Do you believe that quality is objective?

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MIU

MIU

kiwifarms.net
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17 de Abr, 2025
One thing I notice in a lot of discourse on any medium is that there is often heated debates on the nature of what makes a piece of filmmaking, music, literature, etc objectively good or bad. I was curious what you guys think on this front. I personally have my own metric for art being qualitatively good, but most of this is moreso centered on philosophical level. I personally think the common way most cows like Mauler and YMS treat objective quality is retarded at best.
 
As far as the only real criterion that matters. was watching/listening/reading the particular media a net positive to the particular watcher/listener/reader, of course not. If it was objective then there would be a very simply rating scale that could be applied to everything and all critics (traditional and internet) would have ceased to exist long ago

There are elements that can be reduced to objective standards but even these fall apart in the context of the media as a whole.

I can say that the visual effects of Michal Bay's Pearl Harbor are better than those of Tora, Tora, Tora and that can be put in objective terms as to resolution, realism of effects and the like but when it comes to which I prefer it's not relevant. Go back to 1960's Sink The Bismark. It's shockingly obvious that the exploding ships are small models but it doesn't matter.

To pick on a favourite target, the plothole, again it can be objectively said that a story has this plothole or that plothole. But that's not enough. What really matters is the impact of the plothole. If it's trivial or I didn't notice it or I just don't care, it doesn't make the story bad.

Same with story consistency/integrity. I like Sherlock Holmes stories. I find the whole infallible deductive reasoning shtick silly. Leaving aside whether it's deductive, identifying one solution that's consistent with the disclosed facts does not mean that there aren't others. Conan Doyle might have hated that his fame came from effectively dime store populist fiction and thought he was better than that but it did and he wasn't. I much prefer Agatha Christie but I still like the Holmes stories (most of them).
 
there's some stuff that's absolutely objective, like "is the camera pointed at the thing" 'is the dialog audible" "does the audio randomly screech" "are the subjects of the shot lit so you can see anything"
 
"Quality" is on its own a purely nominalist concept that depends on the models determinig "quality" being recognized as authoritative by the as relevant considered demographic. Classic example being continental and imperial measurement models - ask any European what they think about the "objective quality" of using inches/miles/pounds/Fahrenheit or vise-versa an American, Indian or English about the "objective quality" of the metric system.
 
XYZpdq Jr. dijo:
there's some stuff that's absolutely objective, like "is the camera pointed at the thing" 'is the dialog audible" "does the audio randomly screech" "are the subjects of the shot lit so you can see anything"
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But how do you justify them being objectively bad? The line between a mistake and an artistic decision is the honesty of the person behind it.
 
FPTMIU dijo:
But how do you justify them being objectively bad? The line between a mistake and an artistic decision is the honesty of the person behind it.
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if the shot is supposed to communicate "a monster is sneaking behind the gal" but you can't see shit *COUGH*AVP2*COUGH* it's objectively bad
 
(Editing all my previous sperging out)
Quality and "greatness" is something that can only really be understood spiritually. It's made of too many components to actually quantify. Something can meet the majority's standard for greatness and still be trash.

Sometimes greatness is given by God to things that we never expected or even intended to be great. As an American, time and accidental placement in the American canon often makes even mundane works great.

This, for example. Looks like shit, audio is shit, editing is silly, it was never intended to be "great", high-quality media. Yet... it is.
 
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Some things are objectively bad, such as the title of this post. It's too broad. For instance, the quality of a solution to a math problem can be objectively bad. Engineering implementations can be objectively bad, leading to failure and death.

It sounds like what you're really asking is if creative pursuits can lead to objectively bad results. In other words, you're just re-asking the age old question of "what is art". So we can objectively say that this post is bad.
 
I think people are equating quality with taste here.

EDIT: Now that I'm back from work, I can further articulate my position. Techniques combined with execution of said techniques and the blending of the techniques create a artistic expression. Each of those points can be graded objectively, and, if every point is done correctly, will produce an objectively quality piece.

Now, will you always like that piece? No. It may not be your style or it may not be to your tastes. But to deny the quality of the work due to your tastes is asinine.
 
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My answer is simply "it's good if I like it", and I believe that's how most people are. The "good/bad" in question is measured by one's cultural context.

"Objectively" means "most white people think that". For example, most white people think Mona Lisa is good. Why do people with similar cultural background similarly find similar things good/bad? Because of the way they similarly developed evolutionary: similar geographical conditions led to similar predators/landscapes/pattern recognition mechanics and values. So, in the end of the day, your tastes are genetically determined.

So there is a way to say something is objectively good. But the "objectively" is different in different cultures.
 
Quality itself is inherently objective as is good or bad. If you misidentify the quality of a thing that only means you are wrong, not that quality is now suddenly subjective, it is also unchanged by the number of people who agree upon such misidentification. You may measure the overall quality of a thing by recording its individual qualities but correctly reaching a verdict on weather it is good or bad based on these qualities may be impossible for us in all things beyond the most basic.
 
Quality is strictly objective. When assuring the quality of a product, only objective metrics are used. How tight are the tolerances on your tool? What's the shear strength on your material? Does your crab have the right color, the right aroma, and flavor? Then it's a quality ingredient.

Good and bad are not objective and can be arbitrarily divorced from quality. The crab's quality doesn't necessarily have anything to do with whether a particular person thought the crab was good or bad after they ate it.

Calling a good movie, colloquially, a "quality movie" is just a new product of each generation gradually sliding closer towards nigger IQ.
 
cigint dijo:
Quality is strictly objective. When assuring the quality of a product, only objective metrics are used...

Good and bad are not objective and can be arbitrarily divorced from quality.
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Yes, and I think part of the problem is there are so many "metrics" to look at in a piece of art. A critic can focus on any one or several, depending on personal taste, bias, preference, context, etc while the metrics on other things indicate the opposite conclusion. You can only have an objective agreement of criticism if you go into it with a strict list of which metrics you'll focus on. A lot of the culture war GOOD MOVIE vs BAD MOVIE grifting that goes on now is just a disagreement over what matters.

I'll offer a defense of the Mauler crew, at least they're exhaustive and mostly consistent on what they think makes something good or bad. I don't agree with it all the time but they make the case, over a hundred hours of nitpicking analysis. But they do need to have background with the media they're critiquing to really be worthwhile.

An example was when they critiqued the newest Daredevil series, they let a diehard Daredevil fanboy do it, which worked pretty well as a critique of the character/plot. The others had seen the previous series, which helped them critique the (lack of) continuity with characterization. By contrast, they didn't seem to have as good a grasp on what made God of War good, or interesting to the players, so their praise of GoW:Ragnarok didn't work as well.
 
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