Those stars in full

[Andy Lynes]

Just to summarise - wines made by piano tuners who used to be in Joe Brown and the Bruvvers are "better" than 3 Michelin star Syrian meals eaten in restaurants with Sympathy For The Devil playing in the background, especially after the Arsenal have won. In addition, Robert Parker either knows jack #### or he doesn't.

I think that sums it all up rather nicely. New readers start here.  

[magnolia]

"I hate to say this but, people who do not know when a piano is sufficiently out of tune do not have valid opinions about music. How could they?"

I really didn't want to go down this road, but I'm taking the bait but...to state the obvious as we are wont to do here, the very word "opinion" implies subjectivity. Therefore an opinion cannot be valid or invalid, it *is* preference.

For argument's sake, let's say you prefer the Beatles over the Hives. This is your opinion, a preference. We can argue the merits for and against one or the other but at the end, you may still prefer the Hives and I'll just have to respect that or not, but I can't say it's invalid.

Someone's enjoyment of something has nothing to do with whether they are an "expert" "connoisseur" or "fan" of something.  With respect to the Parkers, the Michelins, et al, their x point scales are useful because they help people who agree or disagree with their OPINIONS figure out why - why they agree, what are the characteristics that please or don't please their palates/sensibilities etc. - and ultimately  why they should or should not spend their hard-earned cash on a bottle/table, or perhaps that they should find something of a similar style/taste, whatever - OR NOT. They help guide you, if you agree fine. If you disagree, that's your opinion.

Back to the music example: Perhaps you're a professional musician with perfect pitch. This would make you a member of a subset of 1 in 10,000 or thereabouts. (And what's more, absolute pitch is not innate, it is learned.)

When you listen to the Beatles play, you have no clue whether their instruments are in or out of tune. In fact I'd wager that on Oh Blah Di Oh Blah Dah, that piano is way off but that's beside the point.   I may still like the song if it's out of tune, because it's catchy and cheerful - or if it's in tune, I may hate the song because it's trite and repetitive! Whatever!

Re:wine, Montrachet is only "better" if you like it "better" than St Veran! No matter what ANYONE says.

If you prefer it to St Veran, then that's you opinion and to you, it *is* better than St Veran.

I don't know about guitars, but I do know that when I get my piano tuned, if it is tuned to, say, the same exact pitch as that of my piano teacher, then the top strings would snap.  It is a different brand, age, condition, etc.  So I tune it accordingly - i.e. I tune it so it is "in tune", all the notes are in tune relative to each other, yes according to that scientific mean you mentioned - which has some leeway I guess because my piano is about a quarter of a pitch - at every note - different from that of my teacher, but it is still IN TUNE.

What would you say about a point of reference for music is not Western, say Indian or Chinese music that uses all the sounds in between the standard sharps and flats to which you tune your guitar...Perhaps you don't like the sound of it, or aren't accustomed to it, or don't understand it - or maybe you love it because it's different and mysterious. You have an opinion, which you've developed based on what you know already, it's a basis for comparison. This does not make you right or wrong.

OK, enough, as this is doing my head in!

[Matt Grant]

Just to summarise - wines made by piano tuners who used to be in Joe Brown and the Bruvvers are "better" than 3 Michelin star Syrian meals eaten in restaurants with Sympathy For The Devil playing in the background, especially after the Arsenal have won. In addition, Robert Parker either knows jack #### or he doesn't.

Andy, would that be Sympathy For The Devil in a major or a minor key? In addition is there any particular volume that it should be playing at?

[Steve Plotnicki]

Magnolia - I'm sorry but I just don't believe that it is about preferences and semantics. And it's not about the flaws in human hearing or taste. That a piano might be slightly out of tune, and that the typical person's hearing is only 99.5% accurate is not something to base the argument on. The half percent is included in the definition of "in tune."  

