> The problem of low information density isn't new. Most of the "classics" of western literature have the same problem.
I would submit that you may not be tuned into the value in them, if you think that. Maybe it's true of some, but most are just an acquired taste of the same sort as, say, the freer-form varieties of jazz, or classical music. It takes some work and some experience before you get what they're doing, before you understand their rhythms, learn to recognize when they're telling you to pay attention (and to what, which may not be obvious at first), when and how they're simply playing and what about the particular play they're engaging in makes it remarkable and worthwhile, and so on.
There's a sensitivity required for much (not all) of the body of classic literature that most people have to work to develop before they really get it, and lots of allusions that have the chicken/egg problem of requiring you already to be familiar with a lot of literature before they start to land with any frequency—again, same as some genres of music, like classical and jazz again, hip hop especially, others too, but usually not as much as those. Just because you can read doesn't mean you get literature, just like being able to see doesn't mean you get fine art, though in either case you might still enjoy at least some of it, and you might still develop strong opinions about the works you don't enjoy.
Movies and TV are similar. You're not born recognizing good film-making, understanding why it's good, how the way the camera moved in that shot actually contributed meaning rather than just being an artifact of the medium, how that shot was a reference to some DW Griffith movie and what purpose that might have, how that shot is weak and works against the tone or action of the scene in a way that makes it bad, and so on. Most people who watch and enjoy film never bother to develop an actual understanding of it, but that doesn't mean the things that go over their heads are bad.
That's just how all art is, really. Sure there's some posturing and BS mixed in with it all, but you in fact do have to put some serious hours and effort into arts to get the most out of them that you can—even just on a critical or enjoyment or character/intellect/empathy-building level, not even getting into making art—and very probably by the time you've done that a bunch of things that seemed like worthless overrated crap when you started won't seem that way anymore.
I've spent a lot of time digging through the major works of post enlightenment philosophers. Even fairly "concise" (by the standards of the day) writers like Hume, Nietzsche and Bertrand Russell belabor points far beyond what was necessary for me to apprehend their meaning.
I'm of the opinion that if you have to be "trained" to find a work aesthetically appealing, it isn't inherently aesthetic. By analogy, some women find pretend rape and pain sexually gratifying, but I don't think anyone would argue those acts are inherently erotic.
Minus the weird and out-of-place analogy about sexual role playing and bdsm, this kinda sounds like a child talking about the bitter taste of coffee or beer, when soda is so much sweeter.
The real child is the person who cultivates "sophisticated" preferences to try and elevate themselves above others. A child that is genuine is ironically being far more emotionally mature.
Things like taste are subjective. I am thirty something and don't like the majority of coffee and I don't drink beer or wine at all. I had a Mexican Coke (so much better than normal coke) in preference to bitter coffee this morning. Does that make me childish?
> I'm of the opinion that if you have to be "trained" to find a work aesthetically appealing, it isn't inherently aesthetic.
I don't see how this is tenable, given how much aesthetic taste is learned regardless.
A lifetime's journey through arts, if done with any thought at all, is certainly a process of learning, of training. Efforts to defend old favorites in light of new knowledge will be attempted, sometimes succeed and allow new levels of appreciation of already-experienced work, sometimes fail when one discovers that the work lacks the substance on which to defend it. Maybe one continues to like the work anyway, but understands its limitations, its shortcomings. Learning, or training, happens, taste refines, horizons widen, new works become accessible, and the process repeats. Sensitivity to the arts develops, informs other areas of life. This doesn't even need to be the result of some kind of formal arts crit/appreciation training; informally and casually but thoughtfully engaging with art will allow (perhaps slower) progress of the same sort.
However, a similar journey taken thoughtlessly is trained just the same, but arrested. The hardened aesthetic taste of the latter is still "trained", just poorly, probably in part accidentally, and with training halted or slowed at some point, leaving the remaining guiding tastes and opinions unchallenged, surviving favorites unexamined and unexaminable as the approaches and knowledge required to even begin are undeveloped and unknown. Why did the author include this particular character? Dunno, never thought about it. Must have wanted to is all. Did you feel the prose itself change pace as the action waxed and waned? Sure didn't, this book sucks and was boring. headdesk. OK, how about Encyclopedia Brown? WTF no, I used to like that but now it's boring too, give me some good fiction for adults like Stephen King. Not Dan Brown though, he's terrible. Oh, and why is he terrible? Just boring is all, and I don't like the way he writes. Ah, OK.
