Why do people get so excited and angry...

[Roger Hicks]

...about discussions of aesthetics? It's just about taking pictures. If you do it well, others may like what you do. If you don't; well, whose problem is that?

Let's call the extremes the Rednecks and the Fine Artists. Fine Artists may or may not rake up their academic qualifications, or quote their gurus, while Rednecks generally fall back on I Know What I Like (and sometimes quote their gurus, too).

The rest of us, in the middle, can only look on in bemusement. It's not that important. If you learn something from the discussion, great. If not, not. But why get angry about it? I can understand being angry about personal insults, or exasperated by indefensible statements, but otherwise, who cares?

Cheers,

R.

 

[sig]

Maybe it is because it is important for them and they care?

 

[Chris101]

Hiya Roger of the Cool Head,

Surely you've seen the cartoon where the guy at the computer is getting called to bed, but can't because ...

Conventional wisdom says that anonymity promotes extreme behavior. But in the case of the last outburst on this forum, it was a couple of well known contributors. Hardly anonymous. No I think it's akin to college politics: The barbs are so vicious because the stakes are so low.

That is the perception is that there is little to lose, so pull out all the stops.

 

[thegman]

I think it's because it's not enough for many people to be happy with what they do, they must have other people like them/their work too. I think it's quite simply a desire for approval and respect.

Say someone dedicates a lot of time to creating "Fine Art", and Redneck comes along and dismisses their work as "just photos", or "snapshots", and claims their girlfriend with her cheap DSLR could do better. The Artist would need to care what Redneck thought to get angry, otherwise it's just background noise.

 

[j j]

Do you have any examples that you care to share? I read a fair amount of harumphing and hyperbole about photography, but anger?

 

[Roger Hicks]

I think it's because it's not enough for many people to be happy with what they do, they must have other people like them/their work too. I think it's quite simply a desire for approval and respect.

Say someone dedicates a lot of time to creating "Fine Art", and Redneck comes along and dismisses their work as "just photos", or "snapshots", and claims their girlfriend with her cheap DSLR could do better. The Artist would need to care what Redneck thought to get angry, otherwise it's just background noise.

You are no doubt correct, but that's slightly to one side of my point. Aesthetics is about how you get to where you're going, or alternatively, about analyzing what you've done after you've done it. It's a personal process, not an end result.

To take a trivial example, when doing simple sums, my wife and I were taught different ways to mark how you carry numbers from one column to the next. After being taught to do it one way, and using that for decades, it's all but impossible for either of us to follow what the other is doing: it's quicker to check by doing the sum over again, with the numbers carried where we expect them. As long as the end result is successful (very easy to verify in this case), it doesn't really matter.

Aesthetics strikes me as merely a (very much) more complex version of the same thing. You do things one way or another, but the end result is all you really care about. Some hints and tips help you to get to the end result that you want: others don't, or actively get in the way. Use the ones that work, and ignore the rest.

As a personal example of aesthetics, it took me a long time to get over the idea that I had to show the whole of things. That's a bit hard to explain, but to turn it around, I'm now much happier with radical compositions that concentrate on line, shape, colour or form, rather than with highly representational pictures which say "This is a ______ and this is what it looks like."

And, of course, I use different techniques and different compositions for different pictures. There are plenty of times when all I want to say is, in fact, "This is a _______ and this is what it looks like."

Cheers,

R.

 

[Roger Hicks]

Do you have any examples that you care to share? I read a fair amount of harumphing and hyperbole about photography, but anger?

The current thread was prompted by some of the comments in the thread entitled On Advanced Classical Composition . Some of that looked quite angry to me, and a lot of it was fairly excited.

Cheers,

R.

 

[Jamie123]

You are no doubt correct, but that's slightly to one side of my point. Aesthetics is about how you get to where you're going, or alternatively, about analyzing what you've done after you've done it. It's a personal process, not an end result.