What I always find odd about these conversations is that they are based on that half a percent of inexactness. Because it exists, and because one can't prove things in the absolute, people always jump on it to insist that standards are purely subjective. I point this out as a way to demonstrate that for example, 99.5% of the people who would taste Montrachet vs St. Veran would probably conclude that Montrachet is the superior wine. And those who didn't would fall into two categories. They either couldn't tell or they actually had a meaningful reason as to why St. Veran is better. If the reason for liking it more was personal preference, well that's fine but, it's as legitimate as saying that Mary Had a Little Lamb is as good a piece of music as Beethoven's Ninth Symphony because you prefer it more. Preference isn't the standard we judge great works of music by. Greatness is the standard. So the question isn't do you prefer Montrachet or St. Veran? The question is, what is the single greatest expression of the chardonnay grape? I do not know a single person who would say St. Veran, and I would be surprised if we could find one.

As for quarter and half tone scales, like I said to Wilfrid. There's a difference between different and off. Just like there is a difference between stinky cheese that is delicious, and stinky cheese that is spoiled. Somewhere between those two stinkys is a line.

[Fat Guy]

I'm always amazed at how passionately those who insist that all opinions are equally valid defend their own opinions.

I asked Ed Behr what he thought of the statement, "In matters of taste there's no dispute," and his comment was that you'd be pretty foolish to open a restaurant with that as the business plan.

If this is all just about opinion, and no opinion can be right or wrong -- only held -- then we may as well all pack up and go home, because we're completely wasting our time discussing the things we discuss on eGullet.

[Andy Lynes]

Quote: from Matt Grant on 6:08 pm on Jan. 29, 2002

Andy, would that be Sympathy For The Devil in a major or a minor key? In addition is there any particular volume that it should be playing at?

For preference it would be in the key of life and turned up REALLY FUCKIN LOUD MAAAAN!!!

[Wilfrid]

Okay, Steve, let me try a bit harder now I have a few minutes.

Just to try and focus the music example, I think the point I was trying to make was that there are passages in, for example, Indian music which would be "out of tune" if they turned up in a Western European piece.  But let's stick to American/Western European musical culture (and I am not a musicologist, so I stand open to correction on my examples).  Aren't there numerous musical pieces which contain "out of tune" elements, but which nonetheless seem successful to a lot of people?  Some of Ornette Coleman's free jazz work; John Cage and his treated pianos; numerous rock pieces which incorporation distortion and feedback... And picking up your Stones example:  I know music will often sound "happy" or "evil" or "sad" within a cultural community - but is there any guarantee that it will evoke the same reactions across cultures?

We may be getting into just an example/counter-example rut here, so let me get to the point:

Quote: from Steve Plotnicki on 9:09 am on Jan. 29, 2002

That's what makes it great art. It transcends being just a bunch of notes, or words on papers, or squiggly lines. It becomes, well, special.

As a matter of empirical fact, there is nothing to a work of art except tones, or ink marks, or suqiggly lines.  It may be uncontroversial that Beethoven's symphonies are better than Bruckner's, but you can look forever at the score without discovering an empirical fact which makes that so.  If a well-tuned piano sounds "better" than an out-of-tune one, that is not a fact about the universe.

These value judgments are what we bring to the works of art, and I have already argued that value judgments always have a context, involving comparisons with other works in the same genre, based on agreed (or potentially agreeable) criteria.

I think for each example you can give, I would be able either to give an actual counter-example, or just state that it's not logically impossible that a cultural community could come up with a set of criteria which contradict your views.

Finally, and I'll try to state this without sounding arrogant: from a philosophical point of view, I find it hard to deal with terms like "magical" - or "spiritual" or "numinous".  I like to think that, in my life, I am not unreceptive to what such terms connote.  It's just that I don't think they provide explanations.  I think the concept of public, debatable criteria in the hands of cultural communities does a lot to explain how judgments about art are essentially derived from human experience without relativism automatically being implied.*  I can't see the explanatory value of "magical"; what's to stop me from finding magic in an out-of-tune piano (and believe me, I have some really discordant stuff in my CD collection!)?

This site certainly provides some variety: one minute I am recommending places to buy pig rectums, the next I am participating in a philosophy seminar!

*Not that I invented it.  The more I state it, the more it sounds to me like an extension of Habermas's ideas about rationality.

[Steve Plotnicki]

Wilfrid - Well we have honed it even further. Discordant, or what you call out of tune elemnts have to do with unusual pairings. They don't have to do with things that are "wrong." I think that's the thin line here, as I stated in my response to Magnolia about the difference between edible and inedible stinky cheese. To a layman it looks like the difference is opinion. but to an expert, the difference is about having the expertise to be able to discern the difference between complex and ruined. And to say the line isn't clear as to what is complex and what is ruined, even to an expert, that is not a big enough gap to try and create a wedge that says greatness in art is merely a matter of opinion.

