I should say that Hume did leave open the door to the possibility that, given the right circumstances, everyone can recognize objective beauty (in which case a hierarchy of taste might still exist, but not as a domain to be apprehended by a few, rather than the many). But he considered those circumstances rare, and susceptible to interruption (both extrinsic and intrinsic to the person). So that, to his mind, only those in possession of a certain kind of palate (he sometimes used the word ‘organ’) are able to apply the ‘standard of taste’ with constancy. Which isn’t to say they always will. They will or they won’t, depending on how capable they are of maintaining a virtuous disinterest with regard to the object in question.
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For we are part of reality, not separate from it. And the measure of our talents has no bearing on our worth and our dignity as creatures.
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In any case, talent is stubbornly hierarchical. No one would deny, if they heard me singing, that I am wanting in that category of talent, whereas Billie Holiday, for example, was not. And if I cannot see the humor in that, or at least the beauty that proceeds from it as a truth that can be described, then it is I who have placed myself at odds with reality, and not the other way around.
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Although, in suggesting that talent is part of nature (i.e., reality, creation), I do not exclude from it a spiritual dimension. A member of a ballet company, for example, must have physical grace, mental fortitude, and spiritual composure.
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I say of talent that “nature has given it no real substance,” and I suppose that is what I mean, though a more accurate statement might be that talent, as part of nature, does not evolve as a material substance. Rather, it is an intangible composite, within individuals, the effects of which can be registered on our senses, in the material world.
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Consider talent. More specifically, consider those elusive configurations of physical and psychic harmonies that produce talent in its particular instances. These form a hierarchy, of course; to deny it would be absurd. But talent cannot be redistributed or shared (though it might be imitated or learned) because nature has given it no real substance; it is immaterial, even when evinced in the material world.
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What this position envisions, or hopes for, is the softening or flattening of hierarchies, which can be done, to an extent, to social structures. But it cannot be done to the unruly panoply of nature; not anyway, to the aspects of it that are immaterial. And much of it is immaterial.
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People will object to this line of thought because it will sound to their ears unfair, or inequitable, as if nature in her distributions ever purported to be fair or equitable (except insofar as her indifference to us is total; in this regard she is entirely equitable). The mistake they will be making is that they will be projecting onto nature that which they perceive to be the role of society (wherein structural imbalances can be corrected, or brought into parity, by petition, entreaty, or mandate).
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This isn’t to say that a person can’t, to some extent, develop within themself that instrument of assessment (which is part of the mental apparatus of each of us), but that not everyone is equipped with the same aptitude, or reach, with regard to what that instrument does. Or, anyway, not everyone’s instrument is in a condition of health, or is ‘sound,’ as the philosopher David Hume might have said. (He wrote about this centuries ago, in his essay Of the Standard of Taste).
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Virtuosity of technique, and sublimity of effect, are the standards by which art should be judged. And not everyone is capable of determining whether a given work meets those standards; not everyone can deliver an accurate assessment.
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I say “more judgmental than I intend it to” because of course I intend some degree of judgment. The arts belong to no one and to everyone, but things can be said about them, as a discipline, that are more true than other things.
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Though it is possible, I am aware, that they are neither mystified nor bewildered, but wish only to reconfigure the discipline of art along the lines of their own ideology or agenda, which may sound more judgmental than I intend it to.
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It is not uncommon then, in the arts, to see works rewarded for attributes other than virtuosity. Because those who are in a position to reward the works in question are often those who are bewildered or mystified by the dynamic that exists between artwork and audience.
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To put it another way, art speaks to the circumstances of the soul, which cannot be improved, or even changed, materially, though its facticity can be brought into the consciousness of the audience, which often has forgotten the soul (or has forgotten the importance of attending to it). This dynamic (between artwork and audience) poses a problem for the modern person, at least, it seems, in the West, where we have been conditioned to believe that something has no worth, or even reality, if it cannot be expressed or described.
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This is related to the notion of the ‘sublime,’ and how a work that is sublime will transport its audience. Something that absorbs us is necessarily transporting.
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In other words, art is entertaining to such a degree that it becomes absorbing. And in doing so becomes another category of thing. (Though, again, the term ‘entertaining’ is not the most fitting descriptor of art).
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Which may sound like a difference in degree, rather than a difference in category, but I would maintain that, in this case, a difference in degree amounts to a difference in category.
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Which isn’t to say that art cannot share some of the traits of those related fields, but that its higher function is beyond them. I would say that an artwork is ‘absorbing,’ for example, whereas a game or a sitcom is ‘entertaining.’
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Meaning, one should not approach an artwork with the expectation that one is going to get anything from one’s encounter with it, even if the work is successful, or ‘realized,’ and even if one does in fact get something from the encounter. Because the thing that one gets from such an encounter tends to be lacking not only in materiality, but also in that quality of amusement or distraction that can be provided by fields that are related to art, and that are important in their own right, but that are not the same as art (fields like sports and entertainment).
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The result of a surgery performed upon a body, for example, is quantifiable, as is the verdict of a lawsuit that is brought before the courts, as is the soundness of a highway or a bridge that undergoes construction. In all these cases (in ‘practical’ disciplines), the patient, or the claimant, or the commuter, or what-have-you, knows beforehand what is wanted, and can describe the conditions by which they will or will not see their want met. In other words, the outcomes in these instances are a function of a binary, even if the methods used to arrive at the outcomes vary, and are unpredictable. But the success of an artwork, while measurable, and subject to evaluation, does not lend itself so easily to a description in material terms, and certainly cannot be described by a binary system.