Saturday, April 9, 2011

All In good Taste

At first, I had a small fear of trying to read Hume. i thought that Hume was the man who decided to jumble up everything and make everything sound confusing. However, in reality, he's very clear and I understood him more than I thought I would. (Not to mention that my roommate who read Hume first semester who boosting about his cool he supposedly is.)

I felt myself nodding a lot to what Hume was saying regarding taste. A lot of what he says are ideas that I've tried to implement in my life, especially looking at artwork as unbiased as I possibly can and to not think as something solely 'good' or 'bad', but really what the characteristics of the object are. I really enjoyed one of the first things Hume mention, how what we're not accustomed to is considered barbaric. I like to imagine that in our modern world, the idea of other cultures being barbaric has nearly been erased from our minds (which the exception of the tribes in Africa or hidden deep in the Amazon or even the more simplistic lifestyles of some of those in the Middle East). I think that as a modern society we're beginning to experience more of Hume's ideas. We do look at stuff in a biased nature and may think that art from other countries might be different, but we don't normally lower ourselves to considering is barbaric. Or is it that modern society has simply thought ourselves too high for that term so we call it something else?

I also found it interesting how the standard of taste comes closest in poetry, with the idea that good works or art won't alter at all throughout the ages. I, again, found myself nodding to this idea, but I also found myself shaking my head too. Some art wasn't accepted during the time of its creation while others were heavily accepted and not so much nowadays. I just find the contrast interesting.

2 comments:

  1. BARBARIC
    –adjective
    1. without civilizing influences; uncivilized; primitive: barbaric invaders.

    I would say that people still believe that other cultures are "barbaric". Even in modern times. This may not be obvious to us because we are indeed living in a very excepting environment (ART SCHOOL). Even so there are allot of art school kids that would not stand at a bus stop on troost or the paseo. Why is this? Well we in the art school bubble find standing at a bus stop in the "hood" to be something that we are not accustom to we feel unsafe, we feel that it is a place that is uncivilized, I don't know if we should feel this way there are hundreds of people that take the bus from there every day and for the most part nothing happens to them. Art school kids just may feel that the area is "barbaric" even if they don't use the word. I would not at all assume that people are all excepting, peoples actions can sometimes be more subtle then words but to me they mean the same thing.

    I think that the like bellow displays some very barbaric opinions!!!

    They think that most of the american population is barbaric. Take a look and you will see that the idea of the other being barbaric is not erased at all even in the united states. VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV

    http://mysorebutt.com/white-pride.php

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  2. I see what you mean. I tried to take into consideration me being accepting as an art student, but looking through my opinions, I think it may be a military mentality as well that I have installed in me to accept a lot more than some of my others friends would, especially regarding where I live and who I interact with (mostly military people).

    That being said, I just think that even if we do consider cultures to be barbaric in modern times it just doesn't seem as heavily used. I don't hear hardly anyone say a race is barbaric and from I can gather, and this may be ignorance or naivety on my part, the words its self is used more for under developed countries or tribes.

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