As for enculturation (there's that word again), again, saying that people from the Himalayas or from Mars would see it differently, so as a result there are no absolutes, is of no consequence to the conversation. And when I say that Montrachet is the best expression of chardonnay, Himalayans as well as Martians, by implication, are excluded from my statement.  

So this brings us to the misuse of words like "magical." I have to admit, I do not like them as well. But they are the best words we have to describe the phenomenon I am describing. The lack of a word that is less than mystical to describe the unsual characteristics of something isn't a new problem. Look at the word "terroir" the French have coined as a way to describe why the wine of Montrachet is better, or why the chickens from Bresse are better. They coined the phrase to describe the phenomenon. And to say the phenomenon doesn't exist because they can't adequately explain it seems like a non-sequiter.

Saying that Montrachet and Bresse chickens aren't the best of the type because well, you are from the Himalayas and to your palate neither are any good, while that might be a great philosophical argument, it is a poor one when discussing culinary or vinous arts. And in that light, I feel that I am on firm ground saying that French cuisine is superior to Icelandic cuisine. But I will grant you not to people who have might have grown up on a diet of walrus and blubber. But as Steve Shaw just said, do they post here?

[Fat Guy]

Walrus is good eating, Plotnicki. Don't sell it short.

I'll go another step, and say that Montrachet should taste better than St. Veran to Himalayans and Martians, at least the ones that aren't ignoramuses. I firmly believe that these are objective realities of the physical universe and that Montrachet is a priori (in the full blown Kantian sense) superior to St. Veran. That some education may be required for people and aliens to recognize it as such doesn't change the reality.

Philosophy is nice, I took every philosophy class offered at my university and one of them twice, but philosophers are notoriously ignorant about cuisine (as well as music). In Plato's Gorgias, cooking is ridiculed as one of the lowest pursuits. It makes me wonder about just how bad the food in ancient Athens really was. The only philosophers I'd even consider talking to about food are the existentialists, and they're problematic for other reasons.

[Wilfrid]

Yes, Plato thought a rich diet was causing a decline in the moral fibre of Athens;  Nietzsche has foul recommendatioons on food in Ecce Homo; and Wittgenstein memorably said, "I don't care what I eat as long as it's always the same."

Steve P:  A thought experiment to give you a sleepless night.  Let's say all conscious life vanishes overnight.  Are the works of art hanging in galleries still of aesthetic value, in and of themselves?  (And you're not allowed to refer to people potentially coming back and looking at them again - people are out of the game!).  I am sure your answer is going to be "Yes", but I can't see any basis for it.  Without people applying value judgments, its just paint and canvas.

And remember, my position is not that greatness in art (or cuisine) is "merely a matter of opinion" - in the sense that if anyone says Hooters has better food than Gramercy Tavern, there's no disputing their claim.  Objectivity is secured by shared, rational criteria.

(Sorry this is all a bit abrupt, but I find to my outrage that I have other things to do!)

[Steve Plotnicki]

Wilfrid - I ain't falling for your bait. As that great American philosopher, Fatus Guyus Shawus would surely say, the sound of bear #### hitting the ground in the forest is a physical reality of the universe. You do not need people around to hear it for it to make a sound.  So the answer to your question is that great art will always be great art, regardless if there's anyone around to appreciate it. It occupies it's own sphere of reality. That's what makes it art, and not just squiggles on a piece of paper. And indeed Hooters does have things that are better than Gramercy Tavern. Just not the food.

[Fat Guy]

I wonder if Plato would have liked Hooters better than Gramercy Tavern. Or perhaps he'd have preferred Chippendale's.

[Wilfrid]

I used to know someone who would go to Hooters for the food.  Very sad.

