"my favorite" vs. "the best"

i use them interchangeably more often than not, but will often also make a distinction. so "not necessarily the same" i guess.

i know what's what

I mean, I will unapologetically say that "The Space Between" by Dave Matthews Band is one of my favorite songs, but I would have a very difficult time defending its status as one of the best songs of all time.

is this, like, an english usage quiz?

no, it's abt concepts

I'm to the point where I could give a shit about "the best". There are so many subjective factors that go into judging things qualitatively that it seems like a losing battle to try and single things out as objectively exemplary. Nevermind the fact that things like critical consensus often seem to settle on pretty MOR stuff. I'm into my own weird subset of stuff and I'd like to think I could explain why I like what I like but I'm pretty unconcerned with the extent to which that subset overlaps with any kind of canon. I mean, I don't begrudge others in their pursuit to delineate "the best", but I don't personally think my or anyone's favorites are ever gonna fit that bill in any sufficient fashion.

I guess I should clarify and say this is abt yr favorite vs. what you think is the best, or even good for that matter.

things you like vs. things you think are good

one might say there is a substantial "space between" these two in my mind, sometimes

I describe things as "my favourite" a lot, it's the best

Oh, okay. So more like "things I appreciate and maybe think are important and that I'm glad exist" vs. "things that actually interest and excite me"?

best and worst I tend to reserve for specific observations that aren't rooted in actual best and/or worst status, i.e. "Queen are the second best band ever"

Oh, okay. So more like "things I appreciate and maybe think are important and that I'm glad exist" vs. "things that actually interest and excite me"?

― Coke Opus (Old Lunch), Friday, March 1, 2013 9:05 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yes. A lot of ppl seem to think they overlap completely/do not distinguish btwn or separate their subjective taste from this idea of an objective cannon

I've voted 'not necessarily' but to be honest 90% of the time I think scrabbling for objectivity is pointless egoism.

Tusk is the best, Mystery To Me is my favourite, so yeah: completely get this.

Stuff that is known as 'the best' rather than intensely being someones favorite is usually boring stuff without any edges.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

No way is Smiley Smile the best Beach Boys album. It's my favourite one though

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-LIPFgMcVA

I get into this discussion all the time! Last time was when two friends and I took turns counting down our favorite films on Facebook. At least that what it was for me; for one of my friends, he was often drawing a distinction between favorite/best--some on his list he identified as favorites, others as best--while the third guy as particular about nomenclature. I've always said that, for me, there is no difference. A film or a song is one of my favorites because I love almost everything about it; it follows automatically that I think it's better than all the films and songs where I don't love almost everything about them, and if those films or songs are considered by other people to be among the best ever, that doesn't matter to me, even if I can appreciate/recognize why they say that. Which I generally can--but in a way that has no feeling attached. So why would I say it's one of the best if it elicits no strong feelings in me?

That may sound garbled or circular, but I honestly don't see the distinction between the two terms. (Unless it's a movie where you enjoy its badness so much that it's one of your favorites. I get that, of course, but to me that's something different.)

"...third guy wasn't as particular..."

it is possible to recognize greatness without necessarily being a fan

for instance, your favorite baseball team has not been the best baseball team for some time now

if i can convince myself that something is truly 'the best' then it's going to be my favourite too. i distinguish between my own peculiar proclivities & broader appeal a lot, but there's something ascetic about fixating on the latter & i think it's philosophically fraught - "my world of young ppl" &c.

& yes, "best for what?"

That's fandom, though, right? Again, seems like an altogether different thing to me.

(My favorite baseball time hasn't even been my favorite baseball team for some time.)

Definitely not the same. I remember having the world's briefest argument about this with xhuxk, who didn't like the idea of the distinction being made. A few years later, I stumbled across a thread where he seemed to be making that distinction himself.

sometimes i use best to suggest a level of canonization beyond my personal opinion

If I were to say "8-1/2 is one of the best films ever made," and someone then asked me why I say that, all I could do would be to quote other people explaining why, or else make some attempt to explain why I think other people say that. Either way, I wouldn't be very convincing. But if I say "Fast Times at Ridgemont High (or Crumb, or whatever) is one of the best films ever made, and someone then says "You're not serious, are you?", I could at least give a heartfelt explanation of all the things I love about it, and that's the only way of determining the concept of "best" that makes any sense to me: adding up all the things you love about something.

