John Carey has written a book called "What good are the arts?" His central idea is that our evaluation of the visual arts and music is completely subjective and relativistic. Art and art creation are seen as an important part of being human but no one can make a case for a work being of higher value because this is just opinion. Fine. However, he goes on to argue the case for the higher value of literature. Predicting the obvious objections one might have after his previous relativist argument he says: "let me emphasize that all the judgements made in this part including the judgment of what 'literature' is are inevitably subjective". Here and in live debates he has stated this as a means of getting himself off his own hook. So my question is, surely there is some contradiction involved in arguing a position while at the same time stating that it is just subjective? Aren't we trying to lay claim to some objective truth as soon as we begin arguing?