Have we reached bedrock, Mr P?  I am mystified by the idea that aesthetic judgments have a reality independent of human existence - not least because I can't understand how we would know what such aesthetic judgments were!  It's analogous to a logical problem in deriving ethical judgments from religious beliefs:  if an action is wrong because God said so, fair enough - but how do I found out what God said?  Oh, okay, a number of people are prepared to tell me they're privy to what God said.  Trouble is, they disagree.  I think you're aesthetic judgments end up with the same dilemma:  if I tell you it's evident to me that Andy Warhol was a greater artist than Da Vinci, all you can do is say you have had a different revelation.  In short, I can see no way to mediate aesthetic disagreements from your point of view.

But, let's be fair, Plato would certainly have agreed with you, and many others would too.  And I could tell you how Plato (and Husserl) would attempt to solve the dilemma I pointed out.  But maybe that's for tomorrow.  Plato was wrong about a lot of things.

[Fat Guy]

Hey, don't tell me, I lived with a phenomenologist when I was an undergrad in need of cheap housing. I even helped him write a book. I can tell you a way or two to think about objective reality, but what I'd rather point out is that this professor of mine subsisted entirely on Stella D'oro Breakfast Treats, Wise Onion & Garlic potato chips, Kipper Snacks, and Dr. Pepper. Occasionally, he could be convinced to eat some Cheerios with orange juice.

[Steve Plotnicki]

Wilfrid - But you are playing the philosphers shell game. Your example about how civil laws are based on religious laws, and therefore it follows that things are wrong because God said so, and how can that be when there is no God, fails to recognize the possibility that man created God in his own image in order to spread morality to those who couldn't understand it instinctively.

As for Da Vinci vs Warhol, I'm not fluent enough in artspeak to really stake out a position in that argument. But I can speak to what I described before about the Last Supper's Vanishing Point. And is the fact that the illusion of the painting is to draw your eye to the spot above Jesus' head, as if he is to ascend to heaven, does that qualify as the metaphysical? Or as Fatus would say, that your eye is drawn to that spot is the objective reality of the universe. That it happens to coincide with a learned value judgment, and in fact, has been created purposely to enhance the value judgement in a way that is well, magical, does in no way detract from the phenomenon.

[Fat Guy]

Plotnicki, you're not supposed to just come out and say that stuff about religion. It's a secret. Go re-read Dostoyevsky.

Wilfrid, I want to mention that we are all just arrangements of carbon and such. A piece of art is as real as you are. I'm not sure which road you want to go down to draw the distinction, but I get the impression you're a Schroedinger's cat type. Surely, you're aware the cat tastes the same either way.

This gives me an idea:

The Phenomenology Cookbook

[A Balic]

I am a scientist, so to keep up with you chaps I had to go out and buy a whole load of "Boy's own Guide to Philosophy" books. I agree with Wilfrid, so far. I don't think that bears do #### in the woods until I see them. But I do like Fat Guys IDEA that Montrachet is closer to the Platonic ideal of CHARDONNAY than St. Veran is. You could use that as a selling point, "Taste the EMPIRICAL CONCEPT in every glass - as recomended by Kant". See me book learn good.

[Steve Plotnicki]

Balic - That's why we created lawyers who created circumstantial evidence. To undo the mess philosophers made. Here's how this debate gets sorted. They show you pictures of all the things bears eat. Then they show you pictures of bears taking a dump. Then they put an expert on the stand who discusses the random dumping pattern of bears, how they take a dump, evenly spread out during the day. Then they show you pictures of bears going into the woods, and further pictures of them coming out. Viola. Now what do bears do in the woods? I guess those philosophers forgot one key element in their theories, logic.

As for Montrachet being the ideal, I can tell you that after having an 1989 Jadot Chevalier Demoiselles with my dinner last night, that it is much closer to the ideal than St. Veran. And that "better wine" concept isn't limited to chardonnay either. I am proud to report that the 1990 Ponsot Clos de la Roche we drank was far better than any Savigny-les-Beaune I've ever had too. Do you think that I've been educated to feel that way about it or do you think that those wines are really superior?

[magnolia]

"I'm always amazed at how passionately those who insist that all opinions are equally valid defend their own opinions.

...

If this is all just about opinion, and no opinion can be right or wrong -- only held -- then we may as well all pack up and go home, because we're completely wasting our time discussing the things we discuss on eGullet. "

-----

Au contraire, Steve, that is what Egullet - Fat Guy - and all the other sites where people post their opinions, are all about. If not, what do you think the purpose is? Why do you write a restaurant newsletter or articles? I'd wager, to share your opinion about something...hopefully impart a bit of information to help your readers make a choice about where to go and what to eat. If your readers have in the past found that they have agreed with your opinions, they are more likely to follow your advice.  

