Kanye West and Taste

I ran across a fascinating post over at Ann Althouse about Kanye West and taste. The title is too long for a link, but here is the important quote:

"It was something that God put in my heart back in 2015. A few days before the MTV awards it hit me in the shower. When I first thought of it, I just started laughing to myself and all this joy came over my body, through my soul. I felt that energy and spirit. Two days later, I accepted the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award at the MTV Awards. Instead of performing my array of hit songs, I gave just my perspective on awards shows.... It even took heart to say it in that context and people were just like: Oh! Their minds were blown.... I had different friends -- some people in the music industry, some tech elites -- and they took it as a joke.... I'm completely confident that I will figure out how to get America out of debt, that I have the ability, once I see everything. I never make the wrong decision when I'm given all the information. That's my skill set. Anything I go into — producing, rap, homes, clothing, anything — once I'm given the right information, I apply my taste. And I have the best taste on the planet. Could you imagine Quincy Jones as a president? Walt Disney? Steve Jobs? For America to be as warming and inviting as Disney World. There used to be this dream. People still have this dream of coming to America.... I know that me as president would be the best thing that would ever happen for America's foreign policy. I've traveled more than any president already, and I bring people together. I put rivals on songs together to create masterpieces.... I'm definitely 100% winning in 2024...."

And here is the video:

Now, of course, his 2020 campaign went nowhere, but what interests me is the assertion of the validity of the judgement of taste. In my numerous posts on aesthetics, I have often talked about taste:

https://themusicsalon.blogspot.com/2015/01/taste-and-creativity.html

https://themusicsalon.blogspot.com/2012/09/aesthetics-some-hints-from-david-hume.html

https://themusicsalon.blogspot.com/2019/09/the-evolution-of-taste.html

And there are lots of others. I think what Kanye is saying is that he has an intuitive grasp of what is good and what is not good and the exercise of this is what we call "taste" --or used to! The whole notion of taste was formidably disparaged by modernist artists as you can read in the first of my posts linked to above. Picasso hated the idea of "taste." The notion of taste is tied up with that other heterodox notion of "quality." We have no problem with the idea of poor quality or high quality when it comes to fruit and vegetables, technology, automobiles or fabric. But we have been taught to shy away from any kind of hierarchy of quality when it comes to the arts. TASTE IS SUBJECTIVE we cry! I think what this comes from is the way things like beauty and ugliness are received. Beauty is indeed in the eye of the beholder because that is where it is received. But this does not mean that beauty is subjective, just that its reception is.

What do I mean by that? Well, it is obvious that there are vast differences in quality between different artworks. The sketch I did the other day has value only to myself, but the sketches of Leonardo da Vinci are of immense value. And not just "in the eye of the beholder." They can be auctioned for vast sums of money because they have objective aesthetic value even though different people may perceive them differently. You might perceive a painting differently on different days and at different times of your life, but that does not change the painting itself. The subjectivity is only in yourself.

But somehow, out of this, the general consensus is that aesthetics is relative. That everyone's judgement is equally valid. Obviously not. Some people have high levels of intuitive judgement of taste and others do not. Kanye creates very popular music and designs very popular running shoes. In certain areas, he has a great capacity for aesthetic judgement.

I'm not sure it would be safe to trust him with the economy, though...