Art
It definitely has a definition

I was recently surprised (though I shouldn't have been) to find myself arguing with several people who believed that art is whatever you want it to be, that I can't say what is or isn't art much less what is or isn't good art. This is simply an extension of the post-modern notion of relativism into the field of aesthetics. I must admit that I did a poor job of defending objectivity in art because I was so shocked at what I was hearing. That art has a clear and exclusive definition (redundant) and that it can be evaluated as good or bad by objective criteria seems nearly self-evident to me. The following is what I should have said:

To begin with, they made the classic error of relativism- they told me that I can't tell someone that their conception of art is wrong, but that's exactly what they were doing to me, telling me that my conception of art was wrong. This is a contradiction. Allow me to illustrate with the following conversation:

A: Art is whatever you think it is.

B: What if I think art is not whatever you think it is? Am I right?

If A says yes: Then I am right and art is not whatever you think it is.

If A says no: Then because I thought art was something but was wrong, art cannot be whatever you think it is.

Either way, art is not whatever you think it is or whatever you want it to be.

Despite their insistence on art's lack of a definition, as I pressed them about the issue, they groped for an implicit one. One gentleman said that, "Art is whatever makes you happy. So long as you're connecting with someone and making them happy, that's art." Well my grandmother certainly connects with me and makes me happy when she bakes me cookies, but baking cookies is not art. They'd probably argue that it is. Getting a good grade on my math test makes me happy too, but getting a good grade on a math test is not art either. "Things that make you happy" is a rather broad category to use to define art.

Someone said that art is any form of expression. Art is a form of expression, but not any form. I asked her if the words she was speaking to me during our conversation were art, and she said yes. How horrible! At this point, art as a concept breaks down. If they are unwilling to give it a definition, then art is everything and nothing. There's no point in even having the word unless it distinguishes between one group of entities or concepts and every other group of entities and concepts. That's the whole point of having words.

What does the word "art" even mean if random noise is art just the same as a Liszt concerto? Or a urinal is a work of art just as much as a painting by Michelangelo? Ultimately, my view of art is derived from my rationalist epistemology and worldview. The people I was discussing art with obviously view it as very intensely personal. As a consequence they conclude that art does not have to be rational, as though the more personal something becomes the less rational it is required to be. I do not see how this conclusion follows from their premise. Every human endeavor must be guided by reason and undertaken within the broader context of an ideological framework and conception of reality.

In The Romantic Manifesto, Ayn Rand defines art as "a selective recreation of reality according to the artist's metaphysical value judgments." As is often the case, she is correct. She teaches that art is a form of "super-integration." To explain: the first form of integration occurs when animals integrate raw sense data into perceptions of their environments. Humans do this as well, but what sets us apart from all lower forms of life, Rand argues, is that we can further integrate these perceptions into concepts for a fuller and deeper understanding of the world. Yet it is impossible to take the entire integrated sum of a person's view of the world and to conceptually be aware of it as a whole. The nearly endless list of concepts, entities, categories, and definitions in a person's mind would be overwhelming to behold all at once. Yet man strongly craves to achieve this sort of "super-integration" and he does achieve it by putting this sum-total into a single concrete form- and that is art.

Because of art's role as a selective recreation of reality, one of the ways we can judge good from bad art is its accuracy in depicting reality. Naturally we will differ in our evaluations according to our view of reality, and ultimately whoever has the most accurate conception of reality and man's relation to it will give the most accurate appraisal of a work of art. If you believe that no conception of reality is more accurate than any other, you need to scroll back up and click the link on relativism if you have not already. If you already have, then why the hell are you still a relativist?

I honestly don't consider a urinal a work of art, but if for the purpose of conversation, I were to concede that it is art, it's definitely bad art. When the supposedly leading artists in a culture agree that the world is basically a giant toilet bowl, you're looking at a dying culture. Compare this nihilistic view of reality to the heroic view of reality portrayed by the painters and sculptors of the Renaissance. They very rightly believed that this is a vibrant and meaningful world filled with beauty and strength. By contrast, the attitude of post-modern art and thought reeks of bitterness and self-destructiveness. I can't listen to someone argue that a urinal is art without feeling that they are pissing all over what was once a great culture.