> As I said in another comment - intellectualization.

I think you are proving my point

I'm not the one complaining. I have no emotion in this. What conflict do you think I have internally?

You're criticizing an overly simplified version of the actual argument, and I'm trying to help you understand the actual argument.

You could criticize their actual argument. I think there could be a healthy debate there. Their argument, about being disappointed there is no actual author you could have a meeting of the minds with, is something that matters different amounts to different people. Even if you still dislike that argument, it's something you can't dismiss as a mere prejudice that got intellectualized.

▲

neonstatic 12 hours ago | parent [-]

> Even if you still dislike that argument, it's something you can't dismiss as a mere prejudice that got intellectualized.

Why can't I?

I think that it's a great example of trying to explain a preference with an idea. Preferences don't need to be explained. Quite often they can't be. I think it strange, that a person would like something, then dislike it because some meta-information about the thing is not preferred. I know people do it all the time. "I like service X, but I don't like the guy who built it" is a great example of that. What we are discussing here is an even better example, because music appeals to the sense of aesthetics more directly and has little to no utility beyond that. If you find a piece that does appeal to your sense of aesthetics, why would you convince yourself to not like it? Sounds like a job for the mind. Discussing which trick of the mind does the job better, seems to be missing the point. That's why I dismiss it.

	▲	Dylan16807 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> Why can't I? "I want to have a meeting of the minds" is a valid preference all by itself that involves no prejudice. > Preferences don't need to be explained. I don't understand how you start a paragraph with this, and then spend the rest of it taking about how you dismiss people's author-based preferences. You're allowed to have preferences based on the work itself and the author. Death of the author is not a fundamental truth of the universe. And having those preferences, caring about the author, is not convincing yourself of anything, is not any kind of self-deception.