i wanted to say that "favourite" has meaning and "best" is meaningless but that isn't strictly true. "best" has meaning in some contexts and when somebody distinguishes between their favourite and the best they are telling us something. but what they're telling us seems to me to be something about their own system of mapping aesthetic value, which is a personal system even if it's been adopted from other systems or ideas, which collapses the distinction between "favourite" and "best" back to two different kinds of favourite, almost.

to say "this is my favourite but this is the best" is still to point to an internal court of values, it relies on a personal definition of "best" that can only claim to be objective but is ultimately rooted in subjective belief

Voting for My Favorite.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuBIz0G_pls

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

sorry dlp but

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZT1tWVQwCk

77!

61:16

Man, Entwistle must've been hard up for cash.

xp

strangely unpopular thread

I do this all the time, e.g.:

Beach Boys - Pet Sounds (best), Friends (fave)
Tim Buckley - Starsailor (best), Blue Afternoon (fave)
Can - Tago Mago (best), Soon Over Babaluma (fave)

Fellini - Juliet Of The Spirits (fave), best = ??? (not Juliet…)

for me it's an acknowledgement of some kind of objective (or even subjective perception of) depth of craft/art vs a personal connection
can be a useful comparison for others - that is, I like this one best (personal fave), but it's probably not the actual best
like in sports - this one/team won the race/cup but the underdog won my heart

of course, there's also:

The Beatles - Revolver (best AND fave)

but what they're telling us seems to me to be something about their own system of mapping aesthetic value, which is a personal system even if it's been adopted from other systems or ideas, which collapses the distinction between "favourite" and "best" back to two different kinds of favourite, almost.

i think there's some descriptive value of 'best' even w/ considerations about subjective aesthetic values. we can recognize that there are different cultures/systems and that they have works that are described best as 'best.' within the context of the academy X is the best novel, my favorite is Y, all the critics were raving last year over Z. and then if you're really clever u can go discursive on trends/faultlines within particular institutions.

i like myself

may be a side effect of natural selection - wouldn't do for every guy to only fall in love with the hottest girl.

yo matt p what's up

my legal name is matt it's a good thing i go by mordy or i'd be like Matt S or something & how many Matt's does an internet music forum really need?

none

My name is Gunoka Cuntles.

i think there's some descriptive value of 'best' even w/ considerations about subjective aesthetic values. we can recognize that there are different cultures/systems and that they have works that are described best as 'best.' within the context of the academy X is the best novel, my favorite is Y, all the critics were raving last year over Z. and then if you're really clever u can go discursive on trends/faultlines within particular institutions.

Sure, and you could even say "this would be considered the best (by a given culture or institution) if they were aware of its existence". But a) this is just subjectivity vs. intersubjectivity (i.e. actually trying to delineate exactly what properties will cause a work to be feted is ultimately a wild goose chase) and ii) the question seems to be against this "your favourite vs. canonical best" reading - it's things you like vs. things you think are good. And that's a reading I can't make sense of.

that's kind of how i was going to reply to Mordy: yes there are institutional "bests" but to acknowledge them is already to place yourself into some kind of relationship with them. admittedly not necessarily a relationship of acquiescence. and even arguments from expertise or knowledge rest on accepting those as being more valid criteria than others, which again is intersubjective as ledge says.

but this also means it's easy to make sense of things you like vs things you think are good - one of them entails no acknowledgment of other subjectivities and one of them places you within a relationship of willing submission to authority, an authority which you might claim a part of by submitting.

all of which means that the answer to the original poll was probably "yes there's a difference but hey"

and i wonder if most of the winning votes were coming from that place or from a more disspiriting point of objectivist submission

I missed an obvious parallel debate that happens every year on baseball message boards everywhere: does "best" = "most valuable"? (It got an epic workout during Cabrera vs. Trout last year; not sure if it's as fiercely debated when the other major team sports give out their awards.) There, I argue for the opposite of what I wrote here: for me, "best" ≠ "most valuable (not necessarily--it can and often does). My reasoning, basically, is that in the context of a team sport, all value is not created equally; the value produced by Babe Ruth on a team that, through no fault of his own, finishes last is largely superfluous. For the other side, the most valuable player is by definition the best player, and context is just a meaningless distraction.

61 voters picked my favourite option