Almost every post here is an opinion or a request for someone else's. I do believe other peoples' "opinions" are valid, but that doesn't mean I won't valiantly defend my own - and what's wrong with that? That's what makes horse races. Just because Robert Parker and the Michelin folks have an opinion with which Steve P or Tony or I might not agree does not make them - or the millions who buy their books - idiots or imbeciles or ignorant.    

[A Balic]

Nah, that still doesn't prove the REALITY of bears dumping (what a cute word) in the woods, it just provides a conceptual frame work on which to draw conclusions from if a set of propositions is understood to be true.

Ponsot Clos de la Roche being a "better" wine than Savigny-les-Beaune is a Cultural construct. Still, if we consider the "STEVE PLOTNICKI" Alpha-Omega as a self contained, internally referencing object, then you can say that Clos de la Roche is "better", if you like. Anyway, as the only true perfect state is the state of nothingness then the perfect wine is Gallo Ruby Cabernet. The BALIC DYNAMIC OBJECT considers that the PLOTNICKI ENTE drinks better wine than he does. Subjectively, this makes the BALIC sad.

[Steve Plotnicki]

Magnolia -  There is no validity to the statement that everyone's opinion is valid. The other night I gave my not quite 15 year old chocolate loving son some Palets D'Or chocolates I brought back from Bernachon in Lyon.  These chocolates are among the most ethereal things one can eat. He took one bite, gave a big yum, grabbed 3-4 of them and ran into his room. A few minutes later I went in to see how he was liking them and he said while moving his hand from side to side to display mediocrity, "They're okay. They're not sweet. I like Hershey's chocolate better." Now is that a valid opinion too? You know cashmere is the most in demand wool because it is soft. Is liking things that feel soft something learned, or do humans actually like the way soft things like cashmere and silk feel, i.e., are they inherently better?  I don't know about you but to me soft is better. Wool that is itchy and harsh burns my skin. It's just not a matter of opinion.  

Adam - Clos de la Roche being better than Savigny isn't a cultural construct. I'd like to see you go to Beaune and tell that to a bunch of oenologists and have them tell you why that isn't true. You know if we were to take a good vintage in Burgundy, and line up every single terroir blind, and you served them to people who might have an affinity for tasting wine, I would bet that the panel of tasters would assign the same  hierarchy amongst terroirs that currently exist. Is that a cultural construct or is it physiological and a natural human instinct? As for wine drinking in general, you need to come down to London for one of our blowouts. Sometimes the wines are mindboggling.

In general I find the argument that because things are unprovable in the absolute (see A. Balic REALITY), that an ordered reality doesn't exist and that things are just a matter of opinion, to be spurious. It's one thing to argue whether Gordon Ramsey or Pierre Koffman is a better cook, that might be a matter of opinion. But it is not a matter of opinion that sole from Dover is better than the stuff we catch off the coast of the U.S.  Sole from Dover is simply, well it isn't only better, it is far superior to anything that swims near these shores. And that would be true if I had never tasted sole before and tasted them side by side for the first time. And if I couldn't taste the difference, and choose the superior one by taste, what that proves is not that there aren't objective realities to the physical universe. It proves I have no sense of taste.

(Edited by Steve Plotnicki at 10:12 am on Jan. 30, 2002)

[A Balic]

Quote: from Steve Plotnicki on 4:03 pm on Jan. 30, 2002

Adam - Clos de la Roche being better than Savigny isn't a cultural construct. I'd like to see you go to Beaune and tell that to a bunch of oenologists and have them tell you why that isn't true. You know if we were to take a good vintage in Burgundy, and line up every single terroir blind, and you served them to people who might have an affinity for tasting wine, I would bet that the panel of tasters would assign the same  hierarchy amongst terroirs that currently exist. Is that a cultural construct or is it physiological and a natural human instinct? As for wine drinking in general, you need to come down to London for one of our blowouts. Sometimes the wines are mindboggling.

