Music

Arthur,

Um, just because we don't know everything doesn't mean we know nothing. And just because we don't know "enough", however much that is, doesn't mean we don't know anything. We can and must make judgements with however much knowledge we have. To refuse to do so would fall into the trap of skepticism.

This is the point Joe made in his No Judging article.

Post 21

Tuesday, December 17, 2002 - 6:12pm

Jeff:
For the most part, I don't disagree with anything you say in your latest message -- and I don't see that I said anything to the contrary in my message. I would quibble a bit with your statement that we "must make judgments..." About absolutely everything? David Kelley discusses this issue in great detail in The Contested Legacy of Ayn Rand, and it was one of his major areas of disagreements with Peikoff. Peikoff implies that, in essence, we must make judgments about absolutely everything -- but, in fact, we clearly don't. We don't have the time to investigate every single claim, every person, every work of art, etc. Moreover, many issues simply don't impinge on our lives in any way meaningful enough to require that we form a judgment. But in that context, to "refuse" to make a judgment is not an endorsement of skepticism at all. It's simply acknowledging that we don't have the required context of knowledge to make a meaningful judgment -- and that the issue isn't significant enough to require us to take the time to acquire that context. With regard to the music issue: we can make certainly make many identifications about a multitude of issues -- but with regard to making judgments on the order of: "This piece of music is bad, because it reflects a malevolent sense of life..." or anything similar -- I think such claims are virtually meaningless at this point. We know nothing about how music projects a sense of life (see Rand's own essay Art and Cognition for her lengthy discussion of all the areas that would have to be filled in before we could make such statements). Part of the confusion, in terms of history and Objectivist sociology, if you will, is that Rand herself forgot her own points in this area. I witnessed myself occasions where people were accused of "having psycho-epistemological problems" or "bad psychologies" because of the music they liked. To the extent that any such views are continued today, I think it's unfortunate -- and I think that such views are utterly unfounded and, at this point, completely unprovable. In other words, going back to Rand's own point, any such views cannot be objectively demonstrated.

Post 22

Tuesday, December 17, 2002 - 6:16pm

One clarification to the above: when I say we know "nothing" about how music projects a sense of life: we certainly have a number of leads, and Rand discusses many of them in her article. Rand also offers her own theory about how this might occur. But again, in terms of a theory which is objectively provable, we simply aren't anywhere close to that point yet.

Post 23

Tuesday, December 17, 2002 - 6:34pm

Just reread Joe's article. It appears to me that I'm adopting the position that Joe indicates he would have no problem with: that moral judgments about music, for example, need much, much more "intellectual backing" to be satisfactory and convincing (and to constitute objective proof). I certainly am NOT saying that the field of musical esthetics is unknowable; quite the contrary, I'm saying that it IS eminently knowable, but that it's not known YET. There's a big difference between the two. Assuming you agree that an objectively provable case cannot yet be made with regard to music, then perhaps we might say that moral judgments about the worth of music can be made if one wants to, but that such judgments must remain provisional, in the sense that we know what areas must be filled in to make a full case, but they haven't been filled in yet. I still would wonder, though, what the purpose and value in such judgments is in many cases, if one acknowledges that they necessarily must be provisional in that sense. In any case, what I am advocating is definitely and absolutely not an endorsement of skepticism in any form.

Post 24

Tuesday, December 17, 2002 - 8:47pm

I didn't mean to drop science on the topic or anything...I'm just interested in a good punk/rock band that doesn't scream about anarchy and socialism (ala Bad Religion, Propagandi...who are very anti-capitalism). Like I said earlier, Pennywise ("Unknown Road" in particular) has some good lyrics ("It's up to me...to be all I can be") and ("remember who you're looking out for you - it's YOU!). I find that junk uplifting on my 45 minute haul-ass ride to (law) school. I have heard people criticize Henry Rollins (Black Flag, Rollins Band) of being "objectivish" too.

