Re: Are the Hugo Award Winners Boring Examples of SF?

Eric Walker wrote:
On Sat, 08 Aug 2009 00:15:24 -0400, Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor) wrote:

[...]

Quality is not a matter that
has anything to do with a bunch of people saying it's there. Either it's
an objective measurable thing, in which case you can show the
measurement and Robert's your parent's sibling, or it's subjective, in
which case a thousand peoples' opinions don't stack up against mine when
I'm the one deciding whether something's worth reading or not.

There are several assertions there that need to be teased apart.

1. Quality is not a matter that has anything to do with a bunch of people saying it's there.

2. Either it's an objective measurable thing or it's subjective.

3. [If] it's subjective, a thousand peoples' opinions don't stack up against mine when I'm the one deciding whether something's worth reading or not.

Taking them individually:

#1: So quality, then, is something that people cannot see?

Firstly, wrong order; before you could really address #1, you'd need to deal with statement 2, at least. Secondly, the statement #1 makes no assertion that people cannot see it. It simply says that if quality is present, it has no connection to how many people SAY it's present. I can say there's giant pink elephants in my backyard, but that doesn't make them appear -- even if a thousand other people also say they're there.


If no one can perceive quality, then there is effectively no such thing as quality.

This is why you need to address the second statement first, as if there is such a thing as OBJECTIVE quality -- and ONLY if there is -- can you argue that a number of people asserting its presence should be given *any* weight whatsoever in the judgment thereof.

If it's SUBjective, then its presence will depend on the various subjective factors of the viewer, and thus a thousand people won't have any effect on the judgment of quality by the thousand-and-first, unless that thousand-and-first is unusually influenced by other people's opinions.



#2: That is a false dichotomy.

Only to a limited extent. When you can *SHOW* the objective components on which you judge "quality" -- even if there's some subjective latitude -- then perhaps we could have a discussion on that matter.

"Showing" the objective quality, however, is not simply making assertions like:

but anything more sapient than the west door of the church will have no trouble assessing in more or less quantitative terms which of the two has more of what.

This is a statement which assumes its conclusion and, depending on how it's interpreted, may do nothing whatsoever towards even making a successful assertion of objectivity. Perhaps anything more sapient than the west door can assess in quantitative terms which has more of what... but for there to be meaningful objective analysis, each of those anythings had better be coming to very similar quantitative conclusions.


#3: That is a partial truth: when you're determining whether something is worth reading *by you*, a thousand people's opinions are as a feather in the balance. But when a work's potential readership as a whole is considered, the opinions of folk generally recognized as both creators and appreciators of well-crafted works will be taken by many as having at least some significance.

Which goes back to determining some objective components to the judgment for me to accept that this is anything more than a social quirk.


http://greatsfandf.com/some-musings/musing3.php

Will I find anything there that you haven't said in the discussions here over the years?


--
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
Live Journal: http://seawasp.livejournal.com
.

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