After, staying in Burgundy for a few weeks in 2000, I would never tell those guys how to do anything, they can get a little touchy about that sort of thing. I think that if you went to Bordeaux and asked the wine makers there about the relative merits of two Burgundies they would say Burgundy having any merit was definately a cultural construct. All jokes and teasing of philosophers aside, you must admit that there is a very subjective component to wine appreciation. Look at the drop in the popularity of Sauternes in the last twenty odd years. For christmas 2001 I opened a bottle of 1976 Ch. Climens, it was almost a perfect wine (for me at least). Does that mean only I can recognise its "betterness" or that I am a wine idiot?

Edinburgh is a wine tasting wasteland, so I will have to do something about that. I have organised wine tastings at work, this is fun, but that is not the same as being in a group of people who really appreciate wine.

[Fat Guy]

Magnolia, I enjoy presenting my opinions in a public forum for three principal reasons: 1) I think they are true, correct, and valid opinions; 2) I think they serve to correct false, incorrect, and invalid opinions such as most of Plotnicki's other than the ones he's so rightly expressed on this thread; and 3) I very occasionally realize that someone else other than Plotnicki is right and I am wrong and despite the blow this delivers to my ego I change my opinion because it's not possible for two disparate opinions to be valid and I therefore have to choose the one that is correct. Of course before I make a public declaration of self-wrongness, I try to backtrack and recast my arguments so it seems as though I believed the truth all along. Plotnicki in particular is a sucker for this strategy.

I bother to read all of your opinions not because I think all opinions are valid but because I don't. I look for wrong opinions to correct. I look for valid opinions on subjects about which I had no opinion and I choose the right opinion or am spurred to develop it on my own. Sometimes I am edified by people other than Plotnicki stating the same opinions I have always held and perhaps articulating them better than I could have. I also enjoy being here because you all are my pretend friends, and I have so few real friends that I need you all to help me feel loved and to provide an outlet for my overly gregarious personality that scares many real people away. But while I am willing to accept that on some irrelevant, meaningless subjects (the color red versus the color blue), there can be two valid preferences, I think that in the overwhelming majority of instances regarding the overwhelming majority of subjects there is one correct opinion and all the others are wrong.

[Clare Leaman]

Steve - I disagree with one of your arguments. Practically my first experience of wine (as a teenager) was a tutored tasting of Bordeaux. Along with several what I would now judge fairly humdrum wines and a few very decent ones, we sampled a 1961 Chateau Palmer. In no way did I begin to recognise the superiority of this wine over the others, and to me this proves not that I have no sense of taste, but that I had no experience of wine and had not yet acquired a framework against which to form my judgments.

[Steve Plotnicki]

Adam - One needs to be careful when using words around scientists, academics and philosophers. They demand a level of precision that isn't normally required in everyday life. So your example of whether a 1976 Climens is "better" than it's peers, is more problematic for the choice of the word "better", than it is anything else. Because if one requires the existance of empirical evidence in order to use that word, well it's a non-starter. And that's because there hasn't been a need to create a super accurate scale to measure these things. What would it's purpose be, to settle this debate? But if greatness is the measure of better, than you have perfectly communicated your thoughts to me because I understand what better means. And if I didn't, it means I don't really understand wine.

There  is a practical reason for the popularity of sweet wines decreasing in the last 20 years. Our diets have changed and we don't eat the rich foods that sweet wines go with  as often. Also, modern techniques applied to winemaking have produced riper, sweeter, and more fulll bodied red wines. But I do not see what any of that has to do with the greatness of Sauternes? It only has to do with preferences and fashion.

As to there being a subjective component to wine tasting, it's agreed. But the fact that I like to drink the "normale" cuvee of Clos Mont Olivet rather than the Cuvee Papet is a different issue than whether I think the normale cuvee is a better wine. I guess what I'm saying is that in order for subjectivity to be valuable, it needs a reasonable component of objectivity in the mix.  The objective standard of comparing Montrachet vs St. Veran already exists. If one wants to go against that conclusion and profer that they are equals, the burden should be on the person who has staked out the position, and the conversation shouldn't revolve around the unproveable. At least the people who argue Montrachet is better can point to a series of circumstantial reasons why. But I've never seen an argument on the St. Veran side of the equation that isn't a variation of calling the pro-Montrachet people dunderheads.