We Aim Not to Please

While V-Po can ably defend herself, a review by Mark Greif of The Susbtance of Style posted on The American Prospect's website today contains some arguments a bit too bizarro to escape commentary here.

Greif's beef is with the book's "bait and switch as it moves from aesthetics to a defense of consumerism." The problem with consumer good aesthetics, according to Greif, is that capital-A Art has to be made by a capital-A Artist inspired by some private vision without regard for commercial success or pleasing an audience. Except, as he doubtless realized while writing this up, lots of things not created by Artists (or, indeed, anyone) are beautiful. So we get this odd line: "And when a natural object strikes us as beautiful, it seems to exist entirely for itself, indifferent to us."

The problem with, say, Starbucks is supposed to be that it's the product of some kind of taste-aggregation—focus groups and whatnot—rather than some unitary vision. Now, I'm sort of sympathetic here. I can't stand malls; they're aesthetically revolting. But I'm at least open about what's going on there: I'm a bit of an elitist, and I think the target marketing demographic they're basing the aesthetic on has crappy taste.

But that's probably a bit of a no-no mode of argument at the Prospect, so Greif (ironically) ends up sounding a kind of Randian note about the inherent failures of any aesthetic object made without the proper regard for Artistic Integrity. And the attempt to cover this comes in large part from the use of that slippery "we"—he's not explaining his tastes, y'see, but why "we" are revolted by focus group aesthetics. Except, pretty much by definition, a look that gets chosen because it tested well in a focus group is one that a bunch of people chosen from a particular set liked pretty well. So Greif's "we" must not include the very many people of whom those focus groups were designed to be statistically representative. This is a classic case of crying "market failure" when the market doesn't produce what you happen to want. But I suppose "the market debases aesthetics" plays better in public than "most of you have bad taste."

Comments

[D Anghelone]

"We Aim Not to Please" seems so...mall. "We aim to not please" has more an aesthetic air, no?

[TomHynes]

The classic urinal sign: We aim to please, so you aim too, please. Is that poetry?

[NRA Guy]

We are pleased to aim.....

[Jason Ligon]

Good piece, Julian. If someone wants to make this kind of argument, they should probably stick to the old 'higher and lower aesthetic pleasures' line, and then proceed to gripe about the market allocating toward the more ephemeral ones.

I don't agree with that bit either, but it is more convincing than this bit of oddness.

[Zathras]

This reminds me of an argument I got into with a high school English teacher over the timeless question of why Hamlet doesn't kill Claudius while the usurper king is praying. To me the answer was obvious: Shakespeare depended on his plays for his income, the death of Claudius in the middle of the play would have wrecked the chances for its commercial success, and therefore the king had to live until the poisoned rapier fight scene at the end.

My instructor was not amused. What about Shakespeare's artistic vision? What about Hamlet's thoughts about guilt, revenge, and the soul? Who cares what the audience thought?

Well Shakespeare obviously did. In any business endeavor determining what the public wants involves a surprising amount of guesswork, and most allow someone artistically or aesthetically inclined a certain amount of leeway to include things he may not be sure the public will want but thinks they might at least be interested to see. Whether he is right depends on his own talent, I suppose, and on a certain amount of luck.

[Jason Ligon]

Yeah, Zathras. In my experience, if you really want to piss off an English teacher type, make any suggestion that Shakespeare's motives were similar to Jerry Bruckheimer's. He hee!

[MJ]

""Forcing an employer to accept an [employee's] unwanted style is in some sense like forcing a newspaper to publish articles that disagree with its editorial viewpoint, or like redesigning a magazine or reediting a film against the will of its owners." In other words, she borrows the First Amendment's protection of the press to defend workplace discrimination against the individual "style" her book nominally celebrates."

What's so difficult to understand that what image you choose to project on your own time is your own business, but when your on the company's time it can be the company' business?

While I realize Postrel quote uses media analogies, I think Grief's subtle implication that the free speech clause only applies to the press is interesting, and worrisome.

[dhex]

surely they make elegant malls somewhere?

the only foreign mall i was ever in was amsterdam. it wasn't very big but the ceilings were nice and it felt more like a large boutique than a mall with 20 or so stores.

[fyodor]

I believe Jonathan Richman once sang that if he were an American mall he'd be embarrassed to try to talk to a cute one, like from Paris.

