Summary of Objectivist aesthetics
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Definition of art and its function: Art is the selective re-creation of reality according to an artist’s metaphysical value-judgments—i.e., a stylized concretization of fundamental views about man and existence. Its essential function is cognitive and existential: to make abstract metaphysical assessments directly perceivable and to supply “spiritual fuel” by presenting a world commensurate with man’s rational values and need of purpose. This is an objective need of a rational consciousness, not a luxury. [4]
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Selectivity, stylization, and essentials: The artist’s basic method is selectivity—isolating the essential, omitting the accidental, and stylizing form to project a single, integrated vision. In criticism, objectivity means identifying a work’s essentials, showing how the technical means serve the end, and integrating every judgment without contradiction, reducing claims to perceptual facts whenever challenged. [4] [2]
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Objectivity and method: Esthetics rests on the same epistemological base as all knowledge: the primacy of existence, the validity of the senses, concept-formation by differentiation/integration, logic as non-contradictory identification, and reduction to the perceptual level. Arbitrary assertions are to be dismissed; the burden of proof is on the asserter; certainty is contextual and achieved by tying conclusions to evidence and the hierarchy of knowledge. [2] [3]
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Theme-content–style integration: The standard of artistic evaluation is the integration of theme (the central abstract meaning), content (what is portrayed), and style/technique (how it is portrayed). Technical skill is a means; the end is the lucid, value-relevant projection of a view of man and existence. A work that exhibits unity, clarity, and purposive selectivity ranks higher than one that diffuses, contradicts, or evades its own stated ends. [4] [2]
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Romanticism vs. Naturalism: The pivotal esthetic divide concerns the status of volition. Romanticism upholds man’s free will and projects values achievable by choice; Naturalism treats man as determined and typically portrays the anti-heroic and the futile. On Objectivist grounds, Romanticism is the superior school because it aligns with the fact of volition and with morality as a code of chosen values and purpose. [4]
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Emotions and evaluation: Emotions are consequences of premises, not tools of cognition. They can motivate interest in art, but they do not validate esthetic judgments. Validation requires identifying the facts of the work and the logic by which those facts project a given metaphysical meaning. [2] [3] [4]
Are opinions about art topics for rational argument?
Yes—if, and only if, the “opinions” are reduced to facts, essentials, and logical connections. On Objectivist method, a claim such as “This novel is great” must be supported by: (1) identification of its theme; (2) demonstration that plot, characterization, and style serve that theme; (3) evidence that the work projects a rational view of man and existence; and (4) proof of integration—no stolen concepts, package-deals, or contradictions between content and technique. Such claims are open to proof or refutation by pointing to the text, the images, the composition, and the causal relation between means and end. [2] [4]
What can be argued:
- Whether the work’s theme has been correctly identified and is projected consistently by the facts of the work. [4]
- Whether the selectivity and stylization are essentialized or arbitrary; whether unity is achieved or undercut. [4]
- Whether the technical means (plot structure, composition, diction, harmony, perspective, etc.) causally serve the end envisioned by the artist. [2] [4]
- Whether the metaphysical view implicit in the work corresponds to facts of human nature (e.g., volition vs. determinism) and thereby supports or subverts rational moral values. [4]
What cannot be argued:
- Bare likes and dislikes detached from evidence (“I just feel it’s good”). The arbitrary is neither true nor false and is to be dismissed without argument. [2]
- Matters of nonessential personal taste (e.g., a preference for blue over red) when no claim is made about the work’s identity, meaning, or integration. [2]
How to argue properly about art:
- Reduce assertions to perceptual concretes: cite passages, scenes, brushwork, compositional lines, melodic development. [2]
- Identify essentials first: state the theme and the hierarchy of values the work projects. [4]
- Trace means-to-end causality: show how each major technical choice implements or clashes with the theme. [4]
- Integrate without contradiction and keep context: no package-deals (e.g., equating sentimentalism with Romanticism), no stolen concepts (e.g., praising “character-driven” fatalism while denying choice), and no evasions of counterevidence. [2] [3] [4]
Conclusion: Esthetic judgment is objective in method and standard, even though men approach artworks with different cognitive contexts. Differences can and should be resolved by appeal to the facts of the work, the laws of logic, and the requirements of man’s life as a rational being. Anything less is not criticism but emotionalism—and emotionalism has no jurisdiction over reality or art. [2] [3] [4]
Sources
Jean-Michel Basquiat
By Objectivist standards, Basquiat is not a good artist. He displays energy and a distinctive hand, but his typical themes and the disintegrated, scrawled, anti-essential execution project a metaphysics of chaos and social determinism rather than man’s rational volition and purposeful life. That is a false view of man and existence; technical means that efficiently project a false metaphysics do not make the result good art.
