I've found that it kinda jeopardizes the whole practice of criticism though (as you've pointed out about me: my inability to appreciate the negative). Whereas if you took a fixed and constant perspective to all works of art, rather than bending your perspective to see each work on its own terms, you would then arrive at a particular valuational spectrum whereby some works are better than others. Some are successes and some are failures according to this fixed perspective.Or maybe not how to, but certainly that it could be done. Not that I can do it on command necessarily. Though that would be great.
Exactly, which is only alien so long as the aesthete is unable to adapt to its terms.Or expectations about the kind of pleasures, and the types of experience you might receive when in fact the thing works in a completely alien modality
This is one of the things the time barrier thread is aboutAnd some works may prove to be beyond the adaptive range of whoever is trying to appreciate it. Like I'd have a tough time appreciating a lot of rap music.
Some things rely fairly heavily on a drug-sound synergyAmong various other genres. Like disco.
I think the closest thing to actual goodness is 1) the ease with which it resonates with 2) what proportion of people.Well this is what I mean about artificial pleasures, where you do start to question if it's actually good why the need for the strenuous gymnastics
Maybe depth and resonance here are similar concepts. By resonance I don't mean ear-worminess/catchiness, but more a basis for identifying with a given work.Where most people would squirm is that that ignores what they would mark as depth, I reckon