"Curly Sue" > wrote in message
...
> On Sun, 08 May 2005 21:34:54 -0400, "Bob (this one)" >
> wrote:
>
>>Curly Sue wrote:
>>
>>> On Sun, 08 May 2005 20:07:34 -0400, "Bob (this one)" >
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>>There's no disputing about taste. Agree or disagree, there's no inherent
>>>>quality to anything.
>>>
>>> Yes there is :>
>>
>>Really? Define it for me, could you...? And do try to make it
>>independent of opinion...
>
> Superior, excellent. The properties that define "quality" depend on
> the individual item. For example, for singing, I have a really bad
> voice. Most people would agree, and so would you. I doubt you'd pay
> for a CD by me.
>
> Ask people who buy beef for a living if there is such a thing as
> "quality," and if so, how do they judge? Probably different from how
> my voice is judged.
>
> But there are objective standards for many things, on which experts in
> a particular area agree.
>
>>I listen to people get all worked up about some food thing as though it
>>came in one of those double-packs where one is the food and the other is
>>a concentrated reduction of pure evil, all sneeringly described. I
>>listen to people raise their pinkies and hold forth about the One True
>>Way to Boil an Egg or the One True Way to Make a Burger and I can only
>>laugh. It's as though those fools can't imagine an alternative to their
>>perfection. It's deciding before the fact.
>
> Simply because there are people who act as you describe doesn't mean
> that there are no standards of quality.
>
>>> Seriously. You might think that snobs lack certain human qualities,
>>
>>Backwards. I think that snobs have too much of one human quality, and
>>this use of the word is different than what I mean above - here it
>>merely means attributes. The string of human attributes most people like
>>includes decisiveness; directness in decision-making. Snobs make
>>decisions quickly but based more on on irrelevancies than the
>>characteristics of the situation at hand.
>
> Not really. You are making a snap judgement of everyone who has
> standards.
>
>>> and perhaps you're right, but there is such a thing as quality, in
>>> food and other things.
>>
>>Nah. It's all a construct. We create definitions and fit things to that.
>>And like all things based on opinion, they're individual. There's
>>nothing inherently of better quality in a hot dog versus some artisanal
>>German braunschweiger. Neither is of better or worse quality unless
>>fitted to a created definition of quality. All such definitions are
>>artificial statements not reflective of any absolutes - they're opinions.
>
> Generally based on consensus. Regardless of who makes them, there are
> bad and better hot dogs. The decision should be based on samplings,
> of course, but often generalizations can be made.
>
>>Diamonds are no more reflective (heh) of high quality than any other
>>stone. It's teh characteristics we've assigned that make it more or less
>>valuable and, by snobbish values, more desirable. It may not be prettier
>>than another stone. It doesn't haev to be; it's a DIAMOND.
>
> You're confusing desirability with quality and comparing apples to
> oranges. "Quality" is something that is judged within a class.
> There are better and worse quality diamonds. Few people would trade
> an industrial diamond for an excellent sapphire, assuming that they
> knew what they were doing, or trade a sapphire for a brick. Within
> the category of diamonds there are measurable characteristics that
> determine value and an appraiser can do that job. Within the category
> of "bricks," a mason could probably evaluate high and low quality
> bricks better than a jewelry appraiser.
>
>>> Whether or not people are able to or choose to
>>> go for the quality, is a different matter.
>>
>>Exactly so. And not what I'm talking about. We all have our ideas of
>>what quality is in most things. And we all hide it when we do something
>>that contradicts what we've said publicly about our standards. So we
>>sheepishly admit to those guilty pleasures we've heard others put down.
>
> That doesn't mean that we don't recognize that we're slumming. I like
> Hershey kisses, but that doesn't mean that I can't tell the difference
> between Hershey's chocolates and Jacque Torres'.
>
> A food snob wouldn't eat Hersheys. OK. I can deal with that. It
> doesn't make me angry and I don't see why it bothers other people.
>
>>> We may have some food snobs around here. But after reading your post,
>>> it seems that you're a snob snob, Bob ;>
>>
>>How silly. So I'm judging foolish behavior on wrong criteria? I dunno.
>>
>>Seems like a very reasonable position to avoid people who think that
>>price is the determinant of quality. Or its scarcity. Or its brand name.
>>Or its manufacturing processes... As opposed to taste, or the pleasure
>>it gives or how well it fits the situation...
>
> An expert in a particular area knows the criteria that mean quality in
> an item. In some cases, that is related to the manufacturing process
> which makes a difference in a material way. For example, I would
> expect a carpenter to know the different characteristics of wood and
> ideally how the wood is processed and how that makes a difference in
> the finished product.
>
> If you had a house built, you'd probably be very, very interested in
> the "quality" of the materials used and drop all the "it's just
> opinion" stuff.
>
>>Before any sort of quality assessment can be made, there needs to be
>>that opinion-definition and the item in question to be measured against
>>it. And it can be misleading and we can fool ourselves by measuring
>>against the wrong criterion. People sneer at "imitation crabmeat" but
>>happily consume "surimi." That word "imitation" has knee-jerk
>>connotations for way too many people who don't seem to realize it's just
>>a labeling convention forced on us by our government. In blind taste
>>tests, the folks at Cooks Illustrated found that their experts preferred
>>imitation vanilla to "the real thing" (love that expression, as though
>>one way of doing it is absolutely correct and anything else isn't).
>>Never mind that different manufacturers of vanilla extract process their
>>beans differently.
>
> Imitation vanilla is synthetic and the "real thing," no matter how
> it's produced, is extracted from vanilla beans. That was easy.
>
> In this case it had no bearing in the taste tests of Cook's
> Illustrated, so that "quality" of the finished product was not
> dependent on the source of the flavor. Try doing that with strawberry
> and see if they can't tell the difference between real and imitiation
> flavoring.
>
>>People wouldn't buy "Chinese gooseberries" but scarfed up "kiwi fruit."
>>We consumers judged and condemned the fruit on its name, not its flavor,
>>color, texture, etc.
>>
>>Pastorio
>
> It seems you recognize that there are criteria for quality in kiwis,
> namely flavor, color, texture.
>
> All of the examples you given are of people who don't know what they
> are talking about. Those who are food snob-wannabes without doing
> their homework to find out what quality is, relying instead on
> (generally) correlated indicators such as price and name brand.
>
> Sue(tm)
> Lead me not into temptation... I can find it myself!

Quality is conformance to specification. Read any quality engineering book,
ask any industrial engineer.

Is a horse higher quality than a duck? Meaningless question. Is Fois Gras
higher quality than liverwurst? Likewise a meaningless question.

del cecchi