[kevrob]

A critic who sees feng shui as a reaction against clutter, instead of the latest expression of superstitious impulse, following hard upon astrology, numerology, crystals, necromancy* and kabala, is not to be trusted.

Kevin

[DFH]

Upper-class snotty Liberals!

When the revolution comes -- they will be the first up against then wall.

[dhex]

to be fair, feng shui was an aesthetic standard for a very long time (cloaked in amorphous language and rules and the rest) which was hijacked recently by the dipshit set. which, as free marketeers, we should be applauding. the creation of a new industry out of almost nothing.

malls are like a subway car with a food court. i'd rather be sleeping.

[joe]

"The problem with, say, Starbucks is supposed to be that it's the product of some kind of taste-aggregation?focus groups and whatnot?rather than some unitary vision. Now, I'm sort of sympathetic here. I can't stand malls; they're aesthetically revolting. But I'm at least open about what's going on there: I'm a bit of an elitist, and I think the target marketing demographic they're basing the aesthetic on has crappy taste...Except, pretty much by definition, a look that gets chosen because it tested well in a focus group is one that a bunch of people chosen from a particular set liked pretty well."

I think you misunderstand, Julian, how focus group-based decisions work. Most often, the stylistic decisions are not based on deisigning to appeal to whichever aesthetic outlook gains a plurality of the vote. Rather, the various different outlooks are carefully inspected, and something is designed which has some level of appeal to all of them. Hence, malls end up with an aesthetic of "a little bit of this for the grandmas, a little bit of that for the teens." Your post assumes that the outcome is one that a large group of people like, hence your ability to sink comfortably into warm and fuzzy anti-snobbism. But your willingness (and that of designers who operate on this system) to lump a large number of different tastes into a collective "public taste" denies the reality of individual taste.

Malls don't disgust you because they have a coherent and genuine lower-class style, but because they have no coherent style, just a collection of flourishes meant to appeal to "everyone." The proper phrases are "a mile wide and an inch deep" and "lowest common denominator."

[joe]

And MJ, the review is not a meditation on Constitutional law, but on the intersection between style and commerce. Corporations do squach individual expression, and giant ones seekig to constantly project a standard "brand" do so most of all. Please note that there are no calls for the jailing of McDonald's uniform designers in that statement.

[Nicholas Weininger]

Another refutation of that "Art is made by Artists for Artistic reasons" line is the fact that plenty of bona fide Artists have made lasting, good Art in a very crass commercial milieu. Think of Charles Dickens publishing novels in installments in pulp magazines.

[joe]

A fair point, Nick, but does the growth in the size/share of media outlets and the accompanying need to adopt a "catch all" strategy change the equation?

[Russ D]

"Corporations do squach individual expression, and giant ones seekig to constantly project a standard 'brand' do so most of all."

The largest corporation of all is the US government and its local parishes. It's brand is "American Democracy".

[Jason]

Hamlet does not pop Claudius, Tarantino-style, in the chapel for a number of reasons. One of them is that the contemporary authorities (Tudor/Stuart bureaucrats did have the authority to shut down theatres and punish playwrights) would probably not have enjoyed watching a king, legitimate or not, get whacked at prayer. Religion (and usurpation) were touchy subjects, especially during the period SHakespeare wrote the big H.

As to the boring-ass "Shakespeare wrote for commercial reasons" line of reasoning, duh. What he was selling, though, was all that "English teacher" stuff like, say, Hamlet's character, theme, and all them their fancy words. More to the point, Hamlet (like King Lear) is way, way longer than most contemporary plays. It's almost unperformable at the maximum length (see the 4-hour Branagh film). Shakespeare knew how to write short, commercially palpable plays: Macbeth uncut runs about two hours. So why write a play so much longer? For that matter, why did John Woo add that last long chase scene to Face/Off?

I know Mark Greif; he's a dumbass. People who try to score cheap points on "English teacher" types by oversimplifying literature don't sound much better.

[Jason]

And yes, I know MacBeth comes after Hamlet, not before--it was just an example.

Also, Shakespeare kills Julius Caesar, which he wrote right before Hamlet, in the middle of the play, so I think not killing Claudius at that point is part of an attempt not to get stale. Not unlike Tom Cruise willingly getting knocked on his ass repeatedly in that dumb samurai movie?

[fyodor]

There's a difference between trying to sell something by figuring out what people will buy and meeting their expectations on one hand and by doing something you think is good and believe in and then hoping that people will appreciate that quality on the other.