So, trained, advanced to a point, but arrested. Which is fine, we all pick our battles, but I'm not going to take the latter subject's aesthetic judgement very seriously or consider that anything they fail to enjoy is necessarily aesthetically lacking.
I guess we can quibble over your use of "inherent" but I can't see that ending anywhere other than "nothing a 2-year-old doesn't find aesthetically pleasing is inherently aesthetic" which doesn't strike me as a productive direction to go, however valuable the beauty of nature and child-like wonder may be.
Point conceded on philosophy though. Some of the most painful reads I've managed to complete were philosophy—More's Utopia in particular nearly broke me, and definitely wasn't worth the effort.
I wasn't speaking of fiction in my original post. The purpose of fiction is to create an experience in the mind of the reader rather than to convey information. As such, you can't judge a work by an absolute standard, really the only measure of success is how well the writing tends to induce the experience the author intended. This of course will depend on how well the author has anticipated the mind of the reader.
It is true that no preferences exist free of introduced bias. My problem is mainly with things that people train themselves to like in order to appear "sophisticated". It's like an arms race, where people learn to like progressively less pleasant things in order to differentiate themselves. Everyone would be happier if we collectively said "screw sophistication" but nobody wants to be the first person to appear "boorish".
> I wasn't speaking of fiction in my original post. The purpose of fiction is to create an experience in the mind of the reader rather than to convey information. As such, you can't judge a work by an absolute standard, really the only measure of success is how well the writing tends to induce the experience the author intended. This of course will depend on how well the author has anticipated the mind of the reader.
Ah, I misunderstood. I agree with you that redundancy is a common problem even in "good" works of non-fiction, though I think it's sometimes a sign that one has approached a work too late, not that the work is generally poor. I found the oft-recommended A Demon-Haunted World, for instance, to be an over-long, dull, repetitive, low-value work... but if I'd read it when I was 14? Who knows. Judging from others' testimonies I suspect I'd not have had the same complaints if I'd read it at a different time in my life.
Full-on self-help books—to include pop-business books—I would exempt from this cautious judgement, since useless padding is practically a codified, defining property of the genre.
> It is true that no preferences exist free of introduced bias. My problem is mainly with things that people train themselves to like in order to appear "sophisticated". It's like an arms race, where people learn to like progressively less pleasant things in order to differentiate themselves. Everyone would be happier if we collectively said "screw sophistication" but nobody wants to be the first person to appear "boorish".
Absolutely a problem. Humility, compassion, restraint, self-awareness, and plain speaking are everywhere in short supply.
[EDIT] looking back, I think I took your words "the 'classics' of western literature" more broadly than you intended them, i.e. to include fiction, verse, et c.
I would submit that you may not be tuned into the value in them, if you think that. Maybe it's true of some, but most are just an acquired taste of the same sort as, say, the freer-form varieties of jazz, or classical music. It takes some work and some experience before you get what they're doing, before you understand their rhythms, learn to recognize when they're telling you to pay attention (and to what, which may not be obvious at first), when and how they're simply playing and what about the particular play they're engaging in makes it remarkable and worthwhile, and so on.
There's a sensitivity required for much (not all) of the body of classic literature that most people have to work to develop before they really get it, and lots of allusions that have the chicken/egg problem of requiring you already to be familiar with a lot of literature before they start to land with any frequency—again, same as some genres of music, like classical and jazz again, hip hop especially, others too, but usually not as much as those. Just because you can read doesn't mean you get literature, just like being able to see doesn't mean you get fine art, though in either case you might still enjoy at least some of it, and you might still develop strong opinions about the works you don't enjoy.
Movies and TV are similar. You're not born recognizing good film-making, understanding why it's good, how the way the camera moved in that shot actually contributed meaning rather than just being an artifact of the medium, how that shot was a reference to some DW Griffith movie and what purpose that might have, how that shot is weak and works against the tone or action of the scene in a way that makes it bad, and so on. Most people who watch and enjoy film never bother to develop an actual understanding of it, but that doesn't mean the things that go over their heads are bad.
That's just how all art is, really. Sure there's some posturing and BS mixed in with it all, but you in fact do have to put some serious hours and effort into arts to get the most out of them that you can—even just on a critical or enjoyment or character/intellect/empathy-building level, not even getting into making art—and very probably by the time you've done that a bunch of things that seemed like worthless overrated crap when you started won't seem that way anymore.