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0096 2251 2110 8105

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This question has been bugging me for a while, and it may be a really easy one to answer, but here it is: Isn't art subjective since it is a matter of personal taste? How can I say an abstract painting, for example, is bad, if somebody else thinks it's great? I think it would be bad if I'm using Ayn Rand's definition, but then somebody else would say: "Well, that's your definition". How am I supposed to reply to that? Also, Objectivism's view on music has been bothering me a little. How is it wrong to enjoy atonal music, such as jazz, or even "noise" such as dark ambient music or others?

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This question has been bugging me for a while, and it may be a really easy one to answer, but here it is: Isn't art subjective since it is a matter of personal taste? How can I say an abstract painting, for example, is bad, if somebody else thinks it's great? I think it would be bad if I'm using Ayn Rand's definition, but then somebody else would say: "Well, that's your definition". How am I supposed to reply to that? Also, Objectivism's view on music has been bothering me a little. How is it wrong to enjoy atonal music, such as jazz, or even "noise" such as dark ambient music or others?

Hi there. You're asking questions that many have grapple with already, music being the most problematic area. There's been a lot of ink spilled (and friendships torn asunder!) over music; if you're looking for an archive, check out my site: orpheusremembered.blogspot.com.

And, of course, if you haven't already, start with The Romantic Manifesto to get at Rand's theory and answer to your questions (not THE answers, but HER answers.)

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This question has been bugging me for a while, and it may be a really easy one to answer, but here it is: Isn't art subjective since it is a matter of personal taste? How can I say an abstract painting, for example, is bad, if somebody else thinks it's great?

Art is fundamentally connected to ethics.

All you need ask is "Why is that good?"

"Why do you like that?"

Eventually you will boil down the persons taste to a statement of what is good and what is bad.

But this requires a very analytical mind - Ayn Rand seemed to be able to take art forms back to their fundamentals very quickly. It takes me a while to think about them,

I echo the previous sentiments: read The Romantic Manifesto.

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Well, according to the Lexicon:

Until a conceptual vocabulary is discovered and defined, no objectively valid criterion of esthetic judgment is possible in the field of music . . .

No one, therefore, can claim the objective superiority of his choices over the choices of others. Where no objective proof is available, it’s every man for himself—and only for himself.

That confuses me a little, since I remember Dr. Peikoff saying: "In music means melody as against atonalism", in his lecture of Introduction to Objectivism.

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