Aesthetics is, to quote Wikipedia, "a branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of beauty, art, and taste, and with the creation and appreciation of beauty." So contrary to what you might think it is actually an end result and not necessarily a personal process. None of the aesthetics scholars I've met (and as a philosophy student with a focus on aesthetics I've met quite a few) were interested in actually producing art of their own.

I sometimes get annoyed when people bring up a philosophical topic but then have no interest whatsoever in a philosophical discussion. Sometimes I even get a bit angry and feel like telling them what idiots they are but then I remember that I'm the idiot for trying to discuss philosophy on a photography forum.

 

[oftheherd]

I get enough anger from my work. I don't want to find any here. Of course if I want in one hand and spit in the other, I think I know which will get filled first.

 

[Harry S.]

I think a lot of the best work comes from people who are very passionate. (read: excitable, angry, guru-quoting). I think that kind of opinionation belongs in this hobby. If you create something youre proud of, or have created a sensibility youre passionate about; i think its completely reasonable to fight for it or protect it.

But there are ways to go about this, most arguements not as considered as they could be.

I have a strong opinion about my work and what I look for in the work of others, but I try to avoid name-dropping famous people if I can help it.

 

[j j]

The current thread was prompted by some of the comments in the thread entitled On Advanced Classical Composition . Some of that looked quite angry to me, and a lot of it was fairly excited.

Cheers,

R.

Interesting thread, that one. It seems to me that the blow up was not about composition. In your opening gambit here you offered "exasperated by indefensible statements" as an opt-out. I think that describes what happened there.

 

[Roger Hicks]

Aesthetics is, to quote Wikipedia, "a branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of beauty, art, and taste, and with the creation and appreciation of beauty." So contrary to what you might think it is actually an end result and not necessarily a personal process. None of the aesthetics scholars I've met (and as a philosophy student with a focus on aesthetics I've met quite a few) were interested in actually producing art of their own.

I sometimes get annoyed when people bring up a philosophical topic but then have no interest whatsoever in a philosophical discussion. Sometimes I even get a bit angry and feel like telling them what idiots they are but then I remember that I'm the idiot for trying to discuss philosophy on a photography forum.

Surely all philosophy is a process?

Cheers,

R.

 

[leicashot]

People get excited and angry for one reason. Photographers' have a HUGE ego. If that ego is hurt, all hell breaks lose....and disliking a piece of gear someone owns and/or likes is the same as insulting their pictures....or family members for that matter.

Its really that simple, in a generalization of course - not taking into account the already large amount of anger filling the world, and the web.

Lets all chill as we're here for the same love and passion for pictures and gear. Lets not forget how we'd treat each other if we weren't separated by computer screens. Face to face would be a whole different story, until a back is turned ;-)

Peace!

 

[Jamie123]

Surely all philosophy is a process?

Cheers,

R.

I'm not sure what you mean by that. A process in what sense? If you're using the term in a very broad sense meaning any kind of activity then sure, but that doesn't say very much if anything at all.

What you seem to have said is that aesthetics is a merely a personal process on the way to creating an end result - a work of art/photograph/whatever. That's what I took issue with. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that aesthetical considerations aren't part of the process of creating art but I object to the word "merely" in your sentence. Aesthetics as a branch of philosophy is not at all a means to an end (creating art), it's an academic field of study. And as such the concepts and theories one employs and comes up with are open to critical discussion with others. If I as a philosopher put forth a theory on a subject then I'm also willing to defend my arguments in discussions with others and modify them when they're proven wrong.

 

[dave lackey]

Ummm...Roger, calling someone a Redneck in this neck of the woods is quite an insult in itself. Poor choice of words, IMO.😛 Yet, it may be true in some cases. I dunno. Maybe a dumbass or the Unlearned or, on second thought, maybe Redneck works!

Having said that, I have not even gotten into the thread you referenced and probably will not for the reason you posted this thread.