I mentioned law school because a few friends of mine and I started a "rational law" yahoo group. Please join if interested. We formed this due to the lack of Objectivist attention to the American legal system...and the conservative movement's metaphorical dropping of the ball. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/RationalLaw/

Post 25

Tuesday, December 17, 2002 - 9:48pm

Arthur,

I'm not saying that we must judge everything all the time, but we must make judgments with whatever knowledge we have, we can't just throw our hands up and say that we don't know enough. There's a difference between not judging because it's a waste of time and not judging because we deem something unjudgable. Everything is judgable to some degree -- including music. That's all I'm saying.

Post 26

Wednesday, December 18, 2002 - 5:06am

This is a two-part message.

I know we've had this conversation over and over and over again, and sometimes I feel as if I'm having to defend musical styles (e.g., rap) that I ~hardly~ listen to, except perhaps when running through the radio dial. My tastes run the gamut: from classical to jazz, from R&B to dance, from rock to Bluegrass, from big bands to film scores.

But I think what we're losing sight of is this: So much goes into one's response to music. Aside from an actual technical study of a specific piece of music--which may or may not add to one's experience of it; aside from one's appreciation of specific types of voices or instruments--which may or may not add to one's experience of it, there are three key areas that are unavoidably personal: early exposure; mood; experience. Let me explain the importance of each of these factors in musical response:

1. What music one was exposed to as a child. Not everyone has the luxury of growing up with a diverse musical palette. Some kids have no clue what classical music or jazz really is; they respond to what is in their surroundings, and that response, like all aesthetic response, is ultimately, an ~emotional~ one. And they develop their musical tastes within the context of their knowledge and experience. All the more reason to expand the ~experiences~ of children with a hearty musical education. But that is not something that is readily available under all circumstances.

2. Mood. On the face of it, emotions are automatic psycho-somatic responses; they are not a volitional component of consciousness and have no moral significance. Yes, the ~premises~ underlying those emotions ~might~ have moral significance (but not all "feelings" are a simple computational result of "good" or "bad" premises). The point here is that our emotional response itself is a very delicate, complex, integrated, long-term product of experiential factors. But some of us may simply be responding because we're in a "good" mood or a "playful" mood or a "depressed" mood. How many people really want to be listening to a better constructed, musically superior classical funeral march when all they'd rather do is go dancing in a disco or a swing ballroom---bouncing around to a Donna Summer classic or a Count Basie fox trot? Some people listen to quiet, contemplative music when they are sad--just so they can cry their eyes out; others try to jar themselves out of a sad mood by putting on thrashing rock guitars. (I'll leave aside, for the moment, whether or not these alternative choices are examples of emotional overindulgence or evasion, respectively.) Not every musical response or desire is dictated by some deep "sense of life" issue; mood is just as important as the context of the person's knowledge and experience.

3. Experience. How many times have you responded to a particular piece because it reminds you of a certain experience in your life? Like: This was the song that was playing on the radio when you went on your first date with your long-time companion. And it was a lousy song, but you have a really positive response to it, because it brings back such pleasant memories of that first kiss. Or: This was a really great song---but your experience of it has now made you sad because you know it was the favorite song of somebody whom you loved, but has now died. I can think of hundreds of just such examples---the point being that so much of our response is tied up in these experiences. This does not make the experience ~subjective~ (disconnected from reality); quite the contrary. It makes the experience objective in a ~relational~ sense, in a ~personal~ sense, because we are ~relating~ different tones and pieces of music to our "agent-relative" circumstances.

That's why you cannot divorce the personal ~context~ from your evaluation of somebody else's musical tastes. In fact, I think this would extend to almost any area where personal tastes operate: from the kind of food you like to the physical types of people to whom you are attracted.

Can we evaluate such tastes? Sure! Do an extended study of a person's life-story, and try to ~contextualize~ that person's tastes, and you'll have an objective understanding of the how's and the why's. Should our evaluation be a moral one? That depends. Because emotion is a complex derivative, and because it is ~not~ volitional, it is ~not~ appropriate to pass sweeping judgments on people's ~emotional~ attachments to certain music. Do we engage in a similar moral evaluation of the fact that one person likes Italian food, while another prefers Middle Eastern cuisine? Doesn't a lot of one's dietary palette have a lot to do with how the person was raised and what they've been exposed to?

