No offense but, what does this have to do with anything? I dont really care about being able to use things in structured arguements
Well, it was a question mostly for my benefit. To me, any discussion that includes an aspect that becomes all encompassing doesn't retain any merit toward a topic--because it can be applied to anything. For example: you believe all actions contain an intrinsic value regardless of intent, result, and applicability...simply because there are no worthless actions. If every action in the entire world holds value then value discussion become meaningless. It becomes a belief structure that closes venues of communication.
As for structured arguments: I'm not talking about a thesis on Post Structualist Thought on Colonial Dialogue, I'm talking about a guy who said he was angry because some other guy couldn't understand that no piece of art is worthless--and then decided to frame an argument on a public message board.
Again you seem to be coming from a proffessional/commercial/academic perspective, and judging everything by its relevenece in those spheres. I'm not...I'm just talking about day to day life, peoples feelings, and art as a general concept.
Yes, I do come from a professional academic background--but I really don't think that is relevant to this discussion. The only reason I may have mentioned it is if you had any specific questions about the field you might have wanted answered...I never intended to lord my knowledge over you. And, though I would never want to degrade an opinion, I would hope that you might accept my opinion with a degree of clout--do to my experience and its relevance to art (though I commonly joke about my many years of wasted education, I still consider it very important to me).
I do tend to use basic frames of reference for my discussions--but everybody does. The idea that we must contextualize conversations is pretty much an absolute--the variance is to the degree of contextualization. The more you study a topic the larger the context for the discussion of it becomes. While you keep your framework limited to a personal taste culture perspective--many people step beyond that into a degree of relevance within all of the similar experiences they have lived. This is neither a good or bad thing...it doesn't include the scaling of personal worth. What it does is creates scale of knowledge as being relevant or irrelevant to the topic at hand.
Taste becomes a topic that people are unable to share common references for...because nobody can inhabit the same mind. But what people can do is share the same tastes. These may become minute taste cultures within large cultures securing a community of like experiences allowing us to maintain a type of herd experience.
Quality is something that, by definition, can be measured. The word itself would be meaningless unless it implied that one thing could be better than another. If all things were equal the word 'quality' would not exist. Quality can easily create common references because the word implies there is more than one of what ever you are examining. This allows a smooth structure of discussion that can be formed based on antecedent, form, subject, history, culture, and purpose. This gathering of information creates a knowledge community of understanding that is capable of morphing to acquire new knowledge and discarding old knowledge that is no longer applicable.
Taste can be very hard to seprate from a discussion such as this because you have to work at understanding your own biases. And if you don't spend the energy to do this, you will never be able to really understand the differences and complexities of the implied arguments. Subjectivity is only a relevant notion if there is an objective notion in play...otherwise you have an all encompassing idea that doesn't effect any discussions--as it effects all discussions. Of course educated opinions are still just opinions. Any extrapolation in a quality discussion is an opinion. But, every extrapolation from an empirical discussion is an opinion as well (there are some very funny stories about early empirical methodology drawing some obscure conclusions)...the word opinion becomes meaningless--it is assumed by all and discounted as irrelevant to any common frame of reference...as everything is an opinion.
But to answer your question, putting aside actions that involve hurting people, no there isnt much of anything I consider worthless. Which I realize puts me in a minority here where it seems most consider the bulk of people, things and efforts to be worthless.
There is nothing wrong with being in the minority...and at times it can put you in an advantage. I applaud you beliefs as I am a devout pacifist. Unfortunately your definition of worthless doesn't preclude the hurting of others if the violent person draws personal satisfaction from it...if they put hard work into it...if they spend time doing it.
I really hope I don't sound dictatorial or condescending as it is not my wish to do so. I think it is quite capable that my register could slide toward that structure as, like I said, I have believed the exact same thing as you before. What ever you do--have fun with it.