How to judge him, objectively (method)
- Identify the theme: What single, abstract meaning does a canvas project? Then tie every judgment to perceptual facts in the work—iconography, composition, palette, brushwork, text, structure. Assertions not reduced to evidence are arbitrary and to be dismissed. [2][4]
- Check integration: Do the means (line, color, layering, text, composition) causally serve the end (the theme)? Are there contradictions between purported meaning and execution? Unity and purposive selectivity are requirements; randomness and package-deals are disqualifiers. [2][4]
- Judge the metaphysics: Does the work uphold volition, intelligibility, and value-achievement (Romantic premise) or does it negate these in favor of determinism, fragmentation, and anti-heroism (Naturalist/anti-Romantic premise)? Romanticism is superior because it aligns with the facts of human nature: man is volitional and values are chosen. [4]
- Keep the method objective: reduce claims to the perceptual level; apply logic (non-contradictory identification); treat knowledge as contextual; reject the arbitrary. [2][3]
Applying the method to Basquiat (essentials)
- Perceptual facts: recurrent scrawled text and crossed-out words; crowns, skeletal heads, pseudo-anatomical diagrams; layered palimpsest surfaces; high-contrast color fields; all-over, fragmentary compositions with abrupt shifts of scale; graffiti-derived mark-making elevated to canvas. These are not random observations; they are what one sees on the surface and structure of representative works. [1][3][5]
- Probable theme/metaphysics: a world of flux, rupture, and social forces where cognition is fragmentary and man is more acted upon than acting—a stance closer to determinism than to volition. The iconography of skulls, dismembered anatomies, and accusatory slogans typically frames man as victim or primitive, not as a purposeful, efficacious agent. [1][3][5]
- Means–end integration: his techniques do serve that theme—scribbles, cancellations, and fractured spatial organization concretize disintegration; the collage-like layering embodies cognitive non-integration. As a causal matter, the style fits the message. But to the extent the message is anti-volitional and anti-life, successful execution amplifies the defect; effectiveness at projecting a false metaphysics does not convert it into value. [2][4]
- Selectivity vs. accident: Selectivity in art means essentialization. Much of Basquiat’s selectivity consists of juxtaposing raw symbols and textual shards without hierarchical control; that is a confession of non-essentialization—difference without principled integration. Where unity appears, it is often thematic repetition (e.g., crowns, heads) rather than structural coherence. [2][4][6]
- Romantic standard: Because he does not project man as a volitional, value-achieving being—and because his formal means do not organize reality into a purposeful, integrated whole—his work fails the Romantic-Objectivist standard that ties artistic value to the factual status of free will and to man’s need of a rational, value-affirming vision. [4]
What would change the verdict
- To argue Basquiat is “good,” one would have to: (1) identify a unifying, life-affirming theme grounded in volition; (2) demonstrate that composition, draftsmanship, color, and text are integrated means to that end; and (3) show that any apparent fragmentation is a controlled, essentialized device rather than a default of cognition. All three claims must be reduced to specific canvases and passages within them. Otherwise, the assertion is arbitrary. [2][4]
Bottom line
- Aesthetic judgment is a matter of objective method, not taste. On that method, Basquiat’s corpus largely concretizes a disvalue: the negation of rational, integrated consciousness in favor of social determinism and fragmentation. Therefore, by Objectivist standards, he is not a good artist. [2][3][4]
Sources
Rap Music
- Rap qualifies as music only to the extent that a given work integrates tones into an organized, hierarchical melodic structure; rhythmic speech over percussion alone is not music proper but poetry with a beat. [4]