Now: It is true that certain foods might be objectively bad for you (because of a medical condition, like an allergy or cholesterol problem, etc.). If you have a medical problem that restricts you from eating certain foods, and you continue to eat it anyway, endangering the quality of your life, you are probably not thinking long term, and we might be able to evaluate your ~choices~ as "anti-life" (long-term), even if in the short-term, the pizza that you just ate tasted mighty good. But note: in this instance, we're passing judgment on the 'how's' and the 'why's' of your ~choices~, not on the food itself. And anyone here who is prepared to argue that pizza, per se, is immoral, is going to be cruisin' for a bruisin'---the immoral threat of force notwithstanding.

Analogously: It is also true that there are certain ~sub-cultures~ that surround some genres of music that aren't very conducive to a long-term quality of life. You may judge such ~sub-cultures~ as nihilistic, but that does not necessarily mean that the ~music~ itself ~must~ be judged as nihilistic. (And I'm leaving aside those who would view certain forms of music as "non-music", just as they would view "poison" as "non-food." You've got to go a long way if you're going to argue that something doesn't even qualify as music---rather than arguing that it is simply "bad music.")

(continued in part two)

Post 27

Wednesday, December 18, 2002 - 5:20am

This is part two of my two-part posting.

===
There were plenty of people from an older generation who condemned Elvis Presley and the Beatles as nihilistic, just as an even older generation once condemned Benny Goodman in his time. Jazz itself was seen as the music of the devil---because of its rhythmic pulse and its "blue" notes and its penchant for being played in clubs filled with smoke, booze, and drugs. Every genre has had its bad publicity. And there are plenty of musicians that one can find in nearly every genre of music---from the classics to rap---who have met with tragic ends. That does not make the ~music~ itself tragic or malevolent, any more than it makes ~pizza~ malevolent because some people prefer not to eat it... or can't partake of it.

I wrote about this in my book, TOTAL FREEDOM, and I'd like to excerpt that section here. In the book, I'm talking about the difference between "totalistic" thinking and "contextual" thinking. Totalistic thinking assumes total knowledge: it requires that we know ~everything~ in order to say ~anything~. On this point, I would agree wholeheartedly with Jeff (and Joe), when they argue that one must reject such a pattern of thinking, which quickly deteriorates into skepticism.

The philosopher Lester Hunt once indicted totalistic thinking because he felt that such a pattern fed into intolerance and incivility, becoming a threat to a free society. Hunt writes:

"Suppose I notice that you have made a mistake of some sort. To the extent that I have the habit of thinking in totalistic terms, I am apt to think there is a great deal more wrong with you than this one mistake. This will be true whether the mistake is moral, aesthetic, or philosophical, whether you are attracted to a person I find unworthy, or do not adequately appreciate the music of Rachmaninoff, or have wrong views on the problem of free will. At the very least, you are ignorant of the logical import of all the truths that support the idea you have rejected or the virtue you have failed to show. Worse yet, if I expect your thinking to constitute an organic whole, then I will suspect that your error will bring with it many other ideas, ones that must also be faulty somehow. On such a view, there will not be many small mistakes, and harmless ones will be far between. But in that case, people who appear to me to make mistakes�that is, people who disagree with me�will be ones that I find unwelcome and undesirable. If this is true, then I am that much less likely to show the virtues of civility and tolerance. But these virtues are an essential part of a free society, because they require me to act in such a way that I leave others free from irrational pressure to subject their way of thinking to mine."

