Do you believe that quality is objective?

[Elf Supremacist]

As far as I can tell, the only objective thing about art in any form is talent or skill.
Objectively, Eminem is a talented rapper but I think many of his songs suck.
Brandon Sanderson is objectively creative and is great at world building (and story telling to a degree) but his prose leaves a lot to be desired.
There are plenty of artists who are objectively talented or skilled, but their work is not to good subjectively.

Quality outside of art can be objectively measured though (steel, wood, bolts, medicine, etc.). I don't think quality of art can be objectively measured because it's all so different and is usually (if it's good) is not made for everyone, unlike most things you'd find in a store.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

Quality is subjective since the metrics changes from person to person, and can depend on technology and culture. However some works can be considered eternal classics that you'd only find contrarians and idiots who would argue against them.

 

[God of Nothing]

yes
quality is objective: that's why the word quality exists in the fucking first place

 

[Dead Lion]

Partially, in my eyes you can split a work into technique, style and substance. And technique is definitely objective. And if the technical aspects of the work fail then the entire thing falls apart.

 

[Swine Schwein]

Some perhaps yes, mostly no. Quality is not a math problem to solve, nor is it compliance to a set of rules, although that can plsy a part. When I think of "objective" stuff I usually think of my interpretation of what the masses might agree with, which is also subjective. I'm thinking of movies right now, to make thinking about this easier for myself.

Then again I don't know what quality even means. Is it choosing a way of doing something and not half-assing it? If I'm anal and neurotic about X, and I'm doing 500 takes, changing the lighting every time, is it automatically of better quality than just doing it once? Or if we're going by artistic vision and getting as close to some ghostly idea as possible, how can I judge what I see based on someone else's vision? How would I know what it even is, and if I did, what's my own experience worth then?

I can't pretend that some "objectivity" isn't needed though. If I make a shitty phone cam movie right now, and compare it to Apocalypse Now, it would be retarded to hide behind 100% subjectivity in order to make it seem like my piece of shit video could hold any value close to AN. Also, @God of Nothing above makes a good point. Yes, quality is objective, and I guess I just confuse the term with value.

Generally I think I'm like most people. I either like or dislike something, the feeling/impression comes first, then I start thinking about it. The thing needs to plant a seed and it has to do something first. After time and after thinking the impression might change, sometimes drastically but really not that often. I might value something as purely entertainment, or art, or even as a life-changing experience. I guess we place some value into a thing by the way we decide to look at it, but the thing can and should impose its inherent value on our understanding of it, as well.

In the end I'm just a pretentious stupid retard, and I can't intellectually argue my way into really liking something I just don't, and at the same time no matter what anyone says, Scorsese's Silence is my number one movie of all time because it did a thing that I very subjectively experienced. TO MY SOUL

 

[starborn427614]

Depends on the aspects being judged. Things like cinematography, lighting, audio editing in live action are pretty easy to judge and if they're done poorly there's not much defense against it. It gets trickier when it comes to writing, because there'll always be someone who likes the direction a plot took, for example, in addition to those who hated it.