Are All Aesthetic and Ethical Opinions “Relative”?

Most of us know that you can take two people — expert in the same field — ask each of them the same question, and sometimes hear two contradictory answers. Expertise in a field does not guarantee thorough like mindedness. Yet, more is often made of that simple observation than is warranted.

Sometimes we focus too much on the instances in which experts disagree and perhaps wrongly conclude that everything in their field is merely a matter of opinion. That is an especially popular view to take when discussing such “soft” subjects as aesthetics and ethics.

Is the Mona Lisa degrading to women? I’m certain you could find someone who not only thinks so, but adamantly thinks the Mona Lisa degrades women. If you looked around the world hard enough, you might even find a professional art critic who thinks the Mona Lisa is degrading to women. But if so, would that mean the considered opinion of most experts — that the Mona Lisa does not degrade women — counts only as “just an opinion”? Put differently, are all opinions really equal simply because not everyone agrees to the same opinion?

At the risk of sounding dismissive, I suspect it is somewhat sophomoric to believe that all opinions are equal simply because not all people — and not even all experts — hold precisely the same opinions.

I know back in the days when I was a sophomore, the last thing I wanted to hear from anyone was “case closed”. If someone told me back then, “Evolution is a fact”, or “The Sistine Chapel’s ceiling is a great work of art”, I instantly labeled them a spoil sport. Unless I had come to the conclusion myself, I didn’t want to hear it put forth as certain. After all, back when I was a sophomore, I was not in the habit of asking someone else to drink my scotch for me — so why would I have asked someone else to form my opinions for me.

There is something quite healthy in a young person refusing to accept authority on the grounds that he or she wants to see for themselves how to form a sound opinion. Any kid who just accepts authority, and never gets their hands dirty wrestling for long hours with the nuts, bolts and grease of some matter, wastes their education. So, I don’t think any of us should knee jerk dismiss the kid who blandly assures us that “everything is just an opinion and nothing is certain”. Instead, we ought to consider pinning a medal on them.

Yet, anyone who reaches my ripe age of 50, and still believes everything is just an opinion and nothing is certain — and no one is an authority on anything — has also wasted their education. They have not in all their years learned enough about how to form a sound opinion for them to recognize and appreciate when someone else has gone to the trouble of forming a sound opinion. I think it was Issac Asimov who once said something along the lines of, “Creationists make it sound like an hypothesis is something you come up with in the morning after a hard night’s drinking”.

Sometimes, what is a sign of health in a kid is a sign of pathology in a much older person.

I have come to believe over the years that many aesthetic and ethical “preferences” are in some ways as sound as belief in any established fact. In other words, I have become a spoil sport. Any kid in their right mind ought to wear cloves of garlic around their neck when speaking with me. I am also liable to drink their scotch for them if they don’t keep an eye on me.

For instance: I believe that much of the time — not always, but much of the time — I can tell whether a picture of someone is obscene or not. As an aside, I also believe it is extraordinarily difficult to describe in words what makes a picture obscene. You cannot teach someone tennis merely by describing the game to them. The only way to teach someone tennis is through a combination of directions and practice. In the same way, you cannot teach someone what visual obscenity is merely by describing it in words. You must drag out the photos and show them case by case precisely what is obscene in each photo, and how those obscenities differ from photos that are perhaps surprisingly similar but not obscene.

Let me give an example of a work of art that is possibly shocking because it is not obscene. “The Age of Innocence” is a book of photography by David Hamilton that was printed in France. The photos catalog the sexuality and self-image of young, often barely pubic girls. Almost every model in the book is under the age of 18, and almost every model in the book is only partly clothed. I am fairly convinced quite a few Americans would consider the book child pornography, which is probably why it was printed in France, rather than the States.

On the other hand, the book is clearly not child pornography. For one thing, each girl is captured in such a way that her personality and character dominate the image. Hamilton confronts you with people who, instead of being reduced to bodies or objects, are revealed as individuals. And that impression is so strong that Hamilton forces you to take his girls seriously. You can almost read their thoughts. And what you can read of their thoughts, you cannot bring yourself to dismiss as merely childish or merely adolescent. Hamilton’s work in “The Age of Innocence” is genius.

I saw the book some years ago and was astounded. At the time, I knew perhaps as many as a hundred girls here in town ranging in age from thirteen into the early twenties. The more I studied the photos, the more it seemed to me that Hamilton had captured what the girls secretly thought of themselves, thought of their sexuality and thought of their beauty. I recognized in his images the same looks and expressions I was seeing every day in the girls I knew at the time. Yet, Hamilton’s work did something else. In a way that is almost impossible for me to describe in words, it photographically explained those looks and expressions. I came away from the book understanding more about the secret lives of young women and girls than I had known it was possible for me to understand.

To me, “The Age of Innocence” is clearly not child pornography. Now, my opinion about that is ultimately based entirely on aesthetic and ethical judgments. Of course, I feel it is possible I could be wrong, just as I feel it’s possible I could be wrong about anything. But I would not bet that I’m wrong. I’d probably loose that bet.

I’m almost as certain that I have appalled some of my younger readers by forcefully asserting that some aesthetic and ethical opinions are actually quite solid and sound. It is just a fact the sky over Colorado was blue today. It is just a fact David Hamilton’s book is a superb work of art, and not child pornography. Both of those judgments are equally based on aesthetics, albeit the latter is much more complex than the former. Yet, despite they are both based on aesthetics, both are factual so far as I can see.

The notion that everything is just an opinion and that everyone’s opinions are equal is not always true. More care and insight goes into some opinions than into others. And while we should respect other people, and should support their right to offer their opinions, the utterly obvious fact is that sophomores are always wrong about everything, and they are especially wrong about any notion they might harbor at their age that nothing is certain, opinions are as cheap as water, and no one person’s opinion is any better or worse than anyone else’s opinion.

That’s my opinion. But what’s yours?

Bloggers who have continued this conversation on their own blogs:

Lirone at Words that Sing

Marcio at Truth of Lesser Men