I comment on this in TOTAL FREEDOM: "If we inferred something about the totality of a person�s character from the vantage point of a single aspect (for instance, a person's like or dislike of Rachmaninoff), this inference would be an instance of context-dropping. It would amount to the reification of a single aesthetic response as a whole unto itself, not merely one moment of a complex totality. In order to evaluate the meaning of such an aesthetic response, one would have to know a lot more about the context of the responder, about those experiential, emotional, psychological, and social factors that influence the formation of a person�s sense of life over time. That sense of life, so important to aesthetic response, as Rand herself says, is deeply personal. Attempts to elevate one�s aesthetic judgments to the level of dogma and to use them as guides by which to evaluate other peoples� characters can only create a stultifying, authoritarian environment. So Hunt is correct; totalism is not friendly to liberty or tolerance or civility. But 'the problem with the totality' is only a problem when viewed in [totalist] terms. There is no 'problem with the totality' [when we view it ~contextually~]. The totality must be viewed contextually for that is the only human way of understanding it."

One of the reasons I devoted so much time, in my FREE RADICAL Eminem article http://www.freeradical.co.nz/solo/sciabarra_eminem.html, to interviewing actual "fans" of Eminem was to try to ~understand~ what it was that they found appealing. I couldn't engage in wholesale biographical treatments of each individual I interviewed, but it was clear to me that most of them were good kids, growing up, trying to define who and what they are. Some of them are responding on pure adolescent "outsider" appeal, while others respond on pure sex appeal (in fact, since Eminem's movie debut, "8 Mile," even 40-year old mothers are embracing him as a sex symbol... regardless of what comes out of his mouth; this is having the unusual effect of legitimating an "outlaw"... and once he loses his edge, or his "street cred"(ibility), one wonders if he will also lose his young fans). Some of them are responding positively because they see in his lyrics an answer to stultifying political correctness, which has been jammed down their throats day-in and day-out, in schools and in the culture at large. Some of them are responding positively because they get the "joke" of his rhythmic poetry, while others respond to specific tracks on his album that target hypocrisy, politicians, and censorship.

The point here is that I simply can't make sweeping judgments and generalizations about every fan of Eminem's music or even about the music itself. I can certainly tell you if I ~like~ it or if I don't ~like~ it, but I'm not ready to declare it off-limits to Objectivists or to anyone else or to make people feel guilty for responding positively to it.

The whole battle within Objectivism centers on the tension between "totalism" and "contextualism"---and that battle is bubbling under the surface of this debate over aesthetic tastes. (On this battle, see my essay that deals with the "Ayn Rand Cult": http://www.nyu.edu/projects/sciabarra/essays/cult.htm ).

One of the most important aspects of Objectivism is its emphasis on context-keeping. The history of philosophy is filled with thinkers who have ushered in God-like totalism through the back door (and, sometimes, through the front door). But I'm not ready to be called God or to appoint anybody else to that position. I've got enough on my hands being oh-so-human, which is far more challenging and a lot more fun.

Cheers,
Chris

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http://www.nyu.edu/projects/sciabarra/update.htm
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Post 28

Wednesday, December 18, 2002 - 5:49am

Chris,

I am in complete agreement with you here. I would mention that the vantage point of "totalism" was behind the Nazi proclamation that all art that was not state-approved was evidence of "Entartung" (degeneracy). Thus any kind of art that was not moral in this sense, was at risk. When I speak of morality and art I understand as you do the importance of personal context, (generational influences, gender preferences, etc.) The totalistic thinking is dangerous in aesthetic appreciation. Such thinking ends up in a battle between collectivisms in which the individual is totally smashed along with their context.

Thanks,

Anthony

Post 29

Wednesday, December 18, 2002 - 5:55am

Merryn,

I would add to Jeff's reponse on the "purpose" of art, that Rand says that art has no purpose "other than contemplation--and the pleasure of that contemplation is so intense , so deeply personal that a man experiences it as a self-sufficient, self-justifying primary and, often resists or resents any suggestion to analyze it: the suggestion, to him, has the quality of an attack on his identity, on his deepest essential self." (RM, 16)

This statement must be kept in mind always when we analyze the philosophical content of art.

