Top ten top hundred five star four star
Best this best that
Two thumbs up tow thumbs way up two
Thumbs way up the butt….
I do not care what anyone says is the very best of this or that.
But I do care what anyone says, in the most passionate or reserved but
Especially excitable terms, is their very favorite.
It is simply obvious that there is no best of anything.
Things being of themselves quite themselves and with
No worry of competition. It is quite beyond, or below the
Contemplation of the book to worry if she is the best book, the book
Is quite happy to be itself.
How one responds to the book, or thing, is a reaction to the
Qualities of the thing, and the qualities one appreciates. The appreciation
Of some qualities over others is a personal choice that involves not only the qualities of the thing in question. But the Personality and knowledge but the whole history of experience and qualities from which A person evolves.
Each person being unique and with sub folders within subfolders
Of an inner experience of life, the appreciation of things is also unique.
If we think of each person as being a body of water and with various qualities
Differing the composition of the water, some waters being of a sky blue color,
Some a brine composition, differences in temperature etc. We can see that although
All bodies can be said to be water, that they have differing make up, which will
React in different ways to the interpolation of things within their sphere.
The appreciation of qualities is based on the thing, a person’s life experience,
Their biological and material environment and choices made in context by the person.
There are far too many variables within each person that a person can ever be a
Objective decider of the best qualities of a thing. For even in trying to be objective one necessarily makes an abundance of subjective choices.
So the ideal for five million people might be the absolute worse thing for five million other people. It is often noticeable in the areas that involve heated discussions, music, and art, the cinema. And from the reviews of critiques that one finds so amusing to see quite often, where the reviewer attempts not to site the delicious aspects of a film, and simply leave it at that, but feels the necessity of attaching larger significance to these delicious aspects, as being of historical or contemporary importance. And while such notification, that a film speaks about other things than it’s apparent subject can be illuminating, it is
Of the type of reportage that not only wants to point this out to us so that we may find
Intellectual satisfaction of these ideas, but it is of trying to convince us that these
Arbitrary signifiers are of utmost importance to film itself! Therefore instead of
A nice review of illumination and excited detailing, we are faced with a review of a film that this film is good because it contains these special features which are of a particular relevance and importance of themselves beyond question. Perhaps with the amount of
Junk culture film that is so widespread, and the amount of writers today that seem to be nothing more than hype machines for any given film, this is maybe a less obvious feature of film review than other art forms. But it is notable in multitudes of any “scholarly” or “intellectual” journal of any subject.
Indeed it is often an outside ideology that in broad terms has nothing to do with
The thing itself or the history of its category, but is rather an outside viewpoint, capitalist, Marxist, catholic, from which the thing is assessed of its value from this viewpoint. Now in of itself that is a fine thing, and can make for interesting interpretations. In fact it has sometimes given us startling new ways to look at things. But the problem is, the viewpoint is never presented as one possible way of looking at things, but instead is presented as THE one correct and infallible way of assessing the thing.
There is a difference more than wording to say that we each have favorites and there are favorites things, Such as my favorite books for the year, rather than the best books of the year. When one claims the authority to tell us that some things are the best, and other things do not measure up, there is a claim that these qualities are not to be argued or
Disagreed with. It is as if ones personal taste were, not personal taste but where dictated
By a universal deity of reality and the very language of nature.
The reality is that all statements of the worth or quality of things is a personal opinion.
The statements of the best, in greater or lesser severity are statements of a fascist
Viewpoint, were all other viewpoints are of no consequence. Where the rules and realities of what is important, possible, and worthy are all dictated from the top of the pyramid.
While it may seem as small importance whether or not a book reviewer titles his year-end column “the best books
Of the year” or “ my favorite books this year” it is a reflection and a growth of thought
That dictates that there are best and worst, that there are absolutes that are to be taken as given. A prima facie acceptance of the phrase” the best of” is indicative of a acceptance
Of things as they are, an acceptance of things without question or thinking.
I would not suppose there to be a political program of secrete and far reaching effects to
Have people use the term “the best of..” rather than “favorites..” But the effectiveness
Of much propaganda does relay on the acceptance of absolutes and best ofs, and
Other ideological givens.
Besides the considerations of subtle propaganda
Or mere careless usage, which is reflective of a careless mind,
The best of, has its immediate consequence of spewing forth from the boring
Bully’s of thought and expression that wish to vomit up their viewpoint as somehow having more validity than the rest of us in appreciating things. Things have the right and freedom to be whatever it is they are, and people have the right to appreciate whatever they so do in things. My favorites may or may not be your favorites, but I love to hear you tell me of your favorite things. And I love to hear you tell me with great conviction and passion why you love the thing you do. But I detest absolutely the attempt by anyone to try to dictate to us, what are the best things and the correct and only possible way to appreciate things.
