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<blockquote data-quote="Jeremy Ackerman-Yost" data-source="post: 3774212" data-attributes="member: 4720">You're right.&nbsp; It's hardly useful at all, except to yourself.&nbsp; And sometimes as a starting point for discussion about what exactly was communicated to you.However, it is also no LESS useful than anything anyone else has come up with. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile&nbsp; &nbsp; :)"&nbsp; data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />&nbsp; And it means something to the individual making the judgment, which no amount of debate over what constitutes a canonical piece of art in the academic community is ever going to do.No, none of those are objective at all.&nbsp; I've studied linguistics.&nbsp; Even &quot;what is grammatical?&quot; is derived by polling the populace.&nbsp; Seriously.&nbsp; Grammaticality, despite my 7 years of grammar classes in school that tried desperately to instill a standard, is in actual fact derived from common usage.&nbsp; To say nothing of &quot;pacing&quot; and &quot;use of language.&quot;&nbsp; Pacing, in&nbsp; literature and film is wildly variable and subject to fashionable trends.&nbsp; In the case of movies, it is not uncommon for pacing to be taken out of the hands of the director by the studio.&nbsp; Is it still even an &quot;artistic decision&quot; at that point?&nbsp; Where's the border between &quot;art&quot; and &quot;business&quot;?&nbsp; And this thread, again, demonstrates as well as anything else that things like &quot;plot&quot; and &quot;characterization&quot; are 100% subjective.&nbsp; You can make all the reasoned arguments you want about why &quot;Great Expectations&quot; is well-plotted with convincing characters, and it will mean nothing to me.&nbsp; I've had the argument with people who've spent 15+ years studying Dickens and his historical/literary context.&nbsp; They argued with me until they were blue in the face, and it didn't change the fact that &quot;Great Expectations&quot; is pretentious crap that is poorly constructed for its modern usage in addition to being overwrought and remarkably unconvincing and uninteresting, but &quot;A Christmas Carol&quot; can hang out with &quot;A Tale of Two Cities&quot; in the corner of &quot;remarkable works of literature by Dickens.&quot;Incidentally, &quot;Great Expectations&quot; is part of the canon high school students are forced to read in long form, eventhough it was conceived and published as a serial.&nbsp; But the much more affecting (to literally everyone I know who read both) &quot;A Christmas Carol&quot; has been relegated in the modern age to &quot;a story for children.&quot;&nbsp; And the phenonmenal (IMO, naturally) &quot;A Tale of Two Cities&quot; is the pariah that most non-honors classes are not even required to read.These are the kind of decisions consensus makes <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile&nbsp; &nbsp; :)"&nbsp; data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />&nbsp; Perhaps you can see why I don't believe in it for the purposes of art.&nbsp; Alas, that it is all we have for science.&nbsp; No wonder I'm trying desperately to get out of academia.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Jeremy Ackerman-Yost, post: 3774212, member: 4720"] You're right. It's hardly useful at all, except to yourself. And sometimes as a starting point for discussion about what exactly was communicated to you. However, it is also no LESS useful than anything anyone else has come up with. :) And it means something to the individual making the judgment, which no amount of debate over what constitutes a canonical piece of art in the academic community is ever going to do. No, none of those are objective at all. I've studied linguistics. Even "what is grammatical?" is derived by polling the populace. Seriously. Grammaticality, despite my 7 years of grammar classes in school that tried desperately to instill a standard, is in actual fact derived from common usage. To say nothing of "pacing" and "use of language." Pacing, in literature and film is wildly variable and subject to fashionable trends. In the case of movies, it is not uncommon for pacing to be taken out of the hands of the director by the studio. Is it still even an "artistic decision" at that point? Where's the border between "art" and "business"? And this thread, again, demonstrates as well as anything else that things like "plot" and "characterization" are 100% subjective. You can make all the reasoned arguments you want about why "Great Expectations" is well-plotted with convincing characters, and it will mean nothing to me. I've had the argument with people who've spent 15+ years studying Dickens and his historical/literary context. They argued with me until they were blue in the face, and it didn't change the fact that "Great Expectations" is pretentious crap that is poorly constructed for its modern usage in addition to being overwrought and remarkably unconvincing and uninteresting, but "A Christmas Carol" can hang out with "A Tale of Two Cities" in the corner of "remarkable works of literature by Dickens." Incidentally, "Great Expectations" is part of the canon high school students are forced to read in long form, eventhough it was conceived and published as a serial. But the much more affecting (to literally everyone I know who read both) "A Christmas Carol" has been relegated in the modern age to "a story for children." And the phenonmenal (IMO, naturally) "A Tale of Two Cities" is the pariah that most non-honors classes are not even required to read. These are the kind of decisions consensus makes :) Perhaps you can see why I don't believe in it for the purposes of art. Alas, that it is all we have for science. No wonder I'm trying desperately to get out of academia. [/QUOTE]

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