BUT, these two practices are not mutually exclusive, and while it may be easy to distinguish between them in some cases, most art and aesthetics fall into the gray area in between.

And ultimately, why care? I like to say that I like any trash.

Still, there's reasons why aesthetics work or don't, which of course differs depending on who's beholding. Certainly, the "focus group" approach to aesthetics has the potential to be obnoxious, and not just because the targeted group has crappy taste, but because, as Joe pointed out, there's a lowest-common denomitor effect of the process itself. And perhaps this is what alienates Julian.

But what belies Greif's "we" is not, as Julian says, that the corporations went to the common folk to make their decision, but rather that the corporations in question are successful. If "we" dislike the aesthetics, then why do "we" shop there!?! The only possibility under which I can see Greif's "we" making any sense is IF most people really do detest the aesthetics of the places they shop at to some degree or at some level but the aesthetics succeed in drawing them in anyway, perhaps because they've been designed to be inoffensive or seductive or something? Possible, but seems like rather a stretch.

[fyodor]

Uh, wouldja believe "denominator..."

[fyodor]

More thoughts hit my brain...

I believe very very very few people in the world have ever looked at a Nike swoosh and went, "Voila!! Magnifique!!" Yet it likely has helped Nike achieve market success. The purpose of the swoosh, like much of corporate aesthetics, is not to evoke such a reaction of aesthetic appreciation but to effect marketability, which while the two goals may overlap at times, are not the same thing. This is why Julian slightly misses the mark by attributing what he dislikes about malls the masses' "crappy taste."

But only slightly because, OTOH, malls would not be successful if they made most people as uncomfortable as they make Julian. And it certainly appears that places like Starbucks made a point of creating aesthetics that not only wouldn't deter people but would actually help bring them in. Their success at doing so indicates they're doing somethng right. Maybe not for Julian (and I'm rather ambivalent myself), but for enough folks to be successful.

Another thought that potentially supports Greif's "we." Not all stores or outlet businesses have to appeal to a majority of the populace to be successful if they appeal to a niche instead. However, since most mall type places succeed by having broad appeal, that too qualifies for the proverbial stretch...

[dhex]

"Malls don't disgust you because they have a coherent and genuine lower-class style, but because they have no coherent style, just a collection of flourishes meant to appeal to "everyone.""

i think joe is dead frickin' on here. i think its the same reason i found las vegas to be so deadening after a while. something for everyone doesn't leave much for me and you.

during more carefree youthful years mall trips under the influence of threshold doses of LSD were a once a year occasion. originally envisioned as a fun thing to do, they really only seemed to operate as a conditioning device, invoking mistrust and disgust at the first wiff of a food court. and a sort of pathetic affection for the sad sacks who work at spencers and goth topic.

i thought hamlet didn't pop uncle usurper because he was a total wussbucket first and foremost. and a cowardly sadist. 🙂

[Nicholas Weininger]

joe: no, I don't think it does, because it is not, in fact, necessary to have a "catch all" strategy to succeed in the modern media world. At least, not within a single work; if you work for an organization that has an overall "catch all" strategy, you can still do well by fitting into one of their small niches, and modern technology makes it much easier to find a profitable small niche.

Take movies and TV as an example. How "catch all" are the various independent movies you can rent via Netflix? How "catch all" is my favorite TV show, "Gilmore Girls", which delivers in its dialogue more obscure cultural and historical references than 99% of the overall TV-watching audience will ever get? Sure, it's an exception, but so was Dickens in his time.

[Nicholas Weininger]

I should add that I'm emphatically not claiming "Gilmore Girls" is great art-- though who knows what the hell people will think of it, or any modern cultural production, 150 years from now?

[Jason Ligon]

You don't think there could be different kinds of aesthetic appeal, do you? Maybe the intellectual appeal so powerful for some relies on a willingness to actively engage the experience that many people don't have, and so there is a different sort of aesthetic that is more passive.

The former is more for me than we, while the latter is by its nature an appeal to universals of human experience - smooth geometries, flowing water, etc.

[joe]

Good point, Jason. But I suspect that few focus group members utter the terms "smooth geometry" and "flowing water." Yet I know that these elements are quite successful in urban design. Perhaps the important question is not WHETHER an artifact is designed to have mass appeal, but HOW the process of designing in that appeal is carried out.