Post 30

Wednesday, December 18, 2002 - 10:43pm

I'm surprised - perhaps not - to see a straw man being set up here. As I've made clear a zillion times, I am NOT - & SOLO was not set up to be - an advocate of what is here being called "totalism." (I don't believe ANYONE here is an advocate of "totalism.") I am OPPOSED to that. Equally, I am opposed to nihilism. THAT is the false dichotomy we are being offered by some participants in this most interesting debate. And in my view it is not the "totalist" part of this false dichotomy that is being smuggled in by the back door, but the nihilist. Over my dead body! I shall have more to say on this matter in a one-part article over the weekend.

Post 31

Wednesday, December 18, 2002 - 11:16pm

Chris,

That is the most intense justification for liking Fleetwood Mac I've ever read. You're off the hook.

Post 32

Thursday, December 19, 2002 - 5:51am

Fleetwood Mac! Yes, I genuinely like some of their tracks... even if Bill Clinton kept singing "Don't Stop Thinking About Tomorrow."

:)

As for Linz: He and I have had some serious disagreements about the character of certain kinds of music, but the running joke is that we probably share more with regard to our artistic tastes than we don't! Mario Lanza? Growing up in a half-Sicilian household? Fuhgedaboudit! "The Great Caruso" was on a short list that included Frank Sinatra as well.

Just to be clear: I do not believe that Linz or any of my SOLO pals are totalitarian or authoritarian on any of these matters. What I was writing against was a hyper-rationalist tendency that has been on display in Objectivist circles---so much so that when Lester Hunt wrote his critique of AYN RAND: THE RUSSIAN RADICAL and the Hegelian notion of "dialectics" (that smuggled 'totalism' in through the back and the front doors simultaneously), he targeted that very notion as the root of intolerance, incivility, and the erosion of liberty. In response to Hunt, I defended the concept of dialectics as ~contextualism~ and distinguished it clearly from totalism. Unfortunately, throughout the history of dialectics, there has been an inner tension between those who see it as context-keeping and those who think context-keeping requires omniscience. This is a problem not with dialectics, per se, but with faulty epistemological premises---that were conjoined to the dialectical enterprise from the time of Plato.

Understanding the full context is itself a contextual activity; a synoptic vantage point on the whole---as advocated by Hegel (and by Plato before him)---is simply not possible to human beings.

Nevertheless, when Leonard Peikoff quotes Hegel at the beginning of OBJECTIVISM: THE PHILOSOPHY OF AYN RAND, that "The True is the Whole," it starts to sound as if one must accept ALL of Rand's pronouncements or risk being told that one is NOT an Objectivist.

Lindsay has been exemplary in his critique of this sort of rationalism---and I look forward to his weekend posts to further this dialogue.

My main concern with the 'totalist' charge is that I have been approached by many young Objectivists who seem to express a certain ~guilt~ about liking certain forms of art, music or sexuality of which Rand did not approve. Well, through Lindsay's prodding, I tried to address the issue of sexuality in THE FREE RADICAL series on "Objectivism and Homosexuality"---which was very much a collaborative thematic undertaking and an extension of the SOLO credo.

But I think some of the same problems are at work in the area of music: Just as some people derived guilt from Rand's pronouncements against homosexuality, so too some people have derived guilt from their inability to experience the same joy from Rachmaninoff that Rand did.

Several young Objectivists have confessed to me that their admiration of Genesis, The Beatles, Stevie Wonder, or, heaven forbid, Run-D-MC was brought into serious question after they'd read Rand's essays on aesthetics. I had one young man ~thank~ me for single-handedly saving him from junking his entire CD collection of progressive rock---because he mistakenly believed that his predilections for it would be looked down upon by his fellow Objectivists. This is not simply "social metaphysics" at work, or "counterfeit individualism" at work: it is a serious misunderstanding of the nature of Objectivism.

