It is objectively good because we were told it is good. And we were told it is good because it is objectively good.

It is just like other phenomena of social reality. Money is valuable because people believe they are valuable, and people believe that money is valuable because money is valuable.

For instance, take Beethoven's Symphony No 5 in C minor, you know the one with the famous opening that repeatedly taps out 'V' for victory in Morse code. Not only are we told that it's by the famous deaf composer Beethoven but also we've become very familiar with it because it's played so often. That's further reinforced when we're told the sad story about how Beethoven 'overcame' his deafness and became the greatest of great composers. It's a well-known story steeped deep within our culture.

However, as one becomes more familiar with the work and or as one's knowledge of music increases something else happens. One begins to see there's something very cleaver and unusual about how Beethoven modulates his themes across and between different instruments. Instead of, say, giving the melody or main theme to just one instrument or a group of them to play in unison one notices that he often breaks it up and shares it across numbers of seemingly disparate instruments in a somewhat illogical fashion; that is until one realizes the remarkable sounds and effects he's produced by doing so.

The first time one picks up a full orchestral score of a Beethoven symphony or piano concerto it'll drive one a little crazy, one's jumping all over the page trying to follow what he's done.

It's only when one begins to get the full gist of what he's on about that one begins to realize and appreciate the true genius of the man - and that what he's done is far from being illogical and contorted - but instead his arrangement has turned out to be about as cleaver as is possible. In fact, what one's witnessing is genius at work.

Eventually, one comes across a composition by Beethoven that one's never been told about let alone one's ever heard before, one's opinions thus have to be made made in comparative isolation. When one again recognizes similar techniques and traits of genius here too then one comes to the inevitable conclusion that there's something very special about the works of this man that no else has ever successfully duplicated.

What happens is that the more one becomes involved with and knowledgeable about music the more one becomes familiar with the reasons for why certain composers and or why certain compositions of theirs have become famous and why they have been repeatedly deemed so over many, many decades.

In the grand schema of things, throughout history these composers and their works have been singled out by many different people from many different cultures and backgrounds and with varying degrees of expertise and for whatever reason they all come to commonly similar conclusions that there's something special about these composers and their works.

The fact that many people from disparate origins have come to similar conclusions and have done so over such a long time suggests there's something more at work than people just thinking these works are good for no particular reason. Clearly, for whatever reason, these works possess some quality that sets them apart; nevertheless, despite that, it's my understanding there's still no general agreement about what that property actually is. Discovering and quantifying that 'essence' ought to be worthy of a Nobel prize, I reckon.

To illustrate the point let's again take Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. During the height of WWII, the British singled out this symphony because its opening bars dramatically and repeatedly rang out 'V' for Victory, it was a great rallying call to British citizens and their allies. Yet nevertheless at no time was Beethoven's German heritage brought into question. Simply, the music spoke for itself, not the background and culture from which it came.

Similarly, Zadok the Priest, a famous British anthem, was composed by the German composer George Frideric Handel, yet in 1953 with WWII still fresh in British minds, it didn't stop it being performed at the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II.

Music is mostly valued for what's perceived as its 'intrinsic' quality, its roots and cultural origins play little part in that perception.

I've had a great deal to say about this story in my comments and replies and at NO time have I ever said Mozart's music was the best.

In fact, I have been assiduously careful in choosing my words to the extent of being excessively prolix to ensure that no one could reasonably accuse me of making that claim - for the very reason that in previous discussions on this and related topics it's common for people who don't like Mozart or 'classical' music or both to make this accusation even though these stores never actually make such a claim.

The case is the same here with this story. It too is about the dubious-at-best claim that listening to Mozart improves IQ, it's not about claiming Mozart's music is the best per se - and I even make the specific point in one comment that my IQ never changes an iota whenever I listen to Mozart.

This is an old story so there are many other instances of it and comments about it are numerous. It's a curious observation that so many people have claimed and continue to claim these stories are about Mozart's music being the best when they're not. One can only speculate the reasons are that they're annoyed or upset that their favorite composer wasn't the center of attention.

The only other reason that's likely is that when the original authors of this story singled out Mozart by claiming that listening to his music improves one's IQ is that those claimants who don't like Mozart's music or never listen to it have misinterpreted the story and or read into it the implication that they're less intelligent beings than those who do.

Any such notion, of course, is sheer utter nonsense.

Simply, in standards documents definitional precision and information/data accuracy are everything, there being absolutely no room for ambiguity or error.

For that to occur, a necessary prerequisite is for those involved in the standards process must know and understand the meaning and definition of the word standard in all of its broader contexts so that a new much more accurate and narrowly-honed definition is agreed upon before it can be applied to standards work.

How you can claim standards are 'subjective in essence' is beyond my comprehension, as in fact they are the antithesis of any such notion. Clearly, you've had nothing whatsoever to do with the matter of standards.

In effect, what you are saying is that the hundreds of years' worth of precision science and engineering work that's gone into say ISO standards such as the definitions and concomitant standards which comprise the SI System of Units and Measurements is essentially poppycock nonsense.

So presumably it would be alright with you if say on a whim that Planck's constant and the Speed of Light were to take on different values on weekdays than they would do at weekends.

Sorry, but that's utter nonsense, it's postmodernist thinking at its worst.

I actually agree with you on the matter of COVID and the fragility of society, but from your comments it's pretty certain that I do so for opposite reasons.