It makes people feel safer if they can rank things, klein. It makes us think that the world is quantifiable, measurable, cut-out-and-sew-up-neatly-able. If we can say what makes good art we can effectively say "This is right" and "this is wrong" and nothing makes a person feel better than being right. Emotions are gooey and ooey and so we try to negate them, with discussions like "Can art be objective? What is good art?" Instead I guess we could all go around looking at things and reading things and then feeling the things those things make us feel, but that...that would be like acknowledging there is no universal truth. Maybe like Kim Davis admitting that other peoples' happiness and marriages don't impact hers. Maybe that's why.
But we can't. We never do. It goes like this: A: "I have an opinion!" B: "I also have an opinion." C: "I like art." D: "Fuck art." A: "You are not contributing to the discussion." D: "The discussion is facile." E: "What does facile mean?" D: "It means this whole discussion is the infinite loop of discussion boards." CALL ME D
I had such trouble with this ideal growing up in a really strict religious home. There is such a severe amount of security in knowing there is an order of things. When I grew up I became so confused and honestly terrified by the idea that it is EXTREMELY possible that life makes no sense, that no matter what I did everything still wouldn't amount to much universally speaking. It was honestly the toughest thing to unlearn and honestly I have to keep working at it from time to time. Although even now I still hold some things to be universally true.
There is honestly only one I really consider universal and that is the respect for life. Even then I question that. I think my belief stems from the idea that if it wasn't some universal principle then I'm saying in some circumstance killing, and the ruining of peoples lives could be completely acceptable. My view on it now is that although we may not be able to protect life in every circumstance there is still some weight, some moral imperative to protect life no matter the circumstance.