Comment by gbog | Hacker News Reader

Comment by gbog | Hacker News Reader

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> irrelevant because the value of what is art changes with person to person

Well, this means there is no discussion possible about art.

This is a kind of relativism. Other kind of relativism include moral relativism ("What is good or bad changes with person to person"), and cognitive relativism ("Truth changes with person to person").

Sorry to tell you this, but relativism is sometime dangerous (eg. one could say that, for some people, it is considered "good" to rape old ladies), and often just wrong (you'd have hard time to find someone who would honestly declare that Bach's music or Chinese landscape paintings is really not art).

Apple's products have many impressing qualities, they are beautifully designed, engage their owners a lot, etc. Art do not need to come into the picture.

Actually, absolute truth is just as dangerous (and perhaps even more dangerous) as (non-extreme) relativism. Someone with a relativistic view isn't necessarily passive either, they just try to be more observant, understanding, and compassionate. I never liked how some philosophers force upon people a specific way of thinking if they claim to be have a general belief system.

Someone might consider it good to rape old ladies, and that is their honest belief, doesn't mean I can't call them out on it and try to make them 'believe' otherwise.

I never said that Bach's music isn't art, I just said that Apple's products can be viewed to be art just as much as a painting can be. You can argue if it is as pure, and what value it has in the artistic world but you can't argue if it is or isn't art. Art's way too vague for that kind of stuff.

In my mind, technology is a very powerful side-effect of art, and therefore it can be viewed as art just as much as a painting it.

My other point I was making is that if someone doesn't wish to discuss their values of art, than you've already lost the discussion because anything you say will be taken with a grain of salt. 99% of the discussions that go on in the world aren't of this case, but sometimes they are and I was just saying that we have to be mindful of those cases.

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