Comparing others is a source of joy, people love gossiping or just talking about who is better etc. Comparison is only a thief of joy when you compare yourself to others, but comparing Newton to Einstein etc is an endless source of fun, many people have enjoyed these discussions over the years.
Gossip for those people is often just a mechanism to increase their self esteem in front of bigger than life artists who truly changed the world. It is a bit like music lovers who have strong opinions about everything, while not being able to play a single note on any instrument. For them comparing the great musicians on that level makes them feel important too – if they can't walk the walk they at least try to talk the talk. Meanwhile most actual musicians are usually far more tolerant about the types of music they would consider interesting, because for them everything new they hear is something that can be used as an influence for creation.
So if someone asks whether Bach or thee greates Jazz musicians on the height of their game were the greater artists, any musician with half a brain cell would reject the question, because the question doesn't even make sense. Both things are absolutely masterful within the ideas they tried to explore. And those were different ideas.
That would be like comparing a masterfully built modern bridge to gothic cathedral. They are from different times, have been created in different societies, with different goals in mind with a different knowledge base, etc. Any comparison that would be worth anything would have to account for all these different factors and then land at a result that would be highly subjective anyways (which is not a bad thing if you are interested in using that comparison to increase your own self worth in front of the architects who planned those – but futile otherwise).
Why does this matter?
> That would be like comparing a masterfully built modern bridge to gothic cathedral.
That sounds really fun! Those two are both massive structures that need to support a lot of weight, they are more similar than you might think. I can see a video looking into that getting many millions of views.
I think you really underestimate how much fun people derive just from learning things from these discussions. It isn't about feeling superior to Bach or Gauss or Newton etc, its just fun discussions about the world.
I, as a practical person that does things have learned that very often that the layperson has a completely non-existent image of what any art or craft entails. They are then still allowed to have opinions, I just don't value them as much. My experience is also that the layperson is very often correct about their feelings, but rarely correct when they propose solutions to what they believe will fix it for them.
I agree that your proposed comparison would be interesting, and I whole-heartedly agree with your point about learning things feom discussions. However, we discussed comparing which is better, not how different things are made. I could imagine a ironic version of a "who is the best"-discussion to be quite entertaining, but we were talking about deadpan serious "who is better"-comparisons here.
Comparisons like these make sense if you compare similar things or if you try to compare them on the same merit, e.g. would an early top athlete in a sport be able to compete with a top athlete in the same sport today if they had the same training, material etc.
We are a social species. And a pattern-sensing species. Enjoying comparing things, especially people, combines our defining traits.
It’s a personal choice whether you are gossipy or not, but that decision is guided by subconscious factors.
I've never loved this aphorism. Comparison is a crucial component of knowledge discovery. It would be more apt to say that ranking is the thief of joy.
— Brad Bird, Academy Award-winning director of Ratatouille and The Incredibles
Take Led Zeppelin, who basically spawned an entire subgenre of rock and roll. What genre did the Beatles spawn? What new vibe or style did they introduce? Just a bunch of pop songs. Even their druggie stuff really isn't that great.
In terms of sophistication, is it any of the classical masters? No. It was remarkable given the desert of creativity it appeared in. Are they better than Jazz masters or the like? I'd say no.
Were the Beatles at the forefront of leading a cultural revolution, a fundamental political shift? Sure they were part of the hippy culture, but are the associated with strident antiwar, communal living, or extreme free love? There are many other 60s acts you can point to as more influential.
Christ, even U2 has a more coherent origin story and central focus around antiwar and activism, as bubble gum as their variant is.
The tension in the band isn't even interesting. Just people making bank from pop success and arguing over attribution. The schisms were bland, not even really about ideology. Just ... credit.
When I hear them now on the radio, when I hear them on the radio, it's not like I change the station, but I don't turn up the volume. In the end, they are a pop band that sold a lot of records. Ok, maybe I turn it up for Elenor Rigby, but just a bit.
DaVinci had really bad technique and couldn't help but endlessly fiddle with his paintings. Many of his paintings never saw the light of day because he ruining them and never finished them.
The Last Supper that we know and love was actually a superior copy made by one of his proteges because his original fresco fell apart after a few years owing to his "innovative techniques" - he painted on dry plaster because he took way too long on it.
DaVinci was wonderfully imaginative and a very unique artist, but I don't think his reputation has been fully earned by his achievements.
that is not true: he new that he was not able to paint a normal fresco, so he tried a different technique, that didn't work out.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Supper_(Leonardo)#Med...
Even within artistic disciplines, how would you compare Bach, Shakespeare, and DaVinci? Shakespeare alone added 1,700 new words to the English language (that we still use today). DaVinci painted so meticulously that his works have hundreds of layers of paint that are thinner than a strand of hair.
Comparison is the thief of joy - better to just envision a "hall of fame", where once reached, it doesn't matter where you place.