it's all a matter of opinion, I simply cannot accept that someone could like the Backstreet Boys over Bob Dylan- they're just wrong.

How can it be wrong when it feels so right?

I've never once been even slightly tempted to buy a Bob Dylan record. In contrast, my hand has hovered over the Backstreet Boys albums many times when I've been browsing in HMV. No-one can argue that I Want it That Way isn't one of the greatest songs of the last decade. Pure, unadulterated genius.

Fuck it, I'll just mini-disc it off my sister.

16:47 / 15.11.03

There's more to these things than just liking them, isn't there. As Quantum and others have suggested, the kind of quality we debate is a different sort than that which makes us think 'Mmmm, me like that'. For instance, if someone tells me they don't like sugar in their tea, it never occurs to me to argue with them about it, however much I fail to understand how they can enjoy it unsweetened. Not just because I don't think I'll be able to convince them to come around to my way of thinking on the preparation of hot beverages, but because it just doesn't feel like the sort of aesthetic judgment to be argued over. On the other hand, I will argue with someone who says that they don't rate Bob Dylan's lyrics. Not just because I like the way I feel when I hear them, but because I believe them to be good, in a way I don't think sweet tea is good. I can't help feeling that there is some objective component in that kind of quality. And while the fact of disagreement over these things nudges me towards a suspicion that that just isn't the case, the fact of widespread agreement nudges me back the other way.

As for how knowledge can alter an aesthetic appreciation, again I'm conflicted and inarticulate on the matter. While on the one hand I think that a painting, say, should be amenable to a full appreciation qua an aesthetic object without any special knowledge of Art, on the other it seems plain that additional information can not only deepen one's appreciation of work (eg. its context and so on), but also change it's most fundamental qualities. A fart smells a lot worse when you learn that it isn't yours.

01:07 / 17.11.03

Ignatius: "Wizard of Oz". I like the book and I thought the movie was okay. Why?

BTW: I put this in conversation because it would get a wider range of responses and I didn't see it as topic which can be backed up in any way. It's all just opinion. I'm not asking people to justify the validity of artistic critique, I'm asking why we - and so many others -post on message boards, argue in pubs etc.

08:41 / 18.11.03

rakehell:
"I'm asking why we - and so many others -post on message boards, argue in pubs etc."

I've been trying to link together all the various reasons I can think of to produce a nice simple Theory of Everything, one which identifies a single root cause for mass debation (eg "basically, we're all wankers"), but it just don't work. So here's a list instead:

- A natural desire to communicate

- An infuriating obsession with putting everything in the correct rank order ("X is good." "Yes but Y is better, therefore X is rubbish.")

- A desire to beat down anyone whose version of the correct rank order differs from yours. It's a great way for people who think like accountants and cost/benefit analysts to act macho.

- We belong to the "Ah haaaaa!" generation*, the generation that believes that every surface hides an unpalatable truth, waiting to be uncovered by skillfull, unflinching analysis. We applaud those who uncover unpalatable truths, and arguments about music provide great opportunities for displaying your skills in this area ("you think that X are just a great pop band but actually they are a greater threat to mankind than fundamentalism, global warming, killer bees and asteroids put together!" OR "you like X because you are inadequate or fundamentally flawed" OR "you think you like X but you are lying to yourself and can't see it"). It's a great way for people who enjoy taking the legs off spiders to appear righteous, and it's a great way for people to appear righteous without looking like a goody-goody or a big soft hippy.

There are loads more but they've gone right out of me head. Anyone else got any more to add?

*copyright Lee and Herring, 1996