- “Good” music, by Objectivist standards, requires: a unifying theme; clear, purposive melodic development with supporting harmony and rhythm; and an integration of technical means to project a rational, life-affirming view of man and existence. Most rap, insofar as it minimizes melody and substitutes repetition for development, fails that standard; works that do meet it can be judged “good.” [2][4]
What music is, objectively
- Art is the selective re-creation of reality according to an artist’s metaphysical value-judgments; in music, the medium is organized sound across time, with melody as the primary organizer and harmony and rhythm as its servants. The standard of evaluation is the integration of means to end: unity, development, and clarity that make an abstract meaning perceptually graspable. [4]
- Aesthetic judgment is objective in method: identify essentials, reduce claims to perceptual facts (motifs, intervals, progression, form), keep context, and reject arbitrary assertions. [2][3]
Is rap “music”?
- Pure rap/spoken-word over percussion-only beats: absent a genuine, hierarchical melodic line, this is not music proper but rhythmic declamation with accompaniment; the core is linguistic, not musical. [4]
- Rap with composed, tonal melodies (e.g., a sung chorus or instrumental lines) integrated with the verses: the whole can qualify as music to the extent the melodic and harmonic elements are primary and the rest is integrated around them. [4]
- Instrumental hip‑hop that features composed melodic material (not merely looped noise): this is music when it exhibits coherent melodic development supported by harmony and purposeful rhythm. [4]
Is rap “good” music?
Judge by objective criteria:
- Form and development: Does the piece present a clear melodic theme, develop it through variation, sequence, modulation, and cadence, and integrate harmony and rhythm to that end—or does it rely on static loops and percussive insistence that substitute repetition for development? The former meets the standard of artistic selectivity and integration; the latter undercuts it. [2][4]
- Hierarchy of musical elements: In good music, melody holds primacy; rhythm and texture support it. When rhythm dominates at the expense of melody, the result loses the essential structure that makes music an intelligible, value‑oriented re‑creation. [4]
- Thematic content and metaphysics: Content carried by lyrics matters. Works that project rational values, purposeful action, and volition align with the facts of man’s nature and strengthen artistic value; those that glorify nihilism, victimhood, tribalism, or the denial of agency project a false metaphysics and undercut value, even if the technique is competent. [2][4]
- Technical craftsmanship: Precision of diction and prosody, coherence between verbal rhythm and musical phrase, and production that serves clarity—all are objective virtues when they function as means to a unified end. [2][4]
How to judge any specific rap track (method you can apply)
- Identify the theme or central meaning. State it in one sentence. [4]
- Reduce to perceptual facts: cite the melodic line, harmonic progression, rhythmic design, form (A–B–A’, verse/chorus/bridge), and how the lyrics’ prosody fits the music. [2]
- Check integration and development: show how motives are introduced and transformed; distinguish purposeful variation from mere looping. [4]
- Evaluate the metaphysics: do the lyrics and musical choices project volition, purpose, and values—or impotence, chaos, and determinism? [2][4]
- Keep context and reject the arbitrary: no “I just feel it”; every claim must be tied to identifiable features in the track. [2][3]
Bottom line
- Rap as a genus is not disqualified a priori; but works without genuine melodic organization are not music proper and should be classified as spoken poetry with percussion. Where rap incorporates and integrates real melody and projects a rational, value‑affirming view of man, it qualifies as music and can be good; where it does not, it fails by Objectivist standards. [2][4]
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