I don't believe the problem lies within Objectivism; I think we have to work hard to combat some very incorrect notions of what it comprises, and part of that is distinguishing between the philosophY and the philosophER: the core notions of Objectivism versus Rand's particular, individual aesthetic and sexual tastes.

Now, as for nihilism: I don't want to deny that it is real. One can find many, many examples of it in contemporary philosophy and culture. All I'm questioning here is making any sweeping generalizations with regard to why ~individual~ people ~like~ certain forms of music that may contain nihilistic lyrical content---or that may inspire nihilistic sub-cultures. It does not follow, from where I sit, that ~all~ such people are nihilists. Many are responding to some kind of message in the music that speaks to their own struggles toward authenticity and individuality.

Music, like most art, both engenders and reproduces the nihilistic trends of the larger culture. One of the core purposes of a group like SOLO is to bring attention to that larger culture... and to begin questioning its hidden premises as a means of changing it.

In my article on Eminem, I simply granted that ~some~ kids were responding to him for better reasons than his lyrics indicated. I nevertheless concluded:

"But the bigger joke is on a generation of kids who listen to these endless tirades, hilarious though some of them might be, expressly crafted to offend the senses, and filled with little more than anger and pain. No love and no uplifting sense of the heroic potential and promise of youth. While it may be cathartic for some adolescents to laugh at the miseries of Eminem�s world as an expression of the pressures, pains, and insecurities they themselves feel, think of how much more helpful it might be if he gave kids something a bit more than a raised middle finger to cheer about. His [track] 'Stan' gives us a hint that some decency resides therein; a future album projecting that decency, even in the language that youths understand, might begin to fulfill one of the key functions of art: the communication of a moral ideal."

Anyway, I look forward to more discussion.

Cheers,
Chris

Post 33

Thursday, December 19, 2002 - 1:24pm

Hi all,
I just put up an esthetic challenge on the blog, which relates to many of these issues. But PLEASE NOTE: you can only play if you DON'T know who said it. That's the whole point. So it's here: http://blog.light-of-reason.com/
Enjoy!
Arthur

Post 34

Sunday, February 9, 2003 - 11:33am

I've seen a lot of mention of pop groups on this old thread (Not to say that this is a bad thing. The Beatles and Collective Soul are probably one of my favorite artists of all time.) but what about some classics? Rachmaninoff, Vivaldi, and so forth?

Post 35

Monday, February 10, 2003 - 10:56am

I love Rachmaninoff, except for his Symphony No. 4, which I find boring, and some of his minor pieces. I recently acquired a CD of Vivaldi's Four Seasons, but I haven't listened to it yet. Should I put it in my priority pile? Is there any other Vivaldi I should seek out?

Post 36

Monday, February 10, 2003 - 5:38pm

Dear god, Vivaldi has been my favorite composer for the last three years (out of a nineteen-year life, that's quite a bit of time). "Four Seasons" is unrivaled. That's definitely a great introduction.

Post 37

Thursday, February 13, 2003 - 8:51am

I listened to the "Four Seasons" CD last night. It turned out to be a weird version--a transcription for harp and orchestra. I did enjoy it, though in some cases the harp sounded like an intrusion. I wouldn't say the piece stirred me the way Rachmaninoff and Tchaikovsky often do, but I liked it.

Still, I swear I don't remember hearing Frankie Valli on there AT ALL.... :)

Post 38

Thursday, February 13, 2003 - 5:11pm

Harp? That's really screwy. I heard it played on classical guitar, once, but that blew me away. It was almost as good as a proper, professional performance.

Rachmaninoff is now my favorite composer. I recently rented a compilation of all of his concertos and sonatas from my school's library. Vivaldi stands at 2nd place, which is not a bad thing. To be better than Rachmaninoff (at least on the piano... at the least) is a feat I'm not certain can be accomplished.

Tchaikovsky sounds fake to me. It sounds like he listened to all those who came before him and tried to throw together something that sounded happy whether he actually felt happy or not. I can't get into him.

Smetana is wonderful.

Post 39

Friday, February 14, 2003 - 3:29pm