Now, when I personally state that I know what I like, it is a simplified way of stating the obvious, I do. With my complex life, facing life and death situations every hour of every day, I don't care to go on about deconstructing photographs or what the hell I am looking for. It is just too much talk with no benefits for me. I am lucky to find a few precious hours a day to actually work on a project, read or check out RFF.🙂

I prefer to research, study and edit while continuing to learn and RFF and you are part of my resources. I am constantly tired, and do not care to discuss the rules of composition, etc., that is why I quit teaching a few years ago.

But, I agree with you about the "angriness" of some folks on any forum. Seems plenty to go around. We need to do some internal searching to make sure we all treat each other respectfully. Thanks for this thread...

BTW, you been able to tour on the BMW lately? I surely miss those days...

 

[Michiel Fokkema]

Funny, I was reading the original thread which all of a sudden disappeared. as far as I could read there was some fuzz about nothing from people who don't have a life. Hardly worth the effort of reading or commenting.

Cheers,
Michiel Fokkema

 

[robert blu]

I think people are always less ready to accept that someone else has a different opinion than they have. This apply not only in the forums or in internet but in general everyday's life. And if we speak of something like aesthetics it is easier because opinions can be very different, knowledge of the topic is not the same for everyone, education can be different and at the end probably someone think that looking angry gives more strength to their opinion. In my opinion here in RFF the general behavior is much better than in other places.
robert

 

[j j]

Funny, I was reading the original thread which all of a sudden disappeared. as far as I could read there was some fuzz about nothing from people who don't have a life. Hardly worth the effort of reading or commenting.

Cheers,
Michiel Fokkema

There was some insulting language.

 

[Roger Hicks]

I'm not sure what you mean by that. A process in what sense? If you're using the term in a very broad sense meaning any kind of activity then sure, but that doesn't say very much if anything at all.

What you seem to have said is that aesthetics is a merely a personal process on the way to creating an end result - a work of art/photograph/whatever. That's what I took issue with. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that aesthetical considerations aren't part of the process of creating art but I object to the word "merely" in your sentence. Aesthetics as a branch of philosophy is not at all a means to an end (creating art), it's an academic field of study. And as such the concepts and theories one employs and comes up with are open to critical discussion with others. If I as a philosopher put forth a theory on a subject then I'm also willing to defend my arguments in discussions with others and modify them when they're proven wrong.

Well, you'd have to apply 'merely' to arithmetic and thence to the whole of mathematics in that case, because that's the parallel I'm drawing. Both philosophy and its subset aesthetics are questions of using mental tools, and if that isn't a process, what is?

After all, what is the aim or end of philosophy? Surely, to discover something, be it Truth, Beauty, Morality or a convenient rule of thumb. Philosophy is in its very nature thinking about things, so it is meaningless to pretend that it is an end in itself, i.e. that there is no 'thing' to think about.

Of course, the thing you think about may be philosophy itself: about whether there is a ding an sich, whether existence precedes essence, and so forth. To do this, however, you are still using philosophical tools to analyze a concept, and besides, it is a fairly small part of philosophy (though of course its more enthusiastic advocates would argue that it is all of philosophy).

Quite apart from that, there are Marxist philosophers, feminist philosophers, moral philosophers, you name it: the word 'philosophy' is so flexible as to be a great deal less meaningful than my use of the word 'process'. Shakespeare got it right when he said that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in philosophy: I omit the 'your' because I take the reading that 'your' in 'your philosophy' is like the 'your' in 'your average photographer', i.e. it does not imply that this is Horatio's own specific philosophy.

Finally, unless aesthetics is a means to an end, the end in question being the understanding of beauty, and unless that end can be replicated and applied (not necessarily by the philosopher, but by an artist), I find hard to imagine an emptier subject.

Cheers,

R.

 

[bigeye]

I don't think it's an argument in philosophy. Many people, and particularly men, measure their self worth by their work. It's directly attached to their identity. If criticized roughly (easy in this anonymous medium), they lash. Work can be valued, but web words are cheap.

The excitement and anger are a communication issue. (I suppose web 'manners' may someday evolve and mature.)

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